Jim J Bullock's Revenge

The geniuses suffer, says the legend, their single-minded obsessions both gift and curse. Seriousness of purpose and dedication to craft yield mesmerizing beauty, but extract a heavy toll. Balance, perspective, silliness, the ability to laugh and be laughed at - these are the enemy of the artist. Unless the artist is Jim Henson.

And so, as a self-professed antagonist of the self-serious, I find myself on the horns of a dilemma. A giant has deigned to acknowledge me, and I've been found lacking.

Kyle Whelliston is the proprietor of The Mid Majority, a brilliantly written, exhaustive, and reliably entertaining chronicle of the world of mid-major college basketball. He dedicates hundreds upon hundreds of hours to his pursuit each year, criss-crossing the nation from October to March to report first-hand on the Big West, the Horizon, the MAC, and the other 22 conferences that fall below the red line (his invention) that separates the haves from the have-nots in Division I hoops. I wish that I cared enough about anything apply the passion he applies to mid-major basketball.

Whelliston chronicles Red Line Upsets on his website and via his Twitter feed (@midmajority), celebrating those rare occasions when the little guy jumps ugly on a big conference foe. For example, G:TB followers know that our Wrens tallied a pair of RLUs last season, picking off Wake Forest and Maryland, though we're 0-for-2 in 2010. And as I found out recently, Mr. Whelliston takes his RLUs seriously. Really seriously.

Last week, the Big South's Winthrop beat the aforementioned Wake Forest, 83-74. @midmajority dutifully touted the Red Line Upset. I responded with the following tweet:

@midmajority @RedLineUpsets is it really an upset if wake loses?

My intent was not to argue with The Method, or to challenge authority. My intent was to make fun of Wake Forest, who've now lost thrice to mid-majors, falling to Stetson and VCU before their loss to Winthrop. Alas, Twitter is no place for humor, apparently, and @midmajority was and is unaware of our CAA bonafides. (Seriously, we're like the internet's 4th-best source for poorly reported CAA content. The fact that more people don't know that is an indictment of our marketing team's efforts.) His response will scar me forever:

Sorry. Rules. Block. RT @batogato: @midmajority @RedLineUpsets is it really an upset if wake loses?

Block? I'm blocked? I can no longer see @midmajority's tweets about mid-major hoops, a persona non grata left to wander the twitterverse in hopes that Andy Katz drops a CAA nugget, or Dick Vitale deigns to acknowledge the MAAC. Frankly, kidding aside, this sucks. I greatly enjoy @midmajority's always-on, all-mid-major, all-the-time focus. You see, I really, really like mid-major college basketball. To add insult to injury, Whelliston wrote an entire blog post about the Rules, and the authority under which he enforces them, referencing my tweet for all the hoops-loving world to see. Money grafs:

I always hope that going to 700 games over seven years would give me some measure of authority on the subject, but I also realize that things don't work that way, especially on the Internet. People want to argue. I don't have time for it. I'm busy driving hundreds of miles a day, dry cleaning my suits, going to games, tweaking Robots and talking about various obscurities on the Twitter. If I were to engage in every discussion about "that's not a mid-major LOL #sux," there would be no time to do any of that, and I'd lose whatever authority I actually have.

As such, anybody who tweets some variant of "that's not an upset" at us is immediately blocked and publicly taunted. There are no Gonzaga exceptions to that rule, and there is no parole. The web is big, blogs are free to start, and there's plenty of opportunities for people to make their own score-tweeting Robots that spit out Mauve Line Alerts or whatever. Good luck with that.

To which I respond: sigh. Also: you missed my fucking point, and the brilliance of my tweeted comedy. And: which I realize wasn't very funny, but seriously, dude, you're gonna get an ulcer if you can't laugh a little bit. Finally: Teejay, this robot thing sounds interesting. Get on it, will you?

Someday I'd like very much to be unblocked, because I truly do find The Mid-Majority to be mandatory daily reading. If one of our readers who actually knows Kyle Whelliston might put in a good word on my behalf, I'd be much obliged (you know who you are). Until then, somebody retweet @midmajority's stuff for me.