ed2drobinski

I'd just like to thank everyone for the kind words and the heart-button-pushes. The friendly people I've encountered on this wonderful website are truly appreciated. .......... And quite frankly; and not entirely due to my happy experience; you all impress me as being smarter and more competent than the crew at Goodreads.

I know that some of you are on many sites. No problem. But, I'm noticing that some of the names I knew at GR have recently moved here; most also keeping a presence there.

I'm pretty new to this stuff, so bear with me a bit if I'm saying things you already know. My only "credential" is that in 12 months or so, I apparently annoyed Amazon sufficiently to be electronically banned from writing anything on their main site or GR. What is very surprising to me is that I also am no longer allowed to post on things like the NY Times or Facebook. I have suspicions about how this was done, but am computer non-saavy enough not to be able to explain it. I was advised by a friend that they are doing things not only with my laptop, but also through the modem. There is more to say in this regard, but this has already gone on long enough to lose all attention. CUT TO THE CHASE.

 If you are already or are planning to go on GR be aware of these facts. The vast majority of the people there are authors trying to sell their books. GR has a staff of 30. Amazon utilizes the unpaid services of "librarians" to "maintain and improve" the site. They're almost invariably also authors and reviewers. In return for their free work which supposedly centers around importing books and authors with no interest in GR, they are granted the right to access, change, delete or completely fabricate any information on the site. Of course, if asked; Bezos would say that this is not the GR he knows. More, but CUT TO THE CHASE AGAIN.

The librarian-reviewers-authors have established cliques. When a clique becomes significant in size it USUALLY then becomes affiliated with a larger one. Truly, not to sound bitchy, these groups seem to be populated by jealous failures. Most members also work through the use of what are called "sock puppets." These are simply fake identities which the LRA use to say things they do not wish to be associated with their primary persona.

So, my friends, you've seen that the path is mined. But, if we just look around a little bit, we'll see where the digging took place. They can't cover that well enough to make it appear as natural. If you choose to post on GR just post and leave it there. Do not reply to any commentary. That's all you have to do to avoid stepping on the mine. Be as brave as you naturally are, and learn to be careful on the slippery rocks.

Truly, when I first started to think about some of the "coincidences" that seemed to be happening to me, I wondered if I had become deranged and delusional. Yet when I started to search the net I found so many people telling a similar, and sometimes the exact same story, I became convinced that my perceptions had some merit.

The excuse-competent entity commonly known as Amazon, is already under attack from many sides. Chances are that one of them will do them in; like an apocalypse; the exact circumstances of that yet to be defined.

I know how it can get. ....................... Not as well as some. I now know that I grew up in a privileged time; so privileged that it would take forever to try to convey it to someone under 35. Like all of us, I more or less tried my faulty best with mixed results. When I read the words of today's youth I think I detect a logical despondence married to a clandestine hope that everything will be all right. Illogical love feels that it will; pragmatic science observes that it always has worked out, and therefore concludes that it will continue to. Are there any other viewpoints?

What can I say that you don't already know? Look before you leap? Read the fine print? Maybe, just maybe what I might unsurely "add" is a line stolen from an ancient song; "Be brave young lovers and follow your hearts. Be brave and faithful and true. (Believe it or not) I had a love of my own like yours. I had a love of my own."

Those who calculate, like Amazon and GR, claim short term victories. Short term, that's all. Temporary imbalances get the most adept at playing dumbed down attention. Short is invariably out-distanced. ......................................... It is inarguable to say that those lovers who have suffered the derision of the logicians-dependent-on-a-certain-funding will eventually prevail. The logicians, scientists or whatever term is now used admit their inadequacy, whether they know it or not. ............... Long boring story.

