Thursday, June 14, 2007

Michael Barrymore's Confusions

So the Michael Barrymore-body by the pool story is back. I interviewed Barrymore about all this in March 2003. Recently I heard that he remembers the interview because I was rude about his furniture. But what was most striking to me was the fact that he simply could not understand my question, 'Do you regret anything?' Part of his confusion seemed to be the conflicting messages he was taking from Alcoholics Anonymous. On the one hand he was told he had a disease; on the other he was expected to apologise to - and feel remorse towards - those he had hurt. But his form of apology didn't seem to involve remorse because he told himself he had a disease and it wasn't, therefore, his fault. If this is the message of AA, then I can't see how it works since it is promoting a degree of moral confusion that is almost as dangerous as the condition it aspires to treat. But, anyway, Barrymore - another celebrity crash story, but an unusually odd and sad one.

6 comments:

  1. Excuse me for cutting straight to the important part of this but how exactly where you rude about his furniture?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Follow the link, Chip. It's all in there - and I wasn't that rude.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fantastic 2003 interview Bryan..of everything I've ever read about MB I think you have got the closest to trying to reveal the confused enigma of the man.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If he changes his name back to Parker, it may make matters worse. As well as epistomological problems, he may then have to contend with some even weightier philosophical questions of an ontological nature. Not good. I don't think he has the right temperament.

    ReplyDelete
  5. so here's a toast to a conundrum...
    Some people really do have an attachment to their chairs and tables. Why I knew a chap once who swore his chair was a character retired from the BBC series "Upstairs, Downstairs". It was an upstairs chair of course.

    I have been hearing your name around my blog neighborhood, so I came a' visiting. Nice blog.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ha ha, well, yes offense is all relative and subjective but I'd say you did a good job. it is my personal opinion on such matters but I think the giveaway clue to deficiency in taste is having a swimming pool.

    ReplyDelete