Wednesday, April 06, 2005

ldm revealed!

So, lo, if you read the comments to my last post, you see a sort of valedictory confessional from Lonely Donut Man (aka a larger number of other names used for writing some of the stranger comments on this blog, as well as "Goesh", who has posted on sociology blogs far and wide). Anyway, as he promised, he did send me an e-mail:
From: name@ky.gov
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 12:27 PM
To: jfreese@ssc.wisc.edu
Subject: its me, LDM
I guess there has been some speculation on your part that I was a UW
student. You were on-target when you noted the time discrepancy in posts. I
shall remain a reader of your Blog, which by the way , is top-notch and one
of the better ones going. Congrats again on your upcoming sojourn to
Harvard ! Best Regards, [name]
And thus, it turns out that LDM is not anybody I know personally. Barring some truly spectacular mindgame, he really is, as he says, somebody who just stumbled across my blog last October or so and has been commenting ever since.

I'm not going to reveal his name, out of a strangely awed respect for somebody keeping up such an elaborate practical joke for such a long period of time. Besides, of course, what would it mean to tell you somebody's name when it is not somebody you would know? So you could Google him too, and find out that he went to high school here? Or that he works in one of these offices?

Blogs are a funny thing, you know. So is Google, for that matter.

Incidentally, I've said a couple times that I had a prime suspect for who LDM was. I never actually believed LDM was somebody in Wisconsin Sociology. What I thought was that it was this other person who used to read my blog and e-mail me very regularly who then mysteriously disappeared into the e-ther, not that long before LDM arrived on the scene. Now that I know that LDM isn't her, I wonder what did ever happen to her. I suppose she just got bored. Or maybe she dropped dead one day at her keyboard. I'd really have no way of knowing.

4 comments:

jeremy said...

'Tis true. I wasn't a 100% sure of that, but in my Googling of the person who e-mailed me I found a link to an address that had "goesh" as part of the username. I have no idea what "goesh" is supposed to mean. Perhaps he'll clarify.

So, procfreak, your troll-poll from a couple months ago was actually the same two guys running against each other.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. I've frequently wondered who goesh is. Also interesting is that, with the two links and more googling, anyone can now find out the true identity of LDM/goesh.

goesh said...

I certainly will have to have a word with my brother about his use of my computer. I had no idea he was writing 'poetry' here. He chose Sociology as his area of undergrad study and has been impoverished and destitute ever since. What is it they say about Sociologists? Strong on ideas but weak with cash? tsk tsk - my wife cautioned me about letting him have free access to the ol' computer.

This name, Goesh, is a name given to me by some Metis friends years ago when I was doing an alcoholism prevention project with Native Americans. I was told it means something along the lines of being like the ant, small but powerful. I suspect, given their unique sense of humor, that it means something entirely different because they always smiled when they called me that name. Floundering White Man is probably what it really means. I will have to keep a close eye on my brother now least he starts anonymous posting again using the initials FWM instead of LDM.

Unknown said...

'Tis incorrect, my mysterious friends. For I am the true goesh. The name was not give to me by "Friends" as the illegitimate poster suggests. Rather, it was a freak misspelling of a name that I found frightfully enticing, its stuck ever sense.