We, The Internet

"A marketplace has emerged where shame is a commodity and public humiliation an industry" - Monica Lewinsky

*

As those who know me (and that one person who reads me here) will attest, I started this blog two years ago, in an effort to reclaim and restore the health of my name ...

Today, if you search me by name online -- Google or otherwise, the name "Jeff Glovsky" -- you may be confused, a little bit ...

but you won't be alarmed.

You won't be "advised" or "warned" about me.  It won't be opined that I'm a "fraud" or running a "scam" ... egregiously reported I've 'changed my name' or "disappeared" (?, ?! and ??).

Instead, you'll see what I do, where I am and who ... What I think about you, if you try to exploit the professional, then needlessly public, resultingly personal failure in my life five years ago;

if you try to cash in on that, as some have, without even knowing me, let alone knowing the full and accurate picture back in 2010, or the context of public accusations and their actual circumstances ... Instead, just piling on hysterically, flailing in response to the damaging, (thus far) permanent online "yelps" which remain -- those few that I haven't (yet) been able to remove from the internet -- you'll end up frustrated.  And/or legally thwarted.

As some have.

There is nothing that's worse than the fears, paranoias, mistrusts and mistakes that the internet, in its ease-of-use ubiquitousness and far-flung global reach, can breed.  The righteousness, the indignations, Schadenfreude and misplaced anger it creates ... the fanning of flames, the men and women it blames ...

The damages that YOU -- "the internet" -- can too easily cause.

In some cases (too many!), your harshing and judging and chiding and "owning" ... Your relentless attacking, name-calling, abusing if you feel aggrieved or inconvenienced, or because things can't be "instant" and you're impatient ... or just.because. ... can end in tragedy.

In my case, after several years of shell-shock subsided and I was finally able to rise from the dead and fight back -- in part, by calling out new aggressors while unequivocally identifying crimes of theft of reputation -- I find, in my favor, I'm not alone.

Online shaming by kangaroo court is increasingly recognized as the bullying and intimidation that it is ... and every website that provides a one-sided, unbalanced, often unmoderated public forum for such ranting and venting:  opinions, "reviews" or accusations without verification -- guilt before innocence -- should be taken down.

Just as we -- "the internet" -- are for some reason required to "opt out" of things, as opposed to being asked to opt in ...

We, The Internet, have got everything else wrong also.  Nobody should be required to "sign up" to view a website. Nobody should need to use Facebook for "verification".  Nobody should ever accept being charged -- sorry, "authorized" -- on a credit card before making a purchase ...

And nobody should ever be blindsided online ... harassed and insulted, and forced to "fight back".

The public displays can be embarrassing.

*

“Well Hung”, ©Jeff Glovsky

Postcard(s) at Night

"To mourn a mischief that is past and gone

is the next way to draw new mischief on" - Mr. Shakespeare

*

Recently, for the first time in nearly five years ... Why, since literally being run out of town back in '10 ... I spent an enjoyable extended stay in Miami.

Miami ... Where a young(ish) man's dreams turned to ash, along with the molt of his reputation.

Miami!  Death of name and pride ... The violent starvation of anything lovely, the horror of shame-given life, told to hide ...

Made to feel horrendous.  A loser inside.

Watch the wife feed the loser ... half-believing the lies ...

Having nowhere to turn, or herself run and hide, she can only reluctantly flail and pile on; not wanting to feel her love for The Loser, she can only hold tight to her furies, resentments and 20-year grudges, and dredging these up to protect herself when she feels the way she's supposed to feel:  in love and supportive, not wanting to harm ...

Not wanting to wound him and kill anymore than he's already crippled and dying inside ... her defense is to do exactly that:  wound and kill, any love she feels might be alive still.

Protecting herself, because Loser's disabled ...

“Gone Skyline (Night)”, ©Jeff Glovsky

Cos and Effect

Bill Cosby knew ...

Back in the day, on early stages, he would regale groovy audiences with tales of making girls like "Crazy Mary" go, "lhaaaahhhh", by slipping them some Spanish Fly.

Psychologically speaking, in that 3-minute comedy bit, are an analyst's wet dream ... a cornucopia of clues to the planting of seeds, and behaviors formed.

(He) has done this before.  In the past, he has probably even got some; like a dog that's been trained, poor cat just keeps on sniffing ...

