MR WRONG: What's your angle?
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 92
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: The News Was Bad Enough Without the News Guys Reading It Sideways
I DON’T HAVE the brain, uh, for big deals, but this POTUS stuff, it’s a street thing! Back in the day, dude got handed a pile of cash and a bucha real estate. This guy’s whole career was sliding cash around, sliding buildings around, borrowing money, building stuff up, stiffing people, trading off fame, and then bailing out with bankruptcy when shit fell apart. It’s a way to do business.
We The People now have POTUS doing Business right in our face because enough people elected the candidate who was Good at Business! The Business of America! Business! Now with stuff like the Army and Medicaid and the American Farmer, motherfucker is just gonna slide stuff around, right? Like they did with their Business! If somebody like the American Farmer hollers loud enough, they’ll grab some cash from one of the other parts of the American Cash Pile and make a Subsidy or a tax break or whatever, all it is is sliding money around, even I can see it! And I am not good at business!
What I am good at is being Broke. That’s how I grew up, like Dick Gregory wrote, “not poor, just broke.” There’s a difference! I know how to do, like, Deficit Spending and stuff. As long as you have a lotta Business and keep the cash moving, you can be terrible at Business, because, like, Debt is an Asset and stuff, right? When I enrolled in Junior College, it was for Business Administration, but I got outta that real fast, ouch. I think for one bright shining moment I actually knew how to Calculate the Amortization of a Debenture Bond at a given percentage over a specified period of time, but those also might just be some words I remember hearing, you know? After my first semester they told me if I didn’t get my droopy grades up, I’d lose my Financial Aid, so I went Liberal Arts real hard. I am a Two-Year Degree Success Story! Got me into a real-deal four-year college and everything, but not for Business Administration, yow!
If you are a Business and you owe a lotta money, you are worth your marker, and somebody might buy it, and then you can slide out from under, it’s crazy. Business! That one son-in-law of POTUS was in a deep hole with, what, I can’t even keep track anymore, but basically dude bought a giant office building at the top of The Great Real Estate Bubble of 2008 [Ed. note: The literal name of the building was “666 Fifth Avenue”] and then was tryna get out from under. I can relate, I bought a fucking house at the top of the stupid fucking Bubble, and then I was “underwater” for years, until I found somebody to buy my paper, thank you, former Quicken Mortgage company, for taking care of that, and for the subsequent refinances from Rocket Mortgage that got my interest rate down, and fuck you very much to Citibank for slow-playing my paperwork and telling me you never got it, etc., while I was trying to get into a loan modification program. Y’alls were happy to keep cashing my checks but somehow never got that paperwork, Business!
Anyway, I am worried about the American Farmer, because of these Tariffs and stuff! Who is gonna buy the Soybeans if they can get ’em cheaper from Brazil or wherever? I saw some American Farmer stuff on the CBS Evening News, which right now has this annoying format where there are two News-Heads at the News Desk and they trade lines, it’s weird, and I don’t like it. Plus, they do all this annoying side-of-the head stuff, you know, that thing that errbody has been doing, the B-angle or B-roll or whatever?
It’s like “Hello and good evening, America, I am News-Head reading the teleprompter and I am looking right at the camera, and at you, as I deliver The News,” only now there’s two of them, sitting side by side at the News Desk and they are taking turns, reading the prompter, and every once in awhile we get a side-camera angle, while one of the News-Heads keeps looking at the camera in front of them, and we, the viewer, are now observing the News-Head reading the prompter while we get to look at the side of their head, what the fuck? Plus, when the one News-Head isn’t reading, they have to do something, so sometimes they look at the other News-Head reading the prompter and now I’m looking at somebody sitting there at a desk looking at somebody reading, for fuck’s sake, why are you making my News so goddamn Unreal? It’s completely disconnecting me from having my News read to me in my face! Now you got me forced to consider a camera angle and be observing the reading of the News as opposed to being told the fucking news like I signed up for? Quit it!
Then, after the segment where the reporter checked in with the American Farmer (seems like he’s fucked), they (the Reporter) show up at the News Desk to do an extra bit of talking, where the News-Heads ask questions that they obviously rehearsed, to make it look like a goddamn conversation, but it’s crap! Just read the News straight into the camera, and get the people to check in with their stories, but don’t bring ‘em into the fucking studio to do a pretend conversation!
Meanwhile, the country that ended up bailing out the POTUS son-in-law, is the same country, Qatar, “oil-and-gas-based Middle Eastern economy” according to the CIA World Factbook, the same fucking country that gave POTUS a goddamn Jumbo Jet. How much are they going to have to do to that plane to make it a real Air Force One? Plus, POTUS is gonna want to lard it up with all the golden crapola he’s hanging on every open wall in the White House, right? What the hell was I even talking about today? How is this good business?
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, May 21, 2025
★ There was not much difference between the first glimpse of day and the bright clear mornings that had gone before, even though now the sky had smooth shadings of gray on it. By the middle of breakfast, however, the light had already failed, and darkness and rain settled in. Any breaks in the showers in the forecast seemed distant and tenuous as one wet hour followed another, but then suddenly someone was walking by outside with no umbrella, and it was time to run an errand. Dog turds lay squashed and melted in hazardously scattered blobs along the way. Even with two jackets and jeans, the chill was raw.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
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TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Recipes for Everyday, by Janet McKenzie Hill, published in 1921 by The Procter & Gamble Co., Cincinnati, OH, and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Recipes for Everyday is a timely addition to the Crisco Library of household helps. The more than two hundred tested recipes in this valuable book are a boon to the thrifty and the economical.
EPICUREAN SANDWICHES
6 olives
1 or 2 chicken livers
cooked salad dressing
bread cut for sandwiches
Chop the olives fine, mash the cooked livers smooth, mix the olives and livers with enough dressing to make a smooth paste, and use as a filling for any variety of bread.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
