By DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, AUG. 21, 2014) — Today, THE PLANET would like to present this annotated photo feature. The pictures are the work of our good friend Ben Garver, ace photographer of The Berkshire Eagle. His subject: The Empty Suit, depicted in a variety of strained poses during a recent photo op — caught again in the act of not being himself.

Outside of ribbon cutting, beyond issuing proclamations to girl soft ballers, and notwithstanding reading to fourth-grade science students, TES seems to have proficiency for little else beyond photo-ops. He certainly hasn’t the knack for “good government,” judging by popular opinion.

Wither, The Photo Op?

The “photo opportunity” is an exercise in PR practiced at its highest zenith, which also happens to be its lowest sinkhole, none better than by failed politicians. The more an elected official realizes he or she has courted irrevocable and justifiable wrath among We The People for the substantive aspects of office, the more that windbag pols turn to the trusty photo op. They do so in the heartfelt belief that Mary Jane and Joe Kapanski are simple-minded dolts, incapable of understanding policy issues but worthy enough to be taxed to death.

That is certainly how Dan Bianchi thinks of his constituents at this point in his wretched tenure. THE PLANET makes this confident assertion based not on TES‘ words but by the repeated actions of fiscal irresponsibility and the pattern he has shown, if the testimony of half a dozen or more credible people can be believed, of bullying those he thinks are weaker than him and who disagree with him.

The photo op, so its adherents believe, comes in particularly useful in distracting the public from the political belly-flop. For example, when Richard Nixon found himself in the middle of Watergate, he hightailed it to the Florida estate of his good friend Bebe Rebozo. There, he let the wire photographers take his picture in casual dress, walking the ocean shore. The resulting Polaroid produced one of the great pictures of our time: Nixon by the beach, wearing shined wing tips. More recently, THE PLANET recalls Bill Clinton holding hands with Hillary on Martha’s Vineyard during Monicagate and Geroge W. Bush on the aircraft carrier in his official Hasbro G.I. Joe flight suit telling all about “Mission Accomplished.”

Bianchi appears in Garver’s pictures in a number of near-indecipherable poses. Fortunately, we had Jerry Frobisher, THE PLANET’s expert photo analyst, explain what TES was doing. Based on Frobisher’s 783-page report, we have come up with the annotation. For a larger view of any of Garver’s excellent work, simply place your mouse over it and click.

PHOTO 1

In this picture, a prematurely aged Bianchi — as soft, flabby, and pasty as the Pillsbury Doughboy — holds up his arms while pretending to be a Piper Cub ready to take off for Pittsfield’s sister city in Ferguson, Mo. Word has it he crash landed.

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PHOTO 2

Here, TES can be seen teaching “The Children” how to give a proper “Seig Heil” salute. We hear that Bianchi got the idea while watching a History Channel documentary on “Youth for Hitler.” We know the mayor is quite the history buff. Do you think he taped it?

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PHOTO THREE

In this photo, TES walks with a woman of color. That’s news in and of itself. Observers likened the rare event the appearance of Bigfoot skinny dipping in Loch Ness during a meteor shower under a super-moon. Perhaps some of his best friends are Negroes.

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PHOTO FOUR

The Empty Suit makes a rousing speech on taxes in front of what used to be a house of God. As you can see, the rapt, energized crowd hangs on his every word. THE PLANET cannot confirm the rumor, however, that several within listening range of the mayor’s speech were driven into comas, brain damage, and chants of “I’m Not a Bully!”

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PHOTO FIVE

Inspired by one of “The Children,” who asked him about his current popularity, Bianchi does his impression of a kamikazee pilot banking downward on a one-way plunge into the Pacific Ocean after missing its target. There were no survivors reported.

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THE PLANET thanks Garver for his marvelous portraits of a washed-up politician caught in the act of self-destruction. Word has it that Garver, not even once, had to yell “Cheese.”

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“Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever-more organized forms of matter. But where, when, do these metamorphoses take place? Is it indifferently, at any point in space?  Not at all, as we all know, but only in the heart and on the surface of the stars. The stars are laboratories in which the evolution of matter proceeds according to determinate rules.” — Pierre de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man. … and then quantum physics came along.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.