"An American Discomfort"

Preemptive Disclaimer: Though it took me twenty-five years to become one, I am currently an American citizen, and have been one for over ten years. However, when it comes to international hockey, and the innate components of the American character, I revert to Canadian. For those of you scoring at home, in the following report, “they” means Americans, “we”, what I used to be. Okay, here we go.

They can’t help it. It’s against their cultural DNA.

Witnessing the recent Olympics, the conclusion seems glaringly apparent:

America has serious difficulty with the “bronze.”

(Also, the “silver”, but the “bronze” is worse.)

You watch an American bronze medal winner being interviewed on TV, and, though they say all the right things, their body language reflects someone in close proximity to some awful-smelling cheese. And they’re the cheese.

Canadians are used to not being first. Look who we live beside. When the U.S. hockey team tied the score in the last twenty-five seconds, sending the gold medal showdown into “sudden death” overtime, I could hear Canadians from sea to shining sea thinking, “Here we go again.” I didn’t have to leave the house. I could hear myself thinking it.

Fortunately, we were wrong. But that’s part of our national character. Not being wrong; thinking we’ll be second.

If Americans believe “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”, what do you do with “third?” “Third” has no value in this system. It's like showing up at the Prom with the third prettiest girl in the class.

To Americans, a bronze medal screams, “Not first.” A bronze medal-winner returns to his hometown:

“Did you win?”

“I won the bronze.”

“The bronze is for third.”

“That’s right.”

“Then you didn’t win.”

There’s a look in an American bronze medal winner’s face that reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Was it frustration, humiliation, embarrassment, shame? A little of all of them, I suppose, but there was something else there as well. And then it hit me. I remembered the look.

It was the look on my brother’s face when he hit me with an arrow.

When we were kids, for some reason, we had actual weapons around the house: a World War II bayonet, a fencing sword (with a felt-covered point), a Bowie knife, an air rifle and a real bow with steel-tipped arrows.

And we were city folk!

One day, my brother was playing with the bow and arrow. I stood off to the side, waiting for my turn. My brother aimed at a wooden fence post. The arrow hit the post, but instead of sticking in, it flipped up and changed directions, hitting me just above my upper lip. I still have the scar.

There was a trickle of blood, some shock and surprise, and the inevitable crying. I turned to my brother. And to this day I can remember the unmistakable look on his face. The look said:

“I’m going to get yelled at.”

That’s the look I see in American athletes who capture the “bronze.” While their mouths are saying, “It was an honor just to participate,” their little boy faces are saying, “We’re going to get yelled at.”

(This reaction is less apparent with the female athletes, with the exception the U.S. women’s hockey team, when, uh, well, we beat them too.)

My brother deserved to get yelled at. He maimed a sibling. (Though I was standing unsafely close.) But yelling at Olympic bronze medal winners? Heck, they’re the third best in the world. Six billion people in the world, are you kidding me? That’s really up there! Third in the world – that’s in the ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, and a lot of other nines, percentile best at whatever it is they do.

Hey, bronze medal winners! You competed against the most talented people on the planet, and you beat them all, except for two. And in some cases, it was really close. Fractions of a second between you and the winner.

Who would yell at you for that?

Certainly not your parents. Unless they’re “Jim-Piersall’s-father-live-though-my-child” crazy, parents are happy and proud and relieved for no major injuries. If they feel any pain at all, it’s from identifying with their kid’s disappointment, but that’s good parenting. That’s “I care” with tears.

The trouble is, since “not first” is "un-American", anything less feels like, “I let you down.” There is no comfort in, “Some athletes didn’t win anything.” That's like parents driving their kids through the poor areas, so they’ll stop complaining about wanting better sneakers. It doesn’t hit the spot.

Maybe to achieve what Americans have achieved, a “win or nothing” mentality is necessary. Maybe that’s the price you pay for excellence. In the “Big Picture”, maybe it’s worth it.

But it sure takes the fun out of competing.

By the way, when I lost after being nominated for an Emmy. It didn’t feel like an honor just to be nominated.

Am I, perhaps, becoming an American?

(Or was I secretly one all the time?)

