Oh my.

I remember Michael Hirtes from back in the 1990s. My bemusement at CYD only became more acute when I realized the kind of people that were contributing. Just about every creator that's had any experience in the fandom in the 1990s has a story about Michael Hirtes. The creature that is Hirtes is such an odd example of desperate, helpless anger and frustration, that I can't imagine why he hasn't been the subject of a CYD article to date. When I first encountered Hirtes, he was publishing several fanzines that were selling through MailBox books. This was back when the internet was just reaching maturity and the days of vast online art archives were yet to be realized. A lot of work was still traded in embarassingly sad black and white booklets featuring individual pinups of varying quality from page to page. New talent would use them as stepping stones to publication, and when he asked me for work, I sent a few pieces his way. Why people paid for these books, I'll never fathom, but he seemed to have a relationship of charitable sympathy with MailBox Books, which would purchase batches of his booklets every time he put one out.

Hirtes lived in some Midwestern city at the time that I knew him, managing to scrape a living off of his Government disability check. He never revealed the nature of his disability to anyone who asked, and it lead most people with any degree of experience with him to conclude the disability was mental, if anything at all. Every phone conversation with him was sort of like speaking with a twelve year old. Somewhat on the verge of adult thinking, yet never quite there. Never quite having had that big life responsibility enema that everyone stumbles into at one point in their life where they finally resolve to get their shit together. Most of it consisted of begging for new pictures to put in his books. Because I'd contributed a few of them, and didn't block his phone calls, and he hadn't managed to hack me off to the degree where I refused him, I was invited to get together with him and about five other creative types in Las Vegas for a decent time. He'd acquired some kind of flight miles program thing that he could transfer to somebody, and since either didn't need them or couldn't use them within whatever time, he gave them to me.

Names of note that I recall being there.. this was well over six or seven years ago.. included Michael Flynn, a fairly decent person, and Ted Sheppard, another fairly okay kinda guy. With this ensemble, we managed to have a decent time checking things out. Hirtes primary reason for going, along with another gentleman who flew all the way from England, was to visit one of the legal brothels outside of the city limit. What a way to blow your Government disability check. The rest of us who didn't need to pay someone hundreds of dollars to convince them to have sex with us, didn't partake. What I feared might be an excercise in the spiralling endless dark pit of mental disability, started to manifest itself when Hirtes managed to win something around $300 in chips at the hotel casino and then brilliantly managed to lose it all the next day trying to win more. The pouty depression started from that point and culminated in all it's brilliance when the gentleman from England (I can't remember his name) who was driving our rental van, managed to accidentally scrape another car while dipping into a left hand turn lane at a major intersection. This would impact the the English gentleman's financial blow from the trip. Even though he wasn't driving, somehow... in some convoluted type of logical reach, Hirtes managed to blame himself for "everything going downhill". Flynn and I exchanged glances as the vocal display of self-pitty started to punctuate itself with near-tears voice cracks, and the stomping of feet on the floorboards of the van as a means of venting his childish frustrations at what wasn't his fault. It was my first candid look at severe furry disfunctionality, and like a green soldier seeing his first battle, I slowly grew numb to whatever scraps of empathy I may have had.

In phone conversations after the trip, Flynn and I came to the conclusion that Hirtes was mentally handicapped in some fashion and couldn't hold down a job with the stress management skills of a three year old that he exhibited in Las Vegas. I didn't know that qualified someone for some sort of welfare, or perhaps his official disability is imbellished in some manner. One may never know. I stopped talking to Hirtes after I moved on to other, more lucrative (a relative term in comics) publications. I realized he just wanted someone there to contribute work, even as the internet culture slowly dried up his copy machine booklet market, and someone to call when he needed his hand held through whatever life hardship he wanted to whine through for the evening. No harsh words were exchanged, or fights were had... we just... stopped speaking. Since that time, whenever his name has creeped into conversations with others, there's always someone with a Hirtes story to share. Wolf had recalled the instances Hirtes would phone his house at times, sobbing over not receiving enough submissions to put out a new 'zine, or how horrible his life was. Eric Schwartz had an instance where Hirtes had traced either his or Michael Higgs' line art and tried to pass it off as something original. They expressed their displeasure over the telephone and that was the end of any publishing relationship they may have had.

