“I have that stupid White Zombie song stuck in my head”.

That’s the very first line of my short story The Vehicle of Damnation. It’s said by a crusty punk who walks up to the main character, a woman she has not seen in more than a year.

I like that line, and I like that it’s the way the story starts. It says a lot about what’s going on in the story in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways. But several people were angry at me for that line.

“White Zombie isn’t stupid! You can’t say that!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes you did. Right there!”
“That’s the character saying that, not me.”

In the Pogues song Fairy Tale of New York there are two down and out characters, probably drunk, having an argument. The man calls the woman an “Old slut on junk”. And some people have taken issue with the word ‘slut’, but more people have a problem with her response. “You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot…”

‘Faggot’ lit a few more fires than the ‘slut’ word in some circles, but never seemed to be a really big issue. With the recent controversy over the song “Baby it’s cold Outside”, the disgruntlings about Fairy Tale of New York have come back to haunt this Pogues song.

The defense: It is the characters in the song who are using these slurs, not the songwriter. Many people seem to insist there’s an explicit connection between the writer and their works, which comes up a lot in writing. And not just writing. A soap opera star once reported that she got physically attacked in a shopping mall for something their character did on the show. Apparently the middle aged woman who slapped her in the face was unable to separate the actor from the character. Another actor from a television show said they made themselves scarce during star events, because people were so turned off by his character that they didn’t want to associate with him.

Some people get some funny ideas about my fictional stories. My recently published novel, The Falling Circle, is a good example. Many people believe that it’s autobiographical. “I get it.” said one friend of mine. “Get what?” “Preston is you!” I had to tell my friend that Preston is not me. He’s a character. I made him up. Sure, I’ve been through some of the same things as Preston, but Preston is not me.

One story in the book is where Preston gets a job clearing out a dead teenager’s room. Some people hire him to clean out the room because they’re afraid of what they might find. Many people asked me what it was like to have a job like that. I had to tell them I never did have a job clearing out a deceased teeanger’s room. It’s fiction. I made it up! Yet people are convinced that the elements in the book must have been real, which I will take as a compliment, even though I do tire of trying to explain that The Falling Circle is not a memoir!

There are some pieces of The Falling Circle that are based on actual events, such as when a cop harrasses Preston when he sits down on a college campus bench. Preston explains to a barging police officer that he was just resting because he had been walking all day, but the cop tells him to keep walking, adding the epithet “scumbag”, which is actually a true story. A cop did harass me and some friend of mine in such a manner, and the dialogue is verbatim.

There’s also the reason Preston had to leave his home, because his landlord had gone nuts. That is also a true story, except that in The Falling Circle version the landlord was waving a gun around, which is an embellishment. So far I have not had to worry about gun-toting landlords. Ergo that part of the book is a mix of fact and fiction. But for the most part my novel is fiction. The reason Shang’s squat got busted, the uninvited metal band, and the crazy party of chaos: All fiction.

But even though it is fiction, there could still be issues with some of the characters. The character of Gust could be perceived of as sexist, since she’s literally a “Pandora’s box” of trouble. I would probably try to defend myself by pointing out that several of the more stable characters in the novel are women. Then there’s the gay characters in my book. Some may perceive them as too wild and crazy, thus making them homophobic. It’s true that several of my gay characters are a bit off of the hook, but I would point out that they are based on the hard-partying clubbing gay people I knew back in the day, and not the more Will and Grace type of gay people that some people would rather see portrayed.

There are also minor characters in The Falling Circle who use homophobic slurs. Does that make my novel homophobic? Does that make me homophobic? I don’t think White Zombie is stupid. Okay, I think some of Rob Zombie’s movies ar flat and implausible, but I don’t think the band is stupid. And many of my friends would attest that I’m not homophobic.

But some people may say, why have anyone in the story use homophobic slurs? Or swearing? Or drug abuse and heavy drinking? All of those are elements of my novel. Couldn’t I just not include such things?

Sure, I could try to write such a work without all of that “production value”, but it’s a story about a down-and-out wage worker in the concrete jungle. I could cut out the swearing and substance abuse and have everyone be not even remotely homophobic and never include the F-word or the other F-word or all kinds of other topics. But that wouldn’t be realistic. It wouldn’t be remotely plausible, and it would make my story as dull as dishwater if I didn’t add the rough stuff along with the thoughtful and philosophical moments.

But didn’t my mind, my brain, my artistic inner self create these crude characters with their prejudiced tendencies? Of course. But it’s a reflection of others that I have experienced. No, White Zombie is not stupid, at least in my opinion. But I can create a character who thinks that More Human Than Human is a stupid song, and she might very well think White Zombie is a stupid band, and if I thought about it hard enough I could tell you why she thinks that way about Rob Zombie and his band. But as I was never hired to clean out a dead kid’s room, I can bend my imagination around to make up these less than savory characters who shout epithets and act anti-socially and think bands that I like are dumb.

All in all, working on fiction, whether it’s in novels or in songwriting, can get peoples’ hackles up. Some writers want to do that, intentionally write inflammatory material to get people worked up, but I just want to tell stories, realistic and entertaining stories, which means throwing some villains and prejudicial behavior in the mix.

And Fairy Tale of New York? It’s still my favorite Christmas song.