Kathy Griffin Suffers The Comedy Consequences For a Joke She Can't Defend

As a stand-up who has had tomatoes hurled at him by a displeased audience during his act ― and, in the interests of full disclosure, the tomatoes were followed by mixed salad greens and a lounge chair (no kidding) ― I can’t help but feel empathy for Kathy Griffin, or any comedian, who inadvertently pisses off their audience.

There is a big difference, however, between how I bombed and how Kathy Griffin bombed with her ill-conceived severed Trump-head photo. Bombing before a live audience solely because you’re not funny, as I did, isn’t anywhere near as disturbing as bombing before a global audience because you’re not funny and socially tone deaf, and/or crassly insensitive to a marginalized or victimized group.

At the risk of stating the obvious: A comedian who doesn’t transgress by “crossing the line” ― whatever and wherever that ever-shifting line may be ― isn’t a very good comedian. Great comic talents not only cross the line, they move well beyond it into new terrain.

Think Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Louis CK and Jerrod Carmichael, to name a handful of superb comedy provocateurs. They have all been unapologetically outspoken, despite offending many people. Also, at one time or another, they have all made even their most ardent fans squirm with jokes that were off the mark.

Offending people becomes a problem for comedians only when they can’t stand by their material. It is worth noting that Stephen Colbert did not apologize, nor should have, for his recent use of the term “cock holster” in a joke referring to what Donald Trump’s mouth is best suited for in relation to Vladimir Putin. Colbert’s language was crass, but his satiric point was spot on. Knowing that, he was able to firmly defend his comedy ground.

Bill Maher was not able to do that in the tense aftermath of 9-11 when he observed, “Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.” However, in his Mea culpa he admitted no error in judgement: “I offer my apologies to anyone who took it (what he said) wrong.” In other words, “don’t blame me.”

What makes Kathy Griffin’s situation substantively different is that, upon further review, she agrees with her critics that her joke was deeply offensive and without merit. That being the case, she felt compelled to post an on-camera apology, in which she admitted with much embarrassment, “I went way too far.”

That doesn’t mean that Kathy Griffin is a bad person, a lousy comedian, or sick in the head; it just means that she made a made a terrible comedy decision, which is humbling, humiliating and potentially career-threatening. Just ask Michael Richards. 

Does anyone know what the former “Seinfeld” star is up to these days? Sadly, he is as much remembered for his memorable portrayal as “Kramer” as he is for his infamously awful stand-up rant at the Laugh Factory in 2006 that devolved into racist tirade. A shell-shocked Richards went on “The Late Show” to tell David Letterman that he was “deeply, deeply sorry,” and years later confessed that the incident had “broke him down.”

Gilbert Gottfried’s career has recovered from his stupefying lapse of comedy judgement in 2011, when in the aftermath of a horrific tsunami in Japan, he posted a series of highly offensive tweets which cost him his gig as the voice of the Aflac Duck. When even Gilbert can’t defend a joke, you know it’s over the line. “I sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my attempt at humor regarding the tragedy in Japan,” he said in a statement.

In 2007, Don Imus lost his job at MSNBC after referring to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.” It took him a few days, but he finally came around to admitting, “Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry.”

Also very sorry that same year were Opie and Anthony for airing the crude comments of a homeless man who expressed interest in having sex with Condoleezza Rice, Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth: “We apologize to the public officials for the comments that were made on our show.” Yeah, right.

Kathy Griffin is hardly the first comedian to totally misread the culture and lose her job, and she certainly won’t be the last. Insult comedians, edgy political satirists and shock jocks build careers on their outrageous fearlessness. They all want to “cross the line,” yet somehow remain within the bounds of cultural acceptability. The problem with that is it’s not always possible.

As a comedy writer and performer, I frequently ask myself, have I pushed the proverbial envelope too far, or not far enough? I make my best guess, but ultimately it is the audience that decides.

For what it’s worth, in my 40 years in comedy I have learned at least one thing: When being bombarded by tomatoes, leave the stage quickly, if for no other reason than to get a new shirt. And then, get back out there with new stuff, which is exactly what Kathy Griffin is going to do. 

Contemplating Terrorism and Trump on the Appalachian Trail

At Dismal Falls in Pennsylvania, just off the Appalachain Trail. 

In the old days, the days before the smart phone, news spread slowly out here. As difficult as it may be for some to fathom, there was a time when hiker hostels on the Appalachian Trail did not have a flat screen TV with access to a thousand channels.

I suppose that I now officially qualify as an old geezer for fondly recalling a time when the most frequently asked question on the trail was, “how far to the next shelter?” as opposed to, “how far to the next outlet to recharge my phone?”

In the modern hiking era the smart phone is a more essential item than a spork. In fact, most any hiker would prefer to eat with their hands than not have connectivity. The app Guthooks provides a hiker’s exact location, making it virtually impossible to get lost. The website ATWeather.org provides current forecasts for each trail section.

