President Trump and Harry the Human meet!

Yesterday I was walking through the desert behind my cozy shelter in Pearblossom when Betty the Coyote Creator Goddess greeted me from atop a medium sized boulder.

Greetings, Harry!  Betty called, Where are you headed?

Hello Betty.  I'm just wandering around, looking for inspiration to get through another day. The smoke from the L.A. fires has not helped.

Yes, the fires are adding to the pressure that's building throughout the biome.  On top of everything, it seems one of your big human wars is about to break out.  Plus ça change....

Betty, that's a cliche- tell me something I don't know.

That's a cliche too, Harry.

Here we are playing word games on the cusp of apocalypse.

Right, huh?  Listen, Harry, I have the perfect distraction from the realistic magic you humans have to deal with.

Realistic magic?

That's what I call the other side of the magical realism you long for. In the current stage of your evolution you face magical realism’s opposite, realistic magic, where the magic is so well disguised it doesn't look like magic.

Hmm...Betty, what sort of distraction did you have in mind?

Then I noticed a small red pouch held delicately in her glowing teeth (she and I communicate telepathically).

What's in your mouth, Betty?

It's ayahuasca.  Heard of it?

It's like LSD, right?

The difference is that a human chemist invented LSD in 1938, while Ayahuasca was invented by the gods of the Amazon in a time of their own making. You can imagine it has certain properties beyond the LSD experience.

So you propose I have an ayahuasca trip with you in the desert?

I have a different idea.  First, take this pouch out of my mouth and remove its contents.

I did as instructed, removing a small, pliable purplish pellet.

Eat it, commanded the Trickster Goddess.  I complied. It tasted like stale gum.

We began to stroll across the desert, Betty leading the way.  After a time the ayahuasca kicked in with the usual stuff: a sharpening of colors, a lessening of the boundaries between things, a freeing of the mind from conventional connections, conclusions, assumptions.  The morning was cool and still. 

Betty, this would be an adequate LSD trip, but I'm not sure what's particular about ayahuasca.

Harry, this substance was designed by the gods to make a certain type of communication possible, when it pleased the gods that humans engage in it.

What type of communication?

As I asked this, we rounded a dune to behold a bowl shaped depression, at the center of which was a swirling, shimmering....

It's a mini-black hole, Betty explained.

Yeah?  Did you put it there?

No, it predates me.  The ayahuasca helps you see it.

Let me guess, we're going to jump into it.

Close, you are going to jump into it.

Maybe thanks to the ayahuasca I felt no dread.  It seemed a logical and very human thing to want to jump into that hole, though I had some concerns.

If I jump, Betty, then what?  Where will I be?  Will I be stuck there?

You will meet your counterpart, your negative, the antithesis of you.  

Wait, you mean I'm going to Kurt Vonnegut's.....

Yes, the Infandibulum, where paradoxes find true love.

Holy cow! And getting back....?

I'll come for you at the appropriate time. Ok Harry, jump when ready!

I couldn't think of anything else I was ready to do, so I did a little hop and just glided into the thing and popped right out, re-dressed in a clean flannel shirt and jeans, seated at a picnic table across from the new (for the second time) president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, dressed in a white polo shirt and beige slacks, beside his Mar-a-Lago golf course.

He studied me quietly, no sign of alarm.  I felt the need to speak first.

Mr. President, I'm sorry for this intrusion.  I don't exactly understand what's happening....

No worries, neither do I.  Bob gave me some stuff, aya...something....

Ayahuasca?

Yes! Do you know Bob? They said he'd bring a "newly coherent vision"- he's certainly done that! I'm almost ready to scrap tariffs on Brazil for this stuff!

I don't know anyone here.  Would you like me to leave?

No, I was expecting you.  Before I took the aya...whatever, Bob told me I would be visited by someone who would give me great new perspectives.  It's perfect timing as I launch my historic second term. We're more or less on top of things, but it gets intense and you never know what might help.  

I understand, Mr.....shall I call you Mr. President?

Call me Don.  Who are you?

Harry, aka Harry the Human.  I'm a retired mind reader.  In my youth, in the hippy 60's, I did performances in the Haight.

