For Democrats, and all the People who detest Trump, one word of advice: ease up on your giddiness that President Trump is heading for a colossal beat-down in November. Don’t bet the house on it. In fact, Mr. Gripes still thinks Mr. Trump has at least a 50-50 chance to be re-elected.
I understand that possibility will engender a huge depression among those Americans who look at the polls everyday – as I do religiously – and find Mr. Trump consistently four, five, six, occasionally even double-digit points behind Joe Biden in the states that will decide the election – Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, et al – and that has been the consistent theme for a couple of months.
Yes, the pundits [‘pundit’ is an ugly-sounding word, isn’t it?] assert almost to a man that Donald Trump doesn’t have much time to overcome his numerous electoral-state deficits, and November is fast approaching. Haven’t these ‘experts’ [I use that word cautiously] learned anything at all about Donald Trump? He rises from the scrap heap over and over again, and wins in the end.
Mika Brzezinski every morning cites a couple of polls in which the President continues to lose, and insinuates to the TV audience that these polls really are significant; they aren’t actually, they’re simply a ‘snapshot’ at a particular moment, without a shred of any sustaining wisdom. They’re put on the screen simply to pump up viewers’ fervent wishes that President Trump will be finished on November 3. Five minutes after being posted on MSNBC, they’re forgotten by all.
I think the Trump haters have to understand that as President of the United States, Mr. Trump has inexhaustible resources to overcome Mr. Biden. He can manufacture news showing him in a glorious light, he can absolutely lie with impunity, with no consequences, he can even create an international crisis, allowing him to paint his opponents as anti-American, pro-violence adherents.
[An aside: It’s the pathological lying every day, about everything, that is so dispiriting. No one ever dissuades him from this behavior – no one. It just goes on and on. And, for Mr. Gripes, it’s the little lies that drive me nuts: for example, Trump’s out on a golf course a couple of weekends ago, right after Nancy Pelosi accuses him of too much golf amidst the virus, and not enough work. So, what does Mr. Trump proclaim the following Monday?: one, that he plays less golf than Barack Obama did [a blatant lie]; two, he ‘plays fast’, which allows for work time on the course; no, he doesn’t play quickly; it took him 4 hours and 10 minutes to play 18 holes on that Sunday, a very long time considering he’s the only golfer on the course; or, three, ‘I worked, too, during the round’: pure horse manure: I’ll bet the only ‘work’ he did was order a couple of diet Cokes to be brought to him mid-round; keep in mind he’s a lazy SOB, too. It’s always, always outrageous lies, piled high to the sky .]
Donald Trump, and his much more adept political advisors, may indeed figure out a way to outfox Joe Biden and his Democratic Party. That’s my fear. Trump, with his irrational outbursts, and inability to concentrate on urgent matters at hand, may not be capable of pulling the rabbit out of the hat by himself. But guys like Attorney General Bill Barr are not only smart, shrewd and incredibly ambitious, but also have no moral compass; they, among various stratagems, will certainly try to foment riots all over the country, engendering a lot of white fear among voters. That’s the game plan, and it may work. Law and order and Spiro Agnew, here we go again.
The Babe….During this interminable, exasperating endemic, Mr. Gripes, as has been a habit of his since his teens, read books. A lot of them. Some history, some fiction, and, mostly, biographies. And, strangely, his focus was on old-time baseball – 1920’s, ‘30’s, ‘40’s, ‘50’s – especially on the stars of those eras, i.e., Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, et al.
And, of course, the absolutely peerless Babe Ruth. Mr. Ruth was GIGANTIC, in every way.
I was drawn to Babe Ruth’s story – a grand American rags-to-riches tale – like a moth to a night light. In terms of star power, Ruth was an exploding nova star, compared to everyone else’s dim headlight, then or now.
Ruth was a ‘natural’ in the truest sense of the word. One of his biographers, Tom Meany, a 1940’s-50’s sportswriter for the New York Daily News, explained his innate gifts this way:
‘Ruth was an instinctive ball player. He required no more tutoring in the game than a seal pup would in swimming. Babe didn’t need any powers of concentration and study to work on improvements. Babe came full-blown. When he was pitching [and he was one of the best pitchers in the majors when he first came up] he neither knew nor cared whether the batter who faced him stood at the right or left side of home plate, and when he was hitting he never took the time to distinguish between southpaws [lefties] and right handers. They all looked the same to the Babe….Tom Meany, from ‘Babe Ruth’, published in 1947.
