OUT-TRUMPING DONALD TRUMP

OUT-TRUMPING DONALD TRUMP

            Donald Trump is a “Jackass.”  

At least that’s what Senator Lindsey Graham called him, according to yesterday’s Los Angeles Times.

REALLY!  How fascinating that Graham saw such a different image beneath the forward-leaning hair . . . but Graham ought to know, he’s from South Carolina, and maybe he’s seen other donkeys with a backcomb.

            Whatever . . . Trump is currently Number One in the polls, and for some of us it’s because we can’t wait to hear what he’ll say next—which insult he’ll hurl, or where it will land. Years ago he was simply “The Donald,” and he was basically a caricature you could cluck over and ignore. Now lots of voters are hoping he’ll hang in for most of the electoral season, because politics is seldom this out-of-control or this funny . . . and here’s this one-man wrecking machine, wildly swinging away at half the politicians in his own party.      

            But Trump can’t claim full ownership to “Startling and Shocking.” Other luminaries are shocking, too, only some are tragically unfunny, like Bill Cosby. Few of us can imagine that this once-paragon of family values and personal ethics has now been turned over and exposed, like a rock with bugs on the other side. Bill Cosby?  Really?

            I’d be more stunned over both of them--if I hadn’t personally known a couple of men who were also Startling and Shocking but, like Bill Cosby, were one hundred percent not the person I’d always believed.  

            I actually co-authored a book with a man who once stood out in my mind as the soul of ethics. The first time we met (in a restaurant, over breakfast), he took a couple of moments to pray quietly over his meal. We talked about his son and how he’d like to write a book about fatherhood. We discussed the failings of today’s prison systems, and why a different approach would “rescue” and “rehabilitate” young men locked up for their addictions. We decided, informally, to write a book on the topic. We agreed to collaborate, we shook hands, and that was it. We never felt we needed a written contract.   

After the book came out, we traveled to other counties in his official car—to TV appearances and radio shows.  We discussed ethics most of the way.

Newly elected to a high office, he was adored—first locally and then nationally. And suddenly it all fell—like a brick wall shaken to earth in a quake. He began to be discredited. The Los Angeles Times called me to refute certain parts of our book, which I wouldn’t do; I believed he’d told the truth as he saw it. Rumors appeared in the Times. Friends reported to me absolute knowledge of an affair—which I found hard to believe.

It got worse. He tried to “pick up” one of my writer-friends. Then it developed that the man’s closest two buddies were both crooks. Eventually he was tried as a crook—with so many misdeeds on the docket that only the Statue of Limitations saved him from a very long prison sentence. He did, however, serve four years.  

I was stunned. Who was he, anyway?  The man I once knew?  Or somebody else, entirely different?   

A second man that Rob and I knew well for over fifty years, became, after death, a complete stranger. Once a neighbor and, with his wife, a couple we saw frequently, the man was a respected local attorney . . . and in fact at one time he was president of the State Bar. Both Rob and I found his sense of humor engaging.    

Then the pair moved to the beach area, and we didn’t see them much. Yet after he retired, the lawyer spent time in a trailer in the desert, working on a fascinating novel, for which I did some editing.   

During this interval we heard a sad story about the husband traveling alone in Turkey, and how he woke up one morning to find himself tossed into a ditch. We were surprised at both the strangeness and his bad luck. 

Then, after a long dry spell, the four of us met at Soup Plantation for lunch. It was exactly like old times. The lawyer’s great sense of humor surfaced, and so did Rob’s, and the four of us spent about two hours reminiscing and laughing. Nearby, a lady leaned closer and said, “It’s good to see four people having so much fun.” 

For Rob and me, that lunch was memorable as an interval that proved old friends could still enjoy as much hilarity together as they’d once had.

Exactly four days later we received a shocking phone call—the wife reporting, in a voice thick with tears, that her husband was dead. We soon learned that a vagrant out in the desert had entered his trailer and killed him. 

But this wasn’t even a start to the story. Gradually it came out that the attorney had spent time in the desert for more than writing—that he’d employed a pimp to bring him . . . well, male sex partners. That fatal day our friend did something that so enraged his latest conquest that the man killed him. 

We never saw the wife again . . . and never learned whether she was told the truth. Both Rob and I had a hard time believing there could be a side to our friend that was kept entirely secret—until after his death. 

The short conclusion here is that a few individuals are capable of being two entirely different people, and you never know for sure which one was “real.”  Every new revelation about yet another such person comes as a  shock . . . until the group gets so large, with so many people out-trumping Donald Trump, you’re not flabbergasted any more.

And then there’s The Donald himself . . . the one man who can never totally surprise anyone.   

  

HELP! I'M A PRISONER OF PUBLISHER'S CLEARING HOUSE!

