While driving very fast in Jordan two days into the year 2000, Ted Rall suddenly found himself facing a choice between a drop off a sheer cliff or a hard left turn. He chose the latter, but it turned out to be a harder left than his car could make and still remain upright. As a result, he and his wife grasped in terror for whatever they could hold onto as Rall's car rolled over and over, coming to rest with the two of them hanging upside-down in their seat belts.

Nothing inspires reflection like a near-death experience in a foreign land on the cusp of a new century, and Rall told the Journal he awoke the next morning with a changed sense of priorities. Unless you watch where you're going, he realized, life will often hand you no-win choices, such as between a drop off a cliff or an out-of-control tumble in a totaled automobile. His lawsuit with Danny Hellman had become just such a nightmare, he told the Journal.

"If this goes to trial, Danny's going to lose and I'm going to look like an ogre," he said. Already Rall has seen himself villified as a bully on the message boards because he has demanded $1.5 million in damages for what some see as a harmless prank. The more he succeeds in court, the more Rall fears he will be seen as a villain and Hellman as a martyr.

"An experience like my accident forces you to reconsider what's important in your life," Rall said. "I am eager to start the new year without this hanging over me. I had begun to feel like this is just a big pain in my ass and maybe I should drop it and eat the fees. But then I got home and there were e-mails waiting for me from two people who had been victimized by [Hellman's] pranks, thanking me for standing up to him. And I realized he's got to be stopped. I don't want to destroy him in the process, but I want him stopped."

Meanwhile, Hellman, once a persona non grata on some message boards because of his frequent belligerent, nose-thumbing posts, is now enjoying a degree of sympathy and even celebrity. A recent benefit party for Hellman in New York raised $7,000 for his legal fees.

Celebrity or not, however, Hellman said he would like to see the lawsuit go away. More than once, deposition dates had been set and then abandoned, and at press time, both Rall and Hellman told the Journal the next deposition date on Jan. 17 would probably be postponed, as well.

Rall's attorneys had just responded for a request from Hellman's attorneys for a "bill of particulars," specific information supporting Rall's damage claims, but, according to Hellman, the information supplied was still incomplete. "We asked for amplification of [the nature of] the emotional distress he's claiming," Hellman said. "At one point, when Rall first brought his suit, my attorney asked for a one-week extension and Rall didn't want to give it to us because he said he wanted the suit to go forward. Now, here we are four months later and they're dragging their feet."

Rall told the Journal that he would like nothing better than to bring the suit to a speedy conclusion. "We can meet anytime," he said. "We don't need the lawyers. He really just needs to pay my legal fees."

Rall paused, then added, "And he needs to give us a complete list of recipients of the hoax e-mail. And he has never been willing to make a public apology that at least sounds sincere. He should publish an apology in advertised form in all the big weeklies in New York."

Rall was now on a roll, as he continued adding to the list of minimal requirements for a settlement: "He will need to cover my legal expenses and then some. And he has to promise to never discuss me in any public forum. I would also like him to agree to stay off all comics message boards."

Rall blamed the lack of a settlement on poor communication. He had not trusted Hellman's previous offer to settle, he said, and when Rall had made his now-infamous comment to the Journal about having his knee on Hellman's throat and and being undecided about whether or not to crush Hellman, he'd meant it as a peace offering. It was not taken as such.

"This is what happens," said Rall, "when two guys come into conflict who don't have the same rules of engagement."

For now, neither Rall nor Hellman are making any move toward negotiating an out-of-court settlement, and what started out as a prank has become a game of chicken with accelerating legal fees on both sides.

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