(This posting has been revised since the presidential swerve late Friday evening, via Twitter.) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/us/politics/trump-elephant-trophy-ban.html?_r= Ted Turner used to make this impassioned plea for an endangered species -- indeed, for an endangered planet -- during his noble effort, The Goodwill Games in Moscow, 1986. Remember 1986? Remember Goodwill? Remember Gorbachev? For that matter, remember Ted Turner? I dubbed him a “holy fool” because of his Dostoyevskian zeal. John Feinstein, covering those games in Moscow, heard Turner’s stump speech so often that he could sense the punch line coming. “But what about the elephants?” John would squawk. Those were the good old days, when we produced holy fools, not flat-out fools. Now Turner's cause is sabotaged daily by Donald Trump, whose only concern is setting up his own spawn and the Mnuchins and Wilburs of the world for more riches. Trump is all for porous pipelines and spewing coal stacks (and tax revisions) as long as they make somebody richer. For a moment this week he also tried to set up his own killer sons and their type to get richer from slaughtering “trophy” animals in Zimbabwe and importing their parts. In mid-week Trump announced his intention to make it legally possible to import -- to display -- to brag about -- these tails and tusks and Lord knows what else, cut from the dead bodies of these most civilized mammals. The total of worldwide elephants has dropped 30 percent from 2007 to 20014. I read that in the Times. People with the savage name of Trump have contributed to that. Are proud of that. What an ugly family. For some reason, Trump changed his mind in one of his late-night Twitter eruptions Friday, saying he was delaying any action on the (Obama-era) policy to ban importing elephant "trophies." The article in Saturday's paper: _r=www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/us/politics/trump-elephant-trophy-ban.html?_r= I have felt more personal about elephants since visiting South Africa for the World Cup in 2010. Our guide Witold took four journalists on a day trip out of Johannesburg for the only exposure to nature we would have during a hectic month. Witold was trying to find lions and other Bold Letter animals during our quickie run into the wild. He parked on a dirt road and looked around. Then he saw a family of elephants to our left, moving toward us. We were on their crossroad. He backed up 10 feet, and the family of elders and infants walked slowly in front of us, their heads turned to the right to keep an eye on us, as well they might. (“We’re not Trumps!” I could have said, “We’re not that sort!”) Their right eyes were patient and wise as they walked with dignity. I fell in love with elephants at that moment, the kind of easy emotion for a day-tripper on a day off from football. I wish I had taken photos, but I was mesmerized. That was my lifetime African experience. Big deal. But it stayed with me, to the point that I feel familial rage toward a plunderer who enables murderers from his own sordid brood. Have a tusk, Donald. Have a tail, Eric. Go shoot something, brave guys. “But what about the elephants?” Where is Ted Turner when we really need him? Why is Michael Flynn running? Just click on the link below for a glimpse into the very near future, courtesy of an imaginative videographer. https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/924111999306313729/pu/vid/1280x720/rzsxXzUZlwXav1RJ.mp4 Remember “Peter Pan?” – how Captain Hook was pursued by a crocodile, with a taste for pirate meat? The crocodile had swallowed an alarm clock that emitted a familiar “tick-tock” – which gave Captain Hook a severe case of agità. The man with orange hair can surely hear “tick-tock” every time another piece of evidence surfaces. After that sickening evening in early November of 2016, I have been saying it would take 18 months before this man would self-destruct. He can’t last. It takes time for the vestiges of justice of act, but the pieces are coming together. Now the NYT is reporting that sly old Wilbur Ross has a few dollars invested in Russian interests. Or, as Trump would ask, what Russians? Also, it is reported that special counsel Robert Mueller has enough evidence to indict former Trump hatchet man Michael Flynn. In the background, you can hear the warbling of birds singing for their freedom. If the office temp in the White House acts against Mueller, even the Republicans will be forced to respond. It takes time. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. In the meantime, please enjoy the video above, sent by a friend. Instead of the crocodile, it stars the FBI. (Just click the link. Well worth it.) https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/924111999306313729/pu/vid/1280x720/rzsxXzUZlwXav1RJ.mp4 The faces will be familiar. We stopped for gas on Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania and spotted a food truck.
Or rather, we spotted the sign. I was instantly sorry we had just eaten a great lunch and dessert after I gave a talk for adults and met with students at the bustling journalism center at vibrant Susquehanna University, in the pleasant river town of Selinsgrove, Pa. After lunch in such good company, no way we could even sample a tamale. But I pointed at the sign alongside Zapata’s Food Truck at Exit 256 and told the guys outside: "Próxima vez." Next time. As we write post-mortems of this failed presidency, may I ask a favor of everybody, including media people I admire?
Please, in trying to explain the roots of this dangerously flawed man, stop referring to him as being from an “outer borough.” Also, please, stop the automatic segue into Archie Bunker and the grand old TV show, “All In The Family,” as if everybody in the borough of Queens sat around on a front step in a sleeveless undershirt and reminisced about the good old days of Herbert Hoover (or George Wallace, or Jefferson Davis, or Adolf Hitler.) As it happens, I grew up half a mile from the Trumps, although blessedly unaware of them for a long time. Friends of mine knew Fred Trump, his older brother, at PS 131, and said he was a lovely guy, but with learning disabilities. I met him a few times in the late ‘70s, and totally agree. That neighborhood is not exactly Bunkeresque. It is Jamaica Estates, an enclave of large homes, many of them on glacial hills just north of Hillside Avenue. When I was a kid, my parents would pack all five kids in the family sedan and drive around Jamaica Estates looking at the lavish Christmas decorations. My parents were Newspaper Guild activists, real lefties from the ‘30s. After the War, they helped form a discussion group, expressly 50 per cent black, 50 per cent white – idealistic bootstrappers from Queens, who talked about books and politics and life, sometimes in our living room. My parents loved Eleanor and Franklin, and praised Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson and Jackie Robinson. In later years, my parents voted at the same polling station as that lovely couple that had moved into Holliswood, Mario and Matilda Cuomo. Not exactly Archie Bunker country. I just looked it up: In milestone elections, Queens voted decisively for John F. Kennedy in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Jimmy Carter in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1992, Al Gore in 2000, Barack Obama in 2008 – and Hillary Clinton in 2016. That’s right. The people who, theoretically knew their home boy best voted for Clinton, 75.4% to 21.8%. Queens has been consistent politically, even with all the changes. In the early 50’s, Jewish families were