The post title is wishful thinking, alas. Mayor Nagin is unhappy with the report by the company hired to look into his "missing" emails. LINK. It turns out that they were <drum roll> deliberately deleted by what C Ray called "some phantom." The Mayor pitched a minor conniption fit in front of the tevee cameras last night and whined that his new antagonists were out for their "15 seconds of fame." I'm relieved that his gift for malaprops didn't elude him in his hour of woe and confusion.

I suspect that Nagin is particularly vexed because the shit hit the fan on the eve of the Essence Festival, which is an event that gives him a chance to posture, preen and be a celebrity. Those mean old computer geeks are such a buzz kill, man. Hey, at least the lord of misrule's Mayor's reign is described in glowing terms on the festival's web site:

"Mayor Nagin's progressive policies resolved to erase the image of New Orleans as place where graft is part of the old world charm. He launched several high profile investigations that resulted in a paradigm shift that unleashed unprecedented economic development in his first term. Mayor Nagin built his administration using progressive, business oriented individuals who are making a difference for New Orleans."

He's a "progressive paradigm shifter?" I did not know that. He is, however, rather shifty as well as shiftless so maybe it fits. Hmm, I guess that makes Greg Meffert a "progressive business oriented individual." Who knew? Wow, I've learned a lot about our Mayor from this PR blurb. Anyway, if you want to see Mayor Paradigm Shift's Essence seminar at the Convention Center he'll be there on Sunday July, 5th.

I'm glad that someone out there still loves Ray Nagin and thinks of him not just as a man with a shiny head but as a shining star. Cue, EWF featuring Maurice White who is black but is nothing like NOLA trash diva Veronica:

It's not a slow news day here in Debrisville but WDSU has posted more dumbassery about the Brad Pitt For Mayor  "movement." Their web site must need the traffic. As far as I'm concerned it's just star frakking:

To gossip is to be human. People have always loved salacious details about well-known people including their rulers. Robert Graves' classic novel, I Claudius, was based upon that notion. Graves took Suetonius' The 12 Caesars and juiced it up. Most of us are more familiar with the brilliant BBC series based on the novel but if you've never read the original, it's even more gossipy than the Real Housewives of New Jersey and *almost* as sordid. Livia, however, doesn't flip a table...

Oscar Wilde was one of the world's great gossips and he was eventually hoist on his own petard. Wilde may have been the original tabloid-style celebrity. His comings and going were grist for everyone's mill and he eventually paid a terrible price for his sex life. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fantastic (in both senses of the word) story of a man who defies aging by magic. Dorian hangs a portrait of himself in his attic and it ages instead of the protagonist, as they say in the Midwest: "eh, good deal."

Mayor Nagin and Council President Fielkow have been trading barbs about C Ray's City Hall proposal. Nagin wants to buy the Chevron building and convert it into a "modern" City Hall. While I'm not a big fan of the current Chep Morrison era City Hall, at least the building and area were part of an overall redevelopment plan. As usual, Nagin's motto is: "Who me? Plan?"

The price for the Chevron building is not bad but it's a non-descript building that's a poor fit for use as anything but a supplemental office building. (I promise to never again use the word building three times in a sentence.) Additionally, a lame duck Mayor should not be committing the city to such a major change. I guess C Ray looked up one day and realized he hadn't accomplished much so he decided to do something, anything and that's not a good enough reason to uproot city government and bring on the wrecking ball.

I suspect that what Nagin *really* likes about the Chevron building is that there's no place for people to demonstrate against him. That could explain why he's taken such a shine to the building, pun intended...

You're probably asking yourself what brought all this on? It was a terrific op-ed piece in yesterday's Picayune by John Klingman and Richard Campanella that got me pondering Nagin's potential folly. LINK.  It also gives me an excuse (a pretext?) to post some classic Stevie Wonder:

Moveon.org has just started running an ad blasting Senator Mary Landrieu's opposition to a public option health care plan. It features (who else?) my friend, Karen Gadbois, activist and cancer survivor:

UPDATE: Upon second viewing, I realized that voice over was done by Brian Denzer. My friends seem to be everywhere. It's somewhat scary, y'all...

From the Tuesday Picayune: Many Hondurans in New Orleans support weekend ouster of their country's  President.