What brings us to the trail anyway? The appeal for me and countless others is that the trail offers the promise of a new life, call it an alternate reality if you will. On the trail we connect with nature, ourselves, and others in a way that we simply can’t back home.

For this experience to be possible, we have to withdraw from our family and work lives, and from the news, that perversely seductive 24-hour cycle of doom, gloom, horror, conflict and controversy. By getting “away from it all” we can, in a sense, “come to it All.” That we even have this opportunity speaks to our good fortune. For hikers, it is an opportunity that absolutely must be seized.

But the Appalachian Trail no longer offers the same sanctuary that it once did. For better or worse, you can now text your spouse or kids from a mountaintop. At a primitive campground where I spent a night, a young hiker was face-timing with her parents from her tent.

The next day, at the Angel’s Rest Hostel in Pearisburg, the television was tuned to the news of a terrorist bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. There were 22 dead, mostly young girls, with many more injured. Naturally, there was footage of when the bomb detonated, which I could not bear to watch.

Then came Donald Trump's response. He would not refer to the perpetrator of this horrific act  as "a monster,” he said. Instead, he would call him “a loser,” “which is the absolute worst thing you can be in Trump’s adolescent worldview. Rosie O’Donnell and George Will are losers. The Huffpost is a loser too, which makes me a loser by association. Sad!

It is a tradition on the Appalachian Trail to take a trail name, which is reflective of letting go of your ordinary self and assuming a new identity. Having a trail name codifies and in some sense sanctifies one's relationship with the trail. My trail name has long been "Bandana Man," but on this hike, I decided to have some fun by signing the shelter logs, in which hikers leave notes and musings, as "Donald Trump."

My first entry at Pine Swamp Branch Shelter: "No one knew that hiking the Appalachian Trail could be so complicated." My next entry at Rice Field Shelter: "We are going to build a great big beautiful wall around the trail to keep out Mexican hikers." And my final entry at Docs Knob Shelter: "The trail is a mess and only I know how to fix it."

I mentioned that I was doing this as a satire to a fellow hiker, who obviously did not get the humor. "It would be an honor for me to walk the trail with the name 'Donald Trump,'" he proudly proclaimed.  I soon learned that he was from Texas, not far from San Antonio, and that he felt grateful to Jesus for keeping him safe as he hiked. When I told him that I was from New York City, he asked how many people lived there.

"Around 10 million," I said.

"And that's not counting the illegals," he shot back.  Refusing to take the bait, I said nothing.

It is a wet and chilly May here in the deep Virginia woods. Every day it rains, the wind whips and the forest is bathed in mist. Yet, one can see with astonishing clarity. There is truth beyond politics, beyond one's opinion. 

Wild rhododendrons delicately bloom as innocent girls are murdered in cold blood across the ocean. That is as undeniable a fact as is Trump's unfitness to be President. There is actually nothing political about observing this, for it is as obvious as the mud on the trail. But blinded by ideology, be it political and/or religious, many can't tell the forest from the trees.

Imagine for a moment, Trump, whose idea of wilderness is a golf course, hiking the Appalachian Trail. The very idea of it is ridiculous, because Trump clearly has no interest in nature other than as a potential construction site. Trump is not a natural man; he is all artifice and facade, the very embodiment of an empty-suit. 

In the 30+ years I have been hiking the Appalachian Trail, I have always carried one book: the Tao Teh Ching, the ancient book of Chinese wisdom. Each night, before bed, I randomly choose one of its 81 passages and read it out loud, even when hiking solo. Last night, I chose passage number 24. As I read it, I could not help but think of Trump: 

One on tip-toe one cannot stand. 

One astride cannot walk. 

One who displays himself does not shine.

One who justifies himself has no glory. 

One who boasts of his own ability has no merit.

One who parades his own success will not endure.

In Tao these things are called "unwanted food and extraneous growths,"

Which are loathed by all things.

Hence, a man of Tao does not set his heart upon them. 

(Translation by John C.H. Wu)

I have 489 miles to go to finish the Appalachian Trail. Whether I ever make it to Springer Mountain, the trail's southern terminus, remains to be seen. But as the Buddhists are fond of saying, "the path is the goal," so in that sense I have long arrived and there is no destination to reach. Still, a walk in the woods offers no promise of an awakening, spiritual or otherwise. 

One must keep pressing on until the inner fog lifts. 

Under The Threat of Authoritarianism, The Comedy Resistance Persists

At my office at MAD Magazine on Thursday I forced myself to watch part of Donald Trump's horrifying press conference. I watched because I felt that it was my job as a comedy writer to suffer through as much of it as I could stomach, which turned out to be around 20 minutes. It proved to be too much for me, as the weekend is upon us and I am still feeling nauseous from it.