It’s been almost completely forgotten these days that Babe Ruth arrived in the major leagues as a 19-year-old left-handed pitcher, and immediately became one of the best. Statistically that era produced the finest pitching in baseball history, and Babe Ruth dominated: in 1916, at 21, he won 23 games, struck out 170, had a 2.28 ERA, and threw 9 complete-game shutouts to boot. But Babe loved hitting, so he soon became an every-day outfielder, and never pitched seriously again. No one now remembers that Babe Ruth pitched, and was an All-Star. Amazing, isn’t it?
Because he was fully formed as a superb and powerful hitter early on, he never developed bad habits foisted on him by incompetent batting coaches. No ‘tweaking’ with that swing. Hitting from the left side, he’d hold the bat – a very heavy 38-ounce model – with the right pinkie finger off the end of the bat, and swing for the fences every time. No ‘Punch-and-Judy’ dribbler down the third base for the Babe. His swing was ferocious, uncoiling from his heels. [No wonder the kids and fans absolutely adored him. I once asked my father about Babe Ruth, and he simply said, ‘Every home run I saw him hit was a thing of beauty.’]
Before I get into some of his career statistics, one historical note should be mentioned: Mr. Babe Ruth, among his achievements, was the savior of baseball as the national game. In 1918, the ‘Black Sox’ scandal occurred, with a half-dozen or so of players on the Chicago White Sox taking money from professional gamblers to ‘throw’ games in that year’s World Series. The plot was discovered afterwards, and several players were banned for life from playing again in the major leagues. Those crimes obviously put professional baseball in a horrible position, and the end of professional baseball became a very definitive possibility.
Baseball got lucky, though: on the heels of the 1918 scandal, 1919 turned out to be Babe Ruth’s ‘coming-out’ year for his incredible talents as a hitter, and specifically, a home run slugger. He hit 37 in 1919, by far the most in the majors, and he was off and running: 54 HRs, 135 runs batted in, and a .376 batting average in 1920: his 54 HR total exceeded every other team’s total in the big leagues that year; then, in 1921, even better: 59 home runs, 168 RBIs, and a .378 batting average. Fans came out to games in the millions to see the Babe smash those majestic home runs, and the game was saved.
The grand exploits of Ruth were not limited to his feats on the baseball field. Supercharged alongside those feats was an incredible ‘extracurricular’ lifestyle off the diamond. Seemingly a man of inexhaustible energy and drive, the Babe never slowed down for an instance.
Here’s a typical ‘slice of life’ episode from the life of the great Babe Ruth gleaned from an account I read recently:
All of the games when Ruth played were, of course, day games. Before road games, as he left the hotel to go the ballpark, he’d fill up his room’s bathtub with bottles of beer and ice. After the game, a party would naturally commence in his suite into the early AM hours.
On one such occasion, we find Babe Ruth, buck-naked, sitting in a big chair, swigging from a beer bottle, showgirls all over him, a huge cigar extruding from his mouth. He looks up at Lou Gehrig, his roommate at the time, [as abstemious in behavior as Babe was hedonistic] and, wearing a huge grin, Babe declares, ‘Baseball’s not such a bad life, is it, Lou?’
Babe Ruth roared through life, at full tilt, relishing every moment of an extraordinary life.
‘Mr. Gripes’
By Jim Israel
July 31, 2020
A Day in the Life – President Trump, to this observer, seems very much unhinged lately. In fact, one date 10 days ago – June 25 – appears to be the single worst day of the President’s term in office. A Biden-Trump presidential poll showed that Mr. Trump is absolutely getting wacked in key ‘bubble’ states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, he’s even behind in Republican bastion Ohio – losing by significant margins to Mr. Biden. [In Minnesota, which he carried against Hillary Clinton in 2016, Donald Trump is losing by fourteen points.]