You gotta love emigre politics: according to them the Hondruan military "saved" democracy by means of a coup d'etat. A very novel theory indeed as it puts the banana back in banana republic. I wish one of these days the US might host some left-wing emigres at least for variety's sake...

That's how State Senator A.G. Crowe of Slidell characterized a suit filed by two gay New Orleans men. LINK. What's ridiculous to Crowe is the notion that Orleans Parish should have granted a marriage license to Kristoffer Bonilla and John Thomas Wray. Crowe, of course, is the author of the state constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. I think that Bonilla and Wray's case is a longshot but I'm pulling for them.

Back to Crowe. It's not "ridiculous" for American citizens to expect equal protection under the law and to seek redress in the courts when it's denied. Win or lose, it's their right.

I don't know about you but my cup runneth over with Jacko coverage. I was gobsmacked to hear someone on tevee say that he was a combination of Jackie Robinson and Bill Cosby. Yikes. Jacko was indeed a pop culture icon but Jackie and Cosby were/are also grownups who didn't run to the plastic surgeon every 44 days. Sheesh.

Finally, I'm sorry that the the obnoxious guy who screamed on infommericals is dead. BUT does it merit a blurb on the network news in between denture ads? Sheesh, yikes and all that. At least Weird Al Yankovic is still with us. Now there's a bona fide cultural icon:

...are the great opening credits that feature the song Bad Things by Jace Everett who sounds like a cross between Chris Isaak and Swamp Thing: 

I'm not usually a fan of fan videos unless they're really strange. This one fits the bill: it sets highlights from Laverne & Shirley to the music of XTC. I have a confession: Laverne & Shirley was one of my teevee guilty pleasures. It was dumb and lowbrow but dammit, it made me laugh; especially Lenny and Squiggy. The good news is that I am able to enjoy XTC guilt free because they're damn good:

Secessionville Governor Mark Sanford is the gift that keeps on giving. Now he's comparing himself to King David: bible dude. He said yesterday that David didn't resign after doing the adulterous nasty with Bathsheba so he didn't have to either. LINK. Nice image, Governor and who is your Goliath? According to Rush Limbaugh, it's Obama's fault that you bopped off to see your little chiquita in Argentina, which makes *him* the big fella. Hand to god, I am not making this up, he says in his best Broadway Danny Rose impression. Did you schlep a slingshot down there as well just in case you ran into the ghost of Peron or something, Governor? 

I'm not much of a bible dude and I didn't feel like bugging my blogger friends who are, well, one of them is a friend, Howie Luvzus, my personal Baptist minister. The other one is a certain parrot wrangling malaka who's on a secret mission dig in Jordan but I digress. When I can't consult an expert in matters that are inherently cheesy, what do I do? Think about old movies, doesn't everyone? Governor Sanford is sort of a windy low rent version of Hollywood's idea of King David: Gregory Peck. I am not making this up. That's right, Shecky Pecky. <rim shot> Now, Greg may have been someone's shabbos goy but King Of The Jews? Never. Before I get hate comments from Peck fans, he was a great star and a fine actor but fatally miscast as David as is Mark Sanford.  

Ah, a digression into the land of cinematic cheese is always invigorating. Tony Curtis né Bernie Schwartz would have been at least semi-convincing as David until, that is, he opened his mouth and out came his Noo Yawk accent as in the sword and sandal epic wherein he uttered the famous line "yonda is da castle of my fadda da caliph." 

I've gone pretty far afield from Mark Sanford and David and Bathsheba, haven't I? Good. It's what I do. It's time to circle back to the post title which comes from a great song by Richard Thompson from his classic 1999 album, Mock Tudor. Hmm, I wonder if I should stop mocking Sanford and start mocking Tudors? Nah.

I didn't plan to post anything about Michael Jackson's death but it's an unavoidable topic. The cable news outfits seem to be relieved to change the subject from Iran since the pictures are not as dramatic as the struggle seems to have moved behind closed doors. I watched a bit of MSNBC's Jackson coverage yesterday anchored by a visibliy uncomfortable Keith Olbermann whose own show was pre-empted by the Jacko overkill. But I'm not here to tut-tut the wall to wall coverage, it's like complaining about overkill coverage of natural disasters or trainwrecks. Instead, I'll let Salon's Heather Havrilesky tut-tut the coverage for me. LINK.

