I've been so pissed off that Sherman Alexie has turned out to be another man with fame and power who has treated people with less power (women, in Alexie's case) as if they were free starlight mints in a bowl at the cash register, instead of freestanding, fellow human beings.
I was trying to work up to incandescent rage, but this is so stupidly familiar, I can only work up to pissed off.
No person is a dishful of buttermints for grabbing, but each is like a . . . going with this restaurant theme, more like a palm tree in the entryway--a living creature whose autonomy you want to cherish.
You might admire that tree, you might even want it, but you don't tear off some branches to sprout or try to lug one home at the end of the evening.
Or if you do, you know you're out of line and you don't say,
I would never do that, it's out of character:
some of you palm trees are getting me wrong.
And there's another thing that pisses me off:
these lame, half-assed apologies. [Here, Alexie's]
I want to say to Alexie, Come on, man:
YOU ARE A STORYTELLER.
That's how you got invited to that free meal where you got caught trying to stuff the nth palm tree into the trunk of your car.
Yet this self-protective piece of mediocre writing ("I made poor decisions") is the best you can show for yourself? the best you can offer people you hurt, including people who admired you from afar, like me?
(Also, telling us that a former consensual lover told your wife of her affair with you doesn't make her seem less reliable in our eyes. Rather the contrary.
Uncomfortable for you, no doubt, that she's now nailing you on Twitter, but it's you who come across as the liar there.
How did you not do that math?)
Show some dignity to your own soul, and to the personhood of the people you tore those branches off of.
'Fess the fuck up!
Write an honorable and beautiful apology.
One that will make us say, your apology is going to help me NOT hurt someone, not use anyone like a complimentary pair of slippers in a hotel––for their sake. For mine, I never want to have to say what you just did:
that every time you abused someone's trust, you might have come out looking fine on the surface, but you were like Dorian Gray--
every disrespectful action you took harmed your soul, stored out of sight--in, let's say, a potato. (I don't know, it just came to me.)
That your soul-storing potato started out fresh and firm, with enough fertile eyes to father a field of potatoes.
But that every time you used someone, that potato shriveled.
Every time you handled someone like a napkin, a bruise appeared.
Every time you put mints in your mouth, a bad odor arose.
And every time you tore off a branch, the bruise oozed.
All you guys who got famous by your gift for words--why aren't you using that to show compassion and remorse, not just to mouth platitudes or "yeah, buts"? Do you not have any?
Some of you, like you, Sherman Alexie, I thought I'd like as people, some of you, eh... the reports of your behavior came as no surprise.
But I hand it to you, whether I liked you or not, Louis C. K., Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, et al.---you guys were creative. You were funny.
And now you're pathetic.
It doesn't have to be that way. Maybe some are entirely putrified, but some potatoes should have some good eyes left.
Here's what I'm thinking:
Harvest those, stick toothpicks in, and set them in a glass of water in a windowsill. Plant the green shoots in the spring, and when it's harvest time, shovel those suckers out, and feed everyone you can.
What that would actually look like, I don't know. Go find out, form an experimental Truth and Reconciliation Potato Farm, and tell us an honest story about it.
I wish even one of you would make a move to do that.
If you can't, or you listen to your lawyers (I'm guessing), and you won't give yourself away, (give your self away!), I won't be surprised.
And we'll be OK anyway:
the palm tree will regenerate branches; our potatoes might be dented, but they haven't disintegrated into slime; we've got a whole stockpile of Andes, the best after-dinner mints.
We can and do tell our own stories.
We are, have been, and will be our own freestanding selves. Same as it ever was.
But it could be better if certain people would clean their shit up.
I was trying to work up to incandescent rage, but this is so stupidly familiar, I can only work up to pissed off.
No person is a dishful of buttermints for grabbing, but each is like a . . . going with this restaurant theme, more like a palm tree in the entryway--a living creature whose autonomy you want to cherish.
You might admire that tree, you might even want it, but you don't tear off some branches to sprout or try to lug one home at the end of the evening.
Or if you do, you know you're out of line and you don't say,
I would never do that, it's out of character:
some of you palm trees are getting me wrong.
And there's another thing that pisses me off:
these lame, half-assed apologies. [Here, Alexie's]
I want to say to Alexie, Come on, man:
YOU ARE A STORYTELLER.
That's how you got invited to that free meal where you got caught trying to stuff the nth palm tree into the trunk of your car.
Yet this self-protective piece of mediocre writing ("I made poor decisions") is the best you can show for yourself? the best you can offer people you hurt, including people who admired you from afar, like me?
(Also, telling us that a former consensual lover told your wife of her affair with you doesn't make her seem less reliable in our eyes. Rather the contrary.
Uncomfortable for you, no doubt, that she's now nailing you on Twitter, but it's you who come across as the liar there.
How did you not do that math?)
Show some dignity to your own soul, and to the personhood of the people you tore those branches off of.
'Fess the fuck up!
Write an honorable and beautiful apology.
One that will make us say, your apology is going to help me NOT hurt someone, not use anyone like a complimentary pair of slippers in a hotel––for their sake. For mine, I never want to have to say what you just did:
that every time you abused someone's trust, you might have come out looking fine on the surface, but you were like Dorian Gray--
every disrespectful action you took harmed your soul, stored out of sight--in, let's say, a potato. (I don't know, it just came to me.)
That your soul-storing potato started out fresh and firm, with enough fertile eyes to father a field of potatoes.
But that every time you used someone, that potato shriveled.
Every time you handled someone like a napkin, a bruise appeared.
Every time you put mints in your mouth, a bad odor arose.
And every time you tore off a branch, the bruise oozed.
All you guys who got famous by your gift for words--why aren't you using that to show compassion and remorse, not just to mouth platitudes or "yeah, buts"? Do you not have any?
Some of you, like you, Sherman Alexie, I thought I'd like as people, some of you, eh... the reports of your behavior came as no surprise.
But I hand it to you, whether I liked you or not, Louis C. K., Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, et al.---you guys were creative. You were funny.
And now you're pathetic.
It doesn't have to be that way. Maybe some are entirely putrified, but some potatoes should have some good eyes left.
Here's what I'm thinking:
Harvest those, stick toothpicks in, and set them in a glass of water in a windowsill. Plant the green shoots in the spring, and when it's harvest time, shovel those suckers out, and feed everyone you can.
What that would actually look like, I don't know. Go find out, form an experimental Truth and Reconciliation Potato Farm, and tell us an honest story about it.
I wish even one of you would make a move to do that.
If you can't, or you listen to your lawyers (I'm guessing), and you won't give yourself away, (give your self away!), I won't be surprised.
And we'll be OK anyway:
the palm tree will regenerate branches; our potatoes might be dented, but they haven't disintegrated into slime; we've got a whole stockpile of Andes, the best after-dinner mints.
We can and do tell our own stories.
We are, have been, and will be our own freestanding selves. Same as it ever was.
But it could be better if certain people would clean their shit up.