joe the plumber must be stopped
The other night, I’m listening to talk radio and one of the local Chicago hosts says “we’ll be right back with Joe the Plumber.” At first I thought it was just a rebroadcast from when, you know, Joe was in the news. But no, this was January, and it was live. I think the biggest difference between now and twenty years ago is that back in the day, quasi-celebrities understood when their fifteen minutes of fame had elapsed. Tawny Kitaen rolled around on the hood of a Jaguar in 1985, and then she mercifully disappeared. And it’s not like Whistle Pops made a comeback. They had their moment.
But not Joe. Or I should say Samuel. Mr. Wurtzbacher went from unknown to symbol to icon to punch line in the span about a month, and one would think that after the election, he would have qualified for a big decorative asterisk and gone away. But no. There he was on the radio, complaining about how he felt used by both campaigns and had his privacy invaded. As he’s talking on the radio. About being on the national campaign trail with McCain. And about his website. And about his book deal. I’m not sure you’re clear on the whole ‘private citizen’ deal, Joe Sam, but when you talk to the media, you become BY FREAKING DEFINITION a public figure! We, the public, get to look into your life, because…duh, you DECIDED to be famous!
This guy apparently isn’t satisfied with fifteen minutes of fame…he’s looking for twenty, thirty minutes, maybe an hour. The latest is that intends to be a ‘reporter’ (and if their were bigger quotation marks, I’d have used them), going to the Middle East to interview ‘average Joes’ (Yusufs?) in the conflict there. I’m no purist, but I think there’s a pretty big drop-off from Edward R. Murrow to Samuel Wurtzbacher, journalism-wise.
Speaking of journalism (sort of), I have to give mad props to Paul Harvey, specifically because I’m pretty sure Paul Harvey wouldn’t know what mad props are. I know he’s a big ol’ right-wing flag-waving shill, but you can’t not like Paul Harvey. First of all, he just turned 90 years old, and you have to admire anyone who does anything for 75 years. I can’t imagine doing standup for 75 years, but I will say that if I’m still doing one-nighters in crappy bars in the year 2056 someone needs to put a bullet in my head. You know the drill with Paul–”and now–the rest of the story.” I would love it if one night Paul Harvey messed with everyone by giving his introduction and then saying “There is no…rest of the story. That’s all I got.”
The other night, I was pretty sure Paul had lost his mind, because he gave his usual setup that was all positivity and patriotism, and then the ‘rest of the story’ went on to describe how some of the first settlers of the Mayflower colony…were cannibals. WHAT? You can’t do that! That’s like your grandpa telling one of his boring war stories and all of a sudden mentioning in an avuncular voice that “well, you know, we were in a foxhole and ran out of provisions, so we had to eat Private Jones.”
Anyway, if Joe the Plumber eats somebody, let me know–unless that happens, I say we ignore him so he can enjoy all the privacy he supposedly wanted.
