Wait — don’t scat! Stay where you are and let scat come to you — scat singing, that is — and who better to lay the scat on you than two of the best: Mel Tormé, whose birthday (9/13/25) we celebrate this month, and the First Lady of Scat, Ella Fitzgerald:
Man, if that didn’t knock your socks off, you’d better put your shoes on and scat back to Squaresville, because you’re just not with it! To say scat singing is little more than vocal jazz improvisation with nonsense words is like saying The Donald is just improvising when he lets loose with nonsense tweets (to use a reverse perverse metaphor).
So, who was the cat who ‘invented’ scat? There seems to be no definitive answer, but some say it began 2/26/26 when Louis Armstrong supposedly forgot the words to this song and began improvising a little more than halfway through the recording:
Let’s wrap it up with this recent scat-iteration (which, I kid you not, ends with tweets):
It is with heavy heart that I inform readers of a grave injustice almost unprecedented in the annals of grave injusticedom: MISTERMUSE HAS JUST BEEN STRIPPED OF HIS SECURITY BLANKET by the Lord and Master of the Land of Nod, Donaldo El Trumpo. Disregarding long practice whereby his predecessors first convened/consulted with top underlings in the Blanket Discharge Dept., El Trumpo acted without so much as a wink and a nod to protocol, stating the firing was necessitated by Muse’s “erratic behavior.”
Friends, I put it to you: has anyone (with the possible exception of the President of the United States) displayed more erratic behavior in the annals of erratic behaviordom than El Trumpo? Talk about THE POTUS CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK! Granted, Mister Muse may be guilty of occasional excess tossing and turning in bed, but if Mrs. Muse isn’t complaining, on what basis does El Trumpo base his baseless blasphemy? Muse is admittedly no Rip Van Periwinkle, however that doesn’t make his restless, less-than-sound sleep, “erratic behavior” (at least, until being stripped of his security blanket, thereby making him no longer responsible for his behavior).
In an odd coincidence, this comes on the heels of POTUS revoking the security clearance of former CIA Director, John Brennan, which provoked a protest from 12 former CIA chiefs and this stinging rebuke from retired Navy Admiral, Bill McRaven:
Friends, these are critical times for the future of the Land of Nod and the United States. Patriots of the United States have lost no time in defending John Brennan from the machinations of POTUS. Will you now rise to the defense of Mister Muse for the good of the Land of Nod? Demand that El Trumpo restore my security blanket, and you will sleep better for it….and so, rest assured, will I.
“I don’t see it as a safety issue because it isn’t.” –Bill Kaeppner, president of Ohio Motorized Trails Assn., speaking in favor of the State Division of Forestry’s proposal to allow all-purpose vehicle trails to cross hiking trails in Ohio State Parks
Reading the foregoing quote in a local newspaper article a few weeks ago, the possible applications of its incontrovertible logic struck me like the twaddle in a Trump tweet. Think of the implications for settling all manner of opposing positions. Think of all the cross-purposes which could be brought to a screeching stop, like trail traffic in a forest, by a simple red light at a crossing intersection. Friends, Romans, Fishermen, the solution is as obvious as the nose on your face: IT ISN’T BECAUSE IT ISN’T. End of de bait.
Let us take a look at a few of of Trump’s favorite declarations as examples of settling matters by simple fiat (it is or isn’t, because he says it is or isn’t):
WITCH HUNT — which is to say, do I look like a witch? (well, he’s got us there–no self-respecting witch would look like him)
THERE’S NO COLLUSION — and even if there was, it ain’t illegal. (just ask Putin–your Russian to judgment)
FAKE NEWS — any news not viewed through the fair and balanced lens of Fox News. (not to crow, but the allegory here is a piece of cake):
CHOKED LIKE A DOG —in other words, a loser. (spoken like a man who’s the only President never to have owned a dog since McKinley)
BELIEVE ME — would I lie? (like a sleeping dog, Donald–like a sleeping dog)
that the malaise of Donald Trump’s moral vacuity
doesn’t linger like a curse in oral (and worse) perpetuity
so when his term on his bully stage is o’er, we
see that our humanity (which his vanity tested sore-ly)
has withstood base attacks based on our credulity,
as we pray virtue is its own reward (virtus ipsapretium sui).
One of my readers, who is obviously a glutton for punishment, recently expressed disappointment that I haven’t posted more of my poems lately. At the risk of triggering that old axiom BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, I thank her for having inspired me to address the deficiency thusly:
DECEIT DON’T STAND
As the twig is bent,
so grows the tree.
As the die is cast,
so shall it be.
If these be true,
why is it wise:
The Donald gets a pass
when he tells those lies?
Of course, I should also thank the President, without whose daily rants my inspiration for this poem would doubtless lie dormant. And now for a word from the truly wise about lies:
Carlyle said, “A lie cannot live”; it shows he did not know how to tell them. –Mark Twain
A man comes to believe in the end the lies he tells about himself to himself. –George Bernard Shaw
I admire liars, but surely not liars so clumsy they cannot fool even themselves. –H. L. Mencken
Pretending that you believe a lie is also a lie. –Arthur Schnitzler
If at first you’re not believed, lie, lie again. –Evan Esar
Not sure why the video is black. Maybe because the lies it laments aren’t white ones. But the sound is clear, and the voice shines through the darkness.
I don’t play bridge, but in perusing last Thursday morning’s newspaper, I couldn’t help noticing this headline atop the daily bridge column: DISAPPEARING TRUMP TRICK.
Given the kind of column it is, I might’ve known what I hoped for was too good to be true. Let’s face it: the notion of learning how to make America’s Look-at-me President magically disappear is a bridge too far. As for voluntarily leaving office at the prospect of obstruction of justice charges, Donald Trump may be a master at the game of evasion, but a disappearing act isn’t in the cards anytime soon; he’s too addicted to tweeting/hearing himself talk. At times, one wonders where his lips shtick comes from: an out-of-control ventriloquist, or from being an egocentric blowhard & shameless con man (for the record, the word dummy appears in the bridge column six times…but I vote for choice #2).
Actually, it wouldn’t be unprecedented for an American President to disappear. Remember Jimmy Hoffa, ex-(in more ways than one)President of America’s largest union, The International Brotherhood of Teamsters? He was last seen in the parking lot of a suburban Detroit restaurant on July 30, 1975 — the day he was to meet with Mafia bosses Anthony Giacalone and Anthony Provenzano. He hasn’t been heard from since.
Speaking of a restaurant (not where one of the above two CEOs of their respective fiefdoms was last seen), do you remember this commercial?
In the case of Hoffa, the question isn’t “Where’s the beef?”, but “Where’s the Chief?” Two weeks before his disappearance, the feds discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars had disappeared from the Teamster’s largest pension fund. Hoffa’s remains remain unfound, although the FBI has checked out numerous tips: under a section of the now-demolished Giants Stadium in New Jersey; in the concrete foundation of Detroit’s Renaissance Center; under a horse barn or backyard swimming pool in Michigan; a swamp in Florida; a vacant lot 20 miles north of that last scene Detroit restaurant — seemingly everywhere but under Trump Tower in Manhattan (no tip to the FBI intended).
There have been many other mysterious disappearances in American history (Ambrose Bierce, D.B. Cooper, Virginia Dare, Amelia Earhart, etc.), but I say none is more mysterious than the above….or my real name isn’t James Riddle Hoffa.
