Book Review: Boy George’s Karma

Being Over 60

Being over 60 isn’t easy, even when you’re Boy George. Maybe I should say, especially when you are. But I have to say, having finished his memoir Karma, that he builds up your optimism for living life fully, for being true to your impulses, even the bad ones, and to sticking around to see the ending.

The day-glow rainbow of the cover art of the book says it all: George, despite doing hard time in prison and a descent into heroin addiction and a brush with bankruptcy is … still charming, and, from the cover picture, still handsome … at 62.

The Voice of Boy George

Perhaps it’s because I listened to the singer-song writer (born George O’Dowd) read this book on Hoopla, or because I have only a little background on the British 80’s punk rock and New Wave scenes. But my understanding of Boy George’s third memoir was a little different than reviews in Billboard and The Guardian. Those reviews hewed close to the singer-songwriter’s feud with Janet Jackson, his shrill complaints that Tina Turner wasn’t “nice” to him.

That wasn’t what stuck out to me. What I noticed was how he described his South East London home life, his father loved by everyone but terrorizing his mother. The teachers who made homophobic jokes. The fact that “Teddy Boys,” usually content to fight with each other, were ever ready to jump the queer kid who dressed so much like a girl that he confused people. His zen habits, his meditation, and more than anything else … his belief in the future were energizing. Not to mention his accent.

Who Would Really Want to Hurt Him?

I remember how confusing his “look” was to me back in the 80’s when singing “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.” He just looked like a really androgynous girl to me but there was something about the shape of his head that said “guy.” And his hair … it was problematic. His music was good though, and once the situation was explained, I decided that cross dressing was only mildly interesting to me personally. But the personality that crackles and sings in this memoir, and probably in song lyrics and earlier memoirs, might be where George’s real charm lies.

George writes about the homophobia he faced when he was first a star. “We were cancelled from kid’s TV shows, while I was mobbed in the street.” There was so much “homophobic  pearl clutching … The kind of response that now they save for drag queens reading books to kids at the library.” George turns philosophical then. “No kid turns gay because a drag queen reads them a story.”

90’s Tabloid Fare

The 80’s passed into the 90’s, and in those days I saw a picture of George in the Toronto Sun, doing community service, picking up trash which was related to some drug or drinking infraction, and saying “f you” to photographers who were trying to document his misfortune. I liked him better then. He seemed to have a lot of dignity, doing his time, not complaining.

George’s voice is staccato, and self contradictory, finding it hard to stay on point, and then. He talks about astrology, he talks about your moon sign. I looked up my moon sign. It’s the same as Boy George’s. I’m a cancer moon. Apparently that’s like double emotionalism because cancer is the zodiac sign for the moon and the moon is the emotion center of your zodiac workup. So, if you have cancer Moon, your emotions are just so big. They’re almost unmanageable.

Outsize Emotions

That might be part of my problem. It could be a coincidence. But just this year, I’ve been having to accept that my emotions are outsize, huge, and not really always understandable to others. Maybe George has that too. He said something of the sort in the book.

Boy George writes of his affair with Jon Wells, the bisexual drummer in Culture Club. He is not sure, to this day, if Jon really loved him at all … or was Jon just opportunistic. He wonders: Did the new fame ruin B.G.’s love affair with Jon? Or maybe, “we didn’t need any help” with ruining the affair.

These Two Had Not Read Erich Fromm’s Art of Love

Jon wanted to be a rock star with all the privileges. George says Jon became less touchy in public and was confused about a lot of things while George was straight up sure. “Only closeted gay writers ever asked me if I was gay, everyone else knew. I’d been out since I was 15, I was gay as any day in May,” George reflected.

But Jon wasn’t sure, Jon had had a girlfriend and in the end he had kids. The story of fighting with Jon Wells in the hotel room with orange bedspreads and no shade on the light bulb is classic … “things got uglier, we got physical … which happened often … “

Where is the band during all this?

Everyone is the One Person You Should Not Get Involved With

George says he should have walked away from the relationship with Jon, and what’s more, “I should have walked away from every relationship I’ve ever been in, but I never leave, I’m a masso, just like Mom … we all had our own struggles with fame. We had the world at our feet but the emotional capacity of sea sponges.”

Now we’re in familiar territory. George admits that he has some former lovers who he’s on better terms than others.

George’s details about the difficulties of touring are incisive. “There were some hilarious moments. We arrived in Holland and they had created a set to look like a hospital… there were brains in jars and they were pumping … it was cheesy and very uncool. I said “no” right away…. ” He blames his weight gain on ever-more expensive banquets thrown by record companies, and says, “perhaps I was born for addiction.”

Born for Addiction?

And heroin addiction ultimately began getting worse. “The press was on to me … there was a 50,000 pound bounty on my head. There were stories about my dramatic mood swings and my erratic behavior in shops. Our last album came out and only hit #10 and then it dropped to 27 … ” Things were bad.

I know what’s next. Crash. Burn. Redemption. The part of the book I guess I have been waiting for.

Helped into recover by friends, George begins the torturous way back to what, for him, passes for normality, but … he gets into trouble.

The Male Escort Mess

This is in context with his treatment of a male escort who claims that Boy George handcuffed him and beat him with a chain. George denies the story and it does sound like a lot but the fact is the escort ran down the street in his underwear wearing handcuffs and the jury sent George to prison for 15 months for assault, though he was paroled in only 4.

