the building of a brand
Both my regular readers will know I’m no fan of the vacuous, banal, modern-day Rasputin, Russell Brand, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his recent absence from both silver & small screen. I’ve been hoping that it had finally dawned on the self-publicist that he had nothing of value to impart on the worlds of politics, comedy, marital bliss and society at large. But no, just when you think you’ve heard the last of him, up he pops again with, surprise-surprise, another book to promote!
Having settled down to the good-life in the country, Russell’s had a baby, freed himself of addictions and, having urged the yoof-of-the-day not to vote in both 2015 general election and 2016 referendum, has kindly walked away from the political maelstrom he helped create, claiming that politics gets in the way of his individual spiritual awakening. Thanks, Russ, way to go.
So, it’ll come as a bit of a surprise that, the more I read of late, the more I thought he might actually have something to say, and perhaps at least something worth listening to. Deep down, I’m a fan of activism, and for all his faults, I can’t complain that Russell Brand has been nothing but involved. It was the quality of this involvement, and his off-the-cuff pronouncements, I had an issue with: Don’t like capitalism? Well, demolish big organisations. Not happy with bills? No worries, he’ll abolish personal debt. Under pressure from Evan Davis’s questions? Ah, you don’t trust the BBC, Russ. Stressed? Yogic meditation will be compulsory. And then he informed us he can’t “get his head around economics”. No sh*t, Sherlock.
As it turns out he’s not really been away, just slightly off my non-social radar. The Trews, his political YouTube channel, and podcast Under The Skin are both compelling and thought-provoking, and, horror of horrors, he allows those with more to say on any given political, commercial and social subject, to do just that. Yes, he still butts in too much but there’s definitely a move in the right direction. And when he talks about such subjects where his personal experience & wisdom are undeniable, then there are some nuggets to be had.
His new book, ‘Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions’ is Brand’s take on Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 Steps to Recovery, and having already been applied to all manner of addictions over the years, he writes about them in his own (thankfully) inimitable style and with a relevance to today’s addictions. “Are you a bit f*cked?” and “Do you want to stop it? Seriously?” he asks, bringing a relevance to the first world problems of mobile phone use, social media obsession, constant connection, virtual friendship, dating, porn, sex, food, retail therapy and conspicuous consumption. His belief is that addictions are just patterns of behaviour and, one way or another, and to varying degrees, we all have those. Believing that we’re approaching peak consumption, Brand highlights the impulsive, immediate gratification of a ‘like’, a ‘heart’ and the serotonin hit of an ebay win, and eventually questions (as we all do at some point in time) ‘what’s it all about, Alfie?’ His personal spin on the meaning of life is termed, as it had to be, the Big Idea.
Mind, on balance, I still think he’s done rather more harm than good and, with an admitted level of schadenfreude, I can’t help think that some spunky ‘alternative’ comedian is going to give him a call in twenty years and leave a foul-mouthed rant about the apple of his eye, his daughter Mabel, whose privacy he rightly guards like the proverbial hawk. What goes around…
