The Truth Brigade

From my live cam chat:

palestine4ever:  Thank God, the Truth Brigade is here.
palestine4ever:  I was just remarking that out of all of the blogs I visit, none had quite the exciting content of LukeFord.net today.
palestine4ever:  I have long awaited Luke’s stern edict on the role of the book club in modern American culture, and I was not disappointed.
nicolletista:  yep the aliens are beaming the waves right at my brain from the top of the ids building but i’ve pried out the fillings and i’m ready for the stylings of p4e
ChaimAmalek:  There is even a move afoot here in New York State to increase taxes on those making more than a million a year (up to an extra 6% surcharge on those making more than TEN MILLION a year) to close a budget gap.  Again, about time.
nicolletista:  that was some hard-hitting stuff
ChaimAmalek:  Book clubs stink because they tend not to interest fertile young women
nicolletista:  book clubs are for girls
ChaimAmalek:  No, they are for older women
nicolletista:  and old women, possibly yes
ChaimAmalek:  Girls would rather get drunk and party than read and discuss a book
palestine4ever:  I am with Amalek, I believe we need to start writing anonymous letters to his landlord about the methlab he’s running in the john.
ChaimAmalek:  Yes, he needs to emerge from the cocoon that is the hovel
nicolletista:  luke would have burns and more money if it were a methlab
ChaimAmalek:  News of a methlab shan’t suffice, though.
nicolletista:  maybe he’s just BUILDING it
ChaimAmalek:  Tough love is, well, tough.
nicolletista:  they’re probably in every building on pico/bobbyson
palestine4ever:  He needs to be shaken out of this navel-gazing malaise
ChaimAmalek:  But none of this will happen until it is too late
palestine4ever:  Four shilling blog posts on Friday about wrapping paper companies and nothing of substance in months.
palestine4ever:  The mollycoddlers here make it too easy for him.
ChaimAmalek:  It is not within our power to alter the course of his life, any more than he can ours
ChaimAmalek:  Agree
nicolletista:  he does seem to be off that tip p4e
palestine4ever:  He has gone from a blog of passing importance to the sin of boring the bejesus out of his audience.
ChaimAmalek:  And yet HERE WE ARE
ChaimAmalek:  "his audience"
palestine4ever:  First the 10% left, then the 30% that follow that 10%
palestine4ever:  Soon he’ll be down to random google hits on "computer anti-virus"
nicolletista:  correct
palestine4ever:  Because we have seen the possibilities, Chaim.
palestine4ever:  We are a caring folk.
palestine4ever:  All due respect, but the hardcore audience is probably down to about 10 by now.
ChaimAmalek:  I saw them many years ago and fell into the trap of thinking that I could monetize him to personal advantage.  I was wrong
ChaimAmalek:  Along with many others along the way
nicolletista:  but surely p4e how many people can deal with the very very special fordist lunacy?
palestine4ever:  Like Ben Kenobi, you tried to be a rebbe to the late-blooming convert and turned him to the dark side.
palestine4ever:  If he’s breaking stories and shoveling scoop down their throats, plenty
ChaimAmalek:  It was lots better back in the day (late nineties!) when the internet very noveland new, and he ran a single web page crammed full of his reportage/musings on everything from the porn business to this business of the rabbinate to politics.
nicolletista:  absolutely, there is no one who stood behind luke with a huge poisonous cluebat longer than amalek
palestine4ever:  Yes to both of you.
palestine4ever:  I believe he joined this Orthodox gang not for the professed longing for "community" but to align himself with the most insular gang imaginable.
ChaimAmalek:  People from very different walks of life got involved with that site, but he never developed it the way Matt Drudge did his.  And remember, those two came up at the same time AND – did you know this? – through the same route, USENET
palestine4ever:  Or at least that’s what it’s become: outcasts outcasting the outcast and giving meaning to his solipsism.
nicolletista:  to expand on my theme from a couple of days ago–usually converts are accused of self-hatred by the community they LEFT
ChaimAmalek:  Even among Jews, not one in forty cares about all this rabbi this said did probed that to rabbi that
palestine4ever:  Drudge branched out, didn’t do so well but NEVER killed his bread and butter.
palestine4ever:  Name the reason people go to Drudge: scoop.
ChaimAmalek:  He keeps touting the authenticity of the very people who are the least likely to accept him – ever.
palestine4ever:  Name the reason we still come here: slow-motion train wreck.
nicolletista:  and prager’s not exactly mainstream orthodox
ChaimAmalek:  Drudge remains by many voices the single most influential person in day to day journalism.
palestine4ever:  Spallone would give him $10  for a haircut. The Jews have him over to eat with the homeless.
ChaimAmalek:  Prager has no presence in New York. Other than for luke, i’d have never heard of the guy
nicolletista:  yes there is something casey serin about poor old levi
palestine4ever:  Nic: you are also a fan of the Casey Serin Internet Phenomenon?
nicolletista:  of course, who isn’t
palestine4ever:  I never heard of DP before Luke, nor outside of him.
nicolletista:  amazing he’s still laying low
nicolletista:  possibly dead, possibly killed by his ex-wife
ChaimAmalek:  Luke’s day of reckoning was delayed for years, however, by his good fortune in meeting and befriending Cathy Seipp
nicolletista:  and i’d like to be on the jury’s refusing to convict, too
ChaimAmalek:  But events sadly took her from him, and us.
palestine4ever:  Hardly was she gone when he was immediately snipping every connection he had made to that hoity-toity sect.
