Which Trump can we say has most outrageous NY Post front page?!?

Until Sunday, it could be said that one of the New York Post’s most outrageous front pages ever was that one from 1990 that informed us of how incredibly proficient real estate tycoon Donald Trump was sexually.

 

Does this front page ...

But now, we may have to seriously judge whether “the Donald” has been topped, and by none other than his own wife.

FOR THE NEW York Post managed to find out that some 21 years ago, an aspiring model Melania Knauss did something that many would-be actresses and models do – she posed for photographs in the nude.

Those photographs appeared in a French magazine that no longer exists.

But rather than just report that the woman who has since become the third Mrs. Donald Trump and could wind up as the nation’s first lady if her husband’s presidential aspirations are successful, the Post carried the story to the next level.

They found the photographer who took the pictures and bought the rights to publish them. Then, they did.

MEANING THAT FOR those people who bought the Post on Sunday got to see a busty young woman in all her physical glory. We got to see more detail of Melania than most so-called men’s magazines would have given us.

Not even Playboy bothers to publish explicit nudity anymore (they really want us to read it for the articles).

But the Post let us know exactly what it was that caused Trump to desire Melania and make her his latest (and presumably, final) wife.

 

... make this one seem deadly dull by comparison?

While also giving the masses of us who are dirty-minded and looking for any excuse to drool something to lust over.

I WONDER IF people will try to put used copies of the newspaper on eBay or in other ways claim the issue to somehow be collectible and valuable.

Then again, I’d be afraid to handle a copy unless I were wearing rubber gloves, because I’d fear exactly where somebody was touching themselves while they were simultaneously handling their copy of the newspaper.

Eew! And, yech!

Even the 1990 story that told us how the woman who became Trump’s second wife, Marla, supposedly boasted about Trump’s sexual prowess to her girlfriends (one of whom then blabbed all about it to the Post) somehow now seems tame by comparison.

THE POST BACK then would have had to have given us pictures of Trump himself in the act of coitus with his then-mistress to match the level of creepiness that has been achieved now.

Of course, Trump himself has claimed he’s not peeved about the Post’s latest actions. He’s giving us the official line that the photographs have artistic merit. He can’t very well claim the woman isn’t his wife. Age hasn’t changed her physical appearance all that much.

And it isn’t like these are the photographs from 1975 that purport to be former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that are so grainy we can’t really tell who it is whom we can see in all her full-frontal glory.

Although that didn’t stop Hustler magazine from publishing them then. Does this now make the Post the equivalent of publisher Larry Flynt? Do Post executives envision Woody Harrelson portraying them too in a third-rate film?

PERSONALLY, I ALWAYS felt that one of the problems with the Trump phenomenon is that Donald himself had his ego over-bloated from all those years of the New York Post elevating his every stupid trivial act into a ridiculous headline.

 

Does this covered cover top them all?

Because those of us with sense can see the Post was merely going for the cheap headline. They filled space and sold a few papers.

While Trump probably thinks he got written about all those years because he’s a deep-minded public persona whose every exploit is worth noting.

Unfortunately for us, these things do draw attention. Because let’s face it – we’re not going to soon forget the Post, while I’ll be the first to admit we’ve already forgotten what it was the New York Daily News deemed worthy of Page One!

  -30-

Altering evidence? Or preserving pieces of a crime scene? That is the question

A civil court jury in Cook County found it within itself to clear the county sheriff’s police of wrongdoing in the way it handled the body of a 20-year-old woman who was killed five years ago in a car crash in the forest preserves near suburban Oak Forest.


That ruling in Cook County Circuit Court came on Friday, and I’m going to have to respect the judgment because I wasn’t there during the civil trial to hear every bit of evidence for myself.

BUT I HAVE to admit that reading the reports that came from the trial make me wonder about the logic of what was repeatedly called police “protocol” to justify the way the cops handled the scene.

This particular lawsuit wound up getting coverage because the woman killed in the auto accident wound up being stripped partially naked when photographers taking pictures of the scene as possible evidence in future criminal proceedings.

The girl’s mother seems to feel her daughter was violated by such acts, particularly since the fact wound up spurring rumors that the girl was somehow naked and having sex at the time of the car crash.

As it turned out, the driver of the vehicle tried claiming the girl was straddling him at the time – claiming that was what caused him to lose control of the vehicle.

BUT INVESTIGATORS WERE able to show that it was impossible for any such act to have occurred. Meaning the driver, himself, was to blame for losing control of the vehicle. He wound up being found guilty of criminal charges and is now serving a prison sentence. The photographs that were the focus of this lawsuit were supposedly key evidence in gaining his conviction.

Sheriff’s police claimed during the trial that their investigators were merely following the standard procedure for gathering up a crime scene (which is what the accident site near 147^th Street and Oak Park Avenue had become). Since crime scenes are never pretty and often garish, it is only inevitable that the evidence would be less than proper.

I don’t doubt that those crime scene photographers wind up seeing grotesque images that would wind up bothering the sensibilities of the deceased’s relatives.

