Some People Care..

I'll send something like this in to the Local and it won't be published. Pete told me that people just don't care. I told him he was half right. Those of you who have lives look at the CHCA's behavior as a combination of amusing, childish, and disgusting, but who cares? I dig.

The fact that, in an affluent neighborhood, the community government defrauds the community should engender little concern. That's always been my fallback position. I get to tell creeps what they are, tell you what they do. It diminishes their smugness, it makes them a little less happy. And I enjoy myself. But if I fail to thwart their plans, who gets hurt? More affluent whites. Who gives a shit? It's win-win for Eddie.

But some people DO care. They're the people on the board who will brook no breech of discipline. We saw a couple of instances of that at the May meeting, when the old Dina-Tolis -Stewie dynasty gave way to the Snowden-CHBA order. If you remember Caligula to Nero, without Claudius in between, you get the picture.

Tolis gave his valedictory, in which he gave special advice on learning and following the bylaws. Atheists everywhere should rejoice, for the fact that no lightning struck the outgoing president as he said those words prove that no god exists. Three feet away, Dina, who with Tolis' complicity has broken bylaws the way her pit bulls eat, sat mute. For the first meeting in ages, she did not have to whisper instructions into his ear before he acted. This little speech had already been prepared. Had only they been this organized before!

She may have been mulling her fate under the new order. For while there IS overlap in the Dina-Snowden Pathology, Dina's motivation has been simply sociopathic. Never smiling, always looking down, always starting her statements with the phrase, "what you have to understand," the earmarks of a life of non-engagement with others, except for the purposes of condescension and control. Richard on the other hand, while no stranger to vengeful foot stamping, does have a toe dipped in the pool of real-world commerce as motivation, if only for the continued obedience of Greg Welsh, Fran O'Donnell and the rest of the marginal Hill businesses who need every edge to move "product."

But what of Dina's future? She must know that there's a new sheriff in town. And he must know, for I have mentioned it, that she, along with Carol Cope and their then-numerous disciples, blocked Richards apology - for a while - and was even against his purchase of 8431. That was before his sweetheart deal with the convict-trustee Chip Butler got him his last CHCA scalp.
Richard has a beltful now. We shall see in the upcoming months, whether Dina, in a move to retain the power she has so single-mindedly amassed, will make a deal with Richard. It may already have happened.

But Dina may just be allying through surrogates. And certainly the culture of Hill businesses (or for that matter , any businesses) can supply them. For while the pathology of both Richard and Dina have a strict "cross me and I'll cut you" dynamic, business folk can't afford that luxury. Even the most hated of adversaries are potential customers.

This explains the always -for-sale Lou Aiello smiling at me, the slumlord thousandaire Sanjiv Jain calling me on the phone to make peace, and even Hate-Criminal Rob Remus claiming no ill will towards me after the May meeting. He's probably a new disciple of Sanjiv's "make people like you-it's easier to cheat them" Landmark business success course.

So Dina had Mike Hickey as her partner in the nomination manipulation scam we saw. Mike, so big and brawny, yet I got him to wimp out in the Town hall lobby two years ago, and now he attacks Ron Recko in a meeting from which Ron is absent. Pussy stuff, Mike.

But maybe you missed some hits carried out recently, perhaps a last show of force by Dina before she finally has to share power with the boy-kink.

In a arcane bit of interlocking representative-titty-twisting, Meredith Sonderscov, one of those hard working volunteers that the board always lauds, got kicked to the curb and replaced by a more loyal-to-Dina volunteer. Meredith had agreed that Dina had broken the election rules, and had the bad judgement to say so. That was enough for her position as Senior Center to be -1. eliminated, and -2. reinstated with a different, now hyphenated name, with someone else in the position.

That the center is now located in the building that Snowden got Butler to sell him, against the wishes of Dina, is a concept that would have baffled Richard Feynman. It may or may not be unraveled in the fullness of time.

So Dina succeeds where the White Citizens Council, (one of Meredith's past sparring partners failed.

And now, a lesson in loyalty vs " reasonableness". Pat Moran is a reasonable guy. He tried to bridge the gap between those who have used the CHCA as their pigsty and those who told you all about it. He was so reasonable that he never even spoke to me. He defended the board often, but said it could improve. I do not think his partners' position as community manager had anything to do with any of his actions.

But Pat went too far too often for Dina. He said he was "appalled" at the way the ballot destroying election played, and at this election he was cut like a mackerel. No more board for reasonable Pat. He sat, face down, at the meeting. I couldn't get him to look at me. Pat-It's OK- you can talk to me now- They screwed you for being reasonable and having morals.
I called Phil and left a message. In it I mentioned that sitting on their hands while Jimmy Pack got Hate-Crimed didn't help them. It's all or nothing with Her. I wonder what Rob Remus thinks about Pat and Phil?

So, two disloyal volunteers down and, well no more to go, unless someone new, with the knowledge that even reasonable objections are treated like so many turds in a cut-glass punchbowl at the Holiday House Tour, will take put their board membership in jeopardy by.......objecting to something!

Certainly that's why Tom Hemphill didn't have a chance at President over Walter Sullivan. Even if the vote outcome hadn't been known before the meeting and been told to Walter, who in a nice bit of asymetry, neglected to give the count after the results were announced, as per the rules......rules? election rules?

Tom dislikes my tactics, and me personally,I think. But he got screwed here too. He has, like Pat Moran, reasonably defended the board, most recently at the inaugural Chestnut hill Residents' Association meeting, but he made two critical mistakes. He said, at the CHRA meeting that Pete would be fired, "over my dead body", while Mark Kientz was in the room. He may as well have hired a sky writer. And during his pre-vote speech, said that he would restore trust in the board if elected president. The cardinal rule of the CHCA has always been denial and admitting fault gets you, well, Tom lost by ten votes. See, I got the vote count even though they didn't announce it!

But for comedy writers like me, even when stuck in black comedies in white neighborhoods, all is not lost. For in Walter Sullivan we have found our touchstone of buffoonery, a Punchinello of Pomposity, the big wind from Winnetka, a man so rife with comedic possibilities that the anticipation of his stewardship of meetings makes me think that I could make money selling tickets.

I will, at every opportunity, video tape these public meetings, as is my legal right, and You-Tube the shit out of them. Walters' Foghorn Leghorn obliviousness to his obfuscatorian bombast will make him a star on the order of Keyboard Cat. Christ Almighty, I CAN'T WAIT!

Walters election is due, of course, to his past obedience to Dina et al. But rather then his willingness to follow orders in order to acheive the cubic zirconia of a career of always being outrun by speeding ambulances, I think his natural ability to make any audience's eyes glaze over and think about other times, other places, anything but the drone of his basso confoundo, got him this job.

Since no one ever knows what the hell Walter is saying, since he never makes his point , but sounds like he might, it's the perfect smokescreen for a board who does all it's work outside the board room, in secret. All this entertainment, and I haven't even gotten to Richard yet. Or Stewie and the plight of a Republican in Philly, or Doug Doman' s Institute of False Hope, or Marie Lachat's $26,000.000 blackmail, or Jane Pietrowski's racket.

I LOVE MY JOB!!!