Month: November 2019

Another Thanksgiving passed.

Time.

Thanksgiving has never really been anything more than a marker for me, a telling of the season and a day off, but I appreciate the sentiment. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Mom had an always welcome Thanksgiving spot with Aunt Lib and the godsend that is our family, my Sis and the boys had their place with her guy Buck and his daughter, and with a Raspberry in tow I’m sure, the sweetest of Golden’s you’ll ever come to pet, my brother worked another holiday, as he always does, hardest working guy I’ve ever known, never turning down that extra day, his solo similar to mine, just with a way more fruitful paycheck, while I begged out of the get together just a step step step down the stairs with Celie and her gang. No one needed to hang with my sweatspanted, unshowered ass at a nicely set dining room table anyway, believe me.

Though it was a great meal missed, Celie is pretty damn good at that cooking thing, I have no qualms opting for quiet instead, whenever I can these days, even at the cost of a good meal or, well, for any reason really, some of which I just invent anticipating this quiet, me and Bella and the Unintentionals. Celie and said gang understand me at this point I think, two years in now, which is something not all of us have and is the nicest of feelings. But I do do a part around here which helps the understanding and adds to that nicest of feelings.

I was also able to justify the not my family together Thanksgiving with the thought of the get together eventually at Christmas. That one I’m definitely looking forward to.

I sat and wrote, mostly words just for myself, while I did the aforementioned quiet sitting. I wrote open ended things that I promised myself I’d return to, some of which are shit, well, most of which are shit actually but still with a few nuggets of promise and I edited past things after realizing with a fresh look that they needed to be edited (“Jesus dude, how did you miss that” or “what the hell were you thinkin’?”) even if they are so far down the scroll of my blog posts that no one will ever notice. I fed cats (always the Friskies turkey and cheese at this time of year) and I kicked back with the comfort of the fooded scents and happy warm noise, drifting their way up from below my feet, of family … along with the sounds of the extended one of dogs and cats … and a bird.

I am the luckiest of guys in this regard and it’s the perfect happy medium. A wonderful family within arm’s reach, a looked forward to hello and genuine conversation in the mornings and the evenings with a good friend, a boatload of welcoming fur but all with a retreat, just up the steps, that is mine, mine alone. Does that sound maybe a bit selfish? Sure. Do I care? Not really.

There’s a lot of stuff I could complain about though it would be too easy and it would diminish what I have to do so. No. I’m a lucky guy. Period.

(by the way, I can edit that “period” right? … ya know, just in case. In the future?)

Cheers all, as always.

If you’re still here, living and breathing, disagreeing and hugging, agreeing and fighting, calling your mom or your dad or your sister or your brother, thanking a friend for being just that, loving your better half and your kid (s), standing on soapboxes shouting at the world or hoping that someone else soapboxes for you while you cheer loudly then you’re doing just exactly what you need to be doing today.

Be thankful for that, as the alternative is, well … It’s pretty simple shit.

And feed the cats.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

 

Though I may be something of an intentional curmudgeon these days (a nicer way to say to self that I can be something of an intentional dick) there is always at least one thing that reminds us of just what we’re in this for.

Connections.

And not of the family type which are, at least I hope for you, a happy given or of the networking type which are usually nothing more than disingenuous ass kissings and glad jobs. No, it’s about connections, those that you make throughout your life that mean something more.

 

So last night, while searching for something completely unrelated in my mess of really haphazard and unorganized folders (if only my shit at home were as in shape as that at work) I came across this from 13 years ago, something that I had forgotten about.

It was at the time that a good friend of mine Chris Reno Pellegrino and I were doing a morning show and right around when “Intelligent Design” hit the news cycle in the way of court stories I think. I thought at the time, well, Dire Straits and “Industrial Disease” seems to fit the bill.

This has it’s warts, believe me, as my production skills were severely limited back then and it took me quite a few takes but, still, revisiting it has brought me a fond remembrance of those times and a smile. Who’s to argue with something that can do that these days?

Well, I transcribed the lyrics (in case of a revisit) and added a couple of images to build a video so I could post it. It is my favorite Dire Straits tune and real toe tapper by the way (seriously, it really is…tapping a toe or two right now as a matter of fact). I also think this still has it’s moments 13 years later.

