I caught a glimpse of my own obituary.

In the email this morning, the Google alert I've had on my name for decades brings this:

I send that image to Meade (along with the link to the website the alert wants me to click), and this conversation follows:

"Back when Lyndon B. Johnson was president and the latest dance craze was the Frug, Washington high society was transfixed by..."

"... Barbara Howar, a sparkling socialite from North Carolina who helped the first lady do her hair, mingled with a visiting Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon and turned her Georgetown home into a center of Swinging Sixties entertainment.... Defiantly unorthodox, she wore pajamas to an embassy gala, drove an orange motorcycle through a Georgetown park and had a barbed wit that brought her a reputation as the enfant terrible of the capital’s social scene. Reflecting on the private life of Henry Kissinger, one of many diplomats and politicians who frequented her parties over the years, she quipped, 'Henry’s idea of sex is to slow the car down to 30 miles an hour when he drops you off at the door.'..."

From "Barbara Howar, whose hit memoir dished on D.C. society, dies at 89/Initially known as a Georgetown hostess, she became a best-selling author with her candid 1973 memoir, 'Laughing All the Way.' She later interviewed celebrities for 'Entertainment Tonight'" (WaPo)(free access link).

Howar launched her writing career with a 1968 Ladies’ Home Journal story called "Why LBJ Dropped Me." Looking (unsuccessfully) for a copy of "Why LBJ Dropped Me," I stumbled into this cool photograph, "Singer Bobby Darin sits with his girlfriend, Barbara Howar." I love her shoe. Grommets — so 60s! Ah, well, the 60s are long gone, and here I am, a creature of the 60s, entertained by obituaries, saying goodbye to everyone who was tormented by LBJ and danced the frug.

You don't see the phrase "enfant terrible" so much anymore. The OED says it's "A child who embarrasses his or her elders by untimely remarks; transferred a person who compromises his or her associates or his or her party by unorthodox or ill-considered speech or behaviour; loosely, one who acts unconventionally." We used to celebrate the enfants terribles. Didn't we? Do we still? Answer without saying "Trump" or you are too boring to wear pajamas to an embassy gala and drive an orange motorcycle through a Georgetown park.

"Denmark welcomed a new king on Sunday in a ceremony that didn’t feature crowns or scepters or multiple robes..."

"Denmark reinvented tradition on Sunday when 83-year-old Queen Margrethe II, Europe’s longest-serving monarch, gave up her throne, and her 55-year-old son became King Frederik X.... After she signed her abdication papers, Margrethe turned to her son and said, 'God bless the king.'... [T]here were no exceedingly heavy bejeweled crowns, no anointing of the monarch with holy oil behind a screen... 'We probably could have had a little more fuss, but not as much fuss as they do in Britain; that’s too much,' said Linda Martinsen, 56, who was standing close to the balcony. 'I don’t want to offend anyone, but it’s too much to wear a robe and a scepter,' Jakob Steen Olsen, a royal commentator for Denmark’s Berlingske newspaper.... 'The Brits are very heavy on mysticism. You have this old man being massaged with mysterious oils — it’s very weird. The Danish way is meant to show the link between democracy and royalty,' he said, as a contrast to 'how it was in the old days.... If it’s too ordinary, does the magic disappear?'"

From "Denmark remakes royal tradition with a new king — but no crown" (WaPo).

At some point, you've got to wonder, why do it at all?

It makes me think of the expression "Go big or go home" — which, I see, seems to have originated in a 1990s ad for "oversized Harley Davidson pipes."

"MPD: Witnesses report motorcyclists going 140+ mph in downtown Madison."

A local headline prompts disbelief on Reddit. 

ADDED: Stand back, nonbelievers, there is footage of the incident:

Doggles.

So nice to see the doggy's eyes protected!

"It was a rowdy, frequently lawless brotherhood bound, in no particular order, by machismo, tattoos, winged death-head insignia, booze, dope, rides to nowhere..."

