The Many Lost Toys of Jim Groat

[Kindrift]

This week Jimbo's been in a panic about a criminal organization that's broken into his vehicles or stalked his house at least three times recently.  Supposedly they had the nerve to call the house and hang up.  His downward spiral into paranoid dementia -- or his rising ability to sell the most ridiculous shit to his fans -- has been pretty awesome when you look back over the last ten years.  He's somehow managed to be more ridiculous than letting Red Shetland prints go missing.  But the question must be asked, is it possible he has so offended his neighbors to push them to actually target him?  The Best of Jim has been pulled from his LJ, with a few quotes from his old friends from elsewhere:

This time they got Christmas gifts I had bought for the kids in the trunk and unable to get inside yet due to kids not going to sleep soon enough. Plus they took yet another LED flashlight and my cel phone. This was the earliest the thieves have struck. most of the time they strike after 11PM.

Now I'm wide awake and outside looking myself. And discover my bike was stolen. I call the cops and kick the boy outside to search Darbo neighborhood....just in case he see's anybody on my bike or parked in somebodies doorway.

Now as of 9:05CST, I get a phone call....somebody wasn't saying a hell of alot, but I could hear a TV in the background. I sternly speak over the phone "Speak up you coward!" and I hear a voice asking clearly the caller at the other end "They home?" and then silence as they hung up.

I pop open a beer and take a swig (ugh...I hate beer!) and tell them that in my faith , Odinism, a sign of a real man is to be able to grow a beard and to accept a drink from his host by way of alcohol.

I used to host WCOTP and graphxpress.com. I was the one who registered the domain for him and started it existing online.
I don't do it anymore.
Why? Because he openly pulls on peoples sympathies for funding. That's how he makes his money. It's basically all lies and embellishments.
Why don't I host for him anymore? Because he was complaining to folks that the cost of the hosting was putting him out of business.
Did I mention I never charged him a cent? And went out of the way to pay for every copy of his stuff I have? And sent him free computer equipment and software?
Yeah. Having people thinking I was grifting him out of business was a rude awakening. And then hearing his wife commenting about how they would need to find another "web patsy" was kind of a final straw.
I'll give pocket money to the homeless man begging on the corner. Jim will never see another cent from me. One of the two I can still trust.

Every convention, Rabbi Tom has some sort of "disaster" happen to him. His inventory gets stolen. His vehicle needs major repairs. Something blows up. Asteroids swarms impact his house. The Borg take over his body.
Every con, he laments to people online about how he needs help recovering from said disaster.
Every con.
Think about it.

[ProvincialTwit]

Groat could potentially be our first Megathread here, if we just dig back far enough.  There's certainly no shortage of his borderline-insane paranoia, and if we run out of material on him, his oh-so-loyal wifey should provide more than enough laughs.

What it all boils down to, is that he's pulled this sort of shit before, and he'll pull it again.  He just feels the need to make his stories more and more outlandish each time.  Who's he trying to convince?  His "fans" or himself?

[Kindrift]

George Clontz' death a few months back brought out a few good stories of Jim and his days in Arizona.  All from the anon posters on Lulz, some of which are probably Mike Hirtes, regardless difficult to trace.  Swear to God one of these days I'm going to collect all these things and write up an actual coherent story on them, shocking as it is that no one's bothered before.  It's not like he's got a posse.

One story I've heard is that with Clontz being /slow/ it was quite a game for Grout and the Arizona crowd to dup him into paying the $1000 restaurant bills. "Oh no how did this happen?? Oh gee, George, you're the only one who can get us out of this fix..." All premeditated, of course.

Yes, that happened to George a lot. Jim Groat ate like a fucking pharoah when George was around.

On one of the trips, they even slipped in an industrial-strength laxative (the kind you might find in an emergency first aid kit where you may need to flush something out of your intestines RIGHT FUCKING NOW!) into George's soda. Within two minutes of drinking it, he was literally soiling himself heavily. And what did his "friends" do? They refused to let him in the car and drove home without him, leaving George to get kicked out of one bus after another trying to make his way home with a brown streak literally streaming down his pantlegs.

