“Some say I’ve lost my mind…
I simply think I’ve just become a very dangerous person.
I’m down… but I sure as hell ain’t out. ”
– gOdOfMiScHiEf, Saturday, November 03, 2001 3:30 PM –
On a tiny little page on Blogspot (then Geocities, then Surreally), those cryptic words launched Enemy of the State one year ago today…
Words of a broken man who lost all hope, on the edge, and had to get online and vent before he went insane.
Whatever happened to that guy, anyway? I heard he died of “excessive whining”… is that possible?
The teddy bear was the real masterpiece.
A year ago eh? Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun…
happy anniversary to him…wherever he is…
If people died of excessive whining most of us in here with blogs would have been dead long ago.
Heh.
Happy Blogversary!
And there’s just such a wild-ass story leading up to the events (1999-2001), then the year “Enemy of the State” was out… the court orders, the battles with authority, the stuff that never made it to print was FAR more interesting.
I’d love to actually write a book about it all and call it “Enemy of the State”… but it’s just wrought with so much pain and anger with what’s happened to my family in this Police State, that no one would believe it’s true! Har har!!!!
I’ve actually tried to write about it a few times… but it’s still too painful. Too many open wounds at this time.
Maybe I’ll make a comic book version, put it out for downloads in PDF format and see how quickly I get court orders to silence me again…. :0)
That’s okay… the archives still live on in my heart.
Oy!
To have true staying power in the land of the me-sites is to understand that you must cater to yourself.
To harbor illusions of changing opinions, redefining journalism, or having an impact greater or more permanent than a hot poker does in a firepit is setting oneself up for disappointment.
You have to love putting your opinions to the winds and suffer with equal humility the dead calm and the hurricane.
You have to steel yourself from the fallout for airing your dirty laundry from those who nit, pick, and pry.
The emotional transactions of personal testimony can offer a cathartic cure and yet callous your character to those who assume the unsaid.
You pull up your personal log to the planet wide writing workshop (band hoping on to the most banal, yet phenomenally fun trend since humor was discovered by the odd effect of flatulence on social situations) to secure a spot where your unique point of view might eventually percolate through a plethora of posts while bearing in mind we all are watching with the scattershot certainty of a semi-disturbing search request.
E, you entertain and it’s not a necessary component to the page these days. You have to distill the rage into tender chucks to avoid legal punks, but the fare left is still satisfying.
Happy Birthday. And yeah, I miss the teddy bear too. 🙂
*REALLY liking the idea of the comic book version*
Aw thanks guys… you’ve all been GREAT friends to me. Sticking it out, riding my mood swings, offering me {{{HUGS}}}, and my ripping your heads off in return. :0)
Gee… speaking of “ripping heads off”, look who’s come around scrounging for some FREE cake or something! » »
Happy blogaversary!
I love that first line. I may have to steal it some day 😉
It’s yours, Michele.
Along with my “If you’re not making *enemies*, then you’re not making a *difference*”
(You seem to need that one more than I do these days)
Are you gonna share those trolls with me, or are you gonna have *all* the flaming fun?
VOTE FOR A SMALL VICTORY!
“crazy is just you and me, amplified.” from:
John: “You have to steel yourself from the fallout for airing your dirty laundry from those who nit, pick, and pry.
The emotional transactions of personal testimony can offer a cathartic cure and yet callous your character to those who assume the unsaid.”
First, it’s not prying if it’s published on the world wide web. haha.
And I also CANNOT STAND when people get mad that people assume things about them from what they write, even if they haven’t said it. It’s like if you call all soda “coke” & say “y’all” all the time, don’t be surprised if people assume you’re in or from the South. Geez.
Love that teddy bear.
First, it’s not prying if it’s published on the world wide web. haha.
That’s not necessarily true…
Sometimes you put out something, allude to something else… and people want to delve in more, and make you regret it in the first place.
One you missed was this animal-loving whack job that hounded me because I casually mentioned animal abuse charges in a half sentence.
She went on and on berating me in emails until I told the whole story online (which I didn’t want to do… though I answered her privately)… which is what I think John was alluding to with “prying”. Just people looking for a little sliver of a keyword to start shit. Another lesson I learned the hard way.
I used to get a lot of responses to the things I write like “Oh Bullshit! There MUST be more to the story”. There was, but I don’t feel like talking about it, so the only logical move was to stop writing about it.
Hey, I’m not here for the free cake or the ice cream. I’m just here so I can say I knew you when …
Oh, and I hate that fucking teddy bear. 😉
Happy anniversary you maniac!! {{{hugs}}}
I doubt excessive whining is deadly. Not whining is probably more deadly. Besides I don’t think the enemy of the state was whining. To tell something negative isn’t always to whine. Like to be positive don’t necessarily mean you’re on speed or worse. And the teddy is pretty cool.
I think “Enemy of the State” served its purpose.
We all hit a point where we need to vent, and let it all out. We sometimes need to reach out to a community… and you guys were there, and I wont forget that.
But the site started turning into a “poor me, bitch,bitch, whine, whine” site… and that is soooo *not* me. I had hoped that someone in power out here would read it all and offer assistance… but that didn’t happen.
The story wont end with a happy “Godfather” ending like I had hoped, but your lil’ Michael Corleone is getting quite powerful over here. :0)
… or get awarded a billion zillion dollars in some dramatic court case involving all the wrongs, broken procedures, and rights violated. (That was the one I was hoping for).
At this point, we’re gonna be grateful to get out of this in one piece, sticking together as a family and a web community… and I think this is something the Tribe Called LoKi can be damn proud of!
Yeah E, I’m alluding to a lot of the crap you’ve been unfortunate to be downwind of. There are those that assume they need to know what hasn’t been said and others that can’t seem to understand what you said in the first place. 🙂
The statements are also a side effect of an internal monologue on the purpose of writing in the voyeuristic venue of weblogs. The climate has changed. Groups of opposition are forming. They are becoming more contrasted and content with shouting past each other. I find the specter of Carl Schmitt’s line of thinking (“Tell me who your enemy is, and I’ll tell you who you are.”) has filtered through from fans of Michel Foucault. It’s because I wouldn’t label your site a subversiveblog, rantblog, teddyblog, or flamewarblog. It’s simply e’s place and it’s like that with other’s I frequent.
It’s not just finding your voice, but getting it to sing and having the grace to let your friends help you find the right key or hum along.
Dammit, after an entire year you still misspell “whinging” as “whining!” Will you never learn?
Heh heh… my mother-in-law calls in “whinging”.
I always thought it was a kind of “whining” that makes people “cringe”.