"Jew smart?" "What an insult!" Celebrating DIVERSITY and Differences? OY OY OY!

So what IS the deal, Abe? Abraham Lincoln: "All men are created equal." Really?

Shouldn't there be an ASTERISK on that? Do we NOT believe our eyes? How about statistics? Let's take HEIGHT for example:

You'd think we might be ALLOWED to go to Holland and remark, "Say, you sure have a lot of TALL people here." We SHOULD also be allowed to point out that "the average Dutchman is way taller than the average Peruvian!" Here's the list of the countries with the SHORTEST people:

Isn't the big deal today "celebrating diversity?" We're supposed to be SO happy there are people of EVERY color, and EVERY religion, and EVERY height. Only we're really not allowed to say so. Sometimes.

STEREOTYPES, some Darwinian scholar might say, are often based in truth. The Jewish comedians of the 20th Century, the Mel Brooks and Milton Berle types, explained why so many comedians were Jewish: Jews had to be FUNNY to survive. They had to be useful in some way. If they weren't doctors, lawyers or accountants, they might be exterminated. If they didn't amuse the concentration camp guards by playing a violin like Heifitz or Menuhin, they'd be dead. If they didn't charm with jokes...including Myron Cohen starting his career as a funny salesman...they lived in poverty.

Is it possible that Asians are really good in math? Is that a BAD thing to say?

Is it racist to point out that a huge percentage of basketball players are BLACK? Gosh, why no Peruvians?

The New York Post gleefully noted that The New York Times revised an article for having the blasphemous NERVE to suggest that Jews are smart. In particular, Ashkenazi Jews.

You know what? Maybe the N.Y. Post should expose the RACIST INTERNET where every medical website points out that Jews, particularly Ashkenazi Jews, are more prone to Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease than others are. (And let's also point out those fucking racists who insist that only BLACKS get sickle cell anemia!)

Here's the Post:

You can't win. Every day there's some new PC rule, somebody thrown out of show business, somebody fired, and some idiot or other getting OFFENDED over what might be the truth. Is it racism or Darwin to suggest that only the most clever and talented Jews were able to survive all the pogroms and persecution? That only the fittest Africans, tall and muscular, were able to avoid being eaten by lions over these many centuries? That the French cookbook is a LOT more diverse than the English cookbook, or that recipes in Northern India or Northern Italy differ from ones in the Southern parts of those countries? Etc. etc. etc.

The big whine about the "Jews are smart" line, is that it's so RACIST because it suggests, gasps, that certain people are DIFFERENT from other people. You mean the pygmies and the Dinkas are the same height? Not different? We're not supposed to believe our own eyes?

The problem with stereotype is only when the word ALL is attached to it. Not ALL Asians are small. Sumo wrestlers aren't small. Not all Jews are accountants or comedians. Indeed, there are a lot of dumb and mediocre Jews, and you only have to visit Brooklyn to know that. There are generous Scotsmen. There are brave Frenchmen. There are Yorkshiremen who speak English properly. A Jewish woman can look like Joan Rivers or Lauren Bacall.

It's gotten to the point now that people can't open their mouths, write a few lines, or do ANYTHING without some naggy idiot pointing a finger and clucking a tongue and, worse, trying to censor and silence somebody else or make good on the threat "you'll NEVER work again."

The irony is that we are getting more and more sensitive in SOME ways, and more and more obtuse in others. For every woeful Debie Downer niggling over who can say the N word or its variant, "Nigga," or whether "fat shaming" is terrible or whether we should have an entire runway of models who look like garbage trucks, we still have boneheads who deny climate change, continue to smoke cigarettes, and delight in shouting "snowflake" at somebody who doesn't eat meat or thinks foie gras is a cruel and stupid product. There are people who mewl about abortion and cheer the death penalty. There are dumb arrogant people who think humans have the right to kill animals for fur and throw the carcass away...on the same pile as plastic bottles, paper towels, rubber tires and thousands of pounds of rotted food.

Yes, it could be offensive if, at a party, somebody says, "Oh, you Jews are all SO smart," or "you're black...you played basketball in school?" It might be better if people weren't condescending or so quick to judge someone on the basis of a stereotype. But it's also useful to acknowledge DIVERSITY, which is supposed to be a big deal now. Or are we supposed to have basketball teams that include Peruvians because size shouldn't matter, and dumbasses who failed their exams hired anyway to be doctors? Is it racist that when people go out to an Italian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, an Indian restaurant, a Fish and Chips restaurant, they expect their server to be as ethnic as the food? It's not racism, it's ambience.

Too often "PC" is an excuse to be stupid, gain control, or be Machiavellian. Aha, Senator Jellybrain thought, "Al Franken hugged a few women a little closer than he should've when they asked for a selfie -- I can become the LEADING LIBERAL SENATOR if I demand his resignation! Because...I am SHOCKED! SHOCKED! This is behavior worth a man LOSING HIS JOB!!"

Let's go back to the FACT that Ashkenazi Jews have a much higher rate of IBD and other issues. Do we DENY this because somebody might not hire an Ashkenazi Jew, figuring that person is going to have a lot of sick leave because it's POSSIBLE the odds are higher for IBD than somebody else? That's when things get nuts. Don't deny it. Accept it. And in every day life, explain your truth if somebody's pandering. It seems that less and less people do the stupid things that Lenny Bruce satirized in "How to Relax Your Colored Friends at Parties." Somebody is not as likely to go up to a black person and pander, "Joe Louis was a heckuva fighter." Or Mike Tyson. Or "Some of my best friends..." It's disappointing when it still happens, but it can be dealt with. As for this hoo-hah over the intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews in particular, or Jews in general, who knows? IQ tests are being debunked these days because they're "unfair." How does one measure intelligence? The same way one measures size?

But, go ahead, New York Times, be very careful the next time you dare mention that Peruvians are among the shortest people on earth. Put in an asterisk to denote there CAN be some very tall Peruvians. SOMEBODY might be offended if you don't.

So WHO'S killing the JEWS?

Here's the asshole who attacked a Pittsburgh synagogue:

And here's the asshole who attacked Orthodox Jews on the final night of Chanukah this year:

What do they have in common? Color? No, stupidity. Bias. The warped idea that scapegoating one race solves all their petty and paranoid problems. As if any one person can wipe out a race of people. Even Hitler couldn't do it. But we're talking about mental cases, who don't even seem to care that they will spend the rest of their lives penned up in a cage like the animals they are.

Today's news, in the wake of the Monsey incident, is to blame...oh, let's see...LIBERALS. Yes, the New York Post had a columnist insist that the problem is that Liberals (like DeBlasio, aka De Lousio) are too soft on anti-Semitism.

Others blamed it on anti-Zionism and pro-Palestinian rhetoric, the kind of thing that comes from Roger Waters, Patti Smith, Desmond "Dizzy Desi the Toot" Tutu and Peter Gabriel.

