Things That Go Bump In The Night

Not many people know that on the day after Halloween, all the ghosts gather at the historic Overlook Hotel, where Jack Torrance went from psychotic, failed author to ghostly, tuxedoed dinner guest in The Shining.  It’s their favorite go-to.

“

I want to welcome you all!” Jack said as the spirits filled the hotel’s magnificent ballroom.  “And as we say here, ‘Redrum!  Redrum!’”

There was amused laughter all around.  “Boo!” someone called merrily.

“The bar is open!” Jack said.  “Remember, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”

“I’ll have a soda pop,” said Casper, the Friendly Ghost.

Most everyone rolled their eyes at the little spirit.  “Well, I need a drink,” said Beetlejuice.  “Bourbon!  Bourbon!  Bourbon!”  A drink suddenly appeared in his hand.

“Just happy to be here,” replied Hamlet’s Dad.  “You know, it’s so refreshing to do some broad haunting.  The fear-induced bed-wetting, the candy-fueled stomach cramps, they’re much more fun than appearing on ramparts, trying to get two losers on night watch to avenge your death.”

“It was a great holiday,” said Dr. Malcolm Crowe, the psychologist from The Sixth Sense.  “I’m really into it, now that I’ve figured out I’m dead.”

“Sure, we had a good night,” said Captain Gregg from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.  “But we’ve got to face the challenges.  There are things that scare people more than we do.”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come said nothing, but pointed a bony, wraith-like finger at him in agreement.

“The Captain makes a good point,” said Elvira.  “I was once the lead character in a Noel Coward play, Blithe Spirit it was, and now I’m a cardboard pop-up display for undrinkable light beer.  It’s a long way to fall.”

“We don’t drink that lousy beer,” said George and Marion Kerby, holding martini glasses as they floated near a corner of the ceiling.  “We only drink gin.  Topper’s gin, in fact.  Thank heavens he stocks Sapphire.  Although his Virunga Mountain Spirits vodka isn’t that bad.”

“And I picked up this guy at a dance, and then I ghosted him—” there were groans at the pun “—and all he did was go to graveyard to get his sweater back,” said Laurie, from the ‘60s radio classic Strange Things Happen in This World.

“It’s the zombies,” muttered Virgil bitterly.  “When I was escorting Dante through the levels of hell, did I stop to eat someone’s brains?  Hell no, so to speak.  I mean, you’re dead, why don’t you act that way?  They don’t even have enough class to be ethereal.”

“Absolutely,” said Quint and Miss Jessel from The Turn of the Screw.  “But there’s one place we can go that zombies can’t—a haunted house.  You can board up the doors and windows and grab a shotgun to stop the zombies, but it won’t stop us.  Mysterious pounding in the walls, inexplicable cold spots in the hallways.  They don’t know whether to call an exorcist or the HVAC guy!  But now the most frightening thing about a house is mortgage rates.” 

“That and radon,” the Amityville Horror said.  “It gives me gas.”

“Houses are fine, but for true thrills—haunting a TV set.  That’s the best!” exclaimed the Poltergeist.

There was disagreement.  “That worked back in your day,” said Dr. Crowe.  “But with HD and 4K flat screens, those nebulous images that could be any one of us are harder to hide.  I had a 14-year-old patient who used AI to bring a screenshot of a vaporous being making chilling noises into focus, and it turned out to be a 1-800 Kars for Kids commercial.”

There were tiny shrieks.

“Maybe we should think about other appliances,” said the Amityville Horror.  “Perhaps haunting a refrigerator so it turns vegetables into limp, moldy muck.  Or haunting a clothes dryer so it only produces one sock.”

“Boo!” someone said in agreement. 

Their conversation was interrupted by a fearful scratching on the window.  “What the—” said Jacob Marley, before breaking into a smile and rattling his chains in delight when he saw who it was.  “Catherine Earnshaw!” he said with a laugh.  “How are things on the moor, hon?”

