The donald

It's getting so bad that I find it an effort to capitalize his name.

I'd like to wonder how this clown ever achieved any level of notoriety, but I've been part of the problem for years. There's something almost irresistible to me about someone acting or speaking as an authority on something, anything really, when it's perfectly clear that the voice of authority is really just a mighty wind.

I love watching a huckster in action. Puffery, and self-promotion, and pure unadulterated bullshitting is funny to watch.

There's magic afoot when you have a Meatloaf, a Gary Busey, and a Joan Rivers on one side of a boardroom table, desperately pleading their cases to Donald Trump, flanked by two of his insufferable progeny. It's positively surreal. What would it be like to actually work for the bloviating self-promoting mountain of shit that is Donald Trump? Lou Ferigno was damned near weeping after Trump fired him. Charity schmarity, they're crying because they got shamed by the world famous for being world famous Donald F-ing Trump.

Yeah, he went to Fordham, and then Wharton, and he has a bachelor's in economics. He also had a wealthy father who greased the skids for his son's entrance into the world of commercial real estate. Not sure whether it was Fordham, Wharton, or Fred Trump....but someone apparently taught Donald how to go bankrupt on multiple occasions. His Trump Entertainment Resorts filed for Chapter 11 just 3 years ago.

And yet, Donald Trump is sold as a genius businessman. He sells himself as a genius businessman. Just ask him, and he'll tell you "I'm a genius businessman."

A genius businessman who somehow figured out a way to bankrupt a fucking casino.

I thought that was mathematically impossible.

But that didn't stop me from tuning in and watching Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice." That show is one of the absolutely perfect things in this world. It is perfect bullshit. Everything about "Celebrity Apprentice" is bullshit. The celebrities are bullshit, the tasks are bullshit, the rules are bullshit, the scoring is bullshit, and the boardroom is bullshit. Everyone is completely full of shit. They're bullshitting each other and they're bullshitting Trump. Trump is bullshitting them and he's bullshitting the audience, and it's all just so wonderfully bullshitty.

But it's all in fun.

Because Donald Trump is bullshit.

Everything about Donald Trump is phony from his wealth, to his business acumen, to his word in business transactions, to his taste in palaces with solid gold fireplace dragons.

Everyone knows Trump isn't the heavyweight he tries to portray.

There are people in this country whose wealth dwarfs little Donald Trump's, even during his non-Chapter 11 cycles. There are serious business titans out there who snicker at Donald Trump.

There are grad students who know more about business than Donald Trump.

Late in the guilty pleasure of film that is "The Quick and The Dead," The Kid (Leo DeCaprio) stands in the middle of the street and chides the townspeople for being so afraid of Herod (Gene Hackman), the guy who happens to run the town and who also happens to be The Kid's father.

"The gunfight is in the head, not in the hands," barks The Kid to the people gathered to watch the showdown. "The only reason he's invincible is because you all believe he's invincible."

Herod proceeds to kill The Kid in their gunfight, which sort of defeats The Kid's point, but you take my meaning...

The only reason Donald Trump is perceived to be a shaker and mover in American politics is the same reason he is seen as a brilliant business mind....because we let him pretend to be. We fool ourselves into believing that Trump is a genius even though even a cursory investigation reveals Trump's ineptness in black and white. Red ink. Losses. BK. Borrowed money. Big Shell Game. House of Cards. Paper wealth that changes with the breeze.

Yet nobody wants to stand up and say, "Hey Donald, you're a fucking huckster who plasters his name on gold leaf toilet paper. You're a joke."

Probably because it's all fun and games and who gives a shit if people want to buy $4million condos in one of his architecturally heinous creations right?

Well now Trump has doubled down, and gone the Joe Arpaio route. Never mind the fact that when Barack Obama made public his birth certificate last year, Donald Trump wiped the egg off his face and told everyone how proud his was to be the guy who "finally got this out of the way."

He took credit.

Obama's birth certificate made Trump so proud.

Last year.