At MAD we have been mocking Trump on an almost daily basis since he won the Republican nomination. For evidence, see our Facebook feed. I consider MAD, along with Saturday Night Live, Bill Maher, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, and the other Daily Show alumni, as part of the comedy resistance. That said, I have no illusions as to our importance or impact. My biggest takeaway from the Presidential election is that humorists don't influence the course of nations anywhere near as much as the course of nations influence humorists.

MAD was certainly not in the tank for Hillary and we fired a fair share of pointed comedy shots at her. But Trump as a spoofable political target is in a class by himself. He is Richard Nixon squared, providing a steady stream of ugliness, nonsense and hypocrisy that demands ridicule. Noting this, many people have commented that comedy writers are going to have “a field day” over the next four years. Maybe so, but the field is a fetid swamp and we are up to our eardrums in toxic Trump muck.

Surely there are other things happening that are worthy of mockery. Are you following the New York Knicks? Did you happen to see the carpool karaoke version of “Sweet Caroline” at the Grammys? Have you seen “50 Shades Darker”? The world is still a very funny place. The problem for comedy writers is that turning away from Trump for as long as it takes to even quip about something else feels like a dereliction of duty.

Like everyone who didn’t vote for him, humorists are suffering from acute Trump fatigue. Making fun of Trump hasn’t been fun for us since he won the election, in part because we took his victory as a stinging professional defeat. It turns out that comedy writers, just like everyone else in the media, are preaching to the proverbial choir. The comedy audience, just like every other audience, is fragmented and trapped in an echo chamber of its own creation. It feels as though everyone’s position has already hardened to the point that there are no minds left to sway. What then is a comedy writer to do?

In the movie “Stardust Memories,” Woody Allen’s character encounters aliens who advise him, “You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.” I’m all for that, but jokes to what end? Even if it’s true that laughter is the best medicine, we don’t need comedians now as much as we need satirists.

It was somewhat disheartening then to hear from a friend that Jerry Seinfeld, in a recent New York performance, did not mention Trump or address political issues even once in his 60+ minute set. As a long time Seinfeld fan, I hardly find that surprising, and yet it doesn’t sit right with me. With great comedy power comes great comedy responsibility.

This brings to mind The Three Stooges, those great slapstick comedians who are hardly remembered for their sharp political humor. But it was the Stooges – not Charlie Chaplin – who first satirized the Nazis in a Hollywood film. In 1940, nearly a year before shooting started on “The Great Dictator,” Columbia Pictures released “You Nazty Spy!” in which the Stooges lampoon Hitler, Goebbels, Göring and, for good measure, Mussolini. The following year, Moe, Larry and Curly reprised their Nazi roles in “I’ll Never Heil Again.” I don’t mean to pick on Jerry Seinfeld, who remains one of my favorite stand-ups, but if the Three Stooges, in all their over-the-top silliness, found a way to make two comedy shorts spoofing Hitler, couldn’t he have managed to serve up a few stinging Trump jokes?

For the record, I am not saying that Trump is Hitler or that Jerry Seinfeld is obligated to make fun of him. What I am saying is that we have seen enough of Trump to know that he has serious personality and character disorders which render him unfit for the Presidency. I am also saying that in this chilling political climate, we humorists, like all artists, define ourselves by the subjects we address – and avoid.

This then is absolutely not the time for us to surrender to Trump fatigue or indulge in self-pity over the limits of comedy’s political influence. With the threat of authoritarianism looming, sharp and revealing satire is essential to a healthy national dialogue. And so this weekend, when Trump holds a campaign style rally in Florida, I will push myself to watch. For American satirists, it is a must-see event. 

In Appreciation of Alan Colmes: A Class Act in a Screaming World

I was sad to hear yesterday that Fox News cable and syndicated radio host Alan Colmes had died from lymphoma.

What I remember most about my first of many appearances as a panel guest on Alan’s radio show back in the late 1990s was how nervous I was when I walked into the studio. Back then I was on a local station in New York’s Hudson Valley, but this would be my first time before a national audience, and a Fox News audience at that. How did a passionate liberal talk to staunch conservatives anyway? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that Alan Colmes was doing it every night on both TV and radio and obviously relishing the opportunity.

With his natural warmth, unassuming manner and humor, Alan immediately put me at ease and treated me like I belonged in the room with him, a top-rated prime-time host. And so, I believed that I did.

Over the next two decades Alan had me back periodically as part of his “Friday Night Free-For-All,” two hours of orchestrated chaos featuring freewheeling political talk and humor. The show would always conclude with his trademark “Radio Graffiti,” during which callers were limited to one sentence (just one, no matter how short or long) before being cut off, creating an oddball and compelling stream of collective radio consciousness.