Catherine Earnshaw floated through the wall.  “Anybody seen Heathcliff?” she asked.

“He went that-a-way,” said one of the Ghost Riders in the Sky.

Meanwhile, Banquo sat in a dark corner.  He had held his tongue but could bear it no longer.  “All this focus on scaring little children is what’s wrong with our profession today,” he said. 

“Everything scares kids—zombies, vampires, monsters under the bed, long division.  I wasn’t interested in scaring children.  That’s punching down.  I wanted to scare Macbeth, and I did a pretty good job of it, too.  I just sat there and nobody noticed me except him.  When a ghost gets a politician to shout unintelligible things into the air, he’s had a good day.” 

“Well, that or a political rally,” Elvira said.

“Hey!  No politics, we agreed,” Jack Torrance said.

“I agree with Banquo,” said Hamlet’s Dad.  “Where is the moral mission?  Where are the lessons learned from a life of sin?  Where’s the torment?  I remember when a ghost used to have the moral high ground.”

“All you did was try to avenge your murder,” scoffed the ghosts who haunted Lincoln in the Bardo.  “That’s not the moral high ground—that’s just holding a grudge.”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come said nothing, but instead pointed a bony, wraith-like finger at an empty coffee urn.  A waiter brought in a new one.

“But when did scaring people become our only goal in the afterlife?”  Virgil said.  “I wasn’t there to scare Dante, I was there to show him around the underworld, right down to the ninth level.  Although that was before Satan created a tenth for  misinformation promoters and

crypto executives.”

“We agree,” said George and Marion Kerby.  “We weren’t there to scare Topper.  He was more frightened of a downturn in the market than of us.  It was cute.”

“What blather!” Marley exclaimed.  “An adorable capitalist in need of relaxation and a cocktail?  Take it from me—I straightened Scrooge’s ass out!  Do you think Musk and Ellison and Bezos need a cocktail party, or a swift kick?  If it were up to me, I’d do them the way I was done--cover them all in heavy chains, wrap bandages around their heads, and condemn them to wander the Earth in search of salvation.  And that would be before they died!”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come said nothing, but instead pointed a bony, wraith-like finger to the expiration date on a yogurt container at the buffet. 

And so, the argument raged on.  Were ghosts supposed to scare children, like the Amityville Horror, or Quint and Miss Jessel from The Turn of the Screw?  Or were they supposed to deliver a moral lesson, as did Jacob Marley or the Ghost of Christmas yet to come?  Or were they supposed to afflict the comfortable, as did Banquo?  Or were they supposed to enjoy themselves, as Casper, or the Kerbys did?

It was then that a tall, black-clad figure rose in the back of the room.  They all turned to him.  He was the big man, the head honcho, the O.G., the venerable leader to whom they all deferred.  He swung his black cape off his shoulder to reveal a glowing pumpkin head under his arm.

“Look, I frightened Ichabod Crane so badly he’s still failing physicals,” said The Headless Horseman’s illuminated pumpkin head.  “But frightening little children can be a good thing.  Because when a child is frightened, that little boy or girl learns to overcome that fear.  It’s part of growing up.  It’s fine to point out the moral shortcomings of the haunted, or to help the haunted find love or a cocktail.  But our job is to help children grow, and to lose their fear of things that go bump in the night.  Can we all agree on that?”

The Ghost of Christmas yet to come raised a bony, wraith-like thumbs up.

“Boo!” they all said merrily. 

And so, it was unanimous.

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THE CONFESSIONS OF ST. HUITZILOPOCHTLI

Some people think being a god means life on easy street.  (And I mean a real god, not some Caligula vanity project, or Eric Clapton, or self-deified guys like Kanye.)  Look at me, for instance.  I might be a god, but I’ve been looking for a side hustle for about five hundred years, ever since Cortez showed up and put me out of business.  So, by human standards, I’m divine, but by divine standards, I’m a bum--my worshippers are even fewer than my Instagram followers. 

