PARTNERS IN LEGEND

When you swim, the water acts as both benefit and curse. The water provides the resistance that slows and stalls you from reaching the speed you’d love to achieve. But the water is the thing you push against to get anywhere. The curse of resistance is actually the benefit of propulsion.

I thought about that when I heard the sad news of Mohamad Ali’s passing and thought about the legendary partnership between the greatest athlete of the 20^th Century and the greatest announcer of the same era, Howard Cosell.

Their verbal sparring was legendary, to the point of being uncomfortable.  When I was just a little kid and witnessed their heated conversations on TV I thought they were really mad at each other. I thought this big, hulking monster was savaging this obnoxious, verbose yellow-blazered maniac.

It was only later that I learned how those performances were necessary resistance that actually propelled the legend of both men forward.

In order to make his act work; in order for this 1960’s black athlete to be taken seriously as the smartest, most charismatic and larger-than-life figure the world had ever seen, he needed a white foil to take it all out on.

And Cosell was there, along for the ride in its entirely, to be the resistance Ali needed to get to the other side. To become THE GREATEST, Ali needed, perhaps the greatest second banana in history.

Further, the sportscaster only burnished his legacy be being inexorably linked to the most recognizable and famous person on the planet for more than two decades. After all, in the 60’s and 70’s, if Ali walked into a room with Bob Hope, John Lennon, Richard Nixon, Lucille Ball, Joe Namath, Pele, Mick Jagger, Wilt Chamberlin and the Pope – everyone would stop talking, turn around and say, “hey, there’s The Champ!”

Indeed. There would still be a Mohamad Ali without Cosell, but I’m not sure there would have been, “The Greatest.” And, Howard Cosell would still have been a great and revered broadcaster, but not the single greatest in history.

If there is a heaven, both of these giants are together again: the most charismatic superstar and the most articulate broadcaster those of us left of earth have ever seen and heard.

 

 

 

 

ABOUT THAT GORILLA...

Many have written this before: when it comes to sympathizing with animals or people, animals always win.

·         NFL players beat wives and girlfriends, but only Michael Vick still elicits protestors outside stadiums because of his dog fighting past.

·         This ..\Pictures\child.jpg image was a singular and world-wide tragedy, yet a ton of hard right politicians and people in the US and Europe still won’t accept refugees, but imagine if this body lying face down in the surf was an adorable baby hippo or panda bear fleeing some torturous animal park or zoo?

·         Babies, and toddlers and mothers and fathers are gunned down at staggering levels in the US to a collective national yawn, yet a lion named Cecil, gunned down by a trophy-hunting dentist sets the internet on fire in protest.

A few days ago, when Harambe, the gorilla was shot in order to protect a child who had somehow gotten into the enclosure, social media blew up with outrage at the parents, the zoo, and the very practice of caging animals. It is now THE story in the world.  More clicks and reads than the missing Air Egypt plane, more attention than ongoing atrocities in the Middle East and Africa, almost (imagine!) more attention than Donald Trump.

Why?

Why do we literally stop everything, place our outrage and shock for human tragedies on hold and pick up our collective white-hot anger for the perceived wronging of an animal? Why do we instantly forget about dying kids, mutilated brothers and sisters, mangled corpses of once-thriving family members, because some whale, primate or large cat is killed, imprisoned or harmed by Homo sapiens?

I think I finally know why.

No, it’s not because of our humanity and kindness for animals. No, it’s not because the innocence of animals strikes deep into our hearts. No, it’s not because we hold ourselves to higher standards of stewardship over the fauna of the earth.

We do it – we rage more against the killing and mistreatment of animals vs. people because it’s easier.

At the end of the day, accounting for the endless violence and mistreatment and hatred people inflict on other people is just too hard. In response, we instantly latch onto the simplicity of people hurting animals.

In war, when a drone strike mistakenly takes out an innocent wedding party, or US soldiers accidently shoot civilians, or bombs drift too far afield and destroy a hospital, there exists significant complexity. Complexity around the rules of war, the rules of engagement and the blurred lines between civilian and enemy combatant.

