Dramatic Acting, Rock & Roll, and Heroin: Lou Reed, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain

Examining the neural basis of dramatic acting. While all people play multiple roles in daily life—for example, ‘spouse' or ‘employee'—these roles are all facets of the ‘self' and thus of the first-person perspective. Compared to such everyday role playing, actors are required to portray other people and to adopt their gestures, emotions and behaviours. Consequently, actors must think and behave not as themselves but as the characters they are pretending to be, by assuming a ‘fictional first-person' perspective. Through a series of functional MRI studies, we sought to identify brain regions preferentially activated when actors adopt a Fic1P perspective during dramatic role playing. Compared to responding as oneself, responding in character produced visible reductions in brain activity and deactivations in the cortical midline network of the frontal lobe. Thus, portraying a character through acting seems to be a deactivation-driven process, perhaps representing a ‘loss of self'. Dramatic acting is the process of portraying a character in the context of a theatrical performance. However, theatre is not the only context in which role playing occurs in human life. Acting can be thought of as a form of pretence, in particular the act of pretending to be someone who the actor is not. This idea is central to the acting method derived from the writings of Stanislavski that dominates the teaching and practice of acting in North America. Despite the central importance of role playing to social interaction, the topic of role playing has scarcely been examined in experimental psychology or cognitive neuroscience. Instead, there is a large literature devoted to the perceptual phenomenon of theory-of-mind, which is the process of inferring the intentions, thoughts and emotions of other people. It is about decoding the intentions of others, and displaying those intentions to people in the context of a theatrical performance.

In a general sense, acting methods can be polarized along the lines of being either ‘outside-in' or ‘inside-out', although these approaches are thought of by most acting theorists as complementary methods for getting into character. Outside-in approaches are gestural methods that emphasize the physical and expressive techniques of the actor. In contrast to this, inside-out approaches are psychological methods that rely on perspective-taking and identification with the character. The Stanislavski's approach is strongly oriented towards interpreting the motivations and emotions of the character and in using this information as a means for identifying with the character. Actors appear to be living through the performance as if the events were happening to them. Achieving this can involve a large degree of 3P perspective-taking with the character. However, it is important to keep in mind that, while the process of assuming a 3P perspective on a character may be a central part of the preparatory phrase of learning a role, it should not, according to Stanislavski's method, be an active process during a performance itself. The commonly understood goal of method acting is for the actor to ‘become' the character in performance. The principal objective of the current study was to examine dramatic acting for the first time using functional neuroimaging methods. The imaging results showed that acting led to deactivations in brain areas involved in self processing. This might suggest that acting, as neurocognitive phenomenon, is a suppression of self processing. The major increase in activation associated with role change was seen in the posterior part of the precuneus. If so, then the deactivations seen in the prefrontal cortex for acting would represent a loss of self processing related to a trait-based conception of the self.

The more that someone portrays another person, the fewer the resources there are to devote to him/herself. Certain entertainers, such as ventriloquists, rapidly switch between the self and a character within the time frame of a dialogue. Regardless of whether the relative increase in activation for the precuneus for acting was due to a decrease in deactivation the question we have to address is what processes activate the precuneus. The precuneus is a component of the dorsal attentional network of the brain, a network that is involved in functions such as attentional orienting, episodic retrieval and mental imagery. It is telling to point out that acting theorists for over a century have talked about the ‘split consciousness' involved in the process of acting. The actor has to be himself and someone else at the same time, and this could lead to a splitting of attentional resources devoted to the focalization of attention and consciousness. This is not simply the ‘divided attention' of multi-tasking procedures, but a fundamental split of resources devoted to a maintenance of one's identity as a conscious self. According to this interpretation, activation of the precuneus would represent a dispersion of self-related attentional resources, whereas deactivation would represent a focalization or internalization of such resources. Neither gestural modification in the form of a foreign accent nor other-orientation in the form of 3P mentalizing had an influence on this neural mechanism, whereas the explicit psychological process of role change through character portrayal did, perhaps resulting in the double consciousness that acting theorists talk about. Again, acting was the only condition in which self-identity was explicitly split during the task. We argued that the loss of deactivation in the precuneus for acting might represent a departure from a unified and focalized sense of consciousness, towards the dual consciousness that typically characterizes dramatic acting. The most surprising finding of the study was that gestural changes while still maintaining the self-identity led to a pattern of deactivations similar to that for acting. This study was approved by the Hamilton Integrated Research Ethics Board, St Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton (protocol no. 10-3457). Source: royalsocietypublishing.org

Although we have slowly come to recognize the opioid epidemic as the Western world’s most perilous health crisis, things are getting worse. The National Safety Council recently reported that opioid addiction has become so pervasive that Americans are now more likely to die from an opioid overdose than an automobile accident. As history has demonstrated resoundingly, The Beatles were no strangers to drug experimentation. They had become veteran pill-poppers during their days in Hamburg’s seedy postwar clubs, seeking out amphetamines to increase their stamina during those long nights on the Reeperbahn. Later, marijuana would come into their lives by way of Bob Dylan in August 1964. In the coming years, they would make international headlines for tripping out on LSD, and in the summer of 1968, as the Beatles had toiled in the studio to record The White Album, they would engage in an extended dalliance with cocaine.

