I KNOW!
Disclaimer: I think his Mater from the Cars movie is one of the better Disney characters they've made. As far as his 'southern' style of humor, it's fine. He's no Lewis Grizzard, but who is? Like most other comedians, sometimes he has good jokes, sometimes not. Would I pay for a ticket to see him? Probably not, but there are very few comedians I'd do that for anyway.
Backstory: on Fridays I try to find a video to post. I call it the Friday Link. It's usually light and airy, but sometimes can be a bit biting. I've posted MST3K videos, John Oliver clips, movie clips, and even music videos. Most of the time the clips are funny.
A few years back, YouTube's algorithm suggested a two part video from comedian David Cross. In the video, Cross, in a voiceover, reads a letter he wrote which takes exception with Larry the Cable Guy, who wrote, quite incorrectly, about Cross in one of his books. What takes place in about 18 minutes is a thorough takedown of Larry (real name is Daniel Whitney) for falsely calling out Cross as some liberal, PC police force who's lashing out at Larry for his political incorrect comedy (at least politically incorrect prior to Cars coming out. Disney checks have a way of cleaning up most comedians).
Cross points out Larry makes jokes (at one point in his career) which were undeniably racist, had gay humor that was just lazy, how wrong it was to call out Cross for being out of touch with southern culture, and how anyone who's heard Cross' comedy would think labeling him politically correct is laughable.
At about 6 minutes into the Part 2 Video: (the Friday Link post is here: David Cross verses Larry The Cable Guy) Cross does something quite spectacular. He points out that Larry the Cable Guy was guilty (at least in his book) of blurring the lines between Larry's made up back story and the real history of Daniel Whitney. Whitney was born in Nebraska, living on a hog farm until he was in his mid teens. He then moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, attending a private high school, before attending college. His southern backwoods, worldly-wise schtick is an act. But Cross points out he adopted the fake back story to make mocking Cross seem more relevant to his fans.
THAT'S NOT ME MAKING IT UP! Go to the Friday Link and watch for yourself.
The reason this video came up this weekend had NOTHING to do with Larry, but rather another 'performer,' musician (???) Kid Rock. Rock, who's an ardent Trump supporter, went after superstar Taylor Swift for her comments that she should've been more vocal in supporting Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Kid Rock accused Swift of being fake. Kid Rock is a guy who's a complete fraud. He was born to a father with multiple car dealerships, lived on a large estate in Detroit's suburbs where he had orchards and horses. He's nowhere near a white trash success story he claims to be. I commented this was not the first time a person tried to push their 'act' as their real history. I ended the post with the clips from Cross.
I post the Friday Link on social media, including links to people relevant to the post. You never know if someone who's linked to the post will comment on it.
I was shocked when Larry the Cable Guy, on a Friday night, started to take me to task for the Friday Link. Here's his first post:
Larry is a multi, multi millionaire; wildly successful and supposedly beyond the pettiness of a social media fight. As a matter of fact, I'm shocked he's even doing his own social media, not hiring out a person to manage his social media pages for him. And it's a Friday night. Shouldn't he be doing a show someplace, or hanging out with his family in their (I don't know) triple decker pool, or doing whatever else he wants? His success has given him the luxury of doing anything!
If I was as wealthy as he was, and some local radio guy in some town I only occasionally visit posted a link to a dated video which called out one of my mistakes, the best path of action would be to ignore it. I wouldn't need to prove myself to anyone, hence white noise from some regional radio guy can be ignored. Instead he validated me by acknowledging me, and in turn took a blog post which usually would have 30-40 hits, and pushed it up around 400, highlighting his past mistake himself.
I've looked at my own actions and asked if I did something wrong. Two things come to mind. First, regardless of the Cross mistake, there is a HUGE difference between the fake-ness of Kid Rock and Larry the Cable Guy. Kid acts like he's always been street, rarely acknowledging his story is a complete fabrication. For the most part, Larry's act/real life blurriness seems to be limited, and he's very publicly acknowledged it's an act, multiple times. Still, Cross did call him out correctly.
The other thing is the wording I used on the original post. Here is the original Friday Link post:
The impression Larry and his fans had was the "looking at you" line implied Larry is always fake. No, the point was to get people to click on the link and read the post. If you didn't read the post, then it's easy to see how a person can dictate the intent to mean something completely different. If you click on the link and listen to Cross' letter, my post is correct. I stand by the post and I stand by the blog.
Larry responds, and it get's weird...
What I posted above from Larry was his first response. HE decided to respond to ME. His tweet plows over the blog post and starts coming after me for implying something I wasn't saying. I never once stated his life is a complete fraud. If you read the blog post you see (in the case of Larry) I'm referencing the Cross letter. Larry, intentionally or not, didn't see it that way. Also the "radio boy" line is specifically made to dismiss me like some toddler. Okay...fine.
I responded:
Once again, I'm pointing out his problem is with Cross, not myself. I understand celebrity is a double edged sword, but if you tell the world to 'look at me, look at me,' you can't just turn that off when you make a mistake. His going after me seemed to be avoiding the person who called him out in the first place, Cross. Larry could've easily said "that was long time ago, and I made a mistake." Nope.
His response:
Okay, once again he's either intentionally or unintentionally ignoring the Cross letter, and Larry starts becoming a jackass. Biff in Back to the Future ("Hello McFly") wasn't the hero. He was the bully. He then delivers a misguided psychological evaluation, implying I'm somehow not enjoying my life (strike 2). Then he begins a legit defense, "This was 15 years ago." Valid point, but he follows it up with another swipe at me, implying I'm insecure with my career (Strike three!).
