DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?

Because white/right extremist, uneducated (“Christian”) America is so in my face lately I have had no choice but to deal with them the way that a bewildered parent has to deal with their moderately or even severely handicapped adopted child.

As kind-hearted and understanding as I am, the truth is I did not sign up for this job and it is, In fact, a struggle most of the time.  

Being civil and patient is starting to feel like P.T. Barnum was right when he said that there’s a sucker born every minute.

Being the continually evolving and deeply empathetic guy that I am (over my desk is a sign that reads, “Be Kind To Everyone, make art, fight the system”) I take great pride in my long-term employment as a professional idealist via the kind of writing that I do for a both a living.  I am for the most part a glass-filled to the brim kind of guy.  I can be relentlessly optimistic and inordinately passionate to a fault.  I did live in LA for years and faults thematically are everywhere.  I have long thought there should be a cereal out there called Earth Quaker Oats. I am also an unabashed romantic.  I spend 75% of my days weeping over Facebook videos that show returning military surprising their children.

Words have long thrilled me as much as any Playboy centerfold did, who I dated exclusively for at least a month at a time, throughout the sixties and early seventies. 

I love to invent new words, toy with language and pun. Puns have a long history in human writing. Sumerian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs were originally based on punning systems, and the Roman playwright Plautus was famous for his puns and word games. Punning has been credited as the fundamental concept behind alphabets, writing, and even human civilization.

I am fascinated by etymology and am forever looking up the definition of words that I’ve known all my life.   If music be the food of life,  words are my indulgent dessert which I eat with a cherish on top.

I love to read and listen to audiobooks.  I love lively discourse.

It’s only words and words are all I need to take your heart away.

So it is not surprising that I find it particularly galling to have to deal with anything remotely Trump.  

I feel like, since Election Day, I have been bedridden with the kind of malaise that used to incapacitate the royals. 

Everything about Trump is counter to every single fiber of my holy soul cloth. I don’t have to enumerate his offensive offenses because we are reminded of them every single second of every single day with all the delicacy of a serial ax bludgeoning.

Because he sits behind a desk in the office of the most powerful man on earth, the illusion is that he is the most powerful man on earth when in truth, he’s nothing more than Professor Henry Over The Hill, a small town cheating, lying carnie swindler, without the charm, grace and on-key singing of Robert Preston. Everything about him is toad sloppy.  His tweets are rambling, full of grammatical mistakes and almost always incoherent.  But what he is speaking is a new kind of language for dummies which is the new all caucasian ebonics.

What is most spectacular about Elmer Gantry Fudd, who lashes out in those tongues with a fevered fervor, is his effect on those whose faith is completely based on magical thinking.

For the record,  I am a spiritual temporal agnostic which means I’m still open for business. That I am wise enough to know that all I know and all I can fully embrace with any authority is mystery.   In other words, you never know,.  Plus I find many of the rituals of organized religions to be both powerful and beautiful.  And I do love anything that is handed down through the ages.  Respect.

And that is what brings me to Trump’s dancing Snow White hi-ho, hi-ho clueless dwarves who dance like Dopey himself at any one of his staged rallies who can’t seem to tell the difference between Jesus and Donald.  I mean it is so damn hard to tell them apart.   

His ascension, like organized religion itself, is based not on fact, man-made law or empirical scientific observation/conclusion but rather on a form of obsessive devotion that requires a deep and (IMO) an unrelenting belief in magic and make-believe which enjoys the same kind of after effect as opioid addiction and internet hits of Justin Beiber songs.

Having read and been deeply affected by Hillbilly Elegy, I understand and am sensitive to the basic point of view of those who feel that they were born to lose.  Being a Jew, despite it’s east and west coast charm, still qualifies me as a card-carrying member of a globally loathed minority that is often treated with scorn and often murderous violence.

I know what it’s like to be punched in the face by Catholic schoolboys.  I know what it’s like to be called a kike on my own street.

The only way around this pesky little problem was to evolve.   

