Economy Class Warfare

My back's killing me. I have had a pinched nerve in my lower back for over two weeks now. I really don't know how it happened. I think someone called my name and I turned around funny. I'm sure that dancing at my stepdaughter's wedding only exacerbated the problem. We knew the day was coming. We met the young man, they set the date, and we began our ever-growing neurosis over flying to California for the ceremony. The wedding itself was beautiful but it was an endurance test to just get there. The airlines have stripped customer service to the marrow and just about everything surrounding the industry, from air fares to the sadists who populate the TSA, tests your tolerance and tries your patience. Once an adventure, today's air travel more closely resembles flying Trailways buses that were decommissioned in the seventies. In order to maximize shareholder profits, seats are smaller in both width and legroom and an overweight person might have to slide into the tiny bathroom sideways. And the seats don't tilt back anymore. Now I know how those prisoners who were tortured at Abu Ghraib felt.

For years, we have intentionally tried to avoid air travel after a particularly harassing and humiliating flight and have tried to drive whenever possible. But then we drove to Atlanta and I took the wrong turn-off in Nashville and ended up driving around the city lost for an hour or so- and I lived there for nine years. So, Amtrak and Greyhound aside, if you have a long distance to travel, you're pretty much captive to the airlines and you will obey the rules or else. And they keep changing the rules. One fool tries to light his sneakers on fire and for the next ten years everybody has to tiptoe through security in their stocking feet. This trip, we were allowed to keep our shoes on but had to stand in that scanner that exposes your ass to some letch monitoring a flat-screen. I thought I saw him pocketing a printout. A necklace I was wearing set off the metal detector and I was told to step to one side and wait for a uniformed pencil-neck to come over and pat me down. Melody said I was supposed to put my wallet and phone in a container instead of shoving my whole jacket through the X-Ray device with all the stuff in the pockets. I was merely trying to be efficient.

We had an early flight to San Francisco with a layover in Phoenix and I was surprised to find the gate was packed. The boarding process is totally stupid except no one's bothered to tell them. Wouldn't it make more sense to fill the plane back-end first? Then no one would be stuck in the isle waiting on those passengers attempting to cram an overstuffed valise into an undersized overhead compartment. We brought wedding attire which meant we had to check two bags at thirty bucks a pop and still had carry-ons. Naturally, I drew the middle seat which meant I had to jockey for the armrest with a stranger for several hours while sitting in a seat more suited for an anorexic aficionado of Deep Vein Thrombosis. A Columbia School of Law professor called these practices "calculated misery." With only four airlines controlling eighty percent of air traffic, a wink and a nod translates into every flight slashing comforts to prod customers into paying extra for additional services, like leg room or a pillow. We did get a small bag of pretzels and a coke, only not the full can. I asked Melody if she would call the stewardess over for a refill but she told me that the proper term now was flight attendant. I said that, actually, they were air waitresses, to which Melody informed me that the acceptable term now was server. I implored, "Just please ask the soft-drink Nazi if I can have some more cola."

The American Eagle airplane is the Ford Pinto of the air in that it should be discontinued for commercial use. Melody had insisted that I stop singing "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" by the time we actually got there and the Xanax was wearing off. The walk to our connecting gate was like the Bataan Death March with a pinched nerve thrown in for laughs. No zippy little trams or golf carts, just us trudging along with grim reserve and bruised knees from lack of legroom. Arriving in California was like being discharged from the Army. When we reached the hotel, both of us were drained and ready to collapse only to find our room directly above the hotel's ballroom where a wedding disc jockey was spinning hip-hop music so loudly he may as well have been set up in the bathroom. I might have copped an attitude had our wedding not been so beautiful. The bride looked so gorgeous that I had to shed a tear. I think I must have snorted a little bit too because my future in-laws were patting my back and comforting me. The band at the reception was so good, I got up and danced despite myself. My new son-in-law's father is a minister and we were told he was very reserved. But by night's end, Melody had the reverend up and dancing while the band sang, "We're up all night to get lucky." When we returned exhausted to our room, another wedding DJ was blasting away in the ballroom below, and it was all about that bass. Our flights returning to Memphis were the same misery, only in reverse- and I got singled out by security again. We arrived exhausted and grouchy, collected our luggage and walked an additional mile in the freezing cold to the long-term parking lot. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

It's A Gas, Gas, Gas

Nobody should have to live like this. To go about your daily business while in the back of your mind is the nagging concern that the psychotic sonofabitch who occupies the White House will do something else insane that will harm the country. As the ghastly evidence of his criminal activities creep closer to the president during the impeachment hearings, expect his conduct to grow even more aberrant, lashing out madly at everyone or anyone who dares criticize him. The latest victim of a Trump tweet trashing is Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace, who dismantled Rep. Steve Scalice's GOP talking points justifying Trumps' conduct toward the Ukrainian government on Fox News Sunday. Trump tweeted professorially, "Steve Scalise blew the nasty and obnoxious Chris Wallace (will never be his father, Mike!) away on Chris' lowest rated (unless I'm on) morning show. This kind of dumb and unfair interview would never have happened in the Fox News Past." Well, Roger Ailes died and Shepard Smith quit, so maybe some of the reporters over at Big Brother Central are developing consciences. Trump can still count on folks like Fox & Friends and the other half-wits who spew propaganda and lies on behalf of this president, but two scholastic studies, one by the University of Maryland, the other by Fairleigh Dickinson University, have determined that people who only watch Fox News are less informed than all other news consumers and are much more inclined to believe false information.

There is a Federal law called the Truth in Advertising Act which states that "all ads must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence." The Federal Trade Commission enforces the law, be it any ad online, in the mail, or on billboards and buses. For the punishment, a Federal Court demands a desist order, freezes the assets of the offender, and gets compensation for the victims. Why can't we have a Truth in Broadcasting law as well, to halt the torrent of lies that create the dual realities in which we live? Basically, people who follow politics fall into two major categories: those who read and those who watch Fox News. If you're reading this, you most likely fit in the former category. During the Nixon nightmare, the president railed against the media, saying, "Never forget, the press is the enemy." He accused networks and newspapers with all manner of lies and slander right up until the time it was proven that Nixon was the liar and the journalists had it right. Anyone who saw All The President's Men know that their are rules that professional journalists must follow to protect the paper's integrity and abide by the First Amendment. If there were a Truth in Broadcasting law, Fox News would either have to change their name, like World Wrestling Entertainment, or conform to the laws that govern other legitimate news organizations.

Any real journalist worth his salt would love to work for the New York Times or the Washington Post, who made their respective reputations during the Watergate Scandal. Since they've been proven right before, I'd believe them before the inane tweets coming from the carbuncle on the posterior of humanity. While the impeachment hearings into Trump's phone calls with Ukrainian President Zelensky make for great television, there's an undercurrent of questionable behavior that's much worse than trying to dirty up the Bidens. The Trump gang's conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, are based on allegations already debunked by State Department officials. Far more ominous is this continual stream of information concerning Ukraine's natural gas industry. The firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was less about opening investigations on Biden and Clinton, and more about clearing the way for Trump's allies to set up business deals with Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state owned oil company. Trump initially tried to blame his disastrous call to Zelensky on Rick Perry, Secretary of the Energy Department he once vowed to dismantle. Trump claimed, "The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about a liquefied natural gas plant."