By design, I host a lovely radio show in Minneapolis. I've had offers to go to other cities, but I have placed my family first, and stayed here. I'm quite happy being a medium size fish in the Minnesota pond. I love my career. My job (by definition) is to talk about, and occasionally mess with, other people. Larry got that right.
It's at this point I call him out, and start questioning if my initial stance was wrong. Was the Cross letter the real mistake?
He completely ignores the reference to David Cross. Instead I get this:
Okay...did the letter say Nixon was a crook and shouldn't be President? Then the letter was pretty spot on. Then the conversation takes another turn.
There is a lot to unpack here. You "could do this all night"? Really??? With all the wealth and success you've had, that's a sad admission. But I was floored by what came next.
He takes shot at blue collar workers. If you've worked in radio, the term 'working the board' means producing, the most blue collar of radio jobs. These are the guys who work the controls to make sure a radio show gets on air. His implying I'm working the Saturday morning shift comes across as Larry going down the career path shaming route. Larry has worked in radio, so he knows the producers are usually beginner, lowest rung on the ladder jobs, having to pull weekend shifts. So paraphrasing how I took his comment, "look at the guy who might be pulling the Saturday morning board shift daring to criticize me, the successful comedian."
I didn't work the board on Saturday. Brett, Hunter, Eric and Sam are our producers and one of them did. Everyone at the station and the listeners appreciated their efforts. They're outstanding, and work very hard.
This isn't my first radio job. I've been working on air shifts since 1993. My first on air experience was Armed Forces Radio in Nuremberg, Germany in 1991.
He then adds more evidence to the idea he's shaming blue collar radio producers with his [paraphrasing] 'I was smart enough to not learn how to do that job because [implied] it's beneath me. I hope you weren't dumb enough to learn that [implied] worthless task.'
This is a guy who's 'act' is built around saluting the blue collar workers of America. It was this point I needed to point out what he was saying.
I can tell he's trying to get me down a certain path, but he seems to have made some presumptions about me, and was trying to shame my career. Instead of him making a point about how does it feel to have someone bad mouth your career, it came off more as a bad mouthing blue collar producers. When I pointed it out his pseudo-elitist shot, he ran to the hog farm defense.
Daniel, you were raised on a hog farm until you were a teenager. If you're anything like the farm kids I know, you did your fair share of work, 24/7/365. But your analogy is broken. You, at one point, lived on a farm which raised hogs, but you didn't become a successful comedian because of hog farming. I'm not saying you didn't work hard in comedy. To be successful you had to, but you're not a successful comedian because of hogs. You might have some life lessons from the farm days, but those are two completely different careers. This seems like an attempt to validate yourself today by finding the hardest job you did in your life and applying it to your current career. I can do that too.
I know I missed a 't' in the post (thanks grammar police!). I see your hog farming, and I raise you the US Army! Once again if you get into arguments with random people you know nothing about, you have a tendency of walking into rakes.
I, ONCE AGAIN, ask him straight forward if the Cross letter is wrong. His response was to ignore that question (and my US Army service) and act as if I'm over reacting, and I just need to calm down and have a great weekend.
He asks 'Who's coming after [me]?" Radio boy, McFly, the shots at my career, the shots at the career he thinks I have, and the constant attempt at oneupmanship. I'm sure he'll say I'm too sensitive. Dude, I'm just being reactionary to YOUR comments. YOU, the successful comedian, responded to me, the lowly Minnesota radio host. I'm WAY below your pay grade.
I then, realizing this is going no where, didn't challenge him further, instead finishing up my direct conversation with Larry.
I got a fist!
Larry did go on and comment on some of the fan threads which I had to deal with. One or two were out of line, but most of them were cordial enough. They mostly seemed to be commenting without ever reading the blog post, just blindly defending Larry.
On one post, Larry commented:
"Some people have nothing better to do?" This is my job. This is what I do! You're the millionaire, with a million options on the table at any given time. That's a heck of a self own, Larry.
Larry also commented on a thread I has having with another of his fans:
I'm pointing out a reality; this interaction gives me value. Every Larry fan who likes, retweets and responds gets me more hits. I'll be respectful, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. And Larry, I never sent you anything. That's not how Twitter works. I posted your address and you responded to my tweet. If you would've ignored this, 30-40 people would've seen it and it would've disappeared.
I love this Larry fan response.
Yes Dan, YES THEY ARE! WOW!!! But let me change the direction of this post.
Some fans pointed out, regardless of past mistakes, Larry is an outstanding guy. Here's one:
Out-freaking-standing. Daniel in his life has definitely done some amazing things. And he does, most of the time, seem like a really nice guy. I'm not trying to take that away from him. I truly hope he has continued success, and outside of Nebraska/Minnesota games, I won't root against him.
But if I may. Since you opened the door to armchair psychology, let me make two points.
1) I've no idea if you've tried to deal with your David Cross issue, but you clearly need to address your frustrations. I think the way you initially lashed out at this is less to do with 'some Minnesota jackass taking a swipe at me,' and more with 'here's that damn Cross letter again.' I think my 'soft target' comment from my first response was spot on. For what it's worth, admitting mistakes cleanses the soul.
2) You getting into this on Twitter with me is a bad look for you. You don't need to do this. This is not about defending yourself or your brand. I can't hurt either one of those things. This is not about defending southern culture or your fan base. I never attacked either one of those things. In the words of one of your fans and myself:
You are so beyond this. All it can do is hurt your career and image. I guess what I'm saying is I don't want to see a guy as talented and as successful as you tripped up by some stupid social media war you could, and should, avoid.
Daniel, Larry, I'm sorry I upset you, but I stand but he post and the blog. All my best.
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