 WHACK
THE DALAI LAMA
All the rich kids on the MTV
Whack the Dalai Lama
Are saying buy my records and
Tibet goes free
Whack the Dalai Lama
Whack-whack! whack-whack! whack-whack!
Whack the Dalai Lama
--"Whack The Dalai Lama" by The
Dickies from the album "All This and Puppet
Stew"
(full lyric here)
Apparently some readers were irked
by the comments I made about the Dalai Lama last
time around. The consensus among these folks seems
to be that I am obviously jealous of the Dalai
Lama's fame.
I'm not jealous of the Dalai Lama's
fame. In fact, one of my great worries in writing
a book is that I could end up famous and therefore
irrelevant. In fact, I don't really hold any opinions
at all about my man Dalai. I've never read his
books or paid much attention to him on TV. All
I really know is he's the leader of Tibet (which
I completely agree should not be under Chinese
control) and that he's supposed to be the reincarnation
of the previous Dalai Lama. If he actually believes
that he might want to see this e-mail I got from
these guys in Nigeria who say they want to deposit
28 million dollars in my bank account. But I get
the impression he's smart enough to take that
kind of thing with a grain of salt. As famous
guru-type guys go he seems OK. Not that I put
a whole lot of stock in famous guru-type guys...
The issue I was trying to address
has nothing at all to do with the Dalai Lama.
It was about the power of fame and celebrity.
Why do people go to big gatherings
like concerts or baseball games or speeches by
famous guru-type guys anyway? It's always 5% or
less about the music or the game or the speech
and 95% about just being there, hanging out with
all those people. It's about being able to say
you were there when Jack and Meg played that Ledbelly
song (even if you don't know who Ledbelly was),
or when your team scored the big home run (even
if you were out buying a hot dog at the time),
or when your fave guru dude said a whole bunch
of really trippy stuff that seemed like it made
a lot of sense (even if you can't remember any
of it).
There comes a point where fame starts
to accrue upon itself, where things are famous
simply because they're famous. I happen to think
The Beatles are freakin' awesome. But at this
point it hardly matters. People who've never really
listened to a single note they played want Paul
McCartney's autograph of a lock of his hair. It
doesn't matter a bit why he's famous. The fact
that he's famous is enough in and of itself.
Here's how fame works.
Whenever I eat my lunch in the park
near my office there are always pigeons around.
Sometimes when I sit down a couple of them will
come over to my bench thinking they just might
get a hand-out. Often, even if I don't give them
anything, other pigeons will notice these guys
and come around as well. Before you know it there's
a couple dozen pigeons hanging out around my bench.
pigeons have been programmed by
evolution to do this, and it makes perfect sense.
If there's something good for one pigeon over
by my bench, the others figure since they're pigeons
too whatever's got those pigeons excited is probably
good for them as well. All animals do this and
human beings are no different. This is why we
react to things that are famous. 50,000,000
Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong was the title of
one of The King's early albums, a brilliant marketing
move playing upon just this fact.
But pigeons can be just as attracted
to poison as they can to bread-crumbs if the poison
tastes good. Humans are no different. If 50,000,000
Elvis fans can't be wrong, what about 50,000,000
Nazis?
Celebrity is a tricky thing. On
the one hand, you can't get really famous without
providing something that at least seems like it
might be good -- even if it's tasty poison. And,
as I wrote in my book, I've noticed that a lot
of famous people have a certain admirable degree
of balance in whatever particular thing they do
that made them famous. Artists, even those who
aren't famous, tend to be balanced while creating
their art. Unfortunately, it's rare that an artist
carries that balance into the rest of his or her
life.
When someone becomes famous not
for being artistic, but for being "spiritual"
there's a greater danger. This is why I'd be far
happier for people to buy my book because they
think it's entertaining or funny than to buy it
because they think it contains The Answer. It
doesn't. No book does. I'm a bit distressed that
when I check Amazon under the "People who bought
this book also bought" category all the books
associated with mine are dodgy "spiritual" books.
I'd rather see MAD magazine reprints or books
about great flying saucer movies of the Fifties
there. At any rate, I know there are a
Hell of a lot more laughs in my book than there
are in any of the Dalai Lama's.
Spiritual fame is an extraordinarily
dangerous thing. There's really no limit to the
things people will do if they think they're taking
orders from someone with connections to God. Buddhist
authorities, and here I include myself, are no
more immune to this than any other religious authorities.
Most folks' understanding of Buddhism is so unclear
that the word "Buddha" is just another name for
the Supreme Authority Figure in the Sky Whose
Will Must Be Obeyed. This doesn't only apply to
Westerners. Popular Buddhism throughout Asia is
even worse than popular Buddhism in the West.
People who make use of this fact, no matter what
ends they're pursuing, are doing a terrible disservice
to those who follow them.
Belief in power is a way of deferring
responsibility for your own life. You give your
chosen authority figure total control and allow
him to choose for you what's right and what's
wrong. You must never allow anyone else to choose
for you what's right and what's wrong or you're
lost forever.
Me, I pray to God I never become
a spiritual celebrity.
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