And yet, despite all the evidence that his re-election strategies so far have been futile, Mr. Trump doesn’t seem capable of altering his language or performance in front of prospective voters. In fact, his behavior, instead of fostering some momentum and positivity for his campaign, indicates he’s doing the very opposite – as Joe Biden, seemingly gaining more and more support, barely lifting a finger, reclines in an easy chair in his basement, sipping on a couple of Mai-Tais, watching reruns of ‘Hogan’s Heroes’– and still beating the hell out of the President.
For a man running for re-election, Mr. Trump’s actions seem particularly askew and very odd. It’s as if he’s psychologically incapable of behavior modification. [My family history points me in one diagnostic direction: progressive rigidity in thought processes brought on by initial stages of dementia; but that’s a tale for another day.]
Digging into his modus operandi a bit more broadly, let’s examine the day trip to Arizona recently at which he visits a section of the ‘Wall’ and then spoke at a mega-church in Phoenix: at the wall, he observed its ongoing construction along a portion of the border between the United States and Mexico. OK…great. The completion of the two-hundredth mile was celebrated by Mr. Trump. Two hundred miles!? Big friggin’ deal. This wall, for which ultimately $15 BILLION will be spent, had to get most of its funding by stripping away money from other government entities, like the National Guard and Army, and even illegally in at least one case.
[Do you recall the incident in Washington a few weeks ago when a small park was cleared out by police and National Guard in front of a church so Mr. Trump could display a bible? Among the armaments utilized to ‘sweep out’ the young people were helicopters, which created very high wind turbulence to discombobulate the protesters. Well, the ‘regular’ force helicopters had all previously been shipped to the Mexican border, so only medical-evacuation copters were available. So that type was used during the skirmish. Imagine the scene: swooping down on the confused protesters are med-vac helicopters, replete with medical signage and crosses on their fuselages. Unbelievable. It’s straight out of ‘Catch-22.’]
Mark my words: in five or ten years, this wall, whatever its final version looks like, will be just another hulking, useless, rusting, expensive lesson on how this country for decades has wasted trillions and trillions of dollars for essentially nothing but politicians’ vanity projects.
Following his sojourn to the wall, Mr. Trump then speaks at a Phoenix mega-church with a jammed 3,000 in attendance, packed together shoulder to shoulder, no face masks in view. The photo is jarring: after all the uproar that people in large crowds who do not wear face coverings imperil themselves and become potential ‘super-spreaders’, and at the very moment Arizona is overwhelmed by a ‘skyrocketing’ number of COVID cases with hospital beds quickly filling to capacity, Donald Trump talks and talks as if there is no crisis, no COVID distressing news at all. It’s as if he’s living in Never-Never Land. And, despite Mr. Trump’s reticence on this massive problem, the country as a whole is undergoing a very frightening and burgeoning disaster in many states, with Arizona perhaps in the worst shape of all.
It’s as if the President saw a land mine bomb on the road in front of him, and muses, ‘Ah, what the hell, I’ll step on it.’
Were his advisors so intimidated by the President and his rages that not one of them could have warned him off the visit?
People out there all over the country are now rightfully scared to death. The juxtaposition of President Trump’s hands-off, ‘what-me-worry’ approach next to the emerging horror in so many states has compelled Americans to at last examine truthfully the essential nature of our President: blasphemous, incompetent, venomous, disorganized, narcissistic, incurious, dishonest, uninformed, and a peril to all of us. If Mr. Trump sinks further, we ought to be very afraid.
We’re in the midst of a horrific calamity, that looks like it’s only going to get worse: The very idea that politicians, a species universally depicted as ranking below rabid rodents in the animal kingdom, are pronouncing to citizens that health officials – doctors, epidemiologists, the CDC and the like – should not be the final arbiters of proper and effective COVID patient treatment, and instead we should rely on the medically fraudulent, dangerous assertion that everything is going to be OK, so let’s forget about the science, boggles the mind.
Are we crazy? Have Americans completely abandoned the notion that we’re all in this together, and we better work under some semblance of unity to get through this? At least the wear-it-or-not mask debate is very visible : it’s an argument plainly displayed in public between individuals who understand science and do don face coverings for their health and the health of others, and those who cannot acknowledge that science is a discipline driven by objectivity, not by emotion, and that the truth – in this case, wearing a mask and proper social distancing -- may be a harsh burden to accept, even if in your heart of hearts, you know it is the appropriate behavior.
