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10/04/04: To the Mattresses
Today makes the three month anniversary of the last time Fraters
published a Newspaper Newlyweds update. Sure, St. Paul and the Elder
have taken Nick and Laura to task, but since Laura discovered
our intrepid reporting they have been a little more guarded in revealing
their personal lives in their columns. Which is not to be confused with
taking a more professional approach to their jobs. Instead Laura has
replaced columns about the foibles of her husband with commentary on the
weather and made up conversations between barn
animals. The Pulitzer committee awaits.
That's not to say that the Newlyweds haven't done anything worth
reporting on over the last quarter. Nick admitted
that his evenings were spent fighting off bill collectors, blaming
Laura. He also admitted his striking resemblance to the fishing hat
bandit, specifically citing their nearly identical sartorial choices.
The only difference in their appearance seems to be Nick's paunchiness.
Laura picked up on that theme with a follow
up column titled "The Fishing Hat Bandit Should Take More
Fashion Chances," where she basically asked Nick to ditch the
omnipresent caps and put on a clean shirt once in a while. Who can blame
her? With his seemingly daily trips to the homeless shelters, sex shops,
and White Castles of St. Paul, he must smell quite foul.
No, Newspaper Newlyweds hiatus was not from a lack of material, but
from Nick Coleman Fatigue. One wonders if Laura is suffering too as her 9/28
column was titled, "Ensuring Wedded Bliss May Take Some
Doing." In this column she suggests a five point plan for the
Healthy Marriage Resource Center, a new piece of federal pork that
Minnesota just got a $900,000 slice of:
Extreme Premarital counseling
Emergency intervention
Raise the bar on marriage licensing
Clean up toxic bachelors
Help us with our bottom line
Seems like a gal who's just thrilled with her marriage! Federal
enforcement of points 1-4 would have legally prevented her from marrying
Nick. Point 5 would prevent him from blaming her for collections calls
in the middle of the night.
Nick took Laura's slam with his usual good sense and grace, by
blaming the entire blogosophere. And after all of the stuff we've
written about him and his wife, the thing that offended him most was
that we said he was rich! I would have laid odds it would have been the
fun we had with Laura's comments
on male impotence in a Super Bowl column.
No, Nick responded with a diatribe against your humble
correspondents at Fraters Libertas (and Powerline too; I guess it never
hurts to carry a little water for the Deputy Editor). Although about 50
different blogs have picked the piece over, I'll briefly touch on my
very favorite section. He expresses displeasure that his spot in the
mainstream media is being marginalized and responds with the following
desperate plea:
"I can handle things I'm smart -- not like everyone says -- not
dumb, smart and I want respect!"
Actually, that's Fredo from The Godfather Part II. Please forgive
me, I always seem to confuse the two. How could I not, the similarities
are numerous. Fredo had as a father a powerful man who claimed to be
involved in legitimate business. Fredo wasn't strong enough to fill his
fathers shoes. He couldn't handle discovering the fact that he wasn't a
big man, that the world had passed him by. He became a dishonorable
stooge, acting out of envy and vengeance. The powers that were only kept
him alive because of respect for his (step)mother. His young, ditzy wife
publicly embarrassed him. And if Fredo would have lived another 20
years, the physical resemblance between he
and Nick
would have been striking.
Remember Nick's true quote of self affirmation was: "I know
stuff."
He would have been better off using Fredo's words. They're not quite as
pathetic.
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