moving out from Brooklyn and the Bronx -- my new friends, settling into Tudor homes, reminisced about stickball games and six-story apartments in their old neighborhoods. There were few, or no, traces of Muslim or African-American or Asian families, part of the picture today. It was an enclave, but the nasty middle Trump brother missed it -- sent to private school in Kew Gardens (until he was caught packing a knife, and was shipped to boarding school, where goodness knows what transpired.) Most kids in Jamaica Estates went to Jamaica High – for me, a one-mile walk, via Henley Road, near the future TrumpHaus. Jamaica High was a bastion of academics but a mixed bag for equality. My friend Al Gibson recalls having to badger the “counselor” so he could take academic classes. (PS: He has advanced college degrees and a good career.) The nasty Trump boy missed this part of growing up: side-by-side with blacks. I served detentions with a black guy (college-bound) after we both thought it was fun to pester a young sub teacher. I shoved back at a black guy who constantly backed into me at the “good” basket in gym class. I also tried to guard Teddy Jackson, with that great first step, later a star at Hofstra – and still my lunch pal. Our yearbook advisor, Irma Rhodes (who rescued me in English class), held soirées for her staff at her home a few blocks from TrumpHaus; afterward I took the Q-17 bus with a young African-American woman, an art editor on the yearbook. All of this was superficial, of course, but part of the de-mythicizing of race. But the most integrated part of Jamaica was the choir/chorus of Jean Gollobin (one of the great leaders I have ever encountered in any discipline) who always had mature helpers like Carole Gardner, also a class officer. Five guys (P.A.L. basketball players from the 103rd Precinct) formed that early doo-wop group, The Cleftones, and would harmonize out in the hall, as if singing under the proverbial streetlamp. One of my classmates, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, has been a major force in the feminist movement; another, Sid Davidoff, has been a stalwart of Democratic politics; a third, Herb London, has been a conservative candidate. We all gained from the crowded halls and classrooms of a thriving public school. (The city gave up on Jamaica High a few years ago. Some of us keep thinking it will come back.) Life in the Jamaica area was and remains complex. The middle son of a builder was soon conniving with his father to exclude minorities from their buildings. He’d be doing it today, if he could get away with it. But please don’t tag all of us from Jamaica with the Bunker label. White House Nursery
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Trump: We regret to inform you that your son Donald has once again violated the basic norms of behavior for our nursery. As you know, we have spoken to you about this before. When Donald was admitted, school psychologists expressed grave concern about what they felt was sociopathic behavior. You will recall, a minority of staff members persuaded the majority to accept Donald. In recent days, his conduct has been unacceptable. On an outing to a Boy Scout rally, he delivered a soliloquy on subjects having nothing to do with scouting. We have heard from the Scouts that his comments were not appreciated. Then, on a visit to a police ceremony on Long Island, he urged them to commit violence to people under their control. Many people in law enforcement were insulted by this talk from a child, and have told us so. In short, we can’t take him anywhere. Donald also makes threats about staff members, including the very experts hired to scrutinize him and help him. Our staff psychologist has identified his behavioral type as “The Little Dictator” – and tells us this condition begins in the home and, unless modified, can lead to real danger in the outside world. To make things worse, Donald seems drawn to other badly-behaved children, especially a new boy whom I will identify only as “Mooch.” They goad each other into crude language and blatant threats to more pacific students in our school. As we made clear when you beseeched us to accept him, we reserve the right to expel a child who disrupts the entire school. We feel his behavior predicts future danger for himself, unless you get him help. As of this letter, Donald is on final probation. One more outburst and we will have to expel him, for the good of our nursery and as a warning to society. With our sincere best wishes, Pars Magna, Superintendent (This piece was written 12 hours before John McCain cast a deciding vote in defeating the bill that would have taken health care from over 20 million people. I have read Paul Krugman's perceptive column in the NYT, also written earlier Thursday, long before McCain's vote, depicting the senator's erratic stances.
It's tricky to write about a moving story. On Thursday, Laura Vecsey wrote a glimpse of the Scaramucci family from our town. Later, Anthony became Trump's Trump via his vile rant to the New Yorker. It's a moving spectacle. I think I know where this is all going -- sooner rather than later, one can only hope. GV.) * * * This is not the role anybody wanted for John McCain – appearing in public with a red raw line above his eye, from the recent incursion toward his brain. I have been writing for over six months that I fully expected Sen. McCain to be a pivotal figure in the inevitable dumpsterization of Donald Trump. I spent a few hours with Sen. McCain in his office for a column during an Olympic hearing in 1999, seeing the cranky side and the generous side. Sen. McCain remains enigmatic – coming back from an awful diagnosis to cast a vote on health care, temporarily siding with the president who once declared him not a hero, and also supporting the amoral Mitch McConnell, to prolong this foolishness. But then John McCain did what I have expected of him on his good-John-McCain days: he plainly called the Republican health-care “plan” meaningless, empty. Now he has viscerally reacted to the pathetic tweeter of the White House by criticizing the call to bar transgender people from the military. This pilot served, was tortured. He knows how things actually work in the service, as opposed to the poseur from military school. The same goes for Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who lost parts of her legs while serving as a pilot in Iraq. I saw her on TV the other night, talking about the foolish gesture toward transgender military people. She was, as always, so smart, so dignified. So presidential. John McCain did not get to be president. His best moment during the campaign was to take the microphone back from the bigot in red who labelled Barack Obama “an A-rab.” It was hard, recently, to watch John McCain stumble while asking questions in a Senate hearing. Now we know what is happening. But I am counting on him to exercise the just part of him. His pals in the mute White Citizens Council posse that materializes behind McConnell cannot pretend things are just fine, when John McCain is reacting viscerally to the disorder. Unlike Trump, Sen. McCain felt no need to pander to the religious right on the transgender issue. I originally thought it would take 18 rational months to rid the country of the buffoon, but now I think it could happen by Labor Day. This can’t go on. John McCain can help by calling out a disturbed man. He flew many missions, but when he and Lindsay Graham pay that visit to the White House one of these months, it will be John McCain’s greatest mission. I counted on them. Just the thought of them got me through a horrible winter.
