McIntyre in the Morning

THE SPARK AND THE FUEL By Doug McIntyre It was bone dry this winter and spring has been no better. We know what that means for California: a trailer dragging a ...chain, a lightning strike, a downed power line, or a carelessly tossed cigarette and the next thing we know half the state will be in flames. All that fuel just needs one little spark. That’s what happened when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in full view of the world: Spark met fuel and cities burned from New York to Santa Monica. Our history is punctuated with seemingly spontaneous explosions of violence, from the January 6th assault on the United States Capitol all the way back to the Boston Tea Party. In reality, these events are anything but spontaneous, rather, they are the inevitable consequences of years of unaddressed grievances. In 1848, almost every country in Europe was shaken by violent revolutions. In some cases, the spark that lit the fuse was almost comical. Back then, Austria controlled large portions of Italy. The government in Vienna (to pay for previous wars) raised taxes on tobacco. The citizens of Milan organized a tobacco boycott in protest. Austrian soldiers patrolling the streets of Milan took to baiting the Italians by lighting up big cigars and blowing plumes of smoke at passers-by. One Italian gentleman finally had enough and slapped a cigar out of a soldier’s mouth. Punches were thrown. A crowd gathered. More troops arrived. Shots were fired. Nobody was laughing now. 6 were killed, 50 wounded. The riots spread. 36 more killed in Palermo. Naples burned. Riots spread. The Austrians shelled Venice with canons. Everybody heard the news via the new technology of telegraphy. Long oppressed peoples poured into the streets. Governments were caught with their pants down. From Paris to Vienna to Berlin (where 900 were killed) barricades went up as leaders struggled to respond. King Louis-Phillip abdicated his throne in France, fleeing to England. The great Metternich was forced out in Austria. Constitutions were promised and hastily written to placate the mobs. In Spain, Russia and Sweden, despotic governments simply crushed their rebellious subjects, piling more dry tinder onto the pyre of future fires, ending with the biggest, baddest of them all, the Russian Revolution of 1917. The violence that tore apart Italy and Austria was about a lot more than a slapped cigar, just as the eruption of violence after George Floyd’s murder was about more than Mr. Floyd. The jury in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin got it right. With the killing of Floyd captured on multiple cameras from multiple angles, they had no difficulty returning a guilty verdict on all three counts, sparring the country what would undoubtedly have been days, if not weeks, of serious unrest, AKA, rioting/looting if you prefer. Because the verdict was guilty, we’ll never know for sure what would have happened, but let’s face it, everyone was bracing for the worst. That is, White America was bracing for the worst. For Black America, the worst would have been a not guilty verdict. And that’s the problem. Half the country was worried about the spark; while the other half is worried about the fuel. Today’s internet leaves 1848’s telegraph in the dust. Events now travel in real time, with live video streaming confrontations with police wherever and whenever they happen. Geography is obsolete. In the cyber world, what happens in Minneapolis happens here. And what happens here also happens in London. Our instantaneous world rarely allows for the mythical cooler heads to prevail. Those inclined to demonize cops are quick to condemn the police. Those who fetishize the badge are quick to absolve them of blame. Trial by Twitter has become the digital equivalent of Witch Burning. Fortunately, the good citizens of Minneapolis showed up for jury duty and performed their civic obligations under difficult circumstances and showed us and the world our system can work. The challenge now is to prove it works when the cameras aren’t around. This won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen with exploitive politicians threatening violence or calling to defund the police. We need cops. Duh. The police save lives. They are tasked with keeping order, which is essential to every civil society. They are not fascist storm troopers. They are also not above the law. Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: [email protected].

