Take on the game show presidency

When you elect a reality television star to be the president of the United States, you can't be surprised when he acts like a reality star. Yesterday we had his first "you're fired", today we'll have the first prime time nationally broadcasted presentation of the rose. There are two finalists, one who made this far for being friends with Trump's sister and the other for being friends with the grim reaper and as of 7:26pm, neither knows who it will be. We're hoping that they both have to show up and stand there while Trump makes them sweat and turns over a place card. I'm also hoping that he picks his sister who comes out and hits Gorsuch across the head with a folding chair while Hardiman keeps him distracted

Take on the first firing

Well the first "you're fired" didn't take long and who better than Sally Yates the acting AG who was an Obama appointee. Obviously this was one of those firings which was imminent, fist of all Jeff Sessions may get confined any day now, so Yates had about as much airtime left as Field Yates, so why not go out with a bang? She refused to prosecute based on the MuslimNotMuslimButReallyAMuslimBan, and Trump didn't like that and was in the position to do something.
But what is more bothersome is that the press release from the WhiteHouse reads like it was written by a fourth grader and a fourth grader I mean our 70 year old president. A new acting AG takes Yates' spot, somebody named Dana Boente who I'm sure has been well vetted by TeamTrump and will follow his wishes to the T.
Great job electing this guy, America.

Take on the ghost of Christmas past

As Donald Trump speaks on the phone with his compadre Vladdy Putin, the ghost of presidents past seemed to be hanging over the Oval Office. There was this creepy image of was probably the ghost of Abraham Lincoln staring over Trump and wondering what he has done. How one man in a system which supposedly has checks and balances could destroy the good will and decency of our country in eight short days is astounding. The veracity and the velocity of his recent Muslim ban being the worse of an already tumultuous start, I can only hope that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell start acting like the leaders they claim to be and take this president and inner circle of deplorables on

Just look at these fools. Giuliani admired it was a Muslim ban, Kushner has either had no influence or is as bad as the rest of them.
Rience Priebus can be seen in the back of the room probably trying to pull the atomic wedgie out of his five hole and Steve Bannon is probably lying in a corner with a forty of Olde English 800 and a garbage bag full of recyclables. And Kellyann Conway, she's probably plotting her revenge on Chuck Todd for calling her out for the lying wench that she is.

Take on the protesters

When I came to this country, I believed it to be the shining castle on the hill. It was the greatest country on the earth and my 31.5 years of living here, it was true. Yes, we have some nasty parts to our past but you learn from your mistakes and we had become more diverse, more accepting and just plan better. We were the good guys, even if we weren't perfect. What we did was for the right reasons and with the plight of the little man in mind. The America I believed in, welcomed everybody knowing that our greatest strength comes in the fact that "American" couldn't be defined with a similar phrase or colored with a specific pastel. We were everything, we accepted everybody and yet, today, all I believed that we were, all the times I defended what we stood for, all that I knew to be good and just was erased. Wiped out with a flick of the wrist, by the stroke of a pen. Yes, this will get overturned by the Supreme Court but we will have give. away our moral high ground. We will have drifted so far from our ideals that we will have no sense of superiority based morality

Today is the first day in my life that I'm ashamed to be an American. This is not what we're supposed to be.

Take on the weird photoshop

I doubt it's true but it wouldn't shock me if it was. This is what we've come to, our president is so concerned about his appearance that the thought of having people put photoshop to his gigantic ass and puny hands, doesn't seem crazy. Obama would have never done that, W either, Clinton is a huge narcissist and I doubt he would have done it and there is now HW would have done it. Reagan probably not either, Carter...no chance.
Donald Trump is the only one I can think of that would be so concerned and his humongous ass and little boy hands that he would commission somebody to change it, this is what we are left with

Take on Ms Bannon

All the talk today will be about Steve Bannon and his open disdain for the press. Some people might bring up the previous accusations of a violent episode with his then-wife and others will want to discuss how his nationalistic theme is stroking the neonazis in the alt-right but I want to discuss something else. Steve Bannon honestly looks like a fat woman, I'm not sure what it is exactly, maybe it is that he kind of waddles when he walks or that he has those high cheekbones but when I look at him I just see a chick sitting on her couch eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's. It's weird because for a guy with a (nasty little) beard, he has these soft features and when you top that off with his Ellen haircut, those effeminate glasses and the open collar button up, he really does look like he could be my aunt.

