NYTimes Op-Ed No, Trump, We Can’t Just Get Along

by Charles M. Blow

Donald Trump schlepped across town on Tuesday to meet with the publisher of The New York Times and some editors, columnists and reporters at the paper.

As The Times reported, Trump actually seemed to soften some of his positions:

He seemed to indicate that he wouldn’t seek to prosecute Hillary Clinton. But he should never have said that he was going to do that in the first place.

He seemed to indicate that he wouldn’t encourage the military to use torture. But he should never have said that he would do that in the first place.

He said that he would have an “open mind” on climate change. But that should always have been his position.

You don’t get a pat on the back for ratcheting down from rabid after exploiting that very radicalism to your advantage. Unrepentant opportunism belies a staggering lack of character and caring that can’t simply be vanquished from memory. You did real harm to this country and many of its citizens, and I will never — never — forget that.

As I read the transcript and then listened to the audio, the slime factor was overwhelming.

After a campaign of bashing The Times relentlessly, in the face of the actual journalists, he tempered his whining with flattery.

At one point he said:

“I just appreciate the meeting and I have great respect for The New York Times. Tremendous respect. It’s very special. Always has been very special.”

He ended the meeting by saying:

“I will say, The Times is, it’s a great, great American jewel. A world jewel. And I hope we can all get along well.”

I will say proudly and happily that I was not present at this meeting. The very idea of sitting across the table from a demagogue who preyed on racial, ethnic and religious hostilities and treating him with decorum and social grace fills me with disgust, to the point of overflowing. Let me tell you here where I stand on your “I hope we can all get along” plea: Never.

You are an aberration and abomination who is willing to do and say anything — no matter whom it aligns you with and whom it hurts — to satisfy your ambitions.

I don’t believe you care much at all about this country or your party or the American people. I believe that the only thing you care about is self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment. Your strongest allegiance is to your own cupidity.

I also believe that much of your campaign was an act of psychological projection, as we are now learning that many of the things you slammed Clinton for are things of which you may actually be guilty.

You slammed Clinton for destroying emails, then Newsweek reported last month that your companies “destroyed emails in defiance of court orders.” You slammed Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for paid speeches and conflicts of interest, then it turned out that, as BuzzFeed reported, the Trump Foundation received a $150,000 donation in exchange for your giving a 2015 speech made by video to a conference in Ukraine. You slammed Clinton about conflicts of interest while she was secretary of state, and now your possible conflicts of interest are popping up like mushrooms in a marsh.

You are a fraud and a charlatan. Yes, you will be president, but you will not get any breaks just because one branch of your forked tongue is silver.

I am not easily duped by dopes.

I have not only an ethical and professional duty to call out how obscene your very existence is at the top of American government; I have a moral obligation to do so.

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but rather to speak up for truth and honor and inclusion. This isn’t just about you, but also about the moral compass of those who see you for who and what you are, and know the darkness you herald is only held at bay by the lights of truth.

It’s not that I don’t believe that people can change and grow. They can. But real growth comes from the accepting of responsibility and repenting of culpability. Expedient reversal isn’t growth; it’s gross.

So let me say this on Thanksgiving: I’m thankful to have this platform because as long as there are ink and pixels, you will be the focus of my withering gaze.

I’m thankful that I have the endurance and can assume a posture that will never allow what you represent to ever be seen as everyday and ordinary.

No, Mr. Trump, we will not all just get along. For as long as a threat to the state is the head of state, all citizens of good faith and national fidelity — and certainly this columnist — have an absolute obligation to meet you and your agenda with resistance at every turn.

I know this in my bones, and for that I am thankful.

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I invite you to join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter (@CharlesMBlow), or email me at chblow@nytimes.com.

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Adam Yauch Honored A Tribute I Am Honored To Be A Part Of

This Past weekend a photograph of mine was used on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, to honor the life of MCA. A friend, and friend to several of my friends. I was really happy to hear the kind words from some of these folks who honored me by saying things like "Such a beautiful tribute to our old friend" and "No one captured the true essence of Adam better than you." To have this image picked to grace the cover and honor his life when so many incredible lives have been lost, in the past year, was a bit daunting.

When the Times associate photo editor hit me up I was cautious at first when asked for editorial images (no thought of a cover yet). Adam was always pretty particular about images of himself and the band over the years, and we had our disagreements at times, but in the end he always seemed to be able to get people to come around to his view, at the very least, appreciate it from his perspective.

So that said, if i was going to participate in this mainstream, end of year tribute, i'd have to be sure the image would be something worthy - i showed them some good stuff. In the last week i had been doing some extensive research in my own archive for a new book i am working on, and came across this gem of Adam, but i didn't have a scan of it to send them. A week later when she came back to me and said they were considering Adam for the cover, I thought, "What better way to have this never seen image published ? - There would be none!" I took the slide out, worked on as accurate a scan as I could at home (which is not so easy to do well from a color slide), then sent it over. They said "Everyone loved it!" So it was in the running, along with another (very old) fallen icon of the last year, and even a "type treatment" that the corniest of egomaniacal art directors always like to do.

