I’m down on heroes at the moment. And by “heroes,” I’m not referring to those genuinely heroic people who rush into burning buildings to save children or dogs. I’m considering my own heroes, some of whom I considered as role models and strove to emulate.
If someone crafts a particularly nice piece of writing or a plays a stunning solo or is publicly witty at lunch, one may fix one’s admiration on such a person. One identifies with that idol’s image. One may adopt affectations associated with that person. And of course one will seek out biographical material on that luminary.
That’s a big mistake. And these are, by necessity, those who have passed on. The living we admire are still generating material for their biographers, and if we stand too close we might get a whiff of the rough draft. (Such an action may also result in a restraining order, or worse.) But reading up on the safely dead has its own shocks and hazards.
It seems that a great many if not most of the now-underground writers and musicians I wanted to be when I grew up are people I wouldn’t want to be now that I’ve grown up. Some had marinated their livers until they were nearly bullet-proof. Some were fond of cruel and even violent practical jokes well into adulthood. Some wrote or said things that I once found witty and insightful that now, on revisiting them, make me wince. (Even some things
