Let's help Severin clean up his act
IT WAS a contrite Jay Severin who returned to the public airwaves yesterday, or so Severin and WTKK would like us to believe. After a month's reflection, Jay has supposedly come to realize that calling Mexicans "primitives" and claiming that Mexico's leading exports were "women with mustaches and VD" are objectionable slurs.
If so, this could be Jay's biggest learning moment since the day in 2004 when a 12-year-old listener patiently explained why bombing Iraqi cities to rubble as an antiterror tactic would be immoral and simplistic.
Yet if he's truly abandoning his bigoted rants, how will Jay fill four hours of air time?
Here's a suggestion based on the e-mails I've received from some of the best and brightest, as Jay slyly calls his devoted listeners: He could conduct a remedial course in grammar. Why, I've even prepared the syllabus for the first month: "Mastering the complex spelling and usage differences that distinguish you're from your."
Make no mistake, though, I commend Jay for apologizing and for acknowledging the obvious: He needs to do better.
And I'm here to help. So today I'm announcing "Jay Watch," an effort to assist WTKK's putatively penitent p.m. host as he tries to clean up his act.
Now, I'm aware that many of you think Jay is an utter fraud and thus will view Jay Watch as a colossal waste of time. And I'll grant that the evidence is on your side. The fellow once known as Jimmy Severino has rebranded himself Jay Severin III, awarded himself an imaginary Pulitzer Prize and a master's in journalism from Boston University, and conjured up an illustrious pre-radio career as a top-level political consultant much in demand by presidential hopefuls.
Given his talent as a fabulist, it's easy to suspect Jay has decided that, pace Lincoln, you actually can fool all of the people all the time, at least when the best and brightest are the people we're talking about. And to conclude that his xenophobic comments are his calculated way of bonding with some elements of his audience.
Still, there is a more charitable possibility. Perhaps Jay is . . . mentally unwell. Maybe he suffers from multiple personality disorder. One side of him occasionally seems to aspire to act the impressive part he's invented for himself. But just like the villainous Jaws in those Roger Moore-era James Bond movies, snarling alter ego Jimmy Severino attacks at the most inopportune moments. By the time poor Jay III can fight his way free, his high-minded facade is shattered, and he's got another embarrassing mess on his hands.
OK, OK, it's merely a theory. Whatever the reality, Jay Watch can help, either by reinforcing Jay III as he tries to keep Jimmy at bay or by alerting the drowsy WTKK management to a cynical Severin's latest excesses.
But Jay Watch needs you. Listening to Severin is like hitting your thumb with a hammer, in that it feels so good when you stop. Ten minutes is about the most I can manage at any one time. So send me an e-mail if you hear Jay say something offensive; relate what he said and approximately when, and put Jay Watch in the subject line.
Mind you, this is not a fact-checking exercise. Yes, Jay's errors are regular and risible. (A quick example: Though Jay has repeated it endlessly, the late political columnist Mary McGrory never said she couldn't understand how Richard Nixon beat George McGovern because no one she knew had voted for him. That's actually a garbling of a comment by film critic Pauline Kael.) But as Friedrich Schiller observed, against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain. So you certainly can't expect a lone columnist to take on that task.
Rather, Jay Watch will focus on utterances that debase the dialogue, like Jay's recent comments about Mexicans. Declarations that this group or that person should be killed also qualify. So, too, do the misogynistic terms that Jay applies to women he disdains.
I know that the odds against success are long. Still, elementary civility is worth the effort. So let's try to help Jay with his resolution to stop polluting our airwaves.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. 