Greetings from TGI-Jeff from my usual corner of the sun room here in Pedden Acres of beautiful Springfield, Vermont. (I’m not reporting on the actual outdoor temperature now though and I can report that I am warm and toasty in front of my wood pellet stove!)
Well I see from the increased number of joke contributions during this past week that many of you took my ‘serious threat’ seriously – about not doing another issue until I had received some good or new material. So, I thank you who “donated” and just remember to keep them coming. Those who did provide some material will have to wait a bit to see it in print because my eldest son, Jonathan, sent me a link to the “Annual Year In Review” article by Dave Barry. I’ve been a Dave Barry fan since I first read him in the 1980s. His weekly humor column (from the Miami Herald) appeared in the weekend edition of the International Herald Tribune, which I used to get in Rome and other of my duty stations. I always loved his sense of humor. His favorite line when reporting on some odd occurrence was: I’m not making this up! And given the craziness of 2018, he did not have to make much stuff up either!
So, thanks to Jon for sending me the link. The article is so long, as he reviews the news of each month, that in today’s issue I will just share the first 6 months of 2018 and next week, I’ll share the last 6 months.
I will end this week’s intro with a short shout-out to my favorite daughter, Joya, who turns 35 today (the 10th). She has more or less completed the book about her late mother that she has been working on for more than a year.
And I welcome a few new members who got introduced to the existence of the TGIF message this afternoon at The Loft, after a good day of skiing. This is not a typical issue of my weekly Friday message, but you’ll get the idea.
Dave Barry’s 2018 Year in Review
You Thought That 2016 and 2017 were bad? Let’s look back at this past year.
We can summarize 2018 in two words:
It boofed.
We’re not 100 percent sure what “boofing” is, despite the fact that this very issue was discussed in a hearing of the United States Judiciary Committee. All we know for certain about boofing is that it is distasteful and stupid.
As was 2018. In spades.
What made this year so awful? We could list many factors, including natural disasters, man-made atrocities, the utter depravity of our nationalpolitical discourse and the loss of Aretha Franklin. Instead we’ll cite one event that, while minor, epitomizes 2018: the debut of “Dr. Pimple Popper.” This is a cable TV reality show featuring high-definition slo-mo close-up videos of a California dermatologist performing seriously disgusting procedures on individuals with zits the size of mature cantaloupes. You might ask, “Who on Earth would voluntarily watch that?” The answer, in 2018, was: MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. That is the state of our culture. We can only imagine what new reality shows lie ahead. We would not rule out “Dr. Butt Wiper” or “People Blow Their Noses Directly Onto the Camera Lens.”
Is there anything good we can say about 2018? Only this: It got us out of 2017. But even that didn’t work out as we hoped.
As you recall, we, as a nation, spent all of 2017 obsessing over 2016: the election, the Russians, the emails, the Mueller probe, the Russians, the Russians, the Russians. … That was all we heard about, day after soul-crushing day, for the entire year.
So when 2018 finally dawned, we were desperately hoping for change. It was a new year, a chance for the nation to break out of the endless, pointless barrage of charges and countercharges, to move past the vicious, hate-filled hyperpartisan spew of name-calling and petty point-scoring, to end the 24/7 cycle of media hysteria, to look forward and begin to tackle the many critical issues facing the nation, the most important of which turned out to be …
… the 2016 election.
Yes. We could not escape it. We were like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” except that when our clock-radio went off, instead of Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You Babe,” we awoke to still MORE talk of Russians and emails; MORE childish semiliterate presidential tweets about FAKE NEWS and Crooked Hillary; MORE freakouts by cable TV panelists predicting that — forget about the previous 300 times they made the same prediction — THIS time impeachment was IMMINENT, PEOPLE. IMMINENT!!
Meet the new year: same as the old year.
So at some point during 2018, normal, non-Beltway-dwelling Americans simply stopped paying attention to current events. Every now and then we’d tune in to a cable TV news show to see what kinds of issues our nation’s elite political/media class was grappling with, and we’d see a headline like “PORN STAR Stormy Daniels: TRUMP DIDN’T USE A CONDOM.”
That was when “Dr. Pimple Popper” started to look pretty good.