OUR PRIVATES HAVE GONE PUBLIC By Doug McIntyre The Wife and I are creatures of habit. At 6:30, we watch Lester on channel 4, aka, the NBC Nightly News with Les...ter Holt, followed immediately by Jeopardy! on channel 7. This is old people’s television and I’m not too proud to admit it. Even if I was too proud, the commercials are a dead giveaway: every other commercial is some kind of pill to treat something I’m sure I have or will have, including memory-enhancers, which would help enormously while The Wife and I fumble for answers during Jeopardy! That guy who was in that movie we saw! I shout imploringly to The Wife. Yes! And he was in that other movie, too! She shouts back. Neither of which would win us any money because we won’t remember Zach Galifianakis’ name until halfway through Wheel of Fortune. So, we’re dotage-adjacent and we know it and that may explain why both of us were actually shocked to see a commercial during the news for pubic hair. Well, not for public hair, but to get rid of pubic hair. Specifically, the Gillette Venus Razor, for pubic hair and skin. On TV. During dinner. Neither The Wife nor this columnist are easily shocked. How could we be? We live in Los Angeles. Still, after being raised in an insanely puritanical TV universe as children-- where Jack Parr got in trouble for saying water closet on the Tonight Show and Rob and Laura Petrie had to sleep in twin beds with a nightstand between them-- the word pubic hair, both spoken and in big bold letters seemed like crossing a cultural Rubicon. A young, attractive woman in a halter top and panties, with nose ring and tattoos, including on the palms of her hands-- not the expected demographic for Lester Holt-- goes about shaving down there with her new Gillette Venus while a female voice over says the following: Coarse hair (and) thin skin down there requires a special kind of care. New Venus for pubic hair and skin, uniquely made to prep, prepare and maintain whether smoother-than-smooth or au naturel. This is the new way to care for down there. And by down there she doesn’t mean Australia. I suppose it was inevitable we’d end up with pubic hair on TV. After all, for decades we’ve been treated to suppositories for hemorrhoids, irritable bowel remedies, adorable animated bears selling toilet paper because we know what bears do in the woods and a plethora of nostrums for diarrhea, constipation, flatulence, bad breath, deodorant, dandruff, jock itch and the monthly visitor that now includes commercials for Always Ultra-Thins Pads to guard against those What the gush moments. It’s not just women’s hygiene products that have pushed the boundaries on taste. Ten thousand erectile dysfunction commercials have exhausted the lexicon for penis euphemisms, with a company called Xiaflex selling a treatment for Peyronie’s disease (Google it) featuring various men looking worriedly at bananas, peppers, carrots, cucumbers and other oddly shaped fruits and vegetables. It’s enough to turn the most committed vegetarian into a meat and potatoes guy. And speaking of guys, there’s now a booming market for manscaping products, the male equivalent of the Gillette Venus Razor, including one called the Lawn Mower, Your nuts will thank you. And if that’s too on the nose, maybe the animated rhyming spot for Duluth underwear will be more to your liking? A pillow for your package spread the word, like a cuddly panda hugged your gird. When did we become France? Personally, I find all this candor long overdue. The oddly sanitized world of perfect TV people presented a perversion of actual life. Nobody on Father Knows Best ever had halitosis or dandruff or flatulence so pubic hair and the gush were inconceivable. By advertising products we all use but never talk about maybe we’ll absolve the next generation of shame or embarrassment for being carbon-based life forms with bodily functions? In 1934, Cole Porter wrote: In olden days a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking Now heaven knows, anything goes! Who’s Cole Porter? You know, the guy who wrote the show about the thing Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: [email protected].

As a writer, what are some of the challenges and opportunities authors face today? Explore the ever-changing publishing options for authors with Mark Coker and ...his passion for the industry, role in the writing community, and visions for the future. Doug McIntyre, Columnist for Southern California Newsgroup, TV/screenwriter credits include: Marriedwith Children, WKRP in Cincinnati, Mike Hammer, former radio host KABC-LA will moderate the exclusive panel. A must-attend for authors and literary professionals. Just two more days to go. Sign up and bookmark The BookFest Keynote and Panels page. https://www.thebookfest.com/signup/ #BCE #thebookfestspring2021 #thebookfest #onlineevent #authorevent

Join me Sunday @ 3pm Pacific as I have a one-opn-one conversation with Smashwords founder, Mark Coker, at the Spring 2021 (virtual) BookFest.

