BY MICHELE McPHEE
The legislators who wanted some of us to be able to play “Let It Ride” at a luxury casino slated to replace the ramshackle Suffolk Downs racetrack down the street from the litter-strewn park in Eastie where I reside, the lawmakers who were brave enough to battle Beacon Hill last week, were puzzled when their leader – our governor – Deval Patrick was in the wind on voting day.
But once again the governor of the Bay State is already viewing his gubernatorial reign as a part-time job.
Where was Patrick? He was being wined and dined by publishing houses in Manhattan for two work days last week. (I guess Patrick put in for a “volunteer day,” or two. Remember that rip-off for the taxpayers that allow state employees to take one day off a month to volunteer?) He left the Big Apple last Friday with a Big Book Deal - $1.35 million to write his autobiography.
I said it in my show last week. I have written two books (shameless self promotion right here: my second book, “Heartless, The True Story of Neil Entwistle and the Brutal Murder of His Wife and Child” will be available from St. Martin’s Press on June 3 or you can pre-order it at www.amazon.com) and it is not an easy endeavor. Granted, I didn’t have a seven-figure advance to motivate me, but I did, like Deval, have a deadline. And believe me, it’s not easy working a full-time job and meeting a publisher’s due date.
At least Mitt Romney waited until his final year in office until he pulled his vanishing trick and took off for 215 days. Now we have a governor who is going to write his memoir on the taxpayer’s time, meaning he will disappear as dynamically as Romney did. It certainly gives new meaning to Patrick’s campaign promise: “Magic Can Happen Here.”
So on the Friday night Michele McPhee show and on the Saturday morning slot we came up with some book titles that we would like to pass on to Patrick.
After much debate, here are the winners and the honorable mentions:
First Place: “Caddies and Curtains: How To Decorate On The Taxpayer’s Dime.”
Second Place: “Together We Can – Just Words?”
Third Place: “Deval-uation of Massachusetts: A state in a state of decline.”
Honorable Mention: “Audacity of Hype.”
