My CoviDiary: 11/28/2020: My Favorite Things on Oprah’s List of Favorite Things

BY MAX BURBANK | ,Could it be?? Is it time?? Oh it is! It IS!! It’s time for -drumroll please- perhaps the most anticipated segment of My CoviDiary… The moment I unveil…

“My Favorite Things of Oprah’s!”

If you’re like me, the Holiday season doesn’t really begin until Oprah releases her list of favorite things! I’m not talking about “whiskers on Kittens” ‘cause that Julie Andrews shit can suck it. You know what you can’t do with “raindrops on roses”? Buy them. The problem with ephemeral niceties is they’re awfully hard to wrap up, slap a bow on, and bestow as a perfect gift that shows how thoughtful you are and how deeply you know the person you are giving it to. “Wild Geese That Fly With The Moon On Their Wings” is a nice image, but it isn’t a consumer product that will drive home the indisputable fact that the recipient will never in their lives succeed in giving you anything that speaks as directly to your spirit the as yours did to theirs, ensuring they feel bad about themselves for an entire year at the end of which they will try again to match, or even best, your gift giving acumen and FAIL. Oprah knows “Favorite things” aren’t intangibles, they are STUFF. And nobody knows what STUFF will let you dominate the holidays better than Oprah!

That’s why my most cherished holiday tradition that I just started this year is MY list of my favorite things on Oprahs list of favorite things,which, let’s face it, is maybe a tad too long. Oprah knows more about everything than anyone in human history, but she’s can be just the teensiets bit long winded, don’t you think? Her list this year has 72 items on it! Maybe somebody should give Oprah an editor as an insightful holiday gift! I don’t know who she thinks has time for 72 of her favorite things. Maybe if I named a magazine after myself and put myself on the cover of every issue, I too would think people wanted to know 72 things I thought were awesome, OR MAYBE I’d be lucky and one of my 72 favorite things was a little self awareness. WHO KNOWS?! I’m just saying that if everyone you know says the thing they most want to hear in this life is the sound of your voice? Either you’re Jesus or they’re super scared of you. And even Oprah isn’t Jesus. HO HO HO, AM I RIGHT, “O” ?!?

Anyway, here’s hoping everything on my annual My Favorite Things on Oprah’s list of favorite things brings you and your loved ones surprise and delight and maybe makes them angry at you in a lasting, deeply buried way that they will be forever too cowed by your awesomeness to express. Because isn’t that what this most blessed season is really all about? Striving to be more Oprah-like?

So Happy holidays—and happy shopping! Unless of course the pandemic and resulting economic collapse have impacted your gift giving practices in ways that don’t generally occur to billionaires, all of whom have grown richer in the last year, because apparently tragedy is profitable if your seat was extra cushy to begin with. Which is not meant as a slam at Oprah, because OPRAH! NO ONE DOESN’T LIKE OPRAH!!!! Remember when she gave everybody a car?! Or when she gave the world the gift of Dr. Phil, who yes, maybe turns out to be a crazy-ass gun freak who recently compared the threat of the coronavirus to the deaths each year in auto accidents, pool drownings and smoking-related illnesses while guesting on the always delightful Laura Ingraham’s hour of Aryan Supremacy show, but… uh… huh. Not sure where I was going with that, but I’m pretty sure I can’t get there.

OK, here are the main things on Oprah’s list that if you don’t buy as gifts you’re less than a whole person. ENJOY!!!

TECH GIFTS

The Terrace TV! It’s a weatherproof outdoor TV! A TV for OUTDOORS! So extravagant it’s bound to beat the shit out of whatever they got for you and they’ll feel inadequate and bitter every time they watch it OUTDOORS, which honestly is an activity that almost no one’s lifestyle supports so eventually they’ll move it inside and then feel compelled to laboriously move outside every time you visit! Plus, it’s only about 4 Grand, so they’ll know you’re rich enough to throw that kind of Green away.

The Mirror! You’ve seen ads for it on TV and there’s nothing creepy or terrifying about it at all! It’s just basically a giant-ass smart phone you hang on your wall that only lets you Facetime with fitness classes! And you can see yourself in it, but also your instructor! And we absolutely promise it isn’t listening to you or taking video of you 24 hours a day, so it’s fine to put it right in your bedroom where you change clothes, sleep and whatever all other private stuff you get up to in your bedroom! Absolutely not something you’d allow in your own house ever, but THE PERFECT GIFT! Just $1,495 and then $35 a month subscription fee your friend or loved one can pay for the rest of their life or until about February when they give up on it like every single piece of exercise equipment anyone ever bought that eventually became a very attractive laundry drying rack. Except this one has people in it that watch you and tell you what to do, and if you think they don’t keep watching you when you stop paying your subscription, you haven’t watched enough dystopian science fiction. The Mirror? More like The Black Mirror! Don’t worry! They just want you to get fit and be your best self! Your Mirror will never talk to you when you’re sleeping and pressure you into extramarital affairs or the eventual gruesome murder of your spouse, and if it does, it certainly won’t make videos! It’s a fitness regimen interactive tech portal, not a horror movie, right? Right? Merry Christmas!

i-Phone 13 with 6G! Can you imagine how shitty your loved one will feel when they open this tech miracle that DOESN’T EVEN EXIST YET? Comes with a card that reminds them of their very thoughtful gift they gave you last year, one of those big, round decorative tins that’s divided into three sections by pieces of cardboard, and each section holds a different flavor of old popcorn! Caramel Corn, Cheese and Plain! Who doesn’t love PLAIN??

GIFTS FOR FOODIES

The Duo Luxury Sea Salt Gift Set! Two exquisitely tiny black lacquer tubs of Sea Salt containing absurdly small amounts of allegedly super rare sea salts! It’s the gift that says “How is this different than just salt beyond the fact that there’s so little of it, but my, what attractive little tubs!” Black Lava Sea Salt and Alea Sea Salt are words you can say to other foodies who will pretend to know what they mean rather than lose face! Great for a Yankee Swap if your circle of friends is mostly made up of people who pay huge wads of cash for tiny, black lacquer tubs of almost nothing!

Ol’ Chef Crispus McGee’s Ultimate Spice Set of Typical Spices Except The Word ‘Artisan’ Gets a Pretty Good Workout on every Label! So fun because the person you give it to totally knows there’s no difference between ‘Chipotle Slow Smoked Paprika’ and ‘Paprika’, but they’ll never work up the courage to say it and they’ll wake up in the middle of the night ashamed of their cowardice but unable to change! Guaranteed to provoke days of seething bitterness!

A Small Wooden Rack of Wee Little Jars of Preserves We Both Know Will Never be Eaten and Will Still Be in the Door of Your Fridge on the Day You Die! Charmingly self explanatory! And under $100 at $99.99! Price tag is burned into the wood for rustic, unremovable authenticity!

