Mayor Mayor Down the Hall, Who's the Worst-Dressed Of Them All?

My friend David Kronke, the esteemed TV critic at the Los Angeles Daily News (where I logged two previous tours of duty), has started an eccentric and oddly brilliant blog entitled The Mayor of Television that has quickly become indispensible reading. I say this not only because it's true but also because I'm shamelessly kissing up so he'll write something similar about Past Deadline.

Anyway, David is clearly very ill and in need of new meds to keep his schizophrenia in check, as will become instantly obvious upon reading his blog. He has taken to inserting himself into interview scenarios such as that of Fox News reporter Chris Wallace and President Clinton last weekend. He also wrote about how his alter ego recently had been dispatched to a luncheon for the purpose of assassinating Les Moonves. I'm worried about David, worried because I care. But it's nonetheless very funny stuff, marvelously twisted and sublime in that "How does he manage to get this stuff past his superiors? They must not be paying very close attention" sort of way.

Anyway, David went to an event last night at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills at which 84-year-old TV legend Sid Caesar was to be honored. But in typical Mayoral style, the thing he focused on was the fact that poor Sid appears to have only one outfit that he wears to every event and is thus in danger of being thought of as...um...an old guy who likes to wear only one thing. So Mr. Mayor (he always refers to himself in the third person, which I believe to be either the first or second sign of madness) is campaigning to start a Dress Sid Appropriately Fund, promising that all monies pledged will go to paying for a snappier wardrobe.

Good luck, David. And may the voices inside your head pipe down real soon.

Comments

[Joe Rhodes]

It is clear to anyone who has ever met him that Mr. Kronke is a deeply troubled individual, the clearest indication of his unbalanced state being that he continues to work for the Daily News. What sane person would do that?

He will, undoubtedly, allege that I, like Mr. Caesar, have a propensity for wearing essentially the same outfit every damn day, usually involving jeans, black t-shirts and, on special occasions, a fez.

Who is he to judge, say I. Does he not always have that same look on his face? That bemused, red-cheeked know-it-all, "this is what Kevin Smith would look like if he went on the South Beach diet" smirk?

Is this the kind of person we want as our Mayor? Rise up, fellow citizens, before he becomes drunk with power and forces us all to watch "Men in Trees" until our eyes bleed.

It is not too late.

[The Mayor of Television]

Thank you for the kind invective. Now, the citizenry can see the sort of thing their Mayor has to put up with while championing Television and protecting it from those who wish it ill, those radical insurgents who seek to damage us from within with such assaults on our common values as “The Hills,” “Ghost Whisperer” and “Date My Mom.”

The above tawdry attacks sloppily get particulars of my mental capacities somewhat incorrect and therefore should be ignored, utterly, out of hand. This besmirching of my character is clearly part of Les Moonves' shadow campaign to usurp my power: First, Tom Freston, and now me. Politics, like Television, is not for the faint of heart.

As for the threat I wield with "Men in Trees:" Common Article III says that there will be no outrages upon human dignity. It's very vague. What does that mean, "outrages upon human dignity"?

[Rebecca Edge]

Good one, Joe...seriously...anything starring Anne Heche makes my eyes (and EARS!) bleed. Whose idea was it to give her a series? Talk about deeply troubled and unbalanced...ouch!

[Suzy Q]

David may be sick and very obviously in need of meds, but I am his official blog groupie. As such, I am supposedly only to say good things about him and his alleged prowess with words and in deed. Alas, I can only comment on one such area: his words. His words do have the power to make one cringe and laugh at the same time, surely as proof of his schizophrenic nature. As to his deeds? Well, he has left this groupie high and dry.