Trump's Main Vice
Hello. Welcome to the rare early Gene Pool. I begin by addressing Donald Trump.
First, I hope you are well, sir. I have been told that grown men, big men, tough men, are weeping in grief and relief while lauding your greatness and whewing at your close call. You’ve heard this too, I am guessing, and will tell us about it.
Seriously, you reacted with fist-in-the-air bravura and insouciance, possibly driven by the instant knowledge, once you ascertained that you were alive, that you had been handed a massive political gift that you could capitalize on with a bit of defiant brio-in-the-moment. But still. I would have soiled myself. So good on you.
Good on you, even though you ordinarily have a pretty deep tolerance for violence when it happens to others. I remember when you mocked Paul Pelosi after he was nearly hammered to death by a madman. I remember your glee watching TV as a mob you incited were beating up cops at the Capitol, and your pooh-poohing the right-wing paramilitary plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer and take over the Michigan state government by violent insurrection.
Still, I hope you keep up the brio, just for a few days.
I write today to urge you to pick as your running mate the underdog in the betting — Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, because it would be fun for everyone, and we can use a little fun right about now. In looks, bearing, and speech, Burgum is the spit and image of Pat Paulsen, the comedian who famously ran for president in 1968 on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It would give people like me much to work with.
The two men share the gift of a melancholy face and a naturally constipated look, and they share a feudalistic right-wing viewpoint. They both speak in a drone, and say empty hackneyed things that superficially sound good. Burgum brags of the internationally admired economic miracle he has wrought in North Dakota, an entire state with the population — this is true — of Virginia Beach, VA. and Henderson, NV, combined. His sole solution to gun violence is for America to return to “small town values.” He is obsessed by comparing the government to industry, as though these are not, at times, necessary enemies. He links unlinkable things, to get to the raw meat he really wants to throw out there, such as this actual quote:
“As president, things that you're supposed to focus on, things like the economy, like energy policy, which is completely tied to national security, and part of national security is the border.”
Like Burgum, Paulsen was good at utter nonsense, too:
“The No. 1 cause of forest fires is trees.”
“All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.”
“I am neither left wing nor right wing. I am middle-of-the-bird.”
“I read an article that said one in five Americans thinks Elvis is alive. I want to find those morons and get them registered to vote for me.”
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself...and of course the boogieman.”
“In America, any boy can grow up to become president. Or, if he never grows up, vice president.”
“Censorship does not interfere with the constitutional rights of every American to sit alone in a dark room in the nude and cuss.”
“As I've always said: The future lies ahead.”
“If elected, I will win.”
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(And here’s Pat arguing why we should end social security. )
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Mr. Paulsen is long dead, Mr. Trump. But Doug Burgum is, by most accounts, still alive. Give him a shot. With Paulsen’s body of work in our pockets, we snarky writers will not only revive his comic legacy, but also give Burgum a LOT of publicity.
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Yesterday, a friend mischievously suggested a Gene Pool topic to me: “Maybe you should bemoan the crisis of poor marksmanship of America’s youth.”
Two readers asked, simply and directly, if I secretly wish the shooter had hit his mark.
Here is my official, for attribution answer: No.
Here is my unofficial, straight from the gut, just-between-us answer: No.
This is obvious, but: In a free society, for better or worse, the people decide who is to lead them. When political succession results from assassination or coup, that becomes a desperately struggling country, ripe for the taking, ruled by undemocratic cycles of revenge, grievance and violence. Our dislike of a man who wants to dismantle democracy should not be sated by an act that dismantles democracy. So, no.
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In the Gene Pool discussion last week, someone noted that he realized he was a fogey when college women no longer looked sexy to him, that he had begun to see them as little girls. Interesting. After the chat, I engaged online with a reader who wondered how I felt about this, and I said that I could certainly still find college-age women physically attractive, but only if they looked, and were, intelligent. Then I amended this, because it occurred to me that that criterion holds true, for me, for women of any age. I said I find Paris Hilton — generally considered conventionally hot but who looks every bit as as sharp as a blimp — to be, uh, repulsive looking, even when she was, like, 23.
The guy responded with a personal anecdote that I repeat here. He was describing something that happened to him while donating sperm:
“I was shown into a private room with various reading materials so I could provide a sample. As I was perusing said materials, getting close to generating a specimen, I saw a Maxim magazine with Paris Hilton on the cover, promising more tawdry pics inside. There was an instant wilting and I had to start all over from scratch.”
