Today I'm talking with "Eve Harrington," an alias for my favorite conversational accomplice when it comes to the Royals, American politics, and popular culture. You can't know all about Eve, or even very much about her, because of workplace complications. That, of course, makes her perspective even more delicious.
I asked Eve the following questions about the fascinating and absurd news spillage suddenly covering our world:
1. Can men in the public eye learn to do two things: keep their pants on and not speak of matters upon which they are ill informed? In the first pants-related case, I'm thinking of Prince Harry and our very own batch of Anthony Weiners and Eliot Spitzers, and also the guy who went skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee during a fact-finding mission; in the second can't-believe-a-person-can-be-so-ignorant-case, I am of course thinking of Todd Akin. But we can throw in Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney if you'd like -- but I don't think that's necessary. Not after learning that something called "The Charlie Sheen Room" is apparently still going strong at a NYC strip club and features NYC's first "body sushi." Not that I'm bitter, but what is going on here?
Eve: Hypocritical men will keep be elected, crowned, and hired by large corporations to star in bad television programs until non-hypocritical men and women demand otherwise. Men in power will insist that "virtuous" women keep their panties glued to their sexless bodies while paying "fallen" women sufficient money to compensate them for having California rolls slurped from their navel area. Still, we should remember that Harry is only 27 years old. Despite the fact that at the same age Henry VIII had already ushered into place the Treaty of London and composed his own Songbook (co-written by Elton John), Harry should be cut more slack than the other clownish figures. Harry was in Vegas trying to have a good time, not in Galilee trying to walk on water. While both might be considered miracles -- ever been to Vegas in August? -- at least Harry doesn't seem to be getting naked with his political cronies. And he isn't playing a character called "Dr. Goodson" and dragging his once-dignified father into the plot in an attempt to give it credibility.
2. In his bid to retain his Massachusetts Senate Seat, Senator Scott Brown (himself no stranger to the word "centerfold") is distancing himself from his own party saying "I'm a Scott Brown Republican." Does this mean that he is "Pro-Choice" and would wear a bathing suit when swimming in the Sea of Galilee? If so on the latter, board shorts or banana hammock?
Eve: Scott Brown, like Paul Ryan, is charming and pretty. He'd make a lovely accessory: a bauble to wear on one's arm. But you don't talk to your bracelet, do you? Not unless you've had a lot of mojitos. And you do not elect it to public office where it can make laws. Yet Senator Brown is a serious politician now (stop laughing; Mickey Mouse wears a Scott Brown watch) and is no longer the object of sexual fantasy he once was in his pin-up days. He should therefore be asked to wear on the beach what he would like the women of America to wear: full-length four-ply body-armor that would thereby prevent any need for the public to invest in birth control or reproductive health measures for women of child-bearing age. He could take it off when he hits the change of life or listens to the women of America, whichever comes first.
3. How do you think Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip reacted when they saw the photographs? (Not of Scott Brown. Of Harry.)
Eve: Hmm, let's see: Her wastrel uncle abdicated. Her son divorced the most popular member of the royal family -- besides herself -- and now, her grandson, after dressing like a Nazi, is photographed nude at party in Las Vegas. Will she finally give up the throne to Charles and Camilla? Will she castigate her grandson? Will she herself party nude in Slough? Perhaps she and Philip will call Martin Sheen and ask him how he's handling all the silliness with his boy Charlie. Then they could all head to the sushi bar and chow down on someone's neck like extras from True Blood as opposed to lead characters in "Blue Blood." At this point, what have they got to lose?
4. What most disappointed you about seeing the pictures of Harry? Was it his youthful ignorance? His lack of respect for his family? His willingness to treat his royal position with abandons?
Eve: It was the fact that he could cover the crown jewels so effortlessly. Spain and Italy are snickering.