"Don't call me pimp!"
Stunt master Evel Knievel upset at "goddamn bimbos"
In a shocking display of hypocrisy, Evel Knievel responded to a court decision that he could not sue ESPN.com for calling him a pimp, said, "What good is law in the United States of America if five or six goddamn bimbos are going to rule against it?" In a telephone call from Reuters, he said, "They disregarded the goddamn law and they ought to be discharged, they ought to be ashamed of themselves."
The case arises from a photo of Knievel with one arm around his wife and the other around an unnamed woman, captioned, "You're never too old to be a pimp."
The court recognized the colloquial aspect:
Judge Carlos Bea dissented from the court's decision, quoted Shakespeare, and then pointed out that he felt, "the word 'pimp' is reasonably susceptible to a defamatory meaning".
Perhaps you're never too old to be a pimp, but apparently you do get too old for show-biz. If being paid the compliment of being a "pimp" (and I do agree that to be the nature of the "loose, figurative, slang language") is enough to cause someone "public disgrace and scandal", I'm curious to what perverse standard they're appealing.
In the meantime, isn't "goddamn bimbos" defamatory, and with less hope of a positive interpretation?
Another hero has fallen, but we've known this ever since we saw him hawking the electroshock pain-management syringe (I forget what it was called). At least he didn't kill his wife.
Better a pimp than a cold killer, I think.
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Notes:
Stunt master Evel Knievel upset at "goddamn bimbos"
In a shocking display of hypocrisy, Evel Knievel responded to a court decision that he could not sue ESPN.com for calling him a pimp, said, "What good is law in the United States of America if five or six goddamn bimbos are going to rule against it?" In a telephone call from Reuters, he said, "They disregarded the goddamn law and they ought to be discharged, they ought to be ashamed of themselves."
The case arises from a photo of Knievel with one arm around his wife and the other around an unnamed woman, captioned, "You're never too old to be a pimp."
The court recognized the colloquial aspect:
Judge Carlos Bea dissented from the court's decision, quoted Shakespeare, and then pointed out that he felt, "the word 'pimp' is reasonably susceptible to a defamatory meaning".
• • •
Perhaps you're never too old to be a pimp, but apparently you do get too old for show-biz. If being paid the compliment of being a "pimp" (and I do agree that to be the nature of the "loose, figurative, slang language") is enough to cause someone "public disgrace and scandal", I'm curious to what perverse standard they're appealing.
In the meantime, isn't "goddamn bimbos" defamatory, and with less hope of a positive interpretation?
Another hero has fallen, but we've known this ever since we saw him hawking the electroshock pain-management syringe (I forget what it was called). At least he didn't kill his wife.
Better a pimp than a cold killer, I think.
____________________
Notes:
Reuters. "Site wins right to dub Evel Knievel 'pimp'". CNN.com, January 4, 2005. See http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/01/04/knievel.reut/index.html
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