“Every time I see Paris Hilton somewhere, I think of the time she interfered with my plans to nobly spread my seed.”
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Meanwhile …. the other day, in searching for old videos, I came across a gem. It was a 1950s TV cartoon called “Gerald McBoingBoing, about a little boy who cannot speak, but can only make dramatic sound effects like “boing boing.” It later became a regular cartoon series, but this was the prototype and it was written, but evidently not drawn, by…
Ready?
Dr. Seuss, shortly before he became famous with The Cat in The Hat.
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And semi-finally, here is a ballet choreographed and staged by AI:
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Today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:
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We now enter the real-time portion of The Gene Pool, where you send in questions and observations, which I respond to in real time. So far most of the questions are in response to my request, on the weekend, for the most terrible food you have ever eaten. I’m also expecting thoughts on the assassination attempt and its fallout. Please remember to renew the page to see new questions and observations and responses.
As always, send your questions and observations to this orange anti-fascism button:
Also you may wish to upgrade your Gene Pool subscription to “paid.” This is also an orange anti-fascism button, but a different one whose purpose is officially disguised by calling it a “subscribe now” button:
Q: Uhhh can we schedule an emergency pop-up chat to discuss the Trump assassination attempt news? I feel like, frankly, while the story is horrific, this is the best possible outcome for Trump because it’s this very weird thing now where he (and his supporters) seem at once vulnerable, sympathetic, human, AND triumphant because anyone seems that way after something as terrifying as a shooting. I also fear this will wipe people’s memories clean of the Jan 6 violence he incited. And: now the Biden campaign is in an even weaker position, rolling over and pulling campaign ads “out of respect.” I’m also seeing a lot of Trumpers online call him a martyr, talk about how he turned his head at the right moment b/c of God’s plan, etc. My head is spinning and my stomach is churning over political violence that has already happened and political violence possibly to come.
A: Consider this the emergency pop-up chat. And yes, this is terrible on a number of levels, one of which is, obviously, that it gives Trump more of a martyrdom toe-hold, bolsters his contention that he is oppressed and persecuted.
His team is already working on a slogan around the idea of “He took a bullet for you.” He does everything for you, as you know.
I do think there are very few undecideds left in this race, and almost no switch-persuadables among the bases. I’m not sure how many NEW votes this will get him.
And there is this, just posted to Twitter by a user called “Shadow of the NerdTree.” Everyone has decided getting shot is the election clincher, which is how Teddy Roosevelt won a third term and Gerald Ford won 500 electoral votes.
Interesting point. They both lost after getting shot (Teddy) and shot at (Gerry, twice.)
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Q: (this is combined from two separate, similar posts) Worst meal? Hospital food. I had sepsis and thus was in the cardiac ward, which requires the blandest of food. I was given oatmeal gruel, jello that had actually liquefied, undrinkable instant decaf coffee with powdered creamer, and a tiny cinnamon muffin that I couldn’t eat because high-powered antibiotics ruined my sweet tooth. Other hospital stays: I’ve had Salisbury steak cooked to death, and then cooked to a post-death zombie state. I had mashed potatoes obviously made from reconstituted potato flakes, like the D-Day guys probably got before the battle. I’ve had enough carrots to turn a person Trump colored; carrots must be really cheap. I think prison food would be better.
A: See next post.
Q: Do not use my name or location, for obvious reasons. The worst meal I ever had was peas, baked beans, cornbread and water. It’s not that the meal was so terrible – I am sure there is worse – it is that I got it three times a week for three weeks. The peas were mush, the beans were mush, and the cornbread was prepared by a highly professional, skilled … embezzler. I was in prison.
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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.
Please remember to Observe and Question here:
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Q: Worst food: Grilled cicadas on a skewer. I don't know if they were edible or not ... as I didn't even consider trying once I got a look at them. They were served at a western restaurant in Shanghai at an outdoor buffet. –John McCooey
A: Well you violated the rules of this challenge. I said it was food you had to have eaten. However I am using this so I can nimbly segue into this column, one of my last for The Post. I cooked and ate cicadas.