What is an out-of-work, down-and-out god supposed to do once smallpox wipes out all his followers?  The only job I ever had was Aztec God of War, which is a pretty good position, but hard to move from laterally.  Whenever I’d apply for a job, like being a guidance counsellor or maybe something in a New Age bookstore--situations that capitalized on my divinity--the best I’d get would be a dismissive “overqualified,” and sometimes a screwy look.  It’s the feather headdress, I bet.

So, that’s when I started drinking.  There’s this place where all the Gods hang out, like an after-hours joint, although when I say “place,” remember all we Gods exist on a spiritual plane that transcends the human three or four or however many stringy dimensions.  If it were a “place” though, you’d think it was a nice, neighborhood tavern.  Even a God needs some me-time now and then.

Well, I’m there a few eons ago and I’m relaxing with Osiris.  He’s in the same boat I’m in--no one believes in him anymore, either. We’ve hit the skids together.  But, like I tell him, at least he has Aida--Verdi and Elton John?  Both?  Come on!   Either way, these Egyptians are very nice guys, and we both wear a lot of eyeliner, so there’s something else we have in common.  Not like, say, Odin and his crowd, who drink themselves blind every night and then go busting up the furniture.  No wonder he lost an eye.

So, we’re sitting there having a couple and relaxing, like I said, and in walks Jehovah.  Personally, I can’t stand the guy.  He’s so full of himself, strutting around, big head of white hair and white beard, Santa on steroids, like he’s the only God who created the universe.  As if creating the universe was a big thing!  We all had a laugh when those physicists discovered the entire universe was really just one field in which matter instantaneously transforms into energy and vice versa.  You see, that’s the trick--you make a “field” and let matter emerge from it, just create it and then let it do its stuff.  Cat’s out of the bag now.  It took Jehovah six days only because he got caught up in the detail stuff--water and land, beasts of the field, and so on.  Micromanagement. 

So, anyway, Jehovah.  In he walks.  He really likes to throw his weight around, and it pisses people off.  Even Buddha dislikes him with all that “me” talk all the time.  You know “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” it’s all about him. You ever see Buddha talk about himself?  Never.  In fairness, Buddha walks around barefoot with a bedsheet hanging off one shoulder and clasps his hands together to say hello instead of a friendly hug--it’s a little stand-offish.  He says he doesn’t judge us all, but I don’t buy it.

And then there’s the kid, Jesus.  (I mean, that’s his name, Jesus.)  Jehovah drags him around everywhere they go, but they weren’t always that cozy together.  In fact, they used to be on the outs--the kid felt forsaken and the old man watched him die, or at least that’s their story now.  But for Gods, life has a certain eternality, I guess you’d say.  If the kid died, it’s something he picked up on his mother’s side.  Nowadays they go on about how Jehovah so loved one of his worlds that he gave them his only begotten son.  Come on.  I had a son, too, and I had him by my sister (which is frowned on, I admit), but later I killed him, outright, none of this namby-pamby “forsaken” stuff.  Now Zeus, there’s a father for you--Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena--that’s just the A’s!--Dionysus, Helen of Troy, Heracles, Hermes, Persephone, Perseus, the Graces, the Horae, the Muses.  He had ‘em in bunches, like OctoMom.  He keeps to himself nowadays, although the other Greek Gods are mixers, always looking for someone to wrestle, or a swan to screw.

Well, Jehovah walks in with the kid and looks around the place.  It’s pretty crowded tonight--there’s no place to sit, and you can see it’s pissing the guy off.  I duck my head down a little while I’m chatting with Osiris, hoping maybe Jehovah won’t see me.  Osiris is droning on about the Nile and how it’s nicer than the Ganges when Jehovah spots me and he shouts out across the room, “Yo Huitz!  Wassup?,” that fake hipster thing.   That’s my name, Huitzilopochtli.  It’s Aztec. 

