The Big Chisel

Hello. When you have accumulated as many years as I have on Earth — it will happen in about three decades for you, and you might actually be dead at that point — you begin to Make Connections, much like Jessica Fletcher, the fictional detective character played by Angela Lansbury in “Murder, She Wrote,” a TV show which was based on an Agatha Christie character named Jane Marple. Jane-Jessica was forever making connections, such as realizing that Elspeth McGillicuddy (this is straight from a novel) was very much like, say, Gertrude Beasley, an old friend from her youth who noticed things, and never got anything wrong, and so Jane solved a strangling murder on a train by connecting the dots.

I thought about this lately when I read about New Jersey U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, accused of having taken bribes, including ingots of gold and a Mercedes Benz, which he allegedly accepted because his fiancee needed a car after she killed a man by running him over. I thought about Menendez: “He’s just like Art Cartwright!”

I once saw Menendez testify at a hearing — this was maybe 30 years ago, and I remember thinking two things: 1) That guy has serious dandruff, and 2) That guy is a total sleazeball. It was just obvious. Now if you are a responsible journalist, as I was back then before I began writing crap like this, I could not actually write that of my own accord. But I remembered it all these years.

I knew Art Cartwright when I was about 25 years old. He was a state senator in Detroit, where I worked as a reporter. He was an occasional source of mine.

Art was a total sleazeball, and stupid, and obviously on the take, and everyone knew it, but you couldn’t just write that, what with libel laws and such and responsible journalism and whatnot. But there was a local radio reporter — I would give him credit here, because he deserves it, but I cannot remember his name — who had an ingenious reporting idea.

Knowing — as we all did — that Cartwright was a chiseler and an idiot, this radio reporter asked himself a question so basic that none of the rest of us had thought of it: How would a complete idiot, with a government job, steal money? The reporter had a slap-to-the-forehead revelation! Art probably cheated on his expense accounts! So the reporter got the senator’s expense accounts from the state and discovered he was constantly taking 10 or twelve people out for lunch at nice restaurants. The bills were $120 or something.

So then the reporter went to the restaurants — basic, brilliant shoe-leather reporting - and got THEIR receipts, and discovered that Art had amended the receipts with a pen — usually in a different color, because he was, as I have established, an idiot — to change a bill for, say $12, involving two guests, to $120 involving twelve guests. Art got indicted and resigned. Then he got in a car crash that killed him, based on irresponsible conduct, but that is a whole different story.

So, with props to Agatha Christie, I hereby acknowledge the utter, idiot genius of Robert Menendez.

Urgent Gene Pool Gene Poll:

Okay, good. Now we enter the orgasmically popular question and answer section of the Gene Pool. Reminder: If you are reading this in real time, keep refreshing the page to hit new questions and answers. Each time you refresh, it is a sexual climax.

Some of the questions respond to this query, from the disreputable weekend Gene Pool: What is a personal dysfunction of yours that is embarrassing and you would not like to personally disclose except right here, anonymously?

Q: Dysfunction: The battery backup to my Fios box failed. I refuse to have it replaced because it only provides a few hours of power outage use of my land line, not my TV or Internet. I don’t even want the land line, but it is bundled for free with my service package. While under grid power, the box in the basement beeps once every fifteen minutes to tell me the backup battery is dead. The tone is audible on the first floor. So, I have to go to the basement and push “silence alarm” on the box to keep it quiet for twenty-four hours. This has been going on for years.

Q: You are (in)famous for your exacting standards on meter and rhyme in verse. Do you think that your attention to the details of meter and rhyme in writing verse has improved the quality of your prose?

A: Nothing could improve the quality of my prose. I’m 72 and my brain cells are rotting. It’s all downhill from here. Or uphill. I used to know the difference.

Q: Why do I not believe in God?

A: Why are you raising this?

Q: I am going to tell you.

1. I am inherently a skeptic, which means I believe only that which can be scientifically demonstrated. Even religious people tend to admit there is no proof of God’s existence, and the matter is one of faith. I don’t have, or believe in, faith, as it may be defined as the belief in something without proof. 

2. I cannot reconcile the concept of a loving, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being with all the trouble, evil, and injustice in the world. I reject the argument that God created us, loves us, but won’t interfere because we have free will. Children have free will, but no loving parent lets them walk under a bus if they can stop it. 

3. There are so many different gods, past and present; there are many different belief systems. At most one of them can be right. I choose to believe the simplest explanation — that none are. 

4. There are more holy writings, bibles, versions, translations, evaluations, interpretations, etc., than I can count. Which of them is supposed to be true? All of them? I think not. 

5. If there is a Grand Creator, who single-handedly created millions of universes, each of which with billions of galaxies, each of which with billions of stars, most of which with planets, how is it possible that such a being gives a flying foof whether or not I am, for example, respectful to my parents? I am one of billions of humans on one of billions of billions of billions of worlds. Give me a break. 6. Many bibles have in common the belief that God wishes us to worship him or her. Why? Again: One of billions of billions of billions…. it’s as though I sought to have each individual bacterium on the planet worship me. I give the bacteria almost no thought at all, in fact.

