The Phantom Trollbooth (The Celibacy of Cowardice)

“To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.” -Tina Fey

Hello Blogiteers!

I have been busy as all Heck lately, my time being equally divided between writing, forming a definitive legal plan aimed at successfully suing both my former employer Engelsen Molding who operate out of Michigan, and my former supervisor, Antonia “Tomi” Ramirez, who operates out of a sense of hubris and obese ineptitude. Am I looking forward to this sure to be epic skirmish? You betcha. This valid reckoning is long overdue, and where before I was fine with just delivering a catty bitch-slap and walking away, now I’m looking to legally add two empty skulls to my human cereal bowl collection.

Metaphorically of course, since a human skull is completely undersized and way too wobbly to hold my standard portion of Apple Jacks, but you get where I’m going with this.

Currently, I’m enjoying the ripples emanating from the dropping of my last two screeds, as it’s been a fairly productive month, so I can’t really complain in the fashion that I and my readers have all grown accustomed to. This situation can present itself as being both good and bad, depending on how mercurial my existing mood is at that moment. But this is me after all, so there will have to be carping, and it will be shared. Lucky, lucky you. Recently, I celebrated my 51^st birthday, which has served as a reminder the unsettling statistic about diabetics tending to die at the age of 65.

This unwanted knowledge has led to some fairly dark inner monologues where I’ve pondered about how much longer the metaphorical sands in my personal hourglass are going to smoothly run. Forgive the inclusion of morbidity, but after twenty years of ceaseless combat with my old bloodborne adversary, I sometimes get a little worn out, both mentally and physically. Even with my new insulin pump, it’s still an uphill battle, and yes, that does include the best of days.

At times, I openly wonder if I’ll hit all my planned benchmarks before this damn disease or the decrepitude of old age finally takes me out. Interesting aside: diabetes and depression occur together approximately twice as frequently than by chance alone, so maybe that’s why I happen to find myself feeling that I should drag out my old Goth wardrobe, smoke a pack of clove cigarettes, and go full nihilist. Fortunately, when it comes to the act of creative writing, these mood swings haven’t limited my output- if anything in fact, it’s forced me to expand on what topics I choose to cover, and I for one, think it’s helped advance my range rather significantly.

While I will always have a focused interest regarding the world of Art, I’ve found myself as of late, covering what might be considered much “heavier” issues, which to be quite honest, I’m really kind of enjoying getting into more so than at any other point in my career thus far.

Savagery, sarcasm, and statistics are seemingly the foundation of my writing, and after fifteen years, I think I’m finally getting a handle on how to use them effectively and brutally, If the amount of virulent email I receive from time to time is any kind of indicator. And yes, sometimes acts of pure unbridled hatred directed squarely at you can be regarded as a good thing, believe it or not, as at the very least, it confirms your hope that people are paying attention. Especially the ones who need to hear it the most. As John Lennon once said; “Being honest may not get you a lot of friends, but it’ll always get you the right ones.”

Besides, there’s really nothing more helpful that my disparagers can do than assist me with whittling down my Christmas card list, and you have no idea how much I appreciate that. At this rate, next year I’ll like have only two cards to send out, and the remainder of my mad money can go to what’s really important- buying Star Wars toys and art reference books. A man has got to have his priorities, as you well know.

So exactly why do I enjoy the venom so much? Well, most people would tell you that the mirror opposite of Love is Hate, but that’s not even close to being accurate. The true contrarian of Love is Indifference, and for a Creative, that’s an absolute hellish land to find yourself exiled to. When someone loves what you do, that’s great. When they hate what you do, that’s even better, given the fact it costs them a tremendous amount of energy to stay focused on you. But when someone could care less either way? Well at that point, you should probably just go find a truly serene and economical place to inter your artistic corpse, and accept the fact that your career is over.

I’ve often half-joked that I’ve had more comeback tours than KISS, but that’s only because when it comes to what I do, you’re only as good as your last set of accomplishments. It’s kind of hard to sit on your laurels when they fall apart faster than a pair of shoes from Payless, and you can only use the excuse that you’re “in the process” before people start realizing you spend most of your time watching Scooby-Doo cartoons and posting angry reviews on Yelp.

On a related note, screw you Papa John’s, because that cardboard circle slathered with ketchup that you like to advertise as an actual pizza, absolutely sucks.