Every fan knows what I am saying: the unique place of baseball -- seasonally correct, holding promise of a new spring. My team happens to be the Mets, already sinking toward the lower depths, but fans of other teams will recognize the angst: for this I dreamed all winter? I see Curtis Granderson floundering and I see Asdrubal Cabrera falling apart – two of my favorite players, with intelligence and humor and a fine body of work, who were so fine last season. This is hard to watch. I am allowed to root. One of the liberations of retirement is shucking professional neutrality. I obsessed about the Mets’ pitching staff, all those talented kids, and I saw the Mets beating out the under-achieving Nationals. I needed the Mets to thrive, particularly since that sickening night in November when a candidate we New Yorkers knew as a damaged charlatan was elected, ick, but I cannot say it. I tried to get through the winter with partisan television news -- squirmed through rude interruptions of guests, daydreamed through 20-minute rambles with two minutes of content, rolled my eyes at the harmless repetitions of the word “lies,” as if they did any good. Everybody reacts differently. People I know are developing a cursing syndrome when McConnell and Ryan ooze into view. Tim Egan called Ryan an "Irish undertaker." I think he meant unctuous. With my Irish passport, I laughed out loud. Felt good. For 30 seconds. I tried behavior modification. I cannot listen to my large collection of rock and folk and country and jazz on my iPod. No mood for The Band or Stevie Wonder or Iris Dement or The Dead. Songs of lost love and rolling down the highway don’t do it right now. In mid-winter I listened to chamber music and waited for DeGrom and Céspedes and Familia, when his mini-suspension was over. Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. It’s all right. But now we are a month and a half into this season, and the Mets look done. This is not their year. I know, I know, this is not the loyalty of a true fan, but I covered a zillion games of baseball and I can tell a team that has too many flaws. What’s up with the Alleged Dark Knight? In the same way that I assess my broken ball team, I assess my homeland. I thought the damaged goods would be returned to sender, like some bad Amazon purchase, within 18 months, and it could happen sooner. But the Democrats look like an expansion team – too old, too callow, no core. I scan the prospects among the majority party for enlightened, idealistic action: I see stirrings of conscience in Graham and Collins. I really like John McCain from having interviewed him once; if you spot him approaching 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with a couple of cohorts, let me know. I watched Ben Sasse – a fresh face, a note of hope, like Michael Conforto of the Mets -- during the hearings the other day and thought, this guy could actually have intelligence and courage. But I’ve been wrong before. I thought my ball team would give me spring-to-autumn diversion. Now I peek at them, through spread fingers, like a child, for an inning here or an inning there. (I'm even happy for Yankee fans. First time in my life.) It’s mid-May and I have lost hope for my team. Before I tell my Jimmy Breslin-Casey Stengel story, let's talk about bad timing for obituaries. (For example: Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis both died on Nov. 22, 1963.) Likewise, it is not a good career move to compete with Jimmy Breslin, “the outer-borough boulevardier of bilious persuasion,” as Dan Barry calls him. Chuck Berry died the same weekend as Breslin; the Times rolled out the big guns for his strut and the clanging of his guitar, outside the schoolhouse, urging boys and girls to come out and play. John Herbers was also honored with a Times obituary on Monday. He was 93, one of the great reporters of the civil-rights era, a gentleman all the way who politely treated me like an equal when I joined the national reporting staff. He had been in bad places – Emmett Till’s murder – and never lost the unassuming air of a small-town southerner. Bob McFadden and the Times did right by John Herbers: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/business/media/john-herbers-dead-times-correspondent.html Okay. Here’s my story about Jimmy Breslin, my fellow Queens boy. Elderly editors still marvel at his imagination in the wonderful interviews he turned in for $10 fees on long-forgotten sports magazines. In 1962 the New York newspapers acknowledged the Mets' raffish ineptitude early on. By late July Sports Illustrated dispatched Jimmy for his take on the worst team in the history of baseball. Breslin arrived in St. Louis the weekend of Casey Stengel’s 72nd birthday, and watched them bumble away games. One evening the club held a party for Casey in the rooftop room of the Chase-Park Plaza. Casey greeted the headwaiter, who had once tossed batting practice for visiting teams in the old Sportsmans Park. Casey imitated his motion, remembered his nickname. I was fascinated by Casey and never left his side all evening. Breslin was also there, observing. If anybody was taking notes, I do not remember. A year later, a Breslin book came out, entitled "Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?" a plea ostensibly uttered by Casey during his long monologue that evening in St. Louis. Not long afterward, Breslin called me for a phone number or something and at the end I said, "Jimmy, just curious, I was at that party for Casey, never left his side, and I don't remember him ever saying, 'Can't anybody here play this game?'" Long pause. "What are you, the F.B.I?" Breslin asked, his Queens accent turning “the” into “duh.” Years later, Breslin conceded he just might have exercised some creative license. Casey never complained about being misquoted. He would have said it if he had thought of it. That was the thing about Jimmy Breslin. He got the inner truths. He had an insight into people’s hearts, almost like a mystic or a psychic. Given his imperfections and his imaginations, he was a universal voice. He was also a very local voice. As the world becomes homogenized, we lose the local voices, the salt and the spices that make life exciting. (Fortunately for readers everywhere, Corey Kilgannon is covering Queens for the Times.) Chuck Berry caught the feel of Route 66 (“Well it winds from Chicago to L.A./More than 2000 miles all the way/Get your kicks on Route 66.” Makes you want to rev up the engine. John Herbers reported from the Deep South, which he loved and sometimes lamented. Jimmy Breslin understood Queens…and the world. He has not been well for years. I would have loved to read him on the scam artist from our home borough. * * * MUST READ: Dan Barry's personal tribute to Breslin on the NYT site: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/insider/dan-barry-way-back-with-jimmy-breslin.html?smid=fb-share Our friend Ina sent this video from a live French broadcast. World was never the same.
The New Yorker has long been a literary icon but through the odd couple of David Remnick and Donald Trump it has even ratcheted up its importance as a worldwide asset.
Hardly an issue arrives without at least one article about the tentacles of money and power between the United States and Russia and beyond. In the March 6 issue is “Active Measures,” by Evan Osnos, Remnick and Joshua Yaffa, exploring just what Vladimir Putin is up to. At the core is Remnick’s own expertise from his long posting in Moscow. (He started as a young sportswriter, great company at the Olympics.) The March 6 cover is the annual homage to the New Yorker’s dandified mascot, Eustace Tilley, monocle and all, inspecting a yappy butterfly with orange hair. Putin’s normal expressionless face seems to show a trace of amusement: “Who is this strange little fellow?” The March 13 issue has an article by Adam Davidson entitled, “Donald Trump’s Worst Deal,” which could be almost anywhere. In this case it is about Trump sending his entrepreneurial daughter Ivanka-the-Brand to supervise a “luxury” (well, what isn’t?) hotel going up in a grubby corner of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. This Trumpian deal staggers like Trump’s desperate lunges for success in Russia but in this case some investors are from Iran. The Trump involvement is said to have been terminated in December -- after American voters chose this great American businessman as their president: its obligations and secrets glow like Chernobyl. Literature has not been ignored by the New Yorker. In the past two weeks there have been two magnificent pieces: In the March 6 issue is a short story by Zadie Smith (“Crazy They Call Me,” from the song) imagining the inner voice of Billie Holiday in her final days: every word, every detail, is exquisitely placed, phrase by phrase, leading to the final cry from the soul the reader knew was coming. In the March 13 issue is a poem by Robert Pinsky titled “Branca” -- an ode to the pitcher Ralph Branca who passed recently at 85. Mixing his pitches, the poet refers to Branca’s Calabrian name, his huge family of origin, his instant friendship with Jackie Robinson, and his victimization by enemy spying in the signature moment of his long and admirable life. The New Yorker is best held in the hand, read at leisure as a ritual, early in the work week. In this age, great journalism is being done by the Times and Washington Post on the split second, on the web, and the New Yorker has kept pace. As of Thursday morning I recommend the great Jelani Cobb’s dissection of the latest blathering by Dr. Ben Carson, who equated slavery with immigration. (I have often thought that Carson’s problems with language and reality stem from an infusion of too much anesthesia during the pediatric brain surgery he apparently performed for decades, masterfully. Or, is he doing a Pee-wee Herman imitation?) Cobb, as one would expect, goes beyond my flippancy. The New Yorker also features Roger Angell on the traditions of the magazine, and also occasional pieces on, thank goodness, baseball. * * * I hope these links can be accessed; a subscription to the New Yorker includes full access to the web site. Remnick et al: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/trump-putin-and-the-new-cold-war Davidson: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal Smith: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/crazy-they-call-me