Trump's no jackass; he's under-qualified

Hearing Katie Couric tell Jay Leno that Donald Trump’s been “acting like a jackass” made me wonder if the female counterpart to stupid behavior is “jillass.”

Of course it is, according to Urban Dictionary.com, that reliable bastion of ribald and filthy street definitions.

But the term’s never caught on. I wondered about why to a friend and he suggested  there’s already a perfectly suitable word for that kind of behavior.

“The word is blonde,” he said.

Now, there’s no more politically correct observer than I so I immediately reprimanded him for the gratuitous insult.

To jackasses.

It was unfair to compare fair-haired women to these noble and much-maligned beasts of burden. It was the jackass -- not its equine cousin the horse -- that helped win the West.

As Hampton Sides related in “Blood and Thunder,” his outstanding 2006 biography of legendary Western scout Kit Carson, the donkey, not the steed, was his mount of choice.

It got him over jagged mountains, across deserts and was a steady companion through both blizzard and drought.

With all due deference to blonde women who certainly had a hand in providing order and entertainment in frontier homesteads, schools and brothels, they’re no match for the donkey.

How did this trusty creature become synonymous with behavior of the kind exhibited by the idiot Trump?

And just what is a true non-human jackass? Is it a mule? Donkey? Burro? Ass?

Only the performer/producer/entrepreneur once known as P. Diddy has more handles.

Well, the jackass is a male donkey; a female, a jenny.

(I told this to my blonde-bashing friend and he felt vindicated: “Yes, like Jenny McCarthy!”)

In Latin, it is Equus africanus asinus. The name donkey didn’t come into use until 1785 and may stem from its dun color or that one was once owned by a man named -- get this -- Duncan.

Gotta love that scholarly Wikipedia research!

The online en-pseudo-pedia goes on to say the donkey’s keen -- I would say wise -- sense of self-preservation led to its enduring reputation for stubbornness.

Is it stubborn or wise for a donkey to resist being pulled along the cliff edge of some steep mountain pass?

No more stubborn or less wise than it is for me to spend endless days on my couch watching “Bonanza” marathons rather than risking going out to work in a world rife with stray bullets, e-coli and heart-attack inducing 9-to-5 jobs.

“Donkeys appear to be quite intelligent, cautious, friendly, playful and eager to learn.”

None of those words apply to Trump.

“They are often pastured or stabled with horses or ponies and are thought to have a calming effect on nervous horses. If a donkey is introduced to a mare and foal, the foal will often turn to the donkey for support after it has been weaned from its mother.”

So I misinterpreted all those many times people have called me a horse’s ass. It was really a compliment on my steadfastness.

Jesus rode to Jerusalem and eventual glory on the back of a humble ass.

More than 2,000 years later, a man we can all agree is an egotistical ass rides around in a custom chopper with his gaudy name on the side.

And it isn’t Duncan.

That one word can used to describe two beings of such vastly different temperaments is just, well, I hate to say it, asinine.

The word’s another sly slam on an animal that’s never self-aggrandized, corrupted the public discourse or strolled about in public with a preposterously coiffed mane.

Enough’s enough.

Let the rehabilitation of the true jackass begin right here.

To do otherwise would be trumpinine.

Chilean miners auditioning for reality TV

When I heard the news of the trapped Chilean minors I, out of spiritual habit, said a prayer that heroes would save their lives.

I can’t think of a worse slow death than being entombed alive.

Now that euphoric videos of the 33 men have been released and the outlook for eventual rescue is positive, I have a new prayer.

I’m praying they’ll invite me to join them in what Jay Leno’s calling the ultimate man cave.

I haven’t seen a party like this since the destruction of the old Berlin Wall.

They have access to movies, taped sporting events and board games. A life-sustaining umbilical linking them to the surface is about 4-inches in diameter, just wide enough to transport a constant mule train of brats and canned beers.

Parts of it remind me some giddy weekends back in the old fraternity house in Athens, Ohio.

I’ve heard it may take as long as four months to extricate them. Most have already lost about 20 pounds since the August 5 cave-in -- and this was considered a positive development: smaller men will reduce rescue hole circumference and essential drill time.

Talk about incentive. If they keep losing 20 pounds every three weeks someone with stout lungs will be able to suck them all to safety with a really, really long straw in time to trick or treat. 

This makes the already-compelling team dynamic even more intriguing. Will the tubby guys let the skinny guys go first while they endure more girth-decreasing calisthenics?

If all goes well the men will be freed around Christmas although for symbolic purposes I’m hoping a resurrection happens on Easter.

Until then, we are about to be privy to one of the most fascinating case studies of human interaction in recorded history. I’m going to be glued to what has the makings of the greatest reality TV show in history.

People spent hours staring at the gushing Deep Horizon well. Imagine how much we’d watch if they kept a live feed in the rec room beneath Chile’s Atacama Desert. 

