Inside the Sweet Obsession of Eric Byler's Passion

Charlotte Sometimes Writer/director Eric Byler has a heart to heart talk with AsianConnections' Lia Chang on being marginalized as an Asian American man, the hornet's nest of sexual politics, and why Asian men are angry with Asian women.

Charlotte Sometimes writer/director Eric Byler has a heart to heart talk with AsianConnections' Lia Chang about feeling marginalized as an Asian American man, why Asian men are angry with Asian women and a hornet's nest of sexual politics.

I met with Eric the morning after I screened Charlotte Sometimes at the Asian American International Film Festival at the Asia Society.

Staying at his friend's apartment, he's a bit behind schedule. In fact, he is just stepping out of the shower. Wavy brown hair, six feet tall, with eyes the hue of dark chocolate, my first glimpse of him is wrapped up in a towel. Bathed in natural window light, Eric bares his soul and opens up about love, loneliness, passion and his new projects.

Nominated for two 2003 Independent Spirit Awards and hailed by Roger Ebert as a breakthrough film for Asian American filmmakers, Byler's impressive feature debut Charlotte Sometimes explores different kinds of love.

The plot revolves around four characters involved in an intricate relationship tale. Betrayal, repressed emotions and loneliness resonate throughout the film in which the characters Byler has etched have deep fears that they are too ugly to be loved, juxtaposed with those who have never been faced with that fear.

Michael (Michael Idemoto), a reclusive auto mechanic is secretly enamored with his tenant and best friend Lori (Eugenia Yuan). Lori's self absorbed live-in boyfriend Justin (Matt Westmore) leaves her so emotionally cold that she finds platonic comfort at Michael's apartment watching old movies and sleeping over after she and Justin have had sex. Lori offers to set Michael up on a blind date, but he declines. After another restless evening of listening to Lori and Justin's noisy sex session through the thin walls, he heads out to his neighborhood bar where a mysterious drifter named Darcy (Jacqueline Kim) catches his eye.

The film's dialogue is as much verbal as it is non-verbal as Darcy's appearance on the scene and in their lives shakes this triangle to the core as a relationship mind-game of cat and mouse takes place.

Jacqueline Kim was nominated for an Independent Spirit Best Supporting Actress award for the role of Darcy, a part Byler had written specifically for her. Charlotte Sometimes is the first Asian American film to be nominated for the Independent Spirit Awards since Kayo Hatta's Picture Bride in 1996.

During our interview, we left no stones unturned. Searching for identity and a desire to fit in have always been linked to "race" issues for Byler especially during his formative years growing up with a Chinese mother and a father of European descent.

As a bi-racial adolescent in Virginia, he recalls feeling marginalized as a human being and as a sexual being. At the age of ten, Byler discovered girls, and although he looked more Asian, he didn't relate to the other Asian kids in his school.

His teachers came down on him hard for not towing the model minority line sending him the message that any interaction with White girls was inappropriate. His mother wisely transferred him into a special magnet school for smart kids. With a new set of goals, fitting in for Byler meant being smart.

Lia: Where did you draw inspiration for the characters in Charlotte Sometimes?

Eric: You'll find that with most of the characters that I write, each of them in their own way will have a fear that they are too ugly to be loved. And definitely that was a fear that I had at different times. I never realized this but I had that fear much more strongly when I started to go through puberty because it matters more. But when there was no escaping being an Asian boy, up till 6th grade, I didn't feel it as strongly. I had no trouble being a playground combatant, competing for the attention of girls with White boys when I looked full blooded Asian.

Check out The Official Charlotte Sometimes Website for theaters in your city . c h a r l o t t e s o m e t i m e s is now avalailable on DVD/VHS and can be ordered on the web:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/CharlotteSometimes-1124476/dvd.php

Lia: Why do you say sexual politics is a hornet's nest?

Eric: It's a hornet's nest because it is dividing us. Asian men are angry with Asian women.

They want an apology for all the times that they feel that they have been dissed.

Asian women are like, "Look, we're not on their side but we do want to have the freedom to make our personal choices without looking over our shoulders and wondering what you are going to think of us."

That's all Asian American women are asking for.

They are not sitting in this evil tower with White supremacists saying how can we really stick it to Asian men. Oh I know what, let's go out and f**k a bunch of White guys.

They care about Asian men more than anybody else cares about Asian men.