"We Win!"

I growled like a caveman when it went in.

I threw my fist in the air.

I jumped up and down.

I cried.


We almost gave it away.

Then we got it back.

It's our game

And we won.

Oh, Canada.


Two countries going head to head.

The most benign form of national chauvinism.

Nobody dies.

No limbs get blown off.

No parents ache over fallen children.

No children cry,

"Our parents are gone."

It's just a hockey game.

It's everything.

It's nothing.

And it's great to win.


America,

You get it back tomorrow.

But for one brief shining moment,

The world is ours.

"LIberals Abroad, Invited to Dinner"

One of the cornerstones of the liberal belief system is an unequivocal respect for the diversity exhibited by other cultures, their mantra concerning those countries’ habits, as compared to what we’re used to at home: “It’s not better or worse. It’s just different.”

Accept people as you find them. Anything less reflects cultural superiority. And that, liberals believe, is wrong.

Okay, here we go.

Liberal couple, taking in the sights of some exotic foreign land. Totally lost, they stop a passing stranger and ask directions to some off the beaten path sacred…something, a location indicating that the couple has done their homework and are deeply interested in the country they have chosen to explore.

The stranger is gracious and polite. Feeling comfortable in his company, the couple asks for a dinner recommendation, an eatery specializing in “authentic cuisine.” The stranger immediately insists that the couple have dinner at his house. Since they are interested in the culture, here’s a chance for them to experience how the people actually live. At the same time – his wife being a wonderful cook – they can experience a gourmet version of the country’s most popular dish.

The liberal couple jumps at this opportunity. No exotic foreign land Burger King for them. Thanking him profusely, they enthusiastically accept his generous invitation.

After touring the sites of interest, the couple returns to their hotel to change. While there, they use their Blackberry, or whatever, to Google the country’s most popular dish, eager to learn what delicacy they’ll be treated to at their upcoming dinner.

The country’s most popular dish is dog.

There is little question about it. They’re going to have dog for dinner.

Now this is not a country that eats dog because they’re poor, or lack dining alternatives. In their culture, dog is a delicacy. They serve it at birthday parties.

As for the couple, we’re not talking about food extremists. They eat meat. Just not, you know…pets.

So what do they do?

They know what they want to do. They want to say, “No, thank you.” But they can’t. They’re liberals. They have an ethos to uphold, an ethos that requires them to be nonjudgmental and flexible.

“When in Rome…” Go with the flow. Eat what you’re offered. Even if it barks.

Looking for sunshine. Well, there’s this guy on the Food Channel whose entire act involves eating “unusual” foods from other countries. It’s usually not that bad. Maybe this won’t be bad either.

Wait, we’re missing the point here. It’s not a question of how the thing will taste.

It’s a question of what it is.

It’s dog.

There seems no way of getting out of this without offending your hosts. What are you going to tell them? “I’m sorry, we had dog for lunch”? “My doctor told me not to eat anything you can train to bring you your slippers”? “In our religion, the canine is believed to be the embodiment of God”? They’ll see right through it!

And by the way, “not offending your hosts” also misses the point, the point being you’re either true to your “diversity” principles or you’re not.

There is no way around it. This is definitely going to happen. Were the couple to be run over after their dinner, when the coroner performed the autopsy, they would discover, among the stomach contents, “substantial traces of dog.”

From then on, it’s pure agony. You dress as if you’re going to your own execution, you pick up some flowers, when you step into their house, you remove your shoes, because that’s what they do, and you do what they do, because that’s who you are, dammit!

You meet the family. You make small talk. “You have a beautiful home. And those exquisite carvings. Are they teak?” Your our mouth is on “automatic.” While your mind is aflame with a single thought:

“We’re going to eat dog. We’re going to eat dog. We’re going to eat dog!”

I wrote a chunk here, but it went too far, so I took it out. Not because I was afraid of losing your respect. I was afraid of losing my respect.

Dinner is served. The couple gets up and head for the table, their gait as unsteady as a sailor’s on a turbulent sea.

It begins with the salad. There’s a bug crawling around. But, suddenly, that’s nothing. Compared to what’s coming.