Take on the party of anti-science

There's been talk about how the modern GOP has turned into the party who doesn't believe in science and today they took another big step towards it. The Trump administration is meandering that the EPA vets all their scientific work through a political committee which would make you feel a lot more comfortable if it was in the reverse. Why people who run our country would ever dismiss hard science is beyond me but here we are, a country whose leader probably doesn't know an amoeba from an alligator and a party happy to play along.
Hooray science

Take on Eric Trump

I keep wondering how creepy Eric Trump has to look to make his older brother look somewhat normal in comparison. Donald Trump Jr looks like a sleazy car salesman who would stab you in the back the second it was advantageous to him but Eric Trump looks like he might do that and then drag you into a closet, shove a gag in your mouth and mutilate your body. It's that little wicked smile, that glimmer in his eyes that is reminiscent of a rabid dog and that weird body posture where he it always looks like he is dry-humping whoever is standing in front of him.
Glad to know we won't hear any that if from him again for four years.

Take on chivalry

Whoever said chivalry was dead??   Our president walked into the White House on Friday, hours before he was to be sworn in and left his wife thirty feet behind him.  Now this isn't the first time he has left a wife behind, but usually it's for a newer younger more Baltic version whereas this time he did it to get into his latests real estate venture.  Of course we know he's an absolute creep, so his lack of chivalry can't be surprising, shoot even his lack of common decency doesn't faze anybody anymore.  But this is life, we go from a family man with class, eloquence and grace who the party of family values ridiculed for eight years to the same guys embracing a guy who made his fortune on gambling and beauty contests.  Because a president known for swindling the little guy, shorting people who work for him and speaking like a drunken sailor are what all good Christians want to attain to. 

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Take on crowd size

Alternative Facts sound like the name of a crappy high school garage band like Incognito Retribution or The Nihilist's Symphony but apparently this one is actually real. Chuck Todd interviewed Kellyann Conway today and honestly it was masterful to see her at work. She deflected, turned the conversation and avoided any answer which left the viewer, and presumably Todd, ready to throw their morning slipper at the TV. What is bothersome is that the administration is so concerned at comparing penis sizes with anybody they see as a potential rival, I'm afraid that all we'll have for the next four (or, gasp, eight) years is just one blowup after another

Why Trump didn't just come out and say "we drew very well, maybe not as well as '09 but we all knew that was an historic event, one that was bigger than any standard inauguration. But with the amount of winning we'll be doing over the next four years, you can count on a crowd bigger than both the 09 and the 17 inaugurations combined. Now let's get to the important work of making this country great again"

But instead we get alternative facts

Take on the inauguration balls

I've never watched a single inauguration ball and yesterday was no exception. I did see some highlights which showed our president moving like he has bricks tied to his feet as he waltzed with Melania in what can only be described as the most awkward 8th grade dance ever. Trump looks so odd with his yellow complexion, that weird bouffant, those little hands and those creepy eyes but I guess he can still land a hot chick, which is good to know.
We're now one day into the next four years and so far the "first day in office" edicts he was rallying about for months came down to signing the waivers for a couple of generals to serve in the cabinet and making a new Patriotic Day holiday which I always sort of thought we had already with the 4th of July. He also started dismantling Obamacare but we'll see what they replace it with before commenting and he told some National Parks website to stop tweeting about his little crowd and little hands