 7. So, in general, I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God. Period. Now as to why some OTHER people believe in God: I believe the biggest reason is fear. It is to avoid the existential terror of living in an uncaring, unfeeling, non-sentient universe in which death is final, in which bad things can happen without warning to good people, in which good things can happen to bad people, in which there is no protection and very limited control over our fates. At any moment, things can go wrong: We can fall seriously ill, be attacked and mugged, raped, or killed, hit by a train, etc. This feeling of helplessness is difficult to live with. Now religion, illogical though it may be, is carefully constructed to protect believers from this harsh reality. It provides the concept of an afterlife to insulate us from the finality of death, and to reassure us that pains and problems of this life will be “made up for” by some glorious fantasy future of eternity in heaven. It helps keep some people in line by threatening them with eternal torture in hell. It provides a theoretically loving “Sky-Daddy” who can do miracles and magically extricate us from trouble. Some people find great comfort in this belief. Therefore, they are willing to overlook a lot. The self-contradictions in the bible. The need for ‘faith,’ or in other words, the willingness to believe with neither scientific evidence nor proof. The embarrassing fact that, for example, the churches have a long history of repression and oppression of people. When they are totally immersed in the fantasy, they develop a strong dependency upon it. This is called religious faith.  

A: I have published this because I agree with almost all of it, though, playing Devil’s Advocate, I would point out that your issue number  4 has an answer, which I don’t buy, but which is understandable and deconstructible: That there IS a truth, a mystical truth, and all religions have a general idea of it, a piece of the puzzle, and that it might be comprehensible in the aggregate, considering our overall weaknesses of interpretation.   We might be halfway there, or a quarter of the way there, or something, and that eventually we will arrive.  More or less. The main problem with this theory is that it is reductive, proceeding from an initial assumption as opposed to proceeding from a scientific method. It is based on an ancient presumption of mythology.

This leads to an Gene Pool Gene Pool Instapoll.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “The Big Chisel…” ) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to roughly 1 p.m. ET today.

Q:  My shame:  Once, when drunk and in college, as a prank, I urinated on a drunker person’s hair.   I am female. I would never, ever admit this in public or even to my loved ones.    I am now 40.     

A: Thank you.   I am still laughing.  And it has been ten minutes since I read this.  

Q:  You wrote, about the MAGA phenomenon, “I hate to believe it is about the essential worthlessness of 40 percent of our population.”

 It is about the deep vein of xenophobia and sadism which exists within the human race. Trump, like Hitler, has given his people permission to indulge that. So long as he does that, they will follow him. Like Naziism, this needs to be opposed with every fiber of our being by those of us who have risen above that level of animalism. No, I shouldn't call it animalism. Not fair to animals, who are generally more reasonable than some people.

A:  The problem is the 40 percent.   Do we think that 40 percent of the people, in, say, Belgium, are this revolting>  

Q:   Are you still looking for smart-animal things? We keep plastic grocery bags in a paper grocery bag near the kitchen trash can. When our cat thinks we've been slow to scoop her litter box, she will stand up and pull plastic bags out, one at a time, until she's emptied the paper bag. (we use the plastic bags to contain her trumps). (Trumps are the poop and pee clumps in the litter box).

A: Did you coin “Trumps”?   It’s ingenious.

Q:  Regarding whether the current generation truly invented something, I believe that classic rock was invented in the 70s. First, we couldn’t get over the Beatles’s breakup, and started clogging radio requests with them. Then we started revisiting all 70s and 60s rock, then Happy Days and the 50s were modern all over again etc. Did you perceive something similar?

A: This is a brilliant observation.   Here’s one I have:  I think a radio station should play only songs by Dylan and the Beatles.  I would be called Dyatles or something.  It would not be the most popular station, but it would be button number two or three in most cars. 

Q:  More proof, as if it were needed, that our health insurance system is broken. https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/10/11/mary-lou-rettons-lack-of-insurance-raises-questions-as-crowdfunding-passes-250000/

A: Yeah, this is horrifying. 

Q:  Embarrassing personal dysfunction that I keep private (but have slowly started to share with some people over the years, including a therapist who is helping me with it): I am terrified of boarding planes. Absolutely terrified. Every time I'm on a plane and it lands successfully I truly feel like I have narrowly escaped death, and I am physically awash in full-body relief. When I'm on a plane way up in the sky, my overwhelming feeling is "WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE UP HERE!" and that high-alert feeling continues the entire time. I have abandoned work flights at the last minute because a plane exterior looked suspect and then made up an excuse later. I do have meds now that help with this but as a rational adult who literally works in statistics and analytics and who understands the low risk of a catastrophe, it is quite embarrassing. One thing that sometimes helps me is watching the Key & Peele sketch about plane turbulence before I have a flight - it seems to puncture & disperse some of the anxiety.

