BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JULY 31, 2017) — You probably didn’t know this, but …

* John Barrett III does walk on water. The water, actually, supports HIM.

* Shakespeare in the Park, the feel-good amateur production now in its fourth year at the Common in Pittsfield, is free for a reason.

* The first political lawn sign of the season bore the name of Helen Moon. No, there isn’t a person named “Helen Moon” in real life. The sign is a hoax put there in secret by NASA and Stanley Kubrick. For once, THE PLANET had nothing to do with the ensuing controversy.

* Peter Marchetti and Peter White share a name. “Marchetti” is what “white” looks like when drained of its color.

* Marchetti could have and should have  won the mayoral race in 2015 by a landslide. He knows that. Linda Tyer knows that. Milt Plum knows that. Instead, he had as his “brain” trust a bunch of “colleens” from the Pittsfield Parade Committee. In this context, the word “colleen” means “a person who will knock her own teeth out because she believes in the Tooth Fairy.”

* Pittsfield’s parking kiosks, which will lose more than $30,000 this year, have nothing to do with parking. They are, rather, blister packs designed to medicate users into believing they are cantors at Josh Cutler‘s bar mitzvah.

* When the Zion Lutheran Church opened the time capsule placed in the building on July 13, 1892, they found an emery board bearing the legend, and we mean legend, “ARLOS FOR COUNCIL.”

* When Pittsfield’s Human Rights Commission meets on Aug 2, the collective IQ of the population of Pittsfield — that is, all citizens not in the meeting room — shall rise by 17 points, one point lower than when the Board of Health meets.

* John Krol, playing shortstop in a high school baseball game, once threw out a runner from the hole … without going to his backhand.

* When the nurses at BMC go on strike (“when” not “if”), Berkshire Health Systems shall     use a Ouija board to summon the ghosts of Clara Barton, Florence Nightingale, Florence Henderson, Raymond Massey, Sam Jaffe, Vince Edwards, Chad Everett, Robert Young, Pernell Roberts, Dr. Doolittle, Lew Ayres, and Nurse Jenny to the breach. The list would include Richard Chamberlain, but he is still alive.

* Mike Leary, BHS’ communications manager, has been unanimously elected to the Sleet Golf Hall of Fame in Stamford, VT. There he joins Dan Valenti and two guys named Cal and Frenchy. Quantum physicists are sifting through the old scorecards to try to fathom what it all means.

* The Pittsfield City Council doesn’t actually exist. It’s all just a nasty rumor.

* Unfortunately, the Pitsfield School Committee actually DOES exist. Taxpayers, assume the position.

* Electoral fact: There will be no preliminary elections in Pittsfield this campaign season. In the general election, for the first time in city history, all candidates for public office (council, school committee, clerk) shall be stuffed in a shoebox on the bottom of Silver Lake and shot twice. This unique experiment in electoral reform has captivated political scientists and mass murderers across the country.

* The Berkshire Museum’s New Vision campaign, which looks to raise $60 million, has as its goal to turn this erstwhile worthy venue into Chuck E. Cheese. In future, any adults found in the museum unaccompanied by several loud, obnoxious, out-of-control chitlins will be sent to the top of Mt. Greylock with a T-shirt reading “I’m with Pittsfield.” They will then be tossed off the nearest precipice.

* The Boring Broadsheet is not to be confused with Lord Herbert’s DE VERITATE, a rationalistic text (1624) that tries to establish universal harmony by linking microcosm with microcosm. So claims the beleaguered publisher, Alex English. Never has the restrictive comma been better utilized.

* In Pitsfield, a nail salon, tattoo parlor, and head shop constitute “economic development.” You want “growth sectors?” That’s gangs, drugs, welfare moms, dropouts, stabbings, and shootings. Renaissance? Taxpayer funds for “connected” private developers.

* In a previous life, Linda Tyer was a lilly pad in a pond in France. Contrary to the myth held by inferior art historians, she was not painted by Claude Monet.

* The Whitney Performing Arts Center will soon unveil its new slogan:”How bad can it be?”

* To win her old job back, Deanna Ruffer had to … Ach tu lieber, vee kan say nein moor.

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“The wisest, brightest, and meanest of mankind” — Alexander Pope, on Francis Bacon.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

The Usual Disclaimer.