Top 10 Television Show Titles of 2020 That Evoke Thoughts of the President

1.The Plot Against America

2. What We Do in the Shadows

3. I May Destroy You

4. Big Mouth

5. The Undoing

6. I Know This Much is True

7. Dead to Me

8. I'll Be Gone in the Dark

9. The Last Dance

10. Schitt's Creek

2020 - A Look in the Rear View Mirror at the Year In Sports

 We really have come very far this year, sports viewing wise at least.

After getting over the shock of discovering that every sports team on the face of the planet had ceased operations, matters turned around completely when we watched two guys, ranked in the top 1000, square off in a tennis match at some indoor bubble somewhere in Germany I think. 

I called out to my wife and son to come see A, or maybe it was B, miss an overhead, at least it looked like an overhead in the dim light that limited my ability to comprehend what was on the screen. One solitary camera recording every riveting moment. It felt like I was there as Alexandra Graham Bell made his first phone call. Which, by the way, only charged him at a rate of two cents per minute.

Soon, when we turned to ESPN, we were no longer limited to viewing highlights of Rod Laver attacking the net or Yogi Berra jumping into the waiting arms of Don Larsen. Or  focusing our attention on a sport we never watched, and quite possibly didn't know even existed, until that very instant.

No, 2020 was replete with explanations for why this game or that one was cancelled after two idiots walked into a bar (and, no, that is not the beginning of a very, very bad joke) or an entire team decided that six foot rules were enforced less than three seconds in the paint.

But I do not mean to dwell on the negatives. How exciting was it to see twelve relatives of the players, or team executives, screaming with delight from their seats in the stands? Even better was when I searched the cardboard cutouts to see if there was a face I recognized, like maybe Rudy Guiliani. That got my juices flowing. Maybe even more than the piped in crowd noise that roared its appreciation or despair with every occurrence. It fooled me for one.

Some sports stayed fixed in bubbles. That sounds uncomfortably close. Others wandered around. But no matter the obstacles, no matter that a team or two had to field a squad comprised mainly of "who the hell is that", no matter that one group was done with its games while the next was in quarantine hell and had not even met for the (masked) team photo, somehow they all managed to get to the finish line. Every commissioner having done a phenomenal job, all the players having collected their paychecks in full.

But strangest of all was watching Tiger Woods wandering aimlessly around a golf course in search of a crowd. No one there to ooh and aah, move a boulder for him or at least deflect an errant shot back onto the fairway. And then there was the emergence of young Charlie Woods. We watched, brushing away the tears, as father and son walked almost hand in hand down life's long par fours. But why did Charlie get to play from a forward tee? I mean he is 11 and already hits his drive 50 yards longer than I do.

Looking back with 2020 vision, we did not fare too badly, all things considered. I mean I filled up endless hours thinking the Knicks could not get any worse, the Giants were only twenty players or so from being legit contenders and my beloved Yankees would be unbeatable if ever Stanton and Judge could get their very big muscles off the disabled list at the same time.

This was, in countless ways, a horrible, no good, very bad year. And sports did in fact help us crawl to the finish. It served as a distraction, as a place where we could escape the terrible realities of the moment. A spot where, for the briefest instant, all that mattered was whether the receiver stayed in bounds, whether the shooter had stepped over the three point line, whether the pitch had touched the batter's sleeve on its way to the catcher's mitt.

We understand none of this is not very meaningful, in relation to what we have experienced as a nation, as a universe of nations, this year. But sports is part of our very DNA, both as participants and as fans. And we did miss it so deeply when it was briefly taken from us. So on to 2021, with the hope that with the turn of the page, life will return, if not to normal, then at least to a semblance of normal.

And, next year, if we are really lucky, Charlie Woods will win the Masters. From the front tees of course.

Refusing to Get the Shot

So I found myself in the emergency room yesterday, my left leg deciding to take a different path down a ski slope than the rest of my body. Thankfully, the damage appears minimal, a calf muscle that will bark at me for some time and a slight bruising of the ego. But that is not the real focus of this tale.

Among those to address my situation was a young woman, possibly a nurse (a few people examined me in rapid succession, their particular titles not being given). In the course of our conversation, I inquired as to whether she had received her "shot."

"I am not getting it" she replied. "I am being cautious." She had been offered the opportunity and had simply refused. 

We have lived through the most terrible, tragic, tumultuous year this nation has had certainly since the end of the second World War, three quarters of a century ago. Death and suffering our constant companion, nowhere more evident than in emergency rooms such as this around the country, that have been battered and beaten, workers exhausted physically and emotionally. The hope of an effective vaccine our solace, especially in the face of a President who has only taken actions to amplify our pain.

