Turmoil In Topixtown!

I was looking at the Topix Forum the other night and noticed that I was one of 145 people in the entire world doing just that. Over on the Offbeat however three times as many people were looking at that nonsense. Oops- that's only 449. Three x sounds so much more promising....

For comparison, 7, 389 persons were reading the Human Sexuality Forum.

Sex sells and creepy sex really sells, at least in comparison to the debauchery of the first two forums. From my perspective, it makes more sense that more people want to read about guys who like to sniff their sister's panties than want to read about what a jerk Ferrerman is. See, mind you, those 7,389 aren't just looking at that topix but an entire forum of such topics. Similarly, not all 145 people are getting their anti-Ferrerman sentiment on either. It's just a handful of haters be hating and trying to sound like a mob. The rest are looking at any of 100 other, less Ferrer-centric subjects.

There is more conversation than ever that Topix is rife with paid trolls/posters. Sheesh, if it is, they suck donkey balls because it's not helping. If Topix's new business plan is to drive intelligent, fun posters away, then they are succeeding.

I can't say definitively who is on the Topix payroll and who has a severe meth problem but, there is no real law in Topixtown. The moderator on the Topix Forum is very unprofessional and too cozy with the more nefarious posters. My beef with her is that she fights with posters (such as myself) and that shows disrespect for the posters and the position. She hasn't *busted* me on a thing, contrary to what the jealous trolls are fond of saying of late. She actually absolved me (officially) of one bogus accusation. My enemies spun that to say she busted me for trolling women via gray box yada fucking yada because she also managed to pull that post so that they could say that, even with a crooked face. So, my take is that a moderator shouldn't be doing that. The last complaint I made to Topix said so. That was to a different mod. The offending mod hasn't been seen since.

She's probably still got her job. They might be making her actually do it is all.

Frankly, I'm surprised that I still have my profile. I've got ex-wives that I don't talk to like I talk to mods. There are crazy drivers whom I don't talk to like that. I get a little blunt and salty when I complain to Topix about some cowardly scumbag posting my personal information and Topix mods dragging their feet to remove those posts while yanking the non-offensive posts of myself and others in a New York fucking heartbeat. It's not a level playing field at all. It's easier for 102 year old black ladies to vote in Florida than it is for a Ferrerman to get justice on Topix. And pretty much for the same reason too. Suppression.

It's not lost on me that the same assholes who have dedicated their lives to fighting Ferrerman are- each one- teabag hatriots. There's not a democrat in the bunch. There couldn't be! We just don't have that obsessive hate thing going on. There's maybe a dozen of these assholes- tops- operating under a ridiculous amount of socks. Very sad. Amazingly, it turns out they all know each other! It's been suggested that myself, Hegel and our friends are fighting a group of mods. Maybe. Like I said, it would be stupid and counter productive but, who says people aren't stupid and counter productive? Have you seen Congress or the republican party lately? They've got no problem cutting off other people's noses to spite their own faces.

But, I don't think these assholes are mods themselves. They'll read this or hear about it and SAY I said and believe that but, that's because they have the reading comprehension of badgers. I'm just saying it could be the case because, ya never know... I'm more inclined to think they all simply met on asshole.com and fell in love once they discovered they shared mutual anti-ferrerman sentiment. That makes more sense.

Regardless, they aren't doing Topix any good. It's like the GOP fighting absolutely every thing Obama does or tries to do. You burn the candle at both ends and you have neither foes nor friends.

Perhaps a dozen assholes hate me. Goodness! What would they do without me? They really shouldn't hope to find out. It seems they are desperately trying not to kill Ferrerman but, to kill where he hangs out. Scorched earth...

Invasion...

I'm a big fan of the AMC series, "The Walking Dead". Until it came along in 2010, I  never much gave zombies a second thought as I have never been much into horror films or science fiction. As a post apocalyptic genre, it's pretty damn interesting though and, technically possible. I think. The right combination of chemicals could affect (effect?) the portion of people's brains that control speech and motor skills, causing millions to stagger about, incoherent. Admittedly, listening to Glenn Beck can cause the same symptoms. However, Glenn hasn't asked his fans to consume (raw!) human flesh on the hoof, so to speak yet. Yikes!  So, yes, I did read that a zombie apocalypse was possible, just not likely.

