This morning when I opened our local newspaper, the Glendale News Press, there was a picture of Comedian Jay Leno on the front page, leading the pack of bikers in the "Love Ride" that benefits the autism research. The Love Ride is an event that puts Glendale on the map and brings National attention to our hometown. The benefit ride started 28 years ago by Oliver Shokou, the owner of Harley Davidson dealership in Glendale. Every year Jay Leno has been the Grand Marshal and usually before the start of the ride he cracks a few joke.
I was bummed when I noticed the title of the article read, "Leno joke preceded fatal collision." The article continued: “Moments before two Love Ride participants were killed Sunday in a freeway traffic collision, the event’s grand marshal, “The Tonight Show” host Jay Leno, told a crowd of bikers that he wanted to see “somebody go down.” My heart melted.
After Johnny Carson passed the baton to Jay Leno for "The Tonight Show," I've been a loyal fan of Jay and watching the program has been the only pastime I get on TV. I regard Jay Leno as a tactful person and enjoy watching his show. But his offensive remarks asking the ride participants to drive recklessly and that he wanted to see "somebody go down," made me very unhappy. It is ironical that over the years, during the ride, no accident had happened and just an hour after Leno made his remarks for the opening of the Love Ride a rider and his passenger got killed. Here is what Leno said:
"Every year, they say, ‘Drive safe’. I’m gonna say, ‘Don’t drive safe’. I wanna see somebody go down. So it’ll be fun. I want it to be in front or behind me and see a whole row of bikes go down. Get drunk, fall off the road. We’ve all become too damn polite… We haven’t had one incident." I just cannot figure out why he made such an inappropriate comment. Don't know what Leno was thinking. Actually, he must NOT have been thinking.
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