I think the last thing I received from Hirtes was an e-mail from years ago asking if I wanted to have anything to do with him. I didn't reply to it. I just let it fade. Sometimes we just move on like that. I have projects going on, a job to show up for, bills to pay, all the things that responsible people without mental disabilities have to do. Low and behold, years later, a blast from the past dredges itself up from the dark recesses of the internet. A whiney voice that once begged me for illustrations now aches to tell the world what a horrible right-wing kind of guy that I am.

Of all the things the internet has done for me, it's never helped me write a book report as promised.

There are a few other familiar embittered furry names in the CYD forums. They might be imposters but if so, they seem to know the right names to choose.

CYD is an extension of SomethingAwful.com, basically an army of provocoteurs. Someone who knows the right things to say and the right people to approach will fit in perfectly with these people. As such, I can understand it being a magnet to the socially maladjusted types who are still struggling for a group to validate and accept them. It doesn't surprise me at all that they'd just as soon destroy as create if it fills their needs.

Here's a glorious retort, of course....

There are a few other familiar embittered furry names in the CYD forums. They might be imposters but if so, they seem to know the right names to choose.

CYD is an extension of SomethingAwful.com, basically an army of provocoteurs.

No, Jim. We hate you, and you're a cocksucker dipshit fatass. This is an official stance, k?

No, Jim. We hate you, and you're a cocksucker dipshit fatass. This is an official stance, k?

Hold on there, Rankin. That may be your official stance, but personally I have never heard of "McGroarty" and have no idea who he is. Though it sounds as though you do - care to share?

As such, I can understand it being a magnet to the socially maladjusted types who are still struggling for a group to validate and accept them. It doesn't surprise me at all that they'd just as soon destroy as create if it fills their needs.

So, for folks like me... who were familiar with furries when they were simply innocent-enough curiosities in Amazing Heroes... characterized by Albedo and Captain Jack... to see furries become characterized by Genus, Wild Kingdom, and Foxwolfie Galen... developing a dislike of those factions responsible is unsurprising.

So, a pedophile (at least virtual) sisterfucker who works at Kinkos doesn't want to have anything to do with a braggart-lunatic-idiot - oh, these tangled webs we weave...

And, Jay seems to have violated the cardinal rule: What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas. If only it were still an option to "make a few calls and Badda Bing!, have dis here chatterbox problem dealt wit, poimenently" :wink:

So,why waste money on a hitman?I know a few folks in th'" wiz biz" who'd be glad to curse that shnook Naylor...oh....wait a minute...that would be a waste of magic!Jay is already cursed....WITH BEING JAY NAYLOR!!!!and as to those lame-o "Jay walkers"(like hydrophobia 000)CUT IT OUT!!Jay Leno and the N.B.C. folks had that title long before those ditto-head wash-outs!Grow up!What I write here is basicly good -natured smart-assary,El Gisto,Jokey -HA-HA!...Man !I can't beleive that one dope who actually thought I thought I was a real wizard....(man that was convouluted!)Come on folks,If I was a real wizard...DO YOU THINK I WOULD WASTE MY TIME HERE????Sweet "BoB"forbid.Oh well, youd think after that crap with Newt that I'd be used to pscyo-jugend rabid rightards...esh!Still..Ain't none of us perfect...but,wow!...Jay makes an art of it!Jah Bless ya younguns!This is the evil,nasty ol'fart sayin'"See ya' next time!

:mrgreen: MMMMMMMMmmmmm,....could be :lol:

:mrgreen: MMMMMMMMmmmmm,....could be :lol:

I tried it once..... once. I think it was vaguely remniscient of egg nog and turpentine. I think it was only egg nog in the sense that enough egg nog had been added to the booze to make it a vaguely milky color. Of course, I'm not much for any kind of booze, let alone the hard stuff.

Man I remember the good old days when we used to sit around and talk about the good old days when Fritz the Cat was hardcore.

..then wolf down 12 large pizzas, am I rite??

Man I remember the good old days when we used to sit around and talk about the good old days when Fritz the Cat was hardcore.

..then wolf down 12 large pizzas, am I rite?

'sup booby?

I lost 50 pounds since anthrocon and went below 300, I am now merely "fat" rather than "whale-like". ^_^

(2)that an obvious pair of "plants"from A.f.f. try to sow discord among our membership( give it up Elastic Leotard and Rankin,ya' ain't foolin' NOBODY!)