The Most Astonishing Fact

… in human history is that Donald Trump, a literal bona fide idiot, continues to be a leading contender for president of the United States. We are a country of imbeciles.

Mr. Trump has often criticized our current president for his alleged senility. But it’s Trump who is blaming the Iraq War on Jeb Bush, and who maintains that Joe Biden is leading us into “World War II,” and spelling “rumor” like this. His latest inanity is that he is bragging that he’s been praised by a fictional serial killer who eats people’s faces. Mr. Trump likes Hannibal Lecter. This babbling maniac is a leading contender for the position of president of the United States.

However, he is also a gigantic asshole, something we need to acknowledge and create a Gene Pool Gene Poll about. Also, according to him, windmills are killing whales. He is, and I repeat, the presumptive Republican nominee for president. Of the United States. Of America.

Okay, so.

Yesterday I called Rachel up at work to tell her that the dog had farted horribly. Just a most revolting fart imaginable, a gaseous expulsion of the intestinally shocking kind, a fetid revulsion of filth. Somehow, it was still in the air when Rachel got home, two hours later. Rachel disagreed that it was fart, and further observed that farts do not linger that long.

“It smells like broccoli,” she said.

‘Broccoli does not smell like that,” I informed her.

As usual, Rachel was right. In the living room, in a chair, were two rotting heads of broccoli. We discovered it together.

“You libeled the dog,” Rachel said.

“Technically and jurisprudentially, I did not,” I said. “I slandered the dog.”

“She is very upset,”Rachel observed.

So that is the story of last night.

Oh, also, last night we watched “The Day After,” the 1983 made for TV movie about a nuclear apocalypse. It starred Jason Robards and JoBeth Williams, who rocked a great underpants scene in Poltergeist, but which is otherwise unrelated to current events such as those playing out in Israel and Gaza.

Here comes the real-time question and answer segment of The Gene Pool. I need to remind you that if you happen to be reading it in real time, as intended, you will want to keep refreshing the screen so you get my amazing witticisms in real time. Good. Many of the questions today are in response to my call for things you have read that have had indelible effects on you.

Q: Call me contrarhythmic. Reactions to the two stories: Gene, I and many others were influenced by Jimmy Breslin at an impressionable age. You too? The barber shop story is a Breslin tribute, and a nice one, but it lacks complexity. It doesn’t get into anything scary, as if you the kid were completely in command there in the shop. You understand those guys. The cigars hint at death but you aren’t afraid and neither are we. The is about how silly we all are. The superior tale of the sparrow is fully about death and our fear of it. Like the bird, we may be trapped and destroyed by chance — or a carpenter’s design — at any time. Knowing this, everyone tries to help the tiny creature. We succeed, but at what? At reassuring ourselves that death can be averted even though we know that’s absurd. That one stays with me more.

A: Not a huge fan of Breslin, because I think he made shit up. I’m pretty sure of it, and I hate to say it. But I am saying it because, unlike a lot of stuff Breslin wrote, it is true.

You are discussing the two stories of mine I shared in the Weekend Gene Pool, one about Roger Maris, the other about a starling.  I tend to agree with you that the starling piece was better.  The Roger Maris story had a bad paragraph.  When I wrote the starling story , Gene Robinson (now Style’s global, brilliant columnist)  was the editor of the Style Section of the Wapo.   Gene was an old friend of mine.  (He called me “Little Gene,'“ to distinguish himself from me, for which I will never forgive him, but that is a story for a different day. I wrote the starling story  in fifteen minutes, after arriving at the office in the morning and informing Gene that I had the greatest story ever written, and then I told him, after I handed it in, that I wanted to improve it a little.  He said, “Do not touch it.”  I said, “but I think I can kinda…”  and he said, “Do. Not. Fuh. King. Touch. It.”   Brilliant editing.  

What was the bad paragraph in the Roger Maris story?  Guess.  I will entertain nominations. None of you will get it. Well, maybe two of you. Okay, maybe four of you. The geniuses.

