The problem with Assclowns

As my faithful readers know (when they’re not stalking public figures), I like to get into verbal spats here in the blogosphere. Tiffs. Little, loving bouts of thought and feeling, usually punctuated with humor, pathos and no small part of vicious personal attacks.

Usually, I mean to do it, as I think the little feuds will drive traffic and keep things interesting. One of those is my close personal friend, the Eva Braun of Blogging, The Cow. (The current lead story: "Today's Baby Jesus picture." Says it all, doesn't it?) Now in a battle of wits — well as she’s in public relations, what we magazine editors call “muffins,” — it’s not much really a battle as farm animal abuse. Still, it can be diverting — in the same way that it’s fun to see the school’s most popular girl, usually a nasty, vain bitch, fall into a vat of pig guts.

But the damnest thing happened last week. I stumbled upon a blog called Sigmund, Carl and Alfred, a psycho, oh, and therapist who thinks it is his (or her) mission to evaluate the quality of blogs he or she visits. That is, assuming this person isn't about 12 years old.

Aside from being wildly arrogant and thoroughly unqualified to evaluate the quality of other blogs (although based on the few blogs that get a good rating, almost all insipid mommy blogs, the good doctor seems to have an Oedipal complex), he or she, or maybe just it, holds fourth kind of like a Rush Limbaugh of the Internet. I couldn’t restrain myself from commenting on its blog and the response was predictably lame. While visiting again (in part because I noted an sudden burst of referrals from Doc’s site) to see what this titan of literature had written in response to me, I stumbled upon yet another amazingly arrogant post.

You can’t really blame me for posting this, can you?

Gosh, doc.

Such stimulating insights, just brilliance. But maybe, just maybe, you should pop another Oxycontin and chill out. I suppose we could have some enlighted conversation about your somewhat flimsy, self-absorbed diatribe.

But instead, I think one of the two new words I'd learned since starting my blog comes immediately to mind:

Assclown.

No, not merely an ass. Not merely a clown. But, indeed, an assclown. The total assclown package.

P.S. The other word I've learned is snarky. Which I have been since the 1980s, and it is high time someone finally came up with a word to describe my millions of published words.

Have a nice holiday, though, Dr. Assclown and send my best to Mrs. Assclown and all the little Assclowns. Thanks for the traffic, though.

The Aggressive Progressive

Surprisingly, Dr. Assclown took offense to this. Can you imagine?

So now, ol’ Doc Assclown rips me a new one in response, actually writes a whole blog entry about me. I seem to remember the word “hack” was involved, as well as allegations of drug use. Thems fighin’ words where I come from. I mean, what if my three-year-old twins read that? Okay, they can’t read yet, but, you know, what if they could?

It’s one thing to have a daddy who shoots heroin, but a daddy who is a hack? Please. The shame.

So now, I find myself trying to decide whether to fully engage Dr. Assclown and his little tribe of troll cronies in open warwfare, or just let it go. From an entertainment standpoint, I’m wondering whether an exchange of napalm will bring anything to my readership. We’ll be having a big staff meeting this week, complete with cigars and beer (drug abuse, pah), to decide what to do.

So, (donning my nun’s outfit and bursting into song) how do you solve a problem like Dr. Assclown?

Thoughts?