Gary Coleman Dead - Gary Coleman Tried to Get Me Fired

Credit: Web-A-Thon

The Gary Coleman I knew was, to put it bluntly, an asshole. I know this, because he tried to get me fired. In 1999, UGO created the Gary Coleman Web-a-thon, an event designed to help out the former child star (his parents stole millions of dollars in TV royalties) and to bring publicity to the site.

I don't know how well we delivered on the first goal, but the second was accomplished in spades. Servers crashed. Traffic estimates exploded. It was a success.Unfortunately, the powers that be saw all this and decided the key to our success lay in the tiny, frightening hands of a malignant dwarf. And, to his credit, Gary was game.

In the wake of the Diff'rent Strokes star's death, we'll probably hear tributes remembering him fondly, talking about his classic sitcom, and hailing him for persevering in the face of adversity. The man certainly had some magnetism, remaining in the public eye decades after his 15 minutes had expired.

We brought him to every promotional event, including E3, where people lined up for hours to play fighting games against him. He would walk around our office like he owned the place and occasionally smack people in the back of the head. And it was determined that he should contribute editorially. We tried a couple of tactics. The first was to have him review video games, which he couldn't accomplish in anything approaching a professional manner. He just wasn't a good writer, and I say that as someone who has worked on the Internet for 12 years - a place where writing goes to die.

Someone suggested that he write an advice column. I was appointed editorial liaison - it was my job to process the submissions, pass them to Gary, and publish his responses. Nobody really submitted any serious questions - nearly every e-mail amounted to nothing more than "F*** YOU GARY." I ended up re-writing most of the them, creating scenarios on which I thought he could comment.

One week, I made a cataclysmic mistake: I dared to edit one of Gary's responses. I won't go into detail, but the changes were minor, and I didn't exactly do a page one rewrite. Gary was FURIOUS. The next morning, I was called in to talk to the CEO of the company. Gary had sent my boss a page-long letter ranting about the disrespect I had shown him, and had closed it with a statement that basically amounted to, "It's him or me." I was flabbergasted. Gary Coleman, star of Diff'rent Strokes, was out for my job.

Eventually, things settled. The higher-ups talked Gary down, and my livelihood was spared. But from that moment on, Gary Coleman and I were engaged in a secret war of which he probably wasn't even aware. I cheered his every minor misfortune.

And now, this. I never wished for Gary's death, and I don't celebrate it. I was no fan, but his death is sad, if only because his life was as unhappy as it appeared. Here's hoping that, wherever he is, it's a place where parents don't steal your money, where people of his physical stature are looked down on only literally, and where no one shouts "Watchoo talkin' bout" at him any more. Also, to any editors in the afterlife - watch your back.