Fan Boy Finds Fame - Just Tip Toe Through the Tombstones

You know "fan boys."

They worship every D-lister. They look at a stack of comic books the way normal guys look at a stacked chick. They thinking collecting records is as much of a skill as making them.

Most of all, they want to beg or buy their way to fame.

Beg? That would be, "PLEASE let me have your autograph, so I can be the envy of the other dweebs and say I met you."

Buy? LOTS of ways of doing that. Ask THIS guy, with the beer-foam beard all over his lips.

Wow, notice ALL the SHIT he collected?

He sits in the middle of this shit like he's on a throne. He's KING of the blues fans. Which is as bogus a title as being LORD of fucking boot sales. Yes, all hail a dumb-looking fart who has money to waste.

STEVEN (a favorite name of sleazebags, retards and fools...and used by Alice Cooper for the "Welcome to my Nightmare" dweeb), is the least hip-looking drip on the planet. So he loves the blacks. He's got "SOUL" because he buys blues 45's. Oh, let's look at a WALL full of his fabulous treasures.

Wowie Zowie. He's a curator of his own collection. It reminds me of Sahl's line about a general with a bunch of medals and ribbons on his chest: "It's very impressive. If you're twelve."

In this case, if you're a gawking white gas station attendant, you come into STEVEN's garage and gasp. Woah! Woo! Woo-HOO!

If you can't play the blues, can't sing the blues, and have all the soul of a breadstick, BUY your way into Negritude by showing how much you DIG it. Dig?

The typical "fan boy" has his shrine. It could be a "wall of tapes." It could be a glass cabinet full of action figures. It could be a folder with plastic sleeves and all those autographed celebrity photos. Or this:

Call it morbid curiosity? In this case, STEVEN got somebody to come by and take pictures and write him up because he has a truly MORBID twist to his obsession. He doesn't JUST collect shit. He doesn't just masturbate to Billie Holiday records. He doesn't just sit his scrawny body down and wax about his wax (his shellac, his platters, his vinyl).

His hobby includes...tracking down the unmarked graves of obscure blues artists and...giving dead people a proper marker. You know, so some fat Huelbig can come by and take a photo of it.

McKinley is spinning in his grave at 78rpm, so delighted with this.

No? You mean, he's not spinning? His mojo is no longer working? This isn't thrilling the relatives who never visited and didn't care about him?

You mean, it's a bit futile to put a marker in an obscure graveyard even the locals don't bother visiting just to get drunk or set off firecrackers?

Aren't you impressed with STEVEN's witty epitaph for this bloooooooze God almost nobody on the planet has heard of?

Surely McKinley is looking down from heaven and saying "STEVEN, MIGHTY WHITE OF YOU!"

Yeah, STEVEN is a COLLECTOR. You might recall that Janis Joplin discovered Bessie Smith was lying in obscurity, and she put up a marker. That was ONE. If you're a COLLECTOR, you do it over and over again, and make sure that you're written up for it.

Hey, show us your LIST of obscure blues singers you're trying to find, and how you've got some dull fucking job that pays you enough that you can put slabs atop forgotten graves that nobody cares about. Never mind that in another decade or two, even LESS people will care about any singer who isn't named MILEY or BIEBER and that most days it'll be too hot and the air to fetid to go for a gambol through the graveyard.

Yes, STEVEN was the subject of an INTERNET WEBSITE article, and there was even the obligatory intruding and distracting pop-up video (because most people have no attention span and also don't like to read).

The difference between a "fan boy" and a normal person is...a normal person doesn't put shit on his garage door and call attention to himself. He's busy buying stuff, writing about it intelligently, sharing it without fanfare or fanaticism, and not overdoing it.

There are collectors out there who do it out of a genuine enthusiasm. They are modest. They aren't in competition with anyone. They aren't shouting ME ME ME. If they can avoid forums, blogs and fan clubs, they do. They only dip a toe into that foul stream if it'll help them connect with another TRUE collector, or somebody who might have a rarity that they are willing to share. They DON'T do it to boast with every post, and show pictures of their cabinet full of crap or a wall of weirdness.

Here's the uncomfortable truth. One day, one day VERY soon, STEVEN will die. A death rattle will click in his throat like the click on a cracked Blind Willie McTell single. A bit of sputum might dribble onto his lily white beard. His eyes will roll back in his skull. His collection will be auctioned off. If he's willed it to a school or museum, his name will be on a meaningless plaque nobody bothers to read. His own tombstone will be duly erected and nobody will make any special effort to go visit it, because he was only a collector, NOT a star.