With inner-city violence, there is complexity as well. Complexity about guilt or innocence, the role of police, the role of guns and the role of poverty.

In short, caring deeply about people we don’t know personally is harder than caring for animals we’ve never met.

People come with faults and prejudices and meanness and hate. Animals do not. There are many people who are “not on our team” – people outside our class and station and ethnicity and nation of origin. Animals aren’t on anyone’s team and therefore are benevolent free agents that we can instantly care about.

If I care about a single young black teen gunned down on the incredibly violent streets of Chicago, must I care about all street kids – even thugs and gang-bangers?  If I care about massacred civilians in Syria, do I also have to care about the “bad guys” who are legally targeted by our military? If I care about the wife or girlfriend abused by a famous athlete, must I care about all victims of domestic abuse, even if they live in my neighborhood or are a part of my own inner-circle? For many people, that gets complicated very quickly.

But caring about a lovable gorilla, or a majestic lion, or a stable of fighting dogs?  That’s easy.

The same calculous that makes it so difficult to really care about unknown humans works fine with animals.  We can care about the euthanized gorilla, because we can care about ALL gorillas.  We are decidedly pro gorilla and there are no exceptions or caveats with that caring.

Because no gorilla ever did us wrong, we can go ahead and love them all. No strings attached.

Yet isn’t it strange that unconditional love is really only paid out by us when it comes to inter-species affection. As people, we find it so much easy to care for animals then our own kind.

Keep It Simple for the Stupids

I think it is all because of a preternatural need for simplicity.

The rise of Trump and xenophobia and nationalism are simply tools to help keep back complications.

We are overthinking it all. Forget all the talk and prognostications about what the US presidential election “is all about.”  Forget what the “Brexit” means or what Putin is doing in Eastern Europe.

It’s all about simplicity. Many crave order and easy to understand explanations.  They deeply need to be able to comprehend without thinking too much.

Donald Trump appeals because he says incredibly simple things. Donald Trump appeals to many people’s most basic nature that was instilled in them when they were seven-years-old:

“Dad, can I watch TV?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

 “I’m going to build a wall on the Mexican border and Mexico is gonna pay for it.”  But how are you going to do that? “Don’t worry, I’ll just do it.” 

The racism, the nationalism, the bullying…those are all symptoms, not the true underlying reason for Trump. The reason Trump as legitimate contender to become president exists is because he provides simplicity for those who can’t handle complication.

Like the ancient peoples who looked up at an eclipse and, instead of pondering the complex movements of celestial bodies, decided on a simple story about an angry god, Trump offers the easier path for their minds.

Current rules of engagement, perhaps even political correctness, and standards of journalistic decency don’t allow The New York Times or ABC News to say it – but Trump offers simple words to people not smart enough to grasp complexity.  White American men without college degrees in largely rural areas are among the dumbest humans walking the earth. That just so happens to be the demographic which keeps pulling voting levers for The Donald.

And so, this group has thrown their lot in with a man who obviously can’t and won’t do what he promises.  That’s not the point. All politicians lie and swindle, Trump just does it so much simpler. At least they can follow what he is saying for longer than their normal attention span allows.

Jeb Bush talked about the complexities of the global economy; John Kaisch talked about reforming the tax code; Marco Rubio talked about evolving social mores…but Trump talked about keeping Muslims out and making China pay us more and allowing guns everywhere. And Jethro and Molly and all the other unemployed drywall contractors and DMV clerks lapped up the simplicity like a sweet tonic.

Jethro and Molly, when interviewed by CNN election coverage said: “Trump just makes sense, while those other career politicians don’t.” But what they really meant was: “We don’t understand the complex words those career politicians are saying, but we can understand the simple words of Trump. And so, we will vote for him.”

