I meant to wake my ass up early and get hecka little errands done. I woke up early, got a few things done then checked Facebook looking for a message from a friend about something not really important but time sensitive…I guess. Look, the point is a quick social network scan made me fall down a YouTube* vortex that temporarily disarmed my will power, determination, and constitution (it was about 55 minutes to be exact).
What I watched was late 80s early 90s music videos. It’s my favorite era of videos because there is a freedom there where the performers don’t have to perform very hard and there is dogs running around and I like the goofy haircuts and probably because that’s when I watched Mtv. None of the videos were really that good, some of the songs were but after watching videos for 55 minutes I realized that all the videos are weird and full of non-sequitur shit and they switch it up with different film stocks and have dangling toys and go in and out of focus and show the film strip running out…all of them do this. All of the videos contain the same elements. Then I thought, “They’re all uncreative in exactly the same way.”
Why? What they are doing is creative. They are interpreting (creative) a song (creative) by the band of floppy haired college dropouts who wrote it (creative) and they use creative elements (creative) and edit it (creative) to make a pleasurable viewing experience (creative) for the middle school kids that watch Mtv (uncreative).
But turds are created as well, are they not?** I got the same feeling when I would look at Juxtapoz magazine. I’d see all these new artists, but their styles would be exactly like that of an artist from a year or two before that. I definitely saw this at my sister’s art school. You’re supposed to be an artist, not a copycat right? What pleasure is there in copying someone else’s work? Perhaps if you are one of many imitators you feel a brotherhood with your clones.*** You feel shielded by the “scene” that has materialized without permission of the original artist. You are warmed and protected by the hooded sweatshirt of unoriginality. I bet the newer and more original the artist you cop from, the warmer from the dryer you feel. I’m starting to feel like a sucker for not ripping people off.
Ultimately, you don’t watch a Huey Lewis and The News video and say “goddamn this video is some derivative horse shit!” That’s because Huey has never faked being creative. The man doesn’t have an original bone in his body. He has clung to that double yellow line his whole life and it brought him incredible wealth and success. His dumb ugly band smiles and wears sunglasses on stage or the beach. That’s it. They come out, unzip the pleated khaki dockers of their souls, and whip their uncreativity out for all to see. But some people try and accessorize their unoriginal genitals. They dress them up with a little beret or buddy holly glasses or make their pubes into a rat tail or they pierce their sexy organs and dangle a little fixed gear bike from it. You might be happier and I might be less annoyed if everyone was as honest and open as Huey Lewis’ genitals.
*Hello friend. Glad to see you made it down here to visit me and my little asterisk bud. He gets so lonely sometimes. Anyways the point of this whole derailment is that at the point where I placed the asterisk in the original text I was inspired to look and see if there was a website entitled youtuba on which you could watch tuba videos or perhaps commission a painting of yourself playing a tuba or some such stupid idea. I can tell you right now that in fact that no it’s just some scam to get you to sign up for a free prize. Don’t do it bitch! Because I’m-a gonna win that tropical vacation! Hahahahaha.
** I ask as if you’d disagree with me, “good sir I must dispute your claims on turdlical creationism! Each fecal brick was in fact not crafted by some sort of benevolent creator lovingly extruding log after log, all as individual as snowflakes.”
***I’m pretty sure I would hate my clone.
