Friday asks, “Who the heck is Don Imus?”
Seriously, I’ve heard the guy’s name, but I’ve never heard his show. I’ve never known anyone to talk about his show. Who are these Imus-listening people?
Well, we all know his name this week because he called the Rutgers University basketball players “nappy-headed hos.” Or is that “hoes”? Ask Dan Quayle. At any rate, Imus lost some sponsors, then his tv show, then his radio show yesterday.
Don Imus, I hardly knew thee.
Obviously, what he said was awful, rude, and decidedly unfunny. Sexist. Racist. My friends, this is what happens when you try to find comedy in basketball. There is only one group on the planet who has the power to do such a thing, and they are the Harlem Globetrotters. Try to compete with them, and you will be squashed.
I’m sure the incident says something about Don Imus’s personality or sub-conscious or something. He’s a crusty old white guy, you know? There’s bound to be some old-school racism in that guy somewhere.
But I think it says more about the challenge of filling HOURS of talk radio time every day for DECADES of one’s life, trying to be entertaining, edgy, and acceptable all the while.
I was a mass communication major in college, and I’ve often fantasized about having one of those shows. It is a fantasy plagued by visions of foot-in-my-mouth disasters and oceans of unfunny stalling. I admire anyone who can pull it off at all.
So Don Imus said what he said in an effort to be funny, and he fell flat on his face. It’s not like “nappy-headed hos” was on a script somewhere. That would be reprehensible, of course. This guy has been babbling on and on for years, improvising, searching for funny angles, trying to be listenable. I have no idea if he was generally good at it or not, but he certainly must have had an audience to have his radio show simulcast on MSNBC.
Were I in charge, I think a super-strict second chance might have been in order. Make a similar, stupid, 2-second mistake twice, and you’re fired. After all, isn’t this what the blogosphere is for? Irrelevant opinions from powerless people in hypothetical situations?
Since we’re in a firing mood as a country, though, why don’t we fire George Bush for the mishandling of the Katrina aftermath? All this furor over verbal racism sure does seem to be distracting from the scary, neglectful kind that actually results in, you know, PEOPLE DYING.
But I didn’t plan to let today’s Gazette turn into a bramble ramble. What I really wanted to do was present a list for Mr. Imus:
WHAT HE MEANT TO SAY WAS:
1. sappy-headed bros
2. Pap regretted shows.
3. Howard Stern is better than me.
4. happy, wedded toes
5. snappy shredded bows
6. Crap, he let it snow!
7. That wee head! It grows!
8. Frappu-friggin’-ccinos!
9. Trap the ebb and flow.
10. Cap, we breaded those!
11. I’m a stupid shock jock millionaire.
Have a great weekend! The deluxe version of The Dot Net Gazette will return Monday morning with 5 Chunks of Fun, 5 Times a Week!
I post whatever I want every weekday. I reserve the right to change my opinions. It is not my intention to bore.
April 20th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Not to be all serious about this tempest on a tea or even coffee pot, but:
I used to wake up to Don Imus every morning because I leave my television on through the night and I knew he would be at least more interesting than the Today Show or Fox. I didn’t even know about what had happened until a couple of days after the flap. I heard him droning on about how apologetic he was, how out of line he was, how remorseful he was. He played the offending clip and apologized some more. The firestorm had been set in motion, apparently. Fast forward a few hours and all of a sudden the counter racists, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, were calling for him to be fired, marching in front of his building and acting as though Imus and his crew had personally burned crosses on the lawns of each of the insulted girls.
Don Imus is an equal opportunity insulter. He sells books, he sells records, he gives a forum to politicians and news people as well as the garden variety bozo. And he and his wife do a ton of work to make the world a better place for kids with cancer (at the Imus Dude Ranch), to bring autism under a bright light to try to find causes and cures, to make hospitals a safer place to be by getting rid of cancer causing agents used in cleaning products, to give a soapbox for candidates, and yes, to entertain with juvenile and inappropriate comments.
Like he said, “I’m not a bad guy. I just said a stupid thing.” True enough. He has made a living saying stupid things for over 30 years.
I watched the press conference with the Rutgers team and was duly impressed with the well-spokenness of the girls and thought, ‘So this is what replaced coverage of Anna Nicole? Wall to wall clips of people being offended, responding, apologizing and Al and Jesse not accepting an apology for a comment that was not even directed at them??”
I thought it was sort of appropriate that Don take the two week suspension with humility and apologies. I thought it was more than a little stand up of him to go directly to the offended girls and their coach to try to explain himself and take the heat. That must have been uncomfortable. But he did it even after he had been fired.
During all of this, I had time to mull it over. I thought that the sponsors and NBC and the many former guests that acted all appalled and shocked showed their asses big time. It had been no secret that Don Imus was insulting and offensive. But now Al and Jesse are saying that those three words were so far over the line that he should be publicly spanked and lose his job??? Please.
Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as indignant as they were, never got fired when they fomented racial divide.
My thought, especially after Imus’ meeting with the Rutgers team when they forgave him, was that the opportunity to hug on the air and show some solidarity between the offendor and the offendees, which would be helpful, had been lost to PC posturing.
The whole thing was a shame, the insulting remarks and the backlash, the NBC response and the politicians and journalists acting like they had no idea that Imus was often inappropriate.
So I guess the next step is to fire all the hip hop guys and the ‘hymie town’ sayers (Jackson) and the sponsors of the Harlem clothing store protests that led to eight people dying (Sharpton) and Conan for his gay jokes and Southpaw for his mean girl jokes and Herman for his ‘I hate everyone but me’ jokes…well, I guess we all need to get fired because we’ve said something inappropriate. And next it’ll be for impure thoughts. We are on Slippery Slopes—and I’m not talking about the stripper I used to date—and we need to get off. And I’ll leave the next punch alone
If only I had gotten fired over three inappropriate words after I had accumulated millions of $$$ over the years and was past retirement age like Don Imus and had tried to do the right thing after I had done the wrong thing and had a book deal over the whole thing as long as I was inappropriate and named names (I’m guessing, here) and could continue doing the good things I do…hmmmm, I guess that would be okay with me.