Why I Never Became a Journalist

     Today while driving I saw an SUV with three bumper stickers on the back.  One of them warned about the dangers of texting while driving.  I suspect the driver is a parent who cares about the safety of teenagers and young adults, those who tend to text while driving.  The other two stickers boosted Donald Trump.  The SUV driver supports one good cause while also supporting a bad cause.  Duality in human nature is an old idea; Sigmund Freud certainly studied and wrote about it.  Freud found meaning in the interior mind shiftings of dreams and in the ways our bodies and words can betray true feelings, as in the Freudian slip.  My brother once said, deliberately, "Freudian slit," causing much laughter in this author.
     The Trump bumper stickers, or automotive ass tattoos, hit my eyes forcefully because I hadn't yet seen any pertaining to the Republican presumptive nominee.  I've seen some for Bernie Sanders.  I don't recall any just yet for Clinton.  I still see stickers for Obama-Biden, '08 and '12, as well as the occasional Romney-Ryan.  A few days ago I even spotted a Kerry-Edwards from 2004.  Putting bumper stickers on my car is something I will never do.  Why do I want to advertise my political hopes to other drivers and pedestrians?  Why put a stubborn glue on my car's bumper that might prove difficult to completely remove?
     I've reached a point in this election cycle where I can honestly say I'd rather vote for glue than for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.  Watching cable news (which I do more for the good-looking women who anchor and report it than the meager amount of high quality journalism) shows me a body of professional journalists, pundits, and "experts" who sustain enthusiasm for bullshit, sleaze, and images meant to seize attention.  My need to hear a Hillary Clinton speech is akin to my need to research the life of Jennifer Lopez, or visit every Walmart in America.  I'll actually listen to and watch Trump speak for several minutes.  I'll comment out loud, and pointlessly, about his declarations, most of which are false.  I'll ask questions that pop into my mind, questions I would like to ask him if I were conducting the interview.  It frustrates my sense of reason that journalists don't follow through with their questions.  They let Trump off lightly.  Politicians give hedging answers that squirt around the questions, but reporters and anchors rarely push those fuckers to answer.
     I'm tired of myself caring about this shit.
     Still, along comes Trump with a new story, one from an old time, all the way back to the early 1990s.  A recording of someone calling himself "John Miller" has surfaced, as reported in the Washington Post.  "Miller," or let's just call him "John," since that rhymes with a pertinent name, called a reporter from People magazine, saying he represented Donald Trump.  "John" told her things about Trump's relationship with his mistress, Marla Maples, the second woman to sell her soul to the bastard.  He revealed, among other things, that the diamond ring he gave Maples wasn't an engagement ring.  Maples, when some of this information came out in the early 1990s, wasn't pleased to hear this.  Trump, I mean "John," also talked about a relationship he had with Carla Bruni as well as an alleged connection with Madonna.  He said Trump had three girlfriends in addition to Maples.  Trump now denies having made the bizarre phone call, even though numerous people who heard the recording in 1991 said it was him, and indeed, "John" sounds a lot like Donald Trump, Queens, New York, accent included.  Another telling aspect is that "John" referred frequently and glowingly to his boss's remarkable qualities.
     The call ended as he was starting to tell the reporter about something he supposedly had going with Kim Basinger.  Why not throw in Bridget Fonda, too, "John"?  Heather Locklear and Farrah Fawcett also probably sucked your boss's cock, right?
     I don't dispute that women sometimes go for rich, repulsive men.  Donald Trump has been in the limelight, where business and entertainment intersect, for a long time.  He's thrust his penis into lots of beautiful women.  Fine.  He's also, as we see now, acted as his own publicist, "John Miller."
     In acting as his publicist, inventing an identity to do so, he's shown himself to be a metafictional Trump; a self-promoter working a con whereby he glorifies himself using the identity of a fictional PR man.  He now claims this "John Miller," who is Trump himself, is "a scammer."
     Trump, while denying this morning on a TV program he's "Miller," stopped himself in the middle of his blather to ask, "What was this, twenty-five years ago?"  Does it matter when it happened?  By trying to pin down the exact date, was he seeking to distinguish the Miller deception from others he's perpetrated, including his claim to be qualified to become president?
     Trump, a man obsessed with illusions about himself, created a fake identity, maybe one of many, and spoke at length in a phone call he initiated in 1991 about his alleged glorious existence.  I write "alleged" because Trump is not great, amazing, or tremendous.  He isn't even a good businessman.  He does not tell the truth.  He will not "fix" America, except in the sense of the phrase, "We're in a fix."  He's just an ugly deranged creep with billions of dollars who knows how to get attention in a society of mirrors and facades.
     I propose that he put the name Miller on his 757 limousine in the sky.  I propose that he fly away, up and up and up, surrounded by imaginary girlfriends, glaring at Obama's birth certificate, and hearing an endless recording of his own voice, telling lies.

                                                                              Vic Neptune