(Not one reviewer I’ve read has suggested that this is the very kind of thing that kinky sex types should be worried about when they get the chains and costumes out. I mean, what if someone gets offended? Really offended? Who’s to say what happened, there’s no one there but the two of you.)

Prison isn’t as bad in retrospect as it was as it was happening. And like so many things in life, the stories are better than the experience. A Muslim prisoner refuses to sleep in the cell with George. He drags his bedding into the hallway and curls up with his hands over his groin to prevent anticipated marauding.

Man’s Extremity is God’s Opportunity

George secures a coveted spot in the jobs rotation working in the prison kitchen. He says if you can convince them you’re sane enough to handle knives you’ve got it going on. A friend sends a priest to visit him and he appreciates it. He says “after all I am Catholic.” I think to myself that this is true no matter how far down you’ve gone, the priests are always to be found.

The second half of the book includes philosophical ramblings in case you’re looking for clues on how to make the second half of your life better than the first. George talks about being a celebrity after the first glow has passed. How do you make it work?

His notes on fashion, interspersed throughout, are inspirational. His signature, apparently, is the hat. George admits that he’s had three hair transplants and new teeth. He has no regrets about all that, or the tummy tuck. His attitude, and one I share, is “middle age is what you make of it, if you have the resources to look better and you don’t use them, I don’t know why.”

We Worry About Weight

But then, George and I share a lot of thoughts. Worrying about weight, thinking about eating or not eating, being a vegan or vegetarian and not holding to that perfectly …Yoga and handsome men are always a distraction. Boy George in middle age is maybe like a lot of people. But more honest than some.

His sniping at Madonna and several other A-list celebs seems a little catty — well, the whole book could be described as catty, so maybe “escalated catty” — and yet the reader is left wondering: who is to blame for all this? BG is, no doubt, simply telling the things other people keep under their hats.

A Death in the Family

The story of the death of BG’s mum is touching and I valued that, especially since I’ve written about the death of my father. His mum died fairly recently, and it seems that she carried on successfully for quite a which after the death of her ex-husband, BG’s dad, who had ran off with another woman sometime after the “kids” left home. His Dad died in 2004 and the funeral was (my interpretation, and possibly my personal projection here) painful for Dad O’Dowd’s five kids. The new wife controlled everything and didn’t make them feel like they were part of the ceremony. My own dad’s funeral was alienating… my stepmother only put up pictures of him after they were married. Not of him when he was young, and certainly only a couple of us with him.

I’m A Celebrity

The section of the book on his stint in “I’m a Celebrity” is pretty funny. Especially if you always wanted to know what it’s like to be on one of those Survivor type reality shows. George wakes up in the bush sleeping on a damp mattress in a damp sleeping bag and there’s a glowing red eye in the darkness outside. They’re filming him while he sleeps. A politician who’s on the show with him gets bit in the hand by a scorpion in the middle of the night. George suspects the handlers of planting the scorpion and then filming.

His mantras and meditations get him through the jungle heat and the spiders and cockroaches that are dumped on him from above as he tries to reach past a snake in a hole during a challenge. Voted off 4th out of 11 contestants, George says he was only happy to escape. It was a job, he did the job, and that’s it. His attitude reminds me of the mien I saw in him in the 90’s when the Toronto Star was trying to humiliate him. He kept his dignity. He knew, from the beginning, who he was.

A Book on Self Acceptance

The book jacket description highlights this theme: “For those seeking books on self-acceptance and recovery from addiction, Karma stands as an example of the transformative power of embracing one’s true self.”

George continues writing music, and, it would appear, he helps other acts get a start in the industry, owning a record label and dispensing advice. George tells the reader that he always wanted to be “sexy at 60” and if you look at his pictures, I would say he’s one who might be said to have greater appeal in his older form. I can only say I much prefer him with a beard.

Honestly, that should give him some positive press in this blog, all by itself. 62 and still going strong. In February, he’ll begin starring in Moulin Rouge. in London. All I can say is: Go, Boy, Go!

A Brief Annotated Bibliography

Big Issue: The review claims “Boy George’s Memoir tells of Feuds So Tedious They’d Test the Patience of a Buddhist Monk“… This short review seems to suggest BG’s listing of slights and then turning-the-other check, magnanimously, is all an act … could be, I suppose, but then again, definitely not a recovery type, this reviewer.

Billboard: Boy George Will Never, Ever Be Friends with Janet Jackson … “The flamboyant, technicolor star who once sang “Don’t Talk About It” on his new wave group’s 1984 album Waking Up with the House on Fire definitely talks about it in the book out now.”

The Guardian calls Boy George Loud, Vainglorious, and Very Funny: “That it is all wildly discursive, spectacularly catty and occasionally quite mad merely confirms its authenticity.” This review comments productively on George’s retelling of his relationship with Jon Moss, his former bandmate and lover who was thrown out of Culture Club and with whom George landed in a lawsuit in 2018 … but calls the book’s report on George’s stint on “I’m a Celebrity” (a Survivor-type jungle challenge) in 2022 “tediously unnecessary” in detail … I disagreed.

People: A solid review that hits a lot (but not all) of the high points in the book: People’s reviewer carefully read the book and had the benefit, apparently, of a Q & A session with the star himself. Being People, the review doesn’t philosophize or cut too deeply, and keeps at least one eye on the other celebrities in the book at all times, but the images of BG accompanying this article are particularly good.