It’s happening already. One of the miners proposed to his surface girlfriend and swore he’d help her pick out the dress as soon as he reaches the surface. But will their love endure? Will she stray? 

What other human dynamics will unfold over the course of the next three months?

Perhaps two of the men way down there in the lonely dark will become amorous and emerge as lovers. Certainly, one of the 33 will get on everyone else’s nerves. Will they decide to slay and fillet him? 

Right now, we’re getting force fed all the uplifting stories authorities want us to hear.

Certainly, there is much heroism and admirable behavior, but those are far from the only components in our behavioral tool kits. 

I understand this because I was one of the hundreds of reporters at the Quecreek Mine in 2002 when subterranean flooding stranded nine miners for four days about 45 minutes due east and roughly 240 feet straight south of my western Pennsylvania home. A couple magazines contacted me about providing spot news coverage, which I was thrilled to do.

Eight years later, two events remain vivid: first, my wife and I weeping when Gov. Mark Schweiker announced all nine miners were alive and well.

And, second, was an interview with one of the 50-something miners whom I visited a week after his dramatic rescue. I asked what he was thinking about way down in that dark, dank mine.

“I thought, man, if I ever get out of here alive the next time anyone catches me underground will be the day they bury me and I’m going to spend the rest of my life stoned immaculate. And I’m off to a really fine start.”

I think of that stoned immaculate guy whenever I hear stories about how brave and fearless the Chilean miners all are.

I’m sure some of them are, but for the most part they are just a bunch of regular guys marooned in an isolated cell that would drive 99.9 percent of the world mad. 

And that’s what makes it all so fascinating.

Tweet of the week at http://twitter.com/8Days2Amish: “Does anyone think any of the other kids were mean to him because Jeremiah was a bullfrog?”

Leno again-o: why critics are wrong

I feel so many pressures to opine on important social issues that it pains me whenever I have to stoop to trivial pop matters. But the blown calls on Jay Leno’s return compel me to speak up.

Let’s cut to the chase:

In two weeks/two months/two years, it will be like it was before Conan moved to The Tonight Show. Jay will still be on top by margins large enough to madden Letterman and his supporters.

Jimmys Fallon and Kimmel will continue to perform to numbers equivalent to large family reunions and Craig Ferguson will quietly continue to put on the best show of the whole bunch.

And people who like third or fourth ranked Conan will continue to be furious that the rest of us don’t appreciate his apparent genius.

We live in times of such jaded partisanship we feel forced to take sides in silly talk show wars. Really, who cares?

I guess most late night viewers are like me in that they aren’t. I usually start dozing off after a 1993 Seinfeld rerun I’ve already seen 49 times and still enjoy.

If I’m insomniac enough to watch anything I enjoy watching Jay. He does about three times the number of jokes that Dave does and most of them make me laugh.

But I’ve not sworn a cult-like allegiance to him. If Dave has better guests or has made news for something in his unseemly personal life to make him even crankier than usual I’ll tune in.

Late night is no longer something we all need to see to get the jokes the next morning around the water cooler. For that we have the internet.

That’s why I shake my head at the predominating criticism of Leno’s return.

“Oh! He told Cheney jokes. He told Tiger jokes. How gauche!”

Listen, if you revived sainted Johnny Carson and set him behind the desk, he’d be joking about the same topics.

It’s what they all do. I’d be disappointed if they didn’t.

Johnny wasn’t revered because he was cutting edge. He was revered because he had the spotlight all to himself and was at ease in the role.

After Steve Allen invented the gig, no one’s been cutting edge since Letterman and Letterman hasn’t been cutting edge since 1992.

The hostility all the other hosts unleashed on Jay didn’t surprise me either. It galls them that they just can’t beat him.

It must make these maladjusted hosts nervous to know that, even after all the Leno bashing, executives at every network would throw them aside in an instant if they knew they could get Jay.

That’s why Conan was bounced. Go ahead and blame weak lead-ins, etc., but he failed to deliver any substantial audience over seven months, dog years in TV programming. They could have given him a year and it wasn’t going to get any better because -- and here’s a little secret -- the guy’s just not that funny.

He can’t interview. His jokes are no better than decent and his sole genius seems to be the ability to project shrill facial gymnastics while doing bizarre mime impressions involving his nipples.

Rely on too much on those dubious skills, as Conan does, and you’ll alienate as many viewers as you impress. Ask Jim Carrey.

This will infuriate Conan fans who have become like devotees of tedious jam bands. They’ll argue that we don’t recognize the sheer brilliance of the composition and if we’d just give it another 18 minutes we’d appreciate the pop.

They don’t understand that most of us are perfectly satisfied with the snappy time it takes Tom Petty to sing “American Girl.”

