WWACD?
he'd be the immature, idiot blogger (and
emailer) of the week.
It is always difficult to admit when you're wrong.
To acknowledge that you've made a faulty assumption and a knee-jerk reaction and
then compounded them both by writing or speaking, emailing or blog-posting,
without fact or reason or even a modicum of common sense on your side. It is
even more difficult to apologize when you've done any of these things, much less
when you've managed to do all of them. And it is all the more difficult,
apparently, when you are 24, going on 10, going on 2
1/2.
Which brings us, then, to Adam Caldwell, the hopelessly immature, intellectually dishonest, marginally literate purveyor of a local Pittsburgh Penguins fan blog. Acting upon a bit of an unfair -- or at least unfairly represented -- tip over at The Burgh Blog, Master Caldwell reacted to Thursday's Gary Roberts post with an email and a blog post that would be funny, were they not so feeble, infuriating, were they not so pedestrian, and at least a little troubling, were they not such perfect proof not only of my point last Thursday but also of so many other things I've argued over and over again here at TWM. Chief among them: that a little knowledge is an especially dangerous thing when it is in proximity to a keyboard and an internet connection; that context and subtext and fact and truth and reason have now almost entirely passed out of a culture that prefers to celebrate the guttural bleatings of cheap insults and ironic self-congratulation; and that unfettered ignorance has but unfounded narcissism to defeat before it becomes the official currency of our intellectually bankrupt technological age.
To wit:
Bud,...
When greeted with an appellation like Bud, you know immediately that you're in the presence of social and intellectual nobility; it is the salutatory currency of kings and queens and people who will no doubt enjoy playing beer pong well into their 30s. You count your blessings that he did not address you as Dude, but you figure that will come later, when he wants to show at least a little respect.
...you can't call out "bandwagon, immature, and casual fans"...
What you can't do, Master Caldwell, is put quotations marks around words that are not direct quotations. I imagine you were told this quite often in middle school, and perhaps often again in high school. Pity that you ignored it as well and as fully as you seem to have ignored all other lessons in basic composition.
For the record, I identified casual fans and immature fans and bandwagon-jumping fans as the most likely and obvious offenders of the Gary Roberts cult-hero silliness. Now. Did I, as my pal JP accuses, paint with a bit wide of a brush? Perhaps. Because Lord knows there are at least a few mature, serious, long-time fans out there who enjoy a few laughs from the recurring Chuck-Norris-ification of the Pens' veteran winger. But careful readers will note something the knee-jerk set seems content to miss: I did not suggest everyone who did so (I referred to the fans with an undying obsession for this stuff) was necessarily all of those things (linking by and and repeating with fans separates the three, indicating that all types are possible offenders). These distinctions are both subtle and grammatical, I know; hence the rampant misunderstanding of them.
So. Yes. There are, of course, exceptions to the Gary Roberts rule. But you must look no farther than the reaction of Master Caldwell -- who is not a casual fan and is not a bandwagon jumper but is, after even a cursory glance at his email or his web site, by any reasonable definition, an immature fan -- to see the truth in my contention. And all the others I've made since.
...when you don't talk about the Pens until they trade for Hossa and then make the playoffs.
As we'll see when we get to his blog post, but which already takes far less than a rocket scientist -- or even a Penguins blogger -- to surmise, Master Caldwell took a quick look at the Sports Archive link on the right of this page and concluded that I'd never written (er, talked) about the Pens before the Hossa trade. Of course, TWM is almost four years old, and, as you can clearly see on the right margin, boasts 146 sports posts. The published archive only goes back to the last 50, which date from roughly the last year.
So you can already see the lengths of Master Caldwell's research, the great and exhaustive dedications of time and energy and intellectual acuity he devoted to making sure he knew what he was emailing and blogging about. (As you'll see when we get to his post, he proudly links to the Sports archive, as if it actually proves his point. Pity that the only points it proves are the ones I make about his ethical vacuity and intellectual dishonesty. But I'm getting pretty far ahead of myself...)
And yet Master Caldwell's paltry research is even simpler -- and more simple-minded -- than that. He didn't even bother to explore all 50 headlines listed on the page. If he had, he would have discovered at least seven more Penguins posts pre-dating the Hossa trade piece. Of course, that would have demanded patience and effort and the pride that comes from actually being correct. It also would have required him to click on a couple links and dig deeper than just what he could see by scrolling down a single page. It also would have required him to imagine that an exhaustive list of posts in a four-year-old blog might stretch back farther than three months. And that, of course, would have delayed -- and, indeed, even prevented -- him from getting down to the far more enjoyable business of hacking out a pair of witless broadsides.
And yet, even if we grant his hideously faulty assumption that I never once wrote about the Penguins before the Hossa trade, there are still a few Brobdingnagian holes in his (ahem) logic. Namely: that I was actually calling out those kinds of fans. (I wasn't. I was lamenting the overkill of the fans who insist on this insipid Gary Roberts worship.) Or that I couldn't lament or call out those fans if I hadn't ever blogged about the Pens before the Hossa trade. (Because Lord knows only long-time self-important bloggers can lament silliness or call out a lack of perspective.) Or that to have been a long and serious Penguins fan I would have had to blog about them incessantly -- and no doubt immaturely -- for weeks and months and years before. (Which, of course, minus the immaturity, I actually have done. But I'm getting ahead of myself again...)
Wow. This is exhausting, isn't it? You can see why Master Caldwell just gave up. Coming to this site must have been awfully taxing for him. It's a wonder he managed to read any of it all without passing out. Or going blind. Or needing to count syllables on his toes.
You come off severely hypocritical.
I didn't even know I was on severely hypocritical.
Now. That said...
...this may be my favorite sentence of all. If only because, in it, I am lectured on (assumed) hypocrisy and (supposed) intellectual credibility by a guy who, as you will soon see, redefines the realities of both with every last, lamentable sentence he farts and belches my way.
And we let people know about it.
I like this sentence too, written as it is with all the righteous indignation of Woodward and Bernstein declaring that they must let the people know about crimes committed by the President. You know -- if Woodward and Bernstein were a couple of lazy kids who couldn't write. And if Nixon hadn't actually committed those crimes.
Here's a little tip,Bob Carl Adam: when you're letting people know
about something, it should actually be true. Or close to true. Or have some
tiny shred of even the most remote and random basis in fact. Because when it
doesn't, you look like an idiot. No matter how many equally idiotic readers you
have yucking it up behind
you.
http://www.immaturesecondratepenguinsblogtowhichiwillnotlink.com
Not even if you paid me. Because I have far too much respect for the eyes, the brain cells, and the dignities of my own readers.
What we can't understand...
Suddenly he's writing in the first-person plural. Which means Mr. Caldwell must have either an equally vexed blogging partner or a deranged mind. You make the call.
...is how people can be so thick that they can't realize the cult status surrounding Gary Roberts stems from the fact that he's nowhere near what he used to be, in terms of hockey talent.
Gee, thanks,Dude Bud Slim, for explaining it to me. Now I
understand completely.
You're all lauding Gary Roberts because he's not as good as he used to be. You're elevating and celebrating a guy on your favorite hockey team who does not deserve it, to the necessary exclusion of other, far more significant contributors on your favorite hockey team, precisely because he does not deserve it. I get it. It's an irony thing. It's like Stephen Colbert and John Stewart, only not funny. And without a point.
Well, then. I can hardly wait until 2028, when we can all salute Jordan Staal's and Marc-Andre Fleury's no-longer-greatness. I mean, it would be silly to salute their greatness now, while it's actually happening. Better to manufacture a movement and wear some bracelets and get your sign on the Jumbotron. During a series in which your cult hero doesn't even hit the ice.
How fascinating finally to have been enlightened. And to understand that one of the best ways people invested in their favorite hockey team can think of to salute it is to create and perpetuate a nice, ironic inside joke that's all about themselves. No wonder he's so proud of himself and his blog. I imagine it's only a matter of time before he auditions for a reality tv show. If he hasn't already.
Don't write something thinking that you're enlightening everyone when you're the one that's out of touch.
Speaking of irony.
Like we said, if you weren't a bandwagon fan that makes posts about the Pens when the fever pitch is the highest,...
There's that first-person-to-third-person shift again. Definite sign of a personality disorder. I'm thinking he/they need/s some serious counseling.
(We'll get back to the absurd notion that I'm a bandwagon fan later. Stay tuned.)
...we would at least respect your opinion.
Oh, yes. You can be sure they'd respect my opinion then. They would no doubt respond with careful thought and reason and evidence, with fact and logic and something resembling a coherent, cohesive argument that responded in kind to the points I made. Or at least some sort of retraction or clarification. Or maybe even an apology.
He/They would, wouldn't he/they?
Stay tuned for that too.
Thanks for your time.
Such a nice, courteous sign-off for such an immature, insulting email. I can't decide if it's a standard sig line, or just a passive-aggressive thing. Either way, it's amusing.
Now. If you read this site, and especially if you've read this far, you know I couldn't let that email go without an immediate response. And I didn't. But I'll save the details -- or at least the broad strokes of it -- for later, after we've taken a look at the even more witless and juvenile post to which he so proudly referred me...
This post basically had no point until we happened to check out [ BurghBlog ].
Well, it still has no point. And no reason. And no [logic]. And no [truth]. But you have to admire, at least a little bit, a writer so un-self-aware that he admits he has no point before he even begins to prove it.
The talented and link-savvy "PittGirl" found a link of some dude complaining about "WWGRD."
Dude. See? I told you it was coming. The blog post obviously demands a greater formality.
(And, not to nitpick, but PittGirl found a link to some dude lamenting the Gary Roberts' cultdom.)
Meet [ Chad Herman ]:
Or Chad HermanN. But, hey, why let a little thing like proper spelling hold you back? After all, virtually nothing else you write is proper or accurate. May as well fuck that up too.
