TOMPAINE.COM IMUS WATCH V: More of the Same

 

Week of April 24th - 28th.

Philip Nobile is the editor of Judgment at the Smithsonian, which printed the banned Smithsonian script on the 50th anniversary of the Bombs of August in 1995.

Editor's Note: TomPaine.com continues its coverage of radio host Don Imus. Imus has maintained that his show does not make a practice of airing racially offensive material. TomPaine.com has monitored the show for five weeks and found that the show regularly features offensive cracks about blacks, gays, and foreigners. Click here to see an index to our Imus coverage. For our fifth week of Imus coverage, keep reading.

PARTICIPANTS

Don Imus [host]

Bernard McGuirk [producer]

Charles McCord [newsman]

Lou Ruffino [engineer]

Jay Severin [Boston talkshow host]

Bud Collins [NBC tennis commentator]

Father Tom Hartman [TV priest and half of The God Squad]

Bo Dietl [movie reviewer]

HOMOPHOBIC REMARKS

Imus: I didn't know that Allan Bloom was coming in from the back end.

Voice imitating Howard Stern: So you're getting a colonoscopy tomorrow?

Imus: Yeah.

Stern: ... Amazing you can get your health plan to pay for something most guys down in the West Village can't get done to them unless they buy somebody dinner first. [laughter]

Imus: Well, about three hours now to [a colonoscopy].

McCord: We're counting down, I-man.

McGuirk: Penetration.

McCord: The I-man's own little Pokemon, [laughter] so to speak.

McGuirk: Just like the old days.

Imus: Like the old days?

McCord: Yeah, on your belly in a bathhouse. [laughter]

McGuirk: Joseph Aboud wants a second opinion [re colonoscopy]. [laughter]

Dietl: He went back twice. [laughter]

Imus: Aboud want to take a Johnny Mathis record with him. [laughter]

********

McCord: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments today in a case involving a New Jersey man kicked out of the Boy Scouts because he is gay. James Dale was an assistant scoutmaster who'd spent most of his life in scouting and he was ejected in 1990.

Imus: As opposed to injected.

McGuirk: [unintelligible] it was those two-man sleeping bags he was bringing. [laughter]

McCord: That's lovely.

Imus: Special knot-tying class.

McCord: Right. [laughter]

McCord: The high court began hearing arguments yesterday about the New Jersey case involving homosexual Scoutmaster James Dale.... He's an outstanding scout and all of that.

Imus: I'm sure he was, particularly that knot-tying deal, and all of that. [laughter]

McCord: Creating fires and all that sort of stuff.

McGuirk: Rubbing boners together.

********

Imus: They'll be dressing up -- that's an ugly situation. [regarding the gay rights march in Washington, D.C.]

McGuirk: They'll be squatting on the Washington Monument.

Imus: Sorry you [to Father Hartman and Rabbi Marc Gellman] had to hear that. We don't need that from you.

Fr. Hartman [smiling, to McGuirk]: Say three Hail Mary's and three Our Father's.

********

Imus: While we accused you on this program of being a member of the Village People. Apparently, that is not the case. So, but what did you do as a performer? You wound up on the Ed Sullivan show.

Severin: This isn't going to help my case any because I was a dancer and an actor as a kid. That puts me in the category as someone who'd be looking forward to a colonoscopy. [laughter]...The thing about my haircut which led to the innuendo about whether I live in a log cabin, if you know what I mean....

********

Voice imitating Manuel Noriega: I used to be one who thought Elian would be better off here in America than in Cuba with his father -- until I saw what the conditions were like living in a two-bedroom ranch with sixty family members, not to mention that kid-toucher, fisherman Donado Dalrymple staying over for slumber parties every other night. What the f [muted] is that about? I mean it was nice enough for him to rescue Elian and all, but he's just a little too attached. You know what I mean? Cryin' on Larry King. Juan Gonzales didn't get as emotional about the kid. I think this Dalrymple might not be so much a fisherman as he is a chickenhawk. (played three times)

********

Imus: Here now on the "Imus in the Morning" program, Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Limbaugh.