No one else back then, back in the "innocent" yet heady days of drug overuse and casual sex, and the anecdotal public airings of pecadilloes by certain "underground", counter-culture and/or simply "Youth", as opposed to "Establishment" (established), voices ... was doing bits about Spanish Fly:  an alleged aphrodisiac, ancient Molly, if you will, which used to be advertised in the back of the "men's magazines" I would furtively jerk to ... but sadly, can actually lead to meloid poisoning, among other unpleasantness, in both women and men.

Still, some twenty years after the routine debuted, there was Bill Cosby again, baring soul and airing laundry, in the guise of publicity for his 1991 book, "Childhood".  Transcript from an interview with Larry King:

BILL COSBY: Spanish Fly was the thing that all boys from age 11 on up to death — We will still be searching for Spanish Fly.

LARRY KING: [laughs] That’s right.

COSBY: And what was the old- The old story was, if you took a little drop — It was on the head of a-

KING: Pin.

COSBY: -pin! And you put it in a drink-

KING: That’s right. Drop it in her Coca-cola — It don’t matter.

COSBY: It doesn’t make any difference. And the girl would drink it and-

KING: And she’s yours (emphasis mine).

If liquor's indeed quicker, as I've sometimes known it is ...

Writers write about what they know.  The basis of comedy is reality; there's truth in humor.

Bill Cosby knew.  And maybe he's been trying to let us know ... about patterns established.

Behaviors formed.

Is it ... ?

Out of Whack

The guy who's following me online, reached out via email last week and asked me (no doubt derisively) how in the world I can have 1600+ tweets but only 31 followers on Twitter?

He actually inserted three (3) question marks at the end, and capitalized the word 'how' ... Apparently needing to know, indeed, HOW I could possibly have more than 1600 tweets??? - but only a proportionately tiny handful of people giving a shit.

I told him -- my online "fan" -- that I wasn't doing this to be "liked"; that I had an agenda, and at the end of the day, I am and have been achieving my goals.  True, it seems I have more social networks online than actual "followers" ... and some of these networks are entirely useless.

Don't care.

Google my name now, the name, Jeff Glovsky.  What you "stumbleupon" today is 1000% times cleaner, more accurate a reflection, more truthful and balanced, than even six months ago.  Yes, I still suck in some quarters ... and in the fevered imaginings of the guy who bumped into me in New York a few weeks ago and hissed in my face, "you fucking scumbag" (This actually happened) ... in front of not only my family, but the Starbucks barrista I was trying to make eyes with!

Or a guy in Miami ... who never previously met me, but felt compelled when he did, after sussing me out from a photo somewhere, to make challenging, instigatory remarks to my face ... alternately and insultingly laughing in it with his girlfriend, as I picked up my dry cleaning one day with my wife.

Fortunately, such disgusting, and vaguely unhinged, public incidents are few and far between.  In the former example, I hope and pray this guy remains unarmed ... Is it any wonder my "tweets" are geschützt?!

But 1600+ tweets ... Indeed, HOW and why?

Because I have photography and writing streaming on Twitter:  I have "allowed" the "app" to post on my behalf ... so whenever I do something on WordPress or Tumblr, it's automatically "shared" with that guy who's following me.

But why so few followers?

Because, why so MANY?  What is the point of having '500+', or random "likes", or like, @GayBatman trying to like me??  Or Hot Lonely Girls, beating down my door?  Man, I've got my own stories.

And is this even real???:

purveyor of (smash)words

 * * *

The 'real' Jeff Glovsky

vrwDown

I Suck(ed)

Over the past year and a half or so, I have battled to bolster my internet search score and, more importantly, my name and online reputation.

I have succeeded in removing from the internet certain unnecessary, certainly unwarranted "warnings" about me personally ... Offensive digs, insulting lies about "Jeff Glovsky", the person (as opposed to the registered, licensed business which the person happened to own once in Miami, Florida, and which failed).

Yet over the past several weeks, I (the person ... the 'real' Jeff Glovsky) have lost ground to a particularly nasty bear of a website ... a disgusting online purgatory, where the abused stand permanently defamed and damaged, having no control whatsoever over libelous, one-sided or downright false information dumped there by angry, aggrieved-feeling, perceived slight sufferers, who might be having a pissy day.

