For those who still care, I apologize for being out of commission these past few weeks. I just couldn’t find the words to express what I’ve been feeling but, between poor Terri Schiavo, that stirring Easter address from the Pope, and the fact that there will soon be two Ashton Kutcher films in national release, I figured vegetative incoherence was all the rage these days. I mean, it got Dubya re-elected, so what the hell, right? Well, sorry, but the break gave me a lot of time to sit and fester in what one reader so eloquently referred to as my “stank-filled basement,” so here I am, ready to upset some more Catholic Clay Aiken fans or other sanctimonious nutcases intent on e-mailing me missives in angry pink fonts.
Two points:
1. Michael Jackson. Major kook. Needs some help. No argument here. But enough already. Wouldn’t the company of children be appealing to you if the sanest member of your family couldn’t keep her boobs to herself? Marlon, Tito, and the gang are just sitting at home playing Xbox until Michael agrees to a reunion tour. And I’m not so sure that his fingerprints and those of his alleged victims on some porno mags are enough evidence for the public to turn Jacko into Jeffrey Dahmer. C’mon—you keep XXX-rated entertainment in your place, Neverland or no, and some little lost boy is gonna check it out, and I don’t care how many chimpanzees are there to distract him. Let’s just all relax and admit that the darling parents of these youngsters should’ve thought twice before depositing them in the custody of Peter Pan and leave it at that. (I’d hate to think what an ambitious prosecutor could make of the things a police raid would uncover in my closet; even though Falcon Video swears it has the ages of all its actors on file somewhere, I can’t vouch that everybody participating in These Bases Are Loaded was able to vote for president the year it was made.)
2. Jim Guckert or Jeff Gannon or whatever he’s calling himself. What happened to the media outrage over this man? If a gay escort with nude online photos were given a press pass to the White House to pose as a journalist and whore the administration’s views during Clinton’s term, Jesse Helms would still be on the Senate floor calling for the guillotine. Not only is Mr. “Gannon” nota journalist but, based on a recent Q&A with him in The New York Times Magazine, he’s dumb as a box of rocks and hoping for more handouts. He tells interviewer Deborah Solomon that he now wants to be “one of those political analysts that you see on the news shows all the time,” and defers his position on gay marriage by discussing his devotion to his dog, Winston. You can’t make up appalling scandal like this, yet there he was, comfy for two years at White House press briefings during a high-security, post–9/11 presidency, and no one’s kicking up a fuss.
Where are our nation’s priorities? Hey, I’d like to ask White House press secretary Scott McClellan a few questions—should I snap some jpegs of my privates and wait for my pass in the mail?
