Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

In Vino Veritas

PUTNEY, VT | Well, well, Braveheart Mel Gibson got himself into a spot of bother a while ago. He must have missed one of AA's twelve steps that said:

"Don't let the cops see you doing 85 in a 45 with an open bottle of tequila and a snoot full."

While being processed he raved about the "F…ing Jews" and their integral role in starting all of the world's wars. He also threatened the arresting officer with one of those "Do you know who I am…?" rants and made a crude reference to a female officer's endowments while being processed back at the station.

Apparently Mel blew a .012 on the Breathalyzer. Well a bunch of us decided to try and drink enough to reach that level of intoxication, as an experiment you see. Given that Mel blamed the entire episode on the booze we wanted to see if any of us would turn into raving bigots under the influence of too much beer.

Guess what? We all did and none of us turned into a hysterical Nazi or referred to any women present as "sugar tits." Hmmm.

One of our group expressed rather more than the usual curiosity about trying on ladies undergarments but that was the only anomaly. The evidence suggests that "It wasn't the gin what done him in."

Mel is claiming that the booze made him say stuff that wasn't true. Not so Mel "The booze goes in, the truth comes out."

Our unbiased conclusion: Mel is a racist douchebag.

The evidence that goes along with Gibson's bigoted outbursts is more proof of his character. All of this apology baloney is just so much celebrity bullspit thought up and typed out by his agent, who has the best of all reasons for oiling Mel out of this mess. (I speak, of course about his ten percent from future revenues.)

First of all, Gibson's father was a "holocaust denier" and renowned anti-Semite. Gibson's movie, "The Passion of the Christ" was criticized for its portrayal of Jews as sinister stereotypes with hunched posture, writhing hands, and hooked noses.

In addition, Gibson has for years loudly and tediously proclaimed that he is against all of the changes made by the Catholic Church during Vatican 2 in 1965.

Vatican 2 was a conference lasting 3 years that attempted to bring the Catholic Church more in line with modern values. (They couldn't quite bring themselves to condemn the priestly tradition of having sex with altar boys but at least they were making an effort.) One of the outcomes of Vatican 2 concerned the Church's relationship to the Jews.

The council decided that even though Jews at the time of Christ's death were largely responsible for his crucifixion, today's Jews should not be blamed or held accountable. That, apparently, is one of the points that sticks in Gibson's craw and contributed to his drunken imitation of Adolf Eichmann.

Gibson may or may not rebound from this unsavory event and go on to make further excessive gobs of money for his movies. I suspect he will. After all, Michael Jackson maintained legions of fans despite being weirder than Daffy Duck on crack and a child molester to boot.

Unfortunately this is probably just a bump in the road for our matinee idol storm trooper. Jewish celebrities are already appearing on TV calling for the public to forgive Mel's indiscretions.

Too bad Eichmann didn't have a film career; he could have been spared the noose. Our fascination with celebrity of all kinds is baffling. If I may paraphrase Charles Dickens: "the American public is an ass."

We put these attractive simpletons on a pedestal and it takes a cataclysmic event to knock them off. Tom Cruise is an avowed whack-job cult member who exhibits his room temperature IQ every time he opens his mouth. His fans would lay down their lives for him. If Britney Spears were any less intelligent I don't think she could dress herself. Come to think of it…

Sports stars are similarly lionized, despite their over-the-top greed and self-proclaimed privilege. Charles Barkley once threw a man through a plate-glass window and now wants to run for governor of Alabama. Two to one he can't spell Alabama.

Roger Clemons had a retirement tour with the Red Sox, accepted cars, watches, and the adulation of stadiums full of people. He wasn't even out the back door of Fenway when he signed with the Houston Astros. Nobody cared.

Roger can throw a 99-mile-per-hour fastball. Because of this he can act like the biggest jerk since Vlad the Impaler and team managers will fall at his feet and his public will forgive him. The man would be lucky to find a job mucking out port-a-potties if he didn't have a genetic quirk that enabled him to throw an unhittable slider.

Do you think that our fascination with star power is the reason that we re-elect 95 percent of our representatives year after year? Why does a politician have to take a bath in corruption or be sent to jail to lose their seat in the legislature?

Tom Delay was run out of the state of Texas after various corrupt dealings and has court cases pending. His name was left on the ballot by court order and I'll bet he gets thousands of votes from brain-starved GOP drones. And watch the Democrats shoot themselves in the foot come November.

Their Senator Joe Leiberman lost the primary by dry-humping George Bush's leg every chance he got and by supporting the war in Iraq. Now he will run as an Independent and split the vote. Who wins? The Republican candidate. of course.

This country should be run by a benevolent dictator, much like a cattle rancher who makes all the decisions and does his level best for the good of his herd. Obviously, we are too stupid to be given the responsibility of a democracy. I wonder who would make a good dictator? How about Larry the Cable Guy?