Austin Butler Ready

The Secret Diary episode 9 (free / open)

Getting,  Austin Butler ready.
I suppose that would have been the correct title of this diary entry.
I am getting ready for an Austin-alike.
A Butler-esque man.
A lover, Austin Butler-ish.

Oh, there would have been multiple ways to be more accurate with the truth, and avoid the idea I am trying to manifest a Hollywood actor moving to Nijmegen, The Netherlands to become my secret lover, and me actually getting the f***

Austin Butler Ready

But where would be the fun in that?
In the words of Bohemian Rhapsody's Freddie Mercury:
"I am an entertainer, not a Swiss train conductor."
I am not here for facts and accuracy.

So I'm getting Austin Butler ready!
Full stop.
And as an unexpected bonus, I found my life's purpose, the fullest expression of my own true voice.

Still contemplating if I should change my actual voice as well?
To a lower register to mark this watershed occasion, just like Austin Butler never fully returned to his own voice after having played Elvis.

The broody dark voice will stay with him forever because playing Elvis Presley, a role for which he stayed in character for three years, has transformed him forever.

Which is why I have decided this new and exciting phase of my life will also be a three year commitment;
Of studying, writing, becoming, and transforming into the fully expressed version of a 20th century (this part is new!) Rock Star Writer. Rock Star Writer, sec, being a role I committed to years ago.

I think it was 2020 when I changed the url of the website which had been up for a year under the name Rock Star Yoga, to the name it still has today:
Rock Star Writer.
And I have gone through several iterations of committing to it, only to then drop out.

But I feel I am getting ahead of myself with every sentence.
Like the story wants to come out backwards, and regardless of how much I want it to be chronological, it can't.

So let's have the story backwards then;

If I committed to becoming a Rock Star Writer today;
Then how did I get here, and what does Austin Butler have to do with it?

It started (or ended, since the story is coming out backwards) with a video, called Austin Butler's top 10 favorite things.

It had been the last video I had been watching, after what was basically a 24 hour long Austin Butler binge, before I had to stop watching one favorite item short to the end, to catch the train to Amsterdam.

On the train I had a notebook with me, both because I felt it was important to make a record of that day, as well as because Austin Butler had had a notebook among his favorite 9 things.
He revealed he had shelves of diaries and, waving a stark black Moleskin GQ magazine had provided for the shoot, he told the viewer he wrote in particular about positive experiences, encouraged by Matthew McConaughey who explained in his book why it is important to keep a memory of the times you're doing well.
So you can look back, pick it apart, and find your key ingredients to living well.

Not much writing was done on that train but just the idea Austin Butler had shelves of diaries and notebooks just like me -a habit I was starting to feel increasingly guilty about in this era of minimalism and downsizing - was soothing.
We were both keeping records as if it was the 20th century and in all likeliness so was Matthew McConaughey.

It was not the only 20th century habit Austin Butler (born 1991, 17th of August. Sean Penn's birthday, and is it me, or do they both have that James Dean like sharpness in their features?) was immersing himself in.

Austin Butler's favorite things all seemed to be rooted in a longing for a time he had not even been alive.
This was not nostalgia "light", to the early 2000's.
Here was someone boldly planting a flag in a world that was close to dropping out of our collective consciousness entirely.

His favorite things revealed a life grafted like a tree;
Having cut the 20th century trunk, positioning himself onto it, and letting it feed into him.
And this was personal to me, because Austin Butler had managed to create a 20th century life, where that idea had been with me for years.
Just that mine had lacked solid execution.

In Austin Butler's nine favorite things and dozens of YouTube videos, I Suzanne, born 24th July 1972, was witnessing the life I had promised myself I'd create.
Or in my case, re-create.

Twenty years my junior, and he had nailed it.

