Posted on 03/30/2008 4:30:15 AM PDT by raccoonradio
Howie live thread starting off with his Sun Herald column
Bio hazard: Govs book deal exposes him as author-tunist
By Howie Carr | Sunday, March 30, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
How many times have I told you? With Deval, its all about showing him the money.
Originality is not his strong suit; he follows in the footsteps of others. Jesse Jackson makes a fortune in the racket Tom Wolfe called steam control, and Deval shakes down Coke and Texaco. But when youre building a $7 million mansion in the Berkshires with a nut of maybe $30,000 a month, it doesnt matter how big your severance packages were, you always need more dough.
So now Deval mimics Barack Obama. He finds some new marks and scores a $1.35 million advance for his book. Good job, Todd Shuster! The way you know youve made a score in book publishing is when the author doesnt ever collect any royalties, because the advance was so over the top that the publisher could never make his money back. Thats what were looking at here, folks.
Deval is laughing all the way from the bank.
Its a jackpot for a crackpot. Some people have a dream, Deval has a scheme. The corporate gigs are over, obviously he cant run another political grift. So he doubled down. And now, to use the favorite expression of another one-term Massachusetts Democrat governor, Edward J. King, Deval Patrick is Makin It In Massachusetts.
The publishers, in that first flush of excitement before they are inevitably overcome with the same buyers remorse that now afflicts the Massachusetts electorate, are comparing the tome (Slaughterhouse Jive?) to the way President Kennedy inspired the nation with his celebrated Profiles in Courage.
With Deval, its Profiles in Currency. But the reference raises the question - who will be Devals Ted Sorensen? I know, he says hes going to write it in his spare time (of which he has plenty). But he also said he was going to cut your property taxes.
Sooner or later, a book doctor, a ghostwriter, will have to be called in. Does anyone have the phone number of slam poet Patricia X. Smith - she could do this story justice. I just hope they devote an entire chapter to that brutal attack Deval suffered as a youth, when a South Side gang member supposedly bounced an empty soda can off his head.
Suggested chapter title: Coke Can Con.
Gov. Patrick, the publisher said, will give readers everywhere a whole new sense of what is possible in both their personal and civic lives.
Oddly, that book, too, has already been written, and once again by Tom Wolfe. Its title was Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.
This fade-out of politics by Deval is just his standard MO. He never stays long in any one place. If you include the 2006 campaign, this is about as long as hes ever stayed in any job. Stick around and actually try to do something? No dice, says Deval.
Hed rather be on the board of directors of a bunch of dodgy corporations like Long Beach Pawnshop Inc. They have quarterly meetings in sunny places for shady people. You get big money for no work, plus stock options. How long until hes offered a radio talk show on a weak station - at least if he can get himself convicted of a felony he can blame on drug abuse?
Ben LeGuer is probably on suicide watch now, but bleep happens. Devals all about hope and opportunity. He was hoping for an opportunity, and now hes got one. So what if its curtains (get it?) for the Patrick administration? How long until Tim Murray holds a confessional press conference about his girlfriends, even if he doesnt have any?
An unspecified portion of Patricks royalties will go to A Better Chance, the organization that helped the governor attend Milton Academy.
Let me translate: Unspecified means very small.
Coke . . . Texaco . . . Ameriquest . . . and now Random House. By Devals earlier standards, this isnt much of a score. But at the State House, $1.35 million is big dough. Its walking-around money. Its golfing-with-Donald Trump money.
Which leaves one final question:
Whos laughing now, Sal?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1083857
I hate to admit my first thought here was, "He didn't write it yet????" -- it's embarrassing that someone could live as long as I have -- and in Massachusetts no less! -- and still be so naive . . . I guess. :(
How does he get away with this stuff?
Mon ping
Mon ping
Was Ingraham a "Best of" again?
I don’t know but the 3 pm airing is due to a Yankees rainout and I guess they figured they’d rather go live to Howie
than tape delayed Ingraham
I tend to tune out their spots about the Yankees too, so, through my own fault, I didn't even think about them.
