"These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified."
i want to remind you that this is a quotation - hardly atypical - from someone who has universally been greeted as a transcendent genius and his generation's greatest poet (and yet who still feels persecuted because he was booed once half a century ago). now i don't think people should have gotten all that upset by an electric guitar. on the other hand, they could reasonably have regarded the melodies as dull and the lyrics as nonsense (alright there are some exceptions). but look: what are you going to do for a generation that was convinced by allen ginsberg when he said that he and his friends were that generation's greatest minds? no doubt they equitabled themselves to richard feynman, crick and watson, willard van orman quine. i guess it's true that if you just esteem yourself immensely for no particular reason, people might believe you. give it a shot! actually, there's something to be said for being plagued by self-doubt, which is no doubt difficult when you are greeted as a demi-god.
