FIVE-TIME EMMY NOMINEE WILL DURST'S "BURST OF DURST" COMMENTARIES FROM "THE KOZ EFFECT"!
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TRUMPAPALOOZA
Now that the DNC four- day, multi- network infomercial is mercifully finished, the memory of the RNC version grows a bit dim, except for nominee Donald John Trump’s speech that ripped the wallpaper off the Quicken Loans Arena. According to him, life in America today is dark, dangerous, dismal, dystopian, full of doom and the only light on the horizon is coming from the blinding white teeth of the Blue Collar Billionaire himself.
The best way to describe what went down in Cleveland is… Trumpapalooza. It was all Trump all the time. Usually, a party’s nominee is the blushing bride, only getting glimpsed at the big closing ceremony, but this bride appeared live or by video all four days and did not blush once.
He needed to fill the void of a large group of Heavy Duty Republicans who stayed home, worried about being painted by the Trump Crazy Brush, which like his hair has an exceptionally wide swath. Sen. Jeff Flake from Arizona said he didn’t go because he “had to mow the lawn.” Which is just above sorting your sock drawer in terms of sad.
Hence, organizers were forced to flood the stage with Trumps. Or is it Trumpses? The whole affair was downright Trumpalicious. When it wasn’t about Hillary, that is. Which was often. To say she wasn’t getting hit with the happy stick is like intimating that Phoenix in August might creep up past balmy.
Chris Christie was ready to persecute, prosecute, execute, play a flute and electrocute Mrs. Clinton until she, reduced to ashes, could be safely sprinkled in the Cuyahoga River. And why is it that even when addressing supporters, the New Jersey Governor sounds like he’s reading them their Miranda Rights?
Ben Carsonogenic accused Hillary of being a disciple of Lucifer. Wow. Where do you go from there? Not a lot of wiggle room left. Should she subsequently kick a puppy, does that make her even more eviler than Lucifer?
The VP pick, Mike Pence, claimed he’s not the most exciting politician and proved himself right. Next to this guy, vanilla seems exotic. And French vanilla- downright psychedelic. But he’s exactly what Trump needs. A yin for the yang. A conservative to balance the renegade. A soft green mold to muffle the spiky shards. 2% milk for the hydrochloric acid.
And there were plenty of Trumpses to go around. The first night, the third wife gave a speech, lifting large portions from Obama’s only wife. On Tuesday night the daughter of the second wife spoke along with the son of the first wife. On Wednesday the other son of the first wife waxed poetic and on the closing night the daughter of the first wife introduced the fertile and fickle man himself.
The show ended with the whole Trump clan crowding the stage including the son of the third wife, and who knows, maybe wives #1 & #2 and a couple of assorted mistresses snuck up there. The funny thing is, they’re all blonde. Even the ones that aren’t blonde are blonde if you catch my drift. It was Trumptastic. Or Trumpatrocious, depending on your point of view.
But the real star was Ted Cruz who ripped a page straight out of the Trump playbook because even though the Texas Senator got booed for not endorsing his rival, we’re still talking about him, making him the presumptive front- runner for 2020 GOP nomination. And yes, you’re right. Thinking about 2020 is dark and dismal.
Copyright © 2016, Will Durst, an award- winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former pedicab driver on Fisherman’s Wharf. He is covering both conventions for Free Speech TV. For more information go to willdurst.com or freespeech.org.
GLASS SHARDS.
Striding onto the Philadelphia stage resplendent in a white pants suit like a heavenly sent business bride walking down the aisle to tie the knot with America, Chelsea’s mom jettisoned the “presumptive” and accepted the Democratic Party’s invitation to become their nominee in the 2016 race for the Presidency of the United States. And contrary to prior dire warnings, the gates of hell did not open up.
While red, white and blue balloons bounced off their heads, the crowd at the Wells Fargo Center cheered the former First Lady, former US Senator from the state of New York, former Secretary of State, former female, former human… Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, for finally breaking the glass ceiling. Beware of falling shards.
Unfortunately, in order to accomplish this monumental achievement, the person President Obama called the most qualified to ever run for the office was forced to morph into a political cyborg, with not a organic, carbon- based bone left in her body. She’s Robo- Candidate with gears grinding so hard when she speaks, aides carry WD- 40 in their backpacks.
The festivities got off to a rocky start with Bernie Sanders’ legion of supporters booing every speaker that dared mention the name of his evil vanquisher. The Bernie or Bust contingent was so harsh, when the Vermont Senator endorsed the nominee they booed HIM. That’s strict. Apparently there was a competition to see which of Bernie Sanders’ supporters was the Berniest and alas, Senator Sanders was disqualified in an early round.
The miscreants were so adamant they forced Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the DNC to step down before the convention began. She couldn’t finish speaking in front of a Florida state breakfast meeting, andwhen you’re booed off the stage by your own delegation, that’s not good. No, I looked it up. That’s not good.
But Michele Obama was wonderful and in case you missed her speech, wait for Melania Trump’s spin on it.Then Bill Clinton announced that Elvis had reentered the building, Joe Biden rallied the masses by using the word “malarkey” and billionaire Michael Bloomberg provided the most cogent contention of the convention, “Vote for Hillary because she’s sane.” A powerful argument that during a normal year might be convincing, “Not Insane.”
Eventually most of the rabble rousers came to the realization that sometimes you just have to go with the lying thieving cretinous toad, because it’s your lying thieving cretinous toad, as opposed to your enemies’ lying thieving cretinous toad who is teeming with scabies. And yes, both candidates might make you sick, but one will give you intestinal cramps while the other- Ebola.
So now both conventions are over and it’s time the parties get down to the important business of… raising money for the general election. And they better raise a huuuge amount because people are going to start paying attention to these electoral shenanigans real soon.
Not right away. First there’s the Olympics, and then of course, getting the kids back to school and Labor Day, then football starts and you have the baseball playoffs, but probably sometime not too long after Halloween, all of America will turn its attention to this, the most important election of our lifetime. Yes. Again.
Copyright © 2016, Will Durst, an award- winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former warehouseman at J.C. Penney’s. For information about his one man show “Elect to Laugh: 2016” appearing every Tuesday at the Marsh in San Francisco and other theaters such as the Lucky Penny in Napa on Friday August 4, go to willdurst.com.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
So the conventions are over and we’ve entered the penultimate stage of this presidential demolition derby and your muted murmurs of “yippee” and “hooray” have been duly noted. That’s enough, put the horns away, this is not an overly large celebration.
It took a year and a half, but the presidential field has winnowed down to the major political parties’ two anointed nominees: the Donald and the Hillary. Let us pray. And more polarizing figures could not be found with the superconducting magnet at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.
Thus far the process has been everything but pretty or boring: vicious, petty, puerile, perverse, depraved, savage, a slapstick parody, a travesty of two mockeries of a sham with a little surrealistic burlesque thrown in for good measure.
The next three months promise more of the same on a larger scale with a smaller cast of characters. Like a daytime soap turned into a feature film. With plot twists and special effects and surprise cameos and reverse camera angles and pretty much everything but car chases. Although, with Bill Clinton involved, you can’t rule it out.
Expect multi- directional, laser- focused, cluster bomb attacks on two people whose outsized personalities make them targets the size of your proverbial side of the barn. And they will be hit. From 3 feet away. With pointy rocks.
The hardest part is figuring out which is scarier: that one of these two is going to become the next president of the United States or the American people get to decide.
Politicians echo that refrain like hyperactive crickets in the summer dusk: “It’s what the American people want.” And “Let’s see what the American people want.” Nooooo. Let’s not see what the American people want. Have we learned nothing at all from segregation and civil war and The Real Housewives of Orange County? You want to know what the American people want? We’ll tell you what the American people want.
The American People want drive- thru nickel beer night.
The American People want to lose weight by eating potato chips.
The American People think louder is better and deafening is best.
The American People want to climb K- 2 in a Lazy- Boy recliner.
The American People want the Supreme Being to help their team beat the other team totally oblivious that fans of the other team expect the same thing.