Lia: Is this a poll you've taken?

Eric: I think Asian women care more about Asian men more than Latino lesbian circus dwarfs care about Asian men. I think that's probably true. I haven't taken a poll. All I'm saying is that in the same way that Hapas are not traitors because our blood is mixed, Asian women are not traitors if they happen to date outside the race.

I think that calling them traitors is dividing the community right now. Nobody is really ready to address it yet, but also excluding bi-racial Asians from the community based on their surname or the color of their hair, the color of their skin is also a divisive approach to race politics in our community.

Charlotte Sometimes is going to settle the score in a sense on both of those issues by my casting of a bi-racial man in the role of Justin. It never becomes any more clear how a person feels about race than when they are confronted with sex and race. For instance, Are Hapas part of the community? Oh yes - we love Hapas. At the same time is it offensive to see a Hapa man in bed with a full-blooded Asian woman. That's where you draw the line.

A White person might say, "Oh I love Michael Jordan, he can slam-dunk. I love Bill Cosby, he's funny. But if my daughter were to sleep with a black man, I would disown her." That is the way a lot of the Asian community looks at Hapas. Charlotte Sometimes is bringing that into focus.

I think we need to lead by example. If we're angry that we are marginalized, we should not marginalize ourselves. We should not marginalize members of the community. It's a hornet's nest because it divides Asian women from Asian men.

Do Asian women owe Asian men an apology? The movie doesn't have any answers. A white man sends a rose across the bar to an Asian woman who is obviously with an Asian man. She doesn't accept the rose. She leaves it on the table and walks out of there. But she was talking to the guy earlier. Michael is a little upset by this. He doesn't bring it up. But implicit in the scenes that follow is, "When is she going to apologize for that?" He really changes the way he talks to her after that.

He starts to talk to her as if she's kind of a loose woman. Like a loose woman would date outside the race and a good girl wouldn't. And he starts to imply that in the time they were apart, that she might have been sleeping with other guys. And in fact there's a kiss that is implicit.

Yet he withholds that kiss until it's clear at the very least, she hadn't f**ked anybody lately. That moment drives a rift between these two potential lovers that never heals. As soon as she starts to sense his disenchantment with her, she starts going after him too.

Darcy says, you don't want a woman like me who's free to make her own choices, and talk to a White guy in a bar. You want a little geisha girl like Lori. Someone cute, small with a pretty little voice. You don't want someone like me. You can't handle me. Cause you get all pissy about this rose. You can't handle me.

He says, I can handle you, fine. I just can't handle a skank ho. She says, I'm not that but you are going to have to deal with the fact that I've had other lovers.

And he says, since we're being honest, I am attracted to the kind of girl that Lori is, but I am attracted to you too. They kiss each other because they can be honest. Even if the truth is less than ideal. They can still make out.

Lia: Would you say you've pulled from your own life for the characters in Charlotte Sometimes ?

What I am presenting is a character, a full blooded Asian man who faces certain obstacles including the theme-from my movies or my work-the fear that he doesn't fit the standard of beauty and that he is somehow too ugly to be loved. That he's somehow not worthy of love. He has that obstacle. And that is attached to race. I decided to approach it honestly.

Another obstacle is that the woman he loves is with another man. And yes, that man is half White. He is closer to the standard of beauty that oppresses Michael. I acknowledge that I'm delving into that truth. That this is the circumstance that is part of the reality for an Asian American man. I acknowledge that is in my movie. That doesn't mean that I am trying to perpetuate that.

I'm creating a character with obstacles. The obstacles that we face in real life. He overcomes those obstacles and he wins the heart of three women in this movie, and ends up with the woman that he fancies most. I think this is more of a triumph than it would have been if I'd just set the ladies up like a bunch of bowling pins for him to knock over.

I wonder if the time will come when we have the freedom to have films that are simply artistic expression and not propaganda. The fact that we're ethnic does not mean that we can't make an artistic film.

Lia: Have you always shot video?

Eric: No, I was very reluctant to try it. I was prejudiced against the video look just like any other filmmaker would be. I was classically trained with 16mm and flat beds in film school. There really was no digital video then. There was one kid who did his senior thesis on video and it looked like video to me. When I was forced to, I shot video here and there. I did a short version of Keaoloha in Hawaii but it just didn't look very filmic to me.

