AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO DIDN'T KNOW WHO HE WAS?

Back in 2003, I first stumbled across Gerard Van der Leun of American Digest in the New Blog Showcase and had this to say about the little newbie:

It's hard to believe he's new. I'd swear he was born blogging.

After stumbling across him again in the Carnival of the Vanities a couple weeks later, I was so impressed that - after granting him some additional enthusiastic linkage - I put him on my blogroll.

Now, I had assumed he was just your typical pajama-wearing blogger with a crummy day job, except, perhaps, with a little more writing talent than most.

Until a few months ago when I was reading Stephen King's Night Shift for the 3rd or 4th time because I hadn't read it in a while and I needed something to pass the time. And to make it last as long as possible, I actually read the Foreword.

My eyes widened perceptibly as I read this part near the end:

In the third group are the people who first bought my work. Mr Robert A W Lowndes who purchased the first two stories I ever sold, Mr Douglas Allen and Mr Nye Willden of the Dugent Publishing Corporation who bought so many of the ones that followed for Cavalier and Gent back in the scuffling days when the cheques sometimes came just in time to avoid what the power companies euphemistically call an interruption in service; to Elaine Geiger and Herbert Schnall and Carolyn Stromberg of the New American Library; to Gerard Van der Leun of Penthouse and Harris Deinstfrey of Cosmopolitan, Thanks to all of you.

That was dated 1977.

In the early 90's, he was director of communications for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

While Googling about Godwin's Law for a recent post, I discovered that, in a 1994 Wired article, Godwin himself mentioned Van der Leun's Corollary:

As global connectivity improves, the probability of actual Nazis being on the Net approaches one.

Which led me to the discovery that Gerard co-authored the book "Rules of the Net" back in 1996.

And that in 2001 he was vice president for Internet ventures at the General Media Corporation (who owned Penthouse at the time).

It's a very peculiar feeling to realize that the guy I thought of merely as "a pretty good blogger", has - unbeknownst to me - played a solid role in three of the things that most affected my life: Stephen King's writings, soft-core pornographic magazines, and a free-speech-protected internet.

If I had to decribe the feeling, it's probably like bumping into Ronald Reagan at a party, not recognizing him, and going around afterwards referring to him as "that nice old guy who gave me good advice on how to buy a quality necktie."

So... did anyone else know he was more than just "a good blogger"?