Lyrics included so you can toe tap along with the imagined bouncing ball…

//////////////////////////

There’s warning lights a flashin’ for Darwinian reprieve
Somebody got a Bible got some Kansans up their sleeve
Their story’s in the paper there’s anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls they came down

Theres a meetin’ in the courtroom they’re talkin’ origin
There’s teachers in the same room gotta get a win
Somebody brought that Bible and in the lord they signed
Goodness me could this be intelligent design

The President feels justified in talkin’ to the folks
Refusin’ to be quieted and sayin’ it’s no joke
Adam was Republican and Eve he said was mine
Part of god’s plan in our intelligent design

Now there’s panic in the hallways the Constitution’s nuts
Jesus was intended to show just what is what
But problems do persist in this nation that is mine
Of calling creationism intelligent design

Evangelists are down knew exactly who they bought
A President who’s blinded by his double talk
Of keeping Constitution in it’s rightful place
Of having judges judge by just what’s on it’s face
On Administration Fox TV they pray for a new court
That will take the opinion right on anything of the sort
Of religious nuts who insist theres a point to Jesus signs
And idealogues who invent words that mean … intelligent … design?

Now Doctor Darwin he declared
I’m not surprised to see you here you’re revisiting the scopes
No monkeys be taught here?
I don’t know how you came to teach the Bible as your prime
But worst of all my zealot you’ve got intelligent design

He wrote them a prescription that said here’s Church and State
I’d like for you to realize this and take that off your plate
Come back here when you see that’s it’s not the place or time
To be forcing us to teach your intelligent design

Now I go down to Dover PA where they’re in the muck
Of too many board members that wanted kids be stuck
And some of them said we’re brainwashed
Just mad it’s not by them
But theres some protest realists they’re singin’ a protest song
They say the zealots want a school that keeps the ministries
They wanna have a school that keeps kids on their knees
They wanna have a school that stops the dreaded Darwinese
They wanna have a school that says my god is right you’ll see
They’re pointin out the enemy to keep ya mute and blind
Those Darwinists are evil, and all those of their kind
They speak of evolution and a real rich family tree
But they miss all of the pandas … well can’t ya see it’s me?

Meanwhile Jesus says I think I know just what is due
All you nutjobs in my name you need to get a clue
The new name you made up to lend some viability
Intelligent design?

Aww, Christ, you’re killin’ me

(this place didn’t have a name, but it does now, at least for me)

They’re all special of course. All of our fur that mean so much to us, that provide us so much comfort. Fur that remind us of our human and give us reason to come home. There are obviously people reasons as well (though don’t flatter yourselves, the recommendations you may come with are often vastly inflated) but sometimes there is fur that just transcends.

Sweets came about this place motherless along with Toons, tiny little fox pups that Celie took in as she always does with any that need a place to be saved from the not to be saved.

Sweets? The name? I thought of Sweet, a favorite 70’s band and their biggest of hits that I played endlessly on 45 to my mom’s sure headache back then, the obvious “Fox On The Run”, obvious to me at least, though I guess I’m dating myself there. Celie added the “S”. Perfect.

Toons? He had something of an oversized cartoon looking noggin when he was small and he had/has issues that were best left to cartoon. There was also another added “S”, Toon to Toons. His issues led him to his spot with an occasional parade of puppy pals up the hill. He couldn’t be allowed to fend for himself but still, he found a place to lord.

Sweets though, could fend for herself … until she couldn’t.

She could grab this hill and own it. And she did.

There was a magic with Sweets, a happy innocence, an almost romantic thing (for those that may allow) that gave you insight to what could be just minus the conversation, a watching her from my kitchen window as she waited, on so many mornings, sitting in the sun around the backyard pool, or hangin’ with her cow buds, for the release of her friends out the back kitchen door from the confines of a night’s sleep for a bit of play.  A waiting then skittery screaching laughter as she ran with the gang. That magic, innocent, romantic thing. A Sweets never been seen before run the hill kind of thing.

After Celie’s bottle feeding of her and her adopted brother she eventually came to be part of the house, Toons as well, though his was more a small corner.

But Sweets ran around her corner and through the gamut of cats and dogs in the house, underneath a Bella the Bird, a speedy, check check arm’s length run around the kitchen on a daily basis into the living room and then into the sun room until she discovered the sun room’s cat door.

There was a come and go for a little bit and then there was a hill.

Her hill.

I never knew where she was on this hill, except on those mornings. I just know that she was Sweets and this was hers. I always imagined her, like my found stray Grayson in his time before I convinced him to come inside, sitting on some high spot surveying her lands, her holdings.

