Thank you! (a slight detour)

Note:  The discussion board posts included here were all copied verbatim from the public pages of “The Judy Garland Message Board.”

Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting the amount of responses I received to the first installments of my blog series.  I knew there would be a higher-than-normal response, but you all really exceeded my expectations!

The positive feedback and enormous outpouring of support has been wonderful.  I thank everyone involved for taking the time to write and message me.  It’s been great.

I had originally planned on posting the first part of Chapter Three, about the early days of “The Judy List” discussion forum, by now.  But, some things happened on one of today’s most popular Garland discussion forums, “The Judy Garland Message Board,” that I think make a great little detour before going into the early days of “The Judy List.”

“The Judy Garland Message Board,” which is usually very mild, had a big come-apart over a censorship issue that resulted from the deletion of all posts about the series.  A person going by the screen name “Ruby Slippers” posted the following:

Re: Ask John Fricke
by Ruby-Slippers » Tue Mar 03, 2015 1:46 pm

Hi John;

I was quite shocked today when I tootled on over to “The Judy Room”. Scott Brogan has begun a project that I guess you would call an “on-line” book, (with two chapters completed at present, that are posted; and with more chapters to come). The name of said book is “The Judy Garland Wars” — and here are the links to Chapters One and Two.

http://judygarlandnews.com/2015/03/02/t … rly-years/

http://judygarlandnews.com/2015/03/02/t … ng-online/

Anyway, I won’t say anything on here, because obviously people can read it for themselves. But what are your thoughts on Scott’s “Chapter 2” John — entitled “Getting On-Line”? You are featured prominently in this chapter and it has shed some light on you, as a person, that really surprised me? What do you think?

Thanks John.

That was deleted without any explantation.  The Board’s main moderator, Martha Sketekee, then attempted a separate thread about the series:

The Judy Garland Wars by Scott Brogan
by martha » Tue Mar 03, 2015 2:07 pm

There is a new online publication by Scott Brogan entitled “The Judy Garland Wars: or How I survived the wacky world of Judy Garland fandom”

The first few pieces have emerged.

http://judygarlandnews.com/2015/03/02/t … re-online/

Let’s focus any conversation on this publication and these writings in this thread.

That was deleted too.  It became apparent to some very vocal members of the board (and probably everyone else) that they were being censored.  They took it up with the board, but were finally shot down when their discussion threads were locked by the board’s owner Dennis, who goes by “tinman.” 

“Tinman” had no heart indeed.  He was pissed.  He seemed to be more pissed about being accused of censorship than anything else.  He had to look it up, and I think there was an issue with a language barrier because he posted:

Re: The JGMB And Censorship
by tinman » Mon Mar 09, 2015 8:42 pm

Censorship – I’ve had to refer to the dictionary for that one. It seems that censorship has to be exercised by or through any kind of responsible authority and as a concerted action. The goal: to effectively subdue opinions and things deemed to be politically, legally, morally or religiously objectionable or inappropriate. It’s done by censors, who exercise censorship and monitor behavior and expression of opinion as a result of state/government intervention or regulation.

Even after such a short paragraph of text the accusation brought forward here seems rather dull and polemic.

I’ve been away far too long. Time to mop up.

Greetings

tinman

That didn’t deter the squeaky wheels.  They started a new thread titled “Tinman.”  To which he responded:

Re: Tinman
Postby tinman » Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:34 pm

And what do you presume is behind curtain number two? Well, what could it be after mopping up? Indeed, it’s taking out the trash.

Gentlemen, there’s the door – at your service. We can do very well without you; might even give some of the decent people here the air to breathe again.

Greetings

tinman

Then something happened that I do not believe has ever happened in the history of the board.  Not only were these people booted off the board, but all traces of all of their posts going back to the very beginning of their time on the board were wiped out.  Everything gone!  All that remains are the random times these people were quoted in other members’ posts. 

If you go to the Message Board now, you can see these two locked discussions, but without the posts of the three people that Dennis deleted the discussions aren’t discussions at all but random posts that don’t make much sense.  That’s the same for the rest of the discussions that these people were a part of.  Now it looks like people are responding to nothing.  The flow is gone, the sometimes quite thoughtful discussions, all gone.