More likely is a British takeover of television. In fact- blimey- I think that has already happened! On The Walking Dead alone, at least four characters are British!. You'd never know until you see them out of character in an interview. They fooled me. Andrew Lincoln, who plays "Rick" on the show is a long time English actor. His father in law is Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. That's not proof of his being English but it's an interesting fact. The proof is in his accent and his openly admitting that he's English.

My second suspect, Lauren Cohan, plays Maggie and might be the trickiest of all these English. She was born in America (Philadelphia) but raised in England. So she's American but...speaks with an English accent!

David Morrissey who plays "The Governor" on the show is the third trickster. I had no idea. It was an interview that gave him away. My dumbass still wasn't looking for clues after the first two Brits fooled me. I can be really slow at times. He's from Liverpool which makes him a Scouse. It's also where The Beatles are from. If he can sing I'll probably be the last to know.

Last night they brought back a great character, Morgan, who had been absent from the show since the first episode where he helped Rick after he awoke from his coma. Morgan is played by Lennie James a fine black actor whom I can't refer to as an African-American because he too is English!

Is there some actor shortage here in America? This recession has been tough but do these English actors work for food and live in dormitories, stacked up like cord wood? The Walking Dead takes place in the South. Is Michael Rooker (who plays Merle in the show) the only actual Southern actor in the show if not the world? I can vouch for his American-ness. I worked with his cousin. They hail from Alabama. ROLL TIDE!

I guess I'm not really mad. Actually, I'm impressed. That they fooled me- A Bored, Certified Ferrerman- is pretty impressive. They are pretty damn good actors.

I guess if we ever do have an apocalypse here in America, it wouldn't be too awful if we were overtaken by British actors who blended in perfectly in American life and the only way to identify them was to get them to do television interviews. That might be a good plot for "Homefront". That Damian Lewis- now there's an all-American boy...

Past In the Future Tense

The USA network ran the film, "Schindler's List" last night with no commercial interruptions. This was a rather civilized way to have a portrayal of one of the most uncivilized periods in the world's history. You just can't have a scene where a child hides in the pit of an outhouse to save his life followed by a commercial for KAYAK dot com. I think they sell hotel rooms. A bit incongruous. Not a good fit.

I'm a fan of history, particularly more recent history because it more directly affects us all. There are people whom you can talk to about The Holocaust and WWII, though, soon they'll all be gone by the natural attrition of life. But, while they are here, they have been living history of an awful, recent time in our history. There are plenty of assholes about who deny The Holocaust ever happened at all despite overwhelming evidence and first-hand accounts and these are often the same sort of assholes who know that the founding fathers intended the second amendment to be justification for civil war in the event of a black president. See where I'm going with this? Revisionist historians are assholes. If you give them a chance, they will revise our futures. The words of gods or presidents from 200 or 2000 years ago- no matter how well intended- don't really matter.

This is why, as silly as they sound, the teabaggers really piss me off. There's some evil afoot here. Most of life is about money and there is billions of dollars at stake here every day. Being republican is just another way of being reasonably legal about going about the business of making money and the Tea Party is just a twist on the business model of that. I hope. Right?

I wanna believe that these politicians are as comically stupid as the blowhards in the threads are. The thing is, they might not be. They may be as cold hearted and fucking dying to spill blood as your average Kentucky security guard who thinks he protects the president, perhaps because he might or might not have been a Marine- the president's own, as they like to say.

In other words: a impotent idiot who probably just drinks too much and hates being short and is easily led by politicians out to make buck. The thing is there are tens of thousands of these assholes out there and even though most are probably as harmless as the rent-a-cop, one or two might not be.

In Nazi Germany, most people weren't Nazi's. They just went along with Hitler and the Nazi's because it seemed like the thing to do at the time. They weren't coming from a good financial place after The Great War and I bet they were game for anything. Though Hitler was pretty upfront about his disdain for the Jewish people, he was not upfront about his plans to annihilate them. Intelligent Germans might have seen that coming but, he gave them the right mix of plausible deniability plus the knowledge that, there but for the grace go I... He made it easy to ignore what people didn't want to see anyway.

Most people that is. The Nazi's had a knack for attracting the best and brightest of the depraved crowd. Those are the types you need to commit genocide. You can't get the average citizen to do the dirty work. Besides, you need them to go along with the dirty work. Complicity is the mother of politics.

