You didn’t hear this from me

This American carnage starts right here and right now, because it’s Monday Mail.

Trumptasia

Welcome to the Post-1/20 world where Donald Trump is president whether you believe it or not.

One day historians will have to come up with some nifty name for this era — Trumpian, Trumptopian, post-Obamian, Orwellian, antebellum, etc. — but they haven’t yet.

All bets are off, as now is the time for all good men and women to preface previously accepted statements of fact with “they say” and suffix each “but Donald Trump is president now, so I don’t know,” like this:

• “They say two plus three is five, but Donald Trump is president now, so I don’t know.”
• “They say it’s 80 degrees in January because of climate change, but Donald Trump is president now, so I don’t know.”
• “They say Donald Trump is president now, but Donald Trump is president now, so I don’t know.”

Other statements are to be interjected only after glancing side to side and over each shoulder to see if anyone’s listening and saying, “You didn’t hear this from me, but….”

Like, “you didn’t hear this from me, but you can’t find Uncle Remus singing “Zippity Doo Dah’ from Disney’s ‘Song of the South’ on YouTube, because the racial stereotypes are like WAY politically incorrect now. But then Donald Trump is president now, so I don’t know.”

Part of that is not true, because I just found the video on YouTube.

You didn’t hear this from me, but they say you couldn’t find it for a long time because it was way politically incorrect, but Donald Trump wasn’t president then, so I don’t know.

But I do know this: You could always find a parody sung by Chevy Chase in the movie “Fletch Lives.”

Well, not always, I guess: They say you had to wait until the movie came out in 1989, but you didn’t hear that from me because Trump wasn’t president then.

The Fletch parody was not politically incorrect, because all the field hands were white.

“Fletch Lives” otherwise had lots of classic Southern stereotypes, like sweet-talking Southern belles and a televangelist and Hal Holbrook (coming Feb. 3 to the Springer Opera House) in a Confederate uniform.

I’m mentioning it here because Chevy Chase plays a reporter, and that makes it a movie about The Media.

That’s what last week’s column was about: Movies About The Media, like “The Paper,” “Network,” “All The Presidents Men,” etc.

Among my favorites is the lesser-known 2010 film “Morning Glory,” about a young TV morning show producer. It’s not a life-changer, but a scene in which she makes her timid weatherman ride a rollercoaster on which he screams in terror, on live TV, is hilarious.

Continental Divide

You probably could name some more. Jim Hall did, in this email about last week’s column:

Always enjoy reading, in print your column. You talked about movies with newspaper connection. Just watched again “Continental Divide” where John Belushi plays a reporter from Chicago Sun Times. Classic. Another favorite is Elliot Gould as a reporter, with Hal Holbrook, O.J. Simpson, Sam Waterston and several others in a movie about a faked Mars space mission. You would have to see it to hear classic lines his editor says and quotes. Movie is “Capricorn One.”

Dear Jim:

I remember “Continental Divide.” Belushi’s a columnist.

That Hal Holbrook sure gets around, doesn’t he? I still think of him as “Deep Throat” in “All The President’s Men.”

This story was originally published January 22, 2017 at 3:24 PM with the headline "You didn’t hear this from me."