Six Secrets to a World-Class Flame-Out

One of my better friends got a hold of me last night just a hair too late, alerting me that The Wiz was losing control. I rushed to U4Prez as soon as I could, and there he was, really ranting about things I'll tell you about later. I wanted to chime in, give him a quick PM to tell him I was here, he needed to calm down before he got himself in real trouble.

I was just too late. When I got there, even though his crown was at the top of the comment listings, his account had been suspended. TheWiz flamed out.

I've talked to him since then, and I thought how his blaze of glory went. And in this moment of reflection, my mind came to rest on my own flame-out last month, my own resignation that was too awesome to deliver quietly. In this thought, I think I can pat myself on the back, because I flamed one of the all-time greatest flame-outs you will ever see on a message board.

TheWiz will read this, and I know GESmith reads this on occasion, and if they had to do it over again, I'm sure they would make sure they didn't just get shoved to the door as if by a half-dozen bouncers at some nightclub. Had they had it to do over again, I guarantee you they would have made sure they got EVERYTHING out that they wanted to say. That's sort of the problem with spontaneous combustion, it's... well, spontaneous. There's no time to rehearse. It happens.

I think that's why my meltdown was so frenzied and dramatic, because I had actually quit the night before. I came back, knowing it was a bad idea to do so, and it didn't take much, just the usual sarcasm from the Hard Right hooligans, to set me off. I had a night to think about what would happen if I returned, hence, to a small degree, I guess my flame-out was planned.

And I think I'm in a position to offer advice for those of you who are frustrated with U4Prez, don't know why you bother showing up anymore, and are looking to quit with a little bit of panache. Why just walk away and no one notice for a few weeks, when you can rip shit and tear ass and let EVERYONE know you're pissed off and can only be happy again if everyone else is even more pissed than you!

Here are six tips, six thoughts to consider as you feel yourself sliding into the fire, and you are dancing the forbidden dance of the flame-out.

FIRST, PICK A TARGET. There's no point in going after someone who doesn't come around but once a week, he's not going to know what you're spazzing about. If you're going to go down, go down swinging at the biggest baddest motherfucker you can find. In my case, Mduminiak was around, even as a monkeyboy he was the highest ranking member of the Hard Right around, I might as well let him have to deal with me. I think this made my flame-out better because my wrath was focused, concentrated on a single individual, and that individual had an outstanding reputation for being a gold-ribbon asshole. I didn't go after the others who were there. If the bomb was strapped to my chest, I was going to give the biggest target at the moment a big kiss as it went off.

SECOND, IGNORE THE SARCASM AT THE PERIPHERY. While I was going after Mike, you had the usual Hard Right thugs chiming in with insults and sarcasm. I think they knew I was leaving and melting down, why not give Olivia one more good kick to the solarplexus as she's getting thrown to the curb? I remember Musicman asking who pissed in my Cheerios that morning. Iron Lady and I think BigDaddy started in with the usual dysentary that runs from their vocal chords, but I don't remember what they said, I really don't. That's because I was focused on my target, and I was letting loose my inner demons for all to have to deal with. Now, had I removed my sights from Mduminiak and went after Musicman, the flame-out would have become discombobulated, out of sync, all over the place. The single stream of ranting would have become two, then three and four and more rivulets, none with the impact that original burst of angst would have if continued uninterrupted. Because I kept going forward with my attack, it was far more effective than had I went after everyone at once.

THIRD, USE EVERYTHING WITHIN REACH TO FUEL YOUR TANTRUM. It wasn't enough that I was screaming and morphing into the lunatic psychobitch some had already painted me into being. I had to do more. I went to my own profile and erased all of it. I went to the Indyleader profile and posted my resignation there for all to see. I started ripping down the Antipartisan Pledge. Everything I had a hand in, everything that had taken five months to build, I was ripping down in a few minutes. And while that was happening, I was still bellowing at my target, maintaining my focus on him. See, you can walk and chew gum at the same time, provided you keep your target eyed up. So long as every step is a forward step, your hands can go complete apeshit and rip down anything on the walls. By doing this, by ripping down your own work, you're ripping your heart out of the place, and this jagged, gaping hole will be left for everyone to patch.

FOURTH, YOU HAVE EVERYONE'S ATTENTION, SAY IT! And Lord knows I did. I called the fix, and I called Eric Gurr out on the charge of favoritism, for all to hear. And while I was being poo-poo'ed by some, I knew there was a jolt of truth in it, and it rang out through many who had confided in me over the months, the belief that this whole thing was bought and sold, that the president had already been picked, and that U4Prez was going down the crapper because Gurr wanted to play with the elite instead of reconcile the bloody voting system! Unfortunately, unless you are one of about five candidates on U4Prez, Eric Gurr really doesn't give a shit about what you think. A flame-out, however, gets his attention real quick, and if the cursing is fluid and rancid, and the ranting gets faster and faster, he will come RUNNING to your needs. And that's a real pity, that Eric really doesn't care about what the vast majority of candidates have to say, and that you have to impale yourself against the wall to get his attention. Had he shown that kind of attention in previous incarnations, perhaps the need to set yourself on fire wouldn't be so harried and consuming. Of course, the reality is he presses a button, and poof, you're gone, your profile is suspended, and hopefully that's the end of it.

