Derek Webb Talks About “It”

1. The Dane Gives Advice: Episode #734
   Okay, kids. Seriously. If you’re an actor or a musician? Don’t give interviews. Don’t speak in public. Don’t make statements. You don’t have the gift for it.

   Your gifts are in your acting talent or your musicianship or your singing voice. That’s why you have the job you have. If you were meant for conveying ideas in a sensible manner, you’d be an orator or a writer. At worst, you might be a poet. But you’re not one of those things.

   You’re an actor or musician.

   I don’t expect anything out of you other than doing your job. Act. Sing. Have a blast. I’m not going to ask to taste the food you cook for dinner parties. I’m not going to ask you to do maths for me. I’m not going to ask you to sub in for Mark McGuire. And I’m certainly not going to require you to string ideas together in sensible ways.

   Because if I did require any of those things, I’d quite obviously be disappointed. Unless I hoped for some reason that you’d fail and I could bask in the glory of your failure. If that were the case, I would love for Derek Webb to keep talking. Because in that mean-spirited sort of way, the man is comedy gold.

   He refers to his fans as “the tribe.” His instinct, which is entirely detached from his mental capacities (by his admission), never leads him wrong—quite plainly he is magic. In dealing with his record company, there was no possible way he could have reacted to what they were demanding that wouldn’t… be… a reaction.

   Reading Derek Webb talk about himself is like watching a Ben Stiller movie.

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