Potentially Spam So... in Book Eleven: Whatever Will Be Will Be 2024

I realized that what I was going to share here first could easily be marked as Spam. I would hope that my having had a paid membership since the option began and my now 10 years of writing would protect me from the label; but I don’t want to suddenly be a Red Flag Example of the Problem for anyone new to this area. So, instead of just diving in to the article I wanted to share, I have this preamble. And another one, for fun.

So… last night practicing the solo portion, the Director was very much “You need to conquer that fear. You should be MORE afraid of people not being able to hear you!” And being honest about how deep this terror is in me? I face literal murderers in my job. I’ve had an honest-to-God psychopath repeatedly drive by my house while texting how it was a damned shame the house was brick so he’d have to wait until I left. I have an ex-girlfriend from whom I have had to wrestle a knife! But honestly… this deep irrational emotion clinging to my soul… it is a profound terror (and exactly the reason I am doing this show instead of the other one.) Well, when I think about being so terrified that it makes me cry… I think back to Greg Kinnear’s wonderful performance in As Good As It Gets. At a deeply low moment, Greg Kinnear’s character is sort of breaking down in front of the neighbor who is a jerk to him and says, “Is this fun for you? Hm? You lucky devil. It just keeps getting better and better, don’t it? I’m losing my apartment, Melvin. And… and Frank, he wants me to beg my parents, who haven’t called me, for help. And I won’t. And… I… I don’t want to paint anymore. So, the life that I was trying for is over. The life that I had is gone, and I’m feeling so damn sorry for myself that it’s difficult to breathe. It’s high times for you, isn’t it, Melvin?! The gay neighbor’s terrified! TERRIFIED!” And while that emotional representation may be a little over the top for “Sing This Song By Yourself”.......... well… humanity is distinguished by its complicated and often irrational emotional concepts and motivations. I’m just one of the humans here.
But of course, since I loved this movie… thinking about that line makes me think of the movie proper, the movie as a whole. I really did enjoy it and they cast great actors. In fact, enjoy a brief scene between Lisa Edelstein and Peter Jacobson a full 10 years before they would both be on House, M.D. together. But despite the wonderful performances… EVEN IN 1997… I was weirded out by the age difference between Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. Partially because they never addressed it. I mean, another Jack Nicholson movie Something’s Gotta Give the age discrepancy was the entire plotline! What a cultural difference 6 years makes! But… Jack Nicholson is 26 years older than Helen Hunt. I appreciate how fast we are to say “Age shouldn’t count in relationships” and then how quickly we equivocate and stutter and take back to make sure we’re clear in saying “Age shouldn’t count in relationships… after a certain age.” And it is Jack Nicholson of all people. But… it was a big deal to me watching it as a child and… it is still a big deal to me watching it as an adult, lol.
AT THE TIME OF RELEASE: Helen Hunt was 34. Jack Nicholson was 60. Almost double her age. And they never address the age issue. The actress that played Hunt’s Character’s Mom (the late Shirley Knight) was only 9 months older than Jack! It just… it always seemed like such a perfect encapsulation of a Theater/Hollywood thing we still see to this day (though FAR less of). If a man in his 60s, 70s, or even 80s is dating someone half his age… good for him. If a woman in her 60s, 70s, or even 80s is dating someone half her age… what’s wrong with him or maybe she’s just a predator!

SPEAKING of Predators, I wanted to post something I read today. Regular readers may remember one of my initial biggest horrors of President Trump was his abject refusal to comply with long-standing ethics rules regarding Emoluments. And other than just being an attorney who is held to a strict professional ethics standard; this blatantly unethical behavior upset me because… LEX LUTHOR had been president in the DC Comic Books. AND EVEN HE COMPLIED WITH THE EMOLUMENTS CLAUSE! When a cartoonish comic book characterization of Narcissistic Evil Billionaire is acting MORE ethically than the ACTUAL President? We should all feel fear, terror, or outrage. Probably all three! So, this kind of thing (as discussed in the article) bothers me on some very serious levels! As ever, please click THE LINK HERE to go to the source where this article was retrieved. Not only does site traffic indicate whether a story is succeeding, but the article in its original form has photographs and links to follow and sources to cite/verify/investigate.

TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN CAN’T GET IN THE WAY OF HIS NEW GRIFT
Story by Heather Digby Parton, uploaded 9/18/2024 shared by Salon obtained via MSN.com

There’s been a lot going on this week so you may have missed Donald Trump introducing his latest business venture on Monday. You read that right. He may be in the final stretch of his third presidential campaign but he found the time to formally introduce his latest money-making scheme to the public. And what a scheme it is: The Trump family is getting into the cryptocurrency game.

