They’re Tired of It ALL, Dannie!

$GG’s May 22, 2016 Bishop(?)’s ’Corner was another one of Dannie’s trademark weekly doses of sanctimonious pap n’ crap, coupled with (of course) another one of his favorite themes: playing the beggar.  This time, it was a plea for “plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables” -- ostensibly for Tony.  (Dannie has been using Tony’s recent illness as a sympathy ploy to get more financial aid from the Gerties.)  We say “ostensibly” because, as usual, Dannie has decided to include himself (and the other cult-center “clergy”) in the doling out of the goodies: “Fr. Cekada will be needing plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in order to regain his health. (I’m sure they wouldn’t hurt the rest of us either!)” [our bold emphasis]

And, as if that wasn’t enough, he actually directed his food donors to “please use the Cucina Clerical website so you can pace our food deliveries.” [our bold emphasis again]  How characteristically presumptuous of you, Dannie, to not only get in line with your hand held out -- automatically assuming that you and those others are entitled to the dole -- but to stipulate that they “pace our food deliveries” to optimize the distributing of your freebies.  But, what the heck!  Why stop there?  Why not direct them to La Petite France’s website, and suggest some of your favorite entrée’s (and wines)?

Then, once you get them to “cough up” for that, how about requesting some “rehab time” for Tony at the Bishop’s Lodge; and, of course (as you did on the “fruits and vegetables”), include yourself in that request, since it was always your favorite “getaway” destination.  (But don’t include Lurch and the others in that getaway; that would stretch your budget too thin.  Besides, Lurch wouldn’t know how to act in a classy place like that!) 

So, go for it, Dannie!  After all, if you can sucker them into donating over and over again for an ever-leaking roof, or get them to pay for your “excessive heating bills” (while you’re “lenting” down in Mexico, pigging out on “copious quantities of beef”) – or buying an unneeded “new” organ for Tony (that breaks down almost immediately after it’s bought), then getting them to spring for this ought to be “a piece of cake”!  You know, Dannie, if you play this thing right, you’ll be able to get all kinds of concessions from your Gerties.  Plus, you’ll also be able to find out just how far you can “push their button” – to see how much they can take before they “snap” – an important defining limit!  

But actually, Dannie, don’t you think that many of your Gerties have already reached that limit?  Don’t you think that they’ve been squeezed enough?  WE DO.  We think that they’re tired of sacrificing and “offering it up,” just so that you can go on your winter “apostolates” to sunny Mexico (especially when you decide “at the last minute” to go).¹  We think, too, that they’re tired of paying for roofs that continue to leak, for AC units that prematurely fail, for unneeded organs (that also break down) – and especially for a “school” that provides a woefully inadequate “education” for a mere handful of students – at a woefully exorbitant premium paid to the “principal” and his family. ²

We think that they’re also tired of your pretentious sanctimony and your double-standard hypocrisy: tired of obeying your puritanical “dress code” rules, while you “look the other way” as the principal’s sons “do porn” (or fornicate) – both with complete impunity; tired of your sanctimonious pap about “the sanctity of human life” while you and Tony pamper your pet cats, yet disinterestedly watch Terri Schiavo being starved and dehydrated to death); tired of you talking about “protecting our innocent children,” while you allow a sadistic school principal to brutalize SGG’s school kids; tired of your selective enforcement of your “rules” (such as, denying a parishioner’s mother the last rites and a Requiem Mass because she was “Novus Ordo,” yet holding SGG’s biggest funeral ever for another parishioner’s “Novus Ordo” wife – the only difference being that the latter parishioner was a big donor at SGG, and the former wasn’t).    In fact, they’re getting tired of it all.

Dannie, we don’t think you’re fooling anybody anymore with your syrupy sanctimony and your pretentious, over-the-top “shows.”  People are starting to see them for what they are: cosmetics -- and that, behind the cosmetics, there’s really nothing there – except a “medicine show” barker in bishop’s garb, selling snake oil.  Dannie, it is also embarrassingly obvious that you are using Tony’s illness as a pretext for shaking down your Gerties even more: you know that there was NO REASON for including yourself and the others in this latest “fruits and vegetables” scam – but you did it anyway.  That’s because you can’t help yourself: you’ve been getting your own way for so long, you expect it as a birthright.  And as long as you can find suckers to fall for your predatory panhandling, you’ll keep on doing it.

But Dannie’s “sucker list” is growing short.  As Pistrina so aptly pointed out (in its article, Enough is Enough), people are starting to find out, for instance, that Dannie’s Mexican “apostolate” is not only bearing no fruit, but is, in fact, a huge FLOP – and that it’s only succeeding in emptying parishioners’ wallets.  (Click here for article).⁴   In fact, the Gerties are finding out that just about everything that Dannie and Tony do is a flop: Tony’s YouTube videos have been cut to pieces, SGG’s “Ordo 2016” has been a total (and embarrassing) failure, and their other abortive attempts at passing themselves off as “Latinists” have made them the laughing stock of Traddieland.  Outside the cult corral, nobody takes these buffoons seriously anymore.

