The Seemliness of Hero Worship

Shanna brought up a good point in the comments on my last post. She asked, "We all imitate and gush, consciously or not. But are you talking about "seemliness"? With or without scare quotes? A dedication or an "after So-and-So" or an epigraph is subtle and appropriate, whereas out-and-out hero worship can be embarassing, like hollering about the New Kids on the Block in the mall."

This reminds me of what I considered to be an appalling display of hero worship by my fellow creative writing students at Carnegie Mellon. Allen Ginsberg came to speak to us. I knew of Allen Ginsberg meaning I knew he was referred to as a "beat poet" and I had read "Howl" and a handful of other poems. But that was about it. Oh yeah, and the idea of him giving a talk to us drove certain students into a mad frenzy of excitement. It wasn't that I thought Ginsberg himself was "unworthy," I thought any human unworthy of such hysteria.

This is all I remember from the Ginsberg talk:

Ginsberg standing in the pit of Adamson auditorium behind a podium wearing a suit, not looking dirty or depraved as I had expected.

I was sitting next to Eugene.

Non-stop hooting and hollering from a handful of students. "We love you Allen!" "I wanna have your baby." etc.

Ginsberg not acknowledging any of these outbursts.

During the question and answer period, one student asked, "What is it like to be Allen Ginsberg?" He asked her to clarify what she meant. She continued, "You're Allen Ginsberg, yet you shit." (I wish I had a picture of my cringe at that moment.) Ginsberg's response, "In the mornings, I don't feel so good . . " and then he ran down a long list of health ailments he suffered from. (This is when I finally realized he was a cool guy and my "issue of seemliness" had nothing to do with him at all.)

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So what did Ginsberg say in his talk? For the life of me, I couldn't even begin to tell you. I'm quite ashamed to say I have no idea. All I remember is being disappointed with my peers. I didn't even stick around for his reading that evening. I had "big" plans in D.C. that weekend and figured I'd just see him read another time. He died three years later.

The fact is I let my distaste for other's hero worship ruin a rare chance to hear a great poet speak (and possibly share some very useful wisdom, maybe something I could use today). So who was the biggest ninny? The Ginsberg groupies or me? I bet the groupies still remember what he had to say.