A hippy! I've always wanted to talk to a hippy!  What is it with you guys?

Hmm?

I mean, you don't give a shit that you live in a fantasy?  That your ideas are from another planet?  The "peace and love" planet?  The "We are one" planet? Guess what, Harry- we don't live on that planet!

Well put, Don.  That's a good description of the situation.  But which is worse, finding that your ideas about life are fantasy based, or accepting reality, day in, day out, with no escape?

Touché, Harry.  Honestly, sometimes I don't know why the hell I'm doing this.  It was exciting at first, just to be able to show people I'm not a dummy, that I'm actually smarter than they are, and now they know it...very exciting, but the shit here doesn't stop.

Don, I have to confess I've written things about you that you might not like.

Such as?

Well, I wrote that you fulfill a prophecy in the biblical story of the Tower of Babel [see The Babel of Trump Tower below].

Yeah?  That's when God got angry and made it so everyone speaks different languages?

Yes, like now, when it seems like people can't communicate.

And that's supposed to be my fault? 

He looked at me quietly, and I realized I was speaking directly with his subconscious (as we presumptuously call it). The gods put into ayahuasca the ability for mind to mind, soul to soul contact.  It seemed safe enough. The parties do their business, then each withdraws, back through the black hole, back to normalcy.

I tried to soothe him.

Don, I understand your frustration about life even when you're victorious. We get worked up about defeating things that make our lives hard. We may defeat those things, but it's still the same fucking life.

Damn right, Harry!  It's the same fucking life!

People will kick you when you're up as well as down!

Right again, Harry the Human!  I can tell you've been around the block a few times.

Don, I've got to ask, and feel free to decline, but this seems like a safe place....

Go ahead, Harry.  I find this therapeutic.

Well, I've written about the military industrial complex, which was President Eisenhower's concept.  Remember him?

Yes, we were little boys....

We mused quietly for a bit.  Don continued:

Of course I've heard of the military industrial complex.  It's a lefty idea.

Well, sometimes it's a right wing idea too.

Uh-huh.

Anyway, as you know, the military industrial complex is all the private interests that make money off war and preparation for war, and the government defense agencies that make policy.  

Yeah, sure, what about them?  Wonderful people, by the way.  

I'm sure many are. Anyway, I think the media, or a lot of it, should be added to Eisenhower's phrase - so we'd call it "the military media industrial complex" - because the media follows the narrative of "good guys" and "bad guys" that they're told to follow. What do you think?

The media!  I showed those cocksuckers!  

Well...they did not see you coming.  Do you read the New Yorker?

Sometimes my people show me stuff.

Boy do they hate you.  

Yeah, because I'm not a Kennedy, all polished and patrician, or Obama! Did you see at Jimmy Carter's funeral when Obama sat next to me and I made him smile, made him do nicey-nice with me? OMG, once you're on top it's so easy to embarrass these guys!  

Don, how the hell do you know the word "patrician"?

Don laughed.  If you couldn't tell, the ayahuasca was loosening us up.  I felt the need to get back to serious discussion points.

Anyway, Don, back to the military media industrial complex, how do you get along with them? Do they accept you on their turf? After all, you're a real estate guy.

Harry, I just follow the news like everybody else, and I see when stories get weak.  They get weak when things take too long to happen, like in a bad story that puts people to sleep. We learned about this in 9th grade! Remember high school English?

Don, I taught high school English!

No shit! You don't seem like that.

Like what?

Like a high school English teacher.

Those were my formative years, before I became what I am today.

Which is?

I told you, Don, I'm a retired mind reader.

Oh yeah...anyway, as you know, a story is supposed to have a beginning, then comes rising action, like a terrorist attack or a big argument about abortion or oil or something. Harry, I guess I don't have to tell you the last part.

You do not, Don- it's the resolution, which is supposed to resolve (from Latin, "to solve") the stresses of the story. I think I know what you're saying: All we have is the first two parts: intro and rising action- we never have resolution. Nothing ever ends or is resolved. But as for putting everyone to sleep...sometimes I like going to sleep.