For just the pure romance of the thought maybe they’ll tell stories of you Sweets, those that come about this hill in the future knowing only of legend, only a simple sign “SWEETS HILL” tacked and hanging  askew on a decrepit old house, like some scene out of a cliche’d post Armageddon flick, legends of a pretty, sleek fox who ran with cows and horses and dogs and cats, who skittered and fox giggled with utter abandon around these holdings letting all that came to pass know that it was hers.

Maybe.

A bubble.

A bubble of time where things didn’t change and she was just Sweets, for the longest of stretch, a glorious time it seems now. Sweets who was there waiting on these mornings to run with her friends, while also waiting for a handful of breakfast. An everyday where Celie and I would note her yes or no comings and goings and wonder of her happy and also note with concern if she missed a comings.

A bubble.

You missed a comings Sweets, inside this bubble.

Bubbles burst as I held you in my arms, both of us broken, the first and only time you let me touch you.

Dammit. God dammit.

Sweets, you were a wonder. A magic. An innocent.

Mornings will never be quite the same on your hill.

Well, another season of High School Football games with Spectrum Sports and the coolest of cool crews is in the books, Me and BB done with our runs up Albany way for now. While we all finished up this weekend one more time, our broadcasts included the crowning of a few division champs, including Shenendahowa and Queensbury (and discovered, in the process, why Queensbury is a pretty much run first only football team as the few passes they did attempt were more blimps or alley-oops than anything else).

There was celebrating, there was crying, there was thanking the heavens and there was cursing the fates, but no participant trophies here. It’s a win or lose kinda thing in the real sport’s world, no middle ground. Kids anticipate, then kids celebrate or kids cry all with a hell of a lot drama, violent football sounds, screamed coaching obviousness, screamed fan obviousness and a lot of often riveting and fun football in between.

I have to admit though, that I was feeling a little creaky on the sidelines this weekend, for the first time really, by the end of Saturday night’s game. 10 straight weeks of leaving the regular gig a couple of hours short of a full day, the stress of trying to meet that couple of hours short 3:30p escape time deadline every week on busy radio production Fridays for a 4 hour round trip with 5 hours of a broadcast in between caught up with me, especially with this weekend being a double header. The cold didn’t help either. Sorry, I SHOULD say, the fucking cold didn’t help either. That first real cold of the year always feels a little bit more.

I’ve also, even with said creaky, never really felt my age, but still, the up at 7a on Friday to the walk in the door at 1a on Sunday with 27 hours of work or so sandwiched in, plus the about 5 hours of driving this time around was a bit much. Thank you Sis, by the way, for cutting down the drive time, my Albany savior, for the way station house and basement couch on Friday night after game one replete with a Ma who happened to be there for the weekend (bonus) a couple of cool Nephews and some cats, including newbie kitten Arthur and his Saturday wake up. So the cliche’d joking references I made to my to my crewmates of the old man bend down grunts with heavy breaths, or the even heavier almost comical, looking for something to grab for a stand up’s assist breaths and grunts from those bend downs (I am woefully out of shape) kind of felt about right.

But once I got myself home to fur, my Bella, curious at the bottom of the stairs (she never comes down the stairs) after hearing me not be as stealthy as I thought with the dogs in the mudroom on my way in, old girl Mimi the Quirky and her tappy-tap paw-paw stretch-stretch happy-happy to see me at the top of the stairs and Cricket the Blind’s wailful meow beyond, like a grandmother at the funeral of a child while she methodically paced her circles on the kitchen rug, I was good (seriously, that’s what she sounds like…and I always feel as if I need to buy flowers).

I made some nice dollars over these ten weeks (thank you Greg for always keeping this grip in mind) though it would have been nice had they been netted and not necessary dollars, but BB and I were home…and it was warm. Old creaky loves warm.