Voice imitating Limbaugh: My friends, I am an open-minded man, receptive, accessible, perfectly willing to hear points of view contrasting to mine no matter how incorrect idiotic they may be. But when these beliefs tie up our nation's judicial body or even worse, get signed into law, that's when I feel I must intervene and interdict the inter-dick intercourse. Vermont is now the first of our union to give gay couples the rights and benefits of marriage. Yes, the Green Mountain State is now going to be known as the Queen Mountain State as thousands of homosexuals make cozy pilgrimages to a region where the phrase Log Cabin Republican has taken on yet another meaning.... And speaking of institutions and homosexuals, James Dale has taken to the Supreme Court his fight to remain a Boy Scout leader. I've never been a fan of the politics of inclusion, but the idea of a flamer sitting around a campfire with a group of young boys in short pants brings new meaning to the words weenie roast. Young minds are weak and malleable, virtual tabula rasas susceptible to suggestion. And I can't sit idly by and let a reprobate role model shove his point of view down the throats of our impressionable youth.... [Dale's] idea of being prepared is bringing condoms to Boy Scout Jamborees.... We simply cannot allow the All-American values of our nation's young men be polluted by the pink pansy propaganda.

********

Imus: You know, Mike the Russian strikes me as the kind of guy who might be comin' in the back end of the missile silo. You know what I'm sayin'?

Dietl: No. [laughter] His problem is his thing, he's got a dead shaft, he don't care about women. He just cares about gamblin'....

Imus: Mike comin' in the back end of the missile silo....

********

Dietl: He takes a missile silo in his rectal orifice.

Imus: No, no, no. We coulda gone all morning without that. Chick Hearn [L.A. Lakers play-by-play announcer]? What are you talking about, Chick Hearn?

McCord: He's a legend.

Dietl: He sounds like he's been smugglin' a few [unintelligible].

RIDICULE OF AFRICAN AMERICANS

McGuirk: Have you seen some of those little police officer women out there?

Imus: Yes, I have.

McGuirk: Do you want them protecting you, wrestling with some six-foot black guy with a knife?

********

McGuirk: They had that Attica-looking [Knicks forward] Kurt Thomas mugging my man [Raptors guard Vince] Carter out there.

Imus: Shut up.

********

Imus: Vince Carter played like Nell Carter and the Knicks were still lucky to win. Took a lucky shot by that thug, Larry Johnson.

McGuirk: That idiot with the L-sign -- for lowlife.

********

McGuirk [imitating New Jersey Net's forward Jayson Williams]: ...Matter of fact, both teams played the game like polio-stricken bitches. [laughter]...Hard to tell what stunk up the Garden worse, Imus -- the Knicks play, the Raptor's play or Starr Jones flatulence, Imus-man. [laughter]

Imus: Come on.

McGuirk: It's crazy, man. I'm tellin' you right now...Yo, three people done choked at the Garden last night -- Vince Carter at the hands of Latrell Sprewell, Starr Jones on a jumbo hotdog, and Mike Breen in the locker room on Ewing's jumbo hotdog. [laughter]

Imus: No, no. [played twice]

********

[Replay of previous broadcast]

Imus: How's Penis William's doing?

Collins: She's just gone on to the court. I'm glad you asked.

McCord: Why would you do that -- to make the fool out of this lovely man? Say, 'How's Penis Williams doing'? [sustained laughter]

********

McCord: A Texas prison's under lockdown after a riot last night left one inmate dead. Perhaps as many as thirteen others, maybe more than that injured. And they say that that apparently had some sort of racial basis.

Imus: Why not just let them go at it?

McCord: As you were saying earlier, stand on a catwalk and encourage them with a bullhorn?

Imus: Yeah. [laughter] Call them names. Did you hear what that group said about your group?

McGuirk: Hey, Mustafa, Hector said your mama's a ho. [laughter]

********

McEnroe: Meanwhile the often maligned Derick Coleman scored eight points in overtime to lead the Hornets. D.C. finished with nineteen points, seven assists and six boards. Hornets' coach Paul Silas liked what he saw from Coleman.

Silas: D.C. just took over, and brought us hope basically. He was just great on the one stretch, wanted the ball, know he was going to make it, and they talk about cream risin' to the top, that's exactly what happened.

Imus: God almighty.

McEnroe: Oh my goodness. Talk about going on a little bit too long. [laughter]

Imus: This guy will be slammin' his girlfriend into the front of a Buick before the day is over. [laughter]

********

McEnroe: Ken Griffey, Jr., and the Cincinnati Reds come to town for a three-game serries and Junior's first appearance at Shea Stadium starting tonight.

McGuirk: Great. He's a schmuck.

Imus: That will be fine.