"... on thundering Harley-Davidson hogs and a lust for the unfettered freedom found on the open road. 'Discover your limits by exceeding them,' Mr. Barger urged. Woven into the Hells Angels history was a tradition of crime and violence — much of it involving Mr. Barger, a fact he boastfully acknowledged. He once referred to himself as belonging to a band of 'card-carrying felons.'... Mr. Barger’s rough and anarchic manner belied a disciplined entrepreneurial streak. He promoted his renegade brand, carefully marketing Hells Angels-themed T-shirts, yo-yos, sunglasses and California wines. He registered trademarks on club logos and designs, and retained an intellectual property rights lawyer to sue poachers, a frequent occurrence.... In 1998, he moved from Oakland to suburban Phoenix.... He ran a motorcycle repair shop and mellowed in suburban life, doing yoga and continuing to lift weights... He kept riding the open road, thousands of miles a year.... What did his nonconformist life teach him? 'To become a real man.... you need to join the army first and then do some time in jail.'" 

From "Sonny Barger, biker outlaw and founder of Hells Angels, dies at 83/For decades, he was the public face of a nationwide counterculture tribe of bearded, denim-clad road warriors memorialized in literature and film" (WaPo).

"As 'Norwegian Wood' played faintly on a crappy stereo, Courtney led me down a short hallway to the bedroom."

"I got to the door and opened it to find Kurt lying in a little bed in a little room, his back against the wall, facing the doorway, his shocking blue eyes gazing at me through the subdued lighting. His bare feet stuck out past the bedsheets, and his toenails were painted a rosy hue. The smell of jasmine flowers wafted through the screen of the window above his head. To this day, whenever I smell jasmine I’m transported to that moment. 'Hi,' he said, and two things struck me instantly. The first was: oh, wow, I know this guy. He wasn’t some sort of rock-and-roll space alien—he was actually like a lot of the stoners I went to high school with. (I was kind of a stoner in high school myself.)... I asked Kurt what he was like as a kid, and he said something about being small for his age. I stood up, unfurled my wiry five-foot-six-inch frame, and said, in a theatrically manly voice, 'I don’t know what you’re talking about!' We exchanged smiles, and our bond grew from there. Somehow I got to talking about Arlo Guthrie’s 'The Motorcycle Song' and how I’d play it on the family record player and run around the house pretending I was a motorcycle. And Kurt said, 'I did that, too!'"

From "My Time with Kurt Cobain/Befriending a rock star isn’t necessarily as cool as you’d think—particularly when tragedy happens" by Michael Azerrad (The New Yorker).

Campus today.

 

Note the forsythia in the background. There's lots of forsythia blooming around campus, so if yellow is your favorite color, now is your time:

 

And I got my own view of the brutalist building that dropped a slab of concrete on that walkway: 

Does HuffPo really think Donald Trump doesn't understand that Larry David is not a Trump supporter?

So Trump tweets this a clip from Episode 1 of the new season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," showing Larry David putting on a "Make America Great" hat to appease a motorcycle guy who's angry at him:

TOUGH GUYS FOR TRUMP! pic.twitter.com/DbjZjGzLWU

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2020

Larry, the character in the show, got the MAGA hat for the purpose of repelling other people, so he can be left alone. The twist in this little vignette is that the hat that makes the kind of people in his social group loathe him also — with another kind of people — works to undo loathing.

Trump knows TV. Trump knows humor. There's zero chance that Trump is mistaking Larry David for a Trump supporter. He may not have time to be watching "Curb" episodes, but he surely grasps that there's some back story to Larry's having the hat and can see that Larry is afraid of the "tough guy" and using the hat to mollify him.

But here's HuffPo: "Trump Just Tweeted A Clip From A TV Show That Was Totally Making Fun Of Him/The clip came from Larry David’s MAGA-centric episode of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.'" I guess that will get many clicks from people who are hungry for news that Trump is an idiot.

