Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
We have lost a great poster, a great board member, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend.
In his lifetime immessedup17 was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend CSFMB's wounded spirit, to restore Hawks chat, and to fix the search function. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk.
Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For IMU also embodied another great cause - what Telegram Sam once called "the great cause of cheering us all up". His posts had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately even from his mortal enemies, Boilermaker Rick and Darkside.
Yet his humor often had a purpose beyond humor. In the terrible hours after his first banning, his easy jokes gave reassurance to anxious CSFMBers on Facebook. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure.
And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. IMU himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told Rogers Park Bryan after being allowed his return, "Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the bigfan Upstairs".
And surely it is hard to deny that IMU's life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the year or so that followed.
Others prophesied the decline of the message board; he inspired CSFMB and its members with renewed faith in their mission of idiocy.
Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed stagnant topics into Thread of the Year contenders.
Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with Darkside; he won the Cold War - not only without attending Lakemoor Fest, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends at the Bulls game.
I cannot imagine how any pantsless cretin, or any Internet troll, could improve on his words to Boliermaker Rick On CSFMB: "Go Die in a fire." Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in truth.
We live today on a message board that IMU began to reshape with those words. It is a very different board with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one far superior to two years ago.
As a Board Elder, I worked closely with IMU for three of the most important years of all our lives. We argued regularly both before and after his initial banning. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great CSFMB member.
IMU knew his own mind. He had firm principles - and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively.
When the haters threw vitriol at the IMU, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do.
When his allies came under pressure from jimmypasta, they could look confidently to IMU for firm leadership.
And when his enemies tested IMU's resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding. Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth.
Yes, he asserted that Luol Deng was better than Carmelo Anthony; but he also recognized the similarities between Brett Jackson and Mike Trout.
Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Darksides's "evil empire". But he realized that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors.
Nothing was more typical of IMU than that large-hearted magnanimity - and nothing was more CSFMBian.
Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. IMU carried the CSFMB members with him in his great endeavors because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved CSFMB and what it stands for - freedom and opportunity for all Internet douchebags.
As an employee on Schaumburg's fast track, he helped to make the American dream live for millions of poor people. In fact, he stated simply that he was sorry they were poor. His own life was a fulfilment of his dreams. He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of self.
He was able to say `God Bless IMU' with equal fervor in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow-CSFMBers to make sacrifices for IMU - and to make sacrifices for those who looked to IMU for hope and rescue.
We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that IMU never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of CSFMB's children.
_________________
Boilermaker Rick wrote:
rpb is wrong. Phil McCracken is useful.
Chus wrote:
RPB is right. You suck.
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