My Justification For Being Weird.
If it wasn’t for weird, we’d all be Walmart.
“I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.” Rita Rudner
Look up famous quotes (which I do religiously), and you’ll find more dedicated to “weird” than “sex.” Sex may sell, but weird sells better. If it wasn’t for weird, we’d be Walmart.
Britney Spears wouldn’t mind that at all. She went to Sundance once and hated it. “You have to sit there and really think,” she said, which gave her a headache and a craving for Chicken McNuggets. Britney doesn’t realize how weird she is.
Of all the books and movies and songs, the ones we remember most are surprisingly ridiculous. Think of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We admit it’s a great song now but, back when we first heard it in the 70s, we were confused. It changed key, it inverted phrases, and who the hell uses Galileo and Figaro in a a rock lyric? Galileo was considered a heretic. Figaro was the frickin’ Barber of Seville. At least Brian May played a good lead guitar.
We’re confused by weird. Our notion of normalcy gets thrown out of whack. If you’re a weird kid, you despise yourself. Your teachers despise you. They send notes home to your parents, complaining about your lack of attention and constant fidgeting. We’re not exactly a danger to society, but nobody holds out any hope for us. Unless we write “Bohemian Rhapsody,” then the whole world wants our autograph and calls us a genius.
Napoleon and Squealer were hard to beat as nasty political pigs, and somehow we found that appealing. Pigs, by the way, are quite noble and sensitive creatures.
History is full of people trying to stifle weird. When George Orwell first submitted “Animal Farm,” he got a letter back from the publishers saying, “It’s impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.” It went on to become the most famous of all twentieth-century political allegories. Napoleon and Squealer were hard to beat as nasty political pigs, and somehow we found that appealing. Pigs, by the way, are quite noble and sensitive creatures.
Tim Burton’s “Batman” gave Warner Brothers the hebbie-jeebies. It was dark as hell and cost $35,000,000 to make, yet it earned $100,000,000 the first ten days. Jack Nicholson (The Joker) took a percentage in lieu of salary (or in addition to salary). He made a killing. The studio made a killing. They let Burton do “Batman Returns,” which broke box office records as well. Even with that, Burton admits they wanted him off the lot. Too weird by a mile.
“Confederacy of Dunces,” John Kennedy Toole’s brilliant book, spent years being rejected and criticized by publishers. Toole took his life. His mother sent the original unedited manuscript to Walker Percy. He thought it was incredible and got it published (eleven years after Toole’s death). The book went on to win a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981.
We know Britney Spears hates to think, but somehow ticket and book sales go up (ironically, so do Chicken McNuggets).
The title came from Jonathan Swift’s essay, “Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting,” and the line: “When a true genius appears in the world, the dunces are all in confederacy against him.”
These days, you don’t even have to be a genius. You just have to be weird, or different, or slightly obtuse. That’s enough for some people. Even if it makes them nervous, it forces people to think. We know Britney Spears hates to think, but somehow ticket sales go up (so do Chicken McNuggets).
It’s amazing how many classics started out weird. John Lennon never liked McCartney’s concept for “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” “I just threw in some songs,” he later admitted. “They didn’t have anything to do with the concept. I found the whole thing contrived.”
The album went on to win four Grammies and Professor Kevin Dettmar, writng in The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature described it as “the most important and influencial rock-and-roll album ever recorded.” Lennon still thought it was contrived and weird and didn’t think much of McCartney, either. “All you ever wrote was Yesterday,” he said later.
Contrived can be seen as weird yet, during the psychedelic era, dressing in old military band uniforms proved acceptably freaky. Sales topped 32 million copies worldwide by 2011, a long time considering we stopped taking acid around 1970.
Ken Kesey’s “Merry Pranksters” held on a little longer, and he had his own success with “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” but the days of Haight-Ashbury saw more casualties than successes, and we were in for even more weird with disco, especially in places like Studio 54.
“It was a throwaway to me,” Marvin said later. “We included it on In The Groove because Norman Whitfield wanted it there. I didn’t like it.”
Strangely, some artists tried to avoid what they found weird. Marvin Gaye didn’t want to record “I Heard It Through The Grapevine.” “It was a throwaway to me,” Marvin said later. “We included it on In The Groove because Norman Whitfield wanted it there. I didn’t like it.”
That throwaway became Gaye’s largest grossing single, ranking sixty-sixth on Billboard Magazine’s Greatest Songs of All Time. The California Raisins version for Post Raisin Bran (Buddy Miles singing) made Billboard’s Hot 100.
Advertisers always worry about being weird and too controversial. On the series “Mad Men,” Don Draper goes in the lunchroom where everyone’s talking about the new Volkswagen ad “Think Small.” Nobody had ever done anything like it before. Don was asked what he thought and he said, “It sends the wrong message.” It still ranks as one of the greatest pieces of advertising, and hangs in the Museum of Modern Art.
Steve Jobs didn’t like Apple’s “Think Different” campaign at first. “It makes us sound like we’ve never thought different before this,” he said. A few hours later, he told the agency, “Fuck it, let’s do it.” Few campaigns in advertising history have had as much awareness or criticism.
In any creative endeavor, there’s always doubt. Nobody wants to “fall outside the typical and expected,” especially where careers are involved. We’re all thinking of our reputations — even Marvin Gaye. Sometimes circumstance and fate make the decision for us.
None of us really knows what constitutes a surprise, or, more importantly, what constitutes a saleable one.
When I say it’s fate, it’s probably not fate at all. While we’re comfortable with the expected, something inside us yearns for what we don’t expect.
None of us really knows what constitutes a surprise, or, more importantly, what constitutes a saleable one. Vincent Van Gough never had a saleable surprise (the only painting he sold was to his brother Theo).
Bob Dylan wondered if his song “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” was too commercial. He recorded it on “The Basement Tapes” (all of which he wanted dumped), but the song endured, becoming hits for The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers.
All of which should make us wonder: What have we thrown away that we should have kept? How quickly do we toss away an idea under pressure of a deadline or an unreasonable client. How many internal reviews have killed great ideas?
At least back in the days of hard copy, we might glance down at our wastepaper baskets. We might have the foresight — or hindsight — to unfold that crumpled piece of paper.
Today it’s even easier to throw ideas away. All we do is click delete. Through the course of the average day, I click delete hundreds of times. Have I thrown away good ideas? Probably. At least back in the days of hard copy, we might glance down at our wastepaper baskets. We might have the foresight — or hindsight — to unfold that crumpled piece of paper.
Technology, delete buttons, that handy little trash icon, have all made it easier to toss and discard. Maybe we’ve destroyed our claim to fame. Maybe we need a program that sends all our deletes to a “maybe file.”
Or perhaps we should just have more faith in what we create. We might be wrong. Then again, we might be right.
Robert Cormack is a freelance copywriter, blogger and novelist. His first novel “You Can Lead a Horse to Water (But You Can’t Make It Scuba Dive)” is available online and at most major bookstores (now available in paperback). Check out Yucca Publishing or Skyhorse Press for more details.