And we take this is was a shot at all of us:
Well, of course you do does. Because you is are the centers of your own happy, heinously deluded little universe.
But, quick, check out his "sports" archive. [ Here ]
Ah, yes. The proof. Exhaustively researched, as we have already seen. And now provided with a link for verification, so that all the pea-brained readers of his blog can muster up their best Gary-Roberts-esque outrage and... what, exactly?
HOW DARE this guy call out "bandwagon" fans when he's only talked about the Pens when they traded for Hossa and then when they started the playoffs.
Oooh. ALL CAPS. He must be really mad now.
(You should know, too, that one of the best parts about this post and indeed the whole blog -- to which, again, I will not link -- is the visual cacophony of colors and sizes and type styles in which they're written; the pages look like they were tapped out by an eight-year-old who'd just discovered all the things he can do with Microsoft Word. And then went blind. But kept on typing. The only thing missing is a 72 pt. font that declares me a BIG FAT POOPY HEAD. I imagine it may be forthcoming.)
Meanwhile, I'm wondering how some immature, uncritical, intellectual midget of a Penguins blogger dare make claims that are not true, that are not supported by the text to which he refers, that he has not bothered to verify, and that prove only his own considerable shortcomings.
CHAD HERMAN IS A FRINGE FAN WHO THINKS HE'S ENLIGHTENING EVERYONE.
Interesting, I think, that someone who has not yet demonstrated the capacity to think fancies himself such an expert on how I do it.
Chad, you're not, dude.
Not a fringe fan? Not thinking? Or not enlightening anyone?
Just wondering, bud.
You can already tell that PeeWee wants the Pens to lose just so he can bitch about something.
Perhaps the only refreshing bit about both of these tirades is that someone as obviously limited and painfully uncreative as Master Caldwell waited this long to pull out the two (ahem) rhetorical devices I was certain would come immediately:
1) The obligatory Pee Wee Herman reference. Takes me back to high school, it does.
2) The essential, especially to Western Pennsylvania, he must not be a real fan and just wants to complain about stuff and probably hopes they'll lose gambit. Which is, of course, so clear in all those rhapsodic, superstitious, occasionally melodramatic posts I make to their honor and glory. Anyone who roots that hard must surely be harboring a secret longing for failure. Maybe it's another irony thing.
The fact anyone would actually get mad about this Roberts stuff is bizarre.
You know, because, like, I like it, and all my friends like it, and all my friends' friends like it, so, like, what's not to like?
I am tempted here to note that being critical of something is not the same as getting mad about it, but you all know that as surely as Master Caldwell does not. So I won't.
Though I will enjoy the thought of Master Caldwell expressing amazement that anyone could be bothered by these things, even as he's bothered to the point of an insulting, dismissive email and a rambling, juvenile post, replete with several ALL CAPS AND COLORS TIZZIES, about being bothered by them. For someone who staked such a(n obviously unintentional) claim to irony in his email, he seems (once more) unable to recognize it here.
But PeeWee takes it as "casual" fans disrupting "his" team.
At this point, I'm almost too tired to continue. Trying to deconstruct all the leaps and gaps and fallacies in Master Caldwell's (ahem) logic is like trying to plug all the holes in a strainer with a single needle. No matter how fast you poke, there's always a lot more pouring out.
We know not everyone likeS Gary Roberts and people will have their own opinions.
Except, of course, that I do likE Gary Roberts. Hell, I love him. The first sentence of my post said so. And it was a nice, short, simple sentence, so I can't imagine why you didn't understand it.
And, yeah, we know people will have their own opinions, but they're NOT ENTITLED TO THEM UNLESS THEY'RE THE SAME AS OURS. Or unless they meet our own random, useless criteria for judging fandom. Or unless they likeS the same thingS that we doeS.
But seriously lighten up.
Pot. Kettle. Black. Bud.
And don't accuse bandwagon, casual, and immature fans being behind this.
I presume you mean of being behind this...
...so, well, okay. Except that, as you and some of your equally vapid emailing cohorts have already abundantly proven, I'm right. At least on the immature part.
If you've never seen Chad Herman type out a post on his site, we found exclusive footage: [YouTube video of a primate urinating into his own mouth.]
Did I say this guy was immature? Really?
Did I say he was painfully uncreative? I did?
Well, shame on me.
Come back to us when you don't wait till the playoffs to talk about the Pens. Thanks.
Funny thing, that. Because I did.
After I received the email, and before I read the post, I sent a full (and shockingly respectful) reply to Master Caldwell. I assumed -- wrongly, it turns out -- that his zeal for the Penguins and the exuberance of his youth inspired him to write something he would, when faced with fact and truth, later regret. That he got caught up in the moment -- in one of those knee-jerk reactions that lead to some of those faulty assumptions that lead to writing and speaking and emailing and blog-posting for which you will later apologize and make amends -- and would, once he'd learned the errors of his ways, admit and apologize for them. Especially to another die-hard (albeit far more mature and intelligent) Pens fan.