This year, Trump thinks the birth cert is fishy, and he told Wolf Blitzer that he knows many,many,many,many other people who think it's a fishy document too (like Arpaio, no names given by Trump of cour$e.) He thinks that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and that the birth announcement in the Honolulu paper back in 1961 was part of a large conspiracy that culminated with Barack Obama being elected president.

I'm calling bullshit on Donald Trump.

It's just too despicably racist to allow to pass simply because Trump's our silly rich guy, poor guy, rich guy again mascot.

Fuck Donald Trump and fuck Don Jr. & Eric Trump too. We can toss in Ivonka for good measure and turn the whole thing into a giant incestuous Trump Production of The Aristocrats for all I care.

Enough is enough.

Let this cracker piece of shit own this birther thing. Let it be the thing that drags his sorry ass down into the bowels of the Rush Limbaugh Level of the It's Not Funny Anymore Hotel.

Donald Trump is clown shoes, and I will never willingly watch another one of his goddamned bullshit laden TV shows for as long as I live.

The Galileo Suite awaits

Paolo Gabriele, the pope's butler, is under Vatican house arrest and has been charged with leaking private files to members of the Italian media.

The fucking butler did it!

The Vatican doesn't have a jail per se, so Gabriele is being held in a "secure room" within the Vatican police department.

He faces up to 30 years if convicted, and would serve that time in an Italian prison per an agreement between the Holy Shit and the Italian Government.

Some of the tidbits that Gabriele is alleged to have leaked include allegations of cronyism within the Holy Walls of the Holiest Father, and double-dealing behind the scenes by Cardinals and Bishops and other very very holy people. Power struggles, and inflated contracts given out to contractor friends of highly placed men of the cloth. There are also allegations of mismanagement of the Vatican Holy Bank and Trust. I know, hard to believe really. They seem so holy.

When the Pope learned of the leaked information, he ordered an immediate investigation by the most pious and devout Vatican detectives, who are easily recognized by their Ray Bans and earbuds.

While Paolo Gabriele sits in his secure room, pondering all of the vile shit he's heard over the years, stories of children being raped by priests, stories of those same priests being protected from the law by powerful people within the Vatican, he's gotta be thinking "I didn't expect this sort of Inquisition."

NOBODY EXPECTS THE INQUISITION!!!

The NATO Summit

Day 1-

Monday 5/14/12

8:30 AM

Protesters converged on the Prudential Building this morning, with a few dozen making it past security and up the escalator towards the campaign office of Barack Obama. They were organized by the Catholic Worker Movement, presumably a sect of the Workers' Movement of Catholicism (splitters!) Their message is "a week without Capitalism" and they passed out Danish in front of the building. The point being,...here have a breakfast roll with us, we're protesting global capitalism.

After a brief statement was made by the tall one who calls himself Reg, the protesters in the lobby filed out in an orderly fashion, however Reg and a few of his friends who had made it up to a 2nd floor balcony were taken away in what they call a squadrol, or in 1960s parlance, a Paddy Wagon.

The sidewalk people cheered Reg and his comrades, and broke into "This Little Light of Mine" accompanied by a guy on a a slightly out of tune Yamaha acoustic guitar, followed by a march east on Randolph where they paused in front of the Randolph Inn where the people from the Daley Center go for drinks after work and observed a moment of silence for Reg and his fellow balcony friends. After that, they proceeded east on Randolph towards the CTA Blue Line, where they discussed plans for the afternoon, and where to get more Danish.

"We welcomed them to NATO," said an unnamed Chicago police lieutenant. "It was a very calm situation, and nobody even raised their voices except for Reg, and that's understandable since he was reading the prepared statement. We weren't forced to pepper spray anybody, and nobody got their fucking head cracked open with this riot baton because they didn't give us any lip."

Coyote Road House

"Fucking nurses?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because they wanted to exercise their Constitutional rights."

"No, I mean why not."

"Why not what?"

"Why did they pull the nurses' permit?"

