January 04, 2008
Superhero Captain Obvious yesterday said that police chief Rodney D. Monroe was named Richmonder of the Year by an alternative local newspaper.
Obvious said Style Weekly honored the chief with the no-brainer accolade this week, crediting the 50-year-old with the city’s dramatic drop in violent crime since his arrival in Richmond just two years ago. “As if anyone else stood even a semblance of a chance,” Obvious said.
The alt-weekly asked readers in its Nov. 21 issue for input on who the Richmonder of the Year should be, “probably knowing full well it would be Monroe,” Obvious said. “It’s like asking a dinner host, ‘Hey, do you need help with the dishes?’ You know what the answer is, but you still have to ask.”
Added Obvious: “You’d pretty much have to be an idiot not to vote for the guy. Yes, I said it: a lame idiot.”
In its cover story, Style said in a note to readers that more than 700 of the 432 submissions it received for Richmonder of the Year voted for Monroe, “a figure we admit is impossible, just not when you consider how indisputable the naming of this homage was.”
“Receiving this honor was like taking candy from a baby,” the newspaper wrote in an article that contained nearly 15 times more positive, factual, nearly unbelievable statistics than a day-after story on a New England Patriots game. “Or, quite possibly, shooting fish in a barrel – not that ending up on our front page was Monroe’s intent.”
Obvious, who surveyed the reader submissions to Style with assistant Noshit Sherlock, said that last year was a bad one to do something really special in Richmond. ”Unless, of course, you planned to drop the homicide rate to its lowest level in 24 years, crackdown on drugs and help curb rape, assaults and robberies,” said the superhero, who trots around the globe to take credit for things that are already clearly apparent.
Style said the next highest number of votes – one – went to West End resident Peter Schmidt, who dialed 911 after the right-rear leg of his neighbor’s cat was found stuck in a chain-link fence. But that vote was rejected after editors discovered Schmidt nominated himself, and Monroe received the remainder of the tallies.
“I know what you are going to say: ‘Thank you, Captain Obvious,’” Obvious told reporters at a press conference.
“But don’t thank me,” he said, “thank Monroe. Duh.”
After his brief comments, Obvious went to a nearby office complex, where he was sarcastically thanked nearly 27 times by various employees for mentioning it was cold outside.
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