This is the second installment of my new series, “Get a Fucking Life.” The series of articles designed to show guys how to get out of their mom’s basement, and into a cool and healthy lifestyle that women find attractive.

Part 1: Being Well Read
Part 2: Developing Artistic Taste
Part 3: Trying New Things
Part 4: Having Opinions

Today’s installment is about developing artistic taste or an artistic sensibility.

Now, does that mean you’re going to go to art galleries to ponder and pontificate various paintings? No. I mean “art” in the broad sense: music, movies, television, theatre, art, poetry and literature.

This is kind of an expansion on the first installment. We want to be well-read so that we have a good knowledge foundation and that we are aware of the multitude of perspectives in the world. Now, we want to have a mature artistic sensibility so that we can develop interesting opinions on everything from slasher movies to romantic poetry to Angelina Jolie’s ass.

Too many guys let their opinions be dictated by pop culture and their group of guy friends.

“Oh dude, Will Farrell is the shit.”
“Man, you got to check out Heroes, it’s so sick.”
“The new Batman movie is awesome.”

Few guys ever stop and actually think critically about what’s being produced in Hollywood, or in record studios for that matter. But when you do, you suddenly stand out from the rest.

So here are some concepts to keep in mind as you go through your life experiencing art and media:

1. Assume everything has a form of value; it’s your job to find it.
Nothing drives me crazier than to meet people who are prejudice against a genre of music or type of movie for no other reason than they don’t particularly like the culture attached to it.

For instance, hipsters who diss anything “mainstream” as if music couldn’t be both good AND mainstream. People who criticize abstract art because “a child could make that,” or guys who shit on romantic comedies because they’re “chick flicks.”

I can’t stand hipsters and indie rock people, but there’s a LOT of good indie rock and folk out there. I generally don’t like chick flicks, but if they’re done well, not ridiculous and don’t perpetuate horrible sexual stereotypes, I’ve been known to get in touch with my feminine side and enjoy a few.

Drop all of this prejudice and adopt this mentality immediately: “there has to be SOMETHING to this form of art, otherwise it wouldn’t have a following, so I should find out what that something is.”

2. Always expand your horizons — start with what’s considered “the best”
Some forms of art will come easily and naturally to you. It takes me literally 2 seconds to identify rock music that is transcendentally good. Country? Classical? Bluesgrass? That took some more time.

About seven years go, I decided to get into rap. I figured I was being stupid to poo poo it all just because there wasn’t singing. So what did I do? I went out and start with what was classically considered the “best” rap out there. Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., Dre’s “The Chronic” among others. I listened to them until I started getting it. From there I slowly expanded out to other artists, from old favorites to newer favorites like Outkast and Eminem (current at the time) until I kind of got a handle on what differentiated different rappers from each other. Once you make these differentiations, you have the ability to judge the quality beyond simply “I like it,” or “I think it sucks.”

Do the same with movies. Watch every movie in the IMDB’s top 20 movies of all time. Google critics’ top 10 movies of all time lists and watch everything on there. Watch every movie that’s won an Oscar for “Best Picture.”

Watch them and try to pick out what makes them so great. If it doesn’t click, it may not be because it’s a “bad movie,” but because you don’t get it. This is like when people try to tell me “No Country for Old Men” isn’t good because it’s slow and nothing changes. They don’t get it.

3. Get and try to understand educated perspectives
As you’re listening to new music and watching new movies, frequent the following websites: www.allmusic.com, www.metacritic.com, and www.rottentomatoes.com. Read critical reviews and observations.

This isn’t to base your opinion off of what the critic’s say (that’s just as lame in its own way), but it’s to gain perspective for things you may not have noticed before. I usually try to read a good review and a bad review to try and understand their point of view and why they felt the way they did about the piece of work.

When you do this, this gives you greater understanding and interpretation of the art form, so future movies you see or albums you hear in that genre, you’ll begin to notice things you never did before: “Oh, Al Pacino totally carried this movie,” “the guitar playing isn’t very inventive in this group,” “this TV’s shows concept is great, but the dialogue is lacking,” “her singing is pitch-shifted and the beats are all redundant.”

4. Judge art based on its intentions, not its result
This is what I call “snob prevention.” This is the people who try to argue that “Wedding Crashers” is a bad movie because there’s no greater philosophical statement or merit in it.

Well, guess what dipshit? Wedding Crashers isn’t TRYING to make a greater philosophical statement, it’s trying to make you laugh and feel a little good. And it accomplishes that in spades. So it should be considered a good movie. Sure, comedies aren’t as hard to make as a deep, probing movie like “Citizen Kane”, but that doesn’t make it “bad.”

The same happens vice-versa. People base a movie’s worth on whether it entertains or not. Well, guess what, we’re interested in ART now, and we don’t give a shit if it entertains or not. “The Hulk” is entertaining, but it tries to be artistic and philosophical and fails miserably. “The Dark Knight” accomplishes both. One’s a shitty movie and one isn’t. Both are entertaining.

This happens in music all the time as well. People who think Michael Jackson sucks because he sang cheesy lyrics over two chords. Well, he wasn’t trying to be Duke Ellington. He was trying to make simple songs that would make people smile and dance and that were incredibly memorable. Did he succeed? Fuck yes.

I’ve stuck mostly to movies and music as example because I don’t know much about art and I don’t watch much TV. But the same concepts apply. If you’re really interested in art, consider taking an art history course, or an art class. They’re pretty ubiquitous in any major city.

As for television, the same standards as movies apply. We’re actually kind of entering into a new golden era of television. Five years ago you couldn’t find a good TV show to save your life, now they seem to be everywhere. I personally only watch Heroes (action-adventure with a thoughtful twist), Californication (a character-driven drama struggling with masculine sexuality and intimacy), The Daily Show (best political commentary on TV) and South Park (do I even really need to say anything?)

But I hear great things about Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, even stuff like Nip/Tuck. Check them out and see what you think.

Personal Examples:
I recently swallowed my vomit and checked out Sex and the City at the behest of Sinn’s blog series on the show. It actually wasn’t that bad. Although the female characters were pretty solid stereotypes of women, I didn’t find any of the male characters intriguing and the story arc was painfully slow across multiple episodes, so I stopped after 6-7 episodes. I imagine if I was less educated on relationships and romance, and maybe in my 30’s, I would find the show more interesting though.

I also didn’t “get” Lil’ Wayne’s album from last year “Tha Carter III.” I had never listened to Lil’ Wayne before. But I sat down the other day and put it on repeat until I felt justified to form some sort of opinion on it. It took a while to just get a handle on his rapping style. I read AllMusic’s description of his eccentric personality and Wiki’s entry on his rap career. Both helped me put his album in context as I discovered it’s a richly colorful, inventive and sometimes distracted album. The number of guests and producers he has is itself staggering by itself. Overall, I feel like I appreciate it although I feel like it may have been overhyped last year (which wouldn’t surprise me). All in all, a good album which I’ll listen to again.

So anyway, try stuff out. Which is going to be the next installment in this series: trying new things.