Fear and Loathing at JJOKE

It was somewhere outside Cairo on the New York State Thruway when the ethics delusions began to take hold.  The purple mamba was cruising at double the speed limit towards the mecca of corruption, Albany, and I was looking for that rarest of creatures, an honest ethics enforcer. 

You see "in a closed society (like Albany politics), where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."

Maybe I've lived in this town too long, maybe I've seen and heard too many false ethics gods come and go but sometimes you just have to buy the ticket and take the ride.

I'm standing in line ready to pay for my ticket to ride the JCOPE merry go round but Carl won't take my offer.  It's a short line Carl in fact I may be the only person that actually wants to take the ride.  And I've read enough Hunter Thompson to really want to experience JCOPE from the inside.  What a trip that would be.  I could become David "GONZO" Grandeau.  Their is a book there I'm sure of it.  All I need to do is get Michael Del Giudice to talk to the folks at Harper Collins and abbra cadabra I have a $1 million dollar book deal.  No royalties just a straight show me the money and as a bonus agree to kill Dicker's book and I'm off to the races.  I can probably even use the staff at JJOKE to write it.  It would be at a 5th grade level but fuck it no one is going to read it.  If it sells 3001 copies I'm ahead of some of the other great Albany authors and if the book payment is big enough I'm sure I can entice Casey Seilor to edit and proofread the work of the merry JJOKERs.  Casey is supposed to be a journalist but as I'm sure you know “Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”  Hey Casey "who's your daddy"

Speaking of which, those ethics delusions are coming hard and fast.  Am I hallucinating or did I read that the guy I'm counting on to put me on the JCOPE ride, Carl Heastie, claims to have started the whose your daddy chant at the 2009 world series?  Put aside for a moment the all too easy comparisons to Al Gore and the internet or Brian Williams and the helicopter what I want to know in my addled ethics state is how did Carl get those seats at the world series.  This is the same series that the accidental governor got in trouble for taking free seats.  Now the Yankees didn't get in trouble  but the gov did.  Must be the immaculate deception that results from that old ethics god Michael Cherkasky being the head of the ethics agency at the same time he had connections to the Yankees.  So in my full delusional state I believe Carl will put me on JCOPE so I can investigate how he got those seats and who paid for them, after all I can't see a legislator that reports $10000 in equities and $50000 in credit card debt and debt consolidation loans buying his own tickets.  This is Albany, best case he used his campaign account to pay for them.  Memo to self when I come down from this ethics delusion check Carl's campaign expenditure records to rule out the campaign account angle.  Remember Carl at the ball game 3 strikes and you are out.

3 strikes hmmm that number 3 is ringing a bell 3 . . . 3     Now I have it, 3 is the number of job offers Andrew says Larry Schwartz has right now.  Now why Andrew would say that is a good question I guess the media pissed him off saying Larry couldn't find a job and that's why he is still  on the state payroll.  Andrew says nope he is just using up accrued vacation time.  Anyone want to bet when Schwartz leaves he still gets paid 6 weeks of accrued vacation time?  I think this cheap bastard is using up the imaginary accrued vacation time he thinks he is entitled to above the 6 weeks the state limits you to, but what do I know it's strictly my delusion.  Kind of like that job offer from Durst that Schwartz in his delusions thought he had or all those discrepencies on his disclosure report that I pointed out to JJOKE.  Jokes on you Larry but if Carl puts me on JCOPE I'm going to demand an investigation of who those job offers are from.  Remember the 30 day rule, as a state employee you can not solicit or discuss job offers unless you notify the boss and wait 30 days and then not have any contact officially with the employer.  We need to know who made those job offers to determine if you violated the Public Officers Law. Comeon Larry fess up.  I can hear Larry now talking to Preet  “Jesus Creeping God! Is there a priest in this tavern? I want to confess! I'm a fucking sinner! Venal, mortal, carnal, major, minor - however you want to call it, Lord... I'm guilty.”

I'm not sure how long this ethics delusion will last Carl but for the sake of ethics reform appoint me to JCOPE fast before I sober up and go back to lampooning  all the flawed characters in Albany that have made us the laughing stock of the nation in the field of ethics and corruption. 


How many times do I have to write about the next ethics violation before the regular media does?  For Christ sakes I blogged about Cuomo's book deal being a problem in December I even told the big wigs at JCOPE to watch out because it would come back to bite them. “Jesus! Did I SAY that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me? I glanced over at my attorney, but he seemed oblivious...”

Here's one more ethics delusion.  Andrew isn't the only New York Public Official to write a book for Harper/Collins.  The head of that other Moreland Commission, Regina Calcaterra, did as well. Of course she wrote hers when the focus was on Con Ed's failure after Sandy.  Who was on the Con Ed board at the time, you guessed it Michael Del Giudice. Why is Regina still on the state payroll?  must be using up accrued time, I wonder if she actually shows up to work.  Carl, I promise if you put me on JCOPE I'll get to the bottom of all these issues and then my delusions can become some prosecutor's reality.

“Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.”

“Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from (New York to Albany)... with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.”

“You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.”

I love it when fast driving and the spirit of Rauol Duke take over.

Fear and Loathing at JCOPE