Thank you for following me around the internet.

Too bad you don’t have the courage to tell me your real name or website so we can talk.

I agree with what you said and wish I had a share of the “Looney Tunes” cartoon fortune! Narcissism is every person’s middle name, especially those of us who choose to be in media.

I’m going to have a manicure and pedicure today at 10 AM. I’ll tell the technician to be careful to take every speck off my hands! ROFL!

‘Bye-bye for a while, and keep a smile!

Cordially,

Ellen Kimball
Portland, OR

PS. I live my life as I see fit. I talk about what I want to. Don’t care for my point of view, outlook, vision, or style? I guess I can handle that!

Looks like I riled you up a bit. So be it. I don’t like to have Internet fights and avoid them like the plague. But I think you and I got off to a bad start and I thought I’d clear up some of your wrongheaded ideas.

I have no idea what your allusion to 1997 really means. Why did you start with that? Does the date have some meaning to you? If so, I do not share it.

I have never smoked. My parents both smoked and so did my former husband. They all died in their 70s of smoking related illnesses. Therefore, what you ascribe to me is untrue. I am a rabid anti-smoker.

I got hot under the collar about your Twitter comments when you decided to verbally fling my former mentor Larry King into the wastebasket of television. I thought his interchange with New Yorker Judy Scheinlin, a woman with a fascinating history, a beautiful family, and a lot of moxie — was very interesting. So we disagreed. That’s about it.

Maybe I overdid it, but it still smarts when some young thing flings age at people and deems them useless for whatever reason. Maybe it comes from your heritage. There are other cultures where age is a virtue and wisdom is welcome in an extended family. I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure you’re younger than me, Larry and Judy.

Also, I assume you are a white male who has little or no real connection with grandparents or perhaps even parents. It also appears that you have been consigned to a job that isn’t to your liking very much. I don’t know and I could be wrong, but there is an underlying bitterness to your entries both in this blog and on Twitter.

I call myself a “gal” because it sounded great interchanged with the phrase Internet Tough Guy. Clearly, I am not a guy. Also, I am not in love with you, but would like to get to a better place.

I swear you must be the “twin brothers from different mothers” or a clone of Frank Drackman a/k/a Vernon Richardson — a doctor with a past whom I happened to encounter in 2008 on another blog. He’s a lot more verbose than you, but kind of a funny guy who has been blogging at http://drackies.blogspot.com

After a big fat feud about (guess who?) Larry King, we kind of made an uneasy peace with each other. That’s after I found out some salient facts about his history with the US Government.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my life after seven decades. If I were really a narcissist, I don’t think I’d be communicating with strangers on blogs and writing anonymously. I’d be out there exposing myself via a book or some cable show.

I don’t have time for any of those things. Everything that we humans do is destined for an ending. These days, I mostly like to take walks and travel with my husband, eat at nice restaurants and help needy people with their personal items. I work with the Good Neighbor Center, Tigard, Oregon, and with the Sunshine Pantry nearby. I collect pre-owned clothing from people who are doing garage sales. I’ve given away much of my own personal belongings just because I really don’t need a lot of things. I was inspired by a book called “When Organizing Isn’t Enough — Shed.” It’s been very liberating.

So, that’s about it. You don’t seem to have many visitors to your blog. I don’t either. Twitter keeps me in touch with some Portland people, other women who have been in communications, a couple of writers whom I admire, one young woman who lives in Massachusetts where we made our home for 30 years.

If it’s OK with you, let’s just re-set and not butt heads. Frankly, that gives me a big headache anyway. Years ago, on radio, I was discussing all the same issues — abortion, birth control,bussing to achieve racial balance, capital punishment, politics, war. You name it, I talked about it.

Today I am glad I was able to field these topics, because it was important to feed my two children, because I was their sole custodian after my divorce. Later, I did the best I could with three older children whose mother died when they were 13, 11 and 8. I wish their mother had lived, and raising them as a stepmother was very difficult. I did the best I could. They had a roof over their heads, good food to eat, clothes to wear, dental and medical care. My husband adores my children and we have five close grandkids.

So, I’m going to close with this. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. We got off to a bad start. I’d like to correct that.

