Editorial: How I Got My Groove Back: A Case of Mistaken Identity
Scotto - 2001 October 12

Two years back, I lost what little groove I had. As a tall white kid born and raised in the upper-middle class suburbs of Long Island, I found groove hard to come by. What little groove I could gather up came from dubious sources: In Living Color, The Fresh Prince, Beverly Hills Cop, BET, and the black kids table in the cafeteria. Unfortunately, this was all ruined by shows about technology and science, and books about things nerds like. Hence, I was largely bereft of groove as a youngster.

In fact, I don’t even know precisely what groove is. I just know I don’t have it. It’s like if you lose your soul, you’d probably know it’s gone, even though it’s less than palpable. Same with your groove. Whenever I stumble through a doorway or knock over a lamp or answer the phone “Yello?”, I feel an emptiness somewhere inside of me.

I am also not Magnum P.I. Twice I have worn a Hawaiian shirt to work, and twice I have been broadly referred to as Magnum P.I. by the more gregarious employees. They downloaded and played for me the theme song to that poorly construed dramaturgical mishap. Also, I was shown pictures of Magnum from the internet sporting a dashing Luau vestment. Two of the more more foolish employees even acted out the Theme Song using leg-slapping and air-guitaring. Loudly. For over a minute. Asinine.

I think groove is some mode of being cool, possibly relating to your level of smoothness in dealings with the opposite sex. For example, when I say, “Hey baby, how bout we get a little freaky?”, it usually sounds sarcastic and disturbing. When a black guy in a movie says it, you ladies can’t climb into bed fast enough. Unless it’s a bunk bed. Those are tricky.

Why a grown man with groove would have a bunk bed, I don’t know. What’s up with that?

Now, you might be saying to yourself, “This editorial is more racist than usual, and also has the cajones to presume to know what I’m thinking”. Well, you’d be wrong, and then right. This editorial does have cajones. Great large ones. Expect more cojones in future articles as well. What it doesn’t have is racism. Just jealousy. Jealousy of people who have groove. Give me some! It’s all that I ask.

I’ve been trying to saunter around more. Sauntering properly is critical to groove. So is sitting. Like the movie where the black kid taught the white girl to dance. He sat all slouched down with his hand over his crotch and his legs out. I’ve been trying to do that more. It looked cool when he did it, but I have not even 1 percent of the groove he had, so I look like a fool. If you ain’t cool, you best stay in school, cuz the streets have no room for you, FOOL. Yea. Bust it. See. Creepy.

I’m very hungry. Also, I was just informed that a bunch of software that we just got done debugging will have to be modified and debugged again. God damn it. “Blasphemer!” Shut up. I don’t want to modify code. Sure, it’s what I do, but it’s very irritating. It’s time for lunch. And then a hair-cut. I need a hair-cut.

-----

Next week’s editorial: “How Bizarre”: The Song that Cured My Mysterious Rash