Day 29 of Nat’l Emergency: Daily Trump Show Is Best PR for Biden

Did you watch Thursday night’s “Jeopardy”? Specifically, did you marvel at Beni Keown’s orange-fro? Now that was some head of hair atop the Northwestern University freshman. It has even garnered its own Twitter feed.

For my part, it is now 13 weeks since my last haircut. My record is 15 weeks which I am sure to beat given the shelter-in-place command from Governor Cuomo. In case you’re wondering, no way will I allow Gilda to trim my locks. Last time I let an unlicensed female play with my hair I was about three years old. My five-year-old sister promised she wouldn’t hurt me but ever since then, I swear, my once straight hair has been curly. 

The Weather Channel app cautioned Friday’s forecast included gale warnings. It wasn’t kidding. There were whitecaps on the water of our birdbath on the patio.

Speaking of the great outdoors, Gilda says her flowers and vegetables will be among the most educated anywhere. Seems her planting preparations include placing copies of The New York Times in the covered beddings to ward off weeds by blocking sunlight from reaching them. When the newspaper breaks down it becomes good compost. 

I don’t know about you but I am fighting anxiety and depression by largely ignoring the detailed reporting on the new coronavirus. Call it avoidance therapy. If I don’t obsess over every last detail of our collective predicament it won’t go away, I know that, but at least I will not be imprisoned by it. Gilda, on the other hand, reads far more about the pandemic. Perhaps it’s because of her medical background as a nurse practitioner and her decades-ago experience as research coordinator of infectious diseases at New York Medical College.

We are lucky to have each other for company. I cannot fathom how single people are able to stay sane inside their residences. Gilda and I can detach for hours at a time, she in the garden or in searching the Internet for recipes or by sewing; I by writing blogs. But most of the time we have the reassurance of partnership.

We take daily walks, usually at least three miles. Six rotations of our housing development equals three miles. Or we drive to different neighborhoods. Last weekend we walked around Manor Park in Larchmont, a picturesque promontory along Long Island Sound surrounded by breathtaking turn of the 20th century mansions. We couldn’t believe that in 42 years of living in Westchester we had never previously discovered Manor  Park. 

From such simple discoveries sanity sustains itself.

We restrict our viewing to the evening news (NBC or CBS) and “Antiques Roadshow” during dinner. “Jeopardy” and either a movie or an episode of a drama like “Better Call Saul” or “My Brilliant Friend” in our refurnished den, made all the more cozy by our propane gas-powered freestanding stove still fired up on chilly evenings, complete the day. 

We rarely watch television or a movie during the daytime, though we might make an exception today. It’s too depressing to see “The Plot Against America” before we go to bed. 

The HBO adaption of Philip Roth’s book is a portrayal of what might have transpired in America had Nazi-loving, America First-cheering Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. For those who shiver at the prospect of an autocratic presidency that exults in racial superiority and the diminution of rights thought to be enshrined in- and protected by the Constitution, the series is traumatizing for its relevance to the politics of today.

Under the cover of emergency powers declared to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump and his gang are tightening their grip on the nation. While most of the public is consumed consuming news on the virus, environmental protections are being shelved, asylum seekers are being deported without hearings, government watchdogs are being canned. The ability to vote is being suppressed.

Daily Trump media briefings have drawn criticism for their obvious politicization of the crisis and the seeming indifference Trump has to facts, medical advice and his administration’s culpability in failing to respond early and effectively. The central complaint is bewilderment that the media is providing a platform for his prevarications and mendacity. 

I take a contrary view. Trump on the stump is one of the best agents of change available to Democrats, Independents and thoughtful Republicans who want to see a change of leadership. By denying responsibility, by denigrating anyone who criticizes federal actions, by withholding supplies from states whose governors have spoken out, by showing his almost complete ignorance of the subject, by displaying almost zero compassion for those affected by the illness or unemployment, by caring only about big business and his television ratings, by pushing for an unproven treatment using a drug he is reported to have a financial interest in, Trump reinforces the reasons he needs to be replaced. 

“Democracy dies in darkness,” is the official slogan of The Washington Post. Trump is doing us a favor exposing himself every day. Rather than being lulled into a sense of security by Drs. Fauci and Birx explaining the evolution of the crisis and its treatment, Trump reminds us how nasty, how self-centered, how vindictive he is. 

Joe Biden has no means of securing equal air time to cement his claim to the presidency. His vision will not come into focus until closer to the election. Meanwhile, though Trump’s core supporters have not wavered, the “wartime” president has not been able to sustain new backers as his ineptitude becomes apparent. How fortunate that he is not getting a wartime bump but rather is being shown to be a wartime chump.

