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Was She Bullied, or Did the Truth Cut Too Deep?

A good friend disliked yesterday’s post, “The Fat Lady Sang, And It Was Beautiful.” His main criticism was that I centered it on my own weight battles, which I traced back to Crohn’s Disease, Prednisone and addiction.

Mood music:

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Livingston, a morning anchor at WKBT in La Crosse, Wisconsin, went on air after getting an email that read in part:

Surely you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain.

After reading the email she received, Livingston then took her critic apart, noting that he doesn’t know her well enough to pass judgement. She also accused him of bullying her. I applauded her for doing this because I felt her critic wrongly assumed she and other overweight people simply made a choice to be obese. My argument was that weight trouble can come from a variety of factors and that this guy was out of line.

My friend felt my response was based on assumptions and that framing my complaint in the context of my past issues with Prednisone and Crohn’s Disease didn’t jibe with the news woman’s situation. “Does the anchor woman share those same issues?” he asked. If she doesn’t and her obesity is simply a matter of her not taking care of herself, he said, my comments were off the mark.

“I also have issues with those that view the original comment as bullying,” my friend continued. “Some view things through the eyes of responsibility. Others just want to place blame and make excuses.”

For all we know, Jennifer Livingston falls into the latter camp, he said, concluding, “What you wrote is representative of not having all the facts.”

I agree that many people make excuses for being overweight and that their real problem is laziness and gluttony. There’s a joke making the rounds where a fat guy tells his doctor, “The problem is obesity runs in my family.” The doctor responds, “No, the problem is that no one in your family runs.”

When someone lets their body go to crap because they don’t feel like doing what’s good for them, they are being bad role models, especially when it comes to their children and how they’re allowed to develop the same bad habits. I took one such parent to task for that a while back in “When Parents Fail.”

Unfortunately, a lot of people who work hard to be good role models and take care of themselves end up overweight anyway. One friend of mine gained a lot of weight because he developed a foot infection that left him unable to do much physical activity.

As for Livingston, I don’t know why she’s overweight, and I don’t care. These days, a lot of people are hired to anchor news shows because they look like supermodels. That Livingston was able to break through that and succeed in the industry speaks volumes. TV media is a cut-throat field and you don’t succeed unless you work your ass off. As far as I’m concerned, that’s an example of a good role model.

Livingston is also a good role model for showing that you don’t have to be someone else’s idea of perfect to be on TV or to do a job. It’s not just men who come in all shapes and sizes. Society says that women must be skinny to an unhealthy degree and look perfect. She’s not perfect, but that doesn’t mean everything she does is wasted.

Actually, I don’t think perfect role models exist. People do big things and overcome obstacles in ways that inspire others to do better. But they make big mistakes along the way. It’s called being human.

Finally, let’s look at Livingston’s use of the word bully. That’s what she called Kenneth Krause, the man who sent her the email. To me, a bully taunts you with names, making sure everyone in the vicinity can hear it, and makes threats. Krause did none of these things. He called her a bad role model for being obese and called it a choice. Obviously, I disagree.

This guy was mean, superior, judgmental, disrespectful, and prejudiced. He doesn’t think fat people should be on the air.

Fuck that.

But was Krause a bully? He didn’t threaten her or call her names in earshot of others, which is how I picture the act of bullying. I don’t think he’s a bully per se. But consider these definitions Erin (my wife and editor) found:

The American Heritage Dictionary defines a bully as “a person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people.”

The fact that Krause only wrote in once probably doesn’t fit, but he was cruel and overbearing, especially to someone he thought was weaker. And he never apologized, saying instead that she should follow his advice.

More important, though, to bully, says AHD, is “to treat in an overbearing or intimidating manner”; “to make (one’s way) aggressively.” Krause did treat her in an overbearing way and he was aggressive about trying to get his own way: that she lose weight.

No matter where Livingston’s weight problems come from, what Krause did was wrong.

Disagree if you wish. But that’s my position.