Still others took this incident as a welcome sign that White KKK-neo Nazi idiots shouldn't be scapegoated because, hey hey hey, let's look at angry "people of color," and the latest group of nuts to fall from the tree, the Black Hebrew Israelites.

So, WHO'S killing the JEWS?

Listen to Tom Lehrer's song about National Brotherhood Week:

Oh the protestants hate the catholics
and the catholics hate the protestants
and the hindus hate the muslims
and everybody hates the jews

So, WHO'S killing the JEWS?

EVERYBODY.

Tom's line got a big laugh some 50 years ago, and we still laugh because it's the truth, but, you know, it ain't THAT funny.

But why the JEWS?

You could read thousands upon thousands of articles on anti-Semitism and find theories. Mine is pretty simple:

You pick on somebody who is not going to be able to do much about it.

The jerk who shot up the synagogue picked on unarmed Jews. So did the jerk who knifed five people in Monsey. So did the crazed duo who blasted a New Jersey deli with their automatic weapons.

Pick on people who have a stereotypical reputation for being weak. In the case of the Orthodox Jews, who make for the most obvious target, it's frankly a lot of very pale and emaciated-looking people. "Let's be honest," as Jackie Mason still says, if you saw three blacks walking down the street, or three Orthodox Jews, who would you be more afraid of?

There's no longer a JDL, is there? The guy who founded that group got shot.

What do the average non-Jew SCHMUCKS know about Jews, as opposed to Muslims? They know that the Orthodox Jew's outfit and the Burqa are both outlandish, but one group will blow your fucking house up if you mess with them. They know that if you laugh at Moses, it's ok, but if you cartoon Mohamed, you're fucking house will blow up. They know that all Jews will do is bury their dead and be solemn, but the Muslims might very well start knifing anyone they see and declare a Fatwa or something. (I'm talking about how SCHMUCKS think. And they don't THINK too clearly, do they? But this is their LOGIC. Jews are the easy target).

Racism is fueled by what people see and hear. If people heard nothing but GOOD things about a group of people, instead of scapegoating, maybe the hates would be less prone to hate. Instead, with anti-Semitism, there's the tough-looking nasty neo-Nazi bunch that knuckleheads admire. There's the perverse glee of seeing Holocaust footage — and the fact that when it comes to watching brutal "Ilsa" movies or the real thing and photos of naked people heaped in piles — the racists suddenly aren't denying the Holocaust but hoping to get in on a revival of it.

It doesn't help matters when an idiot like Tyson Fury starts repeating ancient lies about Jews owning everything, or Rep. Ilhan Omar shouting "it's about the BENJAMINS" and being the first elected Muslim to openly scapegoat Jews. News reports that treat swastika graffiti and sucker-punching as somehow cool, are also a problem. It's a tough line when it comes to reporting something correctly, but in such a way that it isn't glorified. Some idiots see an anonymous act of vandalism and want to copy it so they can enjoy being feared and made famous while safely concealing their identity -- the same twisted logic that fuels graffiti artists who spray their mindless "tags" even if nobody actually knows what these tags mean or who sprayed them.

The only Jews who are considered tough, as a group, are the Israelis, and Israel as far, far away from the kind of bullies who overturn tombstones, terrorize shopkeepers in Paris, torment doctors in Sweden, punch little children in Germany, or try to murder prayerful people in Pittsburgh and Monsey.

Perhaps the NRA would suggest that all Jews carry guns — and take after the mythical Ben Cartwright and Joe Cartwright (Lorne Greene and Michael Landon) who were Jewish, but played Western tough guys on "Bonanza."

Perhaps an answer is to remind everyone that you are not going to obliterate or intimidate ANY race of people, whatever their color or religion.

I remember, when I was only 8 years old, reading about this thing called "prejudice." There were pictures of what they called "Negroes," hanging from trees. If they weren't being killed, they were being shunned; not allowed to eat at a "whites only" restaurant, or use a bathroom. Even famous blacks who were playing baseball, were being subjected to obnoxious curses from the stands. Famous and respected black entertainers were denied the chance to be on TV or in movies.

And I thought, what is WRONG with these prejudiced people? They'd want to lynch The Coasters? The Marcels?

Although I didn't know it at the time, Lenny Bruce was asking a question in nightclub: would you want to sleep with a BLACK BLACK woman or a WHITE WHITE woman...if the black woman is Lena Horne, and the white woman is KATE SMITH?

An irony was that back then, violence against blacks was much more in the news than violence against Jews. Violence against Jews, the kind we read about NOW, was fairly rare. Mostly, we were told about The Holocaust, and "Never Again," and were led to believe that it really WAS "Never Again."

Now, as the Weisenthal Center newsletters would tell you, and the news will tell you, anti-Semitism is very much a factor ALL over the world. Jews, ever since the Pharoah, ever since the pogroms, have been the most targeted group of all time. Let's put it this way, half of America didn't fight a Civil War to make sure Jews could live in peace.

You'd think, since sex is the most powerful impulse, and males are usually the ones spouting anti-Semtism, that one might reason with them by saying...you'd kill THESE babes??

Do you suppose the nutjob who shot people at the Pittsburgh synagogue would've NOT done this if he was told: CAPTAIN KIRK is JEWISH. MR. SPOCK is JEWISH.

Didn't he ever watch Shatner and Nimoy on "Star Trek??"

How about Jonas Salk. How about Einstein. How about Bob Dylan. How about Leiber & Stoller. How about THE THREE STOOGES? You want to exterminate the Jews, and kill Kirk Douglas and Scarlett Johansson and I guess, cut in half Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe? Need I mention a few hundred names of Jews who have made the world a better, more amusing, funnier, safer place? This includes Jews who wrote a hell of a lot of favorite Christmas songs?

Sadly, the answer is the guy who shot up the Pittsburgh synagogue didn't even give a crap that HIS life was saved by a Jewish doctor who tended to his bullet wounds.

The bottom line is that you can't reason with CRAZY.

All you can do is try and prevent crazy people from fixating on a particular group, keep an eye on them, and try and underline to those only HALF crazy, that the answer to their gripes and grumbles is not to take it out on blacks, gays, Jews, Asians, or any other bunch of people, but to try and better themselves. Don't blame somebody else or some other group when the problem is very likely your own, and something you can work on by positive self-motivation and education. These assholes who have killed, tried to kill, or just knocked over some tombstones or painted swastikas for kicks: how did it improve THEIR fucking lives?

Sue Lyon a "PED-ULTIMATE" star - dies at 73

No, not penultimate. Let's invent a new word: PED-ULTIMATE.

It should refer to that small group of actresses who played to pedophile lust (in SERIOUS movies, let's quickly add) and had almost NO success when they got older.

Here's Sue Lyon, striking a "Baby Doll" pose. Perhaps it's not as overt (thumb sucking) as Carroll Baker in "Baby Doll," made a few years earlier, but ultimately, the Peeker Pan element prevailed: DON'T GROW UP. If you do, we won't be interested.