They might also have valid, justifiable complaints ... but once they take their concerns destructively, personally and permanently public, there is, or should be, no further discussion with them.  There is certainly no need for the extortionate "arbitration" offered so generously by our gracious(ly cackling), purgatorial hosts ...

The seeds of damage incited and encouraged to be planted, have already turned to cement and been fanned!

But despite this ground recently lost in my battle -- instead, keeping in line with the overall, more or less V-shaped march of my campaign at large -- one such terrible online dumping ground, another place for the frustrated to attack and call names under the pretense of providing the world with "reviews", is now offline.

The "Vacation Rentals Watchdog" website (vrwd) and its unattended, unmoderated space to trash and malign individuals and businesses, is down.  Hopefully for good.

Good riddance.

I want to believe I had something to do with this, by contacting the legal team of that website's hosting service, and pointing out that the horrible joke of a site was not providing a "consumer service" to anybody at all, but rather, it was quite literally, an unattended, unmoderated space to trash and malign ... and if the contact information provided at the site, as well as the website's registrant, were BOTH unresponsive, then there must be a Terms of Service violation somewhere, regarding compliance.

Apparently, there was.

V R W D

R.I.P.

A Year in Review

If you've searched me by name ... chances are you've wound up here. - Jeff Glovsky, "What's in a Name?", June 26th, 2013

Sometimes when I wake, sometimes in the dead of night, I ask myself, "Am I better off now than I was last year?"

This has been going on for decades.

I remember turning twenty, and bemoaning the fact that my teen years were behind me ... literally feeling "old".  At twenty!  But asking myself then, as I toiled backstage at a Rhode Island summer theater, Am I better off now than I was the previous summer, lifeguarding at a camp in the Berkshires ... sleeping with insects and rocking an orange tan?

Though the jury in my head is still out on that one ... I will say that the summer I spent doing theater nonsense did introduce me, through a production of Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, to a lifelong significant other in jazz.  Oh, would that I could play something!  The day (or night) I wake up and think to myself, Last year, I couldn't play an instrument ... is the day I'll relax, maybe stop assessing.

Or when it no longer needs to be a question.  When the current of my life, and each 365 days prior, in particular, are clearly moving forward, and not laterally (or back!) -- so I don't need to ask myself, "Am I better off now than I was last year?" --

Then I'll have achieved something.

In the meantime, I'll just keep obsessing ...

Last year, in 2013, I finally woke up from a 3-year coma.  In 2010, my name and reputation were destroyed ... maliciously, I'll maintain.  Needlessly.  Prematurely.  Criminally; for defamation -- calumny, vilification, traducement, libel, blasphemous slander -- is a crime.  If I'd known then how to protect myself from it happening ... with just the press of an "Enter" key:  with NO form of outreach, fact-checking or "rebuttal" offered until AFTER the damages already get done ... I would not have kept silent, shell-shocked from the bullying ... comatose, bent over and raped for three years.

I would not have played dead, "hiding" in plain sight, while my name and reputation, friends and lovers, innocent family members suffered, then became destroyed and flat-lined like I pretended to ...

No, I would've risen and fought back, then.

In 2013, I started fighting back now.  Enough became more than enough, and to all the bandwagon jumpers, lazy strangers, simple googlers, problem tenants and out and out troublemakers who think asshole behaviors are somehow justified ... despite never even meeting me, let alone knowing what the situation may have been in 2010, and what you're talking about when you add insult to injury; when you reject, refuse, deny and/or extort out of hand, 'cause you think you can ...

"WANTED" ... Really?

Fuck you.  That's all I have to say to you, still.  Can't express myself differently than I've already done here, and here and here and here, over the past year ... Even flailing, coming close to admitting defeat, I am resolved to keep fighting, providing some balance.

... There are others, though.  Those of you who know me, and have known me, for many years.  Have done business with me, again and again.  Have entered into new business ... Have worked with me at Tier 1 financial institutions (where, obviously, I never would be if I were a "lifetime criminal and scam artist!" END QUOTE).

There are those of you who have chosen to be / stay connected ... Have rented apartments I own without incident, have swapped apartments, wholly and mutually on trust.

There are website owners who are not extortionate; there are people of reason, who have recognized the foulness and long-lasting damages of a false and defamatory online attack, and taken steps to help me restore my name - the name "Jeff Glovsky".