We can laugh at the Tea Party and chuckle at how they are bringing down the GOP. Sheesh- Glenn Beck?! Rand Paul?! Alan Fucking West?! Gomert?! Ted Cruz?!  Where the fuck did they get these guys? They are idiots! Anyone can see that.

No. Too many people cannot see that. Too many people want more. Too many people are willing to accept worse. They laughed at Hitler. They let him be Chancellor as sort of an appeasement... The rest is history. You just never know, do you? That's why we remember. That's why we should try to remember so our future isn't forgotten.

Recycled. AGAIN!

It's been about ten months but, The Laffin' Devils are back on the air with The Devils Ride tonight. It seems to be the reality show that everyone loves to hate. The story I did about it last May has received several hundred hits here- the most by far of any blog post I've ever written.

Much happened while the producers wondered whether to keep the show or take it in another direction. The internet is rife with rumors and, maybe even a few facts. Ya never know...

It is a fact that main character, Gipsy, was arrested for allegedly molesting his step-daughter. Hopefully that's not true. Before you light the torches and gather the townsfolk with farming implements, the man is embroiled in a custody battle and such allegations are often Lawyering 101. Sad but, true. The allegation seems to have come after the show got popular but, evidently didn't factor in Gipsy's leaving the club. Though these guys are not the arch gangsters the producers might like you to think they are, it turns out that Gipsy was asked to leave the club when it was found out that his current wife is a local policewoman. That could be viewed as a conflict of interest...

If you google, you'll find all this stuff and tons of comments about how fake the show is. People think these guys are actors. The show takes place in San Diego, which is in California, where Hollywood is located, and Kevin Bacon is an actor so, there you go...

The point of most reality shows however, is cheap entertainment, using real people who want to be on TV. There has got to be some compensation though. I don't know that these people have SAG cards but some might be seeking one after seeing themselves on the small screen. Their fantasies are their business. Producers certainly like to expand their horizons with spin-offs. For example, who isn't digging for gold in Alaska or buying storage lockers for fun and profit? I can think four pawn shop shows. Nothing succeeds like excess! Or, is it art imitating other art? Imitation is the sincerest form of television?

Television's first priority  is to entertain. Thus, it typically involves actors and some scripting here and there. Real or fake, no doubt there's a ton of editing involved. Really, how interesting is a pawn shop transaction or even digging for gold if you were to watch 12 hours of it? Break it down into 22 minutes and you've got something more palatable.

One show I find very enjoyable is "Auction Hunters". The two stars are actors and they do a very good job of making the show interesting. I don't think it's a secret that the fellas are actors. I think it is a secret that the show appears to be very contrived. If anyone does try to make a living buying the possessions of people who have fallen on hard times, I bet they are not finding coin collections, rare guns and other treasures that they get full retail value(!)  from experts(!) There is some artistic license going on there, some seeding of the lockers, I have read. I know people are a little quirky from person to person but, if you had Waterford Crystal in storage and you owed a few hundred in storage fees, you might find a way to come up with the cash to keep a few thousand dollars worth of crystal. So, many of the interesting items they find are easy to find because the producer had stagehands put them there.

I've read too that Pawn Stars is a huge fake as well. I saw a clip of Dave Attell's old show "Insomniac With Dave Attel" where he interviews Rick Harrison at the pawn shop during the overnight shift where he's taking in junk from street people looking to score quick cash. It was quite a bit different from the TV show where people bring in Picasso's and Russian Jets... Having been in pawn shops myself, I had known from jump street that they rarely (if ever) get interesting stuff let alone ancient artifacts. The word on the internet streets is that the old man is a bigger dick than he appears and that Cory and Chum are drunken ner' do wells. If you visit the shop in Vegas, it's more a tourist trap and a TV set than a place to sell your jewelry. I gather you can but, not to any of the stars. I like to think Rick is a pretty smart guy who knows a lot of trivia. At least he was smart enough to take his dad's sad, little pawn shop into the big time.