However, Lennon’s addiction left his bandmates in a state of alarm. By the advent of the "Get Back" sessions, Yoko Ono openly joked about taking heroin being the couple’s form of exercise. “The two of them were on heroin,” said McCartney, “and this was a fairly big shocker for us because we all thought we were far-out boys, but we kind of understood that we’d never get quite that far out.” Lennon later claimed that the couple’s addiction developed in the wake of a hashish raid on his Montagu Square flat by Detective-Sergeant Norman Pilcher’s notorious drugs squad. Lennon attributed Ono’s mid-November 1968 miscarriage to the raid’s aftermath, later remarking that “we were in real pain” after the loss of their baby. Yet at other times, he would attribute his flirtation with heroin to his bandmates’ refusal to accept Ono as their equal. But in truth, Lennon’s experimentation with the drug had begun much earlier—“I never injected,” he liked to say. “Just sniffing, you know.” But as journalist Ray Connolly observed, Lennon “rarely did anything he liked by halves. Before long, heroin would become a problem for him.”


When the Beatles finally got to the business of recording "Abbey Road," Lennon’s participation was delayed by a harrowing automobile accident in Scotland that left him and Ono briefly hospitalized and riddled with stitches. When he finally joined the other Beatles towards mid-July, he had a bed from Harrods installed in the studio to allow Ono to convalesce within easy reach. Lennon’s mood swings and absenteeism—the ups and downs of his erratic behavior—were likely the result of their protracted heroin use. As music historian Barry Miles later wrote, “The other Beatles had to walk on eggshells just to avoid one of his explosive rages. Whereas in the old days they could have tackled him about the strain that Yoko’s presence put on recording, now it was impossible because John was in such an unpredictable state and so obviously in pain.” Years later, American actor Dan Richter, a friend of Ono’s, recalled making his way inside EMI Studios to provide Ono with the Lennons’ latest fix. “It felt weird to be sitting on the bed talking to Yoko while the Beatles were working across the studio,” said Richter. “We wouldn’t kick it in a hospital because we wouldn’t let anybody know,” said Ono. “We just went straight cold turkey.” Lennon reportedly ordered Ono to tie him up to a chair. For some 36 hours, he roiled in pain as he attempted to rid the drug from his system.

In an effort to memorialize his recent experience trying to shake his heroin addiction, Lennon composed “Cold Turkey,” a song that illustrated the excruciating throes of heroin withdrawal in brutal detail: “My feet are so heavy / So is my head / I wish I was a baby / I wish I was dead.” But the composer’s triumph over the drug would be dishearteningly short-lived. By the time he debuted the song for Bob Dylan a few days later, he was snorting heroin yet again. It would take several more attempts for Lennon to beat the drug. In September 1980, he lamented that back in 1969 the BBC banned “Cold Turkey” from the radio airwaves “even though it's antidrug.” Even then—long before our contemporary opioid crisis took flight—Lennon intuited society’s inability to understand, much less combat addiction. “They’re so stupid about drugs,” he exclaimed. “They’re not looking at the cause of the drug problem: Why do people take drugs? To escape from what? Is life so terrible? Are we living in such a terrible situation that we can’t do anything without reinforcement of alcohol, tobacco? Aspirins, sleeping pills, uppers, downers, never mind the heroin and cocaine—they’re just the outer fringes of Librium and speed.” Source: www.salon.com

Kurt Cobain was probably the last rock star when rock music actually mattered as a cultural force. Cobain was the last rock star who (unwittingly) embodied all the profound contradictions of The Rock Star mythology as we know it. He was good-looking, a delicate soul, with an ear for melody and gift for crafting lyrics in a singular way, who both embraced and rejected much of the mythology of rock and roll. He wanted it, and he hated it. He had a great voice and he wasn't afraid to use it to express his inner anguish. Beyond that, he seemed a confused, retiring, angry kid who never got over his parents' divorce and their subsequent (perceived) rejection of him as a teenager. That feeling of rejection uniquely informed his character, and people really latched onto it. Cobain redefined what "rock star" could mean, and all of a sudden a rock star meant someone like him, so a rock star could be an anti-star. This contradiction has stayed with us ever since. Cobain wrote that he first had used heroin in Aberdeen in the late eighties; but former friends contest this, since he had a fear of needles at the time and there was no heroin to be found in his circle. He did occasionally take Percodan in Aberdeen, a prescription narcotic.

