This Crow won't Squawk!

Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz has some news for people who think he's self-centred.

He is.

Listen to Have You Seen Me Lately?, from the band's latest album, Recovering the Satellites. You'll probably get a chance to hear it live when the Counting Crows perform at the Jubilee Auditorium tomorrow night.

With lines like "These days I feel like I'm fading away, like sometimes when I hear myself on the radio," the song comes across as a rock star whining about being a rock star. It's one of those complaints, like "boy, I sure am stuffed from all that caviar" or "darn, my Porsche is in the shop again," that's more likely to elicit scorn than sympathy.

But at least he's honest about it.

"I'm very self-absorbed," the dreadlocked singer admits, on the phone from his home in Hollywood. "But that's my life. That's what I'm trying to do, to think and think and think about that and reflect upon it and express it. What's the point of being a songwriter who doesn't? Who cares about someone who doesn't care about themselves? If you're going to write songs about yourself, I imagine that you should put some thought into it. I hear a lot of personal songs by people who aren't self-absorbed. I think they're crap."

Duritz declines to give a specific example - "I won't diss anybody else. I'll tell you about people I like, but I don't think the public media is the place to say things about people you don't like. There's no need for it."

So he's self-absorbed and highly principled. It must take a lot of energy.

It makes sense that Counting Crows would come up with a song like Have You Seen Me Lately? The most noteworthy event in Duritz's recent history was becoming a celebrity, thanks to a catchy blast of pop called Mr. Jones. In early 1994, the song turned into one of those massive hits every songwriter dreams of - it's something Duritz says he wanted since he was a child - but the result was "crushing," he says. He learned the hard way that fame can be a burden.

"There was a time when I was very overwhelmed by it. The song is about how strange it is to feel like the thing that makes your dream come true and the thing that makes you appear to the world is also what makes you feel like you're sort of disappearing to yourself. I think I felt very much like I was slipping away. It didn't feel like, `wow, I'm everywhere.' It just felt kind of crappy.

"I think Mr. Jones, in a lot of ways, is about dreams, but there's a cautionary element to it. The guy keeps saying, `when everybody loves me, I'll never be lonely,' and you're supposed to realize that that is probably a mistake. It's a ridiculous statement."

One of the worst things about being famous, Duritz says, is how people become obsessed with more than just his music. The distinctive-looking singer has become grist for supermarket tabs and gossip columns, especially after he dated a member of the Friends cast. A question on this little matter of curiosity really gets him going.

"My personal life is also not a thing that's for the papers," he says grimly, adding that those in the media who thrive upon the personal lives of celebrities are "parasites." Did we mention he's also opinionated?

"I think it's one of the cancers on our society, that you think it's OK to parasitically exist on something like that. Now that's the difference between being self-centred and selfish. Those things are selfish, because they infringe upon people's lives, they f--- with people's lives. I've been on a date where a guy stuck a videocamera six inches from my date's face and said really rude, obscene things, trying to get me to do something."

Did you punch him out?

"No! You can't. You turn his $3 videotape into a $30,000 videotape. But now his tape is worthless.

"That's not what the first amendment was created for, even though it does protect that. (When you buy a supermarket tabloid), you're not just supporting peeking into people's lives, you're supporting that it's OK to invade someone's privacy. People have rights as people, not given by law, but give by one to another. That's part of being a human being and not an animal. If you throw that away then what you are is an animal.

"I'm self-absorbed and I think about myself all day, but I do not do it to the detriment of other people, if I can help it. I'm sure that I'm not perfect. I at least attempt not to live my life at the expense of others."

Needless to say, Duritz didn't talk about his (rumored) relationship with Jennifer Aniston. I guess we'll have to wait till he reveals himself on the next Counting Crows album.

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