This essay has to do with the emotional state of a sinner who knows that on the morrow, he will be required to deliver an apology or an explanation for his conduct. In this case, the apology or explanation must flow not necessarily from the head, the heart, the stomach, the crotch, or the femur bones but must start with the toe nails themselves. In most cases, the apology has to be delivered to a spouse who is not a sinner. It may also take the form of delivering an apology or an explanation to friends, citizens, and associates who have in the past wished the sinner well. When the sinner realizes that such an apology or explanation must be made, he is forced to feel lower than a whale turd.
Perhaps my point would be best presented by a series of examples. In the world of sports, the most-watched spectacle is the World Cup, which crowns the best football (soccer) team in the world and takes place every four years. Nations gather their very best football players and form them into a national team to enter the competition. There is intense interest in the progress of the team by its fans and by the citizens of the countries involved. It is not unusual for the losing coach or players to contemplate suicide after a loss.
In the last World Cup, the two remaining survivors were the teams of France and of Italy. Reports of that meeting suggest that there were racial slurs about each other’s nationality. The idea of the racial slurs is to encourage fights, which would result in the banishment of a soccer player from the game. That would mean that the banished player’s team would have to play short handed as no replacements are permitted under these circumstances.
In the last World Cup, the defense of the Italian team thwarted the French scoring forwards and Italy became the champion of the World Cup. Following that defeat, the French coach needed to apologize to not only the sponsors of the French team but to the citizens of France as well. The French coach could not have been more dejected by the loss of the game but also there was the need for an explanation or an apology. During this period, the mental outlook of the French coach could only have been described as being lower than a whale turd.
A second example involves Clint Hurdle, the manager of the Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball team. In the 2007 baseball campaign, Clint Hurdle guided his team through the 162 game regular season as well as through the playoffs, and eventually emerged as the representative of the National League in the World Series that followed. The Colorado Rockies are based in Denver and have a following in the mountain states area and in baseball terms, the reach of the club may go into western Kansas as well. In the World Series, the Rockies lost the first two games, which were played in Boston, to the Red Sox. As the clubs returned to the high altitude climate with the next three games to be played in Denver, there were great hopes that the Rockies could recover and even the series or perhaps take a lead. But that was not to be. The Boston Red Sox swept the next two games, which meant that they captured the World Series by a score of four to nothing. For the Rockies, it was a complete and a humiliating shutout.
When the final out in the World Series was accomplished, Clint Hurdle knew that he had to offer an apology or an explanation to his hundreds of thousands of fans in the Rocky Mountain area. As he contemplated the task of delivering that apology or explanation, Clint Hurdle’s emotional state could be described only by the technical term of being lower than a whale turd.
Now to proceed to the political field. You may recall that the recent Governor of the great state of New Jersey was a gentleman named James E. McGreevey. When he was the Mayor of Woodbridge, New Jersey, his friends and the newspapers referred to him as Jimmy McGreevey. However, when he became the Governor of this great state,
Mr. McGreevey decreed that henceforth he would always be called “James E. McGreevey, Governor.”
The fact of the matter is that McGreevey was an incipient homosexual. To conceal that fact, the former Jimmy McGreevey acquired a wife and fathered a daughter. But once he became the Governor of this state, his gayness began to make more and more appearances. Early in his tenure, McGreevey acquired a male Israeli lover. He then installed this lover in the position of Director of Security for the great state of New Jersey. The lover was not only a foreign national but he had absolutely no experience whatsoever in terms of providing for the security of the citizens of this great and glorious state. As time advanced, McGreevey installed his lover in an apartment near the executive mansion. About two years into his tenure, it became obvious that McGreevey had to confirm his gayness. The press knew all about his tendency and was no longer protecting him after the affair of the Israeli lover being appointed to a security position in the state. And so it was on a day that McGreevey and his wife will never forget, he called a press conference attended by his wife. Mrs. McGreevey stood off on the side, to the right hand of the Governor, and one could tell that apparently she was learning of his gayness for the first time and was shocked. At least that is what she said. The press conference ended with McGreevey’s announcement that he was a “gay American” and intended to resign.
Confronting his wife and the citizens of New Jersey with this announcement must have tormented the Honorable James E. McGreevey endlessly. He knew that this was the end of his political career as well as his reputation. Clinically his emotional state would be described as lower than a whale turd. For whatever it is worth, the former Governor of New Jersey, James E. McGreevey, is now a seminarian at an Episcopal school for preachers and he and his former wife are fighting it out in court over the custody of their daughter.
