Donald Trump: An Unauthorized Biography

By Jack Edwards

My wife and I went on a free vacation to Las Vegas last year.  I’m still not sure who paid for it.  It was either Donald Trump, the Hilton Corporation, or (and this is my best guess) the Las Vegas Mafia.  Anyway, in exchange for suffering through a two hour timeshare pitch, we got a voucher that covered several nights at the Trump International Hotel.  We felt very fancy and entitled walking through its sumptuous lobby.  Here it is-

Trump was still running for the Republican nomination at the time, so we asked everyone who worked there about him.  They said Trump stayed there whenever he was in town, and they really liked him.  Of course, there were a few who didn’t like him.  Those people LOVED him.  I’m not kidding.  But, as I’m sure you would expect, there were exceptions.  There was the occasional employee who neither liked nor loved Trump.  These few people WORSHIPED him.  This made me conclude that:

  1. They really did like him, or
  2. Trump had contracted with the Las Vegas Mafia to hold all their relatives hostage to keep them in line.

And if you doubt my claim that there is a Las Vegas Mafia, I present this photograph as Exhibit #1 –

The only group of people sinister enough to drop a four story M&M store smack in the middle of the Vegas Strip is organized crime.  It’s not enough that they suck your wallet dry on the casino floor, they clean out your kid’s piggy bank too.  At least the kids whose parents are stupid enough to take them to Las Vegas.

My two criticisms of the Trump International, which you may or may not choose to attribute to Donald Trump (although I blame him personally), are:

1.  The elevators weren’t equipped with those key card inserts to ensure that only guests can travel up their floor. (I kid you not, in the evening, they assigned a stocky guy to stand in front of the elevator bank who made us show him our key cards before he’d let us pass.)

And,

2.  More than once, while taking a shower, the water went cold.  That’s a deal breaker.  If the Mafia weren’t paying for my room, I would have lodged a very sternly worded complaint.

Side note: As you know, Las Vegas visitors are required by law to attend a Cirque du Soleil show.  We went to see “O.”  Here’s my review:  Watching people do one amazing high dive after another was incredible… for the first 30 minutes.  Then it’s time to wrap it up and let us get back to the bar, uh, … I mean the casino.

When we got back to the hotel on our final evening, we decide to hit the lounge.  This is where the The Donald, in no uncertain terms, convinced me that he can get Mexico to pay for his wall.  He got me, the biggest cheapskate in the Northern Hemisphere, to pay $500 for this drink-

Okay, not quite $500, but WAY too much.  Embarrassingly too much.  Although it did go down quite smoothly.

So, if you want to get all technical about it, I didn’t actually meet Donald Trump, but I got a pretty good sense of the guy.  And in the end, yes, I have decided that I completely agree with your assessment of him.  You are right.  You are ABSOLUTELY right.

 

Only You Can Save this Endangered Creature!

By Jack Edwards

 Our world is rapidly changing.  Mankind’s behavior is wreaking havoc on our planet.  Time is of the essence, and we must act NOW.  Among our challenges is to save one of our humble creatures whose very existence teeters on the brink of extinction.  I am speaking, of course, about the “thank you wave,” that little over the shoulder wave we give to drivers who let us merge in front of them.

The population of thank you waves was once abundant in North America.  Herds of them roamed freely over the Great Plains as far as the eye could see.  Wait, those were bison (or were they buffalo?)  Anyway, as with the bison (or buffalo), we took the thank you wave for granted.  And now, although there are “thank you wave deniers” yapping away on talk radio, the thank you wave stands on the precipice of complete obliteration.

President Trump even referred to this crisis during his inaugural address.  I quote: “The day of drivers allowing others to cut in front of them without reciprocating with a thank you wave, IS OVER!  Big league!”

I let people cut in front of me all the time on my morning commute, and the last thank you wave I got was on Christmas Eve back in 1994.  Although even then, I wasn’t certain if he was just making a quick adjustment to his rear-view mirror.

I think I can speak for every American, when I say that the thank you wave is a creature we want to survive for our children, and our children’s children, and our children’s children children, and our children’s children children children.  But  no longer; it really should end there.

Ironically, there is one wave which we can all agree should be totally eradicated.  A wave that has been nothing but a blight on the face the earth: The sports stadium “Wave.”  This wave should have died a natural death along with streaking in the 1970s, but it somehow managed to hang around like a nasty case of scabies.

