Several weeks ago, a Twitter person called @LadyRobyn sent me the following succession of messages:

@EricDSnider:You cal yourself a writer & a critic, bon vivant man about town…
@EricDSnider: I call you a brass jackass…
@EricDSnider: … who has about the same amount of talent as a writer as the mess my neighbor’s dog makes @ the local fire hydrant.
@EricDSnider: Yeah… the both of you are on the same level…
@EricDSnider: I take that back. I made a mistake. A major miscarriage of justice…
@EricDSnider: “Mittens” has more talent.
@EricDSnider: Sorry “Mittens”…

People had questioned my talent before, and rightfully so, but this was the first time anyone had doubted that I was a bon vivant and/or a man about town. Such gall!

I replied to @LadyRobyn thus:

@LadyRobyn: Not that I dispute anything you said, but can you tell me which of my writings prompted you to say so?

She tweeted back:

@EricDSnider: Got your attention… good. Take a good guess which 1.

To which I responded:

@LadyRobyn  I have no idea. I write a lot of things, and I don’t know anything about you or your tastes. That’s why I asked you.

It’s not entirely true that I had no idea. Her Twitter page is adorned with pictures of Michael Jackson, and a casual glance at her tweets shows that approximately 175% of them are about Michael Jackson. The URL on her Twitter page goes to a cache of YouTube videos where she talks exclusively about Michael Jackson. So … I figured she was mad at some joke I’d made about Michael Jackson. But that doesn’t exactly narrow it down; and besides, I hadn’t made any such jokes recently.

A couple days later, LadyRobyn e-mailed me with a full explanation, which is as follows:

Dear Mr. Snider:

I am so sorry that it took me so long to respond to you.  I had to leave my computer for awhile, and now that I am finally back, I would like to take the time out to talk to you.

First of all, let me say how pleased I am for your response.  Most bloggers don’t take the time out to respond to your their readers.  That was very nice of you to do so.

However, the blog in which I was referring to is this one:

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/11/10/michael-jackson-seance-video/

Love him, hate him, say what you want about him… but was it really necessary to resort to the following:

1.) Refer to the concert film “This Is It!” as being “ghoulishly titled”– to do so would in a way imply that he knew he was going to die.  No one (with the exception of terminally patient or a suicide victim knows for sure when he or she will meet his or her demise, and even then it’s not totally accurate.

2.) To say: “just in time for Halloween” or as Jackson used to call it “everyday”– which is simply another crack on your part to call into question his so-called eccentric behavior.  (And just who is to say who is eccentric & who isn’t?  I’m quite sure that if I were to shake your tree, I wonder just exactly what kind of peaches would fall out… if any, which would, when you REALLY stop and think about it, would make you quite the bore, wouldn’t it?)  Another reason why this is a poor choice of words in your part, is that it would also imply that Michael was “a Goth”.  To my knowledge, he wasn’t.  But I have to admit that being a Goth myself, if he at some point was one that would be pretty cool, (& it would your comment acceptable), but since we don’t know for sure, let’s just say that that is another error on your part.

3.) Refer to him as “the beloved nutjob”.  This seemed to illicit the most reader response.  What ever you may think of him, it smacks unprofessionalism and just down right childish behavior on your part.

4.) The use of the word “lame”.  Yes the seance is without a doubt farfetched, but come on.  MUST this word be used over and over again to the point of ad nauseam?  Thanks to South Park’s Cartman, using, abusing, & even in some ways MISusing the word “lame” has become just indeed that.  To me, it is a word that is right up there with other overused words like “diva”, “fierce”, “fabulous”, “random” and a few others that I would like to see PERMANENTLY BANNED from human speech.

5.) You didn’t even have the decency to end your blog.  You left your readers hanging.  (And it might even be possible that you disabled the comments, which is why I had to initially find you at Twitter, because frankly… almost everyone has a “twitter”.)

Honestly, I really don’t give a black fat rat’s tit about what you really think of Michael Jackson, but I got to admit that your whole blog (what little of it there is) shows a great lack of respect on your part.

I’ve been writing for almost 20 years and in that time I’ve seen the style of writing go down hill, because most writers are far too busy being full of themselves trying to ascertain a certain amount of be wittiness and cleverness, just to “get the funny”, to make themselves look verbally charming.  In truth, it’s sickening.

I have also tried my best to give at least some amount of respect to a decedent, not just because of who he or she was or what he or she has done (be it good or bad), but because many of my readers can also be a member of the decedents family, friends, associates or colleagues.

But there is another reason… I do this because it is just simply the right thing to do, since it is a journey that I myself will take someday.  (And you will, too.)  A person’s death is a constant reminder of just how delicate, fragile and most of all, how SHORT life can be… for all of us.

It is my hope that I have given you something to think about as you continue your literary journey.  Nine times out of ten, however, you haven’t.  I’ll bet all the money in my pocket that as you’ve been reading my post, waiting for it to end, the wheels have been turning in your head, full of your “snide remarks” and “cynical yet witty repertoire”, just waiting to burst from your fingertips onto the keyboard to make yourself look superior so you can save face.  If that is the case (and most likely it is) you can keep your comments to yourself.

Take care and good luck in all that you do.  And, again I am sorry for the late reply.

I e-mailed her back with this reply:

Hi Robyn –

Thanks for the reply. I think the problem here is a misunderstanding of what the post was meant to be.

I wrote the post in question, but I have no control over the comments. I didn’t disable them, nor have I read them. The purpose of the post was to draw attention to the goofy seance video, so it ended with the video. It wasn’t intended to be a complete essay on Michael Jackson or seances. It was, like many blog posts, just an excuse to post a link to something else that we thought our readers would find amusing.

I didn’t imply that MJ knew he was going to die. If he’s the one who chose “This Is It” as the movie’s title, then after his death the producers should have thought about changing it, since it now took on ghoulish connotations. That’s all I meant with that.

Now, as for the post itself. Cinematical is a movie blog. It’s not meant to be a straightforward, unbiased news source. Writers are encouraged, even when reporting dry news items, to add their opinions. That’s what separates a movie blog from a trade paper like Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. So in writing a post about a hilarious video of crazy people trying to talk to a dead man, I was free to observe that MJ was an eccentric, weird millionaire who liked to wear silly costumes (hence the Halloween reference). I was free to describe him as a beloved nutjob. Doing so was not unprofessional. Quite the opposite! Commenting on pop culture — even childishly, even with cheap shots, even with jokes about recently deceased weirdos — is literally what I get paid to do. It’s why the Cinematical editor assigned this particular story to me, because he knew that making fun of things like this was one of my strong points.

None of which means you have to like what I wrote, of course, or find it funny or in good taste or whatever. I just wanted to clarify what the purpose of the post was. The purpose of the post was, indeed, to make fun of Michael Jackson and some of his insane fans. Just posting a link to the video would have been pointless. It needed some snarky commentary, and that’s what it got.

Best wishes,

Eric

P.S. I hope you appreciate my restraint in writing that post, and this e-mail, without referring to Michael Jackson’s habit of molesting young boys and then buying their silence. Talk about eccentric!

I didn’t hear anything more, so I guess this is it.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Angry Letters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.