Instead of promulgating outright lies [Mike Pence : ‘We’ve won [the battle against COVID], Mr. President. Thank you.’] – Mr. Trump could take a huge, healing step by venturing out to the Rose Garden with a mask in place. That would be such a unifying move for the country, and we could – maybe – initiate a realistic battle plan to defeat this scourge. And, prick up your ears, Mr. Trump, you’ll like this, your sagging approval ratings would jump up if you wore a mask. This is no time for fairy tales.
But you’re not likely to do that, right? Oh, no, the very act of wearing a face covering is a sign of weakness, not strength, in your eyes. Instead, the President and his operatives will continue to employ methods to conceal the real infection numbers, i.e., tamp down testing, and try to once again hoodwink the population with obfuscations and fabrications.
Mr. Trump, forever dissembling, doesn’t comprehend that ‘looking weak’ has nothing to do with wearing a mask. He doesn’t realize that he’s the weakling, the patsy, the wimp in the manner in which he carries on. For one thing, he never accepts blame – it’s always a thousand other villains. But putting on a mask is simply admitting the truth, nothing more, and accepting what is in front of you, no matter how uncomfortable or impotent or scared that may make you feel. That’s a definition of courage and intelligence and strength. I don’t know if Mr. Trump will ever deal with the veracity of this virus; and that ‘strength’ of his, foregoing a mask, will cause incalculable damage and many lives in this country during the upcoming months. God help us.
‘Black Lives Matter’ is a perfect cri de Coeur for these times: the words are forthright, meaningful and powerful. The tacit message is that throughout America’s history, black lives haven’t mattered much, and maybe now they will.
Good thoughts and certainly aspirational, but I’m not optimistic about real change. If American history is any indicator, there’ll be plenty of cosmetic change, but as for a massive alteration of race conflicts in civil society, I doubt it.
The protesters want structural changes to the ‘institutional racism’ they perceive exists throughout the fabric of our lives. They’re right about the pervasive racism being alive and well – take a look, for example, at how our large urban residential areas have developed over a couple of hundred years: here in New York City, there are neighborhoods of 98% affluent, white people, literally right next to communities of 95% black and poor minorities. That’s the very definition of ‘segregation.’
Or, the public school systems in New York and other cities: the preponderance of the funding for these schools goes to the schools in the better neighborhoods, which end up with more and deeper teaching resources, and better teachers; even the physical plant of the school buildings are in much better shape in the richer neighborhoods.
That’s just a couple of instances of the racial schisms that are so embedded in society. Changing that mind-set will entail a huge amount of not only good will among the rich and powerful, but a hell of a lot of money, too. And, right now, the country is essentially broke.
This pandemic has at least stripped the hypocrisy and complacency off the festering and bloody boil sores of racism. That comprehension is surely for the ultimate good of society.
Amidst the gloom of present-day racism, there are actual situations present that can be dealt with immediately, with solutions that would improve immeasurably the lives of blacks and minorities.
For one, I’m talking about the hospital system in any large city: the situation is appalling, and yet in this current atmosphere of the past couple of months not a word is spoken about it.
Here in New York, the system consists of public and private hospitals. The private hospitals, always going on about their ‘non-profit’ status, cater to the affluent [white] classes, who can pay their medical bills with their generous company insurance policies, so of course the hospitals do very well, thank you. [‘Non-profit’, my petunia: the executives of these non-profits make out like bandits.]
The public hospitals? Perpetually underfunded by municipalities, burdened with indigent patients who often carry no insurance, overcrowded emergency rooms, often lacking up-to-date medical facilities and supplies, these institutions are overwhelmed in normal times, much less during crises. Elmhurst Hospital in Queens is a perfect example.
So, here’s my solution: the richest private hospitals, drowning in enormous billion-dollar endowments , larded with generous donations from wealthy patrons and philanthropies, open their tightwad purses and agree to furnish sufficient funding [a billion?] to the public hospitals so they can upgrade their facilities to modern, efficient instruments of health care that better serve the needs of their constituents.
No one dares say it, but the way the hospital medical system is set up now in this country, it’s naked racism. So, do something, damn it. All you private hospitals, put some teeth into your ‘non-profit’ assertions and donate a billion dollars of funding for the beleaguered public hospitals in your city, and make them whole. Help out your medical brethren. Would that be so hard to do?