Carroll Baker, an underrated dramatic actress, startled viewers in "Baby Doll," but didn't progress too far after that. She managed to play "Harlow," but in the duel with the late Carol Lynley, who also starred as Jean Harlow at the same time, neither film was a big hit. Neither film was any good, which didn't help. From there, Baker made a few "sexploitation" films that cultists drool over, but for many, she remained forever "Baby Doll."

As for Sue Lyon, she got a supporting role in "Night of the Iguana," a film dominated by Richard Burton and Ava Gardner. Sue could've been Stella Stevens, Connie Stevens, Yvette Mimieuw or, yes, Baker or Lynley, and people still wouldn't have cared that much. Sue Lyon was forever "Lolita," a role she played at 14. (Marrying age for anyone from Edgar Allan Poe to Jerry Lee Lewis).

Another example of someone who had a ped-ultimate career with a lurid child-sex symbol role? Brooke Shields in "Pretty Baby." Anyone remember her in ANYTHING else? There are pervs on eBay who are STILL buying dupe photos of her from that movie, and not from "Blue Lagoon" or whatever other forgettable stuff she did a few years later.

Fortunately for Lyon, Baker, Shields and a few others, the PC brigade exempts "serious art films" from the taint of prurient pedophile interest. Nobody as yet is planning on banning those movies from DVD sale or Netflix.

The sad fact is that there's PED-ULTIMATE interest outside of the movie theater. Larry Nassar proved that point didn't he? Much worse than Sandusky, or "Jared from Subway," Dr. Nassar "examined" female gymnasts with no professionalism at all, just pedo-lust. What's happened since? Well, young females have lobbied to prevent TV cameras from getting crotch-shots of athletes bending over and about to run a 100 yard dash. Cameras are likewise not as likely to linger on perky backsides or provocative splits on the gymn floor or the uneven parallel bars. 16 year-old tennis stars no longer come to the court in fly-away skirts and panties, but more often, sports shorts instead, or an outfit that stays in place with thigh-high garments underneath. There's a bit more awareness of preserving SOME kind of modest and innocence in young females, even if the age they lose their virginity continue to get lower and lower. The balance is that serious films examining "young lust" are still available and immune from PC witch hunts. And for now, Ringo Starr still can sing "You're 16, you're beautiful, and you're mine."

One nice thing that Sue Lyon recalled about her experiences on the set of "Lolita" was that she was treated kindly, and not lewdly. Peter Sellers was nice to her, and James Mason kept things light: "Come on, kiddo, let's go run the lines." As Lyon recalled, "He wanted to make sure I was comfortable," and I suppose, emphasize that this was JUST a movie being rehearsed, and NOT real life.

Of course, the people who drool and do "screen captures" of scenes from "Baby Doll," "Pretty Baby" or "Lolita" don't refer to character names when they sell them or pass them all over the Internet. It's "Carroll Baker, hot" and "Brooke Shields nearly naked" and "Sue Lyon, JAIL BAIT!" That's human nature for SOME film fans. They just don't take the actresses seriously -- they just love their PED-ULTIMATE movies.

DON IMUS -- the legendary I-MAN

Before there was an iPod there was the I-Man. Don Imus. He left the air in 2018, and swooped the planet (to use a Lord Buckley) phrase, at the tail end of 2019.

“Imus in the Morning” was a ritual for quite a lot of people, with his first exposure coming at KXOA in Sacramento. It was there that he won notoriety for his phone gag of calling up a fast food joint and requesting "1200 hamburgers to go." He was probably happy when the FCC singled him out for complaint, and made a big stink out of his burger gag. The FCC even enacted a new rule to foil other wiseguys like him, insisting radio personalities must identify who they are when making "prank" calls. Just how often they did, and what the fines were if they didn't, I have no idea. He joined WNBC radio (or as they insisted their disc jockeys pronounce it, WNnnnnnnBC) in June of 1968, and after a long run, bounced to WFAN and then had his final stand at WABC from 2007 to 2018. Like any number of radio shows or even TV talk shows, his appeal was “now,” and had nothing to do with posterity. You had to be there.

Like chewing gum instead of sitting down to a fine meal, he was more a time-wasting habit than substantial. Is it possible to put together a memorable hour or two from his FIFTY years on the year? Maybe an hour. Maybe not. But when you consider how tenuous the memory is on David Frost, Mike Douglas, Jack Paar, or even Craig Ferguson — you realize that there were, and are, people who are amusing today, even if what they did is forgotten tomorrow. Frost, Douglas, Paar — what survives are a few highlight high-profile guest spots, but the percentage is very low, and gets lower as fewer and fewer care about Nixon, Yoko Ono’s cracked coffee cups, or “leaky Jack” sparring with an Oscar Levant, Judy Garland or Mickey Rooney.

When he was hot, late 60’s and early 70’s, he made a few record albums. Imus dusted off well-worn comedy topics like the windy preacher (Dr. Billy Sol Hargus) and the zany put-on phone calls and his fans loved it. Mostly, they just loved a guy who was grumpy, insulting, and so COOL about saying stuff you weren’t supposed to say on the air. “Shock jock” was a phrase invented about him, before his shocks were absorbed and made much more colorful by his rival Howard Stern.

Stern was gleeful about beating out the old man (not older by THAT much) in the ratings, especially, it seemed, because Imus was typically disdainful of Stern when he arrived, and curmudgeonly about sharing anything with the newcomer.

“If I’m being honest,” most of this was of little interest to me, as I wasn’t awake when Don and Howard were pranking and smirking and getting guffaws from their listeners. I met Howard only once, at a David Letterman annual party, and my encounter with the I-Man was probably very typical of anybody’s. I was headed up to Doubleday, to discuss my newest book (“The Comedy Quote Dictionary”). The office was in the 666 building. “Imus in the Morning?” There was Imus in the elevator. I got in, pressed the button for my floor, and on my second glance at Imus, I noticed he had slumped against the back of the elevator, and dropped his cowboy hat over his eyes. It was the ultimate “don’t talk to me” pose. I didn’t blame him, since I’m sure every day was loaded with cretinous fans shouting stupid greetings to him or pestering him for one inane reason or another. Oh yes...about the cowboy hat; he had an honest reason to wear it, having grown up in Arizona on a cattle farm. He took a variety of menial jobs including railroad work, before turning up in California and getting his first radio gig. In later years the cowboy hat fit in well at his "Imus Ranch" in New Mexico, where he ran a charity that gave kids with cancer a chance to enjoy the Western lifestyle.

I was usually up by the time Stern and Robin Quivers were doing the “news” segment, and I enjoyed that. Later, when you could download Stern’s shows off the Net, I’d sometimes enjoy his interviews, but not the endless squabbling between him and his nitwit call-in pals and cohorts, or the boring, if not “retarded” phone calls he’d take from his “wack pack.” As for Imus, once in a while he’d get a phone call from Mort Sahl. I remember the very sad day when Dick Cavett subbed as the guest, because Mort’s son had died. I instantly called Mort to offer my condolences. “Ya heard,” he said. Well, yes, Cavett and Imus were talking about it.

