I have developed a very low level but persistent special interest on the seminal Madchester band Happy Mondays. More specifically, I am perversely fascinated by their antics in the late 80s and early 90s.
For example, did you know that Bez, the band’s resident drug procurer/dancer/maracas player, broke his arm three times while making their 1992 studio album Yes Please! in The Bahamas? The first injury was the result of a joy ride gone wrong. The second one happened during a boating accident. The third one? His girlfriend sat on it. And are you aware that he still wasn’t the most troublesome member of the group during the process?
Singer Shaun Ryder made some early gestures toward getting clean for the recording sessions, but, depending on the source, he either spilled his methadone supply on the way there or consumed it all soon after landing. He then took up a new drug habit and eventually resorted to selling his clothes to pay for it. British tabloids alleged that he also sold the studio’s sofa, but Ryder vehemently denies it to this day. (“It was a plastic sun-lounger that was worth f— all,” he said.) Somewhere in the midst of the misadventure, he managed to survive a confrontation with a baboon named Jack the Ripper.
His muse and voice were less lucky. He barely wrote any lyrics while they were away and his throat was too ravaged from drug use to sing. It took six weeks of detox and two weeks of recording back home to get him going again.
And this is a significantly abridged account of events. There’s even more where that came from if you feel like going down that rabbit hole.
I’m not a huge fan of rock star excess. My opinion on the matter is more in line with Gene frontman Martin Rossiter, who once said that, “If you consider rock’n’roll to be some kind of artistic expression and rebellion, chucking a TV set out of a window is the antithesis of rock’n’roll. Some poor sod has to clear that mess up afterwards.” But I am compelled by the above story for one reason: Yes Please! was eventually completed and released. Because the band’s needs were met.
Happy Mondays’ label funded their Bahamian adventure and sent more money when they blew through that. The band’s manager supervised Ryder’s detox. When his health improved, the album’s producers guided him through a series of creative exercises to help break through his writers’ block. Even Bez had a chance to heal his arm.
The making of Yes Please! is an extreme and particularly absurd example, but it’s a pattern I started to notice as a music journalist on the verge of an autism diagnosis many years ago. A lot of musicians—especially but not exclusively popular rich white men—function and require support in ways that would not be considered “normal” in other walks of life. Regardless of neurology or whatever else they might have going on. And a lot of people either don’t notice because those needs are being met by the trappings of their line of work, or don’t question it, because that’s just how rock stars are.
Capitalism plays a significant role in this phenomenon. As many of my fellow autistics have pointed out before me, any divergence from the norm is more likely to be accepted and accommodated if it can be exploited for profit or some other kind of perceived value. But I think it’s also an example of how the very concept of things like reasonable accommodation and burden can change depending on the culture or the subculture.
Sometimes the difference between eccentric or uncompromising and rude, off-putting, antisocial, or difficult can be whether or not you can write a catchy tune. But it can also come down to what scene you find yourself in. Needing assistance with daily life is more tolerated in our society when that assistance is in aid of making money than it is when it’s required for being able to live safely with basic human dignity. But that aid is also less likely to be stigmatized—and more likely to be romanticized—if it comes from a combination of managers, personal assistants, collaborators, groupies, band aids, famous friends, and fans as opposed to support workers and family members. Even if a fair amount of the help involved isn’t actually that different.
This support and leeway are not granted evenly to everyone who makes and performs music. Marginalized musicians can face much higher levels of scrutiny than their white male counterparts. Struggling and independent artists can be stuck performing multiple roles just to stay afloat. And even the most privileged stars can be misunderstood and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse from the very people who support them. There are also autistic musicians out there who might find themselves supported by a creative lifestyle in some ways and failed in others.
But the fact that there are any musicians who can and do benefit suggests to me that our society can be very cool about the fact that not everyone can exist independently, and that some people will need more assistance, time, patience, and other supports in some or all aspects of their lives. And that there doesn’t need to be any shame or handwringing about any of the above. Our society just sucks when it comes to selecting who is included in that concept.
I think part of my fixation on the Mondays and their antics is that I find them just a tiny bit aspirational. I don’t dream of going away, blowing someone else’s money on drugs, and crashing cars for fun. But in my lower and more self-absorbed moments, I do find myself wondering what I could accomplish with a fraction of their resources. If I had someone who was willing and able to bankroll my work, even when I was struggling to produce anything. If I had talented professionals who were willing to handhold me through my current creative slump/autistic burnout. If I could afford to rest and recover as much as I need to. If I could have been granted half as much grace for flubbing networking opportunities due to unwritten social rules I didn’t grasp as the members of the band enjoyed for pretty much everything they did in the first wave of their career.
Any one of those on their own would be enough to improve my life significantly. And I wouldn’t even steal a single chair in the process.
I have a rule when it comes to thinking and writing about autism, though: if something is hard for me as a white autistic person with low support needs, it’s going to be drastically worse for many of my fellow autistic people. So if any of the above accommodations could change my life, what else might be possible if all autistic people were given just a little bit or rock star treatment?
The post Why Don’t We Give All Autistic People the Rock Star Treatment? appeared first on THINKING PERSON'S GUIDE TO AUTISM.
