Famous People

by Justin Kuritzkes

  And Patrick, just like, without even making a big deal out of it or something just like, reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. He didn’t say anything or like, give me a talk or whatever. He just like, put his hand on my shoulder and held it there, kind of firm. And, I don’t know, I guess I just really needed that warmth, you know? I just really needed that human connection. I just curled up into Patrick’s chest and he held me and rocked me back and forth, and I just cried, like, ten years’ worth of tears into his enormous body.

  * * *

  Can I tell you a secret?

  Everyone’s been waiting for my fourth album—like, there’s been all this speculation about what it’s gonna be and when it’s gonna drop and everyone’s wondering what I’m gonna do next—but here’s the thing:

  It’s not an album.

  LOL.

  It’s a video game.

  Nobody knows it yet—I mean, except for the people who are working on it—but the idea came to me about a year ago when I was thinking about what to do after Roses and Mud.

  Basically, I was sort of like: Where do I go from here, you know? How do I top this?

  And I sort of realized that like, at least for the time being, there were no more sounds I could create that were gonna top what I had just done. In order to move forward, I was gonna need to do something else, expand my conception of what I can do, and so I started thinking, like: How do I capture this feeling for people? How do I capture what it’s like to actually be there in the room at a moment of major creative inspiration?

  And that turned into a larger question of like: How do I capture what it’s like to be me, you know? How can I share my life with people in the fullest possible way so that they can understand where I’m coming from and figure out what I’m all about?

  And then it was like a lightbulb just went off in my head. I mean, seriously, it was like a movie or something. It was just like: YES. And I started figuring out who I knew in the gaming world and how I could get them to work with me.

  Let me just say right off the bat, like: I’m not some total n00b to gaming. Like, video games have been a pretty central part of my life since—I mean definitely since I was a kid—but especially since I became famous. They’ve been really important, just in terms of my sanity.

  At least once a week since we went on tour with the first album, I’ve been going online and putting on the headset and playing Urban Warrior or Lonely Vortex or something like that, and it’s amazing, because like, here I am, and I’m talking to people from all over the world, and I’m playing with them, and nobody knows who I am. Like, it’s actually, legitimately, the only time in my life when I get to interact with normal people in a way that doesn’t feel, like, hypercharged and inauthentic. And sometimes, back in the day, I would even tell people who I was. Like, someone would say that my voice sounded really familiar, or like, they’d start talking shit about one of my songs, and if I liked the person, like, if we were having a good time and I thought they were a good player, I’d be like: Yeah, well, actually … But ninety-nine percent of the time they didn’t believe me. The one time this guy did believe me, he ended up posting my gamer tag online, and eventually I had to change it because like, it turned the video game world right back into the real world. All of a sudden, I’d try to join a match, and the second people would see my gamer tag pop up, they’d freak out and ask me to say stuff and like, yell shit at me or put me on speakerphone with their friends or call me a faggot and tell me to kill myself, and it got so bad that like, eventually, I just muted my headphones and turned off my mic and I tried to play the matches without any sound. But that kind of ruined it for me, you know, because the thing I really liked about it was the social aspect—like, just being part of a team, being one of the crew. When people knew who I was, all of a sudden the matches would come to a standstill because everybody would just want to crowd around my character and like, touch me with their guns and shit and take screenshots with the in-game camera, and I’d be running around trying to actually complete the objectives, you know, and everybody else—like, it didn’t matter if they were on my team or on the other team—would just be following me around trying to get close to me. And when I’d kill someone, they’d be like: AWESOME! I can’t believe it! And it was like: No! This is a GAME! You know? You’ve gotta actually PLAY! But, that’s how crazy the world is. LOL. All these gamer kids turned into, like, the virtual paparazzi. My publicist even told me that there were websites willing to pay people a couple thousand bucks for pictures of my CHARACTER in Urban Warrior. Like, not even pictures of ME: pictures of my AVATAR, a bunch of fucking pixels that looked exactly the same as everybody else’s fucking pixels. And it’s like, yeah, okay, I guess I could see how it would be interesting to people to see how I customized my character or like, see what skins I wore or what guns I used, but like, at the end of the day, it’s not like my guy looked THAT different from anybody else’s. There aren’t THAT many options in Urban Warrior. But still, all these videos would be posted of me playing, and then all these gaming commentators would be like: Yo! He sucks at this game! And it was like: Nobody else was even PLAYING, you know? How could anyone possibly be able to tell whether I sucked or not based on these bullshit matches? I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s funny now, but it actually kind of felt like a betrayal when that guy posted my gamer tag. We had been playing together for a while and like, we actually really LIKED each other, you know? We weren’t FRIENDS or anything, but we had been placed in a few matches together, and there’s this option in Urban Warrior where you can put certain players into your “preferred” category, and so we both put each other in that category, and for like, a couple months, we were playing together a lot. And while we’d be waiting for the map to load, we’d, like, chat about other games we liked to play, or like, talk about our favorite maps, or our favorite weapons, or where we were from, and then it was like, the SECOND I told him who I was, like, the second I opened up to him, he just turned into a fucking alien. He was like: WHAT?? I could literally feel through my headset how I had stopped being a person to him. We had been talking for months—I mean, literally MONTHS—about all kinds of shit, and then it was just like, the moment he found out who I was, all of that dropped away, and he couldn’t even find the words. He was just like: AHHHHGHEKGHAEHGAHG!