Jennifer Livingston

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The Fat Lady Sang, and It Was Beautiful

I just read about some asshole who told an overweight news anchor that she’s a bad role model for children. As someone who has had a lifelong struggle with weight, this hits me like a punch to the gut.

Mood music:

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Jennifer Livingston, a morning anchor at WKBT in La Crosse, Wisconsin, went on air after getting an email that read in part: “Surely you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain.”

On air, she took this guy apart piece by piece. As someone who struggles with weight and self esteem over appearance, I applaud Livingston. Here’s the TV segment:

Is Livingston overweight? She says she is, and I guess appearance speaks for itself, though I feel like a shit for saying so. But when I look at her, I see nothing wrong. Here’s a woman who has succeeded on television despite the demand these days that women on TV be skinny everywhere but in the chest and behind. She’s got guts. She’s real and, in my estimation, a pretty good role model for kids.

Kids live in a particularly cruel world, where classmates call them names over weight and appearance, among other things. It’s always been this way and, I think, always will. I’ve lived it. Sometimes the name-calling stops once you hit high school; other times it gets worse. Either way, kids that age become obsessed about how they fit in, and  that’s where those who don’t feel like they fit in turn to drugs, alcohol and food to escape. Some, like me, survive it and find a way to thrive in the world. Others don’t, dying from their addictions and depression that become so overwhelming that they choose to end it.

What infuriated me most about the letter writer’s rebuke was how he called obesity “one of the worst choices a person can make.” That’s probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.

Sure, we all make bad choices in life. We choose not to exercise and take on weight as a result. We make bad career and financial choices, which can lead to addictive behavior, including overeating. But nobody chooses to be fat. Nobody rationally decides to grow obese. The extra flesh is often the result of many things.

For me, it was a childhood of Prednisone intake for Crohn’s disease that drove the appetite into overdrive after periods of not being allowed any food at all. By adulthood, food had become the focus of my addictive impulses. I binged my way to 280-plus pounds, not because I made a choice to be fat, but because I couldn’t  back away from a binge. The more I ate, the more I felt like a filthy, sub-human slave.

A choice? Fuck you, pal.

There are plenty of fat people in history who became the ultimate role models. For me, Leslie West of the band Mountain, creator of some of the fattest, most powerful riffs ever, is one of mine. He has lost the weight in more recent years but has maintained his fat sound, which I mean as a compliment. There’s also Winston Churchill. His portly appearance didn’t matter to a country that needed his leadership in the face of Nazi aggression.

I’ve maintained a 65-pound weight loss for more than three years now by cutting flour and sugar from my diet and weighing out most of my meals. But I’ll never be thin. I continue to be what one of my kids described recently as “wide.” Sometimes I wish I were thinner, but I care less about that as I get older. What’s more important to me is mental clarity, and my food choices are driven by what’ll get me there, not what’ll get me to a 32-inch waistline.

As a weight-challenged person, I now have a new hero: Jennifer Livingston.

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You Don’t Need Rage to Be a Badass

When I was in my teens and early 20s, I let my rage flow freely in public. I’d drop f-bombs, flip people off and deliberately cut people off in traffic. That I couldn’t control myself was only part of it. In my young and stupid mind, I thought these attributes made me cool.

Mood music:

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Funny thing about having a chip on your shoulder: It obstructs the flow of sanity and common sense to the brain, resulting in you act like an asshole. This is especially true when you’re young. Being seen as a badass is a long-sought-after goal among the youth. Hell, I still go for the badass vibe, and I’m 42 years old. I just try to restrict it to the glowering in my Facebook profile pics. Other than that, I’ve found that it’s better to treat people as you want to be treated — with kindness. For me, some days are better than others in that department.

I bring this up because I see the attitude I had in my teens and 20s in a lot of 30-somethings these days. Maybe it’s the Facebook phenomenon. People tend to act out more on Facebook because they have a captive audience. There are folks who complain about everyone who’s not like them. Folks who prattle on about how shitfaced they are, about how people with religious and political beliefs different from theirs are trash, and so on.

This kind of carrying on isn’t badass. It’s just being an ass.