I really felt Charlotte Sometimes was the kind of movie that needed to be on film. It's so visual and so cinematic. It's not like there is a lot of hyperbolic overacting in Charlotte Sometimes. There are nuances there that I've never seen captured on video ever. Maybe not until Dancer in the Dark came out that I said, "Well if you blow it up to 35 mm it's hard to tell it's DV."

If you are lucky enough to make a film that somebody wants to pay for it to be on 35mm, then it doesn't matter. Then I knew all I would have to do was capture those performances. And when it eventually got on to 35 mm, those performances would come through.

I gambled my whole life that those performances would come through and I would get it on 35mm. In the end I paid for it myself. I used the money that I was paid to adapt Shawn Wong's American Knees to the screen, every penny of it to finish out Charlotte Sometimes on 35 mm.

Lia: What were the other films by Asian Americans nominated for the Independent Spirit Award?

Eric: The other films nominated before Charlotte Sometimes include: Picture Bride (1996), The Wash (1989) and Great Wall (1987). We've never had a feature film nominated for an Oscar. We've had documentaries win, and short narratives like Chris Tashima's Visas and Virtues (1998). What makes 99% of the money in the film business is feature films.

I think it is interesting that someone like Justin Lin has an opportunity to make Asian American trendy. The worst stereotype that an Asian American filmmaker needs to overcome, is the stereotype that our movies have to be about fighting stereotypes. We talk about some of our experiences on how we had to overcome stereotypes in other films but when we talk about Charlotte Sometimes the truth was we forgot all about stereotypes because we were telling a story about human beings.

When you make breakfast in the morning - are you thinking about stereotypes? When you meet a guy in a bar -are you thinking about stereotypes? This is about realism, life, it's all about truth. Some people just don't want to see Asian Americans making that kind of film.

The fact is that nobody would have been able to analyze Charlotte Sometimes and how it fights stereotypes if it hadn't been appreciated on its artistic merit alone. It would just be another Asian American film that only goes to Asian American film festivals if the Spirit Awards hadn't happened; if Roger Ebert and all the other critics hadn't written what they wrote.

Check out The Official Charlotte Sometimes Website for theaters in your city .

Lia: When you talk about the emasculation factor, what was it like for you growing up?

Eric: My general assessment of the sexual arena that I was about to enter was that being Asian was a deficit.

If an Asian boy expresses sexual desire or desire to flirt or to compete for the attention of women that society as represented by the teachers in this one school would frown upon that or even try to use its institutional structure to suppress it.

I think most importantly because it is their cultural ethos it seeps down into our heads as Asian men and into the heads of all of our Asian sisters, to all women and all men. It is such an important thing to a child, a young man, 11, 12, 13 years to think about, "How will I be seen, am I beautiful, will girls my age think of me as beautiful?"

I was identifiably Asian for my first 11 years. One of the things that people don't realize about me when they are suspicious of me for identifying as Asian, your self-identity for the first 11 years is pretty influential. And it's not like I had a choice. When people come up to me tugging at their eyes and reciting little racist rhymes. I knew that when I was punching some kid that just punched me that the first punch had been thrown because I was Asian. I was very aware of that.

The big dichotomy in my childhood was moving from the mainland to Hawaii. There's a reverse marginalization in Hawaii. I felt perhaps even more marginalized coming from the mainland, coming from a foreign place called Virginia.

I believed the key to my success in being accepted, being included in the standard of beauty is my Asian part. Thank god my mother was Asian. If only I didn't look so White, I could be accepted.

I never fully passed as a local in Hawaii. I was good in baseball but I also did the geeky things like yearbook and newspaper staff and got good grades. Those are the things that are frowned upon in public schools in Hawaii. Feeling marginalized leads to well, I'll accept that I'm different, but I'm not just going to be different, I'll be different and better.

It's funny I didn't come to that conclusion until seventh grade in Hawaii. I thought this is great. I would be around other Asian people. Look at how many other Hapas there were. But I found people weren't really cool with me, the way I talked, the way I looked. Of course I looked ugly and skinny but also the combination of looking less Asian than even the Hapas and mainland acculturation made it very difficult for me to fit in. That was when my overachieving sort of set in.

Lia: What are your views on sexuality and loneliness? Who is Eric Byler in terms of expression as an artist?

Eric: As an artist I start with loneliness, and writing is a lonely craft. It's easy to feel lonely when you are writing. Usually you begin alone and sometimes you collaborate with people along the way.

