2000
Subject: Porsche Guy's *LAST* Posting
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL0]
Message-ID: <1993Jul8.144741.16259@unislc.slc.unisys.com>
Organization: Unisys Corporation SLC
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1993 14:47:41 GMT
Lines: 210



[Note: This is my *last* submission to your group, possibly forever.
       It is rather long and I apologize, but I wanted to go out with
       a bang. - But please, don't shoot me :-) ]

PROLOGUE
--------

Some of you have wondered (many with heated rancor), why I read this group 
and/or post to it.  Some have had the temerity to suggest that I seek some 
form of adoration from the net.  Ridiculous.  I read this group because I 
was attempting to find out more about the followers of the dead, why someone
could exist in abject servile committment to a mere band, and, simply, to 
determine the attraction.

So, for the last time I make a final submission as I am on my way out the 
door, hopefully to bigger and better things.  In any event, I will again, no 
doubt in vain, to at least try to say that the things being described below 
do NOT, I repeat NOT, NOT apply to everyone.  I am not calling everyone or 
any individual names or attempting to group all fans of the grateful dead 
into one catagory.  Many of you have sent me very kind remarks over the years, 
unfeigned or affected, and I have appreciated it very much.  It is these 
people who have had good laughs and appreciate the substance of sarcasm.  
It has been a pleasure to talk with you.  And now, hopefully this will hit 
close to home...  :-)


G-DEAD NET AND THE STEREOTYPES
------------------------------

As I have said, reading your news group has satisfied a great deal of my 
curiosity.  Satisfied it to the point that what you are about to read is 
based largely on this information.  The net furnishes a large cross section 
and therefore was an excellent way to confirm my suspicions.  There are
obviously a plethora of different types of people, many are normal, hard-
working, decent people, however, if one were to stereotype two main types 
of ardent devotees to the dead, who are out of the main-stream of reality,
I believe they would be these:

TYPE 1:
-------
While many of the followers of the dead are nihilistic left-overs from the 
1960s, some appear to be 'diphasic yuppies', who quietly sneak out of their 
Central Park West Penthouse, climb on a bus or into a VW van, and set out for 
the next spectacle, not before slipping into archiac tie-dyed garb.  They 
then proceed to loudly pretend to detest money, jobs, opulence, Aspirin, 
Top-siders and Rolex watches - all of which they have back home.

When I have received mail from these types, severely reproofing the fact I 
have a certain type of automobile, I've had to reach into the desk drawer for 
bromides I keep next to the bottle of Percodan.  News like that has signaled 
my duodenum on some occasions to march out the gastrointestinal gestapo.  This
type generally keeps a low profile to avoid getting flamed for being what they
are.

There was one man, no longer employed here, who followed the gdead net and 
went to many concerts.  I shall keep his name anonymous for obvious reasons, 
but I will recount one of the several conversations we had about the dead.

His 'cube' was a disorganized array of bewildering objects.  He usually 
appeared late, and often hungover, in dishabille attire.  Even when important
eschelons were in town he would show up wearing bizarre costumes that looked 
like they were designed by Rouben Ter-Arutunian on acid.  He had a wild 
concupiscence for women, and drove a rust-contaminated, bowel-brown, Dodge-
van with the familiar 'skull and cross-bones' in a dirty, cracked rear window.

"Hey man." he said to me in the hall, after reading the first posting I made 
back in 1988, "I'd like to talk to ya."  He was friendly, make no mistake. 
I came back later and sat next to his desk, and was intrigued about his 
point of view.  

"Man, Dale." he said with a smile, as he leaned over so close I could count 
the pits and holes in his nose. "You really got a lot of people pissed-off.  
Shouldn't insult the dead-heads man, they'll get nasty."  We spent the next 
several minutes talking about the dead and their followers and he confessed 
to being an avid pursuer of the band, but harbored no ill-will towards me.  
The conversation turned more serious as I asked him, "Why all the hubbub? 
Are these fanatic servants of the dead just hippie victims who refuse to 
admit the third digit in the year is no longer '6', or is this really such a
magnetic, nearly sanctimonious, commune who disect the lyrics in the hope of 
finding a sacred code to guide them through life?"

He pinched the corners of his mouth just a tad tighter, revealing the black 
abyss where his bridgework stopped and gave way to naked gum.  The snarl 
wrinkles on the bridge of his nose suddenly rolled into each other, and he 
thought for a while.  I think the question kind of made him angry as he told 
me, rather curtly, the Grateful Dead was nothing more than a band with a 
devoted type of following.  He was a yuppie who just liked to 'change' into
hippie clothes and "get away from work sometimes.  It's like a hobby."

"Why the resentment for today's mores? The rejection of society? This really 
is one of the few remaining appendages of the 60s isn't it?" I asked.  It was 
becomming clear that underneath his wired smile he didn't like me, and more 
important, my lifestyle.  Underneath you could tell he longed for the 60s to 
somehow return and his eyes would sparkle and become cloudy every time he 
recalled it.  