To all of you, I say Thank you.  Though to be honest, I shouldn't need to run around thanking people (however sincerely appreciated they may be) ... for doing their jobs, or not publicly defaming me!  To paraphrase Chris Rock, that's what's SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!!

If you're on the fence through all this, or have no idea what to think ... after all, you don't know me.  Why should you think anything?  You've only 'stumbledupon' this post and might think I'm some wack job -- assuming you've even read this far --

I invite you to know me ...

The 'real' Jeff Glovsky

* * *

Down, Back Up Again

On Defamation and Rushes to Judgement

by Jeff Glovsky

Heat Interlude

"(H)e that filches from me my good name ...

makes me poor." - William Shakespeare

After restless slumber the night before, you bound from your bed like a Christmas child and run off to the bank ... Anticipating, hoping to rip and tear open the gift of my "ripoff", my "scam", my "scheme".

I've written you a check.  But guess what?  It cleared.

I'm sorry!  

I didn't mean to dash your dreams.  Eliminate your expectations.  Yank the ground from underneath your threats and sweats and trepidations ... Your accusations.  Baseless noise, about having to take "a legal recourse" (of course, you "don't want to" ... Understood, sir!).

I'm sorry ...

I didn't mean to end your intrigues!  At 8:32 am, at the bank ... Waiting, hoping to be apprised of "insufficient funds" to take your fun against me to the next level.  The phone call:  "advising", chiding, deriding, detailing the things you "really don't want to" do, but WILL DO (you yell), because I 'leave you no choice'.

I'm sorry?

What time will you be at the bank, Jeff?!

I don't know the hour, sir!  But your check will clear today after I get there.  OR you may simply deposit my check and you'll have no issues.  I'm sorry you've got issues now ...

My check has cleared, sir.  I'm done with you.

You Yelp-ing creep!  With your threats of "review" and unpleasant demands - because you think you can.  You've read somewhere online, you MUST:  "avoid", "beware", run / keep away ... before I "take advantage" of you, you will do unto others ... But not me.

Get out of my house, man.

Your stay is ended, your welcome worn.  I am putting you out of (y)our miseries and returning a full month's rent to you.  The check will clear.

Oh, wait, sorry.  It has cleared.

I'm done with you.  We're finished here.

"I am none of these things." - Robert Smith

* * *

It's Out There ...

New York scenes, night / skyline dreams, reflections, shady image(s) ... 

Photos by Jglo

on Tumblr

on WordPress

(on Wisconsin)

My Greatest Hits

"There are no problems, only solutions." - John Lennon

There are THREE (3) complaints about me on Ripoff Report.

One of them was an attempt this year (in 2013) to 'cash in' on a business failure of 2010 and the resulting public castigation / successful ruination of my personal name and reputation ... Those were the other two on Ripoff Report.

Then there was this guy who put me and my failed business on vrwd, suggesting I was running a "Ponzi scheme"; and who also (same guy) placed my photo on Ripoff Report, with a snarky little caption saying, "This should say 'WANTED'" ... Dude.  What??

All bets became off when you made those moves, and some others hysterically followed suit:  being prompted to claim I had "disappeared", that I had changed my name and was "operating as" ... that I'd established some elaborate "fraud" network - "Jeff Glovsky is a THIEF and a SKEMER [sic]", scremed emails ... Jeff Glovsky kills babies ... Jeff Glovsky invaded Poland ...

"DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THAT MAN!!!!!!!"

... Sorry, am I "whining" again?  Probably.  Flailing and pissed off (again)?  Absolutely.  Does this post sound "paranoid"?  Am I "in denial"?  Maybe and Nope - though I'm denying the "right" that you felt you had to attack and destroy me personally, publicly ... and permanently.

I bring these black eyes up and point them out now -- these permanent online scarlet letters -- because a) they're out there, and the ones that are still out are not going away.  And b) there are only ("only" - I know, it's a joke!) THREE (3) complaints about me on Ripoff Report, as described above.

This url description:  "jeff glovsky directory of 1498 Complaints & Reviews: Jeff Glovsky ... "

is not accurate.  They did spell my name correctly ... However, "1498" complaints??  Not quite.  A click on the accompanying link will show that there are THREE (3) complaints about me on Ripoff Report.

