Smerconish Saturday

Hopefully…the reality television presidency of Donald Trump will be over sometime next week depending on how long it takes to count the various forms of ballots.

It’s not that I dislike Donald Trump, it’s more that he’s just a person I’ve never taken seriously. He’s a rich white kid who avoided the draft and basically we would never have heard of him if he hadn’t inherited $420 million from his daddy.

His entire presidency has been about division and about himself.

Here’s the thing… I never voted for either Bill Clinton or Bush 43, but in their years after leaving the White House they’re both men I enjoy listening to from time to time.

After this election is over this country better learn to get along is all I can say.

Bill Clinton beat Bush 41 in 1992, but in the years which followed… Bill Clinton in reality became one of 41 and Barbara Bush’s sons for crying out loud.

Barack Obama became the 44th president primarily because Bush 43’s eight years in the White House were a struggle which ended with two wars and an economic collapse.

But in the years which followed….Bush 43 has behaved like a normal human being compared to Donald Trump. I read his tribute to his father and it touched me. I read the book as my own father was fighting pancreatic cancer and the warmth of his book touched me.

We as Americans all see the world through 330 million unique prisms. We do. That’s just a fact.

The Civil War II is not something we need to be using as our next model in American history.

My primary hope for Joe Biden if elected is for him to somehow become president for all 330 Americans… not just the president for those in his base.

Oklahoma’s Historic Ice Storm—October 27, 2020

Just west of Oklahoma County in El Reno. As of Wednesday evening…370,000 Oklahomans were still without electricity.

More precip on the way later tonight in Deer Creek.

Just a stunning weather pattern this week in the wetern half of the state. I wonder if this is God punishing Oklahoma for Trump’s gaudy electoral plurality in the reddest of the red states.

That was tongue in cheek…kind of. My Trump friends are adorable. I’m past the point of asking if they would have voted for Stalin if he were the GOP candidate. Why do I do this to myself?

Probably need to finish the second half of my Jeff Bridges Filmfest now that we have power back up and running. We have a generator, but didn’t hook it up this time. We were lucky in we were only down seven hours. Some of those OG&E workers must be reading the blog and want to see the rest of the filmfest is all I can figure.

I feel for these OG&E workers. Tough work in near impossible conditions.

LA Dodgers Win World Series For First Time Since ’88

For the third time in the last four years the LA Dodgers advanced to the World Series…. but for the first time since 1988 they won it.

I watched this video and it reminds me of how much baseball has passed under the bridge since the Dodgers won it all.

After getting down to the Atlanta Braves 3-1 in the NLCS the Dodgers pulled it together and played beautiful overall team baseball to win their seventh championship in franchise history.

When Mookie Betts became a Dodger this past off season one had to figure the Dodgers might be the team to beat and it turns out they were.

Betts scored the game winner in the 3-1 Game 6 clincher versus the Tampa Bay Rays with some heady base running then added a solo home run for insurance with his last at bat in the Series.

He was my MVP because he got the monkey off the Dodger’s back. He did this same thing for the Red Sox several years ago as well.

Klayton Kershaw finally has his World Series ring to go along with his place in baseball history as one of the best left handed pitchers to ever play the game. I’m happy for him. I got to see him pitch in Oklahoma City and it’s something I’ll never forget. He was the opening card for me on that fateful night I found myself at a Waffle House later on experiencing the Anthony Bourdain pecan waffle mystique after the Meriweather-McGregor fight. That was truly one of the great nights of my life.

I have no idea why Rays’ manager Kevin Cash pulled his starting pitcher Snell…but he did and Mookie Betts and the Dodgers took advantage and now are part of baseball lore.

I’m happy for LA manager Dave Robets as well. What a great guy he seems to be.

Cody Bellinger, Cory Seager, and Chris Turner all played in Oklahoma City during their journey to the big leagues and they’re my three favorite current Dodgers minus Kershaw– so good for them as well.

So given I wasn’t even going to watch the World Series if the cheating Houston Astros had advanced…it turned out to be a completely wonderful ending to this World Series for me.