A real class act this Jim Groat is, huh?

The one I always rember was the stroy about Jim topping off a bottle of Georges shampoo with piss, shaking it up really good to mix it. The telling Geiorge thast he really sinks and need to take a shower, which Goerge does, While he's doing that Groat tells the other members of the tucosn Furry Mob as to what he'd done, they all laugh.
Of course whne George finishes up taking the shower, and rejoins them Wolf Smith says: "Gee George your hair smell teriffic." They all start laughing again.
Needles to say George soes,nt get what's so funny,

[Sono_hito]

Asshole isnt a true Asatruar. A real one would work his ass off and quit the bitching. Fucker makes us look bad....

[ProvincialTwit]

What part of your broken, tiny mind made you think it was a good idea to post that?

[Sono_hito]

im admitedly tired, worn out from dealing with idiots at work, and claim no good reason. It fit my head at the time and make no appologies for it. Even if it made little sense.

[ProvincialTwit]

PROTIP: In that case DON'T POST.

[Kindrift]

Sounds like he's about as real an Asatruar as every single one of them who's ever existed, considering the pretendy funtime "religion" has existed for less than 40 years and is made of nothing more than fatty beardy couchdwellers who've long sought an excuse to develop a real beer gut, shun razors, and throw hammers.  But is he, really?  His little game some months back of pretending to have a beer-based religion just to pester Mormon missionaries implies he don't take it too seriously.  I haven't seen anything to show he really believes in that shit.

[Kindrift]

Yeah, the B-day is next week, and in case yer interested.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2MI9DTFCBIXX6/ref=cm_wl_rlist_go

yer pal

Jim

It's like ironic irony, or something.  I mean he does this every day of the year anyway but he announces it like it's a joke or uh I'm sure he didn't think about the metahumor like I did.

[LordNagetiere]

For for household- Desired some, Received less than some, Priority low

Crappy books about war shit - Desired tons, Received 0, Priority urgent

On the plus side, Groat kind is a pioneer in the field of being a bum of the 21st century; the cyberbum.

[Kindrift]

I may still get around to writing this.  'Til then, more from Lulz.

I talked to Groat about this. One of the reasons it never continued was because his partner in the comic (Richard Konkle) was for years off doing some kind of military stuff. When he finally got done with that Groat flew down to see him so they could hammer out details on the next comic but Konkle supposedly spent most of the time playing World of Warcraft -- after this fiasco Groat pretty much concluded the comic was dead.
Nonetheless he did have a conclusion planned out and he told me what it was but I forget since I haven't read this comic in about a decade and don't remember the plot or where or if it was going anywhere.

BTW this also means that anyone who was a sucker enough to purchase a 'subscription' to the comic is probably boned as well.

Speaking from personal observations, I can give you some corrections. You have a few dates off. For one thing, Rich & Jim split up around 1991. Long before there was any World of Warcraft or Warcraft of any kind.

Equine the Uncivilized/Red Shetland were both created by Rich Konkle in the mid-80's, not Groat. Jim was just a convenient artist who agreed to draw the comic when Rich was too occupied with his military duties while he was stationed here at Offutt Air Force base in Omaha.

By around 1990, Rich was out of the Air Force and moved out of town, but he went ahead and let Groat "inherit" the comic. As far as Rich was concerned, the novelty of the gag had been finished and the "black & white" glut was well into imploding.

So, Groat tried to make this his cash cow, not caring if there was a B&W Implosion or not. He also used it as a vehicle to commit one scam after another (is Jim EVER going to complete that Red Shetland cartoon wit Eric Schwartz that he started taking donations for back in '92?).

By the turn of the new millennium, it was all the same old rehashed stories of "Red goes into town and beats up evil wizard there" in every issue, and pretty much anyone who was ever going to have any interest in buying a copy had already done so by then, but Jim just refused to accept that his twilight was nigh. Sooner or later, he was going to run out of stock because he neglected to tell his printer back in Arizona that he moved and said printer destroyed all of the printing plates, thus locking out any chance of Jim ordering up a bunch of new copies to sell.