I must confess to being jealous of those who have been inoculated. I am jealous of those who stand in line before me. I so much want to be the next one whose name is called.

But I will wait my turn, with as much patience as I can muster. I will send congratulations to those who can feel the breath returning to their lungs and their lives. I can only imagine their joy and relief.

And I know that each person who takes on that immunity is a benefit to all of us. In time we will be able to open our businesses, to break the shackles of fear that constrain us. One day we will hug again. One day we will live mostly as before, never more the same, but certainly not like this.

I wanted to say all this to the young mother of two, this woman who helped me in my hour of need. But I merely thanked her for attention and wished her a joyous holiday.

I walked out of that emergency room focused not on my minor mishap, but on having come face to face with the choices we make in our lives.

ReplyForward

The Early Bird Special

 My wife and I are, to put it in the kindest terms, nocturnally challenged. As winter descends,  the early bird special, to our thinking, is akin to midnight madness. Our goal each evening is to stay downstairs long enough to watch the 6:30 news before turning in. So, you can imagine that keeping our eyes pried open to see the ball drop on New Year's Eve is not high on our list of annual priorities.

That being said, we have always joined up with friends in acknowledgement of the end of one year's tale and the anticipation of the next. Has there ever been a year on this planet where we were collectively more anxious to bid so long, farewell to the past 365 days? I mean, if we could all head to Tonga, the country where the calendar first turns over, who wouldn't want to be there to have 2020 in the rear view mirror? Our 2020 vision can only be described as dismal and distorted.

My recollection of December 31's past is dosed out in small snippets. Of the year my dad passed away in mid-December and friends shifted their plans to dine near my wife and me, so we could be close enough to "pop in" for a little; of decades gathered around a dinner table with the same group, with the same assortment of offerings, in our version of Yogi's deja vu all over again; of later years congregating around the kitchen table of dear friends with a disabled daughter who became the centerpiece of our evening; and in recent times at a home where two other couples attempt to outdo each other with culinary skills before the Rod Serling Twilight Zone marathon begins.

Never a big party, not at a restaurant in nearly four decades, decidedly low key. And with those in our company being fully aware that the possibility of our counting down the seconds, first with Dick Clark and later with, well I couldn't tell you, was virtually non-existent.

But no one seemed to mind, or at least the jokes at our expense have been minimal. And the truth is that with each passing year, the importance of staying up to say goodbye and hello in consecutive breaths seemed less critical to many of those closest to us.

This year, we will not gather together. This year we will not be leaving somewhere and hurrying home for our early bedtime. This year we will not be traveling on quiet roads, passing houses and restaurants filled with those who are only beginning to party when we are looking to turn in for the night.

This year is unlike all others. To be remembered not for what happens on this December 31 but what does not. Not to be recalled in later times for its revelry but for consideration of everything that went so horribly wrong. Not a place for easy laughs but of somber reflection. In the company this time only of our thoughts.

But this may be the most important New Year's Eve of all. The moment when we as one count backwards from ten to tomorrow, when we can finally usher in the possibilities and leave behind everything that has held us in its vice-like grip. 

Almost 250 years ago, Robert Burns wrote "Auld Lang Syne", a poem that has become a song which is an integral part of our New Year's lexicon. "We'll drink a cup of kindness yet", a tribute to old friends and long forgotten ties. This time there is a distance between us as never before. And in that space which separates us, a closeness  that likely we never before fully appreciated.

I am quite certain that the stroke of midnight this year will find my wife and me as have so many in the past: fast asleep, long since having given up the possibility of greeting the New Year head on. But if there was ever a reason, ever a season, to embrace the new in person, this is it. So, if I can set an alarm for just before that ball begins its descent and be there as we begin our ascent from the hell hole that 2020 dug for humanity, that would be special.

But, who am I fooling? 2021 will just have to start without my wife and me. Unless of course I can interest it in the early bird special.

50 Ways to Gain a Pardon, 50 Ways to Gain a Pardon (thank you Paul Simon)

The problem is you're inside the pen he said to me

The answer is simple don't you know you have the key

I am the only one can set you free

There must be 50 ways to gain a pardon

He said it's really not my method to be crude

But I will tell you bluntly at the risk of being rude

And I'll repeat it to be sure I'm understood

There must be 50 ways to gain a pardon

50 ways to gain a pardon

Just fill up my till Will

Slip me a buck Chuck

Just hand me a five Clive

So be nice to me

Give me those ones son

You don't have to cuss Russ

Just repeat after me Lee

I hold my own key

Fill up my till Will

Slip me a buck Chuck

Hand me a five Clive

I'll be nice you'll see

Give me those ones son

And please don't you cuss Russ

Repeat after me Lee

I hold my own key

He says I know how you can be on the last bus

I tell you there's one thing you can do without a fuss 

I'm not a blabber so I'll keep this between us

There must be 50 ways

Don't wait, this offers only good for just one night

And every Dick and Harry has a shiv and wants a fight

So you best hurry if you want to end your plight

There must be 50 ways to gain a pardon

50 ways to gain a pardon

 

