oh how I hate editing posts, so let's do it together

One night while watching television into the wee hours of the morning, Storch saw an ad for something called the "Foul Maker." The Foul Maker was a small, hand-held electronic device that, when squeezed, produced a loud and convincing slap sound. Just as Storch was ready to change the channel, the ad suddenly became entertaining. He watched as third-rate actors employed to advertise the virtues of this new product unwittingly advertised their lack of acting ability at the same time, further decreasing their chances of getting any phone calls for any real acting jobs.

Nevertheless, they played out a scene in which a woman in a bar is forced to fend off the aggressive advances of a decidedly objectionable character who just won't take no for an answer. Unable to deflect his advances, she looks around, making sure no one is looking, at which time she reaches into her purse and gives the Foul Maker a couple of quick squeezes and then lets out a faint little scream as she falls to the floor, holding her cheek.

The bar suddenly becomes silent. The scene then shifts away from the woman on the floor and onto the rest of the patrons who've all stopped what they're doing to take in the scene of a woman on the floor holding her cheek, and a man looking all confused and innocent-like right after the sound of a slap. The scene doesn't sit well with the crowd, their initial looks of shock quickly replaced by looks of contempt. Bingo! Guy problem solved.

In the next scene, an upset varsity basketball player is hopelessly pleading with a referee who has called a foul on him. Then the camera zooms in on the smirk on the face of the kid whom he had allegedly fouled as he swaggars his way to the free-throw line. Then the camera zooms in on his left hand as he slips the tiny device inside the front of his jock strap (never buy a used one of these). The commercial ends with the kid making both free-throws, and the kid who didn't foul him sitting on the bench looking scorned and dejected.

Storch thought about how the Foul Maker might benefit someone like himself. He figured he could use it to justify busting someone's head by learning to synchronize the slapping sound with his head snapping back; a sort of false flag operation opening the door to all kinds of retaliation.

As a promotional sales gimmick, the first thousand callers would receive their Foul Maker free of charge; all they had to do was pay the shipping and handling fee of $9.95. Hmmm . . .

Just as an aside, my little brother once asked me what the difference was between a regular foul and a personal foul. I told him that if the foul looked a little rougher than it should have been, the referee will ask the fouled player if he thinks it was personal or not--since he would know better than anyone else. He said, "Oh, ok."

Little brothers--they're great!

 

("...amazingly, this is one of the forums that I had least expectation of being accompanied upon, and look at it now, real depth and fun to read too..." went the goblin)

repost from elsewhere, lying, it's from here then

"...one of your best post yet..." replied the goblin, adding "...guess I'm a heretic then, simply the gospel to thomas tells me to go it alone then, where the church would rather have me do its rituals instead, yet whatever it is, it is within one, where obviously one can't go externally towards that which is inside now...", in fact, whenever the goblin found himself upon the christian forum the one bit of the gospel of thomas that he never quoted was the one the understood from within 14. Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits. , where self-denial in the place of moderation is just an indulgence, where to pray for something is not to trust, and where charity denies dignity meaning that the system needs changing instead, smiling "...not that I'd ever voice that to their faces now, so no, I'm on my own in this, for this gnostic goblin just knows what he doesn't know without their preconditions here, little wonder why the gospel was rejected by the church then where today the moneychangers and the pharisees have openly set up shop again, but one's journey to self is nothing other than one's journey to death, and as such is not something one does or doesn't believe in as it's just one's reality anyway, yes sometimes I forget that I'm actually a passerby here...", where most people didn't remember that of themselves, no they lived as if tomorrow was promised to them

 

Sometimes it seemed to Storch that, were it not for the songs on the radio providing the background music to his life, he would not know who he is, nor at what point the needle now rode upon the record of the song of his life, nor if the record of the song of his life would turn out to be a 45rpm single, or a 78rpm LP. Who can know? Songs provided reference points for every occasion in his life like time-markers. Storch noted that the goblin was correct when he spoke of childhood as being perhaps less than the wonder years, and he found himself in the grip of a memory because of a song on the radio.

He remembered something (a poem, sort of) which he had written after becoming stable enough in his life to provide himself with a place to put his pad of paper on. Going over it in his mind, he was saddened to find that he had forgotten most of it. He was even more saddened to find that he could recall of it what he could.

Those were the cold and dark wet nights when the sky wouldn't spare one twinkle of light for me who in the darker hours called out for relief of pain of chill and weary legs that had no place to go in the cold of late October. Sometimes laid my head on ground (I kept a sleeping-bag in a garbage bag hidden in the woods) in the safety of the woods though cold, while clouds were passing by the moon, then disappear to be replaced, to disappear, and be replaced, until the moon would take its turn to disappear, and I alone would cry out loud: cannot a soul be trusted? Surely looked like rain, and how I prayed it not be so, for I would maybe die . . . again . . . but this the final form . . . ? . . . Drink me, you said, I'll make you strong, to bear the pain of all their wrong. Drink me, you said, and soon you'll see, you won't need them, you'll cherish me. Twas true, for just the price of a shirt, I was talking and laughing away at the hurt . . . ?

