... during his rally in Milwaukee on Friday night ... [Donald Trump] experienced microphone problems before he then simulated fellatio on a microphone stand.In the unlikely event that you haven't seen this, the simulated fellatio happens at 1:47:
Trump encountered numerous problems with his microphone during his hour-long address, with the crowd even chanting at one point “fix the mic.”
“Fix the mic huh. You gotta be kidding. Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?” an irritated Trump responded....
In what was undoubtedly the strangest part of the whole situation, Trump then took the microphone off the stand and began simulating fellatio.
The full clip is even weirder.
— The Millennial Snowflake 🇵🇸 (@Teh_Snowflake) November 2, 2024
WHY IS TRUMP PERFORMING FELLATIO ON A MICROPHONE?!
pic.twitter.com/tnZyn3vHgn
We're getting the usual responses. Tom Nichols in The Atlantic: "if my father in his late 70s had simulated a blow job in mixed company—never mind in front of an audience that included children—I’d have brought him in for a complete neurological workup." It's the same response we're getting to a recent Trump "weave":
Still under-covered that there is obviously something seriously, medically, degenerative-condition wrong with his brain and it's been accelerating rapidly.
— Andy Craig (@andycraig.bsky.social) November 3, 2024 at 7:40 AM
[image or embed]
I'll keep saying it: This is disinhibition, not dementia. Is simulating fellatio on a microphone a surefire sign of dementia? If so, then a thousand standup comics need to be institutionalized. Comics do this all the time.
That's what I see in that clip: a guy who wants to be president, but who'd be just as happy if he had the top-rated comedy specials on Max or Netflix. He's been complaining about technical problems at his rallies lately, but I wonder if he's complaining partly because he thinks of it as a bit, something the audience enjoys. He needs their laughter. He needs that dopamine hit, over and over again. He wants to be the fifth face on Mount Rushmore, but I also think he wants to be Howard Stern in 1991, at the peak of his fame.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if, for some reason, HBO or another cable channel had given Trump a deal for a series of comedy specials, maybe before he decided to run for president, maybe after he lost in 2020. (In this scenario, I'd combine the post-2020 cable deal with a termination of all legal cases against Trump, even though the bastard doesn't deserve it.) Would he have been content with that? A series of live appearances before adoring crowds of goateed pickup-truck drivers, videotaped and broadcast on cable to large audiences of other goateed pickup-truck drivers? That might have been all Trump needed to satisfy his seemingly unquenchable thirst for admiration.
But don't I think that meandering Hannibal Lecter monologue above is a sign of dementia? Nahhh. Established comics sometimes become extremely self-indulgent, because they know their audiences are on their side and will wait for the jokes. Ever seen late-period Lenny Bruce, when he spent the majority of his time discussing the transcripts of his obscenity trials rather than telling jokes? That's what Trump's "weaves" remind me of.
(Bruce, of course, used a lot of drugs and was greatly impaired at the end as a result. I'm not ruling out Adderall or some other drug as a partial explanation for Trump's meanderings.)
Did I ever tell you about seeing Eddie Murphy at a comedy club in the early 1980s? I was trying to do standupback then and I was terrible, but I happened to be at Catch a Rising Star in New York on an audition night when Eddie Murphy, who'd just started to become a star, showed up with some Satuday Night Live associates to do a set. This was a common occurrence -- established comics liked to work out new material at comedy clubs on off nights. Murphy took the stage, and I don't think he told a joke for the first eight muinutes or so. He just rambled, mocking the audience, mocking the auditioners. If, like me, you were an auditioner, the audience gave you one joke -- if you didn't make them laugh, they were ready to ask for the check, or they tuned you out and chatted with their friends. But they were chuckling at Murphy even when he said nothing particularly funny for an extended period of time, because they expected to enjoy him.
When Murphy finally started doing his material, the audience loved it. I remember a bit involving Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton having anal sex. It was incredibly adolescent -- "I know that you know that I know that you know that you want to fuck me in the ass" -- but Murphy was an amazing mimic and had perfect timing, and it killed.
That's what Trump wants to be. With 20/20 hindsight, I almost wish we could have given him what he wants.
And yes, a guy who's running for president because he wants to be loved is really, really unfit to run the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment