Gorping

 

The North American Language Institute’s Encyclopedia of English Slang Terminologies.

 

The verb ‘Gorp’ is listed in older copies of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, as an anachronistic terminology that refers to gluttony or the act of consuming food rapidly. In Finche’s accessible compendium of esoteric adjectives, expletives, and other arcane and extreme terminologies, Gorp, is listed as a colloquialism once used in pre-annexation California to describe an insect that resembled a cross between a Praying Mantis and a Dung Beetle, known to habitually infest livestock feeding troughs and horse kennels. The bug in question is now believed to have gone extinct, although unconfirmed reports indicate that it has become a nuisance for backyard-dog-breeding operations.

Most recently, ‘Gorp’ has been employed to denote a particular mixture of nuts, seeds, berries and dried fruits—generically known as trail-mix—favored by people who frequently hike along challenging terrain, as a way of maintaining energy through a supply of easily digested food that is high in carbohydrates. This mixture is of course widely used, not only by enthusiasts of Saturday afternoon nature-trail excursions, and mountain-bikers; but also by school-children during snack-periods, teenagers watching DVD’s at home, and travelers on long road trips, not to mention just about everyone else at one time or another.

The intransitive usage, ‘Gorping,’ is defined by Praxler’s Yearly Slang Index (PYSI), as an activity involving the rapid imbibing of any substance for the purpose of “gorging oneself excessively to amuse one’s friends; winning a contest involving the intentional over-consumption of edibles usually taken in moderation; or, drinking a large amount of any alcoholic beverage in a very short time span to induce a state of immoderate inebriation.” It is this last definition that has most recently morphed into a practice involving large groups of college students, or ‘Twentysomethings’ collectively harmonizing in public places during the late evening hours.

What sets this practice apart from other forms of ‘singing,’ busking, or even boisterous shouting, is the material itself. A proper ‘Gorping’ session requires that the participants, sing, intone, or scream, in unison, the names of well-known corporate entities, followed by a rising crescendo of expletives and obnoxious noises; which culminates in a cacophony of spirited cursing, raucous laughter, and the sounds of breaking glass, as beer bottles and ale mugs are hurled into the curb and sidewalk. After this buildup—whose success is usually measured by the number of lights that go one in nearby houses and buildings—the participants hobble off drunkenly in separate directions, presumably to sleep it off.

The most interesting aspect of Gorping, however, is the content of the songs, or chants, themselves, which bear a striking resemblance in structure and approach to the nonsense versus contrived in schoolyards by grammar school aged children. However, unlike the rhyming quatrains of their prepubescent counterparts, ‘Gorpers’ pride themselves on what has become known in the Twittering realm as “Anti-Rhymes.” Anti-Rhymes” are verses intentionally denuded of alliteration in their last stanzas, so that the initial couplet is followed by a discordant and unrelated phrasing, or expletive, which draws attention to the non-sequiter that characterizes the transition from the naming portion of the chant. Thus, the popular ‘Gorp’ whose initial couplet is: “McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Burger King, Gap; McDonald’s Wal-Mart, Burger King, Gap;” which is followed by, “Asswipe, Shitbird, Cum-Bag Fuck!” This last combination sung twice.

The denouement is intended to shock the listener by conflating the proper names of well-known enterprises, with infantilizing and often scatological expletives that are intended to defang the ostensible subjects of these rigorously stylized recitations—that, in the words of social theorist, Garland Briggs, “Conspire to elevate their profits while causing great mischief”—and hence, neutralize them as powerful entities In essentially bringing such ubiquitous and monetarily esteemed corporations down to the level of the schoolyard and the barroom, the chanters are employing a method of incantatory invocation as old as the organized occult practice of ancient religious rites, and as widespread as the childhood practice of avoiding cracks in the sidewalk.

Ari Feldman of the Neurology of Mind Institute in Palo Alto, California, points out that the aforesaid practices are structurally similar to behaviors observed in individuals who suffer from a form of Tourette’s syndrome known as Coprolalia, which involves the involuntary utterance of expletives and other offensive words in public situations where they are potentially the most embarrassing. As an example of this strange behavior, catalyzed at the intersection of mental process and neurological impulses, Feldman relays a well-known anecdote about a religious Catholic parishioner, who often shouted sacrilegious epithets and the names of sexualized body parts during church services. The more embarrassing the expletive, the more likely he was to shout it at top volume during quiet lulls in the ceremony. Feldman points out, of course, that unlike Gorping, Coprolalia is mortifying to the individual, who is compelled, in a manner almost involuntary, like a reflex, to make such utterances; yet, “in the structure of the way the words are arranged, their repetition and rapidly enumerated combinations, there is a similarity.” He goes on to speculate that “such desires may, in fact, be universal and are seen in all cultures in a variety of forms.”

