Lost In Translation

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Hello. Today, a letter to the Mainstream Media:

Dear Mainstream Media: You aren’t normalizing Donald Trump enough.

You are trying, but not trying as hard as you can. I’m here to offer you a guide to how to become better apologists for the man by more effectively helping to translate his rancid, disjointed babbling into language that might have been made by a fully functioning brain, operating in a normal political arena — as opposed to an incoherent lunatic in a fight to the finish for the lifeblood of America.

I know your fear is that if you do not show a degree of what you think is “balance,” your coverage will look like some sort of newspaper reenactment of the float in the photo above, which was taken at Carnival.

An thus you do things like what you did last week. It will take some sober contextual explanation (which is, incidentally, something you do not do enough of).

As you may have seen and / or heard: At a speech before the Economic Club of New York, Donald was asked about whether he would “commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable. And if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?”

He said, and I quote:

“Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down, I was somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It's a very important issue, but I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about that because look, childcare is childcare. There's something, you have to have it in this country, you have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I'm talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they're not used to, but they'll get used to it very quickly, and it's not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they'll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we're talking about, including childcare, that it's going to take care. . .”

Nice. That is not a statement of policy, or intent. Those are the burblings of a very disorganized and disoriented brain.

But you guys in the mainstream media managed to sort of make sense of it! You filled in the cavernous, gaping lacunae in his damaged brain for him! Even if you dutifully noted that the speech was a rambling, chaotic mess (not all of you did) all of you helpfully translated what you thought he might have conceivably possibly theoretically meant. (I understand. I was once one of you. You are insidiously invested in the status quo, whether you realize it or not. It’s important to you to pretend these are at least semi-normal times featuring at least a semi-normal candidate.)

The Associate Press, for example, listened to Trump’s ludicrous logorrhea and decided that he “suggests tariffs can help solve rising child care costs in a major economic speech.”

Politico: “{Trump] laid out a sweeping economic vision of lower taxes, higher tariffs, and light-touch regulation in a speech to top Wall Street execs.”

Three times, The Washington Post used the verb “suggested” rather than “said,” to better parse what sort of meat might have been hidden in Trump’s word salad.

My main point is that your whitewashing of him isn’t as effective as it can be. I’d like to give you some tips.

Remember when Trump said this, displaying an astonishing ignorance of even fifth-grade science: “Now all I know about magnets is this: Give me a glass of water, drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.”

You failed there, Mainstream Media: You should have stated that “Mr Trump was apparently creating an adroit metaphor to explain how things that have a certain attraction — such as magnets and Medicare for all — tend to shrivel and die when subjected to the bracing, no-nonsense, cold-water bath of conservative reasoning…”

See? It’s not that hard. Or try this one:

Remember when Trump described the Battle of Gettysburg — a savage affair that claimed the lives of 50,000 men —as having been “so beautiful in so many different ways”? You guys just …. reported it. What you should have written is this:

“Mr. Trump seems to have been paraphrasing Wallace Stevens’s poem “Sunday Morning” that reads, “Death is the mother of beauty,” or perhaps Edvard Munch’s line: “From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity," or very possibly the French mystic philosopher Simone Weil’s aching observation: “The destruction of Troy. The fall of the petals from fruit trees in blossom. To know that what is most precious is not rooted in existence – that is beautiful.” The former president did not specify which of these muses he summoned, or whether it might have been an amalgam of all of them.

And finally, he said:

“I think the abortion issue has been very much tempered down, and I’ve answered I think very well in the debate, and it seems to be much less of an issue, especially for those where they have the exceptions. As you know, and I think it’s when I look for 52 years, they wanted to bring abortion back to the states. They wanted to get rid of Roe v. Wade and that’s Democrats, Republicans and Independents and everybody. Liberals, conservatives, everybody wanted it back in the states. ”

You should have cleansed his bald faced lie thus: “Mr. Trump appeared to be stating a simple truth, through the vernacular. By ‘back in the states,’ he was apparently invoking ‘the states’ as ‘The United States,’ as patriotically used by such people as Will Rogers when they gratefully return home from a trip abroad, and said they were glad to be ‘back in the states,’ a place in which most Americans would prefer to see abortion remain legal.”