Take on The Rest of Our Lives

Had Mitt Romney thrown his hat into the ring, had Jeb! shown a little fight and not let Big Don shove him into a locker and break his glasses, had Rubio come out and quenched whatever thirst he had or had Mike Pence been on top of that ticket, I think I'd be more at ease with today even if those guys may have ideologies which differ more greatly with that of my own. Knowing that in four hours the keys to the fastest, most expensive and most dangerous car on the road are going to be handed to a drunk driver isn't sitting well. I've promised to be open minded and fair about his presidency, and I plan to be, but I have to say that, today, I feel more uneasy. I'm not some delicate flower or precious snowflake, I'm not going to need a hug. I know politics is a dirty game and nobody comes out looking clean. I think the "fake news" narrative pushed by the Hillary camp to rationalize the Trump win just shows how desperate they are and how out of touch they continue to be. The Russian hacking probably had some effect but even if it did, a very large part of this country felt it was left behind

This came down to a part of a country which has felt disenfranchised, a group of people who saw their government as disengaged and felt disappointed about the promises of hope and change. This is their right and their vote counts just as much as mine does, sort of. Actually their vote counts more because at the end of the day, it's an election about a few states, a way for the little guy to be heard and this election they were which is what you get when you don't have a true democracy but a representative republic but we'll leave that for another day.

I'm going in with an open mind for no other reason than that I don't want that very expensive car to crash because we don't have any insurance and we're all going to have to pay to fix it if it does

Don of a New Day it is.

Take on Sally Jessie Perry

God, Rick Perry is a moron..  I'm not saying that he isn't smart, well yes I am, I'm saying that he is so greatly unqualified to run the Department of Energy it's frightening.   The last two secretaries included a physicist and Nobel Prize winner and a director of MIT, while Rick Perry puts on glasses to look smarter..   Rick Perry honestly thought that the secretary of energy was a cheerleader for the Oil and Gas industries which, sadly for Perry and us, it's not.   I mean this guy who also wanted to eliminate the department he'll likely head even when he couldn't actually recall its name when asked about it.

honestly Steve Perry might be more qualified, although Steve Perry has the same haircut as an 80s chick at a Poison concert, so he, too, has questionable style.

Take on t minutes two days

Two days left until we officially welcome in the Donald J Trump presidency and nobody knows quite what to expect. I'm thinking that there should be a fair amount of buyers remorse but that's probably because we all live in an echo chamber and don't quite know how the other side lives but this I'm sure of
Trump who has always been fast and loose on facts and fuzzy on details will have to really start governing. Maybe the economy and world will move along just fine as is but at some point he'll have to make some tough decisions and the dismantling of a number of federal agencies might be first on the list. Putting a replacement in front of the senate for Justice Scalia is probably something that will happened rather quickly, too. But the diet thing he is likely to do is ask Melanie to pee all over the presidential bed

Take on Chelsea Handler's commutation

In one of his last acts as president, Barack Obama pardoned a Chelsea Handler who is one of the least funny people I have ever seen. I'm sure Obama has his reasons including Handler's vocal support of Hillary Clinton but I have to think the fact that she is always showing off her naked body wasn't working in her favor being that she looks like a female Joe Biden. I've never actually seen her show but imagine it, like most everything Handler does, is incredibly not funny
But whatever, I'm fine with it I guess because I imagine the sentence she's had while stuck in no mans land at E! Is a sentence worse than Gitmo.

take on the Golden Boy

when golden-shower-gate came out last week, the world was aghast.   It was part horror of the thought of Trump directing a bunch of Russian prostitutes pee all over his bed and it was part horror with the thought that Putin would be able to use the information to blackball Trump.   But in true Trump fashion, he seems to have handled this entire controversy better than anybody could have imagined.    It's as if he wrote the script and is just playing the part, and he's now well prepared if the slow-drip turns into a steady stream of verified golden information

Even if this turns out to be true and the sadist in us is sort of hoping it is, it coming out in a slow-leak will work out in Trump's favor.   The initial shock is gone, I don't think anybody, even the most fervent Trump supporters would be completely shocked if it turns out to be true.  The sting would be gone, the nation will have already had it's laugh at Trump and we'll be back onto a new controversy.   