In the end, if it is your film, you finish it alone. At the core of a lot of artists is a feeling of isolation. A feeling that the life that you lead isn't enough. That you might want to revise it. The genesis of somebody's artistic expression is a feeling of isolation, to try to express how you feel about the world and then somehow change it so it is more agreeable to you. Those are the movies that have happy endings. Or the stories, or the poems or the paintings.

Another way is to actually investigate with complete honesty the condition of your life and reveal without compromise. I think that is closer to what Charlotte Sometimes is.

Although it began as a revisionist story about a lonely man who has a difficult time approaching women, overcomes his insecurities and triumphs in the end, as I began to form my artistic tenets and realized that I admired truth and art so much more than fantasy. I decided that this story had to be approached with more of an honest and realistic sensibility. If at times I've felt insecure or I've felt emasculated or marginalized, I wanted the films I make to investigate why this was and not create a metaphor to hide behind. When I looked at it closely and honestly, I had to confront the fact that race is a factor.

Lia: What motivated you to write this script and make this film?

Eric: My agent said, you need to make a movie that is doable. [I had written] Keaoloha set in Hawaii, where it is expensive to shoot, with a cast of 80 different characters. "Why don't you write something that you can make here? Shoot with adult actors, limited number of locations, then you can get a feature under your belt?" It was a bridge to Keaoloha for me.

So once I settled on making a film that was not an epic, and not too grand, I concentrated on four characters and the intricacies in their lives and relationships. I realized it would have to be a true and very honest depiction. There are no special effects, no comets hitting the earth or dinosaurs attacking. Where do you find meaning? Inside the human heart. Talented actors with lives that somewhat intersect with the characters I've written are somewhat cheaper than building the set of the Titanic.

Lia: What are you most passionate about?

Eric: Right now I am most passionate about Hapa identity. Before I made this movie, I was more passionate about Asian American identity. I feel I need to play a role in increasing the role of interracial people in the United States.

There are no public figures that have successfully embraced or caused the world to embrace their bi-racial identity. Tiger Woods tries and try as he might, he's always going to be a black man. Even though he's half Asian. Halle Berry tries to acknowledge her Caucasian mother who is more of a parent to her than her African American father was.

If you really think of it on a basic human level, isn't it more important who your parents were, than what you actually look like? Where you come from, your lineage, your upbringing. Isn't that more important than how people want to categorize you? Isn't that closer to the essence of a human being?

Here is something that I'd like to do. This will help Asian Americans and Hapas. We need to stop internalizing that White is somehow better. It's hard for Asian Americans because we have always been tucked under the wing of White America telling us that you are the model minority. You're the example, if you are really, really good you can be White like us. It's hard to shake loose from the idea.

It really gives me pause when I talk to Asian Americans who can't fathom that a Hapa person would choose to identify as Asian.

Why is that unfathomable that we find more pride in our Asian heritage and we're more comfortable embracing our Asian heritage than our White heritage. Why is that unfathomable? Hapa's are considered monkeys when it comes to sex, but when it comes to passing for White and actually assimilating and becoming the honorary model minority, Hapa is a nice step.

Asian is just as beautiful, just as important, just as powerful, just as strong, and as meaningful as White. And if they say the standard of beauty is White, say f**k you.

People look at Charlotte Sometimes and they say, "Where is the ethnic agenda?" White people and Asian people. They want ethnic agenda from me. Why do we want ethnic agenda? Why? Because we want to make a change. Right.

Well, the only way I can make a change for you is to become somebody powerful in the industry who can make choices that include casting Asian Americans and telling Asian American stories.

Lia: When did you know you wanted to be a filmmaker?

Eric: I was involved in fiction writing and the visual arts during high school. I wrote a lot of short stories and a lot of them won awards and stuff. In seventh grade I made a video that I wrote, directed and starred in. We had people come with video cameras from a community college and they helped us. It was a Don't Litter P.S.A. I enjoyed the camaraderie and the sense of being a company. I can definitely say as an adult that I don't feel lonely. Because of the Asian American arts community. Theater productions, film productions, little workshops that we have done, readings that we've done.

A tribe where the thing that unites us is stronger than the thing that divides us. I'm Asian enough, my artistic contributions are more heavily valued than my ethnic deficits. It wasn't until senior year in high school, five years later that I made a short commercial. Again I was the writer-director-star. It was a commercial to get everyone to go to the yearbook signing party. My high school was the magnet school for media arts, but I was more of a journalist kid, I was the editor of the yearbook and the newspaper.