However, when I do find myself walking down a morose and self-pitying path, I remind myself that things could always be worse- after all, I could be dead, I could have lost more than just a part of my left foot, or in the ultimate horror show, I could be one of those mouth-breathers that looks to Kid Rock for political advice. Sure, “Bawitdaba” is a kick-ass song, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take voting cues from a guy who looks like he deals skunk weed out of the trunk of a faded 1983 Pontiac Fiero. Just saying. And no matter what is happening in my life, at least I try to use my innate anger and sense of acidic cynicism to highlight the issues that I think need to be addressed, whether there’s a receptive audience for my opinions or not.

When it comes to what I do, the first person who I aim to satisfy is myself. Always. And if I can entertain a few road-weary travelers along the way who appreciate that, so much the better.

But there’s one demographic in this country that is never at peace, never content to be one with their fellow humans, and whose offered solutions for the things that supposedly vex them border not only on the ludicrous, but the sheerly psychotic. I’ve written about these nonsensical nimrods before, but it seems that every time I think I’ve hit the rock bottom of this topic, I discover that it has a sub-basement crammed full of pork rinds, unopened Bibles, Confederate flags, dog-eared copies of The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion, Chinese-made pro-Trump bumper stickers, hats, and T-shirts, along with a collection of guns, ammo, and XXL camouflage fatigues, for when they want to play soldier, but are still too craven to join the actual military.

This festering fellowship of morons, malcontents, faux patriots, whiners, hypocritical Christians and boycott-addicted simpletons who as a collective, cluster under the internet’s bed, feebly harass the online citizenry with an obsessive passion seen hitherto only in middle-age men who collect My Little Pony dolls. I am of course, referring to the cravenly scourge known as Trolls, who roam the shadowlands of the Web, engaged in a dark quest to find both relevance and a definable personality. Defined as a noun, the word Troll presents as: “A dwarf or giant in folklore which inhabits caves or hills.”

And here I was, assuming they all had mortgages for a nice spot under a bridge. Damn. Fairytales have totally lied to me my entire life. Next thing you know, I’ll find out that the witch in Hansel and Gretel was actually a Florida retiree that two German kids proceeded to mug after they finished eating her house.

However, the modern-day definition of Troll as a verb is what I’m most interested in for this particular screed: “To harass, criticize, or antagonize by provocatively disparaging or mocking public statements, postings, or acts.” In essence, this is a really diplomatic way of stating that the type of person you’d report to HR if they were a co-worker, spends most of their time surfing the web in the manner of a modern Thugee, waiting for an unsuspecting traveler. As someone who’s more than familiar with this subclass that spends most of it’s free time lurking in the pixelated murk, I can attest that they all tend to follow the same script, which is at it’s best, no more than a craven’s compendium of post-it notes suggesting the repetitive slurs, threats, and translucent deflections, they require to bolster their unfounded belief that they possess some relevance in the first place.

When one dissects this singular populace, they’ll notice it’s an inane cross-section of persons who are socially and politically marginalized, and to some degree, sexually frustrated as well, given how consistently the slithering alongside Incel community attempts to brand itself as noble martyrs to the fight against the current feminist movement. I for one, wasn’t aware that you could take such a fierce pride in being involuntarily celibate, but at the end of the say, anything that helps keep the makers of Fleshlights in business can only be regarded as a win.

Rarely can one stay the course when these leeches of logic attach themselves to what was once a previously focused debate, due to their dependence on a panacea so addictive that they have to hijack non-related conversations as a means to attain a transitory sense of personal influence that they lack in their otherwise hollow lives. When their attempts to disseminate falsehoods or their failures to defend cherry-picked statistics force these individuals inevitably backed into a corner, they only have one fail-safe option to exploit, that being the capacity to weaponize the Internet’s shroud of anonymity to an almost terrifying degree.

I once wrote that the Internet was a lot like Tombstone in the 1880’s, in the sense that it had no rules, no truly enforced laws, and the odds were pretty good that the person you were dealing with was functionally illiterate. And I still maintain this POV is accurate, especially when it comes to the framework of personal accountability for one’s online actions and commentaries, which the Web at the moment, finds itself in severe lack of. I’m not suggesting that regulating or censoring our citizenry’s right to free speech should be considered, but I will firmly take the position that dialogue targeted to harm my fellow humans doesn’t even come close to deserving the same afforded protection.

In all the years I’ve been writing social criticism, I’ve found myself dealing with more than my share of people who possess an almost childlike sanguinity that presenting one’s viewpoints anonymously is a contemporary variance of a medieval castle keep, but let me assure you, this assumption is only partially correct.