Some thoughts then on another season’s travels:

• Always trust your gut #1. For instance. If you arrive at a rest stop on the NY State Thruway that has advertised “Deli” a few times along the way on big green signs with maybe even a tempting pictured fork, know that it is not actually a deli, at least not your accustomed local neighborhood type, the one you frequent on an almost daily basis on your way to work. Know that it is instead just a convenience store with a few sleeves of meat behind glass to give you the impression of “Deli”. Though you may be temporarily comforted, as you look up at the menu, by a similar sandwich price to that of that local neighborhood deli, around 7 dollars, know that you will be hoodwinked into paying about 2 bucks per slice of turkey and another buck for a slice of Swiss. Make sure you at least order it with mayo and salt & pepper for a bit of flavor and a maybe really thin slice of tomato just to say you had the add.
• When you’re GPS’ing and don’t have one of those snappy cell phone suction windshield or dash thingy’s for your phone that never work as advertised and always fall off and instead just place your phone on top of a pair of old sweats on your oversized man bag in the passenger seat know that you will constantly look to your right, to the reflection of it in your passenger side window, thinking you are passing a drive-in movie theater mid-flic.
• When your best of friends calls you earlier in the week to give you the thumb’s up update on the puppy that his parent’s have adopted from your landlady’s animal shelter and you ask if they have named her yet know that he will lament that his dad seems fixated on the unfortunate name the puppy had been given purely for application purposes. “Cherry”

Best of friends (JJ): I don’t know what to do. He won’t let go of calling her Cherry. It sounds like a stripper.

Me: Did you tell him that?

Best of friends: Yes! He said, “Well how about Cherry Lynne then?”

Me: Great, now she’s gone from stripper to porn star.

Know you will spend an inordinate amount of time on your ride north trying to come up with alternative names for a simple puppy stripper who has now graduated to the AVN Awards.

• Take pause after set-up and pre-game even post-game. There’s always a picture worth grabbing that reminds you of the more.

• Always trust your gut #2: When you can’t find a McDonald’s on your way out to use the “I took the survey” receipt freebie and just opt to hit the highway as soon as possible know that your first rest stop is a Roy Rogers. Also know that at this time of night, around 11p, and because it’s a truck stop Roy Rogers that they will have nothing but a shitload of sandwich’s, cooked hours earlier, sitting in heat lamped stainless steel troughs. Trust your gut and don’t buy one for WAY too much money otherwise you’ll be belching it all the way through the next day. Lessons learned.
• You may worry about the fact that you don’t really have any footwear ready for the cold, other than that pair of boots that you’re not quite sure are insulated. Shit, you bought them from the back of store bargain wall at Modell’s and they seemed like a damn good deal at the time. Actually being insulated? Well, you didn’t really think of that amid your high fiving yourself at such a great found bargain. Plus they had a nice clunky tread for the not falling down.

Me: Hey Bob, what size feet do you have and no, it’s not a weird I think about it in the shower kinda thing.

Bob: Ummmm…

Have Bob lend you a pair of boots he doesn’t wear to ease your mind knowing of the cold that awaits. Plus, when they turn out to be LL Bean? Damn! That’s some fancy! Put’s my no-name Modell’s not sure if they’re insulated but have a cool looking clunky tread bargain wall boots to shame. Also, don’t mention the shower thing again…ever.

• Agree to show up for an early crew call on game #2 knowing you’ll get an extra couple of bucks out of it but do so hoping that you might get lunch as well before the pre-game dinner which tonight wasn’t just pizza and some dusted off Royal Crown two liters. My man Greg splurged for Chicken Parm. Sorry Happy. Sorry Rocco.
• Have the “Frankenberry-Cam” be featured one final time during the game with you mugging for the pure wondrous silliness of it, even have play by play guy mention such while he looked like a prophet planet in his bright Mars orange jacket.

• Have Greg save, on his own, what’s left of the “not pizza” dinner just for you. Thank the cold for preserving future single guy meals as well as any fridge could then thank Greg for the thought.
• Take a picture of sideliner talent Marissa taking a picture of you taking a picture.

• Drive your last stretch of highway from the Kingston exit “Hey BB? Poughkeepsie’s next dude!” before you’re done with the same guy who’s been behind you for about 60 miles. Call him friend.

Also remember that you love this. Though it’s frustrating that you need to do it, and you’d SO wish that it was just ’cause you want to, so wish that your main gig’s one important job requirement wasn’t having a second job, know that you would do this any day of the week just for the camaraderie of it and the notion of a day well done even if that day(s) come with an old man creak … and maybe some not pizza chicken parm.

Cheers all,

Sign above the door: Home Of The He-Tin-Pot-Man Freedom Haters Club

ALARMS SOUNDING – (recorded voice of Jon Voight) INTRUDER ALERT!!! INTRUDER ALERT!!! HIGH PRIORITY INTRUDER ALERT AS A MATTER OF FACT!!! INTRUDER OF COLOR ALERT!!! INTRUDER ALERT…

Ben: (stops short, laser sight points hovering his chest/aimed weaponized contraptions popping out from every corner of the Treehouse with overdone mechanical clicking sounds, the distant din of jackboots and dog barks closing in) Whoa!! (drops tray of donuts and quarter pounder’s with cheese) What the fuck?!!

