Simon Wiesenthal, you’ve got yourself some competition.
Ok, so that’s not true at all. He tries to avenge murders and I entertain myself on the internet. Nevertheless, occasionally even frivolity can rise up to accidentally make the world a better place.
While unlike Al Gore, I did not actually discover the internet for everybody else, I did discover it for myself in 1997. I saw a friend of mine playing on his computer, but it was not a video game. He was appearing in what appeared to be a conversation. In fact, several people were having conversations.
I had never seen a chatroom before. I was fascinated by the fact that people from all over the world could interact with each other.
He asked if I wanted to try it, so I did. I did not know how to set up my own name, so I logged in under his. I just told everybody I was Greg’s friend, and my name was Eric. The people were friendly. One girl named Kyrie9 mentioned something about tennis. That caught my attention, so we started talking about tennis, and then found out we liked 1980s music. At some point we even talked on the telephone. She was a pleasant person. We eventually lost touch, but it was an interesting experience.
I found out that this set up, known as WBS, was under the auspices of Infoseek, which was a Disney owned company. If it was owned by Disney, it had to be wholesome. Of course, this was before one of Infoseek’s top executives, a Mr. Naughton, was arrested for trying to meet a 13 year old girl at the Santa Monica Pier. They met in the “Daddys and Daughters” chatroom. I realized the internet had a downside.
I tried going into a political chatroom. I was bored after 5 minutes. Most of the people were just hurling insults. I could talk politics with my real life friends. Discussing it with strangers seemed pointless. I tried going into a football chatroom, and again, the conversation was boring. In real life I care if my team is better than your team. Online, it seemed bizarre, since I was never going to meet these people.
I was about to declare the internet a failure when I found a room called the “Hot Tub.” Despite the provocative name, it was a mild flirtation room. The people were funny, but what caught my eye was that two people seemed to be more than friendly with each other. It turns out they had met online, then met in real life, and were now engaged to be married.
At that point the light bulb went off. So this is what the internet is for. People can use it to actually meet real life people, and find happiness. Also, some of the guys pointed out to me that even if they did not meet the love of their life, there was always the option of simply having sex. Whatever objections I had to the internet disappeared at that moment.
So yes, the internet was useful, but one night the Hot Tub got flooded. “Flooding” is when somebody repeatedly types messages over and over. It is a form of spamming. Nobody else could type anything. So in an attempt to wait out the flooder, I ducked into the politics chatroom for a few minutes. At that moment, I was stunned to find a couple people spewing antisemitic venom. There were 30 people in the chatroom, and 28 of them were pleasant. The other two were Nazis. While I now realize they were probably just teenagers being provocative, at the time it seemed strange why people would go online just to harass other innocent people.
I made a decision to take these guys down. I would remove the pollution from that chatroom. Yet rather than engage the Nazis directly, I decided to use them as a foil. I talked through them to the rest of the room. Bizarre entertainment was my weapon of choice. I used the socratic method. I have no idea why these questions and answers came in my head, but like Robin Williams, when the Tygrrrr is out of the cage, some warped things happen.
I wanted to know why they had such an unpleasant disposition.
“Why are Nazis always so grouchy? I mean you guys are always ticked off about something. Why can’t you guys just get a burger and a soda, watch a ballgame, and then get a call girl, and just chill out? What is the point of killing off everybody if you can’t even take time to enjoy it?”
Several people found my question amusing, and wondered where I was going with this. I had no idea myself. I then asked the question that allowed me to go off the rails.
“Do any of you Nazis drink Coca Cola? Be honest. Do you drink Coke?”
Both Nazis replied in the affirmative.
“Congratulations! Coke is kosher! It’s certified by a Rabbi and everything! It’s in your bloodstream! You’re Jewish!”
As the Nazis sought to dispute my claim in an angry manner, the rest of the room continued to encourage me, which may or may not have been bad for society at large.
When the Nazis tried to bring up the Fuhrer, I cut them off.
“I know all about Will Furrer. He plays for the Houston Oilers. He played terrible today.”
I then did my best ESPN Sportscaster Chris Berman, as he did his German imitation. “Ze Fuhrer is down. Ze Fuhrer has thrown another interception. Ze Fuhrer has fumbled again. Ze Fuhrer cannot get it together.”
When the Nazis tried to explain that they meant the Reich, I came back again.
“Frank Reich plays for the Buffalo Bills. Fine, he beat the Oilers in 1992, but didn’t get it done in the Superbowl. Ze Reich keeps turning the ball over. Another German dynasty defeated by American Cowboys!”