Pinsky: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/branca Cobb: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/ben-carson-donald-trump-and-the-misuse-of-american-history?intcid=mod-latest Angell: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/looking-at-the-field (start at 3:30 for deep expression of concern over diet) I did not watch the spectacle on Thursday because it makes me uncomfortable to see somebody behave like that in public. It’s a behavioral problem the Trump family really should have dealt with when young Donald was acting out while at the Kew-Forest School and was exiled to military school. Now it might be too late. But not too late for Republicans to open their eyes and realize what they have wrought. Two months ago I wrote that I was putting my hopes on Sen. John McCain to mobilize his colleagues, as the patriotic act of a military hero. The other day, the great Tim Weiner put his hopes on Sen. McCain as well as James Comey, the head of the F.B.I. Comey. The name is familiar. I also gave Trump 18 months in office before he got bored, or was forced out. The way it looks now, he will lose the Republicans in Congress, one by one. One can only imagine what the rational ones are saying in the corridors right now. Eventually, even moral ciphers like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan will catch up. Then there's this: last weekend on the resurgent Saturday Night Live, Michael Che alluded to Trump’s junk-food jones: “I’m starting to feel bad for Donald Trump . . . I hope he quits. Donald, is this really how you want to spend the last two years of your life?” I did catch a few clips from Trump’s performance on Thursday. The man looks terrible – new lines on his face, new jowls, new twitches. He seemed to be sucking wind between his one-liners. Dude, when you see McCain and Graham and a few others at the door for a little chat, they will be doing you a yooge favor. We always remember the first time. Somehow or other, I had never witnessed the live pre-game ritual of Liverpool fans singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” -- until last Tuesday. Real soccer fans have witnessed it dozens of times, but I must be slow. Bummed by winter, a nasty bug, and the toxic new regime in my country, I tried to lose myself in a match -- starting with two minutes of Anfield stadium performing “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” with perfect timing, perfect enunciation. (I’d seen it and heard it, of course, but never live, right before a match.) This beautiful song is from “Carousel,” by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1945, at the end of a war that almost took the world down. I still get teary when I see the Gordon Macrae-Shirley Jones movie, set in coastal Maine. From what I read, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” became an anthem in Liverpool in 1963 when fans poured their hearts into a pre-game pop song on the loudspeaker – and immediately elevated it into the team’s greatest tradition. You can read about it here: http://wrti.org/post/youll-never-walk-alone-story-behind-rodgers-and-hammersteins-beloved-song-hope Soccer once again served as a diversion this week. And who doesn’t need at least a momentary diversion in these scary times? After the group singalong – red and white scarves waving -- I watched powerful Chelsea hold off the home team in a 1-1 draw. Rory Smith, the very knowledgeable Brit who is covering Euro football for the New York Times, was underwhelmed by the match, but I was intrigued by the mischievous free kick goal by David Luiz of Chelsea when he spotted the Liverpool keeper dawdling and stepped past his teammate Willian to let one fly. (The keeper’s cock-up, from “Howler:”) https://whatahowler.com/what-went-wrong-for-simon-mignolet-on-david-luizs-sneaky-free-kick-6d830f297dee#.fk9gbxh0w Mediocre the game may have been – but at the extremely high level that Americans can only dream about for our stadiums. Soccer continued Wednesday with a desperate Hull, facing relegation, gritting out a 0-0 draw with underperforming Manchester United – at Old Trafford. As a fan with no dog in the Premiership, I admit I enjoy seeing Man U humbled at home. Speaking of big dogs, the United States is in big trouble for qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia – no points in the first two qualifiers. The federation recently brought back Bruce Arena to try to rescue the four-year effort, before a pair of two “friendly” matches, but the first match was a thoroughly humiliating 0-0 draw with a third-string team from Serbia. In the break between the two friendlies, Captain Michael Bradley – a hard competitor who usually keeps his thoughts to himself -- gave a typically neutral response to a question about Trump’s willy-nilly attempted ban on travel by people from seven mostly Muslim countries. But after deliberating, Bradley sent out an Instagram of depth and thought, including: “The part I left out is how sad and embarrassed I am. When Trump was elected, I only hoped that ... President Trump would be different than the campaigner Trump. That the xenophobic, misogynistic and narcissistic rhetoric would be replaced with a more humble and measured approach to leading our country. I was wrong. And the Muslim ban is just the latest example of someone who couldn’t be more out of touch with our country and the right way to move forward.” Bradley seemed to represent athletes who compete against opponents of all races and religions – far different from the white citizens’ council assembled in DC. After taking his stand, Bradley was rested for most of the tepid 1-0 victory over a reconstituted Jamaica squad Friday night. Most of the American regulars were otherwise engaged in European leagues, so the game served as a tryout for a few spots on the 2018 squad – if it gets to Russia. The match also served as diversion, even while a Washington judge reminded the office-temp President that this remains a nation of laws -- and acceptance. Earlier in the week, I got to hear a live rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I can only hope this erratic new “government” does not force the U.S. to walk alone. (I can write this, since I carry an Irish passport, courtesy of my grandmother, along with my beloved American passport) Stephen K. Bannon runs our country, pushing the buttons of the distracted oaf who is technically the president. Trump shows what is under his personal rock when he refers to Jon Stewart as “Jonathan Leibowitz” (the comedian’s original name) after a TV gig. Guess Trump forgets he was passing as Swedish as long as he could, neglecting his family origins as Drumpf. Behind him is Bannon, pulling the strings, telling him how to keep Muslims out of the country. I looked it up. http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Bannon Bannon means “white” or “fair” – in the complexion sense, you may be sure. As an Irish passport holder, I can say, some of Trump’s closest advisors are named Flynn and Kelly and Bannon. It was not that long ago that “real” Americans considered people from Ireland the unwashed, the others, the threat. The Flynns and Kellys and Bannons were not considered good enough to haul trash or dig graves for “real” Americans, who had, of course, killed and dislodged as many original Americans as they could. There is reasonable debate about how many Irish ever encountered signs that said NINA -- No Irish Need Apply. Butongoing research proves it was there, in some windows, some newspapers, many hearts. The Irish persevered, and a descendent of Fitzgeralds and Kennedys became president. Now another president talks about a “ban” of Muslims, a registry of Muslims. He backtracks, but we know. In a dangerous world, the U.S. was already vetting people from dicey parts of the world. But with his tiny attention span, the new president tries to stop legal residents of the U.S. from coming home. Doctors. Scholars. Husbands. Wives. He is unashamed. He knows no history. Knows only fragments of things that flutter in front of his eyes. Knows only what Bannon tells him. It’s easy to spot the sneer on Bannon’s face. We want this guy advising our shallow president? (I can write this, since I carry an Irish passport, courtesy of my grandmother, along with my beloved American passport) Stephen K. Bannon runs our country, pushing the buttons of the distracted oaf who is technically the president. Trump shows what is under his personal rock when he refers to Jon Stewart as “Jonathan Leibowitz” (the comedian’s original name) after a TV gig. Guess Trump forgets he was passing as Swedish as long as he could, neglecting his family origins as Drumpf. Behind him is Bannon, pulling the strings, telling him how to keep Muslims out of the country. I looked it up. http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Bannon Bannon means “white” or “fair” – in the complexion sense, you may be sure. As an Irish passport holder, I can say, some of Trump’s closest advisors are named Flynn and Kelly and Bannon. It was not that long ago that “real” Americans considered people from Ireland the unwashed, the others, the threat. The Flynns and Kellys and Bannons were not considered good enough to haul trash or dig graves for “real” Americans, who had, of course, killed and dislodged as many original Americans as they could. There is reasonable debate about how many Irish ever encountered signs that said NINA -- No Irish Need Apply. But ongoing research proves it was there, in some windows, some newspapers, many hearts. The Irish persevered, and a descendent of Fitzgeralds and Kennedys became president. Now another president talks about a “ban” of Muslims, a registry of Muslims. He backtracks, but we know. In a dangerous world, the U.S. was already vetting people from dicey parts of the world. But with his tiny attention span, the new president tries to stop legal residents of the U.S. from coming home. Doctors. Scholars. Husbands. Wives. He is unashamed. He knows no history. Knows only fragments of things that flutter in front of his eyes. Knows only what Bannon tells him. It’s easy to spot the sneer on Bannon’s face. We want this guy advising our shallow president? As rain began to fall Friday in DC, we went out to lunch on Long Island -- a modest Afghan restaurant, on the theory that the place would not exactly be humming with inauguration buffs.
