Rielle Hunter was a troublesome tiresome bitch even back when she was called Lisa Druck. That description might be a bit harsh. Maybe she was an accident waiting for a place to happen. That's if you want to believe one of her oldest friends. The friend is Pigeon O Brien, and Pigeon is the one now taking credit for ratting Rielle and her presidential candidate boyfriend John Edwards out to the National Enquirer. So Pij has some explaining to do. Explain she has in a recent HuffPo piece, the gist of which is below.
Pij knew Rielle back when she was Lisa. That was in the 80's at a place called Nell's bar. According to Pij, Lisa was either always swaggering around hollering her head off, or frightening guys out of the bar and into taxis that sped away rapidly. No one really liked the obnoxious little twat, but she was interesting. There were lots of stories about promiscuity, other women's husbands, and strip poker. Besides many were a little too afraid of her to stand up.
Pij & Druck moved on and lost touch, the way friends will. Then one day O Brien meets her old friend again. It was 2004 @ a swanky NYC dinner party. Rielle shows up, but totally reinvented. She's got a head full of new ideas too, like Buddhism, MTV, motivational speakers as the new rock stars, and of course striking it rich! Pij was at loose ends (that's what you call it when some one is into web design & PR on a freelance basis), and Hunter had a lot of ideas to keep her old friend occupied. So they got together to do a website aimed at getting Hunter into the motivational speaking racket by way of MTV. Now this wasn't just a big idea but was backed up with a lot of hot air, as the pair spent hours a day jabbering with each other on the phone.
Since swinging their jaw bones was as close as they got to productive work, the website never really took off. O Brien and Hunter's relationship got a little strained. They'd occasionally lose radio contact. Then one day and out of the blue as it were, Hunter calls up and says that she's in love. She describes a guy from North Carolina. While Pij is busy thinking Jethro Beaudine (Those Yankees and their ethnic-regional stereotyping! It's the white middle class educated liberal's version of racism.), Hunter goes on to describe a golden god with rock star charisma. O Brien didn't put 2 + 2 together right away. Maybe she was expecting Robert Plant. When O Brien heard the words"John" and "North Carolina" on TV and looks up to see John Edwards on the screen with Hunter hovering near by, the jig is up.
"SHIT," I thought to myself, "we're in trouble now."
Now this is where the story gets interesting. Pij & Hunter had a sort of up and down relationship; as you might expect with at least one drama queen, and when bills for services rendered aren't getting promptly paid. Hunter had stopped teaching yoga to devote herself full time to the Golden Meal Ticket. Meanwhile she's constantly babbling on and on about love. Meanwhile Edwards was positioning himself for a run at the White House. Since his wife Elizabeth was a big part of his public image package, things were about to get really interesting.
standing out in a crowd and still spell check fixable!
It was about the same time as Hunter began producing a set of cheesy promo videos for Edwards that people began calling O Brien to inquire as to the nature of her friend's relationship with Edwards. O Brien says that the media tracked her down through her listing on Hunter's website. The fact that her name is Pigeon makes her stand out from the Jennys and Janes (now you know why celebs love to have outrageous names). Pigeon says that at first she was very tight lipped about the whole cheating on his dying wife with the crazy bitch from my old bar story. The reporters just wouldn't leave her alone though. Eventually the constant nagging got to her. She started asking herself whether this kind of behavior is acceptable in a public figure. She states in her article that it's no one's business who you sleep with, but issues of trust and betrayal are very important. I guess that's supposed to make what she did next come off as noble.
a raw nerve in a barrel of monkeys
According to O Brien some where along the line she got the idea that the public needed to know. Getting herself out of hot water wouldn't be so bad either. So she started phoning the numbers of some of those publications she said were eager to talk about Hunter (I think she mentioned about 2 before she got to the National Enquirer, though to hear her tell it the phone was off the hook and she was cracking from pressure. So the assumption is that she got a few calls from a couple of places that noticed who did the video and then checked out the website. Since Edwards was in the primaries they may have thought that it was worthwhile to call and ask a few general questions. They may not have had anything specific in mind, which is born out by the fact that when she got back in touch they didn't know what she was talking about when she mentioned "the affair". It's either that or she didn't get all of her facts straight for her big HuffPo article. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt ans assume she was a bit histrionic and overreacted.). Her first few ventures didn't come off - people who wanted to know didn't believe anything was going on. Finally she got around to The Pulitzer Prize Nominated National Enquirer. That's when she hit pay dirt!
The Candidate & the TV Psychic!
According to Pigeon the NE wasn't exactly sure who Edwards was at first. So she had to bring them up to speed, so they'd understand how the affair fit in. Once they got the general idea they didn't need much encouragement. A presidential candidate cheating on his dying wife with a TV psychic sounds like something just made for them. Only the additions of Bigfoot and a UFO could've made the tale complete! So they started sniffing around for whatever smelled like shit.
faux vox popoli
That's the point at which the cat crawled out of the bag. Edwards got Hunter under wraps - hiding her out in a series of rented mansions according to Pigeon. Meanwhile HuffPo, sensing that
This is the point at which anyone with any sense would've dropped out. Edwards plowed on. Pressure was put on the media to
John Edwards - a frickin totally bitchin rock star from Mars!
So now the cheating story went into overdrive. Hunter's pregnancy got out too. Edwards tired to deny that at first. He claimed that he'd only been in that hotel late at night with an emotionally unstable woman because he desperately wanted to help her with her troubles. Besides the woman was clearly some sort of slut on the make so her kid could belong to anyone - Mel Gibson, 007, you name it. That kind of desperation is the sign that the chips are down.John Edwards is like the last rat on a sinking ship
When the chips are down is when you find out who your friends really are. Some of Edwards friends, like Andrew and Cheri Young, decided to make their own deals. Young wrote a tell all about the man he backed to the hilt for years, called the Politician. Since he'd done a lot of work keeping the Hunter story under wraps, his damage control experience must've made him credible. Of course Pigeon went to the National Enquirer to get the dung ball rolling. Who knows what possessed her, beyond her self professed Jimmy Stewart style commitment to American Democracy (note to readers, never watch Mr Smith Goes to Washington while you're on acid, 'cause it will mind fuck your brains down into your socks! "My God - I've got to go out and get into trouble by doing the right thing so that the cavalry can rescue me!"). Readers will get the impression that flighty and self involved Hunter could be a tough act to take, and if you had to deal with her long enough you want to see her get what was coming to her too. Of course if Edwards had any real friends, or even trustworthy handlers, they'd have recognized what Hunter was before she ever got through the door, and run interference.
the upshot on this shit -"let's be careful out there"
So I guess the upshot is that we live in a global village or something now. That's like living in a semi detached housing complex - think Melrose Place. So it's an environment where news is increasingly gossip; and that kind of bad news can do you in (as John Galliano has found out the hard way - suppose France wants Jack's Legion of Honor back?). So don't piss anyone off, or you'll get their goat - and they might even get yours, as Rosesanne Barr's Hawaiian neighbors recently and allegedly pointed out. Now go out there and behave yourselves!by Robert Graves
(1895-1985)
Are they blind, the lords of Gaza
In their strong towers,
Who declare Samson pillow-smothered
And stripped of his powers?
O stolid Philistines,
Stare now in amaze
At my foxes running in your cornfields
With their tails ablaze,
At swung jaw-bone, at bees swarming
In the stark lion's hide,
At these, the gates of well-walled Gaza
A-clank to my stride.