In early November 1990, he overcame his fear of needles and first injected heroin with a friend in Olympia, after his break-up with his first official girlfriend Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill. He found that the drug’s euphoric effects helped him temporarily escape both his heartache and his stomach pain. The next day, Kurt phoned Krist Novoselic. “Hey, Krist, I did heroin.” Krist cited his Olympia friends who had died of heroin addiction and warned Kurt that heroin wasn’t like the other drugs he’d done. “I remember literally telling him that he was playing with dynamite.” But the warning fell on deaf ears. Though Kurt promised Krist he wouldn’t try the drug again, he broke this promise. To avoid Krist’s or Grohl’s finding out, Kurt used the drug at friends’ houses. He found a dealer who was selling at Evergreen State College in Olympia. On December 11, 1990, Kurt sought medical help for his stomach condition, seeing a doctor in Tacoma. This time Kurt was prescribed Lidox, a form of clidinium. The drug didn’t seem to help his pain, and he discontinued it two weeks later when he got bronchitis. The year ended with a New Year’s Eve show in Portland at the Satyricon. According to his biographer Christopher Sandford, who painted an unflattering portrait of the grunge superstar: “Cobain was easily led, self-obsessed, and he lacked anything resembling an ethical centre. Cobain was also sick with a bipolar disorder resulting in alternate bouts of depression and mania. In certain circles, pain is thought to equal integrity; in other circles, pain is mistaken for art.”

On the 25th anniversary of his death comes a new perspective on Kurt Cobain. With candor, honesty and empathy, Danny Goldberg, one of Nirvana’s managers from 1990 to 1994, shares his memories of his brief but momentous time with Kurt in Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain. When Goldberg agreed to take on Nirvana, he had no idea that Cobain would become a pop-culture icon with a legacy arguably at the level of that of John Lennon or Elvis Presley. Kurt’s public struggles with addiction ended in a devastating suicide that would alter the course of rock history. Drawing on Goldberg’s own memories of Kurt, files that previously have not been made public, and interviews with Kurt’s close family, friends, and former bandmates, Serving the Servant sheds an entirely new light on these critical years. Casting aside the common obsession with the angst and depression that seemingly drove Kurt, Goldberg's account is an exploration of his compassion, his ambition, and the legacy he wrought. “Media depictions of Kurt typically focus on the tragedy of his death. While it is impossible to ignore the inner demons which tormented him, in researching Serving the Servant I have been more often reminded of Kurt’s brilliance, his sense of humour and his kindness to most of those around him. He was so complex, but I hope I am able to add another dimension to Kurt’s legacy.” Source: www.rollingstone.com

Lou Reed was one of the most intelligent Rock musicians, a sardonic, world-weary chronicler of underground culture and the dark side of human nature. Lewis Allan Rudnitsky, the accountant’s son from Long Island, brough to light a fertile schizophrenia fueled by a restless creative energy. Reed was able to intermingle the contradictory aspects of his personality—downtown bohemian and middle class intellectual—into a complex and controversial figure that combined poetry with rock ’n’ roll. One quick story serves as a paradigm of his self-destructive impulses. In the autumn of 1963, when Reed was 21, he drove to St Lawrence University in upstate New York with his college band The Eldorados to perform at a fraternity weekend. His bandmate Richard Mishkin and Reed had a quarrel before the concert. ‘Mishkin, fuck you!’ an exasperated Reed retorted, thrusting his right hand through a glass door. Lou laughed as he looked at the injury he had done to himself, blood streaming down his arm as he held his hand up. ‘Because he didn’t have to play now,’ explains Richard, who took Lou to hospital for stitches, ‘He had won!’ As he would show time and again, Lou would rather harm himself than be coerced into doing anything he didn’t want to. Such integrity is a mark of a true artist. It also helps explain why Lou never achieved as much success as he deserved.

