The author is a Los Angeles-based freelancer who grew up in Oak Park. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the LA Herald Examiner and Men's Journal and co-founded the band Was (Not Was). His father, the late Rube Weiss, was Santa Claus in the Hudson's Thanksgiving Parade and was on radio shows including The Lone Ranger.
By David Weiss
The inauguration
Consider this an open invitation to join your favorite armchair insurrectionist in a class-action lawsuit ‘gainst the three TV networks, all cable news outlets and any app or website that offered real-time coverage of the recent inaugural ceremonies. With no chyron warning or disclaimer, the undefended viewer was subjected to imagery one would have to describe as highly disturbing, and without benefit of comfort bags or heavy sedatives.
I’m thinking billions if not trillions to compensate for mass emotional whiplash and PTSD -- in cold hard cash, no cryptonite if you please. Though I do like the look of that $Melania shite-coin – those blockchain plugged nickels will go well with my First Lady Eyeball NFT’s I keep on the digital mantelpiece. That be best.
I dared to watch the surreally tawdry proceedings in suspended disbelief, irrationally hoping for some kind of deus ex machina/Stepford Wives moment, when a celestial bolt of lightning would induce a high-voltage mass epiphany. People who moments before were trying to mask their shame and self-interest behind curdled half-smiles would suddenly rend their garments and beg forgiveness for not just sipping the Kool-Aid but outright bathing in the stuff. Make mine orange, btw! I love being brainwashed – thinking for yourself is like so last millennium, innit?
No such luck. Not only did nobody (except for brave, straight-talking Bishop Budde) raise a pinky in protest, they wildly applauded like fearful shills at a Kim Jong Un hoedown. Mind you, if Sneering Stephen Miller even sees you looking cross-eyed at the boss, you’ll likely wind up swapping terrorist jokes with the ISIS boys at Guantanamo Comedy Camp. Fascist appearances be damned, Big Man Mousse-olini is back and in the mood for revenge served cold. Buyers beware.
But then, just when you thought things could get no more Putinesque and oligarch-y, enter the Cyborg Avenger Elon Muskrat, stage far right, dancing like a punch-drunk Frankenstein and arm-saluting some implied fascist strongman, living or dead. World’s Richest Man, meet a bitter old con who loves the wealthy like normal folks love Weimaraners.
Collectively call them TRUSK, a sycophantic match forged in Satan’s sootiest furnace, twin towering narcissists hooked on the double-shot of Powerade they’ve been guzzling like it was inaugural-vintage Diet Coke. Remind me to switch to Pepsi.
Politics and policy aside, my worst indignation is reserved for the spider-on-LSD, convoluted plotting of the Tragedy of King Donald, one of the worst reality shows since Rob Kardashian had his 15 nanos of shame. Yup, just when it seemed defendant Trump was on his merry way to perfidy if not federal prison for the 10th time, he’d rise from the mat like a pep-pill pug, thrusting out his busted jaw and begging for another haymaker. Boom, delivered! Impeachment, impeachment, charged and convicted for statutes big and small -- surely he would never again sully the pristine precincts of Jefferson or Lincoln or even his beloved current crush, Tariff-sheriff Bill McKinley. It seemed like the jig was finally up for Teflon Don.
Karma On Vacay
Alas, it wasn’t to be. Karma is apparently on vacay in the Caymans and can’t bring its scales-of-cosmic-justice to bear on the Great White Dope, whose never say die, nine lives persistence is proof positive that the black-hatted bad guy sometimes goes unpunished.
Mind you, if you were watching this ill-constructed epic at your local AMC -- having dropped eighty bucks on a small popcorn and sixteen Raisinets -- you’d likely harangue the manager for your money back. The flick has no discernible ending, no rooting interest, no rising action or denouement, no nothing. Can I at least get a free popcorn refill?
What happened next is a sad testimony to my having lived in LA for way too long. No sooner had Uncle Elon overpaid his way into the gilded corridors of power (the guy must love them country-club rubber chicken dinners), than he began to earn sideward glances from El Jefe, leading me to think their shelf-life as BFF’s was going stale way sooner than expected. Next step? I used old ChatGPT to conjure up a b-movie premise starring thinly-veiled portraits of the aforementioned Twin Terrors as their love affair sours like RFK Jr.’s beloved raw milk.
Elon Muskish
The future drive-in blockbuster goes a little something like this: A Donald Trump-type strikes up an unholy alliance with an Elon Muskish character, who in his zeal to hog the spotlight starts to get on the old man’s nerves. Not only that, but the Elon guy isn’t the only one who notices that Grandpa Don’s grasp on things is slipping, and that he’s getting more erratic and unpredictable. After secret deliberations with a Stephen Miller-type, the matter is settled. Elon the Evil will sneak one of his Neuralink gadgets into a Mar-a-Lago dinner and when the old man goes into Quarter Pounder-narcosis, implant it in his unsuspecting skull. On chair’s edge yet?
Sci-Fi-AI hijinks ensue as the beady-eyed tech mogul sits in a control room next to the Ovaltine Office armed with a laptop and a joystick, controlling the old goat’s every move, scripting his every utterance, all without a scintilla of suspicion from the once-proud Leader of the Freebie World. Even Trump’s golf scores begin to improve without the need to cheat, i.e., as long as Dr. Muskenstein is in a nearby cart with his Bluetooth-enabled interface and a bag of psilocybin gummies. Hey, he could also make the guy hit it in the lake every time if he so desired, so cut the dude some slack.
If this all sounds hackneyed and trite and perhaps too plausible for proper fiction, blame it on artificial intelligence for co-conceiving the half-baked elevator pitch and hitting all the obvious notes. It even dreamt up a loyal female heroine (can Caroline Leavitt act?) who sleuths out the treasonous plotters and — in the fabled 11th hour — disconnects her beloved President from his devious, remote control puppet-masters. Ain’t love grand? USA, USA!
Okay, hold on to your hankies for the boffo 3rd act curtain-dropper: The Chief Executive formerly known as a thieving, conniving, abusive, sociopathic bunco artist wakes up with an actual beating human heart, and a newborn empathy for the little people he has stepped upon or deceived his life long. He comes before the nation tearfully, a changed man, flanked by all-alphabet genders and races, insurrectionists and infidels alike, Trotskyites and Swifties, influencers and necromancers, all hand in hand and smiling ear to ear. Our beloved President is no monster after all -- he’s a Real Man!
Somebody cue Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and roll the credits. The worst drama in recorded history is finally over and with no less than a Hollywood-happy ending. Will miracles never cease? And how about a sequel while the iron's hot? Exile on Mars Street — Prison Planet -- starring Lon Chaney as Elon Musk. Does anybody else see tentpoles on the horizon? DeMille, are you out there?? I'M READY FOR MY CLOSEUP!