FR back from outage. Tue ping
Politics of Hope, Checking in on Obama's role model (Deval Patrick)
FR's post on "The Weekly Standard" article Howie's reading from.
below is by Brian Maloney from http://www.savewrko.com
An interim ratings trend for Boston was released today and though we don’t always cover them, this one is noteworthy because WRKO’s overall (listeners 12+) share dropped from a 4.3 to 4.0.
That caps a full year of declines, from 5.0 last spring to 4.0 today. The full quarterly ratings report will be released in about a month.
Apparently, as the numbers circulated through the building, there was chuckling in some quarters as to the unbelievably weak performance of both Finneran and the Fung Wah bus-riding, New Jersey hip hop promoter (Reese Hopkins). Word is the results were breathtakingly bad, perhaps lower than anything previously seen in Boston talk radio.
WTKK, by contrast, had a great month, rising from 3.2 to 3.6.
column ping
Ords in Mumbles favor for big pension payout
By Howie Carr | Wednesday, April 2, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
Whenever he finally retires, Mumbles Menino is going to get a pension of about $140,000 a year.
You read that right. This is not a belated April Fools Day joke. In all the city pension stories last week, we overlooked the fact that Mumbles will be getting a kiss in the mail every month for about $11,500.
That works out to just under $3,000 a week. Just for being Mumbles.
Heres how it works. As the mayor-for-life (or so he thinks), Mumbles now makes $175,000 a year. The highest pension he could get would be 80 percent of his top three years. Given his age (hes 65) and the fact that hes had his snout in the public trough his entire adult life, hes there, baby. Itll get cut down a little, Im sure, for the survivors benefits, but not by much.
Still, I say, the Mumblin Man is a bargain. He is not just our leader, he is our teacher. At a recent jobs-for-teens event, memorialized on local cable TV, he spoke of the value of a days pay for a days work.
There is noth-ling, he said, and thats an exact quote from the tape. He didnt say nothing, he said noth-ling. There is noth-ling like honestly earning your own money for a job well done.
These summer jobs all provide these opportunities for young people who are facing some very long ords.
Not odds, ords.
As CEO of a declining midsized city, he attended the swearing in of 50 new firefighters and told them of what was in store.
Your job will give you a rare satis - satisfication.
You know, like the old Rolling Stones song (I Cant Get No) Satisfaction.
I mention these perorations only to show the vast breadth of the Mumblin Mans contributions to the Athens of America. Here he is, Johnny on the spot at the scene of another sub-prime mortgage fiasco.
Well theres some uhh the corporation counsel is working with some agencies on these fact of maybe some of these uh mortgages shouldnt of been uhhh uhhh lunt.
You thought the past tense of lend was lent? What do you know - is your pension going to be $140,000 a year? As the old signs used to say, if youre so smart, how come you aint rich? The past tense of lend is lunt.
Guns - a perennial problem plaguing certain sections of the city. And ultimately, Mumbles believes, it needs a federal solution.
Enoughs enough, he thunders. We as citizens have to take back our Con-gwiss.
And after we take back Con-gwiss, lets get our Congress back.
But Mumbles is trying to do his best to get rid of the guns. So are most municipalities, or as he calls them, musa-palities.
You know we did our gun-back-by-guy-back program a year ago.
As citizens, we can only pray that the gun-back-by-guy-back program was more successful than the gun-buyback program.
Ultimately, of course, its all about the children. So lets crack down on billboards advertising booze and tobacco. Right, Mumbles?
Why is certain neighborhoods immune to the advertising? he asks. I give up, Your Honor, why is certain neighborhoods immune?
Any final thoughts, Mumbles, on the true meaning of public service?
Use your creativity as we create the budgets as we go forward and how do we work smarter and work more effectively thats really smarter and more effectively as we go forward.
For this, Mumbles will someday get a pension of $140,000 a year. Does that give you satisfication? Me neither.
But guess what, there is noth-ling we can do about it. Noth-ling at all.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1084366
Spring is coming, so get ready for his story about the first kid that does a Peter Pan out a third story window (because we all know how funny that is /s).
