Smackdown: Opium vs. Heroin in the Arts
Okay, so it’s pretty obvious that tortured artists throughout the ages have found no shortage of inspiration from opiates and their many synthetic offspring. (“Mr. Brownstone,” anyone?) Well, now a new...
View ArticleIn Defense of Sucky Axl Rose
Not-So-Hot In Cleveland: Guns N' Roses, sans Axl, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Tortured artists have a long and ambivalent relationship with peer recognition. They secretly want to be liked, of...
View ArticleTotally Real Tweets By Famous People
Yesterday, I came across a few tweets about Tortured Artists from some pretty high-profile creative types. I’m so thrilled. The only problem is, I think J.K. Rowling is stalking me. Really, J.K.? Six...
View ArticleThere Will Be Amy Winehouse’s Blood
Ladylike, a painting created with Amy Winehouse’s blood, sold for $56K this weekend Pink Floyd equated “bleeding hearts and artists” more than thirty years ago, and apparently they were on to...
View ArticleHumpday With Quasimodo
Theater lovers, I hope you can come out to 59E59 Theaters next week for my pre-show Q&A with the radio psychologist Joy Browne from WOR. The theater was kind enough to ask me to talk about Tortured...
View ArticleIs Pop Music Getting Sadder?
A new study released by the American Psychological Association is challenging conventional wisdom on the unremitting suckiness of pop music. The study, which was published in the journal Psychology of...
View ArticleFather’s Day Doesn’t Have to Be Torture
So Dad’s not much of a reader, you say? Well, before you run out to get him yet another set of golf balls (and pray that he doesn’t notice you got him the same thing last year), why not introduce the...
View ArticleThe Cult of the 27 Club
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse all died at the age of 27. Their legacies are part of a dubious mythology known as the 27 Club. My article on The Huffington...
View ArticleOn This Day in Tortured Artists History
Bigger Than Jesus: a shrine at Japan’s now-defunct John Lennon Museum On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot to death outside the Dakota apartment building on New York’s Upper West Side. Lennon’s...
View ArticleSeason’s Broodings
Folks, if you’re still looking for the perfect gift for that temperamental artist in your life, don’t settle for another Bob Ross DVD box set. Stop by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite indie...
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