Then, there’s the soup. Consommé. No chunks at all. Why is it that color? Why to think about that? You’ve had soup. This is soup too.

Of course, you can’t really enjoy it. Because you know what will follow.

The Main Course.

I’ll leave you to imagine the couple’s barely concealed panic as their hostess backs in from the kitchen, carrying the object of their dread. What comes next? They eat it, they don’t eat it, they try to eat it and gag, it’s not dog after all, but an indigenous form of chicken, you can finish it any way you want. What’s certain is, the couple had a very difficult evening.

By contrast, a conservative’s response to this dining dilemma would be simple and direct:

“You want us to eat dog? Hell, no! What kind of people are you? Eat ‘Buster’? Are you kiddin’ me? You people oughtta be shot!”

Forget the “oughtta be shot” comment. That’s just the way they talk. The point is, in this matter, I side unapologetically with the conservatives, favoring honesty – minus the bombast – over “phony-baloney.”

When judging other cultures, there’s always a line, across which lies “Unacceptable Behavior.” It’s simply a question of where you draw it.

"A Story...and maybe something about writing"

At home, when I work out on the treadmill, I do it listening to books-on-tape on my Sony Disc Man. I don’t have the other thing. Where you have to upload the stuff onto your computer, and then download it onto the thing. I don’t know how to do that. And why would I want to do that, when you can simply stick the disc into the Disc Man and press “Play”?

The one drawback is there are a lot of wires involved, wires connecting the Disc Man to the headphones, and separate headphone wires as well. Sometimes, these wires get snarled up. It doesn’t affect the sound or anything, you don’t hear a strangled voice because the wires are all tangled, but it does shorten the wires, which means, because I’m holding the Disc Man in my hand, that I have to bend over while I’m listening.

This morning, it became too much. I’m busting my hump on the treadmill but, because of severe “wire tangle”, I am so hunched over, I look like an Orthodox Jew engaged in aerobic prayer.

I needed to separate the wires. But I’m not good at that. I have little manipulative dexterity, no patience, and no idea how to do it. I’ve tried this before. I’d pull wires when you’re supposed to push them, and the tangle simply got tighter. Some people are good at stuff like this. They look at the mess, and know exactly what to do.

My grandfather (my mother’s father) was one of those people. Zaidy Peter. (Zaidy, or some variation thereof, is Yiddish for grandfather.) Zaidy Peter came to Canada from Russia when he was twelve. Though curious, I learned nothing about his earlier life.

“What was Russia like, Zaidy?”

“Bad.”

That’s all he ever told me.

My grandfather became a dress designer. (His brother, Benny, was reputedly the first Jewish architect in Toronto. It was an artistic family.)

Zaidy Peter was meticulous. I remember how he’d approach to his allotted portion of Sabbath boiled chicken (Zaidy Peter had an ulcer which required a bland diet). With laser-like precision, my grandfather would slice off a small morsel of chicken, insert his fork at the precisely determined spot, and deliver the morsel to his mouth, where he’d chew each bite the exact same number of times.

At the end of the meal, after his immaculately cleaned plate had been removed to the kitchen, Zaidy Peter would gesture grandly to the area of white, Sabbath tablecloth directly in front of him. The ironing crease remained fully intact. And not a food stain in sight.

Meticulous. Was Zaidy Pete. Also painstakingly patient.

Perfect attributes for a dress designer. Equally perfect, it turned out, for unsnarling tangles.

When I was about ten, I had a toy puppet, or, more precisely, a marionette, because it wasn’t a hand puppet, it was a two-foot high molded doll you manipulated through four separate strings stapled to two plywood sticks, each string activating a different part of the doll’s anatomy – the mouth, both arms and the legs. My puppet was an Indian.

I enjoyed playing with my puppet. It was a pretty elaborate toy for a kid. I was proud of how I could bring this dummy excitingly to life. I’ll stop right there. It’s getting a little creepy.

The problem came when I set the puppet down. Somehow, because of I put it down carelessly, when I returned to it later, I found the puppet strings all knotted together and snarled. The tangle affected the puppet’s position when at rest. Its arms were bent in at an alarming angle, its legs hung awkwardly in the air. It looked like my puppet had really bad arthritis.