So we’re very glad that 2018 is finally over. Once again we’re on the cusp of a new year, another chance for change. And once again, we find ourselves feeling stirrings of hope — hope that the coming year really will be better. Why do we feel this way? Why, despite all our past disappointments, do we believe things really can improve? Because we are morons, apparently.
So let’s not get too excited about 2019. Our emotional state, going forward, should be hopelessness leavened with despair, as we can see when we look back at the grotesque boof-a-palooza that was 2018, starting with …
JANUARY
… which sees world tensions rise when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un states that he has a nuclear missile launch button on his desk. This leaves U.S. Commander in Chief Donald Trump with no viable military option but to fire up his Random Capitalizer App and tweet “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his,” thereby leaving no doubt as to which leader is more secure regarding the size of his button. In an apparent effort to reassure everyone on his mental state, the president also issues a tweet in which he describes himself as “genius….and a very stable genius at that!” Which is EXACTLY HOW VERY STABLE GENIUSES TALK, OKAY??
The intellectual level of the national discourse soars even higher when it is reported that, during an Oval Office meeting on immigration reform, the president referred to some poorer nations as “s---holes.” This upsets many people, especially the frowny panelpersons of CNN, who find the word “s—hole” so deeply offensive that they repeat it roughly 15 times per hour for a solid week. Washington is consumed by a heated debate over what, exactly, the president said; the tone and substance of this debate are reflected in this actual sentence from a Washington Post story: “Three White House officials said [Sen. David] Perdue and [Sen. Tom] Cotton told the White House that they heard ‘s—house’ rather than ‘s—hole,’ allowing them to deny the president’s comments on television over the weekend.” (This is known in legal circles as the “s—house defense.”)
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports that shortly before the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, arranged a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels so she would keep quiet about an alleged act of executive outreach with Trump in 2006. Cohenresponds that “President Trump once again vehemently denies any such occurrence, as has Ms. Daniels.” So that settles THAT.
A congressional squabble shuts down the federal government for three days, but what with the intense media focus on the s—hole and porn star issues, hardly anybody notices.
In non-s—hole news, the residents of Hawaii experience an exciting Saturday morning when they receive the following message on their phones from the state’s Emergency Management Agency: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Hawaii’s governor, David Ige, is quickly informed that it’s a false alarm, but 17 extremely tense minutes go by before he gets the word out on social media. Asked later about the delay, he says — we are not making this quote up — “I have to confess that I don’t know my Twitter account logons and the passwords.” This statement arouses powerful feelings of longing among high-level Trump advisers.
The fiasco leads to the resignation of the head of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, who immediately accepts a position as director of pet transportation for United Airlines.
In youth fads, the American Association of Poison Control Centers continues to receive reports of young people suffering ill effects from eating Tide Detergent Pods. Asked to explain why young people would persist in eating something that tastes terrible and makes them sick, an AAPCCspokesperson says, “As far as we can determine, it’s because they’re stupid.”
Speaking of stupid, in …
FEBRUARY
… with yet another government shutdown looming, Congress, whose irresponsible spending practices have put the nation on the road to fiscal disaster, faces a choice. It can either:
1. Continue to spend huge amounts of money that we don’t have, or
2. Not.
After much late-night drama, Congress agrees on a compromise deal under which it will continue to spend huge amounts of money that we don’t have. This display of leadership solves the budget problem permanently until March, when Congress will once again tackle the complex problem of government spending.
But the big story in Washington is the hotly debated release by congressional Republicans of the so-called "Nunes Memo", which, depending on which cable network you listen to, either does or does not prove that the FBI, in its investigation of possible Russian influence on the 2016 election, abused the FISA process when it used the so-called “Steele dossier” — which was prepared by Fusion GPS, a research firm originally hired by theWashington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet, to investigate Trump, but dropped by that organization when Trump was nominated, then hired by an attorney for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, after which Fusion hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele as an investigator — to obtain a warrant to wiretap Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser in the Trump campaign who allegedly … Hey, wake up! This is important! Also there’s a Democratic counter memo!
