A Scarlet Letterman for Donald Trump
The Scarlet Letter, a classic novel by Bowdoin College graduate Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hollywood style PC is a threat to comedy. To shun someone is to behave like a bully.
David Letterman in a recent interview called for Donald Trump to be shunned. Letterman said “if you see somebody who’s not behaving like any human you’ve known, that means something. They need an appointment with a psychiatrist. They need a diagnosis and they need a prescription.” He points to Trump’s once alledged imitation of a reporter with a disability, something similar to a comedy bit comedian Denny Johnston has done on stage for decades. It’s outdated, weak comedy, but not horrific. Why is Letterman now the comedy morality police? Here’s video of Letterman groping my ass when I was 16 years old (that part’s at the very end). Not to point fingers….
“Shunned” is like what happens in “The Scarlet Letter”, by Bowdoin College graduate Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hollywood elites attack Donald Trump for offensive “locker room talk”.
“The Scarlet Letter” 1st ed. illustration.
But these are the very so-called values of sexual promiscuity that Hollywood grandly promotes in movies and TV for decades. Chasing women happens a lot in romance novels, over 50% + of paperback book sales. Decadence is what Hollywood stands for.
In a previous WW2 Love Letters blog I write about Robin William’s suicide and the problem of war vet suicide. His suicide was, in my opinion, caused by a side effect of prescribed psychiatric medications. I believe Robin’s suicide was caused by bad advice and it’s not funny. Yet Letterman thinks sarcastic advice for Donald Trump “see a doctor, get a prescription” is OK and PC.
I say this to President Trump: “Here’s your psychiatrist.” I found this old video footage in storage. All improv. I’d never met David Letterman when I was “on set” with him. I was a guest walk-on, like an extra. In the film, I’m the girl with the long hair in the dress, standing next to him on the left, at the very end. Something happened to me as camera rolled. All of a sudden there was an unscripted sneaky doctor hand, David Letterman’s, groping near my ass. See me giggle AND pull his hand away from my backside at 3:30 on the footage. At the time I had no idea what the theme of this sketch was. Really, it’s just no big deal.
My point in sharing this video is that this is Hollywood culture. Letterman has no moral high ground position to be judgmental, then or ever. Grabbing ass is not so unwelcome as you can see here in this video. But it is a bit shocking when it happens to you.
I was 15 or 16 at the time. It’s before David Letterman or Robin Williams were famous. In response to Letterman’s recent statements about Donald Trump saying Trump should be shunned and needs a psychiatric diagnosis: I submit this historical specimen. Funny has many flavors. Funny takes care of itself. Comedy in America doesn’t need Hollywood PC censorship.
This time capsule shows Letterman playing a predator psychiatric doctor who really likes his nurses. Robin Williams is Joe Bob Walker, an alien life-UFO appreciator, a UFO welcomer. The Joe Bob Show is emblematic. Like the pharmaceutical companies of today and used car salesmen of yesteryear, Joe Bob has bought up all the TV stations and ad time. He keeps popping in, annoyingly like Cal Worthington used car ads, on his sponsored show.
Read MoreKing Chapel at Bowdoin, June 2016
Bowdoin campus is quiet in mid-June. I wanted to get with the old guys of my father’s day, away from current campus culture. Of course you can’t escape campus culture. The first thing I encountered was a poster on the inside of every toilet stall door (in every restroom) to remind me, again and again, even after I just passed the same poster on the restroom wall–the only poster in the bathroom–that a long list of names of specially trained students is on stand by to help me come out of the closet and or if I think I might be the victim of a sexual assault. Every time I had to use the bathroom there was the missive that had nothing to do with me.
King Chapel Doors at Bowdoin
Anyway, I slipped through two great old doors leading into the chapel. Antiques and art are everywhere at Bowdoin and always have been since the earliest days of the college.
When I got there a lady was playing the organ. The chapel is dark from absence of many windows. In place of any large stained glass, the chapel has gorgeous museum quality murals.
Bowdoin’s King Chapel
Bowdoin has been always the greatest of art collectors. The interior chapel is walled on its two long sides by giant murals of bible scenes. To compare, I thought back to my trip to St. Petersburg, to castles and cathedrals I’ve visited. And to rare Byzantine murals of Jesus and the Apostles on cave walls in Turkey. None is more perfect than the King Chapel at Bowdoin. It’s so well preserved it’s almost like a dreamscape. Absolutely awesome. Later I picked up a brochure about the chapel.
Just today, the 4th of July, the chapel brochure informs that I’m a Bowdoin community member. Yea! Bowdoin community is defined as alumni and their immediate family members (that’s me!), active or retired faculty and staff and their immediate family members, and members of the Association of Bowdoin Friends. I’m proud to be Bowdoin.
King Chapel Centurion
In homage to a bible story is the great centurion today. He stands as a stained glass window high above the chapel’s front doors.
Waiting for a campus tour, I picked up the “The Orient”. An article by a self-described minority female student is about how it badly it feels to be subjected to Bowdoin’s oppressive colonialist imposition in portraits of old white men in Hubbard Hall. Rather than scholarship, four years of college for her was about a matter of feeling at home. She wants social justice. She wants the walls to reflect diversity, modern Bowdoin. Though I love Bowdoin’s heritage I understand how she feels because I used to feel the same way when I’d vist the bio-medical library at UCLA. In the lobby are huge portraits of founder white men in black scholar robes. Feels imposing, presumptuous, oddly out of place.
Bowdoin College King Chapel
Excessive political correctness vs. free speech on college campuses directs me back in time to Bowdoin’s founding principles. Liberal arts at Bowdoin is defined best historically. True liberal arts is a science that trains Man how to think. No more, no less.
I noticed, and I may be wrong, but it seems there’s a mistake in the brochure. The description of the murals on the North Wall, starting from the door states “mostly” New Testament themes. That wall is ALL New Testament themes. The stained glass centurion is from the New Testament too. They’re all one theme. All Bowdoin.
Read MoreWW2 Inoculation Cartoon and Poem
In 1943 Morris was a freshman at Bowdoin College. Once enlisted in the U.S. Navy they gave him inoculations. It’s in a letter. Here’s a poem from the ship’s magazine. I don’t think this piece is about inoculation. It does demonstrate the idea of creating and treating sickness. Big sigh ahhh.
WW2 Inoculation Cartoon & Poem
Bowdoin College Moonlit Pines 1943
It’s 1943. The WWII draft is on. For all he knows it may be his last Valentines season. Seventy years ago Morris finds exceptional beauty in a winter night at Bowdoin College. Moonlit pines weighted with snow glisten like Christmas Trees. He writes Arline a Love Letter a few days post Valentines day, “I have never seen Bowdoin as beautiful…”
Bowdoin College Winter Night 1943
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Sailor who Never Went to Sea
Today is February 1st, 2015. I pull a WW2 love letter, the first one that matches the date, but 1943. Today lends itself to the fine the art of avoiding writing by reading sentimental old love letters. This is how one writer spent her Super Bowl Sunday. Morris would be at the T.V. if he were here. But he’s now seventy-two years ago, the Morris who is at Bowdoin College in winter. His good friend has just been drafted, got a notice and is leaving. Morris is returning from the movie Casablanca and finds a sailor lying out in cold Maine snow:
Sailor who Never Went to Sea. Image of WW2 Letter
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