My favorite memory of doing Alan’s show was following the Supreme Court decision that handed the presidency to George Bush. I had written a parody of the standard “More” (“more than the greatest love the world has known…”) called “Gore,” which I sang live to a recorded track:

Gore was the guy the networks said had won

Gore thought the campaign was all through and done;

Gore found the vote was just too close to call

Gore found that Bush had beat him after all;

Oh, Gore said it was not fair

With chads, hanging everywhere;

Though some Jews were angry at him

They’d never vote for Pat Buchannan…

Alan loved it, and I loved that he did.

While I never got to know him outside the studio, over the years Alan spoke to me with surprising candor about his career and his experience at Fox News. Widely perceived as Sean Hannity’s whipping boy, he knew that conservatives thought he was wrong and liberals thought he was weak. So, what kept him at Hannity’s side?

Alan was genuinely drawn to the challenge of speaking to an audience that was predisposed to disagreeing with him. “Why preach to the choir?” he said. Far from weak, it took a lot of chutzpah to be the lone liberal in the “lion’s den” of Fox News, especially alongside a right-wing attack dog like Hannity for 12 years. In a media environment in which flame-throwing ideologues are anointed superstars, Alan’s insistence on civility and respectful treatment of his guests, especially those he vehemently disagreed with, inspired derision from all sides. He was in a no-win situation.

I think that explains why Alan eventually left “Hannity & Colmes.” Even if it meant playing to a much smaller audience, which it did, he needed a clean break from the team in which he was seen as the inferior player. Alan once described Hannity to me as “a messianic conservative,” offering this spot-on assessment without a trace of bitterness, however the subtext was clear: Alan had had enough.

During his final week on the air with Hannity, Alan showed up on the Colbert Report, poking fun of himself by playing the role of Colbert’s spineless and compliant second banana. A former stand-up comic, Alan instinctively understood that the best shot he had at undermining the stereotype of him was to parody it.

A few times Alan mentioned to me that while he loved radio, he would have liked to have his own cable show. By then he was as a regular on the O’Reilly Factor and there was an infamous segment in which Bill O’Reilly goes completely ballistic on Alan because he disagrees with his assessment on how President Obama was cutting the costs of federal programs.

As Alan’s sister-in-law and Fox News pundit, Monica Crowley, sits by in stunned silence, O’Reilly points his finger at Alan, pounds his fist, and shouts, “You’re a liar! You’re a liar!” It’s a vicious verbal assault and one could have hardly blamed Alan for launching an equally unhinged counterattack. But he didn’t -- and no, that’s not weakness, it’s grace under fire.

Somehow, Alan managed to defend himself without insulting O’Reilly, telling him, “Why do you want to yell? I’m not lying, Bill. Don’t call me a liar. Don’t just sit there and call me a liar. I’m not lying. You don’t like the President. You don’t like what he’s doing. We could have a disagreement without you calling me a calling me a liar. That’s not necessary. There’s a difference between having a disagreement and calling me a liar. That’s a personal attack.”

Exactly. O’Reilly was engaging in the very kind of ugly personal attack that he made a career of lamenting and claiming to be above, the kind of ugly attack that Alan never engaged in. In his succinct rebuttal to the most pompous man in American news, Alan managed to expose O’Reilly as a hypocrite and sum up his own professional philosophy.

Alan preferred illuminating conversation to histrionic shouting matches. He was a class act in a screaming world, one of the truly good guys in the business.

I’ll miss him.

A Call for a Ban of Unfunny Immigrants

"The world is an unfunny place and only I know how to make it funny." -- Joe Raiola 

I think my strongest asset as a comedy writer, maybe by far, is my funny temperament. I have a very funny temperament. In fact, I have such a funny temperament, I could probably shoot someone on Fifth Ave and you would still find me funny. You know who doesn't find me funny? Nazis.

There are a lot of very unfunny people out there. For example, when Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their funniest. George Lopez is already here. They're sending some really unfunny hombres: rapists, drug dealers and, I assume, some mildly amusing people.

That is why I want to build a big beautiful wall to keep all the unfunny people out of our country. And do you know who is going to pay for the wall? The unfunny people. Again: Do you know who is going to pay for the wall? That's right, the unfunny people, starting with the cast of Saturday Night Live. Really bad television!

By the way, giving late night shows to so-called comedians Trevor Noah and John Oliver essentially takes so-called comedy jobs away from our country. So-called comedy from so-called comedians from other countries should be subject to a 35% humor tax. And please, let’s pray for the totally unfunny Arnold Schwarzenegger. Did you see him in Kindergarten Cop? Sad!

I actually think it would be great if we had a funny relationship with Russia. Have you ever seen their acrobats? Or Yakov Smirnoff? Or a photo of Putin bare-chested on a horse? Hilarious! But you know what's really funny? Grabbing a woman by the pussy! If you don't believe me, ask Billy Bush.

