TRIBUTE -- Dr. Robert J. Murk

Buddies,

July is here now, fokes, and that means therer just about two weeks left bfore th final curtain comes down here at The Joey Polanski Show.  July 13th is th day fer THAT, for those o you thats ignerant.

One o th things I wannad to do bfore closin up shop is to pay tribute to certain bloggrs who have not only helpd to make my bloggin experience a fun one, but who have also enhancd th quality of th Show.  Sadly, th list aint a long one; and o th few that I think are werf namin, only a very small fraction o thems is still ... well ... moderately limbr.  Mind you, I pass no judgment on that score, fokes.  Im virtualy positive that evry one o them was on th bloggin scene way back in 2005, th very year that th Show began.  Nfackt, many ubm startd bloggin bfore I did; and I know it aint easy to keep th same blogski up & running fer five straight years -- unlessn yer blog is eithr one o them dime-a-dozn online diarys or a overt copy-n-paste jobski.  Yeah.  You long-timrs who are still playin th stage here know what Im sayin.  We reach, yeah?  Yeah.

Its most fitting that I begin this series o tributes wif a tip o th rug to good ol Dr. Robert J. Murk, who was th very first Polanski Show playr (and, fer a time, the only one).

When th Polanski Show was startd, I knew virtualy nothin about bloggin and th blogassfear.  And, ocourse, it didnt mattr that I knew so little, cuz my aim was simply to entrtain myself.  Yeah, th joke initialy was th idea o some guy who cant write fer shit writin blogposts about thoroughly mundane and silly shit, evr flirtin wif outright incoherence, but seemingly convincd that its all realy fuckin important shit -- that, and th idea that my brothr, Piet, might somday stumble upon th blogski, instantly reckonize th shtick (which was startd in quite a diffrent form as far back as 1975), and share th laffski.

So, yeah, I laffd uproariously at th early, almost incomprehensible shit postd here at th Show; and bcause I was posting at a pretty good clip in them days (effecktively blowin off steam while th Man Bhind th Curtain got othr cybr-projeckts off th groundski), it now seems in my memory that th Polanski Show was carryd on as this private joke for quite a good long while bfore I tryd to make it inta sompm more.  In reality, howevr, th shift from private jokeski to interacktive projeckt happmd suprisingly early on -- within a week o th kickoff, atchualy.  And, ocourse, thats pretty much when I hookd up wif Doc Murk.

Evn wifout any bloggin experience, I knew that th way to find readrs & playrs woud hafta involve comenting at othr fokes blogskis; and so I startd lookin fer blogskis to play at.  I did this simply by clickin Blogger's NEXT BLOG buttn.  Yep, fokes, I found Doc Murks blogski courtesy o th ol blog-randomizr.

I wish I coud link ya to th first coment I postd on Doc Murks blogski but -- alas! -- th Doc scrappd that blogski a good while back.  I can link ya to th Docs first coment here at JPS.  Yep, fokes, th Doc showd up on th Polanski Show stage only four days aftr th curtain went up.  And since my arckive was so dangd skimpy back then, th Doc musta gone back and read my earlyer posts, cuz he done postd a coment a little latr on th seckon post I evr publishd (which was publishd on th same day th Show startd).  And itd be sompm like two more munts and twenny more posts bfore th JPS woud see anothr playr join th troupeski.  Till then, it was pretty much jus me & th Doc.

Doc Murks main blogski back in em days -- th one that I stumbld upon and first comentd at -- was calld Murk's World; and once I got around to learnin how to add linkskis in th sidebar, Murk's World had a link here at JPS.  That was probly very early in August o 2005.  At that time, or maybe slightly latr, I also added a link to anothr blogski th Doc was then runnin -- a blogski calld Murk On Sports.  And it was shortly thereaftr, if not right at th same timeski, that th Doc launchd a website calld Hill TV.  Th Doc bein my bloggin buddy, I rathr promply added a link to Hill TV in th JPS sidebar.