“Also, when Mr. Trump said Democrats favor abortion by execution ‘after birth’ he appears to be making a plea for the death penalty, which is in fact applied to babies (long) after birth, and which most Americans — including many Democrats — do, indeed support.”

So get on the stick, Mainstream Media. I suggest that you strut a new, white-washier policy during or after tonight’s debate. I’ll be watching.

What you don’t want to do, clearly, is participate in a blatantly unfair campaign against Donald Trump — because it might seem like you are less than completely middle-of-the-road, on-the-other-hand, completely unbiased, without opinions, in this critical election between a reasonable, intelligent person and an awful, ignorant person.

By no means ever resort to this sort of thing — this disgusting, unsupportable, egregious, absolutely wonderful greeting card we recently saw and bought. It is intended to be sent to friends and relatives undergoing chemotherapy:

available here

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Good, then.

Please note that in the ladies’ room of a D.C. ethnic restaurant a member of my household recently encountered the following sign:

“Please do not throw paper towels, sanitary products, baby wipes, or thrash in the toilet.”

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Now, for today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll.

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We now enter the real-time question-and-observation section of the Gene Pool, in which you ask questions and observations, and I will try to address it in real time. Many of today’s offerings, so far, are in response to the Weekend Gene Pool, in which I asked for examples of the most compelling / eccentric person you’ve ever known. Check out the Weekend Pool for my short tale of the wildly interesting Herman Gold.

I also called for questions that might be asked tonight of Harris, Trump, or both. My favorite response was this one, from Art Spitzer:

“Mr. Trump, you've observed that Vice President Harris used to be Asian-American and only recently became Black. My question for you, sir, is, you used to be white; when did you become Orange?

Please send your real-time questions and observations here:

I will respond to those. If you are a paid subscriber and just want to tussle with other paid subscribers, which is perfectly fine, send your stuff here to The Comments Corral:

And finally, we survive on your paid subscriptions. If you like this stuff, and can afford $5 a month, or $50 a year, please consider upgrading your subscription to “paid.” It will not only be received with gratitude, but will allow you to comment and enter the Thursday Invitational. And I will become your employee.

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Here we go.

Q: My most compelling / eccentric person: 

Kathy Change occupied a spot on UPenn’s campus right near the library. Having been there for years, every student knew of her, even if very few spoke to her. She was passionate about her causes, advocating social equality and marijuana legalization. She would dance for at least an hour every morning, advertising her vision of the world, surrounded by posters requesting readers write in her name for any elected office. When she finished dancing she would sing and play various instruments. Her performances lasted hours every day.

I grew up in New York and was taught to walk past such people. Kathy never seemed to care one way or another. She was undeterred by the hundreds of students like me, walking by and ignoring her. Every day, rain or shine, she’d stubbornly be out dancing, performing and advocating. I suspect her placid demeanor and complete lack of confrontation was why she was allowed to stay on campus for so long. Reportedly, when engaged, she was friendly but serious about how the state of the country could be reborn in peace and equality, somehow. 

On morning Kathy decided she couldn’t be ignored anymore. She walked to her spot next to the library, doused herself in gasoline and lit herself on fire.

A: Whoa.

Let me repeat that: Whoa.

First, you told this brilliantly. Second, you wrote in anonymously and I didn’t believe you — thought I was surprised you would a name and a place to a made-up story. But you were not making anything up.

Her birth name was Chang, but she changed it, legally, to “Change,” which was kind of brilliant, too. She danced herself to death as she burned.

Interestingly, Molly went to Penn just a couple of years after Change’s death, and had never heard the tale until I told her yesterday. It is as though Kathy Change had just … disappeared.

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Q:  For Trump: Liz Cheney sacrificed her career to protect our republic, President Biden took a similar action. When have you acted selflessly for the benefit of others (not family)?

