Politics & Funk

The evening before Halloween is one of those moments in every calendar year that have a visceral feel to them. It’s not quite the jovial excitement of Christmas Eve, or the drunken patriotic slurring that accompanies a Fourth of July celebration. It’s more of a niche in time, like the fleeting seconds before plunging from one year to another—the countdown, from ten, during which you grasp a bottle of champagne in one hand and search with a free eye for a prospect to greet with a fat, sloppy, New Year’s kiss.

It feels a bit magical and eerie at the same time, and as I walk down Broadway at dusk searching for a last-minute costume I am afflicted with the excitable vibration that accompanies trading away one’s persona for another. One night—that’s all I have—a mere 6-8 hours to shift identities and go nuts, put on an ape suit and a Nixon mask and scare the living shit out of every hippie walking the streets.

However, quickly, I realize that such a costume might not actually resonate at all, and might even be viewed by some as a “bummer.” It would be much better to go with something more pop-culture friendly and iconic, or, to maybe just buy a green-fringed jacket with myriad badges, pins, and ribbons, and call myself an “An American Hero.”

After a protracted negotiation, I do just that, and as I wear my newfound identity out the door I immediately feel transformed into a different, zanier version of myself. I am a caricature, a wild-man, and maybe even a bit deviant and … possibly similar … to the way that Vincent Margera felt last summer before he fondled and groped two teenagers in two separate incidents at a Lakewood, Colorado mall and skate-park.

According to the Denver Post, Margera—who is best known as Don Vito, the fat and unintelligible uncle of MTV star Bam Margera—was convicted on October 31 of two charges of sexual assault with a minor. After hearing the verdict, Vito collapsed in the middle of the courtroom and screamed, “Just kill me now, I can’t spend my fucking life in prison. I didn’t do anything,” while writhing on the courtroom floor. Deputies rushed in with a wheelchair and a defibrillator, although witnesses were unsure if Mr. Margera actually had to be resuscitated.

Damn!

Don Vito has gone down hard, and barring a miraculous appeal, he will stay in the clink for quite a while. And although I find him a reprehensible subject, a potential life sentence does seem a bit harsh for putting a sticker on a fourteen-year-old girl’s breast. I mean could we expect anything less from slovenly Uncle Vito? Maybe we are just as guilty as he is.

When Vito first emerged on MTV’s reality show Viva La Bam, it was as an object of torment for Bam and his friends. They would mock him, demolish his possessions with sledgehammers and cranes, and, on occasion, dress him up in women’s underwear. All of these things were mildly funny, but not nearly as funny the things Vito seemed to do on his own accord. At somewhere in the realm of 400 pounds, with a penchant for drink and a mumbling, unintelligible, idiotic method of speech, Don Vito became a caricature of himself. Whether he was taped to a wheelchair, lying semi-naked on a hotel bed with his left testicle exposed, or making aggressive comments to blind dates regarding their most appetizing body parts, we laughed at Don Vito, because what he did, though nowhere near admirable or normal, was really goddamn funny.

As Viva La Bam progressed, the popularity of Uncle Vito grew to the extent that he was no longer a supporting role but often the focus. His obesity, inarticulateness, male chauvinism, drunkenness, and generally lewd and bizarre behavior were rewarded by money and pop-culture status, so it only seemed natural that when he showed up for a public appearance with the rest of the Margera crew he would be in character. Apparently, Don Vito was so intoxicated at the two photo shoots he attended that he urinated in his pants. After he was finished, he proceeded to fondle the breasts and buttocks of three girls between the ages of 12-14.

What in God’s name would let a normal person think they could get away with this? Sure, a bit of the blame goes to MTV, but it’s hard to fault them for much more than the destruction of American music. But, clearly, no sensible person could argue that this behavior is rational, or for that matter legal, could they?

Actually, Vincent Margera’s lawyer did just that!

Attorney Pamela Mackey, who formerly represented Kobe Bryant in a 2003 rape allegation, based her client’s defense upon the theory that Margera was innocent of sexual assault because the assault was perpetrated by his alter ego, Don Vito, who, due to being a character in a popular reality show, could not be prosecuted for his actions. “Fans expected to see Don Vito, not Vincent Margera. You may find the behavior vulgar and disgusting, but it was done to amuse, to entertain, to get a laugh,” Mackey said—which, of course, makes perfect sense.

Because clearly there’s really no other way to get your kicks than tying one on, urinating all over yourself, and then lunging at the chest of fourteen-year-olds!

