Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The most evil man in the world

There have been many times in my life where I've been wrong - especially when I was a kid. I used to think that Prince sucked. I have since seen the error of my ways (even though I don't count myself as a big fan, I've come to appreciate him.) I used to think that Independence Day was a good movie. I even used to believe that there once was a talking snake. Pretty sure that's wrong.

However, there have been times when I've been so right that I've been practically ahead of my time. A prime example of this was when Michael Bolton used to be a big star. It was my contention that he sucked monkey balls. I submit exhibit A as proof of just how right I was:



Still not convinced? How about this?



How 'bout this shit?



Now, you didn't actually sit all the way through that crap, did you? My apologies if you did - I only expected you to listen to it long enough to realize what horrific crap it was. That should have taken about the first five seconds of the first video.

Years ago, my friend Scott and I created the War on Bolton website, which was basically an Anti-Michael Bolton page - not to be confused with the Anti Michael Bolton Society, of course. The title of the page comes from something that I had said back when he was popular for his "When a Man Loves a Woman" cover. I had said that if he ever did a Beatles tune, I'd personally declare war on him. Of course, he did just such a thing, covering "Yesterday," which is only the most covered Beatles song ever - Mike can't even be original in his unoriginality.

We worked on it when we both had a lot more time on our hands than we do now - not that it really took a lot of time to piece together. Still, I got most of the work done when I was "working" at a cybercafe in San Francisco. Once it was up, it didn't take long for us to start getting some traffic. It even garnered enough attention for me to be interviewed on some internet radio show, and I even got to plug the site on some basic cable show called "Screen Savers."

Most of the feedback, much of it can be seen by viewing the guestbook, was positive. It's pretty cool, because we had people from all over the world check it out. Obviously, traffic has died down considerably, and now we get about one or two messages a year.

Of course, we have had our detractors. Most of them went on about how we obviously didn't have lives, since we had "all this time" to create a website. It's as though they thought we needed to turn a crank all day and hire a staff to keep it up. Once it was there, we pretty much just left it there, with only the odd update here and there.

Some of our detractors were genuine loons, especially a chick named Linda Gallo, who honestly believed that Bolton was reading her messages to Usenet. She compared us to the terrorists - and she wasn't being ironic. She would also talk about how Michael Bolton's security would soon be knocking on our door. Good times. I don't know what she's up to now - probably in the loony bin, I'd bet. (It would be awesome if she posted a comment on this blog!)

Bolton's star has faded - so much so that when he's part of a joke answer on one of my quizzes, many students will ask, "Who's Michael Bolton?" My response to them?

"He's the most evil man who ever lived."

Long live the War on Bolton!!!!!

6 comments:

Reviewer said...

Lance,

You created one of the most truly cool War on Bolton sites in the universe. Wait, I believe it is the only one! Genius always stands alone, apart, and proud.

Thank you for some truly great summers when I was bored and had nothing to do. Ah, the wonderful memories of your awesome site will never leave me. You rock, mate.

Thanks for the great times and the even better memories. Those were some mighty fine times indeed. I marked your site for my friends: Laugh Till You Bleed. Nobody bled (that I know of). But a spleen split or two wouldn't have dampened the fun.

Cyber-Admirer here,
Buck B. Nutter

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Hey, thanks for the support! It may have been the only "war" site, but it certainly wasn't the only "anti" Bolton site! (It was the best though, in my completely biased opinion.)

Unknown said...

I'm more than aware of Linda Gallo. She is, in no uncertain terms, a complete nut case. I ran across the newsgroup that she was part of, alt.fan.michael-bolton as I recall. Linda has all the qualities that makes for good trolling on Usenet. She's intelligent, writes well, is willing to defend Michael Bolton to the end -- and she is completely crazy, period. I, and a few others, went through a two year slugfest (starting in '97) with the crew there, which after a while was only Linda as the rest rather quickly learned we weren't the forces of evil that we initially appeared to be. Yeah, I've supposedly been reported to every imaginable law enforcement group according to Galloon. I have to say that was one of the funniest newsgroup invasions I've seen. She still thinks I'm another person that was part of the invasion, Julian. Heh. Even though he's English and it's rather obvious looking at his writing and spelling. Hate doesn't quite describe how Linda feels about me. I should track down tetherball tits and let her know I'm still thinkin' of her.

John

Lance Christian Johnson said...

John,

I'm sure that our paths have crossed before. I suppose that I should reveal it now - I was the one who created the phony Linda Gallo account. People had a hard time telling the difference between the real and the fake Linda.

Unknown said...

Heya Lance! I remember when you were posting using that phony account. Can't recall exactly when it was, but it was during the more active era in that newsgroup. Haven't looked in there in quite a while, although I'd be willing to bet it's pretty much a ghost town.

Most of the people in that newsgroup were actually pretty nice. I met a few of them in fact. A little warped in their music preferences, perhaps, but nice enough

Linda probably still scours the 'net looking for references to Bolton. It's just a matter of time before she tracks this little exchange down and tosses a few insults and threats your way. Just like old times!

John

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Oh man, Bolton security, the FBI, the CIA, and the IRS are all gonna come after me for sure now!