This is where Lev, Igor, and Giuliani enter the plot. Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were at the center of efforts to turn their ties to Trump into revenue producing gas sales. The two were also instrumental in disseminating rumors about the Biden family and also behind the push to remove Ambassador Yovanovitch. The Associated Press reported, "This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine's massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies." Rick Perry urged Zelensky to fire the Naftogaz advisory board and came with a list of suggested replacements approved by the president. Perry only recently announced his resignation while Lev Parnas hinted he may testify before the Judiciary Committee. There's another federal law called the RICO Statute (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act) which says the leaders of a criminal syndicate can be tried for the crimes they ordered. This makes asking a foreign leader to smear a political rival pale in comparison. It's all about the gas. If the Judiciary decides to look into this, you can say goodbye to the GOP million dollar donor, Ambassador Gordon Sondland; goodbye Rick Perry, Rudy Giuliani, Lev and Igor, Bob Barr, Mick Mulvaney, Don Jr., Mike Pompeo, and Donald J. Trump. The revolution will be televised.

Trick Or Treat

All Hallow's Eve is nigh so we'll probably celebrate in the traditional manner- lock the doors, close the shutters, turn out all the lights, and trust that the dogs will bark ferociously should anyone dare to knock. Just as added protection, I plan to hang a sign on the door that says "Quarantine-Norovirus," and wrap the porch in yellow police tape. It wasn't always like this. We participated in the pagan ritual of children shaking us down for candy for many years just to see them in their costumes. When we first moved to this neighborhood, the local kids would come around while the young moms and dads stayed on the sidewalk carrying cocktails in Solo cups under the guise of "taking the children trick-or-treating." Maybe word got out that we were a candy rich area because after awhile, the nature of the tricksters changed. They seemed to be much older and not wearing children's-size costumes anymore. They were no longer dressed like pirates and princesses but more like prostitutes and pallbearers. Then van-loads of sugar-crazed teenagers began circling the block in search of Snickers. I finally decided that if you're old enough to drive, you're old enough to buy your own damn candy. 

I used to love Halloween when I was a kid. My sister and I would circle a neighborhood that was so wealthy, they handed out Dinstuhl's. I'm kidding of course, but nearly every home was generous with their candy. Some people even went to the trouble of making caramel apples for us, only one year after a "razor blade-in-the-apple" scare, that practice pretty much ended. No one in the civilized world ever found a razor blade in an apple. There was one old man on our block who was too elderly to go shopping for candy, so every year, he gave us each one raw wiener. I would eat it before we got home so my mother wouldn't take it away. I still find the old man's gesture touching. Eventually, I aged out of the trick-or-treat scene and entered into the unholy world of post-childhood Halloween. This was the age of egging houses and rolling yards. When we said "trick-or-treat," we meant it. Some of the "pranks" we played would be classified as atrocities today. But we grew out of that too. Halloween was still a joy in my teens because I attended a Catholic high school and November 1st was All Saint's Day, a rare holiday from classes. 

I have always believed that Halloween was for children. Maybe it's because when I was a child, I saw my parents leaving for a costume party dressed as two giant, pink rabbits. It's tough to take your dad seriously while he's wearing a fluffy cottontail. That's why I was never much into costumery as I grew older. Some friends of mine used to throw an annual Halloween party downtown. What began as a gathering of a small group of friends, turned into a bacchanalia of such grotesque and unmanageable proportions that the cops were often called and no one could tell if they were real or just in costume. That's when I became convinced that grown-up Halloween was pretty much X-Rated, and that it served as an opportunity for ordinarily staid ladies to dress up like sluts and sexy witches. My party invitation was rescinded after one year when I couldn't be bothered with a costume, so I just got naked, strapped on a pair of roller-skates, and went as a pull-toy. At least it was inexpensive. Contrast that with the benchmark set in 2018 when thirty million Americans spent $480 million on costumes for their pets.

I'm aware that times change. Now, children go door-to-door at their own risk and adults go bobbing for Xanax instead of apples. We had one kid show up at the door in a baggy blue suit and oversized red tie with a bad, blonde wig atop an orange painted face. When we asked him if he wanted some candy, he said, "If its all the same, I'd rather have the cash." And to think that I used to put an illuminated Nixon mask in the front window to scare the children. Elevating the fright level now are the "Haunted Houses," a fairly recent phenomena that some people blame on Disney. What once was a church-sponsored, family entertainment where cobwebs brushed your face and volunteer ghosts said, "boo," have turned into gore-fests with professional actors and animatronics. One such "house" features a cemetery crawling with corpses awakened from their graves. Another leads patrons through an actual funeral home where visitors are taken from the parlor to the embalming room, to the morgue, and ultimately to hell. Memphis is home to several "Haunted Houses," one which advertises "a brain bashing, fear soaked...experience that will scare you to the core." Another brags of "ghastly butchery that won't be believed." Such horror from a holiday that began as a day of prayer for the souls of the departed. These times are plenty scary enough for me as it is. Now, what am I supposed to do with this bag of miniature Snickers?

Funky Chicken

Last week, around eight, I was driving west on Poplar Avenue just past Mendenhall when I saw traffic backed up for a block, choking off all movement in the right lane. I thought it must be a multi-car, chain reaction accident. It was dark but I didn't see any blue flashing lights. I was concerned that I'd be the first on the scene and be required to help, but when I drew closer I saw the reality. A convoy of vehicles were backed up in one of the most heavily traveled streets in Memphis, waiting to go through the drive-in window to get one of those damn Chik-fil-A chicken sandwiches. This battle of the chicken sandwiches between Popeye's and Chik-fil-A is baffling to me. Popeye's chicken is the hot "Cajun" variety, while Chik-fil-A donates to organizations like Exodus International, an "ex-gay" therapy group, and the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed a hate group, so they can kiss my ass regardless of how their chicken tastes. Without delving into antiquated  racial stereotypes, Memphis should be a chicken city, not because of race but because of region. We're Southerners here and everybody, vegans excepted, loves their fried chicken. Some of my earliest memories are of eating Sunday "suppers" at my grandfather's house, consisting of fried chicken and butter beans, without fail. As a child, I ate drumsticks and thighs, but when I grew to be a man, I put away childish things and switched to breasts and wings, the juicy parts. So in a chicken-enamored city like Memphis, how did we allow Nashville to claim the rights to some aberration called Nashville "Hot" Chicken? What's next, Nashville Style Bar-B-Q? I could eat fried chicken six days a week and rest on the seventh, but unfortunately, my zip-code seems bereft of chicken that isn't "hot and spicy" without driving a ways. I feel as if I'm living in the middle of a chicken desert.

I never got the whole "hot" chicken thing. That's why I don't go to Popeye's. Hot "Cajun" chicken is just a bastardization of the real thing. A couple of years ago, word of mouth was all about was Gus's. I heard about all these flavors bursting in your mouth and how people could not get enough of it. So I bought some with great anticipation and after the roof of my mouth was set aflame, I tossed the rest. If you want your chicken hot, do what my wife does- fry it in the usual way and put hot sauce on it like a normal person who was raised here. That way, your chicken isn't saturated with chili powder, or whatever the hell they use, and you can heat it to your palate. I like my chicken fried and extra crispy, which brings KFC to mind. I kept going there and asking for breasts and wings extra crispy, and they'd always say, "Can you wait fifteen minutes while we fry up another batch?" I said, "It's dinnertime. Don't you people sell chicken here?" For a while, I thought I'd solved the problem and had a good thing going. I skipped the drive-thru, went in, and found a kindly counter-person. When she promptly delivered my order, I tipped her- considerably. She looked shocked as if it never happened before. I asked her just to remember me and consequently, I received hot, crispy chicken every visit and tipped her each time because doesn't the word "tips" mean "to insure prompt service?" I was living in a fool's paradise however, because one day she wasn't there anymore and I was once again asked if I minded waiting fifteen minutes. So, I've given up on KFC.