Now let's say you don't feel the need to click through ... or don't have the time ... and you're searching for "Jeff Glovsky" by name (my personal name ... my reputation) ... Look!  You've 'stumbled upon' Jeff Glovsky on Ripoff Report ... and the description says he's got 1500 complaints about him!!

He must be a "FUCKING CRIMINAL!!!!!"   Says I should "BEWARE JEFF GLOVSKY!" ... Hey, let me weigh in here, though I don't know Jeff.  I'll just contribute a little bit, and call him names too, and try to cause problems ... It says here, Jeff Glovsky's a "scam artist".  I'll bet he's thinking about 'scaming' me!!!!!

Of course, people don't bother to click, and read things in full and contextualize.  One-sided "yelps", emotional "reviews" and malicious, extortionate "ripoff" reports are the order of the internet day.

I became informed too late about what I can do (could have done) to protect myself and fight back legally against personal libel and defamation.  Now I am beyond informed.

And whatever I can do from my small, sad platform here ... my blogosphere soapbox ... I will do, tirelessly, to encourage others to THINK - before they "yelp"and bitch and blame, and name-call, and SCREAMINGLY pound on the keys, then press "Enter".

In the hopefully Happy New Year(s) to come, I urge you to think:  before bullying and becoming irrational.

THINK.  Before destroying potential.

THINK.  Before publicly branding, defaming.

Think.

Before anyone else gets hurt.

I Rate (Inspiration)

"In a controversy the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for the truth and have begun striving for ourselves." - Buddha

"Disturbing," she says to me, assessing my writing.  "Obviously, you're very angry." 

Am I?  I wouldn't say very angry.  "Very" being the overused word of a pre-teen, or twit waking up to an AOL homepage:  'This star's dress was very awkward' ... 'What happened next was very cute!' ...

Verily, I pray, forsooth, spare me your limp and impotent adverbs!

"The new German one is weird," she says smartly ... failing (not deigning) to elaborate.  "What do you hope to achieve with this?"

"With what?"

"Your writing.  Little stories."

"My 'little stories' comprise the pieces, and piecing together, of a life."

"I see."

"However bent, misspent, or insignificant ... small.  I write with a big mouth!"

"You talk like you write," she says, again smartly.

"Vice versa.  But thank you."

I swallow a toothpick -- the gnawed, wet remains of one -- by mistake.  "Holy shit ..."

"Want some water?"  She hands me a glass of wine. 

I started this blog (to answer the question) with one goal in mind:  to stop, at the very least, counter, the Ripoff Reports and other libelous public defecations on my name ... which have been my scarlet letter, my Jogi Löw moment, my 15 minutes of internet infamy, since 2010.

In the disgusting, un-private glass sphere that our globe, and each of our lives, have become, I refuse to relinquish control of my name ... my life, my potential for livelihood ... because one individual -- in his own mind, running around with cape and red underpants, thinking he was doing something Super and righteous ... and others then, blindly, hysterically piling on, compounding the damages inflicted and delaying, if not preventing, (re)solutions -- campaigned to defame, "name and shame" and destroy me.

No.

That won't happen.  Nothing like it.

Again.

"I'm very angry.  You're right," I say.

Get over it, Jeffrey ... my mom used to say, when I'd petulantly refuse to do something or other if things didn't go, from the get-go, my way; then my first 'real' job in New York, as a light and sound engineer at a theater/cabaret called The Ballroom ...

Eventually, I quit The Ballroom, and I was at this party when The Doors came on:  "Five to One", and the line, "Your ballroom days are over, baby" ...

Having just left a job at a place called The Ballroom, I bellowed and blustered along with that line, in my best and loudest, drunk Jim Morrison.

"No one cares, Jeff," my then-girlfriend told me.

I went home from the party that night alone.

My point being, I know.  I get it:  No one does care.  And I've already made my belabored points, in writing and publicly flailing away.

But I care.

My goal will be achieved.

My voice in a cape, and my pen in red underpants ... Saving my name and reputation.

Balance

I recently stopped in to pay a hotel bill from a year ago.  In the lakeside northern Wisconsin town I grew up in, I was able to establish credit with a locally owned and operated franchise, God bless 'em ... and G-bless and huge thanks to property manager, Lisa, AHS Class of '85, who greenlighted the account.