I'm not sure who made Michael Jackson into a freak: the media? His plastic surgeon? His father? Himself? His fans? Perhaps it was *impossible* for him to be anything else: very few people live their entire lives in the spotlight the way Jacko did. Whatever the reason, Jacko's life turned into a Tim Burton film sometime in the 1990's with the plastic surgery, Peter Pan lifestyle and all around weirdness. It' a pity that Jackson's sporadic brilliance as a musician and his sustained excellence as a live performer has been overshadowed by the freak show but it has. C'est la vie, Jacko.

I remember when Thriller came out. It was inescapable, ubiquitous, in short, it was everywhere. I was in Spain, Italy and Greece that year and the sounds of Billie Jean echoed from Barcelona to Madrid to Firenze to Athens. There was even a Jacko impersonator in the Plaka in Athens albeit a bad one who sang with a heavy Turkish accent.

I'm at the shop listening to the Essential Sly & The Family Stone. Sly was another gifted artist who achieved great success only to crash and burnt in a haze of cocaine, smack and egomania. Sly at least  had a modicum of good sense, stayed out of the public eye and only became a minor freak show figure. But Sly had once been an everyday person so he had a notion of what it was like to flee to the shadows. Michael Jackson had neither a clue nor a chance and became Wacko Jacko. 

There's been some pretty good writing on the Jackson story by some unlikely writers so here are some links: Roger Ebert , Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan and a wonderful piece by the Guardian's Hadley Freeman who proclaims that this is not a "Diana moment" and to whom I'll give the last word:

"Michael Jackson was a hugely talented individual – even more, dare one say it, than Diana. He also led an unquestionably sad and damaged life. But his death shows up <brief snip> that the desire for collective emotion leads only to false emotion."

It's been a weird, weird week, y'all. The freak show is going full tilt so I decided to pile on Governor Mark Sanford since I don't mock the recently deceased even if they were freaks. I haven't done any research into the Palmetto state's actual state song (songs?) because it's my responsibility as a satirist to do something with the many wonderful straight lines provided by Mr. Sanford's zany hijinks. For example, I'll never think of hiking the Appalachian Trail in quite the same way in the post-Sanford freak show era. Sanford as a censorious, hectoring religious conservative is an easy target but, hey, he should remember what he said during the Bill-n-Monica debacle. LINK.

My first suggestion is an obvious but appropriate choice for Mark Sanford's South Carolina:

Along the same lines, my friend Michael Ferry has the one of the best post titles ever over at First Draft: Poon Tango. Nasty but spot on, Michael.

Okay, now that I've proposed a mock state song, it's time to suggest a new theme song for Governor Sanford who is not only a liar but a very, very bad liar:

Remember the Warren Riley for Mayor boomlet a few weeks ago? The flag was run up the flagpole but nobody saluted it with a full hand. But   the trial balloon has *really* burst now that legislative auditor Steve Theriot has issued a report that, uh, reports that around $200K has gone missing from the NOPD's evidence room. LINK. Oops. Jeez, you'da thought that they'd use some duck tape on the evidence room locks at the very least...

Chief Riley's subordinates warned him that the evidence room was poorly secured but he knows best so, naturally, the warnings were ignored. Under state law, the police are required to notify other agencies of missing greenbacks but Riley made like a tax lawyer and told the press that the law in question only applies to "public money" and not money held as evidence. Typical Riley: focus on trivia to excuse your failings without taking responsibility.

As I've said before, if you like "leaders" whose idea of "leadership" is finding someone else to blame for their own shortcomings, Warren Riley is your man. He's C Ray without the entertainment value.

It's too frakking hot in NOLA to write a thoughtful pulp fiction post about some literary worthy or even James Worthy, the hoops legend. My motto is: when in doubt post covers with silly and goofy titles. Snappy, silly whatever...

I don't about you but the guy on the first cover doesn't look particularly fiendish to me. It's just another man in a suit and fedora who may or may not be ready to go Tommy Uddo on your ass. In contrast, Blondie Iscariot has got it all: a preposterous title and an author with an equally silly name. Edgar Lustgarten? Oy. I wonder if he's related to Lady Chatterly's lover...

