There’s been a significant amount of crossfire in the blogosphere lately regarding Authors Behaving Badly and Readers Behaving Badly. On a positive note, none of it appears to be aimed at me. MaryJanice Davidson unloaded on this topic this week. Can’t say I blame her. Seems to me if a reader can take a nasty shot at MJD, then MJD can return fire. And, really, name calling? Are you kidding me? As much as I enjoy re-living junior high (that’s sarcasm, in case you’re not clear) there has to be a point at which the hair-pulling on the playground stuff stops.
As a sidenote, I’ve met MJD. Heard her speak. She’s very funny, self-deprecating, open and charming. A tad crazy…uh, yeah. She’d be the first to tell you that. Find me an author who doesn’t dance on the crazy line. There’s a reason the characteristics of some mental health disorders sound eerily familiar to writers.
In an effort to show that romance writers are not the only ones out there struggling with the why-can’t we-all-get-along concept, I offer you this smackdown… First, John Friedman of Market Watch wrote an article on L.A Weekly columnist Nikke Finke. Friedman contacted the folks at Gawker for a quote. The Gawker folks said:
“I think what makes Nikki so compelling is that she’s clearly at least a bit crazy — and you can never quite figure out if it’s good crazy or bad crazy. She’s a great reporter and a fun writer, and God knows I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side.”
Ms. Finke was not amused. She sent some emails to Gawker complaining about the quote. Gawker brings the email exchange to you in what amounts to Exhibit A of Ms. Finke’s touch of crazy. My favorite part went like this:
From: Nikki Finke
To: Jesse Oxfeld
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: You dare call me “crazy”? You’ve never even met me.How dare you say something slanderous like that when you don’t even know me. Tell me, given all my hard-nosed and accurate reporting, just when and how did you decide I was crazy? We not only have never met, we’ve never had a single phone conversation. What gives you the right to make such a diagnosis (and how Friedman could have printed it is beyond me.) Why then did you send me 20 emails trying to get together with a crazy person in LA?
From: Jesse Oxfeld
To: Nikki Finke
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 12:24 PM
Subject: Re: You dare call me “crazy”? You’ve never even met me.are you serious? i wasn’t making a clinical diagnosis. that was supposed to be — and was clearly taken by jon as — a playful, complimentary quote. all interesting people are a little bit crazy, and certainly all reporters are. i meant it only as a compliment, and i’m sorry if you feel otherwise.
You can almost feel the love…
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