That Awful Man

from the RF diary:
The music, not the man
:: Posted by JeffTruzzi on April 12, 2012



… The personal judgement I am unqualified to make is based on the day I didn’t meet RF but remained within earshot, at a large recording complex. Two individuals who did attempt casually saying "hello & thanks for the work" were preempted by RF in such a haughty and dismissive fashion that no other appropriately descriptive nomenclature applies. They were crushed like bugs. 

But if that’s what RF must do to make the music he makes, so be it. We may not be pals, but I’ll always love his music. And the music is what counts.

Fripp in Sinatra mode.

the RF response:

And that’s what it is. So, if that’s what RF must have done to make the music he made, he was clearly prepared to suffer public ignominy, criticism and personal attacks to do it. And that’s what it was. Perhaps alternatively expressed: the fashion was peremptory, pre-emptive, self-protective and may have upset those who expected some other response. After years of attempting to engage in a straightforward and human fashion. I can give examples of standing and explaining my position, to no effect other than be insulted. I eventually abandoned reasoned argument, face to face, and moved to another mode; this in response to decades of attention that in some cases was respectful, in some cases amounted to harassment, in nearly all cases where something was wanted from me (acknowledgement and attention in various forms). That Ungrateful Wretch! Clearly, an Awful Man.

Perhaps, Fripp played from a different rule-book and was prepared to accept the consequences? Have we discussed The Awful Encounter subject before?

Criterion for judgment: I was less after the encounter than before. And in these few comments, I am not including stalkers and the mentally disturbed. May we note that 30 years ago stalking was not legally and formally viewed as the dangerous and destructive activity that it is, known as such by those who have been the focus of stalking. It was viewed more as an irritation, to be dealt with in civil courts by anyone who had an endless pocket and faith that a disturbed person was available and open to the feeble restraint then offered by civil law.