By Jim Israel
July 3, 2020
Mr. Gripes
China Holds All the Cards…Here’s a bizarre, troubling, yet very conceivable scenario that might occur in the next eight months to a year: [This is based on a premise that Donald Trump could win the Presidential election in November]:
The Chinese laboratories manage to develop an effective vaccine against the corona virus within a year, as the gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight United States and the West fail to come up with their own vaccination.
Donald Trump, for the past couple of years, has beaten up on China like a drum, and there’s an excellent chance there’ll no let-up even after China announces its vaccination breakthrough. The President then continues to insist that China, at the very least, did not do enough to stop the virus’ spread, and may even have intentionally created it, releasing the new, deadly virus to the world in order to cause death and havoc in the West, and accelerate the West’s decline vis-à-vis China.
Taking this barrage of abuse for years, with Donald Trump upping the ante by asserting China is ‘cheating’ on trade issues and augmenting its military capabilities to rival the United States all over the globe, will China now turn the other cheek and graciously donate to America its vaccine? Will China, ignoring Donald Trump’s criminal charges, magnanimously give to us the vaccine to inoculate our 330,000,000 citizens? I wouldn’t count on it.
Back to the present: do any of my astute readers really believe that our President has spent more than five minutes since he took office considering this more-than-theoretical possibility – a situation in which the United States is going to need a huge favor from China? Not Mr. ‘Day-Trader’ Trump. I’ll wager he’s so emotionally wrought and angry all the time [unless he’s on a golf course] that he can only deal with short-term matters laid out on one 8x11 sheet of paper. Advice from his staff? No way. His infallible ‘gut’ always tells him how to proceed. Contemplating long-term issues is unimaginable to Mr. Trump. His reptilian brain doesn’t operate that way.
And, one more thought: even if China agrees to donate their vaccine to America, who’s to say the President will even accept it? In Trump’s conspiratorial mind, the possibility of China intentionally adulterating the ‘batch’ of serum given to the United States will preclude Trump from accepting the vaccine at all.
It’s an altogether frightening scenario.
‘Empathy‘ – It’s Not Happening….. There’s nothing more overrated, Mr. Gripes thinks, than the search for ‘empathy’ from the President. Lately, the media has figuratively lay down and prostrated themselves on the White House Rose Garden lawn looking for empathy that could be directed toward anxious, worn-out Americans and the country’s 110,000 corona virus deaths. Every one of the White House correspondents was insisting that President Trump say a few words of sympathy to the families of the deceased. Talk about pack journalism.
Mr. Gripes’ views about the issue come from another place: real Presidential empathy across many Administrations has been basically a lie. Donald Trump obviously does not empathize with anyone. That’s his nature; he’s not going to change. So, even successfully eliciting an empathetic comment about all the deaths would be false. His heart, indeed, is not in that place, and Mr. Trump will not bow to a phony plea from journalists. Why should he? After all, that could actually be defined as ‘fake news’, right? Leave him alone, please. It’s not worth the effort.
In fact, I don’t believe any President is empathetic in an authentic sense. Some ‘play’ the role much better than others and sure look good on television doing the obligatory rituals – Obama, Clinton come to mind – but I think it’s still mainly performance art. Presidents are generally so focused, so ambitious, so competitive that there’s very little room in those hardened souls for compassionate sentiments like empathy.
In that vein, I’ll relate to you a true event that did indeed take place around the 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion – June 6 1944 – in which American and British soldiers came ashore on Omaha Beach in France, precipitating the final stages of the Second World War and the victorious end of the struggle a year later:
President Clinton journeyed to Paris to take part in the momentous 50th anniversary in June 1994, and later traveled up to Normandy on the coast for a ceremony to commemorate those soldiers who were killed that June 6 morning on that landing beachhead.
Alone, slowly and solemnly, Mr. Clinton walks down to the water’s edge, and kneels down and picks up some small stones; dramatically he places them in a circle in the sand, all the time looking very grave indeed. He then rises; stands very still, a sad countenance on his face, head down, in a praying stance. To this cynic, a theatrical performance of the first order.
