29 December

On Not Being Mr. Trump. Does This Photo Remind You Of Him?

by Jon Katz
On Not Being President Trump: Does this photo remind you of him?

I touched off a bit of a storm online yesterday when I wrote about a nice woman named Jennie from Iowa who suggested I would be more successful and popular if I chose to take up some of the President’s amazing use of social media to draw 42 million followers.

She pointed out – I believe she was only trying to help, she has been a reader of my blog since the beginning – that I don’t have nearly that many followers, which is true, and perhaps if I decided to be more assertive and direct, or tweet more,  I could find fame and fortune.

She gently prodded me to get off my butt and start making some loud noise on social media? If he could do it, she said encouragingly, then so could I.

I thought this a strange idea – Maria was speechless, for once –  but endearing. Many of readers were  alarmed at the idea that I would try to become Trump like in an effort to get my own 42 million followers.

After all, she said, the formula was simple. You just write some provocative or offensive words once or twice a day,  “I’ve seen you do it,” she said.

“Oh bless her heart,” wrote Maureen on Facebook. “She really believes that blowhard from Queens is more than a con man. Don’t change and be like him, whatever you do!”

I got more than 100 messages soon after that piece yesterday, almost every one of them imploring me not to change or try to be like  Mr. Trump. I assured them, they need not worry.

From my remote snow-bound retreat, I realized once more that these are fraught times and people are edgy about such things, even when they are quite unlikely to happen.

You have to be careful what you joke about. Honestly, I never imagined that I could ever be like Mr. Trump, let alone get millions of followers.

It did get me thinking though, fantasizing a bit.

Was it possible for me to become more like Mr. Trump? And as successful?

And if so, how would I go about doing it and getting some of those 42 million people?

I think I would use the notoriety differently.

I wouldn’t build hotels and golf courses, for one thing. I wouldn’t build anything. I am not a builder. I am a spender.

The refugee kids would get a week at Disney World right away and their mothers would have refrigerators stocked with food,  and the Mansion residents would get their own kennel outside for their dogs and cats. It does boggle the mind.

But really, think of the other obstacles.

Does that photo above of me shoveling snow off the car in my slippers and nightshirt and sweat pants remind you of Mr. Trump? I have to be  honest, I would not make a good President. Good Presidents do not talk to dogs and donkeys and walk out naked in the snow to take pictures.

I don’t own a suit or tie, for one thing.

And he has that amazing hair, and I have hardly any. Mine is colorless, like the rest of me, my head is crowned in baldness, like those old Franciscan Friars you see in the medieval movies.

If I had orange hair in my town, combed high enough to hide a raccoon, I would be gunned down in the street before I got my decaf coffee.

There is also the golf thing. I have never played golf, or even, to the best of my memory, touched a gold club, or set foot on a gold course. Honestly, I don’t mean to belittle anybody’s sport, but I have never grasped the point of standing out on a green field and swatting a tiny ball for hours a day and then complaining about how difficult a thing it is to do.

Why would anyone want to do it? That attitude would be a problem, I don’t think Mr. Trump would want to go see a movie about Winston Churchill with me, and eat a small container of popcorn with a little bit of real butter,  that is about as wild a time as I ever have.

When I think of golf, I think of WASP men in pastel pants and visor caps and shits with alligators on them, and I don’t have any pastel pants or white shoes or shirts with alligators on them. How could I be like him if I don’t play golf?

I am sort of what the old Jews call a schlump. i wear clean clothes every day, but they are always the same – blue jeans, blue shirts. He looks like everything he wears just came right off of the rack. And it is well-tailored, you would hardly know he has an older man tummy, just like me, but when you look at me, you know it is there right away.

The president would not like my socks, and I have no shiny black shoes. I burned my ties years ago to keep me from ever taking a corporate job again.

The tax cut is not meant for me unless there is a category I don’t know about – old writers with blogs.

Mr. Trump eats fried chicken and McBurgers, and I am forbidden from eating either. Fast food is dangerous to me, like a viral disease.

A Big Mac With Cheese would sent my heart into shock and send me straight to the hospital, if I was lucky enough to get there. I last had a burger and fries when people still used dial phones.

Mr. Trump and I speak about women differently.

If I ever boasted about “grabbing a woman’s pussy,” the first thing that would happen is that my wife would tie me to her toilet bowl of a car and drag me out into the pasture, where I would be tethered to a tree and left for the coyotes and crows.

