Clarity

In my never-ending quest to get the word out on POST, I understand there will be people who will not understand my book, my influences or just me in general. Such is life, right? Well, sometimes I get some rather terse feedback from people and I attempt to clarify myself.

A recent case involves an e-mail conversation I had with a person about American Hardcore, the book and documentary. What seemed to start off as an elitist tiff turned into a really engaging conversation about telling different sides of a big story. We reached some insightful common ground and I'm glad I didn't write off this person's views (and the same with mine).

So why call attention to this? Well, I got to wondering if somebody approached me and said Nothing Feels Good was his or her's favorite book. How would I respond and what would I say?

For starters, I'd say I still don't like Andy's book, but I would probably not get up in arms with people who do. If I ever went so far and say I hated anyone who liked his book, I'd be down a few friends, writers I respect and a few blog readers. We can absolutely agree to disagree, but I'm not one to let a possibly good conversation about clarification go to the wayside. (Of course, this is much to do with the free time I have and how much of it I'd like to spend explaining myself. To me, there's always time to clarify.)