Good Manners

Okay, I’m just waking up, so maybe I shouldn’t be posting in my journal until I’ve been conscious for more than an hour, but I feel like excising what is on my mind.

WTF is up with people who can not say thank you? WTF is up with people who can not give credit?

I was thinking about which bands I thought were going to blow up huge a few years back. I was thinking about how some of those rockers really discouraged me from wanting to do rock photography or journalism at all. They seemed to think that coverage just happened. Like it was their due. They never appreciated anything, rarely said thanks, and tended to forget who did them a good turn faster than goldfish.

It occurs to me though that none of those people are in big charting bands today. And not because they lacked the talent. I think that with the promotional tool available to today’s big labels, they feel they can find someone talented who will say thank you. I think we all have more prefab sucky music thrust upon us because so many of the people who can really rock can not get with simple courtesy.

Amelia’s Rules of Fame and Thank Yous:

You are not naturally famous. Fame is not something that just happens because you deserve it so much.

If someone has the power to create fame for you, they also have the power to choose to make someone other than you famous.

You don’t really sound as good as your best mix. Thank your producer, engineer, etc. The rappers do and they are selling better than your broke ass.

You don’t really look as good as your best promo photo. Add a photographer credit when you duplicate it or at least don’t remove one that is on there.

You aren’t really as cool as your most glowing article. If a writer focuses on your great live show and mad songwriting skills and not on how you cheat welfare and beat your homosexual lover and have a day job at Wendy’s and got caught turning tricks in the hotel bar last time you played Vegas, remember to say thank you.

If someone hooks you up when you have nothing but potential, hook them up if you are ever in a position to do so. At least say something nice about someone who helped you. Would giving someone else a kind word really kill you?

Say thanks. Show some appreciation for the people around you. And I don’t mean in a little ones who made this all possible condescending way. The A&R chick who signs you will be around long after your CD is in the cutout rack. And, no matter how talented you are and what a snappy dresser, she could sign someone who sucks but is appreciative and set them up with a good producer and stylist.

In which case, you won’t even be a footnote when VH1 does its “I Love the Turn of the Century” show.