One of our favorite games here at the Mercury—besides purposefully damaging our livers—is playing "Overrated, Underrated, or Rated?" It's pretty simple. Pick any subject or person and decide whether it's overrated, underrated or rated just about where he, she or it should be (AKA "rated"). For example (and these are just my opinions, feel free to disagree):
The Beatles: OVERRATED!
Popeye's Fried Chicken restaurants: UNDERRATED!
Handjobs: UNDERRATED!
Comedian Dane Cook: RATED! (He's just as awful as everyone thinks, therefore he is neither over or under, he's just "rated.")
Sidenote: When I asked my staff if they considered me "Overrated, Underrated, or Rated," they were split between "overrated" and "underrated." Some think a masturbating chimp such as myself shouldn't hold such a lofty position, while others find my humor masks a more serious, contemplative side. Me, I think I'm "rated." I'm exactly as awesome as I think I am.
In the 1950s, Ginsberg was a leading figure of the Beat Generation, an anarchic group of young men and women who combined poetry, song, sex, wine and illicit drugs with passionate political ideas that championed personal freedoms. Major literary works of the Beat Generation include the novels On The Road by Jack Kerouac and Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, as well as Ginsberg's epic poem Howl, in which he celebrates his fellow "angelheaded hipsters" and excoriates what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.
So what do you think?
ALLEN GINSBERG: OVERRATED, UNDERRATED OR RATED?
Support your conclusion in the comments below, and stand by for more "Overrated, Underrated, or Rated?" next week!