In the meantime, writing prose and poetry became an important outlet of expression for me. I chose Wesleyan University in Connecticut because it was the only school in the highest echelon of prestige that also had a film program. I had a sense that I wanted to work in film after seeing James Cameron's The Abyss. Twice. And seeing 300, 400, 500 names roll by at the end of the movie. And not thinking that I wanted to be a director, or James Cameron but thinking -- 500 people got together to make this movie. There's got to be room for me somewhere. I went to college thinking that college was where you learned the craft or the trade that you are going to use in your career that I would learn to be involved in film. Not necessarily a director.

Lia: What are you working on now?

Eric: I just got offered this job at Showtime where they are doing a series and hiring four writers. Three of them are already hired and they don't have person of color. The chances were pretty good that a person of color would be hired in the fourth position. Charlotte Sometimes is just hitting theaters. I get the job. Anything to get in the door. The result is that two more stars are going to be born. The two Asian American actors that play these roles that I'm writing are going to be stars.

I want to be clear with everyone that if we're dependent on White people writing parts for Asians, saying these are the only parts Asians can play. If they don't specify that only Asians can play it, we're not going to get those parts. Where do those kinds of roles come from? Until we've created icons, either directors or stars who are so good that people want to catch them regardless of race, we have to make the movies that prove they are that good.

With Charlotte Sometimes, if I had come to those investors six years ago and said I have an all-Asian cast: Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh and Lucy Liu, race would not have been a factor. I could have made Charlotte Sometimes. That didn't fit my artistic vision. We need to create Asian American stars. Justin (Lin) and I talked about Better Luck Tomorrow and Charlotte Sometimes being rejected by mainstream studios and financiers because of the Asian casts.

The thing that we don't mention is that the industry isn't more racist than the country at large. I think it is less racist than the country at large.

I think if we had famous Asian Americans who would mean something on a marquee to cast in our films they would not be as hard to make. I could have cast Russell Wong, Jason Scott Lee, Lucy Liu and Ming Na. But my obstacles weren't simply that I was making an Asian American film, I was making an Asian American film that had a very specific artistic vision. A film that couldn't be governed by studio minded marketing choices or ideology. These kinds of films are hard to make anyway. It was the Asian label AND the art film label nudging me out to the margins of Hollywood.

Eric: In 1990, I returned to the mainland, being reintroduced into the "White is right" sexual hierarchy as an eighteen-year-old who identifies as Asian, who knows and loves Asian best. I was very indignant about that.

At Wesleyan, the entire freshman class attended workshops where we were told that we had landed in the most liberal school in the entire country. These workshops introduced us to race, sexual orientation. At the race orientation, they had representatives of the different races.

They explained that there's an expectation or stereotype that Asian men had smaller penises.

I played baseball all of my life and I have showered with guys since I was fourteen or fifteen. I never noticed any noticeable difference so I had no evidence that it was true. I landed in this place where that was the prevalent view. They're not saying that this is good. They're saying, "Let's talk about stereotypes that people have about people of color.

Two particular moments from this workshop have stayed with me.

(1) I'm in a group of thirty people that I want to fit in with. Everybody knows that I am this Hawaiian cowboy kid and they make this announcement that Asian men have smaller penises and I was like, LET ME OUT OF THIS ROOM!

(2) We talked about African American stereotypes. My R.A. was the representative for the African American group of the workshop. They said that one stereotype was that a lot of people associate African Americans with crime. And they asked, would anybody here be afraid to encounter an African American man in a dark alley? I said I would be. I was trying to be honest in participating.

In Hawaii there aren't a lot of African Americans, so my association with African Americans was based on television. They usually do have a switchblade or a machine gun under their coat on television. Even in the African American movies made by African Americans, this is true. So I would be more afraid. I remember this man, he was a junior and he was my R.A. He looked at me very earnestly with sort of sad but steadfast eyes and said, "I am very sorry that you feel that way."

I realized that if I'm capable of internalizing racist stereotypes from the media, these people must too. And if I were to rewind in my head the images I had seen growing up of Asian men in mainstream media, I could understand perfectly why it is that people might be under the impression that Asian men are less masculine than other men.

