Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine featured an article by Mark Leibovich, a Boston Phoenix alum, on “Mr. Hardball” himself, Chris Matthews, leaving no doubt that Leibovich sees the MSNBC TV host as an ego-driven, brown-nosing, sexist blowhard. Phrases like “tired caricature” and “overriding professional insecurity” kept cropping up.
Whether you’re a Chris Matthews fan or tend to (like us) see this profile as a fairly accurate portrait of a rather tedious fellow, you should definitely check it out. It really tears Matthews apart.
And our own tedious Chris, Christopher Young, the table-tossing perennial candidate for multiple elective offices, is back in the news. Word is he’s running for US Senate this year and for mayor of Providence in 2010. We think Chris should run for dog catcher before he considers taking on Jack Reed, but, hey, that’s just us.
Chris, at any rate, made an appearance in this week’s “Polit¬ical Scene” column in the BeloJo, due to a run-in with the South Kingstown police after he caused a scene at a Bank of America branch regarding ATM card policy.
The BeloJo reports that Young, never one to let us down, suggested the incident may have been retribution for his policy suggestions on banking legislation. You can bet that the CEOs of all the big banks are shaking in their boots at the possibility that Christopher Young will be elected to the US Senate, distract Ben Bernanke by upending a table, and seize control of federal monetary policy.
Junk mail, Pope Benny edition
P+J hate to rain on anyone’s parade. So it was with heavy hearts that we delivered some bad news to our friends at the local post office this week, right in the midst of the stress-elevating rush of people doing their last-minute filing of tax returns.
Mailman Mike, as always, greeted us jubilantly, when we arrived. He informed us that everyone was delirious with excitement about the imminent, high-visibility US tour of John Ratzenberger, the iconic faux trivia expert-letter carrier Cliff Clavin of Cheers fame, who is an idol to postal workers everywhere.
We took it upon ourselves to burst that bubble, informing Mailman Mike and his colleagues that Joe Ratzinger (current alias: Pope Benedict XVI) is the object of all the hullabaloo.
P+J would rather that Cliffie be accorded all the trappings of an official state visit, although we certainly have nothing against Pope Benny, whose work in tacitly winking at superior behavior among his fellow cardinals, bishops, and priests may be considered a plus for a man once known at the Vatican as Cardinal Joey.
When it came to pedophilia in the church, however, we were both alarmed and outraged. We thought the future Benny had been a bit conspicuous by his absence and that of his then-boss, Pope John Paul Deuce, in not coming down with both red slippers on the miscreants.
Still, we hope Mailman Mike and the gang will get over their disappointment and welcome that wild and crazy Ratzinger guy by cranking up Elton John and “B-b-b-Benny and the Peds . . . ” at full volume.
Hot fun in the sun
Your superior correspondents managed to slip down to Palm Beach in time for Oprah’s garish celebration of poet Maya Angelou’s 80th birthday, followed immediately by the marriage of the atrocious Ivana Trump to some Italian developer with lots of lira and enough gold chains to tie down a battleship. Needless to say, your boys were right in our element.
We question why Maya Angelou would ever in a million years want her birthday party to take place at the unspeakable Donald Trump’s paean to bad taste, the Mar-A-Lago, with its 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms, 12 fireplaces, three bomb shelters, 20,000-square-foot ballroom, and, for this occasion, one parrot in a cage (presumably alive, Mr. Cleese) for the totemic tribute to “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” (You’d squawk too, surrounded by that many hideous B-list celebs.)
P+J knew that Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley spent their 1994 honeymoon there, so we searched for the scratches on the inside of a specific bedroom, which we assumed would have been left by Lisa Marie as she tried to claw her way from wedding night with the Weirdest Man on Earth.
On to Powerball!
Your self-serving correspondents would like to point out how the Phoenix’s recent “On the Ball + Off the Wall” March Madness column managed not only to select Kansas, the winner of the hoops extravaganza, but that prognosticator Chip Young’s selections claimed the Phoenix’s in-house pool. It was just for fun, but we will nonetheless look for a free drink at Nick-A-Nee’s when the check clears.
