Wearing Disguises

There are a couple of problems with that accusations.

Secondly, I am not JP.

I intend soon to complete the painful process of proving, by comparing paper trails, that JP and I are not the same person.

However, I must admit that my doing so is complicated by two factors.

The first is that, consciously or unconsciously, the guy sometimes has a tendency to imitate my style. This is something I complimented him about the third time he post a piece here.

The other problem is that, as is well known, I’ve had a tendency to sometimes blog and post here under other names.

As Mole333 noted: “Your frequent use of multiple blog personalities does pretty much sets you up for accusations of being just about every blogger out there from Rock to mole333 to Rosalie. It is kind of a hole you've dug for yourself”

I am surely not the only one. EnWhySeaWonk is also Politiko. Rock Hackshaw has been (perhaps not the best choice of words) sock-puppeting in his own comments threads. Oneshirt—aka Gary Tilzer–wrote about Tilzer in the third person in one of his own pieces, and has also surely blogged here under other handles and regularly pretends to be about 12 different people on the same threads. There is also a member of the New York City Council who I suspect does the same as his fingerprints stink out loud and he has tell is his style (paragraph spacing issues).

In my case, posting comments anonymously or under a different pseudonym has usually served to enrich the debate here, in ways I might not have been able to do otherwise.

Mostly, I don’t regret it. Still, it is time to explain why, I would go several leagues beyond the mere thread-posting sock-puppetry which has epidemic here from this site‘s outset.

Each of my blog characters was created for its own reason, in its own season.

By contrast, Gatemouth was a jazz improviser.

Around the middle of May, 2006, my writing here and on “The Politicker” had aroused so much heat that someone, most likely Gary Tilzer, had begun an “Out-Gatemouth Campaign,” posting my real name all over every local political blog.

At the time, I was still under the delusion that my identity was a secret, or could be kept secret, and I desired it to remain that way. It was one thing for everyone to think they knew who Gatemouth was, it was quite another for EVERYONE, including those who’d never thought about the matter, or even read a blog, to suddenly have access to such information.

I don’t know what self destructive impulse led me to create “Stoned Crackwhore”, but this

Rock Hackshaw parody (originally complete, in imitation of Rock’s blog, with a picture of the “author”, which I got from by searching Google Images using the words “stoned crackhead”) immediately took upon a life of his own, perhaps helped along by a phony comment I’d posted as an ill-disguised Lew Fidler pseudonym.

Creating this much controversy so soon after my departure was surely not in my self-interest; at first I tried to lighten things up, facilitate confusion and turn down the heat (although I couldn’t resist throwing a few spitballs), but after two days, I could stand no more, took my Christmas prank off the web (replacing it with a posting of Clement Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas” –the real piece has since been restored), hoped things would cool down, and returned to therapy. This was the most painful money I ever earned. Just to put the icing on the cake, it was this last check that triggered the requirement that Gur send me a 1099.

The problem with all those pieces was that, no matter how disguised the style, everyone knew it was Gatey (except for Rock), so I finally wrung down the curtain and joined the choir invisibule like the Dead Parrot I’d become.

Hack was put to rest for awhile–eventually he was revived as a Gate’s dumping ground for pieces that just didn’t fit into Gate’s oeuvre for various reasons— thing like links, event announcements I’d posted as favors, writings in atypical style, and stuff where, to advance a cause, I’d appeared to advocate issue positions which differed in some degree from my own (usually a matter of nuance, but important nuance). In his later revival, I didn’t really care if people knew I was Hack, I just didn’t want those pieces in Gate’s archive (although, in rare cases, I regret this).

I only wish I could post the piece of crap you're reading as a Hack N. Sack piece.

Anyway, by August 2007, the storm which had caused Gatey's departure had clearly passed. In order to see if it was safe to come back into the water, Gate reappeared for the first time in months posting a comment on a thread by the psychopathic VJ Machievelli, a blogger so awful, he was denied the front page posting privileges, “Room 8”, in its post-Gate, post-Gumbs, post-Wonk decline, had extended to the likes of Rwallnerny and Barry Popik. The post corrected VJ for misstating the name of one of

Connie Curtis "Pee Wee" Crayton was a Texas Jump Blues Electric Guitarist and Singer whose main rivals were Aaron "T-Bone" Walker, and a certain Clarence Brown, whose nick-name as practically screaming　out from this blogger's big stinking fingerprints.

Pee Wee was a dead-on imitation of Gate to the point of self parody. Anyone who’d read Gate would know who Pee Wee was, and to drive home the points a similar icon was chosen, and anonymous hints were dropped in various places. I even contacted Roscoe Conway to post a comment. In fact, the whole thing was so blatant that it almost lent credence to the idea that it must be someone else. 　

Fate, however, intervened, in the forms of Rock Hackshaw and FUSTB.

They say that battles in academia are so nasty because so little is at stake; the same might be said of the 2007 race for Judge of the King’s County Surrogate’s Court.

