TRIBUTE -- Mike

Buddies,

Now we get to th TRIBUTE posts that I awready knew woud be th hardest ones to write.  Theres a sense in which The Joey Polanski Show has been craftd to be a ongoing tribute to the TRUE PRFORMER.  And th final three bloggrs I wanna play tribute to are that & more to me.  Links to their blogskis remain in th very short links-list in th JPS sidebar, and will be there when th JPS bcomes part o th blogassfears petrifyd forest.  All three o these guys undoubtdly GET IT; and evry one ubms undeniably GOT IT.

Lets start wif Mike.

Its especialy hard to write a post payin tribute to Mike, bcause Mike has had two seprate careers as a Polanski Show playr -- one as th ownr o Gin & Tonic (long ago removd from cybrspace), and one as th ownr o Tongue In Check.  Ya might evn say that hes had two & a haff such careers, since Tongue In Check, fer a time, was bein run ovr on WordPress.  Heck, I sppose you coud evn say that Mikes had two & two haffs a career as a JPS associate, since he also runs Myth vs. Reality (along wif Pole-pal, Atlas Cerise), which is also linkd in th sidebar.  Wif so many "firsts" & "lasts" to chronickle, maybe that aint th best kinda tribute post to writeski.

But certainly th story o my association wif Mike & his bloggin endeavrs is a story werf tellin.  Ive said many times that it was thru my early association wit th Revrend Anaglyph and Tetherd Cow Ahead that I came to meet th vast majority o th bloggrs who woud eventualy come to be JPS associates.  Ive also mentiond, tho probly less oftn, that th vast majority o THAT vast majority woud become JPS-afiliatd thru my association wif Mike.  See, I met th Revrend in th course o my own blog-surfin.  And through th Revrend I met Chickie (among othrs), and thru Chickie I met Mike.  Thru Mike, I met Colonel Colonel, Sara Sue, Phoebe Fay, Here Today / Gone Tomorrow, Joseph, and maybe some othrs whove so long ago falln off th Polanski Show radar that I cant easily remembr em.  Colonel Colonel, ocourse, was once a spiritd poemr, and Sara Sue was quite th hootski in her JPS days.  So my association wif Mike helpd to keep my joint jumpin throughout them halcyon years, 2006 & 2007.

But, in retrospeckt, my relationship wif Mike seems sorta like one o them storys about two marryd people who share one o th greatest loves o all time -- cept, unfortunately, they aint marryd to each othr.  Its th kinda story that leaves ya wondring what MIGHTA been, if only them two star-crossd lovrs had met each othr bfore they awready got tied down to them othr fokes.

Puttin it bluntly, there always seemd sompm genraly unhealfy, from a Polanski prspecktive, in th atmosphere at Mikes places.  Th crowd that grew up around G&T and TIC seemd like anything but Polanski Show material.  And nfackt, a few old Polanski Show playrs who eventualy establishd ties wif Mike shortly thereaftr stoppd bein very dependable in their formr capacity.  In short, while The Joey Polanski Show is powerd by th idea that blogging is prformance, th prevailing idea among th run-o-th-mill "Tongue-In-Check-ers" seemd to portray bloggin as netwerkin.  I not only woudnt, but couldnt fit in wit that crowd; and it was a bit disheartning to see some fokes who probly wouda baggd bloggin back in '05 but fer me rathr cheerfully transform emselfs from prformers into netwerkrs.  (A pox on their friggin hausfraus!)

I mention all this bcause it makes it all th more significkant that I place on my creative partnrship wif Mike th high value that I do.  Id suspecktd since early on, but have since come to know, that although Mike can certainly play (and play very well) to that othr kind o crowd, he was nevr wholly of that crowd.  Im as convincd as I can be that Mike is, and always will be, a TRUE PLAYR.

Im pretty sure I knew of Mike bfore eithr o us evr startd visitin each othrs blogskis.  But I cant remembr -- and Gin & Tonic aint around no more for PSI to consult -- which of us was th first to visit th othr.  Were I to go wif my vague recollecktion, Id say that his first visit to JPS preceded my first visit to G&T.  What I do recall quite clearly is how natural th playful exchanges tween Mike and me felt, bofe at JPS and at G&T.  About a munth aftr Mikes first apearance on th Polanski Show stage, Gin & Tonic got a link in th JPS sidebar.