A: Interesting question.  The problem is, there are glib knee-jerk answers he could give, and they might not be that enlightening.  Example: “I gave up a financial empire a comfortable life to run for a high anxiety job that paid almost nothing in comparison.  I did it for you, all of you.” His syntax wouldn’t be that good, but that would be the gist.

And then where are you?

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TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE IN THE EMAIL AND IT WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE FULL COLUMN ONLINE. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

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Q: Eccentric person:  I grew up with a kid named Ira.  When he was about 11 or 12, Ira would not eat any food that looked like something disgusting, and I know that sounds semi-normal for a kid, but not with Ira.  He would hunt for a way certain foods MIGHT look disgusting before turning his nose up at them.  You could see him concentrate for an excuse before uttering his reason, usually but not always related to body parts:  Cooked macaroni looked like segments of an artery.  Olives looked like eyeballs.  Calamari? Anuses.  Cottage cheese? vomit.   Chili? intestines from road kill.  Gummi bears taste like human gums.  His parents hated this, but how can you make a kid eat something that revolts him?  He subsisted on ketchup and fries for the longest time.  

A: He’s probably a sous chef in a fancy restaurant.  This kid was playing his parents.

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Q: 

There are multiple candidates for eccentric, compelling, and funny…and not coincidentally, they are all family members. 

My Mom had 27 cats all through my formative years (which likely explains the edgy cat references in many of my early songs). She was like the Pentagon with their Vietnam body counts; you’d have to probe deeply to discover she actually had closer to 40 cats because she never counted the kittens. 

Uncle Danny lived in an unfinished and unheated house on 46 acres on the Chesapeake Bay, and lived with all the modern conveniences of someone in the 1800s.  He quit his job, abandoned his car, disconnected the phone lines and began living alone in the woods–with all the modern conveniences of anyone in 1865. He mostly tended his garden and his fruit trees and got around by foot and bicycle, retreating not just from the daily grind and rat race, but also from most of the trappings and conveniences of modern life.

And of course the person who really fit the bill was Cousin Sheldon, who almost single-handedly was responsible for my 50 year career as a songwriter and author. Sheldon was the urban version of Danny and they both would often ask me who’s home was more disorganized.

One of the last times I saw him, I came with a video camera, hoping to capture him on film. He had had a series of strokes and spoke haltingly about his life. He spoke of his own inability to bring a sense of order to his life and his inability to master the skills he needed to function in the ways society demanded. He also talked about his own work–his poems and comedy pieces–and a career that never fully materialized.

I asked him what he felt were his major achievements and he spoke about some of the satirical poems he had written. He then said he felt a lot of satisfaction in knowing he had shepherded me and my career.

Around the time I began my career, Sheldon wrote a poem called My Friend Sam, the Anarchist. I think he was really writing his own autobiography. Here is part of it:

My friend Sam the anarchist
didn’t start out that way;
started out believing
until he got a ticket for walking
the wrong way on a one-way street…
Appeared in court
wearing his “Judge not lest Ye be judged” T-shirt…

My friend Sam the anarchist
Didn’t start out that way
Started out believing until he walked
Into a bank during a hold-up;
Grabbed as a hostage
when the alarm went off;
the building was surrounded.
The perpetrators escaped
but the hostages were captured by the police.
Given five years for consorting with known criminals;
Sent to jail where he ate five pounds
of candy and broke out.

My friend Sam the anarchist
vowed no laws could hold him
Triple parked on two lane highways
Spent long afternoons in Cadillac showrooms
shoplifting.
Smuggled oranges into Florida
in his briefcase.
Busted for going through a revolving door
clockwise.

Dragged before the judge;
His T-shirt stripped off him.
Called a three time loser;
Had the book thrown at him;
He ducked.
It hit the prosecutor in the face.
Everyone came at him.
The Judge.
The Bailiff.
His own legal aide lawyer.

Headed for the wall,
Screamed, “F–k the law of gravity.”
Jumped out the courtroom window
and went up.

Killed by a passing airplane
on his way to the stars.

Justice still wears her blindfold
to hide the tears.

