Saturday, March 6, 2010

Open the Paper

And there's Christopher Buckley telling the world about his first awareness of a political joke in today's WSJ.

Chris is a little younger than I am, so I too remember the joke. I have also freshly told it to the coming generation. Even recently. Like maybe last week.

If you haven't read or linked up to the joke in Mr. Buckley's story, then a quick synopsis will do. Sex.

The prostitutes of the Prime Minister John Profumo scandal period were Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler. They were certainly my idea of who I'd like to share a hotel room with in 1963. Nearly 50 years later and without Goggle, I correctly remembered how to spell their names. Even the hyphen. All times we live in are educational.

To impress someone with how much news this was at the time consider that my friend today told me that 'Profumo' was the Jeopardy answer for all the marbles at the end of a recent show. My friend tells me, only he and Alex knew the answer. Everyone else was too young.

Billy Joel includes the event in his song 'We Didn't Start the Fire' when his rhymed narrative of news events since 1949 gets to the part 'British politician sex.' 'Malcolm X' follows.

Somewhat around the same time there was another scandal, this one much more local when it was revealed that a firehouse in New York City was the site of house calls by prostitutes. Confronted with this allegation, the firemen replied that they, and the women were "just friends." As kids, we went round and all told each other we were "just friends." I cannot, to this day, ever stop smirking when someone says, "just friends."

There was a firehouse around the corner from where I grew up in Flushing. I passed it every day on my way to grammar school. If it wasn't winter the doors were open and I always remember looking in and trying to see if I'd ever see a fireman come sliding down a pole. Never did.

A few years later, after the "just friends" story I could never go past that firehouse, or any toher one, without wondering if I'd see anyone making house calls. Never did.

Mr. Buckley's piece is about the wayward ways of politicians, generally made wayward because of that short word "sex," three letters, that unless someone is very sloppy, will never be part of a license plate.

I imagine myself someday meeting Christopher and telling him that I always liked his father Bill, and liked Bill even more when he ran for mayor of New York and answered a reporter's question about what he might do if he won the election: "Demand a recount." I'd also tell the current Mr. Buckley that when I sometimes think I might be "witty" I remember his writing that James Carville was conceived during the love scene in the movie "Deliverance." And that he reminded the world that Dorothy Parker said of the girls who attended Bennington College, that if they were laid end-to-end, she wouldn't be at all be surprised. If you can't top that, just live long enough to quote them.

Mr. Buckley's piece in the WSJ is titled "What Were They Thinking." It recounts several fairly recent missteps by politicians, in this case, all male. The biggest picture of the transgressors is that of New York's governor, David Patterson, who is currently having more things land on his head than someone in Times Square at 12:01.01 A.M., January 1. He is du jour. All the other pictures are smaller, and surround his larger one.

Missing from the piece is any mention of women. Of course, there are far fewer women in high public office, but as a gender, they are equally capable of getting themselves in "trouble."

Just recently, the grandson of Winston Churchill passed away and it was recounted in the obituary how his own affairs stalled his political career. But the obituary also mentioned his mother, Pamela, who became Pamela Harriman and who traveled in the highest of circles, bedding the best of the guys who get themselves in trouble.

Mr. Buckley attributes the male politician's woes to testosterone. This of course is the easy explanation, but doesn't really account for women, or all those males who also have testosterone, but seem to behave themselves.

Recently I took the opportunity to write a book review for a title that just came out. I did this on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but in signing on to do it on Amazon the site said that I was already registered, and did I want to read this person's other reviews? Sure, I'd like to be reminded what I'd completely forgotten.

And there is was, a book review I'd written about someone's book who I know. It's a bit of a self-help book, and fairly simply describes the inner and outer bullies in all of us: the voices that we listen to that "tell us" things. Of course, that voice in males might be completely sustained by testosterone.

Mr. Buckley's piece is not meant to be a scientific explanation for the male politician behavior. Someone will have to approve funding for that study. Is Ms. Pelosi in the House?

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