With your help, we can save the thank you wave.  Just like we did with the buffalo.  Unfortunately, we can’t use the same plan we did with the buffalo.  That plan worked like a charm.  Remember the old adage, if you want to save an animal from extinction, just get the American public to start eating it.  We now have more bison roaming around our country than the common fruit fly.  But sadly, unlike with the buffalo, we can’t simply adjust our palates to enjoy the lean, healthy taste of a thank you wave.

Gold Rush: Living Room Couch Edition

By Jack Edwards

I’m not going to point fingers, but there are people who think there is no difference between men and women (aside from a little plumbing).  To these people, I have two words: Are you completely insane?  Wait, that’s four words.  My error.  I meant these two words: Gold Rush.

Gold Rush is a reality television show that airs Friday nights on the Discovery Channel.  It follows a group of daring individuals who aggressively compete for the affections of a handsome young man.  Wait.  My mistake again.  That’s The Bachelor.  Gold Rush is slightly different.  Yes, there are bachelors on the show, but many lack certain social refinements, like basic hygiene.  These guys spend their summers working on three gold mining crews in the Alaskan Yukon.

The only people who watch Gold Rush are guys.  No women, and by this, I mean absolutely NO women, watch Gold Rush.  I know this because I conducted a scientific survey.  As you may know, the key to a valid survey is selecting a statistically proportionate sample of the public, in this case, the female public.  I employed the following “empirical” study protocol:  I asked my mom, my wife, both of my daughters and a lady in the grocery store line buying a box of Franzia wine, and none of them liked Gold Rush.

Guys love Gold Rush for three reasons:

  1. It shows a bunch of rugged adventurous guys (not unlike themselves, they imagine), operating heavy equipment in the wilderness mining gold, while super loud music pounds away in the background.
  2. …Hmmmm…

Okay, there’s only one reason.  Guys like Gold Rush for one reason.

These are the mining crews-

The Beets Crew.  Tony Beets owns this outfit.  To picture Tony, imagine one of those troll dolls from the 1970s, except imagine it a lot hairier and screaming the F word at everybody.  Tony drops the F-Bomb at least 1000 times per episode.  And that’s just when he’s talking to his children.

The Schnabel Crew.  Parker Schnabel runs this outfit.  Parker is 22 years old and spent his off season last year in Australia.  He must have misunderstood when he heard about the Gold Coast.  He didn’t come back with any gold, but he did come back with a blonde bombshell who he put to work driving a rock truck.  (And I bet even she doesn’t watch the show).

The Hoffman Crew.  Todd Hoffman leads this bunch.  If his business had a mission statement, it would read:  We seek to locate the richest and most profitable gold mining ground available, and then avoid it at all cost.  He’s currently navigating Chapter 7 bankruptcy (Just kidding, Todd!)

I wholeheartedly recommend the show.  But I have one warning for the guys:  Don’t even think about watching it unless you’re willing to commit to the show 100%.  It’s like crack cocaine.  Tell your family that your Fridays nights from here on out are booked.  (You might want to consider recording The Bachelor to keep them occupied.)

Inauguration Day: The Real Winner

By Jack Edwards

The time has come for the world’s most powerful nation to once again demonstrate its tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.  Two mighty forces have stood toe to toe, pounding away with millions of dollars of negative ads, hammering each other with harsh rhetoric, and, at times, actually spitting globules of mucus at one another.  And now, finally, after a year and an half of ceaseless bloodletting, where no holds were barred, where every dirty secret, true or libelous, fanned the flames of the masses, one combatant stands victorious.  The name of this victor, of course, is Twitter.  Yes, Facebook fought long and hard.  It out spent Twitter by tens of millions.  It had the money, the experience and the social cache, but in the end, it could not compete with those 140 little characters.  Ultimately, Twitter was The Little Engine that Could.

Who could have possibly foreseen a Twitter victory?  It came out of nowhere. Be honest, when most of us first heard of it, we thought the idea was crazy.  What practical value could there be in shooting 140 characters into cyberspace?  But, alas, Hollywood stars saved the day.  They began sending important, cutting-edge news snippets to their adoring fans.  Here are a few examples (I promise you that these are REAL – I did not make them up, and I certainly have not edited them.  Who am I to impugn an A-list celebrity’s grammar?):

Paris Hilton: “Just finished an intense pilates session with my trainer.  Feels so good to work out.  Now time for a healthy lunch.”

Miley Cyrus: “im bored.”

Kim Kardashian: “I worked out & had a mani-pedi and its not even 8am! I need a nap!”

I know what you’re thinking: With witty, captivating messages like these, did Facebook ever have a chance?

