YOUR AD HERE »

Jay Meehan: The vérité aesthetic

Core Samples

By Jay Meehan
Park Record columnist

“Nationalism is an infantile thing. It is the measles of mankind.” — Albert Einstein

Wow! For the life of me, I don’t know how the rest of you do it.

This past Sunday morning, I returned to a previously well-polished behavioral pattern and positioned myself in front of my archaic cathode-ray tube. Utilizing the DVR so as not to miss any overlapping misrepresentations, I caught an entire posse of spinning Trumpsters as they made the rounds on the morning talk shows.

I very seldom partake of such self-abuse anymore. Not that I don’t find much of it to be of a highly entertaining nature. It’s just that when you have a poised-to-stampede herd of close friends who readily gobble this stuff up, the digestive process becomes an issue.

If I were to continue along such a blatantly masochistic path, I’d probably be forced to install some sort of Rube Goldberg-ish, intravenous Pepto-Bismol dripper next to the couch.

Yup, the couch. It didn’t take long at all for Trump’s stuttering “lawyer-up” clone, through nothing more than the constant blending of non sequitur and digression, to astral-project me into the horizontal plane.

Come to think of it, I might have to procure one of those “dual-feed” models so as not to preclude equal amounts of Single Malt Scotch from dripping into the mix.

As the morning dragged on, my levels of incredulity and the ensuing vocabulary most always reserved for talking back to the tube came close to approaching the stratospheric screeching of, say, Hunter S. Thompson as he watched his over/under wager on a Raider/ 49er game fly out of his wallet and into that of an obviously, in his mind, corrupted official.

I didn’t need to keep rubbing my nose in the ever-ascending pile of horse scat, I suppose, but I did. There are times when my pain threshold knows no bounds. I was very well aware that, by utilizing the aforementioned DVR, I could have postponed the inevitable. But I was having none of it. Somehow, I needed to wallow in Trump logic.

Oh, the life of a media surrogate these days. And you know it’s only going to get worse or, should I say, better. The various Russian probes certainly aren’t going anywhere. And now they have Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner adding fuel to the fire at a time when the only retardants close at hand are of the highly combustible variety.

And with health-care legislation in limbo, ol’ Idiot Wind’s fuse isn’t getting any longer. Somehow, he’s got to shift the blame to those rascal Democrats before his complete house of cards is scattered across the floor even more so than it already is.

Can you imagine the Republican Senate leadership being truly invested in Sen. John McCain’s recovery from eye surgery for any other reason than they are somehow convinced they have his vote?

My main worry remains under the umbrella of “be careful what you ask for.” I’d just as soon keep the bumbling idiot in play than bring in any of that Pence, Ryan, Hatch, Tillerson bunch off the bench.

As many pundits have already noted, the Republican hierarchy appears to be walking the tightrope between feigning support for Trump while organizing their own shadow coup. So what if their party is irreparably damaged for the foreseeable future. It’s the carnage of long-term consequence they are able to sow in the shorter term that bears watching.

It used to be that my back suffered most from couch time. Now, with the current administration’s histrionics, it’s what’s left of my eroding cognitive centers that are in most danger. It would seem that my in-house deductive theory of space and time is slipping away.

There are those who would testify that this process is nothing new and has been going on for quite some time. “Fake news,” I say. The cinematic playback from my memory lobes has lost none of its documentary-style “vérité aesthetic.” However, there have been times when locating the projector on-off switch has proved to be an issue.

I figure with the stack of spare batteries for the remote gizmo close at hand, not to mention the extra jugs of antacid fluids and Scotch, that I’m easily into this for the long haul, no matter what goes down. A caveat, however! If Hatch ends up in the First Presidency, “Opioids” may need to be introduced.

Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and has been an observer, participant and chronicler of the Park City and Wasatch County social and political scenes for more than 40 years.

Columns


See more

Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Park City and Summit County make the Park Record's work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.