Bullshit!

Jimi, Dylan understand music to break rules.

You better believe South Park’s understand modern cartoon tech.

1938 media is not in this league. You can ask them what rules are they breaking and they won’t know. That’s not art, that’s ignorance. Crass arrogant pretentious bullshit artist ignorance.

I sick and tired of people being proud of their ignorance. They are fooling them selves and the idiots who follow them.

expression alone is not art. it’s bullshit.

I never said everyone had to do as I do. I went out of my way to point to it being how I personally feel; why does that point seem to be so elusive? This is how I feel, and it’s why I was talking about it. I’m not sure what you mean about being puppetry’s Kanye West. I assume you’re referring to his coming on stage during an awards show to complain that he didn’t win because his video cost a million, right? I ask because he’s also been involved with the Jim Henson Company, and there’s some form of Kanye West puppet show coming out.

My mentioning the book was to highlight that I was self-taught and did well, and so think that there’s nothing wrong with being self-taught (as seemed to be your opinion, based on your response defending your own position as a self-taught wunderkind).

It has dawned on me that he doesn’t care, yes, and I do realize that many of Mr. Feldman’s fans don’t care, either. What I did in the original post was point to specific people to make a general point. It’s not about Mr. Feldman in particular, it’s about the trend that he somewhat seems to represent, in general.

That doesn’t seem a very difficult point to get: I take this seriously, and think others should too. I don’t think this because I believe there’s only one path to being good or worthwhile, I think this because when you take the thing seriously, the end product is better.

I’m not concerned with the books you’ve written, nor do I seek a debate. This pissing contest is yours alone. My words were meant as positive advice, but it’s clear you believe you’re coming from a righteous place. So be it.

One final note. Did it ever dawn on you that this other guy doesn’t give a shit about being a puppeteer? That in fact his gig might be something else entirely?

Peace.

As to your point, however, my being funny and/or entertaining is a completely subjective consideration, and I fully realize that. What to one person is gold is, to another person, complete crap, and the reverse is true. I know that there are many people who would look at the puppetry I pointed to and say (as you seem to be) that they’re worlds above what we’re putting out, and that’s fine. I understand that. What I’m doing here is expressing my opinion about the approach to the craft. I think a person should take all aspects of the craft seriously. This is, I should hasten to point out, advice you yourself offered in your first comment, and it is, though you seemed to miss it, the point of the blog post.

It’s interesting that you would suggest that my suggesting I’m qualitatively better (which I’m not; I’m simply saying that I’m being thoughtful and considered about the puppetry, and that said thoughtfulness is a positive quality, one that others should seek), especially considering the implication there is that because I say I am better, I’m not, as though the claim negates itself. I say this is interesting because in your previous post you displayed all of the bravado and ego you accused me of, and by the logic you yourself just put down, you have proved yourself to not be better than those other people.

As to your earlier point, hey, just because you get through schooling doesn’t mean that you’re any good in a creative sense; the minimum is that it means you were good enough to get through school. (If you’re talking about a task that requires schooling; judging by your e-mail and your handle, I’m guessing you’re a DJ or a Rapper, and while there are music theory classes, and degrees one can take for music and playing instruments, there aren’t, to my knowledge, and degreed courses in scratching, DJing, or rapping [not that this implies you don't need to know things to be a good DJ or rapper, as I know that you do; I only mean to say that there's no formal route that I'm aware of])

Also, there’s no jealousy in my post. As I’ve asked before, why would I be jealous of another person’s success? What does it matter to me if these people are successful, if anyone is? What matters to me is that I do the best that I can. I personally believe you should give your all, and take it seriously. I don’t think that a person succeeding more than me (and I can generate, happily, a long list of people who are well more successful than I) is cause to begrudge them anything. I feel, in fact, quite the opposite: when I come across people who are more skilled than I, who are more creative, and who have had greater successes, it inspires me to do better myself. I want to rise to the challenge that their success and their abilities represent, because I want to be as good as this person or that person. There is absolutely no jealousy to be found.

As to your “raw talent” comment, I will say this: Aptitude is a good thing, and should be nourished. The thing that transforms aptitude (which seems to be the thing you mean when you say raw talent) into talent is effort. To become good at anything, work is required. Natural genius is a myth. Certainly, there are people who can pick up new skills easily, and I would occasionally flatter myself to consider me one of those people, but the reality is that you become good through concerted effort. When I decided to make a puppet show (dotBoom), I had no knowledge of how to build puppets, how to build the sets, how to film, direct, or edit video. I don’t think I’m a good puppeteer because I have a website and I say “I’m a puppeteer!” I became a good puppeteer because of a year and a half of consistent, concerted effort. I did the work, built dozens of puppets in a short time, each time trying consciously to learn from the mistakes of each build, so that I could get better. This is the same with every other aspect of the process: the first episodes of the show aren’t great in comparison to the latter, but that’s because I continually strived to get better. The kicker is, of course, that I didn’t get as good as I wanted to, because I will never get as good as I want to, because I will always want to be better than I am.

If you are a respected professional, sir, it’s not because you had some aptitude for the task. That aptitude could certainly get you the initial bit of attention from folks, but it’s what came next, the effort you doubtless put in to get better, that would earn you continued attention, and solidify respect — or fear — of your peers.

To echo my wife’s comments, you’d do well to find out a bit about me before concluding that you know the entire history of me. I am a person who is nearly entirely self-taught, and who does indeed do well because of the skills I’ve picked up on my own. I am a respected web developer, despite any degrees or accreditation (and have taught and written a book on my points of expertise), and the puppetry has been all self-taught (such as anyone can be self-taught, I suppose; if you read a book on a subject and become better informed, you are informing yourself, certainly, but you can also say that the author is educating you). If the point was not made clearly enough in my post or in my follow-up comments, allow me to correct the oversight:

I do not for a moment think that formal education or standard accreditation is the only mark of professionalism or quality. Being a person who has neither of those things, it would be disingenuous in the extreme of me to hold such a view, to let myself through the doors before closing them behind me. Most of my peers have been self-taught, and I respect them greatly. Why do I respect them? Because they put the effort in to become knowledgeable, to become experts in their field. That’s the thing that earns respect, and that’s the thing that is the delineation, from my perspective. What this post was about was the apparent cultural trend in which people show up and are expected to be given the same level of consideration as those who have been giving their all for years, irrespective of their level of effort, and the disturbing trend to give said people that level of respect. In the course of illustrating a trend, I’m going to point to examples of it, in order to strengthen my case. As I say, I don’t think you need a degree to be respected, but you DO need to put in the effort. You need to take it seriously.

This isn’t about jealous, sir. This is about professional pride. I respect the crafts, and I don’t think it’s too high a standard to ask other people to respect it, too.

Brian is self-taught in both of his professions, and is quite successful in both (certainly enough so that he doesn’t need to brag about his ’success’ in another man’s blog).

Also, “bitter old windbag”? He’s 31. We’ve been doing this for two years. We’re not exactly old pros at the profession whining about the crazy new kids and reminiscing about how great everything was back in the day when we were kings of the industry.