Eventually Mort would be disgusted at the very mention of “The I-Man,” annoyed that he was not getting the air time he used to. He questioned Don’s “loyalty.” Not that this was unusual for Mort, who routinely would insult his supporters (including Steve Allen and Dick Cavett) and expect total support for being an "iconoclast." Perhaps Imus used Mort less and less because Mort's particular brand if iconoclasm didn't include blunt insults, the kind Don's high percentage of pinhead listeners loved so much.

Some listeners didn't care who Don Imus attacked, as long as he attacked. Their misfit dissatisfaction with being jealous non-entities made Imus a hero. All he had to do was call Hillary Clinton "Satan," and he'd get approving snickers. If Don attacked an actual conservative, like "war criminal" Vice-President Cheney, well, that was ok, too. Freedom of Speech was a good defense against calling somebody a "senile old dirtbag," but as with Howard Stern, the executives at the stations Don worked for were sometimes pretty nervous and sometimes had to pull the plug on him. Still, radio was his media and whether he was at WNnnnnnbc, or WFAN or WABC, his fans found him.

Attempts for Imus to cross over into stand-up, or to become the “king of all media” or author a best seller never happened. One brief moment of promise came when something called “MTV” became popular. The notion of the “vee-jay” (as opposed to the “va-jay-jay”) led to a new type of “celebrity.” When MTV started up their sister VH1 network for more mature viewers, Imus was tabbed as their star attraction. His TV commercials promised that “pork faced Yuppies” need not tune in. As it turned out, stone-faced aging Imus was not the face anyone was looking for.

While Howard Stern's face was made for radio, Don Imus, usually looking severely pissed off, was hardly a poster boy either. He also didn't have the self-effacing buffoonery of Stern, who eventually found his way to high TV visibility via "America's Got Talent." Imus remained a voice.

Like Carson to Cavett, or Graham Norton to Jonathan Ross, Stern was the superstar and Imus was only drawing enough die-hards to stay on the air. The “king of morning drive-time” was unquestionably Howard Stern. Howard famously got his deal with satellite radio, able to end his fighting and feuding with censorship and the PC brigade. Imus was not so fortunate, and in 2007, his shock remark about the Rutger’s female basketball team nearly ended his career. Egged on by his “go too far” fans, Don was always prone toward mean remarks, but this one got few laughs: “That's some nappy-headed ho's there, I'm going to tell you that.”

Was he a racist? Of course not, he was a provocateur. An “equal opportunity offender” (as they used to say about Mort) but times were changing. And this was AM radio. “Nappy headed,” some were quick to point out, was “sometimes” used as a term for blacks who wore Afros or more Buckwheat-styled or Don King-styled wilder do’s. As for “ho’s,” well, that term was on every rap record it seemed, and Jay Leno would often use the word simply as a cheerful synonym for whore or prostitute, regardless of color. I remember TV Guide once talking about Cosby’s hair style being “nappy natural.” Still, in 2007, and coming from the sour, craggy-faced shock jock, it seemed far more offensive. He was suspended.

Imus redeemed himself, for some, by his laudable charity work, and even if his show was not much of a factor anymore, he made it to his 50th anniversary, even if his somewhat choked-up farewell hardly got the media attention of Carson’s final broadcast. For those who were listening to Stern, or Mancow or Opie and Anthony, Imus was irrelevant. His shows were offered not only to radio listeners but to viewers via a Fox cable channel (he'd earlier been on the more liberal MSNBC) but how many really wanted to see his rather craggy face? Even with careful lighting? Imus seemed especially haggard in his last decade, perhaps due to prostate cancer (which he insisted he was not treating with radiology) and emphysema. It was the latter that forced him off the air for a while in 2017, and led to his decision to retire the following year.

Well, those are my thoughts on the I-Man. Unlike the NY Times, I don't write obits in advance. In fact, I usually don't write obits at all, just some words if the passing of someone moves me and my memory.

Is it likely that the “vaults” will open and any radio station will be offering “the best of Don Imus?” Is anyone going to re-issue Don’s old RCA albums as some kind of boxed set, with a few bonus CDs of “rare and outrageous moments” from his radio shows? Not likely. Still, Don Imus was a legend in his own time, and for quite a few years, especially back at WNnnnnnnBC. He’s got fans who miss him, and many who are having a post-Christmas downer because his retirement years turned out to be few. In the Radio Hall of Fame, the short name of Don Imus still means some big achievements.

RONALD L. SMITH MEME (how long will it take to be stolen and attributed to somebody else?)

MARY PETTY and ALAN DUNN - opposites who were both New Yorker cartoonists

I've been downsizing lately, and that includes giving up a lot of cartoon hardcovers. Oh, I've scanned a few favorites from each book, and I've still kept my Addams and Steig, but Alan Dunn was one that will hopefully amuse somebody else. That is, if there's anybody who still cares about wry New Yorker cartoons back in the days when there was a real cartoon editor and the artists actually knew how to draw.

Dunn's style was rather "atmospheric." Pre-stipple (Drew Friedman) it seemed like everyone in a Dunn cartoon was operating through a haze of dust or air pollution.

As I scanned a few cartoons, and read about him, I was surprised to learn that he was married to Mary Petty. No, I never did acquire one of her anthologies. Her work was, well, flighty and SUNNY. Dunn got nine New Yorker covers, and his wife nearly four times as many. One reason was that Mary's works were so breezy and colorful:

Dunn (1900-1974) who also worked for the "Architectural Record," was the first to find success at The New Yorker, and he encouraged self-taught Mary (1899-1976) to submit her art. She got her first cover in 1927, the second year of The New Yorker's existence. She would offer new cartoons through 1966.

Very few New Yorker cartoonists seemed to be famous to the general public. They didn't kibbitz on Jack Paar's show. They didn't appear in many art galleries (the days of prized "original art" cartoons would only come in this age where everyone worships anything Marvel, and stubbornly refuses to toss their "silver age" and "bronze age" comic books on the grounds that they are all both art and fine literature). They were rarely interviewed in magazines.

Dunn and Petty lived quietly on the Upper East Side, in a three-bedroom apartment that also served as studio space for their art. They had no children, and remained elusive, except for letters. Their papers are housed at Syracuse University, which guarantees that nobody will bother to go through the time and trouble to go up there and access them and try to take some notes on their correspondence with mostly forgotten names such as Peggy Bacon, Isabel Bishop, Warren Chappell and Eric Hodgins. One wonders what either of them wrote to Alan Watts and what he wrote to them.

Dunn and Petty were a bit of an enigma to others at the magazine that gave them so much income. James Thurber was once asked about Mary, and his response was she was "born in a brownstone house on West End Avenue. Her father was a professor. She did not have a particularly happy childhood. That's all, brother." The childless couple seemed to have an uneventful existence until December 1, 1971, when Mary was viciously mugged. The elderly woman apparently did not fully recover physically or mentally. A few years later, Alan Dunn died, and Mary may have already been confined to a nursing home in New Jersey. She died there two years after her husband's passing. They were opposites in cartoon style, but very compatible in real life.

music AND lyrics by JERRY HERMAN

Jerry Herman's died (July 10, 1931 – December 26, 2019). Yes, the day after Christmas IS depressing.

