If I don’t want to be laughed at, I should probably say that the person whose life I am really curious about is J.K.Rowling’s, since she has basically achieve the pinnacle of success in the career that I hope to have for myself one day and it would only be logical for me to be curious about her life.
To be quite honest, however, I am more curious about the life of a rock star who has often graced the tabloids, Pete Wentz. He’s the bassist from the wildly popular but often derided band Fall Out Boy, started his own clothing company and record label, wrote a children’s book, opened a bar, hosted some ridiculous MTV show, married a fellow ridiculous music star of dubious talent (Ashlee Simpson), and is perhaps most famous for the time when photos he took of himself naked in his mother’s bathroom leaked on the internet. I really shouldn’t care about his life, but I really do enjoy Fall Out Boy’s music, and, as their lyricist, Pete Wentz has shaped what their music was and is. The lyrics speak about being depressed and unsure of yourself, and there is something very powerful and raw behind them. Many people have said that it must all be an act, however, or that no one should have to listen to the complaints of an obscenely wealthy rock star who grew up in the affluent North Shore suburb of Wilmette with a Northwestern Law School professor for a father.
Some part of me really wants to believe that Pete Wentz, despite all the money that controversy must be making him, really is genuine. Something makes me want to believe that he really is just a lonely, bipolar individual who wants some attention so he doesn’t feel so down. Something makes me want to believe that his art means a lot more to him than just another ridiculously large paycheck. He quit college a quarter short of graduation in order to pursue music, and I really want to believe that the kind of drive and motivation that he had then was not lost when he became famous/infamous. I know a lot of people who have been in the dark places that Fall Out Boy’s music, especially their early music, describes, and knowing that those emotional lyrics come from someone who’s really been there and is just trying to share his experience, rather than someone who was seeking to make a quick buck off emo teenybopper high school girls, would help just a little in restoring my faith in humanity.
