when I make mean comments, I am joking

I understand you after having read you for a bit - at first I was gobsmacked by your writing, but i do see the funny side of what you are saying and though you do go OTT sometimes - well that is you, that is the way you write.

Some of your stuff I double over with laughter and others - usually a comment you have made turn my stomach, they are the ones i just ignore as I do not find them funny...then I do not comment ...it is so simple.

I will continue to read you as I find some of your stuff enormously entertaining

People complain about what is out here on JU - how arrogant that is of them, I wonder if they actually realise how arrogant they are, JU is not their personal Domain - only one man can make that claim and as far as I know he has a fairly open door policy.

Take no notice of whiney assed moaning about what is out here to read and do your thing....there is an audience out there for everyone of us who put stuff out on JU.

Thank you. Your comment echo's one of my best friends, who says I put 'Boogers' in my writing. He said, "I'll be reading along and there is all this nice prose, and then, a fucking booger." I have always been drawn to very dark material. I like to write about serious problems, and spent most of my writing career trying to write 'artistic, kind of philosophically relevent stuff'. This could make writing very heavy for me. Like studying the cia for years, interviewing rapists, spending months with a cult, or recording some horror story I picked up that day in the cab -- the writing stopped being fun. .. in fact, I took up painting to get that artistic 'hit' because the writing was so much research and then writing and rewriting for years... Then I started doing a literary reading, read a little comedy, and it took off. And writing comedy is fun... but I still had the same subject matters to work with, because they are the major interests of my mind... so, I started doing weekly comedy thing at the readings, and while some people got pissed and left, a lot of them laughed hard as hell. Next, the blog thing started, because of the encouragement of Jason Pettus... and people responded to the comedy. Over 300,000 have visited my one sight. So, I am now a melding of the two. It will not be to everyone's taste. I even embarrass myself a lot... not to mention, I am in pretty heavy chronic pain and that requires a lot of pills, and the naseau requires a few bongs... Who knows, maybe one day I'll 'sober up' and come in here and erase everything??

messing with people can be fun, i do it all the time here. so i can't criticize another for doing it.

but ya made a reference to andy kaufmann and i would like to comment on that. andy's life and routines onstage (which after a while became synonomous) was all about "fooling people" as i saw it. in the beginning, it was kind of funny. kaufmann tapped into a niche of the comedic world left largely unexplored. the fact that people don't follow down that path very often is evidence that it is a world that many times should be left alone. kaufmann simply went too far in his exercize. he got to a point where no one wanted anything to do with him because everything he did was some attempt to "fool someone" or trick them into believing something that wasn't.

and after a while, kaufmann wasn't trying to fool the powerful or the rich, but instead took his wrath out on ordinary folks, beginning with the people who enjoy wrestling and expanding that to include everyone, including his fans, family and friends. in the later stages of his life, it seemed that Andy couldn't stop pulling pranks and jokes even if he wanted to, and the people who were affected by his misguided sense of humor resented it and him. kaufmann would defend his position with the "it's only a joke" line over and over until he became the person nobody wanted to hang out with.

don't let that happen to you, friend. it's not a very fun experience to become the bad joke like kaufmann did.

i'll get off my soapbox now...take care:)

A word of caution here... fooling around can be fun for some but for most other people commenting as a "joke" ends up as Trolling. Trolling is disruptive (especially in blogging communities like JU) which can and has resulted in jailing, banning, or exile from the community. Simply making a "disclaimer" post about your commenting habits doesn't actually excuse the behavior especially when it takes place on other people's blogs.

Tuttle, I got your message on my blog, thx. I've left a response too long to re-write here.

Your persona I wasn't aware of as 'dark' because it seemed you did this for fun and it wasn't fun to me. But anyway, I accept your 'only joking' stance and call it a day. OK? OK!

BTW be careful of others who have nothing good for you. Sometimes you have to thread lightly to survive around here.

Blog on Tuttle.

Your persona I wasn't aware of as 'dark' because it seemed you did this for fun and it wasn't fun to me. But anyway, I accept your 'only joking' stance and call it a day. OK? OK!

I believe that illustrates my point very nicely.

I believe that illustrates my point very nicely.

and mine...thanks...

Your comparison to Andy Kaufman is apt, or the newer incarnation, Sacha Baron Cohen, or others who deliver the absurd with a straight face. Maybe like actors that are so good at playing people we despise that we can't ever really like them thereafter.

Not so say you are playing anything despicable, but your stuff is skewed enough to be off-putting and delivered with enough craft to hide the seams. Coming in the volume it came in, people overlooked the care you put into it and thought you were just flooding the place with nonsense. I read up on you the last time you had a marathon post and was kind of ashamed that I had brushed you off without catching the subtlety.

