The MISADVENTURES of Johnny Northside

John Hoff With Frog

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then my head is surely going to expand until--poof!--it blows up in a splatter of bloody brains. It seems somebody has gone out and made a parody of my own blog.

The "Anti-Johnny" blog has some criticisms of me; some fair and some just lame. What's really too bad about the blog is the poster is not dedicated enough to keep pumping out content, though admittedly it's pretty hard to keep up with somebody as prolific as me. This month I've already topped my record for all-time number of posts, and the month ain't even over, baby.

So I'm going to address the criticisms here, and then I'm going to ignore this website, since its own webmaster has also seen fit to mostly ignore it after going to all the trouble of creating it and trying (unsuccessfully) to promote it.

Bing, Bang Boom (That'll Be Fifty Bucks)

1.) My intentions regarding the house at 3016 6th St. N. changed after I bought it. I was, yes, going to fix it up or tear it down. I certainly had no way of knowing if the guy offering to buy it on a handshake deal would come through. Since there was no lender or mortgage involved, what's yer beef?

As for why I haven't "bragged" about the transaction on my blog; I downloaded the pictures of the transaction to a computer at the University of Minnesota, and I've been out of town and quite busy. I wasn't able to get access to the computer with the images, and so other topics (where I did have convenient pictures) made their way to the top of the heap.

So I fell behind. I will blog about the transaction very soon, even if it's not THAT exciting.

Thank you for reminding me, Anti-Johnny.

2.) It's perfectly OK to call PVC pipes "plastic" to distinguish them from "copper." People know what is meant. As for calling the "Escrow Officer" a "title person," I've never claimed to be "savvy" about real estate. I got lucky with one transaction, quite by accident.

Besides, how do YOU know she's the "Escrow Officer?" Maybe some ASSISTANT Escrow Officer actually handled it. You really DON'T know.

3.) No, I don't tell people where I stay in St. Paul, though I've mentioned it's "near Frogtown" and I have a friend named Doug who recently had some old radiators stolen, and that's about as much as you'll get.

Dracula doesn't go around announcing the location of his coffin, either. I spend a great deal of time trying to drive crack heads off "my block," but I have to sleep some time. And when I sleep, I prefer if the whole world doesn't know where. So you can take a flying leap, Anti-Johnny. Some information you aren't getting until I'm good and ready to reveal it; like when I don't need it anymore.

And, yes, it is "my block." I have offers down on two houses in the area, and I've bought and sold a house there to the City of Minneapolis. Even you, Anti-Johnny, admit I'm doing "some" good things in the area, but you say I'm really only in it for the money.

Sorry to burst your cynical bubble, Anti-Johnny, but I'm really only in it for a decent home so I can have quality time with my son.

4.) Yeah, sometimes I drive a truck to make a little money and sometimes the cargo is alive; like the frog pictured above. (I was actually checking the condition of the cargo in the photo, to be humane) Transporting live cargo may make me a less-perfect member of the Green Party, but Greens are not required to be vegans. To criticize me on this basis is really reaching, unless you've never eaten a pork chop, worn leather, or used soap derived from animal fat your whole adult life.

My friends can testify that my truck rattles like a coin bank from all the beverage cans I won't remove until I am able to recycle them properly. I try to be as Green as I can, but I also need to pay my bills. I "inherited" the trucking job from my little brother; and I was hired on the basis of a sparkly clean driving record and the fact the company trusts me with blank checks and large amounts of cash.

I'm proud of that humble job as a commercial driver and my ability to keep that large diesel-powered beast between the appropriate lines of the road--day after day, state after state, THOUSANDS OF MILES--without smashing into something and breaking wide open like a big white egg, so you can take that sarcastic nomination for Humanitarian of the Year and give it to the crack heads and prostitutes who you waste too many keystrokes defending, Anti-Johnny.

(Check out recent posts for some great pictures of a flaming stolen car crashed into a person's home, and blatant crack-dealing on the 3000 block of 6th St. N. before you go singing Kumbuya with a bunch of (expletive)heads.)

5.) The funniest part of the misadventures blog is how the blogger says hey, come on, submit your comments. And nobody has commented. As of this moment, NOBODY HAS COMMENTED. The blogger sent out emails to various folks inviting them to the blog and one of my friends said hey, it's an AOL email account. Is this person like 100 years old?

Ironically, the misadventures blog was initiated on a stated presumption that I don't give people a fair chance to comment on THIS blog. But the undeniable record shows the guy who started the blog was given every chance to comment on this blog: he just couldn't hold his own in a debate about Contessa the Prostitute and her ubiquitous pink pants, so like a petulant schoolboy, he took his virtual ball and walked off the playing field, sulking.

Those rare times when I have not approved a comment, I have posted my own comment to make the record about non-approval of the comment.

A Brief Family Tree Of Certain Blogs

I think it would be good to document how one blog leads to another, since I'm noticing a rather interesting pattern and I think it would be good to note it for the historical record.

In the beginning, there was Behind The Mortgage Dot Com, and one day there was a fiery debate on one of the chat threads about the subject of T.J. Waconia and their fraudulent activities. It was on Behind The Mortgage that I first used the name "Johnny Northside."

It was a whim. A name used in on a semi-anonymous thread. At the time, I was obsessed with mortgage fraud because I was operating under a theory I might be able to buy some of these houses as "damaged goods" and get a great deal.

Some of the individuals on that Behind The Mortgage thread had more to say about T.J. Waconia and felt the conversation had been prematurely cut off, and so they went out and started the T.J. Waconia Victims Blog. This blog still exists, but appears to have fallen victim to a rather common blogging trend: excitement and promise, followed by a lack of updated content, and then...

Dormant state. It may not be death, but it's pretty close.

Reacting to the T.J. Waconia Victims Blog, a guy named Jim Watkins started his own blog to put forward what he felt was "the truth" about T.J. Waconia. His blog didn't last very long before he took it down for reasons I still can't figure out...but my theory is extending and heating up the discussion wasn't HELPING the principals in T.J. Waconia, one of which was Watkins' childhood friend, Thomas Balko, so Jim Watkins beat a hasty retreat.

Watkins did, however, manage to air his side in an article in the Minneapolis Mirror, trying to make the case T.J. Waconia was some kind of political scapegoat. My position has always been an amalgamation, compromise and conglomerate of the various sides: yes, the indictment was political and yes, T.J. Waconia's principals are dirty as (expletive).

During the "early days of Johnny Northside," I was equally interested in a company called Universal Mortgage. In fact, I managed to dig up information about the fact they were licensed in other states, and had an office in Arizona, and I put that info into the hands of Robert Anglen at the Arizona Republic, who blogged about Universal Mortgage's connections to Arizona.

What's It All Mean? Where's It All Going?

This latest bastard child of a blog, the Anti-Johnny blog, simply shows how intense these issues are on the North Side. I mean, really, what ARE we going to do about the prostitutes and crackheads, besides push them over to the next block? Who benefits and who loses from all this "revitalization?"

And if Contessa's infamous pink pants could talk, what WOULD they say and who dares to speak for the pants? (Not me, baby, not me!)

Fare thee well, Anti-Johnny blog. You were a brief amusement, but amusing none the less!