It seems like just like week my friend Pat asked to contribute an entry to my blog. I thought he was going to deliver something fantastically vociferous in tone; maybe he’d pen a rant about something cultural or political. Instead, he submitted an e-mail he received earlier that day. If you are not a regular visitor to this site, you can view Pat’s post by clicking here.

I thought no one would notice. I thought it would go down as one of the worst entries ever. It’s not that Pat didn’t do a superb job of finding something to blog about — he found something funny — it’s just…my readers expect more substance than just sharing an e-mail. To my surprise, four readers commented (granted, they were sending condolences following the death of my dog). After my follow-up post (The Ten Best Pizzas In Los Angeles), I figured the post would be forgotten! As it turns out, somebody else had something to say about it!

Yesterday I received an e-mail from the guy who was directly involved in those e-mail exchanges. How can I tell? His name and e-mail address perfectly matched those in the original e-mail address. What did he have to say?

Hello,

My name is Gavin Markus, you recently posted an entry on your blog from a “guest writer”. The guest writer uses my name and gives out my phone number during a funny fake call to Verizon. I believe my friend wrote this and emailed it out to a few friends for a laugh… I don’t know how you got it on your blog – but I’m guessing he was so proud of his funny fake story that he uploaded it.

Well – what he failed to realize [is] that I cannot have my personal info online like this. I’m in a very competitive business dealing with computer savvy college kids and I have always made sure that they cannot google me and find out ANYTHING about me. It’s super important in my industry not to have anything out of line posted online. (And the Jewish part of the story is just way over the line!)

PLEASE – TAKE DOWN THIS POST WITH MY PERSONAL INFO AND FAKE STORY IN IT… IT IS FUNNY – BUT ALSO DEROGATORY AND COULD RESULT IN ME LOSING MY JOB!!!
PLEASE – EITHER TAKE DOWN THE POST IMMEDIATELY OR CHANGE THE NAME AND NUMBER TO SOMEONE ELSE!!!

link to post:
http://www.swanfungus.com/2008/11/guest-blogger-pat-shares-an-e-mail.html

Thank you very very much for your immediate attention to this matter, I will be checking daily to see when the info has been removed.

I really do appreciate it, and hope you understand my position,
Gavin Markus
mynameisgavin@hotmail.com

I can’t comment on Pat’s ironic antisemitism, but the mere fact that he and I are friends serves as evidence the he doesn’t really hate Jews. Plus, I mean…he works in “the industry”. I’m pretty sure every single one of his co-workers is Jewish. We run Hollywood.

I have since gone back to the original blog post and changed the guy’s name and phone number to respect his self-important paranoid delusions. I then changed his name and e-mail address again so that I could share his response to the “leaked” personal details. I’ve always taken the stance that you have to own whatever details about your life leak online. It is unfortunate, and it sucks sometimes, but that’s just the way society’s cyber-relations have progressed. I’ve had bad things written about me on the Internet, and I’ve overshared more than most when it comes to the dirty details of my life. I don’t get my panties in a bunch when personal shit about me appears, I own it and I deal with it in my own way. Whatever, I guess I have thick skin, or maybe I believe in my ability to diminish the importance of such information if it is ever discovered by friends, family, co-workers, employers, or government officials. I learned a valuable lesson during my senior year in high school regarding instances such as these, and I guess the Verizon e-mail guy hasn’t quite learned that lesson yet. Oh well. He’s got time…

Labradford – Julius
Labradford – Columna De La Independencia
David Grubbs – An Optimist Declines
Sam Shalabi – Soot
Yo La Tengo – I Can’t Forget

1 Comment »

| del.icio.us | Digg it! | reddit | StumbleUpon