But I never did read anyone explaining just why some of the photographs of the accident scene wound up showing the girl fully-clothed, and others showed her body moved to a tarp placed on the open ground where she was then stripped partially nude.

MY GUT REACTION is to wonder why this wasn’t construed as tampering with a crime scene – somehow altering the reality of what was there. No clear explanation was ever provided that I am aware of, and now I doubt that one ever will.

Not that it seemed to bother the jury that spent a good chunk of the day on Friday resolving the testimony they heard during all of last week. They seem to want to believe the police behaved professionally. Then again, some people will always argue on behalf of the police, no matter how extreme the evidence against them seems to be.

That is the verdict reached by a jury of peers, and it is what will remain as the outcome of this case – unless someone wants to try taking this to the Illinois appeals court and can come up with a specific bit of evidence that was wrongly excluded during the lawsuit’s trial.

After all, merely not liking a jury’s verdict is insufficient reason to justify granting an appeal.

PERHAPS THE MOTHER realizes that, since I read in newspaper accounts during the weekend that she is pleased she was able to publicly say her daughter wasn’t having sex or being naked or doing anything else that might be considered sordid at the time of her death.

For her sake, I hope she is capable of getting on with her life – which for the past five years and for the remainder of it will be without her daughter.

No amount of money that she might have received from Cook County as a financial reward from her lawsuit would have brought her daughter back.

  -30-

Blagojevich in the buff? Ugh!

A part of me is reluctant to write this commentary out of fear that I’m going to be giving more publicity to the Old Town neighborhood tavern that is displaying what it’s owner mockingly refers to as its “nude governor series.”

But I really don’t get the appeal of an amateur-quality painting depicting Rod Blagojevich in prison, about to be strip-searched by a guard.

IS THIS REALLY meant to draw the business of the segment of Illinois’ population that won’t be satisfied until they learn that Blagojevich is in a prison infirmary being treated for injuries sustained after being gang-raped in his cell?

Or are there really people other than the former Patricia Mell who have a desire to see Rod in the buff?

Either way, I don’t get it.

At stake is the Old Town Ale House, which received a dose of national attention earlier this year when its owners hung a painting that purported to be Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin in the nude, except for the assault rifle she was carrying.

ACTUALLY, IT WAS a painting of the tavern owner’s daughter, with Palin’s eyes, glasses and exaggerated beehive hairdo put on her body. But the painting’s existence drew many locals and tourists, many of whom insisted on using the cameras in their cellphones to shoot pictures of the nudie picture.

I don’t feel the need to show the Palin picture, but people can find many of those crude cellphone photographs on various sites around the Internet, if you are so inclined to search.

There’s no word thus far on who actually posed for the painting of Blagojevich.

Not that I particularly want to know, since about the only physical attribute of Illinois’ governor that has ever been notable has been his hair – which gives away completely the fact that Blagojevich is an “Elvis man.”

BUT TO ME, the reports about the Blagojevich painting that have been turning up in various newspapers all depict the aspect of this issue that offends me. And no, it’s not the thought of Blagojevich naked.

It’s the idea that a prison guard is included in the painting, putting on rubber gloves and having a look meaning serious business on his face.

As I perceive this so-called work of art, the point is to make us envision in our minds the moments following this scene – the one where Gov. Milorod is probed to ensure he’s not trying to smuggle contraband into whatever federal facility critics envision Blagojevich spending time at in coming years.

Personally, I can do without that scene, considering that we’re not even at the point where the Illinois House of Representatives can tell us exactly what it is that Blagojevich has done that makes him worthy of impeachment and removal from public office.

WE’RE DEFINITELY NOT anywhere near the point of a criminal trial, or sentencing, or the day when we might someday see our governor carted off to a minimum-security federal prison (perhaps the same facility in Oxford, Wis., that former Gov. George Ryan would have preferred to serve his time at).

Yet despite the idea of how premature such an image is, we are at the point where some people want us to speculate about “Blagojevich Behind Bars!” Perhaps some even have the notion of a companion painting of first lady Patti being searched at the federal facility for women near Pekin, Ill.

Now I know that the people who are out for Blagojevich’s scalp (with that mane of Elvis-like hair attached) aren’t going to want to hear this.

But if there are people in our population who are already concocting such images in their heads, I’m wondering if it is possible for Blagojevich someday to get a fair trial. Could we already have a potential jury pool of people with such set views on the incumbent governor that they’re not going to want to hear any of the rhetoric that Blagojevich’s attorneys are starting to espouse (that Rod’s chatter caught on federal wiretaps is not criminal activity in and of itself, but is just political trash talk).

NOW I KNOW that some people feared the same thing when it came to picking a jury for the federal court trial of Ryan and they managed to get through a trial and arrive at a conviction.

But let’s not forget the mess that became of that jury, and the perception among some (including some appeals court judges) that the jury did become tainted against Ryan. I’d hate to think we’re going to have to relive a version of that saga with the Blagojevich trial.

Paintings like the portrait at the Ale House (which officially carries the title, “The Cavity Search”) are trivial in, and of, themselves. But when put together with a lot of other trivial slights, they create the image that could prevent true justice (which involves getting at the truth, not punishment) from ever being achieved.

