The media has convened in the press room at Shot In The Dark world HQ.
The reporters are taking their seats. The buzz of anticipation settles into a tense quiet as Mr. Berg steps to the podium.
Let’s join the questioning:
———-
Reporter A (Minnesota Public Radio): Mr. Berg? It’s been noted that you’ve achieved the one thing that was standing between you and the putative “big time” – you’ve actually gotten your own stalker. Would you care to comment on this? And I have a followup
Mitch Berg: Well, on the one hand, yes – it would seem that I do have a stalker. Actually, a stalker and a half – I’ve noticed the the “Lloydletta” blog names me something like 11 times in the past two weeks.
[Assembled reporters laugh politely, if uneasily]
But in fact, yes – it would seem that former porn-mag temp Ken “Avidor” Weiner has fallen into that role, using one of his twenty blogs and, apparently, his video camera and mad editing skeelz to draw the attention of his adoring public…
[more laughter]
…yes, adoring public to me. So – “good” news, I have a stalker. The bad news? He’s a piss-poor one!
Reporter A (Minnesota Public Radio): So to follow up – do you have any comment for the record?
Mitch Berg: Well, my good friend Joe Tucci – whom Mr. Weiner managed to “out” last week as the real name behind “Learned Foot”, and can I say “hey, great research skeelz, that took you almost exactly three years!’ – put it well, I think:
All Weiner knows how to do is steal off others’ websites, indulge his (erroneous) stereotypes and piddle his crap all over the internet (notice how I didn’t mention Photoshop) . Why does…
What the hell?
I feel like such a
looserloser. Is this how stalkers feel all the time?
I don’t know that anyone could put it better!
Reporter B (WCCO-TV): Er, Mr. Berg? Do you mind if we call you “Mitch?”
Mitch Berg: Sure. Or “Mister Berg” if you’re nasty.
Reporter B (WCCO-TV): Mr. Berg, bloggers affiliated with your “stalker” Mr. Avidor…
Mitch Berg: …er, Miss? That’s “Mister Weiner”. “Avidor” was the name of an actual artist. It’d be like asking y’all to call me “Mister Hendrix” or “Mister Miller” after spending twenty years making a mockery of my real name. Anyway, carry on.
Reporter B (WCCO-TV): …sorry. Anyway, they have made a small cottage industry of making up nicknames for you. You’re referred to sometimes as “Blogger Berg”…
Mitch Berg: …that would, in fact, be gramatically and factually correct. I am a blogger, and my name is Berg! One adjective, one noun.
Reporter B (WCCO-TV): …and “Gasbag of the Midway”.
Mitch Berg: Given that I share this distict with Ellen Anderson and Jay Benanav, I must say that’s kind of an honor! Also…improbable.
Reporter B (WCCO-TV): So do any of those names…I don’t know, faze you in any way?
Mitch Berg: I grew up a tall, scrawny, greasy-haired, uncoordinated, athletically-inept cello-playing brainiac and a Bears fan. I got called worse than that around the Thanksgiving dinner table.
[laughter]
Next question?
Reporter C (Dump Bachmann): Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit?
Mitch Berg: I’m actually on record opposing it.
Reporter C (Dump Bachmann): But why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why, why why, Blogger Berg?
Mitch Berg: I’ve never supported it.
Reporter C (Dump Bachmann): But why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why, why why, oh Gasbag?
Mitch Berg: Nope. Never.
Reporter C (Dump Bachmann): But why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit? Why are you on record in support of Personal Rapid Transit…
[Reporter is tasered. By fellow reporters. His carried – with difficulty – from the hall.]
Mitch Berg: Next question?
Reporter D (Sixty Minutes): You make light of this purportered “stalker”…
Mitch Berg: …well, yeah, I do. This guy doesn’t have the balls to really do the job. He’s a gutless little moral, social and intellectual gimp who skulks around and makes photoshop “cartoons” and logically-and-factually-void proclamations because he can’t hold his own in a face to face…anything. Debate, discussion, fight, whatever. He’s nothing. Zero. I’ve wiped smarter opponents and bigger threats off the sole of my shoe walking through Mears Park.
Reporter E (Star/Tribune): Do you have any comment about Scott Johnson writing for True North along with Tom Swift, as our man “Avidor” reported in “Buzz.mn”?
Mitch Berg: …and Black Ink, and the Daily Kos, and the Daily Mole?
Reporter E (Star/Tribune): Er…yes.
Mitch Berg: OK. Three parts to my response.
- Scott and Tom are both friends of mine. Ken “Avidor” Weiner isn’t fit to carry either of their gig bags, as a writer or a person.
- Weiner’s big “point” against Tom is that he’s “nasty” – that he hits, he claims, below the belt. It’s crap, of course. But, um, so? Welcome to the blogosphere! It’s not like Weiner is a model of detached restraint! His beef is the same one Salieri had with Mozart; he realizes he’s not as good as either – or any – of the people he stalks.
- Eric Black? Steve Perry? You share a local left-wing blogosphere with Ken “Avidor” Weiner and Kevin McKay and Mark “Revolutionary Gonads” Gisleson. By the standard that the Daily Mole and Black Ink are endorsing, you are guiltyi by association. Defend yourselves.
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: Sure, in the same way that a three-year-old “hit a nerve” when she colors on the walls!
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: [Thinks] Or maybe in the same way as Andy Milonakis…no, not quite that bad.
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: Nope.
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: Nope-er.
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: Still no.
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: I refer you to my friend John McGinley, who said it best.
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: [yawns]
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Reporter F (Lloydletta): Oooh! It looks like Ken Avidor has hit a nerve!
Mitch Berg: I will give my next response in sign language:
Reporter G (Ha’aretz): You’ve been very critical of the local leftymedia…
Mitch Berg: Look, when a hack like Karl Bremer can get coverage in the Daily Mole and Black Ink, for a baldfaced “guilt by association” smear, and get it with breathless credulity to boot, it should make people ask questions.
Last question…
Reporter H (E News): Any truth to the bit we read in the Strib’s Blog House that…
Mitch Berg: Probably not.
Thanks!
[Pandemonium as reporters race for their phones]
UPDATE: Learned Foot is doing a post-conference poll on the issue at hand.
And then, as he says, let’s finish this.
“”names me something like 11 times in the past two weeks.””
I bet if we did a count, your use of their name would be more than double.
You are so intimidated by this whole farce that you don’t even realize what you are doing. Hopefully some of your smarter commenter’s from the right will see it for what it is and have an intervention before t is too late.
Stalking the stalker, now THAT is hilarious.
You are so intimidated
Fail!
Prolific meet sad. Wow.
Mitch, when you make things up, sometimes it would be good if they were actually funny – ironic that you bemoan stalking blogs, but are the consumate stalker of Nick Coleman, Mole, MinMon (and on and on)..wow.
“You are so intimidated by this whole farce that you don’t even realize what you are doing. Hopefully some of your smarter commenter’s from the right will see it for what it is and have an intervention before t is too late.”
Oh, no. Flash. Since you seem to have all the answers, perhaps you can tell us.
Though I’m pretty sure that you do not recognize this for what it is.
In fact, I’m positive.
Just a couple casual observations here:
I’ll provisionally state that I think Mitch is paying a bit too much attention to the Avidor / Anti-Strib / Bremer kerfuffle. Note that I said too much attention. I do not think he takes it seriously. Makes for good theater though!
Anti-Strib is no worse (and vastly more entertaining) than any of the poo- flinging primates on the sinistro side of the Blogosphere. I’d attribute much of this an all too common occurrence on both sides of the political divide. Take a post, strip it of context and then denounce loudly and repetitively. After you have built an appropriate amount of faux outrage, ask anyone who is vaguely associated with the originator of the original why they have not denounced the vile blackguard.
The only real tragedy in this whole political kabuki dance is MDE tap dancing into the shallow pond of political correctness. He ends up giving credence to the faux outrage. Avidor Bremer et al are merely the vultures circling the wounded animal.
it would be good if they were actually funny
Thanks, Lieutenant Hauk.
You are so intimidated by this whole farce
Flash,
Have the Dumpers hypnotized you, or what? Can’t you tell the difference between “Mockery” and “Derisive Mockery?”
Prove that you are not one of the lumpen gray leftyblogger masses, and show some independent thought!
“Makes for good theater though!”
ChaosFish stubles onto part of it. A big part, actually.
I’ll go with what Chaosfish said.
It’s comical to me, and anyone else who has the guts to admit it and not chime in instinctively in your defense, that you are as guilty, if not even more so, then those who you accuse of the same.
There are those conspicuously missing on Centrisity, because they do in fact mean nothing to me. You say they mean nothing in one breadth, and then carry on ad nauseum about them. If it is just me that sees the irony in all that, than that is about as independent as you can get.
Flash
Anyone who has listened to Mitch and Ed vamp on this on the air on Saturday has to know it’s Theater.
I look at it as Mitch giving back a bit to the Sinistrosphere.
That they take his derision for actual concern is telling
Chao:
Than someone needs to explain to me why Mitch et. al, continues to reward them with the attention they claim they crave. How can a reasonable person rationalize “He’s nothing. Zero.” with repeated and drawn out attempts at theater. If they are nothing, treat ’em as such.
Flash:
As stated in my 1st comment , I think Mitch is spending more time on it than I would. But his blog, his choices , his rules.
I interpret it as a back of the hand homage to the OCD behavior that infects both sides at times.
It’s comical to me, and anyone else who has the guts to admit it and not chime in instinctively in your defense,
Oh, yeah?
When DID you stop beating your wife?
“Than [sic] someone needs to explain to me why Mitch et. al, continues to reward them with the attention they claim they crave. ”
Oh oh oh! Flash – you are soooooo close.
Put scare quotes around the word “reward” and read it again.
Mr. Tucci,
Hah!
Flash,
Seriously, “me, and anyone else who has the guts to admit”? You’ve actually taken on the job as spokesperson for everyone?
Tell me you’re throwing a reception, at least?
“Tell me you’re throwing a reception, at least?”
When the garage door is open, the bar is open.
Flash
When the garage door is open, the bar is open.
Still have a keg tapped this late in the season?
Yeap! Probably last one. Record year *grin*
I’ll say!
And I’m gonna NEED a beer or fifteen after this week. Yowza.
Prolific meet sad
This assessment comes courtesy of a guy who has been banned at least twice yet sneaks back in by using different screen names (pb, mikey, jbauer, donkeyman, peevish).
It’s ironic that you bemoan the bemoaning of stalking blogs but are the consummate, endless prattler of this space. Wow!!
“When the garage door is open, the bar is open.
Still have a keg tapped this late in the season? ”
I used to have a neighbor like Flash. Sometimes I miss nebraska.
Too bad Ken and Eva are such Franken-like boring satirists. Somehow I suspect their attacks on Foot and Mitch don’t inspire traffic the same way they their attacks on Michele inspired votes.
“Yeap! Probably last one. Record year *grin*
12 keg year, tapped first on Feb 19. If I can milk this one till 12/1, which I doubt, it will be an 11 month season. Longest stretch run for an outdoor kegmeister in my history.
Locked up last night. Blah.