“My blood is the vaccine …”
All right, who had “Trump declares himself God” on their 2020 bingo card?
If you also have “Housefly spends two minutes on Pence’s head,” you’re going to be tough to beat.
What’s the prize? You get to fast-forward to 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 31st. The odds are at least 50-50 all the political stuff is finished by then, although I don’t think Trump has enough blood in his body to provide enough vaccine to end the pandemic.
As for the pandemic, I think when you’re retired, having a year when you mostly stay at home isn’t such a big deal. But I have six grandchildren ages 5-14 whose lives have been totally disrupted by having to shelter in place. They spent the first half of the year in Guatemala and they’re spending the second half in McLean, Virginia.
That’s where my wonderful lifelong friend Bill Madden came of age, and I still remember a song about McLean that he wrote nearly 50 years ago.
“In this town they all drive paperback cars, and the motel rooms got no room to spare. In this town the place to go is the Jerry Lewis Cinema, and the shakes are like straws full of air …”
The first verse is the only one that stayed in my memory over almost half a century, and to be fair, my friend wrote songs much better than “In This Town.”
And I’m pretty sure the Jerry Lewis Cinema no longer exists.
I will say sheltering in place is probably a lot easier now than it was in 1973. Of course, we had crummy presidents then and now, the Milhous guy in 1973 and Dandy Don in 2020. Both men had very high opinions of themself, and both had odd vice presidents. Of course Spiro Agnew never had a fly land on his head and stay there for two minutes while he was speaking.
But while there was very little that was humorous about the Milhous guy, Donald Trump can almost be seen as the Jerry Lewis of presidents. Big ego, sort of a buffoon, a little more sinister beneath the surface.
To be fair, though, Jerry was certainly more honest than Diddlin’ Don. Trump has been accused of telling more than 20,000 lies since taking office, although to be fair, that number is inflated by repetition of some lies again and again.
My favorite is the one where he insists he has done more for Black Americans than anyone except maybe for Abraham Lincoln.
It’s too bad Jerry Lewis — both cinema and man — is no longer around. I’d love to see him playing the lead in “Mr. Trump Goes to Washington.”
As I write this, we’re 24 days out from the election. There really is absolutely no way it should even be close. Yes, Doofy Don was behind in the polls in 2016, but not this much this close to the election, and he has not been gaining at all. Even Rasmussen, the one he loves that is nearly always an outlier, has him down 12 points this week.
There’s another thing worth mentioning, and that’s that the gigantic reservoir of hatred so many on the right had for Hillary Clinton in 2016 doesn’t seem to exist for Joe Biden this time around.
It doesn’t help Trump at all that 212,000 Americans have died during the pandemic and he still acts like wearing masks and socially distancing are somehow unmanly things to do.
The news keeps getting worse, too. The most recent projection is the death toll will reach 395,000 by Feb. 1st if nothing else changes. You may or may not realize it, but none of the projections have been on the high side.
Most Americans have never been to a Broadway show, but it still had to be shocking to hear that the Broadway theatres will remain dark at least till the end of May.
And we don’t even have a chance to go to the Jerry Lewis Cinema.
Thanks, Don.