Imus Why Must You

In my Wonderbread, AM radio years, before I moved from David Cassidy to the Stones, I listened mostly to two d.j.'s out of New York. Cousin Brucie and Imus in the Morning. Cousin Brucie had a sort of shrill, effeminate, exciteable delivery, like he was mainlining donuts and coffee. Imus was the exact opposite, with a gravelly, sinister voice, who only got excited when he was ordering 3000 hamburgers for some office or yelling into the phone after waking somebody up - "ARE YA NAKED???!!!" His drug was definitely cocaine, muted with Schaefer beer. He is in that soft spot in my heart that has grown from forgetting all the horrible crap about junior high and remembering only the entertaining stuff.

So, I had some news show on in the background while working the other day, having my fake contact with the outside world and heard bits and pieces about Imus. I'm like, what's he done now. Because I caught only part of it, I thought the racist comment Imus had said was to say "You people" to Al Sharpton, which is very similar to when that idiot mentioned that Barack Obama was "clean," etc. But that must have been part of his apology, which is really quite funny, if you're making fun of Imus in general. And then I stayed in my little bubble and saw Jon Stewart stumble over a sequence of prejudiced-sounding phrases in an attempt to make fun of both Imus and Al. But he wasn't really into it.

Then, this morning I searched for info about it to see what Imus was saying today, and found that he really did say an incredibly racist thing. But here's the deal. He has said incredibly tasteless, racist, sexist, ageist, and other ist-ish stuff for like 30 years now. He is not a particularly bright bulb, and he is crass, self-obsessed, and perhaps even senile. The bit with "you people" as part of an apology sounds like more than a simple senior moment, no?

While we move forward on political correctedness, and trying to get it right (although no one is trying to get it right about women, but that's for another blog) we shouldn't ask ourselves why the stupid prejudice from a shocky media guy, but why not every other day?