How to do the wrong thing right

Lookie here, a new year! And a newly-capsized world order, too! A muddied mess is our tenuous republic; still, it’s hardly Armageddon. We’ve been here before, folks. No bottom’s too low that Trump won’t go: He simply doesn’t give a flying fuck.

Amidst swirling whirlpools of breaking news as my deadline loomed, Speaker of the House Pelosi, was frantically calling our nation’s “Football Carrier” to block “unhinged” L’Orange accessing the nuclear codes to prevent “distraction” from charges of inciting a violent mob attack the Capitol, whilst the House at large readies formal articles of impeachment — a second time around for His Trumpency.

Meanwhile, a poker-faced President-elect Biden wafts serenely above any impeachment’s “endorsement” stench, courtesy of Twitter chivalrously (if belatedly) playing tarbaby for him by suspending Trump’s account permanently, forever, in continuum: “Dead man walking!”
One may ask, where does a man so morbidly obese as Trump even summon the energy for such rancorous bellicosity and eternal sedition charges?

Perhaps L’Orange’s laudatory secret for such robust rapaciousness lies within his mentality, or lack thereof. Swamp POTUS, after all, has a rather unctuous reputation for whistling past the graveyard. Only the ornamental facets of Trump’s job truly pique his narrow focus enough to ever elicit any sort of even half-genuine stab at real mirth — trivialities such as pardoning the Thanksgiving turkeys, and the discovery upon his move into the Oval Office that he had 18 choices of curtains to select from: The masquerades — anything nonfunctionally decorative — now, that’s his spiritual metier! Golfing! Whenever the going gets tough, the Boss has tees in his pockets ready to plunge into the fairway.

Flanking the here-be-dragons’ perimeter obliviously surrounding Swampy, Witch Rona and her newly mutant minion variants now tally 4,000 new U.S. deaths, daily, across our central badlands’ purple mountains’ majesty and amber waves of opioid overdoses. Yet, it required storming the Capitol building, itself (homegrown Americans at the gate!) for the nihilistic, Ted Cruz-led faction of shapeshifting Republican MAGA dementors to finally grasp that their bridge too-far — where nobody can hear even Mitch McConnell’s screams — had putridly collapsed under the rot of their own primordial-oozed schemes.

And along this same gut-churning equivalency, it’s now official: 2020 was the worst year for jobs since World War II. Where’s Trump, you say? Golfing! In the snow?

In case you haven’t heard, kids, the inauguration of a brand-new/oldest-living American president takes place in five days. Inevitably, sea to shining sea, “Countdown to Kamala” calendars are already taking day wagers, and our exiting President Swamp Thing promises to be (cross your fingers, kiddos!) a no-show.

Yet his penultimate display of pettiness shall not be without historical precedence, try though he might. Once again, per usual, our Oracle L’Orange tis a follower of rank unoriginality. Fully three former presidents already beat Donnie Fatso to the MIA inaugural-punch: Both the hierarchal Adams’ family ancients, for starters.

(Useless factoid: The senior Adams infamously croaked on his cantankerous deathbed, “And that wily bastard, Jefferson, now even outlives me!” I’m of course paraphrasing here; but, the honest truth—which traveled at slug-speed those days, same as now — was that, unbeknownst to seething old Adams, Thomas Jefferson had actually met Reaper Grimly the very same festering summer’s day . . . just a few pitiful hours earlier. And on what date, exactly, did their hoary double-header with destiny’s Sickle Dreadful occur, children? ’Twas no less than July 4, 1826! In an age minus automobiles, wire communications, medicine or even lye-free soap, each of these filthy Founding Fathers died separately ruing the other’s succeeding-immortality.)

Oh, and then there’s luckless Andrew Johnson — now remembered, if at all, as not only the accidentally-elevated clodhopper forced to fill holy Lincoln’s assassination shoes, but also as the only president of the 19th century to be impeached: He, too, skipped the inauguration of his successor, Ulysses S. Grant.