The HuffPo article does nothing but explain the episode, to get the readers up to speed, so they can understand that Larry was "totally making fun of" Trump. Duh. There's no consideration of why Trump would tweet that clip if he knew that, which is what I assume.

How does it benefit Trump to propagate that clip even if Larry was making fun of him? Forgive me for spelling out something so obvious, but I can see there are some obtuse people who think Trump is a dummy who made a mistake.

The clip shows Larry as an oblivious, terrible driver who seriously endangers a motorcyclist and then is terrified at the coming confrontation. Larry is not the "tough guy" and he deserves the tough guy's anger. The tough guy is very expressive (with bad language and a threat of violence). Larry puts on the hat as a fake representation of camaraderie and saves himself.

When Trump offers this clip with "TOUGH GUYS FOR TRUMP," he's implying that you should want to be the tough guy. He's a good guy. He's a motorcycle guy, and he follows the rules of the road, but he gets rightfully angry when affluent, oblivious, insulated jerks violate the rules. You don't want to be like Larry, do you? He's not tough. He's not a good driver. He's a faker. And he's desperate to escape accountability.

Quite aside from how to read the clip, it's to Trump's advantage just to get people seeing that pop culture is using the Trump brand in an unusual and fun way. More Trump. More MAGA hats. Pure familiarity. And if it gets the Trump haters like HuffPo indulging in their own Trump-is-an-idiot fantasies, and they really do seem crazy, as Trump loves to say they are.

"We took on this campaign to offer a different voice in Madison political life. To quit the blame game. To stop playing identity politics."

"I think we did that but the headline in this morning’s WI State Journal suggests we’ve got a ways to go: 'Winners secure all-female board.'... Fair enough, but the real story is it’s an all-status quo school board. The shocker is that education reformer Kaleem Caire did not make it despite running a textbook campaign.... The teachers union got their endorsements elected. No change for Progressives! Madison will continue to turn behavior issues into racial grievances, will continue to blame the man behind the tree instead of demanding individual accountability. [School superintendent] Jen Cheatham will keep blaming white privilege and shaming her hard-working teachers.... Madison even turned out Paul Soglin in favor of a mayor anointed by Progressive Dane.... Let’s face it: Madison went all Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Tuesday.... We offered real-life solutions rather than blaming nebulous, macro socio-economic conditions, Act 10 or various Koch brothers. Returning control of their classrooms to teachers was, Tuesday’s results show, a bridge too far.... I hope I showed the way. Praying that someone picks up the torch next year. I do believe it will have to get worse before it gets better. Me? I’ve got two motorcycles that need riding, bad. (Which is pretty much how I ride.)"

Writes David Blaska, who lost his bid for a seat on the Madison school board.

The Harley aura.

A Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country-never! Their employees and customers are already very angry at them. If they move, watch, it will be the beginning of the end - they surrendered, they quit! The Aura will be gone and they will be taxed like never before!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2018

"Ford designed a car that spits out a motorcycle."

Fox News reports.

There are lots of cool details at the new Alumni Park at the UW campus.

Take a closer look:

"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower."

"To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha — which is to demean oneself."

Wrote Robert Pirsig, the author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," who died yesterday at the age of 88.

"The bikers are certainly used to being outnumbered and we are prepared to form a wall of meat."

Said Chris Cox, founder of Bikers for Trump, who are attending the inauguration.

That quote dragged the word "Altamont" up out of the swamp of my memories.

At the Motor-Trike Café...

... you can go anywhere you want.

The word "sacrifice" is in issue this week, so let's look at 14 examples of the use of the word "sacrifice," mined from 186 posts with the tag "sacrifice" in the 12-year archive of this blog.

1. Back in November 2013, President Obama said this (in the context of staying in Washington until Sasha finishes high school):

"Cause she's, you know, obviously they-and Michelle-have made a lot of sacrifices on behalf of my cockamamie ideas, the running for office and things."

