Read, Liked District

November Nods (October Acknowledgements) out to ...

@Spiegro, for recommending "In Carmen Aragon Again".

... I'll find her.

@tkwyoung, for amping up the visibility of "From Medium to Middling" and helping me get my point across (and thanks to the 10 (so far) who seem to agree, by recommending the piece):  simply put, that Medium (not the TV show), a once vibrant and valuable visibility platform -- a writer's wet dream, if you will, affording easy exposure to readers of quality -- is not what it once was.

Still, I enjoy the simplicity of posting to Medium.  Although work of mine may very well, literally, languish unread there ... it only takes one astute Collection editor to snatch up the orphan ...

So thanks to @JustThinkingNow for taking in "Still Relevance" - a (relevant) Monica Lewinsky piece, originally posted here on blogspot.

Finally, thanks to Guilhem Ribart, Daniel P.K. Ng and AlmostFreeNYC for noticing, a lot, last month.

*Plus a special shout this time around, out to long-time Photos by Jglo appreciator, Sawa Minori! ty :)

- September Shouts

- December's Children

B.M. and P.M.

"My pain may be the reason for somebody’s laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody’s pain." - Charlie Chaplin

I have nothing but respect for Monica Lewinsky.

As the World Wide Web's "Patient Zero", she has suffered... felt pain... Cried, and died inside daily.  She has waited for exactly the right time and place...

She has taken up arms against haters and hatred, and perfectly played now the cards she got dealt.

The standing ovation Monica Lewinsky received at the Forbes' 30 Under 30 Summit in Philadelphia... some empathy, finally... The (finally) respectful hearing of things from her perspective -- the listening, versus insulting of her -- was fifteen years or so overdue.

I remember a disturbingly blunt and offensively direct hit on the Lewinsky debacle's whistleblower, that pot-calling-the-kettle-black backstabber, Linda Tripp...

Perhaps not a beauty queen, Miss Tripp wound up on the cover of one of New York's beloved rags, either the News or the Post, under the coffee-spitting headline, "It's Getting Ugly!"

To me, it's always been those three words, coupled with the unflattering head shot of Linda Tripp chosen to be plastered there on that front page beneath them, which was responsible for birthing, nay, shitting out, the "internet era", and foreshadowing our Rudest Generation to come.

The gum-smacking wisecrack of that tabloid headline -- the bestial boyish New Yorkese, at the public expense of a then unmarried, middle aged, childless woman, though somebody's daughter -- I will never forget;

the cheap, easy laugh I admittedly shared (hot coffee snorting out of both nostrils) with millions on that New York City, '90s morning never did sit well... and now, fifteen years later, looking back over the world's "timeline" since then -- of cruelty and inane and desperate cries for attention, feeding (or fed by?) a nation's cracked psyche -- the Before and After demarcation has not been more clear to me.

Never mind September 11th.  Simply (perhaps simplistically) put, the breakpoint in recent history, in my recent memory, is Before Monica (B.M.), when there were discretion, decorum and manners still; and Post Monica (P.M.), when name-calling, trash-talking, hating (and/or Yelping) anonymously, buffoon inappropriateness and lazy discrediting became society's norms - and somehow, OKAY.

The world turns, though.  What goes around...

Today, more than fifteen years P.M., I'm no longer the only one publicly decrying an epidemic of Asshole.  Nor am I alone anymore in my appreciation of Monica Lewinsky, and tacit acknowledgment of our P.M. world's penchant for piling on and bullying, wolf pack overkill.

* * *

* *

the Tyler Clementi Foundation to stop online bullying.

the Amanda Todd Legacy Society Ryan's Story

*

think

September Shouts

Pause for Reflection ...

Given that September this year has been a month of visual language, with the bulk of my online activity being photographic, as opposed to written -- and in "celebration" of the revival of Photo(s) by Jglo on WordPress, after leaving the "Lo-Fi Project" there in January -- it's appropriate to close out this month of new appreciations, with a few shout-outs and nods* myself.

These are not only welcome 'repeat offenders' to Jeff Glovsky: The Second Set, checking in and "liking" often (and liking multiple images, seemingly getting the visual 'sets' I try spinning ... ), but they're artists who see things through eyes like mine; I likewise get their work, and throw back some link love:

And last, but absolutely not least ...

Last December, I blew smoke as well ... My message, the same:  Just want to say Thank You, for checking in, checking out and regularly liking ...

©Jeff Glovsky, All Rights Reserved.

*honorable shouts this round, out to Alex Markovich, Timothy S. Allen, Amateur Airplanes and Juju Films.  Oh, and Crazy Artist ... Вы также круто!

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

* * *

What Does It Take, Really?

