The Pencil Today:

Move Along, Folks; Nothin’ To See Here

Now comes word that maybe — just maybe — authorities didn’t really give a damn that there might have been captives being held in the home of one of the craziest bastards Cleveland has ever gifted the nation.

Yup, USA Today’s report on the mad, mad, mad, mad story reveals that one neighbor had seen a naked woman on a leash crawling around the backyard and another heard pounding on the windows from the inside. Both neighbors say they called the cops but, alas, Cleveland’s finest couldn’t be bothered with such peskiness. Presumably, they had more pressing concerns like the issuing of parking tickets.

Cleveland House

House Of Horrors

Yet another neighbor’d seen all three captives on leashes, crawling around in the backyard. Wait, there’s more — the deranged school bus driver who owned the joint had been seen bringing big bags of McDonald’s into the house, which puzzled neighbors because they’d thought he was the only occupant therein.

Not even the brazen consuming of junk fast food could stir the constabulary to action.

It turns out the three young woman might have been rescued after all in short order (even if newly-christened hero Charles Ramsey hadn’t helped them escape) because the owner of the house owed back taxes. Now that’s a real crime.

The Story Of America

And Charles Ramsey is a genius. Why? Simply because he was able to condense several hundred years of New World history, specifically in the matter of race relations, in these 21 words:

I knew somethin’ was wrong when a pretty little white girl ran into the arms of a black man. Dead giveaway.

Screengrab/Ramsey

The Eminent Historian, Charles Ramsey

Wits and wags have even been cracking wise that Ramsey ought to run for political office. Uh uh. The man already has been recorded committing the unforgivable sin of blatant honesty.

Fat Facts

Lost in yesterday’s news was the revelation that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie secretly underwent Lap-Band surgery a couple of months ago in an effort to shrink his famous round silhouette.

Christie swears he did it so that he could improve his odds of remaining among the living for at least the next half hour, considering the fact that he’s got a wife and kids who sort of dig him and he they.

But the political pundits are screaming to high heaven that he got his gut belt tightened because he wants to run for president in 2016. One poli-sci guy, interviewed on NPR yesterday, said the electorate, essentially, doesn’t want a fat man as a leader. No, not because his heart may explode two days into his first term but because, well, we just don’t care that much for fat guys.

Christie

Not Presidential Material

Nice, huh?

And how about the Abercrombie & Fitch outfit that costumes a certain percentage of the IU student body here in our own beloved Bloomington? Apparently, A&F does not offer duds for anybody who’s ever eaten a second slice of pizza without feeling compelled to hork it back up.

Marketing and merchandising maven Robin Lewis tells Business Insider that Mike Jeffries, the exceedingly scary big boss man at A&F thinks tubbies are gross. Tubbies, of course, being all those icky people who enjoy eating.

“He doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people. He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing,” Lewis says.

Jeffries spewed his own verbal poison in a Salon article about him and his cult-like corporation seven years ago. And, oh, he’s a piece of work. The Salon article’s author, Benoit Deizet-Lewis describes him thusly: “He wants desperately to look like his target customer (the casually flawless college kid), and in that pursuit he has aggressively transformed himself from a classically handsome man into a cartoonish physical specimen: dyed hair, perfectly white teeth, golden tan, bulging biceps, wrinkle-free face, and big, Angelina Jolie lips.”

Jeffries

Yee-e-e-e-e-aa-a-a-a-ah-h-h-h-h!

Eek. Anyway, Jeffries sez the sex appeal of compulsively skinny coeds is key to his marketing plan: “It’s almost everything. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that…. In every school there are cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids…. A lot of people don’t belong (in our clothes), and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

A&F Ad

If You’re Not As Cool And Good-Looking As These Two, Kill Yourself

Oh, by the way, A&F settled a class-action lawsuit for big bucks back in 2004 for denying employment to minority applicants and, for those minorities who’d managed to be taken on, making them work in the back room of the store where cool, good-looking customers wouldn’t be forced to suffer the indignity of looking at them.

Just in case you were wondering, Jeffries has taken a brand that was just about to go into the dumper and transformed it into a fabulously successful retailer in the three decades he’s been at the helm. He is, in no uncertain terms, a business savant.

Even if he is a certifiable jerk. Huzzah for the Free Market!

[h/t to Liza Pavelich]

3 thoughts on “The Pencil Today:

  1. dave paglis, illiterate, racist homophobe and now, dumpster diver says:

    Good one Mike.

  2. Susan Sandberg says:

    Beware of those modest little white houses emblazoned with American eagles and the flag. Might be something going on in there that, well… just sayin’. I’d be more than suspicious, especially after seeing naked women in chains crawling around in the back yard. What the bloody hell!?! Are we really that jaded and accustomed to sick shit that it’s just all in a day’s work to ignore it?

  3. Candy says:

    I always thought those black eagles were bats when I was a kid, so I was always afraid of those houses.

Leave a Reply to dave paglis, illiterate, racist homophobe and now, dumpster diverCancel reply

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