Because it had been almost three whole months since the resignation of Assemblyman Dennis Gabryszak, we all knew the chamber was due for another episode of seedy misbehavior.
This time, the malefactor was Jose Rivera, a Bronx Democrat whose addiction to videography has earned him a reputation as the Assembly's resident auteur — John Cassavetes with a taxpayer-funded pension.
For years, I've been a major fan of Rivera's eccentric, jam-packed YouTube page, where he would post everything from footage of political rallies to clips of him sitting in front of his computer listening to music.
A year ago this month, Rivera blew my mind with a series of three ineffable short films that featured, among other things, him driving on what appeared to be the Thruway while singing along to salsa, periodically training the camera on himself.
As I noted last year on the Capitol Confidential blog, it would take a platoon of film scholars and psychiatrists several weeks to answer the various questions posed by these short films. Were they intended as some sort of love letter to the road, or someone more specific? Were the driving sequences supposed to be dream sequences? And was it even legal to film yourself while driving? (A law enforcement source emailed me to say that while statute was unclear on this point, you might have a case as long as you're not using a cellphone.)
Last weekend, NY1 political commentator Gerson Borrero stumbled across an undated clip of Rivera and his fellow Democratic Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV exploring a downtown street in the Dominican Republic. The video was downloaded and translated by activist Andres Duque for his blog Blabbeando, and subsequently picked up by the New York Observer and the Daily News.
The video — edited down from Rivera's original — shows the septuagenarian assemblyman chatting up young women and extolling the effects of mamajuana, a lethal-sounding mix of wine, rum and various plant life that "leaves me feeling strong enough to (have relations) with all those young ones," Rivera says, pointing at someone offscreen. The reaction of the laughing mamajuana vendor gives a sense of who he's indicating: "A child! A little girl!"
In the next sequence, Rivera flirts with a young woman who looks too young to drink mamajuana, or anything more potent than Pepsi. "What are your body measurements?" he asks, just before the camera pans down to her Brobdingnagian keister.
Rivera apologized for his behavior on the video, which he dated to 2005, and insisted his comments to the ladies were nothing more than avuncular joking around. (And let's be fair: Social mores were a lot looser during the second George W. Bush administration.)
As an aficionado of Rivera's non-legislative work, I was not surprised at the filmmaker's return to the more-than-slightly-creepy male gaze as a visual motif.
In a 2012 short film, Rivera's camera settled on an unidentified Capital Region auto shop employee ("the cleanest mechanic I've ever seen in my life") as she services his car. He trailed her back to the office and archly confronted her boss with a line that's become a favorite catchphrase of mine: "Why you letting her do all the work, Dennis?"
Here's another favorite line of mine: "All this filming isn't healthy." That's from Michael Powell's 1960 classic "Peeping Tom," a thriller about an obsessed cameraman who films himself knifing lissome English maidens. A creepy investigation of the cult of image, it turned off viewers and pretty much ended Powell's brilliant career.
I fear that Rivera's filmmaking will suffer much the same fate due to the negative reaction to the unearthed "Mamajuana" street scene. Many of the clips on the assemblyman's YouTube page are now marked "private," including his Dominican odyssey, the Thruway fantasias and his car service.
There's still a great big pile of Rivera's videos on the site, including one showing him being driven around Old San Juan by salsa singer Choco Orta — who is full-grown — as she sings along to her hit "Ay Jose" over the car stereo.
She parks, gets out and circles the car, accompanying her own voice. It's weird and quite beautiful, a one-take mini-musical.
I'm glad Rivera had his camera in hand for that one. But it might be time for him to be more discerning about his next project.
cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619