He jets back to Washington at the conclusion of the event a day or two later. Upon entering the Oval Office, he hastily summons an aide to bring him the latest approval/disapproval polls. He looks down at the figures, and immediately throws down his glasses on the desk, furious.
‘God damn it, only two f---kin’ points [increase in his approval polling] even with all that work!’
Every President, on some level, behaves precisely in this disingenuous manner. Empathy? No.
Right now, the Democrats seem to be in a favorable position to win the Presidency in November. But American political sentiment changes in a nano-second, and it is five whole months before all of us actually vote. And, lest we forget, this is the Democratic Party I’m alluding to: Hillary Clinton in 2016 is verifiable proof that the Democratic Party can easily snatch a loss from a probable victory. Winning is certainly conceivable, but Mr. Gripes is convinced if the Party endorses a ‘flavor-of-the-month,’ ballyhooed slogan, such as ‘Defund the Police’, they will most likely lose the election in November.
‘Defund the police’ as a rallying cry? You must be kidding. I understand perfectly well the rage and fury of black communities which have endured state-sanctioned murder and terror for three hundred years. But, endorsing the concept of outright elimination or even just the diminishment of police forces across the country is exactly the issue that a bottom-feeder like Donald Trump and his Republican operatives are looking for. Campaigning in comfortable, affluent suburbs in states like Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, they will scare the sh_t out of white voters by asserting the Democrats are not only ‘weak’ on crime, but in ‘your’ very nice neighborhoods, crime will skyrocket and threaten your comfortable and cozy circumstances, if police are constrained in any fashion.
The Republicans are extremely skilled and experienced at campaigning on a ‘law-and-order’, fear-mongering platform. That’s’ for sure. Combine that kind of campaign with an undeniable presumption that the November election is going to be extremely tight – a razor-thin margin of 10,000 votes may decide the electoral-college selection in several states– and ill-considered language such as ‘Defund the Police’ could very well ‘swing’ enough frightened voters over to a Donald Trump re-election. God help us. So, Democrats, please focus on the election, and not on some fanciful, of-the-moment slogan.
Stallone – The mention of the movie Raging Bull in a prior item [from a ‘Gripes’ in 2009] reminds me of an incident that supposedly happened on the set of the first ‘Rocky’ movie, way back when. This may be an apocryphal tale, but, if indeed a deity does exist, please, please, God, declare this occurrence to be true. It’s so good:
An extremely capable prizefighter, Ernie Shavers, who fought in championship heavyweight bouts against big boys like Mohammed Ali and Ken Norton, was hired by Sylvester Stallone for a role as an opponent of Rocky Balboa, whom Stallone portrayed. After a few days of rehearsal and getting his moves down, working collaboratively with Mr. Shavers, the two entered the boxing ring for the day’s shoot one morning. In the ring, Mr. Stallone struck a fighter’s pose, and asked Mr. Shavers to ‘give me [Stallone] your best shot.’ Mr. Shavers, demonstrating sound forbearance, gently demurred. Stallone continued to pester the fighter, ‘Come on, give me your best shot.’ Mr. Shavers, who must have dealt with challenges like this in taverns all the time, demurred once more.
Finally, after louder, more insistent entreaties, Ernie relented and said, ‘OK.’ The two combatants proceeded to the middle of the ring, at which point Mr. Shavers unloaded a short right hand to Mr. Stallone’s sturdy mid-section. Mr. Stallone fell over backwards, flat on his back, gasping for air.
After about 10 minutes, ‘Rocky’ wobbled to his feet, and retired to the restroom for an hour-and-a-half. Film shooting was subsequently postponed for a week.
Sylvester, do you not recall those Greek tragedies from acting classes? Hubris, big fella, hubris. And you’ve forgotten something else. Your ‘Rocky’ movies are nothing more than elaborate choreography – dancing, if you will – not pugilism. Mr. Stallone, I hate to break the bad news to you: you’re related more to the twinkle-toed, ballet-shoed, prancing Gene Kelly of ‘Singing in the Rain’ than the brawny Marciano. Rocky Balboa, despite all his sinew and muscle, is nothing but pure baloney.**
** This Stallone piece appeared originally in a ‘Mr. Gripes’ column of March 2009.
Jim Israel
June 9, 2020
Mr. Gripes
