Entry tags:

books/authors, omg mock people mock, person: neil gaiman, political wank, twitter, wanking inside the house

Tax deductables! Pencil necks! Thieves! HIGH SPEED CAR CHASES!
Well, all right, maybe not high speed car chases. So, the background: last year, Neil Gaiman, author of such lovely things as Neverwhere and the Sandman series etc., was contacted to speak at a library in Minnesota for a hefty speaking fee, which was paid for by a fund which (a) stated any leftover money would be lost if not used, and (b) was also not available for books, salaries, or other useful things. Neil Gaiman did so, and subsequently donated the speaking fee to charities.

All's well that ends well, right? Well, except that Matt Dean, the House Majority Leader, decided it was time to let his long-simmering grudge be aired to the world: 'Dean said that Gaiman, "who I hate," was a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota."'

Neil is... well, he's not well pleased. Nor is his Twitter.

"Sad & funny. Minnesota Republicans have a "hate" list. Like Nixon did. I'm on it. They also don't like capitalism. http://t.co/FObmLGo"

"It's strange watching a grownup high school bully in power. But the bully vocabulary remains the same. http://t.co/FObmLGo"

"And for those curious how and why I made it onto the hate list, what I wrote at the time on my blog. http://bit.ly/lMxsWQ"

"Any nice, sane Minnesota Republicans reading this, please vote for someone who isn't a bully with a hate list next time."

"You can listen to the Stillwater speech that all the Pencil-neck fuss is about at http://bit.ly/k3lA1B (You need to go down to point 2.)"

He also happened to link to Dean's blog, which proceeded to crash. Whoops.

So you'd think that Dean would realize his mistake and apologize, right? Well... sort of. Why?

His mommy made him do it.

The universe collectively facepalms.

(Bonus funny from the comments, courtesy from someone called Lucas: "Do weasel thieves steal just weasels? Or do they also steal ferrets, otters, and wolverines? In the case of the latter, how do they arrange for transportation?")

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jaythenerdkid
2011-05-06 06:56 pm UTC (link)

I neither like him nor loathe him. These days, I'm somewhat indifferent. I enjoy some of his work but not all of it, and agree with some but not all of what he says.

I just find the whole "oh my goodness, this is so terrible, it's making me want to side with Gaiman!" thing tiresome, is all. Like, seriously? You loathe the guy so much that being on the same side of an argument as him is a cause for massive consternation? That's just as ridiculous as blindly fangirling the guy.

Bottom line: most people are sometimes morons and sometimes not. Stay tuned for our report on the grass being green, followed by the shocking revelation that the Pope is Catholic.

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ekaterinv
2011-05-06 07:09 pm UTC (link)

You wouldn't feel consternated about being on the same side of the argument as someone you found loathsome? This recently happened to me re: Rush Limbaugh, and it made me want to puke.

It's not just "being human". Gaiman's said plenty of things that aren't just your average dumbass human slip-ups. He's a rich white straight healthy super influential man. And when anyone says "I don't like the guy", they get people lecturing them about how everyone's human. Well the people being lectured are human too, and we are allowed to dislike someone who has made a ton of "mistakes" and dealt with them poorly.

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jaythenerdkid
2011-05-06 07:19 pm UTC (link)

That is a fair question to ask. But I'm a conservative (well...a fiscal conservative and social libertarian, do you American folks have a party for that?), so lots of people on my "side" are loathsome. Guess I'm used to it.

I don't care if people dislike Gaiman. They can dislike whomsoever they like. I just wish they'd stop making a huge deal out of it. All it does is direct more attention towards the man, after all.

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	ekaterinv 2011-05-06 07:25 pm UTC (link)
	a fiscal conservative and social libertarian, do you American folks have a party for that Democrat. "Conservative" here does not mean what "conservative" means in the rest of the world. I just wish they'd stop making a huge deal out of it. So you don't really care, you just want other people to stop caring in your line of view. Okay! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jaythenerdkid 2011-05-06 11:43 pm UTC (link)
	You're pretty determined to see it that way, aren't you? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	tofuknight 2011-05-09 05:17 pm UTC (link)
	In fairness, you are making it easy to see it that way. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ridureyu 2011-05-06 07:56 pm UTC (link)
	I actually enjoyed my chance to quote Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh at birther friends. And then later the chance to quote those two guys PLUS Sean Hannity whenever someone was upset that Obama was president when Bin Laden died. "Thank you, President Obama. Thank you." -Sean Hannity. (Reply to this)(Parent)

eleutheria
2011-05-07 12:12 pm UTC (link)

You and the Gaiman stan upthread seem to have thought a lot more about what I said than I did. I don't like the guy, I don't like his constant Smuggy McSmugness and the way he reacts to being criticized, and I especially dislike his fanbase and the way I can't seem to leave my house without meeting someone who witnesses for his awesome works of awesomeness which I must read immediately omg (seriously, local Heathen pubmoot, can I go even once without having someone tell me that I must read "American Gods"?). For which having to think "I feel sorry for Neil Gaiman" makes me want to smack the person who caused this to be.

I'm sure his entire world will be upended and his fans will weep bitter tears at the knowledge that one random chick on the internets thinks he's really fucking annoying.

(Also, "but he's human tooooooooo" arguments are both tiresome and contextually stupid. You may have noticed that Congressman Prickney is also human, as are all of the rest of the jerks and fools we mock on here, and you don't hear anyone bleating on in defense of their essential wounded humanity.)

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jaythenerdkid
2011-05-07 02:48 pm UTC (link)

I don't give a damn whether or not you read his stuff, or whether or not you like his fans. I don't like some of his fans either. They give me the creeps.

But making a big deal of the fact that he's on the right side of an argument because the fact that you dislike him must mean that him being in the right is some sort of gigantic cosmic imbalance? That just seems a little sad to me.

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	wankaholic 2011-05-07 04:16 pm UTC (link)
	...it was a one-line comment that seems to have been blown out of proportion. Seriously. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jaythenerdkid 2011-05-07 04:18 pm UTC (link)
	Hmmm. Yes, I believe you're right. I think that perhaps my comment was somewhat unwarranted. I apologise. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	gerorin 2011-05-07 07:14 pm UTC (link)
	Dude, I sympathize. Nobody can get away from the earnest ~everybody makes mistakes~ lecture every time they mention they don't like Gaiman I mean, every other turkey we mock to death here are ~just humans~ too, that never stopped us mocking XD (Reply to this)(Parent)

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