Most people in their lives become pretty good (at least) at one thing. Maybe you are good at selling insurance. Maybe you are good at playing foosball. Maybe you are Michael Jordan...whatever. That isn't the point. When you become good at something, you start to recognize the true talent that people have in your profession. Take for example your average NBA basketball player. That player would look at someone like Michael Jordan and say, "Damn...that guy is good". Now are talking some serious talent here.
Very, very rarely, do we ever see someone who is so far in front of the competition that the race isn't even fair. I struggle to find a comparison here. For a while there, Tiger Woods was so good at golf that it almost seemed unfair....but he didn't win them all. Sure, he was good, but we wasn't unstoppable. Look at what Roger Federer did in tennis...great, by anyone's measuring stick, but not unquestionably dominant. I could go on an on.
There is one person, though, who is, without any doubt whatsoever, 10x better than the best that ever lived at what he does. We use the phrase "He couldn't hold a candle..." pretty often, but in this case, no one even comes remotely close to what Les Claypool is able to do with a bass guitar.
Some of you probably know that I have played bass guitar for quite some time now (almost 20 years). I, in no way, consider myself to be good. I am good in the same sense that driving a car for many years makes me a good driver. In actuality, I am a safe driver with lots of experience, and that in many ways describes how I play bass guitar. I am safe and have lots of experience. The one thing that playing bass for that long gives me is a pretty good authority to recognize talent when it is present.
Les Claypool's farts are better bass players than I ever will be.
Watch this video:
The things that Les does are impossible. Literally impossible. And that is just what he is doing with his bass. He sings. He scats. He keeps rhythm. The dude is sent from an alternate dimension, specifically to play bass. Just watch at how easy it is for him. He doesn't even have to try.
I promise you that if I tried to play what he is playing, I would have to slow it down to about half speed, and I would still have trouble getting 50% of it right. He was specifically designed, engineered, and wired to play bass. I hesitate to call him a freak, because he seems to have a very level head...you know how some people are really good at something, but it seems to have taken away other, more important attributes? Like the guy in high school that could breeze through math class but couldn't put a complete sentence together without pissing himself?
Yeah, that isn't Les. There really shouldn't be any way he can do what he does with a bass guitar. Trust me on this one.
So, using your authority in what you are good at, who are your leaders? Who sells the hell out of insurance in your area of expertise?
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