And a few months later, it'll be hunting season and Gomer's gonna shoot a mailbox or a dog.
Howie, how about a follow-up on yesterday's (April Fool's)pet ban in Cheyenne, WY?
YAWN...
I suppose it’s possible to tire of Mumbles.
But that day has yet to come for me, LOL!
show ping (sorry late, FR was busy)
Hard to tire of him as entertainment — as mayor of Boston, though . . . . I’m so sick of being embarrassed, first by the state, and then by the city! Talk about “the ol’ one-two”!
Thu ping
Fri show ping & column
Judge-in-drag should transition to TV
By Howie Carr | Friday, April 4, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Columnists
There is a way out for Robert Somma, the 63-year-old cross-dressing, drunken-driving federal bankruptcy judge who is desperately trying to rescind his resignation from the bench.
Forget the $158,000-a-year judgeship, Judge. Become a television judge - you would be filling a niche in a hugely successful afternoon-TV genre.
Judge Roberta - televisions first transvestite judge. Judge Roberta Somma - when she says shes a TV judge, she really means TV.
Ive mentioned this before, but he really should think about. Judge Judy reportedly makes $30 million a year. Al DAmato, the former New York senator who is not a cross-dresser, is shopping a proposal for a judge show. Being a disgraced judge from Massachusetts is no handicap - Maria Lopez lasted a couple of seasons, didnt she?
The only surprising thing about this whole Somma story is that he ever thought he would have to quit the bench in disgrace. Disgrace? Come on, this is Massachusetts. In case youve forgotten the details, the judge was arrested in February on the main drag (get it?) in Manchester, N.H., after his Mercedes E320 sedan rear-ended another car. It was 11:29 on a weeknight when his wife was out of town. He blew a .12 on the Breathalyzer. Before rear-ending the car, the Newbury resident had been drinking at a bar that describes itself as New Hampshires favorite gay and alternative bar.
And then there was his attire. Understanding the politically correct age in which we live, the arresting officer from the Manchester PD knew he could only hint obliquely at the judges outfit. The cop mentioned in his report that the judge had a difficult time locating his license in his purse.
The next day the rest of the story came out in the Union Leader. The judge was wearing a slinky black cocktail dress, high heels and fishnet stockings. The judge decided to cop a plea.
From the Caribbean, Judge Somma resigned. His last day was supposed to have been April 1. But now hes going to try to hang on.
A letter-writing campaign was organized. Members of the bankruptcy bar deluged the court with letters, because God help any lawyer who didnt sign the letter if Judge Roberta somehow survives.
Sommas lawyer did not return a call yesterday, but let me guess the judges multiple defenses. Number one, hes not gay. Number two, this was the first time he ever did anything like this, at age 63. Number three, he didnt really resign.
Judge, what part of a judge being required to exercise good judgment do you not understand?
The six judges on the First Circuit will have to decide by May 15 what to do. Somma will probably lose the vote, and eventually he will sue. Amazing, isnt it? Twenty years ago he would have slunk off in humiliation. Now hes browsing the Victorias Secret catalog for the proper outfit in which to begin his/her new career as the Transgender Avenger.
Yesterday one lawyer was quoted as saying that the feeling among lawyers is, There but for the grace of God . . . Really? Remind me not to go bankrupt, if it requires hiring a cross-dressing drunken driver. But then, that quote appeared in a local newspaper that recently ran an obituary of a deceased primate at the Franklin Park Zoo that lovingly mentioned the dead monkeys brilliant, plum-colored rump.
Yes, this was the same newspaper that refused for weeks to report what Judge Roberta was wearing until his lawyer admitted it. An editorial in support of Judge Somma will no doubt appear soon.
By the way, the judge sent a letter this week to a lawyers publication, in which he identified the real villain of his humilitation - the tabloid media.
Give it a rest, Somma. Heres one more slogan for the career you should be pursuing: Judge Roberta - the best TV on TV.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1084876
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