Earth to Street! Earth to Street! Come in, Street! For crying out loud, John, answer your freakin' iPhone, will you? You went through all that trouble, discomfort and ultimately, public humiliation, just to be the first one on your block -- or the first mayor in America -- to own the latest geek magnet created by Steve Jobs, the least you could do is answer the damn thing when it rings.
That is, if it does ring. Knowing what little I know about John Street after watching him as a public figure since the days when he was defending his brother Milton's right plant a vending truck in concrete on the southeast corner of Montgomery Avenue at 13th Street on the Temple University campus in 1972, I can only imagine what the ring tone on Hizzhonor's iPhone would be. Presumably to get his attention Street's mobile phone would require a 500 volt electric shock. Either that or the theme from Star Trek.
We are not alone, you and I, in wondering how cuckoo John Street has been all along if he is capable of choosing to inauguate his final six months as mayor of Philadelphia by camping out in a lawn chair at 3:30 a.m. in order to buy the newest techno-gadget that wouldn't go on sale for another 14 hours and 30 minutes. What was he thinking? we all asked ourselves.
Who is this guy? visitors from out-of-state arriving for Philadelphia's weeklong Fourth of July celebration must have asked when they saw the TV and newspaper images of the mayor camped on a city sidewalk like some Dungeons and Dragons freak outside a Sci-fi Con.
Earth to Street! This didn't make you look like a man of the people. This didn't make you look mayoral. This made you look like Nerdly McBlingbling, a man with all his priotities in an alternate universe.
In a city where kids die over new sneakers and the latest sports team jackets, the sight of a mayor voting with his seat outside the AT&T store selling the latest must-have $600 gizmo sends a message. I gots to have it. I gots to have it now.
And John Street's mystification that the media would make such a fuss about his choice to a). sit outside a store for hours on a weekday, and/or b). have a city paid cop take his place in line, shows how little he has learned about a). the news media, and/or b). being mayor of Philadelphia.
Not since Frank Rizzo accepted the Daily News challenge of taking a lie detector test, has a sitting mayor invited such unnecessary ridicule. Maybe it played well in John Street's alternate universe, but on the streets of Philadelphia it looked STOOPID!
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