For a long time I harboured a secret dream of being a writer for a late night talk show. I was (and still am) a Letterman guy and cosider(ed) Leno a fawning jackass.
While I still much prefer Letterman, having read a fair bit about both men, Leno is clearly the more gracious, forgiving, generous man of the two. Dave may be brilliant, but he is self-critical almost to the point of psychosis, extremely private and not especially generous.
Leno, on the other hand, is jovial, kind, and extremely generous.
If you had to pick between the two purely on the basis of ‘who would be the better boss?’ It would have to Leno.
It does bother me when people are jerks, so I typically avoid actor interviews on TV or in magazines. I accidentally saw an interview with Brad Pit once, and he seemed dumber than a bag of rocks, and that image has interfered with viewing his movies occasionally.
I like to go to small art shows, and if the artist is a jerk, I have a hard time buying their wares even when I really like what they are selling. Sometimes I wish I could separate the person from their work better.
Ooh, I had the opposite happen - I listened to the commentary track for Seven with him and Morgan Freeman talking about the film, and was impressed with his rationalization for how he played the character, to the point where my opinion of him went up dramatically.
I used to be a pretty big Danzig fan, and I still like some of his music, but I cannot help myself from thinking “douchebag” everytime I hear him after seeing him be a dick to that guy for NO reason and then get KTFO. He deserved it.
I was just about to say, none of the molestation accusations levied by Mia Farrow were ever proven. His pseudo-incestuous relationship with Soon-Yi Previn was pretty skeevy, but at least she was of legal age.
First name that comes to mind is the black metal musician Varg Virkenes – great sound and style (if you’re into nihilistic heavy music) but his personal life was a total wreck.
It started when he was caught burning down ancient Norwegian churches in the early 90’s. While I give him full props for rebelling against Christianity, his methods were totally out of line. Besides, some of those churches were nearly a thousand years old, which IMO makes them part of our collective archeological history and should not be messed with, no matter what religion they represent. (Later he used a photo of the burned-out Fantoft Stave Church as the cover of his Aske album, which came packaged with a free lighter.)
Then he joined the band Mayhem, and a few months later, he murdered the guitar player. Stupid schmuck had the temerity to claim self-defense, despite the guitarist being found with seventeen stab wounds in his back. But I guess that fits the image of these wicked black-metal heathens, and it didn’t dissuade me from buying any of his albums (except the bad synthesizer music he recorded while in prison…good Lord, that would’ve been perfect for torturing terrorists.)
But where I really lost faith in him was when he became a neo-nazi racist white supremist while in prison. That’s going too far!!! What a jerk.
Oh, by the way, he was released on parole earlier this month. Cheery thought, eh?
PAD taking the “die in a fire” hyperbole of a reader and trying to construe it as an actual death threat dropped him a few notches in my opinion. It was already pretty low due to the “ants do not get to condescend to eagles” malarkey and because I just don’t have a lot of time for professionals who get into public slap-fights with other professionals.
I don’t go out of my way to hear about the real lives of artists, but if I do hear something that really annoys me, it does affect whether or not I’ll pick up their work. There’s not so little entertainment in the world that I’m going to feel deprived if I opt not to support a handful of the people who produce it.
Me too, I do recommend the Crumb documentary, as a critic mentioned then, R. Crumb may had been a horrid person early, but nowadays he is the **sane **one in his family.
Yeah, I discovered (and LOVED) the music of Amy Winehouse before she became a household name in the states. Imagine my suprise when she became the tabloid darling people love to hate. I’ve since discovered the Dap Kings deserve much of the credit for the magic of her second album. I still hold out hope she’ll survive long enough to put out a third album, though I’ll never pay to see her perform live.
Mostly I don’t care. When I first read the thread I thought: No, who gives a crap about the private lives of people I don’t know?
Then I thought about it and decided that if I liked their work before I knew they were an idiot, it didn’t bother me. If I didn’t like them and they turned out to be an idiot, it just made me like them less.
I don’t even remember anything all that horrid–or maybe I’m blotting it out because the other family members seemed so dysfunctional in comparison. I mean, his one brother seemed to have pedophiliac tendencies but didn’t act on them, and then there was the other one who was a sex offender.
I wouldn’t classify it as a “jerk, loser, or moron” move, but I lost a lot of respect for Prince when he became a Witness. I don’t want to cast aspersions, should there be any Witnesses hereabouts, but I just really thought Prince had a spirituality that was better left undefined by creed.
That’s pretty much the standard for me, too. Richard Wagner was a vicious anti-Semite who pretty much wrote the soundtrack for the later Third Reich, but I like his music. Michael Jackson is almost surely a pedophile with some kind of weird surgical addiction, but his early tunes are great. Tom Cruise is arguably a nutjob Scientologist, but I enjoy most of his movies. Frank Lloyd Wright was a selfish jerk and an arrogant cad, but an incredibly gifted and visionary architect. I can appreciate their work without endorsing their every character flaw.
I hear he stoned her to death with ripe figs.
As for the OP, no, I decided quite early in my life that an artist and his art are two separate things. I hate Celine the person, but I love his books. Well, most of his books. The parts of his books when he isn’t in hardcore antisemite mode.
In the musical field, I learned recently (and on the SDMB) that the Who had done USAF and sigh milk shake commercials in the 70s. But… what the hell, they rock, man !
I got involved personally with two bands that I really liked. Two of my favorite bands ever, I’d say. Knowing some of the bullshit that goes on with some of the people in the bands definitely without a doubt puts a damper on everything. When I listen to lyrics of new songs or hear interviews I’m always thinking about how I know they really feel vs. how they act.
What’s really weird is when people know you’re “a huge fan” and they ask you about the music or why you’re not going to shows and, on one hand you want to say “because X is a huge ass and he pissed me off/did something to my friend/isn’t worth my money” but on the other hand you have to consider that it really IS good music and shouldn’t discourage other fans.
Way too much emotional baggage if you get to know the artists as people, I say. It’s just too hard!
I remember my mom explaining to me when I was a kid that all great artists were crazy. You know what? She was right. All too often, whether its musicians, actors, painters, whatever, it seems like the place where the sublime creation comes from is the same place that also makes them crazy, angry, or depressed (or all 3). So as a rule, I’ve never wanted to meet any artist I admired because I just assume they’re all whack-jobs.