War for sale
BY PHILLIPE & JORGE
Knowing how dedicated the network news media are to taking the high road and
serving the public, Phillipe & Jorge weren't surprised to recently read in
the New York Times that one of the main concerns over war with Iraq is
that the TV stations might lose ad revenue. It's bad enough that most of the
stations will have to dress up their anchors in authentic Lawrence of
Arabia sons of the desert regalia as they devote hours in feeding reheated
Pentagon pablum to the ignorant US masses, who will already be upset that
The Bachelorette and Friends have been bumped. Now word comes
that some major companies don't enjoy the prospect of their wares being pitched
by half-naked women with phony breasts immediately after viewers see a Scud
missile blowing up an orphanage.
P&J say, "C'mon folks!" Where's that good old-fashioned ingenuity that has
turned Americans into the biggest bunch of obese over-consumers in the history
of mankind? We've made an art out of stifling the great unwashed's gag reflex
through the soaring intelligence gathered on Madison Avenue. We shouldn't be
thrown off course if a few thousand young adults -- who believe they're
fighting for God and country, rather than greed and corporate criminals -- get
their heads blown off just because Boy George's Daddy was a wimp and the
National Guard duty-dodging son is delusional. So while we're setting the bad
taste bell ringing like Big Ben at the Queen's Jubilee, here are some obvious
commercial match-ups that could blend perfectly into war and DC footage once
the shooting starts.
First, any and all presidential appearances by Dubya the Dumb could be
immediately followed by a two-minute infomercial for Hooked on Phonics. Yes,
Mr. and Mrs. America, have your son or daughter speaking better English than
the leader of the free world within six weeks! We can go to a Viagra commercial
every time our old pal and Saddam's butt-boy, Rummy Rumsfeld, calls out "Old
Europe" and demeans draftees. "Yep," says Rummy, "Give me napalm in the morning
and Viagra at night and I'm a happy saber-rattler." And we can double up with
veep Dick "Big Time" Cheney with a pitch for the Energizer bunny that keeps his
pacemaker ticking, while pushing the "Where's Waldo?" jigsaw puzzle as we try
to locate him in his "secure position." (This would work even better with Osama
bin Laden, but the White House has evidently declared him a non-person since he
disappeared, much more alive than dead. Maybe it would be easier to spot Osama
if we asked him to wear a red-and-white striped sweater like Waldo.)
Needless to say, Hefty Bags could be the official body bag of the US military.
The Coors "Silver Bullet" would represent the official ammunition of our
fighting forces, with a tip of the hat to the Lone Ranger, as played by John
Ashcroft. Finally, to really bring home the joys of hand-to-hand battle and the
POWs that will ensue, we could run a Pez ad every time one of our own is
decapitated by the enemy. Tasteless? You bet! Almost as abhorrent as the
Bushies' talking (read: lying) head Ari Fleischer, who could endorse light
bulbs given how he brushes his hair with a washcloth.
Hey, stick with us, we've got a million of 'em. Let's just get the best and
the brightest working on this overtime, and even if the war does last for many
years, we'll have a new one every week. Now, about that Gardol shield . . .
Duct too late
Your superior correspondents and our friends often get a cheap chuckle by
referring to Duk Koo Kim, the South Korean boxer who Ray "Boom-Boom" Mancini
killed in the ring, as "Duk Too Late." (And one of the most overlooked
sports-oriented songs in the world is Warren Zevon's hard-rocking tribute to
the hard-hitting middleweight, "Boom Boom Mancini," which Bob Dylan actually
performed during his 2002 tour: "Hurry home early, hurry on home / Boom-Boom
Mancini's fighting Bobby Chacon.")
But we digress. What P&J really want to do is congratulate our homeland
security head clown, Tom Ridge, for bringing the entire American public down to
the level of the Biggest Little's Moron Majority -- the geniuses who race out
to buy milk, eggs, and batteries at the sight of a single snowflake. He did
this, of course, by scaring Americans into making a run on duct tape to seal
off their homes from bio-chemical terrorist weapons.
Astute observers pointed out, after every hardware store in the country was
stripped of its duct tape stock within 24 hours, that the tape would do no good
unless you also had a supply of clean air. They also indicated that if the tape
job was done right, home-improvers would suffocate themselves and their fellow
mental cases. Well, better that than die of anthrax, right? We all know Dubya
Bush is a total moron, but it appears his disease is catching in DC. Aren't you
glad our first line of defense, replete with M&M-colored warning codes, is
being run by our own "Duct Too Late"? Nice job, Tommy. Have a lie down,
please.
