High life
Not so wise guy
Taki
Athens Wen the good Marx, Groucho, ran up against a bore he'd quip that he never forgot a face, 'but in your case I think I'll make an exception'.
I thought of my relative (by marriage) when I heard that Jimmy Breslin was beat- en up by a mob of blacks last week in the Big Bagel. For those of you who have never heard of Breslin, he's the Irish-American columnist who loves the IRA and hates the police, all police.
Breslin is fat, ugly and pretends to be for the little guy, but in my not so humble opinion would do a thing or two in exchange for the root of all envy. The iron- ic thing is that Breslin has always defended black hoods, and it was black hoods who caught him riding a taxi, stripped him and did things to him they usually reserve for helpless old ladies.
Needless to say, Breslin was rescued by the cops, those same cops he refers to as Nazi storm troopers in his column. Being a law and order fan, I understand why the fuzz acted the way it did, but what remains a mystery is why on earth the hoodlums stripped the beast before letting him have it. As I said before, Breslin is ugly, and a naked Breslin must be a horrible sight (probably as bad as Ted Kennedy, his buddy).
So, although I loathe mob violence, in this case I will make an exception — espe- cially as the loathsome one got away. Of course he blamed capitalism for the alien- ation of the blacks in his column the next day. He reminds me of the intelligentsia of the left who have yet to say sorry about their love of communism. (A bravo to Nor- man Stone and Godfrey Smith in last week's Sunday Times on this subject.) And speaking of violence, I wonder how Mike Tyson is doing in his alleged rape case against a black Miss America in Indi- anapolis. Tyson is a bully, but then so are many boxers now. I say now because ever since Muhammad Ali started the rot by torturing an opponent, rather than knock- ing him out as a noble gladiator should, and then humiliating him, boxers have tended to resemble hoods.
It was never like this in the past. In fact, here is Norman Mailer on the subject: 'Men who have lived with a great deal of violence are usually gentler and more toler- ant than men who abhor violence. Boxers, bullfighters, a lot of combat soldiers, Hem- ingway heroes, in short, are always gentle men.'
Well, that was then, Tyson is now. I sim- ply can't understand how a man who goes around getting into trouble like that can be allowed to fight for the heavyweight cham- pionship of the world.
If memory serves, and it does, lefties like Breslin have never had a good word for combat soldiers, or Hemingway heroes for that matter, but waxed lyrical instead about the ghetto wise guy. Having a striptease performed on him by those Black Power boys should teach him a lesson, but I'm willing to bet my last devalued drachma it won't. After all, much smarter men than him never learned their lesson about the evils of communism.
Jeffrey Bernard is unwell.
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