Now I aint sayin anything here that I aint awready said to Doc Murk hisself long ago, but I thought he was spreadin himself too thinski.  And th Docs involvment wif sevral "multi-contributor" blogskis only made mattrs worse, in my opinion.  Hill TV was largely a non-interacktive website -- not a place fer th kind o play I was especialy intrestd in promotin -- and, for whatevr reasn, dspite th participation o many and rathr extensive promotion (some of it right here at JPS), it ended up bein relatively short-livd.   And em multi-contributor blogskis seemd to attrackt fokes who were, fer whatevr reason, more intrestd in th joinin up part than they were in th werfwhile bloggin part.  I mention this bcause -- trufe be told -- I think itd be correckt to say that it was th whole issue o "spreadin it too thinski" that eventualy causd things tween me & Doc Murk to go souf.  Havin politely dodgd or declind invitations to contribute to one o them multi-contributor blogskis, I finaly ended up declining a bit too pointdly.  Things aint realy been th same tween th Doc & me evr sinceski.

But I come to praise Doc Murk, not to bury him.  Well ... not any deepr than hes awready buryd, anyway.  In keepin wif Polanski Show policy at th time, Murk's World, Murk On Sports, and Hill TV remaind atop th JPS links-list until, one aftr anothr, th sites were moffballd.  And when th Doc came back wif Dr. Murk's Brave New World, it wudn't long bfore I added a link to it here -- such was th long & storyd histry tween me & th Doc.  Sadly, that link didnt make th cut when, aftr a change in Polanski Show policy, I ended up nixing, in a few stages, all o th sidebar links except a precious few.  And, as it happms, th Docs Brave New World has since been surrenderd to th Chinkbots anyhow.

But seriosly fokes, my aim here REALY IS to praise Doc Murk.  Honest!  So lemme get to it.

Murk's World was a blogski at which "Dr. Murk" woud help ya wif yer problems, if youd only email him.  And, ocourse, Doc Murk wudnt known fer his "bedside mannr."  So it was usualy th Doc tearin somone a new a-hole.  I done toldjas all th story o my first encountr wit th Doc; but it bears repeatin here cuz, like I said, Im here to PRAISE th Doc.  And I aint bullshittin when I say that that first encountr I had with im -- or, atchualy, th seckon encountr I had with im -- showd him to be th kinda bloggr Im always dangd glad to call a friend.

I honestly cant remembr what th post was about that I first comentd on -- or what, exackly, my comment on it was -- but whatevr it was, you can bet my coment was typd in old-sckool Polanskiese.  That much I remembr, bcause I recall that th Docs reply was a single sentence that was, in effeckt, little more than a verbal eye-roll at th shtick.

Now this was a crucial moment, fokes.  I hadta decide whethr & how to rspond to this early acknowledgment o Polanski in th blogassfear.  I mean, I couda ignord im, or evn droppd a KJ on im, I sppose; but you fokes know by now that that aint realy been th Polanski style.  What I done instead is, ocourse, PLAY ALONG!  I expressd apreciation fer th Docs "tough love," th slap AND th tickle.  And here was anothr crucial moment, fokes -- probly th MOST crucial o moments.  Th Doc couda continued to seem discouraging of th play, or he couda shown unmistakably that HIS style was also to PLAY.

See, fokes, when strangrs meet fer th firs time in th blogassfear, eithr th encountr is so sappy-n-sweet that evrybodys imediately calmd (due to diabetick coma, I imagine) or else its sompm else and th typickle bloggr is instantly wondring, "Am I being dissd or fuckd wif here?"  Theres this dfensiveness, this reluctance to play, cuz theres this need NEVR to seem like yer BEIN PLAYD.  And I guess as th Polanski Show is now almost at a end, I can go ahead & rveal, at long last, that my careening thru th blogassfear ovr th last five yearskis has been largely a exercise in allowin othr bloggrs to SHOW ME their TRUE COLORS -- to show me what kindsa BLOGGRS they REALY are.  Are they PLAYRS, or are they sompm LESS.

Well, fokes, what th last five years has taught me is that finding PLAYRS in th blogassfear is like finding a needle in a haystack full o haystacks.  But things seemd so full o hope and potential back in July o 2005, when Doc Murk passd th test wif FLYIN COLORS!  When th Doc saw me play along wif his curt & ambiguous reply to my very first coment, he rsponded wif some verbal backslappin -- we reckonizd ourselfs as birds of a feathr, and thus startd sorta flockin togethr.