I couldn’t fix it. Whatever I tried made things worse. Responding to my counter-productive efforts, you could almost hear my puppet screaming, “Stop!”

I carried my mangled plaything to my grandfather. “Zaidy, can you fix this?” My grandfather gently lifted the contorted puppet from my hands, meditating on the problem for a quite some time. Then, with the nimble fingers of a man who sewed for a living, he went to work.

Slipping things through, pulling things under, twisting things around. I can’t give you the specifics, because I had no idea what he was doing. But whatever it was, it was working. You could see the snarl cluster get gradually smaller, and eventually less tangled.

And then, he was done. My puppet was once again standing upright, its strings separate and distinct. I thanked my grandfather for his miraculous efforts, and went back to play. After which, I put my puppet down, the strings got re-tangled, and I returned to him for help. Which he always provided.

My grandfather had the gift. I didn’t. Or so I thought.

We now return to my exercise room. My Disc Man’s wires are irretrievably intermeshed with the headphone wires. The thing’s just a clump of knots. My grandfather is nowhere in sight. I have to deal with this crisis myself. If I don’t, my books-on-tape habit would induce a permanent stoop.

I sigh, externalizing my dubious hopes for success, and I get down to work. I examine the catastrophe, and consider what needs to be done. I move a wire. I flip something under. I pull something through. I spin something around.

And after ten or so minutes,

The problem is fixed.

I stand there, holding my fully rehabilitated Disc Man, my mouth hanging open, amazed by what I had just accomplished.

I had untangled the wires. Me. Alone. With no help whatsoever.

And you know what?

It wasn’t that hard.

Now here comes the part about writing. If I wanted to end this on a moving and sentimental note, I might say that I realized there was a part of my grandfather that still lived inside me, the part that untangles knots. The problem is, that wasn’t how I felt. There was no spiritual uplift. What I felt was a sadness. With a soupcon of regret.

Why? Because now, my grandfather’s accomplishment was no longer that special. Even I could do it. Sure, he took the time, and that was nice. But the gift, the thing that distinguished his achievement, had lost some luster. The memory would never be the same.

That’s the difference between writing fiction and chronicling events as accurately as possible. One yields – by design – a satisfying conclusion. The other…it’s what it is. As a chronicler, I’m confined to writing what actually happened. Even if it’s a letdown.

It’s a good thing I don’t charge for these things. I might have had to give you your money back.

"A Curious Syndrome"

It happens all the time. And it just happened again.

Two weeks after my surgery, I am told I'm required to participate in an exercise program to get my body, and particularly my heart, back into shape. Now, I don’t mind exercising. I’ve been exercising regularly for twenty years. What I do mind – maybe more than most people, I don’t know – is people telling me what to do.

There is no rehab facility near my house. There used to be, but it closed down for financial reasons. Apparently, the paltry insurance reimbursements do not justify the expense.

The nearest program is – the way I drive – half an hour away. (The way Dr. M drives – eleven minutes. But she wasn’t driving there. I was.) There’d be a total thirty-six rehab sessions, scheduled three times a week. That’s thirty-six “there and backs” I really didn’t want to make.

Each session is an hour and a half long. Add in the two half-hour drives, that’s two and a half hours out of my day, three times a week. Man, was I pissed.

Well, I went the first time. Everybody was nice. They taught me how to click the electronic “leads” onto five adhesive white circles, and where to stick the adhesive white circles onto my chest and below my ribcage.

(Here’s a “head scratcher” for you. I am required to press three of the adhesive white circles onto the hairiest parts of my chest. Later, when I peel them off, it really hurts, because when I peel off the circles, the chest hair beneath those circles is pulled off with them.

Two days later, I apply the adhesive white circles to exactly the same spots, and when I peel them off later, the chest hair beneath them is pulled off again. The question is, where did that chest hair come from? Did it grow back in two days? I don’t understand it. It hurts every time.)