 

THE STEALTH GENIUS OF STUPID

I think the first time I ever really paid attention to the sausage-fest that is Donald Trump was when I read a story years ago about how he used to continuously badger the Forbes Magazine people for ranking him too low on the Wealthiest People in the World lists. The author of that year’s particular story commented that in his lengthy time publishing the series, no one had every called to complain that they should be ranked higher. He said the opposite was more the case: really rich people would ask to be ranked lower for tax purposes, in kind of an homage to the old saw, “if you have to ask how much it cost, you can’t afford it.” The author explained that the truly super-rich don’t need to flaunt it.

Yes. The Donald is a world-class turd in the punchbowl. A racist, a misogynist and an idiot.

But on that last point – idiot…Really?

Could it be that there is some true genius in Trump that gets passed over on first read?

Here me out.

Today, news broke that Trump, back in the 80’s and 90’s used to pretend to be another person – a hired PR flak – that would call reporters and brag about what a great person, fantastic lover and brilliant businessman Trump actually was.

Think about that for a second. The Republican nominee for the President of the United States used to routinely assume a false identity to pitifully boast about how many women he slept with!  My God, think about how pathetic, and truly sad that is.

But here’s the deal. While yes, this is a fairly big story that is on the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN, it’s kind of being met with a collective shrug, roll of the eyes and a yawn.

Why? Because Trump has so inoculated the media and many of us to the ridiculous opinions and behaviors that are uniquely his own. His entire presidential campaign up to this point has been an exercise in one-upping the unbelievable and juvenile things the Donald can say. We are weary to the stupidity, vapid language and empty rhetoric. There is literally nothing he can say or do that will truly shock us anymore.

And here is where I have to begrudgingly hand it to the flaming haired maniac. By hammering us with so much dumb and so much hate and so much know-nothingness during the primary, might he have been softening up our collective outrage for when the real show begins?

If the town drunk shows up for the first time ever on Sunday morning for church – only slightly buzzed but otherwise well-behaved – doesn’t the community give him a huge Atta boy for the change? Correspondingly, if the town matriarch and community pillar takes up an adjoining pew smelling slightly of mimosa, scandal ensues!!!

Could it be that Trump is smart enough to know that his ridiculous and mean-spirited comments during the primary might help dull the stench of the truly fetid pile of vulgarity and financial mediocrity – if not downright failure – that is his past as we enter the general election? That by cramming the border wall and the Muslim ban and the nuke Iraq statements down our throat in April, he will help many people gloss over his bankruptcies, ties to organized crime and Trump University lawsuits come October?

I think so. I hate to say it (My god, I really hate to say it!), but Trump is quite shrewd in this regard. He has so poisoned the well of civility and political discourse that his real misdeeds and disqualifiers for the highest office in the land are not going to seem as awful as they should be.

Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t think he will win. I think demographics, electoral math and true political skill will conspire against him.

But I also strongly believe that he would have never gotten to this point if he just straight up ran for president as a traditional republican candidate. True, his celebrity and name recognition would have carried him past the lower wrung candidates like Huckabee and Santorum and Fiorina, but a standard campaign would have petered out long before now.

And now that he is his party’s nominee, the spade work of his violent and racist rallies and the women and minority-hating Twitter rants at least provide him with some cover for what Hillary Clinton and the democrats are going to rain down upon him.

His past is a true weapon against him. Laid bare, the history of Trump is the exact opposite of what his fans want to believe. No, he’s not an ultra-conservative, tell-it-like-it-is, champion of working class whites. He’s an elite, corporatist who ships jobs overseas, leans left on social issues because he’s a big city oligarch and reaches for the Purell the second after he shakes hands with working class people he’s dedicated his life to disenfranchising at every turn.  At the end of the day, Trump’s not racist, he’s classist, and if you are white but under a certain income bracket, you are significantly beneath his station.

So…I can’t believe I’m writing this, but give it up a little for Donald Trump. Never has stupid been used in such a smart manner.

 

IT'S GONNA HURT, NO WAY AROUND IT

So here is how I think this whole thing will play out.