Jeff Bridges Deer Creek Film Festival Session One

Just a horrible weather day in Oklahoma. No reason whatsover to be outside. I had to literally push Pauli outside to pee today. One of the most dreary abysmal weather days I can remember. A perfect day to have your own film festival.

First movie I went with was Thunderbolt and Lightfoot starring both Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges. This timeless sleeper was made in 1974 directed by Michael Cimino who later in his career directed The Deer Hunterwhich won an Oscar for Best Picture.

Jeff Bridges as a kid still with the baby face and goofy smile before his classic stare had been perfected in later movies.

Not an epic movie like Fabulous Baker Boys, but one worth watching if you like Eastwood and Bridges.

The second movie to close out Session One was Wild Bill which is a depiction of the life of Wild Bill Hickok.

Diane Lane plays the role of Sarah Moore the only real love in Wild Bill’s life. Diane Lane is right there at the top of my faavorite actress list so this movie was a natural selection for me.

Nice little movie.

One of the great things about running your own film festival is you can break and have your own intermission as you choose. I a need break before Session Two. It’s like Kramer running the Merv Griffin Show from his apartment. Let’s take a break. Kramer pretending to be Merv Griffin might be my favorite Seinfeld of all-time.

Steph Curry Interviews Bill Gates

Isn’t it tragic we have a sitting president in the midst of perhaps the greatest pandemic in the history of our country and he can’t sit down and answer questions in a mature adultlike manner.

It’s basically tragic and ironic that the reason Trump didn’t do this was because he never wanted the markets to take a hit and hurt his re-election chances.

China just posted positive GDP growth for the third period. I would guess perhaps South Korea will be the next to post a positive quarter of GDP numbers. Do you think the rest of the world is in awe of how the United States has handled Covid? Do you think governments around the globe are viewing the Trump-U.S. template as the ecomonic gold standard moving forward?

It’s equally tragic the fifty-three GOP senators allowed him to do this. How ironic that the party of a fervent pro-life stance only values life in the womb and not across the board for Americans in their latter years.

I would think human life is human life.

How is the life of a fetus different than the life of say an eighty year old?

Why wouldn’t both be valued equally?

I find this contradiction somewhat amazing. If we are going to turn the Supreme Court upside down to overturn Roe vs. Wade then every life should be valued.

But I don’t want to go there. I’m honestly not a person who votes for presidents based on their singular position on abortion. I’m pro choice, but certainly not a zealot. I think it’s woman’s choice, not one for a bunch of white male Republican senators.

Anyway…this interview was sent to me from my sister Jan who works for Bill and Melinda Gates.

Bill Gates is a prolific reader. I would love to someday have coffee with Bill Gates and talk to him about his ten favorite books and my ten favorite books.

Hopefully…Jan has enough sway with Bill to pull this off for me someday. We could meet in Toronto. I would love to be able to live in Toronto at some point from April through October. What a lovely city.

Matt Taibbi Revisted

In these four years or so of reality television president Donald Trump taking over for Kevin Spacey as a fictional American president the best book I’ve read to date is still Insane Clown President by Matt Taibbi.

In 2016..Matt Taibbi covered the election for Rolling Stone as an actual member of the campaign press corp.

He said there would be no pivot from Trump if elected and there has been no pivot. Sociopaths don’t pivot. There was never going to be a pivot towards the center. He said a Trump presidency would be both hilarious and horrifying. He said every day would be a journey of exhausting rabbit hole chasing and trolling. On pretty much every count Taibbi has been correct.

Donald Trump has turned the American presidency into a seedy reality televison show which would make both Jerry Springer and Howard Stern blush with envy. BTW…both voted for Hillary.

I begrudgingly give Trump credit for this because he like no other politician before or after tapped into this piece of American dysfunction. Whether you love or hate him you have to give Trump credit for making both Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton look equally snarkish in 2016.

This is why despite the polls I sit here with nine days to go in this 2020 campaign and still would not bet against Trump somehow pulling off another Electoral College miracle.

