Andrew Koenig is dead. I did not know him.  I knew of his father.  I am a huge Trekkie and could tell you the plot of every episode of the original Star Trek series.  Andrew’s father of course played Ensign Pavel Chekov in the original Star Trek. Andrew was  best known as Richard “Boner” Stabbone on ABC’s sitcom Growing Pains

I did not know Andrew but I knew his pain.  As I followed the story of his disappearance and learned about his  battle with  depression and recent slide into the darkest finality of the suicide abyss, I was reminded of just how all so fast it happens.   I read so many things that rang up painful memories of my past.  My slide into the same bottomless pit of night.

This  slide into darkness has its own unique components for different people. Some are luckier than others in the support they get or their ability to reach out for that support.   I was very lucky.  I had everyone who loved me living in my city and within a few miles of me.  They were all in my life and knew my routines. That is what saved me. If I did not have that I would be dead.

I do not remember placing the Italian 45-caliber automatic pistol that my best friend had given me for a gift on my nightstand. I do not remember emailing him for bullets.  I do not remember emailing others of my desire to end my life. I realize now that it was my way of reaching out for help.  My only memory of those terrible few days on the edge 6 years ago was being  wakened out  of a Xanax stupor by people who cared for me. It happens that easy.   It was all so easy to slide in the fog from a Xanax coma to a 45 cal bullet. It did not happen.  People loved me, cared and intervened.

I have battled depression for much all of my adult life.I really could not tell you how long because you have to realize it’s an issue to start the clock.   It has had its ups and downs.  Medication works wonders. Talking to professionals helps. Having a family that loves me, recognized something was wrong and was willing to intervene is something that many who suffer do not have. I am very lucky.

There however was one dark period that the low was so low and the fog of depression was so great that I only have vague memories of literally living on the edge of permanent darkness.

I have thought about telling this story before. I have always backed off because of self-interest.  I did not want to be perceived as spent.  I did not want to be stereotyped, stigmatized or slandered. I did not want sympathy.   In the end, it is what it is.  If someone can take the message from this that there is hope and recovery from the edge of darkness to happiness and accomplishment in life. If someone will see that reaching out even when you do not want to has the greatest up side at all.  If one person gets that I will take all the  S’s people can throw at me.

I am being stalked in the social media universe by a Fanboy.  It sounds like something out of Nightmare On Elm Street doesn’t it?  Here is the deal.  Some idiot named Mike Pinto who runs a website called Fanboy has been spending his “valuable” time hunting down my blog content on the Digg social media site leaving arguably defamatory comments. What is a Fanboy?  Here is the term as defined by Wikipedia:

“Fanboy is a term used to describe any individual who is devoted to a single subject in an emotional or fanatical manner, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession.”

That says everything you need to know about Mr. Pinto.  For some unknown reason he has been “social media obsessing” about me for the last few months. His Fanboy site is actually pretty cool focusing on anime, science fiction, science in general among other geek type stuff.  I happen to be a Trekkie and the guy has put some cool Star-Trek content up. I have no problem giving his site some props.

The guy is still an idiot.  It is res ipsa loquitur. Here is why.  An article I wrote about former professional wrestler Jeff Gaylord was posted on Digg.  The Digg comments are all pretty inane in general, none having anything to do with the story.  That is not unusual within the social media universe. The social media community is no different than any other.  There will be those who like you and dislike you based on perceptions formed. The posted comments will to a degree reflect that.  These perceptions are never grounded in reality.  They can not be because 99 percent of the people have never even met or spoken to each other.  We simply know user names and  the type of content submitted by a person.  I am no different. There are people in the social media realm that like me and dislike me for whatever reason they use to legitimize their feelings.  In the Digg realm there are those who do not like me because I wrote an article about getting banned for scripts and admitting that I had gamed the Digg system so some of my content could reach their front page.  Ironically that article was my last  to make the Digg front page. There are also those in social media who do not like me simply because they do not like my brother.   The reasons are limitless bounded only by the limits of what people who have never met either of us can conjure up in their  minds.  The angry people are easy to spot because the comments are always about Mark or me personally and not the content.  I have no issue with it.   If it makes “Diggers”  or other social media users feel better they can rant away and move on to the next thing that angers them that day.

It is the obsessive Pinto Fanboy/ stalker behavior that is creepy. Not as creepy as the fixation SEC attorney Jeffrey Norris had with Mark Cuban but creepy just the same.  It makes you contemplate the things that go through a person’s mind to negatively fixate on someone they have never met in a realm meant to be fun and entertaining.  Here is Fanboy Michael Pinto’s  comment in response to a my Jeff Gaylord article:

“Isn’t Brian Cuban under investigation from SEC for insider trading charges? Before he yammers on about anything relating to the law shouldn’t he wait until he’s in the clear?”

