My little dust up last week with the Misunderstood Victim Of The Year made discussion forums as far away as Los Angeles. Apparently, he was cast in the role of "privileged gay guy" while yours truly was labeled a "work a day fag". I can live with that.
One of my readers sent an e-mail inquiring as to the origins of my flat-out hatred and contempt for one Ricky Taylor. So I thought I'd clear it up publicly in case you haven't had the pleasure. Ricky first came to my attention several years ago back when a lot of us were baby bloggers. I had recently made the acquaintance of my internet pal Ryan down in Texas. He was the first HIV+ blogger to get in touch with me, and put me on a little network of bloggers that has expanded to include many of the people that I converse with all over the country.
Shortly after our meeting, Ryan contacted me regarding a particularly nasty comment he received on his site. He followed it with an e-mail and it was then he received a series of increasingly disgusting e-mails in reply. Not only did the "writer" call him all kinds of names, he actually wished that Ryan would die from AIDS. He stated that he hoped he would suffer from facial-wasting. That used to be a common obsession of this reprehensible creature. I have no idea why. He had made up a comic book name and character for himself, casting himself as Ridor the Terrible. But of course it was only Ricky Taylor. Needless to say I was outraged.
But Ricky left links back and that's when I first discovered this pig had a blog. It only made it worse that he was deaf, gay and living in New York City frequenting many of the same bars/parties I was at. I was sickened that someone like this could exist. How you come up as hearing impaired and gay and still have an endless well-spring of hate and utter lack of compassion for other people was quite beyond me. Ricky Taylor, however has it in spades. Somehow his experiences growing up have left him a bitter, frustrated man, who regularly lashes out at hotel clerks, bartenders, ticket takers and anyone else he comes across as he rails against the hopeless aggravation that his life has become.
At the time, after reading through his horrifying posts about gay men, lesbians, the homeless, the poor and anyone else he felt like denegrating that would somehow alleviate his own suffering and elevate him beyond a freak with an internet connection I contacted him through his e-mail. I don't remember exactly what I said but I was in full Dutchess mode, of that you can be sure. I called him every nasty name in the book. I pointed out what an ugly (inside and out), bitter, insignificant little worm he was. I was merciless, because mercy seemed long since ruled out. He responded with my own set of increasingly ugly e-mails. Of course he wished me dead. He accused me of being diseased and at death's door. He wished to me that I would be dead from AIDS soon. He poured through my blog thinking that if he found my "faults" and pointed them out to me, this would somehow make me fall apart. Like calling me of all people a freak would get you anywhere. He used his site as a forum using edited versions of what I was saying to justify his behavior. He pointedly never admitted the horrible venom he would spew in e-mail after e-mail.
Ultimately, Ricky Taylor committed what I considered at the time a truly evil act. He disclosed my full name in public and revealed that I was HIV positive. This was before I had decided to tell my immediate family. I was absolutely stunned at first. It hadn't occurred to me that I could be dealing with someone with an absolute lack of empathy of any kind, but clearly I was. Several days passed before I knew what had to be done. It was then that I publicly "came out" as HIV positive and resolved to inform my family at our next face to face meeting. I took back the one bit of power Ricky Taylor had over me. In that instant, what little he mattered was reduced to nothing. As it should be.
At the time, I also composed the previous post about Ricky Taylor. By then, I had grown to know him well enough to include many of his own hot-button issues in my parody of him and his many many obsessions. It un-nerved him so badly he offered to remove his links to me from his site and most of what he wrote if I would do the same. That was most of what I wanted. While the damage was already done in my eyes, I wanted so badly to not be in any way linked to this twisted sister that I agreed.
Unfortunately, the truce lasted until last week, when Ricky couldn't resist insinuating himself in my dust up with the Self-Hating Hypocrite. Significantly, Ricky lumps himself and Richard as two blogging peas-in-a-pod, admonishing me to stop stalking "me and RJR". Hence, a republishing of my mockery of Ricky, his crazy Asian lady manner of Bizzaro-speak, and his conspiracy theories of how hearing people spend their days plotting against him.
I have since moved far past and away from Ricky Taylor and all his petty feuds and annoyances. I'm just another stupid hearie that had a delightful afternoon off, lunching in Union Square, followed by a couple of hours doing what I do best. Shopping, you dirty pigs. Still, after another afternoon over the weekend exchanging nasty e-mails with Ricky I've vowed from now on to take every opportunity to hound him mercilessly, wherever he appears on My Internets. He did something unforgivable to me, and deserves any nasty business I can now throw his way. I'm Sicilian you know.
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