FRIENDS IN NEED OR IN NEED OF FRIENDS? By Doug McIntyre As of this paragraph, Mark Zuckerberg says I have 4,495 Facebook friends. But I’m much more popular than... that. You see, I have three Facebook pages. On my second page, I have another 3,024 friends. On page three, there’s 1,496 more. So, collectively I’ve managed to accumulate 9,015 social media chums, 25 of whom I have actually met. But even this doesn’t begin to reflect the enormity of my personal popularity. Mr. Charisma has expanded his reach beyond Facebook. On Twitter, Jack Dorsey says 1,117 people follow me, hopefully from a safe distance. And, shockingly, 1,035 people even see my Instagram posts. Shockingly, because nothing says hard pass more than a 63-year-old newspaper columnist on Instagram-- with the possible exception of a 63-year-old newspaper columnist with an OnlyFans account. Granted, there’s overlap. Some Facebook friends are also Twitter followers, and possibly even Instagram stalkers. In the interest of complete transparency-- and if you’ve seen my beach pics on Instagram you know that’s not hyperbole-- a dozen FB friends are dead (or pretending to be) to avoid returning my messages. Undoubtedly, I’ve lost a few over the years with my muddle-headed newspaper opinions and I’m sure to lose a few more after this column hits the newsstands. Still, to have so many friends this late in life makes me feel loved, wanted, engaged and utterly baffled. What does all this friending and following and liking mean? According to one British anthropologist, not much. Dr. Robin Dunbar has crunched the numbers and determined, for a successful life, the average person needs 5 intimate friends, 12 to 15 supportive friends, backed by approximately 130 casual friends, which means jackets and ties are not required. Dunbar’s Three Tiers of Friendship illustrates each level by the degree of commitment our friends are obliged to demonstrate. For example: regular friends are the people we see at weddings, class reunions or at the dog park. We might wave to these people and even say hello if cornered. Supportive friends are the people who will be genuinely distraught when we die. I assume because we owe them money. Intimate friends are those rare birds who would actually donate a kidney if we were in the market for one. My problem is I know what shape my intimate friends’ kidneys are in, so I’d have better luck on the black market. Of course, Robin Dunbar is a Brit, and I’m not convinced his standards of friendship actually translate to America, especially Southern California, so I’ve done my own research and here’s what I’ve concluded: Regular friends are the people who at one point were deemed important enough to add to our contacts, but not important enough to ever engage with. These are the names we scroll past on our iPhones but never actually call or text. If you live in Los Angeles, this category may also include your next door neighbors; the people we see all the time but wouldn’t recognize if we bumped into them at Gelson’s. It’s not that we’re standoffish, we simply respect their privacy. Whoever they are. Supportive friends have only one real obligation. They are the people who text us a sad face emoji when our mothers die. In today’s cyber-reality, a timely emoji is the same as a floral arrangement. Which brings us to the most exalted of friends, our intimates. Yes, Intimate friends are the people we can trust with our secrets, ask to feed our cats while we take a river cruise and know they’ll be alive when we get home, and lastly, in Los Angeles at least, intimate friends are the people who actually drive us to LAX rather than simply offer to drive us. Cling to these people. They are irreplaceable. So, if you are one of the 9,015 people I call friend on-line, and should our paths cross in actual life, be sure to say hello and please tell me your name because odds are I have no idea who you are. Remember, it’s not personal, it’s just modern friendship. Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: [email protected].

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THE LAST SUPPER FOR CALIFORNIA RESTAURANTS By Doug McIntyre The storefronts are emptying. A drive down Ventura Blvd. today, is like a drive through a hockey pla...yer’s mouth; tooth, missing tooth, missing tooth, missing tooth, tooth. One-by-one businesses small and large are failing, undone by Amazon, COVID-19, government incompetence and our maddening schitzo-refusal to follow mildly inconvenient health protocols like handwashing, mask-wearing and crowd-avoidance. The second wave is here. So is the first wave. As COVID-19 infections skyrocket and hospital beds fill beyond capacity, America (and much of the world) grapples with this sad reality: we blew it. We never really got the pandemic under control and now we’ve blundered into what is likely a second complete shutdown. Yes, there is hope on the horizon. The pharmaceutical giants are racing to put successful vaccines into the marketplace, but distribution will take time, and time is the one thing The Valley Inn does not have. The Valley Inn is a San Fernando Valley institution, now in its 73rd year. A 74th is looking less likely. It’s tragic! says Sofia Brodetsky, who co-owns the Valley Inn with her husband, Boris. Our people are literally crying. We don’t know what to do. Opening its doors in 1947, the Valley Inn has been THE place in the San Fernando Valley for lunch, dinner and special events. UCLA icon John Wooden practically lived at the Inn, where his name and memorabilia are prominently displayed in cases and above the door to the Wooden Room. Having barely