Monday 9/25/23
One of the many things I'm conscious of in writing this unique record is to not repeat anything, which is commonly sited as a drawback of journals and diaries. This is a journal, but from the first entry, it was undertaken as something more. There was the knowledge that it would be read in my time and after it. And I intended these words for books themselves, eventually, as I documented a unique artist's life, and much else, including how the world is now, art, film, music, sports, people, human nature, what was written, how it came to be written, how art functions or can, and that included showing how the corrupt, incestuous, oft-sickening, the publishing industry is as it all but officially works in killing off reading or providing any viable reason to read.
This was done after years and years of abuse, discrimination, theft, and taking it all silently, when I was creating work constantly that no one else could create, and achieving things that few do, and certainly not without help, cronies, quid pro quo, checking the proper boxes of race and gender, and certainly not in the totality, range, and volume that I have achieved those things. On my own, with many people hating me because I am not one of them in this industry, as as was discussed in the long Ragus entry from Saturday morning, you have to be one of them.
A lot of soul searching, done in the course of walking thousands of miles a year, thinking about doing this record, went into that decision. The way things were for me was that publishing the short story in Harper's meant that life was going to get worse. The people of this system doubled down against my advance. The same went with having the feature in The Atlantic, the story in the VQR, and starting a regular gig on NPR at the same time made things get worse. Everything. Have two op-eds in two of the highest circulation newspapers on the same damn day on different subjects. That upped the hate, the envy, as everything I do does, because I am not one of these people. But as I've said, that's not going to matter in the end, and that's not going to stop to from getting to where I am getting. If people are exposed and taken out as that happens, mocked, seen for exactly what they are, that's their decision. They also have the decision to be less terrible and do their job based upon the work and what this unique artist, who can do anything, and does, has on offer all the time.
But today is a day when I am going to repost an entry from May 16, 2023, which is about Mark Warren--remember that name--a vice president and executive editor at Random House. I have a history with Warren, which was documented--in part; because I also have the emails, of course, and proof of what work was also sent to Warren, with a to-die for pedigree; but we'll save that for later--in an entry on April 13, 2023.
That second entry featured Mark Warren's own words, so you can see the kind of person that Mark Warren is. His words, not mine. Yesterday, someone described him to be me as a "maniac." I think his own words do whatever describing is necessary on that front. But let me tell you why this is going up again, and what's going to happen.
Yesterday, I searched for Mark Warren on Google. I don't normally do this, but yesterday's events--or I should call them realizations--have resulted in a change of policy, so bad people looking for solutions to being exposed for what they are have Mark Warren to thank for making that even harder.
What I am doing at nearly every point in my life, every day, is documented in these pages. There are 30,000 words' worth of worth each week, or whatever the number from week to week. It's staggering, and it's scarcely believable, save that this person does it. Then the stairs and what not. Where I go. What I see, watch, hear. So I don't look people up on Google who have been in these pages that often. I know how it works, generally speaking. But for here on out, I will do my diligence and check regularly.
A lot of people read these pages, for all sorts of different reasons. Some read out of love, admiration, some read out of hate. The people in the latter group are those about whom less than favorable words in this now four million word plus record are about, either specifically or generally. Or because they're so insecure and paranoid and neurotic that they imagine those words are about them. I simply write what is true. I write it as though I were writing it to me, for me, but there's a dichotomy in that I also know many others now and going forward will see these pages. But in a way, that's the same as when I turn my attention--as I will when I'm done with this, and before I deal with the department of revenue, thanks to The Wall Street Journal adding two zeroes to my income with them four years ago, which has created a Kafka-like nightmare that stretches on--to "Finder of Views," a story in Big Asks. When I write, all that exists is that moment, that thing being written. Total presence.
I didn't see anything for Mark Warren, though, regarding this record, when I happened to search yesterday. Common name, right? Could be that. So, I typed in Mark Warren colinfleminglit. And what came up--all that came up--is the broken, bootleg-y, bizarre link that you see below at the bottom of this entry, which took you not to an individual entry, but to the fifth page of the listed entries. There are twenty on a page. This entry, for example, is entry #3330 since this record launched in June 2018. We really should be precise when doing something like this. Also: Someone told me yesterday that they had searched some time back for Mark Warren--just the name, without anything added to it--and this record--I don't like calling it a blog--came up quite soon, so something really fishy had gone on here.
Immediately, of course, I realized what Mark Warren must have done. Had to have done. Or did he get his current employer, Random House, to find a way to do it before him? That would say a lot, wouldn't it, about Random House and their feelings on free speech. I doubt it was Random House, because Warren knows how bad--and fireable--this is, and I would imagine he has wished to have as few people as possible know about it. But that I'm even asking the question--that you can logically ask it--is bad business for Random House. How possible is it to believe that there is a flaw with Google and Google is broken in this instance? But do you think that happens with Google? That Google breaks when it comes to searching on one thing such that there is no record--as if they didn't exist--of two individual entries that are in this record, where they first were in this record? I'm no search engine expert. So could Google fail that way, I ask you? I feel like Mark Antony up here. What say you?
