Cancelling your Favorite Sh*t

Inevitably, someone who created something you love will disappoint you. It might be an author who wrote your favorite book, but then publicly expresses cultural or political views that you find abhorrent. Maybe your favorite player on your favorite team will punch a stranger in a bar, or his girlfriend in the face. Maybe your favorite musician will allegedly imprison and have sex with several minors. Or maybe, your favorite celebrity will say something racist, or take their dick out, or be really shitty to a bunch of people. And suddenly, you might feel the need to re-evaluate your feelings about this person, your fandom, the thing they created, and its role in your life.

I’ve been in these spots before, and I’m going to work through what I’d tell you to do here.

But.

I don’t have easy answers for these scenarios. Wish I did, but definitely don’t. I’ve wrestled with these ideas before in When your Heroes have Halitosis as it relates to people, but not their creations and how they fit into our lives. I do know this much: I won’t tell you to cancel everyone who falls down, but I’m also not going to tell you to make “Remix to Ignition” your ring tone. There’s a middle ground here that requires introspection, demands accountability, and feels much more fair than the extremes. It’s just not cut and dry, or easy.

These discussions are easier when you’re talking theoretical instead of specifics; the specifics are tied into your nostalgia, emotions, and your memories. I give zero shits about a theoretical song I loved, but I remember staying up to watch the “Thriller” music video on MTV. (Yes, they used to play music videos) I can picture the first time I heard Robert Earle Keen’s “The Road Goes on Forever” in the parking lot of the Richmond Raceway after a NASCAR race in my 20’s. And your Mom and I danced to Etta James singing “Sunday Kind of Love” at our wedding. Each of those creations has a special place in my memory.

I shouldn’t have to tell you what Michael Jackson (allegedly) did. Robert Earl Keen? A friend of mine once played with Keen and told me he was a dick to the people that worked around him. That’s it. But it complicated my warm nostalgia about a few of his songs. I suggested you Try Not to be a Dick, and I’m not generally a fan of people who are. Am I then allowed to overlook this alleged dickishness by Keen just because I like his songs?

That’s a small offense, so what about R. Kelly songs? Can I still dance to those? He was accused of imprisoning, raping, and sex trafficking children. That’s way the hell worse than being a dick to the opening band. And Etta James? She struggled with heroin addiction for years. Should that color my memories of my first dance with your Mom?

We’ll come back to these questions, but the same thing happens with books, movies, art, sports, anything created by a human. I loved Orson Scott Card’s novels as a teen, but I think gay people should be allowed to marry. Card has been outspokenly against equality for LGBTQ people. The Cosby Show and Cosby’s stand-up were a part of my childhood, but Bill Cosby is in jail for drugging and raping multiple women, and may have raped as many as 60. None of my sports heroes have turned out to be awful, but some of the all-time greats have murdered, sexually assaulted, or cheated their way through life. That’s OJ for murder, Ben Rothelisberger and Lawrence Taylor for sexual assault, and Lance Armstrong and Curt Schilling for cheating.

How then should we feel about and remember these people and what they created? Does not playing their songs, reading their books, watching their movies amount to cancelling them? Is that fair and right, given their actions? And what about our memories, our feelings about them, and where their creations fit in our lives? I can skip a song and not watch a movie, but should I stop cheering for my favorite team if their new star has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault? If revelations about a creator’s actions come out years after the fact, should I be expected to forget the cherished memories attached to a specific song, book, or piece of art?

As if these questions aren’t hard enough, I’ll add another layer. Robert Earl Keen made sure to keep his band employed and paid through the Covid-19 pandemic when other artists couldn’t or didn’t do the same thing. Bill Cosby donated tens of millions of dollars to and helped thousands of black children attend college. And Lance Armstrong raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research through his foundation. How do those contributions to society weigh against their transgressions? Because there can be good sprinkled in with the bad, like diamonds in a pile of shit.

Here’s how I think about it. These people aren’t my friends. However, their creations are a part of my life, much in the way that my friends are a part of my life. It is an inclusion by choice, and that choice is mine. As you age, you’ll learn that it takes effort to stay friends. Friendships that you don’t maintain will wither, fade, and eventually become memories. Fandom and love for music, art, movies, and books is similar.