I nod back at him, trying not to engage, but Jehovah and the kid walk over and he starts up a conversation while they stand by our table.  You know, nowhere to sit.  “So, how’s the war business?” he asks, since I’m the Aztec God of War, right?  Also, the God of the Sun and Human Sacrifice, so I hear a lot of that–how are the human sacrifices coming?–like they’re the first God who ever refused those, or they didn’t enjoy the scent of a hundred oxen being roasted on their behalf, although most of them won’t admit it now that it’s passé. 

Jehovah orders a JD shot and a Bud from a passing waiter and the kid has a club soda with lime, and the old guy starts telling us how great things are, how many people are worshipping him, believing in him.  But Osiris is in a pissy mood and doesn’t want to hear it, so he blurts, “So what about Falwell’s wife getting piped by the pool boy while he watched?”  But Jehovah just shrugs it off--boys will be boys--and belches after he’s done with his beer.  He looks around for a place to sit, but there are still no open tables.  It’s a busy night.  

“Pace yourself, Dad,” the kid says.  “Remember--gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law, says Galatians.”  But Jehovah gives the kid a perfunctory “Yeah, yeah,” and orders another round.  “Sure I can’t get you boys something?” he asks Osiris and me, but we wave him off.

The kid shakes his head as the drinks arrive while they stand there.  “Dad, let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, like it says in Romans 13.”  Jehovah looks back at him.  “Buzz off, son.  It’s five o’clock somewhere.”  He drains the shot and takes a long pull on his second beer, then looks around for a table again before he turns to me and Osiris.

“I like you boys,” he says.  The drinks must be starting to mellow him.  He puts a hand on my shoulder.  “You got anything going in the way of work?” 

I shake my head no. 

“Maybe I can help.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Sure, it would be my pleasure.”

“Hey!  What about me?” Osiris interrupts.

“You?” Jehovah scoffs.  “Aren’t you some kind of Moose-limb?  Go ask your guy.”

“Come on!  I’m two thousand years older than that dude,” Osiris exclaims, pointing across the room to Allah, who’s sitting in a corner, quietly drinking mint tea with a lot of sugar in it.

“OK then, both of you, I tell you what,” Jehovah replies.  “How’d you like to be saints?  I’ll make you both saints.”

I’m trying to absorb this when the kid looks up and smiles, seeing an opportunity to give Osiris and me a crash course in self-improvement.  “As it says in Colossians,” he says to us, “now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.”

Osiris and I have no interest in a lesson in probity from this kid (as if he wasn’t boning the Magdalene girl--just like the pool boy, now that I think of it), and if these are the conditions for the saint business, they’re a little strict.  “Maybe we should talk about this,” I say.  “We might not be up to it.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Jehovah says, waving his kid off with a look like the boy invented stupid, then turning back to us.  “You want to be saints or not?” 

Sure, we nod, but then it occurs to me, “Aren’t there procedures for this sort of thing?  Heroic virtues, miracles, canonization, and so on?  Don’t we have to–“

“Forget that stuff,” Jehovah says, dispensing with it with a wave of his fiery fingers.  “I have a special sainting ceremony very few people know about.  Stand up and with your right hand hold your first two fingers in the air.”

I’m a little surprised that’s all there is to it and we’re about to stand up, when the kid interrupts again.  “But Dad,” he says, “Matthew says ‘unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’”

“Keep it down, son,” Jehovah says, dismissing him without ever turning away from us, and he starts to recite the oath.  “Do you swear, or affirm, you will be good, renounce sin, do saintly stuff, and so on?”

Osiris and I look at each other, trying to figure out what’s going on, but what have we got to lose?  “Sure,” I say.

“Sure,” Osiris repeats.

“And you renounce your old pastimes and embrace sainthood in my holy name as your new pursuit?”   We agree--this could be our ticket back to the big time, we figure, even though we’re still trying to figure it out. 

Jehovah says, “Cross your heart?”  And we do it.

Then Jehovah says, “Bow thy heads, so that I may bless thee.”  And he mumbles some stuff in a language we don’t understand, and we understand plenty of them, and when he’s done, we look up and he’s smiling at us. 

