Dog Sees Hostility
My friend Bert Royal (officially Bert V. Royal, thank you very much...) has written a smart, funny, subversive, entertaining, touching play called Dog Sees God: Confessions of a teenage blockhead, an (extremely) unauthorized parody of the Peanuts gang, which finds C.B. and company in high school, pretty much angst-ridden, horney, hateful, drunk, violent, gay, generally fucked up wretches, with a whisper of tragic existential wistfulness -- that most of the city's professional critics, especially the evil Jason Zinoman at The New York Times, have gone and pooped all over.
This irks me, for these reasons:
1) I am of the honest and -- as far as I'm able to judge (which is probably not very far) -- disinterested opinion that the critics, especially the evil Jason Zinoman at The New York Times, are wrong to be so dismissive of this play, which, in spite of not being perfect, is, as I said, smart, funny and satisfying.
2) Bert V. Royal is, as I said, a friend of mine, and these reviews to his play are not likely to make him happy.
3) Another friend is an investor in the show. The reviews are likely to make him nearly as unhappy as they make Bert.
4) Still another friend is the play's associate producer. (This friend happens to be a beautiful woman with whom I once had an epic, recrimination-filled love affair that ended rather wretchedly for all concerned. We're friends now. Even so, only I should be allowed to make her unhappy.)
5) Here I now am, winging half-considered libels into the ether about people who are all demonstrably more talented (except for maybe Demi), dedicated (except for that jackass at Esquire) and accomplished than I am, simply because it's gratifying. Should I, who, having once been an actor, know how hurtful it can be to read some know-nothing wanker bang on about my work, who knows that even reviews that are ostensibly positive reviews are often excruciating, permit myself this hypocrisy of near Cheneyan proportions? Should I not sit my conscience down and give it a talking-to about responsibility and doing on others and whatnot?
To quote the immortal John Belushi, "Naaaahh!" Dilettante Critic doesn't need to show you no stinkin' conscience. I'm gonna hurt Larry David's feelings? Or Jack Black's? As if. I don't have that kind of power. I have, in fact, no power. The evil Jason Zinoman at the New York Times has piles.
Of power, I mean. I make no claims to knowledge about the condition of his excretory system.
Full Disclosure: The EJZ at the NYT is so-dubbed because he once failed to hire me as a theater reviewer for Time Out New York. Never mind that I had no experience, that Time Out New York wasn't necessarily looking for a theater reviewer and that I spelled his name wrong in the unsolicited letter I sent him some years back, very possibly to the wrong address. DC is not one to let go of a potentially satisfying, one-sided feud with those who are wholly unaware of his existence.
This irks me, for these reasons:
1) I am of the honest and -- as far as I'm able to judge (which is probably not very far) -- disinterested opinion that the critics, especially the evil Jason Zinoman at The New York Times, are wrong to be so dismissive of this play, which, in spite of not being perfect, is, as I said, smart, funny and satisfying.
2) Bert V. Royal is, as I said, a friend of mine, and these reviews to his play are not likely to make him happy.
3) Another friend is an investor in the show. The reviews are likely to make him nearly as unhappy as they make Bert.
4) Still another friend is the play's associate producer. (This friend happens to be a beautiful woman with whom I once had an epic, recrimination-filled love affair that ended rather wretchedly for all concerned. We're friends now. Even so, only I should be allowed to make her unhappy.)
5) Here I now am, winging half-considered libels into the ether about people who are all demonstrably more talented (except for maybe Demi), dedicated (except for that jackass at Esquire) and accomplished than I am, simply because it's gratifying. Should I, who, having once been an actor, know how hurtful it can be to read some know-nothing wanker bang on about my work, who knows that even reviews that are ostensibly positive reviews are often excruciating, permit myself this hypocrisy of near Cheneyan proportions? Should I not sit my conscience down and give it a talking-to about responsibility and doing on others and whatnot?
To quote the immortal John Belushi, "Naaaahh!" Dilettante Critic doesn't need to show you no stinkin' conscience. I'm gonna hurt Larry David's feelings? Or Jack Black's? As if. I don't have that kind of power. I have, in fact, no power. The evil Jason Zinoman at the New York Times has piles.
Of power, I mean. I make no claims to knowledge about the condition of his excretory system.
Full Disclosure: The EJZ at the NYT is so-dubbed because he once failed to hire me as a theater reviewer for Time Out New York. Never mind that I had no experience, that Time Out New York wasn't necessarily looking for a theater reviewer and that I spelled his name wrong in the unsolicited letter I sent him some years back, very possibly to the wrong address. DC is not one to let go of a potentially satisfying, one-sided feud with those who are wholly unaware of his existence.
posted by DC at 1:55 PM
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