Still, the world is a very unfunny place and only I know how to make if funny. The unfunny carnage stops here. I am calling for a total and complete ban on unfunny people entering the United States to give our country's humorists time to figure out what's going on.

We will begin by halting immigration for 90 days from seven countries with predominantly unfunny people: North Korea, Chad, United Arab Emirates, Liechtenstein, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Burkina Faso. We don't want them here. Concurrently, for 120 days no Germans will be admitted and they will then be subjected to extreme humor vetting.

Meanwhile, we must rebuild our comedy infrastructure here at home. Chicago is totally out of control. Maybe the Second City people can do something about it, I don't know. Otherwise we may have to send in that clown Chuck Schumer. What the hell have we got to lose?

An Open Letter to Bill O’Reilly About His Dystopian Take on the Las Vegas Shooting

LUCY NICHOLSON / REUTERS

Dear Bill,

I have no interest in living in your nightmarish version of our country, where 59 dead and over 500 injured in a horrific mass shooting is “the big downside of American freedom.”

First, it is most decidedly not “a big downside.” It is an unacceptable and tragic horror that any civilized nation would take swift and reasonable action to prevent from ever happening again.

Second, it has nothing to do with “American freedom,” unless your repugnant idea of freedom includes protecting the right of individuals to amass military-grade arsenals.

You refer to the killer as “a psychotic” and note that he had “a number of deadly weapons in his room.” The actual number is 23, with 19 more at his home. They are all perfectly legal in Nevada, a state where a psychotic doesn’t need a license to own a shotgun, but doesn’t dare deal five-card stud without one.

Bill, your certitude is exceeded only by your stupefying shallowness. You say that “government restrictions will not stop psychopaths from harming people.” Agreed, so why then have laws prohibiting murder or rape? Or — and here’s a novel idea — why not let each state decide whether it wants ineffective anti-murder and anti-rape laws to remain on its books?

What’s truly sickening about your analysis, Bill, is your ignorant smugness: “The NRA and its supporters want easy access to weapons, while the left wants them banned.” You have the first part of that right, even the NRA would agree. But the left doesn’t want weapons “banned.” The overwhelming majority of liberals understand that guns are here to stay. In fact, many of us (not me!) own guns, enjoy them and even misuse them, causing tragedy in our own families. What liberals want is sensible regulation, along the lines of how the government regulates any dangerous merchandise or activity, like cigarettes or flying an airplane.

Apparently, Bill, this is too complex a concept for you to understand. Your mind is so horribly twisted you conclude, “This is the price of freedom. Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are.”

No, Bill. You’re confusing freedom with fear and death. You think you’re a tough law-and-order guy, but you’re actually a defender of anarchy. You wrongly say that “the Second Amendment is clear,” when any student of American history can tell you that the Second Amendment is well known for its utter lack of clarity.

In fact, the “right” of individuals to bear arms that you — and the Supreme Court, in its 5-4 “Heller” decision of 2008 — claim the Second Amendment establishes is tenuous and limited. But you make no mention of that. “Even the loons” have this right, according to you, the right to own enough firepower to mow down hundreds of concertgoers from the 32nd floor of a hotel. How’s that for American exceptionalism?

Bill, it’s clear to anyone paying attention that you are an enabler of the violence that you rail against, yet are willing to accept as part of the American deal. You are more concerned with protecting Stephen Paddock’s rights than you are Colin Kaepernick’s. You are more concerned with the “war on Christmas” than the actual war on your fellow citizens. Simply put, you are part of the problem.

Think about it.

Joe Raiola

The Deafening Silence Of Liberals In Response To Madonna

The silence in the liberal echo chamber that is my Facebook feed is deafening. Apparently it has occurred to none of my left-leaning friends or fans to call out Madonna for her utterly reprehensible remarks last Saturday at the Women's March on Washington. And so, it is up to me to do the dirty work.

Someone on left has got to hold Madonna accountable. Someone on the left must tell her bluntly that what she said was vile and unacceptable, and that her "clarification," issued the following day, was totally lame, serving only as further evidence that she is clueless and unfit to speak at any political rally whose purpose is to spur social change peacefully.

Imagine if you will Ted Nugent at a Men's March on Washington after the election of Barack Obama saying that he “had thought a lot about blowing up the White House.” Imagine what Rachel Maddow or Bruce Springsteen or Al Sharpton would have to say about that. Also imagine their response if Ted Nugent had issued a statement soon afterwards bitching that his words were taken “wildly out of context,” without offering an apology of any kind.

The galling fact of the matter is that liberals are giving Madonna a pass, but she won’t get one from this liberal. Madonna was not giving a performance at a concert for fans on Saturday. She was giving a speech to a massive gathering of concerned citizens, none of whom were there to see her, at a high profile protest march in support of women’s rights.