The reason you attach the electronic leads to your body is so the nurses can monitor your heart function (through readings recorded on a computer a screen) while you exercise. They also take your blood pressure before you start, during your peak exercise time, and after you finish. The exercise is basically an extended aerobics program, so they can see how your heart handles the exertion. Later, they add a light weights routine.

There are four different appointment times. I go at seven-thirty, waking up at six (so I could meditate), and leaving the house by seven. It was winter, it was often still dark when I left home.

I went early, because the traffic was lighter at that time. I also wanted to get my rehab obligations out of the way, so I could have the rest of the day for my personal activities, such as practicing the piano and writing this blog. As a bonus, it was easier to find a spot in the parking lot.

The nursing staff was friendly, knowledgeable, generous and kind. Every holiday was celebrated with appropriate decorations, adorning the walls and hanging from the ceiling. They played music while we trod the treadmills.

The staff did, however, display an inherent nurse’s condition, which I picked up on during my recent hospital stays.The condition boils down to, “Keep the patients in the dark.” It’s not their job to tell us what’s going on. That’s a doctor’s job. If a nurse told a patient what was going on, they ran the risk of being reprimanded.

“Who do you think you are, a doctor?”

The problem is, there are no doctors anywhere in the vicinity. Despite their absence, however, the well-conditioned nurses behave exactly the same way. This makes for an odd situation. The people who are there aren’t talking, and the people authorized to talk aren’t there. There’s something wrong about that.

My fellow rehabbers, they were my tribe. And I don’t mean Jewish. This was my new tribe. We’d all been through it, “it” meaning some form of “they opened me up, and they messed with my heart.” We were brothers. (And a small number of sisters. This sampling, though admittedly small, suggests that heart ailments strike men in disproportionate numbers. Waah.)

After an aborted effort to persuade my cardiologist to get me out of the program early, I dutifully do my time, impatiently counting down the sessions. It’s twenty-five percent over. I’m half done. Ten sessions to go. Then, eight. Then, six. I miss several sessions, due to a family obligation. Others are cancelled, due to Bank Holidays and Christmas.

What I was unaware of was that the rules stated you must complete the thirty-six sessions within fourteen weeks. So yesterday, when I was told I’d be “graduating” in three more sessions, I was taken by surprise. Yesterday was Session Thirty-one.

I could feel myself getting irritated. Again, strangers were controlling my fate. They tell me thirty-six sessions; now, it’s thirty-four. I hate it when somebody’s running my life and it’s not me.

Still, I am getting sprung two sessions early. That’s good. Two fewer six o’clock wake-ups. Two fewer drives to the place. Two fewer ripping the hair off my chest. Two fewer eleven dollars for parking.

Three sessions and it’s over. I’m a lucky Jewish man.

Or so I felt. Until this morning

I’m exercising on my treadmill at home, and after about five minutes, I detect a distinct change in my energy level. Something’s different. I feel listless and tired. I can barely keep up with a treadmill program I’ve been doing regularly for weeks. I am not imagining this. I am definitely dragging. I wonder, “What’s going on?”

And then it hit me.

I don't want to leave.

"Uppie!"

You know that game. In our family, it’s called, “Uppie!”

Little kid, maybe two, three years old, you pick them up in the air, hold them way over your head, and they’re cackling and laughing and squealing with delight; finally, you set them back down. And what do they always say?

“Uppie!”

Then want you to do it again. So you do it again, and they’re as squealy as the first time, if not more so. You set ‘em back down…

“Uppie!”

And you do it again.

And again. And again. And again. And again.

Till you can’t do it anymore. Your arms are aching. Your back is in spasms. You’re completely out of breath. You’re done. But they’re not.

“Uppie!”

“No more ‘Uppie!’ I’m tired.”

“Uppie!”

“I can’t do it anymore.”

“Upp-ieeeeeeeeee!!!!”

That’s little kids. It’s also regular watchers of television series.

Many regular watchers of television series are adults. I am not comparing them to children. Except in this one area.

The “Uppie!” area.

What makes a successful television series? (I limit myself, as I did throughout my career, to comedies.) Lots of things. An appealing cast. Consistently funny writing. An interesting arena. And also – and I’m not certain where it ranks on the scale of importance to a series’ success, but I think pretty high –

Repetition.

