Author: odd man out

John ‘Bomb Iran’ Bolton may yet get his wish

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I spoke to the president over the last several days, and President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before.
— National security adviser John Bolton

Swamp Rabbit and I were watching Donald Trump and his henchmen on TV. I noted that John Bolton looks like God just appeared to him in a burning bush and scared him so bad his goofy mustache turned white. He’s one of those dangerously kooky neocons who, a few years ago, wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the White House. Now he’s a fixture there, echoing a dangerously kooky president who, arguably, would start a major war to take the country’s focus off the criminal investigation that will eventually, inevitably bring him down.

“Mueller might charge Trump, but that don’t mean he’s going down,” Swamp Rabbit said. “He’s the president. He’s got the Supremes and all them minions in Congress on his side.”

I told my friend that Trump and Bolton’s trash talk about Iran might come to nothing, just like his trash talk about North Korea. That Trump will be indicted if Mueller has the goods. That the law is on our side.

“Which law?” he said. “Most of them legal experts say there ain’t nothing in the Constitution that says a sitting president can be indicted. Nobody can tell the president what to do.”

The old rodent has a point. The language in the Constitution regarding presidential crimes is a bit vague. It says a president who has committed serious offense may be removed by Congress, but it does not say he can be criminally prosecuted while in office.

Few people in the news media are admitting this, but the apparent problem is that “the founders” simply couldn’t imagine an America that would elect a would-be dictator, or a Congress and courts system that would accept and support a would-be dictator’s misconduct, or a gaggle of presidential advisers who were nothing more than demented yes men.

I said, “You’re right, Trump would pull the trigger, or press the button, or whatever it takes to make the heat go away. But I’m hoping the general public will stop him before it comes to that.”

“Don’t count on it,” the rabbit replied. “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran is a pretty catchy song.”

When will Trump’s minions stop applauding?

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

Last week Swamp Rabbit and I watched House Republicans grill FBI agent Peter Strzok and wondered if they really believed Strzok was part of of an FBI conspiracy to link Donald Trump to Russian interference with the 2016 election, even though they knew the FBI had undermined Hillary Clinton’s chances, not Trump’s, by re-starting an “email probe” against Clinton right before the election.

And we realized the Republicans at the hearing, every one of them, were trying to make a case they knew was not only false but implausible, in the hope of somehow discrediting special council Robert Mueller if he releases evidence linking Trump to the Russians.

And we had to conclude that the TV hearing marked a new low point for the GOP, the point where they tacitly admitted they’d rather invent untruths and pursue false leads than publicly voice doubts about their dear leader, a dangerous fool who consistently sides with Vladimir Putin against the FBI and the Department of Justice.

And I remarked on the lies and cowardice of the Republicans, and on how none of Joe Stalin’s Soviet minions wanted to be the first to stop applauding when he made a speech, lest he or she be taken out and shot for lack of fervor.

“Hold on there, Odd Man,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Trump ain’t Stalin and the Republicans ain’t minions. Ain’t nobody gonna have them shot.”

I replied, “You’re right, Trump can’t have them shot. Not yet. But he can rile up his base and have his minions driven out of office if they take sides against him.”

Yesterday Trump and Putin met in Helsinki for a private love session then took questions from reporters. Trump expressed doubt about whether Russia was to blame for election interference, and he voiced confidence that the U.S. and Russia would get along better in the future.

After the meeting, some Republicans in Congress conceded the Russians really were to blame for election misconduct — hacking, etc. — but only those few who aren’t running for office again said anything overtly negative about Trump’s conduct. Certainly nothing approaching former CIA chief John Brennan’s charge that Trump’s performance at the Helsinki meeting was “nothing short of treasonous.”

I told Swamp Rabbit that Trump’s minions will continue to applaud him, no matter how rotten his actions, unless the tide turns and they think supporting him might hurt their chances for re-election.

“OK, but just don’t compare Trump to Stalin again,” Swamp Rabbit repeated. “He ain’t no killer dictator.”

“That’s an accident of time and geography,” I replied. “Lucky for his minions.”

A white haven for the blues

~ odd man out

So I was upstate again last weekend, speeding home from a sales job, when a road sign on the highway caught my eye: WHITE HAVEN 4 MILES.

“Perfect,” I said to Swamp Rabbit, my sales partner. “White Haven would be a good name for the whole county.”

