Down the Rabbithole

An essay about Grace, Style and Wit; qualities I may not possess, but recognize in others…

So I’m killing time watching Hot Ones which is available on YouTube and wildly entertaining and if you haven’t heard of it, here’s the deal: celebrity guests are asked to eat their way through some “spicy” chicken wings while being interviewed and I put quote marks around “spicy” because apparently those wings are so hot you could suffer radiation burns from standing too close to one and just like a solar eclipse they shouldn’t be looked at directly without wearing protective eyewear.

Bottom line: you get to see celebrities eat incredibly hot chicken wings and watch their spontaneous reactions which, if we’re totally honest, is kind of sadistic.

Which apparently we’re OK with because it’s celebrities being tortured and we know their lives are better than ours, so if they’re going to live in nicer houses and drive cooler cars and date hotter men and/or women (and depending on the celebrity, possibly both on the same night) we don’t mind watching them eat a chicken wing so hot it melts the part of their brain that should have told them not to come on this show.

A brilliant concept and after I watched a few episodes I realized it was even brillianter than I first thought.

Because the celebrities tend to forget whatever bullshit movie or TV shows they were there to promote and drop whatever phony personality they wanted to project, because when your tongue feels like it just touched the surface of the sun, you’re going to have real, honest reactions to pain.

Let’s face it; the Spanish Inquisition was on to something and if it was happening today I’m pretty sure they’d have their own reality show.

It’s also interesting how different people react to the same pain and some people’s eyeballs sweat and some people’s legs go numb and other people start speaking in Ancient Aramaic while simultaneously performing the Peppermint Twist.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

So then I watched the Hot Ones episode featuring Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele and here it is:

Key & Peele had a sketch comedy show on Comedy Central and one of the recurring sketches was Obama’s Anger Translator. The premise being that under Barack Obama’s cool, controlled oratorical style was an angry Black man and Luther — Obama’s Anger Translator — would explain what Obama really wanted to say, but was too uptight to say out loud.

And here that is:

So now I’m pretty far down the internet rabbithole and YouTube is offering me similar videos because the internet’s strategy is to keep showing us more of what we already looked at so we just keep staring at our computers, which means it’s probably a Communist plot to ruin American productivity.

Speaking of which…

Google “what has happened to U.S. productivity since the creation of the internet” and you’ll be directed to some articles that – depending on the case they want to make – say our productivity is way up and some articles that say our productivity is way down, so apparently it’s one of those glass-half-full deals and my favorite Let’s Spin This Shit The Direction We Want It To Go quote was:

“According to a recent Pew study, 46 percent of working adults feel their productivity has increased due to the internet.”

Which is exactly what you would say if you just wasted an hour-and-a- half watching Hot Ones episodes at work and, by the way, it sounds like 54 percent of working adults said the opposite, but they got ignored because they didn’t make the case somebody (and my money’s still on the Communists) wanted to make.

Plus asking someone how they “feel” about an issue isn’t very scientific because I “feel” like I should have won this year’s Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor even though I’ve never been in a movie. (I blame the Communists for that, too.)

Anyway…

One of the videos the Communist Infiltrators at YouTube offered me was President Obama using Luther, his Anger Translator at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and here’s that video:

Some of the people in the audience thought the Anger Translator bit was hilarious and others didn’t seem to get the joke and appeared mystified by an angry Black man shouting at them and while I watched it I thought, “How often is the President of the United States the Hippest Guy in the Room?”

Which leads us at long last to the point I want to make.

Forget Politics For A Minute And Think About Personalities

Think about that last video and what you just saw:

A president who watched somebody make fun of him on TV and thought it was funny and then invited the same guy to make fun of him again in front of a crowd of reporters and then went even further and/or farther (depending on how far that grammar stick has been shoved up your butt) and played straight man so that funny guy could get laughs at his expense.

Forget Obama’s politics and things he did and didn’t do (I’ve got my own list of complaints) and just for a minute think about personalities:

What kind of man (and/or woman) do we want in the White House?

Stop thinking about taxes and foreign policy and the Designated Hitter being used in the National League and think about personal qualities like grace, style and wit. (Not that I know all that much about those things, but I hear good things about them).

And Now Think About Donald Trump

At least theoretically you want your kids to be smarter than you because that’s good for Humankind’s Progress, although when one of your kids demonstrates his superior thought process don’t be surprised if it really pisses you off and makes you respond with ridiculous comebacks like:

“Oh, yeah? When you change my diapers for three years straight come back and we’ll talk about Israel and the Palestinian issue again.”

Anyway…

Within the hearing of one of my Smarter-Than-Me Sons I called Donald Trump the Worst President in History, but my son corrected me and said Trump wasn’t the Worst President in History; as my son pointed out, Trump never started a war and got a bunch of people killed. (Not because Trump was worried about getting a bunch of people killed, but probably because he didn’t want to lose a war because then he’d be a Big Fat Loser.)

My son went on to say Donald Trump wasn’t the Worst President in History; Donald Trump was actually the Worst Human Being To Ever Be President.

And if he’s not, he’s close.

Look at his track record and Trump is – in no particular order – a liar, a bully, a braggart, a cheater, a sexist, a racist, an abuser of women and is willing to see democracy set on fire and thrown in the nearest dumpster if it means not having to admit he got his ass whipped by Joe Biden in an election.

And frankly, Joe isn’t all that impressive.

After watching Obama’s performance at the Correspondents’ Dinner it made me think how Donald Trump is totally incapable of putting his crippling insecurities to one side long enough to laugh at himself or give someone else the spotlight and if you had to write a description of Donald Trump, the words “grace” or “style” or “wit” would not be required.

And he looks like shit in a tuxedo.

That’s what my last trip down the rabbithole made me think and wish me luck because I’m going again today; I have a lot more Hot Ones episodes to watch.