I think that's how reality television comes to fruition nine times out of ten. "Fast n' Loud" is a likable show about two Texans who flip old cars for fun and profit. I heard the owner of the shop worked very hard shopping his idea for a show to every production company he could find before he found the one that got him on The History Channel. Ya know- why the heck not? You can only make so much money fixing up old wrecks. More power to you if you can entertain folks while doing it. It's like Fox news or burger at McDonalds. It's not 100% real but, it's made from 100% real ingredients. It's close enough.

Post Hard

After about the 100th time they post your name in the threads, you kinda lose interest in filing a complaint. The mods have gotten quicker about pulling those posts but, they are still helpless in catching the culprits....

It's like the polls 'about' Ferrerman. There's been a few hundred. Accord to the mods it isn't one scumbag doing it. The mod checked and ten different ISP's were behind the first ten polls she looked at. You'd think it was one asshole with a proxy server but, according to her, at least ten people hate Ferrerman enough to dedicate their lives to following me around the threads. Well, she stopped counting at ten....

Ferrerman does not poll well among assholes!

Well, we knew that. To paraphrase Holly Gennero in DIE HARD, when she watches the terrorist throw a fit and she realizes John McClane is still alive: "Only Ferrerman can drive somebody that crazy!"

Only Ferrerman indeed. But, without bitter, terrorist trolls, Ferrerman is just a charming bottom-spanker who is liberal in politics as he is in wit. If you can't beat Ferrerman and you certainly can't join him, you can always troll him.

Most trolls are essentially low-grade, entry-level terrorists. They don't have the skill set to hack or make things go boom, so they follow and harass people on the internet. Trolls have absolutely no sense of irony. This means they can accuse you of 'cowardly' posting anonymously... while they post that to you anonymously(!) That's pretty much Topix in a nutshell- hypocrisy rules the day. Someone starts something with someone hoping to finish it, and they get really- REALLY- pissed when that person fights back. Think of Hitler, had he been caught, blaming Poland and France for WWII. Well, what were they wearing?

Posting well IS the best revenge but, sometimes ya gotta say: "yippie-ki-yay motherfuckers!"

I Gotta Be Me. No One Else Is Ferrerman-enough!

It has been brought to my attention that, if I were not such a jerk to people, I would be more popular.

This is generally good advice except when it comes from the jerks themselves. Once you get out of grade school or, at least high school, you may realize that the cool kids, the ones who hate absolutely everything, just aren't that cool. A few decades ago I came to the conclusion that I was fine with certain people not liking me and that, if they did like me, it would be cause for concern.

Take, for example, Ted Nugent. Ted does not know me but, it's a safe bet he wouldn't like me. I'm kinda liberal, if you are keeping score at home. The former rocker is not. It's kinda odd that far right conservatives adore him so. Before he became their idol, he evaded the draft during the Vietnam war by pooping in his underpants for a week (same pair) and showing up at his Draft Board wearing said underpants. So, not a real strong war record even though he's now quite fond of the US going to war with anybody, including itself. Ted's family values includes eight children with four women and a documented penchant for young girls, one of which he appears to have adopted as his wife? YIKES!

You'd like to think that kind of stuff would not get you into a party that wears Christianity as a second skin but, you'd be wrong. The GOP is very forgiving, depending upon one's faults. I don't know that Ted Nugent gets invited to Mitch McConnell's home but, I don't know that he doesn't.

I do know that the reichtards in the threads like him and that they don't like Ferrerman. So, I'm doing something right! Over the years I've been told I'm a pretty good writer and that I have a sharp wit. Several posters on the right have asked me to come over to their side. Can't say I was flattered by that but, I suppose that was part of their intent. It would be kinda like some schlub telling Kate Upton, "Hey- put on about 20 pounds, quit washing your hair and take me to Burger King for dinner." This is to say, they'd like me a lot better if only I was totally different.

Well, I wouldn't like me a lot better. I wouldn't like me at all. I don't get such offers so much any more. Lately it's more along the lines of "you'd have more friends if you were a republican..." When I was friendly with what used to be The Clique on Offbeat, I got angst-filled emails from a couple of the women in the group begging me to stop arguing politics with some of the guys in the group. If only I would stop beating them up...things would go a lot easier on me...

Sheesh! Some people are unclear of the concept of Ferrerman. I was essentially being told to stop being me and start being like them if I cared what was good for me. In other words, shut up while our guys run their mouths about Obama and those mean liberals. Then tell us a joke. You used to be so funny...