We had appetizers laced with yogurt and garlic, curry, rice, salad and nice crisp bread – the kind of cuisine new people bring to this country. Across from us, three young women in head scarves were talking excitedly, giggling occasionally. They seemed much like our own grand-daughter, sitting across from us in the booth – bright, hopeful, their lives ahead of them. America. Somebody in our family had turned down the chance to watch the Inauguration from a privileged site -- couldn’t pretend to be enthusiastic. However, on Saturday we did have loved ones in Washington and New York, mingling with the hundreds of thousands. From afar, it looked like good fun. No fire hoses, no dogs, not yet. The new President, who makes up everything, later said the press invented the figures for the two events. Yet I kept getting photos on my iPhone. Guess those multitudes were photo-shopped – with banners appropriate to this day. My email included a blessing from the Rev. Dr. Susan Henry-Crowe, the General Secretary of the United Methodist Church, for the departing President and his family, and the incoming President and his family. Her blessing included: “For the good of the earth and all of creation, which God has given us, and for the wisdom and will to conserve it, let us pray to the Lord. Lord, have mercy.” Another email was from an old friend, Roy Lloyd, one of the thoughtful religion commentators on WINS 1010 AM in New York. Roy described the pink caps worn by many marchers, adding: “The participants demonstrated something said by Helen Keller: ‘One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.’” Speaking of prayers: On the same gorgeous Saturday back home, I went for a fast walk on the high-school track, listening to the Grateful Dead on my headset. As I circled the soft red track, I blurted out the punch line in “Touch of Grey.” “We will get by” – emphasis on the “will.” In repetition, it becomes a prayer, just like the haunting punch line in George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun” – “It’s all right.” After this epic day all over the world, we can repeat this mantra in days to come: It's all right. We will get by. I respect John Lewis for staying away.
I respect the people – including some close to me – who are going to Washington on Saturday to protest. I’m hunkering. I can’t watch the transfer of responsibility, of power, from the President to a reality-show host. For all that, the dominant feeling I expect on Friday is relief. This essay is being written on the national holiday for Martin Luther King, who went to Memphis in 1968 to back up striking sanitation workers. It is written in honor of John Lewis, who went to Selma in 1965 to protest American segregation, and who, thank goodness, survived the beating and is still with us, calling the new President illegitimate. How many people have been holding our breath since the election of 2008 – hearing in our hearts the lyrics by Dion DiMucci: “Seems the good they die young.” Instead, came a more subtle version – what Justice Clarence Thomas might call “a high-tech lynching” -- conducted by Mitch McConnell, missing only the hood over his face, and Boehner and Cantor and Ryan, who could not coexist with a black President. They screwed up the country, leaving a Rube Goldberg health-care bill that could have been so much better, and stalling on infrastructure and education. High-tech resistance. For eight years, President Obama has conducted business with intelligence and dignity; he will walk away observing the rituals of democracy. The main thing is, he and Mrs. Obama will walk away. I look forward to their books; I look forward to very rare glimmers of their children, leading semi-normal lives. The country will now have to respond to the demonstrated rapacity of the new people. This new person has nominated people who cut deals with dicey nations to make money for themselves and shareholders, who demonstrate contempt for the majority as well as for government. The current polls suggest that many people who voted for the man are now having misgivings. Did you see Charles Blow’s list of polls showing the people’s dis-satisfaction with the transition? That’s right, the people out there who thought this guy was a fine religious gentleman and an American patriot and a savvy executive are now having misgivings. (Mike Pence, the token of the religious right, looks stricken -- the only man on his island.) John Lewis is staying away. As always, John Lewis is way ahead on moral stances. What plans do you have for Friday? A private investigator I know (perhaps connected to the MI6?) has found current Ladbrokes odds of 11-10 that the impending President will not last four years. Here’s the article:
https://www.inverse.com/article/26292-donald-trump-impeachment-odds Perhaps this is mere wishful thinking from people with a few bob to wager. You could ask, what do the Brits know? They voted for Brexit, against their own self-interest. Still, maybe they are on to something. Are American voters figuring out what they have done? The most recent Quinnipiac poll shows abysmal ratings for any incoming President. Here in P.T. Barnum’s America, some voters who hallucinated a fine religious gentleman or a successful businessman are having misgivings. Here are the numbers: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/poll-trump-presidential-transition-approval-233412 I recently wrote that something would get the new guy within 18 months – his tiny attention span, blatant conflicts and legalities, or being 70 and overweight. (Have you seen the latest photos of that neck?) A sex tape would be fine, too. Right now, a lot of people are preparing to demonstrate and lobby. At the same time, a friend in the Bay Area says she’s been crying since the election. I know somebody who has come down with a cursing affliction. Myself, I am hunkering down with a hard-covered book and classical music. Our emotions seem as roiled in a different way as those of McConnell and Boehner and Cantor and Ryan were when an African-American was elected president. Everybody has their own private angst. One of my favorite readers said he would cover my bet about 18 months. Put up or shut up, he said. I don’t bet. But I do root against four years of this guy: When Melania Trump “borrowed” chunks of Michelle Obama’s words last summer, she was found out in the flick of an iPhone.
