Lee Papa: The Rude Pundit

[babylonsister]

Lee Papa: The Rude Pundit
Louisiana-raised Lee Papa — better known as the Rude Pundit — has a few IMPOLITE OBSERVATIONS about BP, THE GULF OIL DISASTER, Katrina and the Louisiana legislature.

BY KEVIN ALLMAN



What's wonderful about the Louisiana legislature is that its timing is awesome," says Lee Papa. He's just getting wound up. "Within months of Katrina, they were debating and passing an abortion ban that would go into effect only if Roe v. Wade was overturned, a bill that helps approximately nobody. Now, with the oil creeping onto the shore like a stoned Blob, they actually debated whether or not to allow concealed weapons in church. Again, just awesome.

  "It's not just fiddling while Rome burns. It's using the flames to smoke crack."

  It's observations like those — witty, angry, often as not profane — that put Papa in business as the Rude Pundit, which is also the name of the blog he launched in 2003 (rudepundit.blogspot.com). In the seven years since, Papa — by day, a drama professor at the College of Staten Island in New York — has become a regular on radio's syndicated Stephanie Miller Show (introduced by the Rivingtons' "Papa Oom-Mow-Mow"), issued his first comedy CD and performed a one-man show titled The Year of Living Rudely, which led The New York Times to dub the Pundit "a child of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and Hunter S. Thompson." (The paper also could have mentioned Sam Kinison, Lewis Black and Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi.) And this fall, Papa's first book, The Rude Pundit's Almanac, will be published.

  Not bad for a man who moved to Cajun country at the age of 4 from Queens, N.Y., grew up in Lafayette, and studied at Tulane ("briefly") and the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

As a Carencro High School sophomore, Papa's contribution to the local science fair consisted of two dioramas: one representing creation, the other representing evolution. As he remembers it, a judge wanted him to reconcile the two concepts — "which is, you know, stupid," Papa remembers. "So I said, 'Well, I guess you could say that God created the Big Bang and sort of got things going,' and that pleased him to no end.

  "Of course, being a cocky bastard, I added, 'But that's not what happened.'"

  Though he may share the politics of a better known Cajun country pundit, James Carville, the resemblance stops there. Papa says his blog "probably (has)become a bit less profane, if only for the sake of not becoming boring. I mean, there's only so many sodomy jokes one can make." And Carville is unlikely, as Papa has, to recommend setting the CEO of BP on fire, or to tell his readers, "The entire 'I Want My Country Back' meme is such a lie because that crazy woman with that sign never had her country. And it ain't going back because what she wants to go back to never existed."

  Papa's inspirations, he says, were the protest publications of the 1960s, "old-time muckrakers" and comedian-turned-pundit-turned-Sen. Al Franken. "When Franken's book Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) came out, there was this uproar over how Franken was 'lowering the level of political discourse,'" Papa says. "I read it and found Franken thoughtful, reasonable, and vaguely profane at times.

  "So I thought, 'That's not lowering political discourse. Let me show you what lowering political discourse is.'" Thus was born the Rude Pundit.

more...

http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A75409

[badgerpup]

1. Kick...

...cos I think His Rudeness rawks. :applause:


:kick:

[BlancheSplanchnik]

2. Oh Rude One,

marry me!!!!!!!!!!!!

*swoon* :P

[mike_c]

3. automatic rec for the rude one....

We are not worthy.

[JBoy]

4. Great article. Lee Papa is awesome.

[FlyByNight]

5. The Rude One = Awesome

He usually gets me laughing out loud at his writing. Love his stuff and he's great on Steph's show too.

:thumbsup:

[liberation]

7. That would be fucking awesome, thank you!

;-)

I honestly never found profanity to be rude... it is a form of art IMHO.

[hootinholler]

6. ALL HAIL HIS RUDENESS! n/t

[MilesColtrane]

8. Please stay the same shit slinging, nutsack waving, rude, beautiful bastard you've always been, Lee.

Louisiana huh?

That figures. I used to know a trumpet player from there who had the most creative epithets I've ever heard.

[Journeyman]

9. K&R. . .

[raouldukelives]

10. K&R

[theaocp]

11. Keep singin' it and slingin' it, sir

I'll be your loyal padawan, come Hell or high punditry. Rudeness, up!!!

[JNelson6563]

12. Long time fan of the Rude One.

One of my all time favorites of his columns: Howard Dean Will Fuck Your Shit Up. :toast: