Asbestos Dust's First Usenet Post!

From rec.arts.prose, 14 Mar 1998:



On Sat, 14 Mar 1998 17:29:22 -0800, RLitjens

wrote:



>Don't you think that this newsgroup is not what it used to be? I just

>had another look today (after leaving it for about 3 days) and there is

>all this stuff with people swearing and not letting the people that want

>to use this newsgroup productivly use it.



(SNIP)



Can't say. I was referred to this NG as a place where prose could be

posted and critiqued and I actually looked forward to seeing what

authors were doing and perhaps learning something about style and

content.



Having spent about a week cruising the posts here, I've determined

that in fact this NG consists of a couple engaged in some sort of

lover's quarrel.



Bill Palmer (aka: "Palmjob". Zowie, that's original. Certainly

representative of the high caliber writing I've seen here so far) and

Gilbert Vanburen Wilkes (aka: "Wormy". What a slam! Even more

unoriginal than "Palmjob", although I wouldn't have thought that

possible) seem to be a couple of grey-haired old fags engaged in a

limp-wristed slap-fest over which of them gets to wear the leather

corset and handcuffs today.



This frilly little whine-a-thon is characterized by Palmer excreting

some turgid little lump of prose and Wilkes following it up with a

long-winded, fatuous dissection whose length is exceeded only by its

insipidness. The word "regard" is used a lot as a stand-alone

sentence (presumably meaning "Hey, pay attention to the following"),

and perfectly illustrates the attempt of the writer to come across as

high-toned intelligentsia. Of course, it actually results in him

sounding like the slow-moving, boring, pedantic text-book writer he

apparently is. I'm guessing his best efforts are presently gathering

dust in university bookstores in the "Drier Than Dust" section.



After that, they call each other names in a simply enormous number of

increasingly pointless posts (for my money, you just can't hear

"jiggling little boy" or "depends undergarment wearing" too many

times) which serves to throw their lack of imagination and skill into

sharp relief for anyone who's too dense to have picked it up from

their initial efforts.



The whole thing is followed up by each of them claiming to be heavy

hitters on the flame NGs. Hehehehehehehehehe. Yeah. All-righty,

then. I suppose being ineffective, talentless dweebs in a competitive

world wasn't their first career choice. To salvage some reason to

continue in their grey, drab little lives, it's necessary to feel like

they've got some sort of skill somewhere. Since writing damned sure

isn't on the list, an imaginary affiliation with Really Naughty People

will have to do. They probably tell the little boys in the leather

bars they cruise that they're actually secret agents and Desperately

Dangerous. Fantasy is a wonderful thing.



So, in answer to your question;



>Don't you think that this newsgroup is not what it used to be?



all I can say is that it's what it's always been ever since I first

looked in.



In the meantime, I'm outta here. I'll check back in a couple of

months to see if this NG's recovered. In the meantime, somebody track

me down and let me know if either of these limp-dicked queens manages

to kill the other. Now THAT would be entertainment.



AD