Madonna came across as bitter, vulgar and shrill. Her anger is understandable. Many of us are aghast at Trump and his unapologetic misogyny. Regarding rhetoric, he has set the bar unfathomably and unforgivably low. That said, “When they go low, we go high,” Michelle Obama implored us. Unlike Scarlett Johansson, Madonna didn’t get the former First Lady’s message. Her reckless speech could have incited violence and she would have been culpable.

You simply cannot stand in front of nearly a half million people in our nation’s capital, with emotions running high, say that you’ve been thinking about blowing up the White House and then say that you were actually delivering a “message of love.” There was nothing loving about Madonna’s words, tone or body language. I believe that her intentions were good, but her political IQ is low. Her remarks were not extemporaneous; she read from a prepared script, the soaring message of which was “fuck you.” All this did was play directly into Trump’s and his supporter’s hands. Case in point: Newt Gingrich, that fetid swamp of a man, promptly called for Madonna’s arrest and lamented the rise of “an emerging left wing fascism.”

I have previously referred to Donald Trump as a “narcissistic, ugly pig of a man, totally unfit and unqualified to be President.” That said, he is President, my President and Madonna’s too. Madonna owes Trump an apology, and not just him. She owes the organizers of the march an apology. She owes an apology to the mothers and fathers who brought their children and were not prepared for an R-rated rant. Madonna’s remarks were not taken out of context and no one is accusing her of being “a violent person,” as she fears. What she is accused of being is an idiot.

Bottom line: Consciously or not, at the Women’s March on Washington, Madonna stopped just short of encouraging violence. Even more concerning is that she remains in denial, blaming others for not “getting her.” And even more concerning still is that liberals, who with good reason are disgusted with Trump, just can’t bring themselves to call out Madonna for her ugly words. Bill Maher? I’m hoping...

Beware The Toxic Trump Avenger

Elections are about choices and from a liberal perspective Hillary is clearly preferable to Trump. Then again, so is any Republican candidate who ran in the general election in the last 50 years.

The lines between Trump and Hillary have become too blurred for comfort. Hillary’s use of a private email server and how she —and Bernie Sanders —dismissed concerns about it was inexcusable. The DNC’s undermining of Sanders, which is now indisputable thanks to Wikileaks, reveals a corrupt and immoral organization that was rigged in Hillary’s favor.

In other words, Hillary and the Democrats have committed unforced errors caused by hubris and arrogance. Equally concerning, their actions are indicative of a stunning cluelessness. Newsflash: In 21st century politics and business, emails are not private or secure.

When Trump came down the escalator looking like a mannequin with a stick up its ass, I thought it was a joke, as did most everyone. In my mind the Knicks had a better chance of winning the NBA title than Trump making it through the first primary. But as the Trump campaign caught fire and started burning down his more qualified and better funded opponents, one thing became clear to me: In the unlikely event that Trump found a way to win the nomination, there was no telling how far the Trump wildfire might spread.

Liberal friends kept telling me that there was no way this could happen. Some of them are still saying that. But liberals who are not in denial are now afflicted with a deepening sense of Trump-induced nausea. And with good reason. The swing state polls are close and a new CNN poll shows Trump with a lead. Hillary is widely disliked and mistrusted. Trump has better hair. And, in case you haven’t heard, he will make America great again.

The next President will likely nominate three or even four Supreme Court Justices. Justice Breyer is 77, Justice Kennedy 80, Justice Ginsburg 83 and there is one open seat. We could have a Trump Court for the next two or three decades.

With a bitterly divided and utterly paralyzed Congress, the Supreme Court now has unprecedented power to make law in the guise of “interpreting” the Constitution. There is no point in lamenting this. The Constitution is like an ancient holy book, revered, though in many respects archaic. To amend it requires the consent of 38 states. We couldn’t get 38 states to agree on what legally constitutes a hat.

In this poisonous environment of stagnation the Toxic Trump Avenger has undeniable appeal. What the hell, things can’t get much worse, let’s give him a try, or so the thinking goes. It is easy to say that decent people are aghast, but I know decent people who will vote for Trump. And they are not disaffected, unemployed white guys from the rust belt. They are northeastern school teachers and cops. They are wealthy businessmen and Wall Street workers. They are also all white.

Trump will lose the black vote, the hispanic vote, the gay vote, and the women’s vote, but he can still win. Repeat: he can still win. With Trump being crowned the Republican nominee we have officially entered The Twilight Zone. Trump is unabashedly full of crap, a showman surrounded by colorful characters and sexy women. Hillary plays loosey-goosey with the truth, shrieks in a pantsuit, and hopes against hope that her husband has finally realized that he is more of an ass than an asset. Don’t be surprised if Trump hires Monica Lewinsky as his campaign manager or announces that she will be his Secretary of Labor.

