I’m So Fucking Tired Of Donald Trump

I’m so fucking tired of Donald Trump.

I’m tired of seeing him on my TV all the time. I’m tired of him, living rent free in our brains. I’m tired of seeing his ugly, conceited, swelled-up orange face everywhere. I’m tired of hearing the audio of him shaking down Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for 11,780 votes. I’m tired of seeing new tell-all books coming out about Donald Trump from authors who should have told what they knew back when it would have made a difference. I’m tired of a Republican Party that could, any day they wanted to, excise themselves of this cancer just by having 20 to 50 of their members start getting in front of a camera and telling the truth. I’m tired of it. I’m sick to death of it. Just tell me when he’s been arrested. Otherwise, Joy Reid, otherwise, Chris Hayes, otherwise, Nicolle Wallace, talk to the hand. I’m done with your speculation and your Claire McCaskill and former part-of-the-problem Michael Steele and your giving Donald Trump more oxygen than he deserves. Done with it. Call me when he’s in jail. Otherwise, fuck all ya’ll.

Seriously. Knock it off.

I remember in 2015, when I was working one of the shittiest jobs I’ve ever worked, but at least I got 45 minutes for lunch, so I would get in my car and drive it to a remote part of the parking lot and eat a sandwich and listen to Chris Matthews on MSNBC on Sirius/XM. And he would cover Trump rallies gavel to gavel, and this was held over from the previous hour. They didn’t cover shit about what President Obama was doing, nor did they cover the other candidates like that. Nope. Just Trump. Trump Trump Trump Trump. And now, they’re doing it again.

Well, shove it up your ass, MSNBC.

And let’s get back to a point I glossed over earlier: The “Republican Party” could excise this zit off of its bum any time they want to. Any time. It would take maybe a dozen of them to just get in front of the camera and talk some sense. Like, Joe Biden won the election and is the real preznit. Like, maybe an outgoing preznit shouldn’t lead an insurrection. Maybe that’s bad. Like, maybe theories about my political opponents lusting for the blood of children is something we should discourage. Maybe. Just maybe.

Even just a scintilla of truth from a dozen of these assholes could send Donald Trump into the trash heap of obsolescence that he deserves. But they won’t do it because they are chicken-shit pussies. Or, they’re not and they’re just Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a golem made of corn chips. Regardless.

I often find myself thinking, with as much hope as I can muster, with as much hope I sometimes have that a banana split will magically appear before me with a spoon, I find myself thinking, well, he has to die sometime. He’s 77, he’s fat, and he’s stupid enough to flush himself down a toilet. He has. To die. Sometime.

But I think it’s too late. Trump is the center of Trumpism, but he’s not the spring from which it flows. Trump would die and become a weird martyr rumored to have special superpowers like Jesus. Did you know Trump can turn a single quarter pounder into hundreds of double cheeseburgers just by farting through his bellybutton? Did you know that Trump could declassify classified documents just by thinking about it? Did you know that Trump was secretly The Buraq and while Muhammed rode his steely back to Mecca, Trump told him lots of funny jokes about Mexicans?

This country is fucked, people. Get out and vote for Biden/Harris in 2024. Meanwhile, put on an Erroll Garner album and chill. Let Joy Reid talk to herself for a bit.

Sinéad O’Connor

Saw her in concert once. It was fabulous. Opening act was The Pursuit of Happiness. She seemed to see a lot of stuff before any of us knew it was coming. She warned us about the systemic cover up of child abuse in the church a decade before it broke for the rest of us. She wrote “Black Boys on Mopeds” in the early ’90s for FS, and we’ve been seeing that scenario play out via phone cameras now in recent years. What a genuine artist who only cared for the art and the truth. Four vocal ranges and the truth. That was Sinéad O’Connor.

I don’t think I’ve had an artist’s death stab as much as this since 2016. For gravity’s sake give me a second. I also hate that she was only 56. And that she never got a well-deserved apology from us (because she was absolutely right) and that she never got a comeback or an appreciation tour. She deserved better.

I am stretched on your grave, lady. I’ll be playing your stuff more and more now.

The SAG-AFTRA Strike and Barbecue Sauce

Fans of the Apple TV behemoth “Ted Lasso” show don’t just watch the show, and we don’t just watch the show once. We’ll binge watch all three seasons countless times, looking for puzzles, looking for clues, I mean, why does Isaac count to 12 and skip 8, and why so many “Cheers” references snuck in? What is the significance of the number 1,236?

(I have my own personal theory on that last one and will share it at the end of this post just for fun, Tod Rundgren.)

I mean, “Ted Lasso” watchers are maniacs, myself included. And, with good reason. Television shows this good do not litter our cultural landscape. They are occasions. The writing is excellent. (Rebecca: Oh, do you believe in ghosts, Ted? Ted: I do. But more importantly, I believe they need to believe in themselves.) or (Beard: We have a saying in Codependents Anonymous. The room: What? Beard: Oh, Jane makes me go with her.) The characters, each of them, well developed and greatly acted, from Ted himself to Paul, Basil and Jeremy.

What’s astonishing is the origins of this project. SNL alum Jason Sudeikis started it as a jokey way to promote NBC Sports’ coverage of England’s Premier League.

I mean, he and his writers could have left it there, but they didn’t. They somehow saw more in the concept. They developed it. They altered its tone (Sudeikis has said that part of this was indeed a reaction to his witnessing our increasingly hostile political climate). By 2020, “Ted Lasso” was fully realized and running on Apple TV. From that silly promo to a beloved, scrutinized television program. It’s quite a feat.

Some of those responsible: Writer and producer Bill Lawrence, previously creator of “Scrubs” and co-creator of “Cougar Town,” and “Spin City.” Jason Sudeikis, SNL writer and eventual cast member from 2003 to 2013, subsequently a film actor and eventually writer and producer on “Ted Lasso.” Brendan “Coach Beard” Hunt, theater student and Second City and Boom Chicago alum, film actor, and creator of his own one-man show, performed in Edinburgh, Aspen, Chicago, and New York. And, SNL writing staff alum Joe Kelly, also a writer and story editor on “How I Met Your Mother.”

I summarize the “Ted Lasso” creators’ credits because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the SAG-AFTRA strike.

For various reasons, summertime is my least favorite time of the year. It’s hot. The sun is entirely too bright. The air conditioning in my apartment is useless, and the cat won’t let me put it on most of the time anyway. And, there’s nothing on television to watch. I usually spend July and August sweating a lot and waiting for football to start.

The strike didn’t help. SNL wrapped sooner than it would have, and I’ve been driven to the milquetoast legal drama “Suits,” the show what gave us. Meghan Markle. But, then again, the future the studio bosses are presenting sure does seem bleak. I mean, doesn’t quality suffer without a full writers’ room for the entire life of a show? Where does the next “Ted Lasso” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” come from if talented writers don’t get the experience of working on a show from start to finish, and if they’re getting paid peanuts? Not to mention if you can just spit a premise into a computer and have it barf out a script?

I note this morning that the Teamsters and UPS have come to an agreement. That is excellent; that strike really would have mucked up this incredible Biden economy. But I would have supported them, and I certainly support our writer and actor compadres. Am hoping these events portend a great wave for labor in this country.

Now, regarding 1,236. This is a number mentioned twice in season 2, episode 1, “Goodbye Earl.” It is mentioned once as the ongoing tally for Pheobe’s swear-penalties for her Uncle Roy. Keeley asks how much she’s accrued, and Pheobe says, “1,236 pounds,” to which Keeley replies, “impressive.” The second instance is in Ted’s office, where these screwballs are playing a game where they pass a crumpled up piece of paper. On her way out, Dr. Sharon Fieldstone asks what their record is. The reply is 1,236, to which the good doctor replies, “impressive.”

Ted Lasso fans are a little nuts, and all over the internet, we’ve been speculating over this number’s significance. Some say it’s a prime number, or something in numerology, blah, blah, blah. But I think I have the real poop on this one.

In 1972, running back Steve Jones, who would be that year’s Player of the Year in the ACC, became the first in Duke’s history to best a thousand yards in a season. His record: 1,236 yards.

Impressive. In fact, this record stood until it was beaten by Mataeo Durant in 2021. That, in my humble estimation, is the significance of this number in “Ted Lasso.”