In terms of the Imus affair, Phillipe + Jorge can’t get over how the whole world of public affairs has undergone a process of Hillary-ization.
Never mind how media whores like Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton and Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson have never apologized for their past transgressions — and add the Duke lacrosse players to their odious list of silence when the heat is on. The public response from these two clowns echoes what everyone is saying: “We need to have a ‘conversation’ about race.”
Bullshit. No one wants to confront how America remains a racist society. But in the great Clintonian style, we need to have a “listening tour,” and “conversations,” and “discussions.” Tawana Sharpton, naturally, says his brethren and he will hold a “Town Hall meeting forum” to address this societal dysfunction.
This Kumbaya-chanting mentality is just an easy way to duck the problem of race in the US while appearing to be genuinely concerned about it. Hillary, listen all you want, but if you can’t believe your lying eyes, rather than having some Oprah-esque plant in the audience throw you a softball question, you have as much chance of being president as John Kerry.
Hey, Barack: turn this around. You talk, we’ll listen. And if we don’t like what you have to say, that’s your bad luck. And to the ladies from Rutgers — what’s on your iPods?
Hawaiian ho
What an amazing cosmic joke that Don Ho should pass away during the Imus’ “nappy-headed ho’s” contretemps. Tiny caption bubbles all around.
People dropping, name-dropping
We’re so sad to see the wonderful novelist Kurt Vonnegut and the excellent cartoonist Johnny Hart pass away to that Wizard of Id-Dresden meat locker in the sky. Through absolute chance, Phillipe, in an ephemeral way, crossed paths with both.
Growing up, P.’s best friend in his teens was the son of Curt Swan, who drew the Superman comic books for DC. It was always a marvel (no pun intended) to see the edge of his drawing board lined by images of Clark Kent’s nemeses, to remind him what they looked like if the script dragged them into play.
When P.’s friend got into a horrible car accident, Curt had all his cartoonist friends do a poster-size “get well” card for the youth, featuring Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, and their back pages mates, along with one of the cavemen from Hart’s B.C. strip urging him to recover quickly. It was a masterpiece for admirers of schlock, to be sure.
And while living in New York City, P. and his companion of the time once house-sat for Vonnegut and his wife, photo-essayist Jill Krementz, in their elegant East Side brownstone. Vonnegut and Krementz employed P.’s friend as a personal assistant, and P. helped take care of their little pooch while they went away for the weekend.
No great shakes, but the best part was how P.’s companion typed up Vonnegut’s drafts for his publisher, and for a Christmas present, gave him one of the first cuts from Breakfast Of Champions. It was most interesting to see the editing process, since an editor had broken the middle pages into two separate chapters, which was not Vonnegut’s original intent. It’s nice to know how even the best fall victim to the blue pencil.
R.I.P, boys.
Dollar bills
Quelle surprise to find two state legislators, Senators Daniel DaPonte and Stephen Alves, are being scrutinized regarding business dealings involving Prudential Financial and a labor union pension fund.
We note that US Attorney Robert Corrente is quite interested in the matter, reported Sunday by the Other Paper’s Mike Stanton, as part of his Operation Dol¬lar Bill investigation into influence-peddling at the State House.
P&J have never met Senator DaPonte, so as far as we know he could be an upstanding gentleman who loves God and family. Your superior correspondents have crossed paths with Senator Alves, however, and have found him to be obnoxious, self-absorbed, blathering, and bullying.
We cannot wait to find out what went on between Prudential and these two knuckle-draggers. The related hummer could provide us with yards of copy for the next year.
Sleep tight, Tom Ryan.
Analyze this
Your superior correspondents have never been to Club Therapy in Providence. That’s not because we are against either nightclubs or therapy. It’s just that the two words just don’t make a lot of sense as a phrase.
We could be missing the obvious here. It could be that the “club” in question is a wooden truncheon and that beating someone over the head with it is the type of “therapy” likely to be received at this particular boite.
Club Therapy does not have a liquor license and does not, therefore, serve alcoholic beverages to its customers. This may give some folks the sense that there is a therapeutic element to the club. Perhaps this therapeutic reputation is what attracted WJAR’s I-Team to the nightspot. After all, if you call yourselves “the I-Team,” there is a good chance that you have some unresolved self-esteem or ego issues.
The I-Team found that the manager of Club Therapy, Harry Gonzalez, had recently moved from Warwick to Providence, but neglected, as required, to register as a sex offender. He has been known to wear a bulletproof vest while at work at Club Therapy.
Neither of these elements seems to jibe with the “therapy” element, unless you are into alternative therapies, such as the “Leave No Child’s Behind” (endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church) or “Tough Love, NRA-style.”
