AdFreak points to this St. Louis Riverfront Times article about physician Alexander T. Kalk, whose dramatic downward spiral into mental illness went mostly unnoticed by authorities. The story is so bizarre that the ad above (and others Kalk placed in the same paper, one of which was Star Wars-themed) might be the least unusual part about it. Worth a look.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
10
"Old Ballas Road"? We're commemorating Grand Theft Auto with street signs already?!
Bizarre is an understatement. That story and the supplemental web-based materials linked to therein just sucked 2 hours of my life into a vortex of insanity.
Stellar. I'd love to see the ad in the River Front Times from Oct 2006. Clearly worthy of pity & wonder--another Unquiet Mind. Well, i guess you gotta get in to get out and it seems like he did become more sane.
Another man destroyed by marriage. WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN
Shortly after 6 p.m. on March 8, 2008, Manhattan police received an anonymous tip that computer records had been dumped in a trash bin behind Spring Lounge, a nondescript bar straddling Soho and Chinatown. When an officer arrived at the scene, he discovered nearly 500 white binders spilling out of three Dumpsters. The files contained the IP addresses, email accounts and other personal information for 466 rabid fans of Mr. Alexander B.* Balk.
Police attempted to phone Balk at his office somewhere in a dirty apartment on St. Mark's. When no one answered, officers searched the building and found no sign of trouble â€" and no trace of Balk.
Many of the commenter records were printed on letterhead from the websites gawker.com and radaronline. A blogger with a specialty in tediously long personal accounts of the trials of being an aging misanthrope in New York City, Balk began an affiliation with those publications in 2006 and 2007, respectively [CKTK], and many of his 2,000 readers had been referred to him through those sites.
When police contacted his most recently known place of work, theawl.com, Choire Sicha, vice president of all things good and light in this world and chief awesome officer, told them Balk hadn't been on staff there for several months after being "forced to leave due to numerous complaints of misconduct." The website, according to police reports, agreed to store the records temporarily "to protect the interests of the readers" and await the arrival of federal investigators from the Department of Web and Human Services, which had been notified of a potential violation of privacy law.
In the meantime, Manhattan authorities continued their search for the missing writer. They spoke to Sicha, who told them that they were in the midst of a bitter split of their business interests. He said that he and his pet cat, Cat, had been "hiding from Balk for several months because he fears for their safety," according to police reports.
Sicha also stated that Balk was suffering from a variety of mental disorders and "in the process of closing his personal tumblelog due to his own personal and medical problems." The blogger, he further explained, had been staying with friends recently but "might be homeless and is definitely crying about it."
*Bernice
(I'll be off to have myself committed now)
*APPLAUSE*
Oh that poor Cat.
WOW.
Will someone please write a screenplay of this article and sell the rights to Peter Sarsgaard so I can watch it in two years? Thank you!