survived the first shutdown, Sofia and Boris invested in canopies, outdoor heaters and every other health and safety precaution available to make outdoor dining as safe as possible. Now, they face another shutdown, imposed right before Thanksgiving, after having purchased turkeys and all the fixings in anticipation of the holiday. The timing couldn’t be worse. The Brodetskys, like so many restauranteurs, including Catalina’s Jazz Club in Hollywood, have been forced to open a GoFundMe campaign to assist their employees, many of whom have been with them for decades, like head chef, Gilbert, who’s in his 36th year. If you have the means, you can help at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/valley-inn-restaurant-employees-. Of course, the Valley Inn story is not unique. Landmark businesses across California are facing similar challenges. Chef Tom Colicchio described COVID-19 as an extinction level event for the restaurant industry while analysts predict as many as 80-percent of dining establishments might not survive. 15-million jobs are on the line as a $900 billion industry circles the drain. Can you imagine Hollywood without Musso & Frank’s? Burbank without The Smoke House? Long Beach without Phil Trani’s? And it’s not just restaurants. Musicians, actors, grips, ushers, box office personnel, hotdog venders, theme park employees, hotel, airline and transportation workers and everyone in the live event industries have seen their livelihoods shrink or disappear, in many cases forever. This is a particularly hard blow in Southern California where so many depend on our many entertainment venues. Each job lost means a drop in tax revenue for Federal, State, County and municipal budgets; this coming at the exact moment more and more people are looking to government for help. Yet, budget cuts and slashes to essential services are not just likely, they’re inevitable. It won’t always be this grim. New restaurants will open. The curtain will rise again in theaters and bandleaders will give the downbeat for live concerts. We are social animals. Well, not me, but most of you are. People require the shared experience of a meal together, a movie with friends, a rollercoaster thrill ride. But this new, better day will require trust, something in minimal supply in the age of alternative facts, runamuck conspiracy theories, preposterous allegations of a stolen presidential election and a general distrust of government, the media, corporations and pretty much everyone and anyone in a position of power. The new vaccines will only help if we take them. Hopefully, a new administration with a consistent, science-based message on the pandemic will add clarity. Governor Newsom needs to follow his own guidelines and not prove once again to be an entitled hypocrite like he did dinning with friends (lobbyists) at the hugely upscale French Laundry. And it would be nice if California stopped sending hundreds of millions of dollars fraudulently to prisoners while millions exhaust their unemployment benefits. Ultimately, it won’t be government that ends the pandemic. It will be me and you, our families, friends and neighbors doing the little things that are the biggest things: washing our hands, wearing our masks, getting vaccinated when we can, and avoiding crowds as much as possible until our health care system stabilizes and this terrible cloud lifts. Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: [email protected].

THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS By Doug McIntyre For more than a hundred years the high cheek-boned and tapered-waisted have flocked to Southern California seeking w...ealth and fame, but mostly fame. In my own extremely limited way, I too took the bait. Granted, my bathroom mirror did not suggest a career on the big screen, rather, at best, a tiny blurry photo in the Sunday paper to accompany 600 words of rambling opining on subjects I am only marginally competent to discuss. Still, as far-fetched as my dreams of superstardom may have been, at no time did I ever dream of coming to Hollywood to smell better. This was a mistake. Today, you haven’t really arrived until you have your own fragrance. Last week, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and his singer/songwriter/dancer/model partner, Ciara, launched their new dual fragrance, R&C Duo, which retails for $90. While Ciara is undoubtedly talented and beautiful and Wilson is a former Super Bowl champion, I’m not sure smelling like a football player is a box many want to check. Yet, the celebrity fragrance market has never been hotter. This crept up on me. I don’t remember Carole Lombard or Jimmy Cagney having a line of perfumes. Nobody in the 1940’s asked, Who are you wearing? And if they did, nobody would answer, Walter Brennan. All this started to change when Mr. Leading Man himself, Cary Grant, began his long association with Faberge. Still, Grant did not put his name on the bottle. Smelling like a celebrity wouldn’t become a thing until Liz Taylor started hawking her White Diamonds in 2001. Now, just about everybody who’s anybody can be found at the perfume counter, including ballplayers. Former Yankee great Derek Jeter has a fragrance-- especially after a double-header. The Chicago Bull’s #23 has 11 scents. Soccer pretty boy David Beckham offers three and now that Dodger shortstop Corey Seager won the World Series’ MVP award, Channel N5 might be rebranded Corey N5. Still, ballplayers finish a distant second to actors and especially singers, some of whom have more smells than hits. Mariah Carey has 6 scents. Justin Bieber has 3. JLo has a solid 8 fragrances, Rihanna