And now, thanks in part to the assistance of the Hollywood’s elite, Twitter will now take its rightful place as Commander in Chief of our nation’s “apps.”  It will be our “App in Chief.”

In closing, I have some advice.  I must first, however, emphasize that I am not an actual LICENSED financial advisor.  Here it is: Twitter trades on the NASDAQ using the symbol TWTR.  As I write this, it is trading at $16.94 per share.  So if you haven’t done so already, download the app, liquidate all your savings (every last dollar), and BUY TWITTER!  Do it now, and if you’re lucky, you might get the answer to that all-important question:  Precisely what did Paris Hilton have as her “healthy lunch”?

Plight of the Oregon Platypus

By Jack Edwards

Last night the University of Oregon Ducks played the Oregon State University Beavers in a “Civil War” basketball game.  All of these civil war games are deeply meaningful to Oregonians.  This is because fans associated with each school feel strongly, to their very core, to the center of the marrow of their thigh bones, about one thing:  Their school’s players from California are better than the other school’s players from California.  And they are darn serious about it.  If you come across any of them discussing this topic, back away slowly.  If necessary, curl up on the ground and play dead, like wildlife experts tell you to do when confronting a grizzly bear.

I feel pride in the talent of these young men from California too, but sadly, each civil war puts a knot in my stomach.  I am a graduate of each school.  I am a beaver and a duck.  Some say that makes me a platypus.  This, of course, is absurd.  I will share with you this real quote from Yahoo! Answers on the subject of whether a platypus is the offspring of a duck and a beaver:

“There is no possible way a bird and a beaver could interbreed – one’s a bird and one’s mammal.  It’d be like you having a baby with a crow.”

Not so fast, Yahoo! Answer.  What is your Yahoo! Answer to, ‘How do you explain North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?’  Yeah.  I thought so.

The UO ducks refer to themselves as “The Fighting Ducks.”  The OSU beavers lack a formal adjective.  Some people refer to them as “Those Damn Beavers,” but these people are usually members of opposing teams.  As for OSU, they take a more international approach to self-aggrandizement.  They refer to themselves as “Beaver Nation.”  So, an Oregon civil war, in essence, is a contest between a band of warrior ducks and a nation-state of walking incisors.  It’s a real sight.  Nothing you want to miss, that’s for sure.  And I didn’t.

In the end, it was a freakish blowout.  The California Fighting Ducks lambasted the California Beaver Nation 85-43.  So now when I run into any of my duck friends who know I have torn loyalties, there is only one thing for me to do –

curl up on the ground and play dead.

A Summer Camp with all the Safety Features of a Syrian Mine Field

Bull FinalBy Jack Edwards

My kids occasionally ask me questions which cause me to reference my free-range childhood in the rural town of Alsea, Oregon.  This question for example, “Dad, when you were a kid, did you go to summer camp?” Me: “Yeah, it was called ‘Shovel the Manure Out of the Barn Camp.’”

My summers were exactly like going to camp, with slight variation. The Director of Cleaning the Barn Camp was my dad. If you needed him, you had to run out into the field and yell at him over the roar of the tracker which he was on 23 hours a day.

Going out into the field was not without risk. Joe the Bull lived in the field. Joe was the bovine equivalent of an overheated car crusher, except not quite as gentle. A popular “elective” activity at Cleaning the Barn Camp was called, “Narrowly Escaping Being Killed by Joe the Bull.”

Joe could sense fear, and he generally spotted me when I was merely standing by the fence weighing my odds of survival at sprinting across his territory to avoid the long walk around. The only person Joe gave a wide berth was my dad, who had once introduced Joe’s forehead to a two-by-four. This occurred on the one and only time Joe ever charged at my father, who not so coincidentally happened to be carrying a fresh length of two-by-four.

There was, of course, a physical fitness unit. It was called marching along next to the trailer “bucking” bales of hay twelve hours a day. The good news was that the hay bales only weighed twice our body weight. A special benefit was that it was all the free water we could drink. The Assistant Camp Director, my mom, would freeze gallon jugs of water which would melt throughout the day, thus improving our chances of survival.

Religious training was integral. We even wore special religious garments – long sleeve shirts, jeans, leather gloves and boots. I have rarely prayed as often or as fervently as I did during the mandatory camp activity called, “Clearing the Blackberry Bushes With Machetes While You Prayed You Didn’t Step on a Wasp Nest.” Luckily, each summer this activity only lasted an entire sweltering week. By the end of it, I was qualified to be ordained.