A colleague of mine once told me, "Church's Chicken is the shit." Maybe so, but probably not in the way he meant. I used to drive to Bartlett just to get some Mrs. Winner's chicken. The intersection of Sycamore View and Summer Avenue was like a chicken paradise with every franchise represented, but Mrs. Winner's was the juiciest. One day, I drove the distance only to find my Mrs. Winner's had turned into an Exxon, and I refuse to buy chicken from a gas station. I've always loved Jack Pirtle's Chicken but the closest one is a good drive away. When cable TV was still in its infancy, I had a ritual. Every Saturday, I drove to Pirtle's on Highland, got a mess of chicken, took it home and dined while watching Georgia Championship Wrestling. I even learned to walk up to the window, bypassing the long drive-thru lines. But they took Georgia Wrestling off the air and I moved away, making my trips to Pirtle's difficult. I'm told on good authority that the best day to get Pirtle's chicken is Thursday when they change the grease. And besides, Cordell and Tawanda Pirtle are lovely people. Every other chicken joint near me is a chain so we've been getting our yardbird from Super-Lo or Kroger's, each having their own taste, but not like home-cooked.

We haven't tried Uncle Lou's, balking at the "sweet and spicy" slogan, or Hattie B's Hot Chicken, a carpetbagger franchise from Nashville. We have yet to try out Joe's, who advertise their chicken is marinated in secret sauce for twenty-four hours. Do me a favor. Rub some salt and pepper on it, add some flour, and drop it in a skillet of sizzling Wesson Oil, which is manufactured in Memphis. Keep your "hot and spicy" and "Cajun styled." Just serve me up some good old Southern fried chicken, like the kind they serve at the Loveless Motel in Nashville. If I had the funds, or if someone would like to back me, a stretch of Summer Avenue is begging for a decent chicken joint. My idea, pending copyright, is to approach  the first family of Memphis Music, Vaneese and Carla Thomas, and ask permission to use their father's name. Then I'd start a chain of down-home restaurants and call it "Rufus Thomas's Funky Chicken." We could decorate the place with Rufus' stage outfits. People would come from all over the world just to see his hot pink short-pants getup. The chicken would just be gravy. "You'll flap your arms and your feet will start kickin' when you eat Rufus Thomas's Funky Chicken. Now, did you heard me?"

Apocalypse Soon

Well, we human beings had a good run. We've gone from green slime crawling out of the sea to the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, the use of tools, the dawn of civilization, The Dark Ages, the Renaissance, industry, mass production, the invention of the printing press, the automobile and the telephone, modern cities and suburbs, space exploration, and the telecommunication revolution. Then we hit a bump and suddenly we've regressed into green slime slouching back into the sea. Between the melting of the polar icecaps and the fires ravaging the Amazon rain forest, we've reached a climate apocalypse that may well be irreversible. This didn't have to happen. it just proves how mindless leadership can alter the world's climate in the shortest time. Civilization will mock the naivete of such dire forecasts as Anthony Burgess's "A Clockwork Orange." Say goodbye to the Earth as we know it and say hello to water wars, mass migrations, riots, and the shredding of the fabric of society.

In the middle part of last century, a clairvoyant named Edgar Cayce became famous for his prophesies and remedies. An institution in Virginia Beach houses more the fourteen thousand of his readings which have been determined to be eighty-five percent accurate. His clients included Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Edison, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin. Cayce, called "The Sleeping Prophet," would lie down and enter a state of altered consciousness which allowed him visions of the future that were alarming when I first read them many years ago. They're terrifying now. In a reading from 1934, Cayce said, "The earth will be broken up in many places. The early portion will see a change..in the West coast of America. Open waters appear in the northern potion of Greenland. The greater portion of Japan must go into the sea. There will be upheavals in the Antarctic..beginning in 200-2001." Any of this sound familiar? Cayce continues, "There are predictions of temperature changes in the deep waters which impact weather patterns, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions." Also, "New York itself, in the main, will disappear. Southern portions of Carolina, Georgia- these will disappear. Los Angeles, San Francisco...will be among those destroyed." On a cheerier note, Cayce claimed that Atlantis would reappear and unearth hidden knowledge. He also said that his dystopian vision need not take place with the proper awareness coupled with action. Considering the state of the planet today, that's pretty incredible stuff, but guess who's rushing us headlong into extinction? 

Our mock president's performance at last week's G-7 summit in France did nothing to advance the cause of addressing climate change. Laughingly declaring himself to be "an environmentalist," Trump said, "I want the cleanest water on earth. I want the cleanest air on earth...I think I know more about the environment than most people." This coming from a man who boasted about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, claimed that windmills cause cancer, and wondered aloud if it was possible to "nuke" hurricanes. Then, Trump skipped a climate discussion with other world leaders, leaving an empty chair in his stead. Other G-7 participants walked on eggshells around Trump, hoping that the human wrecking ball wouldn't destroy another meeting of sane heads of state. While French President Emmanuel Macron was expressing outrage over the "Trump of South America," Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's, handling of the Amazon fires, Trump was advocating for Russia's re-admittance to the G-7 and hyping his Mar-a-lago resort for the next summit, citing its many wonderful accoutrements. They had better hurry before Mar-a-lago goes the way of Atlantis and becomes just another underwater mystery.

Like Trump, the Brazilian president is a climate change denier. He relaxed environmental regulations and permitted farmers and other commercial interests to burn off parts of the Amazon rain forest, then claimed the current conflagration was caused by "non-governmental organizations" for the purpose of "drawing international criticism to (his) government." Currently, the rain forest produces twenty percent of the world's oxygen. The World Wildlife Fund stated that if the Amazon rain forest, sometimes known as "the world's lungs," reaches the point of no return, the area could become a "dry Savannah," emitting carbon instead of oxygen. Without Trump's input, the G-7 pledged twenty million dollars to help contain the fires that are destroying two and a half football fields worth of rain forest every minute of every day and are spilling over into neighboring countries. Meanwhile, both NASA and the European Space Agency have determined that the polar ice caps have melted faster in the last twenty years than in the previous ten-thousand. Antarctica and Greenland have lost three times as much ice as compared to twenty years ago. Most major coastal cities would be inundated by a rise in sea level of more than six feet. If the Greenland ice sheet melted, sea levels would rise by more than twenty feet. So long New Orleans. Nice to know you Miami. It's good that Denmark refused to sell Greenland to Trump. He'd only melt it and turn it into the world's largest water park.

Love It Or Leave It

There's this memorable lyric from a Bob Dylan song on his classic album Blonde On Blonde. Maybe I remember it so well because it came from his song "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again," which was recorded in Nashville in 1966. It goes, "And I sit here so patiently/Waiting to find out what price/You have to pay to get out of/Going through all these things twice." I have lived through LBJ, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and the Vietnam era. I've seen the golden idol with the feet of clay, Ronald Reagan, say that "Government is the problem," which was arguably the beginning of all our problems. I've seen the hapless Poppy Bush, the lascivious Bill Clinton, and the warmongering Dick Cheney with his malleable puppet, George Bush "The Lesser". But never in my life would I have expected to relive this "love it or leave it" bullshit. I thought we'd put that jingoistic, racist rubbish to bed along with "go back where you came from." But then, I also believed in the evolution of man, a theory sorely tested by the current squatter in the White House. The old "love it or leave it" slogan was the conservative's redneck response to the anti-war protesters of the late sixties. The "go back where you came from" probably dates from the post-reconstruction era and into the Jim Crow South, when cracker assholes forgot that black people were brought here as slaves and had no place from which to go back. Still, I have heard these remarks, aimed at African-Americans, hippies, feminists and others, from cretins dripping with ignorance for all my life. Those who proclaim it or repeat it were on the wrong side of history then, and are on the wrong side of history now. And it will be remembered long after this bulbous, bilious aberration of a human being has been driven from his hideous presidency.