To quote Luke 8:17, “For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be known and illuminated.” And despite the fact this insight hails from the pages of a Bronze-age book of fairytales, it’s still exceedingly apt when applied to the corruption of what should have been the most lauded repository of all the world’s knowledge. Instead however, when you remove the usefulness of Google, cute cat videos, and the access to free pornography, the Internet is really no more than an extended virtual Thanksgiving dinner at which everyone of your ignorantly racist relatives show up unannounced, drunk, and wearing a pro-Trump T-shirt.

So it’s just like real life, but the level of idiocy you’ll have to experience is dialed all the way up to 11, and you never get the peace and quiet present when your Uncle Frank is shoveling your Aunt Hilda’s world famous marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes down the pipe that serves as his neck.

To be fair, it’s quite easy to want to dismiss these disturbingly-comfortable-with-Nazis-outside-of-an-Indiana-Jones-movie lunatics, and that’s understandable, if not the life goal that many would like to eventually achieve. But if I were to offer a small caveat, it would be this- worrying concerns that are blindly left unsupervised in the dark tend to become emboldened and dangerous as time moves on, and this faux brain trust is no exception to that rule. While a majority of trolls just spew their acidic bile optimistically believing that they’ll compile enough hit-points to merit a re-tweet from the man-child Mussolini they slavishly worship, this is not the case for all, as some go far past the line in the sand that an ordinary malcontent would normally believe should never be crossed, as the 24/7 news cycle has proven over the last three years.

According to an *article published in The New York Times in March of 2019, hate crimes have hit a 16-year high, with a noteworthy increase in violence directed at Latinos, according to the FBI. And while the sense of vehemence focusing on Muslims and Arab-Americans has seen a downturn, physical assaults have spiked, accounting for 61 percent of the 7,120 documented incidents that were reported to law enforcement officials nationwide. Keep in mind, these stats are drawn only from the known data, as some experts have noted their belief that possibly more than half of all victims of hate crimes never file a complaint in the first place. Disgracefully, state and local police forces are not required by law to report hate crimes to the FBI, which to be fair, has a limiting impact on the range of the conclusion that can be ascertained from the collective data.

 *[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/us/hate-crimes-fbi-report.html]

A hate crime is defined as: “A criminal offense against a person or property, motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity, as well as ethnicity.” Under this definition, the classification of hate crime victims can also include established institutions, religious organizations and government entities.

One odd factoid for review is that in areas where Trump has held his Nuremburg-style Ego rallies, there has been a statistical jump in hate crimes, although it’s not anywhere near the absurd 226% rate claimed by certain meme-posting individuals on Facebook. This is not to suggest that there aren’t unsavory characters prowling the streets of our cities causing havoc, but the assemblies of these mental midgets only really started appearing consistently on the social radar after being emboldened both by Trump’s rhetoric and his seemingly tacit approval of their current activities and recruitment outreach.

Far beyond the pale of rational thought, these people tend to be hiding in plain sight among the good people of the virtual realms, shedding avatars and profile pages quicker than a high-schooler tries out new personalities. This, for no other purpose than to stay several steps ahead of the social consequences they so richly deserve and have truly earned.

As with all cowards, the level of threat presented differs on a case to case basis, but coalesced into a teeming mob with a singular targeted mentality, that’s when this horde is arguably at its most dangerous, if not its most unpredictable. To quote comedienne Tina Fey regarding the murder of Heather Steyer at what was supposed to be a peaceful protest against the White Power Movement in Charlottesville: ”Who drove the car into the crowd… Hillary’s E-mails?”

In public, these Trumpflakes not only crave the companionship of their fellow Red Hat brigade members, they require it, since without this mass of sheer numbers, these twerps would be stomped flatter than a narc at a Hells Angel BBQ. However, when they’re sitting around in their underwear in the embryonic warmth of their Mom’s basement, their disconnection from their brethren causes a sense of rapidly fading hubris and faux bravery which can only be rejuvenated by donning their well-worn and tissue-thin, cravens’ cloak of Internet anonymity.

Now, when you note that their profile/page/opinions are made wholly out of air and arrogance, the invariable response that you’ll normally receive is that they’ve purposefully set it up that way to “protect themselves” from the evil intentions of the “Alt-Left”, a non-entity who apparently, wants nothing more than to turn their children into atheistic soymilk latte drinking transgender drag queens who practice witchcraft while demanding free abortions as they set fire to the American flag. I don’t know about you, but that is one argument that’s really hard to disprove, when you don’t have immediate access to a mobile lobotomy kit. Just an observation.

Nevertheless though, the reality of this ham-fisted approach to online social interaction is rather self-evident, no matter what fantastical theory they wrap it in. In essence, these paranoid and pathetic rationalizations highlight a far sadder issue than just what they claim to believe.