Peach Butta Cobbler Pie! Fuck that freshly baked shit! This one was made an indeterminate amount of time ago and CAME IN THE MAIL! And they spelled ‘butter’ wrong ON PURPOSE TO BE CUTE which probably accounts for at least $75.95 for the $89.95 price tag, because ideas that good aren’t free! The point is, you have money to burn, whoever you’re giving it to almost certainly doesn’t, and this pointless little gift drives that point home!!

Traditional British Peppermint Pig in a Velvet Drawstring Bag! Apparently this is a thing rich British people give each other because of centuries of inbreeding. It comes with a tiny sterling silver plated hammer. Unreasonably expensive!

Unspeakable Elegance Black Label Kopi Luwak coffee beans! This rare delicacy is created by passing the raw beans through the digestive tract of the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus.) You think I made this up, but I promise you, I did not! Google it and see! Comes with a calligraphed, suitable for framing, illustred card explaining the process. You think authentic Kona Coffee is expensive? Kopi Luwak kicks Kona coffee square in the nuts and stands over it laughing!

COZY SHIT

So Good Fluffy Slippers!

Big, faux fur slippers you could buy at any Walmart except these ones cost $49.95! You can afford that mark up for your personal assistant, mail carrier or whatever, right? No? Golly, Oprah can. Hey if you didn’t want to get laid off because of a silly old global pandemic, you should have planned ahead and become the CEO of an international media empire! Cozy!

Softies Marshmallow Slouch Turtleneck Loungers!

Great for lounging! And Slouching! So warm and toasty, perfect for when the government order that keeps utilities from shutting off your heat during the pandemic expires because Mitch McConnell doesn’t give a tin shit about you dying of hypothermia! Really super cozy down to 45 degrees at which point, I don’t know, maybe put a larger one on over it? Share body heat with whoever you’re quarantining with? Cut your dead Tauntaun open and climb inside it? Look, I gave you a Softies Marshmallow Slouch Turtleneck Lounger, now I’m supposed to pay your damn heating bill? Who am I, Oprah?! So, so, SO COZY!!

Alpine Cashmere Hoodies!

It’s a Hoodie, but Cashmere! Stylish and ironic! Not very warm or at all practical, but people will take one look and say “Shit! Is that Hoodie Cashmere?! Cashmere is expensive as FUCK! Somebody must really like you! Is it Oprah?” Guaranteed Cozy up the ass and then some!!!

Cozy!

OK, stick with me here; You open it up, and it’s just the word “Cozy.” Not even written on anything. It’s purely conceptual. You’re like, “What the hell is this? This gift bag is empty” and I smile knowingly, and real quiet, I just say the word… “Cozy.” Right? And you’re socially obligated to act like you get it. Because you know it’s from my list of my favorite things on Oprah’s list of favorite things. You’re going to question Oprah? Who the hell are you? Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? Now THAT was a totally cozy reference, bitch. Google it.

FOR THE HOME

Hydroponic Mason Jar Garden Set

If you ever get these little fuckers to even sprout, they’ll certainly die shortly thereafter when you forget to water them. It’s a gift that’s a metaphor for the human condition! The label says Mason Jar, but they look ceramic to me in the picture. I thought Mason Jars had to be glass. Who knows. Do I look like I have a doctorate in Mason Jarology? And if I’m honest, “Hydroponic” is one of those words I feel like I know what it means, but I couldn’t exactly give you a definition. Whatever, they cost a lot. And after the plants die, you still have jars. Beats the shit out of whatever you got me I bet. I’ll give you a moment to look at that soap set and see if I’m right.

Soap Set

You know that person on your list you don’t know anything about and you’re never going to because honestly you don’t give a shit? Sure you do Oprah has lots of those people on her list, and she gives them a soap set. It’s as impersonal as a candle, but it also says “You could be cleaner.” I ordered six and I keep ‘em in my closet, because there’s people you forgot to even put on your list, and when somebody you don’t even recognize gives you a gift, you’ll be glad you have extra soap sets. Unless they give you a soap set. Because that shit is a slap in the face.

FOR THE KITCHEN

Big Ass Kitchen Gadget That You’ll Use Once At Best That Supposedly Does A Whole Bunch of Different Shit But You Have Absolutely No Room To Put Anywhere.

Do I really need to say anything else about this?

Fancy Ass Bar Tender’s Kit

A canvas roll of odd little tools and mysterious accessories that do very specific things to stuff that go in complicated cocktails. The gift that says during quarantine you’ve run out of ways to pass the time and you’ve already tripled your alcohol consumption, so why not get into this? Who knows, maybe it will slow you down a little. Or maybe most of the tools will be impossible to use with your miserable, shaky hands.

Cangshan Thomas Keller Signature Collection Three-Piece TAI Block Set

I read the description and looked at the picture like, eight times, and I still have no idea what this is, but it costs $300. You’ll feel mystified and then guilty when you eventually put it on the upper shelf of your closet with a bunch of other shit that’s gonna be there until your estate sale. What do I care? I’m the richest woman on earth and I’m beneficent as fuck and perfect. And one of the most beloved women on earth. Or I pretend I am that woman and for a little while I don’t feel so bad. It’s none of your business. Don’t you judge me. Even Gayle doesn’t get to judge me.

The Barista Pro

It’s a coffee machine from Italy and it costs $800 bucks. Eight. Hundred. Bucks. Know what it does? Makes coffee. I don’t even know if you like coffee. Maybe you’re a tea drinker. I don’t care. Because you know who gives a gift like that like an $800 coffee maker? A saint. That’s who. Go ahead. Compete with a saint.

STYLISH GEMS

Huh?

Know what? I read this section of Oprah’s List of Favorite Things like over and over, and I just don’t get it. A third of it could have been in the “Cozy” section, but for some reason it’s here and the rest is just, like, earrings and shit? Tote bags? Reading glasses? I shit you not, reading glasses. Who the fuck gives reading glasses as a holiday gift? Does it seem to you like sometimes Oprah just gets so far in her list and then starts phoning it in? Like, maybe a lot of the time? Like she’s just relying on you being dazzled by the fact that she’s Oprah? Like she could give you a wax paper sack of monkey crap and say “It’s artisan and it cost me $7,000 dollars and it’s one of my FAVORITE THINGS! You get a wax paper sack of monkey crap, and You get a wax paper sack of monkey crap, EVERYBODY GETS A WAX PAPER SACK OF MONKEY CRAP!!!” Don’t get me wrong, I still think Oprah is the Celestial Madonna or whatever, but… what if… what if she isn’t? What the hell do I do then? Who would I be, Gayle? Who the hell would I be?

Soul Crushers

This isn’t so much an item on Oprah’s List of Favorite Things as it is a very handsomely wrapped realization that there is no reason whatsoever for this annual exercise to reference a song from “The Sound of Music.” It’s not parallel. The song is in no way a list of gift suggestions, it’s a way of looking at life. When Oprah started doing this on her show all those years ago maybe it was more like the song, but I doubt it and I don’t have any idea because I never watched that show. Not my cup of tea, really. I’m a coffee drinker.