I guess that's the real seal of artistry on what you do, though. The absurd seems to always be a cooperative effort with observers that aren't in on the joke. Like you say the screaming hate of the crowd who didn't realize they were as much a part of the joke as the tights.

I guess that's the real seal of artistry on what you do, though.

I would agree when it comes to his blog posts but once you wander off from your own territory it becomes a different thing. One need only to look back into JU's problems with SPM to see how wrong this sort of schtick can go.

Yeah, but again, that's part of the schtick. You don't invite people to be 'punked'. You don't put up signs warning people that they are on candid camera. Granted, you take a risk, but the payoff can't be replicated without it.

Watch the film of people literally maroon in the face screaming in anger at Andy Kaufman wrestling women. That's an integral part of the show.

Yeah, but again, that's part of the schtick. You don't invite people to be 'punked'.

Agreed but this schtick often leads to lousy consequences often simply due to ignorance of how the system in which the schtick is being performed in works. In JU it is banning, in the real world sometimes you get punched in the gob.

You don't invite people to be 'punked'

that's true,,,but...i personally never saw anything remotely funny on punked,,,and thru some of my friends, i've seen just about every one of them. maybe it's just a matter of taste or a sense of basic repect for others, but i never find it funny to put up a guise, show it to people who have nothing else to go on and are trusting in you and then think it' sreally funny when they are fooled.

those pranks take no skill whatsoever. candid camera did a similiar schtick back in the day, but it wasn't done with the maliciousness that punked and some other shows do it with.

several years ago, my wife and i were invited to a new friend's house for dinner. when we got there, the female 1/2 of the couple who had invited us had one of her old and close friends there as well. they were both blond and a few years apart in age. they told my wife that they were sisters. my wife believed them. throughout the evening, both my wife and i addressed them as sisters and such...after a couple hours, they started giggling and revealed their ruse before we left. they thought it was hilarious that my wife or i didn't know that they weren't sisters. in their comments they seemed to think this illconceived "prank" showed how smart and clever they were. to me, that meant that they thought my wife was stupid.

they thought it was funny. my wife was embarrassed and humiliated. i sided with her even tho i didn't find the issue that serious at the moment. later, after putting the events together from her perspective, it became clear how she felt that way, and was justified in feeling that way. she had no knowledge of this gal's friend and any possible relationship. she had nothing else to go on. she trusted their word only to have it turned upside down on her head.

we got several more invitations to spend time with these folks. i politely turned them down till they stopped as we felt that any bond of friendship or actual trust were broken on that 1st dinner. we simply didn't need that bulls*it in our lives. we prefer to hang with people who don't find it necessary to build their own ego by destroying my wife's and the like.

when i watch punked, i see the same mean, callous , spirit being played out. the only "justification" i can give the show is that it does go after celebrities and people with big egos. but that's not who my wife is. she is not famous or powerful. she is nice, kindhearted and will usually give someone the benefit of the doubt. that night, all of those good qualities about her were used for someone else's cold amusement. i simply cannot support that. and from judging the show's short-lived life, and sim. shows like jamie kennedy's being yanked due to low ratings, that others feel the same way.

jokes are always better when everyone gets a laugh from it. if someone is hurt by the joke, then it shouldn't be funny for anyone.

as the old saying goes,,,just because ya can, doesn't always mean ya should.

The Andy Kaufman critic is well taken. Thank you... yea, that explains why I myself didn't like him after the wrestling started.

Can you define trolling? Is that kind of like 'flaming?' Yes, I think that is wrong. In this case, there were a series of comments thinkin that they were being singled out by the entries criticisms, and I kind of made fun of the whole thing by writing another one. I was tired, it was late, I was smoking and joking... and I learn from stuff like this. I hate losing control of my words. I am a boof.

FOREVER SERENITY I am sorry that I hurt anyones feelings for no damn good reason at all. That is bad social karma, indeed. Hopefully, I can make it up to you with a few laughs.

About the 'off putting prose,'... Wow, glad to hear that. Thoughtful comments like this really help me grow. Yes, the off putting boogers are there. I guess the lesson here is that I have to really think about which context I want to use them in. I write in a lot of styles, some better than others.. some terrible, downright embarrassing. And I forget to take blogging seriously sometimes. I write jokes in everyones messages usually, on ebloggy, and they know me.