A:  Sorry about your problem.  I have never had anxiety over flying; I know it is a curse for many people. Anyway, this is a terrific skit.  

Q: My microwave is disgusting. Outside it's sticky (it's over the stove and there is no exhaust fan so all cooking oils accumulate on the microwave and cupboards above.) The inside is at this moment not too shabby: a few crusty flecks. But when I had my second child and my friend came to help me in the hospital, she went back to our house to nap and ... cleaned my disgusting, horrifically filthy microwave. And my front storm door glass - remarkable! You can see through it! I was a bit embarrassed that she had cleaned the microwave, but then, she had been with me and my husband during the birthing process, which itself ain't a neat, clean thing.

A: Your friend is basically my son in law Julien, who I wrote about on the weekend.

Q: Dysfunction:  I have never been able to master bicycle gears. I have owned many high end bicycles…generally gifted from my biking crazy wife. They have had a daunting range of gear changing thingies: little toggles down by my crotch, tiny handles on the handle bars, twisty grips where your hands go, little pushy thumb pads, et-fucking-cetera . They always come in pairs which must be somehow synchronized in tandem to achieve the desired mechanical advantage to make peddling easier. I have no idea how the damn things work, why they work or when I have successfully, through pure dumbass luck, actually got them to work. Consequently, I only bike ride on rail trails where the grades never exceed the 2% or so manageable by Civil War era steam locomotives. I ride in one gear that I have had my wife hardwire for me, just as I once rode my first bike: a big, red, single gear, Montgomery Ward dreadnaught that weighed more than my old man’s Buick. I’m pretty incompetent with handbrakes too. I have less bicycling skill than one of the big Russian bears that rode tiny bikes on the Ed Sullivan Show. And astride a bike, I look very much like one of those bears too. Did I mention I hate bicycling?

A: Me, too. Identical. One of the great moments of my life was about 15 years ago, when I had a horribly painful double knee replacement, and suddenly had an excuse to never get on a bike again.

Q:  Well, the one thing that must never, and I mean never, get out about me is that I am what is known as a hoarder. My room in the house (it is technically my wife's room too, but she seldom enters it except to get things off the printer and rarely to use my computer) is still cluttered with the boxes we moved in with 7 years ago and haven't unpacked yet. I struggle to find room on my desk to put down a piece of paper to take notes on. There is this tremendous amount of work to be done here, but I never do it, because a) it is daunting, and b) I would have to Throw Things Out. I disclose this here with great reluctance, because it is embarrassing, so I will make this a completely anonymous post. Don Weingarten

A: I will protect your identity with my life, Don.    

Q:   Once my partner and I did not open our mail for six months. We would retrieve the mail and had the foresight to immediately recycle all the catalogues and adverts. But anything that looked like real mail was added - unopened - to a stash that became so large we eventually needed to store it in a bankers box. One day I sat down to open all of it. It included at least 20 holiday cards, many with personalized notes, and something like $3,000 in uncashed checks. We are still terrible about opening the mail but I'm fairly certain we haven't gone quite that long since. (I recognize this is a huge privilege, knowing that very little of my life would change if i failed to open the mail.)

I still have a box of old computers, smartphones, and backup drives dating back at least to 2007, with some files going back to the late 90’s.

A: Still laughing.

Q:  It's baseball playoff season, and my team is not in the hunt this year, so it's been interesting to see who fellow fans are choosing to root for. I've come to the conclusion that many of us base this decision on our perception of the fan base rather than on the team itself. Does this square with you as a baseball fan? Maybe it would be a good Gene Poll.

A: I hate the Astros.   Hate them, for obvious reasons.   So I am having a good time, so far.  

Q: Hi, Gene. Curious to get your thoughts on the Hasan Minhaj mini scandal. Apparently, he embellished various stories that the audience presumed to be true. I have mixed feelings about Minhaj. He's a gifted storyteller, but his delivery style is a bit cringe/pretentious. Standup comedians live in service of a joke. The joke is king. So if they need to make up a story to set up a great punchline, they'll do it. If I say, "I'm suing Pop-Tarts because they failed to help me reach my goal of getting five cavities a year," would the audience really believe I'm filing a lawsuit? Of course not. It's all about the joke. What distinguishes Minhaj is that he profited from his ostensible sincerity. He presented his stories as true. Whereas most comedians admit, at least tacitly, that they mix truth with embellishments in service of a punchline.

A: Dave Barry, very early on, taught me that humor needs to be true, unless it is obviously false. The Pop Tarts line is obviously false, so that is fine.   Tony Kornheiser and I disagreed on this for years, when I was editing his column.  Dave and I were right.   Truth is only funny when it is true.  If you lose that bond with the reader, in my opinion, you lose everything.

Hey, this is Gene. Gonna end this now because I am exhausted. Been going through some stuff. Please keep sending in questions and observations to the orange button below, and I will get to them on Thursday, with the Invitational Gene Pool.