David Kronenbourg
Well-Known Member
I kinda wouldn’t put Prince in there – although you know infinitely more about him than I do, so I could stand corrected.
But Prince was more like George Best or even Maradona, propelled forward by genius-level ability from their youth.
Like in the 80s you couldn’t leave Prince alone for 5 minutes only he’d have written another song – dude was literally giving them away - he had something inside him that needed out.
George Best had to be dragged in at night cos he couldn’t stop kicking a ball against a garage door, over and over and over. The drive was coming from the muse. It didn’t have an off switch.
Those people are fascinating in their own right, and arguably rise to the level of their talent.
With McGregor and Beyonce and Roy Keane and others, it’s the Gatsby-esque drive that makes them study every aspect of the game and the skills needed and the barriers to success and how they can be overcome and never ever giving up.
Like that line in Kill Your Friends.
“In return for her fifteen minutes I guarantee you that Geri Halliwell would have risen at the crack of dawn every morning for a year and swum naked through a river of shark-infested, HIV-positive semen – cutting the throats of children, old age pensioners and cancer patients and throwing them behind her as she went – just to be allowed to do a sixty-second regional radio interview. This is the kind of person you want to sign. You’ve got a shot with that kind of attitude. Talented? Fuck off. Go and work in a guitar shop with all the other talented losers.”
It can give you Madonna, but can also give you Maroon 5.
It’s more fascinating with Madonna.
Maybe these distinctions only exist in my own head.
Maybe with 8 billion people on the planet, you need both undeniable talent and supreme drive to achieve success in these incredibly competitive fields.
But I was heading for a night train in NYC a few years back and every sidewalk with a bar was jammed with people leaning in windows – like you couldn’t walk down the street – because McGregor was fighting Mayweather (an insane proposition to start with). And yet, this gobby, short ginger from Crumlin, had brought New York City to a halt because he read a stupid fucking book and never stopped believing he could goddamn do it.
Like I said, he’s not an easy guy to like. But that bending of the world just fascinates me.
View attachment 13386
View attachment 13387