This episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign first ran seven years ago today.
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ANNOUNCER: From Westminster, it’s time for—
SOUND: Skype rings once.
JOHNNY: Johnny Atsign.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) Johnny, It’s Peter Grayson.
JOHNNY: Well, I haven’t heard from you for while. What’s up, Peter?
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) More legal nonsense. The Grouch has filed another LOLsuit against me.
JOHNNY: How many does that make? Three?
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) Four, if you count that peace order. I’d like to send you a copy of the complaint and have you mark it up with notes referring to evidence you have on hand.
ANNOUNCER: The Lickspittle Broadcasting System presents W. J. J. Hoge in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed Twitter account, America’s fabulous free-lance Internet investigator …
JOHNNY: Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign!
MUSIC: Theme up to music out.
JOHNNY: The following is partial extract of the tweets sent and received during my investigation of It’s In The Vault Matter.
JOHNNY TWEETS: (SYNTH VOICE) @PlatitudePundit Jackpot!
JOHNNY: Peter emailed me a pdf of The Grouch’s complaint. It was his usual jumbled mass of accusations unsupported by real facts. He had nothing except his own guessing to support the accusation that Grayson was the secret identity of The Zombie, and at least one of the quotes he attributed to the Zombie was false. That was obvious from a first scan of the complaint. I spent the rest of the morning digging in paragraph by paragraph.
By the middle of the afternoon, I had a fairly solid list of errors and flat-out lies in the complaint, so I decided to give Peter a call.
SOUND: (Caller’s POV) Telephone rings three times.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) Hello.
JOHNNY: Peter, it’s Johnny Atsign. I’ve got some initial results for you,
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filer) So soon?
JOHNNY: It’s just a quick scan, but I want to go over it with you so you can run down some of the leads yourself.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) OK.
JOHNNY: Have you got a copy of the complaint handy?
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) I can pull it up on my PC. Let’s see … Click there … OK. I’ve got it.
JOHNNY: Right. Let’s go through it one paragraph at a time.
ANNOUNCER: It’s a warm summer evening, I’ll sitting on the porch with a cold one in my hand. I’ll keep my drink cold and my hand warm with a Team Lickspittle Thermos Can Cooler. It’s not one of those flimsy foam can wraps. It’s a solid double-wall aluminum vacuum insulated cooler made by Thermos®. It’s just one of the nifty goodies available exclusively at The Hogewash Store. Stop by today and spend some of your hard-earned cash to help support Team Lickspittle. You can also show your support by hitting the Tip Jar.
JOHNNY: (Fading in) … clear that he doesn’t understand how to plead the elements of the tort. So let’s move on to paragraph 15.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) OK.
JOHNNY: He quotes a couple of sentences he alleges The Zombie wrote on his website. This time, at least, he has the right date and the right website.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) Yeah, and both of The Zombie’s statements are true.
JOHNNY: Exactly! Both of the no-contact orders issued in your state are for stalking via the Internet, so “cyberstalker” sticks, and one of the other restraining orders protects a three-year-old. Note that he doesn’t explicitly say that the statements are false.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) And true statements aren’t defamatory.
JOHNNY: Uh, huh, and he has the same problem with paragraph 16.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) Yeah. The first peace order in Maryland was based on harassment, so that takes care of adjudicated harasser. Most of the victims of his cyberstalking have been adults, and the three-year-old is certainly a child. What about a senior citizen?
JOHNNY: My Maryland client was 65 when the first peace order was issued.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) Gotcha.
JOHNNY: Liar? Proving that’s a slam dunk. Dementia addled? He admitted it in a letter to a federal judge. Plagiarist? There’s that whole book he ripped off from The Zombie.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) Yeah, and he posted that butt stuff himself.
JOHNNY: Right, and he hasn’t managed to take down all of the stuff he’s posted over the years. There’s a lot of … I guess could call it “undead” … material that he can’t hide.
GRAYSON: (Telephone Filter) OK.
JOHNNY: (Fading out) Moving along to the next paragraph, …
JOHNNY TWEETS: @TheGrouch Beware of your own zombie tweets and posts.
ANNOUNCER: Now, here’s our star to tell you about next week’s intriguing episode of our story.
JOHNNY: Next time? Tweets and posts and zombies! Join us, won’t you?
Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign!
MUSIC: Swell theme and under
ANNOUNCER: Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign, starring W. J. J. Hoge, is transcribed in Westminster. Be sure to join us next Monday, same time and URL, for the next exciting episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Atsign.
MUSIC: Theme up to music out.
ANNOUNCER: Johnny Atsign is a work of fiction. If anyone thinks it’s about him, he should read Proverbs 28:1.
This is LBS, the Lickspittle Broadcasting System.
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What kind of cyberthug gets hit with restraining orders protecting toddlers and the elderly?