This was a letter my friend sent him:
This is a letter one of my friends wrote to that gentleman:
I was appalled after reading your editorial on Darrell Abbott. Who are you to say that heavy metal represents ugliness and ignorance? Ignorance to me is someone pretending to be worldly, yet still judging a style of music and a group of people with no actual knowledge about them. Ugliness to me is writing about a senseless death injecting your opinion with no real sense of who the man was, what he did and what really happened. Put yourself in the shoes of Darrell's brother or his wife: not such an accident waiting to happen, is it? Here's a hint: one cannot learn about metal from Bob Larson, TBN, Tipper Gore, the PMRC, Bob Dole or Pat Roberson.
I have attended hundreds of heavy metal shows. Very few of them have had security or violence problems. What you fail to realize is that there are crazy people everywhere and in all walks of life. Most of us are free-thinking individuals who are educated, self-sufficient and genuinely good people.
If heavy metal has such a strong link to violence, what about country music? cartoons? Should we blame Yosemite Sam because he was always walking around shooting his guns looking for a fight?Is Johnny Cash an ignorant barbarian based upon his lyrics?
The classical musicians you mentioned in your hateful writings were not as wonderful as you described them. Mozart and the other composers you mentioned had serious problems with addictions. Tchiakovsky was a homosexual who was oppressed his entire life, probably by the same ignorant fools such as yourself.
Here is another update: Darrell was the furthest thing from ignorant. He lived life to the fullest, travelled the world many times over bringing his music to millions of people such as myself who were genuinely touched by it. These are experiences far greater than you have ever had. Getting a college degree is not the be-all end-all measuring stick for being cultured. Darrell was a genuine, caring human being who was primarily concerned with making sure that the people around him were having a great time. In other words, he did not waste his time looking down upon other people just because they were into different things.
Just because you don't understand a genre of music/art does not mean that it is not a valid form of music/art and furthermore it does not mean that the people who enjoy and play this type of music/art are ignorant heathens.
Powerful imaginations are not conservative, either. Powerful imaginations are free-thinking, they challenge the status quo and do not back down from the dominant schools of thought, no matter how elitist or ignorant they are.
In the future, it might serve your interests better to think before you write. That way you are not as insulting to your readers and you do not look the fool. It says on the page that you lived in Germany? I must say that your sense of values are very similar to a group of people in power over sixty years ago, the Nazis. They enjoyed judging and discriminating against people different from them.
Nick
Tempe, AZ
P.S. I am a college graduate working on a Master's Degree who has never owned a gun in my life, I am religious, family-oriented, unselfish and an extremely motivated man who would never dream of attacking or killing another human being. I also try to learn about people different from me before I write about them.
