Where Is The Good Greatsby?

Oh where are you Paul Johnson? If you read the backs of milk cartons, study bulletin boards at your local post office, or are a fan of missing person reports on the news then you no doubt are aware that, “The Good Greatsby” has vanished.

My idol is missing. We all need our heroes and I am sure that if you’ve ever read a post from Paul Johnson, then you like myself are now frantic with worry. At this point I am almost out of fingernails.

Getting through a week is hard enough without having to do so by not having our good-humor man to guide me to the weekend. The tears shed by me alone have not been able to keep the drought here in California in check, but I like to think so.

Whenever a post would arrive from “The Good Greatsby” I would deny myself until Friday to eagerly devour the content. I would reason there’s no better way to start a magnificent weekend. Fool that was, I always assumed Greatsby would be there for me.

Since his disappearance, though, I have had to rely on reruns of previous post to get me through this horrible ordeal. Since having read “Hello my name is Intern” whereby Paul was asking for an assistant, there has been nothing. Leaving me to ask, “Did he find one, and if so, how bad must that assistant truly be?”

Maybe Paul became offended by not getting Freshly Pressed or Freshly Pegged as often as he would have liked. I find this highly unlikely since someone like Mr. Johnson probably prefers money to such adulation.

I could, of course, read other excellent blogs like “Ben’s Bitter Blog” where I have learned that it still rains in Seattle, fostering all kinds of negativity. Perhaps I could read “She’s a Maineiac” where I’ve learned Maine is conducive to better writing, or even continue reading “Athingirl.com” where I love reading Susannah’s insights into all things New York.

However, it has been nearly eight months since that last post by “The Good Greasby.” In fact, this coming February 22nd will mark the fourth anniversary of the blog that I’ve held up as an example of satirical excellence. That is, unless of course, you have a humor blog like myself, in which case, you’re probably self-absorbed.

But I don’t want to be that into myself, at least not at the expense of a blog that I had come to  begrudgingly accept as better than that of my own, after all none of us are “The Good Greatsby.”

Let us face facts.

We will never have a smoking jacket—not one we would ever pay for anyway. Nor do we wear black-rimmed glasses—at least, not publicly—for fear of being laughed at… although that never seemed to bother Paul. And none of us write for the “Huffington Post”—not that we’d have an aversion to getting paid to write for them.

It is everything I can do just to crowd out the horrible thoughts of what might have happened to him.

Did we lose gravity, thereby forcing Paul to write for some great alien civilization on another planet out in the vast universe.

Was he shanghaied? But I have since come to doubt that scenario, as Paul and family already live in Shanghai, China, so what would be the point.

Or did he go all Edward Snowden on us, possibly stealing secret documents from WordPress.com, thus forcing him to go rogue.

All I do know is, I now sit in front of the warm glow of my computer screen hours at a time, waiting for a post. Or until my wife puts a pillow under my head and wheels me, swivel chair and all, into the bedroom.

If you or anyone does know what became of “The Good Greatsby”—alias Paul Johnson—please contact us…uh… me. That, or you can contact me personally here, “In My Cluttered Attic” so that I can selfishly read his post—before the rest of you do.

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