.

Last Friday, actually, but I have to post it because it's a Wisconsin story that's set in the town where my cousin Carol lives. Also our shared grandfather once was a dairy farmer who owned a cheese factory of sorts at least that's what my mom called it. Okey dokey, time to let the headline from the Wisconsin State Journal rip:

MAN PLANS ON CUTTING CHEESE SATURDAY IN STOUGHTON.

Cue Beavis and Butt-head laugh track:

No, this post is NOT about wee parasites that dwell in one's intestines. It's about a different form of parasite: dodgy and corrupt politicians. There are two stories in the news that deal with tapes and two of my favorite targets, Dollar Bill Jefferson and Tricky Dick Nixon.

There's a lot of maneuvering at the Dollar Bill trial over which of the Lori Mody tapes should be admissible. LINK. The prosecution is winning most of the skirmishes thus far thanks to Judge TS Ellis who seems to belong to the Roy Bean school of hanging judges. But Dollar Bill is ably defended by Robert Trout who is peddling a rather interesting defense of the Klepto Congressman: he's sleazy in his private dealings but not corrupt as a public servant.

Mr. Trout  is not only an able attorney, he also has a name that begs, nay, demands to be punned upon. Hereinafter, I'll refer to the defense's discovery strategy as (what else?) Trout Fishing in America. I'm as of yet unsure which well-known person named Trout, the counsellor reminds me of: ficitional icon Kilgore? Star baseball hurler Dizzy or his son, Steve?  Hmm, maybe he's more like trout meuniere...

Speaking of Trout Fishing In America, there's also a band of that name who took their name from Richard Brautigan's classic tome. They've even played Jazz Fest several times. (Btw, I'm saving the Captain Beefheart references for another day.)

Now that I'm done with trout jokes and dinosaur tunes, it's on to that icon of slipperiness, Richard Nixon. A new batch of tapes have been released for the entertainment of Watergate junkies everywhere. What I was unaware of before reading the Guardian today is that there's a web site dedicated to the Nixon tapes. So, if you want to read transcripts or download garbled mp3's of the Trickster's paranoid rantings, you have a place to go. I hope that I've made that perfectly clear, he said making the V sign with one hand whilst typing with the other.

Herr Professor Ed Blakely: always bragging about something.

I never link to editorials because most of them are dull and not very well written. But the Gambit tabloid's editorial on Ed Blakely skins him alive and leaves his remains on the side of the road to be eaten by turkey buzzards. LINK. Well done, y'all.

My main regret in covering Blakely's tenure as recovery slacker director is that I cut him some slack in the beginning whereas Jeffrey immediately nailed him as a pompous windbag. I'm also sorry that calling him a Kaiser instead of a Tsar never caught on with the masses. We Americans seem to prefer the Romanovs to the Hohezollerns, which is a pity since the latter royal family name is much sillier.

An unnamed buyer paid a cool  $165K for a one-off CD of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev singing traditional Russian folk songs. LINK. Gorby's bow as a solo artist is called Songs For Raisa and was auctioned off in London with the proceeds going to his wife's foundation. Gorby's band the Politburo, of course, broke up in the early 90's after Boris Yeltsin got drunk and left the band. Boris later resurfaced as the member of a German oom-pah band.

Dr. A and I watched a repeat of a 2008 Soundstage with Jackson Browne last evening. I was struck by how relevant some of his Reagan era political tunes remain, not only was I struck but the tunes are stuck in my head: another day, another earworm. Lives In The Balance is an eerily relevant earworm; it was written about the whole Nicaragua/El Salvador mess but Jackson sang it at a plethora of anti-Iraq war rallies. It also makes me think of the brave people in the streets of Tehran right now; their lives are certainly in the balance:

Any time Chris Rose thinks something is a good idea (even when he's kidding) it usually isn't: Brad Pitt for Mayor may not be such a bad idea. Jeez, just what we need: another part-time Mayor of dubious domicile.

When I was a tadpole, The Odd Couple with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman cracked me up. It still does. Here are Oscar and Felix in a show within the show as they appear on Password. Speaking of people who crack me up, Betty White is featured in the clip as well.