After I left the Board, I asked Dennis to please remove all of my posts.  I know I asked at least twice.  I was ignored.  I assumed that the message board system wasn’t capable of a full sweep of one username’s posts.  I was wrong.  All my stuff is still there!

Just after all of this all went down, “Nick Olas” (another fake name from Facebook), posted a very thinly veiled reference to me and my series that WAS allowed to stay, under a completely different topic of discussion:

Re: Judy On Homosexuality
by NickOlas » Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:48 am

This subject may be relevant to some people who just like to discuss things like this. And it’s definitely a lot more relevant than recent FLUFFER I’ve been reading Oops that was a typo. I meant to write fluff.

The “Fluffer” he’s referring to is me.  It’s yet another reference to the old “Grade D Fluffer” joke that’s floated around about me for a long, long time.  Olas seemed obsessed with me before this series posted (making similar comments on Facebook), but even more so now.  He signed up on the Board just a few days after my series was published.  Coincidence?   He posted a few posts then this post about me.  Coincidence?  Isn’t he clever not using my name yet everyone knows who he’s talking about?  So clever!

Olas has apparently been on a one-man smear campaign against me.  Just last week he tried to end a friendship of mine by sending my friend a very old nude photo of me, along with a hateful message.  Naturally my friend asked me what it was about.  I told him.  Sorry to disappoint Mr. Olas but we’re still friends.  And the photo, regardless of its severely low resolution, is a very flattering one.  Shocker: I’m nude in the photo!  Oh no!  The photo is from a 2001 professional photo shoot.  Nothing new there.  It’s not a grainy snapshot and I certainly didn’t use it to solicit the possibility of sex from unsuspecting people I happened to be attracted to.  I suppose this is Olas’ way of “getting back” at me for the linked photo in Chapter Two.

What is really funny, to me anyway, is that in Olas’ obsessed mind his referring to me as a “Fluffer” is the lowest of the low.  Silly people, they don’t use fluffers anymore, not since the 1990s when Viagra came out.  Still, I wonder how many other people were sent that photo?  Who knows!  Who cares? 

Just when this Message Board drama was beginning, Daniel Berghaus (aka “clothedambition” aka “Buzz Stephens” allegedly aka “Cass Cooper” – formerly “TJGE Uploader”) removed all the threads on his Facebook group that had nasty comments and accusations about me.  Maybe they’re just hidden.  I wonder why?  It must have taken a while as there were quite a few.  Silly people.  Don’t they know that you can’t really delete things once they’re been online?

I suppose I should be flattered.  When anyone posts to their blog, they want people to read what they have to say.  But really, all of this drama because I am relaying my own crazy experiences over the past 29 years or so is so – well – silly!  It’s all told, and is meant to be told, with humor.  It’s even more silly when you step back and realize:  This is just Judy Garland stuff.  No one really cares outside of Garfandom.  It’s just another batch of bitter queens bickering with each other.  Sometimes it’s quite hateful (long before the term “hater” was used in its present form), but most of the time it’s head-shaking silliness that doesn’t mean a thing.  And trust me, I am certainly not a saint by any means, and I will definitely include my own follies in fandom.  As the chapters progress, you’ll see my progression as well as that of the online Garfan community.  Remember, it’s all my own experiences in this wacky world of fandom.  If anything, it’ll all meant to be fun and interesting to read.

Why am I putting all this here, now?  Originally I had planned to proceed in a generally chronological order with my experiences in Garfandom, but these recent events are the perfect segue into the first section of the next chapter in the series which is about “The Judy List.”  As you will see, this recent drama is nothing new.  Some of the players are different, some are the same.  The forums are different (we didn’t have social media in 1996 and the original “The Judy List” is now long gone), but the drama and name calling remain the same. 

Again, thank you everyone for the astounding support and feedback, good and bad – the next chapter is coming soon!

© 2015 Scott Brogan, The Judy Room & Judy Garland News & Events

Back to Chapter Two – Getting Online  |  Continue to Chapter Three – The Judy List (Part One)