I like the song. I wish I could give you snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes. I wish there was a way to do that. But there isn’t really. That’s more of an idea than a thing, and how do you give someone an idea as a gift? Maybe if you could give someone an idea, somehow we wouldn’t all feel so bad. Like in the song.

Irritation

And it’s not a Christmas song! It isn’t! Why does everybody think it’s a fucking Christmas song?! “Brown paper packages tied up with string”? That’s one fucking line, and NEWSFLASH, nowhere does it say those packages are CHRISTMAS PRESENTS! They could be for your birthday, or something someone gave you just because they LIKE YOU! Or something you ordered that came in the mail!! Come on Oprah! It’s a lazy reference! Put in the work!! This is the toughest holiday season in modern American history and the only nod you make to it is one of the things on your list is masks?! In the “Stylish Gems” section?! Something you wear to protect other people from possibly catching a potentially fatal disease from you is a “Stylish Gem”?! Could you take this seriously and maybe dispense a little hope instead of just just toodling along being Oprah like nothing is different?! What the hell, Oprah?

Seriously. What the hell?

Realization

You know what? I don’t even want to be Oprah anymore. From now on I’m going to be Dolly Parton. She’s awesome and she wouldn’t suggest shit to me for gifts, she’d say “Darlin’ you got to think of that yourself! A gift don’t mean nothin’ if it don’t come from your heart. An’ no matter how dark it gets, we still got heart.”

Or some shit like that. Because Dolly is wise as fuck.

Don’t look at me like that.
I’d be an awesome Dolly Parton.

-END-

BEFORE YOU CONTINUE, LEARN A LITTLE BIT ABOUT MAX BURBANK | Burbank is a freelance writer living in Salem, Massachusetts. His work has been published by Cracked.com, NationalLampoon.com, i-mockery.com, and the literary magazine websites (because he is both hoity and toity, but neither enough to get in the print versions) Monkeybicycle.net and Frictionmagazine.com. Once upon a time, before the Internet, he sold science fiction stories to the legendary Algis Budrys for Tomorrow: The Magazine of Speculative Fiction. Until recently, he was the political satirist for Chelsea Now, where he won a PRESTIGIOUS first-place award for editorial cartooning from the New York Press Association, because gosh darn it, he draws real good, too. A huge, steaming pile of Max’s comedy writing can be found archived at maxburbank.wordpress.com. Max is available for freelance work, both writing and illustration, because he likes

My CoviDiary: 11/22/2020: A Video Thanksgiving Toast From 2008

BY MAX BURBANK | Way back in 2008, I made this video Thanksgiving Toast for I-mockery.com, a website that to this day holds the record for publishing more of my material than any other platform. God bless them, every one, by which I mean the inimitable Roger Barr, since he ran the whole thing.

Most years I post a link to it, and I even put it in this very “Blog” back in 2014, but I see no reason not to update that post, as it costs me nothing. I’ve decided to include it in My CoviDairy as a time capsule of what I found amusing in those halcyon days. I still find it funny, but there’s a certain uncanniness now in the mockery of a holiday the centers around extended family gatherings. There’s a scene in one of my favorite movies, “The Omega Man” where Charlton Heston sits alone in a movie theater after the apocalypse, watching the documentary “Woodstock”, lip syncing the spacey hippy dialogue and laughing. A lot of pre-Covid entertainment puts me in mind of that scene lately, and the fact that this piece is me… well, that’s beside the point, you can’t share that exact feeling because you’re not me. Which makes the questions of identity that come up in the video all the more surreal, but just for me, and now I’m feeling selfish. Luckily, I don’t care. Because I’m selfish. Keep up.

I was quite a bit younger then, and I had less gray hair, but I like to think the unearned gravitas aging has lent my features over the years was foreshadowed even then. I don’t know what that sentence means, but it sounded like it meant something, and that is my particular skill set.

So with no further preamble, here it is. CLICK HERE to view it.

-END-

My CoviDiary: 11/19/2020: Oh, Rudy

BY MAX BURBANK |Okay, real quick, because as more than one person on social media has pointed out there is simply no way I could just let this go by without comment;

The artist formerly known as “America’s Mayor”?

Has, in less than the span of a month…

A.) Had a small role in the Borat Sequel wherein he appears in the hotel room of a very young lady, lying on his back on the bed, hand in his pants, either adjusting Little Rudy or “Tucking in his shirt” a thing it is perfectly normal and very common to lying supine.

B.) Gave an extremely important and very serious press conference in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, conveniently located between a crematorium and adult bookstore, a metaphor for the human condition if there ever was one, wherein he presented an alleged witness to voter fraud who turned out to be a more than alleged, and in fact registered, sex offender,

And today,

C.) Held forth at another press conference (and honestly, most people would have sworn off giving press conferences entirely after that last one) during which he sweated so profusely it caused whatever cheap-ass, substandard hair dye he’d been using to streak in rivulets down a gray skinned, elderly head that under the best of circumstances resembles nothing so much as a single elephant testicle that someone has inexplicably decorated with glasses, googly eyes and one-size-fits-all drug store dentures. I’d mention that Rudy appeared as part of what Trump Campaign Senior Legal Advisor Jenna Ellis described as “ an elite strike force team on behalf of the president and the campaign to make sure that our constitution is protected”, that he gave a very poor rendition of a scene from”My Cousin Vinny”, (he did that, literally, I am not describing the quality of his work, he quoted the actual movie) and that he was followed by Sydney Powell who advanced the theory that funding from unnamed communists and George Soros was used by the Democrats to purchase voting machine manipulating software developed under orders from the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and that she had an affidavit from a guy who’d been in Venezuela and knew Chavez and had seen that software in action who felt very strongly when he saw the results in Pennsylvania that they pretty much had to be the product of that software, but seriously; All anybody is going to remember about the whole presser is Rudy Giuliani with some sort of fluid that looked disturbingly like diaper leakage flowing down the wrinkle scored wreckage of his ancient, twitching, sweaty noggin.

I posted briefly about this on Facebook, to which an old friend responded “And your point is?”

Let me be totally clear: I have no point. I am not trying to make a point. We long ago left behind the land where points can be made and have ventured out past logic, consensus reality and quite possibly physics. I am merely laying down a marker to show where we are at this moment in space/time, our position on whatever arc the history of America turns out to be taking.

But I will say two things.

This is not new. Trump and Giuliani have a long association, and it’s not as lawyer and client, it’s as partners in a cheap, depressing amateur vaudeville act. If you are not familiar with it, go to Youtube and search Long Lost Footage Shows Rudy Giuliani Dressed In Drag with Donald Trump
Rudy, who once claimed his work for the president was pro bono, now says his fee as Trump’s personal lawyer is Twenty Grand a day.That may well be. But history suggests Trump is never going to pay him. The spectacle of his degrading, ludicrous collapse, documented permanently on video, will almost certainly be uncompensated, a accidental gift from His Honor to all mankind.

-END-

My CoviDiary: 11/13/2020: W.T(trump).F.

