Sunday morning, listening to the president’s announcement of the attacks on Iran, my immediate reaction was to question their necessity, not Trump’s assessment of the result. This was the president, speaking before the nation about a serious provocation against a hostile regime.
It has since turned out that the bombings may not have been the total success Trump claimed them to be. And that has illuminated another serious problem: We have a president who cannot be believed, even in moments of grave national crisis. He spins stories that will put him in a good light, regardless of their basis in reality. All he cares about – even now, as the most powerful man in the world – is his own personal image.
Somebody posted on social media the idea that Trump’s decision to bomb Iran was made in response to his being called TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). I thought, just as plausibly, it could have been a reaction to his disappointing military parade the weekend before. “I’ll show ’em,” you can imagine him thinking in both cases, and it’s why I was opposed to the strikes. It’s too early to tell if they were a good decision or a bad one, but the fact that it was made by Trump automatically makes it suspect. He has the emotional intelligence of a child, and having the fate of the world in his hands is a terrifying situation. And to think he got elected by people upset about the price of eggs.
Tuesday morning I had an appointment with an orthopedist (the reason for my absence here) and filling out the forms in the waiting room I came across a question as to my profession. I wrote “writer.” Then I was asked “part-time” or “full-time.” After giving it some thought, I checked the “part-time” box. These days I write only when I get an idea for something; I don’t write every day. But I never wrote every day, even when I had a full-time job as a writer/editor. And even writers who do write every day usually write for only part of the day – mornings for instance. Most writing – most good writing – requires such intense concentration that only several hours of it at a stretch are possible. The rest of the day is spent in research, or reading, or editing what they’ve previously written. Which is to say, all writers are part-time writers.
At 7:30 yesterday morning I drove down Las Olas and across the bridge, where police cars blocked access to A1A. I turned right, along with everyone else, and found a parking spot near the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Water and ice.
A good crowd was already gathered outside the Elbo Room, many of them in red Panthers jerseys. One woman wore a cap topped with a seated doll wearing a Panthers jersey and roller skates. One young man, with a flower tattoo in front of his ear, sported a black cap with the words “Vamos Gatos” printed on the side.
A little before nine a police car, siren wailing, came through the blockade, followed by a golf cart filled with large men in beards. Aleksander Barkov sat in the back, in a shirt with green palm trees and pink flamingos, the Stanley Cup between his legs. Immediately the cart was swarmed by people trying to touch the cup. Eventually, Barkov lifted it and carried it through the side entrance of the Elbo Room, where it soon appeared on the balcony, causing the crowd below to erupt. Various players took turns lifting it – to rapturous cheers – and then, after everyone had had a go, a couple of them filled it with beer that they poured onto the crowd. This also got cheers, and was repeated again and again. In the intervals, champagne was squirted out onto the adoring fans, while the famous bar’s logo, a platinum blonde in a red bikini, looked on in tumbling delight.
Chants rose and fell: “Back-to-back!” “MVP!” “Bob-by! Bob-by! Bob-by!” “We want beer!” One man started a “Thank you, Panthers!” cry that for some reason didn’t catch on. A few songs were sung, including the National Anthem and, oddly, “Country Roads.”
“Bobrovsky’s not here,” a young man next to me said. “He’s home with his family. He’s like that basketball player, Jokic. As soon as the game’s over, he’s gone.”
“It’s the young ones who are here,” his friend said. “They’ve probably been up all night partying.”
I walked across A1A and talked to a young father who moved here two years ago from Toronto. He had been rooting for the Maple Leafs, he said, but he admired the Panthers – enough to bring his son to see them at the Elbo Room. I asked how he found South Floridians compared to Canadians, and he said that people have been great, especially in the hockey league that his son plays in. As they headed off, I saw the name “Tkachuk” written across the back of the young boy’s jersey.
I found a shady seat on the seawall, next to a woman from Poland who now lives in Galt Ocean Mile. “I was watching on TV,” she said, “and I thought: Why don’t I drive down there?” We wanted to see them take the cup into the ocean, as they had last year, but by 11 there was no sign of them ever leaving the Elbo Room.
I drove to Archibald’s for a takeaway quiche and on the drive home, listening to an oldies station, heard Connie Francis sing “Where the Boys Are.” It was an almost scripted moment, though I wondered if any of the players would have been aware of the connection.
Interviewed in yesterday’s New York Times Book Review, Wally Lamb recounted a meeting with Gay Talese. The young writer (Lamb) told the famous writer (Talese) about the novel he was working on, to which the latter responded, “Oh my.” “He was polite,” said Lamb, “but clearly not interested.”
I had a somewhat similar experience with Talese at the book festival in Fort Lauderdale many years ago. I told him that my family used to spend a week every summer in Ocean City, NJ – his hometown – and he barely acknowledged me, talking instead to a fellow author about possibly catching a spring training game that afternoon. Of course, when you dress as he does it’s probably hard to be down-to-earth.
Yesterday the Miami Herald ran a front page story about the dining scene in Broward (“Not a culinary wasteland”). Its focus was on Michelin ratings, so upscale restaurants were discussed and small ethnic places ignored. In an essay on Florida for The American Scholar (Winter 2024), I wrote about the differences between Miami-Dade and Broward, and made the heretical claim that Broward is the more diverse county. One example I gave: “Miamians were famous for never crossing the county line, but foodies drove north for our Korean and Vietnamese restaurants.” https://theamericanscholar.org/florida-man/