Thanks, Matt. I agree, and you made me laugh.

My first thought when he announced it was that he was co-opting others' grief for himself to get the "Oh! He's so sensitive!" response. I simply coudln't believe he's capable of that sort of deep feeling.

But then, I'm a cynic.

I remember that group of tweets, and it pissed me right off at the time (yes, even though I responded to it, sigh) for how it started with all of our shared experience and ended somewhere in the neighborhood LOOK AT HOW DEEP AND TOUCHING MY GRIEF THING IS! CRY FOR SENSITIVE ME!

But by that time, I was pretty deep in really dislking the guy and minimizing direct interactions.

On the other hand, I'm not inclined to naysay anyone who wants to send any money to BGC or PIH, basically ever.

It read very much as performance grief to me.

I can't read it, he's made his profile private or something.

Yeah, he has, but I tend to agree with msbelle and amych and Barb on the read of it. His tweets started out mirroring my feelings in many ways but then kept going and turned into personal brand building.

ita thought he was a tool.

I can't read it, he's made his profile private...

oh google cache, I love you.

bear with me, this needs to be more than one post

"I am going to tell you a story. Are you ready to hear the story? If you're not, that's too bad, actually, you're never ready for this.

Imagine that you find yourself at a really cool party, full of incredible people who like the same things you do.

You only came here to talk about your favorite television show that got canceled, but you end up sticking around. It's a cool party.

Imagine that the reason this party even exists is because of one woman. She built the house. She built the house this party is in.

She designed the house, she was the architect, she made it possible for all you like-minded awesome people to have this party.

These people at the party, they become your friends, they become your family. They are there for you when you're down and when you're up.

The woman who built the house, now, man, she is just unreal. Smart, strong, assertive...intimidating, really. Coolest of the cool.

You talk to her sometimes, occasionally, but you'd hesitate to call her a friend. You don't hang out anywhere but at the party.

You don't call or e-mail or have any personal connection to her, not like some of the other people do. But you admire and respect her a lot."

Not sure I can grab the rest, it was all done as a comment to the original tweet, so I can't get the later tweets to come up independently.

This reminds me of my ex-husband saying to me after he dropped a friend suddenly, "I only have so much time. I need to be friends with people who are also good for my work or my career and I can't waste time on people who aren't." Now, he did not harass women, but he used other artists to help his own work all the time and he saw what he did as practical, rather than horrifying. I AM SO GLAD we got divorced.