Obama asks nation not to panic (Image via Wikipedia)

Authorities called for calm today as word dribbled out across a troubled nation that the beloved Grossblogger blog was leaving True/Slant.com and moving to a new location.

Unrest was reported spreading in many areas of the U.S. and in Arizona as well. The state of the Internet was reported as “shaky.”

The blog has been a fixture at the T/S website for 14 months, which means that many younger Americans cannot remember a time when it wasn’t there.

“First 9/11, then the oil spill and now this,” said a typical American, Lester Flegman of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. “I can’t take it anymore.”

Ever since it was announced a month ago that True/Slant had been acquired by Forbes and would end its storied existence July 31, sporadic rioting has broken out in communities from coast to coast as the grim realization dawned that Grossblogger would have to find a new home.

Yelling and teeth gnashing were also reported in some neighborhoods.

Today the official exit announcement was officially made by Grossblogger founder and CEO Lewis Grossberger, causing a heart-wrenching wail of utter despair to rise up as if from the bowels of the earth itself.

Asked where exactly the blog was going, Grossberger told reporters, “Somewhere else. Watch my Twitter site (Grossberger) for the announcement. In due time, I shall tweet.”

Asked to elaborate, he replied, “Why are you bothering me? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Pro-Grossblogger demonstrators outside his Manhattan apartment building roared their approval and waved signs, reading, “He’ll Tell Us When He’s Ready!” and “Leave Him Alone!”

One elderly woman, struggling to fight back tears, said, “I will always remember today as the day that America lost its innocence.”

In a live TV address from the Oval Office, President Obama told the nation, “Hey, don’t cry, people. Grossblogger will still be appearing, just at another location. I’m a fan, too, so I understand how you feel.”

On the ABC program The View, Whoopi Goldberg said, “I’m gonna kill myself” and the usually voluble Joy Behar was too distraught to attempt a quip.

Grossberger later appeared on the roof of his building, where he hypnotized a crowd gathered in the street estimated at 250,000 people and told them, “All of you who are on my e-mail list or are one of my sixteen billion Facebook friends, or nine trillion Twitter followers, I will send you a notification when the new blog is ready and I will command you to visit it. And you will obey. Do you understand me? You will obey.”

As one, the crowd droned, “Yes, Master.”

My neighbor (Image via Wikipedia)

I got all excited when I learned that Don Draper’s bachelor pad was in my neighborhood. I’ve never had a leading character from a high-quality TV drama living anywhere near me.

We’ve been told he’s located in the vicinity of Waverly Place and Sixth Avenue so I hustled over there to see if I could ferret out the exact address.

I figured Don would be on (comparatively) quiet Waverly rather than hectic, clangorous Sixth (which the city fathers once tried to get New Yorkers to call “Avenue of the Americas” and failed utterly). He has a lot of dissipating to sleep off.

I’ve always loved Waverly. It wavers all over Greenwich Village, at one point bending so sharply there appears to be an intersection of Waverly Place and Waverly Place.

I also figured Don for a large-apartment-building inmate rather than a brownstoner; he’s the kind of guy who’d need a doorman to run interference for him, make up excuses when necessary, calm down and/or misdirect jealous husbands, hysterical women brandishing guns, that sort of thing.

I found the place in about three minutes: “The Waverly,” 136 Waverly Place.

I just knew.

It had the right look. Old, discreet, fifteen floors, maybe 100 apartments, faded yellow brick façade, just off the corner, southwest side. The lobby’s dark, art-decoish, with a diamond-pattern floor that I worried might pose a danger to Don if he comes in a bit tipsy just after it’s been buffed. It’ll be slippery.

The doorman instantly confirmed my suspicion. “Don Draper?” he said, all innocence. “No, there’s nobody here by that name.” Clearly Don has tipped this fellow well.

His apartment is probably in the back and on a high floor. The further away from the street, the better. Early ‘60s rents being what they are, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got two bedrooms for a couple hundred a month.

Right next door to 136 is Hong Kong Tailor Jack, which will come in handy for emergency clothing repairs. Things do occasionally turn violent in Don’s world. People get punched in the nose. Garments are removed quite hastily and strewn carelessly about.

There’s a subway at Waverly and Sixth but I don’t see Don using it. He’s more of a taxi man.

Then there’s the Waverly Restaurant. It’s not really Don’s kind of joint, too downscale for him to ever eat in. But the place has booze. And it’s very close by. So late some night, maybe the call girl slaps him a little too hard, maybe Bert Cooper tells him he’s failed again, maybe Betty still hasn’t moved out of the damn house, maybe he’s out of gin…Don’t be surprised to see Don, collar turned up, hat brim pulled down, duck across the street for a quick one. Or several.

