The SGG pastor,
in his recent Bishop’s Corner installments, has been going all out to
give his readers every disgusting detail possible about life at SGG – and we do
mean disgusting. First, there were his almost weekly reports about
his pet cats’ latest bunny butchering – even including details about how one of
them got sick on its putrefied remains and gagged it up. Thank you,
Dannie, for such vivid imagery; that’s really “top-drawer” stuff – and it makes
for such pleasant dinner-time chitchat! All we can say is “Yummy!”
So elegant! So refined! So uplifting! (Or is it upchucking?)
So, what luscious landscape could this “poetic prince of the honeyed
phrase” paint for us next? What sort of scrumptious vignette could he be
conjuring up after that? Well, actually, Dannie has already come up with two:
first, a report about some raccoons colonizing the church premises (somewhere
inside its walls); and second, a mouse -- camped out somewhere in a rectory
refrigerator – rummaging through leftovers. Wow! What pertinent stuff!
And, again, “Yummy!”
What sort of idiot,
we must ask, would knowingly and eagerly “share” such gruesome,
boorish trash in his church bulletin -- and, via its website,
beam it to a potentially global internet audience? (If you guessed
either Josef Mengele or The Marquis de Sade, you were “close, but
no cigar.”) And, for that matter, what sort of numbskull would
name his three feral felines Puccini, Vivaldi, and Caravaggio?
(He probably figured that the culties would think it “cute” for him to name
them so (“cute”? how about “gauche” or “pretentious”?). At any rate, it seems
that Dannie has an insatiable (and not altogether wholesome) preoccupation with
critters -- and their grisly foraging habits.
Nevertheless, one
cannot deny that Dannie has a certain “way” – a certain “something” -- with
animals: raccoons, cats, mice, grotto-pond carp – whatever! (And don’t
forget “Senex,” SGG’s one-time resident groundhog!) One could
think of him as the Cult Center’s “Doctor
Doolittle.” When he’s not waxing poetic about the weather (or
his carnivorous raids south-of-the-border), he’s mooning over critters.
We think that this deserves some recognition. In fact, we think
Dannie could turn this critter fetish into a fund-raising opportunity.
SGG could, for instance, stage a production based on the original Doctor
Doolittle movie (starring the late Rex Harrison – and, in a later remake,
Eddie Murphy) – with Dannie and his critters in the starring
roles.
Dannie would be perfect
for the part! After all, with his mousy grin, he does have a certain
rodent-like charm; and he does like to swoon on [nauseatingly so] about birds
and other flora and fauna in his weekly Bishop’s Corner. And one
can just picture him, processing along the cloister walkway, with a daisy-chain
of Waldtieren in tow (along with his groveling culties, happily singing
Rex Harrison’s If I could Talk to the Animals -- in pontifical
polyphony, of course). In the movie, the animal-loving Doctor was asked
if he “could talk Hippopotamus,” to which he replied, “Why Nottamus!”
Re-applying that (and other quips from the movie) to Dannie, one might
continue, “Can you speak “Rhinoceros”? Why, “of course-eros”! Can
you speak “Duck”? (Well, we won’t touch that one!)
But “Doctor
Doolittle” doesn’t quite “go far enough.” It doesn’t quite capture the “real”
Dannie. Given his trademark rodent-like snicker, we thought that Doctor
Door-mouse would be more à propos. (After all, “Door-mouse”
was Dannie’s moniker back in his seminary days.) And back then, too, he could
speak “Duck” (or a “rhymingly reasonable facsimile”). In the production
of this “Menagerie Masterpiece,” SGG’s budding Thespians could be “extras” in
the show (unlike their usual role as behind-the-scenes cult slaves for
Dannie's "show"). [Of course, they’d get their usual ”wages”:
nothing.] The choir could double as Dannie’s “backup” singers [and we
sincerely hope that they “drown him out,” because his voice is flatter than
Russia’s steppes], and Tony could provide “instrumental” accompaniment
on the organ. All in all, it could be a very “cost effective” production
– and who better than Dannie to put on a “show”?
As for animals,
there are (of course) the cats (who should, however, be muzzled for the
show, because clinging carrion makes for bad breath). And the Palm
Sunday donkey* could, no doubt, be borrowed for the occasion. As for
the Refrigerator Mouse® and the raccoons, we’re open to
suggestions. [Actually, raccoons are scavengers. So, if Dannie
could tie some “bunny leftovers” to the back of his robe, they’d probably
follow him. And the mouse? He might take a liking to Dannie’s
“cheesy” grin, and follow along too – if he’s still around, that is.** As
for other animals, there are plenty of deer (and a coyote or two) in the
area. And some of SGG’s “children of the corn” farm folk could volunteer
their barnyard critters (including, perhaps, a goat, strategically
placed behind Dannie). All in all, it’s a “win-win” for everyone.
