Eighteen years ago on this very Valentine's Day, in the year two triple-naught, in these United States of America, including here in NYC, people were feeling relieved: we had all survived the dreaded Y2K threat, the hysterical fear that at midnight on December 31, 1999, civilization would melt down -- the electrical grid and communication systems and everything that made our world function would crash (because they wouldn't recognize yearly numbers that didn't begin with "19") and there would be riots, murder, mayhem, bedlam, all sorts of "mean nasty" stuff to paraphrase Woody Guthrie. Scary!
But nothing happened. Everything was fine. Craziness did not ensue. And all us on January 1, 2000 entered the new millennium feeling that the world would be "foin." Optimism reigned.
Six weeks into this new year of 2000, on February 14, Valentine's Day, Howard Stern was doing his radio show. Robin Quivers reported the news. She talked about the goings on in the Republican Presidential primary (would it be Bush or McCain?) and she mentioned an odd story about how Donald Trump was no longer interested in running for president on the Reform Party line. Howard scoffed at the idea that Trump would ever run for president let alone get elected: Trump, Howard and Robin guffawed, loved "banging models" more than politics, and would rather be the president of "poontang."
Oh, if only we'd been so lucky.
Here we are, two decades later, and that threat Howard and all of us didn't take seriously at the time has come true. If fact, worst of all, we didn't even realize it was a threat! But now we all know the ugly history: Bush became president and messed up the country and now Trump is president and messing it up even more. We laughed then -- and now we cry.
Today we live inside of a bad joke gone very, very wrong.
Here we are, two decades later, and that threat Howard and all of us didn't take seriously at the time has come true. If fact, worst of all, we didn't even realize it was a threat! But now we all know the ugly history: Bush became president and messed up the country and now Trump is president and messing it up even more. We laughed then -- and now we cry.
Today we live inside of a bad joke gone very, very wrong.
So just remember on this day of love, there are things (or people) that we don't take seriously that can, much later, cause us much pain. Warning signs abound. And the things we freak out about can (like Y2K) become nothing while the things we don't think about (like Al Queda or Trump) can come along and ruin everything.
Consider yourself warned.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Listen to this episode here and fast-forward to 2:51:55.
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