Eventually, everyone – perhaps even the “hard core” -- will catch on to Dannie’s act; and he and Tony (and Donny, for that matter) will have to fold up their tent and move their medicine show elsewhere.  Actually – since their reputation as frauds has spread to the world-at-large -- we think that there really isn’t any place they can go unnoticed.  We think, therefore, that they should do what Big Don once sarcastically suggested, i.e., become WalMart greeters.  (Well, on second thought, only Dannie would be a “fit” for that job. With his mousy grin and his syrupy demeanor, he’d be a “natural.”)  Tony, on the other hand – since he lacks Dannie’s “social skills” (and perceives himself to be a “scholar”) – would do better as WalMart’s “intelligentsia guru,” and open up a line of designer dunce caps.⁵  So again, we say, “Go for it, Dannie!  Go for it, Tony!”

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¹ We did a little checking to find out what a trip to Mexico City (from Cincinnati or Dayton) would really cost, if booked “at the last minute” -- say, two to four days before the flight.  The price for one “coach” ticket is anywhere from $1350 to $2000, depending on whether the flight is non-stop, its takeoff time, etc. – and that doesn’t include baggage fees.  It also doesn’t include any other air or land travel within Mexico, or hotels, meals, taxis, etc. – or how much “entertaining” is done at the other end.  Add all this up, and one of Dannie’s spur-of-the-moment “quick trips” might run DOUBLE the airfare figures given above – or more.

² The “principal” and his family get the lion’s share of the remuneration paid to the school’s “faculty.”  (The other teachers -- if there are any left -- get little to nothing for what they do.)  And what do the Gerties get for their money?  Not much.  Academically speaking, the “school” is a joke.  About the only thing that it has going for it is draconian discipline from a sadistic schoolmaster – fondly reminiscent of the character Mr. Creakle (in Dickens’ David Copperfield) or Wackford Squeers (in Dickens’ Nicholas Nickelby) – both of whom are often held up as arch-typical examples of sadistic schoolmasters).

³ The instances of mistreatment of the school’s students by the principal and his family are many -- and well documented.  (Click here to see a fairly representative sampling.)  They were, In fact, the primary reason why half the congregation exited SGG back in 2009.  But even more despicable than the acts themselves was Dannie’s condoning of them – and how he ignored the pleas of parents who brought their grievances to him.  He disdainfully told them that they could go elsewhere if they didn’t like it.  He even fired one of his teachers who had complained to him when he was physically and verbally threatened by one of the principal’s sons.  (But the boy, of course, received no disciplinary action whatsoever.)  That teacher, by the way, was a foreign national, and was eventually reported to Homeland Security by Anthony Cekada – the very man who was supposed to be taking care of his “immigration” papers.  (Click here for a complete account of what happened.)

Why did Dannie not only allow this to happen, but condone and defend it as well? What sort of “leverage,” we ask, does the principal have on Dannie and Tony that they couldn’t summarily dismiss him for what he did?  Well, all that we can say is that the principal has reportedly boasted on several occasions that “they cannot fire me; I know too much.”  So we the answer, "draw your own conclusions."

⁴ Other than a couple of panhandling padres that Dannie has managed to corral by buying them off with gringo dinero, Dannie is persona non grata in Mexico.  He has had to reach farther south – to Ecuador – to find new “fertile ground” (and we wonder how long it will be before that too runs afoul).  Whatever the case, Ecuador is certainly a more expensive proposition than Mexico.

⁵ Actually, WalMart could open up new product lines in both Dannie’s and Tony’s names.  Taking a cue from Mattel’s Barbie Doll®, they could feature a Dannie Doll® -- a bobble-head version of Wee Dan that hillbillies could hang from the rearview mirrors of their pickup trucks.  And, like Barbie, there could be different versions of Dannie: Doubtful Dan® (complete with a “one-hand” ordination kit), Beggar Dan® (with one hand stretched out in eternal supplication), and Dannie the Martyr® (a talking Dannie that, when its string is pulled, whines about the persecution that SGG is suffering at the hands of the local energy utility’s “high heating bills,” the local governmental authority’s “discriminatory building codes,” or some other “injustice” at the hands of some imagined “oppressor”).

Tony’s product line (the dunce caps) could be expanded, too, to include not just the caps themselves, but dolls (of Tony) wearing them – and perhaps even marketed internationally (as Señor Simplón in Latin countries, as Tony der Trottel in German-speaking countries, etc. etc., etc.).  And, oh yes, one last product idea, reflecting Dannie’s morbid preoccupation with his feral cat, Caravaggio: a Baby Bunny Shredder.®  This would be something on the order of an ordinary paper shredder, except that it would, in this case, shred baby bunnies.  And to play on the “cat” theme, its “infeed” wouldn’t have a set of conventional rollers, but a faithfully executed rendition of Caravaggio’s head, with a macerating mechanical “mouth” to ensnare and dismember the little critters. 

With such a device, other unbalanced individuals could “share” in Dannie’s sociopathic fantasies, and duplicate his singular depravity, without the bother of actually having to buy (and care for) a real live cat.  And perhaps, too, a “Lotarski” version of this contraption might also be offered – one with a built-in camcorder, to catch the action for further viewing (with, of course, forward, reverse, and “slow-mo” features to “maximize” the experience.)  So, at the risk of repeating ourselves, we once again say, "Go for it, Dannie!"