Q: I attended a party hosted by students from Australia. A highlight for the hosts was serving their American guests Vegemite and observing our reaction. Some people thought it tasted like feces, others like dirt, and others like gravel. In fact, it was a combination of the worst parts of all three.
A: I don’t think I’ve ever had Vegemite. Online it is defended only by Aussies and Brits. The most colorful consensus is that it tastes like you melted a Slim Jim into a paste and then spread it on toast. The BEST description was in response to someone recommending it mixed with chocolate sauce. The responder wrote: “I can make the same thing by storing a Hershey Kiss under my ballsack for a few hours.”
There is apparently also something called Marmite, which is almost identical. The best description of the taste of Marmite is that it’s like drinking a sweet red wine that has been left, uncorked, for too long and got a bit spoilt.
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Q: I think I speak for many Americans when I say that although I would never condone violence, I can’t help thinking that the world would be a better place if Trump had died. If this makes me a bad person, so be it.
A: This was one of several like it. This is the only one I will print. It doesn’t make you a bad person, and you have split the hair neatly, if not entirely honestly — better off if dead, but not condoning the violence. As you know, I disagree.
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Q: Any reaction?
A: Sure. It was unfortunate.
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Q: I was a two year Army draftee in the ‘60s, and I didn’t think the mess hall chow was too bad at all. That statement might tell you how my mother’s cooking was.
Mom often said about her cooking, that she liked to “experiment.” So did the Nazis in WWII.
In my teens, Mom whipped up a “dessert.” One bite was more than enough. It burned, and was extremely sour. I still don’t know what it was, but I later overheard Mom mentioning to Dad, “I don’t know what it was that Jack didn’t like about dessert. Maybe it was the vinegar.”
Dad and I always woke up before Mom, and we’d bring in the Sunday morning paper on weekends. Back in the day our paper carried the Parade Magazine, which always included an ad from Kraft with a recipe or two. Dad and I would take a look at the Kraft recipe, and decide whether it sounded OK or not. If so, we left it in. If not, it was used to line the cat’s litter box. Mom would eventually arise around 10 am and take a look at the paper, including the Kraft recipes in the Parade Magazine supplement. On those mornings when Dad and I had “disappeared” the Kraft recipes, Mom would wonder what happened to it that morning.
Dad and I never let on.
—Jack—
A: I remember those Kraft recipes. They all used Kraft cheeses, which means they all started with a deep handicap.
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Q: I have a dear friend who is sort of my Korean mom. She is in fact Korean, very traditional, and older and better educated than I, so I humbly accept her criticism along with her camaraderie. (Examples: "You're too fleshy." And "Your friend's shirt wasn't ironed. He looks sloppy.")
She had been after me about my diet, telling me I need to eat more fresh fruit. I was at her place for a meal and she announced that we would be splitting a peach for dessert. Great! I love peaches.
Some background: My palate and nose can tell -- generally before others can -- if food is going off. In a single-blind test once, for example, I noted consistently that one of two bags of walnuts was rancid when no one else could detect anything amiss. I cannot eat lettuce if it has the slightest wilt. And so on.
My friend/mom sliced and served us the peach. My God. If I had this peach at home, I would've chucked it into the trash before even cutting into it. How could anyone not see that it was overripe, inedible?
It did not emit any scent that could be recognized as fruit, the composting process already having begun. It was simultaneously mealy and slimy. It was a week past its prime. In one more day, it would start releasing brown liquid. I quickly dismissed the idea of saying something as I would have at home. No, I knew I had to eat the fucking peach or insult my dear friend/mom. So with each chunk of browning vegetation, I repressed a natural face of disgust while rapidly chewing in a way that didn't involve my taste buds. Surely I would not get food poisoning from this. Why, look at my friend/mom! She is eating it as if it were a normal peach!
I reminded myself that this project was finite. There was only so much peach to go around. It was my distaste for it that made the job of peach eating seem endless, slice after Sisyphean slice.
It wasn't until just now that I realized that she gave me more than half.
A: Reminds me of a Woody Allen joke that has been terribly corrupted over the years by people who didn’t understand the essential Jewishness of the joke., and changed it. Here is the original:
“There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.”
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Q: And now Judge "Loose" Cannon threw out the classified document case saying Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional even though it was litigated over Mueller and ruled it was legal and constitutional. I assume it will be appealed. Question is, assuming it's overturned, will it be enough to get her removed.
