Remembering Rick

It has been a rough few days. Lots of heartache and the forecast shows more on the way. When you release a book out into the wild you’ve got to expect that not everyone will like it. I’m prepared for that. Not everyone has to like the same thing. A cowboy friend of mine told me, “If everybody like the same thing they’d all be married to my grandma.” It would be silly to think you aren’t going to get criticized for whatever you do. 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 droppings hitting the driver’s side windshield at sixty miles an hour. Why is it that every single activity in our lives is subject to a mean-spirited critique? Who wants to read the thoughts of some unqualified blowhard, having convinced themselves that their uninformed opinion is somehow relevant, yarble through an insufferably long-winded, vomit-laden tirade about… Oops. 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, book, that wasn’t laced in venom? Most critics are spiteful cranks, heaping scorn on everything he sees, (expect for their own work) the kind of poison-tongued lard-encased jerk who refuses to review anything he enjoys because his praise mechanism was broken when his father wouldn’t buy him an E-Z Bake over for his tenth birthday. Criticism is hard for anyone to take…at first. When the mad passes you can take a look at what was said and try to change what might be valid. But ultimately you’ve got to follow your own heart no matter what and take what critics say with a fifty-pound bag of salt because at best a critic is just another human being trying to separate the artistic wheat from the Wonder Bread. And after all, I have a lot to be thankful for, with or without criticism and I try to never forget that. I’d trade all I have and everything I’m ever going to have or be if I could save my brother however. What happened was my fault. I never forget that either.