But, alas, he did not.
Not even after learning that I've been blogging for four years -- which is, by the way, two years longer than he's been blogging on his site.
Not even after learning that I've been blogging, here on an intentionally all-purpose, general-subject site, about the Pens for four years -- which is, by the way, two years longer than he's been blogging about them on his site.
Not even after learning that -- and reading a couple of stories about how -- I was a season ticket holder even through the lean years, when less than 10,000 people were showing up every night to cheer on the scrappy but still sorry likes of Steve McKenna and Milan Kraft and Konstantin Koltsov, and that Wendy and I followed them obsessively, even to the point of scrounging and chasing down cable access, when we lived in Baltimore, and that I spent as much spending money as I could afford on Pens tickets in the pre-Cup days when I was an undergrad at Duquesne.
Not even after learning that I've been going to Pens' games since he was 3, and that I've loved and rooted for the team since before he was born.
None of that mattered. And none of that made any difference. Because, in the sad little world of Adam Caldwell and his middle-school-intellect web site, just as it is in the equally sad little worlds of so many other bloggers and writers and commentators and, it seems, anyone who these days has any opinion at all, it is much more fun to hurl the insult than it is to hurl the truth, more important to think you are right than to know you are correct, more convenient to expectorate in all caps and multiple colors and link to YouTube videos of pissing primates than it is to consider, or to engage, or even to angrily but sensibly respond to words and thoughts and ideas of someone who has the terrible temerity to disagree with you. Why try to refute someone's argument when you can just shit in his face?
Am I overstating? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way...
...remember when Master Caldwell said that, if circumstances were different, he -- uh, I mean they -- would respect my opinion:
Like we said, if you weren't a bandwagon fan that makes posts about the Pens when the fever pitch is the highest, we would at least respect your opinion.
And remember when I kinda sorta doubted that might be true? Well, here's the response my email -- which gave Master Adam the (undeserved) benefit of the doubt and explained in detail how and why I am anything but -- produced:
Hi, Chad.
A friendly beginning. That's nice.
Lets just get one thing straight.
Missing an apostrophe. A bit combative already. Not good signs. And one that continues, of course, this whole passive-aggressive thing he has going. I think he should seek help immediately. And not just for the grammar.
You will never get a private/public apology from us ever.
Remember what I wrote at the start of this post? Exactly.
You are entitled to your meaningless opinion, just as we are to ours.
That's an awfully funny way of showing respect, don't you think?
And I won't even mention that people who claim entitlement to their opinions are almost always the people who have no thought or fact or logic or reason or data or truth with which to back it up.
(Oops.)
The fact you would even ask for an apology shows us how big of a douche you are.
My considerable doucheness aside, I never asked for an apology. After all, that would be like asking President Bush for an apology. Or Adam Caldwell for a well-crafted, correctly spelled sentence. Rather, I told Master Caldwell that he owed me one. And that whether or not I got it would tell me everything I needed to know about him and his blog.
And so it has.
All you need to know about our blog is that we could careless about what people like you thing.
It is obvious, I thing, that they could also careless about spelling. And diction. And grammar.
P.S. Dont't ever right us a email with 5 paragraphs again.
Okay. I wont't.
But I may WRITE you aN email with 5 paragraphs some time. I'll just make sure they're really short. And I promise not to use any big words.
Because we won't read it.
There's that personality disorder again. (Do you think he has a conjoined twin?)
I fell asleep midway through.
No doubt because your mind is not used to processing a compound sentence. Or a complex thought.
Now. I know what all three of you who've made it this far and are still reading are thinking: gee, Chad, this was fun, but wasn't it a bit much? Isn't it all at least a little bit beneath you?
Well, yes. Probably. It does, in the end, seem a bit like producing a masters thesis to explain to a two-year-old why he shouldn't make poopy in his pants. And I should, I suppose, just learn to let this stuff roll over and away from me more freely than it does.
And yet, as you know, these sorts of immature, irrational, anti-intellectual absurdities push my buttons like precious few things in the world. Whether they're coming from a nationally renowned, indicted former coroner or a locally inclined, immature fellow blogger, I am both viscerally and intellectually compelled to respond to them. To refute them. To expose them and deconstruct them and make cold, hard, painfully clear examples of them.
I suppose it's the father and the teacher, the writer and the lover of writing, the perfectionist and, yes, the pedant in me.
I am all of those things, guilty as charged. But I am also, at least -- even in my weakest and most excessive moments -- someone who still believes in the importance of taking care and being fair, of doing right and doing well, someone who believes in a rigorous and absolute dedication to what I like to call the Rational Middle: that place where sense and logic and reason always prevail.
Even when I know they can not. And even when, in overzealous moments like these, with nothing but the best of intentions, I beat and belabor and occasionally berate them myself.