A: Removed from the case, or removed from the bench?
It will depend on whether her reasoning is at least arguable, legally, even if wrong. But eventually this goes to SCOTUS, so nobody can count on anything
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Q: No question about it: Hákarl, also known as fermented shark. Icelanders take a Greenland shark, whose meat is poisonous to eat, bury it for months, and let it start to decompose so the poison breaks down, turning from something that can kill you into something that smells like a urine-soaked towel, left in a clump in a bucket for a week or so. If you can get past the ammoniac reek, the meat (if you can call it that) isn't as bad--merely a gelatinous mass that STILL SMELLS OH MY GOD!!
In Iceland, they generally bring it to you in a jar with a tight-filling lid, and suggest you keep the lid on the jar when not actually extricating a little chunk of this vile stuff, the smell is so bad. You also get a shot or two of very strong booze to wash it down and get that god-awful flavor out of your mouth. Gordon Ramsey was unable to eat fermented shark; you can find him retching (while James May expresses disappointment in him) on YouTube. (http, about 7:30 minutes in) www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpt_oIqLZX4
A: This is absolutely spectacular! Stop and watch it. Including the bull’s penis lead-in. Ramsey actually brought a bucket to puke in! Start at 1:06.
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Q:The worst thing I ever ate was baboon; tasted too much like human.
A: I’ll ask the obvious question… How do you know what humans taste like.
Apparently baboon is legal to eat in Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
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Q: I was in seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. I’m Episcopalian of course. I was doing my field work at All Saints’, Chevy Chase. One Sunday, after service I had to go to lunch with the rector, and several others. At the Congressional Country Club. Hey, I’m a farm kid. I’ve eaten hog stomach, sausage made with real intestines. So I have a little experience with the weird and distasteful food choices out there. We sat down and of course, the appetizer was caviar. I am with that great old star, W. C. Fields. I don’t eat anything that comes out of a fish’s butt. I looked to see if there was a potted plant within reach. No such luck. So I forced myself to eat a little, but oh, it was awful. I just chalked it up to making a sacrifice in the service of God. I just hope that My entrance test for Heaven is not eating caviar, cuz after all, I already did that. (from Linda Leibhart, retired Episcopal priest and Army Chaplain)
A: Madam, I am appalled. I don’t know what else to say. But I thank you for your service.
I will admit that I once had Osetra caviar that was gluey, a disappointment considering what I had paid, but, um, people pay a lot for caviar for a reason. It is an unduplicatable taste, and a fine one.
By the way, just as a public service: This stuff is great, and affordable.
Once I was fishing with Ted Prus, the non-voter I was doing a story on. He caught a few ten pound salmon. One of them was heavily gravid, and I snatched some of those eggs as they dripped from her, and ate them, right there on the riverbank. He was thunderstruck. “You’re eating it from her ass,” he said. “Yep, I said. “People pay a lot of money for this in Washington and New York.”
He thought we were gullible urban yokels.
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Q: I once ate a frozen hamburger. Oh wait — that sentence is not entirely accurate. Let’s take it word by word: “I” is true — this really happened to me. “Once” is also correct, in the sense of both “at some point in the past” and “only one time.”
However, “ate” here doesn’t mean “chewed, swallowed and digested in its entirety,” but rather “took one bite, couldn’t believe how bad it was, took one more out of horrified fascination and threw the rest away.” Also, “frozen” in this context means “incompletely thawed” and “hamburger” means “thing resembling a hamburger but no longer worthy of the name.”
This memorable event took place when I was in high school back in the Midwest in the early 1970s. I was driving somewhere with a bunch of friends, and we needed to stop for both gas and food. We found a filling station first, and when we went inside to pay, one of the guys noticed that they had “one of those new microwave things.”
This was before microwave ovens became common equipment. At the time they were considered to be cutting-edge technology, the next great modern convenience, and this particular one was part of a new (and doomed) marketing concept.
My friend had heard about this somewhere and got really excited about it: “It’s amazing — they make hamburgers and freeze them, so all you have to do is heat one for a few minutes in the microwave and you’ve got a hot meal!”