This horror began, as per usual, with Trump's barely literate Twitter feed. After being provoked by a segment on "Fox & Friends," about the four freshman Democrats known as "the Squad," an insipid moniker that should be shed without delay, the Ignoramus in Chief went off on an angry and racist twitter tirade. I'll reprint it here, but to avoid writing sic after every word, the punctuation and misuse of capitalization are all Trump's. "So interesting to see "Progressive" Democratic Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe...now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States...how our government is to be run. Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came." The twits on the "Fox & Friends" couch laughed when they read the tweet and said that Trump is "very comedic" but he's "making an important point." Yeah, Trump's a regular laugh riot. He has since learned, or maybe not, that the congresswomen in question were all born in the United States except for Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who came to this country from war-ravaged Somalia and became a naturalized citizen at age seventeen. The common denominator is that these are four women of color and two are Muslims, an accelerant to Trump's racist ideology. I agree with President Caligula on one point; they need to fix the totally broken and crime infested places, which perfectly describes Trump's White House, his corrupt cabinet, and his extended family of shameless grifters.

The "love it or leave it" idiocy emerged during one of Trump's Nazi rallies in Greenville, North Carolina. Broadening his message to include anyone who disagrees with him, Trump echoed Richard Nixon, and after verbally assaulting Rep. Omar by name, the crowd of "Good Germans" went wild, breaking into a chant of "send her back." Hearing from his party members who informed him that this mantra wasn't as mundane as "lock her up," Trump disavowed the chant, then changed directions calling his enraged, aggrieved audience of red hat-wearing Caucasians "great patriots." Even members of the misnamed "Freedom Caucus," thought he went too far. Now that Trump's annoying repetition of "No Collusion. No Obstruction" has been disproven by the halting, mono-syllabic testimony of Special Council Robert Mueller, the bottomless well of prideful stupidity that occupies the Oval Office has ramped up his free-range  racism to stoke the animosity and fear of his fellow travelers and running dogs. Trump's latest target for his vile abuse is another African-American congressman, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland. 

After Cummings' criticism of the inhumane treatment of immigrants at the border, Trump lashed out on another Twitter bender. Again, the bad grammar is Trump's. "Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting & screaming...about conditions at the Southern Border...The Border is clean, efficient and well run...Cumming (sic) District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess...No human would ever want to live there." "The Democrats always play the Race Card, when...they have done so little for our Nation's great African American people." Then he called Cummings, the son of a South Carolina sharecropper "a racist." A psychologist would refer to this sort of noxious ranting as 'projection." The Baltimore Sun editorial board responded in an article titled "Better to have a few rats than to be one," and referred to Trump's tweets as "undiluted racism and hate." If there were any question before, there's no doubt now that a very sick man is running the government, along with his lapdog, "Moscow" Mitch McConnell, and his legion of ass-kissers. Robert Mueller claimed the Office of Legal Council's opinion forbade him from indicting a sitting president. But the O.L.C.'s opinions are just suggestions, as stated in their 1973 decision; The O.L.C. reserves the right to "reconsider and modify or disavow that determination." But these are very perilous times. If no man is supposed to be above the law in this land, it's time to disavow that archaic decision and show the proper justice to Trump that he so richly deserves.

 

Dinner Dilemma

We had become embarrassingly close to addiction with food delivery services until we stepped back from the brink and realized the consequences, not just monetarily, but socially as well. There was a time in the not so distant past when you had a choice of food delivered to your door: Chinese or pizza. No more. Now, the finest restaurants in town will pack it up and zip it right out to you, and your only task is the occasional fifteen seconds in the microwave. You don't even need dinnerware anymore. You can eat it right out of the sectional plastic tray. The food delivery business has popped up like mushrooms in a cow pasture, or maybe Uber. Of course, it's not just food anymore. Need toothpaste and Dr. Scholl's insoles? Push a few buttons and someone will rush it right over. Don't feel like Krogering? There's an app for that. Where they once made it so inconvenient that you had to drive over there and have someone load up your groceries, they deliver now. In fact, if you hurry, Kroger is having a sale for your July 4th festivities. Nathan's Skinless Beef Franks are $2.99 a pack, their famous mustard potato salad is $3.99 for three pounds, and American flags have been marked down from .49 cents to .44 cents. The beer is regularly priced, but it eliminates what used to be a rite of passage for young males, the beer run. If beer is too pedestrian, they'll bring you a nice Sauvignon Blanc for $19.99. This is a dream come true for agoraphobics. Now there really is no need to leave the house.

Like any addiction to things like video games or fantasy football, there are plenty of enticements to draw you in, like free delivery and daily specials. For a  hefty deposit, you can get free delivery in perpetuity. It's especially fun to track your order. The restaurant will inform you when your driver arrives and leaves the store. On some services, a little car will pop up on the screen and you can follow it directly from the eatery to your driveway. Our first experience was with Meals in Motion which contains some of our favorites but is limited in their number of restaurants. We quickly signed up for Uber Eats, Bite Squad, and Door Dash. We tried Postmates, but they wanted some ridiculous amount of money in advance to put on your credit card, so they got deleted. Grubhub has  yet to arrive on my block. The rest operate in pretty much the same way: choose a restaurant, give them your credit card, pull up the menu, press a few buttons and some nice person will drive your food over- tip included, even if you feel like a bag of Krystals. There's no waiting for a table, no dealing with a harried server, no wondering why the next table got served when they came in after you, and no deciphering the difference between fifteen and twenty percent.

As in any new service, you learn some things by trial and error. For instance, in a restaurant, if they overcook your cheeseburger, you can send it back. Delivery offers that same option, but it will take an additional hour to correct it and by then you've decided that you're hungry enough to go ahead and eat the overcooked burger. It's the same with the occasional menu mistake. There's no mistaking beef tacos when that's what you ordered online, but when they arrive beefless, what are you going to do? The restaurant will give you a credit but that doesn't make up for a spoiled meal. If you order something from a favorite restaurant, say, a beef chimichanga, it's not quite the same as when they bring it fresh from the kitchen. We didn't realize how deeply we were descending into the hedonistic lifestyle until the night we had a hankering for some ice cream. We live within short driving distance from two Baskin-Robbins ice cream shops and one of them is a drive-thru, but they were on the list of stores that delivered. We ordered a variety of scoops in a cup, but it took a while. I kept checking my phone for updates while our cream-cravings intensified. When it finally arrived, the check not only included the cost of the ice cream, but a healthy tax, a pre-arranged tip for the driver, and a five dollar delivery charge that was supposed to be free.The guilt over our obscene laziness was palpable. We could have gone Krogering and have a couple of gallons sent over for the same price.

There's an additional reason that we've scaled back on dinner delivery and it's the same reason we never use self-checkout in a grocery store or any other discount store chain. We figured for every self-checkout lane, a cashier or sacker will lose a job, and although there's no stopping automation, we can do our part until it replaces the entire workforce. The same goes for restaurants. Eating at home is easy but it doesn't quite match going to an actual restaurant, sitting down at a table, and enjoying a meal. Since I'm not trying to promote any individual restaurant, let's pretend you have a particular favorite, and for the sake of argument we'll call it "Patrick's." It's a down-home meat-and-three restaurant. Their food is good and reasonably priced, the atmosphere is convivial, and they have an Elvis wall right in the same spot where I used to play gigs when it was a nightclub in a previous incarnation. Delivery is great,  but then we wouldn't get to see our favorite host, Ben Sumner, or the best server in town, Jo Jo Chetter, whom we have followed from her days at Kudzu's and who can enthrall you with tales of Ireland. Delivery services create new jobs for drivers and profits for restaurants, but before the next time you order in, remember the cooks, servers, busboys, and cashiers who depend on you putting on your pants and making a personal appearance. 

