Salon.com > Fame

Questlove: “I don’t have friends.”

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:29:00 +0000

Musically speaking, soul is among the most social of genres: It's deep, earthy, lively, rhythmic and transcendental. And few musicians have popularized the genre more than Roots drummer Ahmir Thompson, known to fans as Questlove.

But a recent interview with the Village Voice's Jenna Sauers provides an intimate and surprising glimpse into the life of the DJ, casting him as an isolated, vulnerable workaholic:

"You know, after work, everyone hangs and they go to a bar and stuff?" says Thompson, sounding a bit like an anthropologist who has just pinpointed a key habit of a strange tribe. "I don't socialize that way. I don't have a posse. I don't have friends. I got the people I work with. I got a mom and a sister."

He explains that this is intentional:

"I'm very guarded, because I'm very vulnerable. Which really reads as gullible ... I guess the downside of that is that the guardedness that Questlove has to use to protect himself has now absolutely done overages and bleeded over into Ahmir Thompson's life."

George W. Bush: I do not “long for power”

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 14:40:00 +0000

Weeks after the opening of a gargantuan monument to his legacy and George W. Bush's very public attempt to revise history, the former president insists that he doesn't want more fame and power, telling the the Huffington Post's Jon Ward "I don't long for [fame]. Nor do I long for power."

"Fame can become very addictive. And I've had all the fame a man could want," he said.

"I've come to realize that power can be corrosive if you've had it for too long," Bush said. "It can dim your vision. And so I came to the conclusion that, you know, I don't long for fame. And really, gonna shy away from it. Not shy away from it. Avoid it. I'm not very shy. Avoid it."

Fame may not last 15 minutes after all

Mon, 06 May 2013 18:13:00 +0000

According to artist Andy Warhol’s much-quoted prophecy, in the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.

In fact, it’s more likely that 0.15 percent of us will have fame for a lifetime.

Newly published research concludes that, contrary to Warhol’s prediction, genuine celebrity status does not disappear as quickly as it appeared. Once you become famous, you tend to stay famous.

“Fame exhibits strong continuity even in entertainment, on television, and on blogs, where it has been thought to be most ephemeral,” writes a research team led by Stony Brook University sociologist Arnout van de Rijt. Its analysis finds fleeting celebrity status occurs “only at the bottom of the public-attention hierarchy.”