B. U. G. S.

I am sure that all of you have had the experience of smelling something burning and looking for it.

I hope that few of you live in the paper-clogged firetrap that an old divorced writer’s apartment inevitably turns into, but even in a well-kept place the smell of burning paper is an alarm. We all listen to our noses when that smell is detected.

Most of what this Bob (the old man sitting here) says results from my mind trying to figure out exactly what my experienced old nose smells. It took me a long time to narrow down what I smelled about all those “integrationists” and “moderates” and word merchants to the Mantra.

My ears perk up when Dave starts explaining “what Bob means…” Dave is doing what I have done, explaining what Bob’s nose smelled. It is wonderful to have another powerful mind concentrating on this point.

Dave is doing my intellectual work for me and validating the fact that it is worthwhile.

As Pain will readily understand, Bob spends most of his intellectual effort figuring out What Bob Means, because Bob has good old Southern white instincts that smell a rat right quick. But it is no easy effort to get those excellent instincts from my experienced Southern white nose to my brain.

My basic equipment consists first of healthy loyalties and a fanatical devotion to simple truth. I offer you that and God’s gift to me of a powerful mind and a lot of hard-won experience to go with it. People like BoardAd and SysOps –- and me — recognize the value of that combination and work like hell to use it and spread its results.

But one other thing I have to offer you is the experience of an old staffer. When Dave explains what Bob means to someone else, he is doing exactly the same work I am doing myself.

DIGRESSION:

The word “Bob” has an institutional meaning. It will be here long after the Bob who is sitting here is dead.

I am reminded of a Ted Kennedy staffer who, before the Chappaquiddick disaster was made public, flew over and saw the top of the car the girl had drowned in in the water. This loving humanitarian’s only comment was, “There is the end of the Kennedy Presidency.”

A young woman, a woman on his side, had slowly, terrifyingly suffocated in that car. It is hard to imagine a more terrible, prolonged way to die.

I am a cold-blooded old coot, but who can imagine that if I saw a car in which SysOps or Shari had died slowly and horribly died, my ONLY remark would be, “There goes Bob’s chance at the Big Time.”

It reminds me of the November 22, when reporters asked Barry Goldwater what effect the assassination would have on the 1964 campaign. Goldwater was infuriated, “The president of the United States has just been murdered and you are asking me about a CAMPAIGN? What kind of people are you?”

By November of 1964 he would find out what kind of people they were.

No one but me has ever commented on how psychopathic that staffer was being when all he noticed was “the end of Kennedy Presidency.” No one among the pros expected him to react differently.

That senior staffer was not concerned about the agonies of the girl. He was concerned about Ted Kennedy. He was specifically interested in the Kennedy PRESIDENCY, which was his business.

In the same sense, though not with the same degree of psychopathology, your interpreting Bob has little to do with the paper-surrounded old man who is sitting here.

Simmons, reacting to one of my self-pitying pieces, said that if I wanted to get the hell out then I should stop whining and get the hell out. Bob’s Underground Graduate Seminar would do better if the whiner left.

Bob, said Simmons, was getting in the way of Bob.

THAT’S the way I want you to think. When Pain bitches about the old man Bob, Prometheus or BoardAd explain what Bob really means. They don’t think of it that way, but what they are really saying is that this is what the old man had BETTER mean. I talked about the old man’s nose, but the old man’s EARS prick up when I read what they have to say.

I read all these comments carefully and try to straighten the old man out.

Back to that hippie, Loving Kennedy senior staffer in 1968. When he talked about the Kennedy Presidency, he was no more thinking of Teddy Kennedy personally than he was of the poor tortured girl personally. No one in the media considered him cold-blooded. He was talking about Kennedy as an institution, not a person.

END OF DIGRESSION.

Now to the bottom line.

I need you to help me interpret Bob. As I said, Pain or Simmons saying that Bob is getting in the way of Bob is not insulting to me.

It is one hell of an insight.

If I can’t take that while dishing it out I should resign as Head Coach.

But then other commenters rush in to explain my position.

Lord Nelson and Prometheus and Dave explaining “what Bob means” brings up new insights. That is EXACTLY WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR.

I have spent most of my life trying to figure out exactly what my nose smells. My big dread is the idea that this Bob is just the damaged old man who is sitting here. Pain and Simmons won’t let me done along. Other commenters tell me what I had BETTER mean.

Once again, let me explain how important this is to me.

You have all been repeatedly in the position of being surrounded by, “mob thinkers,” (Simmons) right or left or SF, who simply do not have the intellectual background you now take for granted.

Try to have some sympathy for the old man named Bob. I spent my entire life in a world where the ONLY person who had this intellectual grounding was ME. Fifty years ALONE with what you are facing NOW.

Now I have a group that will take “Bob” and run with IT.

If Bob gets in the way, screw him. Bob, as in Bob’s Underground Graduate Seminar, can spare the old bastard.

If you think that offends me, you are sadly mistaken.