What a fu--frickin' time that was!

 

Storch didn't like using the word "fricking." Everyone knew that everyone knew that it was a substitute for the "other" word. He felt that anyone who used the word "fricking" was unwittingly exposing themselves one as the kind of person who would use a make-shift, grammatical loophole to get as close to the word "fuck" as decency would allow. That's what he said to his semi-estranged sister Gloria after hearing her use the word frick in front of her children; the same children she didn't want hearing such things as vuck and esshole and vitch.

"That's not the same at all," Gloria said, her eyes darting downward in the way that all liars' eyes do when they know they're telling a lie.

"How is it different?" Storch asked, smelling blood.
"You gotta go!" said Gloria in a scolding, motherly tone.
He wanted to say: Frick off and go frick yourself you . . . frickin' fricker! But there were children to think about . . . eventually.

 

Dejavu loved these words of his friends, and was ashamed that he was thinking of getting some sleep. It wasn't as though he was fixin' to die, he reassured himself. He wanted to reply with various stories from his past, and glimpses into where he happened to be right now at this time of livewriting into the slot at this point, well that point, and there it was gone already, he yawned. There were too many things he wanted all at once just then in this moment to be able to reply with the stability he was after. Included being things 'technically' outside a reply in here, like a record, or the night air... The slavish idea of tomorrow as promised seemed its own great gulf of a yawn in reply to his own. It mocked the slot though, that was something to be thankful for, he supposed, sleepily. Well, goodnight! He said. This is unlike me, but I trust we can laugh about it in the morning! Trusting that he would wake up, not because he was going to bed, but well, you know! Dejavu, stay in the third person, fool! I am I am, said Dejavu too...er, also, ...um, one sheep, two sleep, free seeeeeeeee.....fuck, it's got me now! zzzzz

;-D

 

repost from elsewhere, about his late father again while he was still there

the goblin had appreciated the replies, as if knowing that his mind, and thus his posts too, would most probably oscillate between some reflective depth and some shallow escape, much like how any prisoner of circumstance would react here he imagined, saying "...well at least with cancer it's like some dark angel with a calling card who announces her dues and then takes her tithes, where by comparison strokes are almost malicious in their suddenness, so death gives what remains of life it's beauty by it..."


45

 

repost from the same British "last post" thread

the goblin just looked back over the ransom note, reading

and yet somehow the goblin wondered if the members of this forum really had that much money amongst them


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Dejavu rose, surveyed his last post and thought about editing it out of existence, but not for long. Even if no-one but he had read it, it was past posting in having been posted. Not even an unposting, its surrogation via a full stop could change that now. But who on earth needs to know that I rest myself upon it? He continued. Of what account is the posthumous to me? He asked, in his best approximation of a tallymans tone. He was much too much himself to find even the finest sliver of solace in the idea of it. If he was to be forced to take on consolations and comforts, he wanted them in the form of knowing. However direct. Self and death synonymous by journeying? By way of reality? Ridiculous, he snorted, casting an imperious glance upon the rubble of his repose. He had a motion picture to take part in today, and Storch was going to do some directing as well. He had not yet produced his promised piece he was going to call home, but he was sure he'd be able to wing it. He hoped there wouldn't be any kissing scenes, only because there didn't seem to be any girls about, and he was sure he'd be thought mad seen kissing the sky. Already he'd written too much, so he sat down and put up his hand to say that it was actually the goblin who did that.

 

("...love the posts I'm reading here..." went the goblin editing on)

repost from elsewhere, reply to someone who had started posting/corresponding for real on the "last post" thread

"...thanks..." replied the goblin, continuing "...so just think of this thread as yours now between us, just your chance to post anything you like and to win by it too, but that win is against yourself and is ever short lived as there can only ever be one last post by you where one is not what one has published elsewhere or posted before, for one isn't one's past here, an excuse to keep posting on then, but don't get bogged down by trying to tag the last place each time, for it isn't how often one wins here that really wins one anything very much, no it's more like one wins out of this venture that which one puts into it, as it develops one's posting style while showing you who you are by what you post too, giving you a benchmark to go upon for only you know when your posting to your benchmark as oppose to mere tagging..." ventured the goblin who neither tagged nor stopped, saying "...same for me then, remember that a livewriter is only ever one present post away from becoming some poster in the past..."