Its hard to believe that it was only about two munts latr that G&T disapeard.  Twas hard to believe bcause I remembr havin so MUCH fun there.  Nfackt, th few o us who remembr th G&T days will nevr ferget th post emphasizing what I guess wed call th European prnunciation of 'macaque' -- a post which spawnd a whole host o coments, on that and on subsequent posts, in which we ran that gag fer all it was werf.  Th ockasional 'macaque' refrence has been made at Tongue In Check ovr th years, but theres almost been a kind o unspoken reckonition that that ol gag was best retird outta respeckt fer th legendary Gin & Tonic.

And just as it seems in my memry that G&T must have lastd beyond June of '06, so it also seems that Tongue In Check coud not have been startd THAT long ago.  But as a mattr o fackt, TIC did begin only days aftr Id noticd th disapearance of Gin & Tonic.

I dont know how soon it was aftr this that I became aware of TIC, but I do remembr that once I discoverd it, I put Mike in th JPS doghouse.  I now regret havin done that, and I here offr Mike my apology.  At th time, I interpretd it all as one o them faux retirements -- baggin a establishd blog on sompm of a whimski, and then startin up a new one and tryin to reclaim all o th old readrs o th old blogski.  And altho nothin was said about any o this, I kinda suspeckt that Mike caught my vibe, and he & I steerd clear o one anothr fer a while.  Not too long aftr, I came to learn th story bhind th end o G&T and th start o TIC.  It hadta do wif fokes Mike knows and hasta deal wif in th real world discoverin G&T, and some negative consequences o that discovery.  As somone whos always takn pains to keep his real life from his bloggin life wholly separatd, I certainly undrstood Mikes move as well as anyone coud.  My recollecktion is that our estrangment lastd quite a while; but about haff a year latr, in th first munth o 2007, TIC got linkd in th JPS sidebar.  Mike was outta th doghouse, and th smiles resumd.

Well, as we all got a bit long in th toof, and TIC went thru its 17-munth WordPress phase, and places to play were eithr bein convertd to diary-blogs or surrenderd to Chinkbots, it bcame clear to me, and Im sure to some othrs, that them halcyon days belongd to th ages.  Posting here at JPS slowd to a crawl, naps being almost as long and as frequent as they coud be wifout dstroying th continuity o th munthly arckive.  Relations among some o us startd to seem, not exackly straind, but prhaps a bit loose.  There was, on my part, a conscious retreat inta a kind o bloggin that was dliberately suitd to th tastes o th few who had, ovr th many years, stayd true to th same ideal as th one thats always powerd th Polanski Show.  It was during this relatively dead period that I touchd base wif Mike, via backchannel chattr, about th state o bloggin and th state o our relationship.  This chattr is what convincd me finaly that Mike was stand-up.  We reach.

Yep, we reach.  We reach, but we are OLD.  Old & tired.  Its gettin to be where Jackin off is all some o us evr think of anymore.  I announcd th start o th Polanski Shows stretch-run just a bit bfore St. Paddys Day; and in a recent coment at JPS, Mike has made it more or less clear that he dont foresee a return to th glory days ovr at Tongue In Check.  Its all sad, ocourse, to those o us who recall th middle years o th last haff-deckade; but its prhaps unavoidable.  Still to be standing, and tryin to be true to th ideal, is itself a accomplishment -- especialy when contrastd wif all em who were GONE-zo aftr only a coupla yearskis, and all em fer whom "original content" (to use th expression o JPS heroine, Anne Arkham) means nothin but diary-ya.  Aftr The Joey Polanski Show goes stiffski -- (It happms TMORRO, fokes!) -- I will continue to be intrestd in evn th little bit o bloggin that Mike expeckts to do in th future.

In closing, Id like to give a shout out to th Queen o Poland (Mrs Mike, who reportdly digs th Polanski Show), and to Carmen, and the Boy, and Jackie -- Mikes kin.  I consider em all palskis, as I considr Mike th same.  Th tribute, ocourse, continues, wit th preservd links to Tongue In Check and Myth vs. Reality in the sidebar; but lemme conclude this FOCAL piece o that TRIBUTE wif some linkskis to some fun times I had at TIC.

1. A First Poemski: It took a while fer me to get around to postin a poemski ovr at Mikes.  HERE youll find th first.
2. Mike On a Plane: If theres a post Id idennify as th TIC countrpart o th 'Macaque' post ovr at G&T, itd be THISn.  Ive made a point of linkin to it more than once since it was publishd.
3. Atmikelanski: More poemin got Mike into th Atlanski game in a BIG way.
4. Chillin Wif Friends: Poemin at Mikes began to feel quite natural.
5. Some Final Poemskis: Just bfore TIC returnd to Blogger from WordPress, I postd a couple more poemskis on THIS POSTski.