Eminentoes: Geraldo Exposed
Queenan, Joe
EMINENTOES by Joe Zueenan Geraldo Exposed D ear Tom: According to a recent report in TV Guide, CNBC's house stooge Gerald() Rivera now has his eyes on your job at NBC. Though widely dismissed by...
...Geraldo's astonishing return from the grave...
...Javits, almost twenty years his senior, while still married to Kurt Vonnegut's daughter, Edie...
...Geraldo shares his intimate thoughts about Barbara Walters's breasts...
...Grimsby was no match for me...
...Alas, something like this seems to have happened during JOE QUEENAN iS the author, most recently, of Red Lobster, White Trash and Blue Lagoon: Joe Queenan's America (Hyperion...
...Here are a few tasty morsels: • Pages 46-47...
...While reports of Geraldo's exploits regularly mention his skinhead encounter, the time he had flesh from his buttocks surgically grafted onto his face on the air, and his ludicrous hosting of the program 'The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault," these reports tend to skim over the single most egregious crime of Rivera's career: his supremely offensive 1991 autobiography Exposing Myself...
...Happily, no abortions this time...
...Geraldo fakes a broadcast from the Bronx, instead filming the material in front of a tenement on 67th Street in Manhattan...
...Not the sort of thing that got Walter Cronkite 4\ where he is today...
...Just imagine what he could do to Willard Scott...
...I'll level with you, Tom...
...64 October 1998 • The American Spectator happens to be a birthday party for Senator Javits...
...Frankly, I don't think we're ready for a guy who might be down in the boiler room with his pants around his ankles...
...By the way, Tom, does NBC have a boiler room over there at 30 Rock...
...The abortionist is a Gypsy from Brooklyn recommended by the mob...
...Pages 176-77...
...Page 193...
...Tom, I think you'd have to agree that Geraldo and the GMC experts at "Dateline" are going to get along just fine...
...Geraldo describes beating up ABC anchorman Roger Grimsby...
...I've always admired your solid professionalism, your quiet dignity, your commendable reserve, and your refusal to wear sweaters on the air, but what I most like about you is the fact that you've never written a book describing how much you like looking up Chris Evert's skirt...
...Page 96...
...To me that shows that you're a class act, the kind of guy we want at the helm when presidents are shot, when terrorists down airplanes, when space shuttles explode...
...Though widely dismissed by intelligent human beings like you and me as a joke throughout his checkered career, Rivera has made a remarkable return from the dead in the past year or so, climbing out of the sepulcher of his slimy afternoon talk show to land a position as Bill Clinton's full-time shill on the nightly program "Rivera Live...
...Says Geraldo: "I later learned that the money had come from an A&S department store robbery committed shortly before...
...At a party in honor of Marian Javits, wife of Senator Jacob Javits of New York, Geraldo disappears with the guest of honor herself, and begins a torrid affair with Mrs...
...In case you haven't read the interview, the man most famous for getting his nose broken on his own talk show by a bunch of Nazi skinheads (who really weren't all that much more revolting than Rivera himself) now identifies himself as "the news anchor for the next millennium...
...Doesn't give us much to look forward to, does it...
...Geraldo takes two coeds to the newsroom's basement boiler room and engages in a creative threesome...
...And that's not mentioning the 24 network specials NBC has paid him to do in the next six years under terms of his $5 million-a-year contract...
...The rogue cop and three other bandits reportedly maced two armored-car guards in an elevator of the store, making off with approximately $350,000 in cash...
...You might want to mention this the next time you talk contract with Jack Welch over there at NBC...
...Geraldo induces another girlfriend to have an abortion, then says: "I remember I paid to move her out of the apartment, but I don't remember whether or not I paid for the abortion...
...Especially if they have good-looking wives...
...Best wishes, Joe Queenan cc: Jack Welch...
...Again, I'd drop a hint to Jack Welch that this kind of behavior is just a little bit tacky...
...Reasons Geraldo: "Obviously, in retrospect, what we did showed an incredible lack of integrity and journalistic ethics, but at the time I just figured if the guy on the assignment desk told me to do this then it must be standard operating procedure...
...The guests at the party, held at the Watergate, include Henry Kissinger, Frank Sinatra, Rivera's wife Edie, Edie's father Kurt, and, of course, Senator Javits...
...I'm going to destroy you...
...You tried to destroy me...
...If I'm in your shoes, I'm signing up for Tae Kwon Do classes right now...
...A random thought: Maybe Geraldo is after your job because he needs the extra cash to make good on some of these old debts...
...I could have done anything I wanted—I actually had my hands around his neck and I was squeezing him, and screaming, `I'm going to kill you...
...Geraldo pays for a girlfriend's illegal abortion with $300 lent to him by a corrupt police detective...
...As if this were not bad enough, his new offering, "Upfront Tonight," recently began airing...
...Tom, I hope this little note has been helpful...
...Page 231...
...As you know only too well, one of the vital functions of non-Geraldic journalism is to make sure that things do not simply get swept under the rug, that important facts are not conveniently buried...
...Page 195...
...If not, Rivera might go after Jennings's or Rather's job instead...
...Clearly the act of a desperate man, the book provides abundant material that you could use against the pretender to the throne, should push ever come to shove at NBC...
...The gypsy abortionist's fee came from the detective's quarter share...
...Page 308...
...His attempts to fight back were feeble...
...Again, just not the Brokaw Style...
...Obviously, reading this in 1998 is like waking up in 1898 and learning that Kaiser Wilhelm has proclaimed the German people "the spiritual trendsetters for the next century...
...Geraldo and Marian Javits sneak off for a tryst during a book party ' for Rivera which also An open letter to Tom Brokaw...
...Pages 86-87...
...He was about 15 years older than I was, and he was out of shape and unprepared for my attack, but there was no way he was getting the better of me that night...
...Clearly he is a force to be reckoned with...
...A guy who can effortlessly beat up a fat guy 15 years older than him is not to be trifled with...
...This is the kind of behavior that should make NBC's top brass a bit nervous...
...Tom, whatever your failings, you have never been accused of financing an illegal abortion by a mob-recommended "cartoon witch" with money stolen by crooked cops...
Vol. 31 • October 1998 • No. 10