CORRECTION, 2:07pm: An email from Master Caldwell's co-blogger, Derek Rocco, informs me that Adam didn't write the bad grammar parts, that was me. That sentence would, of course, seem to verify his claim, so please substitute Master Rocco for Master Caldwell any time I shred the grammar and spelling of the blog post.
Though I must say I find it awfully amusing -- and supremely ironic -- that one of the writers of that festering, indefensible juvenilia of errors would implore me to please keep my facts straight.
Which, of course, I now have. See how easy that is, boys?
Which brings us, then, to Adam Caldwell, the hopelessly immature, intellectually dishonest, marginally literate purveyor of a local Pittsburgh Penguins fan blog. Acting upon a bit of an unfair -- or at least unfairly represented -- tip over at The Burgh Blog, Master Caldwell reacted to Thursday's Gary Roberts post with an email and a blog post that would be funny, were they not so feeble, infuriating, were they not so pedestrian, and at least a little troubling, were they not such perfect proof not only of my point last Thursday but also of so many other things I've argued over and over again here at TWM. Chief among them: that a little knowledge is an especially dangerous thing when it is in proximity to a keyboard and an internet connection; that context and subtext and fact and truth and reason have now almost entirely passed out of a culture that prefers to celebrate the guttural bleatings of cheap insults and ironic self-congratulation; and that unfettered ignorance has but unfounded narcissism to defeat before it becomes the official currency of our intellectually bankrupt technological age.
To wit:
Bud,...
When greeted with an appellation like Bud, you know immediately that you're in the presence of social and intellectual nobility; it is the salutatory currency of kings and queens and people who will no doubt enjoy playing beer pong well into their 30s. You count your blessings that he did not address you as Dude, but you figure that will come later, when he wants to show at least a little respect.
...you can't call out "bandwagon, immature, and casual fans"...
What you can't do, Master Caldwell, is put quotations marks around words that are not direct quotations. I imagine you were told this quite often in middle school, and perhaps often again in high school. Pity that you ignored it as well and as fully as you seem to have ignored all other lessons in basic composition.
For the record, I identified casual fans and immature fans and bandwagon-jumping fans as the most likely and obvious offenders of the Gary Roberts cult-hero silliness. Now. Did I, as my pal JP accuses, paint with a bit wide of a brush? Perhaps. Because Lord knows there are at least a few mature, serious, long-time fans out there who enjoy a few laughs from the recurring Chuck-Norris-ification of the Pens' veteran winger. But careful readers will note something the knee-jerk set seems content to miss: I did not suggest everyone who did so (I referred to the fans with an undying obsession for this stuff) was necessarily all of those things (linking by and and repeating with fans separates the three, indicating that all types are possible offenders). These distinctions are both subtle and grammatical, I know; hence the rampant misunderstanding of them.
So. Yes. There are, of course, exceptions to the Gary Roberts rule. But you must look no farther than the reaction of Master Caldwell -- who is not a casual fan and is not a bandwagon jumper but is, after even a cursory glance at his email or his web site, by any reasonable definition, an immature fan -- to see the truth in my contention. And all the others I've made since.
...when you don't talk about the Pens until they trade for Hossa and then make the playoffs.
As we'll see when we get to his blog post, but which already takes far less than a rocket scientist -- or even a Penguins blogger -- to surmise, Master Caldwell took a quick look at the Sports Archive link on the right of this page and concluded that I'd never written (er, talked) about the Pens before the Hossa trade. Of course, TWM is almost four years old, and, as you can clearly see on the right margin, boasts 146 sports posts. The published archive only goes back to the last 50, which date from roughly the last year.
So you can already see the lengths of Master Caldwell's research, the great and exhaustive dedications of time and energy and intellectual acuity he devoted to making sure he knew what he was emailing and blogging about. (As you'll see when we get to his post, he proudly links to the Sports archive, as if it actually proves his point. Pity that the only points it proves are the ones I make about his ethical vacuity and intellectual dishonesty. But I'm getting pretty far ahead of myself...)
And yet Master Caldwell's paltry research is even simpler -- and more simple-minded -- than that. He didn't even bother to explore all 50 headlines listed on the page. If he had, he would have discovered at least seven more Penguins posts pre-dating the Hossa trade piece. Of course, that would have demanded patience and effort and the pride that comes from actually being correct. It also would have required him to click on a couple links and dig deeper than just what he could see by scrolling down a single page. It also would have required him to imagine that an exhaustive list of posts in a four-year-old blog might stretch back farther than three months. And that, of course, would have delayed -- and, indeed, even prevented -- him from getting down to the far more enjoyable business of hacking out a pair of witless broadsides.
And yet, even if we grant his hideously faulty assumption that I never once wrote about the Penguins before the Hossa trade, there are still a few Brobdingnagian holes in his (ahem) logic. Namely: that I was actually calling out those kinds of fans. (I wasn't. I was lamenting the overkill of the fans who insist on this insipid Gary Roberts worship.) Or that I couldn't lament or call out those fans if I hadn't ever blogged about the Pens before the Hossa trade. (Because Lord knows only long-time self-important bloggers can lament silliness or call out a lack of perspective.) Or that to have been a long and serious Penguins fan I would have had to blog about them incessantly -- and no doubt immaturely -- for weeks and months and years before. (Which, of course, minus the immaturity, I actually have done. But I'm getting ahead of myself again...)
