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For some reason it seemed proper to put this up here...Anyway, what's everyone's thoughts (and *Gasp* criticisms) on this?
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Bill Clinton is contantly 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 birdshit hittion the driver's side windshield at sixty miles an hour.
Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but 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...Oops.
Okay, I'm guilty here too, but having copped to that, I must say we truly are a nation of critics, sniping from La-z-boys at a few active individuals stuggling to effect political change, make a movie, write a book, tell a joke, design a better faucet-okay, -that- guy -is- an asshole. The faucets are fine, stop fucking with them, all right? The ones in airports are like science projects with the electronic eyes and motion sensors, water-saving springs-faucet guy! STOP IT!
Look, we used to keep this need to criticize bottled up in the Arts Swamp where it caromed harmlessly off 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 an 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, play, book, that gave you a real feel of what the author was trying to say?
It's 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 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 but him an E-Z Bake oven for his tenth birthday.
Now I don't have any personal ax to grind here. Bad reviews don't even effect me that much. I'm not the kinda guy who names names-in fact, I don't even -know- the name of that slimy fuckwad from "Entertainment Weekly." But uh...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 existance has rattled out 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? But the Red Skelton painting, all right? You like Home Improvement? Tape it and go over it like the Zapruder 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 wonder bread.
So the next time you see Roger Ebert sitting there on his titanium-reinforced love seat, pissing off on the work of some young person who doesn't quite have it yet, but might be on his way to having it someday, remember the one time Roger decided to dive in to 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 critic's hat for a second myself, I must tell you that he was a huge, repulsive, quasi-radioactive, spectacularly inept, borderline-troglodytic pile of high-density, low-brow, can't get it out of your mind or off your shoe...Dog Shiiiit.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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