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Barry Louis Polisar

A:  Thanks, Barry.   Really moving.    I commend the readers to call up your blog post about your uncle Danny, and scroll down to the photos of the house you found when you came to clean it up.

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Q: I don’t believe I’ve ever known somebody as unique as Mr. Gold.  I’ve known somebody who insisted that he had physically birthed all his housecats, and was collecting their shed fur in large bags to one day knit sweaters out of it all. I knew somebody who would have mixtapes strewn about, filled with tiny snippets of songs, the parts he found interesting - like the opening riff of “Danger Zone”, and only that riff.  I knew a man who infested the work office with gnats from all the potted plants he’d brought in from his house for the winter.  He ignored all complaints, turned a blind eye to the people setting up mosquito netting so they could eat their lunch in peace, the people who had maintenance install special anti-bug light bulbs in their office ceilings.  It wasn’t until somebody (who may have been me) falsely tipped him off to a plan to poison all his plants that they went away - and overnight at that.

These were all the same man.  I also think he deserved the now politically-loaded label “weird” and not whatever might be bestowed upon Gold.  I don’t hang out with him any more.

A: Superior. The closest I can come is that I once knew a man who collected both antique vacuum cleaners and taxidermized rodents.

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Q: A co-worker kept a bottle of mouthwash on his desk -- after eating his lunch, he would take a swig, gargle, and spit the contents of his wretched mouth back into the bottle, with he would leave in plain sight.  Little bits of food, swirls of saliva, all in plain sight.  It was all his co-workers could do not to throw up upon viewing said contents.  Someone covered it with a shroud of sorts, but it helped little, as we knew what lay beneath.  It was horrible.  I'm not sure I remember how this ended, he might have transferred out of our unit, but I'll never forget -- oh I'll try, I just won't be able to do so.  Roger and Artful Dodger

A:  This seems benign and trivial, but it was one of the most revolting things I’ve ever read. Thank you.

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Q: I'm disappointed that 60% of your readers, as of this moment, chose the President Wilson blurb.  That one got nothing more than a grin from me.  The second one, joyful laughter.  I'm still snickering.

A: This is in response to my poll on the weekend.   Here were the choices: 

Which typo funnier? 

1. “President Wilson spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.” (should have been “entertaining”.)

2. Or This. 

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This is Gene. I just wish to interrupt the Ebb and Flow of the GP to comment on the still-very-early results of the Gene Poll.

Who the HELL puts ketchup on a hot dog?

That’s all.

Oh, wait.

My answer is sauerkraut, the only choice which, at this point, still has no takers.

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Q: Recently, I went to Back to School Night for my son.  One of the teachers mentioned that it was her job to teach kids about online safety, and not sharing too much.  She went on to say we parents shouldn’t bother looking her up, she has all her social media locked down.  “That’s an odd thing to say,” I thought.  But before she finished talking I had whipped out my phone, and figured it out.  “Ah, she must not want us to know about her DUI arrest a decade back.”

I’m keeping it to myself, aside from this anonymous share.  I don’t see how I could even warn her about what information is available without making the rest of the school year insufferably awkward.  I will not hold it against her.  I’m sure her employer already knows, and besides, she’s not going to be transporting any students in any way.  It does strike me as a very potent warning about being confident of what people can and can’t find out about you on the internet; also about making indirect dares when you have a relatively unique name.  If she’s hiding other stuff, frankly as long as it doesn’t affect her job performance I don’t give a damn.

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Q: Thank you, and agreed all around. Discretion, and non-damn-giving.

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Q: Regarding the short story you wrote about: "They would then have others in their group to sell or rent furniture to the men, to be paid off on an installment plan, assuming, correctly, that the men would forget when the debt was paid off, and keep paying, and paying, and paying.  It worked.—"

This sounds like the old phone company scams of having to lease your phone. There was a case a number of years ago (10 maybe) where an elderly woman had been leasing the same phone for something like 30 or 40 years, long after the time you could buy your own.

Tom Logan - Sterling, VA

A: I remember paying a phone rental fee — it was something like $2 a month — for way longer than it was required. I would have qualified for the The Coterie of Absent-Minded Men.

