Thursday, July 12, 2012

Survival Guide: How NOT to incur my wrath...



People are always on me about the fact that someone is always on my shit list. As easy it may seem to those not in the know, it actually takes a lot to incur my wrath. The problem is that some people who get on the internet seem to lose their common sense and don’t know when to back off. Others just decide to be insensitive fucktards. Thus, they earn what they deserve...
The way to stay on my right side is to be honest, polite, and respectful with me. Amusingly enough a number of people can’t seem to be any of these three things when it comes to me, thus the situation….
I’ll give you some examples read and learn what not to do….

  1. Thou Shalt Be Respectful…
A couple months ago I posted a thread, like my request posts on Facebook, asking fans to send polite emails to Reyna Young and her assistant to have me as a guest at the Days of Terror convention. The first two comments were very polite. They both expressed that they thought that Reyna might not like me stepping on her toes and having fans email her. I politely replied to them and said that I didn’t think having the fans ask politely would be a problem, because a few of my horror celebrity friends have the fans request them. It was the next person to reply that took the wrong tract with me. He immediately attacked me. He asked me who the hell I thought I was that I thought I could harass an organizer. He went on to say, even though I mentioned in the post that I had been initially invited, that it was Reyna’s convention and she could   I quote, “invite who ever the fuck she wants…” He also told me that I needed to back off because I was a has been with out of print crappy books so no convention would sign me. I defended myself by telling him that my books are still popular and I get fan letters all the time and in a lot of them they ask me when I’m going to a convention. He attacked me again and said I was an ego case, and that I thought I was a star like Stephen King or Clive Barker, but was really just a cheap fan fiction writer. I told him I had made no such claim that I was a star. I also informed him that I wasn’t a fan fiction writer, that I was a paid, published writer. Another member of the message board joined me and tag attacked me, continuing to attack my credibility as  a writer. Then they started bring up some false propaganda started by Wil Keiper (I’ll get to that later in this post). I told them to back off the character assassination, that they were acting like trolls and I would report them as such. They said they didn’t have to worry about that. At this point one of the moderators, and a convention organizer himself, came on and assured my attackers that they didn’t have to worry that he was enjoying it. At that point I walked away from that thread. The last post I read was the moderator assuring my attackers that he would make sure I never got signed for a convention. Three days later this message board deleted my thread on the board for The Eric Morse Project (I’d had the thread up for two years and had not had a negative comment on it). Also, three weeks later I got notices from the  board on all my posts where I was defending myself saying I was in violation of board policy. Also, the moderator emailed me complaining that I was publically mentioning the fact of what was said on the board and that the moderator had said he was going to black ball me from getting into conventions. Also he mentioned I’d made a mistake in a post about my co-host Derek Young. I refused to reply and mentioned the fact that he sent me the email in my Facebook group, Assholes of Horror. The reason why was because I didn’t trust him, and nowhere in his message was an apology for the disrespectful treatment I got on the message board. Someone informed him of this and he emailed me again. He was not happy and tried to say that he had wanted to get to know me and work with me to get me in one of his conventions. I ignored him and posted in my group (which the posts are not public access) that he had emailed me again. I did not trust him. I had posted enough in defense of myself that he should have gotten an idea of who I was and what I had done. Also, I was a bit incensed that someone in my group broke the trust of the group and told him. The moderator emailed me one last time and insulted me. He called me a sad glory hound and said I had mental problems. Nice way to win the trust of someone you allowed to be harassed on your message board. No wonder I didn’t want to reply after that crap.
So, remember if you are respectful with me things are fine. You act like an asshat and insult me and try to degrade me don’t expect me to be trusting or communicative…