Q: One subscriber's opinion: The Maris piece is extraordinary. It is an exemplar of the characteristics you set out for universality and profundity. It is clever, made me think. The bird in the window piece is, I suppose, nice enough in its own way.

A: Okay! I love this debate.

Q: I liked the baseball story better than the drugstore bird, even though it led to a Wikipedia rabbit hole from which I learned that Maris's 61 homer was probably assisted by a stolen sign. Oh well. It appears that sort of stuff was tolerated back then.

A: The sign was not stolen, you Maris-hating bastard. Tracy Stallard threw only fastballs. There was nothing to steal.

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 Most Astonishing Fact… ” ) 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.

Q:   In an editorial in a magazine specific to my field, I once read, "Science progresses one tombstone at a time." I find that thought very comforting when I encounter unethical or obnoxious behavior on the part of colleagues older than myself. And I try not to be someone who would elicit similar thoughts among my junior colleagues.

A: This appears to be a misquote of Max Planck,  of Planck’s Constant:  The German physicist Max Planck said that science advances one funeral at a time. Or more precisely: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Q:  I was a sheltered lad in 1966 when I left South Dakota for the campus of UC Berkeley. The Grateful Dead, Timothy Leary, Owsley, Mario Savio and several young women who dutifully burned their bras expanded my horizons and gave me a not so gentle push onward. Many moments on that journey created lasting memories. One such happened on a day that became known as Bloody Thursday, a day in May, 1969, after then governor Ronald Reagan ordered the national guard to occupy People’s Park in the middle of the night. I arrived for class that morning to be greeted by army tents and a phalanx of bayonets…and palpable anger screaming how this could happen. I moved with the growing crowd along the chain links girding Haste St and walked, stunned, south towards Dwight Way. When I rounded the corner there, I was greeted with graffiti on the face of one of the two-stories across the street. It said; IF REAGAN WAS PRESIDENT, HE’D PUT A SPEED LIMIT ON FUCKING. It was several feet high, written by a relatively steady hand with a black spray can. Because of the more horrific events that unfolded that day, and the weeks that followed, the image faded from memory for a time. But it began to re-appear. What a prescient statement! If only more had seen it! If only we had listened! As each Republican president since Nixon trampled, more gleefully, upon anything that seems good and right, I have often wished I could have met the author and thanked him for his foresight. If only we had heeded his warning! The guys on my side of the fence have not always done the most stellar job, but at least they never seemed inclined to meter your intercourse. Gary Tabbert, Forestville, CA.

A:  This is delightful.  Thank you.   

Q:   God help me, I am in a fight over pickleball. You know, that randomly loud game where proponents tout its fun, health and community and jeer at anyone who doesn’t see it their way. And where the neighbors suffer migraines, stress, sleeplessness and loss of any enjoyment of their surroundings. Our city is putting up sixteen (count ‘em) pickleball courts immediately behind my best friend’s house. She is an introverted artist who works from home. We are fighting a losing battle to save her sanity. And here is the quote I come back to over and over. It is Greek (Bion via Plutarch) and translated variously to the point that I feel free to use quotes but also not commit to perfection: “Boys may throw stones at frogs in fun. But frogs do not die in fun; they die in earnest.” I guess I’m a frog these days.

A: Thank you.  

Q:  I enjoyed both stories very much. I'm sure that wasn't your intention but I did use the link to order your book from Amazon, so enjoy the extra 23 cents in royalties coming your way. One observation: you mention going to the barber shop after the Roger Maris 61st home run, but you didn't say anything about the atmosphere there. Dan Sachs Pineville NC

A: Sour grapes.  They stank.   And thank you for the 23 cents.  

Q:   Hi Gene, I got through veterinary school on multiple-choice questions. The few times I've had to write something more than medical chart notes, I struggle greatly. So I listen to people say that when they retire, they want to write; I wish them well but that's the last thing I want to do. I love reading what you write, but I just don't have the talent (or patience or whatever).