Secondly, the black, or I guess maybe yellow-mail angle will also be gone.   Because once it's out there that Trump likes a little extra mousse for his bouffant, there is really no way to use it against him privately.   It can obviously be a source of comedy and can still be embarrassing but you can't hold it over the guy's head if it's out there.. so maybe the leak was actually not from the CIA but from inside the golden tower...

Take on the American Girl Store

If you want to torture a man, forget waterboarding, pulling his toenails out or sewing his five-hole shut and keep feeding him and feeding him. If you want to properly torture a man, get him up at 6 am on his. Roth day weekend to have brunch at the American Girl Store in NYC. It's a crowded, expensive tourist trap and that might be the best hung about it. Of course every girls needs to have her parents spend $25 to have their dolls hair did and another $5 to have her ears pierced and why not do that while you are having the worst eggs frittata I've ever had along with lukewarm coffee and a 350 calorie cinnamon bun thing. The good news is that baby Isabella gets to sit at the table with you, the bad news is that the baby chairs keep falling off the table which leads to thousands of 8 year olds cry in unison and a bunch of moms rushing to the specialty infirmary at $26/visit. Of course you can also have your birthday party there, which sounds fun except that the waiter is hung over and reeks of weed and is about as cheerful as the waiter at Friday's when he has to sing his birthday song.
But don't worry, after waiting on the salon line, there will be thousands of $35 outfits to try on for little Isabella, plus a horse to ride and a dog to pick up after. It's like real life except worse

Take on the Trump attack on John Lewis

Donald Trump used Saturday morning not to drink coffee or catch us on The NY Times crossword but to attack John Lewis on twitter.  This is our president elect, using 140 characters to attack a true civil rights hero, somebody who marched along with Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma.  

The twitter world went nuts calling Trump a diabolical racist, which he likely is, but I didn't see this as racist per se.  Tone death...yes, incredibly stupid? certainly.  Insensitive? you got it. Unnecessary? obviously but racist, maybe

See if you call everything against a person of color racist, you lose the power of the word.  Trump probably lashed out for no other reason than that he though he was being attacked and when he does, he goes crazy.   It doesn't matter if you are a comedian, a movie star, a congressman or a civil rights hero, all adversaries are treated equally. 

Welcome to 2017

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Take on the two creepiest men in America

If there is a scarier looking duo than Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz, please send them my way because on a Friday the 13th, there two came on Morning Joe and struck a pose that would have mothers shriek away in fear. There is no way that these two don't have a closet full of chains, gag-balls, whips and a couple and pre pubescent boys locked in their basement.

God they are creepy

Take on Mike and Mike without Mike

With the departure of Mike Greenberg, the Mike and Mike show can somehow get worse. I'm not sure why ESPN has in store but these two lovable losers have held their spot in morning drive for more than a decade, so there will certainly be some upheaval. Never controversial, sophomoric or even very interesting, the show has always relied in lame " he is a metrosexual" while "he is an oaf" humor which is as riveting as watching paint dry on a woman's toenail.
I'm not sure how the show survives without the Mike in Mike and Mike, maybe they go to another Mike or change it to Mike and Mic or something lame but I'm sure I won't be listening as hearing Golic utter "listen gang, this is not about the future but about the other future" is like poking yourself in the eardrums with a turkey leg

If there was only some blowhard about to retire from his gig who could fill their spot.

Take on Little Marco

When Trump was done with him after that second debate, I honestly thought we'd never hear from little Marco again. He wasn't going to run for his senate seat again, his national political career seemed to be over and he was likely thirsty but something miraculous happened on the way out of Chris Christie's ass crack, Little Marco stood up for himself and he actually stood up for America. I don't know what is the best decision but Sexy Rexy needs to be out on the spot and Little Marco, Tiny Tim Kaine, Corrupt Bob Menendez and Chucky Cheese Schumer did an admirable job holding his little feet to the fire

Take on the Russian connection

Great, apparently our president elect had a dirty Russian prostitute defecate on a bed at the Ritz Carlton once used by Barack and Michelle Obama and the Russians are planning on using the video of Trump and his call-girl to keep him inline.  I get that this could all be FAKE NEWS but I tend to think that when there is smoke, there is probably a hooker in a closet.  