Wow. This is exhausting, isn't it? You can see why Master Caldwell just gave up. Coming to this site must have been awfully taxing for him. It's a wonder he managed to read any of it all without passing out. Or going blind. Or needing to count syllables on his toes.
You come off severely hypocritical.
I didn't even know I was on severely hypocritical.
Now. That said...
...this may be my favorite sentence of all. If only because, in it, I am lectured on (assumed) hypocrisy and (supposed) intellectual credibility by a guy who, as you will soon see, redefines the realities of both with every last, lamentable sentence he farts and belches my way.
And we let people know about it.
I like this sentence too, written as it is with all the righteous indignation of Woodward and Bernstein declaring that they must let the people know about crimes committed by the President. You know -- if Woodward and Bernstein were a couple of lazy kids who couldn't write. And if Nixon hadn't actually committed those crimes.
Here's a little tip,
http://www.immaturesecondratepenguinsblogtowhichiwillnotlink.com
Not even if you paid me. Because I have far too much respect for the eyes, the brain cells, and the dignities of my own readers.
What we can't understand...
Suddenly he's writing in the first-person plural. Which means Mr. Caldwell must have either an equally vexed blogging partner or a deranged mind. You make the call.
...is how people can be so thick that they can't realize the cult status surrounding Gary Roberts stems from the fact that he's nowhere near what he used to be, in terms of hockey talent.
Gee, thanks,
You're all lauding Gary Roberts because he's not as good as he used to be. You're elevating and celebrating a guy on your favorite hockey team who does not deserve it, to the necessary exclusion of other, far more significant contributors on your favorite hockey team, precisely because he does not deserve it. I get it. It's an irony thing. It's like Stephen Colbert and John Stewart, only not funny. And without a point.
Well, then. I can hardly wait until 2028, when we can all salute Jordan Staal's and Marc-Andre Fleury's no-longer-greatness. I mean, it would be silly to salute their greatness now, while it's actually happening. Better to manufacture a movement and wear some bracelets and get your sign on the Jumbotron. During a series in which your cult hero doesn't even hit the ice.
How fascinating finally to have been enlightened. And to understand that one of the best ways people invested in their favorite hockey team can think of to salute it is to create and perpetuate a nice, ironic inside joke that's all about themselves. No wonder he's so proud of himself and his blog. I imagine it's only a matter of time before he auditions for a reality tv show. If he hasn't already.
Don't write something thinking that you're enlightening everyone when you're the one that's out of touch.
Speaking of irony.
Like we said, if you weren't a bandwagon fan that makes posts about the Pens when the fever pitch is the highest,...
There's that first-person-to-third-person shift again. Definite sign of a personality disorder. I'm thinking he/they need/s some serious counseling.
(We'll get back to the absurd notion that I'm a bandwagon fan later. Stay tuned.)
...we would at least respect your opinion.
Oh, yes. You can be sure they'd respect my opinion then. They would no doubt respond with careful thought and reason and evidence, with fact and logic and something resembling a coherent, cohesive argument that responded in kind to the points I made. Or at least some sort of retraction or clarification. Or maybe even an apology.
He/They would, wouldn't he/they?
Stay tuned for that too.
Thanks for your time.
Such a nice, courteous sign-off for such an immature, insulting email. I can't decide if it's a standard sig line, or just a passive-aggressive thing. Either way, it's amusing.
Now. If you read this site, and especially if you've read this far, you know I couldn't let that email go without an immediate response. And I didn't. But I'll save the details -- or at least the broad strokes of it -- for later, after we've taken a look at the even more witless and juvenile post to which he so proudly referred me...
This post basically had no point until we happened to check out [ BurghBlog ].
Well, it still has no point. And no reason. And no [logic]. And no [truth]. But you have to admire, at least a little bit, a writer so un-self-aware that he admits he has no point before he even begins to prove it.
The talented and link-savvy "PittGirl" found a link of some dude complaining about "WWGRD."
Dude. See? I told you it was coming. The blog post obviously demands a greater formality.
(And, not to nitpick, but PittGirl found a link to some dude lamenting the Gary Roberts' cultdom.)
Meet [ Chad Herman ]:
Or Chad HermanN. But, hey, why let a little thing like proper spelling hold you back? After all, virtually nothing else you write is proper or accurate. May as well fuck that up too.
And we take this is was a shot at all of us:
Well, of course you do does. Because you is are the centers of your own happy, heinously deluded little universe.
But, quick, check out his "sports" archive. [ Here ]
Ah, yes. The proof. Exhaustively researched, as we have already seen. And now provided with a link for verification, so that all the pea-brained readers of his blog can muster up their best Gary-Roberts-esque outrage and... what, exactly?