New views
Phillipe & Jorge are happy to tell you about the opening of a new urban
gallery space in Providence, the Point Gallery. Ken Cabral, a member of the
fabled Cabral clan (Ali, Len), long fixtures on the Providence arts and culture
scene, is opening the exhibition space in his residence at 293 Point St. Ken is
primarily self-taught and has been creating paintings, pen and ink drawings,
and photographs for more than 20 years. The opening exhibition at Point Gallery
will be a retrospective of his work since 1980.
Much of Ken's work is informed by his rich Cape Verdean heritage, his
experiences as a steward on the schooner Ernestina, and a lifelong
resident's appreciation of the Biggest Little. Expect a wide range of subject
matter and a multi-media approach. Ken has timed the gallery opening to
coincide with Black History Month. It's this Sunday, February 23 from 2 to 6
p.m. Future hours will be by appointment only. You can reach the Point Gallery
at (401) 272-1016. Ken is a longtime friend of your superior correspondents and
we wish him well in his new endeavor.
It's about time
Blues and roots music experience a mini-boomlet in the press every decade that
usually blows over in about six months. While we have no illusions that a
full-scale revival is under way, it sure was nice to see two major stories in
print this past Sunday.
First, the New York Times ran a huge front-page article on the
legendary Bo Diddley. This had particular meaning for Jorge, who played a slew
of gigs with Bo in 1977-78, performed in a documentary with the rock pioneer
(the first film directed by Vo Dilun's own Jim Wolpaw), and did some recording
with Bo as well. As the story pointed out, he may be the most underrated and
neglected of rock 'n' roll's founding spirits. Bo has more than earned the
bitterness he feels about the standard rip-off record deals and royalty scams
that were common in the '50s and '60s, but we've never met anyone who bore this
disappointment and anger with such dignity and grace.
Jorge remembers talking to Bo in the 1980s when Miami Vice was a major
top 10 show on television, noting that Little Richard and some of his other
peers had appeared as guest stars on the series. Asked if the producers had
approached him, Bo said they had, but they weren't talking about serious money,
so he took a pass. Tough and proud, Bo wouldn't roll over for the short
bread.
Sunday also saw a feature in the BeloJo on Paul Geremia, another certified
musical gem, who just happens to be a Vo Dilunduh. Paul's up for a Grammy this
year for his performance on a compilation recording featuring the tunes of the
great bluesman, Mississippi Fred McDowell. As Paul points out in the article,
there was a time when most people who cared about rock 'n' roll music knew
about the likes of Fred McDowell (and John Hurt and the Reverend Gary Davis,
for that matter).
Perhaps there will be renewed interest in the great John Lee Hooker because of
the Chevy truck commercial currently featuring his music. Stranger things have
happened. We do know that the people Jorge was fortunate enough to run into
back in his music days -- Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Otis Blackwell, Muddy
Waters, Doc Pomus, and a slew of others, now gone -- remain heroes, the real
thing. Let's hope that stories like the ones that appeared on Sunday will
continue to turn the kids onto this music.
Snow job
As the President's Day blizzard was starting Monday morning, February 17, there
were probably some people who reluctantly went to work expecting the worst.
Some of them may have considered taking a RIPTA bus for transportation,
figuring that if the snow got really bad, really fast, it might be more
convenient to bus it back and forth and not have to worry about having their
car stuck in a snowdrift. At various times RIPTA has encouraged people to take
the bus on days when the weather is particularly bad (all those federally
funded ozone alert days in the summer, for instance).
Well, it didn't help anyone when they opened up Monday morning's Urinal or
turned on Channel 10's morning news show to learn that RIPTA was following the
"Sunday/holiday" schedule. Especially when this wasn't true and RIPTA was on
the regular daily schedule.
Let us give you an example of what can happen: you hear that RIPTA is on the
Sunday/holiday schedule. You consult your little blue schedule and find that
the 7:30 a.m. bus you normally take won't be running. The first bus on your
route doesn't arrive until 8:40 a.m. So you miss an hour of work, or perhaps
get fired for showing up late. And you could have made it on time if you had
known that Monday was a regular service day.
While it's fairly likely that Channel 10 got its misinformation from the
BeloJo (those TV rip-and-read habits die hard), we suspect that the Other Paper
didn't just guess that RIPTA was on Sunday/holiday. We were unsuccessful in
trying to reach Nicole Langlois of RIPTA's marketing and communications
department. Perhaps she was stuck waiting at a bus stop. All we can say is that
this sort of misinformation (a driver told us that the daily paper mistakenly
reported a Sunday/holiday schedule for the Dr. Martin Luther King holiday) is
not helpful in encouraging bus usage.
Send bus passes and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j[a]phx.com.
Issue Date: February 21 - 27, 2003
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