We’d just worked a blues festival at which I spotted fewer than a dozen blacks in the audience of more than a thousand people. Hardly any blacks on stage, either. There’s nothing new about this, of course, but I couldn’t help but wonder aloud how a style of music so firmly rooted in black culture evolved into a genre whose fan base is overwhelmingly white.

“What exactly you askin’?” Swamp Rabbit said. “Of course the crowd is white. We’re in Pennsyltucky, not Philadelphia.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. “The crowd would have been just as white if the show was in Philly.”

Swamp Rabbit groaned. “Culture is always changing, Odd Man. Most black people who liked the blues are dead now. Each new generation tries to make new sounds. Blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, funk, hip-hop. It was all black music at first but then it was white music, too. You got your BB King, you got your Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan.”

I asked what he thought of the tendency of many white people to romanticize the black experience in the Jim Crow South. To appropriate black music, to commodify it. To turn black pain into product, as one blogger put it.

“Bullshit,” he said. “All music these days is product, in case you ain’t noticed. The money men ain’t looking for the next new thing. They’re looking to dig up the old thing and dress it up a little different.”

He mentioned a show we’d worked last week in some white suburb of Philly. The bands played a ghastly hybrid of Irish folk and punk rock at train-wreck volume as the crowd got drunk. It felt like someone was driving a nail through my forehead.

I reminded Swamp Rabbit that the “Irish” music I prefer is by people like Van Morrison and Rory Gallagher who grew up in Ireland playing African American music. I confessed to him that I still don’t understand why so many white people in Pennsyltucky — and in the Philly area, for that matter — embrace black music but avoid or are actively hostile to black people.

“Blah blah,” he said as we drove into the Lehigh Tunnel. “There’s a lot you don’t understand, Odd Man. Just be glad we ain’t gotta work no more of them Irish festivals this summer.”

Forget about Melania — they’re ALL whores

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

“I really don’t care, do u?” was the message scrawled on a cheap jacket Melania Trump wore on her way to visit a detainment facility – a jail, really — for kids who were separated from their parents by U.S. border guards.

Was there a hidden meaning, or was Melania merely stating the obvious?

The Washington Post received thousands of e-mails from readers responding to reports of the incident. Most of the e-mail writers expressed contempt for Melania and said they weren’t surprised by her stupidly insensitive fashion choice.

Many of them seemed fixated on the notion that Melania is a whore, what do you expect? They mentioned that she had worked in the soft-core porn industry.

One person wrote “…there are names for women who are willing to sell their, uh, integrity for money.”

Another asked “Why would anybody care about the overt opinion of an individual who has sold both her body and her soul to the devil for the metaphorical 30 pieces of silver?”

Whoa! Washington D.C. is crawling with prostitutes and most of them are men. They attach themselves to men who have money and power, and they do whatever they must to keep their jobs. They trade their souls — and their bodies, sometimes — for a little bit of money, in the hope that they can further their careers by pleasing their sugar daddies.

Centers of power have always attracted such men, but the current crop of prostitutes seems more blatant and shameless, probably because Trump is a dictator-type who demands out-loud professions of loyalty from underlings.

A case in point: Can you think of anything more sickening than the video of Trump’s cabinet members sitting around a table and pledging allegiance to him, one by one? What sort of men would behave like this? They couldn’t have been more obsequious if they’d knelt down and fellated him.

So let’s not make too big a deal of Melania’s behavior. Her face is inexpressive, maybe because of Botox. She doesn’t say much, and her rare public statements would seem to indicate she’s not too bright. She may have unwisely sold her body to a bloated monster in return for financial security. (Nothing new about that.)

But she’s not destroying the environment, or chipping away at our First Amendment rights, or giving further tax breaks to billionaires. She’s not in the same league with the whores who help Trump make policy decisions.

To single her out is nothing less than sexist. That’s a word I don’t often use, but there it is.

OK, you’re in love, but can you sell my novel?

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

An editor friend just called to apologize, he hasn’t had time to read my new manuscript because he’s having his roof replaced and can’t hear himself think. I said hey, no hurry, it will still be there when you find time, unless I rewrite it.

I was kidding. I’m done with the novel until I find an agent for it. I’m doing my research again.

Most literary agents seem to be young women looking for Young Adult and Romance and Queer and so on. (What is it with the YA craze in publishing? Do you know any teenagers who put down their phones and video games long enough to read?)

A lot of agents post descriptions of the sort of manuscripts they prefer. A surprising number say they won’t represent a writer unless they “fall in love” with his/her manuscript. As if falling in love weren’t a highly overrated reason for doing something, especially something business-related.

