The author is a Los Angeles-based freelancer who grew up in Oak Park. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the LA Herald Examiner and Men's Journal and co-founded the band Was (Not Was). His father, the late Rube Weiss, was Santa Claus in the Hudson's Thanksgiving Parade and was on radio shows including The Lone Ranger.
By David Weiss
Trying to define the boundary between politics and entertainment just keeps getting harder – especially after the Madison Square Garbage Trump debacle this week. My bad! – I Freudian-slipped into comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s depiction of Puerto Rico as a floating island of waste – not the dubious beneficiary of America’s self-interested, colonial largesse, a mixed-blessing at best.
Donald Trump and comic Tony Hinchcliffe at Madison Square Gardens.
I’m sorry, that’s a little harsh. After all, our compassion-challenged forty-fifth president did risk life and limb tossing paper towels to our island brethren in the name of hurricane relief. Hell, the old coot might have suffered a golf swing-impeding shoulder injury whilst selflessly hurling rolls of Bounty and BPA-ridden water bottles to the huddled masses. What can I say? – the man is a giver!
First things first: Who the effing lord is Tony Hinchcliffe? His Wiki reveals him to be a fading insult comic, a wannabe Don Rickles clone. Since getting video-busted for calling an Asian comic a “filthy little fucking Chink” in 2021, he has been less welcome at such august events as Snoop Dogg roasts on Comedy Central, where his signature crudity was formerly welcomed if not celebrated. What’s a little casual racism between friends, after all?
But that some bright bulb – yes, likely as not Mini-Me himself, Don Jr. -- would recruit such a debased character to warm up the audience like a comic on a game-show set, well it kind of makes one wonder again about that thin line between political discourse and the one-and-only, extrava-maga-ganza Donald Trump Variety Show, sponsored by dictator-friendly Elon Musk’s Space-X – “Why stop at Mars, let’s go to the stars!” Sorry, Pillow Guy – you've been replaced and not just in theory.
Tonight on the program! Second-rank celebs Hulk Hogan, Dr. Phil, Tucker Carlson and the Be-Bestest First Immigrant Lady herself, best-smelling author Melania Knaus Drumpf! Not to mention the flesh-and-blood Beavis and Butthead, los hermanos Trump, whose TVQ is dropping dramatically with those warmer and fuzzier Menendez boys back on the scene! Maybe if Don and Eric fired a couple of Alec Baldwin-blanks at dear old dad they’d get back to the front page where they belong. Is there no justice?
So how does one adjudge, how outraged need we be, that an off-Strip insult comic bashed Latinos and Blacks -- and thereby provided fresh grist for yet another round of Trump-takedowns. Not that the Man of Steal won’t withstand yet another fMRI of his occluded and nearly indetectable soul.
Like omigod, are we shell-shocked anew? For the 45,000th time since McDonald’s descent down that gilded escalator of his? Is he a fascist, okay sure. Racist, well yes, but he “vaz just following his Vater’s orders not to rent to those people.” Central Park Five, the Birther con, etc., etc. Didn’t we have all of the data on this charlatan all along? Need we underline and italicize and ironize ad infinitum in the wake of yet another Company Trump communications gaffe?
Gaffe, his ample ass! Don’t think that just because Trump’s a low-IQ philistine that he isn’t Fox-smart when it comes to hustling toxic bread and circuses to his rabid acolytes. And please don’t blame your fellow Americans for swallowing the hook with the bait – they are sometimes rightly aggrieved and desperately need some brimstone huckster to gee them up and get their deplorable asses to the ballot box – the one last hurdle before defendant Trump becomes the greatest inmate anyone has seen before. One can only pray.
But I don’t believe salisbury steak and shivs are likely in the offing – our weathered western god is not likely to mete out justice reliably like Athena once did for the Greeks. Sure, Karma mostly sucks, but some lucky psychopaths can delay retribution for a long, long time, maybe even long enough to go gulag on us all and start shackling real and imagined foes. I can’t help but think that Trump’s evil Rasputin, Roy Cohn, would be cock-proud of his stick-to-the-script protege. In Trump’s Bizarro-World-view, losing is winning, heroes are suckers and money is the root of all good. And to think that he may yet prevail, nine lives alley-cat that he is!
Then again, perhaps the Madison Square Garden crapshow is a last-minute reason for optimism: If Team Trump is so desperate for yet another 10,000 fringe-dwelling xenophobes, maybe they also know how razor-thin the ice is below their Fearful Leader’s skates. Every lost Puerto Rican-American vote may come a little late for Halloween, but might well smash his bulbous pumpkin-head come election day. Keep some paper towels handy, just in case. Dios mio!
