Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[trappedslider]

This just has to shake itself out. Some people will divest themselves of everything he’s done. Others will hold on to what his work meant to them, as has been done with so many artists who’ve been found to been accused or have done terrible things. But people will not stop being inspired by others and calling them heroes and that’s a good thing

compartmentalization ( omg i got it right on the first try) is both a wonderful and terrible thing.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This is actually the first I’ve heard about Gaiman’s personal darkness. Previously, all I’d seen were his pretty awesome interactions with his fans, with the sole negative being an alleged lampoon of him in The Tick comic book series as Dinosaur Neil.

 

[trappedslider]

 

[CleverNickName]

I have seen various forms of BBQ pizza around for decades.

If I were making the thing, I wouldn't use brisket, what with its tendency to dry out. Pulled chicken or pork, or some burnt ends, would seem a better choice. But whatever floats your boat.

Agree completely (it wasn't my recipe). When I make it this weekend, I'm going to use pulled pork.

 

[Staffan]

If one is going to play pedantic games, one must play by the rules, as technically correct as you can manage - you have to see their blood in order to target it.

Sure, but it's a lot easier to get so see someone's blood than their bones. That's also why I used Adam X The X-Treme as the example: he can make "oxygenated" blood burn, meaning it has to be exposed to air (because the oxygen it gets from people's lungs don't count or something).

 

[Umbran]

At a certain point, you can't blame Lucy, Charlie Brown. Remember- if you only know someone's work, or their public persona, you don't know the person.

I mean, in all fairness, you don't really know most of the people you actually do know, so there's that too.

So, reading that article, there's a point in which the author describes his interactions with fans, how he could be charming and make everyone feel like he was really focusing on you.

Some years back, my wife and I were volunteering for World Book Day, which got us invited to a reading by several authors who had books being distributed as part of the program. Gaiman was one of them.

And I will be damned, but I see exactly what the author meant by that. I can think back and see exactly what he did. And now that colors what little experience I had with the man, personally.

 

[Autumnal]

At a certain point, you can't blame Lucy, Charlie Brown. Remember- if you only know someone's work, or their public persona, you don't know the person.

I mean, in all fairness, you don't really know most of the people you actually do know, so there's that too.

Your final paragraph is on point. We do come to know people at a distance. Imperfectly, sure, but that’s true in person, too. See Ann Rule on Ted Bundy, or anyone who discovers they’re in a relationship in a domestic abuser. There are many people who share a lot of their lives in various online contexts. He turned out to be editing it so as to convey an outright lie, but most people aren’t, and those who failed to see the seams weren’t all fools.

That is, we weren’t all fools. For much of the 1990s, I was on the GEnie network. It gave free membership to people in professional writers’ organizations like SFWA, HWA, and RWA, which meant that for a certain kind of fan, there was no better place to be. I made friendships there that lasted as long as the authorial friend lived (like George Alec Effinger) and some that endure now, since we’re both still alive.

And I was a regular in Neil Gaiman’s topic.

When a tour brought him to Portland late the ‘90s, I took a friend. We waited in line, I handed him the book I wanted signed, and I said, “To Bruce, please. That’s Bruce Baugh from GEnie.” He froze mid-signing, looked up, and his face lit up. “Bruce! So good to meet you!” We chatted a little then and more after the signing time was over. My semi-date was mightily impressed, and she was not an easy person to impress (having had prior experience with the sort of person Neil turned out to be).

So that’s one significant friendship that turned out to be part of an ongoing lie. But others that weren’t, I’ve learned from others physically closer to the ones now gone. I was on a short list of people one author became estranged from later and whom he wishes to reconcile with but had no way to contact then. He had a list of our names. That wasn’t a lie.

I can’t demand others be more infallibly wise, nor that they like even remote, superficial contacts any less than I still do.

 

[trappedslider]

compartmentalization ( omg i got it right on the first try) is both a wonderful and terrible thing.

or separating the creation from the creator.

 

[Autumnal]

Dammit, I’ve made myself cry. Off to regroup.

 

[trappedslider]

Dammit, I’ve made myself cry. Off to regroup.