He won several Tony awards for writing the same show over and over.

HELLO DOLLY? Extravagant, obnoxious old bag is the center of attention. The irritating title song actually knocked The Beatles off #1 via the obnoxious cover version by Louis Armstrong. The movie was lame thanks to the miscasting of Baba Streisand who wasn't nearly as old or campy as "Dolly" should've been.

MAME? Same thing: extravagant, obnoxious old bag is the center of attention. Same title song -- everyone saluting the old bag. The Lsnsbury stage production was a hit. The movie turned out to be a disaster thanks to the casting of Lucille Testicle.

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES? HIV positive since 1985, and now uninhibited thanks to gay lib, Herman focused on an extravagant, obnoxious old DRAG QUEEN (played by Georg Hearn) being the center of attention. Once again, the highlight were production numbers showing off costumes. Wisely, he didn't have a title tune referencing the femme's name. The show minced along through various modestly successful revivals, and a well-received film version and yes, an adaptation called "The Birdcage."

When he DIDN'T offer cheesy, costume-heavy musicals about a single flamboyant old bag, Jerry Herman flopped. Or did you catch "Mack and Mabel?" Shows that hinted there MIGHT be a campy old bag on stage didn't do well: "Dear World," "The Grand Tour."

Herman's first success was "Milk and Honey" in 1961 starring Yiddish-vaudeville star Molly Picon along with Mimi Benzell. It was about aging widows looking for hubbies while on a tour of Israel. It received five Tony Award nominations and lost them all. Broadway was morphing away from Jewish stars (such as Zero Mostel in "Fiddler on the Roof") and stories that might attract the Wednesday matinee crowd from Long Island. Gay audiences were beginning to become a force, both in supporting gay authors, gay themes, and campy items like "Hello Dolly" with Carol Channing, which was Jerry's next show, and the hit of the 1964 season.

A total of three hit musicals and a few well-regarded but shorter-lived items isn't too shabby. No, it's chic. Also, Herman was that rarity, often writing both music AND lyrics. Usually Broadway musicals are done by a "team." Jerry didn't offer a new show in the past 30 years, but instead enjoyed his hobby of decorating houses.

These days, fortunately, you rarely hear "Hello Dolly" or "Mame" on the radio. "I am What I am" is a gay anthem standard, and a favorite of drag queens all over the world. No doubt "La Cage" will be revived again and again on Broadway, where "Kinky Boots" and "Tootsie" and other drag shows run almost forever. Perhaps "Hello Dolly" and "Mame" will be revived too -- of course, with the lead played by a guy in drag.

And, like, Lenny Da Vinci, he did "Mona Lisa"

Oh, there was a just another little reminder of how dumbed-down people are, and how they can't communicate properly. Ain't it a shame? It's all, like, sort of sucks, dude.

Lookit who died. It's the woman who DID the theme from "Friends."

No proofreader needed. We all know what up. Know wuttum sayin? We KNOW what she DID. She DID the "Friends" theme.

I'm sure that all the people who actually know what the FUCK the "Friends" theme sounds like, are fine with knowing who DID it. It might only be people who never watched that stupid show and were reading a book instead, who would be objecting.

The woman WROTE the theme for "Friends." Is that sentence too esoteric? WROTE has two extra letters in it, compared to DID. That's a problem?

Who wrote "Sweethearts of 60's TV." I did. But did I "do" the book "Sweethearts of 60's TV?" Yes, your honor, I "did it." But that's a confession. When I worked on the book, I was WRITING it.

It's a small quirk chipping away on the larger crumble of grammar? Well, I guess I'm all into correctness, and I'm not down with or in with any outage in the English language.

PS, when are we all officially sick of shortened nicknames for people (J-LO, Scar-Jo) or couples (Brangelina). But I digress.

The good news is that eventually there won't be an English language. Nobody will be teaching Shakespeare. It'll be rap. And when you make a phone call, "If you want to hear our menu in English" might be the 9th button you press, with #1 being Spanish, #2 being Ebonics, #3 being Chinese....

Somebody be cool with that. Somebody be "dropping" a song that somebody DID, which will 'splain what the deal is. Or maybe what ever people do, or did, will be rapped by the next president, P. Diddy.

Rubbing Off Letters at BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO

Know what was fun?

Going into the DVD rental store, and scraping a letter off the box cover.

Yep, you could rub off a letter and have some fun.

Of course, another type of fun for some: going to the back where the adult material was, and rubbing off.

Meme and Joke Thieves? No $$ For Creativity? Watta Surprise...

"The Atlantic" made it official. If you think you can earn money or gain fame by throwing your jokes on Twitter, or making a meme that goes viral...the answer is NO.

Like most everything else that involves creativity — photography, writing, music, movies — the Internet gobbles everything up, and spits it out for FREE. We're all supposed to keep our day jobs (if we even have them) and DONATE our creativity FREE.

Oh yes, and if anybody DOES have any money, DONATE it to a GOFUNDME campaign because the Internet is now the alternative for the government doing its job (like providing health care). Oh yes, and give PAYPAL donations to bloggers who go around sucking music, apps, comic books, whatever from mysterious torrents and putting them up on their more visible GOOGLE-driven blogs.

About the only surprise in this article (which you can Google for FREE to see the whole thing) is that it isn't just vainglorious weasels stealing memes and jokes to impress their small circle of friends, or to attempt to beef up their Twitter follower list, it's rich business scumbags.

Memes are regularly stolen by MEME websites. In many cases, especially on those "QUOTE" websites, all that changes is the photo in the meme. Like harvesting body parts, weasels monitor the Net and harvest new QUOTE MEMES...and it doesn't matter if George Carlin, Abe Lincoln or Groucho Marx ever said the attributed joke. It's stolen, credited to the wrong person, and a different stolen photo used on the MEME.

An idiot website where cat photos were mated with stupid captions ("I Has Cheezburger!") joined The Great God Google, and Bozo Bezos and Wikipedia and Assange in screaming that NO LAWS should EVER be passed involving copyright on the Internet. "It will RUIN FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!!!!!!!"

Right, it would also mean that websites would actually have to PAY for the photos they use, answer DMCA takedowns quickly, and not laugh all the way to the bank.

If you want the lyrics to almost ANY song, just type the song title and LYRICS, and there you are -- maybe a dozen look-alike lyric-theft websites. Usually all of them have the same mis-heard lyrics, too. They just steal from each other, and since these sites are usually spawned in Croatia or Ukraine or some other armpit country full if jibbering shoulder-shrugging monkeys who can't speak English, it's up to YOU to amend the lyrics you just downloaded.