Some say they’re looking for either literary fiction or genre fiction, as if those categories are always separate and mutually exclusive.

Some are enormously successful. Recently I visited the website of an agent who represents a formidable posse of first-class writers. I pictured them in her stable, being fed and groomed in luxury stalls. I could go for that.

Yes, it’s delusional to think an A-list agent will look at my manuscript and phone me, even if my unsolicited query letter indicates I’m witty and self-effacing, in exactly the right proportions, and a joy to work with, and in the vanguard of writers who are inventing The Next Big Thing.

But one never knows, do one?

Just this morning I looked at my ringing phone and saw the call was from New York City, and my pulse quickened. Could this be love? It was a recorded message from someone trying to sell me something. I don’t know what the product was because she was speaking Chinese.

Long ago, I reluctantly concluded the best way to get an agent’s attention is through referrals. This time, lucky for me, I know a friend of a friend of a friend who knows a friend of a big-name agent in Manhattan. I’ll let you know when I make the connection.

Running out of gas with Steppenwolf

~ odd man out

So I was on the highway, on my way to a sales job near Allentown with my stomach in a knot because I knew the job would suck. It was Throwback Thursday on the college radio station and the DJ was playing songs that, way back in the day, were mainstays on the big commercial stations. The Steve Miller Band’s “Living In the USA” came on. I hear you, Steve, we’re living in a plastic land, somebody give me a cheeseburger, how are your royalties doing?

And then Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild,” an anthem of the road if there ever was one. The guitar churns like glass in a garbage disposal. The keyboard clings like wet cement. The overall effect is dark and dirty, like exhaust fumes from a sixteen-wheeler, but energizing, like good meth.

I cranked up the volume and pushed the rented Ford to 90 mph and remembered “Born To Be Wild” playing long ago when I climbed a high fence to get to my impounded car – I’d parked in a loading zone — and then tried to drive the car through the car lot’s locked gate in order to avoid paying the parking ticket. Bad idea.

The verses triggered more ancient memories, one after another, and a brief feeling of nostalgic transcendence.

Get your motor running/Head out on the highway/Looking for adventure/In whatever comes our way…

But the Ford’s gas gauge had a glitch. It said I had enough fuel for forty more miles but then, within a mile, the figure dropped to four miles. I was thirty miles from my destination, so I pulled off the highway to search for a service station before I ran out of gas.

Too late. The car chugged to a halt soon after “Born To Be Wild” faded out. I found myself stuck in a semi-rural scene with old houses and vast backyards. It was 6 pm, still plenty of light. I knocked on the doors of several houses and looked around for man-eating dogs.

A bearded man opened the fifth door I knocked on. I paid him ten bucks to drive me to the nearest service station. I filled a gas can, but when we got back I couldn’t pour the gas into the tank because the car had a built-in anti-syphon valve. It took me a half-hour to force-feed the gas tank.

I felt exhausted and marooned, and battered by the big existential questions. Who am I? How did I get here? Where can I get a macchiato in the middle of nowhere, or even a decent cup of coffee?

I got back on the road, smelling of gasoline, with the radio off. “Born To Be Wild” played in my head, mocking me, reminding me that most of my adventures these days are misadventures. They pull me out of the elaborate routines I’ve established to make enough money to support my writing habit. They pull me out of my safety zone and wake me up. Who needs that?

‘Disinvited’ Eagles weren’t going anyway

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

Swamp Rabbit was getting on my case for not being a football fan.

I’m a fan of the players,” I said. “It’s the NFL I hate — the overpaid commissioner and the spoiled rotten billionaires who own the teams. I hate the way they suck up to the U.S. military and bow down to Donald Trump when he waves the American flag at them.”

Swamp Rabbit wasn’t listening. “You live in Philly and you don’t even like the Eagles. I saw what you wrote about them.”

“Au contraire, rabbit. I wrote that Eagles fans get carried away when the Eagles win. They act like holy rollers at a revival meeting.”

I added, “But I like the Eagles, especially since Trump disinvited them to the White House because he knew only a handful of them would show up.”

Swamp Rabbit dissed me some more. I shouldn’t get sports mixed up with politics, he said. Sports-watching should be an activity that brings people together instead of dividing them along political lines.

“Tell it to Trump,” I said. “He said players who knelt during the playing of the national anthem were unpatriotic, even after the players explained they were taking a knee to protest police brutality and meant no disrespect to the country. Trump made an issue of it because 70 percent of NFL players are black, and he knew calling them unpatriotic would play well with his racist supporters.”

