leonardcohenforum.com

John K. wrote: I have no intention other than to have a bit of fun.

OK. I will take you at your word. I owe you one.

As to your answering my friend's question about Geoffrey I will point out that I might be better qualified than you to answer because I have known him longer and we speak of each other as friends and so it might be more reasonable to lean in the direction that I am about to suggest. I think that Geoffrey can take a bit of kidding. I might be wrong but we will never know for sure until we try. So lets try to get him back for calling you "son of a viper"

To do so we are going to first have to figure out why he called you that. I don't think we will want to play if he was just being mean and that there is no joke in "son of a viper", so lets see if we can find a joke.

calling you a son is neither an insult or a joke because all us guys are sons of someone, so we will need to focus on the viper part. Now the viper can be a mother or a father but Geoffrey has used snake before when speaking of someone male and I don't think he would think of you as being that person's son and so I get the feeling that the viper that he says that you are the son of would be a female viper.

Has he ever met your actual mother? I doubt it and so I don't think he was trying to insult your mother. Someone in this or another thread recently said something about us sometimes being mothers to each other and maybe that has some merit. Here in Quebec we sometimes speak of the Catholic church being our mother and others speak of Mother Russia etc. Many indians have spoken of Queen Victoria being their mother and so you see maybe we can all have many mothers.

So maybe he was on one hand saying that he sees you as a son like all of us but that to him you were displaying specific traits that brought to mind some female viper. Maybe all of us have our own viper mother as one of our many mothers. It could even be that Geoffrey is not even disparaging that someone or something can appear like a viper. I saw that he once quoted "he might be a snake but he is our snake" in a very endearing way. Maybe he would even say "she might be a viper but she is our viper" in an endearing way.

If these things are so then the way he was making fun of you was suggesting that you were appearing as someone influenced by a viper. Maybe the way we could kid Geoffrey is by playing with the idea that maybe he is frightened by vipers or by calling him the son of something that you might think is influencing him.

Anyway those are just some ideas and maybe not even the least bit funny and that you should stick with calling people macaroons if it is getting you a lot of laughs. As you see I am not very good with this kidding business.

my 'son of a viper' insult came from matthew 12:34, a verse that aptly seemed to portray my feelings at the time. in retrospect i regret using this biblical illustration, because the effect it had upon john was greater than anticipated. one person who insults another harms ultimately only themself, but emotion throws wisdom to the back of the queue when feelings run amok.

Geoffrey wrote: emotion throws wisdom to the back of the queue when feelings run amok.

Ain't that the truth !!
When I first started writing to LC gathering places feelings were running so amok in my life that I knew that they would have to take me away in a straight jacket if I took it upon myself to worry about them or try to keep them under control. They were just not my forté. I thought that it would be better if I just left feelings and worrying about feelings to people who knew how to handle them and it seemed to me that women were pretty good at that.
Leonard seems to attract a lot of highly sensitive, feeling women and so I had a bit of trust that they could figure out among themselves how feelings needed to be dealt with. I have a feeling that they covered for me more than once in ways that I might never be aware.
Notice that last sentance. I wrote "I have a feeling" . hmmmm
Anyway what I found the place useful for was trying to get my thoughts straight. What I often found enjoyable was that feelings, including my own, were being taken care of in mysterious ways, maybe it just had something to do with changing brain chemistry.

John K. wrote:
>I could not care less if you accept anything from me, and you do not speak for the forum.

How far do we go on a stagecoach trip, when no one on board dares to crack their whip? From what you write, the cavalier way in which you question my integrity and authority, I see there is little spiritual bond of brotherhood between us. You make me feel superfluous and unimportant, like page numbers in a telephone catalogue. Yet allow me to make abundantly clear that I neither profess nor desire to be your tutor in any matter. On the contrary, your natural skills probably excel any meagre talent to which my person may have been graciously designated. You are an accomplished musician and songwriter with much energy and drive, while I struggle to aim a stream of piss into the water closet. It may well be audacious of me to appeal to your better judgement, to that "lofty chamber whither all our senses carry their perceptions" - as Dante put it - but I have the impudence to do so. For where would the children of the wilderness have gone had not Moses taken them under his wing? Initiative is a heavy weight to bear, but so is gold. Why kill it, when it can live in somebody? In a gathering of people someone shows the way, one person is the potter while the others are his clay. Why not rise above jealousy, above the common moral credo of etiquette taught by philistines - and accept me as spokesman for this forum? People do not choose who to love, love chooses them - and so it is with leadership. As Jesus said: "I who speak to you am he" [John 4:26]. Why not set a magnificent example to everyone by surrendering all of your egoistic superiority and eating a slice of humble pie?

John K. wrote: And Jack is remembering only some of the story. I was the one that asked Jarkko to remove the word "Asshole" from Jack's post because Jack was calling me that, and Jarkko agreed with me. Jack went on to claim that it was him signing the post as "Asshole", like he was calling himself that, except that this explanation was totally out of the context of the exchange that he and I were having.

