The Groper

1) Don't panic. 2) Don't move back in with your parents. 3) Don't quit your job until you've got a better one lined up. 4) Borrowing money is an unfortunate fact of life. You're in pretty good shape until a real catastrophe arrives. Youth is strength.

Just came over from the Politics threads, my usual haunt. Things are feisty there, as usual, but I felt constrained from diving into the fray today... It seems to me that we need a break today from the usual contentiousness. Good Friday through Easter is the time to meditate on death and the resurrection/redemption we hope to follow. I say that not as an ardent Christian, but as flotsam on the cultural ocean. So much of the news lately has been about (impending) death...the war, capital punishment, assassination in Lebanon, Terry Schiavo, the Pope, a relative, a school on an Indian reservation (Lake Wobegon becomes Red Lake)... Garrison Keillor is usually a little too precious for my taste (or politics), but he struck a chord for me personally in a column for the Minneapolis StarTribune this morning: SAD WEEK GIVES WAY TO JOYFUL MORNING By Garrison Keillor It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. You can sense the days lengthening on the frozen tundra and start to notice colors again. So we dye some boiled eggs pale blue and yellow and green, and put on a pink shirt and shove the ham in the oven, and head for church where, on Friday night, the choir sang, bleakly, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Into thy hands I commend my spirit" and the service ended in silence. Today, there are banks of lilies, and old ladies in big hats, and little girls in spring outfits, and the sermon will be about New Beginnings, and the force of love that drives life to triumph over death. Often it is a sermon in which the minister, trying much too hard to be profound on a high holy day, loses us in the first couple of minutes and we turn our attention to the hairstyles of the people in front of us. And we are visited by the images of the week's sad news. The woman in the Florida hospice, unable to move or to speak for 15 years, exploited by politicians. The teenage boy with the devastated childhood who came to his high school on Monday afternoon, intent on killing. The fate of Terri Schiavo is one that everybody over 50 has considered long ago. The particular hell of a living death is one our parents sought to avoid. They didn't ask us to suffocate them with a pillow, but they did make it clear that lying inert in a nursing home was not how they envisioned spending their twilight years. Twilight is supposed to be brief. They were crystal clear about this. The state courts of Florida, and now the federal courts, seem to be clear on this. What's not clear is the dramatic intervention of the president of the United States, striding into the White House after his last-minute flight from Texas, deciding to "err on the side of life." One hopes that he will go on to make even bigger mistakes in behalf of children who lack basic medical care, or in behalf of suicidal teenagers. All week the news was about lawyers and politicians and rhetorical flourishes and there was almost nothing about the woman herself or who she was, may she rest in peace. The shootings at Red Lake were met at first with shock and incomprehension, a "senseless" event, but then the press went to work and dug out the story, and when you read the boy's postings from the Internet and heard about his treatment for depression, the story was quite comprehensible. This child could have been your son or mine. Look at his words: "I have friends, but I'm basically a loner inside a group of loners. I'm excluded from anything and everything they do. I'm never invited. I don't even know why they consider me a friend or I them." Jeffrey Weise was sad, angry, sick, desperate, given to violent fantasy, but he was a person of perception: Those words "A loner inside a group of loners" and the construction of they/me and I/them mark him as a writer. Six feet tall, 250 pounds, black eye makeup, goth hair, lumbering around in a black floor-length coat, "different," but not so different that we can't recognize him as one of our own. Easter is when Christians are obliged to ask ourselves if we really believe what we claim to believe. After all, the faith is not about the Holy Infant or about the Beatitudes or about the hushed silence within Gothic architecture, it is about the Resurrection, and if this did not in fact occur, then maybe we should find other amusements. There is nothing wrong with coming to church for the comforting aspects, the cadences of Scripture, the choral music, the lovely quiet, but it is good once a year to walk up to the tomb and see if he's still in there or not. We are not talking metaphor here. Either you believe it happened or you don't. Or you're like me and believe that God created physics and inertia is a part of physics, so stay where you are until you're struck by something with greater mass and knocked out of the box. So here we are at Easter. I can't speak for you but to me the gospel of the Lord is what makes this sad world of March comprehensible. And it relieves us of the need to be profound about Terri or Jeffrey or the innocents at Red Lake High School who suffered his rage. We come into the Lord's house and kneel and we believe, or we don't, or we sort of do, but nonetheless we place them-all of them, along with ourselves-in the Lord's hands, and then we come out, and it's spring, or almost spring, and something else happens. This sinner (The Groper), half-hopeful but fully-terrified of being "struck by something with greater mass and knocked out of the box" wishes everyone at Organissimo Peace and Redemption.

The many affectionate and even tender responses I've read today convince me that grey must have been a true gent. My sympathy to all, especially ElizaBETH and others who loved him close-up.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ORGANISSIMO! ...and thanks for the opportunity to be a skunk at your garden party... Hey, where'd everybody go?

The outrageousness, the personal invective, the silliness, the drunkenness, the...WIT? It's gratifying to see the durability of this thread. It proves that the spirit of.. DEEP LIVES! Only 19,707 views to surpass the Olive Branch thread...

MS. PATRICIA: I'm hoping you've recognized my restraint lately, AKA "BACKING OFF." Request permission to approach The Throne, O Learned One.