HOW DARE this guy call out "bandwagon" fans when he's only talked about the Pens when they traded for Hossa and then when they started the playoffs.
Oooh. ALL CAPS. He must be really mad now.
(You should know, too, that one of the best parts about this post and indeed the whole blog -- to which, again, I will not link -- is the visual cacophony of colors and sizes and type styles in which they're written; the pages look like they were tapped out by an eight-year-old who'd just discovered all the things he can do with Microsoft Word. And then went blind. But kept on typing. The only thing missing is a 72 pt. font that declares me a BIG FAT POOPY HEAD. I imagine it may be forthcoming.)
Meanwhile, I'm wondering how some immature, uncritical, intellectual midget of a Penguins blogger dare make claims that are not true, that are not supported by the text to which he refers, that he has not bothered to verify, and that prove only his own considerable shortcomings.
CHAD HERMAN IS A FRINGE FAN WHO THINKS HE'S ENLIGHTENING EVERYONE.
Interesting, I think, that someone who has not yet demonstrated the capacity to think fancies himself such an expert on how I do it.
Chad, you're not, dude.
Not a fringe fan? Not thinking? Or not enlightening anyone?
Just wondering, bud.
You can already tell that PeeWee wants the Pens to lose just so he can bitch about something.
Perhaps the only refreshing bit about both of these tirades is that someone as obviously limited and painfully uncreative as Master Caldwell waited this long to pull out the two (ahem) rhetorical devices I was certain would come immediately:
1) The obligatory Pee Wee Herman reference. Takes me back to high school, it does.
2) The essential, especially to Western Pennsylvania, he must not be a real fan and just wants to complain about stuff and probably hopes they'll lose gambit. Which is, of course, so clear in all those rhapsodic, superstitious, occasionally melodramatic posts I make to their honor and glory. Anyone who roots that hard must surely be harboring a secret longing for failure. Maybe it's another irony thing.
The fact anyone would actually get mad about this Roberts stuff is bizarre.
You know, because, like, I like it, and all my friends like it, and all my friends' friends like it, so, like, what's not to like?
I am tempted here to note that being critical of something is not the same as getting mad about it, but you all know that as surely as Master Caldwell does not. So I won't.
Though I will enjoy the thought of Master Caldwell expressing amazement that anyone could be bothered by these things, even as he's bothered to the point of an insulting, dismissive email and a rambling, juvenile post, replete with several ALL CAPS AND COLORS TIZZIES, about being bothered by them. For someone who staked such a(n obviously unintentional) claim to irony in his email, he seems (once more) unable to recognize it here.
But PeeWee takes it as "casual" fans disrupting "his" team.
At this point, I'm almost too tired to continue. Trying to deconstruct all the leaps and gaps and fallacies in Master Caldwell's (ahem) logic is like trying to plug all the holes in a strainer with a single needle. No matter how fast you poke, there's always a lot more pouring out.
We know not everyone likeS Gary Roberts and people will have their own opinions.
Except, of course, that I do likE Gary Roberts. Hell, I love him. The first sentence of my post said so. And it was a nice, short, simple sentence, so I can't imagine why you didn't understand it.
And, yeah, we know people will have their own opinions, but they're NOT ENTITLED TO THEM UNLESS THEY'RE THE SAME AS OURS. Or unless they meet our own random, useless criteria for judging fandom. Or unless they likeS the same thingS that we doeS.
But seriously lighten up.
Pot. Kettle. Black. Bud.
And don't accuse bandwagon, casual, and immature fans being behind this.
I presume you mean of being behind this...
...so, well, okay. Except that, as you and some of your equally vapid emailing cohorts have already abundantly proven, I'm right. At least on the immature part.
If you've never seen Chad Herman type out a post on his site, we found exclusive footage: [YouTube video of a primate urinating into his own mouth.]
Did I say this guy was immature? Really?
Did I say he was painfully uncreative? I did?
Well, shame on me.
Come back to us when you don't wait till the playoffs to talk about the Pens. Thanks.
Funny thing, that. Because I did.
After I received the email, and before I read the post, I sent a full (and shockingly respectful) reply to Master Caldwell. I assumed -- wrongly, it turns out -- that his zeal for the Penguins and the exuberance of his youth inspired him to write something he would, when faced with fact and truth, later regret. That he got caught up in the moment -- in one of those knee-jerk reactions that lead to some of those faulty assumptions that lead to writing and speaking and emailing and blog-posting for which you will later apologize and make amends -- and would, once he'd learned the errors of his ways, admit and apologize for them. Especially to another die-hard (albeit far more mature and intelligent) Pens fan.
But, alas, he did not.
Not even after learning that I've been blogging for four years -- which is, by the way, two years longer than he's been blogging on his site.
Not even after learning that I've been blogging, here on an intentionally all-purpose, general-subject site, about the Pens for four years -- which is, by the way, two years longer than he's been blogging about them on his site.
