Apologies for the Mess (cleaned up as of 6:58 AM EST)

Hi, all. Jim's editor, Jean-Gregory Tizimono Fust, here. Why am I posting to Jim Leff's Slog? Let me explain.

When I first accepted this position, I negotiated into my contract a "steam-release" clause. If Jim ever became excessively difficult to work with, I can use my administrator's password to block him out and to prevent his posting for up to 48 hours. It's for his own good. This is simply a way for Shlawandra, his personal assistant, and I to protect him from himself when he goes into one of his states.

So to make a long story short, Jim had a bad night last night. It triggered when his "Unhinged" posting received the following perfectly friendly comment on Twitter:

Shlawandra and I agree that there was nothing the least bit wrong with the tweet, but it put Jim in a very bad state. He wouldn't stop repeating, over and over, in a childish mocking voice, "A VERY GOOD PIECE!!!" If I understand correctly, he found this tepid, coming in response to a posting favoring full-throated praise. Jim was also aggrieved that she'd sent this as a direct reply rather than retweeting to her Twitter followers, when the article also urged everyone to spread word about worthwhile things.

Whatever. I told him,"Jim, you sound - dare I say it? - unhinged! Do you accept only the most superlative praise? There is nothing wrong with ‘very good’! People will get the impression that you're a conceited monster!" He replied that he normally has no demands or expectations about praise levels, but "the irony of it, Jean-Gregory; the irony..."

So then he goes and posts a slew of extremely offensive entries late into the night, including photos of body parts that no one - no one - would ever want to see. Shlawandra calls and wakes me up at 6am, on a Sunday. She's in tears, insisting that I do something STAT, saying she's never in her life seen a grown-ass man carrying on like this.

I have finally managed to clean up the mess, and started the clock on Jim's time-out. So now my cell phone's ringing, as is my land line, and it looks like I have a scad of new text messages. So it seems that Jim has noticed this posting as well as the deletions. Have another look at my contract, Jim. I am fully within my rights here. C'est la vie, my friend.

Jim, if you see this, I can only plead with you to calm yourself and perform some of that "reframing" you won't stop jabbering about. Shlawandra and I are trying to help you, but our patience only goes so far.