July 22, 2010

Schumer – It’s no secret that Charles Schumer, the senior senator from New York, is an aggressive, no-holds-barred, both-barrels-loaded fundraiser. Occasionally, though, he even outdoes himself. You may recall Senator Schumer, before the crash a couple of years ago, raised millions and millions from Wall Street firms, and voted accordingly: he was a fierce protector of Wall Street interests, which included a ban on any oversight whatsoever of derivatives. We all know what that led to. [What a closer the senator must be:  A typical plea might run along these lines: ‘The contribution is unacceptable, Mr.  Blankfein: You’re going to give me the max, you inch-worm, or that loophole is toast.’]

His greed knows no bounds: I read today that Mr. Schumer has raised about $2.2 million in the last mouth, resulting in a grand total of $24 million in his re-election campaign fund. That’s $24 million to spend in an election in which he will have only token Republican opposition. Mr. Schumer does not have to spend a dime to be re-elected. It seems like overkill, right? Not quite: a politician’s campaign fund can be used to purchase virtually anything: cars, huge tabs at swanky, $45-for-a-tiny-appetizer restaurants, gifts to underlings, lavish redecorations – artwork, leather sofas, mahogany paneling, and the like –  of offices, or cabana rentals during ‘working’ junkets to St. Bart’s. Basically, he’s got a $24 million slush fund.

If you happen to be in Washington one day when the Senate is in session, take a stroll past Mr. Schumer’s office. No, it’s not your imagination playing tricks on you; those are real squeals of ‘oink-oink-oink’ emanating from the other side of the door.

A What-the-Hell-Is-She-Saying Moment:  ESPN Sports commentator Hannah Storm, who will not be invited any time soon to join MENSA, at the tail-end of a Wimbledon tennis match in which the combatants have fought each other tooth-and-nail for eleven hours, over three days, to essentially a stalemate, asserts, “One thing we know now: there’s no ‘quit’ in either of these guys.” Incisive commentary, eh? Any more brilliant analysis like that and a stunned Ms. Storm will very quickly find herself broadcasting sports updates every half-hour from 10 pm to 4 am on radio station WHKY Talk in Hickory, North Carolina.

Sting – Sting is depressed. There have been no horrific earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions or floods in the past few months.  Sting is very depressed – the hurricane season can’t come fast enough, but right now there’s no immediate disaster that needs oodles and oodles of cash for recovery. [Haiti? You’re kidding, of course. In A-D-D America, that feels as old as the Spanish-American War.] There’s no pouring-buckets monsoon in Bangladesh or a locust swarm in Cyprus that Sting can parachute into in order to save humanity, and, by the way, garner millions of dollars of publicity for his career which, to this observer, has had a longer shelf life than even the recently departed Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

Mr. Gripes, the eldest son of a doctor, has this suggestion to Sting: enter immediately into the ‘celebrity rehab’ biosphere of the ubiquitous, and equally grasping, Dr. Dru Pinsky; he’ll attempt to fix you up, and he may even come up with a title for your malady: Disastophilia Disorder.

But, readers, don’t despair for Sting. He’ll figure out a way to keep up his face-time on Access Hollywood. Have no fear of that. In fact, his latest reinvention is working his pipsqueak, constipated vocals in front of huge symphony orchestras. Wow, that’s certainly a ‘can’t-miss’ concert. Mr. Gripes can’t wait to camp out at 4 a.m. for the exquisite joy  of writing out a $400 check for a front-row seat. And, what about that long, black coat he wears as part of his on-stage costume? It’s so pompous.  Who does Sting think he is? The Puritans’ Preacher-man, Cotton Mather?

There’s one more charity matter I must address, as I leave Sting forever.

Can for the sake of all humanity we never hear again a rendition of ‘We Are the World’? Please, Whoopi and Bono and Barbra and Steven and Sean and Susan and the rest of the weepy, guilt-ridden bleeding hearts, no mas, no mas, I beg of you.

Mr. Gripes, always a man with ready advice, in fact has a recommendation. Let’s arrange for a ‘Demolish Your We Are the World CD’ Night at stadiums across the country.