Sure, Harry, but don't you like to wake up too?  And when you wake up, don't you want things to happen? The military, etc. complex was spinning the same stories over and over, about communists...terrorists...North Korean nukes- on and on, and nothing ever happened.  Generations passed, and nothing happened.  No resolution- no story. People get tired of that, of endless anxiety about how stories will resolve, or if they will.

I had an epiphany, like a bolt of lightning.  

Don, I know why Betty did this....

Did what?  Who's Betty?

Sorry, The Coyote Creator Goddess.  She's at my end.  She hooked us up because we have something in common, which is that we both want something to happen.  We want different things to happen, though.

What do you want?

I want the predatory circus we call life to develop a sort of overall consciousness, to escape what the Hindus call the circle of life.

Escape the circle of life?  You mean kill yourself?

No.  The circle of life is not a good thing. You need to get out of it, actually, to live.

What's wrong with the circle of life?

What's wrong is that it's a circle.  It goes around and around- birth, life, death- doing the same things over and over, with no point, no...achievement.

No achievement?

If you sign a peace treaty, it's just the prelude to the next war.  Endless war...endless....

Harry, is this what a hippy is, someone who doesn't like war?

Well, that's part of it.  There's also a large dose of hedonism.

Pleasure loving!  

Yes, that's why hippies don't like war, because it hurts.

I guess they're right about that.  And I'm with you on pleasure.  Who are these people who oppose my pleasure?  Do they hate pleasure?

You can hate anything, Don.  If I may return to the military media industrial complex, a lot of them probably didn't see you coming.

Yes, but many have been surprised by my abilities, and we are meshing nicely.

There will be losers.

Of course, there are always losers.

Have you ever been a loser, Don?

Yes.  It hurts.

It does.  What if there were a way to "win," but not like the zero-sum model, where you only win if someone else loses.  Listen, Don, hedonism, in my view, entails empathy.  In other words, the pleasure is greater if it's being shared and you are loved.  That's the ultimate hedonism.  Do you follow me?

I'm not dumb, Harry!  Of course I follow you!

Sorry.

No problem.  If I make a million dollars on a deal, someone else does not make that million, only I do.  If I become president, someone else doesn't.

Yes, Don, of course.  That's the process in the real world.  But Betty the Coyote Goddess told me we are governed by realistic magic, so more things are possible than meet the eye.  Look at the two things we have in common: we both want something to happen, and we're both hedonists.  Surely these two things could merge somehow into a wiser and more farsighted type of government policy.  That's the magic I'm talking about!

That would be some magic!  

I can't believe we're agreeing on something!  This is the most far-out trip ever!

Magical Realism to the rescue!

I am in a personal revolt against magical realism.

Salmon Rusdie



"I hate Magical Realism," she said, and it was clear she was rejecting me, since to me magical realism is realism.

"It's for weak minds," she continued.

Pepper, as she liked to be called (though she was more like pepper spray) was my latest attempt to reach out to "the other," for the human nourishment that's become increasingly scarce since the Babel of Trump Tower (see below).  

Pepper had taught physics at CSU Irvine, retiring and dropping out after an undisclosed misadventure with a fellow professor.  We met at the Family Dollar Store in Pearblossom, her basket full of canned goods, mine carrying five boxes of microwave popcorn.  

"I should try variety," I ventured, when our eyes met.  We hit it off quickly, ending up that afternoon at the Littlerock McDonald's, speculating over coffee whether quantum physics ventures into "magic."  I should have expected that her acceptance of an overlap between magic and science had no bearing on her antipathy to the term, "magic."  

For the record, I define "magic" as "Any workings of the universe that humans don't understand and can't control."  Magic, by this definition, would encompass most, maybe all of the universe.

Less than two weeks after we'd met, Pepper pronounced her judgment on my worldview, and I fled in a sad rage into the desert behind her small house, looking to the void for the usual solace, for a clue about what had gone wrong, and what, if anything, I could do about it.

Shuffling over the rocky sand, I sent random telepathic signals to wildlife in the vicinity. I had not seen my onetime companion Robert the Telepathic Gila monster since shortly after his return from his trip to Bhutan with D.L., when I had a falling-out with him over control of this blog (keep reading). We made up, as we always do, but then he started muttering things about a "Communication Death Ray," which he said was fired at the world by the perpetrators of the "Trump coup," and then he disappeared.

