Rasa replies to the 'trolls'

Posting on Facebook on Feb. 11 by Richard Rasa (I could not find the post or posts he is responding to):

BOB WOULD HAVE WANTED YOU TO BUY HIS BOOKS.

By Richard Rasa

How do I know that? Because he told me personally.

Yesterday after Derik Davis and Chonk Lamar started a jihad against Hilaritas Press and me personally, I had the thought, "Fuck it all. If a large number of RAW fans feel like it's okay to make life harder for RAW's children, and all the kind folks who work with the RAW Trust, then why should I bother?"

But then I thought, why should I let trolls give me a headache? RAW was a close friend, and for years I have been volunteering my energy to support RAW's daughter Christina, in first, sorting out her dad's affairs, and then in building up Hilaritas Press so RAW's books would not go out of print, and we could finally respect his wishes by publishing editions of his books that he would have loved. It's a fuck of a lot of work, and Christina tries to send me a salary for the full time job I have taken on, but because publishing for small publishing houses depends on a very slim margin, I am still basically working pro bono.

The trolls think my interest in supporting RAW's work is all about money. What fucking assholes. I'm as certain as I can be that RAW would share that sentiment. I don't think that on my own. I get that impression from RAW himself, RAW's daughter, and from the many other folk who were his friends who are regularly selflessly pouring their energy into helping our efforts at insuring RAW's legacy.

Without our efforts, RAW's books would go out of print, and the copies that he hated, because of typos and other errors, would be duplicated endlessly by disreputable characters like Derik Davis and Chonk Lamar who think they are being "edgy" and modern when really all they demonstrate is a total lack of compassion and intelligence.

I don't like to insult people, but I like to be honest, and on more than one occasion RAW advised me to be less forgiving of the people RAW labeled "assholes." He said to me, don't bother with them. They want to be miserable, and if, after you try to reason with them they prove to be too thick to melt, then tell them to "fuck off." RAW had an enormous amount of patience and compassion, but he had zero patience for assholes. I made the attached meme after re-reading an old email from RAW where I was describing my efforts to reason with a fundamentalist, and RAW suggested I not waste my time. I should follow his advice more often.

So, click Like if you'd like Christina and me to continue republishing RAW's books, and you support our effort. I only respond to ill-informed trolls because I feel the need to stick up for what RAW asked of us. I really loved that guy, and when we last talked about his legacy, his post-polio was so inhibiting that he had a very hard time moving his muscles just to speak. He was so caring that he actually apologized to me because he thought it was an effort for me to follow his garbled speech. That nearly brought me to tears.

I've been an artist all my life, and so I never made a lot of money. The small savings I have now is slipping away as I work full time for the RAW Trust, and Christina tries to send me what she can from our very small profits. It is not enough to live on, so the idea that I have a "cash cow," as the trolls so insensitively suggest, is actually just a cruel insult. If I complain about people taking RAW's books and bootlegging them, it is only because I care about his legacy. One of the trolls sent me a couple articles that supposedly supported his view that we should give away the eBooks. However, the two articles did not support the troll's thinking at all. Pointing that out went nowhere, and so today I'm immensely tired of this kind of bullshit. All of what Christina and I do for the RAW Trust and Bob's memory and legacy we do out of love. If you think otherwise, then, sadly, you have to suffer with that cruel misconception. I hope you recover and help us improve the world with some authentic RAW energy.