The indefatigable Willie Brown is still struggling with the trials and tribulations of his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger this week. Oh, if only it were as easy to wrap one's mind about this complicated issue as say: tying a sweater over one's shoulders. Then he wouldn't need to write in every Sunday and defend his own defense of Arnold's offensive behavior. Take this typical conversation he's been having with people on the street lately:
...a woman who opened with, "I bet a lot of people, especially women, didn't like your defense of Schwarzenegger."And I said: "Am I talking to one?"
"Yes, you are," she said. "I'm outraged not just at his conduct, but at you for defending it."
"Well," I said, "the column wasn't about his misconduct. The column was about his effort to avoid embarrassing his family after the fact."
That, ladies, is how the teflon-coated former mayor gently dismisses your opinion without actually making a point.
As he goes on, Willie explains Arnold was doing his entire family, including the son who never knew his father, a favor by keeping the matter secret. Now that news is out, the Schwarzenegger brood will have to endure constant snickering at school. (As if being the offspring of Kindergarten Cop wasn't bad enough already.) Willie's argument almost makes sense in that delusional Willie Brown way, but then he has to go and say something indefensible like: "My point was that we all make mistakes, and that his was doing the wrong thing partly for the right reason."
If we untangled that twisted branch of logic properly, that means the right thing to do is to go ahead and do the wrong thing right off the bat and then make it OK by doing another wrong thing - but for the right reason. Or in other words: in Willie's World, two wrongs do, in fact, make a right.
Unfortunately, Willie didn't get around to posting an Inside Scoop column this week (which could be partially due to all the comments on last week's post calling his column a waste of time and space), but he get a chance to bring us an update from the Subway at Third and Market. And boy, was it packed! Apparently, all of the travel agents in town for their annual Pow Wow didn't get enough to eat at their "Dining on the Rock" Alcatraz dinner party, or the dinner at the Academy of Sciences, or the other one at City Hall - and they piled in to Subway to make the longest line Willie's ever seen. So now we know what Willie Brown has in common with a travel agent (besides being an outdated relic from another era who no one should really be paying any attention to at this point, that is).
Finally, Willie ends with his review of the white-guy comedy of the summer: The Hangover II. As every other reviewer has mentioned, it's basically a remake of the original, with a different setting. His favorite part: "the new rapper, Mike Tyson. Believe it or not, he is really, really good."