Audiences respond when a series plays the same tune every week. Of course, this assumes they liked the tune in the first place. If they did, what follows, for the run of the series, is the half-hour comedy version of “Uppie!”

Every episode reiterates the story in the pilot. The characters remain one-dimensionally consistent. The jokes are modular replacements of the establishing original joke. And then there are the catchphrases, repeated, generally once per episode for the duration of the series:

“Here come de judge!”

“Dy-no-mite!”

“Did I do that?”

“How are you doin’?”

“Pretty…pretty good.”

Catchphrases are the purest form of “Uppie!”

It’s an occupational hazard for writers in the genre to tire of the repetition earlier than the regular viewer. We know what’s going on. In the most extreme example, I remember watching the pilot episode of Three’s Company. The show ended, and I distinctly remember saying to whomever I was sitting with:

“That’s a very funny show. I’m never watching it again.”

I didn’t need to watch it again. I was almost certain every episode would be the same as the first one. I don’t believe I was too far off the mark.

Yes, TV series need to be reliable in their approach; otherwise, viewers will quickly become disenchanted. If they tune in for that show’s particular brand of “Uppie!” and don’t get it, they’ll stop tuning in. They want “Uppie!” every week. The "Three Amigos" deviated from audience-pleasing western adventure movies and instead made “The Amigos on Broadway.” The movie tanked. The studio boss correctly assessed the problem:

“We strayed from the formula, and we paid the price.”

You can’t stray from the formula, or the audience will go away. The thing is, it’s a delicate balance. The continually repeat yourself, and the audience will go away. You don’t want the audience to go away. You’ll lose your health benefits.

You know, the more I write about this, the more it appears to be more about me than it does about you. Unless you wrote television comedies too. There are reasons to believe that, for the regular viewer, the repetition in television series may not be a problem at all.

At a recent lunch, Ken Levine, who writes a popular blog of his own (bykenlevine.com), told me that, during the later seasons of Cheers, when the repetitions were starting to wear thin, the show received higher ratings than any time in its history. The audience doesn’t seem to mind repetition, even with a perceivable dip in quality, as long as they get their weekly dose of “Uppie!”

The whole issue came to mind, because I’ve become tired of a show I really liked when it premiered, the show being, The Big Bang Theory. I know, at its essence, the show is a not particularly groundbreaking version of, “Four Nerds and a Hottie”, but there was something unique about the way it played out.

For one thing, the show’s creators were not required, as they would have been in my day, to dumb down the socially inept physicists’ dialogue, so it would “play in the Midwest.” Instead, the characters are permitted to speak pure, unadulterated…“I don’t know what they’re talking about, but it sounds refreshingly on the money.” Respecting the audience with “‘real deal’ genius talk” seemed, to me, startlingly original.

In the beginning.

Now, it feels like the same thing every week. The “never-their-strength” storylines have become numbingly similar, the jokes are reminiscent of the same joke from the week before. The one change – and it’s not for the better – is that the show has coalesced around a single character – “Sheldon” – who is virtually required to carry the series on his own.

During Big Bang’s first season, I made it a point not to miss it. Now, I check in on an episode, and it feels like I’ve already seen it. And it isn’t a rerun.

I’m pretty much finished with The Big Bang Theory. Not so, however, is the show’s audience, whose ratings, perhaps through the “word of mouth” of its regular viewers, continue to improve.

It’s hard to pinpoint why people remain loyal. Maybe it’s the show’s humor, which, though not necessarily smart, is endearing, rarely offensive, and a cut above the competition in “ha-ha.”

Maybe it’s the show’s appealing group of likable losers.

Or maybe it’s just “Uppie!”

Ask any little kid.

You never tire of “Uppie!”

"I'm Tired of Hearing It"

Sometimes, I hear things said on TV I’m almost certain are not true. And I’m tired of hearing them.

Sometimes, I’m almost certain the thing that’s being said on TV is not true, because it fails the “That doesn’t sound right to me” test. And sometimes, I’m almost certain it’s not true because of something I vaguely remember that says to me, “If that thing I vaguely remember is true, this isn’t.”