Joke thievery isn't new, of course. Milton Berle made a joke of being "The Thief of Badgags." He'd even set himself up as the stooge for a punchline. He used this one hundreds of times on variety shows:

MILTON: (after somebody told a joke that got laughs) "I wish I said that."

ZINGER: "You will."

Some comedians, a touchy and sensitive bunch, figured that any bit they originated couldn't possibly be thought up by somebody else, and most certainly, couldn't be adapted or improved on.

Will Jordan was depressed and enraged that Jack Carter copied Will's Ed Sullivan impression. Well, yes, it's unfortunate that when a mimic discovers the "key" to a celebrity's identity, others start imitating the imitation.

Will also insisted that Mel Brooks took his idea of a Hitler musical. And Lenny Bruce took a concept, too. Sadly, it made Jordan leery of creating anything else that could be swiped.

Ironically one of his best bits, which nobody swiped, and which I saw him do live at a "Sons of the Desert" banquet, was a brilliant recreation of "Frankenstein," complete with Dwight Frye mimicry and sound effects.

Don Adams stole some bits from Jackie Mason word for word. Mason didn't go rushing to the newspapers to complain. More recently, in the cases of Robin Williams, Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook, the Internet allowed other comics, and some reviewers, to point out tired gags re-used or lines that were suspiciously re-written. Naming and shaming probably didn't affect the box office for these guys.

One of the few examples of money being made on a joke thievery complaint was when a mediocre nobody filed against Conan O'Brien. The whine was that he recognized some of his Twitter jokes in O'Brien's monologues (yes, Conan actually tells a few jokes besides absorbing applause for five minutes on walking out, and then making faces and doing his "string dance").

O'Brien's very logical defense was that dozens of wits will come up with the same topical joke. Some nights, Leno and Letterman writers would come up with almost identical gags, on the same night, and it was obvious there was no way they could've been swiped. If you check the entries in The New Yorker cartoon caption contests, where readers can have the "fun" of wading through hundreds of submissions to vote on their favorites, you'll find the same punchline repeated again and again.

O'Brien eventually settled the nuisance suit because the lawyer fees were getting ridiculous.

The bottom line? Like cellphone blabberers who can't shut up while in a supermarket, bank or on the street, the rude behavior of plagiarists and Internet thieves is now accepted as a part of life. If you want to amuse your Twitter followers or Facebook friends with a meme or a joke, don't be surprised if it turns up all over the Net with no money or credit. If you create something on YouTube, you'll find some jerks in Croatia somewhere harvesting your work and daring you to spend a half hour filing a DMCA when YouTube refused to monetize you in the first place. If you create a Photoshop gag and put it on your blog, with your name and copyright symbol on the bottom, you will soon discover somebody else Photoshopped your name OFF the picture and posted it so that HE could get nice comments.

Bob Dylan sang (and you can listen to the song free on YouTube), "Dignity is the first to leave." Not far behind, Courtesy, Morality, and all the other niceties of civilization. And no, don't expect the law to help you. In most cases, the Internet makes sure either the victim can't find the abuser, or that too much time and money will be involved in getting a cease and desist. Money? Damages? No no, that's in the past. It was in the past that I successfully got a five figure settlement when somebody plagiarized one of my books, using me and my research as an unwilling and uncredited co-writer.

Today..."heaven knows. Anything goes." (I quote Cole Porter, in what actually is "fair use.")

It's a holiday special...it's a nature special...

Once there was an EBAY MAGAZINE...

What? You could go to a newsstand and buy EBAY...the MAGAZINE??

Now, nobody would even think of doing a website version for such a thing. Hell, all you need to know about EBAY you can find on its website. Or, Google a few terms and find out what people love and hate about EBAY.

The funny thing about EBAY MAGAZINE is that the staffers knew all about my BLOG, which ranted and raved at the stupidity of some of the sellers, the bad manners of some of the bidders, and the frustrations of using the site.

And yes, I targeted some of my pet peeves, like celebrity autograph forgers and stinky sluts selling their underwear.

There was enough "cranky" humor that one of the fake ads I put on my blog turned up in the magazine.

And guess what, they actually asked PERMISSION before they used it.

Of course the site is long gone (which is why I "purpled out" the full address...you can't reach it). The "free website" concept ("we make our money with banner ads") failed. You do remember Geocities, don't you? Fortunately, after struggling along year after year, they graciously gave us warning when they decided to pull the plug. We had several months to copy off everything and go move somewhere else, if we felt like paying.

I had a few punny ads promoting eBAYER aspirin. The one the magazine used was on a page devoted to Ebay pests and jerks including those who get more joy out of SNIPING and beating someone else out of the item, than the item itself:

Another ad:

My site, without any help from Big Brother Google, was very popular. People regularly linked to it from their eBay ads and "about me" eBay pages, and it was a topic of conversation on the various eBay message boards. Most loved the site for offering comic truths and salty advice on how to better sell items and have some manners.

Some sellers threatened to SUE me, because I ridiculed their moronic mistakes. As Judy Tenuta used to say: "Come and get me, pigs!" Many would email me with examples of dopey ads they saw: "This would be GREAT for your website." Spelling mistakes were always fun:

Some gag pages had recognition humor:

Some pages were designed to call attention to eBay problems...to "name and shame." Why, it only took another ten years for eBay to decide that, yes, unsanitary auctions should NOT be on the site...and another five years before they put in filters to make SURE some stinkers couldn't post anything dirty. Like...

Mostly, like consumer advocates who appeared on talk shows and news broadcasts, my role was to alert buyers to beware of scams. This included forgeries. People somehow get the idea, even now, that if it's on eBay, it MUST be legit. But no, eBay always admits, "we're JUST a venue," and they have no idea what's forged or not. They rely mostly on VeRO members ("Verified Rights Owner" reps) who will point out counterfeit goods and other fakery. This is fine for SOME things...Louis Vuitton and Gucci and Disney have every reason to knock off the knock-off vendors so people buy the real thing. But most celebrities don't have a VeRO rep, or don't want to pay one to save their fans from buying forgeries. They figure, "let the buyer beware."

Somebody complaining to eBay and saying, "this picture looks like a forgery, do something..." would get, "we're just a venue, contact the celebrity and ask the celebrity to contact us and stop the auction."

Here's one typical outrageous example, and it came not from some weasel forging stuff in his basement, but from a well known autograph dealer who supposedly knew his stuff and could tell a fake. But in this case, didn't:

When the site eventually disappeared and Geocities went under, some people asked me to bring the site back. I suppose, if I was more of an entrepeneur, I could've fashioned a dot.com and become the Ralph Nader of eBay, and PERHAPS got enough banner ads to make it worthwhile, but I was more interested in writing books, doing celeb photography, and knocking off magazine fiction. But...maybe one day you'll see me on "Shark Tank," asking for a million dollars to start that SURE-THING website where people can out dishonest sellers and fume about their frustrations. Only I have a feeling the "Shark Tank" people will say, "Nah, we won't invest. Go put an ad up on eBay, offering to do the site, and see how many bids you get from potential backers!"