She didn’t seem to know the difference. Public figures are often caught using stuff from other people. Remember Joe Biden "borrowing" some material back in law school? And Tony Blair apparently re-channeling stuff from the movie “The Queen,” about him and Queen Elizabeth? The Web makes that harder and harder. Now it turns out that Monica Crowley, a former Murdochite on-air personality, scheduled to explain the complexities of national security for the Trumpites -- has used as many as 50 segments for a book under her name. In this day and age, wouldn’t you think she would know caution, if not shame? I say this, because just about everything is out there on the Web, easily checked. Research no longer is limited to dusty books or files from the back corners of a library. I know this, because in preparation for a talk I was thumbing through the 522 pages of “Look Homeward, Angel,” by my favorite author, Thomas Wolfe. I wanted to refresh my impressions of a few sweet passages but after an hour of enjoyable searching, I came up empty. Go to the laptop, dude. ---I knew there was a passage about a scholarly nun, examining a book at the bedside of a sleeping girl in a boarding school. I typed in “nun” and “book” and “sleep.” Found it. Still sweet and respectful. ---I knew Wolfe’s father liked to tell about being a 13-year-old, sassing Confederate soldiers in his village near Gettysburg. The Web reminded me that this epic section had been exorcised by Maxwell Perkins, Wolfe’s renowned editor, only to be revived decades later in an expanded version called “O, Lost.” I’ve requested it from our wonderful town library. ---I knew Wolfe often wrote about the lavish meals his father craved in his wife’s parsimonious boarding house in Asheville, N.C. – loving references to butter slathered on fat lima beans. I typed in a few words. Bingo. One would think that somebody writing today – even a Foxite news person – would have a little fear about lifting bunches of stuff from other sources. But anything flies these days. Just ask Kellyanne Conway, designated explainer and lookalike of the aforementioned Monica Crowley. Conway. says stuff with a straight face. I certainly would not expect Trump to understand these subtleties. * * * Meantime, has anybody else noticed that Crowley and Conway appear to have been separated at birth? And the seething Gen. Mike Flynn, who used to spew patently untrue “Flynn Facts” to subordinates, resembles the paranoid Col. Bat Guano, who shoots his way into the office in “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” – now coming true, in a universe near you. 3-1? He’ll get bored.
I’m bored of him already – his infantile speech, his lack of curiosity, his practiced reality-show squint, imitating an adult with normal thinking patterns. Imagine how bored he will be, after people explain stuff to him. “Sir, this is the rule.” “Mr. President, yes, the Senate can actually do that.” “Yes, those lawyers do have a legal right to question you about your holdings.” This is a guy who stood in front of adoring multitudes out there and pounded one fist into his palm and said he’d like to punch somebody right in the face. Not that easy, in reality. In a brilliant column, David Brooks described the man’s statements as “usually just a symbolic assault in some dominance-submission male rivalry game.” How did he get this way? “Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?” – Philip Roth, “Portnoy’s Complaint.” I say it was some father issue. Or something at boarding school. This is a troubled human being. But a strange minority coalition saw the candidate in its own personal fun-house mirror and put its money and fears and superstitions and prejudices on this lumbering figure. Diamond Jim. Most likely, soon he will say, “Who needs this?” :Eighteen months,.I keep telling my friends The real question is, how does it end? It could be impeachment -- the old John McCain making one more mission for his country. But boredom, confinement, anxiety, fear, could lead to resignation: I’m outta here. Then there is the Big Mac Theory. 6-1? I’m not a betting man. Won’t even place a two-dollar bet in the pressbox at the Derby. Long story. But I’m curious about the odds of him lasting in office. Last November, I found some odds on-line from the British bookies (some people will bet on anything.) The odds were 3-1 or 6-1 that the new guy would not last four years. Might have been wishful thinking. However, my cursory glimpse at the current web discloses no new odds. Why is that? Better to wager on soccer – when will Chelsea lose? Important stuff like that. I’m in denial, or withdrawal. I can’t take cable news anymore. I put on the stereo and listen to the great Terrance McKnight on WQXR-FM. I’m reading Dickens’ “A Child’s History of England,” refreshing my views of Richard III and Henry VIII and Oliver Cromwell. (Dickens called him “A most intolerable ruffian, a disgrace to human nature, and a blot of blood and grease upon the History of England") Fair and balanced. You’ve heard of “Waiting for Godot?” I’m waiting for Céspedes. Meantime, the best people I know are talking about not taking this foolishness lying down. My wife is reading the Times, learning stuff on the tube. Making a plan. Fight back. Right on. I read the great piece by Jelani Cobb in the current New Yorker: “The Return of Civil Disobedience.” I remember how good people forced Johnson to slink away from a run in 1968. Nixon finally got found out in 1974. 10-1 I give this guy eighteen months. Then we get a nice, normal guy like Pence. Oy. He’s already been a hero three times, by my count.
*- When he refused to take a pass from Hanoi because his father was an admiral. *-When my wife sat next to one of John McCain’s buddies on a flight out east, and the man told her how they ferried supplies to post-war Vietnam. I met McCain years later and asked why he ran a pipeline to people who tortured him. Eloquent shrug, with those ruined arms, told me: it’s the right thing to do. *- When the lady in red started with the Trumpian b.s. about Barack Obama being a Muslim, and John McCain said, “No, ma’am,” and took away the mike. Now I’m asking John McCain to be a hero a fourth time. Sometime in late January, the new President is going to legally and officially and publically expose himself as maliciously unqualified. He cannot help himself. I’m counting on John McCain, the man who is not a hero to Donald Trump because he got captured, to mix his miserable SOB persona with his idealistic free-thinker persona (that he exercises way too rarely) and become the congressional leader of the what-were-we-thinking movement. The movement needs a leader, a role model. Republicans are contaminated from eight years of sabotaging a black President (oh and also the country.) The Democrats are a disaster after rigging the delegate count against Bernie Sanders. The country needs somebody in Congress to stand up at the first blunder and say, “Enough.” My candidate is the guy who impulsively snatched back the microphone from the bigot-lady. Haven’t seen him much in eight years. But I know he’s in there. Right now, that’s all I’ve got. The New York Times asked me to write a column for Monday about whether George Steinbrenner should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I remembered being a frequent critic of Steinbrenner, when I became a sports columnist in 1982. I often wrote that he should get out of town, go back to Tampa or Cleveland, because his crude bullying did not belong in Big Town. (Supply your own current punch line to that.) He did odious things but over the years I developed a partial grudging respect for him as a big-timer who could take a certain amount of banter, like most politicians and public figures. I looked at him from the perspective of a childhood Brooklyn Dodger fan who had suffered terribly, who never, ever, rooted for the Yankees. But at least the Yankees stayed in the Bronx, a symbol of domination and bluster and endless sentimentality with all their deities and trained American eagles swooping around the big ballpark during post-season games. Overkill. The Yankee way. But when the Times asked me to write about George and the Hall, I decided he had upgraded a historic franchise, and was – in neutral terms – an epic figure in his business, and he belonged in the Hall. When the column appeared on the NYT web site Sunday evening, many knowing readers criticized my reasoning, in the Comments section. Others wrote to my NYT address. (geovec@nytimes.com.) I was impressed by so many arguments to keep him out: --His meanness discredited anything the Yankees won. ---He broke rules, not as a player but as an owner, and that should count to keep him out. ---In fact, he went from 1978 to 1996 without winning a World Series, the longest drought since Babe Ruth arrived. How smart could he be? ---It was wrong of me to compare his splurging with cable and attendance money with the bargain-basement tactics of pioneer Hall of Fame owners like Connie Mack and Clark Griffith, both former players who helped build baseball. --The Hall voters (NYT writers, including this pensioner, do not vote for such honors) have shunned known and suspected users of PEDs. If McGwire and Clemens and Bonds and Sosa are still outside, what about an owner who hired a gambler to dish dirt on Dave Winfield, who made illegal political contributions? ---He was a bully who mistreated many people, from baseball officials to players to humble workers. This was true. Some readers had one nasty brush with The Boss, and never forgot it. The first time I met him was in 1976, when I was still a cityside reporter and was sent up to the Stadium as the Yanks prepared for their first World Series since 1964. The Boss gushed over my work on Loretta Lynn’s book, but a minute later he reamed out a Stadium supervisor named Kelly for minute imperfections. It was a way for him to demonstrate his power to me. It was embarrassing to be present for this. But four decades later I have come to think he was a giant as an owner, and should get in the Hall one of these years. I love the readers’ comments – so informed, so passionate, and polite. But I think character has long been ignored by the Hall anyway. There are racists in the Hall, from players to commissioners; many great stars led terrible lives – drinking, carousing, misbehaving, to disgrace and early death. Some executives in the Hall are mere lodge brothers, voted in during a simpler time. George Steinbrenner was complicated. He bought a failing franchise and forced it back to the top. He won 11 pennants. He made the Yankees big-time. Finally, I made an allusion to a column I wrote in 1986 urging a burned-out Boss to sell the franchise to a local builder who needed a hobby, a focus in life. I did not mention Donald Trump by name but many readers compared Steinbrenner’s bullying with Trump’s. As a New Yorker, who has met both men, I can attest that Steinbrenner was more centered, more educated, more generous than Trump. It’s not as if anybody was voting for George Steinbrenner to be President, for goodness’ sakes. I thank the readers who prodded my reasoning. Those who care to prod it here are welcome. The debate goes on. When I visited Cuba in 1991, people asked, “Vecsey, why doesn’t your government end the blockade and let some business in here?”