I think you probably say that it couldn't. And I think you're likely thinking what anyone would be thinking: Mark Warren, knowing how bad he is, how bad he's made himself look, knowing--and fearing, there's more to come, because it's me, and there's always more, and I save it, and I have other remarks from him and proofs of what he is sitting right here with me--doctored Google by paying someone to do so. He actually gamed Google. Which is what a guilty person who knows they're guilty would do, right?
There are services out there. (And why would I share that so that very bad people can see? Well, 1. There are commercials for it, so it's not top secret and 2. I now have a way to handle anyone who might take that approach, and it will only become worse for them as a result, as this now becomes for Mark Warren.)
You know who they're usually for? Criminals. A guy I know works construction, and a guy he's worked with had stacks of DUIs and that kind of thing, and he couldn't get hired because of the results brought back by a search. So he hired someone to game Google.
It's not even well done. That fragment kicking around tells me a lot. It tells me that that those entries got five pages deep in the running total of entries, so it took a bit, which means that problems were being created for this obviously terrible person. Should they not be? Should they skate? Why? By the way: those two entries, with Warren's name in the title, are now on the eleventh and twelfth pages of the running list of entries. One can look at the dates to know how much time has elapsed.
As I've said many times, and I'm sure many people know and believe by now, because they know me, or they know me pretty well in the four million words of this record, the person I am, in addition to the artist I am, I detest having to put people up on here. But you are not going to essentially kill me by denying me the life I deserve because of your failings. So when something like this happens--or I learned it happened--yesterday, Mark Warren takes the choice as to me doing anything from me. Because I have to live with myself. And I am not someone who is going to be complicit in someone else's bad behavior, hate, evil, whatever it may be by essentially saying, "Nothing to see here, you can do anything you wish to me."
It's not going to happen, "son."
But here is what's going to happen, which is up to me. As I said, I'm not some expert in search engines, nor in shady as hell trickery and internet-based underhandedness. It could be that someone can make it so that any new content on a site that contains such and such a name, won't come up on Google, like it's permanently flagged. But that would seem impossible, right? What are the Orwellian implications of that? What are the free speech implications of that? What are the legal implications of that? So it would seem more likely that these people who perform the service of digital kneecapping would have to target individual posts.
Guess what we're going to do, though? We're going to find out. We'll see what happens with this entry, which is also eventually going to be sent to the members of the board of Random House. And if it isn't there, or if it goes up and then comes down, here's what will then happen: Every month a version of this entry will go up. It'll be different each time, because like I said, I don't like to repeat myself, even if I could, and I never do. It will be a worthwhile new reading experience. But it will contain the second of the two entries--again, the first one is hyperlinked within the body of that second entry--in which we see the lovely Mark Warren in his own lovely words.
Here we go. And once again, I think the comments from that other person--a writer--at the bottom of this entry, below the two screenshots, are well chosen.
Tuesday 5/16/23
As I mentioned, Mark Warren sent me a message--two actually--on Facebook messenger. Shall we look at the screenshots of those messages that Mark Warren sent from his own Facebook account and allow Mark Warren to show everyone who and what he is? Because he makes that abundantly plain. Do scroll down beneath the photos.
Says quite a lot about this person, doesn't it? It's not libelous in the least, of course. It's all true or someone's opinion. Does this person in Mark Warren seem balanced? Not a tyrannical person? Free of anger issues?
Someone said the truth. There was accountability. After a decade. Is this a good look? Do you even believe that someone tipped him off? It's possible. How likely is it? (Scott Stossel of The Atlantic could have done it--he's always lurking around.) But it sounds like someone hanging about the premises a lot.
As for who sounds angry and psychotic, I don't think anything really needs to be said to that point. Very ironic in the end, considering the man's virtue signaling that day on Facebook.
I will leave things go on my side for this entry. Mark Warren has done the confirming of exactly what he is. But I have received many comments about this person and their behavior--and it's all of a similar sort, because it would have to be, wouldn't it, when someone like this makes it so obvious what they are--and I cede the floor to one of those other people, who I think said things well after seeing the earlier entry and the above screenshots.
The writing is truly abysmal and transparently fragile. He's inept as a bully and as a person in power he reveals the metaphorical micro-genitalia he has by going out of his way to deploy empty and elementary level insults your way. I had so many bullies in boarding school and they wielded a million times more power than this guy. His response should go viral.
Even if he's a shitty editor who overlooked genius on purpose--who would take the time to write such an obviously knee jerk, and as I said before, rhetorically unsound letter, to a person who would understand its transparent strategies immediately?
As always, when one goes up on these pages, it is but a start in this journal. The reader will note, too, the shot at Boston. That's how hubristic these people are--if you're not in their NYC sinecure, you are to be treated as a lower form of. Even when they know how far above them you are.
***
That was the second entry in full. Here is that busted, bootleg-y single result you do get on Google as of this morning of September 25, 2023.
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