You must chill, Stan.

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: Try to understand that he does want you as a fan. : : : Dear Kevin, : : I am not going to waste my time (like you said, "Life's Too Short!") cutting and pasting and responding to your NEW set of charges against me. : : I am going to break it down for you brother because we need to end this pissing contest pronto. : : You suggested I should write. Maybe a book like "Prozac Nation". Then you went into detail about it's author and how you disliked her so. : : I said that I couldn't do it. : : You said, yes I could, and that you would help me out. : : I said okay, I'd try. : : This was on Father's Day 1998. : : When I left you that afternoon, I was on Cloud Nine. I couldn't believe it - was my life going to completely change from the path I was traveling down? I had always been praised about my writing throughout high school and college, but never made anything of it. : : I didn't think it would do me any good if I wrote a one-note book, whining about the trials of Gen-X would certainly paint me into a corner. How is Elizabeth Wurtzel's career going nowadays anyway? How's that "You might be a redneck if..." guy's career doing? How vital would I be when ten, twenty years down the road I was the "Whiny Gen-X Guy" with a receding hairline? Perhaps you saw me as a Dennis Miller clone? Who knows, all I knew was that I didn't particularly want to go down that dead end street. Bad move on my part. : : Then, one night, and I know this sounds corny, but I had a complete dream which later became the screenplay currently gathering dust beneath your copy of "Life Magazine Remembers the 20th Century". I thought to myself - this means something, it's like a calling of some sort, and lo and behold, wouldn't Kevin have MORE connections getting a screenplay read/sold than a book? (isn't logic an odd convention?) : : However, I KNEW that you wouldn't approve. I don't know why, but I knew it. (Guess I was right). : : For about 6 months, all you ever wrote to me was "How's the book coming?", which made me believe you really were interested and didn't just casually hand off that "You should write." comment. : : So I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, and just to be safe, I wrote some more. : : Then, come March 1999, I was all done. : : The day I came to visit you, Easter weekend 1999, I was a bundle of nerves. Plus it didn't help that I had to wait three hours and get to spend a total of about 20 minutes with you. Was this gonna be remembered as the moment that would possibly change my life? : : Now I know you are saying "You expect ME to change your life - how delusional are you?" But you know what - to borrow a line from a corny movie - "With great power comes great responsibility." Kevin, you don't take some nobody from Ohio who is a SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST, not a teacher mind you, as you often errantly refer to me as, and say, "Yeah, you should write and I'll help you out." and then three years later, "Well, I'm too busy now, plus you didn't write what I wanted you to write". Can you deny this, honestly? What you did was a cruel thing Kevin, and you can counter it all you like, and make copies and show them to friends and others on the payroll, but the simple fact is it was wrong. If I would have shown up the very first time and said, "Hey buddy, look I wrote something, now make me a star. It's my turn to have Winona sit on my face." - then this reaction of yours would certainly be justifiable. However, you put the offer out there. Are you honestly saying that if I wrote a book to your satisfaction that I'd be making my second appearance on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" in two weeks time? (It'd be the third guest slot on a Monday night mind you, but still...) : : You see Kevin, you are right, I am pretty miserable - have been since about 1996, and you know why? Because I believed in and followed the system. I went to college and then I went to Grad School at Boston University and got my damned Masters Degree and in the past 6 years I have held two jobs, both of which I was laid-off from because of financial cuts. (One was a private organization, another a public school system). I did everything that I was supposed to do in order to be a success, but I keep getting beaten down. And it sure as hell didn't help that you opened this thing inside not only my head, but my heart, and then proceeded to turn away from it completely. I'm sure you and your friends will get a nice chuckle out of that - be sure to forward it to them. : : Yes, Kevin, I do know what I know of you mainly from other sources. That is because over the past two plus years, many of my e-mails went either unread, unresponded to, or the ones that do get detailed quotes from you that run along the lines of "Yes", "No", and "They are $29.95 plus shipping". From my end, you were more responsive, more engaged prior to me giving you that screenplay. So like I mentioned previously, that must have been a real slight to you, no? And that quote about the dry-cleaner fixing shoes thing - it was meant to mean WHY should I give you a book when you have connections in the film-industry. I didn't think it was that difficult of an analogy. : : I wrote what I wrote to you over the past two weeks because, quite simply, life IS too short, and honestly, what do I have to lose? Like I said before, what are you going to do, double the effort to not read it now? Perhaps it would have made you realize something and maybe you would have paid some attention to the situation. : : (I am leaving you space here to vent about that last sentence.) : : Instead, you view me as a security threat and pass my ramblings to others to get a good chuckle and support your ego system. ("No Kevin, he's crazy - you are right about everything!"). Some need a turkey sandwich, others.... : : Kevin, we have no relationship. I thought we did in the late nineties there, but as of late, you don't want to seem to be bothered and now perhaps you have an excuse to end this altogether. I think I had and have a right to be angry towards you about this whole nonsense because I didn't ask for it. Yes Kevin, you did extend a Golden Ticket, don't you realize that? I didn't even care anymore about my current career because I was now going to be a writer, or so I thought. I guess I should build my future on a more solid foundation, huh? : : It is now November 2002. And here we are - with me calling you a "sell-out" and you calling me "mentally unstable". Nice isn't it? It's just like May of '89 except the furniture is better. : : : - Darren (nee Rupert) : : P.S. - have you put any thought into my personalized jacks idea?

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