BY MAX BURBANK | OK, I had not planned to write anything tonight, but just very quickly, because I can NOT wrap my head around this shit at ALL…

The President just Tweeted:

“700,000 ballots were not allowed to be viewed in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh which means, based on our great Constitution, we win the State of Pennsylvania!”

Not to put too fine a point on it… and I haven’t forgotten that Donald Trump has a history of tweeting some rather odd crap, can I just say, though-

WHAT?!?

Seriously, what does that EVEN MEAN?!? That is SO UTTERLY CRAZY I have to take a moment and pick it apart, because at first glance this may not seem as nutso as, say, “Covfefe”, but the if you stop for a second and start to pick it apart, it is way, WAY, WAY crazier!!

OK, let’s take it apart:

“700,000 ballots were not allowed to be viewed in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh…”

A.) No. No, Donald, just no. If a vast number of ballots had not been allowed to be viewed in ANY district, surely somebody would know about it aside from just YOU. It’s the sort of thing that gets reported… somewhere? The ONLY place that number comes up is the amount you were ahead in ALL of Pennsylvania, VERY briefly, BEFORE they started counting mail in ballots.

B.) What in HELL does the phrase “Not allowed to be viewed” even mean?! Who didn’t allow them to be viewed? Where are they? How has no one but you heard of 700,000 ballots that are there in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but somehow have NOT BEEN VIEWED? I’ll assume you mean they haven’t been looked at, but WHO KNOWS?! Maybe you mean they have been somehow made invisible, or that they are behind a force field, or that when in their presence people are required to wear blindfolds!

“Which means, based on our great Constitution, we win the State of Pennsylvania!”

This second part literally hurts my head, but forward! Excelsior!

C.) 700,000. Seven… HUNDRED… THOUSAND! That, if you will excuse my employing the French language, is one FUCK of a lot of ballots! Since that number is totally made up, why pick something so large it HAS to be a lie? Biden won Pennsylvania by less than 100,000 votes! You don’t NEED 700,000! And if you are going to lie so outrageously and unbelievably, go big or go home! “18 BILLION ballots were not allowed to be viewed!”, “54 QUINTILIAN ballots were etc, etc!!”, “AN INFINITE NUMBER OF BALLOTS YADDA YADDA YADDA!!!”

D.) If the ballots haven’t been viewed how the HELL do you know for whom they were cast, genius?!

So, E.) You have NO WAY OF KNOWING if, even assuming these unviewed ballots exist, which, let’s be clear, THEY MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT, that meant you’d won! What if more of those non-existent ballots were votes for Biden than for you? Why, then you’d have lost, wouldn’t you? And as long as we’re talking about unviewed ballots that are NOT IN ANY WAY REAL, what if they were ALL for Biden?! Good lord, not only would that mean you had lost by even more than you actually lost in the real, not made up world, you’d look like a REAL ASSHOLE for making them up in the first place!! And

F.) WHY ARE YOU DRAGGING THE CONSTITUTION INTO THIS?! WHAT DID THE CONSTITUTION EVER DO TO YOU THAT YOU HAVE TO SOIL IT EVERY CHANCE YOU GET?!?

G.) Why are you ADVERTISING that you have no idea what the constitution is?! Do you actually believe that somewhere in the frikkin’ CONSTITUTION it says “And if, in the course of a presidential election, a very large number of ballots are not allowed to be viewed, the state in question shall be automatically won by whichever of the candidates brings this accusation, or maybe the one that was ahead at first, we’re not entirely sure how this rule works”, or do you just think EVERYONE is as entirely ignorant of what’s in the Constitution as you are, so you’re pretty confident you can brazenly bullshit your way into a win here and the ENTIRE REST OF THE COUNTRY will be too embarrassed by their Constitutional ignorance to CHALLENGE YOU ON IT?!? SERIOUSLY?!

And you know, it isn’t even you that flabbergasts me. At this point, anybody who doesn’t know you are a completely crazy old carbuncle as dumb as a gym sock full of monkey shit hasn’t been paying attention. You’ll do or say anything, you don’t care how stupid it makes you look, because you are devoid of even the concept of self respect. But tomorrow your horde of deviant, slack-jawed lackeys will come lurching out of their stalls toward the nearest available microphones and tell anyone who’ll listen “Yes. 700,000 ballots were indeed not allowed to be viewed. And our Founding Fathers, in their great wisdom, clearly wrote into the Constitution that if such a non viewing of ballots takes place, somehow that means Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania. Never mind this passage can’t be quoted, cited, or even found. Never mind that the very idea is unclear how that would work or what the statement itself even means. It’s definitely there, and it doesn’t embarrass us in the least to support that idea that it is actually, literally in the Constitution. If tomorrow Donald Trump says he has been anointed King of America by his own left ball, which has been chosen by the Lord Almighty to be his holy mouthpiece on earth, we shall line up and say, “Yay, verily, we have heard the words the president’s holy ball spake, and so shall it be.”

Too extreme?

Hannity would say it. Tucker Carslon? Absolutely.

My CoviDiary: 11/12/2020: One Thing I Don’t Worry About

BY MAX BURBANK | So Saturday was a great day. Pretty much every even semi-reliable media outlet called the election for Biden. My God, Fox Frikkin’ News called the election for Biden. You had to go to Breitbart, Newsmax and OAN for hold-outs. Which is like resurrecting “The Weekly World News” just so it can boldly spray “BAT-BOY ESCAPES, VOTES TWICE FOR BIDEN!!” across its front page.

I got a really nice day out of that. I came as close to relaxed as I have been in years.

Of course, President Creamsicle J. Lies-Aplenty didn’t concede and in fact doubled-down on his claim he’d already won, while at the same time turning purple and whining about how unfair it is for the media to call the election before every last “legal vote” has been counted. He claims to have mountains of proof about tremendous voter fraud without offering to present actual evidence of even a single stolen vote. None of that is a surprise, he’s doing exactly what everybody knew he was going to do. My God, go back to right before the election and you’ll see I wrote about it myself, and I’m just a hysteric with a larger than average vocabulary who learned early in life to sound smarter than I actually am. It’s a good trick, I rely on it heavily and you should try it yourself before you judge me.

But here’s where I (and a lot of writers who get paid way more than I do) started to fall off the mark. The theory went that once Trump had successfully seated Amy Coney Barrett, he had nothing left to offer the Republican party. Unless he won outright, he’d be nothing but a liability. And he didn’t. He quite clearly lost. Even with Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina yet to report Biden has a vast lead in the popular vote and 279 electoral votes, 9 more than he needs to win. If you add in Arizona (as Fox News ALREADY HAS) that’s 290. Trump can try all the legal shenanigans he likes and maybe succeed in shaving off a hundred or so votes here and there, but not enough to change anything.

So clear as all this is, Republican office holders should be predictably peeling away from Trump and recognizing Biden as the President elect, as former GOP lawmakers and world leaders from across the globe already have.

No such luck. Mitt Romney. That’s all we got.