And now we finally turn to another gentleman in the political arena, who is Eliot Spitzer, the former Governor of New York. For some time while he was Governor, Spitzer was a member of the Emperor’s Club, which provided him with prostitutes. Spitzer was billed as much as $5,000 per encounter with one of the Emperor’s Club’s whores. Overall, it is estimated that he invested more than $80,000 in 2007 in the pursuit of happiness at the Emperor’s Club.
Apparently the Emperor’s Club collected payment in advance, before services were performed. If a member of the club were to deposit, say, $5,000 with the Emperor’s Club and he engaged a prostitute who only charged $3,000 per hour, he would have a balance of $2,000. From what we have come to learn, Governor Spitzer spent a good amount of time checking his balances with the Emperor’s Club. It is too late to do any good, but if I were his advisor, I would have told him to leave this task to his secretary. We were told at the time that Spitzer spent so much time checking his balances and forwarding money to the club that it attracted the attention of the federal authorities. Actually, we now learn after his resignation that he was turned in by a political enemy.
Spitzer has a lovely wife, also Harvard educated, and three teenage daughters. When the feds made known their findings to former governor Spitzer, he knew that he would have to offer an apology and an explanation to his spouse and to the citizens of New York, and the apology must be delivered in the capital of media attention in this country. Spitzer could not whisper that he had a dalliance now and then with some whores, but he had to tell it to the New York press, who would scream that message to the rest of the country and the world.
The night before, while Spitzer still had his secret, his emotional state must have been described as lower than a whale turd. He knew that the next morning his career and his reputation would be obliterated. He had to know that his wife and his teenage daughters would wonder what had happened to their husband and father.
Well, there you have four examples of emotions that flow only from feelings of being lower than a whale turd. In my long lifetime, I have had feelings of being up and feelings of being down on the ground. During parts of the Second World War, I was aware that the German Army and Air Force intended to kill me. But on the other hand, I have never experienced the emotional drain that must occur when a person has to admit total failure and/or sinfulness. I can’t say that my heart goes out to the coach of the French football team or to Clint Hurdle of the Colorado Rockies. Again, I cannot say that my heart really goes out to the Honorable James E. McGreevey or to Eliot Spitzer. I can only say that these four fellows must have experienced an agony that is hard to describe. But be that as it may, that is what this essay is all about. It is about wondering about the special hell that those four fellows went through before they delivered their apologies.
One final thought. The title of this essay is from the proverbs and sayings of my close and wonderful friend, Harry Livermore. During the Second World War, Mr. Harry Livermore was a Lieutenant in the American Navy. He sailed on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga, which experienced a direct hit from a kamikaze aircraft. That hit cost the lives of three hundred and fifty American sailors who were shipmates of Harry Livermore. The travels of the Ticonderoga were in the Pacific, where I believe that whales are to be found. My belief is that Lieutenant Livermore studied the dietary habits of whales and is thus qualified to offer the opinion that when a man is really down, he is lower than a whale turd. Harry first offered this explanation of this unhappy tradition so long ago that is now a part of American folklore, and I feel free to quote it, as long as it has proper attribution.
This essay is being dictated on the Friday before Spitzer’s resignation. I am going to sleep soundly tonight, knowing that I do not have to face the bleak future of Eliot Spitzer. I do not intend to kick him while he is down but my head shakes in wonderment at the stupidity that caused him to lose the respect of so many people. No matter how you cut it, Spitzer did it to himself.
E. E. CARR
March 16, 2008
Essay 298
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Kevin’s commentary: A few things. First, I’m pretty much of the opinion that the sports dudes in question shouldn’t feel so bad, because sports are games and games don’t matter at the end of the day. They did their fans proud by getting as far as they did! They shouldn’t be disappointed in being outplayed at the final match — shit happens.
The second thing was that I was initially confused as to why the turds in question were begat by whales. I personally think whales are as good an animal as any other. But then at the end of the essay, I realized that if a whale turd sinks, it goes to the bottom of the ocean. The bottom of the ocean is pretty damn low, in a literal sense. So yeah, at the end of the essay I had to reconsider my offense.
The third thing is that Spitzer is an idiot, and he was paying far too much for prostitutes. I’m sure he could have gotten a better rate with people who kept less diligent records, and been in a way better position. I’m sure he’ll think about that next time.