  1. Thou Shalt Be Polite…
Seven years ago,  a supposed actress friend of mine named Elissa Dowling decided to betray my friendship to get points with the website Bloody-Disgusting and get her films promoted. She started talking crap about me and my books in chat rooms. After I found out about this I confronted her and she blocked me on My Space and continued to attack me.  So I decided to hit back, but with the truth rather than lies, which was what she was putting out. So, on several message boards I posted threads under the title of  “Avoid Like the Plague”. In these threads I posted together fifty third party reviews from websites all over the web on her films…These, of course, were negative reviews, which I was amused to find was all I could find. One of the message boards I posted the threads on was Horror Yearbook. A little while after I posted the thread some of Elissa’s friends came on and attacked me, saying I was an ass posting those nasty reviews about such a fine actress. Wil Keiper, the head of Horror Yearbook suggested to settle the situation that he would have his head reviewer Doctor Royce Clemens review one of Elissa’s films to see if she was a good actress or not. Initially, Doctor Royce refused to do the review, but two days later he posted a review of Elissa’s film Uli Lommel’s Black Dahlia. Needless to say Doctor Royce panned the film and called Elissa’s performance the most annoying he’d seen in years. I posted Doctor Royce’s review and gave Elissa’s buddies a big I told you so. So, immediately after this Wil Keiper, Doctor Royce, and a dozen other buddies of theirs on Horror Yearbook started attacking me and calling me a creepy stalker. Then they started comparing me to the serial killer John Wayne Gacey. After I decided to leave the situation Wil followed me to the message board Horror Movie Fans. He attacked me on there because I was getting my head shaved for charity for kids with cancer. Wil tried to make me out like I was a pervert to try and deter people from donating in my name. He even stoled my identity and started posting perverted threads using my name and personal information. He was stupid enough to make me aware by posting on my charity thread using his false profile and to publically admit it so he could laugh about it. I complained to the head of Horror Movie Fans, Foo, and he refused to pull down any of the threads Wil Keiper posted under my name and told me to get a tougher skin. So, I ended up having to report the situation to the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Unit. They got the threads taken down and informed Keiper that they now had a file open on him and if he pulled anymore shit he’d be arrested.
Now if Wil Keiper had handled the situation like an administrator of a message board should and been polite and respectful letting things cool down and pass after Doctor Royce posted the negative review of Elissa’s film things would have ended differently. Instead he decided to be an ass and attack me and insult me because he didn’t like the fact that I had been proven right. Because of this he pushed things too far and ended up in the situation with the federal government that he ended up in.
Remember this, if you are polite and respectful to me I will be back. You act impolite and start crap with me I will be less than respectful to you. Also remember once you do this I lose all respect for you and it will take a lot to rebuild that respect.

  1. Thou Shalt Be Honest…
Last year at this time I went to Indianapolis to be a guest at my first horror convention, Days of the Dead. One person I was really excited to meet there was my friend of ten years actress Michelle Shields. In January I’d had Michelle on the season premiere of our show Bloodbath Radio. On the show we talked about the convention. I had promised Michelle a T-shirt (which I gave her at the convention with my autograph) and had said I looked forward to hanging out with her at the convention. Anyway, at the convention Michelle did indeed hang out with me. She was constantly coming over to our table in the vender’s room of the convention, even after the convention organizer moved Michelle to the independent artists room. At one point she said in front of the people from Fangoria Magazine, including Rebekah McKendry, “These guys are the coolest guys at this convention..” and pointed at our table. At the conventions VIP party Michelle came over to me and my co-host Christopher Highland. She hugged me and kissed me. She hung out with us for a bit then headed off to network. The last day of the convention when I had to leave early I went to see Michelle to say goodbye. She gave me a long hug and kiss. I told her that if she was ever in the San Francisco Bay Area I’d take her out to Mel’s Diner for lunch.
After the convention I gave Michelle a hell of a lot of support when she entered a contest to get a walk on part on AMC’s Mad Men. I voted for her once a day, which was allowed by the contest, for six weeks. After I put my internet radio show up for a nomination for the Internet Podcast Awards, I sent a number of my close friends, including Michelle emails asking them to vote for my show. I also put up an event page asking my Facebook friends for votes as well. A couple weeks into the nomination process I found out that Michelle was heavily promoting a guy name Zack Daggy’s podcast and my co-host Derek’s personal podcast Reel Movies for Reel People, but basically fluffed me off (which became a point of royal contention with me). Then soon after I was on my wall looking at my wall and saw a comment by Michelle on a Facebook friend’s post, but it wasn’t her regular profile (Her regular profile was Michelle Shields, this other profile was Michelle M Shields). Intrigued I clicked onto it. I found out that this profile was for Michelle’s “real friends”  and it included the fact that Michelle had a secret boyfriend that she didn’t tell me about when she was hugging and smooching on me at Days of the Dead, nor the last ten years I’d known her. I knew if I mentioned it to her that she would turn bitch on me and end our friendship (boy I had that right in spades). At the time I didn’t realize that the horror community was infected with a high school social mentality disorder. Wanting to come to terms with this betrayal of my trust. I decided to ask the community if this was socially acceptable, but in a round about way. This was suggested to me by my old school buddy Henry, who was surprised that Michelle got away with pulling crap like this on people who are supposed to be friends. So I asked a question on Facebook about if it was socially acceptable for an actor/actress to hide their long term relationship and present themselves as a single and available person just to sell their products. This ended up blowing up in my face because Henry got frustrated and called Michelle out. I reacted badly and let the fact that I knew about her hidden boyfriend and how she was using and thought of most of the people she knew on Facebook as promotional resources (which royally gets up my nose because the Mormons  tried to brainwash me into having a similar mindset of seeing non-Mormon friends as nothing more than people to be converted to Mormonism…which is why I’ve separated myself from them..). So, Michelle blew on me and blocked me on Facebook. She and her friends started talking shit about me. She called me a degenerate, delusional,  stalker, which is totally unfair. My co-host, Derek Young, convinced me to try and apologize (at the time I didn’t know all the crap she said behind my back) and try to work things out with her, since we’d been friends for ten years after all. I sent Michelle a very heartfelt apology:

