President DJT's Official Portrait

This official portrait is Donald Trump attempting to look tough, and failing miserably. This is what passes for a tough guy look in a bad Hollywood movie (think Steven Seagal.) When real tough guys turn their evil eyes upon you, it's a totally different effect. Yes, I'm sure. 

Really dangerous tough guys either look at you with a face that is so emotionless and relaxed that you'd wonder if they were actually dead, or a face that is full of excitement and joy at the thought of fucking you up. Brother, I hope that you never encounter either one. 

This Trump face in the photo is only the face of an over-sized, rich-kid bully who is trying to intimidate you. Trust me, just smack him and he'll start to sob like a baby. Yes, I'm sure. Just look at the way he folds when he meets with world leaders and they don't just start to cry and give up when he turns this super-tough-guy look on them. Or the way that they fail to be intimidated when The Donald "viciously" reaches out for a handshake and tries to twist their arm into submission. It's an act, and they know it. And not a great act, either. Maybe it works on other punk businessmen, but it is all a futile exercise on people who are actually somewhat tough, like Angela Merkel of Germany or President Xi of China. If DJT tried that handshake on a really tough man, he'd end up on his back with tears in his eyes. 

For the record, I am not now, nor have I ever been, tough. But I did grow up in a town where really tough boys were quite numerous, and the rest of us had to run into them on a regular basis and learn to deal with them. That would be College Point, in the Borough of Queens, in New York City, in the 1950s and 1960s. I've seen the real thing, and I've seen the style that Pres. Trump is now trying to use. The Trump style gets its ass kicked every time, often by guys that are way down the pecking order of toughness. Trump grew up in Queens, too, but being rich I'm sure that he missed the worst of it. I'm pretty sure that pushing his prosperous friends around gave him a false sense of power, which has only gotten worse the richer he has become. If he'd gone to the same schools that I attended, he'd have been knocked down a peg or two, that's for sure. 

Trump is trying desperately hard to be tough, but being tough is a little bit like being cool. Either you have it, or you don't. You can't try to be cool, or tough.  Trying is futile; it never works. Trying to be tough is . . . sad!!!

"In Queens"

The actress Amy Ryan has a good career going. I recall her most fondly from the Wire, where she played the hell out of Officer Beatrice "Beadie" Russell. Nice job! She's working consistently, good for her. She's in a new project that looks good. I saw something about it on TV and it drove me to the Internet Movie Data Base to find out more about her. Very interesting.

Her bio says that she was born in "Queens, New York." To someone that was also born in Queens, that's like saying that she was born "on the earth." Queens is a big place, full of people and full of neighborhoods that are so big that they'd be cities anywhere else.

So just where in Queens was Amy Ryan born? What hospital? Flushing Hospital? Queens General? Physicians? Help me out here.

What neighborhood did her parents bring her home to? Long Island City? Malba? Corona? Kew Gardens? Whitestone? Howard Beach? Middle Village? Woodhaven? Queens Village? Bayside? South Ozone Park?

There's a difference, you know. Inquiring minds want to know!

Looking for clues . . . Amy's real name is Amy Beth Dziewiontkowski. I had friends with names like that growing up, so I guess that she could be from College Point. Or maybe Masbeth? Hunter's Point? Somewhere over next to Brooklyn?

It's a mystery, so far. Maybe I'll come across it.

Anyway, I really like Amy Ryan in the Wire, and I'd like to see her new project. Good luck, Amy!

Home girl!!!

The Rolex Wristwatch

In most ways I am thoroughly repulsed by luxury.  Ferraris, I admit, are fine automobiles, and I’m sure that they are great fun to drive, provided, that is, that one has had the training required to be able to drive them properly.  But I’m not interested in Ferraris, not even if the Ferrari is yours and you offer it to me for an afternoon.  First class air travel?  I’m sure that it’s nice, but it comes at a 700% penalty over economy.  No thanks.  And Hermes bags, and pretty much anything bearing the label “Chanel,” are just ridiculous.  So why am I strangely attracted to Rolex watches?

Actually, I know why.  I grew up in Queens, New York, and over the course of the late 1950’s and the 1960’s I walked the length of Main Street, Flushing, one or two thousand times.  From Northern Boulevard to Roosevelt Avenue I closely examined all of the store windows time after time.  One of the nicest windows belonged to Greenwald’s Jewelers, and the things that attracted me most were the Rolex watches.

The Rolex “Oyster!”  What a cool name for a watch.  I didn’t even know that you could make a watch waterproof, beyond those special things that divers wore.  Mostly, I thought that they were beautiful.  Just very simple, strong, elegant and totally beautiful.  I must have seen advertisements for Rolex watches, because I read the New Yorker, and the Sunday New York Times, and Life and Newsweek magazines, National Geographic even.  There must have been ads.  I don’t recall specifically.  All I remember is admiring them in shop windows, notably Greenwald’s. 

They weren’t cheap, but doesn’t everything from those days seem strangely affordable now?  Up the block at Florsheim’s, you could get real alligator shoes for $29.95.  There must have been high-line Rolexes in the window, but the ones that I liked, the ones that I remember, were stainless steel and cost between $200 and $220.  That was only five or six weeks’ pay at the minimum wage at the time.   ($1.25 per hour; $40.45 take home for 40 hours.)  I worked summers in high school, and I had more than enough in the bank to cover a Rolex.  When I was thirty years old I kind of regretted not having bought one.  Other than a couple of cameras, I pissed away that bank money in my late teens anyway.  Now I realize that buying one would have been silly.  I mean, you could get a perfectly good Bulova watch for $29.95 or less, and I already had a Benrus watch myself, which was more expensive.  (A gift from my grandmother.)  It would have been strange for a fuck-up like me to show up wearing a Rolex.  Quite pretentious, you know.  I lived in a working class milieu.  Even my father, who had a great job, wore a $20 watch.  A Rolex would only have attracted thieves.

So now I’m watching the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament and most of the ads are for Rolex watches.  Roger Federer, whom I greatly admire, wearing a ridiculous fashion-forward suit in the modern, ridiculous style, wearing an enormous Rolex, strolling uncomfortably around some kind of art museum.  Usually I find these ads for luxury products objectionable, but in the case of Rolex I experience the nostalgic old longing for the watch.  A more modest model anyway.

Maybe I should buy a coffee-table book of Rolex watches.  I would enjoy looking at the pictures.  Maybe I should go on e-bay and look at the Rolexes for sale there.  Even today I could find the money in the bank to buy a Rolex, but buying one today would be just as silly and pretentious as it would have been years ago.  I have a perfectly good watch already, don’t I?  It’s a Wilson watch that I purchased seven years ago for $45.00 (1,500 Baht, in Bangkok).  It’s an attractive watch, it keeps perfect time, and it still works.  Case closed.

The longing for luxury is a terrible suffering for people who can’t afford it.  The advertisements, I believe, are acts of violence against ordinary people.  I hate being reminded every day that airlines do not value my frequent purchases of economy tickets, that they only really love their first class passengers.  The purchasing habits of the rich should not be rubbed in our faces like that.  Their fabulous ability to pay is an affront to our dignity. 

But the Rolexes!  Aren’t they beautiful?