has 9 and Christiana Aguilera tops out at 13. But the champ of them all is Britney Spears who leads the league with 30 perfumes, all of which smell like her father per a judge’s order. These vanity products come with modest names like Nude, RiRi, Heat, Uninhibited, Glow, Someday, Instinct and my personal favorite, Eau de Gaga, courtesy of Lady Gaga, the only celebrity who gets how preposterous all this is. One celebrity who might want to stay away from the fragrance business is former Genesis drummer Phil Collins. Still entangled in an ugly lawsuit over possession of his $40-million Miami mansion, Collins’s ex has accused the rock superstar of not bathing for over a year. Unless Phil’s 23andMe results show he’s 80-percent self-cleaning oven, that’s a hard pass. If this trend continues, it’s just a matter of time before celebrity CEOs get into the game. Musk by Elon could be the first carbon neutral cologne, while Apple honcho Tim Cook’s Core will be downloadable, although not available on droids. And how long before politicians want a piece of the action? Hypocrite by Gavin Newsom can battle it out with Donald Trump’s new perfume, Rigged or Unhinged by Rudy Giuliani. The people will decide. Or the courts. As for this correspondent, don’t expect to see McIntyre by Yves Saint Laurent or even Valvoline for that matter. I take three showers a day so I won’t have a fragrance. You’re welcome. Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: [email protected].

ANOTHER FINE MESS: GARCETTI AND GAVIN LOOK FOR A LIFE BOAT By Doug McIntyre In The Battle of the Century, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s 1927 comedy classic, ...the boys inadvertently start a massive pie fight that soon engulfs the entire city of Los Angeles. With chaos in the streets, Stan and Ollie quietly tip-toe out of town as if they had nothing to do with the mess they’ve left behind. Today, there’s talk of a remake starring L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti. L.A.’s back to basics mayor is basically begging president-elect Biden for a one-way ticket to Washington, hoping to put as many miles as possible between himself and the mess he helped create. With crime soaring, trash spilling into the streets, City Councilors frog-marched to jail, infrastructure collapsing, budget deficits mushrooming and unfunded pension obligations skyrocketing along with a homeless population he had promised to reduce-- entrusted with more than $1.5 billion annually in Measure H and HHH money-- Eric Garcetti has run out of alleys to kick the cans down. As Secretary of Transportation or Housing and Urban Development in the Biden administration, L.A.’s former mayor would have fresh alleys in which to avoid responsibility. It was no secret Eric Garcetti longed to fill the space occupied by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. With fellow Californian Kamala Harris already in the race, and the FBI sniffing out serious corruption allegations disgracing the L.A. City Council, a council Garcetti served as president, L.A.’s Mayor decided to sit out 2020. This is what I am meant to do and this is where I want to be, said the Mayor when bowing out of the presidential sweepstakes, which, in the Politician to English dictionary means he couldn’t raise enough money to make a realistic run. I kind of believe, whenever possible, you should finish the job that you set out to do." Concluded Garcetti. And like most Eric Garcetti pledges, he only kind of believes in finishing the job, knowing L.A. faces looming catastrophes in 2021 and beyond. Whoever is in the hotseat in the post-pandemic era will have nothing but bad news to deliver to his/her base: budget cuts, no raises, layoffs, boils and locusts. With 14-months to go in his extended second term, Garcetti is desperate to climb in a Biden/Harris lifeboat, even if he has to elbow women and children out of his way. But you can’t have Laurel without Hardy and that brings us to California Governor Gavin Newsom. Newsom has a built-in escape pod available if he has the chutzpa to take it. With California’s Junior Senator about to be sworn in as Vice President, Newsom gets to pick her successor. All governors dream of the chance to play king-maker, with a handful choosing to crown themselves. It usually doesn’t work out. Only Kentucky’s Albert Happy Chandler ever appointed himself to the Senate and then won reelection-- resigning a few years later to become baseball commissioner. Voters tend to frown upon such blatant power-grabs. But consider what Newsom faces in 2021. There is no cavalry coming to rescue California. Short of a miracle in Georgia, with the Dems winning both Senate seats in the January run off, the Senate will remain in GOP hands. Mitch McConnell is unlikely to bail out the bluest of blue states, especially when California has yet to even acknowledge our spending addiction, continuing to award irrational largesse to public employee pension plans and fund Jerry Brown’s $90-billion-plus crazy train to nowhere. You don’t get to the White House by saying no to your base at home and Newsom wants to get to the White House every bit as much as Eric Garcetti. Granted, naming himself to fill Harris’ senate seat is a long shot. The Governor will likely roll the bones on Alex Padilla, Hilda Solis or Karen Bass and settle for a grab at Diane Feinstein’s seat. And if you took that the wrong way, that’s on you, not me. Of course, Eric Garcetti likely has his eye on Feinstein’s seat as well. Laurel versus Hardy. Talk about a Battle of the Century! Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: [email protected].