What all of this subterfuge represents is the true innermost struggle that they face- holding dear a set of values so dishonored, that they can’t openly share them with the populace at large, Whether you want to lay the blame for their reluctance at the feet of PC culture, or for accuracy’s sake, the advance of common sense and/or logic, it’s just not socially acceptable in this, an era of dawning diversity, to be proudly and willfully racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, elitist, homophobic, vulgar, and ignorant.

It is however, still okay to admit that you think Xanadu is a perfectly fine 80’s movie, since it’s soundtrack more than makes up for the act of portraying Gene Kelly as eager to co-own a roller disco. Not to mention, you also have Olivia Newton-John running around in leg-warmers, and who in their right mind doesn’t appreciate that?

Communists. That’s who. And to a lesser degree, persons who think that the “Renegade Cut” of Highlander 2 makes it twice as good. Spoiler: it does not. But as I noted earlier, it would be remiss to deride the lone individuals whose sole purpose in life is to find proof of their own relevance, unfounded as it may be, as harmless. These people are spoiling for conflagration, and all they lack is the spark to set their limited world aflame. And when you’re faced with souls that lack basic humanity, this cults’ penchant for embracing hate filled strangers they only see at circle-jerk rallies as their only true friends, starts to make a whole lot more sense. I may not be an actual psychologist by any stretch of imagination, but even I know that’s a fiercely f**ked up mindset.

Speaking of f**ked up… 

For all of their posturing as being “victims” of the non-existent “Alt-Left” movement, the Red Hat Brigade is always seemingly discovered squarely dead center when it comes to the numerous incidents of politically-inspired violence, voter intimidation, gerrymandering, ballot fraud, voter roll purging, and let’s not overlook the fine art of doxxing that they do with a maniacal fervor not seen since Glenn Close had her star-turn in Fatal Attraction. Doxxing, for those of you who may not be familiar with the term, is the act of publishing personally sensitive information online, of which it can be pertained to a corporation, or stereotypically, a private citizen,

Processes utilized to obtain this targeted data can range from the absurdly easy, such as searching the standard social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for previously  posted information, to the more serious undertaking of illegally hacking web-based accounts to ferret out what has been intentionally kept from the prying eyes of the public. The end goal of this immoral acquirement is not to use the data uncovered for the purpose of doing good, as the hacker collective Anonymous has been known to do from time to time, but instead to use the compiled material as raw ammunition in order to shame and/or harass the object/s of their obsession. The purveyors of these vile acts of anonymous cowardice seek to inflict some form of harm against people that they don’t know, which is as close as you can get to being a full-blown psychotic without having to wear a tin-foil suit to identify you as such, in my humble opinion.

And not too surprisingly given my political leanings and inability to be intimidated by the Hot Pocket horde, this has happened to me more than once. I’ve had my previous addresses and phone numbers posted, my website and social media pages attacked, and in one weird instance, my work history as well. Strangely, whomever posted this list of my former employers actually did me a favor, since I had accidently deleted my resume master file, and all of my work stubs were inaccessible at the time, so it was great resource when I needed to update my resume. So, I owe one at least, to the gloomy compulsive who took the time to inadvertently do me a neurotic solid.

Overall, most of these acts of worthless retaliation fell flat, and were about as effective as their so-called boycotts tend to be. I swear to God that if I had to make a cartoon-related analogy regarding these hapless hackers, I’d compare their rate of successful efficiency to the luck Wile E. Coyote has had using the fine products that ACME makes, in his endless attempts to catch and eventually eat, the Road Runner.

Dude, if you’ve got the scratch to consistently purchase a giant hitch-hiker thumb, rocket-powered roller-skates, vats of guaranteed slippery grease, jet-propelled tennis shoes and pogo stick, anvils, a box of dehydrated (just add water) boulders, triple strength leg muscle and super-speed vitamins, a do-it-yourself tornado kit, a bottle of earthquake pills, suction cups, both an iron carrot and iron bird seed, several giant rockets, a bow and arrow set, a smoke bomb, multiple crates of dynamite, a sweet “jim-dandy” wagon, and a score of oversized slingshots, then you can just as easily text DoorDash, and tell them to bring you a grilled Roadrunner sandwich on Sourdough, el pronto.

Just saying.

Out of all the trolls I’ve dispatched and sent swiftly to the pits of Abaddon, there is one that stands out from all the rest, mainly due to the fact that when one is full of sewer gas, it’s inevitable that they’ll rise to the surface. This virginal viper however, went further than most of his inane ilk, and decided to show some truly obsessive aggression, despite his lacking any physical semblance of a detectable spine. The disturbing discovery that several of my professional contacts, friends, and weirdly, Instagram fans, had been contacted via his numerous fake profiles, was something that instantly infuriated me, after it was revealed that they too, had been threatened or “warned about me” as well.