On the Stormy Daniels front, Michael Cohen acknowledges that he did, in fact, pay $130,000 to the porn actress, but he used his own money and the Trump campaign had nothing to do with it and it was all totally legit. So that settles THAT.
In sports, the 2018 Winter Olympics get underway in PyeongChang, South Korea, with the historic Opening Ceremonies highlighted by the release of 25 doves, which are immediately shot down and consumed by the North Korean men’s biathlon team.
In domestic sports, the Eagles defeat the Patriots to win their first Super Bowl, and huge crowds of joyous Philadelphia fans celebrate by destroying downtown Boston.
No, that would actually make sense. In fact the Philadelphia fans spend the night destroying their own city, then head home for a hearty breakfast of Tide Pods.
Speaking of classy behavior, in …
MARCH
… Secretary of State Rex Tillerson learns that President Trump has fired him when, during an official visit to Africa, he is ejected from his State Department plane at 35,000 feet.
No, seriously, Tillerson learns of his firing via a presidential tweet, which says: “Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service!”
So midair ejection would actually have been more dignified.
Speaking of air travel: United Airlines, which received some unfortunate publicity in 2017 when it “reaccomodated” a 69-year-old man by dragging him, bleeding and screaming, off his flight, has an eventful week involving traveling dogs (these events actually happened):
• On Monday, a United attendant on a Houston-to-New York flight orders a passenger to stow a bag containing a French bulldog puppy, Kokito, in the overhead bin. This does not turn out well for Kokito.
• On Tuesday, a German shepherd named Irgo, whom United was supposed to fly to Kansas City, instead gets flown to … Japan! Meanwhile a Great Dane that United was supposed to fly to Japan winds up in Kansas City. It is probably a good thing that both of these breeds are too large for the overhead bin.
• On Thursday, a United flight from Newark to St. Louis is diverted when United realizes that a dog that was loaded onto the plane was supposed to go to Akron.
Responding to public outrage over these incidents, United Airlines issues an apology, but sends it to the wrong email address.
Speaking of incompetence: Congress averts yet another government shutdown by passing, with President Trump signing, a bill under which the government will — prepare to be shocked — spend a truly insane amount of money that it does not have. With the spending problem addressed, Washington then turns to more pressing matters, specifically the Stormy Daniels crisis, which escalates when Daniels files a lawsuit to invalidate her nondisclosure agreement on the grounds that Trump didn’t sign it. This issue dominates the news cycle, especially on CNN, which puts Daniels’s extremely outgoing lawyer, Michael Avenatti, on Full S—hole Rotation, which means he is featured on every CNN news program and also handles weather and sports updates.
Abroad, the Russian news agency Tass reports that Vladimir Putin, who campaigned on the theme “A Vote for Putin Is a Vote for Not Dying Under Mysterious Circumstances,” has been declared the winner of the 2018 Russian presidential election, as well as, in the interest of efficiency, the 2024 and 2030 elections.
In entertainment news, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, seeking to atone for the 2017 envelope fiasco, return to the Academy Awards stage and triumphantly announce that the winner of the Oscar for best picture is “Gone With the Wind.” Fortunately by then nobody is watching.
The fiascos continue in …
APRIL
… when the abandoned Chinese Space Station Tiangong-1, which has been anxiously watched by scientists as its orbit decayed, plunges back to Earth and, in a worst-case outcome, fails to land on attorney Michael Avenatti, thus enabling him to continue appearing on CNN more often than the Geico gecko.
Meanwhile President Trump, faced with — among other problems — a continuing immigration crisis, increased Russian aggression in Syria and a looming trade war with China, launches a barrage of assault tweets at what is clearly the biggest threat to the nation: Amazon.com. Trump is forced to back down when the retail giant threatens to suspend the White House’s Amazon Prime membership and cancel delivery of a large order placed by the Defense Department, including six nuclear submarines, two aircraft carriers and a missile defense system with a five-star average rating from other nations. (Disclosure: Amazon CEO Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Responding to alleged Russian infiltration of Facebook and massive breaches of user data, the Senate Committee of Aging Senators Who Cannot Operate Their Own Cellphones Without the Assistance of Minions holds a hearing intended to answer such probing questions as:
• What IS Facebook, anyway?
