I hate comments

Really, I do. I rarely, rarely read them and NEVER on my stories. Why? Because 95 percent of the people who post are losers. OK, I have no way of knowing that. But based on the back-and-forth pissing matches they get into and how far afield they go and how everything descends into race in a matter of seconds, you’ll forgive me if I don’t think highly of the majority of people who use The Commercial Appeal’s comments as their personal port-a-potty.

There’s a saying – if all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail. For a writer, this basically translates into – don’t be hollering and screaming and moaning about ish all the time, because people get tired of that, so mix it up already. I DELIBERATELY try to do that. I mean, I have a list of things I think I might want to write about, and I look at the mix. Too much education? Too much politics? Too much personal navel-lint gathering? A good columnist mixes it up.

I’m not great, but I try to be decent. So, this is why after the Tea Party’s absolutely DELUSIONAL accusation that I called Charlotte Bergmann a racial slur – that I did NOT call her and her spokesman had to admit, no, Wendi did NOT use those words – I wrote a softball piece. Slow and easy and over home plate. It will win no awards, that’s not the point. It’s to show the readers who are still paying attention that guess what, guess what – my life extends well beyond desperate politicians.

So Thursday’s column was about my late uncle who died Saturday. He was a true gentle man, in every sense of the word. I filed the piece and stayed up (helping a lawyer friend write an editorial for a paper where she lives) until now (5:38 a.m.). I checked out the comments a while ago and some buffoon says I am writing a self-serving free obit and I’m clearly an affirmative action hire.

I don’t care really what he thinks about me.  Say what you want, as many times as you want, and my paycheck will be the same. BUT – using my time of grief to take a completely unwarranted pot shot at me – that’s some shitty mess. Karma is a biatch, my friend. I wrote a nice note online (I never do that- but my faith instructs me to be kind to those who hurt you), but if he (or she – but my biases tell me that shes usually show a modicum of restraint) showed up to my house and identified himself, let’s just say I wouldn’t hold my Rott back. (Yeah, I’m still working on that forgiveness thing.)

When Vasco Smith and Benjamin Hooks died, the comments about them HORRIFIED ME. The men weren’t even cold in the ground, and bigots were just a dancin’ on their graves. Slumlord Buehler croaks (God rest his soul too) and people were tripping over themselves to say what a wonderful man he was. I was like – am I in some freakin’ alternate universe?

Say what you want about me. Leave my family alone and have the decency (d0 you even KNOW what that is?) to allow me and anyone else suffering a recent loss to grieve. Hold your piss for another day, please.