Not even after learning that -- and reading a couple of stories about how -- I was a season ticket holder even through the lean years, when less than 10,000 people were showing up every night to cheer on the scrappy but still sorry likes of Steve McKenna and Milan Kraft and Konstantin Koltsov, and that Wendy and I followed them obsessively, even to the point of scrounging and chasing down cable access, when we lived in Baltimore, and that I spent as much spending money as I could afford on Pens tickets in the pre-Cup days when I was an undergrad at Duquesne.
Not even after learning that I've been going to Pens' games since he was 3, and that I've loved and rooted for the team since before he was born.
None of that mattered. And none of that made any difference. Because, in the sad little world of Adam Caldwell and his middle-school-intellect web site, just as it is in the equally sad little worlds of so many other bloggers and writers and commentators and, it seems, anyone who these days has any opinion at all, it is much more fun to hurl the insult than it is to hurl the truth, more important to think you are right than to know you are correct, more convenient to expectorate in all caps and multiple colors and link to YouTube videos of pissing primates than it is to consider, or to engage, or even to angrily but sensibly respond to words and thoughts and ideas of someone who has the terrible temerity to disagree with you. Why try to refute someone's argument when you can just shit in his face?
Am I overstating? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way...
...remember when Master Caldwell said that, if circumstances were different, he -- uh, I mean they -- would respect my opinion:
Like we said, if you weren't a bandwagon fan that makes posts about the Pens when the fever pitch is the highest, we would at least respect your opinion.
And remember when I kinda sorta doubted that might be true? Well, here's the response my email -- which gave Master Adam the (undeserved) benefit of the doubt and explained in detail how and why I am anything but -- produced:
Hi, Chad.
A friendly beginning. That's nice.
Lets just get one thing straight.
Missing an apostrophe. A bit combative already. Not good signs. And one that continues, of course, this whole passive-aggressive thing he has going. I think he should seek help immediately. And not just for the grammar.
You will never get a private/public apology from us ever.
Remember what I wrote at the start of this post? Exactly.
You are entitled to your meaningless opinion, just as we are to ours.
That's an awfully funny way of showing respect, don't you think?
And I won't even mention that people who claim entitlement to their opinions are almost always the people who have no thought or fact or logic or reason or data or truth with which to back it up.
(Oops.)
The fact you would even ask for an apology shows us how big of a douche you are.
My considerable doucheness aside, I never asked for an apology. After all, that would be like asking President Bush for an apology. Or Adam Caldwell for a well-crafted, correctly spelled sentence. Rather, I told Master Caldwell that he owed me one. And that whether or not I got it would tell me everything I needed to know about him and his blog.
And so it has.
All you need to know about our blog is that we could careless about what people like you thing.
It is obvious, I thing, that they could also careless about spelling. And diction. And grammar.
P.S. Dont't ever right us a email with 5 paragraphs again.
Okay. I wont't.
But I may WRITE you aN email with 5 paragraphs some time. I'll just make sure they're really short. And I promise not to use any big words.
Because we won't read it.
There's that personality disorder again. (Do you think he has a conjoined twin?)
I fell asleep midway through.
No doubt because your mind is not used to processing a compound sentence. Or a complex thought.
Now. I know what all three of you who've made it this far and are still reading are thinking: gee, Chad, this was fun, but wasn't it a bit much? Isn't it all at least a little bit beneath you?
Well, yes. Probably. It does, in the end, seem a bit like producing a masters thesis to explain to a two-year-old why he shouldn't make poopy in his pants. And I should, I suppose, just learn to let this stuff roll over and away from me more freely than it does.
And yet, as you know, these sorts of immature, irrational, anti-intellectual absurdities push my buttons like precious few things in the world. Whether they're coming from a nationally renowned, indicted former coroner or a locally inclined, immature fellow blogger, I am both viscerally and intellectually compelled to respond to them. To refute them. To expose them and deconstruct them and make cold, hard, painfully clear examples of them.
I suppose it's the father and the teacher, the writer and the lover of writing, the perfectionist and, yes, the pedant in me.
I am all of those things, guilty as charged. But I am also, at least -- even in my weakest and most excessive moments -- someone who still believes in the importance of taking care and being fair, of doing right and doing well, someone who believes in a rigorous and absolute dedication to what I like to call the Rational Middle: that place where sense and logic and reason always prevail.
Even when I know they can not. And even when, in overzealous moments like these, with nothing but the best of intentions, I beat and belabor and occasionally berate them myself.
CORRECTION, 2:07pm: An email from Master Caldwell's co-blogger, Derek Rocco, informs me that Adam didn't write the bad grammar parts, that was me. That sentence would, of course, seem to verify his claim, so please substitute Master Rocco for Master Caldwell any time I shred the grammar and spelling of the blog post.
Though I must say I find it awfully amusing -- and supremely ironic -- that one of the writers of that festering, indefensible juvenilia of errors would implore me to please keep my facts straight.
Which, of course, I now have. See how easy that is, boys?
Posted: Tue - May 20, 2008 at 12:10 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM