Paying Attention Encore Presentation

I Repeat

December 22, 2018

As mentioned previously, I. Mangrey and several other staff are off the grid, sequestered in a secret, undisclosed bar-and/or-grill, indignantly searching for clues of what is to come, in order to bring you the future before it gets here and it’s too late.  For now, sit back and relax while we dredge up reintroduce some posts from the past, that are hopefully still enjoyable in the present, and with any luck, ancient history in the near future.  As we look forward to 2019, the final year of the Chrump un-prezidency, may your year-end holidays be filled with whatever it is you would like them to be filled.

Ed Venture
(Barely) Managing Editor, Paying Attention

So, if you have nothing better to do, we bring you the first of our encore presentations…

Being There Now

Nowhere in particular
April 20, 2017

The main character in Jerzy Kosisnky’s 1970 novel Being There was named Chance. Chance was a gardener. He grew up and then remained in the household of a wealthy man, never exposed to the outside world with the exception of the substantial amount of time he spent watching television. Chance was evicted after his benefactor died. All he knew of life came from watching TV. Sound familiar?

Peter Sellers masterfully portrayed Chance in the 1979 movie. Everyone who meets him, including the president, interprets Chance’s gardening-based utterances as profound philosophical life lessons. The movie ends with high-level movers and shakers deciding that Chance is the only man they could back as the next president, convinced that his lack of personal history, his down-home “wisdom” and lack of political experience would be tremendous assets for getting him into the White House. Sound familiar?

The main difference of course between Chance and the person we are all thinking of, is that Chance was a pure innocent. There was no pretense to him. He was what he claimed to be – a gardener. He did not know how to read. When asked what he read, he would answer honestly as always, “I like to watch TV.” People read into that what they chose to. Chance understood nothing of the world he lived in. And Chance had absolutely no interest in being famous, unlike his real-life doppelganger, who wants attention, fame and adoration above all else…with the possible exception of the ability to maintain a candy-corn-colored hair-like substance atop his empty cranium.

Being Chrump

Chance’s evil twin – No-Chance – demonstrates a complete absence of innocence. He is 100% artifice. From his fake wealth, to his fake words, to his fake hair and hue. Like Chance though, he knows only what he gathers from television. He has no idea how any of it applies to real life. He has no interest in real life. He has never had to. He never had a real job, grew up in the house of a wealthy man – except while sequestered at a military academy, due to his utter lack of ability to have non-sociopathic interactions with other humans. He was a bad seed, now grown into a diseased plant, sowing its seeds to the four winds with wreck-ful abandon.

In response to a question from a German reporter about his statement that Obama hired British intelligence to tapp (sic) his wires, Chrump lied, “We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind, who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it.” Very presidential. First, you cannot quote someone without saying something. Second, Sean Spitball repeated the unfounded BS (I believe that is an opinion, particularly since it was untrue.), and third, the very talented legal mind at (SURPRISE!) Fux News was making shit up. A colleague at Fux News had to disavow the very talented legal mind, who was temporarily taken off the air and put into a witless protection program. He has since returned to his job, refusing to admit he was either lying or stupid.

It really is time that everyone ridicule everything this so-called alt-president says. Every. Single. Word.

Anyway, the picture below was meant to be worth a thousand words. Apparently, it was only worth about 480.

I. Mangrey reporting. Don’t make me come over there.