Kerry Butler's from Bensonhurst?!?- Page 3

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/5/03 at 7:43am

Right. And I was responding to Broadwayguy's ass-kissing not to whether or not your post was humorous and the long post you just replied to Bruce was my good faith attempt to address some of the many issues raised by Ron Pulliam, from whom I would love to hear a response since I made the effort when I could have just blown him off.

I'm not sure if it's a technique of your group to come at people from all directions (I respond to somebody here about something they said, Ron comes at me with guns a-blazing asking what my anti-Bruce agenda is and telling tales of phoenixes, I respond to Ron, you come at me...) but if the effort is to keep people off-balance it works. Just don't try to pass it off as the model of civil and balanced behavior and genteel discourse and not cult-like group think with its attack strategy against non-cult members who are perceived to be critcial, whether they actually are being so or not.

Many, many people see the humor in my posts too. Apparently, you and the other people who find you funny and the people who find me funny have very different tastes. Nothing wrong with that, I'm just sorry the former find the latter so damn threatening for some reason.

You once leveled the criticism that a person can't win with somebody like me, Bruce, and that I always have to have the last word. Well, I am not competing, not trying to win, that's all in your head. And, the way you just signed that above post is very telling of a fella who truly has to have the last word. I think you imagine something in me that you don't like about yourself, and who knows, maybe it's there to some degree? But there's more projection coming from your direction than ever happened in Norma Desmond's screening room.

Updated On: 9/5/03 at 07:43 AM

[Al Dente]

Posted: 9/5/03 at 9:54am

I enjoy your humor immensely Namo! THERE, now I've had the last word.

[Ron Pulliam]

Posted: 9/5/03 at 12:02pm

I do appreciate your taking the time to offer me a thoughtful and point-by-point reply.

And I apologize for not checking back last night after having brazenly challenged you to respond to my queries.

I do post frequently and happily at the HHW website. I do not consider myself an asskisser, an acolyte or anything else other than an independent soul who enjoys the bulk of posters there. Sometimes I dive right in. Other times I say nothing. All topics there don't interest me or amuse me. Are there asskissers there? Sometimes, I think someone "seems" to be sucking up a bit too smarmily. But maybe that person "needs" to do that. I've lived long enough (oy!) to have learned that we all have needs that other folks might not understand.

It IS Bruce's website and he did create it at a trying time in his professional life when it was a means of keeping friends together -- friends he had made over the years, friends he had made through his Sondheim column and friends he had made through his CD-producing endeavors. Comments have been made here -- and I will say that I don't recall offhand who made them -- that indicate someone is familiar with his travails.

You strike me as being a creative mind -- literate, imaginative and not without compassion. You might well have raked me over the coals rather than given me a thoughtful response, and I greatly appreciate that.

Being a frequent HHW poster, I can tell you that we get "nasty interlopers" from time to time who post nasty little nothings, snide little snivels and common uglygrams. Even in live chat, which is open to all who behave themselves, we get the occasional visitor who toys with folks or digs at a topic of conversation.

Someone made a reference to a CD label Bruce was involved with up until a couple of years ago. Actually, he created it, named it and produced product that has continued to be released -- minus his producing credit -- as recently as a few months ago. It's not something I'm well-enough informed about to go into...and it's not my place...but I know enough to understand Bruce has had his share of professional betrayal/disappointment...and still finds brickbats tossed his way by people not involved in any way -- folks who know just enough to have no idea what they're talking about -- but who think it clever and fun to be pissy, bitchy and just plain subhuman at his expense. To my knowledge, none of those people post here.

But...and this is a BUT I hope someone here will understand...those of us who rally 'round Bruce are all a little sensitive to comments about him...especially when they seem to criticize his site or folks associated with him/his site.

I'd ask anyone who is tempted to critize Bruce's friends as asskissers/acolytes to ask himself/herstel what is so special about Bruce that he can command such loyalty.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/5/03 at 1:55pm

Thank you Ron, for your civilized response to my response. I think that there is a tendency sometimes to lump people together, as in "everybody at Broadwayworld who ever said anything that could be interpreted as negative towards ______ feels exactly the same way about _________" and everything else for that matter. And I do know it is sometimes hard to keep track of who said what.

The sum total of what I know about BK comes from having read the interview of him on this site. The one time several months ago I clicked a banner ad to his site I felt as if it was a club with its own lingo I didn't get nor did I care to learn and that there was a very well established group dynamic I didn't really want to belong to, not being much of a group person. Having said that, it struck me as odd for him to criticize internet pseudonyms when in that interview he said that Fynsworth Alley was an old internet pseudonym. That's the only reason I mentioned that. I know nothing more of his travails and I agree with you that people should be free to get whatever it is they can out of their life experiences, be it setting up a website about themselves, or taking part in daily internet group hugs. I don't think that means outsider commentary is off-limits (in fact, outsider perspective is often very helpful in areas of personal growth), although I assure you I have never interloped in the Haines world, there are more things I am really interested in participating in, and I participate in those.

I don't actually believe that people who post anonymously are ipso facto wimps or cowards or whatever, I think there are all sorts of personality types in the world. Some are way, way more exhibitionist than others. These types often wind up in showbiz! And others of us are more private participant/observer types. We tend to go into different kinds of careers.

"You strike me as being a creative mind -- literate, imaginative and not without compassion." Thank you, yes, there are times when I try to be all of those things, often simultaneously.

Sincerely,
Numbo