Your Memory Fails You, Ms. Geller

I have addressed this in the comments before, because she's claimed this before. I never did a post about it, because it's too inside-baseball and personal crap. For a comment, fine. For a post? Um, I don't think so.

Plus, the schtick here (which I know people don't buy) is that I am some kind of out-of-control madman or something. Everyone knows this is false -- I'm a shy, RINO-ish shut-in -- but it is the schtick people pretend to believe, so previously I figured, "Hey, if she wants to play into that schtick, fine."

But Pam Geller is repeating the tale of how I, upon first meeting her at CPAC, said "Nice jugs" or something.

Didn't happen.

Here now the actual story.

It's long. But here it is.

Part I.

First things first. Apparently I am a very forgettable guy but Ms. Geller seems to have entirely forgotten that CPAC 2007 was not the first time we'd met, so those could not have been my first words to her in the first place.

The Great KarolNYC used to throw blogger parties, when blogging was still new and exiting (and not old and yesterday's fad, as it is today), and I actually met Pam Geller at one of those.

I guess I failed to make an impression.

But I remember it. Basement bar, dark. Narrow corridor-like "bar area," hot, sweaty, probably late summer or early fall.

At that time, my blog was actually considered "big" (even though it was tiny, compared to today), and Pam Geller's blog was very small and also very new (even though it now draws more traffic than mine).

One thing I should say is that this is about the first time in my life I had people coming up to me, who I never met, and saying "Oh, you're Ace of Spades?," as if that were a good thing. Not a celebrity, of course, but this is the first time in my life that people who I didn't know seemed to know me, which was a strange thing I have never actually gotten used to. But at this time it was even stranger to me, so I tended to just react as I usually do when embarrassed or wrong-footed, which is just to sort of shut-down and and timidly smile.

At any rate, Pam Geller approached me, and gave me a hard-sell on her blog, about how great it was and how I should read it and link it. I meant no offense when I just said the typical "Oh sure I'll check that out," even though I probably wouldn't. I mean, you just say that.

I don't want to knock her for that, because self-promotion, and the natural lack of embarrassment of a born extrovert, is often very important in life, and it is a skill that some people have, and some people don't. I look at Sasha Baron Cohen -- Borat, Bruno -- as basically a man with superhero powers. I really do look at his gift as a superpower. I do not know how he has the guts, or total lack of self-consciousness, to pull the stunts he does, never flinching, never less than 100% confident in himself.

Now, that's a skill, and I won't knock it. But as I've said to another born extrovert and self-promoter -- Stace McCain -- natural introverts like myself don't really react well to that. We don't like getting attention -- a little bit, but not a lot. We feel weird and like frauds and we retreat from it.

The point is, for reasons that are not really Ms. Geller's fault at all, I just didn't take to her. No knock on her. It's what tends to happen with a big-personality extrovert buttons up an introvert. The introvert just feels uncomfortable.

Not her fault; not really my fault. I'm just shy. Meek, I hate to say, but it's true.

No one likes being meek. Especially men. And yet, I am.

I didn't cotton to her. I just didn't see any point of commonality between us and she didn't seem like the sort of person I'd cultivate as a friend or correspondent.

But apparently she got the impression from this that I didn't like her. I wouldn't really go that far, about saying I "disliked" her, because the actual emotion wasn't even that strong. Just more like one of the hundreds of people you might meet whom you simply don't click with.

You don't really actively, consciously dislike them. You just sort of fail to click with them, and have no interest in them.

I suppose that sounds insulting but it's not meant to be. For introverts, we're just sort of always vaguely embarrassed at public gatherings, and we really have to hit it off strongly with someone to start to gain social confidence and come out of our shells.

I realize this now sounds pretty insulting about myself, actually. Ah well. It is true. I am an abashed person who only begins to get cheerful and friendly when I've become comfortable, which either happens when I'm really digging someone or when I've become a bit drunk.

I don't know if this played into this at all, but I suspect it did: I think when I met her I was still suffering from untreated panic disorder. Two years before I had started suffering from social anxiety -- just felt uncomfortable and "trapped" in social situations, always looking for an excuse to get away (which leads to drinking and smoking more, because they are always good excuses to break away), and then that had progressed into full-on debilitating panic.

The whole reasons I started going to these meet-ups and parties was an attempt at self-treatment, forcing myself to confront the thing that gave me panic. I suppose it worked, slightly, but generally, I was still uncomfortable around people I'd just met, uncomfortable with people who seemed to know me (which I still think is odd), and the like.

So maybe Ms. Geller noticed I was uncomfortable in her presence and seeking to get away, and thought based on that I hated her or something.

