Thank you. Thank you all. Now if you’ll all just remain in your seats for a moment I have some prepared remarks here…
Oh, hell. I don’t really. I’ll be honest for a change those were just some junk mail fliers that I had laying around, bundled up to look like a speech. I’m sure I didn’t fool anyone—I’ve been counting down the days to this day. I really don’t have any prepared remarks, but I did want to say a few things before I acknowledge each of you individually. Ahem…
I couldn’t have made it to where I am today without your lurve. (Well, duh! I’ve tried voting for enough of my own quips to know that it just ain’t gonna happen. I’ll prolly keep trying, too.) So I want to thank all of you little people, and big people, and medium-sized people, and the wanna-be people, too. You know who you are. I must thank all of the young people, the old people, the people trying to pass as one or the other, and those who vacillate. I thank all of the sober (or trying), drunk (or trying), drugged, over- and under-medicated and a few who should probably be euthanized. I appreciate the debt I owe to conservatives, liberals, radicals, middle-of-the-roaders, independents, monarchs, lords and ladies—just try and collect. Maybe a few other libertarians, too. One can only hope. I want to thank all of the men and women of the Fluther, and all of the boys and girls, too. I don’t want to forget the men who were women and the women who were men, and the ones who switch back and forth, and the ones who can’t seem to make up their minds, and the ones who look on forms with “Gender: M / F” and keep looking for “Other”, too. I want to thank the heterosexuals, the homosexuals, the metrosexuals, the bisexuals, the transgendered, the asexual and the hermaphroditic, if any, and any who still can’t seem to make up their minds. I lurve you, too, but so far I can only do that in a rather constrained, old-fashioned Connecticut-type of way, but it’s no less real. I want to thank the people who say a lot in a few words, the people who say a little in a lot of words, the ones who say nothing at all but still click that GA link (and the rare GQ link), and mostly anyone who reads even half of what I write. It’s worth all of this repetitive strain to my wrists, fingers, elbow and eyes if you read it. Even more if you can make sense of it. Well, some of it, anyway. It’s worth wearing out keyboards for. I want to thank everyone who has made me think, whether it was with a good question, a different take on an answer, a thoughtful critique of a quip of my own, and even some of the silly (not to mention irrational) responses, too. I also want to thank the people who made it possible for me to not answer a Q because they beat me to an even better answer than I could have come up with even if I took more time on it.
Mostly, I want to thank everyone who clicked a GA link for me at one time or another, whether the response actually merited it or not. (There’s more than a few of those, unfortunately.) I’ve been finding that my ‘honest’ and (to my mind, anyway) well-thought-out arguments (or what passes for that in my mind) seem to get less lurve than the quick riposte, the silly pun or the smart-aleck answer that so many say they despise… and GA for anyway (go figure). So unless you start clicking on more of these (I should say ‘those’) honest and thoughtful and cogent responses… you’re just going to get more of this crap.
I was going to try to crib some other speeches, such as, “Ask not what your Fluther can do for you…” and so on. Or: “It is better to write one Good Answer than it is to curse…”, but here on Fluther we can do both! And my repertoire of political speeches ended back in the 60s, anyway (except for a few gems such as “I am not a crook,” and “It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” Stirring stuff; it sets me on fire, it does. I guess we’re all better off leaving that kind of stuff to the professionals.
Now on to the individual responses, to follow in a separate response. (I’m told by the Fluther Academy that my time is limited, so I guess you should only look for your own name in the list below—if you responded in the thread above—so that will save some time. Or not. The hell with the Academy, I always say.)
I don’t get in many last words on threads (until they’ve been abandoned, apparently), but I mean to have the last word on this one. If that happens at 20K, well, that’s fine with me.
I really have appreciated all the lurve, folks. So far, so good.
