Lovers Gonna Love

It must be a bitch.

There you are, you're Charlie Rose.  Up until not that long ago, you could enjoy your trips to Aspen, to the Kennedy Center, to events a the Met ... and sit beside the likes of Cher, Martin Scorsese or Bill Gates, knowing that each would have to treat you kindly and warmly, because one day they might want to write a book or produce another album or push for funding.  If you stumbled across Dustin Hoffman, he'd treat you with respect.  But now, that's all gone.  If you could push your way into any such place, you'd be snubbed.

Once you had power, ordering people around, having people kowtow to you, sitting in your marvelous throne of power while the world turned about you.  Each little person that approached you did so with the same obsequious look in their eye, the same tremor in their voice, the carefully controlled vocabulary personally designed not to annoy you.  When a stranger entered your castle, they spoke your name in hushed, reverent tones.  But now, that's all gone.  The castle has evaporated.

But the worst, you must realize, as you sit in your expensive Long Island Mansion that you've managed to keep hold of, is that your world used to be populated with these marvelous, dreamy, lightly clad women of delightful odors and appearance, the very cream of the American crop.  And each of them eager, so eager, for your kind word, your attention, you're willingness to promise something for their career or their success.  My, what wide eyes they had, as they listened to your words, waiting and stupidly young and foolishly desperate to take off something that might bring a little more consideration their way ... and now, that's gone.  That's all gone.  What an awful life that has left you.

Still, it has been 15 months.  15 months.  My god, a lifetime.  Surely, they can't still be mad.  Surely, you've paid your debt.  Surely, you're entitled to have something of the career you've had.  You've suffered, haven't you?  You've paid.  Hey, you're the victim here.

After all, your email inbox is positively filled with supporters.  Mr. Rose, we love you.  Mr. Rose, we wish you could come back.  Mr. Rose, you ought to crowdfund your legal suit against your former bosses.  We support you.  We always believed in you.  Don't give up.  We don't believe you did any of those bad things.  We have received so much pleasure from watching your show, while we never got anything from your accusers.

Just as there are always haters, there are always lovers.  Whatever horrible sins that Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein and Brian Grazer committed, I'm sure they have no trouble finding people who still love them.  I'm sure Bill Cosby gets letters of support every day.

But just as the haters don't amount to much, neither do the lovers.  What matters in the end is what you have.  Not what others think you ought to have.

I've spent too much time today watching the Facebook feed of Frank Mentzer spin along.  Frank Mentzer, who has decided that 16 months following the evaporation of his credibility is long enough.  He's the victim here.  He's the one who's been wronged.  It should never have happened.  Can't we just overlook all that awfulness and move on with our lives?

Maybe we ought to.  Maybe we should just give ol' Mentzer another chance at a Kickstarter.  He's not going to force anyone to give him money, is he?  If his lovers want to give him money, we ought to just let them do it.

And Charlie Rose?  Let's give him his show back.  His presentation was warm and kind, he never did anything wrong to us.  He always did right by us, didn't he?  And all those women whose lives he hurt and whose innocence he crushed, well ... they'll get by.  Won't they?  After all, he's the victim.

Why not just let ol' Harvey Weinstein go back to fucking over Hollywood and the Oscars.  We got rid of him and the Oscars certainly didn't look different, did they?  So what difference does it make.  Why do we even bother punishing these people?  Just look at all their fans.

Oh.  Right.  Because what they did is wrong.  Because claims of being hacked or strangers staying at his house and using his computer to target a message board are fairly ridiculous.  Because 16 months ago, a lot of this happened in real time and the witnesses haven't conveniently died off.

Because the internet is proving to be a very difficult thing to process and having people like this around is a problem for everyone.

We don't live in the Information Age.  We live in the Information Management Age.

So no.  No pass.  Not on the basis that any of these people are "sorry."  Or that they feel they've suffered enough.  Or because they have fans.  Or because while others have taken their steps to move on, the perpetrator is feeling persecuted.

Hmph.

I suppose I better never fuck up, huh?  Not after writing something like this.

Be damned funny if someone hacked my computer and wrote a vicious screed to someone.  Be damned funny if a guest in my place used my computer to write same.  Pretty damned funny.

We'll see if that happens.  We'll see if someone pops out of my past and ruins my life.

Can't say I'm worried about it.