I replied, “Sure, el bloqueo is dumb, but think about it: what if American business did come to Cuba …Have you ever heard of a man named Trump?” This was my worst example of a rapacious developer who would put up gaudy, expensive hotels along the waterfront and destroy the feel of the old city. The Cubans nodded no. They were living 30-plus years in the past. Baseball fans were still asking about DiMaggio and Williams and Jackie Robinson. I had to explain to them there was a New York guy named Trump who built casinos and was known for his playboy ways – sounded like the bad old days, when Americans used Cuba for their pleasure. I told them: “He’ll bulldoze the Malecón” --the seaside promenade where young people congregate -- “and put up crappy-looking buildings and all the people living downtown will be back in the sugar fields.” Cubans did not have much in 1991 -- one egg a week, very little meat, and no basic goods like shampoo, which was sold in dollar stores, for tourists. A well-placed friend had a couple of doctors in her family; they brought home used soap from the hospital and she boiled it down for personal use – “like my grandmother used to do,” she said. That was life under Fidel, life under Communism – “The God That Failed,” from the 1949 confessional by six writers. By 1991, if you wanted to talk about the government in Cuba, you lowered your voice and never mentioned Castro’s name. A furtive stroking of an imaginary beard conjured up the image. While we were there for the Pan-American Games, the Soviet Union started to come down. I sat with some new friends in a bar and watched state television. My friends knew that Castro had rejected Gorbachev, the reformer; they shook their heads in fear and disdain. Within days, Russian oil tankers and Russian specialists steamed out of the harbor. In the past two years, the Cuban people have seen a reasonable American President named Obama start to open lines between the two neighbors. Now Fidel is dead -- and thousands are celebrating on Calle Ocho in Miami – and that builder of casinos that I used as the vulgar example of American business will now preside over that giant country just across the water. (Thursday: I can put one foot after the other, partially because of thoughtful columns by Nicholas Kristof and Gail Collins, and also because of the poem from Altenir Silva, writer friend from Rio: “I want to dedicate this poem written by the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade (October 31, 1902 – August 17, 1987). Here in Brazil, we always read it, when we are looking for better days. Best – Altenir.”) What Now, José? By Carlos Drummond de Andrade The party’s over, the lights are off, the crowd’s gone, the night’s gone cold, what now, José? what now, you? You without a name, who mocks the others, you who write poetry who love, protest? what now, José? You have no wife, you have no speech you have no affection, you can’t drink, you can’t smoke, you can’t even spit, the night’s gone cold, the day didn’t come, the tram didn’t come, laughter didn’t come utopia didn’t come and everything ended and everything fled and everything rotted what now, José? What now, José? Your sweet words, your instance of fever, your feasting and fasting, your library, your gold mine, your glass suit, your incoherence, your hate – what now? Key in hand you want to open the door, but no door exists; you want to die in the sea, but the sea has dried; you want to go to Minas but Minas is no longer there. José, what now? If you screamed, if you moaned, if you played a Viennese waltz, if you slept, if you tired, if you died… But you don’t die, you’re stubborn, José! Alone in the dark like a wild animal, without tradition, without a naked wall to lean against, without a black horse that flees galloping, you march, José! José, where to? * * * (Wednesday: All right, Joey Nichols is elected. I have nothing coherent to say as of Wednesday but may bounce back soon. Meantime, all comments, suggestions, verbal hugs, second-guesses or flat-out told-you-sos are welcome in Comments. I'm turning on classical music. GV.) Monday: I have never watched any reality show, intentionally, but one time I accidentally clicked on somebody named Simon, who was cruelly dissecting a guest. “What a horrible person,” I thought, pushing the clicker. “Who would let him into their house?” Of course, I never watched Trump on his show because almost everybody in New York knew him as a dolt and a poseur, a punch line. He was Joey Nichols to our collective Alvy Singer. Say it together: “What an asshole.” We knew. Now it turns out that a significant chunk of the country does not know, cannot process information about Trump’s business dealings, is not offended by his ugly boasting about sexual misconduct. The country, founded by patriots and enlightened leaders, has been dumbed down by the reality-show persona. At the same time, people stopped reading newspapers. They cannot tell the difference between news-gatherers and the comedians on the tube. Grown people repeat stuff that has been proven false. Go into a school sometime and talk about issues on the front page (or web site) of the Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian. Blank looks. Trump is putting journalists in pens and mocking them. As he rolled over the cardboard Maginot Line of Republican challengers, Trump unleashed a barrage of incomplete sentences, incomplete thoughts, utter untruths, in the sing-song voice of an undeveloped human being. In a sing-song voice. Trust me, I’m telling you, in a sing-song voice. I have developed earworm, the condition when some piece of music is repeated so often that it bores its way into the eardrum, and stays there, repeating itself. It keeps repeating itself, believe me, in a sing-song voice. Other people are reporting earworm from this endless election. In the last catatonic days, I have been flopping in front of the tube like a beached whale, hoping that Steve Kornacki and Joy Reid on MSNBC, or maybe John King on CNN, will point at the state that confirms it is almost over. I’ve heard this condition described as “a great national nightmare” or a “societal nervous breakdown.” On Sunday evening, I made a break for it. I went upstairs and put chamber music on the CD player and read a new book I discovered in the library: “The Face of Britain: A History of the Nation Through Its Portraits” by Simon Schama – great stuff about Winston Churchill and Henry VIII and John and Yoko and the artists who tried to represent them. For a few hours, the earworm went away. Trump is out on his feet. He is bragging about his stamina, how he is making two-three-four appearances a day, but he looks punch drunk. Poor old feller hasn’t learned one of the great lessons of life – take a nap. Refresh your brain. Have an inner life. Whom are we going to believe, Trump or Yogi Berra? In one of his most famous Yogi-isms, Berra revealed the secret of life: “I usually take a two hour nap from one to four.” You do the math. Trump, 70, has been accusing Hillary Clinton, who turns 69 on Oct. 26, of lacking stamina. He mocked her for coming in off the road to recharge her batteries. Then, in their third debate last Wednesday, she looked like Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason), showing up in a fresh three-piece suit for a late-night pool match with Fast Eddie (Paul Newman) in the movie “The Hustler.” Just one glimpse of his refreshed opponent un-nerves Fast Eddie: “You look beautiful, Fats, just like a baby, all pink and powdered up.” Same thing the other night. If this were boxing, the ref would have called the fight. Trump is the modern reincarnation of Joe Louis’s Bum of the Month, over and over again. Trump doesn’t even know when to shut up. He yapped about Clinton’s need to take a drug test. Then she showed up for the Al Smith Dinner, and let him have it: "Donald wanted me drug tested before last night’s debate. And look, I gotta tell you, I am so flattered that Donald thought I used some sort of performance enhancer. Now actually, I did: It’s called preparation." Trump cannot prepare. I realized this 30 years ago, from several sports interviews with him, that Trump cannot process information. He has a serious flaw somewhere. His wiring is screwed up. He has not even learned the benefit of a retreat into sleep. “Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care.” Of course, MacBeth had problems. Even a 15-minute nap will suffice. I have seen teams use “blue rooms” for centering players' minds -- letting them prepare their image of themselves in the game to follow. There are all kinds of lists about great people who knew enough to shut down, to let the mind and soul refresh. Churchill. Leonardo da Vinci. Eleanor Roosevelt often took naps before making a speech. I bet Hillary Clinton knows that. While waiting for the grifter Donald Trump to be hooted off the campaign trail, I have ignored my own guilt, as a sports columnist, in his public survival.