Sincerely,

Ellen Kimball (@Radio_Lady)
Portland, OR

I’m not sure what the hell you’re trying to do here – do you want to be my Internet pal or is your intent to be the Internet Tuff Guy? I encourage anyone who reads the blog to search on the Twitter search criteria that I provided at the end of the blog and I’ll bet that even your moist ardent fans are going to be as confused as I was; unable to interpret your intent and confused by the anger. I encourage the reader of this blog to do exactly that and then compare and contrast what I wrote in the blog and your response to the timeline. Might I reveal that you promptly blocked me after the ‘old and out of touch’ comment. How do I know – because I wanted to continue the friendly conversation about national talk show hosts and interviewers.

And then, hours after I post the above blog, I get a message that you’re following me. Stranger yet you tagged me in a tweet; stating that you were getting your husband’s car towed. And now I’m in your blog list. This doesn’t sound strange to you? Seriously?

I do believe that you are a narcissist and I suspect that you would never have responded had readers of my blog not left comments. If you put your life out there than don’t be shocked or insulted if someone comments, especially when you’re picking the fight. Was I a bit mean with respect to your blog content and life milestones – absolutely. If you’re going to bust my balls because I don’t like Larry King or Judge Judy and I don’t know you, than those are the breaks. You suggest I have flaws and I do. But they deal mostly with my lack of showing emotion or taking anything to seriously; I’m close to fine; and I don’t put them out there for public consumption.

You do realize that there is a big difference between TV personalities and me: right? They are in the public eye and they are subject to scrutiny. Larry King was great when I was a kid – not so much now. While not a fan of Steve Harvey, he never lost it. You probably have no idea who Myron Cope is, but he was the embodiment of Pittsburgh Steeler football in the broadcast booth. But his time came and went as well. With grace, class and dignity he stepped down when it was clearly over. He was no Larry King or Brett Favre.

Even race horses become dog food.

I am digressing, but you did project your prejudices and assumptions on me and I’m not going to take that. Stupid labels like racist and ageist are you do shut down any debate because you don’t want to listen, not because you disagree on ideological grounds but so you can have a caned and tired argument. I’m not one of those people. If you believe in freedom over tyranny than you agree with me politically. It’s really that simple. I’ll save the discussion of how I believe that issues like gay marriage, gun control and abortion are really non-issues. It is counterproductive and serves to perpetuate the wackness that we find ourselves in today. Too many people wrongly treat feeling as fact and emotion as reality. Nothing gets seriously and objectively discussed because of this intellectual immaturity. I dig that you’re a feisty 70 year old, but don’t mistake that for wisdom. You’re not right just because you’ve lived a long time.

WITH all that being said, I harbor no animosity and am glad that you broke the writer’s block. We can keep going back and forth – I’m game. And I know I have not heard the last of you because you’re in love with me.

XOXO

Glad you got that out of your system. I’m sure you needed to clear your head yesterday.

You fill your posts with psychiatric allusions. Isn’t that odd? I’m just havin’ fun and don’t have to submit my mental processes to you for evaluation.

By the way, if you want to read thousands of my posts, you just have to search Google for Radio_Lady (don’t forget the underscore). There are many topics on which we might be able to agree, but perhaps you are blinded by your own positions.

Truth is, my blog is full of my thoughts. They often encompass travel, entertainment, and even politics — probably not on your side of the fence, but do people have to agree with you exactly to be your on-line “friend”?

Did you read any further than my 5/16 post? Larry is an afterthought in my life and successful despite all of his failures and foibles. I have some of my own and you probably do too, if you would only admit it.

I am proud of what I have accomplished. Call it what you will, my life is an open book. However, I am not one of the “megastars” so I just talk on the Internet.

Cordially,

Ellen Kimball
Portland, OR
(Woman, wife, mother, broadcaster, stepmother, grandmother and stepgrandmother. Currently writing reviews on entertainment at http://www.kgw.com the NBC affiliate Channel 8 in Portland)

GREAT job Ron…Ppl just don’t consider an opinion an opinion anymore…It’s a volleyball tourney in Thunder Dome…SHEESH!