45

 

repost from "storytime" thread

although their silence was never asked for, it just seemed given to this unfolding moment as each monk resigned himself to his own thoughts on this, their last cold rain swept winter's morning together, how it was to them as if God himself had drawn some curtain of drizzling cloud tight around their solitary boats as they now rowed out against that short time left to them to reach the center of the lake, before they, and more importantly those three bells, had to perform that final act of defiance towards that lord protector and his roundheads, "...oh yes, the mind's eyes sees them still..." said the goblin now looking across the lake on towards the ruined abbey in the background, adding "...writer's see ghosts in everything...", as the abbot signaled, and the monks lifted the boards up letting slip the heavy bells into the murky cold water that fast swallowed them into its dark depths below, the goblin's vision just followed the anguish of the scene through those ever repeating moments again and again


46

 

repost from elsewhere

the goblin knew that, much like all those stars in the night's sky, there must be thousands upon thousands of forums out there now, saying "...so perhaps, this journey to self across forumland now, becomes as infinite inwards of oneself as forumland is outwards to oneself, only that, in either direction then, it was ever onwards in both directions now...", yet the goblin who in this practice of facing the slot each day and in exacting his opinion to himself by it, guessed it would slowly separate those who just wanted to be happy in their lives from those who would become aware by it, saying "...and perhaps the only reward in the end is an unhappy awareness of one's true reality, but even so, at least I'm grateful to have even viewed it rather than have been happy and ignorant instead...


47

 

Dejavu knew that the chase after happiness was not always accompanied by ignorance. He was saddened, only at the possibility, that life could extend its great why into celebration and not find a laughing reply. Consequently, he was delighted. If forumland was truly dividing us, he reasoned, it could really only result in uniting us in light of the stars. For as novel and educative, and also as pleasantly simple and even desirable as it was to communicate from our caves, he advanced, we were too far gone a poem not to want ourselves in the flesh... he trailed off, peering as deeply as he could into just how far we had come, and never gone - into how it needn't come to a case for remaining, for staying on, for survival against the odds of lifes evening. That living was as open as it had ever been. That the surface we crave was to be gained by fathoming our depths and not only setting sail in direction after direction...

 

repost from elsewhere

the goblin tried to welcome all the new members here, saying "...if someone ever asks me what I want from them, I ask them to be selfish, for if they don't become selfish, their being selfless will be unsustainable in the long run, moreover no one will see who they really are by what they post either...", the goblin paused, sipped his coffee once more, and then continued thinking reminded of a line he once wrote, whereupon he voiced it again to himself, muttering "...so now, don't you want to see who you are by what you post then, just who is reflected by it too..."


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repost from somewhere else again

the goblin thanked the poster, saying "...actually, looking at the number of notifications in my inbox this is one of my quieter threads, unintentionally resembling a blog perhaps but at least serving the purpose of a place to edit posts where those busier threads elsewhere tend to be more for the rapport between posters...", just that the goblin took advantage of either busy or quiet threads, continuing "...anyway, turning back to your question of the difference between book-writing and livewriting, well, for me it is mostly something to do with the audience contact here, that makes this much more like the live theater viewing with actors in front of one as opposed to recorded cinema viewing where they aren't, punch and judy if you like, but don't underestimate forumland for its infancy, in that for each new reader of any book there are perhaps hundreds if not thousands of posters who turn up on forumland as readers/writers in their own right, so looking at it like this then, I've probably got more direct feedback, if not the readership too, of someone with a published book now, albeit one where my being anonymous frees me from even caring about it, so no, the real question is if you agree with my observations here are you going to become known by your posts too, where the playing field is both even an open to all upon forumland, and where only the conviction and stamina holds you back..."


46

 

It appears that one of my posts has been removed (the one about listening to Montego Bay, cigars, Ice Cubes, and such.

I need t see that back up . . .

 

("...repost it then Storch..." advised the goblin, adding "...though if it gets pulled a second time, I'll send you a PM of some forums where you can post upon without hindrance, yet I'd prefer to do the livewriting here as it benefits the forum by way of added readership, me I'm anonymous, I was never really here anyway...")