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

There's a Chinese expression that goes "May you live in interesting times." I always thought it was a toast or an expression of goodwill until I looked up its origins (or "oringes"). I discovered it's called the "Chinese Curse," and its not a bon mot at all but a wish for misfortune towards another. The significance being that uninteresting times are peaceful and uneventful. So perhaps the Chinese were prescient when it comes to our current state of instability, but no one should have to live like this. It's difficult knowing your country's chief executive is a schizoid, delusional megalomaniac when every day, every day, brings a fresh new outrage. I'm not a morning person but my wife is, so we have a ritual when I wake up asking "What new horror happened today?" We can't escape from watching the news like it's a poor man's "Game of Thrones" miniseries. It's exhausting keeping up with the unpredictable conduct of this vile man when your rage and disgust have already been sapped. Some claim they've become numb to the president's abhorrent behavior. I have simply become drained by the daily onslaught of his boasts, his warped opinions, his disdain for the rule of law, and his endless mantra of "No collusion. No obstruction." 

During Trump's on-camera meltdown in last Thursday's press pool spray, he unleashed a tsunami of lies. One account had him telling at least twenty-one lies about the Russia investigation. Trump's endless repetition of falsehoods point to his misguided fascination with "The Big Lie," as espoused by Germany in the thirties. It used to be verboten for a credible  journalist to compare the evils of any American citizen to Hitler, but those unwritten rules are no longer viable in the age of Steven Miller and Steve Bannon. In a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Trump's first wife, Ivana, said that her husband often read a book of Hitler's collected speeches, "My New Order," which he kept in a cabinet by his bed. I'm surprised that he reads anything at all, but in reading Hitler's verbiage, he might have come across this quote, "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it." Or, perhaps he came across this aphorism from Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, "A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth." But let's get real, Trump doesn't read. The most likely explanation is that he learned the technique from his late attorney, Roy Cohn, who was once described as, "The...most evil, twisted, vicious bastard ever to snort coke ar Studio 54." Trump tweeted, "I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected." He later deleted his Freudian slip.

In a single week in the post-Mueller Report Trumpworld, he threatened Mexico with a pyramid scheme of tariffs if they did not stop the influx of wretched immigrants fleeing violence from Central American "shithole countries." Trump mansplained, "It's about stopping drugs as well as illegals," to which Mexican President Lopez Obrador replied, "Social problems don't get resolved with...coercive measures." After Trump's tariff announcement the stock market dropped like an anvil. Even Republican firebrands were incensed. Doddering Iowa Senator "Chuck" Grassley said, "This is a misuse of presidential authority." The old pig castrator and Iowa's junior Senator Joni Ernst said, "Progress to get this trade agreement (USMCA, the acronym for the rebranded NAFTA), across the finish line will be stifled." After threatening Mexico, Trump issued an "emergency declaration," allegedly caused by Iran, in order to sell billions of dollars worth of arms to Saudi Arabia while bypassing Congress. He then taunted Iran saying, "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran." Then it was reported that while Trump was in a Japanese harbor, a White House directive to move the USS John McCain from the fragile president's view was received by the Navy. Since it is cumbersome to put a destroyer in reverse, the Navy ended up obscuring the ship's name with a canvas tarp and then denying the entire incident.

By the time you read this, the Trump three-day family excursion to England will be over, so we have to wait to see what shameful conduct occurs. Before leaving, Emperor Trump interfered with British politics, endorsing doppelganger Boris Johnson as the next Prime Minister; insulted Princess Meghan Markle in the Rupert Murdoch owned tabloid The Sun saying, "I didn't know she was a nasty woman," then denying it until it was learned a recording existed; and claimed Europe is destroying its culture by admitting so many immigrants. There are protests planned all over England and Ireland to Trump's official visit. He will be met by the image of a giant penis mowed into property owned by an enterprising landscaper on the approach to Stansted Airport, and the familiar giant inflated Trump baby blimp soaring above the city. London Mayor Sadiq Khan claimed Trump was, "one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat," and compared his language to "fascists of the twentieth century." Trump retorted in a tweet saying Khan was "a stone cold loser." The mayor is not attending the state banquet hosted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Here's hoping the menu will include a well-done steak and plenty of ketchup.

What Is A Jeopardy! Champ?

Fans of the quiz show Jeopardy! already know that there's something special happening on the venerable old program. A thirty-five year old professional sports gambler from Las Vegas is shattering records during a twenty-two game streak that has earned him almost $1.7 million. The contestant, James Holzhauer, is on track to surpass the earnings of previous Jeopardy! phenom, Ken Jennings, who earned $2.5 million in seventy-four consecutive games in 2004. As a devotee of the show, he's the best I've ever seen and I've been watching since college. That's pre-Trebek for those with sentimental attachments to Art Fleming. What makes Holzhauer stand out from anybody else on a hot streak is his bold style. First of all, I never heard anyone even admit to being a professional sports gambler except that guy Robert De Niro played in Casino, and it ended badly for him. Holzhauer plays Jeopardy! like a poker player. "My approach isn't complicated," he explained, "Get some money, hit the Daily Doubles, bet big, and hope I run hot." So if he calmly bets $38 thousand on a single trivia question, Holzhauer says, "It's only money." Seemingly fearless, Holzhauer goes for the highest value questions first and pushes imaginary poker chips with an "all in" gesture every chance he gets. He's been correct 97% of the time. His aggressive betting on the show's "Final Jeopardy!" question has served him well. He's answered twenty-one out of twenty-two questions. I'm telling you, this guy is the Tiger Woods of Jeopardy!

Doing my due diligent googling, I landed on a site called "The Jeopardy! Fan," which had lots of stats. Consider this: Holzhauer won $131,127 in one game, beating the previous record of $77 thousand. Out of the top ten highest earning games in Jeopardy!'s thirty-five years in its current iteration, Holzhauer holds all ten. On April 17, all forty-one questions he buzzed in on were answered correctly. In Jeopardy! parlance, that's a perfect game, or like I like to call it, pitching a Sandy Koufax. After admitting to growing up watching Jeopardy! and promising his grandmother that he would be a contestant one day, Holzhauer said he likes to go to the children's section of the library to prepare. Children's books are "Chock-full of infographics, pictures and all kind of stuff to keep the reader engaged." He has already donated a portion of his winnings to the Las Vegas Library District along with the Ronald McDonald House and the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. Holzhauer's streak has improved Jeopardy!'s ratings by ten percent with over ten million viewers per day, making it the third highest viewed syndicated television program, just behind Judge Judy and Wheel of Fortune.

If I seem enthusiastic about Jeopardy!, it's because it's a family thing. When the old homestead still stood, instead of the McMansion that now stands, I would   drop in on my parents to watch the show. My father was the best player among us by far. Currently, every weekday at 3:55, my ninety-seven year old mother can expect a call from me about Final Jeopardy! The thing that separates me from my smart family members is that I was once chosen to be a contestant. In 2003, the Jeopardy! bus came to Memphis and their representatives set up shop in Peabody Place. Initially, you were given a ten question quiz on a variety of subjects and out of a thousand people, about fifty scored high enough to be invited back for a fifty-question quiz. Out of that group, the high scorers returned to play a mock game, buzzer and all. Although I felt anxious and nauseous going in, a surprising calm came over me when it came to playing the  game. When I exited waving that golden ticket to my wife, I was euphoric. I was assured by a Jeopardy! producer that they would be calling me with a date for my appearance. Thanks to my Kudzu's pub-quiz team-member and former Jeopardy! champ, Ilene Markell, I was given reams of material to study and strengthen my weaknesses, like Shakespeare, science, math, pop culture, mythology, European history, anagrams, national parks, the Revolutionary War, British monarchs, and those darned before and after questions, among others. I was going to meet Alex Trebek. Then something happened.

