Baffled But Smiling Through It...

I was trying to think if there is anyone as iconic in our day on such a large scale as Bob Dylan and it really is not easy - no one else (as amazing and unique as they may be) makes the grade of being the ONE. The closest I can come up with is Woody Allen. Maybe Abbie Hoffman?

I heard Gary Shandling interviewed by a guy named Mark Maron who interviews people (mostly dark comedians) out of his garage in LA and podcasts them under the name WTF. I thought they were both brilliant but then this morning I heard Rihanna interviewed on TV and she is a total dunce and yet she sounded exactly like Gary Shandling which kind of freaked me out because I really want to believe there is a wide distance between smart and stupid but sometimes I think there is not unless you are narrowly applying intelligence to things like the SAT's or maybe corporate finance but applied to matters of the soul or personal struggle or just living there is no such thing as smart - it is all dumb and no matter how you say it it all gets reduced to Lady Gaga level insight - "I was born this way" - which somehow resonates with millions of people yet does not move the ball forward one bit. One thing Shanding said that I could relate to was that his motto is "baffled but smiling through it" which he describes as his comic style and MO but I think he meant is his life MO.