It’s obvious that Trump was completely clueless about how his new business, called World Liberty Financial, works. When asked during a conversation on Elon Musk’s X on Monday why it is so important for America to lead in cryptocurrency, the former president started talking about how AI requires a lot of electricity. (Luckily he didn’t digress into shark attacks.)

Later he extolled the expertise and brilliance of his 18-year-old son Barron, who he said has “four wallets” and is named as the new company’s “DeFi visionary” (that stands for decentralized finance.) Trump himself is the “Chief Crypto Advocate” and Trump’s oldest sons, the alleged movers and shakers of this deal, are both called “Web3 Ambassadors.”

The Trumps have a couple of very interesting partners in this new venture, exactly the kind of people you’d expect a president to be involved with. The first is a self-described “dirtbag of the internet” named Chase Herro who once famously said of the crypto market, “You can literally sell s—t in a can, wrapped in p—s, covered in human skin, for a billion dollars if the story’s right, because people will buy it. I’m not going to question the right and wrong of all that.” The other partner is Zachary Folkman who, according to the New York Times, used to teach classes on how to seduce women. You can see why the Trumps jumped at the chance to get into business with them.

It is unprecedented for a presidential candidate to launch a new business less than two months before the election. As those of you who were around before Trump poisoned all ethics and morals in politics will recall, candidates actually divested themselves of their businesses, often putting them in a blind trust in order to avoid even the perception of conflict of interest. It all seems so quaint now.

Trump is also hawking bibles, tennis shoes, NFTs and even pieces of the suit he was wearing during the assassination attempt in August, as if it is a holy relic. And in a matter of days, he could conceivably come into a huge windfall when the “lock-out period” on his Truth Social stock ends and he can sell his shares. Wall Street has inexplicably valued the failed company at $3 billion and he owns 57% of the shares so if he decided to sell he’d finally be a real billionaire. The stock price would plummet even more than it already has and other investors, many of them his fans who’ve invested their nest eggs, would be ruined. But I think we know that would be of no concern to Donald Trump.

He claimed last Friday that he has no intention of selling and as you know he cannot tell a lie, so that’s that. Also, now that he’s said he won’t do it, he could be subject to SEC investigations and shareholder lawsuits if he did. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that he isn’t too worried about that. After all, they’ll have to get in line.

Both Trump’s crypto scheme and the Truth Social stock present an obvious conflict of interest if he wins the presidency as he would have control of the regulatory agencies that oversee them. But Trump’s criminality and corruption as president is already well established so what would be a major scandal for any other candidate is irrelevant when it comes to him. (One can’t help but think about the Republicans dragging every member of the Biden family through the mud for four years over a legal business deal that took place when Joe Biden was out of office but that’s just how it works in Trump’s America.)

Trump’s been getting away with scams, cons and crimes his entire life and always wriggles out of them. A new book by New York Times reporters Ross Beutner and Suzanne Craig called “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered his Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success” says it all about Trump’s long history of fraudulent business failures and his unique ability to convince people to keep giving him money anyway. They point out that Trump has had two big financial windfalls in his life, neither of them based on even the slightest talent for business. The first came via his daddy, who bankrolled him for decades with hundreds of millions of dollars and bailed him out repeatedly. He did manage some early success with Trump Tower and a couple of other buildings on which he’d been partnered with some people who knew what they were doing. But apparently, that was when the narcissism really kicked in so he bought into his own hype. He never listened to anyone ever again and virtually everything he touched — casinos, an airline, a football league, buildings in Chicago, a development for the world’s tallest building in Manhattan, money-losing golf resorts, all of it — failed.

The second windfall came from “The Apprentice” which was picked up by NBC at a moment when Trump badly needed money. The illusion of wealth the show sold to America helped Trump cash in with an exclusive product placement deal that brought in a ton of money. (He even cheated his collaborator Mark Burnett, the producer who created the show, but they were all making money so they just let him do it.) Trump’s personal licensing deals — the steaks, the vodka, the ties etc. — apparently never made much money, however.

He is simply terrible at business. According to the authors, he makes the same mistakes over and over again. He pays way too much, doesn’t believe in research and always thinks that his name on a project is the magic that will make it work — yet it never does. And he’s done the same thing in politics. He has one talent and that’s convincing people that he’s successful even though he’s not. And he’s been doing it his entire life.

The big question is whether at the age of 78, he can pull it off one more time. Will he be able to cash in for more than a billion dollars with his failed social media company? Will he be able to parlay his political losses since 2016 into another term as president? We’d better hope that this loser’s luck has finally run out.