This sentiment is echoed by Bernard H. DeLaturno, a sociologist and historian of pagan religions, at the University of Colorado, who points out that “Gorping has its roots in ecstatic occult practices that date back to the incantatory song-cycles of Indo-Iranian shamanic harvest-festivals in ancient Persia. The priests would make an infusion from the seeds of the Harmel plant, also known as Haoma, and burn them, producing a pungent and intoxicating odor. Much revelry would follow, along with a series of chants intended to purge the attendees of evil spirits. This practice was a precursor to the more organized Zoroastrian ritual involving the consumption of Mang. In the latter case, the intent was to invoke, through the precise application of this ceremonial practice, the power of the spirits to turn back or stymie the forces of Alexander the Great, who conquered Persia in the Third century A.D.” DeLaturno goes on to compare such stylized attempt to purge a social group of a perceived evil, with its modern counterpart in the practices of Gorpers, whose nonsense chants, in his words, “aim to demystify the power of these large organizations, and in doing so reduce them to a comprehensible level.”

Social theorist, and Marxist culture critic, Fredric Jameson goes even further in politicizing what, until recently, was widely regarded as a meaningless fraternity-type social practice—on par with drinking game apps and saloon song roundabouts—by asserting that it has “profound social implications.” Jameson makes the persuasive claim that Gorping is the “encoding through social practice of a form of protest aimed at belittling and emasculating images of corporate power, which it achieves symbolically, at least, by equating the sanctioned titles of the companies that comprise the military, corporate complex, with the excretion of feces, and other practices that combine together in the scatological imagery used by Gorpers.” As an example, Jameson provides a version of a very popular Gorp, chanted frequently outside bistros and taverns in the Northeastern US:

                                    Kellogg, Brown and Root

                                    Kellogg, Brown and Root,

                                    Felchbag, Cumstain

                                    Cunthole, Quiffs!!

In addition to the above, Jameson mentions several related quatrains that invoke the names of Raytheon, McDonald Douglas, Citi Group and Clear Channel. “It is,” he concludes, “the most recent form of public resistance to corporate hegemony, and it is largely spontaneous, without any organizing structure or underlying ideology. This makes it truly populist, but also ripe for co-opting by the very forces that are the subjects of its ridicule.”

Where Jameson is leading with this point is not hard to imagine. One shudders at the thought of beer manufacturers organizing product friendly Gorps at local sporting events and concerts as a method of marketing. This is already happening in some places, although not in the ways anticipated by corporate sponsors--as mentioned in a related entry on “Organized Gorping,” or “Corping,” as it has been dubbed, located in the following chapter of this encyclopedia—but the practice is still largely the province of spontaneous gatherers in social situations. Only time will tell if this may change; and when it does, what form it will mutate into.

 

Related Practices

Gorpulating; Gorping in ASL and Braille; Pre-Gorpuscles, and other variations on dirty ditties in cities around the US. Competitive Gorping; Gorping for Snapple—see also, Organized Gorping, or ‘Corping.’ Silent Gorping; Gorping In China; Online Gorping; Gorktwittering; Ghost Gorping; Affirmative Gorping; and Gorp-overload; See-alss,“Gorp-Exhaustion Syndrome, and other social maladies of the 21^st century,” Roger F Bastock, Timothy Fehlner, Bantam Books, 2014; Gorping and municipal nuisance laws; see New York Ciry Police vs. Adam Bartz, et al, New York State Supreme Court 2012 (the decision upheld the right to Gopr as a form of First amendment protected speech, but with important limitations based on local decency standards and verbal obscenity statuettes. The NYPD is appealing the ruling. Occult Gorp. Gorp-Mongering; Gorping Incorporated, as an attempt to assimilate the practice into corporate marketing techniques; Gorpers-Anonymous; see also, Gorpers 12-step groups, and the larger issue of medicalizing the practice of Gorping. See Anton Krenkowsky Velchek, “Popular practice or harbinger of illness: the attempt to pathologize indecency” in Journal of Extreme Social Practices. Vol. 2 Fall 2012. Gorping on Mountain-tops; Gorping with Clown-Herds; solitary Gorping; Gorp communes; Gorping for money; Gorping as a form of deep breathing exercise. Master Gorper; Gorping musical books; Gorping in Spain..