Sunday, November 13, 2016

VERY BAD PLOT

Comedy was once my best suit, one I could wear on the most sophisticated of occasions.  But I find myself caught in a plot so unthinkable, even for high-line farce, that I am hardly able to function.  That is, I appear to be functioning, but I cannot believe my surroundings, or, indeed, anything that appears to be taking place.
     Let us play this one out: a man walks into an empty country and says "Who's the president here?" and a voice says "Nobody."  And the man says "Okay.  I'm the president."
     That is a sort of joke that my loved and very funny friend Mel Brooks made about my father Lew Davis, the failed pharmacist and soldier-- my mother got him the commission when she left him so he could pay her alimony which she was to spend several decades suing him for after he moved to Tucson and became mayor.   "A man walks into a town," Mel said, imagining, "and says: 'Who's the Mayor here, and someone answers 'Nobody.' 'Okay,' he says, 'I'm the mayor.' 
    That this Trump clown,-- not fair, it is an insult to clowns-- should have the future of this up till now mostly great country, and so the world, in his stubby-fingered hands, is unthinkable, even as it becomes a reality.  On the Internet his people are selling hats and banners that are left from this campaign, so he will profit even as he has failed to pay anything he owes the country, all the while managing to keep hidden how much it is.  This is a plot Mel could have come up with. 
   It only works as comedy if we are sure the world will not come to an end.