2. From a 2006 NYT article  about couples who choose not to live together:

Carolyne Roehm, the New York socialite and author, is similarly unwilling to sacrifice control of her space. Ms. Roehm, 54, said she is perfectly happy with her extreme version of the L.A.T. relationship, with Simon Pinniger, 53, a businessman who lives 1,700 miles away in Aspen, Colo. 

3. "Sacrifices have to be made," said a father who sold his motorcycle and got a minivan.

4. But another father put out a book in 2012 about the selfish reasons to have children:

Children cost far less than most parents pay, because parents overcharge themselves. You can have an independent life and still be an admirable parent. Before you decide against another child, then, you owe it to yourself to reconsider. If your sacrifice is only a fraction of what you originally thought, the kid might be a good deal after all.

5. The NYT reported something Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in the U.N. in September 2009:

“The engine of unbridled capitalism, with its unfair system of thought, has reached the end of the road and is unable to move... Selfishiness [sic] and insatiable greed have taken the place of such human concepts as love, sacrifice, dignity and justice. The belief in the one god has been replaced with self-belief.”

6. Here's Obama in April 2011:

"To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices. But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in. And as long as I’m president, we won’t.” 

7. An Orwellian banner hanging at the Wisconsin protests of 2011:

"All shared sacrifice is equal, but some must share the sacrifice more than others."

8. From a 2006 USA Today column:

"For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, [Al] Gore requires little from himself."

9. In 2012, Frank Bruni had a whole column in the NYT about the failure of the presidential candidates to use the word "sacrifice."

It’s odd. We revere the Americans who lived through World War II and call them the “greatest generation” precisely because of the sacrifices they made.... [T]he last president to make a truly robust call for sacrifice was ridiculed for it. That president, Jimmy Carter, suggested only that we turn down our thermostats a tad and guzzle a bit less gas, and in July 1979 observed, “Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.”

Then came Ronald Reagan, whose many great contributions to America were coupled with less great ones, including the idea, which has dominated our political discourse ever since, that we should speak only of morning in America and that optimism, like virtue, is its own reward....

Conditions, all in all, are ripe for a serious conversation about sacrifice. But this presidential campaign has been noteworthy for its nonsensical insinuations or assurances that although we’re in a jam, we can emerge from it with discrete, minimal inconvenience.... We live in a sacrifice-free bubble of volitional delusion.

Obama has lately taken to speaking of “economic patriotism,” which is in some sense his euphemism for sacrifice....

10. From a speech President G.W. Bush made in December 2005:

It is also important for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done. We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it.

11. From the Democratic candidates debate, April 27, 2007:

SEN. CLINTON: This is not America's war to win or lose. We have given the Iraqi people the chance to have freedom, to have their own country. It is up to them to decide whether or not they're going to take that chance. And it is past time for them to demonstrate that they are willing to make the sacrifice, the compromise that is necessary to put together a unified government and provide security and stability without our young men and women in the middle of their sectarian war....

12. In 2006, the NYT "public editor" said this when Supreme Court journalist Linda Greenhouse revealed some of her political opinions:

[J]ournalism [is] a calling ... that requires sacrifices and special obligations. Keeping personal opinions out of the public realm is simply one of the obligations for those who remain committed to the importance of impartial news coverage.

Which made me say:

Greenhouse's speech didn't seem that out of line to me, because I am so used to hearing law professors express all kinds of personal and political opinions about the Supreme Court, and, obviously, I do it all the time myself. I'm trying to imagine a law school where the professors felt they needed to make sacrifices and suppress and submerge their opinions. Actually, it's a scary place! Do you really want us to become more devious?

13. From a 2006 review of a book about how religion works:

[Daniel C.] Dennett, anticipating the outrage his comparison will make, suggests that this how religion works. People will sacrifice their interests, their health, their reason, their family, all in service to an idea "that has lodged in their brains." That idea, he argues, is like a virus or a worm, and it inspires bizarre forms of behavior in order to propagate itself. Islam, he points out, means "submission," and submission is what religious believers practice. In Mr. Dennett's view, they do so despite all evidence, and in thrall to biological and social forces they barely comprehend.