As a corollary to my previous post -- in fact, an addendum, of sorts -- concerning fading humanity in the United States, I would like to add my acknowledgement and sincere appreciation of the following individuals and businesses which, against prevailing current and a nation changing for the worse, still offer dignity and customer service.  Off the top of my head, there are:

- the super motel in the lakefront northern Wisconsin town I grew up in, and come home to to roost every now and then (although not nearly as often as I should, or would like to), and day manager (high school classmate), Lisa.

- US Airways' gate agent, Gaby, working at Fort Lauderdale International Airport (FLL) this spring.  Gaby, you made my night, by smilingly, professionally changing my flight up the east coast to Boston, so it wouldn't need to stop in Chicago (?) first.  THANK YOU.

- the AirTran gate agent in October 2013, working at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL).  When I missed my connecting flight to FLL there, you shrugged, said "Why not?" and, again, so rare as to be noteworthy, professionally did your job by allowing me to get on a flight to Orlando.  No raping "change fee", no blather about "city pairs" ... I needed to get to Florida, you allowed it to happen.  Why not, indeed?

(True, I had to take a Greyhound bus to get from Orlando to Miami that trip, and that sorta sucked ... but you know what?  I thought of you on that six hour ride, my love!  Your proud, solution-driven face and vaguely admonishing, motherly smile, stayed with me each tropic mile...).

- the Enterprise car rental agent at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), the following month.  You accepted my debit card to rent the vehicle.  You treated it like a credit card -- as really, it should be; because otherwise, what's the point of having the Visa or MasterCard logo there??  These confusions don't exist in other countries, where a bank card is still just a bank card, and may only be used at an ATM ... or for point of sale purchases, but using electronic chip and PIN technology, having nothing to do with Visa or MasterCard.

For these are credit cards.  If their logos are on my bank card, I expect my bank card to be treated appropriately: as a Visa or MasterCard!  Not as a debit card ... so then I'm prevented or disallowed from using the Visa or MasterCard features.

What is the point of that??

Anyway, you, Enterprise car rental agent at EWR in November 2013 ... You accepted my debit card to rent the vehicle.  You "authorized" no amount -- nothing was held on my card in advance -- allowing me to get where I needed to go.  I'm sorry I didn't get your name - but THANK YOU.

To some of you others -- you airlines and car rental agencies and hotels in the U.S., clawing for superfluous "deposits" and charges ("authorizations", sorry!) ... adhering so rigidly to ridiculous "policies", without any kind of case-by-case examining or human level -- you should move back toward respecting your customers.  Not inconveniencing, hassling and, literally in some cases, stranding your customers.

You should rethink, and all be ashamed of yourselves.

The Voice

I can turn a phrase, I'll give me that.

Not to sound like a douche or anything ... but I like to think, as a writer, that I know what I've got.

I consider myself a writer first, a "blogger" dead last ... I'm not "sharing", I'm expressing ... in fact, I'm not a writer at all ...

I compose things:  build sentences.  Craft paragraphs ...

I'm a Writer.

As a "blogger", I'm just dead in the water.  Sunk in a sea of voiceless fish ... all glub-glubbing their lists, and their how-to primers ... their Do and Don't treatises ... nasty "reviews", insipid, rude rumors, provocation-less thoughts and, generally, woefully unfunny "humor" ...

As a writer, I've become inured ... learned to repel, to tune most of it out;

as a blogger, to thrive, stay afloat and alive in the dead sea of overwrought, voiceless fish ... you are compelled, to take it all in.

As a Writer ... I remain repellent.

In Which I Save the Deal

Dear Prospective Tenant,

Regarding my apartment in Miami, Florida:

In case you have 'disappeared' because of something you found online about me, I will state unequivocally that most of what you may have read, stemming from a business failure in 2010, is one-sided, emotionally driven, willfully malicious and/or false.

Anything from 2013 is 100%

"and Defamatory", ©Jeff Glovsky

That said:  my apartment is available to you for the dates we've discussed, and to which we contractually agreed.

If you don't want to pay 6 months in advance without seeing or receiving the key to the property, of course I understand.  But obviously, I cannot just hold my apartment for you and hope you'll arrive.  I'm sure you can understand this.

If you don't wish to move forward with our signed contract at all, it's okay.  But if this is the case, and it's due to something you have read online about me - to be honest, you are doing yourself a disservice.

I would appreciate the courtesy of a response please, one way or another.

Thank you,
Jeff Glovsky

* * *
Addendum:  Thank you, Dr. G., for 're-appearing' ... in fact, responding ... for listening rationally, understanding and deciding to move forward and rent my property (as many have done before you, satisfactorily and without drama or incident, before and since my business, name and reputation collapsed in 2010).

Enjoy your stay.

December's Children

A big and special Danke to some dedicated 'likers':

M. Funk FineArt // Photography

seedbud (Leaf and Twig)

Ming Wang Photography

Leanne Cole Photography

Thank you for checking out and checking into, regularly liking ...