Maybe it was because of the Elvis movie, backed up with Masters of the Air, which played in the 2nd World War;
Followed by Dune 2, a science fiction universe that is nevertheless known for not having a digital space, only an analog one.
Capping it with the 60s nostalgia piece The Bike Riders, which only just got its Dutch release but that was a 2023 movie;

Maybe it was that impressive series of analog inspired movies, that had not exactly sparked the items on Austin's list - since the interest in them, and preference for them, could certainly be traced back to being authentically his- 
But that the movies had allowed the guitar that had belonged to Elvis to come to him. 
Had enabled Tom Hank's novel reading to be passed onto him; 
Had opened him up to the journaling habit that was Matthew McConaughey's, an actor one generation above his;
Had engrained his love for secondhand leather boots that he later found out were worn by another generation X icon, Brad Pitt's Tyler Durden of the turn of the century cult movie Fight Club.

Maybe it was Austin's unusual choice for movie projects, all reminiscent of a slower moving world, that had allowed his singular habits and interests to grow.
Becoming the reason he was now touching something in us, that no one else could touch.

A lost part, that most of us had forgotten about, at least one of us had promised herself she would dig up but failed;
But that a substantial part of the world population, including Austin's own generational peers, didn't even know existed.

I believe that inadvertently, Austin Butler became something so unfamiliar to us, so far back in collective memory, something whispered in hearsay, that we all failed to recognize what happened;
He had not just figuratively stepped into the blue suede shoes of Elvis.
Not just acted, that he was The Bike Rider's James Dean, a charismatic rebel who stares the female lead into falling for him, displaying nothing but silence and bare arms.

Movie by movie, scene by scene, and without realizing what we were witnessing;
Austin Butler became, a 20th century movie star.

And with our brutal longing for that time;
He has each and every one of us, all, in the palm of his hand.

It was Sunday, the 14th of July, 2024.
Quatorze juillet, Liberation Day in France.
And I got up knowing I needed to write.

Even though the story was still unfolding, and even though the impact could not be fully felt.

There was the lover-part, for sure.

This blogpost is a free sample of a paid-subscriber only series, which I am running on Substack.
This series, The Secret Diary, is entirely dedicated to getting back on my feet after losing the man who was my lover.

A series reminiscent to me of Anais Nin, the 20th century diarist who died in 1977, while being married to two men who did not know of each other's existence.
Talking about an analog reality, which could never be recreated in today's transparent, social media driven world.

In Chapter 1 of the diary I identified how important muses are to me.
This ("The Male Muse") was also a free episode, you can read it here on Substack.

It's about how I credit my male idols, my celebrity crushes, for training me to hold space for beautiful men in my life.
Men who can crack your heart open like a walnut.

Starting with my first boyfriends, I have been able to relate to them without losing who I was.
And of course they still broke my heart, but I never regretted them. I never felt like I had been overpowered by them but rather that they had given me the emotionally intense experience very few of them would ever be able to give me.

And the stories and the sexual experiences, only Anais Nin would understand how valuable they were.
How rare.

That they never chose me to settle down with, and married others, was never the part that hurt. It was like they turned into different men, after me. Men who would not be able to perform at that level, and I definitely do not mean perform in a sexual sense, but I mean they brought an intensity to being with me that cannot be held in a longterm relationship.
I always felt I got their best performance, or maybe even that I got the actual performance.
Their every move and word being a calculated one.

I used to think the woman after me "broke" them, but in retrospect I think it was I who had damaged them.... or let's say "changed" them, without labeling it.
As I seem to be the only person who found them far more interesting when they were free spirits, breaking every rule.

But regardless of how those affairs ended, or why or to who they moved on, I did remember one thing;

It always started with a muse.

So that is why the diary of rebuilding my love life started with that acknowledgement of muses.
Why there was a chapter (number 3) dedicated to muse Ryan Gosling.
And why I now recognized it was time to write about Austin Butler.

That he too was a muse.
A muse who will teach me to hold space for someone of exquisite beauty, and who, as if his stunning looks are not challenging enough, will also be much younger than I am.

There is an equation for the lowest age you can date, that is still "okay". I don't know okay according to whose standards, but I like how it pans out.
It always struck me as being correct.

The equation is:
( the older person's age divided by two ) + 7 years = minimum age of the younger person

So in my case:
52 years (after July 24th, 2024, my birthday)/ 2= 26+7 years = 33 years old is the lowest age I can date the upcoming year.