I write like Grossberger (Image via Wikipedia)

The current Internet buzz is a website called I Write Like.

It’s completely idiotic, useless, fallacious, ridiculous, meaningless—but fun.

For about ten minutes. Then you move on to the next mindless fad. Then you die. Oops, went one step too far.

How I Write Like works is pretty simple. You paste a snatch of your—or anyone’s—writing into the box, click on “analyze” and you’re informed which famous author you write like.

(I’d give you the hyperlink but the damn thing isn’t working. Sorry. But you can find it. You’re a resourceful dude.)

I pasted my latest blog post into the machine, clicked “analyze” and up came: “I write like J.K. Rowling.”

Of course I immediately wondered: What happens if I input some of my other stuff? Will I still write like J.K.?

Nope. Next two tries found me writing like 1. Dan Brown and 2. Charles Dickens.

Nothing but humongous best sellers. So how come I’m not worth $47 million and being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey?

Next, I decided to see who the columnists of The New York Times write like. Results:

David Brooks: David Foster Wallace

Maureen Dowd: Kurt Vonnegut

Paul Krugman: David Foster Wallace

Gail Collins: David Foster Wallace

At this point, I pretty much lost interest in playing with I Write Like. Its limitations and flaws were looming larger and more obvious by the second.

And this was before I read the interview in The Awl (no helpful hyperlink here either. Got to call my tech guy.) with the creator of I Write Like.

Who turns out to be a baby-faced, 27-year-old Russian software developer living in Montenegro. Among other problems, his I Write Like data base has only 50 authors in it.

My favorite part of the interview is when the interviewer, Katjusa Cisar, asks the kid, “What makes you qualified to analyze literature like this?”

Reply: “Nothing, really.”

Image via Wikipedia

President Obama now lacks faith in American voters’ ability to make rational decisions about 60 percent of his waking hours, a new poll has shown.

It was the worst approval rating Obama has given the public since the start of his presidency, when he expressed confidence in the electorate’s ability to assess the running of the country by its political leaders a record 86 percent of his sentient time.

But his approval numbers were even lower for Congress, which Obama has no confidence in 97 percent of the time he is awake, though in his dreams he often has a cordial relationship with it.

The Star Magazine/SciFi Channel Presidential Opinion Poll samples the President’s state of mind 200 times during the day and night to compile its data.

The magazine said irrational opposition to Obama’s health care measure, the burgeoning Tea Party movement and the birther controversy had all worked to erode Obama’s confidence in the electorate.

In recent weeks, the public has lost more points by its total failure to pay any attention whatever to the financial reform bill and its confusion over whom to blame for the Gulf oil disaster.

“Obama used to think Americans were basically sane,” said Dr. Jordan Ramesh, director of the poll. “But now he is finally waking up to the frightening realization that the public is completely irrational.”

Ramesh said a small but growing portion of Obama’s brain would like to go back to Chicago and become part owner of a sports franchise.

Image via Wikipedia

The Catholic Church announced today it was trading Mel Gibson to the Wahhabis, a militant Islamic sect based in Saudi Arabia, a spokesman for the Vatican said.

“Given his expressed attitudes on women and Jews, we feel that Mr. Gibson will be more comfortable in the Wahhabi community,” said Monsignor Gianni Antonelli, the Vatican’s director of celebrity affairs.

Vatican insiders said that Pope Benedict XVI felt the church could ill afford to be associated with the controversial Gibson at a time when it was also receiving bad publicity on the priest-child-abuse issue.

In exchange for Gibson, the Catholics will receive Walid al-Gazar, a talented young actor/screenwriter who was sentenced to amputation of both legs and an arm recently for his Oscar-nominated short film, Babes Without Burkas, plus 160 camels.

Friends of Gibson said Saudi Arabia, where alcoholic beverages are illegal and drug laws carry the death penalty, would provide him a healthier environment than Hollywood.

Gibson, who belongs to a traditionalist Catholic sect that celebrates the Mass in Latin, refuses to eat fish on Fridays and believes Jews have cloven hooves, directed the controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, a retelling of events leading up to the Crucifixion.

Clad in a Go-Wahhabis jersey and baseball cap, Gibson appeared at a brief news conference in Riyadh, where he said he was at work on a script for his next film, Saladin: The Early Years.

“I spent many happy, productive years as an embittered, retrograde Catholic, he said. “And now it’s time to move on.”

Gibson declined to answer questions about the scathing tapes in which he cursed his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva so vigorously he had to pause and pant for breath.