Just fill up my till Will

Slip me a buck Chuck

Just hand me a five Clive

So be nice to me

Give me those ones son

You don't have to cuss Russ

Just repeat after me Lee

I hold my own key

Fill up my till Will

Slip me a buck Chuck

Hand me a five Clive

I'll be nice you'll see

Give me those ones son

And please don't you cuss Russ

Repeat after me Lee

I hold my own key

Pardon Me

 Here are some other notable pardons by President Trump that did not gather enough attention:

1. Al Capone

2. Scrooge

3. Mr. Potter

4. The Wicked Witch

5. The Grinch

6. Nero

7. Marlon Brando 

8. Lex Luthor

9. Hannibal Lecter

10. Cruella De vil

11. Joffrey Baratheon

12. Captain Hook

13. The father of Ted Cruz

14. Golfers who cheat

15. The Poor Boys

16. Yosemite Sam

17. Snidely Whiplash

18. Deutsche bank

19. Anyone trying to steal an election

20. Aaron Burr (in Hamilton)

21. Hans Gruber

22. The Joker

23. Kristin Shepard (she shot J.R. Ewing)

24.  Boris Badenov

25. Freddie Krueger

26. Norman Bates

27. Darth Vader

28 .Lord Voldemort

29. Nurse Ratched

30. Hans Landa

31. The one armed man from The Fugitive

32. Alex Carrington

33. Catwoman

34. Montgomery Burns

35. Marlo Stanfield

36. Audrey II

37. Inspector Javert

38. Roxie Hart

39. Jafar

40. Bill Sikes  

41. Scar

42 . Moby Dick

43. The shark (in Jaws)

44. Professor Moriarty

45. Uriah Heep

46. Lady Macbeth

47. Frankenstein

48. Iago

49. Satan

50. Richard Nixon (again)

Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Principled Republican

 AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS POST NOW APPEARS ONLINE IN LETTERS TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, AND IS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR IN THE HARD COPY TOMORROW

("Will Trump Force Principled Conservatives to Start Their Own Party? I Hope So.")

Mr. Friedman is living in that alternate universe where "principled conservatives" still reside. In this world, they have long gone the way of the dodo bird.

Donald Trump was the result, not the cause, of the disintegration of the Republican moral code. From the Southern Strategy as of the time of the fight for passage of the Civil Rights Act to Barry Goldwater's overt racism, from Richard Nixon's dirty tricks to Ronald Reagan's Welfare Queens, from Newt Gingrich's mandate to treat Democrats as the enemy to George Bush's invented weapons of mass destruction, from Mitch McConnell's directive to make Barack Obama a one term President to his  pretzel twisting logic to steal a seat on the Supreme Court, the six decade trajectory of this party has been only in one direction. 

Donald Trump was merely an accumulation of all the ills the Republican party has long suffered.

It is past time we waited for a different kind of Republican. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are not real Mr. Friedman. Neither is the kind of Republican you imagine.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

 Twas the night before Christmas 

A time of darkness without end

When trouble was there waiting

In shadows round each bend

When everyone was distant 

And all just felt the fear

When everything was tarnished

And danger felt so near

When the stars that shone above us

Dimmed a bit each night

And each day's promise faded

Then disappeared from sight

St. Nick and all the reindeer

They knew the task this year

Was unlike all the others

They knew of all the tears

They knew that merely one night

Could not turn the wrong right

They knew that pain and heartache

Were itching for the fight

But love still had a special place

And goodness was not lost

No matter all our struggles

No matter this year's cost

So if Santa could bring solace

And a moment of good cheer

If we could hear that ho-ho-ho

That sound we hold so dear 

Then maybe we could shed the gloom

And bring about a smile

If not a change forever

Then maybe for a while 

So off he went into the night

With Rudolph in the lead

In search of those with heavy hearts

In search of those in need

And every house he came upon

He was armed with but one present

No matter if he met a king

Or came upon a peasant

I bring the gift of promise

I bring tomorrow's sun 

I know today's not easy

I know it's not been fun

But know that better days are near

The storm has almost passed

And I promise if you keep the faith

Your hopes will not be dashed

So all across the nations

On this Christmas Eve 

Santa spread the message

That if you just believe

Just know that come tomorrow 

It will be a better day

Hold on a little longer

This is all I pray

So on this strangest Christmas Eve

Of all that there had been

Santa brought a single gift

To bring some hope within

And maybe this was the best gift 

Santa had ever given

For what are all the toys worth

Without a world to live in

Whatever land that you reside

Don't give up the fight

And wherever Santa finds you

Find peace and a good night

Thank You Mr. President

 Thank you Mr. President 

For providing indisputable evidence that Barack Obama in not an American.