Just… Mitt… Romney. Just the “binder full of women” dude. Just the fella that travelled with his dog on the roof of his car. That’s what the GOP has for a moral compass. Mitt Romeny is the toe Republicans hesitantly dip in the the idea that there is such a thing as objective reality.

That’s shocking, bizarre, pathetic and deeply disturbing. Every elected official in the party knows this is over. Well, not every. Devin Nunes is a clinical Moron and if Trump told him that when you breed a horse and a pony the resulting offspring is a zip-lock gallon bag of cold chicken noodle soup, Devin would happily slap a saddle on that bag. But everybody else knows! McConnell knows! Cruz Knows! Hell, Matt Gaetz knows and he has a bag of soup named “Wildfire” in his garage, just in case. If these sorry bastards were passengers on the Titanic, when the deck tilted at a 45 degree angle, they wouldn’t just choose to stay on board, they’d fight each other to see how much anchor chain they could wrap around their legs.

And some deeply paranoid, terrified something in the pit of my stomach whispers to me “The only explanation for their behavior is they know something about how this is all going to shake out.

They know why Trump built a wall around the White House. They know why he had the North lawn plowed up. They know why he’s firing key Pentagon players left and right and replacing them with chucklehead zombie loyalists, each with their own bag of soup champing at the bit. He’s got a secret, ironclad plan, and they are ALL… in… on… it.

Or more likely, probably not. More likely they are a collection of boobs banging around in the back of the GOP clown car. But you have to admit it’s worrisome. Worries are zinging around in the air like Murder Hornets right after Trump drop kicked their nest.

But there’s one worry zipping to and fro out there that I think I can put to rest for all of us. One worry I think is real, but not worthy of the attention or concern it’s getting. So let me give you my take on it, and maybe that will help settle us all down a bit.

The theory goes that if and when Trump is finally booted from the People’s House, he’s going to be bitter, angry, vengeful and desperately broke. He has maybe a hundred million in debt coming due plus what are bound to be some very impressive legal fees if he does anything except plead guilty to everything the Southern District of New York can throw at him. He’s going to be absolutely frantic to raise some cash. What does he have of value? His brand will be trashed, his properties are all assets the courts will surely be targeting, what’s left that he can sell?

People are concerned that his most marketable commodities will be state secrets.

The Washington post puts the dilemma like this:

“All presidents exit the office with valuable national secrets in their heads, including the procedures for launching nuclear weapons, intelligence-gathering capabilities — including assets deep inside foreign governments—and the development of new and advanced weapon systems, but no new president has ever had to fear that his predecessor might expose the nation’s secrets as President-elect Joe Biden must with Trump, current and former officials said. Not only does Trump have a history of disclosures, he checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk: He is deeply in debt and angry at the U.S. government, particularly what he describes as the “deep state” conspiracy that he says tried to stop him from winning the White House in 2016 and what he falsely claims is an illegal effort to rob him of reelection.”

I have no doubt at all that Trump would happily reveal any intelligence no matter how dangerous or damaging, because I’m quite certain there is not one patriotic bone hiding in all that ample, orange, flesh. He lacks the gene that compels humans to scruple. But I’m honestly not worried. Because Donald Trump is what’s known by medical science as a dum-dum. In fact he is known to be a “Very big dum-dum,” the most severe classification of the condition.

rump, who only ever attended intelligence briefings grudgingly, is rumored to have winnowed them down just a handful a month at this point, and those have to be brought to him in the form of coloring pages prominently featuring his own name in big balloon letters which he is said to color in Red, White, Blue, Red, White, Blue, etc, and his name must always be followed by an exclamation point so that the number of characters will be divisible by three and not “mess up the pattern.” In a best case scenario he is barely listening and if he was the likelihood that he would understand the content in any meaningful enough way to leak usable secrets is doubtful.

For instance; Back in May, Trump said “We’re building incredible military equipment at a level that nobody has ever seen before… We have — I call it, the ‘super duper missile… I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now. You’ve heard Russia has five times and China’s working on five or six times. We have one 17 times, and it’s just gotten the go-ahead.” Quick question, WHAT DOES ANY OF THAT EVEN MEAN?! If any intelligence agency from any country ponies up more than a trip to Arby’s for that kind of intel, they’re paying too much. And that’s Trump summarizing something he’d JUST HEARD! Imagine the deterioration every single day he’s out of office! It’s like a massive game of telephone between all the voices in his head! Unless Russian spies get to him on his way to the Helicopter on January 20’th, all they are going to get is a xerox of a xerox of a xerox multiplied who knows how many times until it’s just a uniform gray wash that could just as easily be one of the many, many times he dropped his trousers and sat on a West Wing copying machine! It’s going to be useless like nobodie’s ever seen before!

It’s not that he wouldn’t damage US intelligence or put our secret field agents lives at risk for a twenty dollar bill, he completely would! We all know Trump would do it for free if he thought it might seem impressive to whoever drew the short straw and had to go play golf with him at Mar-a-lago. But he could barely do it immediately after a briefing, and every hour that goes by leaves him less able.

Trump’s entire and sole skill set is being a super-bully. He smells people’s weaknesses instinctually and he knows exactly how to attack. That’s how he beat every contender to become the Republican nominee, and while it was arguably impressive in a sort of sickening way, it never served him better than it did then, and it’s the only game he knows how to play.

He’s both stupid and ignorant, he lacks the ability to be intellectually curious in a way that would allow him to absorb information, he has very poor comprehension and even worse retention. So while there are all sorts of things Trump could and will do to punish America for not loving him sufficiently, selling top secret intel is the one I don’t worry about.

But don’t worry. That’s just one monster pulled out of the anxiety closet and slain.

There are plenty more where that came from.

-END-

My CoviDiary: 11/10/2020: Care for a Side of Paranoia with Your Anxiety?

BY MAX BURBANK | OK, if you know me, it should come as no surprise that the longest I can allow myself to go feeling relieved and relatively (just relatively) anxiety free is about 48 hours, so right on schedule it occurs to me that the following information regarding recent events lines up just so:

A.) Donald Trump, as was easily predicted,refuses to accept he has lost the presidency, and is not conceding. Why should he? The act of concession is not written into law, it’s just a norm, and Trump is well known to feel about norms the way an unruly toddler with a gargantuan case of oppositional defiant disorder feels about the small but impressive collection of Faberge eggs and Lalique glass figurines that were the sole bequests of your grandfather’s estate; i.e, that they must be reduced to worthless sparkly dust, which if he was in a very good mood at the time of their smashing, he did not mix with his own feces, a state of affairs you will be able ascertain with your bare feet when you walk across the wreckage in the pre-dawn darkness on your way to fetch the Tums you’d hoped would quell the nasty bout of reflux that woke you from unsettled , anxious dreams.

