Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Shearing Pinx vs. The Melvins (Not!)

Every now and then you come across a story that makes you laugh so hard you fear for your continence.

Sometimes you get to be the guy who writes that story.

For example...

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Edited to add: the sheer human-all-too-human humanity of everyone's actions/ reactions was what made the story funny while I was writing it, but the comments have long since taken all the humour out of it. There are some really hateful, vengeful, nasty people out there, you know? (I'm told if I'm writing for the Straight I "have to get used to it" but it ain't gonna be easy). I thought the article, as written, would DEFUSE the lynch-mob mentality that had started to assert itself on Ben Frith's original post. In the short space of a few hundred words - some of which were cut from the article, which NO ONE has taken into account before dumping shit on me - I mention that Jeremy was apologetic, that he was wasted at the time of the incident, that he'd meant no harm, that he has received a fairly unpleasant punishment for his fairly minor transgression, and that (maybe) the Melvins overreacted a bit - in a style out of keeping with the punk ethos they come from (which is the point of the Chris Walter quote by me). It all seems clear enough to me. I could have asked him to grovel for forgiveness a bit more, but to be honest - I didn't think it was necessary; I didn't think people would be so cuntish in their responses. But while a  few Straight readers - like Alan Ranta - seem to have read the article I intended, a lot more are using it as a pretext to vent their hostility, and are salivating to attack, talking about going to see the Shearing Pinx to chuck shit at them, for instance. Grrreat. I mean, maybe Jeremy should have a "chuck shit at me" gig just to get it out of people's systems and prove he's contrite, eh?

Sometimes this city seems pretty broken...

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