Thus, he gets to go to news conferences held by Mayor Big Bird, Bill de Blasio, and the tough-talking New York governor, Andrew Cuomo. Broadway is closed, but the one-man show is alive and playing in full view in New York.
Apparently the governor had played into the image for Dr. Anthony Fauci being "New York Tough." It's not hard to consider that Dr. Fauci fits that image, having been born in Brooklyn, and outwardly resembling anyone's memory of Phil Rizzuto, the Hall of Fame shortstop for the New York Yankees and long-time Yankee broadcaster who once proved his New York roots on the air by telling us he went to Richmond Hill High School and had the future mayor, Abe Beame, for an accounting teacher. I swear to God. No wonder Abe was comptroller first, then mayor. He learned and then taught black and red ink.
According to Mr. Kilgannon the video link with the Guv and the Doc went something like this:
Governor Cuomo had Fauci on video link and proposed doing an ad telling NYers the vaccine is safe.
Guv: "You can be De Niro or Pacino. Which one do you want to be?"
Fauci: "I don't want to hurt the feelings of the other."
Dr. Fauci's reply is a testament to how a man can be 79 years old and still be employed. The Governor of course is showing the kind of verbal style he favors: in your face, tough talk from people born in an outer borough where members of organized crime families live.
But what about Joe Namath? I mean, you win one Super Bowl in 51 years ago and you still have name recognition in New York! That's a testament to how big you were, even if it was 51 years ago and you held your index finger up as you trotted off the field after upsetting the Baltimore Colts and the oddsmakers in 1969.
I don't know if Joe's commercial for a Medicare Advantage Plan from some insurer (the call is free) floods the shows you watch, but I'm seeing the guy in my sleep, gesturing with those hands that stuffed the ball so often into the bellies of his backfield mates and threw so many interceptions that you wondered if the guy was color blind and couldn't tell the difference in uniform colors on the field, telling me to call and make sure I'm getting all the benefits I'm entitled to. (Jesus, they do sound good.)
And since I'm of the age and demographic that Joe is pitching to, I would make the call if I wasn't so well insured already.
The Guv is obviously thinking in modern day video terms of what the Uncle Sam "I Want You" recruitment poster should look like when he wants us to get some shots in the arm and do our bit to save mankind and get that bar in Staten Island that's been unfairly closed, reopened.
There was a deli in my Flushing neighborhood that once displayed a sign behind the counter that they wanted you to consider to be the 11th Commandment: Thou Shall Not Hassle. The deli was run by a young couple who seemed to have fallen out of a Volkswagen bus on the way back from Woodstock. They were so freaking slow to cut the cold cuts that they read your mind.
Unfortunately, some other candidates are not alive to make the vaccine presentation in all needed media outlets.
To keep the tough guy image going, James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano would be good be good if De Niro and Pacino balk at the idea. Alas, Jim is no longer with us.
And the actress who played Mother Nature all those years ago, Dena Dietrich, who threatened lightning, thunder and flood waters if we considered Chiffon fake butter (margarine) to be better than natural butter. "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature."
My choice for vaccine pitchman would be Dr. Jack Kervorkian, if only the assisted-suicide doc were himself still alive. "Why get whacked...listen to Dr, Jack..."
The Guv of course is being modest. He would be the perfect threatening pitchman for taking the vaccine, but only if Maria DeCotis gets to lip synch the Guv's warning, an offer no one should refuse (Get it?): "Give me the vaccine, or give me death."
Start making some phone calls.
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