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You watch,
they're gonna go after Clinton for duck hunting now you watch. You
know Clinton is criticized for his health plan, his tax plan, his
choice of tie, everything. His haircut, his wife, you name it some
snippy bystander has an opinion and sure he or she is entitled to
their opinion, but it's gotten to the point where people who
criticize actually believe their opinion should have an effect, even
if it's only that of bird shit hitting the drivers side windshield at
60 miles an hour. You know, I don't want to get off on a rant here
but why is it...
why is it
that every single activity in our lives is subject to a mean spirited
critique. Who wants to listen to some unqualified blowhard, having
convinced himself that his uninformed opinion is somehow relevant,
yarble through an insufferable long winded bullshit laden rant? Or not.
Okay I'm
guilty here too but having copped to that I must say we truly are a
nation of critics sniping from lazy boys at a few active individuals
struggling to effect political change, make a movie, write a book,
tell a joke, design a better faucet... Okay that guy is an asshole
alright! The faucets are fine stop fucking with them alright! The
ones in the airport are like science projects with electronic eyes
and motion sensors. Faucet guy STOP IT!
Look, we used
to keep this need to criticize bottled up in the art swamp where it
caromed harmlessly off of giant soup cans, blank verse, and
untalented exhibitionists smearing themselves with chocolate and
cramming yams up their ass. But now it's spilled over the media flood
wall and into every activity of our lives. Sports, pet training, home
repair, snow removal, you name it somewhere there's a cable show
dedicated to ripping it. And I'm not saying there isn't a place for
solid intelligent constructive criticism but when was the last time
you read a review of something, a movie, a play, a book, that gave
you a real feel or what the author was trying to say. Probably been a
while huh? Because nowadays you can only make a name for yourself as
a critic if you pass out blow jobs like Madonna at the NBA all star
game, or... or if you're a spiteful crank heaping scorn on everything
he sees, the kind of poison tongued lard encased asshole who refuses
to review anything he enjoys because his praise mechanism was broken
when his father wouldn't buy him an easy bake oven for his tenth
birthday(applause). Now I don't have any personal axe to grind here,
bad reviews don't affect me that much. I'm not the kind of guy who
names names, in fact I don't even know the name of the slimy fuckwad
from Entertainment Weekly. I feel so cleansed.
The key thing
to remember about all critics is that they remain dependent on the
innovator, the person doing the real work of creating. And because
they just sit on the sidelines of life, never the hunter, they are
doomed to be forgotten. But it's not all their fault I mean, we give
them their chance when we rely too much on critics to make our
choices for us. We give them the power because the sheer speed of
existence has rattled our already fragile confidence when it comes to
things artistic. We think we need help sorting out artsy things, that
somehow we don't have all the facts. But you know something, we don't
need help. You like the Red Skelton painting, buy the Red Skelton
painting alright. You like Home Improvement, tape it and go over it
like the Zabruder film. It's your living room, it's your life, go
nuts. Enjoy the world on your terms, follow your own heart and take
what critics say with a fifty pound bag of salt because at best a
critic is just another human being, like yourself, fumbling around in
the dark trying to separate the artistic wheat from the wonderbread.
So the next
time you see Roger Ebert sitting on his titanium reinforced love seat
pissing off on the work of some you person who doesn't quite have it
yet but might be on their way to having it some day, remember the
time Roger decided to dive into the deep end of the creative pool. He
wrote the Russ Meyer film "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."
And, if you'll pardon me for putting on the critics hat for a second
myself, I must tell you that was a huge repulsive, quasi radioactive,
spectacularly inept, borderline troglodytic, pile of high density,
low brow, can't get it our of your mind or off your shoe DOGSHIT!
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