To me the man who looks the worst in all this is Howard Stern. He was telling Harry Smith that the thought of Leno makes him vomit and that he prefers Letterman because he has so much “integrity,” a word Mrs. Letterman might not have used.

And he says Leno’s Jaywalking and other comedy bits were Stern originals Leno lifted.

That last claim reminds me of a “Simpsons” episode where Krusty the Clown becomes enraged at the sight of some other hack comic doing one of his signature acts. Krusty says: “If that’s anyone but Steve Allen they’re stealing my bit!”

So there you have it. Now I hope I can get back to writing about the important stuff.

Like how the instant chickens start laying Cadbury eggs I’m going to become a chicken farmer.

Hey, that’s a pretty good line.

I wonder if Howard Stern thought of it first.

Super Bowl recap

The Super Bowl has come and gone and I’m still feeling melancholy I didn’t have a team to hate since the Dallas Cowboys were eliminated. If the Pittsburgh Steelers aren’t in it, I need someone to hate or else I’m just adrift.

The Cowboys provide for me a near perfect hatred. I hate their history, their ridiculous stadium, their owner and their no. 1 fan, George W. Bush. If they ever show Dick Cheney and Ryan Seacrest yukking it up with Jerry Jones in the owner’s box, I’ll go delirious with hatred.

Next year’s Super Bowl is scheduled to be played in the new Dallas Stadium. I hope the Steelers play the Cowboys there and that Steeler fans outnumber hometown Cowboy fans by a ratio of 4-to-1. And that the Steelers win 77-0.

What’s to hate about the great New Orleans Saints? Nothing. I’m thrilled for them, their fans and the once godforsaken city I love so much. That party is going to blend right into Mardi Gras and last a month. I haven’t felt so like dropping everything and jetting to a party that didn’t involve me since the Berlin Wall came down.

What’s to hate about the Indianapolis Colts? They are a little bland for my tastes, but bland competence is so uncommon in professional sports it should be hailed as a virtue. Plus, I love the great Peyton Manning. He’s a class act, a devoted family man and a real professional dedicated to winning with grace and style.

And I was saying those exact same things about Tiger Woods right up until November 27.

Other thoughts:

• Watching the Leno/Letterman commercial had me feeling like two old friends of mine have finally made up after a ridiculous grudge. That whole thing was so unnecessarily bitter and tawdry, especially when all the principals are earning and will continue to earn fortunes. For the record, my preference list goes like this: Leno, Craig Ferguson, Letterman, Conan and Jimmy Kimmel.

• Budweiser’s ads were hilarious. I marveled at the tens of millions of dollars it must have cost to produce and air the spots. Still, if Budweiser never aired another commercial, I doubt it would lose a single beer drinker. Budweiser’s a national habit. I’ve been drinking beer since, oh, about the fourth grade. I’ve been subjected to probably a $1 billion in ads aimed at getting me to drink Bud. It’s never worked. I drink local second, fancy import third, and what whomever’s buying first.


• In five years when the latest American Idol is performing the halftime extravaganza, we’re going to look back on this as the golden era of halftime shows. Paul McCartney, The Stones, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and, yes, The Who. It’s not that The Who was bad. It’s that they’re not right for the venue. Their best songs top out at eight or nine minutes and don’t lend themselves to snappy little renditions. Their uneven performance wasn’t a sign that they suck, it’s a sign that the networks have run out of acceptable options. Look for Jimmy Buffett next year.

• This was the second year in a row when there wasn’t a single funny monkey commercial. I am again crushed. I swear, I’d run out and buy truckloads of feminine hygiene products if a really funny monkey subliminally suggested I ought to.

• Every time they show smiling and voluptuous cheerleaders, I cheer the fact that the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t have these silly silicone distractions at our home games. Professional football’s all about ugly. How else can you explain guys like Bill Cowher getting so much face time?

• It could be argued that the commercial-vanquishing DVR is perhaps the second greatest invention of all-time behind Caller ID, or as I call it, “The In-Law Detector.” Still, if commercials were as lively as they are during the Super Bowl, I’d ditch the feature. It’s insane, but the commercials are as big as the game.

• Without ever bothering to look it up, my wife and I have wondered for years if Abe Vigoda was dead or alive. Thanks to computer animatronics and despite his ad with Betty White, I’m still not sure. And I loved The Simpsons/Coke ad.

• I still enjoy a really good college marching band, but one of the best half-time shows I’ve ever seen at a professional football game was a 10-foot baby race. I watched in horror as they rolled out the mat at mid-field and brought six infants and lined them up in their designated lanes opposite their coaxing mommies. What looked absolutely ridiculous became oddly compelling and I admit I felt small when I heard myself yelling at No. 4, “Get your diapered little ass in gear you little son of a bitch!” I don’t remember who won the game that day, but I remember the kid came in second.