For certain…I think Trump will once again lose the overall popular vote. But as we learned in 2016 the overall vote count isn’t the ultimate decider in our system of choosing a president..

Are there somehow still enough ‘Trump twitter patriots’ coupled with some other fragmented demographics out there in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylanvia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada to allow Trump’s reality television presidency another four years of air time?

Let’s say Biden wins and Trump goes on to become Sean Hannity’s fulltime co-host on Fox…who kills it on the televison ratings for that time slot?

Would it be Anderson Cooper, Rachael Maddow, or Donald Trump?

I would guess Donald Trump and I’d guess he’d get quite a bit of crossover traffic from both MSNBC and CNN because sociopaths generally aren’t boring.

Smerconish Saturday

This video is of Michael Steele the former head of the RNC who preceded Reince Pribus who himself went on to become Trump’s first Chief of Staff. Of course, Pribus was fired in less than a year and eventually replaced by General John Kelly who recently described Donald Trump as the worst human being he’s ever observed.

Steele went on to endorse Biden a week after Cindy McCain.

We’re now within ten days of the election. My feeling hasn’t changed. The Electoral College is the system we use to elect our president. Trump could even lose by an even greater margin in the general overall vote and still win a second term.

As in 2016…the states I’ll be watching with the most interest are Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. These are the six I’m watching the closest right now. Florida is the key though. If Biden could win Florida he probably wins the White House.

No such drama in Oklahoma where the GOP could put Putin, Hitler, Stalin, or Mussolini on the GOP ticket and it would not matter an ounce.

I think Putin would play big in Oklahoma as long as he kept the tax cuts in place and nominated ultra conservative judges.

It is what it is.

Jeff Bridges Mini Filmfest on Monday

I think on Monday when we get our first cold day of the season I’ll settle in and have a little Jeff Bridges film festival . Some hot coffee, a couple of hot teas and some stew or chili would be nice. In my older age…I’ve become quite the hot tea sipper in the winter months..

Jeff Brdiges and Al Pacino have always been my two favorite actors. Third perhaps a character guy like Bobby Duvall who was actually in a supporting role in Crazy Heart.

With Jeff Bridges there is such an inherit ease in the manner in which he becomes his on screen character.

My favorite Jeff Bridges movie by far was/is The Fabulous Baker Boys. From my view …that was the slam dunk Oscar he should have won before winning for Crazy Heart.

But that’s the way the Oscars work–like in sports you get makeup calls here and there.

Even this speech when he won for Crazy Heart is the most at ease and gracious winning speech I can remember at the Oscars. He didn’t ramble. He didn’t take on a political cause. He just basically thanked everyone who helped him get to this place where he was at the top of his very competitive craft.

In Need of a Marshall Tucker Love Song

I love this song…the lyrics have been a part of me since I first heard them in the early 80’s. It’s kind of who I am in a weird way.

Tough, tough, tough week for me from a personal standpoint of which I won’t write about on my blog.

Add to that my favorite actor Jeff Bridges was diagnosed with lymphoma the same week that Donald Trump Character Counts Week was proclaimed.

I’m sure the presidential debate tonight will remind us of everything which is currently wrong in America as well.

I need a dose of my favorite Marshall Tucker love song.

Donald Trump National Character Counts Week

My, my, my, my………..

For the first time in the history of my blog I’m almost speechless.

This is the guy who told Billy Bush how while just married to Melania he dedicated himself to trying to f–k Nancy O’Dell during a furniture store shopping f–kfest expedition.

My, my, my, my……. what it must be to be a Christian evangelical in places like Oklahoma. I never did acid in my youth, but taking acid and being a Christian evangelical must have common paralells is all I can figure at this point in my human spiritual evolution.

Billy Bush lost his job while Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. One of them appears to have learned something from the incident while the other maybe needs some more work on the empathy part of the human journey.

This is where I want to curl up next to my black lab Pauli…fall alseep with her and ascend to dog heaven. Being a human isn’t all it was cracked up to be. The end.