And how much to
charge for admission? Culties who are part of the “cast,” of course,
would be admitted “free” (as would any kid of theirs who sold fifty or more
tickets to “outsiders”). And then there’s SGG’s “Cyber Outreach” program:
the Web. And as an added “incentive,” they could advertise that
every “patron’s donation” (of $500 or more) would merit a free copy of Work
of Human Hands. (On second thought, scratch that idea;
that might shut down the production!) At any rate, let us hope
that – once this “show” has had its run – Dannie will have gotten this “critter
fetish” out of his system.
Okay – we know --
enough poking fun at Dannie and his “critter fetish” (and our whimsical
idea of him staging a reprised production of Doctor Doolittle). It
was, of course, all done in jest. But Dannie is NOT in jest.
NOTHING that he ever says or does is in jest. His “waxing poetic” about
his cats, his “cute” nicknames for them, his newsy little anecdotes about
“refrigerator mice,” and the numberless “sweet nothings” that appear in his Bishop’s
Corner every week: they’re all calculated, pre-meditated, and
contrived -- all designed for maximum effect. They
are the veneer of innocence -- the “sheep’s clothing” -- that the West
Chester Wolf dons to fool his sheep. They are the “happy face” that he
puts on for all who are fool enough to fall for it. They’re all part of
the make-up, the cosmetics -- the schtick -- that Dannie uses to put on
what we’ve always referred to as “the show” – the caricature of
Catholicism that this humbug impresario has been putting on ever since he’s
been there.
Dannie’s demeanor
back in his “door-mouse days” at Écône may not have been all that “exemplary,” but it was at
least real (that is, compared to now). And we wonder, since
Dannie’s been “faking it” for so long, if he might be having trouble keeping
reality and “persona” separated these days. After all, that often happens
when one lives “in character” for so long. But not to worry: Dannie would
never have a “relapse” or pull a “Freudian slip” in front of his culties (and
even if he did, we wonder if they’d “catch on” anyway). But the majority
of people outside the cult circle have caught on to
Dannie. The SGG Clown Act no longer holds its trance over
Traddieland – or anywhere else, for that matter.
But
again, not to worry: retirement is nigh for both Dannie and Tony; and they
probably have enough salted away to get them, if not to Santa Fe, to somewhere
more cost-effective (yet adequate) -- perhaps south of the border, where Dannie
can hold court with the campesinos who still revere him. There,
too, he might eventually write his memoirs. (And if he wants them
printed into another language, he can always count on Tony to mistranslate them
for him.) But don’t get too many copies printed up, Dannie; you know how
long it took to work off the WHH inventory. If you get stuck with
too big of a publishing bill, that just might “set you off” -- which might
bring out the “door-mouse” in you again!!
____________________
* Dannie always has a live donkey for his Palm Sunday processions.
** At last report, the hole in the rectory refrigerator was plugged, thereby cutting off access to the
goodies inside. So, if Dannie is
taking his impending trip down to Mexicali, we might have this ironic
dichotomy, where he is down there, pigging out at a Rodizio, while Topo Gigio,
back at the Cult Center, is “plugged”
out, waiting in vain outside his “Rodentzio” (aka, the rectory fridge) for
a meal that will never come. Of
course, Dannie’s reason for mentioning this little episode was probably the
same as it always is: in giving the culties some newsy little anecdote like
that, it makes himself appear “cute” (or at least innocuous) to them.
But Dannie usually has a deeper
reason for saying something, other than just “looking cute.” And to find that reason, first ask
yourself this: How does a
refrigerator get a “hole” in it?
It’s a bit of a stretch to think that the mouse was able to gnaw his way through several layers of steel
and plastic to produce that hole.
Even refrigerators that are old
and rickety don’t get holes in
them – at least, not from rodents. If a mouse was able to gnaw its way
through that refrigerator wall, then almost every
refrigerator in every inner-city slum would have a hole in it. Then, ask yourself this: Why would a
rectory that is less than twenty years
old – a rectory inhabited by priests,
not a slum inhabited by welfare recipients – be infested with
mice to the point where one is able to help himself to refrigerator leftovers? It all sounds a little hokey to us, Dannie.
The real reason for Dannie
mentioning that little episode was probably more “Freudian”: he was trying to
give the impression that the fridge was in such bad shape that it needed to be
replaced. And, as Pistrina has already noted, was this a subtle
hint for a new refrigerator? And if so, who’d be expected to ante up
the money for it – as an “extra sacrifice,” over and above ordinary parish
expenses? We think we could hazard
a guess.
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