I’m not a picky eater. I love most food.

But there’s one thing that makes me gag.If it’s on my plate I can’t eat it. If someone at the same table has it, I have to breathe through my mouth — which is good incentive for everyone else not to order it, because who wants to dine with a mouth breather?

The offensive ingredient? Truffles.

Right, that stuff that people cream (of mushroom) over, and pay lots of money to eat. Do you know how much truffles cost? A lot. If you had a pound of white truffle, you could trade it for a brand new Macbook Pro, or a night with a high-class hooker. At least.

Truffles are expensive because they’re rare. Special hogs have to dig them up.

But they’d be cheap as rock salt if no one wanted them. People think truffles taste like heaven on a cracker.

So, because  they make me dry heave, does that mean truffles suck?

Yes, indeed. It means truffles are over. It means those truffle hogs in Alba should fold up their truffle tents and try something else. Like selling vacation timeshares in Virginia Beach.

Or…OR…it means that truffles are awesome, and I just don’t like them.

Just something to remember if someone doesn’t like your writing. Or anything else you do.

It always helps me.

If a friend says my last blog post was ass, or an anonymous commenter says I write like a retard, or a client tells me my script “just doesn’t do it” for them, my first impulse is to throw myself in front of an oncoming vehicle.  OK, maybe just a slow-moving hot dog cart. Or at least a package of stale Wheat Thins that I don’t even want.  I’ll eat the whole box.

Because I’m shit!

All those people who told me I should write are wrong and stupid. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Or maybe they were lying to be nice. Or just high on drugs. Or maybe I USED to be a good writer, but that’s all behind me now.

What’s in front of me is a life of failure and poverty. I will end up living in a mildewed, roach-infested, one-room apartment over someone’s garage, eating tuna from a can on Christmas, like Fonzie did that one time.  That’s what I start to think.

But then I remember this:

For everything that’s great, there’s someone out there who HATES it.

Every one of my favorite books, movies, tv shows, paintings, restaurants, sweaters,   [INSERT SUBJECTIVE THING HERE] is total garbage to somebody else.

I loved the movie “Lost In Translation” – but my friend Bruce, who saw it after I came back raving that it was the best movie EVER, thought it kind of sucked. “I was a little alarmed that you thought it was so good,” he remembers. “It was completely indulgent.”

Is Bruce right? Well, I don’t know, I haven’t seen it in about five years. Maybe I’d agree with him now.

But even if I did, should Sophia Coppola curl up in the fetal position and cry? Should she quit directing?

No. Because who are we?  What do Bruce and I know?

Bruce is probably saying,  ”Everything, dammit.”

But I hate truffles. And I hated the movie Crash. According to the Academy, it was the best picture of 2005.  Me, I thought it was so overwritten and overacted and smug that I could barely get through 5 minutes.  Well, that’s not really true: I watched the whole thing, but only because I enjoy booing.

And Bruce?  Bruce hates all kinds of awesome things.

He hates 16 Candles.  16 Candles, for chrissake!  He hates Long Duk Dong! How can you hate The Donger?

Bruce also can’t fathom how anyone born of human flesh could drink a big glass of milk or eat anything with onions in it, even cooked ones.

Does that mean millions of people are wrong about milk and cookies? Or French onion soup?

No more than they are about my writing.

OK, there aren’t millions of people who love my writing. Let’s say, 50.  Let’s say 10.  Even if it’s just me and my mother, I don’t have to take it to heart if someone else says it’s no good.

Actually, my mother herself didn’t like one of my posts.

Fine, Mom. Doesn’t bother me.

CORRECTION:
Bruce didn’t hate Lost In Translation, or think it “kind of sucked.” He says it’s “just not on a level with Goodfellas, or Bad Santa.”  Fair enough, Bruce. Fair enough.