The reality is that Mr. Vito played a part on T.V. for so long that he forgot it was just that. He forgot that despite his powerful role as America’s favorite degenerate uncle, he still had to follow laws of basic decency. It slipped his mind that couldn’t simply trample over those who awarded him money, prestige, and fame—that he couldn’t just plant his fat, greasy fingers upon the chests of America’s pre-pubescent daughters and expect the collective civil consciousness of our country to sit back and continue to fill his pockets and elevate his ego.

Mr. Margera didn’t remember that sometimes you reap what you sow, that your chickens eventually come home to roost, and that when you think that you’ve made it high enough to be invincible from the laws of basic civil society, you’re usually about a millisecond from being snapped back to earth. And on Halloween—while I was trying on the ultimate fringed jacket—not only had Don Vito gone down, but there was a similarly strange and savage entity that was being reined in for losing sight of the law as well; it was the Democrats

In the name of democracy, these savages had abused the courts, the electoral process, the power of attorney, and the citizens of the United States in a way close to that in which Vito had abused the pure and virginal secondary sexual organs of three young girls. They had simply believed they were entitled, because for so long no one had found the guts to explain to them that they weren’t. Like Vikings laying siege to a hamlet, they did their best to burn, pillage, slash, smear, assault, rape, rob, and riddle—with tremendous displays of intimidation and harassment—an attempt by a third- party candidate to run for the 2004 Presidency of the United States, and if they had thought about it, they would have likely slapped him on the ass and grabbed his crotch while they were at it.

On Halloween, consumer advocate and former Green Party and Independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party accusing them of filing “groundless and abusive litigation” for the sole purpose of bankrupting his presidential campaign. The suit also names the Kerry-Edwards campaign, the Service Employees International Union, the Ballot Project, and other Democratic-affiliated interest groups. The allegation states that over 53 private law firms and 90 attorneys hired by the Democratic National Party and allied interest groups filed a total of 24 lawsuits against Mr. Nader’s campaign, as well as six complaints with the Federal Elections Committee (FEC)

According to Mr. Nader’s attorney, Carl Mayer, the vast majority of these lawsuits and all six FEC complaints were dismissed through the work of Mr. Nader’s volunteer legal team. The suits were primarily focused around the process of submitting petition signatures to get on the ballot in different states, and eventually resulted in Mr. Nader being removed from the Presidential ballot in at least 18 states. The most formidable allegations are as follows:

(1) Democratic operatives posed as Nader supporters in order to fill out petitions with false signatures such as Mickey Mouse, Fred Flintstone, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and, most frequently, Ralph Nader. Then, knowing that fictitious names existed on the petitions, the Democratic legal team sued the Nader campaign for signature irregularities.

(2) Private lawyers telephoned ‘real’ Nader petitioners and threatened that they would be charged with a felony if they personally failed to validate each and every signature. On occasion, Nader supporters were even visited at home by private detectives hired by the defendants and menaced further.

(3) At an Oregon nominating convention in which Mr. Nader needed to get one thousand signatures to qualify for the ballot, hundreds of Democratic operatives posing as Nader supporters were deployed. Taking the place of real supporters, they then refused to sign Nader’s petition, thereby preventing him for getting on the Oregon ballot.

(4) Democratic operatives intentionally signed Nader petitions in incorrect places in the hopes of getting them disqualified.

Nader and his attorney claim their case is “tremendous” and have stated their intention to depose Democratic strategists of the likes of Toby Moffet, Terry McAuliffe, Elizabeth Holtzman, and others. In a 2004 interview with the Guardian, Moffet tacitly admitted that the Democrats used the weapon of endless, frivolous litigation in order to prevent Nader from getting ballot access.

“I think we had a role in the ballot challenges. We distracted him and drained him of resources,” Moffet claimed, adding, “I’d be less than honest if I said it was all about the law. It was all about stopping Bush from getting elected.”

Clearly a staunch believer that the ends justify the means, Moffet seems particularly proud about his role in impeding democracy in the 2004 Presidential election. Maybe, now that his blind political warfare has ended and Mr. Nader has named him personally in a lawsuit, he will realize that the election process is supposed to be about citizens making a choice for an elected leader, not high-priced lawyers filing abusive and groundless litigation to prevent a candidate for being on the ballot.

If not, someone should dress him up in a cheerleader outfit, tie a twelve- pack of Budweiser and a piece of raw meat to his skirt, and roll him headfirst into an 8 by 11 cell with Vincent Margera. I’m quite certain they would have wild and spirited conversations about what it’s like to feel above the law.