The Gorko Gazette

McFilthy is a survivor of childhood Gorko trauma, author of Gorko Go Home, and a Gorko trauma-coded life coach. Through personal resilience and decades of experience, McFilthy empowers others to refocus their past, embrace the healing process, and go after Raddy with professional, competent high-powered attorneys. McFilthy’s message is that this is YOUR story.

TGG: When were you first abused by Raddy?

McFilthy: I think it was in the seventh grade when Raddy approached me with his first newsletter. It was out back of the Peoria Lanes bowling alley where they used to have kids league. The pamphlet or whatever it was was called, I think it was called The Hefty Porker or something stupid like that. It was full of these articles that Raddy had written under different psuedonyms, and it was just…just horrible. [McFilthy breaks down in tears]

TGG: Take your time, take your time. How were you first acquainted with Raddy?

McFilthy: It was through the bowling, I think, or maybe we did jazz dance together, or the gingerbread house workshop. Yeah I think it was the gingerbread workshop. We decorated both houses and gingerbread men. Nobody liked Raddy, of course, but he had this winning personality that implied trust, and so I think we were all just blindsided by the newsletters.

TGG: There was absolutely no warning that he was such an awful writer. That he would expose you to such dreadful writing.

McFilthy: We were all abused by him, and the abuse took place in the light of day, under adult supervision. Not a single adult ever stepped in and said, Raddy, what you are doing is wrong. These are truly atrocious, twelve-year-old jokes, and completely inappropriate for league bowling.

TGG: Terrible to think of. I can’t even imagine being put in such a situation.

McFilthy: As time went on, as these things go, the newsletters got longer, and more complex. The original Hefty Porker was just one printed page. By the time Raddy got done with us and the bowling league, in about 1998, he had started putting out The Gorko.

TGG: Tell us what you remember about the early Gorkos.

McFilthy: Well, yeah, they were thick, like probably fourteen or twenty pages, and full of just the most awful writing you can imagine. None of it made any sense whatsoever. There was absolutely no context for any of it.

TGG: Did Raddy also publish poetry?

McFilthy: Oh God, yes. And it was not just that he exposed us to his horrible verse and prose, it was that he gaslit us, making us think that WE were the ones with questionable taste, and then he began recruiting us to write for him.

TGG: No!

McFilthy: It was extremely devious and, I have to say it, ingenious. This is how this kind of manipulative person operates, first they abuse you, then they make you think you enjoy it, and then they turn you into an abuser yourself, making you think that there is no escape, to do their dirty work for them, to expand their network of victims.

TGG: How did you finally see the light? How were you able to escape the cycle of gorkoing?

McFilthy: Well it just went too far. I guess you could say I saw the bottom come up. I had been contributing articles to The Gorko for nearly half a year, not eating, not sleeping, just obsessed by meeting deadlines for Raddy. And filling the world with this horrible trash, contaminating friends and family with the corniest, meanest jokes you can ever imagine, bad non-literature. I was gaunt like a meth head, I had lost all my friends, my family had set up an intervention in which they begged me to stop the bad writing, my bowling game had gone into the gutter, but I simply could not quit The Gorko.

TGG: Then what happened?

McFilthy: Then one day a kind of miracle happened. I was standing on a street corner, shivering, I had not showered or changed my clothes for several weeks, I think I had been living with my cousin Jedd in his garage where he does the tire service, and a flyer blew against my leg, so I picked it up.

TGG: What did the flyer say?

McFilthy: It was an invitation to a meeting of the GA, Gorkos Anonymous. And I believe now that it was a message from God.

TGG: And was that when you changed your name to McFilthy?

McFilthy: McFilthy is my actual name.

TGG: Oh. Oh! See, we all thought it was a stupid joke.

McFilthy: Yes, I understand. Originally in the Old Country the name was McFeahealthy, but it got shortened at Ellis Island, my grandfather did not know how to spell and his brogue was so thick that the immigration officers did not understand him, in fact thought he was Portuguese, so ever since then we have been the McFilthies.

TGG: So sorry about that.

McFilthy: No problem. At the Gorko Anonymous meeting I was Albert, of course. And as I was saying, that is where I saw the light. I did the steps, I took the program seriously and got a sponsor, my first sponsor’s name was also Albert, and it was a lot of hard work. I did not believe at first, but slowly, step by step, I came out of the dark. I have not read a single Gorko article in twenty-five years, come next Tuesday.

TGG: What an amazing story, McFlithy. Congratulations on your recovery and all of your hard work. You have in fact made something of a career out of gunning for Raddy and his notorious magazine, is that not so?

McFilthy: I have my speaking circuit, and have sponsored more than three hundred victims of Gorko writing, including many members of my own congregation and extended family. These days more and more of the abused are stepping forward and speaking about their trauma, and if we want to make real progress, and expose The Gorko for what it was and continues to be, this is what we need. We need brutal honesty, and an acknowledgement of past pain and shame, in order to stop the cycle.

TGG: Thank you for your time, McFilthy.

McFilthy: Thank you, Beauregard, and…what was the name of your magazine?

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE…

Image: 2024-09-13 Musikzentrum Hannover Interview Stadtkind hannovermagazin.jpg