On July 22, what the National Weather Service called the "Mid-South Derecho of 2003," but locals called Hurricane Elvis, roared through Memphis with straight-line winds surpassing one hundred miles per hour, flattening trees and power lines and leaving over three-hundred thousand LG&W customers in the dark. We tried to tough it out, but after a week of extreme heat and the constant ear-piercing din of a neighbor's faulty generator, we packed up the dogs and moved to an animal friendly motel on Sycamore View Drive. What we thought would be a short inconvenience turned into fifteen days. We were among the last households to have power restored. If Jeopardy! had called, they would have heard that "temporarily out-of-service" message. When the call never came, I could only surmise that they phoned during the aftermath of Hurricane Elvis while we were living it up at the Day's Inn. I called the Jeopardy! office to explain but was told I had to retake the test. I said that I still knew the same stuff that I did during the audition but was instructed to either come to Los Angeles to try out or take the online test. I've been a miserable failure at the online tests. I never learned to type, which is a necessary component. For all the traumatic testing, the elation of securing an invitation, and the deflating, deafening sound of the phone not ringing, all I got was a lousy key-chain. I treasure it, though. The number of contestants that have been mowed down by James Holzhauer has softened the blow. I could have been like that character in "Cheers" who blows Final Jeopardy! and has to live with the shame. As for Holzhauer's streak, we'll have to wait until May 20th, after the teacher's tournament, to see if the professional gambler can surpass Ken Jennings as the greatest Jeopardy! champion ever. I'll take odds that he does it.

 

A Bevy of Dems

Somehow, President Hickenlooper just doesn't sound right. But then neither does President Trump. But the former Colorado Governor is one of nearly two dozen candidates running for the Democratic nomination for President in 2020. And despite having the number one economy in the nation, Hickenlooper has no real chance of winning. So why do they do it? Is it to embellish their profiles or just to raise money? And what happens to that money when they invariably drop out? Money talks and bullshit walks  these days, so the most cash talks the most trash. Already, records are being broken for fundraising and the campaign hasn't officially started yet. There are so many aspiring Democrats that you can't tell the players without a program, so in no particular order, here are the top contenders for the opportunity to crush and humiliate the cruelest president in American history.

Joe Biden: Leave it to the Democrats to kneecap the front-runner before the race begins. Biden's latest controversy comes from former Nevada state assemblywoman Lucy Flores, who has accused the seventy-six year old pol of smelling her hair and giving her a "big slow kiss" on the top of her head. Ever seen Biden swearing in new members of congress with their families? Joe hugs and kisses everyone. He's just a hands-on guy. Some find it endearing, but now that it seems as if the #metoo movement has crossed some sort of line, Joe has promised to stop giving neck massages and sniffing hair. Biden comes with enough baggage to fill a cargo plane; failed runs for president, plagiarism accusations, the Anita Hill circus, the Iraq war vote. In his favor, Biden said of Trump, "I wish we were in high school. I could take him behind the gym. That's what I wish." If that event were put on pay-per-view television, we could clear up the national debt. And to his credit, when Biden was Obama's Veep, it was a big fucking deal.

Bernie Sanders: I thought I was "feeling the Bern," but it turned out to be just a urinary tract infection. Bernie's no longer a novelty so it will be a lot tougher for him to gain traction this go-round, despite raising $18 million and counting. Ever notice how he throws up a lot of "air quotes" when speaking? I can't watch him anymore without thinking he's doing a poor impression of Larry David doing an impression of Bernie. Now that Bernie's ideas have reached the mainstream, who needs a Brooklyn born, seventy-seven year old Jewish Socialist from Vermont? Sit down Gramps, you're making me nervous and I'm holding a baseball bat.

Beto O'Rourke: Does he charge for those table dances or does he do them for free? The former Texas congressman is this year's golden boy, but just coming close to defeating Ted Cruz, the most loathed Senator in Congress, is not enough for a run at the presidency. He's loved by millennials for being in a punk rock band called Foss, which is the Icelandic word for "waterfall." As a teen, O'Rourke was in a computer hacking group known as the Cult of the Dead Cow, named after an abandoned Lubbock slaughterhouse, where his nom de plume was the "Psychedelic Warlord." Willie Nelson opened for him at a rally outside of Austin where Beto strapped on a guitar and joined the band in a version of, "Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die." He's been compared to Robert Kennedy, but when you're still skateboarding at 46, you're no RFK, sir.

Pete Buttigieg: "Mayor Pete" of South Bend, Indiana has become a phenom because he's intelligent and informed, qualities that used to work in your favor. Buttigieg, pronounced  "Boot-edge-edge," is a tough name to put on a bumper sticker, but he could use the slogan, "Go out on a ledge with Buttigieg." Mayor Pete speaks seven languages other than English and although he is the first openly gay candidate, he would not be the first gay president. That honor goes to James Buchanan, the "lifelong bachelor" who was often considered the worst president in history until the orange putz emerged. At least he won't be grabbing anyone by the pussy.

Elizabeth Warren: The Massachusetts Senator already has her nickname from the evil one, "Pocahontas," for bungling her old family yarns about her alleged Cherokee Indian heritage. But since orangeface speak with forked tongue, she can get over it. Warren is the favorite for taking it to Trump, but the galloping palomino of history might have passed her by in 2016. Still a formidable foe who has suggested breaking up "Big Tech," which is fine by me. We could use a trust-buster like Teddy Roosevelt, someone who Trump thinks is a Democrat.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Appointed by the New York governor to fill Hillary's senate seat, Gillibrand has morphed from a "Blue Dog" Democrat with a 100% rating from the National Rifle Association into a "Yellow Dog" Democrat who's tilted mightily to the left. Known as the main cheerleader for drumming Al Franken out of Congress before it became known that it was a Republican hit job, Gillibrand voted to repeal D.C. laws banning semi-automatic weapons. That translates into no shot for the presidency.

Cory Booker: Rhodes Scholar, former jock at Stanford, vegetarian, and former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Booker would be our first bald president since Eisenhower, if you don't count whatever that mess is on Trump's head. Passionate even when not needed, Booker lived in a low-income housing project called Brick Towers as mayor, so at least he wouldn't think the White House was a dump. Booker also saved his next-door neighbor from a burning building, making him the first potential Marvel Superhero candidate.

Kamala Harris: A former California prosecutor who made Brett Kavanaugh squirm, Harris would be the perfect candidate to try Trump for his high crimes and misdemeanors. While 27th District Attorney for San Francisco, Harris famously dated the then married mayor Willie Brown. Savvy and politically astute, Harris supports Medicare for all and legalization of marijuana. What's not to like?

Julian Castro: Former San Antonio mayor and first Latino candidate, but President Castro? I don't think so. Too soon. At least he would have a built-in body double. 

Not enough space to get to Amy Klobuchar (mean to her staff), Tulsi Gabbard (first Hindu member of Congress who could call upon the elephant god Ganesh, remover of obstacles), Eric Swalwell (appeared with a frosted buzz-cut in his high school yearbook and annoying presence on cable TV), or Andrew Yang (do we need another businessman?), there are just too many also-rans when the only objective is to boot Mr. Nasty out of office. The word "orange" has no rhyme, but that's the color he'll be wearing when he's doing time. My pick for the Democratic ticket: Warren/Harris. Make America Maternal Again, (MAMA).