Whenever I'm 'up north' now, traveling solo, to visit family and collect myself (or old belongings and record albums (!) that I wish to keep) ... I have a welcome place to stay that doesn't have to be my old bedroom.  I'm able to stay a spell and pay later, without any kind of restrictions, hassles, room, key or damage "deposits", or even having a zero account (folio) balance.  It's like an honor system, pay as you go thing, and nothing could suit my needs more aptly.

I was 'home' last year at exactly this time, and took advantage of the hospitality ... Then, over the course of 2013, I set up digs overseas, lived and worked in New York, forged a new path and wrestled with SEO ... and did not keep up my end of the tacit arrangement with the local hotel.  I returned to New York at some point during this past summer, to numerous mailed invoices from the hotel, and entreaties from poor Lisa, usually scrawled in red pen, "You NEED to pay this!" ... "Please pay IMMEDIATELY!" ... "This is 340 days past due!!!"

Now despite what you may or may not have heard, read, searched, found, discovered or lazily and ignorantly swallowed about me after typing your search query - not only am I not a "criminal", "thief" or "scammer", but I'm also not a lowlife or a deadbeat.

I'm BUSY, and have been POOR most of my working, adult life!  But this does not mean I'm unwilling or even unable to pay you.

So I paid up the hotel bill from 2012 ... and not once did anyone trash talk, threaten, insult or talk nonsense about "theft (of services)" or any other "charges"; or furiously type in an email, or publicly post anywhere online, that Jeff Glovsky is a "criminal", "scammer", "thief", "schemer" or "scumbag".

Photo(s) by Jglo

Such offensive, false and defamatory language was eschewed in this case, by a person who knew me (or at least knew of me, having actually met me once or twice in high school) - and knew better, professionally, than to carry on like an asshole.

For this, I am grateful, and offer back the greatest respect.  This particular hotel franchise, and its parent, will always have my business.  To those other businesses and services, and people, to whom my business and my person might somehow be unwanted, good riddance and good luck with yourselves.

You're not needed.

("O-kay", I hear you shrugging ... the second syllable going up a couple octaves in your nonchalance.  I don't really give a shit either, just so you know.  Couldn't care less.) 

Now on the other hand, if you're a business owner -- like me, a professional, breadwinner, family  man --  and your earning power, livelihood and reputation have been attacked and/or destroyed by ... well, someone like me:  feeling aggrieved, slighted, inconvenienced, insulted and raring to poke a fat finger back, and/or spit, in your eye ... and you've been so maligned ... why not tell me about it?  Why don't we join forces?

I want to know what you've been through.  I want to hear the way "AlanP"'s anonymous "yelping" has all but ground your business to a halt; how "quixotic"'s frustration with her life and day has wound up on your hotel doorstep, so that you've had to end up dealing with her and reading all about your alleged 'negligence', 'dishonesty' and 'crap service' for the next however many years you remain in business after the internet is told to "BEWARE!!!" of you.

I invite you to share your story, and name the real names of your most rude, overbearing, obnoxious and entitled-feeling guests and customers.  In the interest of fair play, and of course, "freedom of speech", this time has come.

"Tipping Point", ©Jeff Glovsky

Syrias-ly?

Yes, it's personal.

War-like, with screaming calls to battle ("YOU ARE A F*#!ING CRIMINAL!") and overreaching shock and awe tactics, designed to get all Hiroshima ... which sadly (for everyone involved, and too many who were not at all), has achieved its intended effect over the past three years.

I have lost.  Copiously, tangibly.  And to this day, I continue to be abused and bullied by certain fools who believe it's their right or their calling, or it's somehow okay, because Hey, it's "out there", online, so it must be okay ... and must be true!

You don't mind, do you (Scumbag), if I pile on and harass, make demands of your ass and get all hateful?  You deserve it!  You must be used to it, right?

I'll just post a little bit too ... slander, libel ... add a few non-facts after the fact.  Use CAPITAL LETTERS - because like the rest of the internet, I'm PISSED OFF!!  Entitled, self-righteous, anonymous (though you'll always know very well who I am) ... and I'll do this, unless you meet every demand I decide to make!

You own the apartment - I'm your guest, in your property.  But I'll fight you!  Create problems, invent them ... talk nonsense, "yelp" bullshit and CALL YOU NAMES because I'm a misery.  Plus I feel inconvenienced.  