Would you still invite your friend over for dinner if he stole your neighbor’s TV? Would you go to the beach with a friend who murdered his wife? Would you play poker with a friend who cheated at cards? What about lesser crimes, would you hang out with a friend who was super racist, or stole crab legs from a grocery store, or was always a dick to the waiter? But what if those same friends had been there for you when you really needed it, or had been close to you for a long time? Those are all your decisions, as are the decisions to keep, discard, or simply put away the creations of all these people.

Problem is, when it comes to artistic and cultural creations, you’ll have to make these decisions with incomplete information. You won’t really know most of these people, and unless it ends up in court and you have lots of free time, you probably won’t know all the details of what they allegedly did.

It’s complicated, just like every person you meet every day. Some of these creations are so entwined with other memories and emotions that it’s impossible to just delete them from your life. They end up bittersweet, somehow tainted in retrospective. And in some cases, they may have inspired you to do or create things you’d never willingly let go of. Louis C.K. used to be my favorite stand-up, and definitely contributed to me wanting to get up on stage. His choice to expose himself to and masturbate in front of women doesn’t make me love comedy any less, but it did make me love his comedy a little less. And yes, he apologized. But I’m still lukewarm on him, and his art.

You too will have to make these decisions on a case by case basis, depending on what each creation means to you and just how much the person who created them disappointed you.

Just like I’ve said before, I think you as a fan deserve some accountability. It’s fair to expect it from an artist you’ve supported, but you must also be be fair when they attempt to make amends. Just like you’d accept an apology (within reason) from a long-time friend, you should accept an apology (within reason) from an artist who’s given you years of their creations. However, sometimes an apology isn’t good enough (or even offered), and you’re left deciding what to do. Which is where I am with Louis C.K.

That’s not easy. It may mean giving up something you love. Me, I can’t compartmentalize the creation from the creator, and just like I love to support people I see making the world better, I’m less enthusiastic about supporting people who are making it worse. It gets blurry in the middle, and I have to think about supporting people who are doing both. Which incidentally, is most people. But those are my decisions, and you’ll have to make your own.

Just remember that humans make mistakes, and to be kind. And for the record, I skip R. Kelly and Michael Jackson, still adore Etta James, listen to Robert Earl Keen but with less frequency, and gave up reading anything by Card.

I love you,

Dad

Sep 23, 2022

Time for everything, time for anything

I originally planned to finish this series in twelve months, intending to write one entry a week for 52 weeks. But, other things came up and I didn’t have as much time as I thought I would. We moved, you started a new school, I had other projects, etc. But finally, I’m starting my last entry in September, nine months after I’d planned. Which is the perfect intro to this one.

Time is funny like that. It marches on like a metronome, indifferent to how much you wish it would slow down or speed up. It offers no do-overs, no matter how frivolously you spend it. And it gives zero fucks what you planned to accomplish in the time you had. Once that time is over, you’ll get no more. But, it also stretches out ahead of you into an unknown future, offering untold possibility and infinite choices.

Which is why I hope you both learn to make choices about how you spend your time and understand what those choices mean. Because while there’s never enough time for everything, there’s still enough time to do almost anything.

Sep 9, 2022

On rules: the good, the okay, and the ones that suck

I have no doubt that I will someday regret giving you the advice I’m about to give you, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. That’s because like all the shit I’ve included so far, it’s important, and I want to make sure you know it.

This advice is about rules.

Some rules are good, and should be followed.

Some rules are okay, and can be bent.

Some rules are bad, either for being unjust or for being stupid, and depending on the consequences and the nature of the rule, deserve your ire, to be broken, or at the very least, followed with extreme disdain.

The hard part is figuring out which rules are which.

Jul 15, 2022

Heaven is for real. Or it isn't. And nobody knows which.

Let’s talk about God.

Wait, don’t go.

I know invitations to talk about God have shut down countless conversations and gotten hundreds of thousands of doors slammed in Jehovah only knows how many well-intentioned faces, so before you stop reading, let me tell you what I’m going to tell you.

Of all the advice I’ve given you, this one might be the least instructive. It touches on God, religions, and what I believe.

More important is what I’m not going to tell you.

Jun 16, 2022

A personal account of incredible kindness

Last week, you knocked a top front tooth out, again. You knocked out the top front left in 2020, mid-pandemic. This time is was top front right, but as awful as the experience was, it also gave us the opportunity to meet two incredibly kind people who went out of their way to help us when you (and I) really needed some help.

I’m going to tell you that story and why I hope theirs is the kind of behavior you grow up to emulate; because more than anything else you can be in this world, I hope you grow up to be kind.