B.) William “Bullfrog Richelieu” Barr, who has not appeared in public since well before the election, but is rumored to have been visiting various police departments and sheriff’s offices around the country, is positively identified entering the offices of Senate Majority Leader and lifelike ambulatory aspic sculpture, Mitch McConell. Is there any legitimate business that would bring the Attorney General and the Majority Leader of the Senate together in the course of their duties? Divorce the particular gentleman from their respective offices for a moment and ask yourself seriously; What in the world do the top law enforcement officer of the executive branch and the leader of the legislative branch need to discuss in privacy? The two jobs really don’t intersect directly in the natural course of events. It’s like if the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development took a solo meeting with the head of the CIA, it would be reasonable to ask WHY.

C.) Today, by Tweet, because this is how very brave men handle potentially unpleasant confrontations, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Granted, he’s wanted to fire Esper for months, ever since the Secretary had the temerity to advise Trump not to unleash active duty military on the crowd of protesters surrounding the White House. One has to ask why Trump feels that approximately two months before he will almost certainly have to hand over the reigns of power is a good time to create upheaval in the institutions that guard our national security. It could be chalked up to the indisputable fact that Trump is a vindictive, myopic, self absorbed, ignorant, childish bully, but it might also mean that Trump wants someone who will not try to thwart his already expressed desire to play a game of Tienanmen Square, a particularly anxiety inducing scenario in light of-

D.) The allegedly “unscalable” wall the administration built around the White House, The People’s House, shortly before the election, having been made taller today. WHY does there need to be a WALL around the White House? Even after 9/11, although various measures were put in place to make it more difficult to drive a truck bomb right up to the front door, they stopped short of building a damn wall! And WHY if the wall is already UNSCALABLE, does it need to be TALLER?! What in God’s name are they expecting and WHY ARE THEY EXPECTING IT?! Apart from the usual bullshittery that is Trump’s stock in trade, what is he planning to do that he thinks could invite a response that requires an EXTRA TALL UNSCALABLE FUCKING WALL?!?

I want to be clear, I really don’t sleep much or well and haven’t since March, and paranoia is a classic side effect of sleep deprivation; Also I am something of a hysteric and alarmist by nature, but there is a line of dots here and if you connect them they do not make a charming picture of a romping puppy or circus clown offering a child a balloon on a stick, they make an arrow which points in the direction of some remarkably unpleasant NATIONAL FUCKERY!

Ever since months before the election Trump made it clear that he would not regard as legitimate any result that wasn’t him winning a second term, he has been fomenting a Cold Coup (in the sense that a “cold war” is a war, minus direct confrontation and live ammunition.) From the failed October Surprise of Hunter Biden’s multiple broken laptops to the fact that at this point Twitter tags the vast majority of Trump’s Tweets with the phrase “This claim about election fraud is disputed”, the Cold Coup has been a resounding disaster. Not one aspect of it has gained the slightest traction at all with anyone. Today Fox News, FOX NEWS, cut away from Kayleigh “I’ll never lie to you” McEnany because, as anchor Neil Cavuto so eloquently stated, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, I just think we have to be very clear that she’s charging the other side as welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting. Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

The absurd, ever escalating mendacity of the Trump administration has reached the point where FOX NEWS ANCHOR NEIL CAVUTO is forced to say “WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!” and CUT AWAY FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE!!

So NO. One would have to say that the Cold Coup is NOT WORKING. And if you are really committed to doing something, if you simply cannot accept not getting what you want, and everything you try doing cold isn’t working, what’s left to do but TURN UP THE HEAT?!

Scary, right? Terrifying.

And yet, now that I’ve got you all worked up, I gotta say… I’m not honestly that scared. Because while the dots connect in a most alarming way, I have a four word mantra that keeps me calm.

“Four… Seasons… Total… Landscaping.”

Trump has relentlessly whittled away every competent staffer with a functional intelligence he ever had. All that’s left around him are the people who, in a moment of real crisis for the continuance of their regime, with everything on the line, managed to schedule a major press conference in the parking lot of a business that happens to have the same name as the fancy hotel the undoubtedly meant to have their press conference at. A parking lot they share with an adult bookstore, across the street from a crematorium. And it turns out they have no physical proof to present, just Rudy Giuliani struggling drunkenly to speak whole sentences and an alleged eyewitness to vote counting irregularities who it turns out is also a convicted sex offender. And don’t forget, Trump knew this was going to be a clusterfuck. When Trump found out just how seriously his staff had screwed the pooch, when he had to delete a tweet announcing a major legal press conference to be held at the Four Seasons Hotel and replace it with one saying it would be held at Four Season Total Landscaping, a small business on the outskirts of town… he did not cancel. He did not step in. He made no effort to try to abort what was clearly going to be at very best a humiliating embarrassment. Because he was on his way to play golf. And he likes golf a lot, and he has a very hard time envisioning consequences because he remarkably stupid.

My CoviDiary: 11/07/2020: Ladies and Gentlemen, President Elect Joe Biden

BY MAX BURBANK | I think my relief can probably be seen from the International Space Station.

You all know what I’m talking about. But let me put it down for posterity. Let me write it in for future days when I look back on this (or any of you do, if I can be that arrogant and/or hopeful, depending on how you judge me) and the date doesn’t immediately leap out at me.

Today, Saturday, November 7th, 2020, is the day Pennsylvania was called for Joe Biden, taking him past 270 in electoral votes and making him the President Elect of the United States. It’s also the date that Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA re-entered the top two hundred on I-tunes. I haven’t fact checked that last statement and I’m not going to. If it hasn’t, it should. I know my bride and daughter put it on the playlist they are constructing, along with the song Fuck Donald Trump by YG featuring Nipsey Hustle. And YMCA.  Because it would be a crime against humanity not to reclaim that shit.

I’m going to keep this short. It’s not that I don’t have a lot to say, it’s that I have way, way, way too much to say, and I’m exhausted, and also I may have been drinking. Not to excess, despite the fact that I often portray myself in my writing as a huge and abusive boozer. The truth is, though my alcohol intake has increased slightly during the pandemic, I drink very little. It is only on the rarest of occasions that I have more than two drinks, as I have learned through harsh experience that a third drink opens the gate between which generally keeps the constant monologue in my head from pouring out my mouth. Today, I have had two glasses of $11.00 a bottle champagne and a vodka appletini, because I am secure in my masculinity, and I like them.

I just watched the acceptance speeches given by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. At the end, as fireworks and drones lit up the sky, as Biden carried one of his grandchildren and Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down played, I cried like a baby. I cried for hope and relief and release, but what unglued me most of all and had me openly sobbing was simple. It was the site of a grown up who is going to be the President of the United States of America, giving a coherent speech and at no point departing the script and riffing like a bad stand-up with a mild concussion, careening between wild, unearned self praise and bitter, bitchy grievance, that featured no childish nicknames or school yard bullying. I wept because I had not known how desperately I was in need of basic human decency, sanity and normality. I knew I was hungry, but I had not realized I was starving to death.