14. When we first encountered Edward Snowden in 2013, he spoke of himself in terms of "sacrifice":

He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."

"When I was young and first read the book I was immersed in the Boulder counterculture where madness was regarded as a liberating experience and being clinically insane was thought to be kind of cool."

"Of course those who believed this nonsense had never experienced real insanity first-hand. They only knew about it from reading bullshit authors like Ken Kesey, R.D. Laing, Charles Reich, and Theodore Roszak, among others. Pirsig was not a bullshit author but it seems that most of his readers (myself included) misinterpreted his writing and placed him in the 'madness-is-subversive-and-liberating' crowd. The fact that his descent into madness was a function of his study of the Tao greatly enhanced his appeal, since Eastern religions and philosophies enjoyed great cachet at the time. Which is to say, it was very hip of Pirsig to be driven crazy by the intensity of a mystical experience induced by his Taoist studies. Most people had to swallow heavy doses of LSD to have that experience, and he did it 'naturally'! What a lucky guy! What silly, frivolous, dangerous times those were. What a stupid time."

Writes Roughcoat in the comments to "Mr. Huntington built the treehouses over several months last year with the help of what he called a 'bronado' of friends," where the topic turned to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

There's also discussion of "man caves" that begins with "Guys are so desperate to find a place to get away from women that it has come to this. How come we never hear about 'woman caves'?" and moves on to "There are no 'women caves' because women dominate every other space in the universe." Which incites Freeman Hunt to say: "I thought it was because women aren't so gauche as to demand a room in the limited space of the house that is only for themselves."

Politico: "The man to beat in Iowa: Scott Walker."

"He is reluctant to embrace the front-runner’s mantle. But his Iowa roots, plain-spoken style, and familiarity as the governor next door have made him a force in the key early state."

The governor’s day began at a Harley-Davidson dealership in Des Moines — right in his comfort zone. A longtime motorcycle enthusiast who counts himself as the proud owner of a Harley Road King, Walker arrived wearing blue jeans, black gloves and boots, and a Harley-Davidson jacket. While other Republican candidates held their own events nearby, only Walker availed himself of the chance to ride with Ernst, trailed by several hundred bikers, on a 39-mile ride through the roads of central Iowa.

A the link: a photo of lots of photographers getting their shot of Walker in the motorcycle getup.

"When Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin throws his leg across his beloved Harley-Davidson Road King for a celebration of motorcycles and Iowa pork on Saturday, the political symbolism will be as thick as the smoke from the roasting pits."

Really intense first sentence of a NYT article titled "Scott Walker Riding With Joni Ernst in Iowa as Rivals Give Chase," which Drudge is linking with the teaser "Leader of the Pack."

This post gets an epic trio of tags: meat, metaphor, motorcycle.

ADDED: The WaPo headline is: "Scott Walker is the only potential presidential candidate who can go to a biker rally and mean it."

This makes me think about a decisive moment in the debate last fall between Scott Walker and his Democratic opponent Mary Burke. As I observed it:

There was one "fun" question, asking them what they'd do if they had to go a day without campaigning and would surely take to their preferred 2-wheeler, Burke on a Trek bike and Walker on a Harley.

Burke's family founded the Trek bicycle company and Burke's campaign relied heavily on her experience as a Trek exec.

Where, exactly, would they go, and who would they go with? Walker gave the precise route, complete with route numbers and turns, and said he'd go with his usual "buddies" who motorcycle with him. Burke seemed nervous and said "um" a few times as she claimed she'd go back to her hometown and spend time with members of her family. Meade was heckling, saying that everyone knows that Mary Burke isn't much of a cyclist. Ah, but what was she supposed to do? The questioner imposed the assumption that if she had time off, of course, she'd bicycle. It would be awkward to refute that! Just because my family is in the bicycle business doesn't mean that when I get some time, what I want to do is bike. If her family were in the dairy business, would they assume that in her spare time, what she likes to do is drink milk?