OUR PLACE
The Court Jester of Lake Geneva.
Every once in a while, as Anthony Bourdain used for his traveling chef show, the GSR staff runs into local characters who seem to come and go with some frequency in such a tourist-oriented city. One such character you might see around is a short, bandy-legged Jewish make-believe cowboy wearing one of those Texas hats (the all-hat and no-cattle kind of things). He bandies about spewing all manner of kindly well-mannered idiocy, particularly when it comes to city leadership or building projects underway or planned (if that reminds you of the GSR itself, well, the comparison was intended). That the Jewish cowboy is really Jewish is itself truly unknown, although his leanings toward Hamas are pretty evident in some of his unrequited verbal commentary, and the fact that he has to find a place to unroll his little rug to pray, facing east, five times a day.
This entertaining caricature of a small man does, however, have a fiery temper, sort of like the role Joe Pesci played in the movie Casino. Watch out if you say the wrong thing or he may just put your eye out with a sharp pencil. If you see him or run into him (and you’ll know when you see him), have a modicum of possibly ill-placed or poorly timed courage, then go talk to him and stand back to be very entertained. Lake Geneva prides itself on being able to collect a whole litany of such entertaining “Monty Python” type characters. The proper greeting for his apparent cultural belief system is: “Salaam Alaikum,” which is generally spoken with a head bow being made at the same time. That means ‘peace be unto you,’ by the way. Laguna Beach, California had its town greeter like Lake Geneva has a court jester…the entertainment provided by such vacuous characters of great expressiveness is as attractive as it is unexplainable. When you see him be nice as Lake Geneva does not want him to return to whatever dark and dank alley he arose out of, like a miniature creature from the black lagoon.
Person of the Week
Laser…beloved great man working his heart out at the Ridge Hotel on Highway 50