For turning over your tax returns as soon as you were able.

For correcting our misperception about the size of your hands and your crowds.

For making us understand that everything Vladimir Putin says is gospel.

For choosing those who surround you based on their lifetime of service to the public welfare and honoring your pledge to give them independent judgment

For taking full responsibility for the ills that befell us on your watch

For elevating our language and discourse

For fiercely protesting Supreme Court nominations in the last hours of a presidential term.

For confirming that your conversation with the Ukrainian President was indeed perfect.

For your unfettered allegiance to the Constitution and the rule of law.

For showing us an unprecedented level of cooperation with the Congressional inquiry of your behavior.

For demonstrating every day what separation of powers means.

For championing science.

For  your intractable defense of truth over lie. 

For reminding us that a promise made is always a promise kept

For your diligent attention to detail.

For your setting a clear example to the world of what morality looks like.

For your unceasing efforts to assure health care as a basic human right for all.

For  proving that a bromance with autocrats and dictators has no negative ramifications

For mandating that every vote be protected and cherished.

For teaching each of us how we should act in the face of a deadly pandemic.

For treating every person you meet with dignity and respect.

For not taking every slight as a personal affront.

For making certain that you acted as honest broker between Democrats and Republican, helping bridge every divide.

For taking your election defeat with such grace and dignity.

For acting with decisiveness to protect our planet against the reality of global warming.

For building that Wall, long and beautiful, at Mexico's expense.

For opening your arms to those fleeing violence and death in other parts of the globe.

For committing this country to keeping strong its relationship with long time friends.

For not airing your grievances in public.

For showing us, in word and action, what it means to be an effective President.

For making certain that there was not even the slightest hint of impropriety or self dealing in regard to your personal holdings.

For being so personally generous with your many billions..

For not using the power of your office to protect friends and punish enemies.

For calling out bigotry and hatred whenever and wherever it appeared.

For demonstrating such empathy for those who suffered unspeakable tragedy and loss on your watch.

For not seeking credit or personal glory at every turn.

For treating each of your children with equal care and affection.

For making this country a beacon of light once more.

For all this, and so much more, you are owed our everlasting gratitude.

I don't know where we would be today without you.

And I can only imagine what we would have become if you had been given four more years to perform your magic.

It's a Wonderful Life

What is the value of your life? 

You are born in the heavens, you descend through the skies and then you

may remain for but a second, a blink of an eye, before disappearing. You may well believe that in a million different ways you give ephemeral clear definition.

But whatever the length of your stay know you have provided immense pleasure to those like me who find such happiness in your presence. The ones who wake in the middle of the night and rush to the window hoping you will make your appearance. The ones who stand outside eagerly anticipating your arrival with arms outstretched or tongue extended. The ones who think of you as old friend as you tap their shoulder or land gently in their hair.

And should you not vanish when your descent concludes, should your story be told not in a moment but days or greater, know of all you can accomplish. 

You may become a snowman, maybe as home for a carrot masquerading as a nose. You may provide a runway for a sled, carrying enthusiastic shouts along your path along with a hint of danger. You could be a fort, giving protection against the enemy. Or even a snowball, maybe the most prized of all opportunities that awaits at journey's end.

You make us feel joyful, a medicine for our souls. You are as the fountain of youth for the old and the best playmate a child could ever imagine.

You are the centerpiece of song. You give meaning to the holiday. You are a memory of a smile, a laugh, a fireplace, a hot cocoa.

You may roll down a hill holding on to thousands of others, growing ever fatter on your ride. You may be thrown into the air by a shovel and serve as head covering for a fire hydrant. You may sit aloft on the roof of an automobile, traveling to destinations unknown.

You may find yourself at the top of a mountain or residing on a frozen pond. You could become best friends with a king or a person without a place to call home. You do not care, for you treat all alike.

There is so much you give us. You are endless possibilities. So do not despair as your travel approaches its conclusion. Do not fear what awaits. Do not curse the fates that bring your beginning and end in such close proximity.

Just recognize all you have done no matter the length of your stay. For your worth is measured not in the ticks of a clock but in the meaning and purpose you have shown in the space you are allotted.

You have made our existence better for having been among us. What greater good could there be? 

And understand you will live on forever in our hearts. In that, you are immortal.