I started receiving private messages, which was useful because I now knew I could contact girls in the Hot Tub without other people seeing them. Unfortunately, I often forgot to hit the private button, and became “The King of Blown PMs.” As for these private messages, they were telling me I was hilarious, and to keep it up. Yes, my ego had been effectively fed.
“In sports news today, Jews 6000, Nazis 12. Man, you guys got your @sses kicked!”
The Nazis started typing in capital letters, which told me that they were angry. Either that, or they had trouble with the capslock key. As ill mannered as typing in all caps is, I did it for my next comment.
“YOU GUYS COULDN’T EVEN FINISH THE FRENCH IN WORLD WAR II. NOBODY LOSES TO THE FRENCH. YOU GUYS ARE AN EMBARRASSMENT TO KILLERS EVERYWHERE!”
Even Nazis have a line that should not be crossed. Questioning their manhood by bringing up the French set them off. They went ballistic, talking about the Jewish conspiracy. I then let them know in a calmer lower caps voice what they were in for.
“Do you want to know what the real Jewish conspiracy is? It’s when my Jewish friends and I go to Germany and get all your women knocked up so you won’t want to touch them because they’ll be tainted with Jewish blood. Let’s see you try and kill off a civilization when you’re walking around frustrated because you haven’t gotten any in 18 years until the kid leaves college. Come on, admit it, even Nazis need a little Nazi nookie from their favorite German cookie!”
At this point they were stammering. They wanted to spew venom, but seemed taken aback by the approach. Besides, the others in the room were highly entertained. I then decided to take a bold step.
“You know what, you guys are not hateful enough. I don’t think you have what it takes to truly get the job done. I am banning you from the Nazi movement. You will have to find another hate group to join.”
At this point they did respond in a confused way that I could not ban them from their own movement. I let them know how wrong they were.
“The hell I can’t. I’m an all powerful Jew, and as of this minute, you’re banned! You’re no longer Nazis! Now find a group of grouchy people and commiserate with them but you’re done from this movement. If I find out you tried to rejoin the movement I will call my buddy Alan Greenspan to finish off your economy. By the time he is done wrecking your country German cars will be as popular as American VCRs.”
As these mysteries behind keyboards tried to come up with a retort, I added in my final thoughts, an attempt at reconciliation.
“You know something Nazis? You need a hug. There there, that’s a good little Gunther, give us a big one, let it all out.”
They fled the room and did not return.
At that point I pumped my fist in the air and announced “Yes! I am the Nazi hunter of WBS chatrooms! I shall now call Simon Wiesenthal and help them win the battle for good!
I was prepared to make a difference in this world. I would save mankind, and win a Nobel Peace Prize, or instead something useful like gift certificates.
As I thought about getting ready to benefit the world, my heroics were interrupted by a friend telling me about a website called Jdate. It was a Jewish dating website. It was in its infancy, but I took a look and noticed that it was wall to wall female hebrew @ss.
I could have spent time on frivolity, but luckily I understood what was important in life. I had a job to do.
Others would fight the internet wars. I had Hebrew Tang to drink.
eric
“I was prepared to make a difference in this world”
Since I started blogging i think I’ve only changed three minds.
One of them was some punk trying to be provacative just like the ones you mentioned.
Once he got educated on my family and the relationship between Nazis and todays terrorists he apologized and with humility simply said that he had no idea.
I wonder if guys like Weisel and Weisenthal go online and post stuff like this for laughs… hmmm…
The Dead Kennedys had a great song about Nazi Punks. It was virtually inaudible, and nonsensical, but it seemed to get right to the point!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz1sBi0-130
Good times!
JMJ
Jersey.
The Dead Kennedys were a San Fransisco band that wrote music attacking anything connected with Reagan, his administartion , republicans and most conservative stances.
Seeing as how most looney libs ( which they were) like to call cons and repuclicans Nazis , you can probably bet they were bashing the Reagan administartion with this song.
The point is not made clear by any means of clarity in the vocals which took away its ability to make any sense.
So when you say ” nonsensical and inaudible” the only clue is the title and the groups liberal history.
Good times?
It was good times top call good Americans Nazis ?
I think you missed on this one.
“I think you missed on this one.”
No, Micky. I got it. DK was funny. I enjoyed them. Good times. But really, just silliness. You shouldn’t take things so seriously.
JMJ
Silliness is to use the dead kennedys as some kind of relativity in this.
Your point seemed to want to back erics posting about liberal punks who minimize Nazis and the holocaust.
If you’re going to try and be funny at least try to be somewhat accurate.
A lot of punk bands are funny in the sense that they were so stupid it was funny.
if you knew the Kennedys and had as many friends as I did who followed them you wouldnt of said that.
