Dear Ted,

The only news I consistently get outside TV is the town paper, which hits my doorstep on Thursdays. I tend to glance at the cover page, check the police blotter and see if I recognize some knucklehead. There’s usually not much to savor. A few DUIs, a domestic squabble or two. Maybe once a year somebody gets more ambitious. Hardly enough to warrant a subscription.

But several weeks past, there was one story that talked about how the nearby conservation land was no longer going to be conserved. The location was very desirable, and there was a lot of money at stake. So certain ecological ideals fell from priority, and bulldozers would come in short time. Paragraph five mentioned that one local resident had taken to the World Wide Web and established a blog in effort to thwart the lucrative bulldozing.

This dissenting voice was making a bit of noise. Got in a few quotes deriding men of action with their big, destructive machines, saying that he valued the world of ideas, and that if ideas were not valued at town hall then perhaps cyberspace would prove a viable forum. He then said it was necessary to speak the “rude truth,” and he provided a link to his blog.

Figured I’d check it out. My first joint had been sparked at that conservation land and, aside from the personal attachment, I wanted to see this dissenter throw some cyberspace punches. Well, he came out swinging, I guess. Numerous lines of impassioned text. I was somewhat expecting a more coherent polemical presentation. But perhaps I vulgarize his sentiments, for he clearly was a man of will and, before reaching a conclusion, I chose to consider the posted reactions of my fellow blog-viewers.

First commenter, Hickman601, said that in spite of being at the end stages of terminal illness, he was able to enjoy the blog, and that even if the conservation land gets bulldozed, courageous and noble people such as the blogger have restored his faith in mankind, and that he can die in peace, knowing that the day will come when we overthrow the industrial-capitalist system.

The second commenter, GlanceOfEternity, said that the blogger clearly had the right intent, but that the blog was rather lacking in specific examples about how to thwart the bulldozing, and that it was too much of a grand poetic flight for such a practical matter.

The third commenter, DesEsseintes120, congratulated the blogger on three well-written lines, before stating that the blog was poor in both detail and execution, that the blogger relied on abstractions and generalities to make a case, and, even worse, that the blogger had imported far too much subjective experience and emotion into the blog, and so the result was not a cogent polemic but rather a “sickly sentimental pile of slop” with overtones of “a whiny adolescent on the way to therapy.”

DesEsseintes120 then acknowledged his harshness, but added that “honesty was fundamental to The Cause” and that the blogger should leave high-minded arguments to those qualified and channel his ardent passion into tasks more suited to his capabilities, such as distributing flyers or chaining himself to a moving object with other protesters.

GlanceOfEternity reposted, diagnosing DesEsseintes120 with Apsychotic Grandiosity Disorder combining unspecified symptoms of Persistent Infantile Megalomania and an Idiosyncratic Personality Complex. He added that such strange and histrionically narcissistic characters used to dictate the flow of history but now they’re reduced to roaming the cyber world in unending pursuit of monstrous gratification.

FulfillMa3Holes provided a link to a personal Web page.

The next commenter, BoSox1004, said that he didn’t have a clue what people were talking about on this blog site, but that FulfillMa3Holes’ Web page was exhilarating and that all 3 holes were Fulfilled over and over again.

DesEsseintes120 said that the Web page was indeed stimulating and, furthermore, that it was intellectually superior to the blog he’d previously obliterated and, additionally, that the Web page was a prime example of an individual devoting oneself to a task befitting of one’s capabilities.

GlanceOfEternity said it wasn’t surprising to see that DesEsseintes120 had been checking out smut sites, that DesEsseintes120 clearly suffered from acute sexual starvation, which, combined with immense narcissistic tendencies, made him frantically pursue sadistic thrills in the cyber world, where one can hide behind the monitor and degrade others without fear of consequence.

DesEsseintes120 responded, saying that adeptness at criticism does not make one a sadist, nor does it necessarily translate into sexual starvation, that his life is full of thunderous orgasms, those he feels and those he gives others, that GlanceOfEternity is simply jealous that his critical faculties pale in comparison, that he checked the American Psychological Association’s handbook and there is no such condition as Idiosyncratic Personality Complex, and that, lastly, this blog site and its comments are degrading to his intellect, and so he will head to a more worthwhile venue.

Lyspoon366 posted, “Update: town moving ahead with bulldozing. Link attached.”

FindMyKitty469 posted a Web page link with a postscript: “Does doing this make me a slut?”

Well, Ted, I’m pretty confident about the answer to that question. It’s about as obvious as the fate of the conservation land, or the fate of the anti-bulldozing blog. It’s enough to make one give up, withdraw altogether, kick back, and watch the wild drama unfold as this world stampedes ahead at 20 mhz/sec or whatever the going rate is nowadays.

Still, I haven’t gone completely passive. I take in the scene, analyze my impressions, record my sentiments, and compose letters to an infamous federal inmate. Not completely passive. But I may just be washing my hands of it all when I pass these troubles on to you. What are my expectations? You must get plenty of piss-and-moan letters, keeping you apprised every time another Starbucks opens.

