"... There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Hamlet, Act I Scene V
It's not very often that I get a chance to trot out my love and appreciation of Shakespeare to use as part of a blog post. People have a tendency to misread references to classical literature as an attempt to be haughty, snotty, or "better than" in a lot of cases. Trust me kids, today that is just so very, very much not the case.
As I mentioned in yesterday's Friday mail call post, I'm trying to lean away from engaging the occasional moron who sends me an email fraught with overt stupidity. I am, however, toying with adopting a rule that while one giggleshit may not be worth a response, five will get my attention. To my way of thinking, the frequency of occurrence of five individuals outside of the Westboro Baptist Church all sharing the same brand of idiocy on a subject is so slim that I won't have to spend much time dealing with this. By the way, if you are from the Westboro Baptist Church or affiliated with them in some way, THERE ARE GAY PEOPLE IN MY FIRST TWO BOOKS WHO SIN ON A VERY REGULAR BASIS. I have a couple of signings coming up in the next few months. I'd be happy to invite you to picket the hell out of my shit. Nothing says massive book sales like protest signs. (Insert sound clip of "Sinner..." from Tommy Boy here.)
As a writer, or for that matter as a creative person of any ilk who produces fodder for the masses, one of your "professional" concerns is a concept called "the audience principle." Essentially, if you continually piss off your readers, they will stop reading. Unless you're just that good and they can't help themselves. For the best explanation of this concept I've ever seen, check out Ben Affleck and Jason Lee's ComiCon scene at the beginning of Chasing Amy.
Unfortunately kids, I've never really gotten a handle on the whole audience principle thing. I tend to say what I think, come hell, high water, bad reviews, or coming off like an over-opinionated dick. Sorry. I guess when it all comes down to it, sometimes I get a bit overindulgent with my own "muchness."
To that end, I have to respond to this 'series' of emails I've received regarding the new book. Before I continue, as always, please remember that I love hearing from everyone with their opinions and comments on any of my work. It's just that every now and then, well, some things burble up through the muck and I can't help but take a swat at them. This is one of those cases. I've received eight emails now berating me for being totally unrealistic with the character of Dina in that a truly gay woman would never fall in love with a man. These ladies are convinced that such a thing cannot and would not ever happen unless the woman was deluded or had, as one genius put it, "mislabelled" herself. Well, here's my response to the whole "things that could never happen" argument.
Ornithorhynchus anatinus - and he's pleased to meet you.
Other than serving as proof that somebody at the ol' celestial creation station was rockin' ye olde ganj, the platypus is exactly one of those things that shouldn't have happened but did. The simple truth to my character, ladies, is that iconic t-shirt slogan: Shit Happens. But to be clear, it's not the fact that these good and noble guardians of vaginal power took issue with my literary creation that bothers me. Honestly, I'm glad that something I created rankled anyone on any level enough to illicit a response. What irritates me is that these apparently intelligent and self-possessed women are so tied into identity labels and what is apparently a very narrow view of the universe that they missed the whole point of the exercise.
Hamlet was not wrong kids. There are more things going on in this world than we can possibly understand or comprehend. In my highly less than humble opinion, it's not our responsibility to decry the things we don't understand as wrong or not feasible or whatever. Our driving force should be to open up the windows of our cobwebbed little noggins and let the proverbial sunshine in while we try to get a clue. I don't mean this in a belittling way at all but as I kept reading this fairly articulate pile of male-bashing et al, I couldn't help but recall the older woman on the faux TV show in Starship Troopers who found the idea of a bug that thinks offensive. It truly saddens me to know that anyone in our day and age is still so hung up on strapping a label around someone to define who they are that challenging that notion offends them. Folks, if this was 1992 I'd get it, but now, really?
I guess my point is simply this. We all have our little comfort zones where things happen in a way that we understand and everything fits nice and neatly. The fact is that the world is just too full of wonder for any of us to have a hope of getting through it all without having to expand our concepts of the way the world works. Things are going to happen and people are going to exist that we just don't understand or like. Look, I not only got married once but now twice. Talk about things that just aren't very freakin' likely to happen. Maybe I should have had a platypus ring bearer...
There, see, I made it through an entire response to an inflammatory topic without calling anyone a narrow minded cunt waffle. Aren't you proud?
Aww dammit.
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