A Number of Reasons I’ve Been Depressed Lately
One. It’s early September of 2015 and I’m on the island of Santorini for a literary festival. After the short reading, which takes place outdoors on a patio, the Greek audience asks questions, the first of which is, “What do you think of Donald Trump?”
Since announcing his candidacy, the reality-show star has been all over the news. Every outrageous thing he says is repeated and analyzed—like he’s a real politician. I answer that I first became aware of Donald Trump in the late 1980s. That was when Alma, a Lithuanian woman I was working for, bought his book The Art of the Deal and decided he was wonderful. Shortly afterward, I saw him on Oprah, and ever since then he’s always been in the background, this ridiculous blowhard, part showman and part cartoon character. I see his presidential bid as just another commercial for himself. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were to name the Hamburglar as his running mate. So I say that on stage and then have to explain who the Hamburglar is.
Two. A month before the election a man picks me up at the Philadelphia airport and takes me to Red Bank, New Jersey, for a show. We get to talking and I learn his name is Michael. He is white and fifty-five and used to work for Pathmark, a supermarket chain that went bankrupt and closed