“OK,” he says, “you’re saints now.  Welcome, St. Osiris, welcome St. Huitzilopochtli.”

We smile broadly, eager for the adventure that lies ahead.

And then Jehovah’s pleasant expression disappears.  “Ok, so you’re saints now, not Gods anymore,” he barks gruffly.  “So, get the fuck out of here.  I need the table.”

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TRUMP TV PROGRAM LISTINGS!

Trump TV is the White House’s 24/7 newly-announced streaming channel that plays curated “greatest hits” clips of past Trump speeches and executive actions, plus some live events.

6:00-6:05           GIVE USA THIS DAY

A daily prayer starts a new broadcast day, as representatives of every faith give President Donald J. Trump their blessings.

MONDAY.  Johnny Hunt, ex-pastor of a large Baptist church outside Atlanta and subject of investigations into adultery charges over an alleged attack on another pastor’s wife, offers up a heartfelt prayer to make it all go away.

TUESDAY.  Father Lawrence Hecker of New Orleans prays for the local victims of priestly sexual abuse, whose damages are capped at around $600,000 per incident under a bankruptcy settlement “point system.”  He hopes his prayers will fill the monetary gap for kids who were put in wrestling headlocks and assaulted after losing consciousness. 

WEDNESDAY.  Rabbi Alan Dershowitz offers a prayer for West Bank Israeli settlers, who are threatened on a daily basis by Palestinians going about their business among olive groves and apricot trees in their ancestral homes

THURSDAY.  Buddhist priest Dogen Siddhartha discusses abandoning a life of pleasure and status in order to live a simple and meditative life in the quest for nirvana.  (Note:  Siddhartha was detained by ICE after videotaping this episode and was deported to Cameroon.)

FRIDAY.  Islamic leader Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah and claimant to Iranian leadership, discusses the Prophet’s conception of the “good life,” including American air support when “the time comes.”

6:05-7:00.          CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM HOUR

Forget the five minutes of religious pluralism you just saw.   What blather!  Re-start the day with an hour of prayer and contemplation of the nation’s Christian roots, going back to George Washington’s baptism in the Potomac, Tom Paine’s proselytizing for Jesus in “Common Sense,” and Ben Franklin’s life-long combat with Satan.

7:00-8:00           SHAPE-UP WITH PETE HEGSETH!

America’s premier warrior gives his fitness tips, including how to administer peptide injections and testosterone supplements.  Watch as he confronts the dangers of roid rage and testicles the size of raisins in the name of better biceps!

8:00-10:00         MEET THE PRESIDENTS!

Take a tour of the White House’s new Presidential Walk of Fame with current and best-ever President Donald J. Trump!

MONDAY.  Andrew Jackson.  His decision to strip the Second Bank of the United States and distribute the funds to crony-packed, state-level “pet banks,” and his forced removal and death march of the Cherokee people led to “Jackson Derangement Syndrome,” as “fake news” media  treated him unfairly, but not as unfairly as they treated President Donald J. Trump.

TUESDAY.  Herbert Hoover.  His deeply held conviction that balancing the federal budget was ‘the very keystone of recovery” in the face of the mass unemployment and shanty town “Hoovervilles,” and his championing a recessionary tax-hike as part of what was called by Hoover-haters the “Great Depression,” led the “fake news” media to treat him very unfairly, but not as unfairly as they treated President Donald J. Trump.

WEDNESDAY.  James K. Polk.  His desire to make America’s “Manifest Destiny” real led him to preside over the annexation Texas, acquire the Oregon Territory, and wage the Mexican War, thus vanquishing a long-traditional American enemy.  This led the “fake news” media to treat him very unfairly, but not as unfairly as they treated President Donald J. Trump.