Plus, I read online somewhere that you deserve what I am fully prepared, and have cleared up my life and calendar, to give you.  Or give someone; "Jeff"'s not even your real name!  All criminals use aliases!  Jeff Glovsky's a crook, right?  You rip people off!  I'll make it certain that your clients and customers -- whom I'm not involved with, don't know and have no business ever being in contact with -- all know this ... so that reasonable dealings and communications, resolvable problems which might arise and/or potentially smooth and successful transactions with them -- developed and nurtured from a place of trust -- remain elusive to you, your family, business(es) and livelihoods.

... ?

But about your apartment - I lost your key and locked myself out.  So??  I won't cover the cost of the locksmith and the replacement key.  Of course not!  I'll CALL THE POLICE if you try to deduct the cost of the locksmith and the replacement key from the security deposit I argued about giving you.

I'd like to pay for the apartment in full the day I arrive, please.

Wait ... Why is this not possible?!?

Okay.  So if you can't just hold the apartment in limbo, turning away other potential tenants and hoping I actually show up in a couple of months ... then how about I send you $25, $50 in good faith?  Obviously, I won't pay anything else up front.  And I've got a friend in town who can visit the apartment and see it for me (just to make sure it exists).  When will you be in town?  If not, I'd like to do a walk-through when I arrive, before paying - Again, just to make sure your apartment exists and I'm not being SCAMMED!!!!!!

... Then, depending on what you have inside and the overall condition of things, I'll offer you what I think is an appropriate security deposit for myself, my two pets and my three children (but really, it's just me who will be staying in your apartment ... just as we discussed.  But we're all well-trained and well behaved.).

Jeff!  I've been trying to reach you.  You don't pick up your phone, and you won't let me text you?!?!?? I just called your wife and parents (I found them online), to see if they could help me contact you ...

Anyway, I'm 'checking out' of your apartment in ten days from now ... just as we discussed.  I want to make sure you're there when I leave, to get my security deposit back.  My flight is at 6am.  Probably leaving the apartment around 3:30 ... Make sure you're there, or I'll CALL THE POLICE again (Scumbag)!

Actually, such tenants -- such human beings -- from the belching, eruptive bowels of hell, have been relatively infrequent ... yet it's a tragic fact, to which I can and will attest, endlessly - that such obnoxiousness, stemming from fear and fueled by ignorance, does exist.

Because in 2010, things were made personal.  The sovereign state of my personal name and reputation was invaded -- raped, violated, left to die by the side of the information superhighway -- and as a result, everybody ended up losing battles.

Now, going forward, it's the ones who keep coming ashore with faulty intelligence -- the lazy and dangerously misinformed, who launch and re-launch the same attacks, the same Hiroshimas, September 11ths and Syrian gas nightmares ... perpetually offensive because they think there's no defense -- who are going to end up not winning the war.

Redemption (Sort Of)

 before imprudent detours created a nightmare and I headed south, life and name tumbling after ... before all that, there was Redemption (sort of) ... 

This is not the poem:

Sundays, I work on my SEO.

Unlike, for example, my lucky bro, I can't while away lazy weekends chasing trout ... I'm damaged goods.

My name and reputation online were shattered in 2010, and re-battered early in 2013 through a run-in with misguided, unreasonable fortune ...

What can I say, that I haven't already said or written?

I'm not perfect.

(Note if you will, the roll of toilet paper reflected in the sunglasses I'm wearing, in this otherwise fine "selfie".)

My best efforts sometimes get blown back, and repeat on me like an offensive belch, so I end up defensively childish-sounding ... or trashed online for a few more years.  I haven't been able to shake the shit of my first page of Google search results.

Yet.

But when that comes to pass, as it almost has, and there's no longer arm's reach ammunition ... In other words, when the Ripoff Report hovering around #5 of Google search results, on the first page, for the name "Jeff Glovsky" -- which is my name, my damaged reputation -- becomes "buried" (because egregiously, shittily, sickly, destructively, it never will go away or be taken down) ... When there's no longer bile in plain sight to blow back at me ... defamatory names or libelous qualities which aren't existent, to try to ascribe to me (though you might not know, having not ever met me) ...

I'll sing for you!

And then maybe I'll rest.

 "Leave It", ©Jeff Glovsky

 * * *
What's in a Name?  Anyway?