We get the President we deserve. We also get the candidates we deserve. I would have liked to see Kasich vs. Sanders, but those guys had too much integrity and were too decent for their respective parties. So we are stuck with Trump and Hillary.

Trump is a nightmare candidate; Hillary an unappealing one. Trump is a reactionary, clinging to a past when white men ruled the national roost and minorities knew their subservient place; Hillary is a career politician with unmatched experience, yet alarmingly poor judgement. It is her poor judgement and that of her party that has led us to where we are now: an election too close to call with the Toxic Trump Avenger casting his dark shadow on the soul of America.

Hillary v Trump at War in the National Cockpit

With the end of the toxic and bitter presidential campaign finally in sight, the entire country now seems braced for a crash landing. Hillary and Trump are fighting for control in the national cockpit while the rest of us cringe. Those who aren't asleep are sick with nausea, barf bag in hand.

It could be said that the flight would have been intensely unpleasant under the  best of circumstances. The country is hopelessly fractured, though that is hardly news. What is news, however, is the volume of news itself and the speed at which it hits us. And make no mistake, all of us who have been paying attention, indeed feel hit.

We are stuck in overload mode, inundated by a steady stream of controversies and debates. The only relief is the off switch, which many of us can't even find let alone use. Newspapers nor newspaper endorsements matter. News is news you might say. Yes, but reading a newspaper -- and when was the last time you did that? -- is a qualitatively different experience than checking multiple websites in mere seconds on your smartphone. The very phrase "turning a page" seems quaint, almost pastoral. Meanwhile, our incessant scrolling has created a booming market for wrist braces.

Breaking news -- and all news is "breaking" these days -- is followed by instant analysis. There is no time to digest and consider, because in the time it takes to do that more instant analysis is needed for more breaking news. Amplifying things further, every subject is fuel for argument, not just the old standbys of politics, sports and religion. We debate everything, from whether  Bob Dylan is deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature to whether Wonder Woman is worthy of being named a UN Global Ambassador. No subject is too trivial to not get worked up over.

Amidst the non-stop war of words, there is at least one thing Americans agree on: We want the campaign to be over. Its sheer length  -- it has been 16 months since Trump descended down the escalator into the pit of American political theater -- has taken a toll on all of us. The worst possible scenario would be Hillary winning and Trump contesting, thereby extending the nightmare campaign into 2017.

Actually, in a deeply disturbing sense Trump has already won. Previously we were able to just tune him out,  but that has been impossible for some time. We must now take his poisonous nonsense seriously.  We ignore him at our own peril.

Meanwhile, Hillary hardly provides an inspiring alternative. As if being the first presidential candidate in history under an FBI investigation wasn’t bad enough, she has been linked, albeit circuitously, to Anthony Weiner. Even so, only being linked to Bill Cosby would be worse.  Hillary is unable to move beyond her disastrous decision to have a private server while Secretary of State and remains hopelessly mired in scandals and investigations. Her husband lurking in the background serves only as an unsettling reminder of the heavy baggage the Clintons will move back into the White House with them should Hillary win.

Under these circumstances, voting for an idealistic third party candidate could have appeal. But Gary Johnson, the leading third party candidate, could not name  a world leader when asked. It was unclear if he could name a country.

And so, there is no candidate to vote for, only against. Our next president is already highly unpopular, totally unfit for office, and should be immediately impeached.

Please fasten your seat belts. More turbulence ahead.   

John Lennon’s Journey To Feminism And Why It Matters In The Era Of Trump

John and Yoko in Central Park. Photo: Bob Gruen. 

Please forgive the sacrilege, but after the release of the video in which Donald’s Trump’s vile and hateful remarks about women surfaced and his subsequent “apology,” I find myself thinking about John Lennon.

Yes, I know it is odd to think of John Lennon and Donald Trump in the same breath. Lennon was a brilliant artist, a visionary, a passionate social activist and one of the 20th Century’s most eloquent, influential and powerful spokesmen for peace.

That said, Lennon and Trump do have at least one thing in common: a history of misogyny for which they both offered an apology. However, the nature of their apologies and how they came to them are instructive and shed light on why Trump is a poisonous force and Lennon still matters and deeply inspires us.

Trump’s history of misogyny, like Lennon’s, is well documented. But unlike Lennon, despite the fact that he has already lived 30 years longer, Trump has never come to terms with his ugly treatment of women. He was cajoled into his recent faux apology by a team of advisers who made it clear to him that his run for President was doomed unless he offered something at least resembling a mea culpa. Trump couldn’t even reach that low bar. “I apologize if anyone was offended,” he said. It was so poorly received that he was forced to shoot a second version, during which he cluelessly, if not predictably, changed the subject to Bill Clinton and attacked Hillary.

