Tag Archives: Donald Trump

A Verse for the Powerful Play

 

It had not been the best day.

I woke up nauseated, took two hours to get mobile, and had to fork over $360 at CVS for 50 pills of one of my half dozen required medications. So glad America is great again.

On top of all that, my bike was stuck at the bottom of a steep parking lot outside the drug store.  It may be considered a bike, but it’s easily as long and heavy as my smart car.

I walked into the CVS and asked a cashier if she could call a security guard from the lot to help me put the bike up the hill. A large black man, perhaps 6′ 2″ and 55 years old, turned to face me.

“What’s the problem?”

“By bike needs a push. I hate to be a nuisance, but you’re a big guy. Any chance I could ask for for a hand?”

“Sure,” the man replied. “Let’s take a look.”

As we walked toward the automatic doors, the man stopped and asked: “This is your bike, right? I mean, you own it?”

I was thrown off and a little amused by what I assumed was a wry joke. After a brief hesitation, I told him that yes, the bike was mine.

“I had to ask,” he replied. “I am a black man.”

As we walked toward the bike, he explained further. Once, he said, he accompanied a white, female co-worker to a bench in their business park. She was struggling personally and professionally, he said, and wanted to get some air on the park bench. As they sat together, she began to weep. He told her life would be okay. Hang in there.

Moments later, a police officer arrived. “Are you okay, Miss?” the cop asked. “Is this man bothering you?”

The woman was offended. The man was offended. The cop was awaiting an answer.

The man and I struggled for 10 minutes with the bike, futilely trying to get it to horizontal ground. We couldn’t budge that obese bike. Panting, sweaty, we gave up; I told the man I’d simply corral a few people together or call AAA. I was self conscious keeping him there, given the experience he shared.

“I’m Scott,” I said, offering a hand. “Thank you for helping. I never realized being a Good Samaritan can be risky.”

He shook my hand. “I’m James,” he said. “I think about it every day.”

A few hours later, I got the bike back home, though I’m not sure I ever psychologically left the CVS parking lot. I took out the jumper cables and Fix-A-Flat from my crappy PT Cruiser and put them in my smart.

I decided that if I ever saw a black motorist stranded on the road, I would pull over.

Then, a terrible epiphany: What if I did come across that stranded driver? Wouldn’t a cop assume the same thing if he saw us together? How did we get to this place, where a Good Samaritan instinct is eclipsed by a guarded one? However much I loathe Donald Trump, whatever poxes I cast on his house, could it possibly compare to James’ bleak worldview?

Fucking not-great-day indeed.

Later that night, though, something happened. I came across a story out of Lakewood, Wash., near Seattle. A woman named Chrissy Marie Wright came home to find that one of her five wind chimes had been stolen. But within a few hours, she found a crumpled note at her door, containing a crumpled $5 bill.

The note, from a five-year old boy named Jake, explained that the chime, which had butterflies on it, reminded his sister of their mother, who died.

Jake left $5 and wrote, “I’m sorry. This is (the) only money I have. Please do not be mad.”

Wright posted the note on Facebook, which led her to Jake. She returned the money — and gave him an extra butterfly wind chime so he and his sister could each have one.

Here I was, questioning the effectiveness of Good Samaritan-thinking, and a five-year-old schools me on why it’s always worth pulling over.

What a great day.

Dear Esteemed Colleagues: Please, Shut the Fuck Up

 

I just watched the umpteenth interview with an apoplectic reporter proclaiming the sky was falling (or, as I call it, Chicken Littling) after the latest rumor to circulate from the Trump administration: that he may deport all press to the Executive Office Building next door to the White House.

To hear them, you’d think Trump had just cut the ribbon on a new Gulag for journalists (that’s not due to be completed till 2018. He says the New York Times will pay for it.).

But, as is our tradition will all things Interweb-related, we swine don’t recognize the pearls we wear.

It wouldn’t be the first time. We began our professional descent when we charged for the print version of news, but not the electronic. The porn industry alone should have been a red flag lesson that giving your product away for free is a rickety business model.

Then we didn’t protect the title “social media,”  and even recognized it as an actual thing. It isn’t. The reason you don’t hear about “social surgeons” and “social pilots” is because the medical and aviation industries would sue infringers faster than an Uber training video (13 minutes on YouTube).

Now we are losing our collective wits over the possible eviction, as well as word that Trump may communicate with the press the way he communicates with the public (and, apparently, staff): In 140 characters or less.

To which I say this: Please be true.

Any reporter who has spent more than 4 minutes behind a notepad knows the truth about news conferences: They never contain news. They are simply a cliche delivery system for athletes, celebrities and politicians offering different riffs on the same tune: One Game at a Time, My Fellow Americans, It’s Just an Honor Being Nominated.

By comparison, Twitter is mana from heaven.

Consider his post-Nov. 8 tweets: He blasted Republican lawmakers as pussies, ripped Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance on The Apprentice, publicly described the CIA and FBI as rife with rubes, hailed a dictator as cunning and, perhaps most egregiously, called Meryl Streep overrated.

Imagine if Obama — or any previous president — said any of those in a news conference. We’d be tripping over each other to get to the computer to file the story first.

Now it’s delivered directly to our phones. As soon as Senators and Representatives see it. The only lag time a reporter faces when writing a Trump-tweet story is how fast the writer can type.

The president’s tweets even create stories where none would have existed. In one missive, he wrote that a nemesis’ actions were “unpresidented.” Had that been a press conference, reporters would have unwittingly corrected the error, assuming that if Trump knew how to say the word, he knew how to spell it.

And we would never have gotten the opportunity to write: “Sorry, Donny, there’s no such word as ‘unpresidented.’ Or even ‘unpresidential,’ despite all evidence to the contrary.” And if you do need a talking head, you have the always-entertaining Kellyanne Conway, whose face looks like it was crushed by another horse’s face.

Finally, follow Fourth Estaters: What makes you think that the threat is any more feasible than, say, draining the swamp or making America great again? Trump would never reject the media; he lives to be in it. We complete him.

To quote our new precedent: Sad!

 

 

Operator, Could You Help Me Place This Call?

 

The election is over, if zombies ever die.

Turns out, the atheists were right, though Darwin was mistaken.

And the end may be nigh. But at least it will also be hilarious, as witnessed by these mock phone calls from the Donald to his new BFF, Barack.

1 On Presidential Medals Of Honor And Kazakhstan

2 On Gifts, Candy And The Mexican Border

3 On The Nuclear Codes, Iran And Jackie Chan

4 On Taiwan And The State Of The Union Address

5 On Time’s ‘Person Of The Year’ And The Mexican Wall

xxx

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