"Lido Shuffle" / Joel Siegel: Still Dead

“Lido Shuffle” by Boz Scaggs. You’re welcome.

Joel Siegel, legendarily awful movie critic for the equally awful Good Morning America, has died, at 63. This just goes to prove that, once in a while, genius is left to bless us while the mediocre die in their stead (this contrary to the old Bill Hicks axiom, about geniuses leaving us too soon while hacks are allowed to thrive and prosper).

Around these parts, Siegel is best known for pulling one of the all-time great punk moves by standing up forty minutes into (2006 TGO Movie of the Year winner) Clerks II, screaming “Time to go! First movie I’ve walked out of in thirty fucking years!” and storming out of the screening. In the aftermath, writer / director Kevin Smith took Siegel to the mat (along with comedians Rich Vos and future living legend Jim Norton) in a series of brilliant exchanges on the Opie and Anthony radio show (which you can listen to by clicking here – running time: 15:03; file size: 27.5 megs; better, please, to download the clip). If you’re going to have a legacy (other than being a truly terrible critic with overtly feminine tastes), it may as well be getting punked out by Kevin Smith.