Dethroning the King of Pop

So what am I supposed to do with my Michael Jackson albums now? In twenty years they'll be collectors items but presently, I'm unable to listen to them in the same way as before the HBO documentary, "Leaving Neverland," aired. How can you compartmentalize the artists work from the artist? For Jackson fans, the documentary was devastating evidence that Jackson preyed on boys as young as seven and seduced their families as well. Two victims of Jackson's alleged abuse, now grown men, have come forward to testify, in graphic detail, about the abuse they suffered at the hands of the "King of Pop." Jackson himself admitted in a previous documentary that he shared his bed with young boys in a non-sexual, innocent manner. In the film, Michael claimed that it was all milk and cookies and video games and that he felt most comfortable in the company of children for their innocence, and to reclaim the childhood that he never had. We always knew that he was weird, but his explanation seemed plausible to Jackson's fans who wanted to believe it, including me.

I'll admit to being an unabashed fan of MJ from the time he first appeared as the child prodigy lead singer of the Jackson 5 until his death. The first CD I ever bought was "Off The Wall." I delighted in his first solo effort as a mature artist and even attended the Jackson 5's "Triumph" tour at the Mid-South Coliseum in 1981. When Jackson died in 2009, I wrote for this publication, "I truly believe that Jackson was an emotional man-child attempting to surround himself with the only group of people he felt he could completely trust: children. Even his trust in children was betrayed when the boy he tried to help with medical expenses and emotional support filed criminal molestation charges against him. After the young man and his mother were proven to be grifters and Jackson was acquitted of all charges, Michael was forever burdened with suspicions of pedophilia." Boy, was I ever wrong. Maybe the twenty-four million dollar settlement to the family should have been a clue. But I chose to believe his earnest denials of impropriety because I thought Michael was a unique person in this world whose sole purpose was to bring joy to his fans. He sure fooled me.  As a result of the heartbreaking HBO documentary, I'll never listen to "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough," or "Smooth Criminal," without thinking of his aberrant sleepovers.

"Leaving Neverland" came on the heels of the six-part Lifetime series, "Surviving R. Kelly," in which underage girls as young as fourteen told harrowing stories of being abused and held captive by the fifty-two year old superstar. In 2008, Kelly was acquitted of fourteen counts of child pornography in a Chicago courtroom, but rumors continued to swirl about his penchant for mistreating young girls and creating a "sex cult." His marriage to his fifteen year-old protege, Aaliyah, in 1994 sealed the deal on his alleged pedophilia. The Kelly produced, Aaliyah debut album "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number," should have been an in-your-face confession. Kelly forbid questions about Aaliyah in his recent bizarre interview with Gayle King in which he dissolved into a frightful hysterical denial of everything negative ever said about him. Does this mean I can't enjoy "I Believe I Can Fly" anymore? If that's the case, there are scores of other popular songs in question.

When Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen year-old cousin it nearly ruined his career, but here at home, it was just thought of as a "Southern thing." Chuck Berry was sent to prison for violating the Mann Act for transporting an underage girl across state lines for "immoral purposes." But then Charlie Chaplin and Frank Lloyd Wright, among others, were convicted of the same offense. Even Elvis was known for his unusual proclivity of watching teenage girls wrestle in their underwear. His future wife, Priscilla, was fourteen when Elvis met her, yet he somehow persuaded her parents to allow their daughter to move into Graceland at the age of seventeen. Little Richard led a life of such debauchery it caused him to quit rock and roll and become a minister. Bing Crosby beat his children, but his Christmas album is still a best seller.

The list goes on. Rick James was accused of torturing two women. David Bowie was famous for his dalliances with underage groupies. Rod Stewart has eight children with five different women. Rolling Stones' bassist Bill Wyman had sex with a fourteen year old girl whom he later married when she was eighteen and he was fifty-two. Producer Phil Spector is currently in prison for murdering a female acquaintance, yet the Righteous Brothers are still in radio rotation. John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas had frequent sex with his own daughter, but you can't turn on an oldies station without hearing "Monday Monday," or "California Dreaming." Seventies "glam rocker," Gary Glitter, was arrested for sexual congress with a thirteen year-old and was considered so degenerate he was kicked out of Vietnam, yet in nearly every sports arena you can still hear his song "Rock and Roll Part 2," with the signature "Hey" crowd response. If the toxic music "industry," known for "sex, drugs, and rock and roll, was purged of songs by sexual deviants, there'd be nothing left to listen to but Donnie and Marie Osmond, and I'm not so sure about them. Michael Jackson's songs are currently being eliminated from playlists all over the country, but as distasteful as it may now sound, people will still be grooving to "Bad" in the not-too-distant future.

The Best People

Let's forget about the Giant Orange Menace for a moment, if that's at all possible, and check out how "The Best People" are doing. You remember, Donnie promised to staff his cabinet with only the best. Space doesn't permit an examination of all the abominations that have traversed this fetid swamp of greed and incompetence, so we'll have to narrow our commentary to a select few. That means there will be no remarks about "The Mooch," Kellyanne, or the official administration liar, Sarah, "The Grouch" Huckabee. If every scoundrel were examined, I'd miss my deadline by a week. So let's just stick with the Cabinet, starting with:

Agriculture: Former Veterinarian, George "Sonny" Perdue was a Democrat until 1998 before switching parties and becoming the first Republican Governor of Georgia since Reconstruction. Before his tenure ended, Perdue wracked up thirteen complaints filed with the State Ethics Commission, including accepting twenty-five thousand dollars worth of gifts, like tickets to NASCAR. In 2004, Perdue sued the Environmental Protection Agency saying, "Liberals have lost all credibility when it comes to climate science because their arguments have become.. so obviously disconnected from reality."  In November 2007, while Georgia was suffering through the worst drought in decades, Perdue led a large crowd in prayer on the steps of the state Capitol saying, "We've come here for one reason and one reason only, to very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm." It didn't work. After severely cutting funds for Food and Safety Regulations, Georgia suffered one of the century's deadliest outbreaks of food-borne illness. Perdue is now in charge of the nation's food safety.

Commerce: After being tapped as Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross maintained partial ownership in Chinese state-owned businesses, a shipping company tied to Russian oligarchs, a bank in Cypress, and an auto parts industry. Ross was accused of swindling his business associates out of one-hundred twenty million dollars. Before divesting his holdings to a family trust, Ross shorted stock in the Russian-linked shipping company, Navigator Holdings, making a small fortune before the price of shares plummeted. He was fined 2.3 million dollars by the Security and Exchange Commission.

Education: Perhaps the most despised member of the Trump Cabinet, Betsy DeVoss used her billion dollar fortune from the AmWay pyramid scheme company to advocate for directing taxpayer funds to private, religious, and charter schools. A major GOP fundraiser, DeVoss called for the deregulation and privatization of the American education system. With zero experience as an educator or administrator, DeVoss home-schooled her own children. She rolled back Obama-era policies on campus sexual assault and fought to end a school loan borrower protection program that made it easier for defrauded students to get their loans forgiven.  After a failed attempt to kill an inquiry into for-profit colleges, DeVoss named a dean from DeVry University to lead a group of investigators. In a comical Congressional hearing, DeVoss called for arming school personnel because Wyoming schools might need guns to defend against grizzly bears. DeVoss is the only cabinet official to receive twenty-four hour protection from the U.S. Marshals Service after being heckled in front of a public school. The sister of Erik Prince, soon to be convicted felon and founder of the infamous Blackwater mercenary security group, DeVoss registered her personal yacht as a foreign vessel to avoid state taxes. 