"Because Rahm Emanuel wants to flex his muscles early."

"What difference does it make, which route they take?"

"Look, they were going to march from the Sheraton, on Illinois just north of The River, and wind up at the Daley Center."

"That's where they have that Picasso thing right?"

"That's right Elwood...."

"No it was Jake. He'd just gotten out of Joliet."

"Fuck you. That's right Jake, it's where they have that Picasso. They were going top march from the Sheraton, ya know, where Bill Clinton fucked all those chicks in '96... while the Convention was going on over at The Stadium."

"You mean the United Center."

"Fuck you. It's The Stadium. I won't help those pricks advertise their airline."

"What does this have to do with nurses?"

"National Nurses United was going to march on Friday..."

"This Friday?"

"...no Mr. Tangential McSidebar. Next Friday. I try to think in advance a little bit, especially about shit like this NATO clusterfuck. Ask anybody, I've been badmouthing this thing for months. Anyway, the nurses were going to march from the Sheraton, up there just north of The River, down into the heart of The Loop, and their march was going to end at the Daley Center...where they have the fuckin' Picasso. They had permission from Transportation."

"What happened?"

"City pulled the permit today. Told the nurses that they couldn't wind up at the Daley Center, which is funny , because it's named after the guy who told the cops, his cops, to beat the fuck out of protesters back in '68...or is that ironic?"

"Why?"

"Tom Morello."

"Who?"

"Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine. He was added as a speaker, and they city thinks the crowd might be too big now for the front yard of the Daley Center...over at Randolph and State,  which is funny because Daley's political organization.... that's Daley The Boss, not Daley The Retarded Son....Daley The Boss had a political organization here that many have referred to over the years as "The Machine" so it's, ya know funny, or, ironic, because they're worried about a guy Raging Against The Machine."

"They pulled the permit?"

"Well, kinda. They told National Nurses United that they can't take that route. Now they have to march from the Sheraton, only as far west as Michigan Ave. and then they have them going south and ending up near the Petrillo Band Shell, which is in Grant Park."

"Grant Park?"

"Yeah, which is funny because that's where Daley and the 'Nam protesters had a little skirmish near Spearman and Bowman in '68, or is that, you know..."

"Ironic?"


"Right. And it's also right near where Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech back in November of '08. I remember that night very clearly. It was gorgeous out. It was like,..65 degrees instead of the normal 30. Yeah. people were happy in Grant Park that night. Now these nurses, and the ACLU, are suing the city over the fucking thing because they don't want to be bumped over to the lakefront near the opening scene for Married With Children."

"Buckingham Fountain. Love and Marriage."

"Right. And that's just Friday. That's just the National Nurses United. Just wait until the real NATO shit starts up on Saturday and Sunday. They'll be thanking God that Obama pulled the G8 shit over to Camp David.""Are you going?"

"No. I'm leaving the city. Actually I've had reservations at a fabulous campground up in Manitowoc County since last fall, but it sounds more dramatic when I say "I'm leaving the city" as if I'm getting out before the hunter gatherers take control. I'm glad I'm not going to be here though. Fuck this noise."

"I wonder why they made them move the gathering place to Grant Park, seriously. Do you really think it's because of the potential crowd?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it's because it's right across the street from Rahm's office and he wants to make this his opening "Fuck you, I run this place" gesture. Either way, I'm planning on having nice quiet weekend camping in the woods of Wisconsin, and maybe I'll make it up to Bailey's Harbor. A buddy of mine tells me I need to check out the steak sandwich at the Coyote Road House."

Epic Hail

The hail storm that hit Chicago came in two waves, the first of which lasted a minute and a half. The second one lasted more like 8 minutes, which may not seem like a long time but felt like a half an hour. I posted this shit on my YouTube page and within a day the 2 vids got over 500 views. WeatherNation.Net contacted me and asked for permission to broadcast them in "various cities around the country" to which I naturally said "Sure, for $5000." They declined, so I relented and surrendered my copyrights to all content.