To clarify, I wasn’t mad because I was concerned for myself, because online cowards are the equivalent of a mentally-challenged kitten forever chasing the red dot, but I was truly livid that this neutered schizoid was now attempting to terrify those people I care about, because he was and still is, too craven to show his real face.

Oh yeah… this guy’s a winner at Life. And that applies to his wretched existence, the cereal, and the classic board game, of which I am convinced is the next logical step after you’ve mastered the mosh pit that is Chutes and Ladders. On top of that, my sexless stalker took several additional steps in order to try and cause some consternation, which I am happy to admit, sort of blew up in his Vaseline coated hands, due to his amateurish overkill in regard to what he was attempting to achieve.

And yes, there will be examples, because as a Creative, I’m all about the visual, and I cannot thank Odin enough for how much unintentional comedy this *zölibatär verliererin has provided.
*[It’s a German descriptive. Feel free to Google it,]

To start, let me present some context first, if only to show today’s impressionable children what really happens when a person lives on a diet consisting of bargain-brand diet soda, pizza rolls, and joyless, if not angry, masturbation. Like many modern Creatives, a good chunk of my life is centered around the Web. But just like when I have a show of my figurative work, the perpetually blue-balled incels arrive as if they were remoras on the backs of a shiver of sharks sensing a bleeding debutante in the water. The main similarity of course, being that if it wasn’t for the scraps left behind by the actual top of the food chain, they’d have all starved to death by now.

If there is one hilariously predictable trait that every Trump-strumpet share in common, it’s the inability to work without a script. This intellectual flaw, exposed when any of them attempts to debate without using their preassigned so-called talking points, generally turns into a litany of slurs and threats, due to their “winging it” ability being somewhere along the lines of a drunken penguin.

They don’t like being challenged, They don’t like their *seelenlos feigling being mocked. And they sure as hell don’t like facts, no matter how they are presented. I’ve actually come to believe over time that every validity that begrudgingly enters their empty heads, must hurt like a razor-studded Q-tip that’s being hammered in with a five-pound sledge, given how vitriolic their responses to a measured deate tend to be. By way of example, I present the following screencaps from the aforementioned Vaseline aficionado.
*[Soulless coward in German]

First, we open up with how I’m a “loser”, and how he’s going to pay me a visit to receive his face to face apology, which presents as an almost adorable and highly optimistic outlook, given the fact he would never have the stones to show up. And to think… I went out and bought that veggie party tray for nothing. What a waste of some perfectly good Ranch dressing. Not cool, dude.

Next, since the apology he didn’t deserve was never delivered, he slithers right into what I guess he considers a series of “threats”. First, he tries to attack my age and vanity, which as a rule, tends to fail miserably, since I already have a face so full of fault lines, I could be a mountain range, and I’m looking forward to my Sam Elliot craggy phase. Trying to bolster that weak-ass opening gambit, he then charitably lets me know that not only will I need to make my Instagram page “private”, because... (reasons?), but that I’ll be also spending all my free time looking “it my window” as well.  I assume he meant “out”, but then again, when you’re stuck inside the virgin’s closet past your early thirties, your view of the world has to be somewhat limited in scope, since the only things you ever whisper sweet nothings to are your hands and the occasional apple pie.

And here come the inevitable dick size and sucking jokes. Or in other words, insults that didn’t work in 5^th grade, and sure as hell aren’t going to work now. I love how these cowards never realize that in order to insult someone, they have to value your opinion first. And as you can see, I handle these slurs with modesty and gentleness. As someone who grew up in the 80’s, I have never thought that having someone imply I was gay was ever an insult, I always took it to mean I was incredibly musically hip. As a middle-aged white man, when it gets hurled at me now, I regard it as a nice compliment that my houses property value is stable, my sense of fashion is dead-on, and that it’s obvious that I work out, because you don’t get a ghetto booty like mine watching TV. I think it’s pretty transparent what he’s really mad about here- the fact that I could still pull tail on either side of the sexual fence, and the only thing he’s ever gotten to pull is himself.

Having failed to intimidate me or kill me by making me laugh so hard that I hacked up my own kidneys, he then switches to a grab-bag of projection and threats, none of which are even worth commenting on past the point that he really needs a role model other than a man in his seventies who incessantly melts down like a binky-denied toddler. I don’t mean to be egotistical here, but if you’re going to stalk me like my 3^rd ex-girlfriend, show some love for the craft at least. That wench invested like 60 bucks in a professional quality baseball bat when she decided to try and expose my brain to daylight, so step up your game, bro. I’d expect and demand nothing less.