The American People require a warning label on their brake fluid to keep them from drinking it.
The American People want to win the lottery without having to buy a ticket.
The American People think any piece of clothing they can squeeze into, fits.
The American People want to make society safer with more guns.
The American People want to visit foreign lands and speak English.
The American People want better schools and roads by paying fewer taxes.
The American People would chew off their own foot if Oprah told them there was
liquid gold in their ankle veins.
The American People want to look like George Clooney by getting $10 haircuts.
68% of the American People still believe professional wrestling is legitimate.
The American People have the attention span of tornado- strewn straw.
The American People think the laws of gravity should be repealed.
The American People love the Home Shopping Network because it’s commercial free.
God bless the American People.
Copyright © 2016, Will Durst. Will Durst is an award- winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former roach coach pilot. For sample videos and a calendar of personal appearances including his new one- man show, Elect to Laugh: 2016, appearing every Tuesday at the San Francisco Marsh and other theaters such as the Pioneer in Reno on August 11- 13, go to willdurst.com.
BIZARRE SIMILARITIES BETWEEN TRUMP AND CLINTON.
Our quadrennial presidential sweepstakes regularly provides textbook studies in contrast. And 2016 raises the bar in disparity. Red and blue. Left and right. Hot and cold. Up and down. Good and bad. Boy and girl. Pro and con. Loud and soft. Rain or shine. Fish and fowl. Dumb and dumber.
Perhaps the only fact that supporters of both major party candidates can agree is that differences between the two do exist. Donald Trump is a Gemini and Hillary Clinton a Scorpio. He’s 70 years old while she doesn’t turn 69 until October. And that relative youth obviously goes a long way in explaining why Millennials overwhelmingly favor her.
One is a democrat and the other a demagogue. One is a woman who has big hands and the other isn’t and doesn’t. And as Michael Bloomberg put it, one of them is not insane.
But this is America, damn it, where yeah, sure, we acknowledge our differences. After all, each and every one of us is special and unique like a baby snowflake. But this is a country that also embraces that which binds us together, and the number of bizarre similarities the Donald and the Hillary share is uncanny.
Well, they’re not quite mirror images, but considering one is a 5’ 6” career politician and one is a 6’ 2” reality TV star, there are enough peas- in- a- pod resemblances to call out the doppelganger police. Although best you ring the business office, not the emergency number.
For instance: both are Americans who live in New York, are right- handed and sport bullet- proof hair. Both treat the truth with a disdain normally reserved for Zika- infested mosquito ponds and have spouses that are beloved enablers of the tabloids. Each has five fingers on their left and right hands and should you have occasion to shake hands with either, you would be well advised to count your fingers before walking away.
Both have running mates that were they to assume the Presidency, the nation would nod off within a week. Each has the same connection to regular humans as a Lear Jet has in common with Comet kitchen cleanser. Neither can believe they are not leading the other by at least 25 points in the polls and collectively they exhibit the grace of 40- grit sandpaper with neither having the faintest notion of when to put a sock in it.
Both have unfavorable ratings higher than guard geese downwind of a marijuana field on fire. Each is fond of mangling the English language while wearing a name- brand suit. Neither is a billionaire and both are still picking the splintered bones of vanquished primary opponents from between their toes.
Both have been a pointy mote in the public eye for decades and are prone to making themselves incredibly easy targets of late night comedians. And each has problems with the new technology; one is stymied by emails, the other- addicted to tweets.
And finally, each candidate is adamant that if the other is elected on November 8th it will be a disaster not just for the nation, but the hemisphere, the planet, the solar system and the universe. And the two have united millions who believe that on this issue they both may be right.
Copyright © 2016, Will Durst. Will Durst is an award- winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former bartender in Hurley Wisconsin. For a calendar of personal appearances including his new one- man show, Elect to Laugh: 2016, appearing every Tuesday at the San Francisco Marsh, go to willdurst.com. And don’t forget the Will & Willie podcast on Tuesday August 16, 2016 also at the Marsh @ 6:00 pm. Free.
