JPK, Redux

Last Tuesday was a banner day in the land of the blog. Starting, not surprisingly, with an innocent comment I made on JPK’s blog. He hasn’t been writing much lately, and when he has it’s been fairly cryptic. Well, he had recently put up an entry entitled “girlfriends understand” that included a caveat saying he couldn’t post it earlier because he was trying to maintain someone’s confidentiality. Maybe so, but I think his concern was misplaced. The entry discussed someone moving away, but didn’t mention the person’s name, gender, current location, future location, relationship to Jason, or anything other scrap of identifying information. I looked at it on and off for a week, and finally decided to post a comment. It was just a little too self-important-people-are-watching-me to let pass.

I don’t usually comment on JPK’s blog because coming from me, it tends to provoke him. I’m not sure why an honest, constructive opinion would be offensive, but I’ve learned through experience that they instantly enrage him. Perhaps Paul is right, and JPK suffers from some kind of untreated bipolar syndrome. Anyway, I made an anonymous comment, blandly stating I didn’t think anyone could identify the person in the entry. I worded it so that (hopefully) he wouldn’t think it was from me. The goal was to get him to actually consider some honest, constructive criticism that he would otherwise reject because it came from me. I was rather proud of my little effort to improve JPK’s blog.

Turns out JPK doesn’t like suggestions from anyone. He immediately posted a comment (since taken down) lashing out at his anonymous reader (me) for being mentally ill, inappropriate, and clueless. While these charges are validly leveled at me every day, I didn’t think in this instance they were correct. So I responded with another anonymous comment, essentially restating my previous comment.

This is where it gets interesting. As part of his job, JPK has the ability to do a certain amount of internet backtracking. I’m being deliberately cryptic because I don’t want to get him fired for using company resources on company time for personal business. It’s a courtesy (as you will see) he does not extend to others. After I posted my second comment JPK managed to track the IP address. But not very effectively, because he tracked it back to the wrong person.

As long-time readers may recall, this isn’t the first time JPK messed up by sending flame-mail without thinking it through. But this time was so much worse. He emailed this person (the wrong person) at work. JPK threatened to post this person’s work email address on his blog. He accused him of criminal activity, infidelity, and mental health issues. My poor friend got this scathing mail and sent me a bewildered email, saying “Do you have any idea what this is about?”
Well, naturally I posted a final comment explaining that JPK had the wrong guy. In good conscience, I couldn’t let my friend take the heat for something I had done. But it’s interesting that for someone who is so completely happy and fulfilled, JPK is insecure and angry enough to lash out, unthinkingly, at any and every thing that's even mildly critical. That's good news for me, it means I don't have to work very hard to get him riled up. As someone once said, “I don’t care enough about him to read his blog. I don’t even have fun making fun of him like Andrew does.” I do like making fun of him. And as mean as it is, boy is it fun. Glad to see the good times aren’t over.