  And at first, I really didn’t wanna change my gamer tag after he posted it, because I liked the name a lot, and like, it had all my stats and all my weapons and upgrades and shit, and in Urban Warrior, you can’t change your name without creating a whole new profile, so I was really hesitant to do that because like, it takes a lot of time to build up all your skills and attributes again, but after a while, it just became too depressing to keep joining these games where I ended up having to yell at people to leave me the fuck alone, and so I created a new profile and started from Level One. And I won’t tell you what my new gamer tag is, but it’s super-fucking-normal. LOL. When I’m on the headset now, I’ll kind of mask my voice a little bit so that no one can recognize me. Not too intensely, but like, I’ll sometimes put on a Southern accent or like, an English accent or something, and so people will either think I’m this other person entirely, or they’ll just assume I’m some random kid fucking around.

  It’s also worth mentioning that, like, before I started playing video games—like, before I started joking around with people on the headset—I had no idea that I was funny. LOL. Or I mean, I could never TRUST that I was funny, because in the real world, like, when I’m hanging out with a normal person—someone who works at a radio station or like, someone who works in my manager’s office—everything I say to them is just hilarious, you know? If they even SENSE that I’m trying to make a joke, they’ve gotta LOL, because in their head, like, all that’s going on is: Oh my god I’m talking to him oh my god I’m talking to him. Actually, the way most normal people talk to me is a lot like the way I used to talk to black people when I first moved out to L.A. LOL. I was meeting some of the first black pe
ople I had ever met—because like, St. James isn’t exactly known for its diversity—and every time I was talking to one of them, all that would be going through my mind is just: Oh my god, I’m talking to a black person, oh my god, I’m talking to a black person.

  But on the headset, you know, in the game, I can actually make people laugh, and like, I can actually have a fun time with them and feel like they like me just based on what I’m saying, so that’s really grounded me over the years.

  But, anyway, my idea for the game was that it was gonna be the story of my life—you know, like, basically, it’s a role-playing game, and you’re me, but starting from childhood, you get to make all these different choices—and everybody who plays the game ends up having a totally different experience depending on what they do.

  You all start in the same place—the game begins in St. James Hospital with me being born—and the idea is that, you know, pretty much from that point on, you have all of these different options, and you can just become a totally different person.

  And there’s an option where you never post that video—you know, the one of me singing the national anthem—and so you never become famous.

  And there’s a whole option where you end up going to college and getting a normal job, or like, dropping out of high school and running away from home.