Back When Photographers (like ME) got PAID for their WORK

I was going through my files when I came across this tearsheet.

Hmmm...why did I keep this? Then I realized, one of my photos must've been used in this issue of SPY Magazine.

I looked at the celebrity faces, and figured I probably took the photo of Buddy Hackett. Yes, indeed.

AND I GOT PAID FOR IT.

Those were the days. Imagine, a magazine doing some whimsical article and going to the trouble of contacting photo agencies with a list of needs, then going through selections on each celeb to pick the one they wanted...and WRITING A CHECK.

Oh yes...and giving PHOTO CREDITS, too:

Today, a newsstand magazine (endangered species) would probably use a free publicity photo. Maybe, if it had a website version as well, the photo editor would be subscribed to one of those cheap-o stock photo companies that offers a subscription for $25 a month, and gives a photographer a dollar each time an item is used.

Back in the day, I'd check the mail and get a surprise check from the photo agency I was with...usage in SPY or PEOPLE, or maybe on the NBC or CBS news. Or in a book. Pictures I took were like money in the bank. These days, the familiar phrase from photographers is "I'm SCREWED." As in: "The X agency is willing to buy ALL rights to my photo and pay me chump change." Or "I uploaded hundreds of photos to Z agency and still haven't made enough for them to bother depositing money in my Paypal account."

Hell, anyone with a cellphone can take celebrity pix and would be glad to brag about the credit and NOT be paid at all. Websites routinely grab pix off Facebook or anywhere and figure it's "fair use" or "public domain" or "freedom of speech" and dare anyone to send a lawyer letter (which these days costs more than what a photographer could reasonably ask for from the usage).

We used to be called "shutterbugs." Now we shudder, and we're bugged. We're told, "Oh, give your photos away. Get the credit. Make money with some 9-5 job like being an accountant or a school teacher or something." Right, and miss out on all the assignments that involve being around to take pix at an interview, and be too tired to go out in the evening and cover a premiere, banquet or some other event.

I contacted a very famous photo agency and explained that I had exclusive pix of a huge range of celebrities, from Henry Kissinger and Frank Sinatra to Joan Rivers and Sammy Davis Jr., and from Tim Curry and Billy Joel to Tennessee Williams and Harold Pinter. I was ignored.

I guess I forget to say, "...and I'll give them to you FREE, all I want is a CREDIT."

ST. JOHN THE MARTYR - "I'll Be Destroyed By Christmas" - GOD has LEFT the BUILDING + Pedophile Priest Expose

You can ex-communicate a priest.

You can do the same to a church. I mean, if good money is involved.

Here's The New York Times, August of 2017, reporting on how the Catholics of New York were crucified on the altar of the almighty dollar.

The church is supposed to guide its flock by offering hope. No? No, not in New York City, where real estate values are high, and the heads of the Catholic Church have dollar signs blinding their eyes.

This is the same church that has the record of ignoring pedophile priests and even shunting them to other parishes to avoid prosecution.

Let's keep that thought for a little later. I have an anecdote to tell about Cardinal O'Connor.

St. John the Martyr was once the Knox Presbyterian Church, built in 1887. The Catholics bought it on September 25, 1904 for $39,000 and you'd think that DeBlasio or some of the local politicians in the area (Ben Kallos for example) would've pushed for it to be declared a landmark.

You can Google how a church can be pronounced unholy. My guess is that you wave a few Benjamins under a Bishop's nose and the geezer in the satin dress stands in front of the church, does the sign of the cross backward and then gives the finger.

Maybe not? Why even show up there, or the other churches now sanctioned to put money in the hands of the church elders? Just write a note at a lawyer's office. Isn't it magical how, with some medieval gesture, some mumbling words, somebody can be ex-communicated and a church can be magically turned back into just a building put up for sale?

Let's not pick on the Catholics, of course. Aside from mosques, which seem to be doing ok, any type of church, and any synagogue had better have affluent people donating, because the tax shelters and no rent and other perks are just not enough. Not to keep the elders living in style. Hell, if they wanted to give up worldly possessions, they could've become monks.

The warning signs that St. John the Martyr wasn't going to be saved, or turned into a mosque or something, become obvious when the stores on the corner suddenly went under.

The "law" regarding greedy landlords building monstrosities is simple: they can only block the sky by taking over corner buildings. Nothing mid-block. Watta concession.

The weasels scout out small apartment buildings and tenement buildings, and begin their patterns of bribery and harassment. Shut off heat or hot water on the tenants. Don't renew the lease on the stores. Wait a while. Then start building something ugly and expensive for the hedge fund weasels, oily Middle East slime, Russian mafia kingpins, and every other damnable rodent and parasite taking a nibble at The Big Apple with corrupt earnings.

Conveniently, St. John the Martyr was next to the corner buildings. Wow, what a BIG MONSTROSITY can be put up! God love it!

Politicians are supposed to make sure these grotesque and soulless buildings aren't TOO tall, but landlords know how to get around those rules.

The above pictures show the way it was in August of 2019.

The landlord didn't renew leases, and was probably tormenting the tenants in the above apartments to either take a few bucks to go away or suffer the consequences. Next door...

Was there a Divine Light to shine down and save it?

NO.

I wanted to get over to the church and take some pictures when I first saw the green panels go up, and the workmen being termites and crawling all over scaffolds and the deteriorating face of the building.

Guess what. They work fast when they're well paid and BIGGER MONEY is involved. While Councilman (and thirsty Borough President wanna-be) Ben Kallos recently cried about how ugly scaffolds stay up in his neighborhood for years, BOOM.

St. John the Divine turned into a skeleton of rubble VERY quickly.

All over Manhattan, storefronts are empty. Yes, every now and then what used to be a video rental place will, after six months of being empty, turn into a DOG GROOMING SALON. Yes, what was once a bookstore will, after six months of being empty, turn into another NAIL SALON. But more often, the bodega, the restaurant, the curio shop...remains empty year after year. Greedhead landlords hope that a TARGET will want to buy, or an upscale MORTON WILLIAMS gourmet shop, but that doesn't happen that often. The real money is knocking the store AND the building down, and creating a glass-and-steel residence for the rich.

What's that Zevon line? "I wanna live on the Upper East Side and NEVER go down in the street." Yep. You don't have to, if you can order online and get everything delivered. Who needs stores? Those are for the hoi polloi, and they can go fuck off to Newark or Jersey City and get shot to pieces.

GOD HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.

Admittedly, these are not good times for the Christians who believe in Jesus, or for those who follow his religion, Judaism. Either way, those old-fashioned religions are losing followers, because people can see there are no angels in clouds, and they find it harder and harder to find excuses for the amount of suffering and stupidity in the world. It's also harder and harder to wonder why the hell GOD would care whether you wear a beanie or not, have two sets of dishes, eat or not eat meat on Friday, use or not use birth control, or forgive pedophile priests who should certainly know better than to commit sins of the flesh.

