Shut Up, Dude: This Week’s Best Comments

The whole thing is weird. Mike White does have a huge amount of control over the show, so he might be a little tough to work with. But at the same time, this guy is making music for a TV show. As someone who works on the creative end of TV, myself, I know and anyone else working in the industry should know that your most experimental ideas aren't going to get through. They hardly ever do! The fact that some of the cool weird stuff this de Veer guy did was able to make the cut is actually amazing! He should be thrilled at the outcome! Not going out there and complaining about it.

And that the reference music was bad? Yeah, that's the point. It's just for reference. If they were going out and finding genius reference music and asked you to copy it, you'd hate that too.

Making commercial art is about constant, merciless compromise, collaboration, and occasionally (or often) acquiescence. The times that your purest forward-thinking idea makes it to the final product is infinitesimally rare. Even Mike White himself—and he is the sole writer and director on these episodes, which is a rarity in itself—likely has to compromise on nearly everything with the network. That's the handshake with the devil you make when you get into the television business. This music guy has gotten so many accolades for his work on it—like, just take it, man! So you don't like working with Mike White and HBO, fine. Your resume is already good enough that you can go work for another show and try your luck again. Really fucking weird to be doing this bridge-burning interviews.