Off his meds again

Chris Rose would be well served by a (gracious is a bit much to hope for at this point) retirement.

There's a lot of disturbing material in this column but allow me to call attention to two snippets:

The very first line reads,

"I should have known from past experience that the word "vagina" is more trouble than it's worth."

Which means, simply, Rose has women troubles. Doubtless, he imagines this a charming aspect of the "tortured soul" dime store soap opera star persona he believes himself to have cultivated. In fact, it's just creepy.

The meat of the column consists of Rose supposedly being a good sport by printing some (actually very poignant and amusing) criticism of his latest (in a series of about 10 billion) "Gee that Mayor Nagin sure is wacky" column.

But actually it's just a jumping off point from which Rose can launch into this impressive bout of whining:

Poke me in the eye! OK, OK . . . I surrender. From now on, I am C. Ray-friendly. I am vagina-friendly. I am "Vagina Monologues"-friendly.

The truth is, I saw "The Vagina Monologues" when it played here in 2001 and I liked it. It was truthful, funny, thought-provoking and horrific all at the same time. And anyone who has followed my moonlight career as a stand-up comedian (all six of you) knows that "The Vagina Monologues" was the influence and inspiration for a show I have been performing for several years now, a show about a different body part, to which our mayor may or may not be friendly, I don't know.

OK, I should probably shut up now. I've written way more than 826 words here. So let me close with this: I, like our mayor, am thrilled about the V-Day spectacle coming to town (the second weekend in April, at the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena; see www.vday.org for more details).

It's going to bring a load of high-profile visitors and fawning media to town. It will be yet another party with a purpose, which seems to be our city's stock in trade these days. It will make New Orleans, yet again, the Focus of All Attention, if for no other reason than Oprah will be here for it.

It will all be evidence once more that New Orleans is where it's at, ground zero, the center of the universe -- this rocking town, this interesting, exotic and sexy town; the vagina-friendliest town on earth.

First of all, the V-Monologues inspired stand-up routine Rose is obliquely referring to here is a long running production called The Asshole Monologues which is not so much an homage to Vagina Monologues as it is a vehicle through which performers of varying talents can promote themselves while lamely cribbing a meme from a well-known slice of pop-culture. In other words... it's basically Chris Rose's column brought to life.

The last two paragraphs, in which Rose appears to be sarcastically bemoaning the (apparently in Rose's view) excessive special attention continuously given to New Orleans, are particularly interesting not only because Rose has spent the better part of the last two and a half years capitalizing on this sort of thing (His book is now in its second edition) but also because it reveals Rose's inability to relate to anything (including the flooding of the city and all that that has brought with it) beyond its relationship to pop-culture trends and/or his career. It would be tasteless to speculate about the relationship between Rose's self-centered shallowness and his above-mentioned "vagina trouble" so we won't do that here.

I have a long-running prediction about the eventual departure of Chris Rose from the New Orleans media market. At first, I set D-day at one Friedman but that was like four Friedmans ago and still no dice. Still such a move could still be imminent and probably the best thing for him, for his career, for all of us.