And so I return to the pedophile priest issue with a little anecdote.

At one time, I was the acquisitions editor for a publishing company. It was unusual, being on the other side of the fence, and being the one reading book proposals instead of writing them. The job had some perks, including bringing celebrities (who had written autobiographies) to book conventions everywhere from Miami to Phoenix.

Religious celebrity Cardinal O'Connor didn't submit a book proposal to me; he was mentioned in a sample chapter sent in by a novice author, Father Terry German.

Father Terry looked like someone from a 1940's movie, a little guy with a touch of Mickey Rooney and a bit of tv character actor John Fiedler to him. Wispy hair, ruddy complexion, he was perhaps 55 or 60. The elfin ex-priest was offering his insight into the problem of pedophile priests. He knew some of the perps, and most certainly counseled a lot of victims over the years.

His last residence was a room at St. Patrick's Cathedral. This was the domain of Cardinal O'Connor, who was probably the most famous Cardinal since Cardinal Spellman. Father Terry had been jotting down names and places and victims for some time, but being a true believer, he felt that the best thing to do would be to visit one of God's most powerful men on Earth. No, the Pope was too far away. But Cardinal O'Connor? The great Cardinal O'Connor?

Father Terry met with the Great Man, and explained, probably with his pale face reddening, and his voice climbing an octave, his outrage over pedophile priests. "It must be stopped! They must be removed!" He'd shown the same fiery outrage in meeting with me to discuss his book proposal.

The Cardinal looked skeptical. Wasn't Father Terry being a bit too dramatic? Did he have any evidence at all?

"I've been keeping notes," Father Terry explained. He told Cardinal O'Connor how the manuscript was in his little desk, and that it named names. He was hoping the good Cardinal would read the pages, and then take action.

Apparently, Cardinal O'Connor did just that; Father Terry discovered that his manuscript was missing. He hoped it meant that Cardinal O'Connor was going to take action on the men Father Terry wrote about.

Cardinal O'Connor took action against the man that wrote the book; Father Terry was ex-communicated and left homeless.

I'd thought of titling the book, "Losing My Religion," but the question was what kind of book could this be, with all the facts now missing? What he now had, was pages of accusations that could lead to a libel suit if published.

Since being ejected from St. Patrick's, Father Terry moved from place to place, staying a week with some good-hearted person, moving into a shelter, finding somebody else who could put him up for a while. One night, he showed up at the front door. How he got the address, I have no idea, but here was this little aging leprechaun with the high husky voice, suddenly dropping to his knees in front of me, his hands in a prayerful pose: "Can you let me have a peanut butter sandwich?"

He got a dinner, but ultimately, he didn't get a book deal.

Some years later, age 51 he tried (1994), to sue Pope John Paul II, Cardinal O'Connor and the Catholic Church for $120 million.

According to a piece in the Sun-Sentinal:

"German says he gave up all of his "worldly goods" when he took his vows in 1964 in exchange for a promise that the church would care for him until his death. The underlying assumption, of course, was that he would "live a life guided by the established principles" of the Catholic Church...

German says the church - by acquiescing to pervasive sexual and financial misconduct - broke its part of the covenant and he was left with no choice but to resign, which he did in 1989.

"The church wasn't enforcing its own rules, so he wasn't able to live according to the church's own rules. He had to live with people stealing and sexual alliances with small boys," said Carl Person, German's lawyer.

N"ow he is on street corners - foraging for clothes in New York City garbage bins or visiting soup kitchens. His unemployment benefits ran out a few weeks ago and he recently was evicted from his $324-a-month one-room apartment in Manhattan. He said he cannot keep a job because the church has branded him a troublemaker."

Obviously his lawsuit was not successful. I have a feeling he moved quite a few times before there was another blip of publicity for him. This happened in 2007, in Las Vegas. During the sex assault trial of Rev. George Chaanine, Father Terry spoke to a reporter for the Review-Journal:

"Terence German, a former Jesuit priest...said he wasn't surprised...

...The public doesn't "realize how much force the administrative priest has over any job," said German, a current Las Vegas resident who has observed the unfolding case. "You can be out of there if you don't do what the priest wants. ... People like that are just afraid."

There's a website, bishopaccountability.org that features a page on whistleblowers. Father Terry is on it, but there's no information on him past 2007.

I don't know if he's still in Las Vegas. I do know if he comes to Manhattan, he'll find less churches than ever. He can't go to St. John the Divine begging for a place to stay or a meal. A dozen other churches have shuttered, and as the real estate business booms, more of God's houses will be smashed flat.

Blackface at The New Yorker - - or, when is PC just PATHETIC?

The funny thing most New Yorker cartoons...is how unfunny they are.

Lately, let's add something else: how UN-PC their attempts at being PC are.

An example:

It seems that the cartoon editor has been instructing artists to "be INCLUSIVE...draw characters OF COLOR." That's OF COLOR, not colored-in characters?

The "black" in this cartoon looks colored in, doesn't it? Nothing too ethnic about the woman otherwise. How many women like her do you see at Whole Foods buying kale? The percentage is low.

If blacks actually read The New Yorker, they might picket the office. As in: "Black Humor Matters...don't portray us using blackface." Richard Pryor this is not. Wanda Sykes this is not. Who else do you want to name? Steve Harvey? SNL's Michael Che? Any of them going to be talking about Yoda? Any of them use the expression "blows you out of the water?" Blows, maybe. The rest, maybe not.

Maybe Rachel Dolezol. She tried to pass for black and it wasn't funny.

How about THIS one? What WOULD be funny is if "Black Lives Matter" and various other angry and outraged black groups decided that it is offensive to use Negro Stereotype features in a cartoon.

THIS New Yorker cartoonist is making SURE that everyone knows this is a MIXED COUPLE, and that one of them is BLACK. BLACK. VERY VERY BLACK.

Does the hair give you a clue? The huge lips?

YUP. Another way the kneejerk New Yorker staff wants to show how PC they are is to leave NO DOUBT when they're doing something noble with colored people. Oh, "people of color." GOT to remember one phrase is OFFENSIVE and the other ISN'T.

Poor poor New Yorker. They just can't get it right.

They aren't alone, of course. Consider NBC, the network that got a lot of criticism for airing "Sanford and Son," which portrayed two blacks as nothing but JUNKMEN, with a bunch of stereotypical cohorts like "Aunt Esther," who squinted and said, "Fish eyed fool" and "I'm gonna get you, sucka!"

A few years later, they got even more criticism for airing "The Cosby Show," which dared to ignore race and show (gasp) an affluent upper-middle-class black family that didn't dress ethnic. (Well, there WERE those God-awful sweaters Cosby wore). Either way, Redd Foxx or Bill Cosby...wrong, wrong.

As for The New Yorker, if this is "woke," go fluff up your organic husk-filled non-goose-feather pillows and go back to sleep.

"They Tell Funny Anecdotes at Funerals, Don't They?"

Alastair Sim as SCROOGE - updated for modern times