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Saturday, January 29, 2011

"Thank God" I was an ID Boy?

Some years ago I participated in a musical performance at an all-hands meeting where I worked. Many large companies have such meetings, to inform and indoctrinate employees and try to improve the mood of their ever-changing, ever-vulnerable morale. To the tune of John Denver's classic hit, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy," the Information Development department sang lyrics specially written for it by one of the ensemble's members.
    You can see their performance on YouTube. That's me, fourth from the right, wearing suspenders to hold up my pants:

Below are the lyrics, written by my colleague in Cary Information Development, Bruce Korn (as indicated on YouTube). I found them printed in the January 1992 issue of What's Up?, the department's newsletter (of which I was the proud editor).
Well I write all day and I try to make a living
Developers are here and they're looking kind of coy
My wife never sees me; still she's loving and she's giving
Thank God I'm an ID Boy!

[refrain] Well I got me a pen, and I got my Xedit
Got a great big draft, but no one's ever read it
The pressure tries to get me but I'm never gonna let it
Thank God I'm an ID Boy!

The books are never done cause the code is always changing
My editor is here and he's eating Almond Joys
He says don't stop--you must keep on rearranging
Thank God I'm an ID Boy!

[refrain]

I'm working real hard but I'm never getting finished
My manager is here and she's working on a ploy
She assigns more people but the work just won't diminish
Thank God I'm an ID Boy!

[refrain]

The pubs are finally done, though I really don't believe it
Some customers are here and are filling up with joy
The work starts again though it's hard to just conceive it
Thank God I'm an ID Boy!

[refrain]
To review a rendition by John Denver, to try to decide which you prefer:

An aside was prompted by the comment of a friend who watched our YouTube performance:
    She emailed me, "Guess you weren’t always an atheist...," seeming to imply that an atheist (one acting with intellectual integrity, anyway) would not participate in singing a song that includes the phrase, "Thank God."
    First, of course, if she's right, atheists would have to find an alternative to United States currency. I haven't checked all of the denominations lately, but I believe that at least one of them has "In God We Trust" engraved on it.
    Second, it isn't relevant that when "ID Boy" was performed, I hadn't yet summoned the courage to face up to the more than adequate evidence that God does not exist. (I finally did so in the months leading up to September 9, 2007.)
    Third and finally, of course, we can read or utter any phrase we can decipher or wrap our mouth around, since we're capable of distinguishing between art, science, philosophy, history, journalism, and politics, on the one hand, and personal beliefs about what it's all about on the other. Well, "anyone" perhaps but religious fanatics who commit real crimes like burning down buildings or beheading other human beings to protest a fantasy crime like a cartoonist's or a novelist's lampooning the Prophet Muhammad or a thinking person's subjecting religion to rational and moral scrutiny.

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