  And there’s an option where, for the second album, you just record all the songs that my dad had written for me and you never do all that shit with Deez.

  And there’s an option where you never break up with Mandy, and the two of you end up getting married.

  And then there’s this option where like, you make ALL the same choices that I made and you get to do basically exactly what I’ve done and like, you see what it’s like for yourself—you feel like the choices are YOUR choices and it’s YOUR life—and so you come out of the game maybe feeling like you understand me a little bit better.

  And, obviously, like, you can customize all your tats and hairstyles and wardrobes and all that shit. You can even like, go to the gym and get super-ripped. LOL. I’ve actually been using the game engine to test out new looks on myself before I try them in real life.

  And I think what’s cool about it, or like, what I’m trying to say with it, you know, is that none of this was written in the stars. Nothing in life is laid out for us ahead of time. At every stage, you know, at any point in time, we can always shape our own destinies. We can always be whoever we want to be. And a lot of the time, like, whoever ends up being one particular kind of person is just as random as whoever ends up being another particular type of person. It’s just as random that I ended up being me as it is that you ended up being you.

  And so the game is sort of this massive project, you know, and I don’t really think I realized when we started it how long it was gonna take.

  I’m working on it with this couple, Roger and Ines, who are these totally dope video game designers in San Francisco who met in grad school and got married and formed a little company together, and they’re not the biggest or like, the most experienced designers in the world, but when I went to meet with them, they were the ones who were most enthusiastic about the idea and who actually thought we could pull it off, so they’re the ones I ended up working with. The first game that they made is this little indie thing where you’re a caterpillar who turns into a butterfly and then you fly around the city giving good luck to people. And I played that one, and it was super cute and creative, and I was like: Awww. I love these guys!

  Actually, it was kind of crazy how most of the video game people treated me when I talked with them. In a way, it was nice to be reminded that there are people who just don’t give a fuck about me or my world because they’ve got their own, like, fully cohesive world that doesn’t have anything to do with me, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, I was being rejected, you know what I mean? I was meeting with all these video game people and telling them about my idea, and they were all just sort of looking at me like: Why would WE do this? What’s in it for US? And they all just basically told me: This idea won’t work and it’s going to be way too expensive and it’s going to take way too much of our time and nobody is gonna play it. And a few of them asked me if I would do music for THEIR games—you know, like, the games they were already developing—but I was just like: Nah, I don’t think so.

  So I finally ended up meeting with Roger and Ines, and you know, I mean, I love them—like, they’re the best—but I do sometimes wonder if they’re in over their heads. LOL.

  The hardest part, you know, is just that there are infinite possibilities, and we all want the world to feel as open as possible, but the bigger the world gets, like, the more expensive the game becomes to make. And, like, we don’t have any big backers or anything—I’m kind of just financing the thing myself—so that’s actually why I’ve been touring so much this year. I’ve gotta build up the revenue so we can keep chipping away at it.

  Roger and Ines gave me an initial estimate for what they thought it was gonna cost, but we’ve already blown WAY past that, and now it’s like, every couple weeks, they’re going: Hey, we think we need a little bit more money. Hey, we’re gonna need to hire another programmer.

  But, whatever. I guess that’s just how this shit works.

  Everyone thinks it’s a bad idea.

  LOL.

  Obviously, I’ve been keeping it under wraps from the general public, and like, so far it doesn’t seem like there’s been any leaks—I had my lawyer draw up these massive NDAs for everybody involved—but literally everyone I’ve talked to about it—my mom, Deez, my manager, Bob—all think that the project is pretty much doomed and that I’m just gonna fall on my face big-time.

  But, you know, something happens when a bunch of people you love tell you not to do something one time and then you do it anyway and it turns out to be genius: The next time they tell you not to do something, like, the next time they voice their concerns, you just sort of look at them like: Welllllll …

  When it comes down to it, no one else can make your decisions for you. They can give you advice, they can tell you what shit looks like from where they’re standing, but you’re the only person who’s standing in your skin, so you’re the one who’s gotta make the call. It might make some people laugh, and it might make some people upset, and it might even make some people feel like they know better than you, but if you don’t start living your own life, who will?