Now, let’s see just how desperate this guy is to score some points, by his claiming that I sexually abuse women. Weird that in a 20+ year career, that’s never been presented anywhere as fact, huh? Better still is his admitting the number of fake accounts he runs, thereby proving not only his lack of an actual life, but that he also possesses in spades the lack of personal bravery that separates Trump’s male fans from actual men. He then goes on to openly threaten an IG fan of mine, which was followed up later by a menacing email, sent from yet another one of his many fake accounts. That’s why these people have to strike at you online, if they were forced to have to face you in person, it would be almost damn impossible for them to effectively hide their mother’s gut-girdle under their Trump T-shirts.

Regarding that SEO fallout he smugly mentioned, since his slander was posted, it’s basically led to a zero-sum career impact. Zip. Nada. Zilch. No cancellations. No model blowback. In fact, I got two jobs out of it. Citing the fact that if I pissed off a Trumplethinskin loser like this so bad that he went to all of this trouble to try and harass me, my new clients took it at face value that my critical writing must be top notch. So, I guess I’m on the hook to send him a fresh case of Vaseline and a case of Kleenex as a thank-you gift, so that his Friday nights will be booked for quite some time, at least. It’s true what you’ve heard- I give because I care.

A further listing of some more of his impotence, via IG’s notification feature. I particularly like the projection form an actual loser and coward that I’m one as well, along with the assertion that now I was going “to feel it”, which given the context, almost comes off as dialogue one might not want to hear inside a prison shower. Considering this guys gear couldn’t go past the molars of the hooker he’d have to hire, I don’t know if this statement is based on a sense of blind optimism, or an act of full-on delusion. Most likely, it’s both. So let’s hear it for multi-tasking!

I don’t even know how to personify the true wretchedness of this losers psyche any better than this flaccid falsehood he also threw out there as yet another limp-wristed attempt at besmirching my unblemished professional reputation, This is supposedly a posting he placed on a message forum for the high school I graduated from in, wait for it… 1987. Yes. You did read that right. As far as I can tell, Captain Emptypants here thinks that my business model depends on contacting strangers from a time period when people thought plaid parachute pants and British flag t-shirts were a fashion go-to. I literally laugh myself into a state of hypoxia every time when someone I know, and who’s usually laughing at it too, brings this to my attention.

But this posting is a perfect example of what occurs when sheer stupidity believes it’s disguised as sheer genius, since this could serve as potential evidence of a serious crime. This captured moment, forms the base of a still open case whereas the Arizona Department of Public Safety finds itself concerned. This is due to the fact that for some strange reason, they take a rather dim view of anyone falsifying a public notice, and even when you remove the ineffectively pathetic slander aspect, this takes his wanton idiocy up several notches to a place with some outstanding serious consequences- even if, as far as I can tell, he never actually went through with it. I have a well-developed sense of humor. The police generally aren’t known for theirs, as a rule. And to be quite honest, I have no idea how he thought this plan designed by his celibate Incel support group would work smoothly in the first place.

The reality is that if any of my then-neighbors would have received one of these, the police, and postal authorities would have gotten involved, and the focused sole resources of each agency would never have been directed on me, past the peripheral. But, I am pretty sure that when he’s found out, and he eventually will be- he’ll have some, in the words of 50’s Cuban heartthrob Ricky Ricardo, some “splaining to do.” And I’m also equally confident that when he does, the courts won’t accept his declaration that “Trump is your king” as a legitimate defense.

During this time period, and it may be just a coincidence, but my main website was also hacked… sort of. Basically, someone redirected it’s address to a vitamin wholesale website, where I wound uo scoring a great price on some B-12, so in the end, all’s well that ends well, for it only took less than five minutes for my webhost provider to fix the issue. And when it comes to that sweet case of B-12? Well, my red blood cell formation is off the charts, and my *Homocysteine levels have never been better. So thanks to this minor annoyance, I’m going to live forever.

*[Homocysteine is a common amino acid that has been rumored to be a factor an increased risk of heart disease, so always eat animals, and wash it all down with a tall glass of milk.]