The reports come from a former M16 operative  who's considered very reliable from our spy guys, so that should make us all sleep well at night

Let's guess how the next few months will go...we will lift sanctions on Russia after the Crimea thing, we will push hard against the Chinese but will give a bunch of oligarchs a pass.  The entire Russian influence thing will disappear, people who are discussing ties to Russian mobsters will also disappear.   Trump will make a Thank You campaign stop in Brighton Beach, The IOC will retract their new findings of Russian doping.  We will weaken NATO, White Russians will be served at the inauguration, they will re-release Rocky IV with an alternative ending, I will still hate vodka, Mother Russia will release a photo of Putin hunting for dolphins while topless and before you know it a bunch of those -ikstan counties will fall back into the influence sphere.  The Americans will seem much less funny.  All because our new president banged a dirty hooker and make her shit on a bed.  Thanks Don

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Take on the piss covered seat confrontation

Nothing irks me more than seeing a grown man piss all over a toilet seat.  I thought this was disgusting when I was a teenager, found it offensive as a college kid but now as a father of three girls, this has to be one of the most despicable acts out there

I was having breakfast yesterday at a Wyndham hotel in Deerfield Beach when my two year old daughter told me she has to go to the bathroom.  I took her to the men's room in the lobby, check out the scene and notice one closed and one open stall.   I walk directly into the open stall and see some 50 year old meatball standing up and taking a leak with the seat down.  Now mind you this isn't 2am at a dive bar, this is 10am at a family hotel 

Righetti. Jesus dude, can you at least put the seat up

Florida Meatball  fuck you asshole what are you some kind of fucking creep

Righetti  I got a two year old daughter with me, she has to sit there

Meatball.  Fuck your and your fucking kid

Righetti.  What the hell man, any reason you have to curse she's right here and she has to go to the bathroom

Meatball.  Have your fucking wife take her

Righetti. Real classy man

Meatball. Fuck you

The weather is 80 degrees, there are girls in bikinis on the beach, the Dolphins are about to play a playoff game and this is what you get. 

Combine white trash with a beach front state and you get this crap.  

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Take on The End

Once upon a time not so long ago

I sat in my room last night feeling like Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.   My knees hurt, my back hurt but still I could hear the cheers, the roar of approval.  

This was the first one where my kids were present, but at least the DJ was kind enough to wait till they were retired to the bridal suite.  I kind of thought it wasn't going to happened but when they put on AC/DC shook me all night, kind of figured it was go-time.  As the guitar strokes, I take a swig of Miller Lite as I make my way through a crowded dance floor, my wife b-lined to the sanctity of the bathroom, not wanting anything to do with any of it.   She's seen it, she's bored of it, she knows me and thinks I'm a moron...and she's probably right. 

I had all my extended family there, my boss was there, all my parents friends and of course my brother'a in laws, so without at least some booze it always seems like a terrible idea at about 9pm   I gave up drinking heavily at weddings years ago, so this one was done basically sober but somehow just those first few notes of Livin' On a Prayer brings it all back  

I can proudly say that I left it all on the dance floor even it wasn't as agile as I was in my prime.  I certainly wasn't as quick or slim as before, as quickly I come to grips with my own mortality.  I realize that I'm like that forty year old pitcher, 8 have 3 minutes in my body and then....I'm done 

Years ago this was just the culmination of a crazy night, now it is all I have.  I can't even make it past the big guitar solo, I do a few less push-ups, spend a little more time jogging around before I teeter out knowing the big finale is still to come.   The jacket flies into the crowd, the shirt doesn't unbutton, so I tear off the top button knowing it'll cost me $20 from my deposit, slide goes off without a hitch, mostly because I have knee pads on under my tuxedo pants.  It's not like it used to be but it's ok

like Joe DiMagio told a young Mickey Mantle when they were coming off a back field in spring training...jog kid, there is somebody out there who hasn't ever seen you, so although it isn't Mick Jagger in 1965, it's still Mick Jagger or maybe better yet, Meatloaf.  