Energy: Former Texas Governor Rick Perry once called for the abolishment of the agency he now runs. Mixing a deadly blend of ignorance and incompetence, Perry did not know his department was responsible for overseeing the country's nuclear arsenal. In an ironic twist, Perry served as one of Trump's main emissaries to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to get the Kingdom to partner with the U.S. on nuclear power.

Health and Human Services: After Trump's initial appointee, Tom Price, was bounced from his position for insider trading, like purchasing shares in companies manufacturing replacement knees and hips and then introducing bills to affect the cost of such surgeries, and his extravagant use of private and military jets to visit his own properties, Trump tapped Alex Azar as his replacement. As U.S. Division President of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, Azar increased the cost of a crucial diabetes drug by three-hundred percent, doubled the price of insulin, and was fined for colluding to keep prices high in Mexico. Oh yeah, he also worked on the first two years of the calamitous Clinton Whitewater Investigation under Kenneth Starr.

Homeland Security: Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is the face of migrant family separation. After tweeting, "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period," Nielsen said, "We will not apologize for the job we do," like putting kids in cages. According to The New York Times, nearly twelve-thousand immigrant children spent last Thanksgiving in federal custody.

HUD: Hapless presidential candidate Ben Carson was most likely put in charge of Housing and Urban Development because it had the word "urban" in the title. Knowing nothing about housing policy or HUD's work, Carson is mainly known for the redecoration of his office, including the purchase of a thirty-one thousand dollar dining room set which he blamed on his wife. Citing a "secular progressive movement in this country," Carson halted an investigation into housing discrimination practices. Dr. Ben stated that, "poverty, to a large extent, is also a state of mind," and that slaves should be seen as "involuntary immigrants." Carson tried to impose work requirements on recipients of housing assistance. After Trump's egregious comments about the neo-klan rally in Charlottesville, Carson claimed the mayhem and murder were, "little squabbles being blown out of proportion." Since all the corruption can't be covered in one page, let's just skip to:

Treasury: As Chief Information Officer for Goldman Sachs, Steve Mnuchin advocated for the reduction of corporate tax rates, making him a perfect fit for Trump's Cabinet of thieves. Despite the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Mnuchin traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) just two weeks after Secretary of State and far-right Christian zealot Mike Pompeo held a similar meeting. Mnuchin said they discussed "combating the financing of terrorism." Best known for requesting a government jet for his European honeymoon with sometime actress and nude model, Louise Linton, the Mnuchins were photographed exiting a government jet in Kentucky, which Mrs. Mnuchin then posted on Instagram, tagging a series of luxury clothing designers. The trip was ostensibly to meet with amphibian Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but just happened to coincide with a primo viewing of the solar eclipse. The couple then traveled to Fort Knox and were photographed holding sheets of uncut bills featuring the new Treasury Secretary's signature. In his official capacity, Mnuchin liften sanctions on companies linked to Vladimir Putin.

And here we haven't even had the chance to discuss the arrogant and inept Acting Attorney General Mathew Whitaker, Hope Hicks, John Bolton, Scott Pruitt or Crypt Keeper wannabe Rudy Giuliani. We've yet to touch on the soon to be incarcerated Michael Cohen, Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Don, Jr., Jared, Ivanka, or Nixon fanboy Roger Stone. When the multiple investigations are finally completed, I'm confidant that they'll be "the best people" that prison can hold.

 

The Worst Words

A year has passed without me complaining about the phrases and words I hear on a regular basis that cause me to go "off the rails." I know it may seem like a "nothing burger" to you, but I am mystified by how "that moment when" one person said something clever, and it metastasized into slipshod nationwide verbal swill. There are plenty of "bad actors," so let's "play the blame game." There are some repeat offenders that "rolled over" from last year but, "believe me," there are plenty of fresh ones that would "literally" gag a buzzard off a shit wagon. "Does that make sense?" 

The award for the major annoyance for the second consecutive year is the word,
So. So, when did this affectation take hold? Ask someone a question, and if they're pundits, reporters, or teens in the mall, they all seem to have the need to preface every sentence with "So." For example, "How'd you get that scar on your face?" "So, I was at home trying to train the cat to leap through a ring of fire and she went for my eyes." If you haven't noticed yet, now you will.

Another aggravation making the list again is the verbal habit of,
Dropping the "T" in the middle of a word. This may not sound impor'ant to you, but it's cur'ains for the lingua franca. I mean, are we speaking La'in now? I first thought this was just a cultural thing, especially among the British, and it is. This irritant is called a Glottal Stop and it's been studied in England since the 1800s. I'm not sure how it reached our shores, but it spread through every strata of society like a norovirus on a cruise ship. Maybe it was Vladimir Pu'in.

The Adult in the Room.  All the grownups have left the building so Donnie can has cheezburger. "All alone" is the pathetic whimper of an insecure man. But don't worry. Soon there will be all the "executive time" one inmate can stand.

Moving the Goalposts. I saw this once when Tennessee beat Alabama "back in the day," but they tore that one down. The only other time I've actually seen the goalpost move is when a field goal kicker doinks one off the crossbar like the Chicago Bears did last week. That was "literally" a "game-changer."

Woke. This is what happens when oblivious lawn servicemen crank up those goddamn leaf blowers at 7:00 on a Saturday morning. Sweet Jesus, didn't this city used to have some sort of noise ordinance? It feels like I'm trying to sleep on the deck of an aircraft carrier. By this time, everybody's woke.

Yeah, No. This expression is the common-law spouse of "Sorry, Not Sorry." Which is it? Have some gumption and pick a side. "Just sayin.'"

LOL. This was cute back in the chat rooms of America Online, but now that there are a variety of smiley-face emojis, this acronym has become archaic. However, people are saying this in public now. Don't say "LOL," just go ahead and laugh. This includes ROFL, LMAO, LMFAO, and SMH LMAO. Of course, all this is IMHO.

Drill Down. Cable TV hosts use this expression when they're fixing to get to the bottom of something. We'll be hearing a lot more of this phrase in the coming year, but out of professional courtesy, it should be reserved for dentists.

References to Game of Thrones. Would you believe that there are people who aren't into Fantasy/Science Fiction and thus, don't know what the hell you're talking about? I've never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones and I don't like dragons. I am also uninterested in Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and all the Marvel Superheroes Movies. Does this make me a bad person? I can quote large swaths of dialogue from The Godfather, but I don't just throw it out there casually. And I've frisked a thousand young punks.

MAGA. Fuck you and your Chinese hat.

No Collusion. "No puppet, no puppet... You're the puppet."

Guardrails. See "The Adult in the Room" above.

Thoughts and Prayers. I know you mean well, but instead of praying you might consider actually doing something. And they're always "going out" there somewhere. Shouldn't they be going in? Just for variety's sake, after the next mass murder, change it to prayers and thoughts. This illuminates your priorities.

And finally, Fake News. It's curious how the supposed "fake news" keeps turning out to be true. It's strange that "Individual-1" will only grant interviews to Fox News personalities. Judge Jeanine Pirro will never cross-examine him. He likes "Fox and Friends" because there's always a young blonde co-host sitting on the couch in a short dress with her legs crossed. All the time. "This Rusher thing, with Trump and Russia," gets truer every day. All this bombast and middle-school taunting was merely a diversion to distract from the very real news that the President of the United States was under investigation for being a Russian asset. We are living through a nightmare "the likes of which the world has never seen." But "chillax." Special Council Mueller is about to "take it to the next level," literally.