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Q: If it makes you feel better, my wife is a sauerkraut on hot dogs person. Must be a NY/NJ thing. Robert

A: It might be a German / Jew thing. Is your Rib either, or both?

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Q: In my circle are many Trump detesters and Trump enthusiasts, generally all Baby Boomers. The ones who believe that Mahammed Ali was the consummate patriot of the Vietnam era were appalled by Trump at Arlington. Whereas the ones who believe John McCain was the patriotic poster child of that period are still fine with Trump. Interesting to me.

A: Why surprising or interesting?  It sounds like an expected left-right split, no?

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Q: Re the unfortunate Sesame Street caption:  In my younger days, I danced in a lot of theatrical productions.  I was in rehearsals for a production of Hello Dolly!, with the title number that contains the lyric, “Find her a vacant knee, fellas,”. The choreographer was unhappy with our supposed synchronized dancing and took to yelling things like, “Foot DOWN on Find!” “Start your jump on va-,” and finally, over and over in frustration, “jump on cunt!” “Jump on cunt!”  (He was actually saying the second syllable of ‘vacant,’ but that’s what the people outside the rehearsal room heard.) We managed not to laugh and finished the rehearsal, but to this day I get the giggles whenever I hear that song. – Mandy

A: Thank you. 

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Q: My question for both candidates would be:   What do you secretly – I am asking about only “secretly” — like about your opponent?  –  Roger, Over and Out.

A:  I like it.  

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Q: When I was a student I waited tables at a moderately "nice" restaurant that had taken over the space from the neighborhood diner that had been there forever. We served fancy sandwiches on croissants and the like rather than corned beef hash and eggs, but many of the diner's customers kept on coming in anyway, with the result that our clientele was a very mixed bag. One of the regulars was an old woman the staff called "Honeydear" because of the streams of endearments she would direct at those she liked. She liked quiche but didn't know the word, so she would yell "give me a broccoli quickie sweetheart." No one knew her story, but it seemed she'd lived in some small apartment nearby for many decades. She had long since given up the struggle against her hair, which was matted into a felt-like mass which she'd cut into a semblance of hair-shape and stuffed under a kerchief. She was tall and a bit stooped over and always came in alone and wore the same clothes every day, and the entire staff, I think, harbored as I did mixed feelings of pity and disgust and and protective affection toward her. One day however something set her off and the sweet old lady let loose with a viciously racist and antisemitic diatribe. Everyone recoiled in horror, and yet after that we still smiled and served her her daily quickie, because; well, just because she was a crazy old lady who trimmed her matted hair into shape and had no doubt lived through bad stuff. 

A: You all made the right choice. Oddly, you, as a server, were in the position of power, and you exercised it wisely and kindly.

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Q: Your squirrel poem triggered a memory and inspired the following:

Topper was a cocker who loved the squirrel chase;

Every time he saw one it would turn into a race.

The squirrel would outrun him, they are a speedy lot;

But we wondered at its fate if just once it should be caught.

Then one day the critter tripped and fell upon its chin,

Topper, he just ran in place till the squirrel took off again.

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A: Lovely. 

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Q: Here, because The Gene Pool seems to like risqué music, and the median age of a subscriber is about 106:  – Sean Clinchy

A: I am saving this for last, because I am leaving you to listen to three things.  They are all by Riki Lindhome, who is “Garfunkel” in the wonderful, naughty humor duo of “Garfunkel and Oates.”  Kate Micucci is “Oates.”  

That one is great.  So is “Don’t Google Mommy” and  “The College Try” which is sung with Oates, who plays the ukulele.    The last one in particular, is Spectacular.

—Alert: These are not for the easily offended, though I doubt there are any such people here.

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Aand we are down. PLEASE keep sending in questions and observations here:

I assume most of you will be watching the Debate. If I could figure out how to live-substack it, I would, but the site doesn’t seem quite adapted to it yet, or at least I haven’t figured out how. Maybe next time.

Maybe if you pay me…?