Nobody's Perfect and Some are Even Less So

Last week, I was talking to a songwriter who's written a lot of hits who stopped me in mid-sentence to ask, "You're Jewish, right?" I nodded. It's pretty obvious. Even though I was born in this country, I still manage to speak with a slight Yiddish accent.* "My husband is, too," she said. And then she proceeded to tell me the story of another Jewish songwriter about my age.

He was having some success early on getting cuts on records. And as a result, publishers and big name writers started to get very interested in him. He got an invitation to visit a huge writer, one of the biggest names in the business, someone who is now a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I won't mention his name because I don't have absolute confirmation that this story is true. But it's very believable.

Anyway, the guy goes to visit this big name writer and he's all excited. This writer is one of his heroes. He's one of my heroes in songwriting, too. The big name writer ushers him into his study and the guy's jaw drops. Behind the desk, there is a huge Nazi flag. The room is chock full of Nazi memorabilia. The big-name writer has him sit down in this Nazi haven, gets behind his desk and smiles and mentions the guys surname. "That's a Jewish name isn't it?" They spend another tense fifteen minutes together and he leaves.

One of his heroes turns out to be a white supremacist. Now that guy does something I would never do. He surmises that maybe there are other neo-Nazis in this business as well. He wants to do well. So he decides to change his surname.

This story has repercussions for me. From now on, whenever I think of one of those wonderful songs the big-name songwriter wrote, I won't be able to shut out the information that the person who wrote it was a white supremacist. I'll hum a few bars of a tune and part of me will want to segue into Deutschland Uber Alles. But I'll still love that tune. And I'll still admire the hell out of the talent that wrote it.

For me, talent is divorced from personality. I don't care if the person is a monster. He or she could be a white supremacist, a mass murderer or even a Republican (just kidding about the Republican thing, you know). As long as they bring the creative goods to the table it doesn't matter to me. The truth of the matter is that many creative people, myself included, are at the very least neurotic as hell. We aren't normal otherwise we'd aspire to work on Wall Street and make millions. I was a professor for many years, a very respectable profession in most eyes. By the end, I was bored out of my gourd. It wasn't for me.

It's wonderful if a person is humble, moral and a great citizen. But when it comes to the creative world, it's not anything I'm concerned about. Ezra Pound was an anti-Semite who abetted the Nazis. Who cares? He was a wonderful poet. Woody Allen dumped his wife and married his own step-daughter. That's not my concern. In his prime he was one of the funniest writers of the 20th century. Now I am very reluctant to pay for creative works of such people once I realize they are scum - I'll stick with using the library - but I still admire their talent.

The public I know is far less forgiving. They want the whole package. The artist, just like the athlete, is expected to be a role model. There is a curious exception to this rule that's worth noting. If they are pop music artists - Madonna, 50 Cent, et al. - they can be as scummy as anything. As a matter of fact, that's part of their appeal. But aside from the world of pop music we want our artists to be wonderful people, someone our children can look up to and we'd want to invite over for dinner. It's fine that the public wants artists be likable. But if we included likability as a requirement, we'd miss much of the great art (and science) that has been created.

*When I was performing once, the MC introduced me as "the love child of Albert Brooks and Neil Diamond." The shoe fits.