An Open Letter (Apology) To My Brother Kent

A passionate disposition has always been something of a virtue in our family, at least between you and I. We feel strongly about religion, politics, absurdity, culture, art, and just about everything else. This disposition is more appealing when it is in more of a romantic/artistic vein. You mentioned earlier that the strongly principled "tortured artist" is a good personae to use when in pursuit of women, especially given my poverty. The implication, of course, is that such a noble failure can get away with living in squalor (and never picking up a check) because he is too tortured to be of any practical use to anyone. He's deep, dark, and on the prowl for meaning.

Such a person is incapable of figuring out 20% of a tab, he must instead muse. Friends and family can only hope that the day will come when truth and/or beauty will be revealed to this dead-beat, so he can finally make a living sharing it with everyone else. Unfortunately, the "tortured artist" is more likely to end up blowing his brains out, or worse, working at "Staples" or "The Yankee Candle Company."

But that is strangely irrelevant here. You're right about the potential value of embracing this cliche as a way of helping women justify sleeping with me. I won't have to lie about my income, and they can maintain a modicum of self-respect. After all, I wouldn't be lying to them; I am dark and disturbed, and certainly strange. So in that ridiculous fashion, it works out for everyone.

I'm not writing this letter to thank you for helping me develop this scheme. It's just ironic that we were talking about what an emotional pain-in-the-ass I can be just a few short hours before our argument. I really feel terrible for all the yelling and class warfare rhetoric I spouted in the passenger seat of your Nissan Murano. I'm not sure why we started talking about gentrification and class. But before I knew it, you looked like you wanted to punch me. And I was on my soapbox and probably should have been punched. You know I love and respect you, and we both roam on the left to one degree or the other; you as a liberal and I as a revolutionary socialist. But we share the same deoxyribonucleic acid, and we both screamed passionately for our respective cause. But I shouldn't have called you "petty bourgeois" and "classist."

I don't even use rhetoric from the right century.

So I'm sorry, and ask your forgiveness. I was a bit hot-blooded and arrogant, which is directly related to our Scottish/French ancestry. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go work on my controversial novel that will most likely end up unpublished, due to it's tortured realness. See! I'm already trying it on.