Thursday, Feb. 09, 2006 - 8:55 PM
Didja ever see The American President? Last really good movie Rob Reiner made. Normally a movie starring Michael Douglas isn't how I wanna spend two hours, but it's one of those movies that sucks me in every time.
There's this guy Rumson (played by Richard Dreyfus) who will be running against President Shepherd in the next election, and he's been slamming the Prez for months. Accusations about him and his girlfriend, and the Prez does nothing. He doesn't like to engage in that kind of low debate. Rumson keeps after him, and Shepherd keeps taking the high road and not responding...all the while his approval ratings plummet.
Then his advisor, played fabulously by Michael J. Fox, says:
People want leadership, Mr. President, and Rumson's the only one doing the talking. People want leadership, and in the absence of genuine leadership they'll listen to anyone who walks up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so desperate for it that they'll swim in a mirage in the desert, and when they find there's no water, they'll drink the sand.
So the Prez replies:
Lewis, we've had beloved Presidents who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. They don't drink the sand because they think it's water. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.
Why am I bringing this up?
Well, I just keep on seeing these awful blogs and newspaper and magazine articles and press releases and stuff referencing a certain steaming pile of shit lifted originally from an online tabloid...and most of them include something like the following:
Aiken's rep has declined to comment.
I understand not wanting to talk about it. I understand feeling like you're beating a dead horse. I know you feel like you've answered the question again and again, and that should be good enough. And I know it's just about impossible to prove you're *not* something, or that you didn't do something, because the people who are inclined to believe a story might be holding onto their beliefs so strongly that no matter what evidence you present, it's gonna look like a smokescreen to them. But those fanatical people are a small number. Loud, but small.
Here's the thing. Those other people who keep beating this to death...the comics (sketch and standup), the tabloid "journalists" (ack, almost choked on that one), the various haters from whatever putrid bog they've crawled from�they've been doing a lot of talking. They've been talking for three years straight (no pun intended), and there have been people lined up to listen. There are people out there, lots of 'em, who only know you as that gay guy from American Idol. Why? Because the only time they hear about you is when Kathy Griffin or Conan O'Brien or some tabloid jerkface talks shit about you. You've said a few things about it in a few articles and one TV interview. I think you�re losing the numbers game.
So, in short...Rumson's doing all the talking. And people are drinking the sand because they don't know the difference.
Oh yeah, and for the record, President Shepherd finally grows some juevos and tells Rumson off in the middle of a press conference. It was totally bitchen.
I'm not saying you need to take out a full-page ad in Variety. I'm not saying you need to retaliate by having your own article in the tabs who are slamming you right now. I just want you to do SOMETHING besides decline comment.
I know Team Clay (whoever those people are) are doing something behind the scenes. I know that. I'm sure that a tersely worded letter has been sent. Perhaps a phone call or two has been made. But you know what? WE CAN'T SEE THAT. A cute one-liner in the Star isn't a response that anyone's gonna notice.
The people who are standing in line right now at the grocery store who are thumbing through the Enquirer to kill time are only seeing the other side of the story. They don't read the fucking Clackhouse. They don�t know that you were in New York at the time. (assuming that you actually were...where's the official word on that? I don't even know which fan of yours claimed to know that for a fact, but I'm not inclined at this juncture to believe 99.9% of what I read.)
All they see is "the truth", as told by some guy who appears to not own a shirt. And, until either you or your people get out there and do some serious talking, that's all anyone's gonna know.
Oh, and by the way, it's not just tabloids carrying this stuff. At least one major newspaper, the one in the city where my mother's entire family lives, the one that is delivered to their doorsteps every morning...they ran the story. I didn't start getting really sick to my stomach until that day.
In my dreams, I see it unfolding this way...
Primetime Live. Diane Sawyer exclusive interview. Perfectly timed to promote your new album and dispel rumors.
You talk about what a year you've had. How working on your second album turned out to be more difficult than you thought. How your perspective on the world changed when you began travelling with UNICEF and the little things that used to bug you don't seem so important anymore. How you're still amazed that you've got fans out there supporting you the way we do. Especially this one woman named Julie who�sorry, got carried away...
And then she asks you, "You've been the subject of some really nasty attacks in the tabloids lately. Where do you think those are coming from?"
And you say that you wish you knew. You wish you knew why some people want you to be gay so badly. That it used to seem like they saw something in you that they wanted on their side of the fence, and it was kinda flattering, in a way. But now it's this weird, mean-spirited mess you don�t understand.
You say that you didn't want to respond to all that stuff because you don't want to get dragged down to their level, and in the past you just tried to ignore it, but it's gotten out of hand. You're getting accused of doing things that are awful. When it was just "he's gay", it wasn't an insult. It may have been WRONG, but it wasn't an insult, because it's just something you're not. But now you're being painted as something way beyond that. A guy who trolls the internet and screws strangers in some crap motel. A guy who would have unprotected sex with anybody, let alone a man.
And you don't want kids who like you to see some big picture of you on the newsstand with a giant headline like that. You don't want their parents to have to explain it to them when they ask.
It doesn't have to be you getting nasty. It doesn't have to be you being mean. But it should be you showing the world that you can get a little pissed off when someone is being this awful and reprehensible. And this is something worth getting pissed off about!!
(actually, I'm also fantasizing about you calling Howard Stern and just going all BallistiClay on his ass...but maybe you're not comfortable with that!)
I've got to add something else...something I was going to say a long time ago, but I let it go.
Last summer, you were on Dr. Phil talking about being bullied. You wrote about it in your book. You know about being bullied, and I think you're smart enough to know you're being bullied again.
But here's what I don't like about the stuff you've said about bullies:
You say you learned to like yourself and then suddenly people started liking you and stopped picking on you. Being the target of some bullies myself, I find that a little hard to believe. Are you saying that ALL the people who used to pick on you just stopped? That they had that "be nice" epiphany your Mom was talking about, and they started behaving decently towards everyone?
You said it yourself...the bullies don't come around. So what happened? They might have stopped picking on you, but it gave them more time to pick on some other kid. Problem solved? Hardly. Just like those kids on Dr. Phil, who seemed to me to be pretty strong and self-assured, you felt better. But the bullies kept being bullies because nobody stopped them.
The biggest regret I have in my ENTIRE LIFE is that I didn't stand up for myself in junior high and high school. I let the jerks win. Just sat there and took it. I might have turned out okay in the end, and I might be stronger for it...but all those jerks got to keep on being jerks. And they're all probably making someone's life miserable right now.
Those guys who bullied you in school, the ones who called you "fag"�who do you think they are today? Could it be the same guys who shoved skinny kids into lockers all over the country are the kinds of people who write articles for tabloids? The people who think that just because someone has become famous, they're "asking for it" and need to be taken down a peg?
Don't you think it's about time somebody told the bullies to shove it?
I do it all the time, right here on my little blog. But nobody gives a crap what I say, and the world is never going to hear *me*, no matter how loud I yell. Besides, I don't have the information to back it up. All I can really say is, "Nuh-uh! You are!" Not really effective.
Gauntlet's been thrown down. Time to kick some ass.
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