I always figured you were more of a Johnny Mathis/Dixie Chicks/Pearl Jam/ Rage against the machine kinda guy
I love this post. I used to love going into chat rooms to mess with people. I especially loved the age/sex/location question that people were asking to try to hook up. I’d answer something like 70/female/los angeles just to be difficult ’cause you know they were out trolling. I was never as spectacular as Eric in my conversations, but then again, most people didn’t care to converse. They were by and large looking to score which I found laughable, but harmless for the most part.
Speaking of The Dead Kennedy’s, my life has intersected twice with their brief vocalist Brandon Cruz. I guess this was just before he joined the band, he enrolled his kid in Cub Scouts and we were at a training together. One of my friends recognized him from their childhood together and started chatting it up. Last year, I took my daughter to a Halloween party and was hanging out when I saw a guy dressed in leathers with all kinds of really cool buttons so I asked if I could look at them. After a bit we discovered we sorta recognized each other from years before and he told me he used to be the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys. I knew of the band, but not anything they recorded, until I just wiki’d them. I’m hugely fascinated by celebrity so I thought it was cool (at the same party my wife refused to point out an actress I would have recognized because she was afraid I’d just walk over and start talking to her — which is exactly what I would have done). So, who knew someone who was lead singer of such a foul-mouthed, anti-establishment band could be such a cool, supportive dad? Anyway. That’s my brush with a kid star and one-time Kennedys lead singer.
Well, Joshua, Jello (the most famous of their vocalists) ran for president at least once! (He’d of made a better one than what we have now…)
JMJ
“I always figured you were more of a Johnny Mathis/Dixie Chicks/Pearl Jam/ Rage against the machine kinda guy.”
Ewww…
No, I don’t like any of them. When I was growing up, it was Motorhead, Ozzy, Floyd, DK, The Clash, Paul Simon, the Beatles, Billy Joel, Judas Priest – a pretty ecclectic mix. I pretty much have always detested most contemporary pop music, with the exception of only a very few really big stars.
JMJ
“A lot of punk bands are funny in the sense that they were so stupid it was funny.
if you knew the Kennedys and had as many friends as I did who followed them you wouldnt of said that.”
Said what? I thought the Kennedys were hilarious! My first band, Vomit, emulated them. Our songs often had a political bent, but outrageous humor and pushing hot-buttons came first and foremost. Our “Abortion” song was so extremely nasty (I wrote it, too) we had to stop playing it a couple of times. I won’t even get into the rest of that playlist! But people loved it and seemed to usually get the joke. Our tapes are still floating around out there. Once in a while some old friend will pop up and sure enough – “Hey man, I still have a Vomit tape and I still love it!” Then they’ll go on to sing some of the lyrics – “One minute to lift off, three minutes to doom!” (Take a wild guess what that was about!) I’m surprised no one actually tried to kill us!
JMJ
Vomit.
Nuff said.
Our theme song featured a chorus of the three of us making a loud vomiting sound. The song itself extolled the wonders of vomit – as food.
“Just scrape it up off the floor, and put it back on your plate, ’cause people – vomit is good food.”
JMJ
JMJ
Ok Jersey, I am not going to ban you for that remark because technically it is not a rules violation. However, I will strongly request that such topics not be discussed between Noon and 3pm, or between 6pm and 8pm, West Coast time.
I just finished my lunch an hour ago, and would prefer to keep it down.
I am one grossed out moderator.
eric :)
Jersey.
Did you guys ever ask yourselves why you never rose to the top ?
ROTFLMAO!!!!
Sorry Eric. I’ll refrain from further Vomit lyric writing during meal times! LOL!!!
Oh Micky, you said it. After Vomit I created Mass Insanity which was themed as Frank Zappa meets Motorhead – again, not a great path to the top! But then I played in classic rock cover bands, and then finally one last band of my own that was just an ecclectic mix of rock, neo-pagan sorta folk, blues, psychodelia, etc. Finally I wound up as a one man act doing half covers and half my own stuff. Much more mainstream, I suppose. But lyrically I tended to be a little heavy and avoided songs about love and sex (booooooooring). I was never mainstream enough to make it, I suppose, but the crowds used to love me and lots of people in the biz told me that I could have been huge had I just had the drive. But I didn’t. So I quit. I never gigged all that much anyway. It was a pain in the you-know-what and just wasn’t worth the effort. It’s a difficult, and frustratingly sleazy business. That and most musicians are morons.
JMJ
Yea, love songs should be outlawed. Unless its Morrisey singing about double decker buses running over the couple.
But even other genres especially political get boring after a while.
Which is why I was always partial to instrumentals.
I dont want to hear an opnion or feeling. I just want to jam.