"Yeah, a lot of us miss those days, and people on the net talk about it a 
lot, so what?" he said, barking out a foul belch redolent with day-old 
luncheon meat and decades-old disillusionment.  Making comments about the 
1960s era had made him more angry than discussing the dead.  I was suddenly 
tempted to think he had just picked up a pine cone in his anal canal except 
when he passed gas it was foul.  He liked to fart and really enjoyed it.  
One could almost say he was downright proud.  It was disgusting to everyone 
but him, he only thought it was funny.  In fact, he was such a windbag that 
he is even known by former workers and associates (and probably toilet 
attendants) for this trait from coast to coast.  He would even walk up to 
managers or supervisors, shake hands and and while smiling say something 
like, "Hey man, how's it hangin'?" and let off a bomber, all in the same 
breath.  If we really wanted to get back at someone, we'd just ask him to 
sneak up on someone in their cube and let go a long, drawn out silencer that 
would stagnate around their area and leave a putrid odor drifting around
for hours.

"Sort of goes along with what I've been saying, dosn't it?" I asked,
"That a lot of these people are remnants of the 60s?"

"Maybe.", he said, unaware he was nervously picking open an old eczema scab
on his wrist.  We ended the conversation, but had several more over a short 
period of time before he left the company.  I have no idea where he is now.  
If he's somewhere reading this, please believe I appreciated your point of 
view and enjoyed our conversations.  We never were able to 'pin-down' my
suggestion about othe 60s though.


TYPE 2:
-------
The majority of net postings from heads with an excessive and irrational
zeal for the dead will invaribly at some point, post articles reflecting on 
Great Dope Droughts of the sixties; sweatings over yearly shortfalls of pot
in January when new crops are being harvested; worres in September when they 
run out of Panama Red and are down to musty Mexican or lousey homegrown.  
The worst, of course is when their personal stash is down to sticks and seeds.
Many are convinced the CIA monitors the net, the band, and them, and are
trying eagerly to ferret out traitors of the United States which they are 
convinced will be them if they give out their real name or address.  This 
type of follower is in general an 'paranoid paras
1195
itical Maoist.'

Usually in deep financial shit; i.e., credit cards (if they have any) are 
tapped to the top, they are heavily into the cash reserve of a checking 
account, and their 'fascist' landlord wants them to square-up the past due 
rent.  So, they pack-up the miserably few destitute belongings they have and 
leave everyone hip-deep in shit, all the while convincing themselves they 
are on some kind of personally invigorating religious quest for truth and 
beauty - so society 'owes' them financial freedom.  The only thing which 
seems to flush away their toilet of worries and concerns is to attend g-dead 
concerts where there always seems to be someone they can dig-up who will 
sucker-in to their surreptitious rapaciousness and provide them with tuna 
sandwiches and clean sheets.  Even if it's only for one or two days, they 
will then find another gullible lolipop and puddle jump to the next nearest 
purlieu which in turn gradually gets them across the States to follow the 
dead.  The network seems to assist them on their expedition of bloodsucking. 
They locate a sucker and appear grateful, all the while holding the poor 
victim up to ridicule behind their back for having gainful employment.  
They haven't much longanimity and bitterly complain and whine in effort to 
obtain the maximum yield from each person being duped.

Sometimes you see them on the way to a concert, giving a lift to as many
people as they can stuff into their car like a sausage (usually in exchange 
for filling their car up completely with gas, lodging, meals, and anything 
else comestible, or for that matter, pawnable).  They either spoil the show 
for everyone else or wear out their welcome with frightening speed, as they
walk into your abode as if it's their own, unpack where they please, and
waltz directly into the kitchen where they open the refrigerator door and,
while helping themselves to whatever you have, ask what's coming up on TV
tonight and tell you you won't mind if they make a few phone calls - will you.

The end up being ejected after one or two days, leaving behind a ransacked,
soiled house and a person who now questions the goodness of the human race
and vows "never to do that again."  Finding the next sucker, they'll 
apply an overdose of unctuous balm, making the person feel they have just
found a good friend and comrade, at the same time they'll curse the last 
victim as being a "cheap and rude sonuvabitch who threw us out."  This process
continues like a chain of dominos as they pillage and take advantage of
the generosity of host to host.  They either dress in tattered scraps 
purchased from shows or whatever they can get from the Dorcas society.

Generally, they will at some point in their lives obtain employment, but
usually for only very brief periods of time and in wholly facile, undignified
and unworthy occupations.  Sometimes they will quit the same day they start,
claiming either that the company executives are 'shitstain dictators', or 
that someone stole their wallet, and violently storm out.  Normally they
either gain admittance to shows without paying admission, vend shoddy
products to pay for a ticket, or acquire admission by begging and sponging.
If they fail to attend a single exhibition it can induce profound
extended depression and they'll sulk about it for years.  As soon as they 
return from a show, they are known to instantly insert the cassette they 
covertly made of the band and turn it up a deafening level, yearning that 
the entire performance was commencing again and would continue incessantly 
until time itself came to an end.


Well, those are the two 'worst' types that can be 'pegged.'  I hope you
enjoyed this posting - I am sure most of you know someone who falls into
the type 1 or 2 catagory.  Have fun at concerts - hope you don't run into
any of these types, or, if you do, make sure you greet them with their
proper form of address: "Stay back!"

Dale Clark aka. The Porsche Guy


--      O
  ____ /|\o_______________________________________________________^
 /     / \ //////////////////////////////////////////////////////^/ 7-10
|`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````| split
| Dale W. Clark                                    (801) 594-4982 | again!
| dale@unislc.slc.unisys.com                   UNISYS Corporation |
|_________________________________________________________________|



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