A Quick Word about Brendan Donovan and all the stupid shit we say in our lifetimes
Leave. It. In. The. Past.
If the data could be pulled on what my dad and I have talked about while driving Uber over the past two years, we would both be apologizing after being canceled from our jail cell. It’s a product of being human and not having the instant ability-even at 10 to 15 years old-to evolve and understand what is right and wrong.
All the lessons we learn still don’t suppress the moral judgement required to be fair to someone you don’t know. Live and learn? I am good at the first part, but forever working on the second. The double-edged sword of free speech involves being unable to take back what leaves our mouths and sometimes, just our brain releasing a loud fart for all the world to hear.
What has befallen celebrity directors-even hometown “Guardians of the Galaxy” filmmaker, James Gunn-caught the St. Louis Cardinals’ rookie starting “wherever you need me” guy, Brendan Donovan. The social media justice warriors climbing on their stupid fucking horses and riding all the way back into a suddenly popular Donovan’s social media history to see if a human being like B.D. ever met the dangerous stranger called Mr. Stupid.
Fun Fact: It happens to all of us. We all say stupid shit, all the time. I am no stranger to letting dumb crap fall out of my mouth or fingers, leaving an apology tour in its wake. Donovan had to jump on that bus this past weekend in Chicago when old homophobic tweets (when he was 14 and 16 years old) surfaced out of the clear (TMZ wannabe) blue.
As I said on Twitter yesterday, using Denton’s exact tweet, if we gathered all the garbage that came out of our mouth between 10-20 years of age, we would all be saying sorry. A national event would be the daily sorry reading. Barf.
Donovan is a different person now than he was then. That’s true of 99% of every single person on this planet. It’s part of evolving, growing up, and finding your place in the world: A harder task than it sounds in the books and movies can be a perilous journey. I don’t know about his upbringing, but Donovan simply falls into the earthly crew who think and accidentally blurt out stupid stuff. He also seems like a fun guy I’d like to share a beer with sometime.
As George Carlin once proclaimed, “stop living in the past.” All we do by reaching into someone’s dirty, unprotected moments many years ago is drudge up a past that should have been left where it fell. What does Donovan know today. That’s the story I want to read; not some unkempt Red Bull-infused internet history dump by a pair of teenagers who probably don’t pay rent or do their own laundry yet.
Whatever he said then is useless to the picture we paint of Brendan Donovan today.
This has nothing to do with his talent, and everything to do with how human beings use their empathy. If we can forgive someone who committed awful crimes but learned from it, we sure can forgive people who said some stupid shit in the past and have since learned much from it. Donovan has done that and then some.
Myself, well, I’m still really good at the living part.
It really matters more who he is now. You're right, we all say stupid shit from time to time, especially when we're teens.