I’m not certain artists ever get to be themselves when they perform

I never cared much for the late Rush Limbaugh. I didn’t know him in person, of course, so when I say that, I’m really saying that I didn’t like his performance persona.

I thought he was pompous and arrogant. He was overconfident and seemed to think he knew everything.

But I heard an interview Sunday with producer James Gordon — known on Limbaugh’s show as “Bo Snerdley” — that made me realize I hadn’t been evaluating a real person. Gordon worked with Limbaugh for three decades as a producer and call-screener — and he saw the man as something very different than the one on the radio.

Gordon described Limbaugh as humble and eager to help others. He told a story about Limbaugh giving him $5,000 early in their association, when Gordon was deeply in debt. The man he described sounded nothing like the bombastic personality that Limbaugh presented on the air.

And something clicked with me, maybe because it addressed something I’ve been wrestling with for myself. Limbaugh was playing a role for his audience. He was successful because of the public persona. He entertained his audience. In fact, I realized that he couldn’t have been the ultra-successful performer he was if he had shown his true self to the audience.

And that made me wonder — probably for the first time — whether someone performing for the public must play a role for the audience. Maybe he can’t be his real self.

Does this suggest that I need to play a role if I’m to be successful in the ways I’d like? Does it mean I need to invent a persona for myself — and save the “real” side of me for my family and friends?

Let me explain why I’ve been wrestling with this issue.

When I first starting writing for the public, I was giving a certain audience what it wanted. As my audience grew, I knew what I was doing. I was pandering to what a certain group of people wanted to read, politically and socially. The more I did that, the bigger the audience grew. And the more successful I saw myself getting.

But about seven or eight years ago, I changed directions entirely. I mostly quit writing about anything political. Instead, I got very honest about myself and what I experienced in life. I talked about how growing up in a dysfunctional family had affected me. I talked about love and loss and loneliness. I talked about my fears and needs.

As I did that, I think my writing got better. I no longer felt as though I was throwing out red meat to an audience. I was no longer preaching to my choir. I was asking people to think and feel and deal with some uncomfortable things.

This wasn’t a grand plan. I was simply going through something unhappy in my life. I had lost a love and I felt lost. Then I found another love and lost her. I was like a ship tossed about on an ocean storm. And I wanted to write about what I felt. What I was going through.

I’ve done some of the best writing of my life during that period. I’ve written some things which have connected with certain people. I’ve gotten emails and phone calls from people telling me how I’ve changed their lives.

But I’ve had a tiny audience. Even though I believe in what I’ve been writing, it’s not something most people want to read.

I’ve started to wonder lately if I can’t really make a living by writing what I want to write — by being myself. For years now, I have been very public with who I was and with things which most people hide from everybody. And even though some people care a lot about that, my overall audience is a tiny fraction of what it used to be.

I’ve been thinking lately that I need to make a change again. I’ve been thinking that I need to define the audience which might connect with the ways in which I know I can “honestly pander” to them. Maybe it’s time to stop being myself so openly. Maybe it’s time to give an audience what it wants instead.

Maybe that’s my only real chance at making a living through media.

After I listened to the interview with Limbaugh’s long-time producer, I found some of Limbaugh’s old airchecks from the early 1970s. He was a DJ at a station in Pittsburgh — using the name Jeff Christy — and he was good at his job, but he sounded just like pretty much every other DJ at the time.

It seems as though he didn’t really take off — as a successful media figure and political influencer — until he invented a specific role to fill. I’m sure bits and pieces of the persona were real, but it seems clear he was playing a persona that he invented.

I don’t want to be a radio personality such as Rush Limbaugh. Frankly, I’m not sure I have it in me — and I don’t have a couple of decades to hone the craft of radio, as he did before he became what we knew him as.

But Limbaugh was performing a role that millions of conservatives wanted to hear at the time. He became a very wealthy man by giving them what they wanted.

Maybe I need to leave behind what I’ve been doing for the last seven or eight years. Maybe I need to figure out how to give an audience something it wants — something which is consistent with some part of me.

But I’ve been writing and making content that I wanted. Maybe it’s time for me to find the words and the messages that a specific audience needs to hear. Maybe that’s the path to success for me.

The last seven years or so have been a nightmare for me, personally. I’ve never been as unhappy as I’ve been. I’ve never been as emotionally needy or even defeated at times. And though there might be a small group who can identify with that — and get some help from it — that doesn’t seem to be a path that will make me successful.

I would love to be successful by simply showing people the best and worst of who I am, but there doesn’t seem to be much of an audience for that.

Maybe it’s time for me to invent a new role for myself. Maybe it’s time for me to give people what they want to hear. Maybe that’s the best any artist can do — if he doesn’t want to be miserable and starve.