And the idea of something as stupid and trivial as this painting having a serious negative after-effect scares me.

THERE’S ONE OTHER reason I’m critical of this painting. At least insofar as the image that was published of the painting recently in the Chicago Tribune, it’s terrible as a work of art and as an accurate image.

It doesn’t look like Blagojevich, not even the ridiculous hair.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: I fear the image that will be created should the Old Town Ale House (http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/arts/chi-talk-ale-artdec19,0,5136319.story) decide to display a portrait of California’s governor.

Sarah Palin seems to have started something in Chicago at a tavern in the same neighborhood (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/10/sarahs-nude-whats-point.html) as the Second City comedy troupe that originally produced Tina Fey.

Sarah's nude! What's the point?

I still remember the reaction of a gang of black aldermen in Chicago when they learned that an art exhibit contained a painting of the then-recently deceased Mayor Harold Washington.

The painting itself was a horrible likeness and would have been regarded as a third-rate attempt to portray the first African-American mayor of Chicago, except that it depicted him wearing a woman’s brassiere and panties – and as excessively overweight.

THAT “DISRESPECTFUL” NATURE of the painting is what caused the aldermen to force their way into the School of the Art Institute on a day in May 1988 and try to rip the painting from the wall. As it was, they did cause some damage to the painting, and the “artist” eventually tried to claim financial damages for what the political geeks of the City Council did to his “work.”

Now I remember the people from back two decades ago who used to like to spread stories that Washington was homosexual. The painting was playing off that image – perhaps trying to show it in an absurd manner. Or perhaps the painting (officially entitled “Mirth & Girth”) was just going for a cheap giggle.

What I remember was an image that I never would have guessed was supposed to be Washington, except that everybody kept telling me it was. So it must have been.

My reason for recalling this is that we, the good people of the Second City, are enduring yet another politically-tied artistic crisis within our boundaries.

THE OLD TOWN Ale House is run by a man who recently painted a portrait of Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin. Aside from her now-trademark eyeglasses and an assault rifle, the painting depicts her wearing no clothing – and posed in such a manner that I have to wonder if Hugh Hefner is considering a lawsuit.

After all, the man whose magazine gave us the “Playmate of the Month” might think he owns such poses of women.

Naturally, pictures of the painting are turning up on the Internet, being found by all those geeky people who couldn’t resist the chance to type the words “Sarah Palin” and “naked” into a search engine.

Business at the Old Town Ale House is on the rise, as people are coming with their cameras to take pictures of the painting, while also having a drink or two.

SO FAR, THE Palin supporters have been muted. A couple have talked of how “sexist” it is to depict the Alaska governor as a sex object (even though she did the same to herself when she competed two decades ago in the Miss Alaska competition).

Will we get the sight of some Bible-thumpin’ types making the drive into Chicago (because we all know decent, God-fearin’ folks don’t live in big cities) so they can rip Palin’s image from the wall, before trying to trash it?

Or is this more likely to be a gimmick that attracts a bit more business to the tavern in the Old Town neighborhood, and will eventually wither away when interest in the sight of naked pictures of Palin disappears.

Let’s be clear on one point. It’s not a real naked picture of Palin.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported this week that the bartender/artist took the smile and eye-glasses from recently-published photographs of Palin, then had his daughter serve as a model for the rest of the body.

Insofar as what the bartender’s wife thinks?

She actually owns the bar and approved the image, along with a lot of other racy paintings that hang on the walls – thereby providing the décor for the tavern that sits down the block from the Second City comedy club whose troupes have developed many of the leading entertainers of recent years.

Personally, I don’t know what to think. I do not believe the face on the painting really looks like Palin, and I have never really found her attractive enough to have any urge to see naked pictures of the would-be vice president.

THERE HAVE BEEN so many images in recent weeks (such as magazine covers of Vanity Fair and the Nation, to name a couple) that have depicted Palin as packing a rifle and stepping on a polar bear rug the way this painting does that not even that portion of the image is original.

In short, I can’t help but think of this piece of “art” the same way I thought when I first saw Harold Washington standing in his “ladies undies.”

I hope the Right has enough sense to behave more sensibly than the African-American aldermen of Chicago did back in the late 1980s. (That is not an automatic assumption, as people tend to do stupid things when motivated by prudishness).

Because the last thing any of us need to have happen is for this particular painting of Palin to become some sort of cause celebre. Better for it to wither away after Election Day, and for people to someday look at the thing and ask “who’s that?”

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Anybody who seriously feels the need to see pictures of the painting for themselves (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-talk-naked-sarahsep30,0,4944201.story) can settle for the indirect look published with this story, or can go search the Internet for themselves.

Politically inspired “art” in Chicago has a knack for making national headlines (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1DC143AF936A25756C0A96E948260). It would be nice if the Palin painting did not reach the level of absurdity that (http://www.cd.sc.ehu.es/FileRoom/documents/Cases/330nelson.html) Harold Washington did.