I used to have a huge posterboard pic of Equine that Rich Konkle once drew at a con. I had no place to keep it after I moved in '93 however so I gave it to Christopher Handley (yes, that Christopher Handley).

And there you have, the rest of the cool story, bro.

I'll add a bit to that.

Scott Malcomson, who is the repeat Reform party candidate for Arizona governor and furry unicorn man, burned a few thousand dollars on the animation deal. He really wanted to see it finished. But nothing came of it for a decade, so around 2006 Malcomson approached Groat. Scott offered to buy all the remaining prints of, and the rights to, Red Shetland -- a couple thousand bucks for everything. The offer slowly went back and forth a for few months, Malcomson would offer more cash, Groat would mumble and "think about it." At the end, Groat killed the deal, because Malcomson was pestering him too much about it... Malcomson says he mentioned the offer about three times in as many months.

Jim the dumpster diver holds several charity events every year to benefit himself. His truck was broken into, his truck broke down, minorities stole his kids' Christmas gifts from the trunk of his car, his bicycle was stolen, the lizard needs an operation, it's always something. He's always in financial crisis. He's always out a few hundred bucks after each fur con, he claims, because nobody buys his Red Shetland material. So why pass up a few thousand dollars and a chance to sell it all at once? What's wrong with this story?

[Sechs]

I may still get around to writing this.  'Til then, more from Lulz.

Just be careful taking Groat stories from Lulz. If you accidentally get a Hirtes post in there somehow, well, no one will believe the real crap once he's been accused of raping babies and beating up on poor innocent welfare leeches.

Jim the dumpster diver holds several charity events every year to benefit himself. His truck was broken into, his truck broke down, minorities stole his kids' Christmas gifts from the trunk of his car, his bicycle was stolen, the lizard needs an operation, it's always something. He's always in financial crisis. He's always out a few hundred bucks after each fur con, he claims, because nobody buys his Red Shetland material. So why pass up a few thousand dollars and a chance to sell it all at once? What's wrong with this story?

I can see a couple of reasons. All of them dumb.

One might be that he still thinks he can make more money eventually with Red Shetland material than the few thousand dollars all at once, despite his whining. This would require that he be more stupid than people who advocate Communism, since at least they have the excuse of only having watched it stumble, fail, and be discarded historically and from a distance... the fail of Groat's own personal "Red" scare has happened to him directly and he apparently still refuses to learn from it, if that's the case.

Another might be that he simply holds his personal sentimental attachment to the character and the stuff above his obligations to his finances and his family. Obviously I don't need to elaborate on how petty and irresponsible that is.

Third possibility, he thought that was just the next stage in the process. Maybe he was thinking that since the offer kept going up, if he actually told the dude to go away, the next thing that would happen is a dumptruck full of money pulling up to the house and Malcomson walking up to the door on his knees to plead with him. More money and an ego-stroke.

[IceCat]

Then there's these gems from the AC meme that's making the rounds on FA:

Can I hang out with you?
Maybe! If you're a pal, But during business hours in the dealers room, the answer is no. I can talk, but can't have you glued to the front of the table all day. I may invite you behind the table.
I do love invites to join a group for food outings though. Sometimes i get overlooked and i end up not having anyone to go with and i starve. Invites welcome! ;___;

That's because Groat never pays for meals, and expects some sucker to pick up his tab for dinner, I know because I've been out to eat with him in a group, and as is usual, some sucker will pick up his tab. and this includes a friend of mine.

Then there is this

Oh the stuff in the art show, that never sells or gets bids, every con I've been to, and in every art show Groat's stuff  is in no one ever bids on his stuff, he should just give it up, it's been over for years now.

And Finally the most telling answer he gives.

• Can I give you money?
Is the Pope Darth Sidious? Does the sun rise and set? Of Coarse you can give me money, I need money.

You can ssee the rest of his answers here.. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1433526/

[u63r]

I pop open a beer and take a swig (ugh...I hate beer!) and...

I lol'd.

[Lazarian]

• Are you taken?
Not for a serious relationship.

I always had the idea that being married with kids somehow was a serious relationship...

[Sechs]

• Are you taken?
Not for a serious relationship.

I always had the idea that being married with kids somehow was a serious relationship...