And if she didn’t finish me off, she has many friends who would happy do it for her. I don’t think that would make be a best-seller, it would make me a bruised and battered man. I’m not sure I would get on with the people who might follow me for that.

He is like an insult machine, he is, in his own way, quite creative about it.

But I am bad at insulting people. I tend to try to argue rationally and vigorously with people who annoy or provoke me, or often laugh at me.

I don’t really know a lot of names to call people – “jerk” is about as far as I go, or “pompous.”

I once called someone an “ass—,” but i felt bad about it. My grandmother taught me it is rude to insult people by the way they look or talk or dress, she said it was below the belt, and real men, she said, stayed above the belt.

Somehow, this made sense to me, and I have tried to stay on that track.

Mr. Trump and I do have things in common. We sometimes get into fights with people we would be better off ignoring. We are roughly the same age, but he seems resistant to change, and I love change and live by it. Change has saved my life.

We both have a short attention span, although I like to read books and he likes to watch cable news. I can’t stand to watch cable news, not even for a minute. What would we talk about?

I think the President has a likeable side we don’t see much, he has many more friends than I do or will ever have, and he seems to dote on his family. We both have been divorced, but I am uncomfortable talking about my sex life, any sexual prowess, or the size of my penis, at least in public.

My grandmother said real men never  brag about their penis or mention it in public. I kind of agree.

I suspect my penis is definitely smaller than his penis, although I’ve done okay with it..heh-heh, get it?

I also like immigrants and refugees and identity with them, perhaps because there were so many in my family and I was nearly one myself. The ones I know are amazing people. That could be a strain on my efforts to be like him.

.Mr. Trump has touched women and kissed them without their permission.

When I first met Maria I was afraid to touch her at all and told her I didn’t like being touched.

She said if I didn’t want to touch her, then I could go find somebody else to marry, and I cleverly switched gears right away and started talking dirty to her in her Studio Barn at the old farm. I said I would make her squirm with joy.

I was terrified that she might be offended.

She is no lady.

She loved what I was saying and we quickly got together. I have never rated her body or bragged about it, that would be below the proverbial belt and would get me hurt.

Another thing, Mr. Trump is a billionaire, and  am not a billionaire, I have to consider things in order to pay the mortgage.

The refugee fund I started will hopefully have a few thousand dollars in the bank by the end of the month, and that is more money than I have in the bank. You can see my tax returns anytime you want, but bring a tissue, it is a sad story.

I had money once, but it didn’t work out. I’m happier now.

Mr. Trump is a somebody, he is on TV all the time, and I used to be a somebody, I was on TV a lot of the time, but glory is fleeing for writers and the TV producers who used to call me up and beg me to go on their shows seem to have moved on.

None of them seem to know my name any longer, and editors don’t return my phone calls for months. I think Mr. Trump would find me boring and insignificant unless he wanted to  hear about how I talk to donkeys in the morning. And I have this idea he wouldn’t want to talk about that.

I have to be honest with all of you good people, I didn’t mean to frighten or alarm you, but I would not make a good Donald Trump, and that is not a knock on him. I wouldn’t waste a second worrying about it.

He would not make a good Jon Katz. I do have this sneaking feeling he would be fun to have lunch with, especially if  you are an older man who used to work in television in New York City. I can talk New York when I need to, just like Chuck and Donald do.

I suspect we would have a good conversation about television, it would be fun. We could drop a few names and talk about the good old days, something I rarely get to do. (Or even like to do). And we would both leave thinking what a  great fella the other guy was.

But it wouldn’t be real, I don’t think. And it wouldn’t last.

Afterwards,  he would get right on Twitter, and I would get back to my farm and wife and dogs and donkeys. And we would never talk to one another again.

Just in case, I’ll e-mail him my phone number. Maybe he will come up and have a drink with me at the Bog. Kelly  Nolan would love to serve us at the bar.

4 Comments

  1. This is why I read you Jon Katz! And would never in a million years read one of Trumps tweets. You are literally down to earth and I imagine he has never planted a petunia. You rock!

    1. I love banning nasty people, it’s true. My gift to civil speech on the internet. I see this as my home online, and I don’t want nasty people in my home. But I don’t call them ugly names, if that matters.

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