FIFTH, IF YOU KNOW YOU'RE GOING DOWN, TAKE SOMEONE WITH YOU IF YOU CAN. Suspending the OliviaLLC profile wasn't enough to get me to go away. I quickly jumped onto the Indyleader profile and continued the rant. That worked for a minute or two, until Eric suspended that one as well. But it gave me a moment to see a few new faces, and it struck me, these poor saps were just starting as candidates, maybe I should save them the heartache and tell them the fix was in, and they'd go find something better to do. I was able to get my RUN FOR YOUR LIVES blast in on three of them before I was cut from that one as well. I tried it again on the Antipartisan Pledge profile, but Eric was catching on and cut me off quickly. I was strongly thinking about using the Women's Society profile, and I may have tried, but by that time I think Eric just cut my IP address altogether. I watched as I continued to fume, watched how smug some acted, how others asked what my problem was, how the argument seemed to continue without me for a few moments. It was strange. But I knew I was about to be cut, and I had enough presence of mind to warn a few newbies, as I was being drug out kicking and screaming, to not even bother, Kempite's the winner, sorry to blow the surprise for everyone, now you can do something more productive with your lives than build a tidy little campaign while the Hard Right hooligans laugh you down.

SIXTH, END THE TIRADE ON YOUR TERMS, NOT THEIRS. I think everyone has left at least one bad job in their lives, thinking to themselves, I know enough to bury this place, all I would have to do is spill my guts, and this place would be down the tubes. I think most of us, if not all, have thought that one time or another, but we never actually do it. Well, I told myself that's exactly what I will do, spill my guts, let it all hang out, tell all the little stories I'd been tucking away all these months, all the sordid details not known in the U4Prez mainstream. All of it true, all of it was on the record, it's just a matter of recording it in a way that others could make sense of it. When I wrote my first article, I truly thought this blog would last a week tops, that I would have no readers, that life would go on. I truly didn't expect Eric Gurr being demoted because of what a disgruntled former candidate had to say, and yet he was, which brought instant credibility to the points I was making as I was flaming. I also didn't expect my meltdown to become perhaps THE seminal event in U4Prez history, because I knew I had enemies before I flamed, but I had no idea how deeply obsessed they were over me. They didn't have Eric Gurr with his finger on the trigger any longer, waiting to shoot me down again should I get uppity and out of line. They no longer had the creator in their hip pockets. I had no idea every video Kempite would make thereafter would have Olivia as a tag. I had no idea Mduminiak would make MORE anti-Olivia videos. I certainly had no idea those two would make me the centerpiece of their talk shows and their history-making 67-minute couchfest. The blog I thought would last a week as the final burst of a nasty flame-out has become a five-week tour-de-force. There is definitely something to be said about leaving on your own terms.

I got Kempite and Mduminiak sending their lackeys over to my blog to write YOU'RE A WHORE and STUPID SLUT where they can. I got Kempite himself calling me a crackwhore on video, probably the stupidest thing a candidate trying to promote himself as one with answers instead of games could do. Now they have their minions coming to me, just like Osama bin Laden sends his stooges to Al-Jazeera with his latest video, begging me to debate them on their shows. Why would I do that? Since my departure, I've said what I wanted to say, without fear of a drop in ratings or suspension for vulgarity, and they've twisted themselves every which-a-way trying to deal with it all. They've put on the most savage attack campaign in U4Prez history, and for all their efforts, there's a petition being circulated for my re-instatement, with I believe more signatures than the U4Decency Petition, a petition co-authored by Kempite, a petition he long ago used as bathroom tissue. Why in the world would I suddenly give them the time of day? Sounds to me like I'm having my way with them.

I am in this position because I had a world-class flame-out last month, and U4prez is still feeling the effects of it.

I am tempted to jump onto one of these talk shows, or even start one of my own. Can you imagine, Kiss & Tell on the radio?

Trust me on this, though, candidates, there are 2500 candidates out there. The U4Prez world does not revolve around these two putzes. I've had invitations to do other shows, and I am strongly considering calling up the Johnny/John show when it gets off the ground, or perhaps take Rosty up on his invitation for the "DynamicDuo" to make an appearance. Who knows? I can tell you this, such an event will be on my own dime, not to give the Gruesome Twosome the sort of audience they've never enjoyed, but to have fun with a friend or two.

I have these options because I had the flame-out to end all flame-outs.

I'm not sure what the future will hold for Wiz. I hope we haven't seen the last of him. I hope he can rest assured, thought, that his moment of spontaneous combustion could certainly have been worse, and while I hope there won't ever be a repeat performance, in case it does so come to pass, I've offered him six points of advice for a bigger and badder flame-out.

And if you're sitting there, frustrated with U4Prez, and you have the gasoline in one hand and the lighter in the other, I encourage you to take my six points to heart. There's no point in lighting yourself on fire unless you intend on maximizing it, sucking every morsel of marrow out of that bone, making the most of your final moments in this world. Why be a fire when you can be a shooting star, streaking and screaming across the sky for all to deal with? I think you've got your work cut out for you if you insist on trying to top my effort, because, frankly speaking, when it comes to losing one's mind for all to watch, I've set the bar pretty high. Don't settle for mediocrity. Burn bright!