  * * *

  After that phone call with my dad, I didn’t hear from him for a while.

  I think he took it really hard. I mean, I know he did, because he basically broke off contact entirely after that, and then we sort of entered into what I’ve started to think of as the “dark period” where basically, like, my dad just fully lost his mind.

  Thinking about it now, all I can do is laugh, but at the time, it was obviously really scary, and the whole thing just happened so rapidly. It was just like, before what was happening with him was sad, you know, but now it seemed like there had actually been a break with reality, and that was really fucking terrifying, to be honest. I mean, the tricky thing, you know, the thing that made it especially hard, was that he wasn’t even returning my calls, so I just had to watch this all unfold from afar, and at first, it was kind of scary and like, I was really worried about him, but after a while, it just started to become annoying, you know? No one really tells you that about dealing with someone who’s losing their mind: It’s actually super-fucking-annoying most of the time, and you sort of end up hating the person. And like, yeah, okay, a part of me could recognize that this guy who was doing and saying all this crazy shit wasn’t really my dad and that like, there was actually some little demon who had hunkered down inside him and was speaking and acting through him, but the lines kind of blurred sometimes because a lot of the shit he was saying just sounded like the kind of hurtful, awful shit that my dad had always wanted to say but didn’t feel like he could.

  It’s hard to talk about my dad, yo
u know, because there’s obviously a lot of anger on my part, and like, I still kind of hate the guy, but also, I feel a certain level of responsibility for what happened. At a certain point, I decided that like, I was just gonna cut him out entirely and let him rot away on his own, because, like, he kept harming my life and my mom’s life in his craziness, and I was just sort of like: This isn’t my problem to deal with anymore. I’m not gonna let him drag me and my mom and my life and my music down with him in this spiral, because we’ve got too many places to go, and like, yeah, I was an asshole, yeah, I could’ve handled things better, but I tried to make things right, and he didn’t even give it a chance, so like, fuck that guy.

  But now, I don’t know. There’s a part of me that feels like if I had done a bit more, or like, if I had tried a bit harder, I could’ve prevented what happened, or like, I could’ve maybe even brought him back into my life, you know, and just changed the story entirely. I guess that’s the thing about life: We never really know what’s gonna happen until it happens, and once it happens, it’s too late to do anything about it.

  The first I heard from my dad after he dropped off the face of the earth was when he started his blog. After I told him about my mom and Bob, he stopped responding to me and he changed his phone number, and he started this blog that he would post to every once in a while, which was like, I guess just his general thoughts about the world. Like, at first it was kind of weird because he was sort of doing like, general music and pop culture reviews and op-ed pieces. No one really knew why he was doing it, but he just sort of positioned himself as like, a “pop culture commentator,” I guess because he was thinking like: Maybe someone will pay me for this? Maybe I can have a second career as someone who does this kind of thing? And I’m guessing like, he read some article about all these teenagers who were starting fashion blogs and music blogs and then getting hired by these big media conglomerates to be staff writers, and so he thought, like: People already kind of know who I am, I’m already kind of a public figure. Why don’t I give this a whirl? But, you know, the writing just wasn’t that good. I mean, first of all, he had already kind of blown his credibility, and like, no one was really interested in taking him seriously as a commentator, and second of all, like, the writing itself was just bad. Like, you could never really figure out what his opinion was, and it was always just sort of like—I mean, in retrospect, it was the beginning of him losing his mind—but the writing was always a little disjointed and like, bad in that way that only crazy people’s writing can be bad. There was this one article about Heartache/Heartbreak where he was just like, comparing Mandy to an alligator the whole time, and it was like: What the fuck are you talking about, you know? It was really weird.