repost from elsewhere,

really the goblin had no right to advise now, his empty coffee still sat stark in the saucer on a day that had just led one way or another to this moment again, another session in the bistro to avoid the stalking cold outside, "...ah but I can help this human to write here slot, I know forumland well, and this human is good, just that he's still thinking in terms of that book-writing in a declining market, completely ignoring you slot...", the slot looked hard at the goblin now but the goblin just continued "...you see, for every one person who starts reading that book, there must be hundreds, if not thousands of people who turn up on forumland here as reader/writers in their own right, but two things become very clear now, one, that this is livewriting, not book-writing, and two, that one is up against the superficiality of facebook here, so it's no pushover either...", "...more coffee goblin, I would like one then if I may..." suggested the slot as the goblin signaled the waitress, continuing "...slot, what if the author and his work were as inseparable as the post is to its poster, where few of those book-writing rules actually worked with posts anyway, wouldn't that somehow give today's writer a new challenge here, not to mention a certain freedom too, not how to build up passive readership like before but actually how to build up an active replyship in posts instead...", then the coffee came where somehow the cool draft that drifted in through the occasionally open door from that bright frozen street outside, somehow conflicted with the dark coffee's bitter warmth that seemed to kick the goblin ever further into this conjecture here, continuing "...for example slot, I know all this posting forms some a plot of sorts, where, as I've said before, one's persona is one's posts where one is feeding here to be fed back, letting the thread evolve itself as one posts along it..., ...", at which point the slot just broke in, smiled, and remarked "...ah no, in fact, none of this has any point whatsoever goblin, but if there really is that plot you mention now, I guess it's one where you're out to prove me wrong I suppose, and to feed me in the process, well while you still can that is...", and with that the cold outside seemed colder still


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Post three hundred and fifty four, said Dejavu to Storch, it's still there, he added, knowing without saying, and writing instead, that a post is never quite where we left it, that is if we are looking for it in the first place. Being one of a relative few that knew there wasn't a first place, let alone a last, he often felt like a rogue agent, always coming in from the cold, and only coming in, but things were never quite as complicated as we make them out to be, that, or their complexity is quite beyond us. Things. Our chief interest is in being, er, beings, declared Dejavu authoritatively. Selfishness has always become us, and that being is a thing, and that interest in things is our means to being, never yet got in the way of our presiding involvement, or caused love to lapse altogether. He wanted to go on to say that it never would either, but he understood well the shortfall of attributing to the future what could only seem a fiction in its evolution. All nevers were like this, he laughed, hurrying to add in a whisper to himself that his own wasn't. Not sure if anyone was now following him except his own shadow, he stopped, and made to hit the reply button. The slot may be insatiable, he said, but it was never as impudent as it made itself out to be in the white expanse of its emptiness. He almost felt tender towards it as he watched it swallow his words whole.

 

Dejavu was right. Storch wanted to thank him for caring enough to say something, and so he did!

Storch had forgotten that he had posted it just before the post containing the letter of warning to Mr. Rick Ceath about his unintelligent choice to let Bonnie and Lisa in on his involvement in insurance fraud, running an illegal loans operation, and bugging and video taping people in various compromising positions in order to gain leverage in the acquisition of whatever he believes will fill that big empty hole he has in the middle of him.

Mr. Ceath was exhibitting symptoms of denial--denial of the fact that Bonnie had indeed told Storch all of the sordid details of his activities, and that Storch certainly did hold all of the cards. Storch decided that he would take the time to write a letter to the authorities explaining as well as he could the whole story of Mr. Ceath's blackmailing of Bonnie to enforce her silence concerning his firey past. Mr. Ceath's mistake was in believing that Storch is opposed to Bonnie and Lisa being intensely questioned by police and detectives. Storch was well aware of the fact that both women would sing like threatened song-birds when made to feel vulnerable. He would write the letter, and then he would wait for the trigger, knowing that Mr. Ceath's sociopathic nature would not allow him to do otherwise but stick his hand in the trap.

 

("...glad you're talking your posting selves seriously now, I'm getting real reads out of it..." went the grateful goblin)

repost from elsewhere

the goblin thanked the poster, replying "...and how right you are in what you say, simply, all that one can really know for sure about anyone else here is that there is someone else here, the rest I just accept as their persona quite unable to prove anything about them, ah, but of myself it's different, for I can know myself far more by posting about any one of those same things you mentioned there...", in fact, if there were actual obstacles, to this knowing then, the goblin felt that they had to be either, thinking one hadn't any time to commit one's thoughts to the slot, or that one already knew everything anyway, simply either no time or not important then, "...ah but doesn't caving in to those two obstacles then lead to a rushed superficial way of life without due reflection upon it..." mentioned the goblin who often came across those types in dailylife, continuing "...simply, it's rather like the public safety code where one is advised to wear reflective clothing in the dark to become visible to passing cars, and where the same type of advice holds good on forumland too, in that one posts something reflective to become visible to oneself in this passing life..."


46

 

Storch found humor in the fact that it had not once crossed the underdeveloped minds of Mr. Ceath, Lisa, or Bonnie that Storch had the goods on all of them. Neither Mr. Ceath nor Lisa had anticipated that Storch not only had the goods on Bonnie, but that he also used Bonnie's fear of those "goods" being made public as leverage to extract from her everything necessary to perform the game-ending move on all of them. This would result in the removal of Mr. Ceath's king from the larger board, and the replacement of it onto a much smaller board where all the players are no more interested in the rules of ettiquette than he is. Storch viewed Mr. Ceath as one who had never considered that there are some places where size absofuckinglutely matters in all ways!!