Swamp Rabbit scowled at me. “Football ain’t politics. It should be a place you go to escape politics.”

“There’s no escaping Trump,” I said. “He seeps into everything.”

I told Swamp Rabbit about the airborne toxic event in Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise. A big black cloud descends on a small town, causing fear and suspicion. People exposed to the cloud develop symptoms — sweaty palms, deja vu, etc. — but it’s unclear whether the symptoms are caused by actual exposure to the cloud, or by exposure to news reports about the cloud.

“Trump is like an airborne toxic event,” I said. “Thanks to the media he’s everywhere, spreading fear and suspicion, even when there’s no reason for people to feel those things. Even when the subject matter is only football.”

“The media should ignore the guy,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Maybe he’d just go away.”

“I don’t think so, rabbit, but dream on.”

Trump claims the right of kings. Anyone surprised?

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Who would have thought Donald Trump, not even half-way through his term, would claim he can pardon himself for crimes committed while running for and serving as president? (Not that he would do anything wrong, of course.)

I asked my friend Swamp Rabbit and he said, “Anyone who knows Trump’s history and isn’t a total dumb-ass would have thought it.”

Trump’s tweet was a wake-up call to all the peeps who think our much-lauded system of checks and balances is a guarantee that a dictator type like Trump will never defy the law in order to hold onto power.

And it was a warning to special counsel Robert Mueller and his posse as they strengthen their case regarding the Trump team’s possible collusion with Russian hackers who helped him win the 2016 presidential election. (Actually, he lost by about 2.9 million votes, but that’s another story.)

We’re likely to hear the word “self-pardon” fairly often as Mueller gets closer to nailing Trump.

Just the other day constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley wrote that Trump can indeed pardon himself, even though “a self-pardon would be [an] ignoble and self-defeating act.”

Some scholars disagree with Turley, but the fact that Trump has made the idea of self-pardon a point of debate is evidence of flaws in the laws governing the executive branch.

The flaws were always there. How ironic that it took a third-rate Mussolini to bring them to light.

Santa Fe, TX, wants more God, not gun control

~ odd man out

Swamp Rabbit and I were reading from a Washington Post story about local reactions to the slaying of nine students and a teacher by a gun-wielding student at a school in Santa Fe, TX:

“It’s not the guns. It’s the people. It’s a heart problem,” said Sarah Tassin, 61. “We need to bring God back into the schools.”

According to the Post reporter, the woman’s response was in keeping with how “most residents” of Santa Fe think about the killings. They think we need more God, not gun control. God likes guns, and he does not like people who question his motives or challenge his authority.

A typically lame story on NPR noted that the townsfolk were still up in arms, so to speak, about a two-decades old U.S. Supreme Court decision that stopped allowing student-led prayers at school events. It’s this sort of blasphemy that led to the carnage, get it? The fact that the area is awash in guns had nothing to do with it.

People’s thought processes don’t get that screwed up overnight. It takes many generations of worshipping a God too mysterious for big-city heathens to understand. A God who grew out of an especially nasty strain of Protestantism that stresses belief in predestination.

I tried to explain this to Swamp Rabbit. “This God of theirs isn’t real big on pity or mercy, and he never explains himself. If something bad happens to you, it’s your fault. If you offend him, you get cast into the dark.”

Swamp Rabbit scratched his mangy head and said, “Their God sounds a lot like Trump.”

“You got it,” I replied. “Most Bible thumpers can’t tell the one from the other.”

Torturer shatters glass ceiling at CIA

~ odd man out ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday Gina Haspel overcame all the obstacles — job segregation by gender, the old-boy network, lax enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, attempts to present evidence that she was a torturer — to become the first woman director of the CIA. A round of applause, please.

On the day before the Senate vote, Jeremy Scahill noted

…Haspel has refused to renounce torture, her role in its use or to condemn the practice of waterboarding. In fact, under questioning from Sen. Kamala Harris during her confirmation hearing, Haspel explicitly refused to say that the “enhanced interrogation techniques” she oversaw at a secret CIA prison in Thailand were immoral.

For a while it seemed the good old boys in the Senate might not go for her, but most of them put aside their gender biases, not to mention their sense of decency, and gave her a big thumbs-up.

It was a landmark decision and a signal that women in government can and will be rewarded for despicable behavior just as readily as men. More to the point, it proved we’ve entered an era when depraved old white women can wield as much power to fuck up the world as depraved old white men.

Who would have thought that a torturer would strike such an important blow for gender equality?