Not to judge by the way he seems to treat his.

[IceCat]

More form the Jim Groat bitch and moan show.

If there was one of those days where everything that could go wrong...did...so heres my rant.

Dear Co-worker asshole, I could have been out the door AT 7:30AM and getting the replacement rental truck, But No, you gotta flap your chaw filled Pie-hole an additional 40 minutes and take me to a truck agency a half hour away instead of the one 5 minutes away...because the other one was closer to YOUR Route start. Your actions didn't allow me to leave til 9:30.

Dear Prior rental Asshole, thank you for being a total douche and filling up a diesel truck with regular gas because you didn't want to pay the higher diesel price. Your actions killed the engine while I was in the middle of nowhere.

Dear Ryder rental asshole, telling me that you will be on site with a replacement truck in 20 minutes I expect you to arrive in 20 minutes to a half hour. Not 95 minutes later!!! You added to my delay.

Dear Cottage Grove police and parade assholes, I understand you were having a parade soon, but it was a half HOUR before it was to start and you refuse to allow me cross the street to let me get 6 deliveries done. Plus you funnel me MILES away from where I could escape your damn Pride Parade, More delays.

Dear Eco-Nazi asshole, Thank you for bitching at me for my idling diesel truck 2 doors down from your house while I was making a quick delivery. You insist on blocking me while you had the gall to call police for violating a Winter rule on idling trucks in city limits. Oh and BTW, Bush is no longer President, You can remove that Impeach Bush sticker off your Prius.

Dear Rottweiler owner Asshole, You tell me that Cujo is a sweet dog, but a snarling, barking, frothing dog is not a sign of being sweet. Yelling at me for NOT bringing your delivery directly to your hands while you held a thick CHAIN to hold the dog doesn't win you care points.

Dear Home Owner assholes of the 500 block of Panther Avenue, ever hear of house numbers on your home or at minimum mailboxes? Yelling at me for misdelivering to the wrong house is partly your fault (8 houses, 7 were missing numbers!)

Dear Business Assholes, Thank you for closing 3-5 hours early so I can't deliver that load of 200 pound deadweight boxes you insist I deliver Saturday!

Dear Insane Cat lady asshole, Thank you for telling me that being allergic to cats is all just mental and not actual while you have your house infested with by your own admittance "Over 200 cats", it smells like a giant uncleaned litter box and my asthma attack was very real! You fat lazy bitch can't even go to Wal Mart to buy your cat food, you instead pay Wal Mart to ship you cases of cat food!

Dear Department of Transportation Assholes, thank you for fining me $125 for working on the road in excess of 13 hours straight! I was trying to catch up from being delayed almost 4 hours due to repeated truck failures. But No, you don't care do you?

And..Dear Isuzu assholes, Thank you for making a shoddy vehicle that rattles like its rolling sideways down a hill, and rusting up in nothing flat in a less than a year old vehicle.

There....vented. My day starts at 6AM, I would have been done at 4PM, I didn't get done til 8PM and STILL didn't get the Cottage Grove deliveries done thanks to a Pride Parade, had I done those 6 on my way home, add at least another hour!


I'm broke, hungry and seriously need a shower.

The rest is here, mostly replies from hangers on, and "friends" of Groat: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1490616/

[Sechs]

Hm. If it's all true, some of that was pretty shitty on behalf of the other people. Calling the cops because of an idling truck, WTF?

If it's all true.

Honestly, Groat is such an expert at these long, detailed tales of woe that happen with such regularity that you have to wonder. He's either astoundingly resilient to a consistent string of disaster and hardship that there's actually a tough human being under the beard and fat somewhere, or he's quite the master of the bullshit yarn.

[Heimdal]

Nobody wants to help out the guy who can't stop bitching and calling people "assholes" for every little inconvenience.
If he isn't bullshitting, then I suspect that all of it is self-inflicted.

[genericfurry]

Wow, I think he just went through an entire list of clichés just for the sake of absolving himself from his responsibilities as a....whatever kind of delivery guy he is.

Either he's very creative, or a born loser. Ive seen his 'artwork' and I'm leaning towards the latter...