As always we are are pleased to present the latest virtuosic email from Scott Turner of Red Hook's Rocky Sullivans. And don't forget the pub quiz is every Thursday night!

Greetings Pub Quiz Cinematistas…

How perfect is Alex Rodriguez for Mike Bloomberg's New York City?

Today's press conference at the New York Yankees' spring training facility — where the main stadium has a been narcissistically named after fading-fast team owner George Steinbrenner — was a primo illustration of how the rich, powerful and offensively clueless dominate the headlines around here.

Alex Rodriguez — and you'll never see him sporting the ESPN-commodified
"A-Rod" nickname here…except just now — spent the press conference
in full Bloombergian mode.  Alex Rodriguez lied.  Alex Rodriguez
exaggerated.  Alex Rodriguez obfuscated.  Alex Rodriguez prevaricated. 
Alex Rodriguez pretended to be forthcoming.  Alex Rodriguez refused to
answer tough questions.  Alex Rodriguez blamed others.  Alex Rodriguez
surrounded himself with props — not Bloomberg's usual lumpen mass of
public officials, firefighters or annointed-for-the-day "heroes" — but
rather, Yankee teammates who were being good soldiers.

"At the 5:37 mark, purse your lips and look contrite."

Most
of all, Alex Rodriguez did all this with the entitled distance of a man
wealthy beyond belief.  Money doesn't buy you happiness, never mind
love.  It does reinforce in empty vessels like Alex Rodriguez and Mike
Bloomberg the notion that they're impervious to everyone else's anger
and disappointment at their actions.  Same for Bernie Madoff, Rod Blagojevich, Eliot Spitzer, Chris Brown, the heads of the auto companies, and so many more.

In these terrible days of fiscal distress, warfare, disease and another endless season of American Idol,
Alex Rodgriguez doesn't count for much.  But here, in New York City,
he'll be the headline for the next six months.  I bet a few of those
headlines will include Mike Bloomberg's pontificatory, soulless and
trite condemnation of Rodriguez. 

"I offer you puppy dog eyes, a Yankee-color shirt, and a watch worth more than you.  Do you now love me?"

Bloomberg himself is flipping through City Hall's Tried And True
Cliches Handbook right now, looking for just the right bromides.  In
his unleaderly manner, Bloomberg will, at some point, gently chide
Rodriguez for letting down the children and setting a bad example. 
Bloomberg, who's treated Gotham's citizenry as pack mules to carry
billions of public dollars straight to America's wealthiest sports franchise, knows a thing or two about setting bad examples.

Mike Bloomberg and Alex Rodriguez run the same p.r. campaigns: find
a scapegoat….apologize in that non-apology way…blame "unavoidable"
circumstances…hire expensive crisis-management teams…fail miserably
at talking folksy to the little people…prevent the media from gaining
access to the truth…rig the game like an Atlantic City casino…and
above all else, spend more energy on denying the problem than fixing it.

Or not letting it happen in the first place.

"Don't worry…it's not an uproar if I don't do anything about it."

If
Bloomberg's such a great mayor and businessperson, how come this city's
in such bad shape on his watch?  If Rodriguez is such a great New York
Yankee, how come they haven't won a World Series on his watch? 
To hear either talk, it's everybody else's fault.  On the rare
occasions when they admit culpability, it was just, you know,
unavoidable.  Rodriguez used the "I was young and stupid" like he was
in a John Huges brat-pack movie.

At the end of the day, Alex Rodriguez, like Mike Bloomberg, acts
like nothing's too terribly wrong.  Not with his own life or anything
else in the malestrom of this new century's first untenable decade.

"…must…remember…to…mention…God…"

Do we, the populace of New York City,
deserve brigands like Bloomberg and Rodriguez?  The answer ranges from
"no" to "wouldn't wish them on our worst enemies."  But since both
Bloomberg and Rodriguez wrap themselves in societal bubble-wrap that
the rest of us, for bizarre reasons, refuse to step up and pop, we're
stuck with them.

Or, we could start poping those bubbles, one obfuscation at a time.