Michelle,

I sincerely apologize for what happened with the Facebook note. I
tried to keep it non-specific and not mention names, but someone else brought up your name. Things got a bit out of hand. I have deleted the note.
The thing is after eight years of friendship and hanging out at Days of the Dead I thought we were more than just business connections. I really liked you and it really hurt me that you considered me simply as just one of the crowd. Also, I thought that after all I had done for you regarding Mad Men, and your friend’s documentary, and I royally did go out of my way, you would automatically support me with The Podcast Awards. When you didn’t and went out of your way to support others it was like a slap in the face to me. This and other things I found out after got me thinking and I wanted some kind of answer. Unfortunately, that need lead to this situation. You could say
that I could have talked to you about it, but I know from past
experience that it would have lead to the same result of you cutting off communications and the end of any semblance of a friendship.
As, I have stated, I’m sorry, but as my friend Angela says in every situation there are three things involved your perspective, my perspective, and the truth.
I know you are probably playing the stalker card to play this off.
Whatever. That is your option. For me, I live under the foolish notion that if I know somebody for a certain number of years they are a friend and I expect a bit more from them than from a random acquaintance. I cherish my friends. To me, being a business connection is far less and empty.
Bill


 Michelle accepted the apology, but said she had stipulations. One was we don’t talk about the situation. The other was that our friendship was going to be on her terms. Amusingly, she said the following, “ I never considered you a business connection but I did consider you an internet friend and thats far better than I consider most others. I will post on FB that an apology has been offered.
~M  “

Well, Michelle, unblocked me. I tried to be friendly, but she made it hard. It was October and she posted her avatar as her as Elvira. I asked if she was planning to be Elvira for Halloween. I mentioned that I was planning to be Ozzy Osbourne. Within a half an hour Michelle changed her avatar to a blood soaked glaring and snarling zombie. It was tense. What I hadn’t known at the time was that Michelle had been mouthing off to her Facebook friends when I was blocked that if I dared apologize to her and try and make up she was I quote “going to fix him…”
Anyway, because of all the crap Michelle had said behind my back people started giving me shit and saying I hadn’t hung out at all with Michelle, that I was being a delusional creep.
This got annoying really fast, so to correct this crap on my Facebook wall I posted a picture of Michelle hanging out at our table at Days of the Dead. Immediately Michelle blew her top and lied her ass off. She said she never hung out at our table at Days of the Dead or hung with me and Christopher Highland at the VIP party both of which were observed by various people at the convention, including the three public occasions when Michelle hugged and kissed me. Both Derek Young and Christopher Highland came on the comment thread and said as much. This enraged Michelle and she accused me of twisting the truth, outright lying, and being delusional before blocking me again. Then after she did this, like a coward, Michelle opened another comment thread and her and her “buddies” continued to insult me and paint me as a creepy delusional stalker. I should note at this point that Zack Daggy, who had never even listened to an episode of The Eric Morse Project, started mouthing off about how he and his crew were better than The Wolf Pack and how Michelle had made the right decision to give him her support over I quote “ those losers…” So, started the war between The Eric Morse Project and Zack Daggy and Midnight Spookshow…So there you have it. If Michelle Shields would have been honest and didn’t lie about her relationship, and her relationship with others, things wouldn’t have ended the way that it did. But, it seems that being truthful is not admired in our modern society. What seems to be more respected is how many lies you can get away with and how many people you can dope that seems to garner you status in the horror community these days. It is a sad state of affairs.
So, people if you are respectful, polite, and straight with me you have no fear of incurring my wrath. But if you insult me, attack me, and lie to me you get what you deserve and my family is known for dishing out a very generous portion…So, don’t pull the lion’s mane or jab it in the back unless you want the claws…simple as that…