Just had a trip to the New York metropolitan area for a funeral. On Saturday afternoon, I needed some fun, so I took myself to The Joker's Child in Fair Lawn, NJ. This is a fantastic comic shop that I highly recommend on your next trip to scenic Bergen County.
I went to said comic shop (where I neglected to get a receipt so as to enter Joe Hill's cool contest) because I needed some fun, and, well, when it comes to comics and fun, I'm with the stuffed bull.
But this got me thinking. Really, it's not just comics that oughta be fun. Fun, as it turns out, is why I turn to any kind of art.
I recently dissed Nirvana on my facebook status/twitter feed and was called upon to defend my assertion that they are the most overrated band ever. I said something about how Cobain's lyrics seem like they were freestyled by a stoned 14 year old, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized what I really don't like about Nirvana is that they're simply no fun at all.
I'm not saying everything has to be happy and joyful all the time, but, for me, there needs to be something fun in my interaction with art. So, for example, the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian both have a number of pretty sad songs, but the sense of humor on display makes them fun. Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is a terribly sad song that, because of its lyrical awesomeness, is fun.
The fun/no fun dichotomy also helps differentiate, say, a good Rush song from a bad Rush songs. The good ones (Red Barchetta, Spirit of Radio) are fun; the bad ones (Almost everything else) are not.
This is why I dislike most literary fiction; purveyors of this genre often eschew fun, or else the only fun on display is the fun the author has peppering his or her narrative with lots of chronological confusion, narrative confusion, and other stuff that's probably fun to write but deadly to read.
Hatchet is a fun horror movie (the part where the old lady's skull is ripped apart was simply awesome); Dead Ringers, though it has better actors, a better script, and a more skilled director, is one of the least fun movies I've ever seen.
I could go on: Sherrybaby starred Maggie Gyllenhaal in a tour de force performance, and yet I couldn't watch it because it was simply no fun at all. Most of the bands I saw at Ozzfest seemed to think fun was for the weak.
It's not that I expect brainless fun all the time; I like brainy fun too. And I don't mean I have to have tons of laffs on every page, or in every scene, or whatever. It's just that, for me, stuff I like is fun in some way; stuff I don't like isn't fun.
So I guess this is where I stand, art-wise. I'd call it a manifesto if that word wasn't so devoid of fun.