Indeed, the station had a freezer case full of edible stuff under a “menu” marked with a now-forgotten brand name — something like “Radargrub” or “Zap’n’Gobble.” Not wishing to be left behind in the advance of civilization, we asked for a couple of burgers, and the attendant stuck them in the oven for three minutes, which was supposed to be the time needed to make them piping hot and delectable.
It wasn’t. Mine was cold on the outside and still rock-solid in the middle. And, worse, not even worth putting back in the oven. This was when I learned something that the Radargrub people should have figured out before they invested all that money: you can’t take an entire hamburger, with cooked meat, mustard, ketchup, pickles, cheese and bun, store it at minus 10°F for three months and expect it ever again to taste anything like an actual hamburger.
But my tech-crazed friend was undaunted. He kept saying, “Isn’t this great? You can eat lunch without even having to go sit down in a restaurant!” Which of course is a lot like saying, “Isn’t this great? You can have sex without even taking off your clothes and lying down in bed!”
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A: I wrote this before, but it bears repeating, as an object lesson for gullible editors:
Some 40 years ago, when I was an editor at a legal newspaper in New York, one of my writers came to me with a story he was working on about a new technology that he felt could endanger human health, worldwide, possibly a threat to the continuation of the species. His story was pretty alarmist, but he made a reasonable case. He was a persuasive writer. I ran the story. The technology was … microwave ovens.
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Q: Regarding becoming a fogey: I am 67. My old fogey moments are when, I swear I am channeling my mom, I say things like “Jasper (my grandson) is as barefoot as a yard dog” or “Flat as a flitter.” I can just hear my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth – Michele Uhler
A: Wow. Was your mom from Appalachia? I see that a ‘flitter’ is a word for a flatbread made of raw essentials (flour and water) and rolled out like a pancake then fried. You can eat fruit on it or sop eggs or gravy. Uttered about North Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas cuisine.
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Many years ago I was invited to dinner by a colleague who was (justly) proud of his culinary skills, but also a bit of a lush. The main dish was a magnificent rack of lamb, but several pre-prandial drinks caused him to undercook it so that it was horrifically bloody. Everyone winced and ate it anyway, because our host was too proud to admit that he'd miscalculated and put it back in the oven, so we all just pretended it was fine--delicious!--and somehow got through it.
Many years later, I was reminded of this when invited to dinner by friends, also gastronomically inclined. The main course was rack of lamb, well done. Cooked all the way through, grey and juiceless. Everyone took a deep breath and sawed away, exclaiming over how delicious it was.
A: The Old Testament God punished you. You should have complained the first time, like any respectable Jew would.
Q: With regard to the poll about driving a stick shift car, I wanted the option "yes, and I miss mine every day and would immediately purchase another if they were available." Because, man, I miss my manual every.single.day. but am not willing to buy an expensive sports car or a stripped down sedan in order to get one.
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A: Uh, you don’t need to buy a sports car. This will do nicely. Several makers still offer stick shifts.
Q: I am a person that should know how to drive a manual. I’m a 57 year old woman, I know how to fix things, I’m cool as hell. And yet.
I tried first in college. My mom said I could have the family Chevette if I learned how to drive it. Boyfriend said he’d teach me. I stalled out at a stop sign, panicked, and simply walked away from the car.
I tried again at 50. A friend had a rental from a local place and we figured “not our car!” and she offered to teach me. I spent about an hour driving around a parking lot, hating every goddamned second of it. I thought of the stoplight at the top of the hill where I live and decided Fuck it. If the Zombies come for me, I have the basic idea of how to drive it and won’t care if I strip the transmission. I’m never going to be a long haul trucker. I don’t need that stress.
Friend is still a friend. Boyfriend is husband. I’m not quite as cool as I should be.
A: You made the right call. You tried, and tried again. Some people just don’t like it. It’s like people who made a game try at contact lenses, then realized, after, say, a year, that they were never really comfortable. (Me.) There is no shame in saying, nah. I just think you should try.
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Q: Will your upcoming road trip be in a vehicle with a stick shift?
A: Of course. Rachel and I are leaving right now. She is now a bona fide stick shift driver, too.
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So that’s it for today. PLEASE keep sending in questions and observation: Either food, or food for thought: The assassination attempt. I will respond to them, in detail, on Thursday. Send them here:
it was a joke on what he said.
Likely to see a new campaign slogan soon: "Add Vance and Regress!"