Vincent Gallo Threatened to Sue Me!

Like seemingly everyone in this sick, sad, lonely world I feel a deep, desperate need to be liked and an intense fear of confrontation. I probably feel an even bigger need to be liked and an even more ferocious fear of confrontation because I grew up depressed and friendless and, full disclosure, am not terribly popular as an adult either.

But sometimes I will learn that someone not only dislikes me but feels the need to let me know just how much they think I suck and it legitimately puts a smile on my face.

That’s because there are good, worthwhile enemies to have and I have acquired some real winners over the years. Donald Trump super-fan and notorious label lover Ben Garrison adorably threatened to sue me for copyright violation over one of the many  articles that I have written about how he sucks.

He did not follow through, of course, but I was tickled pink that he was a presence in the comment sections here for a hot minute. I was greatly amused to have engendered Garrison’s anger and oddly honored to even be on his radar.

I feel much the same way about the latest legendary grump to threaten to “Release the Kraken”, legally speaking, unless I take certain down images from my site.

I was having a really rough day when I got an email from Vincent Gallo reading, “Dear Miss Rabin, You have posted photos of mine which are clearly copyright protected and state so on the photos themselves. You have copied, uploaded and posted these photos without permission or without a license to do so. This message serves as notice your have breached my rights and stolen my copyright protected materials and intellectual property. Remove the photos immediately. Otherwise the damages you have already caused me will be great (sic) compounded and I will 100% file a case for damages. I reserve my right to seek damages for the breach of my intellectual property rights you have already knowingly stolen. I reserve all of my rights and remedies, Vincent Gallo”

look at that punim!

As you might imagine, this email made me VERY happy. Legendary actor Vincent Gallo was threatening legal action against me! And misgendering me! I’m not sure if he was doing so out of ignorance to my preferred pronouns (he/him) or the fact that I’m a cishet male but I suspect that Gallo, who has to be well into his sixties at this point, was trying to make fun of me by calling me a girl.

You know what? It would be one hundred percent wonderful if I were a woman. The seventy-something eccentric might think he’s deepening the insult by calling me Miss Rabin instead of Mrs. Rabin but I just want to say that I would not have a problem being either a married woman or a single woman. I actually think women are great and don’t see being called one an insult.

I’m even married to a woman! This curious greeting was followed by a series of very official sounding legal jargon from a renaissance man who is not only an actor, writer, director, artist, musician, semen seller and shitty racist homemade tee shirt creator but also one of our nation’s greatest legal minds.

If they were to remake the old chestnut The Devil and Daniel Webster today they’d have to change it to The Devil and Vincent Gallo because everyone can agree that he is now our greatest and most respected lawyer.

The threats aren’t necessary. The cornerstone of the American economy has been, and always will be, shitty racist homemade tee-shirts. Besides, Gallo clearly spends long minutes thinking up and then creating bootleg tee-shirts inspired by Alt-Right speaking points and I do not want to cheapen or degrade the nobility of that labor.

I told Mr. Gallo that his email gave me the laugh that I needed and he said that my life must be small and sad.

He was further zinging me! He could have been creating art or writing a movie or having a substantive conversation with a dear personal friend but instead he was half-heartedly lobbing insults at a stranger on the internet.

My life is kind of sad because I have wrestled with depression and anxiety and various other forms of mental illness all my life. I’m not sure whether Gallo knows this because he’s read my books or because, as an artist, he understands that the essence of life is sadness and pain. And shitty racist homemade tee shirts.

I was tempted to keep emailing Gallo, to play the fanboy card and gush, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m talking to the Brown Bunny! Mr. Buffalo 66 himself! Remember when you made The Funeral? That shit was cool. And Tetro! You were Tetro in Tetro! Or Goodfellas! You’ve got 99 problems and perceived copyright violations on my part is apparently one!”

What’s the worst he could do? Call me a loony lib? Accuse me of loving Joe Biden and being a tree-hugging women’s libber? That would be hilarious. I would love that. Or maybe he’d make fun of my mother. That would also be neat. She abandoned me as a baby and now she’s dead. Just throwing that out there should Mr. Gallo wish to use it. Oh, and I’m also a Juggalo. And I’m a 47 year old with dentures and tens of thousands of dollars of debt that I have zero chance of ever paying off. And my career’s kind of in the toilet at the moment.

That should all be good for some primo mockery on Mr. Gallo’s part.

My first instinct upon receiving the email was to rerun the piece as soon as possible without making any changes. I thought being sued by Vincent Gallo for copyright violations would be the best publicity this humble little labor of love could ever receive.

But then I figured that I do not want the hassle so I’m not going to delete the piece but I will include links instead of the images Gallo found so offensive.

So if you’re reading this, Mr. Gallo, thank you for the laughter and the pick-me-up and the blog fodder!

Gallo is a sweet little snowflake and I want my website to remain a safe space for him.

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