The good news is real, genuine 100% grade A pain makes you overly sensitive to everything else and if you are lucky that will make you compassionate to others and occasionally, at least on holidays, to yourself.

I did not go to an Ivy Leave school.  My parents were lower middle class.  The tracks were literally a block away.   I earned the four-year scholarship that I got.

Growing up all my friends had their own rooms.  I did not.

Instead of feeling victimized and embittered, I discovered early on the seductive power of ideas and the eloquence of language (oh how authors like Salinger and Kerouac seeded me) which eventually, over time, became the above the title marquee acts of my traveling Vaudeville show which for years was based on the premise of always leave them laughing.  Comedy writing became my negotiable currency.

I was trained by artists.  I grew up astonished by Lenny Bruce (who came way before me), all the great radio comics (again: way before me), Jack Parr, Dick Cavett (who recently moderated a panel that I was a guest on. It was thrilling!). Robert Klein, Woody Allen, Neil Simon:  it was only funny words and funny words are all you need to take your heart away too.

Which leads me back to today where this sect of white extremist Christianity has blossomed thanks to Uncle Moneybags, into a kind of Charles “Mansion” led cult whose whites-only membership requirements include no ideas, no thoughts, no language, no science, no education, no decency, no respect for the written law, no facts, no truth, no respect for the press.

Those rallies are nothing more than a clan/klan gathering, where rage and racism are rewarded by a slithering snake oil preacher who tells them that everything they feel is justified.  And for folks who believe in magic, who don’t require physical evidence of their God, who pray for miracles and winning lottery tickets in equal amounts, what better spokesperson for their cause than a charismatic bullshit artist?

It feels like love to them.  It feels like a refreshing tonic.   Is there anything sexier than being seen or being told how much you are appreciated and loved?

This from a serial cheater who to this day is still paying for his sex.

The thing is, once they go home and take off their uniforms of matching red #metoo caps, invisibhillbillity returns.  The emptiness and sorrow and endless regrets return.  This is when they need to have copious drinks at their favorite watering hole, Lowering the Bar before they head for a sandwich at the Bottom Feeders Cafe which specializes in the sour and the bitter.

Thanks to Fox, just like Trump they get to feel the thrill of sitting at the big boy’s desk by feeling HIS presence, HIS truth, which is THEIR truth.  Worst of all it feels, to them, like they are going to church where sponsorship meets worship, which could easily be the definition of most religions.

Their Lonesome Rhodes/Commander and Cheat/defender is a TV star to boot and since they are literally on TV all the time (thanks to the press covering those events) the supposed enemy of the people is actually empowering them.   

They are by association TV stars too.  Welcome to American Grandstand.

Without the full cooperation of this kind of Chayefskyesque, dystopian TV, there would be no Kardashians.   No Real Housewives.

No Donald Trump.

Their electronic God, who famously played a pretend TV CEO which was broadcast from a fake boardroom, lies for them.  Cheats for them. Diminishes women (who he is threatened by) for them. He disrupts for them. Rails against abortions for them (oh to see his checkbook stubs for that world).  He steals for them.  Stomps on time-honored American traditions for them.  He colludes with the Russians for them.  Destroyed Hillary for them.  Attacks liberals for them. He humiliates American heroes for them.  He attacks the Department of Justice for them. His proud disregard for illiteracy is all for them. (After all the real enemy of the church is higher education).

Whatever profit he makes, he deserves which they happily accept as a form of tithing in the Church of Trump.

According to some, Trump wanted to be sworn in, not holding a bible, but rather with a copy of “The Art of The Deal’ instead, which he did not write one single word of.

Jim Comey, said that dealing with the Trump White House reminded him of his dealings with the Mafia when he was a New York prosecutor (with Rudy Giuliani). The entire Trump base is nothing more than Mrs. John Gotti.  He gets to commit all kinds of murder while they turn the other way in return for getting the diamonds, rubies and his pearls of wisdom.

We can only hope that Elliot Ness Mueller will take down this one trick Capone.

Until then, praise the lord.