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Take on the rented tux

There is really no worse look than a man in a rented tux. It's not that the look is bad per se but the fact that these things are one-size-fits-none. The combination of oversized shirt, pants that are too tight and colors don't really match which sucks mostly because it's doesn't just look bad but it is supposed to look good which it obviously doesn't. Suspenders, cummerbund, vest whatever. It all looks like shit

Take on The Apprentice

Our president elect is so worried about ratings that even on the eve of his presidency, on the day the senate officially confirms his election, he is busy needling Schwarzenegger about his dismal ratings. I get that keeping his image and ratings as the highest in the show is important to his psyche but as a guy who has a) a more important job right now and b) still a financial stake in the show, why the hell is he bothering with this kind of "who has the bigger winkie" pissing match?
I'd have to think that in today's world, with the issues we are facing that he'd be hard at work building walls and bridges but instead he's glued to NBC...God Help us

Take on flying in style

There really is nothing more pleasurable than flying with my entire family.   The day starts at 5:30 with a Home Alone type rush to get three kids, four suitcases, five backpacks, enough snacks for a three month trip, three tablets, a stack of diapers.  We then fight traffic for an hour to get to LaGuardia aka hell on earth.  A couple of security lines, a $6 bagel and a broken glass later we get stuffed into row 25 on a 2 hour and 50 minute flight which is just under the 3 hour limit to serve real food.   Good news is that they hate the shows on the tablets, their ears hurt and I have a massive headache 

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Take on the Beijing "fog"

I got a message today from a friend in China saying the "fog" was particularly bad the last few days, which tells you all you need to know about how much the people really are told and allowed to know.

I haven't been to China in about five months and I can't say I miss it but when the smog is as bad as it's been the last few days, you kind of wish you were there to see. Transport in parts of the country has stopped all together with the amount of pollutants in the air reaching some kind of critical mass. I get that every once in a while, the air is clean but the more you go to China, the more you realize that blue skies are the exception and never the rule. And they wonder why everybody looks like they have smoked two packs of unfiltered Pall Mall's while working in a coal mine and sleeping with Large Marge.

Take on the sign of the apocalypse

Sometimes something beautiful comes out of something tragic.   I caught a story yesterday on a local fire which left only a small
Impression but the accompanying photo is what got me (http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/passaic/hawthorne/2017/01/02/hawthorne-house-fire-displaces-least-two/96087902/)

In the photo, one firefighter is climbing out of a second story window while another one of New Jersey's bravest looks on below, nobody perished in the fire but still there seemed to be a Virgin Mary in a jar of peanut butter thing going on.  

Maybe it's the impending Trump presidency, maybe it's all that environmental damage  finally coming home to roost or maybe it's the sign that some tribe of nomads in a desert we're looking for 2000 years ago but only be found burned into the side of some crappy siding 

Between the baby Jesus in the top corner, the large wolf burned into the facade and topless Joe Biden staring over all of them, this could be the start of the apocalypse...either that or those weren't shiitakes 

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Take on the easy European life

Working with Europeans is rough, you have to deal with the time differences, their difficulties crap and worst of all you have to deal with their vacation schedules. A firm in Europe routinely gives their employees more yearly vacation and PTO time than an American firm would over five years and now it's going to to get worse. I pick up my work emails the second I wake up at 6am and check it until I put my phone down at 11pm but our brothers across the pond will now be legally required to turn off their work email after having to work about 28 hours in the week followed by a comp day and a month long vacation in the alps.

Take on the pit bull

I'll never understand somebody wanting to own a pit bull like I'd never understand a man wearing white pants and like the latter, I blame all bad things that happens to the former on the one who chooses to own them. Why somebody would want one of these viscous animals in their homes is beyond me, it's akin to keeping an unlocked gun laying around the house and then being surprised when little Johnny shoots little Billy in his dick. You have a pit bull and the question is not if the dog will attack, it's when.
But when you see an attack coming after an owner provoked the dog by putting a Christmas sweater on it, I just see it as Darwinism at its best