This gets a bit difficult. But, you know if your stuff is liked and you then say that mine ain't all that bad either, we'll both win on every level known. And vice-versa, the only warranted time to kick Bob Dylan in his ass. For me, I don't really care about book sales or movie gross receipts, properly named. I'm past retirement age and no matter the sales or dis-interest in my books, for me at this point matters little. Not quite true. As much as Amazon allows I make them electronically free five days every quarter. And sometimes takers have written to me saying that they enjoyed one or the other. It is so welcomed. For weeks I keep thinking that someone actually read and said that they liked something I wrote. Please forgive the naïve entrée into obsequiousness. It is not some stupid ploy. As far as I can tell it is just something highlighted in a multi-angled, complicated portrayal of simple, un-definable wetnesses which roll down all of our cheeks. In that moment we think that we might understand. We do our best to again finally awake. If we can escape the  stasis compelled by those warm blankets, we might actually arise. We think that we might have made some devlish, not articulated as such, deal. We'll get up when we need to piss in the commode............ Oh godammit, I miscalculated again. What fucking day is it?" Monday? Wednesday? I don't know. Fuck. If I can't clean up this mess myself it will sink into the porous brick. ................................. On second thought let it sink. .................. Kind of; there is a disturbing residue. Whatever. They now have super-duper cleansers which strain the borderlines of the old truth-in-advertising-laws; with the knowledge of being fully Scalia complicit. OMG, a bargain; 33% off in the largest of letters. Let me get on the cell phone to my spouse for comparison. Ah, shit. Communication blocked. .................................. Goes nowhere. Easily predictable boredom. Too long to define. OK, likely more a problem of mine imagined by you. Thanks. It's OK as long as you're all right. Overly brave in words. Maybe, but I seem to think that I actually feel something and hope that you do too. The glorious times when I was allowed to look right into your eyes were my happiest, most hopeful of times.

Those times are long gone, except in the involuntary dreams which often jar me awake. Differing manifestations; differing places; differing races; differing, differing, differing, ad infinitum. You may not know that there was a time when it was so beautiful in my head, that it killed all else. It is only for you that I try to write; hoping you would read one, and maybe somehow convey that you liked my best efforts. I try to vary the styles. Yadda, yadda;  

Hey, you wonderful continuations of the species. Don't ever forget that the future  is some kind of illusion, no different from the prognostications of a stock market pundit wishing to sell shares at a price.

Its now in your capable hands. Its finally different now, isn't it? 

I have to cut it. Sleep dictates.

Despite my penchant for redundancy, stick with me, my young friends. I only want to portray what is in a prominently advised acquiescence to an idea.

This diatribe is going on far too long; that a believed adventurous and merciful excursion documented in the nineteenth of Christ supposed centuries.

Hey, my few friends, it's time for me to go. I don't want to, but ................ Doesn't really matter much in any configuration of Dos5's rules. We've advanced to Windows.

Keep on. Keep on. You do in surprisingly adaptive ways. They know that they are deficient in their long demonstrated lack of creativity. If we may be allowed to play a bit of a game we should first insist upon true parity.

In the safety of my head these likely invaders. ....................................... I have to quit. I'm sorry. I guess that I'm just worn out. ......................... If we're "lucky" we all get there. That may well be the sarcastic prize; maybe the memory of a departed, special friend. In dreams we have no choice but to dream of the days when................................. Oh boy the tangents possible with their diversionary attempts.........................................

Not their fault. But not ours either. ............................................ Another long and un-bearable tangent.

Sign off necessitated.  If we all just loved each other all the "issues" would disappear. 60's shit?

Hey kids. My happiest time was when I held my mother's hand and we skipped down the tree lined street to the library. School was not yet in required session. In the cold room she had taught me how to read and write prior to kindergarten. I guess this was my concept of normality; my father travelling most of the year in an another unsuccessful attempt to be a star; my mother overly complacent in her attempts to instill life at the cemetery; me, in my outgrown crib, not yet tired, in an adjascent room, silently watching as they argued about something I couldn't understand, across from each other b.......More,  more I guess . I didn;t think it was my choice. Too tired and incompetent to add anything right now.. I hope it was "entertaining.

Keep bravely on.