How did Heller Keller’s parents punish her when she was bad?
They rearranged the furniture.
When she was very bad?
They replaced the wallpaper with stucco.
When she was very, very bad?
They left the plunger in the toilet.

—————-

In order to address beefs and how they affect me, I have to write about the most recent incident, something that made me furious at the time but I now find mildly, almost amusingly, irritating. That I’m writing about an event that’s nearly a year old, though, I’m aware this might make it seem like it is more meaningful than I let on. I know, I know, the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Good on you for your Shakespearean references!

I said that I‘ve stumbled into beefs without meaning to. In this case, I can say that I’m… mostly not to blame. I’ll write as generally as I can and I’ll take responsibility when it’s deserved.

There’s a club in Stockholm that I have practically lived at for over a decade, but more noticeably during the past five years. There’s a comic who had a number of chances there, but the club owner’s goodwill evaporated in time and the comic wasn’t welcome anymore. Said comic was, is, upset about this. Look, I get it. I remember during my early days, when I was far more passionate about the grind than I am today, I would resent club owners who kept their doors closed to me. Worse, I would resent the comics who were booked on a regular basis, especially if, rightfully or no, I considered myself better than them. I had nothing to do with him not getting booked- in fact, I defended him quite a bit in the early days of his career- and while I don’t think it’s deserved, I understand why my mere existence would be irritating to him. Hey man, get in line.

Where I can admit some wrong-doing, while I said I’d defended him a number of times to a number of different people, I became less interested in doing so over time. Back when I first met him, I told him he made me nostalgic for my early days, when my enthusiasm far exceeded my ability. In the years since then, well, the nicest thing I can say is that his enthusiasm and his ability haven’t changed. I’ve had conversations with other comics where they’ve laughed at him, not in the good way, and as much as I’d like to say I didn’t join in, I did. Comics give each other shit all the time, but this wasn’t necessarily good-natured. Anyway, as comics adore gossip, it’s likely that some of the things I’ve said about him and the club where he lives made it back to him.

I do know, though, that he’s aware of this blog, based on a few passive-aggressive remarks he made to me, including calling me “Gossip Girl.” See, after he asked for a spot at the club I frequent for the last time, and was denied for the last time, he sent that club owner a flame message. I got to see that message and, I’m sorry to admit, it was fucking hilarious. I ended up alluding to that message in a blog post covering entitled Swedish comics and, while I did not name names and that was just one of several incidents I mentioned involving several comics, it wasn’t hard for people to figure out who was involved.

After that post, when we did see each other, he was much more aggressive in the way he’d speak to me. Always with a smile on his face that didn’t reach his eyes. That was fine, I just shrugged my shoulders. I had no reason to dislike the guy personally.

Then someone died. It was sudden and unexpected and not widely known. It took time for that person’s family to make an official statement. In the immediate aftermath, though, a small circle of people were made aware. I was one of them. Another decided to make a FB post immediately; I talked to them, said we should wait to post anything until it had been made official, they disagreed. Again, I shrugged my shoulders. The person had not been tagged, not many saw the post.

Over the next few days, word began to slowly spread. After seeing a few more posts, I reached out to a number of people to say, while I could not and would not stop anyone from grieving as they saw fit, I strongly recommended against making public posts until the family made an announcement. People seemed to understand this.

Then this guy made a public post on a standup FB forum, tagging the recently dead. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, believe that his heart was in the right place, but I can’t help but suspect that he had selfish motives. In any case, that and the fact I found the post inappropriate and disrespectful, even that I could shrug my shoulders about. The problem was the tag. That the way people who cared about or even loved this person would learn of their death from some random comedy forum from some random rookie who openly admitted to not knowing them very well.

Seeing as time was of the essence, I tried calling him, he wouldn’t answer. I asked the admin to remove the post, he said he would look into it but took zero action. I noticed that, while he wouldn’t answer the phone, he was interacting with comics who were commenting on his post. I tried to ask him there to take it down, he refused, but when other comics agreed with me, he deleted the post. He sent me an angry message saying he had no interest in talking to me, but he’d deleted the post out of respect for the dead. I thnk I just wrote, “Cool,” in response.

Still, I had no reason to dislike the guy. And, again, I get it. I’d made him lose face amongst his peers. It wasn’t my goal to humiliate him; if he’d just answered the phone, maybe I could’ve talked him into taking it down before anyone noticed. His next step, though, that turned my stomach a bit. Remember the first post I’d asked be taken down, but was refused? This guy, after taking his own post down from the forum, shared the first post on his own wall. Class act.

(Apologies for less than fluid prose here, but, again, I’m trying to be as general as I can be.)

Anyway, it was all done with, I thought. Within a week, the family made the news official, and over the following weeks, a few friends and other comics shared posts of their own. A month later- a fucking month- this guy sent me a flame message, attacking me for going after him but no one else (incorrect, but more importantly, I had no reason to scold anyone for posting after it was made official), before bashing me with a whole lot of nonsense. I’ll give credit where credit is due- it was his goal to piss me off and, damn, mission accomplished. I was livid. But not so livid I couldn’t darkly chuckle at his accusation that I sit on my couch all day, on Twitter, while my wife “brings home the bacon.” The fact that I have a full-time job and two part-time jobs notwithstanding, I suppose this was meant to knock my masculinity. But to be able to sit on my couch all day while my wife is the sole source of income for our household? Sounds like Heaven to me! Go ahead and call me a soy boy or house husband, call me a flaming homo and I’ll get my own float at Pride.

But Twitter, of all things? He could have said PS5, or YouTube, or YouPorn, but he went with Twitter. Not only have I never liked Twitter, never been particularly active on it, the last time I posted – I had to look this up – was 2021. This is the result of the gossip mill meeting the Telephone Game and it’s just sad.

The message wrapped up with a vague threat of what will happen the next time we run into each other, followed by him immediately blocking me so I couldn’t respond. And yes, I was furious. He got to me. I reached out to some friends to vent and their response was a universal eye roll. They said whatever, don’t let him get to you, he doesn’t matter, no one likes him, he buys Instagram followers (okay, they didn’t say that last thing, but it doesn’t make it untrue). They advised me to keep my head up and not let it bother me.

They had good intentions. They had my best interests at heart. Even at the time, I knew that, within a few days, a week at most, I would feel exactly the same way. Unfortunately, since they weren’t just as angry about it as I was, at that moment? It made me angry at them, also. Because I am a crank.

Next week, I’ll conclude with how I found peace with anger.