I could tell you about my friend, the hemoglobular entity called Bob, who had reached perfect homeostasis in front of the computer for fourteen hours per day. Forged a new identity on MySpace, and it was going well apparently. “Everyone loves Todd,” Bob told me. Todd was Bob’s creation, a muscle-bound pretty boy from Chicago who scored the winning touchdown in his high school’s state championship—his buddy Steve wrote him a MySpace message about that touchdown. Of course, Steve was also one of Bob’s creations.

In fact, Bob had, in his typical modest and unassuming manner, created twenty-five dummy friends for his original creation, Todd, whose pics he swiped off a European clothing designer Web site.

Todd was respected by the jocks, had an easy way with the ladies, and even had a compassionate side. Bob told me that Todd had decided to start a MySpace anti-animal-cruelty club. It was a noble pursuit, at least that’s what Rachel from New Hampshire said, before sending along five pics of herself, in which she displayed an interesting use of chocolate pudding.

Rachel wasn’t the only Webcam damsel touched by Todd’s benevolence, and Bob was getting so many pictures that he had to create a dozen new Web mail addresses, one for each imaginary touchdown Todd scored during senior year.

But Bob wouldn’t allow Todd to rely completely on past glory. My friend decided that Todd should have some sort of career ambition. So he equipped him with some sort of number-crunching gig in Chi-town’s business district.

It seemed healthy enough that Bob wanted Todd to have some ambition. But when I suggested that perhaps Todd should have a hobby or two, Bob dismissed that notion with a partial shrug and told me that Todd was fine just the way he was, and that I wasn’t one to be giving life advice.

Bob had a point. And thanks to Touchdown Todd, he also had a vast and diverse collection of photographed tits, clits, labia, and, well, pretty much every millimeter of the female exterior and a good amount of the interior.

However, there was no way the bliss could be maintained forever, and it came as no shock when Bob said that he’d opened one photo attachment too many, that one of Todd’s MySpace sweeties wasn’t as pure as she’d seemed, that she’d sent along one bastard of a virus, that it scorched his hard drive and obliterated two gigabytes of fraudulently procured amateur smut.

I pointed out that Todd could easily rake in another two gigabytes worth. Bob agreed but said that Todd’s glorious run had met an end, and that Todd himself had met an end. Bob added that he’d printed out enough pics to open an erotic art gallery and, besides, it took too much damn effort to sustain the existence of Todd and his dummy MySpace friends.

Bob said with all that effort he might as well find some lousy job, that a job wouldn’t take nearly as much dedication as his recent MySpace antics. In fact, he’d decided that he should follow in Todd’s business-district footsteps. So he’d cranked out a résumé and smeared it all over a bunch of career-oriented Web sites.

Bob still logged on to MySpace, but only under his usual dummy profile, which had no pictures or friends and was used exclusively to access other profiles of certain individuals on whom Bob wanted to keep tabs.

I snooped around on Bob’s dummy profile. Tracked down some old high school peers. One girl from my tenth-grade social studies class was now proclaiming a change in lifestyle, and her profile included numerous images which sure seemed to support that proclamation. Some quiet dude from study hall was now in a hardcore death-metal band. There was a picture of him lighting a teddy bear ablaze next to a giant amplifier.

Seemed like everyone was doing the MySpace thing. And so I’m tempted to set up a profile, actually two profiles, both of them for you, Ted. One profile for your current Supermax location, and then the nostalgic Lincoln, Montana, profile.

Naturally, I feel hesitant about such an endeavor. I want to make it clear right now, Ted, that I’m not trying to control you. Nor do I wish to further pervert your infamous name. It’s just that you’d seem less captive if your profile was out there, circulating through cyberspace, showing up on some teenybopper’s monitor.

On the face of it, one could see you being violently opposed to MySpace, for it seems to represent the epitome of our hyper-tech cultural wasteland. However, one could argue that your presence is all the more strongly needed in such a milieu. And perhaps the sheer irony of Teddy K on MySpace would serve to draw interest, and a onetime virulent anti-tech backwoods hermit could make acquaintance with the whole Internet generation.

Might be worth a shot, Ted. It’s not like it could fail any worse than that pro-conservation blog, to which I returned, only to find that the blogger had begun posting environmentalist poetry:

“To the Man in the Bulldozer”

Whose land this is I know no longer.
The hand I hold, it makes me stronger.
The words within me grow like trees.
How can you cut them at their knees?

Little rabbits gallivant through flowers.
As bigger rabbits flex their powers.
I look outside and count the hours.
While birds fly across the sun.

May the seasons never end.
All these reasons to defend.
Will the strong tree ever bend
Before the chosen one?

The blogger stated that his poem was copyrighted. And then he promised more verse in the near future.

Ted, I can’t bear to look anymore.

The perversion I can handle. Same with the pissing contests. But poetry?