No Sense, No Class, No Respect

by Shaker Scott Madin

Monica at TransGriot writes about Jay Mohr, a fellow who makes his living as a comedian and actor. Mohr, as I understand it, called into a radio sports talk show hosted by Jim Rome (I don't know anything about him), and here's how it went:

[partial transcript starting about 1:45] Mohr: I'd like to talk about the basketball playoffs, I'd like to talk about "King" [LeBron] James, this guy could actually be greater than Michael Jordan. I'd like to talk about Kevin Garnett. This guy's the Michelle Obama of the Celtics: he doesn't really do anything, but damn, he looks good, doesn't he, Jim? Michelle Obama—that is a big dude. When Barack plays pick-up games at the White House, you know he picks Michelle as at least his forward, maybe his [center], depending on who's in Congress that day. That has to be like being married to Elton Brand. She is a big. dude. I like when she put her arm around the Queen of England and she put her in a headlock and told her, "I've been waiting 200 years to put my arms around you, lady!" I love that. I like how she shaved off all her eyebrows, and then drew them back way too high into an arch and then straight back down, so she always looks super surprised. She kinda—Michelle Obama kinda looks like the Count on Sesame Street, that's great. [mimicking the Count] "One, ah, ah, ah. One black President, ah, ah, ah."

For bonus fun, starting around 3:30 Mohr also jokes about a football team recruiting their starting lineup by "look[ing] through a book of mugshots," followed by "Manny [Ramirez] being Manny, taking drugs that make you look like a tranny!" (a reference to the ex-Red Sox, current Dodgers player's recent positive test for performance-enhancing drugs), a second "Manny the tranny" 'joke' and some racist mockery of Ramirez's accent and intelligence.

I haven't got much to say about the content of Mohr's "jokes" here: I know I don't need to belabor for this audience why they're so objectionable. But Llencelyn shared Monica's post on Google Reader, and I thought it deserved a larger audience.

Rome's website is here, and it looks like at least one of his features is sponsored by Chevy. According to Wikipedia, he's syndicated by "Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications," and also hosts a show on ESPN. Judging from the clip, I'm guessing writing to Rome's show will not be productive, but contacting Clear Channel, ESPN, and/or advertisers (in a quick search I wasn't able to find out anything about other advertisers, but Chevy's contact page is here) might be more effective.