I offer the above as a variation for the word "blogosphere", that realm on the internet where writers plop down whatever's on their minds on any given day. Blogs ("web-logs") mostly just reaffirm whatever point on the political spectrum they belong to, otherwise they become an exercise in polishing a cyberspace vanity mirror. They're like personal diaries, not books with developed ideas. Since they generally don't pay and say little worth buying, I avoid them. I submit "Beldosphere" as an offshoot of the phenom. The Beldoosphere is comprised of those blogs that come into one's e-mail unsolicited.

    The name comes from Jaye Beldo, who recently did just that. He had a blog entry that consisted in large part of a personal attack on me for comments I previously had made about the paucity of his creative output. Beldo sends around his "intuitive approach" commentaries, sometimes mixed in with a lot of hooey about the Illuminati designed to appeal to readers interested in conspiracy. If I could remember the name of Beldo's book, I would give it here and let the reader make his or her own decision. In blogosphere spirit, however, I'd rather not do the research to come up with the title, and also because that would be more research than the book actually contains. Beldo writes in a kind of solipsistic New Age stew, mostly about what he thinks of things off hand.

    This opinion of mine gets him mad. He followed up the blog entry thusly: "My final comment to you Kenn-is to act your age instead of your sperm count! Looking forward to reviewing your new book." I think that's the first time anyone has ever threatened me with a bad review before even seeing the book. At the same time, he's confessing that he plans to write the review out of personal animosity, not based on ithe book's merits or lack thereof.

    Here's the relevant part of Beldo's blog entry: "Recently, conspiracy author Kenn Thomas [made remarks] accusative in regards to my writing: 'It is my esteemed opinion that his stuff IS the most self-absorbed, shallow junk that gets placed in front of me. Who the f**k cares about his intuitions?'

    In response, I'm compelled to say that over the last seven or so years, I have penned hundreds of book reviews, interviews, articles, press releases, etc. without getting a dime for them, have promoted other authors's works on mainstream radio venues-rarely getting thanked for my efforts whatsoever. I even gave a plug for Mr. Thomas's Popular Paranoia on one radio station I was on. Never again. (Rest assured Kenny, I deleted from Amazon.Com the five star review I wrote for the book) Odd that he would say that my work is 'shallow junk' considering he has published it in his Steamshovel Press-ironically, one of my 'intuitive perspective' articles on Kahunas in Hawaii. But then again, this was during a time when I was getting media blitzed and he was schmoozing for a way to promote his books and feigned being 'friendly' towards me.

    So many of the claims of my 'self absorbtion' really amount to classic Freudian projection IMHO, i.e., the people accusing me of it, being self absorbed themselves. I realize that we are all self absorbed to some degree and am not in denial about this. But when someone refuses to acknowledge what amounts to an attempt at selfless absorbtion, then indeed there is some insidious, sabotaging pathology at hand. In short, it is the inability to empathize-something Phillip K. Dick talked about often, esp. in the interview done with him in The Dream Connection by D. Scott Apel.

    I'd like to end this selfless effacing diatrabe with the words of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm, "I got out of the nice business" and my friends, so am I because most people only end up resenting your contributions to the betterment of this planet."

[Those are his spellings of "absorption" and "diatribe" and "authors's", incidentally.]

    Against my better judgment, I entered the Beldosphere with this reply "Thanks for some more worthless blog commentary. I was particularly struck by the resentment you seem to have for promoting other people's work. I believe this is what I was doing when I published whatever it was I published of your stuff, at the behest of Rob Sterling. I am, in fact, known for trying to find platforms for other writers--including Rob, Jim Keith, Acharya S, Len Bracken, several others--many of whom would not have seen print without my efforts. It was/is great fun and I am honored to be in the company of the people I help promote. You make yourself look more the fool when you act like it's some great favor you grant others by mentioning them in your meager appearances in small media. Your other comments amount to little more than 'I'm rubber you're glue', which are far more entertaining when coming from Pee Wee Herman. I do hope you find the right therapy some day, though. I just hope I don't have to read about it."

    That was what prompted the threat of a bad review of my new book.

    He went on, of course, with another e-mail dragging in an anonymous third party, who opined "Jaye, I see you've finally found out the true Kenn Thomas, revengeful, mean, and totally self-absorbed! Every time he hears someone saying anything remotely close to anything he's ever said, he claims they're copying him! He's full of himself! Notice he said 'esteemed opinion'! He thinks all his opinions are esteemed. Apparently he also has slaves who put things in front of him? I'm with you! Stay away from him." I think I might know who that guy was, but that's a long story that happened, thankfully, before the development of the blogosphere. I have never accused anyone of "copying" me, of course, and my comment about my own "esteemed" opinion really was self-effacing sarcasm. My "slaves" were merely correspondents who had forwarded Beldo's silly intuitions. "I did not and would not seek it out," I concluded.

    So this vain, mean old conspiracy crank awaits his bad review from the Beldosphere.