Camp Alsea. Fun and frolic with all the safety features of a Syrian mine field. And, of course, in addition to the frozen water jugs, it was all the Kool Aid we could drink. On the down side, the closest thing we ever got to a s’more was slipping on one of ole Joe’s cow pies.

I’d head back in a New York minute.

I Was Not Advised That I Might Be Lunch

Bear Warning

By Jack Edwards

I recently escaped a harrowing near death experience. Luckily, I did not know about the danger at the time. I thought I was just going for a leisurely hike. No one told me I might end up a chew toy for a cougar (not the good kind) or a hungry bear.

Once every ten to fifteen years, someone slips a pill into my coffee that distorts my judgment (at least that’s what I think happens), and I suggest to my family that we go on a nature hike. This is how I found myself hiking to the top of Spencer’s Butte, located in the creatively named, Spencer’s Butte Park. As we were beginning our daring assent up the groomed trail, I looked over and spotted a poster a few yards away. Because I already questioned my stamina to get the top and back, I decided not to expend the precious energy to go over and read the poster.

After a successful trip, we happened to walk by the poster. It warned: “Be Advised,” with a picture of a bear and a cougar. Oddly, the picture of the bear showed the whole bear, while the picture of the cougar was a head shot. This led me to the obvious conclusion. The cougar had a better publicist.

Leave it to the “glass is always half full” park officials. The advisory began on a positive note: “We are fortunate to have these beautiful creatures living in our natural areas. Please respect these animals and their home.” Hello? Is there really a problem with park visitors failing to give these “beautiful creatures” a wide berth? A berth that could dock something like an aircraft carrier or two?

It’s a really good thing I didn’t run into one of these guys on my hike, because I had not read the Be Advised sign which helpfully listed five pieces of advice under the heading, “If you encounter a bear or a cougar.”

First, “Do not run, scream or turn your back.” See, right there, that would have been the end of me. My last earthly act would have been running and screaming in the opposite direction of the “beautiful creature.” (“Mommy, look! That man is giving a cougar a piggy back ride.”)

Second, “Make yourself look as large as possible.” Ironically, after years of trying to get a foothold on my diet and gaining modest success, this achievement could have caused my demise.

Third, “Put children between adults.” This suggestion is no doubt the result of some startled parent using little Johnny as a getaway distraction.

Fourth, “Speak firmly and back away slowly.” Speak firmly? What do you say to a terrifying beast that’s staring at you like you’re a fresh baked Calzone?

And fifth (and I swear to you I am not making this up), the final piece of advice is, “If attacked, fight back.” Uh…, thanks for that gem.

So, as I previously stated, I survived – this time. But from now on, I’m keeping a better eye on my coffee.

Why You Should Own a Dog

Dog FinalBy Jack Edwards

Dog owners say that one of the best reasons to own a dog is that it motivates you to go out and walk. I finally realized why my wife doesn’t want to own a dog. She doesn’t need one. She walks me.

As similar as I may appear to the average labradoodle, there are a few differences. First, I never tug on the leash. I pace myself. In fact, most evenings it’s all my wife can do to pry me off the couch. Second, I never eat food that’s fallen onto the floor. Unless, of course, I do so within the five-second grace period. And finally, I rarely leave a deposit in the backyard that requires any scooping.

But my wife is not alone. Whenever my wife is out walking me, I see other wives walking their husbands. They are everywhere. Wives dutifully marching their husbands up and down the neighborhood. I am aware that my opinion may come off as “traditionalist,” “sexist,” or some other “ist.” But trust me, when the only people you see out marching around aimlessly are: A. Women tugging their men along, and B. Women walking alone, I think I’ve made my point. The ratio of women versus men suggesting an evening stroll to their spouses, and I may be significantly underestimating here, is north of ten billion to one.

Truth be told, I think that most of us husbands agree that once we lift our sorry selves off the sofa, tie on our shoes and feel the fresh air in our faces, we each have to admit that deep down, if we’re honest with ourselves, we are secretly happy to be that many more steps closer to returning to our sofa.

Years ago, we owned a dog for about six nanoseconds. But I embraced those six nanoseconds. I squeezed them for all they were worth. They seemed more like seven, or maybe even eight nanoseconds. I even bought a book: Cesar’s Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems. A guy named Cesar Millan wrote it. You may have heard of him. He is known as “The Dog Whisperer.” His book explains how to address everyday discipline issues. Imagine my concern when I recently discovered Cesar’s book missing from the shelf. Yeah. Somebody’s reading up.

My point is this. My future may not hold owning a dog, but it apparently does hold hearing some whispering.

