How DARE him foist his own frigging sanctimonious pseudo religious self-deception on anaudience that PAID to see him play music. He can fuck himself.
I'm sorry, that's just bollocks. You don't pay to see an artist play music, you pay to see the artist, period, and whatever baggage he/she brings to the party is part of the entire deal. You just can't divorce the two. How dare your friend be so ridiculously pious? Would he object if it had been another musician, like, I don't know, Daniel Johnston (who gets a free pass to act crazy because the poor guy IS crazy and the music press loves him for it). Would he object if Richard had said things your friend agreed with, politically or spiritually (or a-spiritually, as the case may be)?
I don't begrudge Richard laying his religious trip on me anymore than if he were to wax political, poetic, anthropological, whatever. I don't have to agree to it or even comprehend it to allow him the space to do that without telling him to fuck off. He has earned my respect A) through 35 years of playing music I admire to no end and B) getting on a stage in front of a crowd in the first place. To be honest, I was mighty entertained by the whole spectacle of intransigent artist -- fine, call him delusional if it makes you feel better (or maybe there's something to the whole Tony Clifton thing) -- versus outraged audience. Anything that gets the hipoisies' knickers in a twist can't be all bad.
Maybe I'd kick at Barbra Streisand prices, but not at $10 and a beer. In other words, quit your belly-achin', give the man some room, let him say what he feels and play what he feels, and if you don't like it, don't see him a second time. But I bet you will.
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