In the American tradition of family-oriented Christmas season television variety show specials featuring star performers like Andy Williams, Perry Como, Bing Crosby and Dean Martin, this year we have Donald Trump entering the holiday season entertainment genre with a reality show special based on Christmas cheer and an impeachment extravaganza.
Unlike the past Christmas television variety specials that were prerecorded, President Goldfinger’s show will be live and not just limited to a one hour broadcast. So you don’t need to check your local listings. It’s always on. Everywhere. The show will run daily 24/7 and you can watch it on all cable news channels. (You can even hear it on the radio and read about it in all the newspapers). There will be prerecorded segments featuring Trumps’s past high crimes and misdemeanors, but most of the show will be broadcast live as it happens, reality show style.
The Trump family will be featured in their natural habitat both at Trump Tower in New York City and at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s “Winter White House” in Florida. There was to be a prerecorded segment of Melania lighting the White House Christmas tree in Washington but it had to be cut from the program due to an associated fire in the East Wing. Apparently, Melania understood ‘the lighting of the tree‘ to be literal. No one was seriously injured, just some mild smoke inhalation.
Conversely, Melania’s prerecorded ‘gift-to-the-orphans‘ segment will run its full length including the First Lady slipping a DREAMer a five-spot and patting an immigrant orphan on the head during her trip to the Mexican border last year. She really does care although her coat told a different story ... https://foodandeverythingelsetoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/melania-jacket-5.jpg
Jared Kushner was scheduled to sing ‘Silent Night‘ but he couldn’t be found. Ivanka said he didn’t know the words anyway because he was Jewish, but mostly because her dad, President Goldfinger, warned Kushner about ‘singing‘ anything to anyone. So Ivanka’s segment features her and her kids gathered around a warm and Christmassy Yule Log gas fireplace with fake snow falling outside as she reads them the Christmas classic, ‘Twas the Night Before Impeachment’.
And ...you know what? ...STOP! ...just STOP! ...
...I’m sorry, but please stop reading this. It started out as an interesting premise, but it’s going nowhere. You get the shtick, right? ...a mildly amusing barely funny, no, tedious, take on Trump’s impeachment hearings on television compared to past Christmas television specials. I’m just not a good enough comedy writer to make this work.
So, here’s a true Christmas story that actually happened to me, and it is funny. Hilarious, even ...
It was the week before Christmas circa 1950‘s Brooklyn, New York. I was in the 5th grade at St. Mary’s parochial school. It was snowing real snow. Sister Mary Eunice had our class put on a Christmas variety show (much like the ones I referred to above) and the class was to pair off in groups and decide what song or skit they would perform in front of the classroom. I, being slow to begin with complicated by introverted tendencies, got left out of the groupings. It may have been on purpose, however, as I was hoping to get out of the Christmas show all together. So, maybe I was ahead of the curve. Nonetheless ...
Not so fast! ...Sister Mary Eunice told me, ordered me, to do something by myself. A recital reading of a Christmas poem, or a song ...perhaps a little dance or something. ‘You’ve got to be kidding‘ I said to myself. I was petrified.
As the ‘groups‘ were huddling in the ‘cloak room‘ (remember those?...the walk-through long closet along the side of the classroom where the class hung up their coats), I was sitting in my seat trying to figure out what to do for a performance. I had to do something. There was no getting around Sister Mary Eunice’s order.
My turn was coming up so I entered the cloak room back door from which the other kids exited the front door stage left to the front of the classroom to perform their songs, dances, recitals and pantomimes.
I was next, and I still didn’t know what I was going to do. As the last actors bowed from the waist to the applause of the class, I walked out, stage left, to the front of the room still not knowing what to do. I wanted to die and probably would, in show biz terms. As the preceding applause died down from the last act, it was a silly yet well-meaning but insulting re-enactment of the birth of Christ, the room turned into a silent death trap expressly intended for me. ‘How ironic’, I thought to myself ...a birth followed by a death on the same stage.
I stood there staring at the class, and at Sister Mary Eunice who had a puzzled yet stern look on her face, as they all stared back at me.
A short background is called for here. Both my grandfathers immigrated to America from Czechoslovakia at the turn of the century. They migrated to western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh area, and worked in the coal mines their whole lives. My father and all my uncles also worked in the coal mines and steel mills before WW II, and some died from Black Lung, the signature disease of the lower middle class coal miner. They lived (and died) in company houses built on slate dumps next to the mines, and bough their goods from the company store to which they always owed money. As a young boy I observed all of this hardship, back-breaking work and pain. This is the environment and these are the people who influenced my life ...
What I’m trying to say is that I have coal dust in my blood. So, naturally, I am very familiar with the song ‘Sixteen Tons‘ as recorded by Tennessee Ernie Ford. You might say it’s in my blood inherently and in my subconscious conscience constantly. I’ve heard it all my life and know the words like I know my own name.
As I stood there staring at the class and Sister Mary Eunice, and as they stared back at me waiting for me to do something ...I opened my mouth and began to sing ‘Sixteen Tons‘ in my deepest most manly Tennessee Ernie voice. I was on automatic pilot.
Mouths were agape. Eyebrows were elevated. Sister Mary Eunice appeared angry ...puzzled. Like I was mocking her.
I finished the song and returned to my seat. I think. I don’t remember much after I finished. No one said anything. No applause, no laughter, no nothing. Fine by me, I got ‘er done. Whew!
I love that song, and if you're not familiar with it, here's Tennessee Ernie Ford at his best ... https://www.bing.com/search?q=sixteen+tons+performed+by+tennessee+ernie+ford+youtube&form=PRUSEN&mkt=en-
...I even snapped my fingers like Tennessee Ernie to keep my rhythm and iambic pentameter. Still no laughs or applause. Go figure ...
Well, anyway ...Merry Christmas and Happy Impeachment, Mr. President.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
Some past articles and op-eds
https://muckrack.com/john-kushma/articles
