I Am Not Your Uncle Comfy

I’m fully aware that the Uncle Comfy makes the world go ’round. Without some guy like that doing a super video on how to paint, nobody is gonna do it. True heroes like Hunter S. Thompson never did a day’s work in their lives and they never made a video on how to paint. You need an Uncle Comfy for that, and you can bet that the finished product will be a high-quality video with good, solid (and rapidly dated) information– and that kind of video is HARD to make, and I admire that, sort of…

…but it won’t teach you how to paint.

So, yeah, I find “Uncle Comfy” to be a phony. I’m disgusted by guys who try to out-do each other in the race to see who can make the video with the highest production values, the most golden timbre in the voice, and the least evidence of human activity in the actual lesson, whereby we all learn how to use x, y, or z product according to manufacturer’s directions.

Dammit. You, me and a dog named Blue NEED a lesson that begins with “Oh shit!” and ends with “don’t buy into the usual baloney, just do it this way and it will work.” We NEED the shortcuts and the borrowing of Mom’s best cooking gear for our experiments. We NEED to find out the trick and the trades because you need to learn to teach yourself. We do not need yet ANOTHER visit to Uncle Comfy’s Modeling Den to learn about how “well, campers, that’s it for this week! Keep on working and happy modeling!”

We need to find out what really goes on, because it’s not about following instructions. It’s about finding your own instructions, written in the stars. It’s in the sparkle at the bottom of the stream. It’s in the baby’s eyes and the way you hold that brush, which cannot be taught but can only be inspired– and that’s what Uncle Comfy does not do. Uncle Comfy does not inspire. In fact, Uncle Comfy kills innovation. Uncle Comfy is not your friend. Uncle Comfy does not want you to learn by doing. He wants you to keep those training wheels on until you reach old age, so he can sell you the tires.

Uncle Comfy is not me.

P.S.

Please do not post a comment wondering what specific individual did something bad to me so that it’s coming out all sideways in this post. You do that and you will witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station. But of course, Uncle Comfies do have a tendency to form private forums within online forums or newsgroups, and interact only with the members of that forum, openly ignoring anybody who isn’t an “insider” and calling each other by real-world first names, etc. So, yeah, there’s that. I mean, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Barney the Dinosaur is all about “LUVA LUVA YOU” until he’s being seated at Soho and he plants an elbow in your face if you ask for an autograph. “Die, peasant!”

So… yeah…

I am REAL, bro. The noise I put out is just my real background radiation. The abuse you will surely suffer from Uncle Comfy is the burned hash served up on paper plates from your drunk abusive mom. I’m mean, but I’m real and predictable. Uncle Comfy is mean but it’s hidden beneath twelve coats of spar varnish– don’t turn your back.