Rescue, Triumph, Disaster and Irony

Rescue: Has this ever happened to you? You’ve set up your DVR to record a weekly TV series. All goes well until you discover, too late, that the season finale, the ultimate fadeout or cliffhanger, was not recorded. And that it will not be rebroadcast until months, months!, later.

You can ask Gilda—that’s happened to us more times than I care to recall, the last being for the 10th episode of the inaugural season of Better Call Saul, the prequel to Breaking Bad. I cannot figure out why it repeatedly happens. Why, after diligently recording nine episodes of a series, does the DVR mysteriously end its mission before the last show? Does Cablevision surreptitiously sneak into our DVR settings in the stealth of night to thwart our viewing pleasure? 

I checked the TV listings. AMC was not re-airing the finale. I checked the On Demand menu. AMC offers programs, but not Better Call Saul. I searched the Internet. No luck. Netflix advertised Better Call Saul; I couldn’t find it on its Web site. We called Netflix but the customer agent said it would be months before it would be available. So why did Netflix advertise it? She had no idea.  

We had given up hope until we our salvation stepped forward in the shape of our tech-savvy son-in-law, Donny.   He advised buying Chromecast ($35 at Costco) and then downloading Plex on our iPad ($4.95). Voilá. $40 and  hours of frustration later, courtesy of Donny’s tech expertise we were further enlightened to the development of Jimmy McGill into Saul Gooodman.

Now we can rest easy as we await Season 2.

Triumph: It would be hard to find a more glowing review of a performance by a Broadway star than the one Ellen Greene received from Ben Brantley of The New York Times for the age-defying, dazzling revival of her more than 30-year-old signature role as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, the musical about a plant (Audrey II) from outer space hungry to eat its way toward human domination (http://nyti.ms/1R7CDBu). 

Audrey is one of my favorite musical theater characters for a very simple reason—Ellie played the part in a Play Group Theatre production. Wearing a short blonde wig, short skirt, push up bra and studded, stiletto black heels, Ellie hardly looked like the young teenager she was. She spoke in the high-pitched voice Ellen Greene used. When she sang, suddenly Seymour wasn’t the only one who knew Ellie was talented beyond her 14 years. 

After the play ended its short run, I salvaged one of her shoes as a nightstand memento. It’s been there for almost 20 years. 

Audrey was the first of many leading and featured roles Ellie enjoyed in PGT productions as well as plays produced by White Plains High School, a Scarsdale summer production company and the Skidmore College theater department. 

Disaster: I can empathize with Laura Bassett, the defensewoman on England’s World Cup soccer team who accidentally kicked the winning goal into her own net in a semifinal match against Japan. During my middling career as part of the intramural soccer team of my Brooklyn College house plan, Knight House, I inadvertently headed a ball past our goalkeeper. Unlike Bassett’s miscue, mine did not alter the final outcome. We already were losing quite badly when I parked myself under a high kick, hoping to head it away from our goal line. Instead, the ball skipped off the back of my head into our net. 

Not one of my finer athletic achievements. It ranks up there with my seventh grade basketball debut. Inserted in the second half, I snagged a defensive rebound. I looked for the outlet pass. Someone called out, “Here.” I threw him the ball. He scored an easy layup. You probably guessed by now—he was on the other team. The coach quickly took me out of the game before I could do more damage.

Irony: Two decades ago, before she became a specialist on spine surgery, Gilda was an active medical expert and researcher of Lyme Disease as part of the Infectious Disease staff at Westchester County Medical Center in Valhalla, NY. She co-authored numerous studies on the debilitating ailment. She set up the hospital’s walk-in Lyme Clinic.

Now, 20 years later, how ironic that we were first in line at the clinic last Wednesday evening. She had been feeling significant fatigue for a few days, with a headache and a stiffness in the neck, when a large, telltale red rash, shaped like a bulls-eye, appeared under Gilda’s right shoulder. She knew immediately what it meant. To confirm the diagnosis, and rule out any of the four or five other diseases deer ticks can convey these days, a trip to her old stomping grounds was in order. 

She was greeted like a returning war hero. Veteran staffers kept stopping by her treatment room to reminisce and update. Newer personnel came to see the person who started the clinic so many years ago. Gary, the head of the department, even suggested she return to the clinic, but he readily agreed when Gilda responded, “Orthopedics pays a lot better than infectious diseases.”

A day after starting the two-week regimen of doxycycline Gilda was back to being her old self. She could just as easily have prescribed her own medication, fulfilling the admonition, “Physician, heal thyself.” But it was a worthwhile trip back in time and place to see the fruits of her labor in practice, this time from the patient’s perspective.