[A digression: Bill Veeck, an inventive and wacky owner of the Chicago White Sox some decades ago, and his son Mike conceived of a ‘Disco Demolition’ promotion between games of a double header back in 1979: fans brought their disco-music records to the ballpark, and right after the first game, the records would be collected and blown up with explosives on the field. The event exceeded every expectation:  hoping for a crowd of 12,000, 90,000 showed up, trying to get into Comiskey Park. Chaos ensued, as many disappointed fans scaled the fences to get in. Another problem: the Veecks, exhibiting exceedingly poor foresight, did not shut down beer sales that night. A couple of hours into the first game, after infinite cups of brew were consumed, the records became horizontal missiles, reminiscent of Oddjob’s hat in Goldfinger, whizzing all over the park. Fittingly, with the records now lethal weapons and players justifiably very reluctant to return to the field, the home team was compelled to forfeit the second game.]

But, back to the present: everyone brings their CD of ‘We Are the World’ to a ballpark. Sledgehammers are strategically placed after the game around the field. Fans toss their CDs into huge piles, and take turns smashing to bits every one of the CDs. We’ll all feel much better.

But when the next mega-disaster occurs, what will take WATW’s place, or, more urgently, for heaven’s sake, what will Sting and Bono sing? The fate of the globe is in their hands. Let’s, for one thing, have no more sing-along ‘Love-Is-All-You-Need’, ‘Give-Peace-A-Chance’ druggie-hippie-60’s claptrap, OK? [‘Love’ has done wonders for those brutalized monks in Tibet, hasn’t it?] No more repetitious, tedious one-phrase refrains, please. How about something a little more rocking, with a lot of juice, so the whole world boogies? Brand-new lyrics for Brown Sugar, or for Fats Domino’s All By Myself, might just work.

If that were to occur, Mr. Gripes may even write a check for Sting’s next disaster. On second thought, that’ll never happen.

The Swap – Amidst the endless blather coming out of the mouths of very old, very alarmed ex-CIA cold-war operatives, who have been reborn as bloviating commentators on cable TV, only the New York Post had it exactly right on its front page: ‘Russia and U.S. Arrange Spy Swap…but Can We Keep Her?’ ‘Her’ is Anna Chapman, a gorgeous red-haired beauty, who appears topless, [highlights, alas, airbrushed out] with that luscious head of hair askew on a pillow, reclining in bed on page 1 right under the headlines. My sentiments precisely.

Mr. Gripes does have a few questions: what classified information did these hapless agents possibly hope to discover? Everything’s on the internet: bomb-making plans that terrorists can google, nuclear weapon technology, it’s all there. Maybe they wanted to steal secrets of the peerless, supercharged  American economic engine. If so, they’re welcome to them, along with all the bankruptcies, abandoned factories, and empty Florida high-rise condominiums. Long-term cutting-edge technology for our extraordinary automobile industry? I doubt it – to GM, ‘long-term’ is, these days, praying that the company gets through next month without geysers of red ink. Or, maybe it’s the ‘transparency’ of our gleaming banking system the spies were keen on. Yeah, right — transparency, my derriere. American mega-banks, with their inches-short-of-jail-time schemes, are no more transparent than those lead-lined holes in Area 51 outside of Vegas that were used for underground A-Bomb testing.

One last item: Mr. Gripes read that one of the spies who worked for the Americans was imprisoned in ‘northern Russia.’ Listen, my Russian friends, I know that your country now presents itself as a modern representative republic that’s turned away from its former brutal, repressive methods. But, a prison in ‘northern Russia?’ Come on, Mr. Gripes wasn’t born yesterday. And, Mr. Gripes doesn’t appreciate sugarcoating.

Saying ‘Northern Russia’ has no more cachet to it than those three slices of pizza left out on the coffee table last night. Kill the phrase ‘northern Russia.’ It’ll always be ‘Siberia’ to Mr. Gripes, a habitual reader of spy fiction. The spy, a colonel in the KGB who secreted information over to the Americans, was surely sent to Siberia, where winters are marked by days of 20-hour darkness, brutal temperatures, and howling winds.

And, those kind, gentle prison guards undoubtedly gave the colonel, to ward himself against the 30-degrees-below-O weather, a couple of Hawaiian shirts, adorned with pineapples and mangos, a pair of Bermuda shorts, and sandals.

There’s nothing remotely sinister about ‘northern Russia.’ Siberia –Nazi Germany, too – will forevermore represent the extraordinary capability of human beings to inflict horrific cruelties on fellow human beings.

Jim Israel                                                                                                                             July 22, 2010