Smells Like Football

Corpse FlowerBy Jack Edwards

People love to test their limits. Some sky dive. Others run marathons. But the real thrill seekers, the truly adventurous, march willingly into the knee-buckling stench of a blooming corpse flower. This explains why hordes of dare devils are currently lined up in eager anticipation outside the Denver Botanic Gardens.

According to a recent article by New York Times journalist Julie Turkewitz, Denver is currently the Ground Zero of stink. The corpse flower smells like rotting flesh, but only when it’s in bloom. So the clock is ticking. According to Turkewitz, these plants take eight to 20 years to bloom, and when they do, they’re only open for 48 hours.

Sadly, I can’t go to Denver right now, but I am confident I could withstand the smelly blast. You see, I’m an Oregon Duck fan.

Football fans around the country produce their share of pregame vomit, but Oregon Ducks fans consistently find a way to raise the bar. This is why I enjoy watching games on television. It don’t mind the stench, I’m just concerned about slipping. “Slipped on vomit” is the number one cause of game day emergency room visits.

Before I continue, let me assure you every word of this story is true.

A few years ago, my wife arranged for us to enjoy a game from premium seats on Autzen Stadium’s 50 yard line. Naturally, I voiced my vomit concern, but my wife ignored me.

When we reached our row, two young men were sitting on the aisle. One looked up at us sheepishly and said, “Sorry.” His companion was hunched forward over a large circle of vomit. A pleasant looking couple was sitting directly next to them, and the woman was leaning in horror toward her companion.

Always the gentleman, I gestured for my wife to enter first. We stepped over the pile and took our seats on the other side of the couple. My wife, who has the olfactory senses of a champion bloodhound, shoved her scarf into her face and stared blankly toward the field. I spotted a concessionaire and ordered a dish of nachos.

I need to slow things down here like we’re studying Zapruder’s Kennedy assassination film, because this is when things turned surreal. As I’m leaning back munching my nachos, I hear a strange noise to my left. I look over and the vomit guy is sitting ramrod straight spewing a projectile stream of vomit like a fire hose directly onto the back the guy in front of him. I’ve seen some amazing things in my life, but this was truly incredible. It seemed like a gallon of liquid was running down the victim’s back.

Here’s my point. Through it all. Through all the chaos and mayhem that ensued, I polished off my nachos. Every last one. They went down smooth.

This is why I am so disappointed to be missing the Denver corpse flower. Because I am an Oregon Duck fan, and there is no stench I cannot conquer.

East Coast Geography for North Westerners

Sea Monkey Shrimp

By Jack Edwards

I just discovered shocking news. Rhode Island is not an island. It’s just another pedestrian piece of the United States. The contiguous United States. Yeah, the whole island thing is a scam.

Before you East Coast people get started, I would strongly recommend you zip it. If you think that we over here on the west coast aren’t well aware that 99.99% of you regularly mix up whether Oregon or Washington sits directly atop California, you are sadly misinformed. So mind your bees wax. This column is for the edification of my fellow North Westerners who have no idea whether Indiana or Illinois sits father to the east, or whether Vermont shares a border with New York. And, hold on to your hat for this, we don’t really care.

Yes, I am aware (after looking at an elementary school map yesterday) that Rhode Island does have a few islands. Let me point out that Washington has about a thousand islands carpeting a little Pacific inlet known as PUGET SOUND, but you don’t see Washington calling itself Washington Island. Even Hawaii, a state famous for being nothing but islands, didn’t name itself Hawaii Island.

This reminds me of when I was a kid and some cockroach of a company was marketing a miniature species of shrimp as Sea Monkeys. They came in a box with a plastic “tank” where the sea monkeys would live. The colorful box was plastered with illustrations of all these little sea monkeys with happy little human faces frolicking with one another. Except after you finally wore your tired parents down to the point that they actually bought you the box of sea monkeys, and you added water, you realized that you’d been duped. They weren’t the creatures displayed on the box. They didn’t have little human faces. They were shrimp. Insect-like shrimp at that. The whole thing was a sham. You were suddenly the reluctant owner of a bait shop.

What I’m saying is this. Rhode Island should gather what’s left of its dignity and change its name to Rhode. True, the name Rhode looks somewhat naked and insecure, and its director of tourism might collapse under the pressure of trying to convince people to spend their money in a place that sounds more like an industrial equipment manufacturer than a state, but honesty comes with a cost. On the flip side, in the event that Rhode Island chooses to retain its (misleading) name, I have another suggestion. It should change its state motto to, “Rhode Island, The Sea Monkey State.”