Paris: The Memoir(49)

In 2017 I collaborated with a handful of brilliant people on The American Meme, a documentary that tries to unpack the difference between fifteen minutes of Vine fame and a sustainable, meaningful career as a performance artist.

Fun fact! The director, Bert Marcus, is the guy who kissed Nicole Richie in that sixth-grade game of Spin the Bottle back in chapter 2. See how the Spirograph keeps going? Past, present, and future always connecting.

But getting back to The American Meme: Some people say I opened the door on influencer culture the way Pandora opened the forbidden box. I’m willing to own the “OG influencer” thing, and I’m not saying everything about it is awesome, but it has been democratizing in both artistic and economic spaces. It’s liberating for a lot of people who couldn’t get past the old-style gatekeepers.

Disruption is scary for people who lack imagination, and terrifying for people who hold on to the old-school power structure. They don’t like the idea that the future belongs to those of us who happen to be a little bit mad.

I couldn’t have put this into words when I was seventeen, and these days I’m too busy to sit around contemplating the nature of reality, but I’ve always, on some level, rolled with Magritte’s expanded definition of what real means. When I heard my father and grandfather talk about huge amounts of money involved in real estate, I knew they weren’t talking about a physical truckload of cash. I grew up understanding that intellectual property is a tangible asset just as much as a hotel is. The only difference is that real estate is defined by boundaries; a creative mind is a limitless empire.

When VR came along—crypto, NFTs, the metaverse—I jumped in without hesitation. I couldn’t understand why so many people resisted. A few months before I got married, I was on The Tonight Show, and Jimmy Fallon said, “I didn’t know how into NFTs you were. Do you guys know what that is?” he asked the audience. Spattered applause indicated that a few people did.

“Like twelve people know,” Jimmy said. “I barely know. Can you explain what an NFT is?”

“It’s a nonfungible token,” I said, “which is basically a digital contract that’s on the blockchain, so you can sell anything from art to music to experiences, physical objects . . .” I suggested that he could sell a joke.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “I can’t even do that to my audience tonight.”

He got a good laugh, so let’s use that as an example: Jimmy Fallon offers a joke and receives laughter in return. It’s a transaction, one thing exchanged for another. The audience wants to experience the feeling they get from laughing; Jimmy wants the audience response that raises his stock as a comedian. So, the joke and the laughter both have real value. I love me some cash, but value doesn’t always mean money. Diamonds are expensive, but time is far more precious.

Time is the most valuable natural resource we have.

Provo Canyon School robbed me of that precious commodity—my time—especially during those terrible hours in Obs. They took everything from me: light, space, comfort, my clothes, my name. We weren’t allowed to dance, sing, or even hum. I had no canvas to paint, no clay to sculpt, no way to write, sketch, sew, collage—nothing.

But they couldn’t take the core of who I am as a person.

As a creative.

My mind was my medium. Within myself, I had unlimited supplies of rhythm, color, and style. No rules. No limitations. No laws of gravity or physics.

I created a future world, a future self, a future life without boundaries.

That’s how I survived while so many other kids were just gone. Checked out. Someone was always screaming in a straitjacket or confined on suicide watch. Some ex-footballer orderly was always staring at me with his disconnected stare. Every time I ended up in Obs, I was terrified I’d come out like one of the zombie kids—lights on, nobody home—or like the soul-dead staff who were too jaded to feel anything.

I tried not to think about my family. I missed Nicky’s voice and her commonsense take on everything. I was afraid my little brothers wouldn’t even remember me. When I thought about my parents, I felt so deeply angry I hardly recognized myself. I didn’t know it was possible to simultaneously love and hate someone as hard as I loved and hated my parents while I was huddled on that cement floor, freezing, starving, feeling chunks of my soul slip down the drain hole.

I focused on my inner empire.

What I would create. Who I would become.

My life after Provo would be everything. Instead of numbered sweats, I’d curate a designer wardrobe and never wear the same outfit twice. Instead of bloodshot eyes and a bruised face, I’d have lush fake lashes, a seamless spray tan, and a touch of glitter on my cheekbones. Instead of shame, I would wrap myself in audacity, and I would make so much money and be so successful, no one could ever have control over me again. Fuck trust. Fuck entitlement. Fuck inheritance. I would never take another dime from my parents. My belongings, my well-being, and my body would belong to me and me alone.

I kept my eyes on that small keyhole of light: February 17, 1999. My eighteenth birthday. Legally, I’d be an adult. More important: I’d be free.

Mom says I was at Provo Canyon School for eleven months: spring 1998 until January 1999. I know I was there that Christmas, because my family was allowed to visit, and my father shot some awkward home videos.

“Here’s Starry’s room,” he says on the grainy film, working hard to sound like everything is okay. My little brother darts past the camera, bored silly, the only one honest enough to say he just wants to get the hell out of there.