Last night on the "Late Show," David Letterman told a story about finding a strange package in his car at 6:00AM three weeks ago, where someone wanted to produce a screenplay about "the terrible things" he had done in his life and would happily sell him the screenplay for $2 million USD. After bringing his attorney and the district attorney's office into the mix, the man with the package was indicted and arrested for grand larceny. Letterman than confessed he had sexual relations with female staffers over the years. This was funny, sad and horrifying at the same time. I'm somewhat familiar with the concept of being blackmailed by those who think they can take advantage of you.
Within the church I used to belong to, I had reputation that range from being "a sweet guy" to "a future California serial rapist." The last remark came from a non-paid ministry worker—an unemployed patent attorney—who encouraged me to rape the woman who was giving me trouble so I could do everyone a favor by going to prison. When I asked him to explain how the woman would feel about that, he said it would be a "small sacrifice on her part for the betterment of the Kingdom." A few days after that, another unpaid ministry leader threaten to make public my emails concerning the situation. You would think that non-paid ministry leaders would figured out that encouraging rape and trying to blackmail someone was wrong according to the Bible. These two weren't that bright.
Unfortunately, a church culture can devolved into spiritual entrapments and witch hunts that makes this behavior perfectly acceptable. (I was even accused of witchcraft and divination in my campus ministry days when I predicted what would happen to three jobless brothers if the brother who paid all the bills moves out of the household, and all my predictions came true when I moved out.) Such a culture makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the paid ministry leaders to do what's right according to the Bible. My only regret is that I never got an attorney to put the fear of God into everyone. I had to endure four months of possibly illegal surveillance by the non-paid ministry to prove my innocence until the woman who caused me trouble was caught making a false accusation against me and formally rebuked for her behavior.
As for the emails, I threatened to post them on my website and send out the link to everyone with a note that it was the ministry leader's idea. Who has the most to loose with the publication of these emails? Not me. The blackmail attempt was quickly forgotten. When later ministry leaders hinted that were saving my emails, I again offered to publish all those emails on my website and send out a link to everyone in their name. Their response was always the same that they had no intention of blackmailing me. If so, why warn me you're saving my emails if you weren't trying to gain an unfair advantage over me?
When I was working at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari (same company, different owners, multiple identity crises), there was an email list called the "chum bucket" for off color jokes and web links. I bailed out of this email list after a few weeks when the supervisors started calling each other and everyone else who disagreed with them "douche bags" or worst. The email list survived for several more years until there was an incident involving me that forced HR finally shut it down for fear of a lawsuit.
A co-worker sent anonymous emails to the list that were critical, negative and mean-spirited about me. This wasn't blackmail as far I could tell but more like slander. When the co-worker stepped forward to apologize and his supervisor talked to me about the situation, I had no clue what they were talking about. At the time, I was a lead tester working sixty hours a week with a project ready to go out the door, attending church and teaching children ministry classes on Sundays, and taking two programming classes at San Jose City College. Anything outside of my immediate focus I was too busy to care about. When I later ran into the co-worker at a bus stop, he thanked me for being the only the lead tester who said anything nice about his friend, a female tester who I thought needed additional training but was let go by the company, and he admitted he was wrong about my character. I never did find out what his motivation was against me.
I believe that a writer should stand behind everything he or she writes, whether in private and in public. That includes the good, the bad and the ugly. After all, if I get famous enough after I kick the bucket, someone will edit and publish a book of selected letters, emails and stupid rants that I had written. A generation of tormented college students will write their dissertations on why neuroses represented early twenty-first century American literature. If someone wants to pass a moral judgment on me whether I'm dead or alive, there's really nothing I can do to stop them. If they want to use my own writing against me in sinster way, why not let the whole world judge me and my blackmailer?
Besides, all these incidents in my life are grist for my writing mill. I'm currently revising the rough draft of my first novel that is based on my six years as a video game tester, trying very hard not to let it be a roman à clef novel since I'm not settling old scores but writing a unique story that hasn't been told. My planned third novel will probably revolve around the church incidents above, and I had written several stories around other related incidents. A short-short story, "The Forgotten Sinner," was accepted this week and slated for publication in Conceit Magazine (December 2009), is about an old man waiting to get right with God because his minister never called him back.
If someone wants to blackmail me, they can try. But, like the David Letterman case, they should fear public exposure more than I would.