McGuirk: Any kind of guy who hits a home run, looks at it and does a half-pimp roll down first base. [laughter] And everybody calls him a hero? Screw him. Go around the bases and put your hat on straight, you jackass. [laughter]

********

Imus: Does [Mike-the-Russian] have a gambling jones as you do?

Dietl: He will bet. He'll play polka one-on-one with the guy, this black guy that comes in, this pimp comes, he'll play one-on-one with him.... Love and Basketball is about these two kids, affluent black kids that live next door to each other.... I'm gonna tell you somethin'. At first I turned it on, and I says "Oh ." There's no chicken-wing goin' on. None of that baloney. It's just a real good movie. Two affluent families livin' next door.... Spike Lee, listen up chump-face....

********

[Replay from previous show.]

Imus: Good morning, Cardinal O'Connor.

McGuirk [as Cardinal O'Connor in Irish brogue]: Good morning and God Bless. Bad year, Imus in the Morn' for brothers on the boob tube, black brothers, that is, Imus in the Morn'.

Imus: Right. [laughter]

McGuirk: Gregory Hines cancelled. Magic Johnson out. Brian scumball out. Pushed aside like old slaves by [unintelligible] TV executives, Imus in the Morn'. [laughter] We understand when Paramount informed Magic Johnson that they intended to ax his show, Magic replied, 'You can ax us anything you want, [laughter] we ain't got nothing to hide.' (laughter) Speaking of Gregory Hines, Imus in the Morn', what bigot thought it was a good idea to put a show on TV about with a black man who tap dances all day long, bejesus? [laughter] No wonder they didn't have him shoplifting watermelons or something.

********

[Cut from Jack Benny show.]

Benny: Good morning, Rochester.

Rochester: Good morning, boss. Did you have a nice night?

Benny: Oh, pretty good, Rochester. I had a difficult time falling asleep. I counted three thousand sheep.

Rochester: Three thousand and twenty to be exact.

Benny: That many?

Rochester: Yeah, and boss, tonight when you go to bed, why don't you take a little pill?

Benny: No, Rochester, I prefer to count the sheep.

Rochester: I know, but I feel so silly puttin' on that white coat and jumping back and forth over your bedpost.

ETHNIC RIDICULE

Parody of "America" from West Side Story: ...Elian misses his Mommy, that's why he should stay in Miami.... He can grow up to [unintelligible], like Al Pacino in "Scarface." He can have hope in America, if he sell dope in America, he can achieve in America, too bad he's leavin' America.

********

Imus: We once thought he was a member of the the Village People.... Good Morning, Mr. Severin.

Severin: Good morning, Mr. I-man. ... How are you guys coping with the [Cuban-American] strike? I don't know how it is there. Of course in Boston and throughout the country, the fact that both Cubans with jobs stayed home yesterday is sending shock waves through their economy. [laughter]

********

Imus in Washington Network Newsroom [voice of announcer]: ...The purpose of the latest meeting with reporters to discuss a psychologist's finding that Elain had developed a crush on Marisleysis that went well beyond her purported role of surrogate mother. And in fact ventured into Mary Kay LeTorneau territory. [laughter] IIW microphones were there.

Voice imitating Marileysis: This is so sad. I never do nothing not good. All I do is to get into the bed with Elian sometimes and sometimes do the bath with him to save his life and to help him relax and stuff and make good choices about where he want to spend the rest of his natural life. That's all. I do nothing bad. Now I must go back to my mother's little house. Uncle Lazaro say he want to relax, too. Goodbye for now. [played twice]

********

McCord: Jose Olivares is the eighth livery cabby killed in the city this year.

McGuirk: Where's Danny Glover this morning? No wonder Habib doesn't want to go up to the South Bronx.

RIDICULE OF DISABLED

Imus: And Janet Reno's having a press conference. Ms. Reno, of course, has Parkinson's disease, has a noticeable tremor.

McCord: Right. Yes, which she's able to apparently control.

Imus: Yeah I don't know how she gets that lipstick on (laughter) looking like a rodeo clown.

McGuirk: Oh man, that's great. Any Christopher Reeve jokes you got?

Imus: Well, I'm just kiddin' around. ... I think she's very brave and courageous to soldier on here, by the way.

Editor's Note: "Imus in the Morning" is broadcast on the radio by Infinity Broadcasting, a division of CBS, and telecast by MSNBC, a joint venture of NBC and Microsoft.

Published: May 16 2000