What earns Doc Murk th greatest admiration from me is his dcision to do sompm that it seems very few bloggrs are willing to do -- he dcided to blog in characktr.  Or maybe itd be bettr to say he dcided to commit to doin SHTICK in th blogassfear.  What I mean is this: He dcided, not only to blog in characktr, but to allow it to be EVIDENT that he was bloggin in characktr.  Raise yer hans, if ya think "Dr. Robert J. Murk" aint a inventd prsona.  Raise yer hans, if ya cant NAME th man bhind th characktr.  Th Doc imself outd th man bhind th characktr -- albeit in a very subtle & indireckt way!  That impish fella WANTS you to know that hes doin shtick!  And if any o yous got no idea who th man bhind th Murk IS, then I aint a-gonna tell ya.  Hes my bro -- THATs who he is!  (No.  I dont mean Piet, or any othr blood-kin o mine.  Hes my BRO in th sense that hes playin MY KINDA GAME in th blogassfear.)

Evn more admirable is th fackt that Doc Murk is doin what might be calld "prick shtick."  Lets face it: Doc Murk is a first-class prickski.  I mean ... Who woud want Doc Murk as a nex door naybr?  His shtick is to come off like a prick!  Do any o yous realize how GUTSY that is, in a blogassfear chokin to deaff wif bored hausfraus who are jus lookin fer bloggrs to "ooh" and "ahh" ovr pitchrs o their gardens or to "coo" ovr pitchrs o their monky-babys?  Can you imagine th Doc Murk of 2005 ooh-ing, ahh-ing, or cooing?  Nah.  Me neithr.  So do like me and reckonize th rarity of, and give a SALUTE to, a guy who was willin to do prick-shtick in a blogassfear fraught wif lame-oids who cant tell prick-shtick from atchually bein a prick.

Doc Murk has been a near-totl failure in th blogassfear.  Murk's World is irretrievable, preservd only in memory.  And th memory is confind only to a very few, and in them it is evr-fading.  Dr. Murk's Brave New World was nevr as fine a thing and, as I awready mentiond, its now fully Jackd (as is evry one o them old multi-contributor blogskis that th Doc allowd imself to get caught up in).  But th Doc has not stoppd bloggin.  Hes simply retreatd back into his old clan o real-world palskis, and is aparently content to limit his bloggin acktivity to that small circle, eschewin th rough & tumble that was th hallmark o The Joey Polanski Show in its heyday.

And if any o you num-nut fuckrs are thinkin that Ive now stoppd PRAISIN th Doc and am now DISSIN im, then think afuckinGAIN.  Yeah, I said that Doc Murk has been a failure in th blogassfear.  Lemme now add that so has Joey Polanski.  We are BOFE failures.  We bofe bear th same black marks.  We bofe, aftr playin th game a while as we knew it shoud be playd, allowd ourselfs to be compromisd, attemptin fer a time to catr to th bored hausfrau types.  And we bofe, upon comin to recoil from such shameful compromise, have been forcd to reckonize that there simply IS no genral blogassfearick audience fer th kindsa shtick we do.  Our rspecktive ackts will only "play" bfore those who do NOT need periodick assurance that th overt intention to irk or offend is a conscious means to th ultimate end of ENTRTAINING THEM!

Th ovrwhelming majority o bloggrs simply dont get it.  Th blogassfear-at-large just aint ready fer our kindsa shtick.  And, wit th evr-increasing popularity o "netwerking" sites like MySpace, Facebook, & Twitter -- which only augment th awready-excessive presence o th bored-hausfrau-types in th blogassfear -- I think its a safe bet that Murk-shtick and Polanski-shtick will nevr play in th blogassfear-at-large.  So why not confine a specializd shtick to a specializd audience, right?  Rightski.  And so, if theres to be a post-JPS Polanski presence in th blogassfear -- as I suggestd there very well might be, back when I first announcd th intention to end th JPS -- then expeckt it likewise to be rootd in a tacit acknowledgment that th blogassfear-at-large is th creative-collaborative wasteland that it is.

At th end o th day, tho, my only real criticism o Doc Murk is that he seems nevr to have realizd in all these years that his one true bloggin-bro has been ME.  Th Polanski Show has provd to be th ONLY place where he coud do his ackt WIFOUT eithr havin th blessin that comes ottamatickly wif real-world kinship or else havin rpeatedly to assure his audience that hes only doin shtick.  Th Polanski Show stage was MADE fer Doc Murk and his ilk; but, fer whatevr reasn, th Doc shyd away more oftn than he playd.  Thats a shame, I thinkski.

But I am happy now to pay this tribute to th first o my bloggin buddies, Doc Murk.  I continue to think o him as a prsonifickation of a ideal that is all too seldom exemplifyd in th blogassfearick desert.  What couda been, I think, wouda been SPECKTACKULAR.