I was blogging from an hotel room in Southbury Connecticut where Domestic Partner and I, with Consuella and the Dybbuk in tow, were conducting a survey of Native American Entertainment establishments and wineries until the weekend when we planned to take　Dybbuk to see Thomas the Tank Engine in his local appearance at Waterbury. Domestic Partner has promised me that　Ringo Starr, George Carlin and Alec Baldwin would all be appearing, but I was keenly aware that my expectations would likely be met with the same level of satisfaction as those who’d hoped to see reform emerge as the byproduct of the race for Surrogate's Court Judge of the County of Kings.

Peeved beyond belief at FUSTB, I decide that the moment has arrived for Gatemouth to reappear, where someone would notice, for the first time in nearly eight months, somewhere where someone would notice, saying:

“Listen, you psychotic sack of excrement (I mean you FUSTB), if I chose to bother to do, I assure you I could come up with comments as erudite as Sojourner's, but mine would contain some evidence of a sense of humor.　If I do eventually comment on this race, it will only because I have been goaded into doing so by the likes of you.　While I am currently not decided in my preferences,　I assure you that your efforts are helping me to make a choice.

Once again it is clear　that your eye for style is matched only by your sense of style. 　

I have been spending my free time on family matters, as well as writing my memoirs and a couple of children's book.　I assure you that that is where you want such time to be spent (even if the memoirs are less than kind to you, and they are). Please　do yourself and your　client a favor, and leave me out of any　further regurgitations you may spew from your sick mind and fat fingers.

Now do me a favor, no more　prank phone calls to my house or cell phone, or this time I'll call the police.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter. 　

Now, back to retirement.”

That was enough for awhile. There was sure to be a buzz in the blogging community. But FUSTB continued. I’d reprint the posts, but most were eventually zapped, and in any event, the contents themselves were entirely without interest, as per usual.

And then I got another idea. I would start a blog war between Gatemouth and Pee Wee. At this point, I decided to take advantage that the cartoon I’d selected of Crayton resembled none other than the original Adam Clayton Powell, the “King of the Cats”, and decided that Pee Wee would be a more gansta version of Gate:

Well the combined goading from Pee Wee and FUSTB, resulted in escalating nastiness, Gate tired to keep his cool, although he could not restrain himself from speculations about the size of his adversary’s genitalia (Pee Wee’s, not FUSTB). But his response were relatively (for Gate) restrained and even handed, but while FUSTB attacked him as a Vito tool, Pee Wee struck hard at Gate’s (and FUSTB’s) concentration on the bit players, and Gate’s attempts at even handedness. “Don’t bother to play both sides Gatey” he gibed, “they all hate you anyway”.

Meanwhile Pee Wee went off the deep end, saying one local lawyer/political operative would “steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes while probating his will, committing necrophilia on his body, and raiding his ice box”. This was manifestly untrue, as there had been many rumors about he proclivities of the character in question, but none involved sexual acts with people of at that particular point in their lives; moreover, he was dieting, so the ice box comment verged upon libelous. Pee Wee said many other things, none of them nice, and most now lost to history.

Then things went from agreeably, if edged-ly, dada to funny peculiar. It occurred to me that “Can you get to that?” was a great catch-phrase for Pee Wee, and should appear at the end of his every post. Unfortunately, when I edited his comments they were moved out-of-sequence and reappeared at the time they were revised. This was too dada for me as it stepped on all the punch lines. Pee Wee Cried out in desperation:

Can you get to that?”

But the problem was never fixed. And then things got worse. 　　　

Without using my real name, FUSTB, or one of his accomplices, posted a lengthy screed entitled about “the real Gatemouth”, which in addition to being highly uncomplimentary, went a long way to drawing a map of my location. At my request, Gur deleted it.

Shortly before midnight, an even longer and more detailed post, entitled “The True Reformer”, followed, helpfully providing such salient details as the name of my current employer. It was clearly the work of a more articulate associate of FUSTB (practically his only friend in the world), who shall remain nameless, mainly because little besides my own spite would be served by identifying him.

I discovered it in the early morning, but the City had been hit by a tornado and Gur could not be reached for several hours. Meanwhile, my head reeling, I deleted all or part of several of Gate’s posts, noting the deletions, and replaced most of Pee Wee’s far angrier posts with the notation they’d been zapped.

Pee Wee was not pleased; “what's up with the censorship?”, he asked Gur angrily.

I wrote my friend the Councilmanic blogger: “I don't know why I let that prick bait me into joining the discussion, and I never intended to get involved, beyond saying it wasn't me–I'm just a loon, I guess”

He responded: “who is the prick…it wasn't FUSTB was it? Is he Pee Wee?”

Was he purposely trying to cheer me up with Stan Laurel type blissful ignorance, or had I reached Mike Nelson by accident. I then responded to FUSTB:

FUSTB’s response, as ever, was less than grateful; probably even less so after Gur deleted several of his posts including the main offender. Gur then took the then unusual step (now a favorite of Rock Hackshaw and Dominic Carter), of closing down the comments.

Gatey had reappeared for (for all intents and purposes) the first time in nearly eight months and caused a furor which closed down posting on a piece which had attracted 90 comments, and the went back into retirement, all in less than 24 hours. Abbie Hoffman would have been proud.

Gatey reappeared in earnest about a month later, before going on another sojourn after a few short months. But Pee Wee was put into semi-retirement, because it was clear I’d lost control of him and he’d taken on an evil life of his own.