Watching Trump disgrace himself, John Lennon’s song “Woman” came to mind. The story of how Lennon came to write the song is actually the story of his individuation, the awakening of consciousness.

Some history:

In the song “Getting Better,” from the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album, Paul McCartney sings Lennon’s mournful lament: “I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved.”

Years later, not long before he died, Lennon admitted, “That was me. I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically ― any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything’s the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.”

At 25, Lennon wrote “Run For You Life,” a jealous, immature rant which years later he called his “least favorite Beatles song.” “Run For Your Life” was inspired by Elvis Presley’s recording of Arthur Gunter’s “Baby, Let’s Play House,” a song written from the perspective of a spurned lover who wants his former girlfriend with college aspirations to return to him to “play house.” Elvis performed it live with hips a-thrusting, leaving little doubt as to what he had in mind by “house play.” In the last verse The King delivers this dire warning: “Now listen to me, baby, try to understand, I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man.”

“Run For Your Life,” written more than a decade later in 1965, picks up where “Baby, Let’s Play House” finishes, with the same threat. However, Lennon takes it further, warning his lover that he is a “wicked guy” with a “jealous mind.” (He would revisit this theme years later with piercing sorrow in “Jealous Guy”). Most disturbingly, at the end of the song Lennon emphasizes his seriousness: “Let this be a sermon, I mean everything I’ve said; baby, I’m determined and I’d rather see you dead.”

The following year Lennon met Yoko Ono and shortly afterwards wrote “All You Need Is Love.” The raucous street anthem “Give Peace A Chance” followed and then “Power To The People,” in which Lennon dared to ask his “comrades and brothers” something they had probably never even thought to consider: “How do you treat your own woman back home?” For good measure, he then reminded them, “She’s got to be herself, so she can free herself.” However, Lennon’s transformation from misogynist to feminist was just beginning.

In 1972 all hell broke loose with the release of Lennon and Ono’s controversial pro-feminist anthem, “Woman Is The Nigger Of The World.” The song was a searing indictment of a sick patriarchy. Widely banned and labelled “racist” and “anti-woman” by the very sick patriarchy it condemned, Lennon remained defiantly unapologetic.

“I had to find out about myself and my attitudes toward women,” he told talk show host Dick Cavett. Besides, Lennon pointed out, the people most likely to have a negative reaction to the song were “white and male.” He then read a statement of support from Ron Dellums, Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and told Cavett, “I really believe that women have the worst, whatever it is. However badly or how poor people are, it’s the woman who takes it when they get home from work.” And with that he took the stage and belted out the still chilling lyrics:

We make her paint her face and dance

If she won’t be slave, we say that she don’t love us;

If she’s real, we say she’s trying to be a man

While putting her down we pretend that she’s above us;

Woman is the nigger of the world...yes she is

If you don’t believe me take a look to the one you’re with

Woman is the slaves of the slaves

Ah yeah...better scream about it!

In 1972 Lennon and Ono received a “Positive Image of Women” citation from the National Organization for Women for the song’s “strong pro-feminist statement.” Even so, 44 years later there is probably not a radio station in the country that would play “Woman Is The Nigger of the World.” The lyrics cut too close to the collective bone and ring too painfully true.

As anyone who has ever been severely injured or undergone major surgery knows, the healing process does not unfold in not a straight line. There are challenges and setbacks on the road to recovery. Lennon would callously mistreat Yoko in the future and their marriage would hang in the balance while he partied with his rock and roll pals in California during his so-called “lost weekend” period. But Lennon would somehow pass through the eye of the storm and find his way back, not just to Yoko, but to himself and to his most deeply held values.

By Lennon’s 40th year, the age which Carl Jung referred to as “the old age of youth and the youth of old age,” he had matured. In the song “Woman,” from Double Fantasy, Lennon was finally able to express his sorrow, guilelessly and heartbreakingly, for the hurt that he had caused the women in his life and his own feminine nature:

Woman, I can hardly express,

My mixed emotion at my thoughtlessness,

After all I’m forever in your debt…

Woman, please let me explain,

I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain,

So let me tell you again and again and again,

I love you now and forever

“Woman” is clearly a personal apology and declaration of love to Yoko, however Lennon also seems to be singing from some archetypal vantage point on behalf of all men to all women from time immemorial. It’s a gorgeous song of wholeness, reverence and love.

There is a lot to admire and respect about John Lennon, but perhaps nothing more than his remarkable transformation from misogynist to proud househusband and outspoken feminist. His personal journey in relation to the Feminine is symbolic of the journey that American culture needs to recommit to and complete. Viewed in that context, the defeat of Donald Trump is a critical step in our collective healing. As Lennon said, “We can’t have a revolution that doesn’t involve and liberate women. It’s so subtle the way you’re taught male superiority.”