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What to do after misplacing the bucket list

By Ed Goldman

After years of watching panels of “experts” debating the news on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, CBS, PBS and even the fair and balanced FOX News, I’ve concluded that the job I’d most like to land before I break free of this mortal coil is to become a full-time MG (Media Gasbag).

This isn’t the first time I’ve thought of careers I wish I’d pursued but didn’t. For example, I occasionally thought of returning to college and studying to become a phonetics professor like George Bernard Shaw’s Henry Higgins in his play “Pygmalion” or its musical adaptation “My Fair Lady.” Then I realized what made that role so appealing as portrayed by the angular actor Rex Harrison was that he kept fresh chocolates in little bowls around his home. And while I’d enjoy emulating that, I wouldn’t be starting out angular so it wouldn’t take long for me to become circular.

For a time I had noble visions of teaching little boys and girls in inner-city schools until I remembered that the only “boys and girls” I’ve ever taught already had facial hair and menstrual cycles, respectively (sometimes both—but that’s for another discussion).

What I mean is, they were in college. And it occurs to me that if I sometimes grew impatient with them, how would I fare with people who were half my height, a fifth of my weight and whose preferred conversational topics were what time was “snack” and who took their “bank-ie”?  

So becoming a Media Gasbag it was. And is. 

While I rarely express my political views on TV or radio, with the exception of my globally ignored Goldman State podcast—which drops every Friday and may be accessed through this column or wherever the hell you get your podcasts, as I believe it’s usually explained—I feel confident I can make the transition from being Somewhat Tentative about international politics to becoming Supremely Arrogant About Damn Near Everything Within My Purview. I may even start a subscription-only service called Pay Purview.

Look, a similar strategy has worked for the abysmally stupid former Fox fixture Tucker Carlson, CNN’s prior embarrassment Don Lemon, the late low-brow Lou Dobbs (Fox), and the shape-shifting on-air masturbator Jeffrey Toobin (CNN). I’m pretty sure I can be as dumb, egocentric, out-of-touch and repulsive, respectively, given half a chance and, in the latter case, a Pinterest membership.

My favorite time to be an MG would be when a news story of passing interest crops up—like when a politician from a city I’m barely aware of gets indicted for bribing members of the Tabernacle Choir to add the word “alleged” to any mention of God or Heaven—and the panel and I have to “wing it” (adlib) for 60 minutes about the matter because we have a paucity of available facts to bandy about.

PANELIST 1 (Wears a bowtie so you know he’s either a lawyer, professor or dork): Okay, so what we know for sure is that a U.S. congresswoman from Spearfish, South Dakota attempted to bribe the Jonas Brothers to disown one another, can we all agree on that?

PANELIST 2 (Wears a sweatshirt advocating for an A-I version of the Kama Sutra and is the self-appointed fact-checker of the group): Actually, it was a city alderman, not a congresswoman, from Ding Dong, Texas*, not Spearfish, South Dakota, and it was an attempt to bribe the Tabernacle Choir, not the Jonas Brothers.

PANELIST 1: Ho! My bad!

PANELIST 2 (Grinning winningly): Just sayin’.

PANELIST 1 (Beaming): Go to Hell.

ME (Wearing a nice suit but no tie, taking off and putting on my glasses repeatedly, all the while pinching the bridge of my nose to depict either a cascade of pounding thoughts or the unexpected return of my tinnitus): People, can we get along?