Lia: What is your take on the emasculation of Asian American men in media as portrayed in the Joy Luck Club?

Eric: Charlotte Sometimes is under the same sort of criticism. If a movie by an Asian American is really nothing more than an answer to other people's movies, you look at some of the artistic choices, and if they don't serve as a counterpoint of films that have come before, I can understand why people are disappointed.

In other words, the time hasn't yet come where Asian American artists can just be artists. They are Asian American first, and their duty is to fight stereotypes. Fight racism, and to use the power of the media to teach White people how to think about us. Joy luck Club fails with regard to defending the honor of Asian men. I think Charlotte Sometimes also falls short of Asian masculinity propaganda.

My next project American Knees is another movie that is going to get people up in arms about race and sex. It might even do so a little more. American Knees has more content in the text than Charlotte Sometimes as opposed to subtext. They're actually going to talk about some of this stuff, racism, sexism, and sexual stereotypes. They're going to say it instead of live it.

If there ever was a hornet's nest, how about this bi-racial woman, a Japanese-Caucasian woman choosing between two lovers, one who is full blooded Asian and one who is full blooded White. And to what extent does her choice in lovers define her as a human being? How might that be different for a bi-racial woman than for a bi-racial man?

There's a lot of Asian American masculinity advocates who would have me cast a drooling cripple as the White guy, and Russell Wong as the Asian guy, just to make it perfectly clear that she couldn't possibly choose the White guy. That's not my inclination.

Even in the novel the White guy is written to be a hick. I've changed him from a guy who is a big clumsy dope, into a guy who is a sensitive man who loves a woman whose heart is divided. And he's got to deal with that like any man would. The novel calls for a six foot tall really handsome Asian man, but does that mean that I can't consider any Asian actors who are shorter than that?

What if the best actor who comes to audition for the part is under this height? The novel calls for an actor who is forty something. Does that mean that I cast a man who is forty something or do I have to cast somebody who is thirty because we want to make the Asian man the picture of masculine beauty?

Lia: I read on one of the online forums Is being half Asian enough?

Eric: Did you see that? I think it was the Angry Asian guy club online forum. Half Asian is not enough; you are White, White, White, what kind of name is Byler anyway?! And you say that your parents really LOVED each other? Well I'm not EVEN going to respond to that.

Eric: I do want to try to reach out to Asian American men that are so angry at White oppression. That is connected to sex. In the same way that I went through the same phase, I felt that anger and I still feel that anger.

Why do we have to come out and say it though: that we object to Asian women dating outside the race. We might feel it, but let's not set our whole outlook and agenda based on that, it's so primitive.

Couldn't it be argued that if you only need one person to settle down with and procreate with, that it is completely irrelevant to you as a man what all the other Asian American women are doing with their genitals if the one woman you love is faithful to you. If you could make a claim of ownership, I think you could make a claim of ownership to the person who is wearing the ring but not to the race, not to the Asian females.

I think that is driving a rift in our community. That there are guys going around saying you betray your Asian brother when you date someone that is not full blooded Asian. There are a lot of Hapas, me included, who wince at the sound of people objecting to the racial components of the sex scenes in my film.

I have never heard a more convincing and thorough rejection of Hapas as part of the Asian community than to say that it is offensive and disgusting to see Hapas in beds with full breeds. It's really like saying we are another species. These statements are ridiculous and they make Asian men look ridiculous. By Socratic method I try to show them the illogic of what they are saying. They are so angry because they are so marginalized.

What if as a community we set an example for these White racist oppressors. And said when it comes to the Asian American community, we exclude no one, even though we hate Whites. If an Asian person is part White, we still welcome them in the community. Even though you hate Asian, if the person is born in the United States and speaks English and contributes to this society. Couldn't you include us in your definition of what American is?

If they look at us and see us all bickering about sex between bi-racial Asians and full-blooded Asians, they're just going to laugh when we say couldn't you expand your definition of American to include people that look like us?

Other artists ask me, "Eric, Why do you waste your time arguing with these jerks? They are beyond reaching."

Some of them are. But the ones that I spend my time talking to on the web I don't find they are beyond reach. They are angry in the same way that I was angry when I was a young man. And I don't think they have yet realized that kind of expression of your anger is unbecoming. And its not healthy and it's counterproductive for our community. I'm not saying they have to be artists. But they should find other ways to express that rage as I have.