Shelley Albin was intrigued by Lou Reed from the start. ‘I knew from the second I met him this wasn’t an ordinary person.’ One of the first things he told her was the story of his Electroshock Therapy. ‘That was like his introductory bit. “This horrible thing happened to me… I’m tortured, and I don’t have any memory, and I’m a little weird, and just a little dangerous.”’ Lou Reed had an active heterosexual life in college and afterwards, so much so that former girlfriends like Shelley struggle to see him as bisexual or gay. ‘I never thought of him as being gay at all, or even bisexual.’ Rather, it seemed to Shelley, and women who came after her, that Lou flirted with homosexuality to create an image and get a reaction. ‘He always walked in a very effeminate way, but that was a very studied thing, like a joke,’ Shelley says. A former Lou's college friend, Richard Sigal, opines: "Lou Reed ended up getting married three times. So he obviously liked women." Lou's parents were evidently pleased that he had brought Shelley home. His father increased his allowance so Lou could take her out, and offered the couple the use of the family car. They dated as a couple on/off at Syracuse and afterwards, but Shelley chose not to take things further. ‘He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t just pick up again. He was really pissed at me for twenty years.’ She had decided that Lou was not the man she wanted to spend her life with, marry, or have children with. Lou never had children, and Shelley thinks that was wise. ‘I think he toyed with the idea of having a child by then, he brought the issue up [in the early 60s]’ Shelley says, but she decided that someone who couldn’t even look after himself was not the fatherly type.

Lou seemed to remain infatuated with Shelley, never wanting to understand why she'd left him. As late as the 1980s, when he was middle-aged and famous, he was still phoning her, maybe trying to win her back again, and asking her advice about his imminent wedding to Sylvia Morales. Despite his evident fascination with gay life, Lou’s relationships had been primarily and possibly exclusive with girls during the 60s. One of his conquests was the future journalist Barbara Hodes. Soon after his break-up with Shelley he started to date Erin Clermont, a likeable, gamine girl with an infectious sense of fun who also attended Delmore Schwartz’s classes. They were going to have an unusually long relationship, lasting until the early 1990s. Sylvia didn't know of their clandestine affair, Erin believes: ‘From the day I met him I accepted him as this complicated, different guy,’ says Erin, who told Shelley as soon as she had slept with Lou. The girls remained friends, often discussing Lou, who fascinated them both. Although Shelley knew him first, Erin maintained the longest relationship. ‘I was eternally interested in him, not in love with him, although we did love each other. There were periods when he gave me the impression of having little or no interest in sex.’ Although no longer an item, Lou and Shelley remained in touch, and she says that he had ‘really got heavy into heroin’ around the spring of 1964. In his final months at Syracuse, Lou wrote ‘Heroin’, describing what it feels like to inject and get high on heroin in language that is convincing, thrilling and scary.

The tension between Lou and Nico had eased briefly after they slept together. ‘I fell in love with him. He was so beautiful, and very tough, tough like a statue,’ was how Nico explained her feelings for Lou. Nico was a fabulist and spoke English ponderously with a heavy German accent. ‘I thought Lou was in love with her,’ says Richard Mishkin. ‘Lou was just completely stunned by her, and could never quite figure what was going on.’ Despite the fact that Nico was sleeping with Lou and had a child by Alain Delon, a rumour swept The Factory that she was a lesbian. Mary Woronov had designs on Lou and disliked Nico. Brigid Berlin from The Factory said: ‘Lou was a very strange person. I had a lot of fun with him, but he had a cranky side. Lou had an act going all the time.’ In his struggle to conquer his bad habits, Lou became depressed and was diagnosed as suffering with bipolar disorder. On 3 June 1980 Lou visited Erin Clermont to tell her about the diagnosis, adding that he was taking Lithium for his problem. Lithium salts have been used since the 19th century as a treatment for depression and manic behaviour, but overuse can result in lethargy and serious side effects. From what Erin could see, lithium ‘completely fucked him up.’


Talking about Like a Possum and its similar structure to Sister Ray, Reed explained: ‘It’s like watching a really good movie. You know it isn’t real. But at a certain point, if it’s really done well, you feel you’re there.’ ‘His paranoia sucks the life out of you,’ groaned a writer for The Times after a typically frustrating encounter with Lou in 2012. Lou Reed had no patience for journalists who asked him questions he had been asked too often. His crustiness was, to some extent, the carapace of an insecure, emotionally fragile man who was seldom at ease with journalists, distrusting their motives. Never a great interviewee like Bob Dylan or John Lennon, Lou Reed once said: ‘I get nervous about interviews.’ Also Reed admitted: ‘I wanted to be an actor. That was my real goal. But I wasn't any good at it, so I wrote my own material and acted through that. That's my idea of fun. I get to be all these things in my songs.’ As Lou's sister Bunny wrote: ‘In his heart, my brother was a profoundly good, moral person.’ —"The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed" (2009) by Dave Thompson