When she told me, a few days later, after several last minute deadline meetings that they chose my image, i said "cool". Knowing in this business, I don't believe anything 'til i actually have it in my hands.

By last Thursday she actually over-nighted me a few copies while i was out of town with family. Wow ! They really used Adam on the cover and also a shot from dear old friend of Adam's and mine, Arabella Field (who shot the Pollywog Stew EP cover of the original band), inside. Very cool.

You can read the words and see the online version HERE.

So the Times then ran a blog about the story I just told you with some other details, (unfortunately besides giving disgraceful credit for the cover in the printed issue - which under other circumstances i would never allow - in the blog interview they rushed to put it up and lost some nuance and detail, so i'll add for y'all below).

Behind the Cover Photo: On Digging Up a Super-Rare Shot of Adam Yauch
By AMY KELLNER [special edit]

The cover of The Lives They Lived issue this past Sunday featured a never-before-published photograph of Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys taken by Glen E. Friedman. Amy Kellner, one of the magazine’s photo editors, talked to Friedman about the story behind that photo. Here are some of the highlights of their conversation.

On meeting the Beastie Boys:

I’ve been friends with the Beastie Boys for quite a long time. I met them through Arabella Field, our good mutual friend who grew up with Adam since they were born. (Field took the photo of Yauch with two cigarettes in his mouth, featured in the article.) I was actually living in L.A. when I met them in New York, but I was in New York a lot. It was 1981 or 1982 out in front of CBGB's.

On photographing other bands:

I had already done my first album photo at that point for the Adolescents. I had also been photographing bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks and the Dead Kennedys, and here in new York, The Bad Brains, The Stimulators, The Mad. It wasn't until The Beastie Boys actually came to California as a group for the first time in 1985 (opening for Madonna!), that I had done a photo session with them, because I was really inspired by them doing hip-hop. They didn’t know anybody in Los Angeles, so I brought them all around and introduced them to a bunch of people and got them on a couple of important radio shows because of my experience working with bands at that time.

On making a spontaneous photo shoot happen:

I came to California for Thanksgiving just to be with family in 1991, and I had given the Beastie Boys a call. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and they invited me down to their "G-Son" studios out in Atwater Village in Los Angeles, to just hang out and see their skate ramp, play some basketball in the studio and listen to “Check Your Head” as they were still trying to figure out it's final sequencing, before it came out. I was just totally blown away and totally inspired by the album, and so I told them that we should take some photos before I had to go back to New York. They said "sure, let’s do it, it will be like old times." We did it the next day and I was on the red-eye back to New York that night!

On the challenge of coming up with an album cover:

Unfortunately, they had said that the album cover for "Check Your Head" had already been picked (in fact it wasn't even a photo of the band), and I said that I'll try and out do that. I knew I would. So Adam had an idea, he wanted me to create for them their own version of the iconic photo on the cover of Minor Threat's Salad Days 7" single. So we met up early in the morning at the Capitol Records building and we took a roll or two of black and white right in that area. There was a picture of them sitting on the curb that we took at the end of the first roll, and I knew in my head, that was their shot, I knew that would be their version of the Salad Days photo, and it became the album cover, replacing the original one they had chosen. When I had gotten back to New York after that, and after getting all the film back and photos printed, I faxed them all the best images right away. (for me, that was the way to get it to someone quick back then). I had a really good fax machine. They got the fax of the photos on the other end and literally they liked that one shot so much, they put it on the album cover as a fax, like i had sent them (check the vinyl version of the LP and you'll see it's clearly a fax).

On shooting in an old torn-down structure:

After I took that shot of the three of them, we decided to keep shooting. We went by Adam's log cabin up Laurel Canyon, and the school yard up further on Wonderland Ave., Mulholland Drive, Got great shots everywhere. (My friend, Amery Smith was driving us around in his van, and in fact it was the first time the Beasties and 'AWOL' ever met.) Later on, for the last location, we brought them down to the Sorrento Beach parking lot, in Santa Monica, next to where there was this pool that my DogTown friends all skated back in the '70s. I knew this would be a good spot to shoot because I partially grew up around there. It had some resonance for me. And then there was this old torn-down structure right across the street (actually the PCH) from the parking lot. It was late in the day and the light was hitting it just incredibly, and I said, "Let's climb up there and let's take these photos." That shot of Adam I guess was during some downtime while we were just hanging around up there in that destroyed structure, trying to figure out some cool angles for shots... It was very close to the end of the day. (another shot i took up there made it onto the back cover of my first book) It was just an outtake, an individual image of him, and I didn?t have an individual image of anyone else up there. It just looked cool, otherworldly, it just looked like him. He was very into snowboarding at the time, and that's why you see he's wearing his down jacket, that ski hat, lift pass attached to his coat zipper, and stuff.

On digging up the photo:

When you [Amy] let me know there was a possibility of a cover for The Lives They Lived, I dug extra deep into my extensive Beastie archive to find a solo shot of Adam that had never been published or even seen by anyone else ever. This one fit the requirements well, I thought, for our hometown newspaper. My only wish is that it had been shot in New York.

Below is the home scan with more accurate end of day lighting, i sent over to the Times.

Let's hope this comes to fruition : ADAM YAUCH PARK