You want badass? Here are some real examples:

  • The mom with the special-needs child who leaves the security of a crappy job and launches her own business in the monstrous face of risk, finding a way to balance the success of that business with the needs of everyone around her, including the special-needs child.
  • The hospital nurse who wipes the puke off your face and empties your bedpan without batting an eyelash, then goes home and cleans up the bodily fluids their babies toss around.
  • The 50-something musician who never made it big but continues to play to half-empty bars because they’re happy as long as just one person gets something from it.
  • The person who got hit by two different cars over the course of a few days, sustaining serious injuries, and who started documenting not only their own recovery process but also those of others, showing the world that nothing is impossible.
  • The congresswoman who survived a gunshot to the head and became a national hero capable of attaining higher office but who chose to leave the limelight and focus on her physical and spiritual growth instead.
  • The guy who put down the bottle and pills and rebuilt his life.
  • The cancer patient who who tells you everything they’re grateful for and tells a few jokes when they could be sulking and despairing.

I could go on, but you get the point.

If you’re dissatisfied with your life and compensate by trying to be a badass through trolling, insults and braggery about how fucked up you got the night before, you’re doing it wrong.

Pretty Badass

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The White Stripe of Dissapointment

An old friend from Revere went to NYC to see Jack White perform at Radio City Music Hall this past weekend and walked away crushed. She waited an hour and a half to meet him, but he blew past everyone and hopped into a waiting van. No hellos. No autographs.

“What a disappointment. Just waited an hour and a half for him to just dash out and jump in his van,” she said on her Facebook page.

Then he put on a dismal performance, insulted the crowd repeatedly and stormed off stage after barely an hour of performing.

“Wow! Just can’t get any worse. As if earlier wasn’t bad enough, JW decided to blow off his entire audience and killed his show and walked after an hour because the crowd wasn’t loud enough for him,” she posted.

And so went the latest lesson of how our musical heroes sometimes fail to live up to their gifts when the human being behind the rock god armor is exposed.

Mood music:

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I’ve never been snubbed by a favorite rock star, but I’ve been disappointed by my musical heroes over the years and it sucks. A couple examples:

  • Vince Neil. I wanted to believe the Mötley Crüe vocalist learned something after his 1984 DUI accident, which killed Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley and injured two others, leaving at least one of them with permanent brain damage. Neil was unharmed, did 30 days in prison, did 200 hours of community service, and paid millions in restitution. Over the years, his drinking has remained on full display, but I assumed his days of drunk driving were over. Then, two years ago, he was sent to jail for drunk driving in Las Vegas.
  • Axl Rose. The Guns N’ Roses vocalist regularly shows contempt for his fans, going on stage hours late, storming off stage before the show is finished and, in some cases, sparking riots in the process.

The common element for me is that both men front bands that were very important to me as a disgruntled teen. Instead of taking all my anger, grief and sorrow out on other people and stealing cars, I listened to Mötley Crüe and Guns N’ Roses. The music wrung out all of the violence within me and kept me sane. Because their music did this for me, I assumed the artists were the nicest guys on Earth, living on some higher level of existence.

Sadly, in the case of these two, it didn’t turn out to be that way.

But I still listen to the music. It still speaks to me and keeps me grounded. I feel the same way about Jack White’s music.

I’ve learned to divorce the personalities from the music. Maybe that’s a survival instinct. I know people who refuse to listen to a band that includes musicians they consider assholes.

Part of my reasoning is that these stars are flawed human beings like us, not gods. They have good days, when they are nice to everyone they come in contact with. And they have days when they treat their fellow human beings with contempt. It could be that White was simply having a shitty day. Maybe he got some bad news or simply wasn’t feeling well.

Whatever the case, he should apologize for his NYC clusterfuck. We’re all human, but fans are paying customers, and you have to make things right with your customers if you want them to stay customers.

Even so, I hope my friend doesn’t stop listening to White, especially if the music has helped her in times of need.

Jack White
Photo credit: Douglas Mason/Getty Images Contributor