Dr. Brown to the White Courtesy Phone...

Of all the iterations of Nasdijj's blogs, the one on Typepad that pre-dated the LA Weekly exposé, was, at least of what I've been able to track down, the wildest -- free-ranging fantasias of anger, whimsy, and startling bits and pieces of "biography," held together by the energy of the writing, by the (now mostly unavailable) images, and by what can seem at times likes a blinding streak of paranoia.

One that can still be tracked down (thank you, Google cache!) is the undated "Foot", which stands as a good example of Nasdijj in full steam: it takes off from an incident in his first book, The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams, in which Nasdijj lays claim to have been involved in the unsolved vandalization of a statue of a Spanish conquistadore in New Mexico, and becomes a rant that attacks publisher Judith Regan, rhapsodizes/fantasizes about an interview Nasdijj supposedly did with former New York mayor Ed Koch, claims that the HIV+ boys he is caring for are illegal aliens, and namechecks a gallery of camp icons and powerful ladies: Mary Todd Lincoln, Sigourney Weaver (a former neighbor, he says), Bette Davis, Laura Bush, La Toya Jackson, Faye Dunaway, Gloria Allred, and others all turn up, along with, of course, inevitably for Nasdijj, Marie of Roumania. Via Dorothy Parker poor Missie of Edinburgh appears to have gotten lodged permanently somewhere in his subconscious, popping up at the oddest times.

In this version of his ongoing saga of trial-by-publishing, Nasdijj attributes his "exile" from Bookland to having refused to allow the New York Times to review his third book, Geronimo's Bones. I suppose that's possible.

And I am Marie of Roumania.

In any case, sandwiched in among the famous names and lurid throwaways ("I know! I know! Sigourney Weaver will torture my tits and flush the bible down the toilet that BITCH! TORTURE! TORTURE!"), is, a name that pops out precisely because it isn't famous: the mysterious Dr. Vivian Keysley Brown.

I think it stuck in my head mostly because I love the name "Vivian" -- you know, Vivian Vance, Vivien Leigh, the slight melancholy one feels about a name slowly vanishing behind us, along with Bertha, Euphemia, Harriet... It has a lovely period feel to it, like all those girls who were named Elizabeth and Margaret Rose in the '20s (see, I can gay-namedrop with the best of them!).

In any case, there she is, Dr. Vivian Keysley Brown, who may or may not be a podiatrist ("Dr. Vivian Keysley Brown. She removes nails one nail at a time."). What she may also be is yet another fragmentary persona of Tim Barrus ("You're Dr. Vivian Keysely Brown... We thought you were Dr. Vivian Keysley Brown... I mean the real one"). I believe she turned up in at least one other previously googlable (?) iteration of Nasdijj's blogs in addition to "Foot," but can't at the moment track her down, possibly because he may not have been consistent in spelling her middle (maiden?) name. Separate from Nasdijj, she appears to have, at least in the googleverse (!) no other existence. There are a couple of Vivian K. Browns out there (a county-fair winner -- first prize for two-crust apple pie and chocolate fudge -- brava, Vivian! -- and the survivor of a heavy-equipment operator -- his daughter, not his victim -- in a Hawaiian obituary among them), but none clearly connectable to Our Boy.

This raises the question of just how many Barrus personae there have been. He's written that there are more than just the public faces -- Tim Barrus (the Mineshaft writer and, more or less, real person) and Nasdijj, the invented Native American. There are the others who have come and gone on the blogs, and earlier this summer he was claiming also to have written advice columns in Genesis magazine for 70s porn demi-legend Leslie Bovee.

Who else has Tim Barrus been, and are any of them still out there? Is he really Miss Manners (no, I think Judith Martin has a lock on that one)? One of the bots who's now writing Dear Abby? I'd like to think he was the power-behind-the-throne of Miss Ann Coulter, which might at least explain the incoherence and sheer volume of her oeuvre.

We shall see...