HELP!  I’M A PRISONER OF PUBLISHER’S CLEARING HOUSE!

           

Okay, I’m a sucker, ready to be exploited, I know that already. I also know there’s one of me born every minute.

Somehow I drifted into this PCH prison months ago, when Publisher’s Clearing House first offered to put my husband on their list of possible winners—you know, the roster that promises somebody will soon win $5000 a week for life. When I first signed up, “soon” was touted as the end of June. Yes—last month. The date has now been extended to end-of-August.      

I never should have read their literature--never should have given them the slightest nod. Most important, I NEVER should have shared my email address. 

Since that moment of passing stupidity, my inbox has been bombarded with two to four messages every day, which vary from bright, golden promises “Just press this button and you’ll be forever on the list—don’t you WANT $5000 a week?”  to threats—“If  you don’t sign in NOW, you’ll forfeit every chance . . . ” and I find myself thinking, “Well, I’ve come this far . . .”

Any jailhouse crew would call this the “Good Cop, Bad Cop” approach, which seems to work fairly well with criminals and  . . . well, me.        

Oh, they use it, all right. But nothing is as simple as pressing a single button. Once tapped into their site, you’re bombarded with bells and kaleidoscopes and music, and then a continuous parade of bargain merchandise, a list that, if scrolled on paper, would reach from my second floor office down to the basement (if we had one), a list you can’t get out of until you’ve viewed each and every item—or alternatively, turned off your computer. 

Most days I bravely ignore PCH . . . until finally an irresistible message arrives, and I once again press a button and walk where only fools would dare to tread. And once more I put myself on a merry-go-round from which there’s no escape.

But here’s the amazing part—this isn’t just crappy merchandise. 

Among the “stuff” are dozens of household items I’d like to own . . . and more than that, hundreds of  merchandisers who are so respectable you can’t imagine why they’d stoop to advertising on Publisher’s Clearing House. Time Magazine. The fancy Atholl Palace Hotel (already booked by us in Scotland), every insurance company, every magazine, every household item, every gadget, every business service you’ve ever heard of. Like me, PCH has roped them all in.

How did they do it?  How does it happen that their list gets longer every day--and yes . . . more respectable? 

Somehow PCH realizes they’ve gotta keep us pigeons going, must keep harvesting those millions of dollars in sales . . . a tactic which is now heading in the direction of ending months from now—long past August.  

When you think a little deeper, the answer is simple: as we all know, there’s a sucker born every minute. But a whole lot of them happen to own businesses.

HOW MY STUDENTS KEPT ME FROM TEACHING

HOW MY STUDENTS KEPT ME FROM TEACHING

            The semester started off bad and never got any better. 

Each evening as they piled into class, one student, then another, dropped a ten-page manuscript on my desk and turned to write his name and submission title on the board. In dismay, I’d see the names and manuscripts pile up.  Two or three at first, but by the time we were underway, there’d be eight to ten. And one day—eleven! I kept stealing looks at the board, knowing I’d been committed to tons of work at home.  More than a hundred pages of line-by-line editing.   

I pretended to like it, but I didn’t. Eleven manuscripts to read on my stationary bike. But worse, another class session coming up with no time to teach. 

In prior years I’d known our absolute limit was five or six manuscripts—leaving most of an hour for concentrated, hard-core lecturing. Hey, I’d be thinking, I’ve been at this for years, and there’s so much I need to tell them.  When my sessions threatened to spill over with too many manuscripts, I limited the number they could bring to class. I imagined I was doing a terrific job.

But this year I got careless, let the students write all they wanted. And now I was paying the price. 

Funny thing, though—I began noticing a few students were writing better. And soon, without letting the thought filter through and become  “Geronimo!” I began seeing they were ALL writing better. Every darn one of them. In class each week, we discussed what they’d created, and I had the fun of pointing out some unique, amazing, or even great lines. And then great scenes. Or I found mistakes, and instead of offering all the corrections myself, I made them suggest changes.    

We discussed what they’d once done wrong . . . and how the “wrongs” were now going away.      

I never felt I was “teaching.”  I was always just “going over manuscripts.”  And while in prior years, the manuscripts diminished in number as the semester progressed, this year there was no letup. My students, darn their eyes, simply wouldn’t stop writing!  

On the last day I mentioned my regrets to a favorite student. “You know,” I said, “this semester I never found time to teach.” 

She looked at me in surprise.  “Well, you didn’t lecture much.  But those were just words—and I’m not sure they all sank in.”  She paused. “We learned more by studying other manuscripts and figuring out what was wrong. And then hearing your comments and the changes you offered—or let us offer.”  She paused again. “Haven’t you noticed we all got better?”

“Well, actually, I did. But . . . there weren’t any lessons.  No real lessons at all.”