In fact, that wouldn't be the case; I was uncomfortable in virtually everybody's presence.

So from our first meeting I suppose Ms. Geller thought I actively disliked her. I didn't. Not actively. Just sort of "meh."

Part II.

Now at CPAC in 2007 I ran into her again. Actually I'm sure I'd run into her several times before this, as we both went to KarolNYC's parties, but this is the meeting she seems to remember... poorly.

JackM. (the epic poem coblogger) met me out at CPAC. Romney was speaking; he wanted to see that.

At some point at night, I, JackM., and some other guy who I don't remember (Gay Patriot? Brian Faughan? No idea) were talking in a group of three.

Pam Geller came over, making it a quartet. We stood in a cross -- Pam and I were at North and South, JackM. and this Nameless Witness at East and West.

For a time we talked as a group, but at some point East and West began cross-talking, only to each other.

At this point Pam addressed me alone, trusting, I guess, that the other two wouldn't hear it, because they were engaged in their own discussion, or not caring if they heard or not.

She started venting at me angrily.

YOU ALWAYS HAD A PROBLEM WITH ME, WHY?!

YOU NEVER LINK ME

and

YOU'VE ALWAYS HAD AN ATTITUDE ABOUT ME.

I deflected this, being surprised to be in the middle of Sudden Drama. I did not realize prior to this I was in a blog feud with her. True, I didn't link her, but I didn't link a lot of people. (Yeah, I'm bad at that; I'm no Instapundit.)

Anyway I made excuses or apologies about this (what I said, I don't remember). a
Eventually she said YOU CALLED ME ATLAS JUGGS, and I said no, I don't think I ever did, I think some commenters did, and she said WHY DO THEY CALL ME THAT and just trying to defuse this I said "I think they mean it in a good way, I think they just mean you have nice jugs."

Bear in mind, this is the woman who got attention by doing bikini videos and used to pass around business cards of her in a very very tight superman-style t-shirt, with her back arched so that her breasts strained through the fabric.

I don't intend that as a slam. It's just true. I suppose at some point I might have expressed annoyance at this, as many male bloggers did in the early days, and even since. If you know your blog history, you know that Wonkette and that gorrrrgeous chick at "Rocketboom" seemed to be getting a lot of attention on the basis of their gender, and their looks.

I have to split my rational and emotional sides here. Rationally, I can say "Good for them, everyone should use every advantage at their disposal!"

Emotionally, look, most male bloggers were annoyed. We all want attention and we all get pissy when someone else, not ourselves, gets it, for whatever reason. There was a saying, of course: Tits equal hits.

I don't remember ever actually attacking Geller, but I mention this because it's possible if you check the comments from years and years back, maybe I groused about it.

Hey, I grouse. But I don't do main posts about it. I mean, when I go after someone for real, I do like the Wonkette Sex For Money Skankathon. (Coincidentally, this was the night I met the actual female Wonkette -- she was nice about it, and claimed to have found that piece funny.)

So, there you go. This is the actual truth of the legend of the "first thing" I ever said to Pam Geller being "You have nice jugs."

Now in truth, I don't think much of her blog. I think she just puts up whatever crap comes by her transom with no skepticism applied to it. Every blogger knows we can get away with being wrong so long as our errors are believed to "help" the cause; people give us a break on this, because they know (or think) we're trying to help.

But you can take that to extremes. I have noticed, listening to that Art Bell show late at night (or whoever does it now), that people who are willing to believe tend to believe in everything -- that is, the people who believe in Area 51 also believe in Bigfoot and also believe in Pyramid Power and also believe in ghosts and also believe in Shadow People and also believe in faeries in the garden.

Geller is that type, as far as I'm concerned, the type of person who is voracious in her appetite to believe in things, and perfectly egalitarian in believing in them all, showing no discrimination among them.

She will never have credibility with me, especially not after the starring role she played in the risible Birth Certificate Conspiracy Fraud perpetrated on the conservative movement, which would up dividing the movement, and was also, in case it matters, always false and obviously so from the start.

I guess maybe I got that sense right off the jump. I don't know; I can't remember. I remember this stuff better than she does, as it turns out, but I can't claim it's occupied a central place in my memory. I know she seemed to be a little wild-eyed and true-believer-ish to me; maybe she picked up on that.

If so, I apologize. I didn't mean to broadcast it.

But, now looking at the Birth Certificate Conspiracy Fraud and the new crank claims about Rick Perry being a pro-shariah jihadi-supporter, I'd say my initial read was accurate.

posted by Ace at 04:52 PM

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