Now, the Save the Guinea Worm Foundation brings the fun right to my barcalounger. It's like I put a giant billboard out on the Turnpike directing motorists with atrophied senses of humor right into my personal funhouse. I'm remembering the adolescent joys of knocking shit off the shelves of the supermarket and making fun of all the older people who look at you like the moronic kid you secretly fear you'll always be. It seems so clear, as one passes into the "meats" section for more carnage, that you are so much more alive than all of the other shabby people in the supermarket.
But gosh darn it if I don't feel a distinct lack of closure with Jeff Heimberger! For one thing, Jeff Heimberger wallpapered his website with his own photo, and I took a lot of inspiration from that simple gesture. Every time I finished another operatic, schizoid letter, I thought of Jeff Heimberger's unremarkable little picture repeated over and over across his page (by him), and I experienced multiple orgasms as I pressed "send". But Jeff Heimberger never took the bait, never rose to the challenge, never tested his mettle. And leaves me with a yawing emptiness that the Save the Guinea Worm Foundation cannot fill.
Dear Jeff Heimberger,
It has been many moons since my last attempt to engage you in a dialogue befitting men of our standing. I have remarked, with growing sadness, that the months of inattention have not been kind to your website. Cobwebs now stretch across doorways where, at one time, there seemed about to appear ideas of perfectly acceptable stature, certainly the kind of ideas which someone, somewhere, could love.
In legal terms, this is known as "Failure to appear" and ranks just below "Contempt of court". And it seemed like an act of both failure and contempt. What is the substance of the Web but Ideas -- our darkest and lightest desires made real, pixel by pulsing pixel? What is the Web but a new society in which all Ideas are given equal chance to be perceived? What is the currency of this new society but Attention? For it is Attention, the hits received by an Idea, which demonstrate its inherent Fitness. I gave you Attention -- I wrote you emails, I discussed your website on The Seven Deadly Sins Homepage, but did I receive Attention in return? No, only ignominious de-registration from a number of popular search engines, and a corresponding reduction in the Attention my Ideas were able to receive. Which I don't know if you had a hand in, but seemed below men of our standing.
Now you are gone or sleeping, your website cobwebby. You vanished with such suddenness that it was almost an act of implied violence, like a midget snatched up by big bullies and held over their heads as they ran off drunkenly to the big football game. Despite your lack of Attention, as a lover of Ideas I mourn the loss of the Diversity your contribution brought to the Web. Without Diversity the Fitness of selected members cannot be evaluated effectively. It's the Olympic Games when the Soviet Block boycotted, and everyone said "Oh, those medals don't mean as much as if we were competing against the Russians."
What I'm saying is, look what happened to the Soviets. Just like Reagan said, their empire is on the ash-heap of history. And all because they wouldn't play along.
Yours in earnest pursuit of a better world,
Adam