(Matt Gaetz & Brad Parscale in muscled garrish gold Oz-like guard uniforms, Cossack hats, orange not green faces and tall Pikes topped with an upside down gruesomely serrated “T” rush Ben in the entrance of the Treehouse with blood and frothing spittle dripping from the corners of their square lifeless faces)

Guard #1 in the credits (Matt): (dramatically wiping frothing spittle on his sleeve, finishing with a flourish and menacingly pointing his tall T-Pike) What the fuck, yeah now motherfucker!!

Guard #2 in the credits (Brad): (copying guard #1’s dramatic frothing spittle wipe but with an extra flourish) … yeah, right … what he said! … what the fuck, yeah now motherfucker!

Matt: Yeah! Who the hell are you and why ar… hey, did you just copy my dramatic frothing spittle wipe?

Brad: What? … No.

Matt:  Yes you did.

Brad: No I didn’t.

Matt: Yes you DID … I saw you … you did this (recreates frothing spittle wipe with flourish) but you added more flourish.

Brad: You like that? Pretty flourishy huh?

Matt: Hah! So you admit it? You did copy me!

Brad: What … umm … no … and that added flourish is all mine by the way.

Matt: I’m calling bullshit Brad, the frothing spittle wipe is my signature move along with my “back of Congressional chamber attempted intimidating though really just comical stare” and you just outright stole it.

Brad: Screw you Matt! You can’t lay claim to a frothing spittle wipe, or an attempted intimidating though really just comical stare for that matter, that’s the same one we all learned in “Glowering 101” at Trump U. Plus we all have frothing spittle these days, it’s a freakin’ frothing spittle fest out there for fuck’s sake and it has to be wiped somewhere, even on fine gold clothed sleeves … but that added flourish ?… that’s MY move. All ME.

Matt: Oh, fuck off Brad … you and that Southern Poverty Law Center most wanted look of yours…

Ben: Hey guys?

Brad: … listen to you pretty boy, Supreme Leader’s pet an…

Ben: Hey guys?!

Matt & Brad: What?!!!

Ben: (petting the dogs) they look like they haven’t eaten … they really scarfed up these donuts and burgers.

Matt: Jesus Christ, he’s petting the dogs Brad! He’s petting the fucking ATTACK dogs Brad!!

Brad: What?! Why you lookin’ at me?

Matt: Duh … the dogs were YOUR gig Brad.

Brad: Since when?

Matt: Oh, you know what? … whatever … never mind (sigh) So much for the color training …

Ben: Hey, sorry to interrupt, but ya think you guys could just point all this gimmicky surely really taxpayer expensive hardware stuff somewhere else? I’ve only got one pair of pants and I don’t want to pee them.

Matt: Wait … rewind … hold on … just give me a sec … let’s regroup … ok … alarms … jump up from an episode of The Office in the security office … it’s gonna suck when it leaves Netflix … drop my beer … think about getting in the car … grab and run instead with a nasty pointy serrated “T” topped pike … but not in traffic …

Brad: … good point … lessons ma …

Matt: … scissors ok … cossack hat … come across some guy in the Treehouse entrance who OBVIOUSLY shouldn’t be here … Ok … got it! (wiping frothing spittle on sleeve anew with a dramatic flourish) … yeah, right … what the fuck, motherfucker indeed!! Who the hell are you?!

Brad: (wiping frothing spittle on sleeve but with a bit more flourish) … yeah, what he said!

Matt: Just stop it already.

Brad: What?

Ben: I’m Ben Carson. Secretary of HUD …

Brad: Is that like hide just spelled wrong?

Matt: Ignore him. Hey, are you black?

Ben: Well, yes I am.

Matt: Weird. But who ARE you?

Ben: Again, Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD and a sort of Alfred to Supreme Leader’s Batman, a Benfred if you will.

Brad: He does see himself as something of a superhero.

Ben: I know right? He obsesses…

Brad: … kinda like the baby General thing he has going on right now …

Ben: … tell me …

Matt: Shut up you two, please … Oh wait, you’re that guy that with the dining set. The really expensive dining set …

Ben: Yeah, but, well, that was more my wife than anyth …

Matt: … the guy that helps out around the Treehouse here?