He has left minor variations of the exact same comment on three other posts of mine that showed up on Digg.  Considering not everything I write gets submitted to Digg it is a pretty high fanboy/stalker ratio.   So why is Pinto an idiot?  The answer is in his comments.  Pinto is clearly so wrapped up in his Star Trek fantasy world  so as to be completely unaware of anything going on in the real world around him  To be unaware that it is my brother  Mark who is involved with the SEC.  To have missed the international news coverage. The coverage on CNN, Fox, NBC when it was announced is pretty oblivious to the world around you.

It is possible that I am not giving Pinto enough credit. I admittedly do not know him.  He may be very aware of the facts.  If that is the case he must have missed the part of my blog where it talks about my occupation as an attorney before he began posting arguably defamatory statements about my being investigated by the SEC.  Hopefully he is not under some illusion that because he posed it as a question, it is a defense to a defamation lawsuit.   If he wants to ring me up, I will be happy to  “yammer” on to him about the law of defamation.  My non-legal advice to Pinto is that should I decide to pursue legal action his best bet is to claim what I first said about him. Simply admit he is an idiot and did not know the true facts.

I am being tongue and cheek to an extent.  The people who know me are for the most part educated and intelligent. They actually pay attention to the world around them beyond Star Trek, Star Wars and Anime.  My skin is also thick.  I have no interest in winning a legal judgment against Mr. Pinto and taking Fanboy from him.  If I did, in the nature of a true Cuban family “greed is good” profiteer, I would change the web site name to “Dallas Mavericks Fanboy” and start selling Dallas Mavs merchandise on it. I hear William Shatner is a Mavs fan.  Instead I will be happy to give Mr. Pinto some true facts about myself.  This will give him some much needed social media credibility should he wish to continue “yammering” on about me in the social media universe.  It will also give him protection in a defamation lawsuit since truth is an absolute defense.  Here you go Mike:

Is the “space race” alive and well in the United States?  President Bush would like  NASA to put men back on the moon by 2020, and then onto Mars between 2035 and 2037. The Russians plan to build a new manned space transport system by 2015 . China plans to send another rover to the moon in 2012.  Is Bush’s timetable in jeopardy?  President-elect Barrack Obama has made it clear that he does not consider either the moon nor  manned Mars exploration a priority in his administration.  His transition team looking at spending cuts to the Constellation Project, the successor to the Space Shuttle.  This program is supposed to create to a permanent manned base on the Moon by 2020 with a manned mission to Mars to follow.  How will this timetable be affected  light of Obama’s repeated campaign statements that he does not consider funding for pure exploration a NASA priority?  He feels the money should be used for education and infrastructure as well as more  immediate impact  NASA initiatives such as national security.  While he appeared to back off this stance, it was pre-economic meltdown.  The bottom line is that while Obama appears to fully support  the continued development of more immediate impact NASA initiatives he  has very different views than the Bush administration on pure “where no man has gone before” space exploration.

Short sighted or prudent?  What are we expecting to accomplish with such lofty goals?  I frankly have “First Contact” visions of a Vulcan space ship passing by one day , detecting our spacecraft on its way to Mars and deciding to stop by and say hello.   After that everything will change.  It will unite humanity in ways never envisioned. Hunger, war, poverty will all be a thing of the past.  Well maybe I am stretching things a bit but it sure sounded good when William Ryker and Deanna Troi said it in the movie First Contact.  Don’t we all hope that will happen in our lifetimes?

In reality I am in agreement that NASA pure exploration funding should be slashed and realloacted to NASA initatives such a international security.  I  believe the colonization of the moon is important from a technology advancement and global conservation standpoint. I however question whether NASA as it exists today is the way to go for the long term in pure space exploration.  When it comes to space exploration is not that what we are really talking about?  We are talking about the long term.  The only way to surge ahead beyond our lifetimes may be to take a step backwards in our lifetimes.  That step backwards would be to re-structure NASA and divert funding for pure exploration to the private sector.  It is already being done to a a degree anyways. Let the free-market create momemtum.  NASA should be encouraging private industry to jump into the fray to a much greater extent than they are.  It however has been an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. The only way to shake it up may be to cut funding and encourage NASA to encourage others to kick in. In the long term, I believe we would see more private funding, expanded notions of what can be achieved and  further advancement of space technology than we would ever see with back and forth NASA budget battles. What would we lose?   Space is not going anywhere. The Vulcans will still be there.