Red Charm School

The hottest thing in reality TV currently is VH-1's show where the Flavor of Love girls go to charm school. Mo'nique seems to have this thing licked, though I must admit, great first episode aside, I'm nervous when I see a guest appearance coming by New York (who is the epitomy of everything uncouth in the Flavor of Love girls), and when I hear that one of the judges is a pageant dude.

I have a friend who runs a great charm school in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He and his wife work to take a girl like Paris Hilton, and turn her into Emma Goldman. That's right, it's a Red charm school.

They don't have girls walk with books on their heads, but rather understand that the whole point of making women walk with books on their heads stems from a long held belief that women were too dumb to read. Instead of telling the girl which fork to eat with what course, they explain that the leisure class invents these inane rules in a way to make themselves feel somehow better than the lower classes.

I remember another friend complained that his daughter was becoming too spolied and too much of an ignoramus. At 16, she wanted $150,000 birthday party, would only drive a Bently, and didn't know how many states there were in the US. I thought maybe his daughter could use a turn at the Red Charm School, and he went with my recommendation.

The results were mixed. After just three months there, when she returned home, she donated all of her designer clothes to charity (which made me cringe...), started renting out rooms in her father's mansion to migrant workers, and quoted Veblen and Marcuse to her grandparents. The father was ready to kill me, until he saw his daughter tell her boyfriend he was a "One-Dimensional Meathead" and that she could never waste her life with a dolt that was worth nothing beyond his father's money.

I received an '82 Bordeaux for my help.

The Red Clown

Mads, my Norwegian companion, and I were eating at the Armani cafe on Newbury Street, when we saw a man dressed as a clown in a big red suit handing out flyers. He was pontificating against the vices of consumerism. A couple of the cafe workers were moving to push him away, but I insisted that he be allowed to come and sit at our table.

He was hesitant, but at the same time curious, so he sat down. He introduced himself as Trotsky The Red Clown, avowed communist. I knew I had my work cut out for me, but my day was free, and I always loved a challenge. This clown would be corrupted at any cost.

I first took him to the Adriano Golschmied store, and had him try on a pair of jeans. Despite only having big red shoes to wear, he couldn't deny how hot he looked in quality denim. I of course bought them for him.

Like a cocaine dealer, handing out my wares for free knowing full well I'd have a fullfledged addict, I took him to many more establishments of fine dining and clothing. I made him try a $40 bottle of Cabernet Savignon (only $40!) along with his preferred two-buck-chuck. I didn't even make it a blind taste test. The clown was hooked in a heart beat, and even The Great Bob Dylan and his penchant for cheap wine could never bring him back.

I saw him a few weeks later in the North End, wearing instead of clown make-up and wig, a Prada cashmere sweater and a salon-styled faux-hawk. He was inside a cheese shop complaining furiously that it was a travesty that they didn't have 6 year aged Parm, and how the hell did they expect him to make fettucine alfredo without it. I turned to Mads, and we high-fived.