Did I really just watch Melissa Ferrick eat macaroni and cheese?
February 11th, 2009 by Lorna Bracewell in Commentary, Lorna Bracewell, News, Video
I’ve been averaging around 4 hours of sleep a night for the past several weeks. Combine the subtle, creeping delirium that accompanies such chronic sleep deprivation with modern time-wasting tools like the internet and it is no surprise that I found myself on Youtube last night watching singer/songwriter Melissa Ferrick’s video blog.
I have counted myself amongst Melissa Ferrick’s fans since the spring of 2005 when I shared a festival stage with her in Ft. Lauderdale. Before her set, we chit chatted while we picked at the wilting craft service tray. I had no idea who she was. After her set, I was so overwhelmed by the quality and intensity of her performance that I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her. I made my girlfriend go up to the merch table where Melissa was greeting folks and signing autographs to buy a few records for me.
That was then. Now, after sitting through about an hour of the most inane and self-indulgent videos on Youtube I would have absolutely no problem giving Ms. Ferrick a piece of my mind. Here’s what I would say:
“Melissa, wow! What an amazing set! You’re like a lesbian Elvis or something. There is something I want to talk to you about though. Do you have a sec?
Your video blog has got to go. I know you think the fans like it and I’m sure some of them do, but they’re the creepy ones that you hate talking to after shows and that you kind of wish would just buy your records and not show up. Do you really feel comfortable exploiting their mildly perverse interest in you?
I’m gonna be perfectly honest. I really dig your music, but I don’t want to watch you eating macaroni and cheese with your cat. I don’t want to know that you made fish tacos at your Super Bowl party. I don’t want to see you looking exhausted in your hotel room after a show at two in the morning. All those things kind of ruin the magic for me.
I know that singer/songwriters are in the business of soul-baring and self-exposure and that for some incomprehensible and probably emotionally immature reasons this brings us a pleasant catharsis of sorts. I’m sure on some level making your video blog gives you a similar sense of satisfaction, but don’t be fooled. What you do on stage or in a song is categorically different from what you are doing in your video blog.
Your songs and your performances are the products of years of study, hours of thankless toil, a touch of miraculously endowed talent and a spark of poetic inspiration. Your video blog is a product of none of these things. Any putz with a digital camera, an internet connection and a singer/songwriter size dose of narcissism can ramble nonsensically for 8 minutes and upload it to Youtube. Our craft is the only thing that separates us singer/songwriters from the throngs of talentless miserable and self-absorbed people.
What I’m trying to tell you, Melissa, is that you’re better than this video blogging nonsense. Market your music, of course, but don’t pander to the freaks, voyeurs and weirdoes. You’re an artist, not a reality show.”
February 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
You are right that was as bad as they get. It wasn’t even a good attempt to sell T-Shirts or seats at her concert. She can do much better than that.
February 11th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Coming from someone who is a sucker for a narcissist, not even I find this sexy!! Heh. Her glasses are hot, though! ;)
February 16th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I think that Melissa Ferrick is planning to market an extended edition “Survivor (Wo)Man” style DVD series where she returns home from a tour, exhausted with a suitcase of dirty clothing only to find she has run out of Mac and Cheese and her power is out. Melissa has no choice but to eat her cat while fashioning primitive clothing from her leather sofa.
As for you Lorna, I have only two-words: tylenol PM.