nicolletista:  yes c.s. was his gateway to people who aren’t his creepy if loveable internet stalkers
ChaimAmalek:  Now SHE was a force to be reckoned with!  Had she kept her health and made him her project, maybe he could have become another Matt Drudge.
palestine4ever:  I’m a big fan of Casey. I went through a bit of withdrawal when he shut it down.
nicolletista:  ain’t it the truth?  god, when he went to australia, i would wake up in the middle of the night for the update
ChaimAmalek:  Well, P4E, I’ve met that set a few times, and they were a special bunch.  Really, Luke was very lucky to be part of that orbit.
palestine4ever:  Look at that bright-eyed twink on the header of the main page.
palestine4ever:  Matt Welch is a heavyweight, without a doubt.
nicolletista:  i mean ANYTHING could have happened–immigration prison in kurri kurri, plane crash….anything
palestine4ever:  Few knew about his background in Europe.
ChaimAmalek:  And his hot wife, and all those other real writers there.  Cathy gave really really impressive parties.
ChaimAmalek:  But that is all gone.
nicolletista:  matt is a very nice and generous person
nicolletista:  he did very well for himself in prague
ChaimAmalek:  Then Luke did the bizarre, and hooked up with . . . ELIOT STEIN
palestine4ever:  Luke could still ingratiate himself with nick denton, learn from him and how he’s taken 9 sites of links and snark and made a fortune.
palestine4ever:  But time is running out — the non-writers can’t comprehend what this shilling is doing to him.
nicolletista:  yeah but p4e why should nick want him now?
ChaimAmalek:  But all that would require a level of personal drive and ambition that Luke does not have and does not need.
palestine4ever:  He’s been damaged goods for awhile but now it’s available as an RSS feed.
palestine4ever:  So we’re back to the pray for homelessness option.
palestine4ever:  nic: I’m sure he doesn’t
nicolletista:  it sucks.  if luke wasn’t talented, it wouldn’t frustrate.  but he is and it does.
ChaimAmalek:  Man, if only I had had this man’s chances: the Porn Angle, Cathy Seipp, Holly Randall (yes, HER again), and even that semi-insane older women who went bonkers about him a while back
palestine4ever:  To say nothing of being the temporary toast of the media world.
palestine4ever:  MediaBistro was run on $100k a year and netted $29 million when sold.
palestine4ever:  These are the paths not taken in favor of Eliot Stein and a people who do not want you.
ChaimAmalek:  Such chances you had!
ChaimAmalek:  Also: combining your porn writings with backing by online gambling interests – a natural fit
palestine4ever:  Luke, how do you hope to emerge from this?
ChaimAmalek:  He won’t. He’s waiting for someone to pick him up and do the heavy lifting of life for him
palestine4ever:  From Scoop Luke to Luke "Party Planning Blogger" Ford.
palestine4ever:  You have nothing but time — you could be learning design or something marketable.
palestine4ever:  Selling Levi’s to the gold rush loons rather than being one yourself.
palestine4ever:  Luke is like watching an improv performance. Sometimes it’s awful but sometimes it’s exquisite.
ChaimAmalek:  True.  The merchants who catered to the gold and silver miners of yore did far better, man for man, than the miners themselves.
palestine4ever:  But that’s in the past and it’s all sliders from here.
palestine4ever:  For Allah’s mercy, you spent time creating a site about computer projectors!
palestine4ever:  This isn’t writing, it’s not even typewriting.
ChaimAmalek:  Luke, you need a have insane 200 pound black woman to get it into her head that she is your wife and break into your hovel and hold you captive for a month
ChaimAmalek:  She will tie you up and tell everyone she is your wife or maid.  She will force-feed you pork sausages and write you blog
ChaimAmalek:  Her name will be Granetta
palestine4ever:  This frightens me. We need some kind of acute shock to the system.
guest31:  more pork sausages mom please
palestine4ever:  He’s content sleeping with his head in the toilet and drinking out of bottles and no doubt urinating in the sink.
palestine4ever:  How low does it have to go?
palestine4ever:  What drives you besides the pretend affection of a bearded people who hate your guts?
YourMoralLeader:  wait till i get my reality tv show
palestine4ever:  Jimmy D and Spallone actually helped you compared to the Chosen.
palestine4ever:  Then this is the final end of Luke Ford.
ChaimAmalek:  I don’t think they hate his guts. Maybe they are bemused that he thinks he is one of them.  Luke would have done much much much better at every level to have become a reform or even a "conservative" Jew
palestine4ever:  Why do you think a reality tv show would be interested in a man who writes blog posts promoting accupuncture and party planners?
guest31:  he is delusional
palestine4ever:  Will the first episode be the story behind the story of your computer projector blog?
palestine4ever:  That ought to make for a fine 20 seconds of viewing.
ChaimAmalek:  Well, if they have the ability to make it happen and if he can convince them that they should, that could be good enough
palestine4ever:  "First I thought about the clicks, then I copied and pasted some shizzit, then I made an extra $0.76 per day"
palestine4ever:  We understand you will sabotage any success you get. We just want to see you get some.
palestine4ever:  There is no plan but the hail mary of a documentary about the wretchedness your life has become.
palestine4ever:  You will soon be the star of WEHT on the blogs of other washed up folks.
palestine4ever:  We do this because we care, Luke.
palestine4ever:  We are the teachers that failed you.
guest31:  and caring is sharing
palestine4ever:  I throw up my hands in disgust and outrage.
palestine4ever:  The Luke Ford Brand is plummeting down, and you will be powerless to stop it this time.