There is one consistent trait that all bullies have in common. Their threats always read as if they cribbed them from a straight-to-DVD cop movie they skimmed on Netflix. In this exchange sent to the IG fan of mine I referenced earlier, our profile in cowardice believes that repeating the name of the innocent he’s trying to harass as he mentions specific details, passes for badassery, when all it does is recertify what an absolute sniveling coward he actually is. Fake name. Fake Email, Fake bravado. Factor in that this person he’s failing to intimidate is also a disabled veteran, and the level of dense depravity he willing to wallow in makes itself clear. And as for the wholly laughable hard-nosed gumshoe persona he’s pushing, based on nothing more than his luck at managing to dig up a few easily accessed details, this wretch has more in common with Scrappy-Doo, than he ever will with Nancy Drew. This is the type of man-boy that owns ten Harley-Davidson shirts, but still depends on his Mom to drop him off for his shift at Taco Bell.

Granted, while his falsifying of an official public notice was an epic fail, this photoshopped faux message may be the stupidest one he attempted to foist, and I’ll explain why. First, if such a message had ever been sent out like this, my account would have been immediately suspended, without question, and this real-model-and-not-a-fake-person-at-all would have most certainly spread the word around. Second, even if you don’t know me personally, a simple look at my bio would prove that this in no way “sounds” like me, one iota. And third, all any model would have to do to check out my rep would be to contact the “models I’ve worked with” list that’s listed RIGHT UP FRONT on said bio page. This gaffe is the end result of what happens when someone spends way too much time seething over the failure of their life versus learning how to make peace with that failure. And third, you’d think that if any of what he fabricated so poorly was true, it would have come out at some point over he last 20+ years, don’t ya think? After all, I’m not famous, I’m not wealthy, and I don’t have Harvey Weinstein level type friends. But I do appreciate him giving me the alleged status of a kingmaker, even if he erroneously thinks that the newspaper industry is somehow even remotely relevant to the current world of professional modeling.

Unquestionably, this is not a guy well-versed on how any aspect of my professional world works, but then again, he doesn’t seem to have the hang of how this one operates either.

I gotta give some props here- this wacko is so obsessively angry with me, you’d think he and I had dated at some point. Something tells me however, that when this hapless hobbit is found and put on the chopping block, he’s most definitely going to look exactly like the type of person those police officers in your grade school told you on Stranger Danger Day to never take candy from. I can’t think of a better and more apt compliment to my effectiveness at vexing the Trump trolls, than this impotent lunacy he labored to throw up on YouTube, Vimeo, and Ebaum’s World, to absolutely no avail. If anything, this has really only helped my street cred among my fellow liberals, and helps me skewer the Trumptards who try to use it as a ”gotcha” point. He literally and figuratively, helps to sink his own cause every time this randomly pops up, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

Looking at this past mass of nonsensicality as a whole, I can’t for the life of me, wonder why these paste-eaters aren’t given the proper amount of respect they think they’re due. A mystery for the ages, I guess. So, a recap- in order to soothe his candy-assed and bruised Ego, our resident Man of La Moron decided to prove all of my initial conceptions about him and his ilk by not only living up to the Trump cult stereotype, but surpassing it. For my part, I’d like to think that in a corner of his studio apartment, there exists a Memento style Polaroid display, and that he’s covered in all sorts of home tattoos depicting the conspiracy theories he‘s swallowed wholesale.

You know… to offset the ones on his fat gut depicting his love for Hello Kitty?

But there will come a time in his life, when his actions, much like his erectile dysfunction, will catch up to him, and when that day arrives, he’ll spend the rest of his miserable life literally paying for his civil transgressions, both far and wide. Mainly, since I can’t be the only one he’s tried this crap with, and while he may feel untouchable at the moment, all digital excursions leave behind a traceable path. And one day, he’s going to piss off a hacker who really knows his craft far better, and this boy will get f**ked like a Kardashian at an NBA mixer. And while there exists several laws and statutes this cur will eventually be charged and sued under; most police agencies are still essentially clueless on how to handle these cases properly in the first place. This take of mine is highlighted clearly by how differently the law enforcement agencies in Arizona handled my initial outreach regarding his targeted attempts at neurotic harassment and slander.

First in line, the Phoenix Police Department, or as I’ve always regarded them, the equivalent of a school crossing guard recruitment program that hires well-armed, if not undertrained, racist thugs. If that sounds a bit harsh, it’s well-deserved, as in my opinion, the PPD is one of the most openly corrupt and incompetent agencies in Arizona, if not the country, and I’ve been to New Orleans more than once. And the cops there make less than a worker at Popeye’s Chicken. A close friend of mine who’s now retired from the NYPD, once joked that Arizona cops come in three designer models: Rogers, Careers, and Desks. According to my buddy, Rogers are named after the late and genial kid show host Mr. Rogers, because they’re the cops who haven’t become jaded with the job quite yet, and still believe they can make a difference. These are definitely the cops you want to show up on the call you made.

