Bugs in Mind

No, No, This is Different

            When I was sufficiently done, I thought, with the most recent installment of this substack, deep into the middle of the night, sipping my third or fourth beer, I was about to fling what I had settled on out onto the platform . . .

            But then I thought:  ennhhhh.

            In my heart, I knew it wasn't done. It needed sleeping on.

Have you ever slept on anything to do with Donald Trump? Shudder? Yes. You are right to shudder.

            But we are not MAGA! We have to get things right!

            The next morning (a pretty one, outdoors) I got up, a sadder Budweiser man, and polished, and polished, and re-polished, my take on the Orange Turd.

            Quite a few of you loyal subscribers expressed a liking for the result. And I hope you know, I would run through a brick wall for you subscribers.

            However. Once more into the breach? My next perceived responsibility?

            To weigh in on the worm in Robert Kennedy Jr.'s brain.

            I don't wanna! I cried. In my fury, in my distress, I kicked a pile of papers.

            And one of those papers caught my eye. An old clipping. A story I wrote for Sports Illustrated, in June of 1969. About a different guy running with a bug -- in his case bugs -- on his mind. I took that story, rubbed it up a little, trimmed it here and there, effaced a couple of period sexisms and a fact-checker's typo (flower -- you'll see). And I have to tell you, I think it takes a shine.