David Crosby Explains How He Became the ‘A–hole Twitter Deserves’
Veteran artist David Crosby has recalled how he discovered social media on his deathbed – and how he came to be labeled as “the a--hole Twitter deserves.”
The 75-year-old singer-songwriter has learned to take controversy in stride over the decades, with his most recent outbursts having extended the rifts between former colleagues Neil Young and Graham Nash.
Esquire last year branded him “the a--hole Twitter deserves” – but he doesn’t seem too bothered. Asked in a follow-up interview about his reaction, Crosby said, “I love to communicate with people. I’m fascinated by other humans. Some of the questions are dumb. ‘What was it really like at Woodstock?’ Well, f--, I can’t remember. I was stoned! I’m tired of having it asked. ‘Which comes first, the words or the music?’ I get a lot. Often, though, I’ll get something that’s really intelligent. I have fun with it. I love to talk to people.”
He was in the hospital in 1994 when he was introduced to an early digital communication channel created by the publishers of '60s counter-culture magazine Whole Earth Catalog via American author Steve Silberman. “I was ... waiting to die," he recalled. "They were trying to find me a liver and it was getting pretty grim.
“I was lying there terrified and lonely," he continued. "Steve said, ‘Come on here, this is how you do it.’ He turned me onto being online in the first place. Twitter and all these things I use now are a natural extension of coming out of that well. I’ll get something insightful and good, and that’s great. Then there are people who I just can’t resist taking a shot at. I’m trying to learn to work Facebook but it’s much more limited – you can’t respond quite the same way. I don’t get the same kind of buzz.”
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