But the other two archetypes? F**king useless at best.

You may ask why this is. Well, in his esteemed opinion, Careers only care about themselves and their professional trajectory, making crucial decisions based solely on what may harm that and them, versus what may affect the citizenry they’re supposed to serve, and Desks can only follow the simplest of orders- the relevant analogy being a worker bee. The reason he refers to them as “desks” is because in his estimation, they do nothing but ride one. Damn… even I winced at that description, and I’m known for being sarcastically savage on my nicest day. Because regardless of whether it’s a perfect world or not, somebody has to do the eventual heavy lifting, and they should have the same respect as the people who oversee the process, in my opinion. However, that vibe and charitable feeling soon evaporated when I filed my report regarding the threats I was receiving, and the beat officer they sent was not only a desk, but also possessed the intellect and personality of one as well. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t there some standard of physical prowess that one must retain in order to be an active duty police officer? Because if so, this sweet potato of a man needs to get his oversized load back to the gym, el pronto. 

With no due respect, I don’t expect any officer to look like Tatum Channing does in Magic Mike, but I also have the belief that he shouldn’t require a greased-up doorway to be able to enter a room. If this guy ever had to chase down a suspect on foot, it’s almost a certainty that his quarry could design and build his own house, find a wife, raise a family, send the resulting kids to a good college, and comfortably retire, before this lump of law lard would catch up to him.

This rather acidic assessment stems from the fact that after my detailed describing the doxxing, the threats, and the slanderous harassment my simplistic stalker was issuing, he opined that (A) he wasn’t “even sure that a crime had been committed”, and (B) that this was similar to “guys in high school going behind the gym to settle it out”, which even a hockey puck on meth would assure you it is not. I’m starting to think this so-called cop either found his badge inside a box of Cracker Jacks, shining like a jewel, or that the PPD has an annual hire the mentally handicapped drive, and he was that year’s blue-ribbon winner. Adding insult to injury, he then also informed me that if said wackaloser did show up at my house, and I was forced to defend myself and mine, I’d be the one arrested, because… I had stated openly that no one was going to be allowed the sole chance to hurt me, my friends, or my loved ones.

True story. To protect and serve, my ass.

Can you only imagine what Dudley Do-wrong must be like on a domestic violence call? “I’m sorry lady, but he claims that you ran into his fist multiple times on purpose, so it sort of seems to me that despite all the witnesses and proof you provided to the contrary, that you were kind of asking for it.” And if I were to be even harsher, I’d also suggest that he’s the type of idiot who’d hand out his personal phone number to a sexual assault victim, because he’d guess she’s already down to f**k. That joke is why I’m not listing his name here, as I think it’ll be more fun to read about him when he gets fired for inadvertently assisting the criminals he was supposed to stop. Oh hell, who am I kidding? To quote Sean Connery in The Untouchables: “There goes the next Chief of Police”.

But when it came to the Arizona Department of Public Safety? Night and day type of difference across the board, both in tone and professionalism. Two detectives met with me, took copies of all the screencaps, the various fake profile pages, and that email message I posted above, and went straight to work opening a case file. And shockingly, they were of the dual mindset that possibly several crimes had been committed, of which one was most definitely a felony. I guess when you spend more time with a law book than the menu at Dunkin’ Donuts, you actually know what your responsibilities to a community are. Imagine that. So what’s next? Well, eventually this wielder of a disturbingly sticky keyboard will overstep both his limited intellect and the concrete  boundaries of the law yet again. After all, he’s already left enough of a trail for a competent hacker to follow, and even better?

Despite his success at hiding within the murk of the Web so far, that pond of brackish pixels gets smaller and smaller every day, thanks in part to active citizen groups like Anonymous and the state laws which are playing an efficient game of catch-up. Not to mention, this guy’s obviously got an easily bruised Ego, and he won’t be able to stop himself from launching even more attacks against the people he’s too cowardly to face offline. It’s literally the drug he mainlines, and like most addicts, if he doesn’t get a regular fix, he’ll implode. And that need to take his steady fix will ultimately lead to the authorities or worse, a private citizen with the means and the motivation to go far beyond what the law might prescribe, to get their fix on him. Either/or.

Best of luck, dude. Truly, I hope that the hole you’re currently inhabiting is deep enough to bury the burden of your earlier sins, because when you finally cross the wrong person, and you will, that past weight is going to crush you flatter than your sex life.

“I’ve come to realize that the most critical of the social media accounts are the least verbal in real life and I can assure you that most social media trolls have no physical troll land to dwell.” - Aysha Taryam