Jun 9, 2022

Be Humble

Be humble. Because no matter how much you think you know or how much you actually know, the list of things you don’t know will always be way the hell longer than the list of things you do know. As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s also a list of things you think you know that you’ve got wrong.

Trust me, those things you think you know are just waiting out there in the world to make you look like an asshole as soon as you open your mouth to declare something you’re sure of. And I’m not telling you this to say I know more than you, or that I’ve got it all figured out. In I have no idea what I’m talking about, I was pretty clear that I don’t know everything. What I’m telling you is that you don’t either, and you should act accordingly.

How? Be humble.

Mar 24, 2022

Choose Discomfort

Your Mom and I are making ourselves uncomfortable on purpose, which sounds like a terrible idea. It’s not, though, and I’m going to tell you why it’s good for us and good for you.

Late last summer, a recruiter contacted your Mom about a job. After lots of emails, phone calls, interviews, and soul searching, she decided to take a job as the VP of Sales at Sierra Nevada Brewing. This also meant we’d relocate from Cincinnati to Asheville. Which all sounds great, because who wouldn’t want to work for the brewery that started the craft beer industry and live in the mountains of North Carolina where they got married? And we’d be closer to my family. What could be uncomfortable about that?

You have to consider what we’re leaving behind.

Mar 8, 2022

Sam Vines on boots and money

Let’s talk about money, why the idea that “you get what you pay for” is almost always true, and why not having money can cost you money. To set the stage, I’m going to share the Samuel Vines theory of Economic unfairness. Who is Sam Vines? Sam is a character in Terry Pratchett’s 1993 book Men at Arms.

He says, “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

Feb 19, 2022

The Sex Talk

This one’s going to be a doozy. And for your grandparents, they might want to look away; we’re going to talk about sex. So strap in, or strap on, whatever floats your little man in the boat.

At some point, we’ll have a you-and-me version of this talk, where you’ll have to listen to me struggle through this stuff while you suffer soul-crushing embarrassment. But, since this blog is about writing down things just in case I don’t get to explain them to you, I’m also going to embarrass you in writing.

We’ll skip the biology lesson, because this isn’t that kind of sex talk. You know, about fallopian tubes and seminal fluid. Although, you should learn what those are before 6th grade. Otherwise, you might end up like your Dad, who at the urging of Scooter Bailey, told Lee Raymer to “suck my Fallopian tubes,” in a cutdown fight on the school bus. Not surprisingly, your Dad lost that cutdown fight.

But, this is not a talk about fallopian tubes. This is a talk about consent, responsibility, emotions, accidents, and consequences. So, without further ado, here we go.

Jan 25, 2022

Don't Text Important Sh*t

When it comes time to talk about important shit, pick the right way to do it. Text messages, email, and written letters have their places and their uses, but when it comes to conversations that really matter (about things like relationships, sex, money, legal contracts, etc.) get to face-to-face, or at the very least, get on the phone. Yes, it’s less convenient, but you’ll be less likely to miss important details, misunderstand, or miscommunicate. You’ll also be 100% less likely to be autocorrected into telling someone to “shave the date,” or ordering “Egg rolls with fuck sauce.”

Don’t think I’m anti-text/anti-email. Especially because it’s possible text messages won’t even be a thing when you’re old enough to read this. We will have certainly developed new ways of communicating short snippets of information by then, who knows, maybe we’ll be sending mini-holograms back and forth. But, unless that technology manages to perfectly replicate every nuance of in-person communication, it will still be imperfect. More importantly, it will be at least one step removed from in-person communication, which by design, reduces the emotional immediacy and impact of that communication. What’s that mean? The further removed you are from a person, the easier it is to say something you wouldn’t say to their face.

Jan 21, 2022

Listen up, Mom has the mic.

When I think about the qualities I want you to emulate and share with the world, I think about kindness, empathy, respect, hope and love. As I reflect more on what is at the root of these qualities and behaviors, the art of listening comes to the center and forefront. I’m not sure I’m qualified to write to you about this as it’s something I struggle with every day. So, please don’t always follow my actions in this regard (although I try to get better with practice each day) but do try to cultivate and practice active listening.

Listen is a verb – it’s active, it requires energy and focus. The Merriam-Webster definition includes three parts:

To pay attention to sound
To hear something with thoughtful attention: give consideration
To be alert to catch an expected sound

I think the second part is the most critical. To me this speaks to not just active listening BUT also listening with a willingness to be influenced.

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