I admit neither of these criteria meet the scientific standard for validity, but since I’m am just trying to figure things out, and have no stake in the outcome one way or the other, I have a comfortable faith in my observations. I mean, they’re my observations, and I’m a pretty good guy. How bad can they be?

To narrow things down, I will restrict today’s gripes concerning things I’ve heard on TV I’m almost certain are not true to two examples in the area of income taxes. No, I am not a secret accountant. I am merely applying my logical and relatively unbiased mind to the things I’m being told. If that’s not enough for you, come back when I’m talking about television, where my expertise is more firmly established. Although even there, I’ve been told I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this said on TV, but it bugs me every time. A guy comes on, and either to make the point that current tax rates are comparatively low, or to make the point “They’ve done it before, they can do it again”, says,

“You know, back in the Eisenhower Administration, the highest tax bracket was ninety percent.”

If I’ve heard that once, I’ve heard it twenty-seven times. My response to this pronouncement, which I make directly to my television, is

“Nobody ever paid that.”

I mean, can you imagine? Rich people paying ninety percent of their money in taxes? They’d have blown up Washington first.

Here’s how they got around it. During the Eisenhower Administration, there were loopholes galore in the tax code that allowed people in the “ninety percent” tax bracket to pay considerably less than that, and, in some cases, nothing at all. Nobody paid ninety percent.

Nobody.

I’m almost certain of it.

Find someone who lived during the Eisenhower Administration. Hurry, because they’re old. Ask them if they remember anyone paying ninety percent in taxes back then. I’m sure, if they can remember and can talk, they’ll say no. Or give you one of those “Get outta here!” gestures. Which means the same thing.

Nobody paid ninety percent.

And yet, this statement continues to be made – which literally is true, it just doesn’t mean anything. And, at least in my TV watching experience, nobody ever calls them on it.

Okay, that one was, “That doesn’t sound right me.” This next one I know from personal experience. So I have stronger evidence that it’s true.

A guy comes on TV. He’d really like income taxes to be lowered (or disappear completely). He’s absolutely against taxes being raised. Especially on people in the highest tax bracket. His reason?

“If you raise taxes on the wealthiest of our citizens, those great entrepreneurs, who start businesses, and innovate, and create jobs, and produce goods the world wants to buy thus boosting our economy, those entrepreneurs will be dis-incentivized from doing those things, and they’ll all go sailing.”

My response, based on personal experience?

They won’t.

I know a number of really wealthy people, and I know that if you raised their taxes, those people would continue doing what they’re doing, with not a single thought about sailing or any other rich guy retirement pastime.

Why?

Because they’re crazy about what they do.

They love it. They’re totally addicted. And not to the money.

They’re addicted to the game.

You can see it in the way they throw themselves into their work. You can see it in how hard they find it to go home. You can see in the way they almost salivate when they talk about what they do. And they don’t when they talk about anything else, including how much money they have.

Rich people almost never talk about how much money they have. And it’s not because they’re modest or they don’t want to make you feel bad. It’s because, though money is important, it’s nowhere close to what it’s all about. Money, as former pitching star Orel Hersheiser is reputed to have said, is simply “our way of keeping score.”

The score, of course, matters. But it’s a by-product. What these folks really love – and can’t do without – is the action.

Put them in prison and they’ll play for matchsticks. Take away their matchsticks – why would you give prisoners matchsticks in the first place? – and they’ll play for fingernail clippings. Hair follicles. The "special dessert." The rewards are secondary. Primarily, it’s the playing itself.

And how the playing makes you feel.

They’d do it for nothing. Fortunately, they don’t have to.

That’s why I know if you raised the tax rates, as has been suggested, from thirty-six percent to forty-one percent, no entrepreneur worth his salt would close up and go fishin’. They’d grumble about it, then they’d play for less.

It wouldn’t stop their competitive juices from flowing. It wouldn’t deaden their enthusiasm. It wouldn’t keep them from going, “I’m in.”

No one on TV says that. They just say “dis-incentive.”

It’s wrong.

And I’m tired of hearing it.