Hillary Clinton and her steel-edged machine will wage a savage battle for control of the White House, buoyed by wrenching fear amped up to 11 by democrats, minorities and moderate independents; ultimately prevailing in a brutally expensive and scorched earth campaign that will leave all 300+ million Americans in desperate need of a shower on Wednesday, November 9^th, 2016.

The math of this election will make it a fairly easy tabulation by the news media to declare HRC the winner, but election night will drag out for a long time because of how many strong pockets of Trump supporters exist in every state.

Donald Trump, as only he could, will stand in front of either his so-named Tower in Manhattan - but more likely at his resort in Florida – late into that Tuesday evening…and simply not concede. He will give a rambling and incoherent speech about how great a campaign he ran and just walk off exit stage left.  All will applaud, some will cry and then everyone will look around quizzically for a few moments and wonder, “so…is that it? We lost right? He knows that, right?”

And then for the next 24 to 72 hours, all of America and indeed all of the world will collectively shudder and reach a moment of singular clarity and gasp: “my God, that actually almost happened!”

I remember one late night many years ago, when a bunch of us incredibly drunk college kids were racing up Highway 13 near Berkeley, one group of friends in an open Jeep the other in a pickup. We were side by side cruising along at 70 or so and for about 45 seconds, I boozily contemplated jumping from the jeep into the bed of the adjacent truck. For almost one full minute I considered the trajectory, the necessary push off from legs, the angle of flight and the wind. Luckily, something in my reptilian brain cut through the 11 Coors Lights and I remained a jeep passenger.

Next morning, I woke up, rubbed my swollen eyes and stared out at the floor of my bedroom and shockingly grabbed hold of the realization: I almost died doing something incredibly stupid.

So too, I think will most of the nation on the second Wednesday in November. Wake up and realize how close we came to allowing the presidency of the United States to become an irrelevant office, suitable for clowns and con men.

Oh I know…we’ve been close before. Bill Clinton’s blow job, Reagan’s long descent into Alzheimer’s madness, George W. Bush’s mighty struggle with words and thoughts. Carter’s sweaters and befuddled gaze.

But these men were an Algonquin[MD1]  Round Table compared to the very best Trump could ever be.

And just like an extremely inebriated me back on that night long ago, who someone summoned enough rational self-preservation, America will choose not to jump into the speeding hellfire vehicle with the orange-haired madman at the wheel. We will pull back from the abyss and try and forget this campaign, and this very idea ever existed.

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GUILTY

I’ve recently competed binge-watching “The People Vs. OJ Simpson” on FX.  All in all, a pretty darn good series; well-acted, well directed and, in short, riveting. 

 

For those of us who remember the whole OJ circus as it was happening, the series really brings it all back. And when I say that, I mean the entire society-splitting, infotainment industry-spawning, cross-racial “spokespersoning” crazy stew. And it also brought back an over-arching truth to my mind that feels as accurate today as it did 20 years ago: EVERYONE, EVERY SIDE WAS GUILTY AS HELL.

 

·         Yes, OJ was guilty of murder.

·         Yes, his defense team were guilty of repeatedly playing the race card.

·         Yes, the prosecution was guilty of not being as talented as the defense team.

·         Yes, Mark Furman was guilty of being a colossal racist and a complete werewolf of a human being.

·         Yes, white America was guilty of proselytizing to black America about how it should and should not react to the case, the verdict and OJ.

·         Yes the LA Police Department was guilty of being completely untrustworthy at best and brutally racist and corrupt at worst.

·         Yes, every white person with a microphone and a TV or radio segment was guilty of acting as a non-credible spokesperson for how blacks think about black men and the legal system.

·         Yes, the vast majority of America was guilty for completely misreading the true nature of the verdict; the jury acquitted a famous celebrity who happened to be black, not a black person who happened to be famous.

·         Yes, every news network and news outlet was guilty of exploiting a tragedy for ratings and money and yes, every network decision maker was sleazy for doing so.

