Thursday, May 27, 2010

Our Troll

Brad Evans (recent photograph)

In the (almost) 2 years that I've blogged, I've had maybe 2 or 3 drivebys and only one troll.

I'm not sure what he thinks he's trying to accomplish. It certainly isn't to change my mind about anything. If he really has something to say to the world, then he should stop being a lazy parasite attaching himself to other people's blogs and get his own blog. I suspect that the reason he doesn't is because he knows that no one would read it or visit it. It would be all about him and his abundant hatreds. As Gertrude Stein once said about Los Angeles, "There's no there, there." He doesn't stand for anything. He keeps trying to attach himself to whatever cause I'm against, not because he believes in it (he doesn't), but because he thinks it pisses off people like me. I don't think he represents anything except his own obsessions. My right wing antagonists deserve a better spokesman than Brad.
He sometimes tries to comment as "Anonymous" or "Brian" but his fixations give him away every time. It's always the same comment over and over again. Sometimes he insults me or the other comment posters, but it's always the same thing like a broken record; he hates Episcopalians, Mainline Protestants, WASPs, brown people, black people, immigrants, Jews, women, gays, liberals, blah blah blah blah. He's convinced in his own mind that I'm some kind of East Coast WASP with a plush tenured position at Columbia or Princeton. In fact, I'm from Texas, descended from sharecroppers, and I spent my youth walking through cowshit, falling off horses, pulling out cactus thorns, getting stung by fire ants, chased by tornadoes, threatened by rattlesnakes (human and reptile), and catching crawdads with string and bacon (sorry Grandmere, but it's crawdads west of the Sabine). I live in a small railroad flat in Brooklyn with a sweeping view of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and I teach at a community college in the Bronx. But, he keeps trying with that same comment, and I keep blocking him. Doing the same thing over and over again in the hope of a different result is the definition of madness.

Pushing his buttons is kind of fun, mostly because it's so easy.

Hey Brad, I'm gay, Episcopalian, I'm progressive, I live in New York, and I teach art to immigrant brown people up in the Bronx, including some illegal ones, and I'm damn proud of all of it (I think that presses most of his buttons).

Get your own blog asshole.

14 comments:

Leonard said...

(human and reptile)--Apparently we spoke the same language in California...are you sure that didn´t fly out of my mouth?

About Brad,

First I thought Brad was a snitty teen girl from Providence (at least that´s where my sitemeter says he/she is from)...it seems that Brad is especially mouthy when it comes to Gay people, Christians and ¨fur-in-ners¨...it´s hard to speculate exactly why all the raw hate being vented unless he/she simply is going through some kind of self-loathing scare laced with financial insecurity, alcohol and/or drug use...doesn´t matter what I guess (other than I find it fun to construct a image of online friends/not-friends from their comments...most cases it´s so easy to do and I´ve got a good record of accuracy that is confirmed when we meet in person). However, being a ¨creative/imaginative¨ I sometimes give people more, or less, emotional ¨color¨ than is their due...sadly I sometimes can identify with ¨Brad¨ in terms of the name calling and anger...at least a younger and drunken version of me can and I pretty much blurt out what´s on my mind/non-mind still. Very revealing.

I think it´s a good idea for ¨Brad¨ to get his own blog...a healthy opportunity to dig deep inside of what and why ¨Brad¨ thinks what he REALLY thinks...this form of public journaling works that way for me (as well as reach out to share with others in a ¨normal¨ way) and I sometimes get glaring glimpses of who I am and what I REALLY think. No place to hide.

Onward Counterlight, thanks for your site.

Counterlight said...

Leo,
I can't imagine that you were ever anything quite like Brad. Maybe you had your drunken rages in the past, but you had your reasons. You have your temper (as I have mine), but you're not an obsessive visiting scores of blogs just to insult the bloggers and their guests, and to ramble on about a long list of hatreds.
Besides, you stand for something. Brad doesn't stand for anything.

Stacy Hackenberg said...

Wow. Someone who knows what a crawdad is. I thought I was alone. I grew up in Houston and our backyard liked to flood when it rained. Took a couple of dump truck loads of dirt to raise the level of the yard enough to stop it. That and better drainage grudgingly installed by the powers that be. After a good hard rain, before said covered drainage was installed, I would find mud towers in the back yard. I would kick them over and watch the crawdads emerge all righteously pissed off at their hard labor being destroyed.

As for trolls, they are a particularly nasty breed of parasite created through the seeming anonymity of the blogosphere. Though just like the crawdads, it can be fun to knock over their mud towers and watch them emerge all angry and toothsome and then retreat into the safety of the hole they climbed out of.

Counterlight said...

"And I mentioned jews, brown people, black people, green people-when?
You're proud of doing something useless and believing nonsense? Wow.
And I thought nerds were unhappy people."

Quod Est Demonstratum

Counterlight said...

And while we're at it, here's more proof:

"Putting a dick in your mouth? Weird. Putting it up your ass, which isn't made for that and tears easily leading to infections and bleeding? Weird also.
But you can kill yourselves however you like; it's no skin off my ass. Just don't think that you've become more "enlightened" by your orientation, that it automatically confers "progressive" or "sensitive" status or "identification with the marginalized". Don't insult common sense.
You could shack up with a bag of potato chips and call it marriage for all I care."

You're said enough here Brad, and you ain't sayin' no more on my blog,

Get your own blog.

it's margaret said...

To mention crawdads (yes, they are such in California too) and Brad in the same post demeans all crawdads.

If you have the ID number of his computer(s) to block him, perhaps you could post it for the rest of us? So we could block him too?

Counterlight said...

I'm afraid I don't have his computer ID# or know how to get it. I usually delete his comments as soon as they appear. If someone knows where to look for the number and how to block it, that would be great and I could finally take down the comment moderation.

I wonder if it would be worth it to file a complaint about him to Blogger?

it's margaret said...

Been there. Done that. doesn't help. He just sets up a new identity. If I get the numbers, I will surely share.

Counterlight said...

Well, I'll just keep deleting his comments.
I don't even read them anymore. They're all the same.

Leonard said...

Funny, he´s been limping over to my place to swear at me for responding here...I also don´t really read him but FY spelled out got my attention...there is something very sad about non-brad...sort of a lost Soul clammouring for a place to stand (like Duncan Pitts).

Counterlight said...

I suspect Leo, that you're not alone. I hear that he trolls scores of blogs, all Episcopal, and not all of them liberal. Most of those bloggers either have comment moderation, or just zap his comments when they appear.
Someone who spends that much time and energy on something so hateful and unproductive is truly obsessed and probably ill.

Göran Koch-Swahne said...

We all know Brad, don't we?

On my Blog he says a lot of things about Muslim Immigrants in Sweden, particuarily Rosengård at Malmö.

Rosengård has been featured in Fox, I believe. So not even that is original.

A sorry phenomenon.

Lapinbizarre said...

Actually, I believe that this is a recent photograph of Brad.

Counterlight said...

Lapin, you're a rasacally rabbit. ;)