IN DEFEAT IT’S STILL DONALD TRUMP’S GOP By Doug McIntyre A NOTE ABOUT THIS WEEK’S COLUMN: THIS VERSION IS A SIGNFICANT REWRITE OF THE PRINT EDITION. EVENTS SINC...E MY THURSDAY DEADLINE HAVE PROMPTED THE CHANGES. When all the votes are counted, recounted and litigated, Joseph Biden, Joey from Scranton, P.A., will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Biden won more than 75-million votes, an all-time record, 5-million more than President Trump. He also has a shot at 306 Electoral votes, the exact total Donald Trump called historic (it wasn’t) in 2016. By any standard, Biden’s victory is definitive. The American people loudly and emphatically told the President, You’re fired! And it was personal. The Republicans did much better than expected in both House and Senate races. They also did well in Governors contests and state legislative elections. It was Trump and Trump alone the country rejected. That the GOP outperformed all expectations is the rebuttal to the President’s obscenely dishonest claims of a stolen election. If the Democrats are so gifted at theft that they could mastermind fraudulent votes in the exact states Trump needed to win-- including Georgia which nobody saw in the Biden column-- why didn’t they also steal Lindsey Graham, Joni Ernst and Susan Collins’s Senate seats? Why let the Republicans actually gain seats in the House, including two in California? It’s nonsense. Donald Trump lost and he knows he lost. But blubbering about being cheated is what he always does when he doesn’t get his way. In 2016, in his very first election, Trump claimed Ted Cruz stole the Iowa primary. Google it. The President’s fake fraud claims will be quickly swatted away by the courts, including the Supreme Court should any get that far. Last Thursday’s truth-genocide press conference (where the President set a new World Record for lies-per-minute) would terminate anyone else’s future in politics. But Donald Trump is unlike anyone else who’s ever been in American politics. He continues to peddle conspiracy theories without any evidence to sow as much doubt as possible and make his successor’s already difficult job that much more difficult. It’s a supremely unpatriotic thing to do. So, does this mark the end of the Trump era or is it simply intermission? Donald Trump will remain a major force in American politics. Mr. Trump is still eligible to serve another term as President, which makes him the front runner for the GOP nomination in 2024. While most former presidents are content to write their memoirs and build their libraries, it’s hard to picture Donald Trump in passive retirement. More significantly, who do the Republicans have who can stop him? Donald Trump IS the Republican Party. Having signed over the pink slip to Trump in 2016, nothing short of death or a criminal conviction on tax and/or fraud charges in the Southern District of New York will keep Trump from playing GOP King Maker next time around. If he wants to wear the crown again, it’s his for the taking. Memories soften quickly. Joe Biden will face his own crises. He’ll get some things right, he’ll get some things wrong. He’ll make enemies. Every president does. The Miss me yet? billboards will spring up and the Trump media echo chamber will never fall silent. With no one in the GOP to challenge him, don’t bet against Trump: Part II. In the meantime, exhale and enjoy. A lot can happen in four years. Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. He can be reached at: [email protected].