Suddenly I heard him.  A faint, Harry...help me...., echoing in the back of my head. After following the signal for some minutes, I found Robert lying near a large rock, breathing slowly and staring at the sky.

Robert, how can I help you?

I'm alone...they are gone...I'm so alone....

Robert's words sounded delirious and were a likely sign he was alienated from his fellow gilas as well as the general cosmos.  Suspecting he was dehydrated as well, I picked him up gently in two arms and carried him for twenty minutes to my cabin, then wrapped him in a damp towel and placed him in the cool sink, where he licked wet spots on the stainless steel surface.

I let him rest for a while, then asked, 

Robert, are we defeated?  Has the Communication Death Ray wiped us out?

Fortunately telepathy requires less energy than talking, so Robert was able to respond.

Thanks for rescuing me, Harry.  It's hard to know if this battle is lost.  I guess you and I are still alive and sentient, for what that's worth.

I thought briefly of Pepper.   Would this scene be Magical Realism enough for her?

Robert, there are people in or near government, dodging around Trump, who are trying to counteract the effects of the Communication Death Ray, anxious to find leverage to stop the coup, or at least somewhat control it.

Robert shook his head ruefully.

Harry, it's no use.  The people trying to stop Trump had their own Tower of Babel in place.  They oppose Trump because he supplanted their model.  It's only a matter of time before the wings of the old Non-Magical Realism parties- Democrats and remaining Republicans- catch up with Trump.

Then what will happen?

Trump's conspiracy- an assault on the nation-state system whose purpose is to replace it with corporate world management- will proceed. Billions of dollars will be generated for insiders, and wider issues will be addressed: the looming end of employment due to automation; the need to focus the masses of unemployed people on global conflict; the parallel development of machine intelligence and manipulation of human biology. Harry, I know you want me to tell you we can stop this juggernaut, but we can't.  

Because it's a juggernaut....

Circular logic, but true.

I pondered that for a while.  Certainly you can't stop this juggernaut. The American mind has been formed for generations by a consumer culture that does not require intelligence from the consumer, "intelligence" here defined as "the ability or motivation to conceptualize beyond one's immediate economy." One gathers this from watching TV commercials, where obsession with "NOW!" is celebrated and promoted.  Multiple American generations have been encouraged to turn off their wider cognitive functions, or muffle them with drugs or disguise them as something else, so that instead of waking up and asking, Are there other ways to live?, we do our duty, so to speak, buying the toilet paper that cute blue bears use to wipe their asses, thereby helping ensure that the sacred Dow points forever up.

Despair was settling in the room when Betty the Coyote Creator Goddess poked her head in the kitchen window.

Hi all!  How are you, Robert?

How is any of us?

Few people know it, but coyotes can smile.  Betty smiled at me.

Harry, forgive me for following your conversation with Robert.  I thought I'd better come over.

I'm glad you did, Betty.  We've already agreed we can't stop this juggernaut. What else is there to talk about?

It's hard to stop a juggernaut, as noted, but you don't have to stop it.  You just have to be somewhere else.

Like where?

You need a place, a territory- physical or intellectual- where the manipulative narratives of the overriding culture are not adhered to.  A place where you and others have your own narratives.

Robert's mind squeaked in irritation.

Betty, for god's sake, another utopia, another saintly "ism"?

No, Robert, no "isms."  Just a tacit agreement between groups of humans that their narratives would be of a certain kind.

Pepper would have loved my getting ideas how to handle the Trump coup from a coyote and a gila monster.  I was a bit impatient with Betty myself.

Betty, I have to agree somewhat with Robert.  Utopias always fail.  You can create a distinct community, like maybe a breakaway nation on the West Coast, and forbid advertising and demagogic politics, and whatever else you don't like, and, well, the thing will fall to hell anyway.

Again Betty smiled, showing her beautiful, sharp teeth.

Yes, Harry, that's the usual course.  But things follow their own course with magical realism (sorry to pick your brains!). I'm talking magic, you guys.