THURSDAY.  Samuel Tilden.  He won the popular vote in 1876 and needed only one more electoral vote to secure the Presidency, but returns in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon were fraudulently awarded to Rutherford B. Hayes by a “special commission,” giving Hayes a suspiciously convenient 185–184 victory, a stolen election.  It was a shoddy, despicable deal, but not as shoddy and despicable as the deal that occurred when President Donald J. Trump was denied the Presidency after the stolen election on 2020.

FRIDAY.  Theodore Roosevelt.  He cleaned up football, initiated the “Square Deal,” attacked monopolies, and created the country of Panama so he could dig a canal there.  He then ended the Russo-Japanese War, in which there were 150,000 deaths, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in contrast to President Donald J. Trump, who ended seven or eight wars—it’s easy to lose count—but has been unfairly denied the elusive honor. 

10:00-11:00      THE DUKES OF HAZARDS

Follow Don, Jr. and Eric as they star in this reboot of the epochal television series.  In this rendering, the boys have their previous conviction for moonshining overturned and they sell their Dodge Charger, the so-called “General Lee,” and instead get an up-model Tesla that they park on the White House Lawn.  In this week’s episode, Bo and Luke hatch a scheme to “moonshine” digital currencies using their hidden still in the woods.

11:00-1:00         LIVE! FROM THE KENNEDY CENTER

Follow our investigators as they look for water damage, small rodent infestation, and examples of art reaching out to the souls of a diverse, pluralist mankind, all of which will be eliminated when the structure is torn down.  This week, a large, unsightly, bronze bust of an unidentified person is melted for scrap.

1:00-3:00                AFFORDABILITY HOAX FIGHTERS

We meet a variety of plain old Americans who are resisting so-called “inflationary” price

increases with characteristic American cunning, putting the lie to the “Affordability Hoax.”.

MONDAY.  Ramon Guerrero is a long-haul trucker who was confronted with diesel prices on their way to $7.00.  His ingenious response?  Driving less!  Ramon is now doing shorter routes, which reduces his income but saves money on gas and gives him more time with his family.

TUESDAY.  Hilda Sonnenschein has watched her electricity rates skyrocket as data centers near her home drain power from the grid.  Her solution?  An electricity-generating bicycle!  “I saw it in a movie when I was kid,” she confesses.  “It works great!”

WEDNESDAY.  Warren Mathis was greeted with a massive health insurance bill after the obligation of young, healthy people to participate in the Obamacare system was ended and its ensuing subsidies were scotched.  His deft handling of the situation?  Go without!  “I’m perfectly healthy,” he says, deftly avoiding a piano dropped from several stories above.

THURSDAY.  Wendy Callahan watched the price of diesel going up and realized that her home heating oil was the same product!  Then, a big idea occurred to her—burning her furniture in the fireplace!  “I really don’t need a lot of this stuff,” she explains. 

FRIDAY.  Fran Feldman’s pre-K day care bill was running to thousands of dollars a month, more than her take home pay!  Her inspired response?  Sell her children!  “Sure, I miss them,” she allows, “but not only did I cut my expenses, but I raised some quick cash as well, particularly for the blonde one.”

3:00-5:00           THE ROMAN FORUM

We return to the Republic that informed our democracy!  A carefully curated, partisan audience votes “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” for the removal of skilled technocrats who obstruct the President’s agenda.

MONDAY.  Thousands of doctors and nurses at the Department of Veteran Affairs retire or are laid off with the approval of our studio audience in an effort to curb unnecessary treatments and procedures afforded our veterans, many of whom served in “forever wars” the Administration opposed until it started one.

TUESDAY.  Our audience cheers as staff who forecast hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and other Acts of God at the National Center for Atmospheric Research have been deemed redundant and sent home, given the dramatically reduced frequency of these not-systemic events.

WEDNESDAY.  Measles?  COVID?  Bad lettuce?  Hoax!  Laughter and applause greets the layoff of 30 percent of the largely redundant Centers for Disease Control.  Ten of the eleven division directors are missing.  But really, who needs them?

