Thursday night's city council meeting begins in harmony, ends in farce thanks to Siamese Councilmen.

Groucho Marx dropped out of school after the eighth grade and went into show business. Self-conscious about his lack of a formal education, he spent the remainder of his life devouring books, making up for lost time and – in the words of his son, Arthur – “overcompensating.”

In mid-life, Groucho took up writing and penned a number of well-received articles and books. While almost entirely self-educated, and widely regarded as conversant in many topics, Groucho nonetheless constantly extolled the virtues of finishing high school and attending college, and the example he provides us is exemplary.

That’s because so many in Groucho’s position have become embittered, embracing anti-intellectualism as a salve for the sense of inferiority they feel from not receiving a proper education.

Others preen, posture and pretend, claiming expertise on any and all topics, certain that they “know” more than those who have been trained in specialized fields.

Groucho took up the matter of his own education, and succeeded admirably in furthering it. However, he was not a know-it-all. The middle Marx Brother performed in enough vaudeville dives – and we’ve all sat in enough barrooms – to know that the world’s know-it-alls seldom actually do.

Although they never – never – seem to tire of the sound of their own voices.

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It was a light agenda at last evening’s second city council meeting of 2006.

The festering disconnect between the trog blog’s standard heated appeal to attend and make its precious few voices heard, and the miniscule attendance of its adherents, was manifested in only two speakers coming forward during public communications, neither of whom might be termed a denizen of the Luddite Bar & Grill.

Council housekeeping tasks included approval of President Jeff Gahan’s slate of appointments of council members to various local boards and bodies, and this was achieved, though not without an odd miscommunication between CM Gahan and CM Bill Schmidt.

Similarly, the council’s internal committee structure was approved.

The second and third readings of an ordinance to allow the fine people at the animal shelter (animal control services) to improve their already stellar performance by means of an altered fee structure was approved.

Then, finally, there was a buzz in the orchestra pit and the curtain rose, and it was time for CM Dan “Wizard of Westside” Coffey to carry Gary “The Gary” McCartin’s lunch across the ungrateful playground and into the safe haven of Charlestown Crossing (Matthew’s Center), the sprawlmeister’s new cookie cutter of suburban clutter, which required the council’s imprimatur to open for business.

It was the council’s consideration of this same ordinance that led to the January 9 appearance of The Gary and his subsequent oratorical fireworks, directed first at CM Bev Crump, then at the entire council, and finally tied together in a grandiose, spluttering condemnation of the city’s planning and zoning regimen, replete with enough self-aggrandizement to embarrass Stalin’s cult of personality.

But not last night, for The Gary predictably dispatched a proxy, the once-proud Brent Jacobs, and Brent was forced to concede that one of the businesses already had opened its doors in anticipation of the council vote, and although this seemed to presage an approval that finally did seem the mere formality so intemperately demanded by The Gary last time out, we must note that when the vote finally came, CM Crump abstained … and CM Coffey, recipient of The Gary’s financial largesse as recently as last Christmas, steamed ahead with an affirmative and enthusiastic “aye” vote.

That’d be the same Dan Coffey who was quite ready to fall to his knees on January 9 and ask forgiveness of The Gary for the council’s improper questions of an Immortal.

In fact, stated CM Coffey on the 9th, he could not recall a previous instance of such disrespectful temerity on the part of a councilperson, conveniently forgetting his own disjointed dissertation on drainage issues during a debate on the Kenzig Road patio home proposal last June.

More was about to come.

With the rubber stamp duly accorded The Gary’s already humming exurban development, and with the CM Coffey’s hypocrisy meter now threatening to break loose of its moorings and skyrocket through the ceiling and straight to Alpha Centauri, the Wizard then took the lead in a stunning insurrection with regard to the short evening’s final item of business, which would have approved a plan for apartments along Grant Line Road north of Indiana University Southeast.

Groucho Marx stirred uneasily in his grave as CM Coffey commenced questioning (questioning … wait, the council doesn’t do that, right Dan?) the unanimous planning recommendation for the proposed apartment project on the grounds that parking would be insufficient, and soon the aria became a duet as the second of two conjoined councilmen, Steve Price, joined CM Coffey in doubting that such a developer could be trusted owing to his eagerness to make money – The Gary’s eerily similar motives now forgotten, to remain respectfully buried … until next Christmas, if not before.

Voting began, and for reasons known only to him, CM Donnie Blevins chose this moment to toss a bone to the Gang of Four, joining the visibly disgruntled CM Schmidt and slippery CM Larry Kochert in junking the apartment proposal, which almost certainly will wind its way back to the council in modified form, awaiting its developer to reconsider his charitable expenditures for the coming year.

Naturally, it was a small and entirely transitory victory for the Wizard, whose political day has passed, and whose McCarthyesque bile expands as his influence noticeably wanes.

Following the meeting, when asked by a peer – himself an appointed public official – whether he would be apologizing to the Grant Line project developer in the same manner as he’d apologized to The Gary, a red-faced CM Coffey pointed a stubby finger at the questioner and said, “Don’t start with me, boy.”

That’s right: “Boy.”

In the year 2006.

As CM Coffey himself remarked earlier in the evening, “Let’s go back to the Head Start.”

Indeed.