A: I say this as the father of a veterinarian: I have no idea how to put my forearm up a cow’s butt without causing damage.

Gene, the structure and pacing in "Roger and Me" reminds me of Richard Brautigan. I mean this as a compliment. I hope that you perceive it as such. --Sasquatch

A: I do.

Q: Moon Palace Restaurant. Chicago's Chinatown. In a fortune cookie. "The smallest deed is better than the grandest good intention." Changed my life.

Q: Writing that had an unusual or intense influence on me came from an unexpected source, an episode of South Park that is considered even by its fans as one of its worst, Stanley's Cup. Stan Marsh becomes the coach of a pee wee hockey team and one of the players is dying of terminal cancer. The influential exchange between player and coach is this: "What's it like when you die?" "I'm not sure. I would think that it's a lot like it was before you were born."  For some reason, I found that conversation profound and, in an inexplicable way, comforting.

A:  When I was nine, I asked my father the same question, and he gave the same answer.   Hugely comforting.  It removes all the phony mystery.   It’s not scary.

Q;  I don't know why the guys in that barbershop would call Maris a "goombah." The word is a form of the southern Italian word "cumpari," which -- to Italians -- denotes a companion or friend. When used by non-Italians, it's a slur against Italians. Since Maris wasn't Italian, I don't know why they'd use that word to describe him.

A:  I have no idea.   However Many years ago I used, in a story, an Italian phrase that I’d heard in the Bronx as a kid.   I knew it was a curse, but I didn’t know what It literally meant, until the letters to the editor started pouring in.  The expression was “va fangoul,” which meant, roughly, “go f—- yourself up the ass.”

Q:   I read “ The History of Tom Jones. a Foundling” as a youngish teenager. I was gobsmacked by its wit, sprawling story line, narrative construction, ribaldry and general smartassiness. I remember loving that some dude dead for 200 years ago could write so well and so appealingly to a mathy dork whose voluntary literary reach fell along the standard Hardy Boys to Mad Magazine spectrum, supplemented by the professional educator mandated drivel like “ Call It Courage,” “ The Yearling, “ and “ Tom Sawyer,” and sneak peeks at “ Candy” in the book section of E J Korvettes. As a writer, I would love to have a floundering puberty riven middle schooler from the far future read some chunk of my oeuvre and think “ goddamn, this guy is hilarious and totally gets it. Way cool.”

A:  Candy!   By Terry Southern.    I read it at 12. It was the most erotic thing in my life, my jaw dropped, and I had no idea it was a parody of Candide, by Voltaire.  And actually rather sophisticated.   

Q:  I think the funniest part of the fake manual transmission idea is the fake buck-and-shake-if-you-do-it-wrong feature. I have driven a stick shift -- yes, it is cool and fun -- and I now drive an EV, and I see the increased efficiency as more than enough to make up for the "cool" factor. I am sure you disagree, but whatever.

A: I do disagree.  It is so much fun to drive a stick shift.  Plus, you can always have typo:  Stick shit 

Q:  It would have to be something from the late, great Terry Pratchett. He had a way of addressing human nature through the lens of fantasy that was brilliant. To wit: The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. 

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness. Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

A:Thank you. “By the feels of the cobbles” is gorgeous.

Q: Dogs are better than we are.  

A: Yes.

Q: A good man is hard to find. But a hard man is good to find. (Reportedly on the wall of a women’s bathroom).

A:  Thank you so much.

Q: Stupid/smart dogs:  I had a Basset Hound which I first observed belonging to a neighbor. I thought he was adorable. When I asked if he might sell him, without giving my request a minute thought, he said yes. That quick reply should have made me proceed with caution. I don't remember if he was already named "Harvey," but that is the name I remember him by. His "sin" was raising his leg and peeing on his food bowl, whether empty or not, when he had finished eating.  

A: I am so grateful for this.

Okay, I am calling us down. Doctors appointment. Please send many observations and questions here. I will answer them Thursday.