“What do you think ‘getting better’ means?”  She looked at me, letting it percolate. “This was one of the best semesters we’ve ever had.” 

“Really?” 

“Oh, yes,” she said.

I walked away with one of those cartoon light bulbs floating over my head. Before I got to the car I was thinking, Well, hot damn, how did this happen without my noticing?  All these students improving and me fussing about no time to teach.

My husband had come this last night, and now the car was moving, but I was hardly aware of it.  While he drove, I began smiling to myself.

I must have been teaching after all. 


"DAMN THE REJECTIONS, FULL SPEED AHEAD: THE BUMPY ROAD TO GETTING PUBLISHED."    Available on Amazon--or Maralys.com 

HOW TO KILL YOUR CREATIVITY

HOW TO KILL YOUR CREATIVITY

I just did it again--rushed into the family room with a great new idea. Couldn’t wait to tell my husband the core message for a new story—meaning something I meant to write immediately, starting in a few minutes. Unfortunately, I got the wrong response. He said “EEEYOOOGH!” exactly the way a teenager says it when you suggest he trim his father’s ear hairs, or put on that new shirt from Aunt Helen . . . or worse, stop showing his plumber’s crack.    

I don’t know how to spell the sound, but you’ve all heard it. It’s the world’s briefest auditory conveyance of No Way, You’ve Got to be Kidding, or That’s a Rotten Idea If I’ve Ever Heard One.

My idea for the new story fizzled like a party balloon with a pin prick. The creative air seeped out, faster and faster, and I just stood there, dismayed. And finally I said it. “Well, I’ve just broken the first rule of creativity.” 

Rob simply looked at me. He doesn’t know the rule, and he wouldn’t care about it if he knew. But he’ll gladly give me his first reaction to anything he considers even slightly ludicrous.

Have you caught on to the rule? 

In case you haven’t, the rule is, Never share the first blush of a creative idea with ANYONE.  Not until you’ve got it down on paper, not until the thing is mostly written and you can’t easily unwrite it.  

If it was a dumb idea in the first place, you’ll soon know. If it wasn’t, you risk letting someone kill your baby while it’s still in the womb.

Everyone who writes knows this rule, and no one better than I. My inner voice invariably says, Don’t share this, and I should have listened, but I didn’t; instead I rushed out to expose my great new vision to toxic fumes. Not too smart. 

I finally said, “Nora Ephron’s book is called, ‘I Remember Nothing.’ Do you think that’s a good title?” And he said No. 

Well, that was some comfort, anyway. I’m sure Ephron has sold a million copies of this very funny book with the mediocre title. Except I happen to love it, bad title and all.  

I’m also willing to bet she wrote the book first and asked for opinions last. Which means, among all her other talents, Ephron knew enough not to stifle her creativity.        

NOT ANOTHER PASSWORD . . . %!*!!%*

NOT ANOTHER PASSWORD . . . !!!#%$

      It happened again today. 

     Once more, the breast care doctor with whom I’m writing a book sent me a message I couldn’t open. His one paragraph was buried in password perdition--deep enough to require a second email with permission to create a password so I could open the first one. Somebody out there must think we're worth hacking into . . . like we're ginning up Time Travel potions. Or recruiting for ISIS. 

     The password plague has spread like the cancer we’re writing about. Once it was kind of casual—you picked something easy, and once every six months you might have to use it. Now the malignancy is everywhere, taking over our lives. To use the bathroom at CVS pharmacy, you have to type in a code. Which is galling . . . that here, and I suppose soon everywhere, you need a password to pee.

      My aversion to inane secrecy goes way back—I mean, way, way back. As a teenager I unwittingly became a member of what was called Rainbow Girls, a desperately clandestine organization, whose secrets were so tightly held we were forbidden to share them with anyone under . . . well, under penalty of expulsion. Most of what they talked about was dull—not something I could recall for even a few hours. I remember thinking, These secrets are so boring you’d have to hog tie your victim just to get him to listen.

           For my doctor son, the password disease has turned into a scourge—the written version of Ebola. To satisfy the requirements of the hospital, he and his colleagues are forced to change their passwords EVERY MONTH. Of course nobody short of Einstein could keep track, mentally, of twelve password changes in twelve months, so the doctors are forced to maintain written records which begin to look like the Encyclopedia Britannica. Once down on paper, of course, the information is “out there”--subject to misplacement, spying, or outright pilferage, thus defeating the whole purpose.  

          Our society is reaching some kind of tipping point, where you’ll eventually need a password to speak to your mother. But in one American household, at least, there’s a level of secrecy none of us can quite believe. But trust me, it’s true. In at least one home belonging to Elon Musk, you can’t go from one room to another without providing a scan of your fingerprints. I’ve often wondered—what if you have a bathroom emergency?   