And I wept because I love you all. I really, really do, and I don’t say it enough. My bride, my daughters, my dogs and cats and every last one of you who knew immediately and for the last four years that this was not simply about a president you disagreed with strongly, whose policies you were adamantly opposed to. It was about an open assault on Democracy, on the future, on the worth and dignity of human life and on the collective notion of reality itself. I love every one of you who never normalized one iota of what we were enduring and were not afraid to look the abyss in the face and reject it. I love every one of you who served as a daily reality check for me that what I was seeing was happening. I love every of you in my blue bubble echo chamber because I am not strong enough to have been outside it these last four years without losing my damn mind, and yes, I realize that’s problematic, but you do what you have to do to survive. I still maintain there’s a better than 75% chance that this has all been a simulation written by someone with amazing technical abilities, but only mediocre storytelling skills. But I’ll give them this. They wrote all of you in here with me, and I would never have made it to now without you.

I am staying up for Saturday Night Live, something I haven’t done in years. And then, my friends, I am going to bed, and I think I am actually going to sleep through the night for the first time in a long time. It is my most sincere hope that you do too.

Pleasant dreams.

-END-

My CoviDiary: 11/05/2020: Like Tom Petty Said, The Waiting is the Hardest Part

BY MAX BURBANK | In case any of you were wondering if my admonition in the previous CoviDiary entry to be patient, that election results would almost certainly take days, maybe weeks, might have helped me weather the last couple of days… no.

No, no, no, nope, nope-ity nope nope, nope-a-dope nope-a no no no. Not a smidgen, not in the least, fat chance, and also fuck no. Because, just between you and me… this shit? This shit can go suck an egg. This egg-sucking shit is the kind of shit I can do without.

dditionally? The polls? And consequently the pollsters? And I mean this in only the nicest possible way… you can all take a number, form a socially distanced line and wait patiently for your turn to take a gigantic bite out of my slack, unpleasant, hairy, Lima-bean-shaped, slug colored ass. Seriously.

I mean, who the hell can take this shit? How is this race a fucking nail biter? How is it possible that millions of my fellow Americans looked at (and I’m going to put this simply here and skip the flowery metaphors about cashmere slacks versus rubber hip waders containing a rabid badger the has cheese graters duct taped to the sides of it’s head) a choice between good and evil and said “Y’know, I think I’m gonna go with evil”?

Did these people grow up watching “A Christmas Carol” and think to themselves “Fuck that fuckin’ socialist fuck Bob Cratchit. Fuckin’ ingrate. If he doesn’t like his job maybe he should look for a new one. And fuck that fuckin’ libtard Tiny Tim bitch, whining for free health care like a little socialist cuck. An fuckin’ Scrooge, the JOB CREATOR, do I need to remind you, he was doin’ fine until all those woke-ass, virtue signaling, politically correct Christmas ghosts broke his damn back with all the guilt they laid on him, like he hadda apologize for being a white man with money!

Did every single one of these MAGA bastards go to Church and think “You know, I totally accept Christ as my savior and anyone who doesn’t is going to burn in hell, for all eternity, but hey, not for nothing, that Sermon on the Mount shit can suck my dick. C’mon, Jesus! ‘Blessed are the POOR?’ Excuse me, have you MET them? Listen, pardon my French, Jesus, but what are you,a fuckin’ socialist? Get a haircut. Come on, Christ. It’s like you’re not even white.”

And then, and THEN, right? On election night, that fat, kumquat colored, vaguely human-shaped leather crap sack trundles his corpulent ass to the podium with all the American flags in existence behind it at THREE in the FRIKKIN’ Morning and says “As far as I’m concerned, we already have won.”

Oh! OH! Excuse me, I had TOTALLY FORGOTTEN that our entire SYSTEM OF LAW is based on how things stand as far as you’re concerned!!

I mean, why even put us through this excruciating election? Why not just have said months ago “You know what, folks? As far as I’m concerned, I get another term.” Think of all the money it would have saved that you could then have found a way to kleptocrat into your pockets through golf cart rentals and gift baskets for Chinese diplomats and Ferraris for Brad frikkin’ Parscale and whatnot.

So right after Trump said “As far as I’m concerned, we already won,” he gets Pence up there to “say a few words”, clearly with the expectation that as usual Pence will echo his bullshit, and Pence says “I truly believe we are on the road to victory.”

I truly BELIEVE… We are on the ROAD… to victory.

Astute readers will note these two statements are NOT THE SAME THING AT ALL!

Because, OK, OK, OK, like suppose you’re in the car, right, because your parents promised to take you to Disney World. And you ask, “Hey, how much longer till we get there” and your Dad says “As far as I’m concerned we are already there” but your Mom says “I truly believe… we are on the road… to Disney World.” Not the same thing, right? Some very critical differences.

Because if you go with your dad and get out of the car, you are going to meet the highway at a speed of at very least 55 miles an hour and die, ’cause Dad is a fucking liar. He clearly couldn’t give a fuck about you, and your life is just way less important to him than maintaining the unsupportable illusion that he knows what’s going on, he can deliver and he’s in charge, even though the world whizzing past outside your car window screams otherwise the whole time.

And your MOM (and yes, in this metaphor Pence is the Mom, and I see sort of a June cleaver body and outfit, but Pence’s regular white molded plastic hair skull cap and tightly pursed tiny puckered anus-mouth, because I don’t know about you, but I’m clocking about two hours of sleep a night just lately), your MOM doesn’t care enough about you to keep you from stepping out of a moving car and even SHE can’t support the enormity of the transparently obvious, pointless, shameful lie your Dad is going all in on.

And even there, she’s hedging her fucking bets, isn’t she?! Because she doesn’t say “We are on the road to Disney World”, she says “I truly believe we are on the blah-de-blah-de-blah-de-blah,” allowing for the possibility that what you REALLY are is FUCKING HOPELESSLY LOST!! And when you guys eventually pull into the parking lot of a Chucky Cheese that’s CLOSED because of the GOD DAMN PANDEMIC that’s raging worse than ever, even though DAD said no one was even going to TALK about it come November 4th, he’s gonna say “Well, if you only counted the legal votes this would totally be Disney World and we would have been here a day ago.” And your Mom is going to have to sit with the realization that while she sold her soul to the devil well before she even met your Dad, maybe, just MAYBE, spending the last four years spit shining Dad’s ass and wrapping length after length of anchor chain around yourself wasn’t the best idea when any slack jawed imbecile could have told you the ship you’d been so giddy to board was the FUCKING TITANIC!!

And with that I am going to take a look at the electoral map on the Washington Post Website, and if it still shows the same point spread and the same six uncalled states, SOMEONE is getting PUNCHED!

I hope it’s Marco Rubio. NO WAIT! Jim Jordan. NO, NO, NO Lindsey Graham! TED CRUZ, I hope it’s Ted Cruz!

Not Mitch McConnell though. You don’t ever wanna punch that guy. It’d be like punching a cellophane pinata filled with expired creamed herring. Like… milky fish jelly and little flakes of white meat everywhere… and the smell… God, the smell…

Are you guys really tired? I’m really tired.