Your dear Howard here has, to date, breathed lungs of oxygen now through three of America’s historically sharpest and cruelest course-changes: In my cradle, the takeaway from Kennedy’s ’63 assassination was, “Our country will never be innocent again;” next, my takeaway from 9/11 was the adulthood-sobering, “Hubris gets us every time!” Why did just nobody see that coming? And then the takeaway from Rona’s deep-breath, 2020 aerial-plunge view, here at middle-aged crest’s slide down: “Nothing will ever be certain anymore!”

And now, as a cherry on top, Wednesday of last week detonated a fourth date I’ve lived to never forget — whether originally intended as a lawful protest spiraled into breaking-and-entering gone awry or whether a premeditated act of sedition intent on government sabotage — the truth is that Jan. 6, 2021, has forever now ossified its infamy on our collective consciousness for one reason only: This was the date that the palace we stormed was our own.

Nevertheless — and despite Saffron Satan’s vilest sociopathic efforts to torch our democratic republic’s every amendment — come exactly high noon (Eastern Daylight Time) on Jan. 20, 2021 — two days following Martin Luther King Jr. Day — President Joseph R. Biden Jr. shall faithfully vow to upend (excuse me, my bad) uphold the Constitution, majestically marking our successive U.S. Presidential Inauguration (number 59!) for our new commander-in-chief (number 46!) via an oath administered by Kamala Harris, his hand-chosen vice president (number 49!) of these, still, mercifully United States.

As my glorious grandfather (1901—95) used to exuberantly smile through his one tooth still inhabiting his mouth, “Ain’t this a grand country we live in?” It was.

Indeed, despite all of L’Orange’s “achievements” amounting to little more than just shellacked, photo-op shit-shows, America will be made great, again. Yes, in spite of the fact that, to the absolute surprise of literally no one, his sworn 100 million vaccines to be delivered by the end of December proved but another inoculating “alternate truth” until, finally in the end, the true believers of President Fraudulence storm the U.S. Capitol building itself seeking the truth. Death and mayhem ensued, per usual, yet L’Orange still chose to fart on laurel wreaths his flatulence of sour defeat, even as Biden placed his hand atop the Holy Bible, sweeping away forever the likes of old Frog-face Mitch and his pond-scum enablers; true, Witch COVID still rampaged with a fever vengeance, but the presidency and both congressional chambers were safely in the hands of sanity now, at last — albeit, a trifle moribund — and they all, we Americans, lived ever after.
“Don’t you mean “happily” ever after, Uncle Howard?”

Happily? Ha! Why, silly kids, if horse-thieving used to be plenty good enough for a decent hanging, what does a Judas to our country warrant? Like the old proverb says, “Set a beggar on horseback and he’ll ride to the Devil.” Look closer — whaddya think the real reason is for L’Orange not attending the inaugural?

Just take a deep breath, Mr. President: The jig’s up, Gutso.

That’s right, you powdered-up/puffed-up misogynistically-bigoted carnival-barking racist, fascist, mob-baiting treasonous buffoon! Yeah, let’s go for another great four in ’24 with that! (Just five more days, five more days, five more days.) We wouldn’t want you dying in office and martyred at this late point, now would we, sir? Why, heaven’s-to-Betsy (Ross)!

Exhale slowly. Donnie, let’s call down to your head chef, Mickey D. Tell him to add double-cheese tonight to your retirement Big Mac. Oh, WTF — have him supersize the fries, too, long as you’re cheatin’! Hell, it’s not like Melania fucks you anymore anyhow, and certainly not after the Christmas present you gave her this year — demoting her high-flying, luxe-life aboard Air Force One back down again to that Brezhnev-era, cattle car in the sky spray-painted gold! No doubt, it’ll soon be seized, regardless … along with your tri-level penthouse oligarch’s pad on Fifth … Mar-a-Lago, equally shuttered and sold-off: Friendless, homeless and pokey-bound, all in one — let’s call it WINNING!

What a titanic waste, too, it’s all been — and for nothing more than just a great big fairytale. But cheer up, bois & girlz — this year ain’t last year. Something lost of old’s come back again, reborn: It’s called HOPE! Just keep wearing your masks, kids. Happier days glimmer ahead!

—Howard Lewis Russell

Howard rarely asks questions, he only answers them (hence the name of this column); so, send your inquiry—about sex, love, kink-etiquette, queer history or presidential inaugurals—to AskHoward@dallasvoice.com and he may answer it.