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Here's to the high, mighty

By ROBERT FRIEDMAN
Published February 20, 2005

If there's one thing Britain's Prince Charles can't stand, it's people with an undeserved sense of entitlement.

"People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability," the Prince of Wales complained recently. "What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical abilities?"

Beats me, Prince.

Anyway, Charles is in a much better mood now that he's finally going to marry Camilla Parker Bowles, the love of his life since way back when Charles was a mere princeling putting in the necessary work to prepare for the throne.

Parker Bowles, soon to be known as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, has given us commoners a glimpse of the classy courtship that brought these two lovebirds together 35 years ago. She says her first words to Charles, after they were introduced at a polo match in 1970, were: "My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?"

When you get your chance to proposition a future king or queen, you don't bother with subtlety.

Much of the rest of the world later fell in love with Princess Di and her dresses, but Prince Charles never got over that magical day of polo. "There were three of us in this marriage," Princess Di once complained, "so it was a bit crowded."

As for people who think they can be brilliant TV personalities, Dan Rather still hasn't gone away, but the he sounds as though he has put much more thought into his closing lines than Parker Bowles put into her opening ones.

"I've always prided myself in being fiercely independent, maybe too independent," our all-time weirdest anchorman said the other day.

Maybe too modest, too.

Rather also had words for the right-wing critics who embarrassed him and CBS News after 60 Minutes botched a report on President Bush's National Guard records: "I don't back up. I don't back down. I'm hard to herd and impossible to stampede. But because I wouldn't adopt other people's biases, in their minds that made me biased."

Prince Charles is right about people thinking they all can be pop stars. Dan Rather seems to think he's Tom Petty.

Or one of Prince Charles' polo ponies.

Meanwhile, Prince Charles' problem with today's pop stars is nothing compared with the city of St. Petersburg's problems with today's rap stars.

First, the city was accused of overreacting to a city-sponsored concert featuring the notorious rapper 50 Cent. About 15 seconds into the show, city officials were shocked to discover that Mr. Fitty's entire act consists of shouting very bad words at very high volume.

So St. Petersburg officials reacted with a short-lived effort to force concert promoters to pay $500 for every vulgarity uttered from a city stage. "We can't be the morality police," said council member Bill Foster, "and we can't be the constant saviors of the First Amendment."

But local promoters helped to point out the unfairness and absurdity of the city's plan. "I can't tell Mr. 50 Cent not to say the F-word," said Dave Hundley, owner of the State Theater in downtown St. Petersburg.

So that overreaction was avoided. But now St. Petersburg authorities are being accused of underreacting to a downtown concert during which Snoop Dogg apparently smoked marijuana onstage.

"No weed for Snoop, St. Pete?" he reportedly asked the crowd. And, after being thrown several joints, he picked one up and asked rhetorically: "Do you all want to see Snoop smoke it up?"

Police made no arrests in response to this provocative act of civil disobedience. "It's illegal, of course, for Mr. Snoop Dogg to smoke marijuana onstage," St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt said. "Of course, there is no way to know that it was, in fact, marijuana."

Actually, Snoop's face might have been a tipoff.

As Prince Charles surely would point out, that's what's wrong with the world today. Special people such as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall or Mr. Snoop Dogg can get away with things at concerts and polo matches that would get the rest of us arrested. And special people such as Dan Rather are hard to herd, while those of us who went to the 50 Cent concert are just hard of hearing.

[Last modified February 20, 2005, 00:53:18]