A Monkee looks back

Many people are best remembered for one thing when they would prefer to be remembered for something else, such as retired athletes who have become successful in business yet are famous only for what they did in the field or on the court decades before. One such person is Michael Nesmith, who will forever be known as one of the Monkees back in the Sixties, never mind all the innovative things he has accomplished in music, technology and philanthropy since then.

In his recent autobiography Infinite Tuesday, he puts his brief career as a Monkee in perspective. It gave his show business career a big boost, allowed him to form friendships with such individuals as John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash and Douglas Adams, but he has had many other more important accomplishments since then. If others won't mention them, then he will.

Nesmith, for example, invented the music video, way before MTV. He had written a song called Rio, but when he tried to get it some airplay in England he was asked to provide a video. What was actually wanted was just a cheap video of himself performing the song, but instead he put together a costly, highly entertaining video. Everyone who saw it loved it, but nobody knew what to do with it. It was an idea whose time had not yet come.

Michael Nesmith

Nesmith tried his hand at making movies, calling himself a Hamburger Movie Tycoon, his term for people who make their fortunes in other fields, then think they can be successful in Hollywood, too. Usually they can't, and Nesmith couldn't either.

He had more success buying up rights to countless videos for low prices before VHS tapes became as popular as they soon became. He was later sued by PBS, who wanted their rights back and resented Nesmith acquiring them so cheaply. Their ruthless attempt to ruin him and use the courts to steal the videos back may make you think twice about pledging to PBS in the future. Yet Nesmith ultimately won the case.

He has also had success on the Internet and with the philanthropies entrusted to him by his mother, who made her fortune after inventing Liquid Paper, then dying young.

From this you might get the idea the book is full of little more than name-dropping and boasting. There is some of that, to be sure, but I was impressed with his candor about the many mistakes he has made both in his personal life and in his career. He regards himself as perfect illustration of what he calls Celebrity Psychosis, or thinking oneself more important, more special than one really is. He doesn't seem to have liked the other Monkees, for he has little to say about them, but it would appear the feeling was mutual.

With age comes wisdom, at least sometimes, and such appears to be the case with Michael Nesmith.