In his home town, where he was known the best, he was always a joke, a poseur, a piker, a pisher, as we say in New York. And I contributed to this by using him as a punch line for something gaudy, something trivial, something absurd. Trump pops up in many columns I wrote over nearly three decades. Football: I first became aware of Trump in the mid-‘70’s when I met his brother, Freddy, who had gone to grade school with friends of mine. (The Trumps lived in a tony area half a mile from my busy street.) Freddy talked with great respect about his younger brother, the builder. I met Trump when he purchased the Generals, a football team in a startup league. He held press conferences in his glitzy hotels – free advertising – and signed expensive players like Doug Flutie, but with Trump’s apparently short attention span, details were always vague. Figure Skating: Through a mutual friend, I got invited to an exhibition in the Garden, where I met the very bright Ivana Trump. The Donald wore a camel’s hair coat, and always stayed on the periphery of social conversation. Baseball: When George Steinbrenner seemed to have burned out, or gotten himself suspended, I would suggest he sell the Yankees to Trump. I assumed Trump could afford it; now it appears he could not. Later I realized George was twice as smart and had more compassion and social conscience than Trump. Tennis: Trump had a box at Ashe Stadium, right above the media section. For yooge matches, he would materialize up front, leaning on the railing, like the captain of a ship, but I noticed that his head and eyes never moved. He didn’t watch the ball. I realized he was preening, advertising himself. Or possibly it was a cardboard cutout, one inch thick. Boxing: I am an abolitionist toward boxing. Let’s start with that. A boxer, Stephan Johnson, died after a fight in the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. A few days later, Trump took my call and I reported his tone as shaken, but his rationale for boxing was this: “'You have to understand that we do not sanction the fights. That is done by the New Jersey State Athletic Control Commission. All we are is the venue -- and fighting is popular. Every fight sells out. We have other things like gymnastics; they don't sell out. All I know is, boxing sells out.'' So there you have it. It was easy to feel he was a lightweight, who built gaudy buildings and postured. I was always making jokes about Trump trying to build Brasilia on the edge of Manhattan. Now he is the darling of many religious folk and flag-waving patriots. Rachel Maddow said after the debate the other night that most people would be nervous if somebody with Trump’s facial twitches sat down next to them on an airplane. What did we in New York do wrong in not taking him more seriously? Mea culpa. * * * Here are some old columns in which Trump is a convenient target. http://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/28/sports/sports-of-the-times-about-missing-donald.html http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/12/sports/sports-of-the-times-a-front-row-witness-to-death.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/07/sports/sports-of-the-times-will-donald-now-become-a-big-wheel.html http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/20/sports/sports-of-the-times-build-a-better-ball-park-and-the-world.html http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/08/sports/sports-of-the-times-donald-does-right.html http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/30/sports/sports-of-the-times-george-howie-donald.html http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/06/sports/sports-of-the-times-michaels-dances-around-it.html http://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/21/sports/sports-of-the-times-it-s-a-bum-rap.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/20/sports/sports-of-the-times-a-happening-no-matter-what.html http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/06/sports/sports-of-the-times-ted-turner-peacemaker.html http://www.nytimes.com/1987/12/20/sports/sports-of-the-times-just-five-more-shopping-days-are-left.html http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/13/sports/sports-times-dancing-rafters-garden-for-knicks-night-remember.html You already know who the ridiculous is. So let’s start with the sublime. I was in the library the other day at the “New/Non-Fiction/14 Days Only” section. On a lower shelf, I spotted a book of essays by Annie Dillard, “The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New.” Somehow, I had gotten to be this old without ever reading anything by Dillard, so I picked up the book, and opened it in the middle, to a chapter entitled “The Weasel” “The weasel is wild. Who knows what he thinks? He sleeps in his underground den, his tail draped over his nose. Sometimes he lives in his den for two days without leaving.” Needless to say, I checked it out. The weasel essay, six pages long, includes a 60-second encounter in the woods when Dillard and a weasel locked eyes. The essay also includes the tale of an eagle that tried to carry off a weasel, and got more than it expected. The essay become an exhortation to grab life – whatever life is – with your jaws, and not let go. That is pretty much what Dillard does in her writing, and in her life, by her own testimony. In one section, "An American Childhood,” previously published, she races through her family and her church and her boyfriends and her life. Required reading for teen-agers. I was knocked out by the two final essays. One was about sand, and geology, and the Jesuit priest-paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin, and love. The final chapter by Dillard, a convert to Catholicism, was alternating segments about what she called the modern "hootenany" Mass and doomed polar explorers who went off unprepared. It ends with a fantasy of the two themes overlapping. I am now a fan of Annie Dillard, maybe even a groupie. * * * The second book continues the furry, feral theme, considering the muskrat Donald Trump carries around on his head and in his head. The book is “The Making of Donald Trump,” by Pulitzer-Prize-winning David Cay Johnston, seen often on the Web and the tube, warning us, “The Trumpites are coming! The Trumpites are coming!” The book hit No. 15 on the Times best-seller list last week. Johnston is an investigative reporter, one of the best, and has been on the scent of Trump and the muskrat for decades. He has put together verifiable details of the way Trump does business – the Polish immigrants who tore down a landmark building at nights, without safety precautions or attention to artwork; the vendors who got stiffed by Trump, the garish casinos in Trump’s name without his having any knowledge of how gambling works, the threats, the suits, the welching, and the lies about women he never dated. Johnston’s book should be read – but won’t be -- by the fact-averse minority that considers Trump the great white hope. Weasels sí, muskrat head no. |
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