·         Yes, ESPN and similar organizations were guilty of launching their current fixation with mind-numbingly stupid off the playing field issues like “Deflate-gate” because of the success of OJ coverage.

·         Yes, America is guilty of a vapid and truly unhealthy fixation on celebrity culture that the OJ trail, at least inflamed if not created.

·         Yes, America was guilty of caring much more about literally everything and everyone related to the case than the actual victims Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.

·         And finally, yes, we were all guilty of succumbing to our basest instincts during the trial; of watching the car race in hopes of seeing a fiery crash, of seeing the man on the ledge and shouting, “jump!”

 

Indeed the OJ Simpson Trial was a very unique window into the soul of America. And truth be told, looking inside that window was not a very pretty sight.

THE SUPER-RICH

“The rich are different,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.

The Panama Papers and the fallout from the massive hack of information lays bare the truest truth about the super-rich: they don’t hide their wealth because they need to, they hide their wealth because they want to. Because, hey, that’s what the super-rich are supposed to do. Call it: “keeping up with the Jones’s – if the Jones’s are massively successful hedge fund managers with a dozen homes around the world and a Lamborghini collection that would make Jay Leno blush.

When money no longer functions as a tool, but instead becomes a precious thing unto itself, all nature of crazy accounting, off-shore deposits and shell corporations take hold.

I’m not rich. Chances are, you are not either. To us, money is a means to an end. To quote a great line from a great movie – The Jerk: “it’s not the money I’ll miss…it’s all the stuff!”

To us, money is the thing we need to buy groceries, pay a mortgage, pay the cable bill, possibly take the kids to Disneyland, etc.   Money gets us the stuff. Much of it is necessary stuff, like food or electricity or brakes for the car. A lot of it is also the fun stuff, like a TV, tickets to a show or a painting.

And we like it; the money equals stuff equation. We like the security of knowing we have enough money to buy the have-to-have stuff and we really like the freedom of knowing we have some money that can buy us the fun-to-have stuff.

But if you are super-rich, that equation can get warped. If you have so much money that buying stuff –both necessary and superfluous – gets boring, God help you. If you feel the same sense of meh from purchasing you’re fourth yacht as I do after the luster of my latest smartphone wears off, well then, the very idea of money has really been alter for you, my friend.

And if that’s the case, then there are really only two things you can do: give it all away and live a life of blissful poverty, or, vastly more likely, start treating your money like it’s the narrative thread of a James Bond movie.

Move it around under cover of darkness; give it a phony identity; squirrel it away safe from the prying eyes of THE AUTHORITIES. Such sport certainly helps differentiate the super-rich from the rest of us:

Co-worker to me on a Monday morning:  “Hey. How was the weekend?”

Me: “Good. It was my son’s birthday and I took him to a baseball game and we had a nice party with all his friends.”

Super-rich guy #1, stroking the head of an albino cheetah while sitting atop a $75,000 chair made from unicorn bones on a Monday morning:

“Greetings Osgood. How was the weekend?”

Super-rich guy #2, sipping a $16,000 snifter of scotch, crafted by blind Gregorian monks in 1902:

“Top shelf, Niles. My chief henchmen Rawlings and I flew in an unmarked Lear Jet to the Caymans and deposited roughly $28 million in non-sequential bills into six different fake import companies titled under my nephew’s authorship. Afterwards we harpooned the last known Caribbean Monk Porpoise from my experimental hovercraft. Jolly good time!”

Donald Trump, Silvio Burlesconi, Sepp Blatter, Prince Bandar, Jay Z, whoever. After you reach a certain threshold – and I have no idea what that threshold is, $100 million, $250 million, $1 billion, more? – the whole relationship with commerce changes. Money isn’t legal tender for all debts public and private. Money is an almost living entity that much be nurtured and kept safe. It’s like a shark that has to be kept moving or it will sink and die.

And the millions of pages of leaked documents within the Panama Papers? Those were simply little snapshots into the world of the super-rich and they showed once again how different that world is from ours.