Patty: Oh, well--I guess OLIVE BRANCHES just don't work at Organissimo, Inc. Just be happy I haven't used the L-WORD.

DEEP--OUT THERE LURKING--Can you believe these tortured post-mortems? At least two of these threads are bursting with vilification and sanctimony days after your ostracization. Methinks they PROTEST TOO MUCH. Maybe one of your SUPERIORS will shoot me your email address (Patty?) so I can resume our personal pissing contest (I don't mind getting wet.) That HAM-FISTED PRIG Christiern will eventually be drained of his tedious indignation if he needn't witness our FUN. Patty: How offended can you be by my use of the NOTORIOUS C-WORD when you took the trouble to quote it for the benefit of those who didn't understand the reference? Out of all the slime that's been bandied about WITH VIGAH you get pissed off at a synonym for your own GENDER? But seriously, I apologize for being a PRICK. And BTW, whoever accused DEEP of using the DREADED C-WORD, is guilty of PILING ON. I'm ashamed for all of us. We should be BEGGING HIS FORGIVENESS. B-3er: I think it's significant that you and Use3 allow DEEP to continue lurking. Maybe there's redemption for ALL OF US. Use3 could be the instrument of our salvation IF HE CHOOSES.

So, Patty, are you gonna catch the next Alberta Clipper with connections to the Jet Stream over the Big Pond? I'm tempted to watch the mayhem, but I'd probably end up being compared negatively to His Deepness and vilified by Frenchmen. Here I am more appropriately vilified by FAMBLY. You, on the other hand, possess the deft womanly touch of sanity. GO FOR IT!

Such a sad day..."The Straw that Stirred the Drink" (apologies to Reggie Jackson) has found his final resting place in the DEEP SIX with nary a bugle note of "Taps" in his honor..... ...BUT WAIT...WHAT'S THIS?...His smelly carcass has washed up on another shore? Praise be! DEEP LIVES! HAM-FISTS OF THE WORLD REJOICE!

Geez Whiz, fellas and Patty--Can't a guy plant a modest little stink bomb and evacuate for a few hours without our whole JAZZ/COUNTRY COMMUNITY reaching critical mass? "Sad Troll" that I am, I just thought that some of us were acting a little embarrassed by our country cousins and that there were overtones of "white trash" emanating from some of the posts. Things seemed pretty loose, however, and the digression inspired some fun. Each person's sense of humor has its limits, though, so I guess--as usual--it had to get ugly. DEEP went over the top (again), but I think it's fair to say that Use3D showed NO GOOD HUMOR AT ALL. I didn't quite follow the FIST/NAZI connection, but I can't see hammering someone for trying to make a point, valid or not. ORGANISSIMO, INC: Do you really want an HOMOGENIZED website? Isn't an all white bread diet kinda boring? OPEN THE DOOR TO DEEP!

YEE-HAW! Deep's still in Dodge! Ah thought this here town warn't big enuf fer th' tew o' yew an' yer gangs-- Wrangler Tex (and the Cattlemen's 'Sociashun) 'n the Deep Nesters. Lookin' lahk gunplay fer SHORE!

Ah'm talkin' 'bout P.C.--'n Ah don't mean that bull fiddler, Paul Chambers! He's one eye-con this li'l ol' country boy wouldn't DARE disREspeck.

Ah, the delights of provocation... DEEP has now been capped twice in two days because he dissed Organissimo, Inc. The first time was in reaction to his dare after he crowed too often about the Olive Branch thread having such "legs." We'll just chalk that one up to proprietary jealousy. We can't be allowing anyone to sell unsanctioned products in the CORPORATION'S advertising space. The "Kroesenopolis" thread is a more interesting case and actually touches on the subject of (whaddya know?) MUSIC. Maybe one or more of you ENLIGHTENED types can explain to me just why the JAZZ COMMUNITY looks down its nose at country/western music. Patty very nearly EXCRETES snobbery and mock horror at the culture and appurtenances of agrarian types. DEEP'S parodying of Use3D apparently was the ultimate insult, sending him ballistic. I can understand TASTE and AESTHETIC preferences, but aren't JAZZ and COUNTRY both authentic American folk MUSIC? There's certainly an element of urban-rural tension involved, but may I suggest, for collective inspection, the possibility that it's a manifestation of political correctness? Does "singin' the blues" trump "cryin' in my beer?" and might there be a racial element at play?

Well now, thanks for keeping my seat warm, DEEP. I had to take a break to purge last night's toxic wastes from my system, but I am again eager to participate in another round of pure enlightenment and BILE. I want to also thank you for steering me away from all topics sexual, as Patty must be RESPECTED and FEARED, her alter-ego as your straight man notwithstanding. I shall also be wary of Use3D's bullwhip and lariat. It seems you and I continue to suffer an identity problem. While I'm not offended to be compared to you, I believe our fellow enlightened souls merely thrash and gnash and sputter because the tight little conceits they know as reality suffer challenges from not one, but two sources. To that extent I congratulate us, emphasizing nonetheless that I have no intention of becoming you. I am sure the reverse is true, eh BRO'? Sincerely, SHALLOW (Get it right, FUCKSTICKS)