"What kind of a looney-bin have I gotten myself into?" I asked, as I eyed Nad Mahohs across the coffee table.

The man could talk twice as fast as I could, his vocabulary was twice as large, his accent twice as funny, his ego was twice the size of mine, he had twice as much hair on his chin as I did on my head (!); and all this in a package only half my size and little more than half my age!! And, to top it off, he kept insisting the name of The Web publication that I had just agreed to join as a contributing columnist was THE DIPLOMATIC PUTSCH!

But, when you consider his fellow travellers include people like Cal White and Mark Nelson (both of whom I have met and come to love dearly) and Manus Hand (which I still think is an alias for a Rocky Mountain Oyster with an identity crisis, I figured I was in good company.

Certainly it was an eclectic band to produce something like TDP. I figured I'd fit right in. So here I am. Normally I wouldn't bother with an explanation or introducing myself, assuming you'd all know who I am. However, NM set me straight on that when he informed me that "nobody in the PBEM hobby has ever heard of you." (or words to that affect --- it is always a good idea to use a disclaimer when you quote NM; and please note that I am using NM instead of his real name to attempt to throw his word search device off the track).

So, assuming he is correct, as I am sure he is, I'll tell you a bit about myself and explain where XENOGOGIC came from. I was born in the same year that the microwave oven was introduced and the first aerosol food product (Can you name it?) was invented (Go figure...the answer is below.). Lyndon Johnson was president of the United States and ninety-five percent of the U.S. population had never heard of Vietnam when I started playing Diplomacy. My first PBM Diplomacy game was 1966O (I was the third player for Russia by Spring 1902). My second PBM Diplomacy game was 1966P (I was Turkey from the beginning). I won both games, but the BNC declared them irregular games so my wins didn't count. Note that being BNC is one of the few jobs in the hobby I have never attempted. I published my first PBM Diplomacy zine, called XENOGOGIC, starting in 1967. Time passed. More time passed. Lots more time passed.

(The answer is Reddi-Wip.)

I have seen manual typewriters and mimeographs, electric typewriters and ditto machines, electronic typewriters and xerographic copying machines, word processors, Commodores, ATs, and PCs come and go. Using them all I have expanded two words, Peeriblah and Peeribleah, to volumes --- SIX the size of Britannicas at last count, some 10,000,000 words worth --- and consumed enough paper in the process to reforest half of Washington State.

All focused on one subject, Diplomacy.

I hosted my first DIPCON (IV) in 1970; my most recent (PEERICON XV) a few weeks ago. Over the years I have hosted more Diplomacy games and cons than most people live to be years old, but only rarely and always by accident have I won an occasional game here and there --- mostly there (CANCON in Toronto, MIDCON in Brum!). I've played with the best and worst, in FTF, Cons, and Postal Games. I've never played a PBEM game and probably never will. First, because I could probably never find The Right Judge. Second, I don't think my ego would allow me to go down to defeat anonymously. But if somebody ever sets up a game for senior Dippers who are Internationalists, love opera, good wine, good food, lots of chat; and still prefer to play their Diplomacy with wooden pieces; well...maybe.

I've travelled a lot in search of The Perfect Black Dot. All over the United States, Mexico, Canada, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria; and even stranger places. I've played on just about anything that moves: car, bus, train, plane, boat. I've played in just about every kind of venue you can imagine, and a few you couldn't. Perhaps Dodger Stadium during the 1984 Olympics was the most unusual. In the last six years I've flown 75,000 miles to play Diplomacy. American Airlines and British Airways love me. And I'm still searching.

All this is history, of course, unless you come to visit me in San Diego; in which case you can explore The Diplomacy Archives (if you have a pass from Mark Nelson) and relive my adventures, as well as those of just about everyone else who has ever played Diplomacy.

This year marks the beginning of my 30th anniversary in the hobby. After all that time my enthusiasm is as great as ever, although my memory is not as good as it once was. So, before I forget what little I know and before the gap between generations in the hobby grows unbridgeable, I am going to take advantage of this opportunity that TDP offers me to attempt to bring some of the hobby's past, present, and future alive for you, through that peeriocentric peerispective that is uniquely mine.

My vehicle for doing that will be this column. In this case it will be called XENOGOGIC. The origin and prior history of that word, as well as the Diplomacy zine that bore that title for nearly 20 years, will have to wait.

I've been writing for newspapers and magazines since my high school days and I was always taught that a column was the ultimate means of expression for any writer. Back then newspaper and magazine columns were sources of news, information, and views; but without the kind of editorial exploitation, intellectual sleeze, and verbal voiding we see now in the media. Columns could be, and often were, tough, but they were usually fair and honest. If they weren't, they didn't last. Well, no, that's not exactly true. There was Walter Winchell, but he's another story.

This column will deal with almost any subject, provided it has some connection to Diplomacy (and/or diplomacy). Now at times that may not be an easy connection to make, but when one believes as I do, that Diplomacy is nothing more or less than a microcosm of the real world (e.g. Where a Henry Kissinger Is Hiding Inside Every Postal Carrier.), that gives you a lot of ground to cover. But the role of Serbia in the struggle for control of the Balkans is just as relevant in 1901 as it is in 1995 diplomacy, or should it be the other way around?

I intend to focus on three areas: hobby history, the international hobby, and the Worldwide Postal Diplomacy Championship event I am now running. The hobby history because without it we will lose the significance of our traditions, and without those we are no hobby. I find the international Diplomacy hobby more interesting and stimulating than I do the American Diplomacy hobby; which I feel is in one of its comotose periods. The WWPDC is something new and different in a hobby that has grown stale in many ways. Like the PBEM and email Diplomacy hobbies, the WWPDC offers a bit of fresh air when we need it badly. In addition, if all goes as I expect, these seven games will give us some of the best played Diplomacy ever, using a hybrid combination of both PBM and PBEM methods.

Finally, in addition to Peeriblah and Peeribleah, you will find two other "P Words" that will have a big presence in XENOGOGIC. The first is "passion." Diplomacy has been the great passion of my life. Like all passionate relationships it has been a love/hate, hot/cold affair over the years. But in a hobby where superficial relationships are the norm, my passionate affair with this game over the past thirty years has been one of the few, real constants.

The second "P Word" that you should keep in the back of your mind when reading XENOGOGIC is "proactive." The Diplomacy hobby, like the real world, has always been full of people who prefer to do nothing; called, appropriately enough, "Do Nothings," for whom the status quo and its maintenance is a way of life. Another large group consists of what I call the "Nay Sayers," those who oppose anything and everything, just for the sake of being in opposition. Finally, and by far the fewest in numbers, are the hobby's "Proactivists." These are the individuals who are constantly looking for, and willing to try even in the face of frequent failure and disappointment, new ways to expand and improve the hobby. Their lack of success is apparent to anyone who looks at the numbers, at least in the PBM hobby, where the number of "proactivists" is at an all time low.

But, when you look at the PBEM and international hobby numbers the story is a very different one. The proactivists are here. Which is why TDP is here. Which is why I am here. The question I leave you with is, "Why are you here?"

If you wish to e-mail feedback on this article to the author, and clicking on the mail address above does not work for you, feel free to use the "Dear DP..." mail interface, which is located here....