       I dare not reveal the name, but one of our relatives actually worked there. Another relative, who ought to know, commented, “This is what you’d expect from a drug dealer!”

Treasure Trove of books: Maralys.com

TOO DAMN BUSY . . . OH, YES!

         TOO DAMN BUSY . . . OH, YES!

Our kitchen floor is dirty again.   

Papers are piled on my upstairs chairs.

The dry laundry is still in the dryer.

And here I am, upstairs writing. 

In a few years, I muse, nobody will care that on a certain Monday the linoleum should have been swept . . . by then it will be dirty again.

The important news is, I’m a grandmother with too much to do.  

Too much to do  is the mantra of my current life -- meaning I’m luckier than I deserve, luckier than grandmothers of the last century. There’s this medical book I’m writing with a doctor . . .  manuscripts to read and a class to teach . . . four speeches coming up soon. And friends, kids, grandkids, and even great grandkids with fascinating lives, all of them sending tidbits our way—photos of a son’s first wobbly steps, videos of a tiny girl’s first hesitant words read from a book--details that are vivid, never boring.

What could be better, when you’re my age, than a hundred reasons to get out of bed?   

Each morning I briefly rationalize: If I write this story, I’ll have something to keep.

Something tangible. But so will others—meaning whoever cares to read it. All these scenes committed to paper . . . well hey, paper lasts, it’s permanent. Short of a house fire, alive forever. 

Along with Too Damn Busy comes Too Many Interruptions. But what’s not to like?

What’s more valuable than a lively pause to chat with someone you care about? However much time it consumes, it’s worth those non-writing minutes.

Meanwhile, some mundane chores are still waiting, grumpy but silent. Eventually I’ll sweep the kitchen floor—but does anybody really care? 

  

Autographed books available--Maralys.com.   E-books and others--Amazon.

YOUR SOCK IS DEAD AND BURIED

YOUR SOCK IS DEAD AND BURIED

            Over the years I’ve tried to explain this to my kids—or worse, to my lawyer husband. “I hate to tell you this, but your sock is nowhere. It’s gone.”   

            “You’re in charge here,” says my husband. “Socks don’t just evaporate. So where is it?”

“If I knew, Rob, I’d give it to you. But I don’t have the slightest idea. It went into the laundry . . . and it never came out.”     

I get this shaking of the head and this look--like I’m crazy.  But if I’m nuts, so is every other woman I’ve known. Socks disappear. It’s a rule of American households. You start with a pair, and before long you’ve got only one. And if the missing sock ever turns up (like maybe it’s been hiding under a tee-shirt nobody ever wears),  by then you’ve thrown away its mate. So you’ve still got only one.            

Inexplicably, the subject came up last week in my writing class--how socks enter the washing cycle and are never seen again. When you finally get around to pairing them up, about a fourth are missing. And how men can’t accept it, so it must be something their wives are doing. And how any guy smarter than a pinhead knows an object as tangible as a piece of footwear doesn’t just vanish.    

            As my student Marcia told us, “My husband was dumbfounded. ‘You just lost them, that’s all.  They have to be somewhere.’” 

            She said, “Then you do the laundry,” so for a year, he did.  After a while his manly common sense reared up.  “They must be in the dryer vent. They’ve gotta be piled up there in one big lump.”  With that he painstakingly took the vent apart . . . and nothing. 

Next he went outside.  “They must have blown right through.”  He examined the ground around the external opening, but all he found was traces of lint clinging to a bush.

After a year he said, “I give up. You take over the laundry.” The mysterious issue was never raised again.

For years we had this discussion in our house. Five boys here, lots of laundry. No lawyer would ever accept a fact not in evidence—that our dryer, in particular, harbored a sock-eating demon. Clearly the fault was mine. Over a decade, I dutifully  spent some thousand hours trying to pair up socks that didn’t match, ending with several dozen that didn’t belong to each other, or any close relative.

I kept those orphans all through my Thirties, literally hanging on to a thread of hope. Next I bought blue for Bobby, red for Chris, and so on—meaning the leftovers were all in different colors. Finally, in desperation, I splurged—on three dozen pair, all alike. The boys no longer had a choice. From then on, no matter what happened, I was only off by one.

            Other mothers did it differently. Dorsey labeled her daughter’s socks to match her daughter’s names. “A” for Audra, and so on.  The “C” child invariably cried out, “This sock has “B.” 

            The problem was never solved—not for me, not for anyone. It only goes away when the children move out.

            In the Wills household, however, the sock problem has become immortalized. This may seem hard to believe, but on the cover of my book, “A Circus Without Elephants,” the whole family is sitting on our roof. Even after the book was published, one detail totally escaped me—until my son, Kenny, pointed it out. “Did you ever notice, Mom, that I’m wearing two different socks?” 

"A Circus Without Elephants" is available on my website: Maralys.com