Ben: Yeah, that’s me

Matt: Gets his cofeve?

Ben: Yes.

Matt: Grabs his slippers at night?

Ben: Yes.

Matt: Changes the channel from Sesame Street to Fox News back to Sesame Street and then to Fox and Friends which is the Sesame Street of morning news?

Ben: (sigh) Yes.

Matt: Lays out his blue suit and red tie every day?

Ben: Yes.

Matt: Reads him bedtime stories from those thick paged children’s boo…

Ben: Yes! I get it … that’s me ok?!

Brad: Is that dining set as nice as we’ve heard?

Ben: Oh, better. And the table has some hidden drawers …

Brad: … ya mean like secret compartments …

Ben: … yeah, state dinner party, a selected guest that’s been given the head’s up, reaches under … very espionagey…

Brad: … is it as nice as Zinke’s doors…

Ben: … well that guy … poor animals … though they were really nice doors  … he was a piece of work though, let me tell yo…

Matt: Okay! Enough! Grab coffee and geek later. So what exactly were you doing here Ben?

Ben: I prefer Benfred. I was just bringing the President some lunch…

Matt: … donuts and quarter pounder’s? Really?

Ben: Well, I just serve at the pleasu…

Brad: It does sound like him.

Matt: Okay, I’ll grant ya that

Ben: … and I don’t assume as to which order he eats ’em, I just wanted to bring him lunch and check in on him (petting the dogs licking at his hands).

Matt: We definitely gotta talk about these dogs Brad.

Brad: (incredulous) What?

Ben: What’s with all the extra security by the way? And was that Jon Voight I heard in the alarms?

Matt: Love that guy.

Ben: Me too.

Matt: Leader needs to feel secure and he loves his rare Hollywood endorsement.

Ben: Well, though dated, I mean how old is Ricky Shroeder now, nice choice.

(the sound of whistling)

Matt: Do you hear that?

Ben: Is that whistling?

Brad: I like to whistle.

Matt & Ben: Shut up Brad!!

(Moving away from the Treehouse entrance and down a hall while Brad tries to whistle)

Ben: Sir?

(still the whistling)

Matt: Leader?

(more whistling)

Brad: (still trying to whistle)

Donnie: (In a grand gaudy space modeled after the Doral’s main room) Oh, Hi guys. watcha doin’?

(relief)

Donnie: You got my lunch Benfred? I’m famished.

Ben: Well … as to tha t… dog s… long story … I’ll order in … What are you doing sir?

Donnie: Just trying to spruce things up a bit.

Ben: You, or those brown guys with their heads down?

Donnie: Hey, they got their papers! … (to the side) … you guys got your papers right?

Ben: Relax, all good sir. Not asking.

Donnie: They took away my G7 summit at Doral, fucking Dems, so I thought I’d fix things up a bit here at the Treehouse. Ya never know. Accommodations are pretty nice. I’m sure Xi would like the hammocks.

Ben: Well, it was actually your loyalists who objected, thought it didn’t play well, ya know, the Constitution an all.

Donnie: I’m Trump, how does it NOT play? I AM the Constitution, at least the parts I like. You know that clause they keep talking about is phony right? Shit, I sold the White House lawn maintenance to the nicest of Russian backed Mexicans who work for me. Anyone talking about that?

Ben: Probably best they don’t.

Donnie: Phony as shit.

Ben: Well, technically, it’s actually written in there … it can’t really be phony.

Donnie: And that means what Benfred? They were just jealous of me when they wrote it up … didn’t consult me at all … but they should have … they …

Ben: … but that was 200+ years ag…

Donnie: … knew the genius I is and were just envious. Probably intimidated. Phony. That’s also why they didn’t ask for me to sign it, right next to that Hancock guy and some of those others with famous names that are probably on buildings, I refused. I wasn’t going to put my nam…

(in walks Stephanie Grisham who genuflects before Leader)

Stephanie: Sir genius, oh magnanimous one, one who rules the sun and the moon, one who owns the stars, one who’s been heaven sent, one who could eat my lunch any day of the week, don’t read anything into that Melania, #BeBest, you have a 10 o’clock press briefi…

Matt: Girl!

Brad: Girl!

Ben: Girl!

Stephanie: Are these guys with you sir? Why are they running?

Donnie: Girl!! … Hmmmm.