Renaissance Dude

May 20, 2008 6:31 PM

Michael Bluejay:...... Who says he almost always rides a bike, tried to expose the cult he was born into, (Aesthetic Realism), is concerned about pedophiles in the nudist community, played with the Ben Folds Five, and can tell you really really effective ways to save electricity? Why, its some guy called Micheal Blue Jay and his densly information packed web site of practical millenial knowledge and other fascinating factoids. Kind of Ben Franklinesque.
posted by celerystick (20 comments total)

He's been around a while, but I'd forgotten about him. Nice post! And glad to see that he finally updated his site design.
posted by Kwine at 6:36 PM on May 20, 2008

I actually have his page on electricity use bookmarked in my del.ico.us, but I never thought to explore other parts of his website....

:o
posted by yeoja at 6:53 PM on May 20, 2008

...and for love, romance, and sex, I .....?
posted by Postroad at 7:02 PM on May 20, 2008

I actually used to live in a co-op with this guy, eight or nine years ago. Definitely a unique character. Funny to see his site linked here.
posted by chasing at 7:16 PM on May 20, 2008

I've never had a beer in my life...
'tis a poorer life lived for that alone. I drink to his own personal fundamentalism and wish him Veganspeed.
posted by dawson at 7:27 PM on May 20, 2008

I'm only on the homepage, and I feel like I just spent 5 hours on a plane with him.
posted by Dizzy at 7:36 PM on May 20, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

I bet he has a bitchin' fedora collection.
posted by sourwookie at 7:59 PM on May 20, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Kind of Ben Franklinesque.

I've never had a beer in my life...

So this made try and look up to origins of that Ben Franklin quote about beer's existence indicating that God loves us and wants us to be happy.... Looks like it's a misattribution, but an interesting one. Franklin (always the Francophile) was a wine drinker; he thought that wine proves that God loves us and wants to see us happy. I think there's an interesting story behind this misquote...
posted by mr_roboto at 8:34 PM on May 20, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Nah, he seems like a good fellow, he's doing his thing, I like his weirdo style, he seems to have weathered a shitty childhood with a good degree of humor, patience and personal integrity. Despite my own commitment to deranging my brains and innards, I don't think abstaining from chemicals is any kind of reason to feel sorry for a person, quite the opposite in fact. I don't doubt he's a bit orthogonal, but that ain't a sin in my book.
posted by Divine_Wino at 8:35 PM on May 20, 2008

Seems like a pretty harmless eco-dork, but god damn, his "escapades" are so far from funny they make my kidneys hurt:

Imagined conversation with police officer
(after running a red light on my bicycle)

I have this line all ready to go in case this ever happens to me...

Cop: Hey, buddy, red lights are for bicycles, too.

Me: But the light won't turn green for bikes. The metal detector in the ground isn't sensitive enough to register that there's a bike here waiting for the light.

Cop: Well then, why didn't you just push the button on the pole?

Me: Why would I do that?

Cop: Because the button changes the light.

Me: Come on! If you could change the light by pushing that button, everyone would be doing it!
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:01 PM on May 20, 2008

I actually used to live in a co-op with this guy, eight or nine years ago. Definitely a unique character. Funny to see his site linked here.

I didn't live with him, thankfully. But I know someone who worked with him in Austin, and I know the editor of a certain alt-weekly with which he corresponds regularly. They both contend that he's a PITA.

It's really interesting, actually, how activists with good (or bad) causes are often quite palatable from a distance -- say, on the internet -- but how people who interact with them somewhat regularly tend to see them as total tools.

It makes you wonder if the same could be said for MLK or Gandhi or any of the other cliches.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:02 PM on May 20, 2008

It makes you wonder if the same could be said for MLK or Gandhi

no, he doesn't make me consider that.
posted by moxiedoll at 9:25 PM on May 20, 2008

is concerned about pedophiles in the nudist community
you know who else was concerned about...
joking, I have no beef with Mr. Bluejay, nor does he have any alone
posted by dawson at 9:27 PM on May 20, 2008

@mudpuppie I didn't really get along with the guy, but I have a sort of weird respect for him.

The co-op we lived in (with almost thirty other people) was definitely a vegan-activist one (even though I'm not really either). And I always respected the people who really educated themselves about the environment and their bodies and seemed to be trying to reach some sort of understanding about things. I hated the ones who seemed to do it just so they could take on some holier-than-thou attitude towards the rest of us. He always seemed to be half of each... (The bragging about never drinking alcohol is a bit of a giveaway that someone's doing the "holier-than-thou" thing.)
posted by chasing at 10:10 PM on May 20, 2008

Yeah. Uh, I was trying to disregard the second-hand info I have on him, and was trying to give him some props. I'm totally okay if those props get busted or debunked or whatever. Won't bother me a bit. 'Cause what I really wanted to say was "OMG, THAT NUTJOB??"

But I don't really have empirical evidence. I only have some really wacked out stories from people who know him. And really, I'm comfortable with that.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:32 PM on May 20, 2008

That's a pretty special site... good find. It's nice to see that the classic webring tradition still lives on in certain parts of the net.

So he makes a living by writing all these little random websites?
posted by ph00dz at 5:00 AM on May 21, 2008

Interesting, but I think I will go somewhere else on advice for web design.
posted by chillmost at 5:11 AM on May 21, 2008

That's a pretty special site...

Yes, special.
posted by chillmost at 5:12 AM on May 21, 2008

Interesting, but I think I will go somewhere else on advice for web design.

Yeah, it still sucks, but You should have seen how it used to look.
posted by Kwine at 8:41 AM on May 21, 2008

His friend the Wizard of Odds has what I think of as the best website in the world for quantitatively-minded people who want to understand gambling in Vegas. It was via that site that I eventually found Bluejay's; later found out I had a couple friends who'd met the guy and, like mudpuppie's friends, been annoyed by him.
posted by ikkyu2 at 10:36 PM on May 21, 2008