greywar : you make a lot of good points. I wouldn't want to be perceived as trolling. That is stupid. And yes, I think artists' are responsible for how people are taking their work, too. You wouldn't think that from my writing, but I am not someone who likes conflict in my personal life -- indeed I am a gentleman and friendly and funny to all, and I feel our similaraties always out weigh our differences. I once had a conversation with the head of the KKK... picked him up at the AMtrack on his way to the Jenny Jones Show. He was polite as hell, too. I didn't fuck with him. He was being met by a dum producer who didn't even know who the kkk was. I just treated them like I treat anybody because the young producer girl would have been mortified, and there was no point... I could have made him pissed, lost money, etc... and it would have done no good. So I treated them just like I would anybody... though I have another side, and if I had picked him up alone, I would have felt compelled to at the very least throw his ass out. I do not always write gross stuff, by the way. If you get my book, One War, you will find a well researched book about Darfur, the CIA, etc.. ensconsed in a fantasy of sorts. (a new addition is coming out soon, with corrections and an extended intro and stuff, so don't get them.. besides, I hope to give hundreds away for free to people who read my blogs). And my short stories have even appeared in christian magazines -- Iron. Maybe I have grown too cynical? Thank you for making me privy to the debate in here.

SEAN CONNERS: Yea, that is kind of crazy... people lying to you all night. I get the creeps... I can feel, literally, how traitorous that is, to lie to people. When I was a young idiot, I lied to women to get them in bed, sometimes. Said I wasn't involved and was, or whatever. It was the death knell of all of those relationships, and the words always came back to haunt me. I guess that is why people get over lying mostly -- it often causes more problems than it solves.

jENNIFER 1

I know IOtend to thank you all the time for your posts, but once more you make a good point. Perhaps I should start labeling my stories by a five bugger rating systems. It could start at zERO?

bakerstreet, sorry for the adverse emotional reactions. This is really not what I am trying to do, so this discussion has been edifiying to me. I need to keep progressing along the lines I am, pushing the envelopes of my mind, and sometimes there is nothing cool in there... but, it is all I have. I made accessing my work so hard for so many on this site. First by dumping a bunch of stuff on line at once, not realizing this would cause havouc with the system... then I got mad at being criticized and wrote a couple stupid comments on peoples blogs who did not deserve my ire at all, making me look like not only kind of a word bully, but a stupid ass as well. Those are not my usual signifiers, but they come up... I guess that helps explain why I am so underground that I might as well be buried. I can really be an idiot. And by the way, I don't like that show Punk at all, though I do like the Jamie Kennedy Experiment (and then, I liked it better at first, when no one got pissed off, and now that they are getting pissed, due to a certain desperation on the writers part to come up with new schticks, I imagine, Kennedy looks uncomfortable when the acting ends). I would never do anything like that. I want people to be in on the joke... though at the same time, I know that my moral code offends a lot of people, and for that reason alone I cannot let critics of my content dictate my text. That is what hack's do. Like Delillo's character who wrote porn for kids to read.

Live and learn. I will kill my inner troll now. With a butcher knife. Then I will wrap my naked body in barbed wire and start whipping myself on the back with a belt that I have razor blades lodged in. Then, I will write my apology in blood, film it, and put it up on utube. If that isn't enough penance for this, I will cut off a few toes. I still have three left. Lost the others from burning toast and dropping that glass of water.

Can you define trolling

although there may be a book definition, trolling is usually defined by the user. some see it as any criticizm of their position or work. some see it more narrowly as people who just make the same points over and over again to the point of harrassment. some see it as people who just mock anything anyone does.

regardless, one man's trolling is often another man's "just trying to get their message or point across."

most people don't see themselves as "trolls" but see it all over the place with others...kind of like racism.

There is a troll in each and everyone of us just begging to be let out

Once one has such a definition in place, if they consider themselves a morally evolving person, they have to change I guess. While not calling them trolls, I used to get rid of any negative comments that didn't have something to do with the work. If they gave me shit about a bad sentence of spelling, fine. If they just say I'm shit, then I guess that is trolling. I thought of them as flamers, and indeed wrote a short story making fun of them. I think it is on my blog. If not, I will put it up.

Nah, there's nothing for you to feel bad about. I wouldn't say they are adverse, especially after I read about you and what you do. Maybe it is a testament to how utterly absurd people can be naturally that it isn't always easy to tell the difference between art and "life".

A troll is kind of what it sounds like. A thing that lives under a bridge who generally forces everyone to weather their existence in order to make use of the resource. You know someone is going to be there, and it is inevitable that they are going to respond in a way that just nukes the whole conversation.

That dampens conversation and makes people hesitant to even bother wading in. I don't see you as doing that, not in the least. I want to apologize for mistaking you for someone who was exiled, and who WAS a troll. This place and the mainstay personalities interacting with one another can breed a kind of tunnel vision. We forget that there are other people out there.

I guess what will eventually clarify it for you is seeing how ex-members come back and flood the forums, or go off the deep end as much as they can just to irritate and distract. It's no fault of yours, but when people saw lots of articles being uploaded that were irreverent and not immediately digestible they jumped to conclusions.

I did, anyway, and for that I apologize.