(APOO)  “He pulled a knife, and I had to shoot him!”  So averred Wolf T. Flywheel, self-appointed Washington policy guru, of the mysterious death of other self-appointed Washington policy guru, Mart Grunge.  Grunge’s squat, hairy corpse was found hanging from a bungee cable in his workout room last Tuesday.  His notorious blog—the Grunge Garage—had failed to appear for several days, so a team of Web Kops was dispatched to  break into Grunge’s shabby but heavily fortified bunker in a downscale suburb of the nation’s capitol.

Grunge’s neighbors said he was a loner, super-reclusive and given to donning disguises such as a full Darth Vader uniform or an R2D2 look-alike leisure suit.  The last known photo of Grunge was taken at a St. Gandolf’s Junior Do-Gooder League picnic in 1985.  It shows a bewildered, bespectacled leprechaun in a disco-era getup of unspeakable goofiness.

After a desultory career in several community colleges east of the Potomac, Grunge in 1998 hit on the desperate expedient of starting a blog.  At first he confined himself to the usual self-obsessed confessional ramblings of a dull, naive and verbally challenged nerd.  In the terminal phases of the illegal Republikan investigation of Lowensteingate, Grunge became a chief rumor-monger and high assistant prevaricator to Kent Strapp, Grand Inquisitor and de facto Republikan Minister of Black Propaganda. 

Grunge then scored many victories of doublespeak over such foreign adversaries as Andorra, East Timor and Lower Rumania, all mini-axes of badness.  His poli-gossip blog continued to enchant legions of quasi-literate followers who especially appreciated the stick-figure illustrations that framed his garbled rants.  One such fan, Ergot Wellspring, of Intercourse, PA., wrote in, “i luv how u h8 so meni guyz i h8 2.  don’t forgit to mess around wen u do the charlston.  luv, yr pal Erg.”

The U. S Institute of Unlicensed Bloggers bid Grunge a fond farewell and awarded him (posthumously) its Irridium-Zircon Medal (3^rd class) for Intrepid Bloggery. Local police have filed the case under Unsolvable and are negotiating with various cable networks on rights to portray it erroneously in a bio-pic series.  His internet provider said (not for publication), “He still owed us for the last six months.”  A fitting epitaph for one so OCD-ishly dedicated to all-in bloggery in the 21^st century. ###