Pernod and grapefruit in hand, Phillipe & Jorge offer a little public policy overview while hanging out of our chauffeur-driven Bentley, screaming, “Mira, mira,” at all those good-looking campaign workers. We changed our tune to “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?” when we saw one of Guillaume “Billy” de Ramel’s volunteers.
First off, can we ban the obnoxious tag line, “My name is Francine Fishpaw and I approve of this message,” used whenever some reprehensible/flatulent/lying piece of manure is aired? Henceforth, your superior correspondents will decide whether we approve of the commercial in question, and all candidates will be expected to screen their bogus come-ons through Casa Diablo. What could be a more potent endorsement than the royal imprimatur of P&J? Our people will get in touch with the candidates’ people immediately after the election to firm this up, so to speak.
We also want a creative quid pro quo adopted with regard to people who don’t vote. If a person does not vote, they should be denied sex, cable TV, social services, and perhaps even a driver’s license. Oh, too tired to get to the polling station because you watched Regis and Ripa this morning and scarfed a huge bag of Cheetos and two six-packs of Narry by noon? Tell it to your neighborhood DMV employee.
If you have already blown your chance to vote in the primary, haul your ass down to register, and then do the right thing on Election Day in November. If that’s too tough for you, try working for a living. Welcome to some tough love from Casa D.
Onward and upward in the bucket
One of the more curious e-mails received by your superior correspondents this week came from someone identifying himself as “Kent Danish, Jorge’s nephew.” While Jorge does have a couple of nephews (Hi Shad, how are the twins?), Kent Danish is not, to our knowledge, one of them (although brother Tod’s out-of-wedlock activities were somewhat notorious).
Regardless, Danish sounds like a fairly accurate reporter concerning the Dragon Boat races held in Pawtucket on September 10, part of that city’s annual arts festival. Since we are huge supporters, we give you this totally unsubstantiated report. If we find out that Herb “Mr. Pawtucket” Weiss planted this in his tireless effort to promote everything Pawtucket, we’ll refuse to take his phone calls for the next six months.
Knowing of my uncle’s concern about the pejorative slings and arrows sometimes hurled at his native city, I was more than pleased to join the dragon boat team of the Pawtucket Bucketeers. Under the able command of Kirsten Murphy and Joe Haskett, a young couple who moved to downtown Pawtucky a few years back, the Bucketeers demonstrated their savoir-faire with a copious spread of food and drink along the banks of the Blackstone/Pawtucket, as hundreds of other dragon boaters and spectators, as well as a number of primary candidates (Mollis and Patches shared a boat, while de Ramel, Roberts, and Patrick Lynch, possibly among others) made the scene. Kirsten, a designer, has seized back “the Bucket” from the forces of darkness, using Pawtucket’s nickname, as well as an iconic pail, for striking T-shirts that signify Pawtucket pride. Due to an ineffable gaffe, the Bucketeers were matched against one of the speediest dragon boat crews in the second heat, but this allowed for more out-of-the-water frivolity on this beautiful late-summer day. I also noticed some scribes from the Other Paper were teamed up with the anti-suicide group the Samaritans, but we won’t read this as a commentary on the state of morale in the newsroom.
