getcha paper!

I have had the Daily News delivered to my house for 30 years. In fact I think the first issues were delivered via pony express. I like the Daily News because it has a symmetry that my simple mind can follow….news, news, news, editorials, local news, comics, car ads, car ads, car ads, the Mets lose, the Yankees win. (ok I know I just pissed off a whole bunch of people, but I am trying to keep this honest)

Today like most recent days reading the paper is a excursion. First let me just say that Michael Jackson is still dead even though his drug overdose is being dissected on Page one. Let me clarify something though. I liked Michael Jackson, I think he was extremely talented and extremely weird. I don’t want to hear about how his father didn’t treat him right as a child….he friggin’ dyed his skin white and had so much plastic surgery to get rid of his black nose that it collapsed. He played better with kids than adults and named one of his kids Blanket. That in of itself says it all…..weird! But whether or not Dr Death administered the lethal injection to kill him or to stay on the Jackson payroll needs no debate. Why would he want to kill the golden goose? You kill the boss, the payroll stops. Trust me, I’ve considered it more than a few times.

The Staten Island little leaguers are advancing to the semi finals is on page 2...PAGE 2! Didn’t anything more news-worthy happen than 12 year old beating some hillbilly kids from Iowa at baseball in the last 24 hours? Page 3 reiterates the cover declaring and attempting to explain how and when Jackson died. Even included a time line…Jackson wakes up cant sleep takes drug, Jackson cant sleep wakes up takes another drug, Jackson wakes up cant sleep takes the fatal injection. Me on the other hand, I wake up and cant sleep….I snack. Big glass of milk, some cookies, maybe even a half sandwich.

I must add this thought… thank god it wasn’t a white doctor that killed Jackson or Reverend Al would be marching somewhere chanting something about racial inequality. The following pages filled me in on two gunshots, the imminent swine flu epidemic, a drowned 7 year old girl and and Alec Baldwin’s quote from Playboy that he is considering running for the Senate. Who’s in charge of placement here? Who thought the Playboy quote belonged with the dead girl?

The World Trade Center site memorial is still not built in case you haven’t been looking at the skyline recently. But Page 6 has a lovely picture of hard hats saluting a beam with a flag hanging over a hole where a monument will one day be. Hopefully.

Page 7 has our blind, unshaven, gee-I’m-glad-Spitzer-screwed-up governor is jumping on the Rev Al bandwagon and proclaiming that his horrible ratings are because he is black. And that our presidents rating will go down next. So by his definition if a black politician does a good job they are heroes and if the screw up they are being picked on because of lingering racism. When Obama and Patterson are chained in the bottom of a ship I might believe their racial diatribe. Til then, do your job, do it well and no one will notice what color you are. Or arent!

Thankfully the update on the reality show killer has been degraded to page 8. They are both dead, and other than their families, who really cares? Page 10 has pictures of our president golfing and looking more like Tiger Woods than…well, Tiger Woods. Page 12 has three murders….the cleaning lady, the bouncer, and the cab driver. Page 13 has an entire page devoted to the Hero of the Month…or in this case heroes…ESU officers who saved a man’s hand. Nice story and no offense, but a hero is someone who throws themselves in the line of danger or fights in a foreign land. Using a new product QuikClot to stop the bleeding of a man’s almost sawed off hand to me, does not scream hero! I think the editors could have looked a little further to find someone for their Hero of the Month page. Page 19 tells us about a woman who is selling the crypt above Marilyn Monroe’s so that some weathly nut can get closer to her than he ever could in real life. The sad part is that there is a man already in that crypt and his widow has decided to evict his remains in order to sell the crypt. She needs the money to pay off her 1.6 million dollar mortgage. No comment.

I skipped rapidly through the next few pages and stopped to read the obituaries. I find it comforting when I don’t see my name there.

Unfortunately pages 30 and 31 disappoint me as this two page spread is about the reality show killer and his dead wife. The picture of her in fishnet stockings and a three-sizes too small police uniform was a nice touch. Movie trailers, movie reviews, movie timetable, crossword, jumble and comics. Speaking of comics, does anyone read these? Really?

The Brooklyn News (for some reason the page numbers just changed) is about people who are raising bees on their roof. Can you say Bug Spray? I have enough trouble dealing with my neighbors cat. The Sports pages begin with Wicket which I didn’t even know we played in this country and Streetball which I think is basketball on asphalt. Don’t quote me! The Streetball article is about the Sean Bell All Stars…the seemingly best streetball squad. Is that Sean Bell of the stop, police, stop, bang bang bang Sean Bell? Again, no comment! Seriously, no comment! Oh look the Mets lost…the Yankees were off!