-END-

My CoviDiary: 11/03/2020: Election Day

BY MAX BURBANK | Four years ago I thought I knew some stuff about politics–and while I still write about it, I’ve tried very hard to break the habit of believing I know what I’m talking about. I’m allowed to think things, to have theories, even make the occasional prediction, but always with the caveat that the one time in my writing life I was most sure of my conclusions, I was very wrong.

As I waited at home for the returns, my Bride and two daughters were downtown at what was supposed to be a celebration. I didn’t go to because I had one last article to write and I thought the three women in my life should get to celebrate the election of the first female president unencumbered by a middle aged white man, even one they loved, who on his very best behavior might still be prone to tossing around phrases like”The importance of the size of the victory” and “Demographic impossibility” and act like he knew stuff because he was all smart and shit and he sometimes got paid to write jokes about politics. In retrospect, my choosing not to go might have been under the influence of some sort of premonition, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

Four years ago, I thought I’d come to the end of my writing about Trump. I’d been hired to cover the election, my assignment was up. When Hillary Clinton was president, things certainly wouldn’t be perfect, there would be ups and downs, she’d be subject to a degree of scrutiny and ugliness that a male president would not, but I’d be the wrong guy to write jokes about her, and she would be the wrong target. It was pretty hard to imagine a scenario under which, whatever she might do, my teeth first, dimestore E.B. White three-days-into-detox while passing a kidney stone writing style would be a good match.

Since then, I have had occasion to write tens of thousands of words about that imbecilic national canker. He has become my ulcer-inducing muse. I have considered him, puzzled over him, and gazed into the abyss of him as penance for how absolutely certain I was I would no longer need to.

So as I go on to tell you what I think you can (and can’t) expect on election night, don’t just take it with a grain of salt, keep a salt lick in tongue’s reach. For those of you who did not grow up rural enough to know what a salt lick is, Google it . You’ll enjoy the hilarious imagery.

It is very likely we will not know who won the presidency tonight.

Even under normal circumstances it’d be even odds we couldn’t be certain of the result, and by normal I mean not during a pandemic, not with the largest number of absentee ballots being cast in American History, not with the completely unpredictable wild card of Russian interference. Different states have different ways of counting ballots. Some states will not even start counting absentee ballots until after all the in person ballots are finished. We are all accustomed to networks and other media platforms “calling” both the states and the race itself. It’s important to be aware these “calls” have no legal standing whatsoever.

It is very likely that if at some point Trump is in a favorable position, he will declare victory.

Like the media, a president’s declaration he has won the election has no legal standing, and that’s true in whether the incumbent is a pathological liar with no regard for the law and a simmering hatred of Democracy or not. Trump recently said “I think it’s a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. I think it’s a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over.” I am not sure what gives Trump the impression that the laws of our nation are based in any way on what he thinks is a terrible thing. His feelings as president about what’s terrible carry no more statutory weight than yours or mine. For instance, I think it’s a terrible thing that Trump has made a habit of gyrating spastically at his rallies while they play the Village People’s “YMCA” over the PA system. I think it’s a terrible thing that he calls whatever is happening with his body dancing. If my feeling determined the law, there can be no doubt he would not be allowed to do whatever one might call the thing he’s doing, that the punishment would be extremely severe. I promise you, my feelings in this matter are every bit as strong and personally valid as Trump’s are about when ballots can be collected and or how long they can be counted. My belief that his “dancing”, and the appropriateness (OR LACK THEREOF considering his appalling record on LGBTQ rights) of him co-opting a gay anthem celebrating the joys of casual, consensual, same sex coupling while renting affordable rooms, a thing I do not even know if the YMCA still even does, is a TERRIBLE THING carries the same legal imprimatur as his about ballot counting, which is to say NONE! So when he declares “victory,” remind yourself that for all the difference it makes, he might as well be declaring the left cheek of his buttocks has a distinct and separate personality of its own, is named Carl, is exceedingly fond of Cribbage, and makes a damn fine plate of coconut shrimp which it would be his pleasure to serve you, but don’t ask for the recipe because that’s a FUCKING FAMILY SECRET!

The only way a presidential election ends on election night is if one of the contenders concedes.

I don’t think either of the contenders will do that .

Even in an unlikely and dramatically worst case scenario, I don’t think Biden would concede immediately. The GOP is committed to voter suppression, intimidation and outright cheating.In addition, we honestly don’t know what capabilities the Russians can deploy, as we’ve done nothing about it in the four years since their last experiment.

And Trump is not going to concede. I know I promised I wouldn’t say I knew anything for sure, but this one, I can’t help it. There are versions of how this all plays out that might, at some point over the next two months, have him acknowledging that as of January 20th, he won’t be president anymore. He might quit. He might walk out the door without ever saying he’d lost. But he is not going to give a concession speech, not tonight, not next week, not ever. And since only a concession could give us a resolution on election night, or indeed at any point before all the governors of all the states have certified the results, and neither candidate (for very different reasons) is going to give one, I don’t see it happening.

Suppose Biden wins in a landslide of historic proportions?

I’m game. It’s a lovely thing to suppose. Trump will contest the results anyway, offering as evidence that while a slim victory for Biden might have passed the smell test, a gigantic landslide could only be accomplished through orchestrated voter fraud on a level no one has ever seen before.

Lawyers

As part of his bizarre practice of shrieking the quiet part over a bullhorn at a microphone attached to a Marshall Stack, Trump has already announced that he plans to unleash his lawyers on electoral college swing states if no result is immediately available at the close of polls. His intention, obviously, is to contest everything without regard to merit, in hopes that some part of it reaches the supreme and that his three SCOTUS flunkies will honor their debts and hand him the presidency. This is by no means a sure strategy as only one of them is actively stupid, so the other two have surely noticed that honoring debts is not really the practice in Trump’s world, and while he might want a lifetime appointment, they already have them. They have all the leverage. All he has is charm, which you may have noticed has gotten a little threadbare over the last four years. On the other hand, do not discount that all three Trump appointees suck plenty all by themselves, the main reason The Federalist Society picked them. Then there’s Clarence Thomas, about which it’s best to say less than he himself says about anything. Roberts would like you to believe that he is a man of principle and not secretly a bag of shit. Guess what I think about that.

So Trump is thoroughly lawyered up, but here’s a silver lining for that; Trump’s idea of a good lawyer is Rudy “I can stop drinking any time I want” Giuliani and Alan “I used to be good at this and also I kept my underwear on the whole time” Dershowitz.

Nonetheless, Democrats, being aware of Trump’s personal attorney posse, have assembled their own cadre of lawyers, so it’s going to be a full-on lawyer off, Mad Max style, that could drag on for who knows how long.

SO

Don’t get yourself in a lather election night. Chances are we won’t know if we still live in a Democracy for some time. Save your lather. Ration it. We don’t know how long all the lather we’ve got is going to have to last us, and we don’t want to risk running out of it.

And while not allowing yourself to be frustrated about the lack of conclusive information regarding the presidential race tonight…

Keep your eyes on the Senate. We might actually know some very interesting things by the time the sun comes up.

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