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A while ago, I wrote a moving story about life in New York City you can read by clicking here. Or if you don't have time, I'll summarize: I used to go play guitar and sing at open mic nights in New York, and one time I spoke briefly to another performer and signed up to receive e-mail updates on her upcoming shows. Later I moved to Los Angeles, and asked to be removed from her e-mail list, but they kept coming. So, naturally, I threatened to denounce the singer-songwriter, who is named Sinem, on my highly successful Web site, lunchboxing.com, if she didn't take me off the list. She didn't, so I wrote an article explaining to the world that she was a dirty spamming whore. End of story, or so I thought. One recent morning an enthusiastic fan letter arrived in my incoming e-mail, in which the writer had even gone to the trouble of critiquing a song I had written and described in my article about Sinem: From: "JBrown" To: "Tim Molloy" Subject: Re: Sinem hatesite Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 10:22:51 -0500 (EST) Honestly I can't believe I'm wasting my time even writing, but I just had to tell you that you are quite pathetic. You have that much time on your hands huh? You should focus more on your God-awful songwriting. "I met you at My friend's party Got your number 'cause I thought that you were hot" Genius my man. Very "I'm trying to write poor lyrics for a laugh because I'm really a pretty crappy singer-songwriter." I'm sure it went over very well, at 3am, in front of 7 people. Good draw, you must be better than I thought. If you'd like, I can add you to my band's mailing list as well. Let me know. J www.fixermusic.com Oh, and for a guy working at a website, that unsubscribe link at the bottom of Sinem's email must have been very confusing. Ow! I wrote back something like, "The unsubscribe link didn't work, please don't hurt me and my family, we will take down the article immediately." Then I hit send and went into seclusion. But after a few minutes, I couldn't resist the urge to check the Web site the guy had listed at the end of his e-mail. I don't know, maybe it was pride, or dignity, or a far more familiar feeling, "bored at work." And so I clicked on over to fixermusic.com, a site all about this guy's band, which is called Fixer. To my delight, it turned out Fixer was based in New York. And I, as I mentioned, live in Los Angeles, which is far away from New York. Newly emboldened, I set out to write a new, more reasoned response; one that would make me look like slightly less of a pussy. And so begins a story, one told by e-mail, by two people who would begin as antagonists... and end up the best of friends. From: "Tim Molloy" To: "J Brown" Subject: Re: Sinem hatesite Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 11:36:42 -0500 (EST) J, You have really brightened my day. I went to your own web site to learn to write better lyrics, and it is a gold mine. "Come home again With blood on my hands I'm stoned again 'Cause a man is just a man" The way the Christ imagery comes completely out of left field? Pure clowntown. Unless the "J" is for Jesus, in which case I guess I'm in a lot of trouble. Tim A short time later came this response:  From: "JBrown" To: "Tim Molloy" Subject: Re: Sinem hatesite Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 15:31:04 -0500 (EST) That was a hilarious response! Seriously. I'm glad our website was helpful. And I'm definitely going to add the word "clowntown" to my vocab. I can only assume it has the same definition as "buffoonery" which is also a great word. Jesus From: "Tim Molloy" To: "J Brown" Subject: Re: Sinem hatesite Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 15:43:41 -0500 (EST) I am confused. Are we getting into deep sarcasm or becoming friends? I think sarcasm but I'm trying to cut down on negativity, and therefore hoping for the best. Please help me out here because I'm terrible with irony. How did you find our little site anyway? In the interest of pushing things in the "friends" category, I thought your site was very well done. I also liked the thing your singer wrote about going to jail. Also, one small thing: Lunchboxing is not a Sinem hatesite. We write about lots of things. I don't even think the article is hateful. I tried to make it clear that I resented whoever handled the e-mail distribution, not Sinem herself, who, as I said, writes good but not great songs. In my opinion. Tim From: "J Brown" To: "Tim Molloy" Subject: Re: Sinem hatesite Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 10:43:01 -0500 (EST) Well honestly, I found your site because i am friends with Sinem. I just looked at the page regarding her, not really noticing other parts. After looking at the rest of the site, it was actually quite funny. But i did find the idea of dedicating that much time to a girl who sends out an email every two or three weeks bizarre. And yes, I thought your response was hilarious, as did the rest of my band who also enjoys your site. so with that said, yes, we are now b.f.f. (Readers: Hi, this is Tim again. Yes, I admit this is turning boring. But stay tuned. There's still a big revelation coming. And no, J does not invite me to join his band.) From: "Tim Molloy" To: "J Brown" Subject: Re: Sinem hatesite Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2004 10:48:41 -0500 (EST) Wow. I guess when I wrote something that could be interpreted as highly negative, was thinking of Sinem as some far away person who would never actually see the site. (And whose friends wouldn't see the site.) I'm not sure why I dedicated that much time to someone for the sake of a silly article was indeed silly. It must've been a slow news day. Hopefully Sinem hasn't noticed or been offended. So, in short, I am psyched that we are now bff. We'd love to write positive things about Fixer, and welcome you to play at any of the shows we do in San Francisco from time to time. Though we are poor (we're doing this just for the sweet, sweet attention) and you are probably used to raking in more cash than we are. It would also be fun to post our entire e-mail exchange online, thereby spreading love amongst all our peoples. Finally, thanks for being open minded and cool about this. From: "JBrown" To: "Tim Molloy" Subject: Re: Sinem hatesite Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2004 12:00:55 -0500 (EST) She did indeed notice, as you said she would in your posting! http://sinem.net/notes.html Yeah, that would be amusing to post the whole exchange. Post away. When we're on the west coast we'll definitely do a show. We are just finishing up a full-length CD with more mind blowing, Christ-invoking lyrics. Should be done after this weekend and we'll have some songs posted next week, so check it out. Peace out. Wow! So if you click on that link above, which is, once again, http://sinem.net/notes.html, you'll see that the exciting last word goes to Sinem, the crown princess of controversy herself. And so, exhausted reader, based on what Sinem has written, and on J's e-mails, we at Lunchboxing are hereby taking her off our enemies list. I don't think it's saying too much to say we've all learned a valuable lesson about how much cool NYC rockers and bored West Coast nerds have in common. So thanks Sinem, and thanks J, and thanks to the real Jesus, unless J really is the real Jesus. Peace. Oh, and I think it's worth mentioning that somehow Sinem still hasn't taken my name off the list. To learn more about our new pals click here or here. |
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