Circus Coming Back to Town

Nothing but bo-ring at the organizational meeting of the Monroe County Legislature last night.

EXCEPT ... in the front row of spectators ... flanked by a couple of big guys ... arms folded ... glaring straight ahead ... looking very baadAAASS ... Assemblyclown and street theater impressario David Gantt!

Why?

Because the Public Defender is appointed at the beginning of each 2-year Legislative cycle.   Sometimes at the organizational meeting.   But not last night.   Other times at the next meeting after that.

Remember what happened last time?

When Gantt tried to usurp the legal authority of the County government to appoint the Public Defender?

Apparently Gantt & Co. are ready to swing into action again.   Look for fun and games at the first regular meeting of the County Leg. next Tuesday, January 12.

Let nobody say the Clown Prince of Rochester Politics hasn't gotten down pat the tactics of disruptive street theater -- what the author Tom Wolfe called mau-mauing.   From Wolfe's Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers:

There were people ... who practically gave classes in mau-mauing.   There was one man called Chaser. Chaser would get his boys together and he would give them a briefing ... and he'd say:

"Now don't forget.   When you go downtown, y'all wear your ghetto rags ... see ... Don't go down there with your Italian silk jerseys on and your brown suede and green alligator shoes and your Harry Belafonte shirts looking like some supercool toothpick-noddin' fool ... you know ... Don't nobody give a damn how pretty you can look ... You wear your combat fatigues and your leather pieces and your shades ... your ghetto rags ... see ... And don't go down there with your hair all done up nice in your curly Afro like you're messing around.   You go down with your hair stickin' out and sittin' up!   Lookin' wild!   I want to see you down there looking like a bunch of wild n - - - - - s!"

.   .   .
Then Chaser would say, "Now when we get there, I want you to come down front and stare at the man and don't say nothing. You just glare.   No matter what he says.   He'll try to get you to agree with him.   He'll say, 'Ain't that right?' and 'You know what I mean?' and he wants you to say yes or nod your head ... see ... It's part of his psychological jiveass.   But you don't say nothing.   You just glare ... see ... Then some of the other brothers will get up on that stage behind him, like there's no more room or like they just gathering around.   Then you brothers up there behind him, you start letting him have it ... He starts thinking, 'Oh, good God!  Those bad cats are in front of me, they all around me, they behind me.   I'm surrounded.'   That shakes 'em up.

-- Tom Wolfe, Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers (1971)