Sorry John for taking so long to respond. I didn't see your post and It might have slipped by entirely if not for Geoffrey. I did mention to you earlier that I owed you one and I guess I better explain myself. You are entirely correct that when I wrote the word asshole I was thinking of you. I do wait a bit before I hit that submit button and thought that if I wasn't going to send the asshole word that I probably also shouldn't send what I wrote before my name and the word asshole. That was that I wrote something like "Oh, you are so clever John" which was sarcasm for you calling me a maroon instead of a moron. I saw that it was sarcasm and sarcasm is something that I stay away from. I have a very non-negotiable reason for doing so. But against my better judgement I decided to hit the submit button anyway and thought that I should leave that word asshole as a reminder that I knew that it was being me that was being the asshole for being sarcastic and being sarcastic intentionally. You are free to look through all of my other posts and you will see that I am never sarcastic and if it ever sounds like I am it is unintentional, but I was sarcastic with you, intentionally and I hope you can just let it go by.

Jack

can you please explain your stange expression "very unintentional" ?

was your improper use of "very" before the absolute "unintentional" just you being heavily sarcastic?

btw I notice you removed the word "fucking" from your signature. Adding that to your asshole obsession I am wondering if you have a problem with anger management that leads to you frequently swearing and then being overcome with guilt.

what does your therapist say?

Thanks Harry
I made the correction.

If you don't like what comes after my name and what I do with it, just quit looking. As for the fucking I took it out because I am having trouble deciding if it should come before or after unique.

what does your therapist say?

She tells me that people who are obsessed with their penis are a little frightened by being out and having to find new and strange ways of doing things and so are trying to get back in.

lazariuk wrote:Thanks Harry
I made the correction.

If you don't like what comes after my name and what I do with it, just quit looking.

don't worry, Lazariuk. it's a personal interest I have in middle class people like yourself who swear and then quickly retract. when you were a kid did you knock on doors and then run away?

I also understand why you find it impossible to deal with the issue.

once I was with a lover in a hotel and we were throwing bedclothes at each other. in the end I just had to stop as I was overcome with quilt.

lazariuk wrote: She tells me that people who are obsessed with their penis are a little frightened by being out and having to find new and strange ways of doing things and so are trying to get back in.

is that right? how many people co-own this penis? is it a time-share arrangement? surely you meant "people who are obsessed with their penii?"

Yes that is correct. She said that it applies to every man who is so focused.

lazariuk wrote:Yes that is correct. She said that it applies to every man who is so focused.

or as you might say (before deleting it) "so fuckassed"

Lion of Lions wrote:or as you might say (before deleting it) "so fuckassed"

I guess that might work too

lazariuk wrote: You are entirely correct that when I wrote the word asshole I was thinking of you.

Ladies and germs of the forum, I present to you: Honesty.

lazariuk wrote: That was that I wrote something like "Oh, you are so clever John" which was sarcasm for you calling me a maroon instead of a moron.

Yes, I forgot this part, but that is correct. You called me an asshole in the context of commenting on how "clever" I am, which is why it was clear that it was not your "signature". I accept your explanation of what happened in your mind at the time.

lazariuk wrote: I did mention to you earlier that I owed you one

I don't agree, you didn't/don't owe me anything. We owed it to each other, and more so to our mutual friends, to be polite to each other when we were at Luminato, and we were. What's more, I was pleasantly surprised when you complimented my performance, and I appreciated it alot, especially since it was shortly after the entire brouhaha.

John K. wrote: I don't agree, you didn't/don't owe me anything. We owed it to each other, and more so to our mutual friends, to be polite to each other when we were at Luminato, and we were.

For the benefit of our mutual friends why not take that stuff about Geoffrey out of your signature? It annoys a girlfriend of mine.

Jack

Geoffrey wrote: You are an accomplished musician and songwriter with much energy and drive

I disagree. Leonard Cohen is an accomplished musician and songwriter with much energy and drive. I, on the other hand, am a hack and a pretender when compared to those like Mr. Cohen who have both true natural talent and the dedication to make the most of it.

Geoffrey wrote: Why not rise above jealousy, above the common moral credo of etiquette taught by philistines - and accept me as spokesman for this forum?

Jealousy? Your intuitive antennas need to be screwed in again.

Let's get down to basics. There is nothing to read between the lines, and it has nothing to do with the name you called me, it's that you insulted me at all. You could have called me pretty much anything insulting and I'd be repeating it.

1. Geoffrey admits to hacking into others' accounts.
2. John K. finds it offensive and publicly says so.
3. Geoffrey throws up on John K. for not loving him.
4. John K. finds this offensive as well and he publicly says so. John K. realizes that his past feelings of transgression pale in comparison to Geoffrey's actions, which were forgiven by everyone in the Forum that spoke publicly, except of course John K. John K. starts having fun at others' expense because he feels so freed.
5. Geoffrey hacks again.
6. John K. feels even more free.
7. Geoffrey tries to psycho-analyze and claims to intuitive John K.
8. John K. laughs and mocks.
9. Geoffrey offers advice and suggests that John K. set an example because he's just so fucking great.
10. John K. knows he's a hack, and he writes a sarcastic summary of the events thus far.

Oh yeah, this guy feels left out and asked me to show you his picture again: