Congressman Trey Radel of Florida is my newfound hero—not for his can-do attitude, opposition to Obamacare, or cocaine habit—but for his live-tweeting. The congressman is a Twitter king.
I first stumbled upon Congressman Radel when reading reviews of Jay-Z’s album, “Magna Carta Holy Grail.” Radel loved the album so much he live-tweeted the entire thing, track by track, as he sat on a plane.
This was not Radel’s only experience with live-tweeting. The congressman went on to live-tweet his time spent reading a Sky Mall catalogue. Radel was fascinated by a product called ‘Halo,’ designed to reduce anxiety for dogs and cats.
“Every member of congress should have one,” he tweeted. “#Treyonplane.”
Radel’s Skymall tweets were perfect. They were self-deprecating, funny and full of cultural references. The man even mentioned “Snakes on a Plane.” He is clearly in the know—of and for the people, and all that.
But Radel’s Jay-Z tweets concerned me. At first Radel shared some brilliant insights while proving his command of the hip-hopping lingo of the commoner. “Only Jay-Z can pull off a hip hop ode to Kurt Cobain and REM,” he tweeted. “Not just an ode...But lyrical references! Pretty sick.” Congressman Radel then showcased his competitive nature: “Only Hova can pull off references to the Concord, Paris, n Rome and still sound real. Not Kanye West. No one.”
It was this tweet that caused me to worry over Congressman Radel’s judgment. First, Jay-Z’s album is pretty bad. Second, and perhaps more importantly, insulting Kanye West leads to only terrible things (see Kanye’s twitter war with Jimmy Kimmel). Third, it’s rude to attack a man when he’s down.
And Kanye’s really been struggling lately. He’s waging a hard-fought war to get fiancé Kim Kardashian on the cover of Vogue. Tragically, it’s to no avail. According to Kanye, Vogue is classist (Kardashian, as a reality television star is, deemed unworthy to grace its cover). “There’s no way Kim Kardashian shouldn’t be on the cover of Vogue,” Kanye recently said on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show. “She’s like the most intriguing woman right now…And collectively, we’re the most influential with clothing…Michelle Obama cannot Instagram a pic like what my girl Instagrammed the other day.”
If Kanye’s referring to the bathing suit selfie Kim tweeted showcasing her post-baby body, to which he responded, “HEADED HOME NOW,” I understand. I doubt many of our nation’s allies (other than like France) would appreciate our first lady’s derrier online. Still, Kanye is hurting. And so is Radel.
The TV personality turned Republican Congressman has some problems: he boozes and sometimes buys cocaine. To be honest, I don’t think the cocaine issue is particularly serious. The man was busted buying 3.5 grams on October 29. It’s not as if he’s smoking crack with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who, according to journalist Josh Barro from an article in Business Insider titled, “Congressman Trey Radel Shouldn’t Apologize For Using Cocaine,” “has been videotaped stumbling drunk around downtown Toronto...allegedly grabbed a political opponent’s ass while drunk at a party, and attributed his crack use to being ‘in one of my drunken stupors.’”
Comparatively, Radel is an angel—Radel’s social media exposure puts him in line with the voices of celebrities and music stars, but somehow this makes me like him more as a person. He had an incorrect opinion on ‘Holy Grail’, live-tweeted a Sky Mall catalogue and bought a bit of coke (I think the reading Sky Mall moment was by far his worst offense). So maybe what we take from all this is relativity. Vogue is classist if you’re a reality star and not Gwyneth, and smoking crack is worse than buying coke.
Good luck in rehab, Trey. Please, please tweet about it.