THURSDAY.   Loud acclaim welcomed the Trump Administration’s 83 percent cut in programs administered by the United States Agency for International Development despite the likely ensuing  declines in neonatal health, malnutrition, and a host of other morbidities and mortalities around the world.  “Maybe,” said one audience member, “but I don’t know a one of them.”

FRIDAY.  Hooting and hollering hailed a thirty percent cut in National Science Foundation spending.  The audience laughed off repeated claims that the cuts would compromise American technological leadership and innovation, with one audience member remarking, “It’s about time those pencil-necked geeks got taken down a peg or two.’”

5:00-7:00            MEET THE PRESIDENTS – SPECIAL EDITION!

A tour of the special, other, Presidential Walk of Fame!

MONDAY.  Thomas Jefferson.  He famously wrote the Declaration of Independence, secured the Louisiana Purchase, confronted the Barbary pirates, and fathered as many as six children by his mulatto slave and half-sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, starting in Europe when she was just sixteen.  And yet nobody sued him the way they sued President Donald J. Trump!

TUESDAY.  Warren Harding.  Harding began an affair with recent high school graduate Nan Britton, by whom he had a daughter before being elected to the Presidency, and whom he is said to have pleasured in a knee-buckler in a closet adjacent to the Oval Office while Secret Service men were stationed outside their door, and all the while carrying on with his wife’s best friend, Carrie Phillips.  And yet he was not the subject of an unfair lawsuit, as was President Donald J. Trump.

WEDNESDAY.  John F. Kennedy. “I wonder how it is with you, Harold. If I don’t have a woman for three days, I get a terrible headache,” JFK is said to have told British Prime Minister Harold Macmillian, furthering the “special relationship” built by Churchill and FDR.  Eschewing aspirin, he went right to the cause by having alleged affairs with, among others, Marilyn Monroe, Judith Exner, two White House secretaries, and a 19-year-old virgin on the fourth day of her internship in the White House.  Rather than reveal their assignation, the teen-age girl kept their secret for forty years, which is more than the porn star who is falsely alleged to have carried on with, and paid hush money by, President Donald J. Trump ever did.

THURSDAY.  Grover Cleveland.  Maria Halpin accused Cleveland of raping and impregnating her.  Cleveland allowed cronies to have her committed to an insane asylum (from which she was released after doctors determined that she was not insane).  And yet it was President Donald J. Trump who was unfairly sued for a sexual assault that didn’t happen, although doctors at Walter Reed have certified that, by dint of his remembering five words, he is “not insane.”

FRIDAY.  Bill Clinton.  President Donald J. Trump courageously brought alleged Clinton assignees Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, and Kathleen Willey to his second debate with gender-reversed cuckold First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.  But Clinton was not convicted by the Senate when impeached for lying under oath in the Jones suit and regarding Monica Lewinsky, which is more than you could say about President Donald J. Trump’s conviction in criminal court.

7:00-7:05            NEWS OF THE DAY

Crisp editorial judgment allows us to reduce the evening’s news to five minutes by by-passing “fake news” stories on a “war” in Iran, “devastation” in Gaza, and rapidly rising “prices.”  Look for an ad for the next UFC White House event!

7:05-10:00         THIS EVENING WITH NATALIE CARP

Proto-First Daughter Natalie reminisces about her time spent loyally pursuing the welfare of President Donald J. Trump, including her posting a video ridiculing Barack and Michelle Oama as apes and another depicting President Donald Trump as a Jesus-like, magical healer of the sick.  She’ll also be discussing the intelligence community’s inexplicably denying her a security clearance, as well as her being spirited away in a cargo food container when Air Force One was deemed in danger of a terrorist attack, while such lesser staffers as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent remained on the decoy plane.  “Good times,” says the Trump sycophant.

10:00-6:00         NO TV!  JUST TRUMP POSTS!

It’s time to stop watching television and pull out your phones instead, so that you can be the first to read whatever our President chooses to post on another of his all-night texting benders.  You can’t watch television all day!

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