• Where does it go when you turn off the computer?
• Is there a print version?
• Is Facebook the one with the video of a cat riding a dog?
• How the heck do you get a cat to do that, anyway?
Patiently attempting to answer these questions is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who wears a suit and tie and does a solid job of impersonating a regular human, except for not blinking and at one point having a tentacle emerge briefly from his left ear.
Abroad, the big news is a historic summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. In what observers see as a major breakthrough, Kim agrees to sign a letter of agreement explicitly acknowledging, for the first time, that he has exactly the same hairstyle as Bert, of Bert and Ernie.
In sports, Patrick Reed wins the Masters Tournament, prompting jubilant Eagles fans to celebrate by destroying what little is left of Philadelphia.
Speaking of celebrations, in …
MAY
… the biggest story by far is the wedding of American ex-actress Meghan Markle to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, who is in the direct line of succession to the British throne behind Prince Louis of Cambridge, who is behind Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, who is behind Prince George of Cambridge, who is behind Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who is behind Charles, Prince of Wales, who is 70, but any year now could get his shot at becoming the anachronistic ceremonial figurehead of one of the world’s most second-rate powers. With the stakes so high, the media giddiness level soars to Defcon 1; the wedding cake alone gets more media coverage than Africa and global climate change combined.
In other international developments, hopes for a summit meeting between Kim Jong Un and President Trump soar when North Korea releases three American prisoners, only to be dashed when North Korea refuses to accept, in exchange, Stormy Daniels. Later in the month hopes soar again when North Korea announces that, as a good-faith gesture, it has destroyed its Punggye-ri nuclear test facility, only to be dashed again when satellite imagery of the explosion reveals that what the rogue nation actually blew up was a 2006 Hyundai Sonata with what a U.S. intelligence source describes as “really bald tires.”
Meanwhile Trump announces that the United States will withdraw from the 2015 multination nuclear deal with Iran on the grounds that (1) it is deeply flawed and (2) he does not own any golf courses there.
In entertainment news, Roseanne Barr sends out a tasteless, idiotic tweet and immediately has her network show canceled, thereby illustrating a key difference between being a sitcom star and being president of the United States.
In sports, the wettest Kentucky Derby in history is won by the favorite horse, Justify, after the rest of the field is eaten by sharks.
Speaking of eating, in …
JUNE
… President Trump flies to Quebec to attend the G-7 summit. Hopes that the meeting will produce a historic agreement on global climate change, or at least a nice group photo, are dashed when, during dinner, Trump becomes embroiled in a heated policy disagreement with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom over the issue of ketchup.
From Canada the president flies to Singapore for the on-again, off-again, now on-again historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. This meeting is more productive, ending with the two leaders signing a letter of agreement in which North Korea promises to think seriously about denuclearizing, in exchange for the formula for pumpkin spice latte.
On the domestic front, the president is forced to reverse his administration’s policy on separating immigrant children from their parents in response to a widespread and passionate international outpouring of criticism from his wife, Melania. Trump insists, however, that he remains “as committed as ever to protecting our borders by building a purely imaginary wall.”
In other domestic news, Sen. Chuck “The Human Bandwagon” Schumer, citing studies showing that every living American adult except Mitt Romney has tried pot, introduces a bill that would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and “create a massive bureaucracy tasked with wasting millions of dollars on things like bong-safety regulations.” The legislation would also create a trust fund under which a percentage of the federal tax revenue raised from marijuana sales would be set aside specifically to buy Cheez-Its.
Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announces his decision to retire creating an important opportunity for the nation’s political leaders to demonstrate that, although the public might have a low opinion of them as a group, it is nowhere near low enough.
In sports, the World Cup soccer tournament opens in Moscow with a beaming Vladimir Putin looking on as the host Russian team coasts to a 5-0 victory over a Saudi Arabian team whose players appear distracted by the presence directly behind their bench of what the Russians insist is a “strictly ceremonial” tank.
* * * * * * * *
So, given the length of Dave Barry’s “year in review”, stay tuned next week for the second half of 2018.
As usual, have a fantastic Friday and a wonderful weekend! See you next week!
TGI-Jeff