As peace accords go, that was as ill-conceived as it was one-sided. These guys use a lot of socks in there terrorist missions against the president so, how was I to know who I was smacking around anyway? The girls claimed to not be too political but, it's not like they were asking the reichtards in their group to back off. Nope, just a Ferrerman.

Oh well, not complaining. Like I said- if they did like me it would only be because I was an angry reichwinger. I'm a little hard on these people because they are a little hard on common decency, courtesy. I'm not perfect but I've got all I can do to be me- why the hell would I want to be someone else?! And worse, someone else who is a popular asshole?! It's so limiting.

Good Fences and Bad Neighbors?

I'm on the fence about steroids in baseball. The current crop of players to reach eligibility for the Hall Of Fame just came and went without a single man getting the requisite 75% of the vote. This year's class included the big names- Bonds...Sosa...Clemens...

That's a lot of home runs and strikeouts- from both sides of the mound. Bonds is the all-time homer run career (762) and single season leader (73). Sammy Sosa, a Chicago Cub, topped out at 609 homers. Clemens, earned the Cy Young award seven times while striking out guys 4,672 times. All of these stats are HOF credentials, and then some.

There shouldn't be any question about their eligibility for the Hall except for the question of steroids and how much those and other Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED's) factored into their success. These guys, all of which are suspected of drug use, probably did but certainly weren't the only ones of their peers. They were just among the best at it. I think it's safe to say they were really good players who maybe became great with the drugs. How many marginal players used PED's and only became less marginal? It's hard to say. It's pretty much accepted that hundreds/thousands of players during the Steroid Era were juiced. Some drugs weren't illegal until much later in players careers. How can you penalize people for doing something that, at the time, wasn't illegal? Who in any sport wouldn't want to be stronger?

If you gave a 30 year old me steroids, you wouldn't make me a better ballplayer. I played up into my teenage years and I can testify that hitting a baseball is hard to do. Steroids would not have helped me. But, take a home run hitter like a Bonds or Sosa already was and add some muscle and deep fly balls that used to be hauled in at the warning track are sailing ten, forty feet further and going into the record books as home runs instead of fly outs. You still have to have the hand-eye coordination to hit the damn ball.

I don't know when these guys started using whatever they were using but, human nature dictates that, as long as it's working, don't stop. Even if things aren't working, some of us won't stop. Look at meth addicts. The alleged downside to steroids may or may not be shrunken genitalia. Maybe a guy doesn't care so much about his dick and balls when he's making millions with a stick and ball. People draw their own lines in life and cross at their own risk.

I know Babe Ruth- forever the greatest home run hitter of all time- never used PED's. There weren't any in his day. In fact, drinking and eating as he did, he actually did performance degrading things and was better than anyone else in his time. Mickey Mantle was a drunk. He once hit home runs batting left and right-handed in a game, while drunk. Not because of- despite being drunk. What might either of these men accomplished in baseball with modern medicine available to them?

Some say the players of the steroid era should go into the hall with asterisks by their names. Well, none have been convicted of using. Whatever Bonds used, he will only say was done "accidentally". That may be. Others have stonewalled investigations into their use. Sure we know they are guilty but it's like we know OJ was guilty. It just hasn't been proven.

I read last night that many of the members of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) don't necessarily regularly cover baseball. I don't know how that happens. I know that many of these assholes ignored Ron Santo for years, waiting until he was six feet underground to enshrine him in the Hall. Their expertise comes into question. It could be they drink a lot.

If they're making a statement, I don't know if that's a bad thing. It's always a question of what the statement is and why. Do they want to give these guys a five year spanking for being bad? Like- you'll get in when WE say so like some might have done with Santo? Maybe it will just be a year? What is the point?

Yep, these guys cheated. But, yes, Baseball dragged their feet doing anything about this cheating when they weren't busy ignoring the whole issue. Lots of blame to go around. It was a helluva lot of fun watching McGwire and Sosa chase each other around the National League that year as both chased Ruth's old single-season record. But, we knew something was up.... MLB had to know too. 

Everything these men have done is in the Hall Of Fame. Pete Rose may be banned from Cooperstown but everyone of his records is in the hall. Just no plaque. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that is punishment. I don't know. There's nothing so far to put me over that fence.