... the Pursuit of Avoiding Destruction

Clause 39 of the Magna Carta of 1215

39. No freeman shall be captured or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or IN ANY WAY DESTROYED, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land (emphases mine).

This is not lawful.

It is a disgusting invitation to breach the concept and inherent right of Due Process, introduced by the Magna Carta and later adopted and embedded into the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights ... and far too many people are too quick to accept that invitation, DESTROYING the names and reputations of too many.
 

This, this and too many other name and shame, review / complain websites, are questionable:  while not overtly inciting cries of victimization, nor blatantly inviting defamation and libel, they nonetheless are a playground for the easily ruffled, themselves badly behaved - the terrible tenants, the bad travelers, the trouble seekers and the litigation addicts can all plunk down at the end of a stay, a trip or a stressful day, and relieve themselves by loudly and publicly dumping all over the things, people, businesses they feel slighted by ... "sharing" their (perceived) grievances, and inaccurately or prematurely "warning" others that they might also feel inconvenienced and should therefore "beware", "run", "avoid", "stay away", yada yada.

 

"I don't make any decisions about who to hire without going to Angie's List first."

 

Well this, quite frankly, is just sad.
 

But it's the ugly and unregulated yelping and voicing of one-sided opinion ... this unmoderated, INTENTIONAL harm to, and DESTRUCTION of, others ... which is a travesty; and it's a direct assault on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as celebrated in the Declaration of Independence.
 

Had our Founding Fathers been able to snipe, gripe, attack, complain, deride, belittle and defame each other publicly, impatiently and instantly, ignoring instead of implementing Due Process -- airing their frustrations out on Ye Olde Rip-off Report, let's say, or Betsy's List -- we can only assume that U.S. History would have been a much different place.
 

Happy 4th of July, America!

 

 

. . . Trust

I've been asked why I do the "dot dot dot" so much in my writing ... the annoying ellipsis, which, I've been counseled, has no place in a written piece, unless you're leaving something out of a quoted sentence ("To be, or not to be ... the question").  Or, you have come to the end of a thought or idea.  Just trailing off ...

 

But for me, the ellipsis has always been a significant pause ... A way for the thought or idea I've just written to sink in, and be absorbed or appreciated.  It's also because, to be honest, I don't know punctuation so well.  Not as well as I should, in any case ... and back in the days before fingertip research, it was a hassle to find out the proper use of the ellipsis!  You'd actually have to go to a library, or crack open an old textbook ... or contact an old English Comp. teacher.

 

I'd planned, for the past twenty years or so, to reach out and contact Mrs. T ... who was lucky enough to have me in her 10th grade classrooms for English Lit. and Composition!  I always thought she'd be pleasantly surprised to receive an email from me out of the blue one day (all rife with punctuation mistakes, and ellipses), thanking her for the lessons she'd imparted and asking her, "How and when should I use these ... ?".

 

I never got around to sending that email though (nor typing it) ... and now it's too late.  I recently learned from a friend that Mrs. T passed away.

 

In Spanish, which of course is not my first language, my punctuation is also lacking.  Most often, my mistake will be to put the question mark right-side up at the beginning of an interrogative (?Como?) ... or otherwise misuse it entirely (¿Que rica!).

 

Señora Lulu, my high school Spanish teacher, used to lick chalk dust off her fingers (breath reeking of whiskey) ... She also kept a gun in her desk ...

 

One day, we were hanging out after class (moonwalking, and grinding to "Purple Rain"), and Lulu noticed that her gun was missing.  She'd kept me after class with her, ostensibly to tutor me on the proper use of ¿, and I ended up smashing a piñata.  Well this led to other things ... and soon she started licking chalk dust off my fingers!

 

Until she noticed that the gun was gone.  "¡Pepe!" she exclaimed (I loved it when she called me ¡Pepe! ... This was my name in her Spanish classroom).  "¿Tomaste mi arma??"

 

"?Que!?  No!  I didn't know you had an arma ..."

 

"Get out!" she hollered, pulling her sweater back down.  "¡Vete de aqui!"

 

"Yes, Señora!" I sputtered.  "Instantly!  Um, Señora ... ¿ha visto mis pantalones?"

 

I learned then, at a fairly young age, that even without pants, I do not particularly inspire trust.  That's my fate, I guess -- it's my face, perhaps -- and I can only do what I can.