High life
Why should we pay?
Taki
PNew York uerto Rican pride has to be the greatest of all oxymorons. It ruined my last week- end in the Bagel, as two million Puerto Ricans invaded Fifth Avenue for their annual Puerto Rican pride parade. Never have I seen a more motley collection. They were fat, squat, ugly, dusky, dirty and unbe- lievably loud. None of them spoke English except for two words: f— and mother- f—. They turned Manhattan into Paler- mo quicker than you can say spic.
`We're celebrating the enormous contri- bution of Puerto Ricans to America,' said Mayor Rudi Guiliani. In a civilised society, this abuse of language by the Mayor would carry the death penalty, but we are, after all, living in the age of Clinton. If ever there was a case for generalities, the Puerto Ricans are it. There has never been — nor will there ever be — a single positive con- tribution by a Puerto Rican outside of receiving American welfare and beating the system. (A civil servant who warned Fifth Avenue shopkeepers to barricade their windows was instantly fired by City Hall. Veritas odium parit.) Listening to the politicians grovelling for votes, you'd think Socrates, Plato, Aristo- tle; Mozart, Beethoven, Goethe and Shake- speare were all Puerto Ricans. Never have I seen a ghastlier group — but then I am never in the Big Bagel during the gay and lesbian parade.
Which brings me to the point I wish to make. Why in hell should the taxpayer carry the load for a bunch of semi-savages to march down Fifth Avenue and turn it into a mini San Juan? Ditto for the per- verts? Why should one of England's best historians — see Alistair Home in last week's Speccie — have trouble getting a visa, while Caribbean and Central Ameri- can criminals cruise our streets with impunity. The last American election saw foreigners illegally voting, and possibly decisively, against conservative candidates — encouraged by the Clinton administra- tion. There was great voter fraud in Texas and in California, where Rep. Bob Doman, an ex-fighter pilot, was narrowly defeated by Latino non-citizens.
Multiculturalism, I predict, will do to the United States what Stalin and his kind failed so miserably to accomplish. The left- liberal rabble of the Sixties is now in tenured control of the academy as well as the media and parts of the government. A Republican Congress is running scared. If ever there was a time to immigrate to Grozny it is now.
And yet and yet. I have never been so sad to leave the Bagel as this time. Perhaps having fallen desperately in love twice with- in two weeks has something to do with it. Unrequited love, needless to say, as both girls' fathers are younger than me. Just before the Puerto Rican invasion, I went to the Bagel's latest hot-spot, Balthazar, owned by a Cockney buddy of mine, Keith McNally. We were two Greeks and three young ladies. Once there, we began knock- ing down Kamikazes, a lethal combination of vodka, rum and lemon juice. A few `I think I've got pre-minstral tension.' plates were broken by the young ones and suddenly we were given the bill by a large Chinese waiter doing a poor imitation of Orlando Furioso. I stood up to mediate and assured him that all plates would be grounded immediately. He relented and said, 'We give you a table in return for your good behaviour. We are equal.' Only in the eyes of God,' I added. 'We are cus- tomers and you are a waiter. Sony.'
It was as if I had told him his mother worked in a Japanese brothel. Equality is taken very seriously by the proles in Ameri- ca, and I should have known better. It was nevertheless a hell of a night, and it ended as the object of my desire left me high and dry just off Fifth Avenue with the barbar- ians advancing towards me rather quickly. I am now off to Ascot and a few London parties and then go on a walking holiday with Paul Johnson. If I can't be with the object of my desire, there's no one I'd rather be with more than the great Dr Johnson.
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