Muse Austin Butler (turning 33 August 17th) teaches me to hold the space, more specifically to hold myself, for a lover who is 33 years old.
And a lover who is spoon feeding all of us his 20th century beauty, inside and out. 
His mind, who he is, as well as his James Dean/ 80s Sean Penn - reminiscent looks.

Austin Butler tells me my future lover will be embodying the 20th century lifestyle I said I aspired to.
But have spectacularly failed living up to.

He is my cue to get serious implementing a 20th century lifestyle because I will meet someone who walks that talk.

So there was all that, the "Getting Austin Butler ready" from the title of this blogpost.
That I want to be able to hold my ground, should someone as young and as 20th century as him, would enter my life.
I got to be ready, and I know it.

But there is more.

And this part is probably even more difficult to explain because it is more a feeling sort of thing.
But it does promise to be less wordy than the above paragraphs, simply because I have not found the words.

Which is ironic, because this will be about writing.
About becoming a writer, who apparently, is currently lost for words, but okay.

Studying Austin Butler, hearing him speak about how he immersed himself into being Elvis Presley, turning his walls into a vision board of Elvis' timeline and listening to Elvis' voice on his headphones, day after day after day, understanding Elvis' speech, his singing, his laughing, pinpointed to every era;
I felt myself becoming a Rock Star Writer.

Austin stepping into Elvis, showed me to step into that Rock Star Writer title I had given myself. I now understood what part had been missing;
20th Century.

I was a 20th century, Rock Star Writer.

My Rock Star work started in the slipstream of a 2019 Bon Jovi concert, and the writing has revolved primarily around Bon Jovi live concerts, Bon Jovi albums, Bon Jovi songs.
I wrote about other things as well, but it was clear what my biggest fascination was.

Yet, I always felt that I wasn't really clear what my direction of growth was;
Shouldn't I finally pick up Bon Jovi's 21st century stuff?
How was I to label my declining interest in the band?
Should I just give up on Rock Star writing?

And why was I not writing about INXS, Lenny Kravitz, and my favorite, Guns N' Roses, even though there was still so much to discover there?

Why was I coasting, and why was I clueless of where to go?

Until now.
It's 20 Century, Rock Star Writer!

This identity has given me the meatiest assignment of my career.
Just like Austin Butler playing Elvis;
These are damn big boots to fill.

But the idea of giving this three years excited me tremendously.
Would I be able to really get into the role of embodying this 20th century topic, and research and communicate the 20th century stories of these artists?

Would I be able to plaster my walls with the history of 20th century rock n' roll, and to actually become it?
Like Austin Butler had become a 20th century movie star, would I be able to become its writer?

And I know there is no way to answer that question, beforehand.
But Austin Butler did show me how, to do it.

In retrospect, the main reason I never went all in on my writing nor on living in the 20th century, even though I have been toying with both since 2019, was a very simple one;
I did not know how.

I had no idea what it was, to give my all to.

No idea who the Elvis was I was supposed to become.

No idea what my Rock Star career was, in the way Jon Bon Jovi did know from when he was just a teen, what the rock star career was he was aiming for.

Five years and all I really had was one word, Rock Star.
Which is technically even two words.
And I had added Yoga (Rock Star Yoga), and in 2020 I changed that to Writer (Rock Star Writer), but it wasn't until now that I saw the boots I was supposed to fill.

They were bought in 2022, same year the Elvis movie was released. They were black, and reminded me of motor boots. Seeing Austin Butler's movie The Bike Riders last week confirmed that.
My black boots are biker boots.

I bought them secondhand although they looked brand new.
And everyone who has seen me since 2022, has seen me wear them.
I practically live in them.

I look at my shelves, filled with notebooks. Filled with diaries.

I look at all the rock star biographies I didn't even properly finish. The Mark Weiss book The Decade That Rocked, consulted far too few times.
Nikki Sixx' books...
I deserve a spanking for neglecting what has been in my face all those years.

I am a 20th century Rock Star Writer.

And these are damn big boots to fill.

~Suzanne

"Austin Butler Ready"
is the ninth paid-subscribers only post.
It (one episode) will also published on my blog Rock Star Writer

A paid Substack subscription will unlock all other episodes and give you the lived Secret Diary experience of my search for a happy ending.
Totally punned.