Fall semester grades are always due a few days before the holidays.
You know what that means for me in the last weeks of 2024?
Stress eating?
Reading a lot of original screenplays and TV pilots with post-apocalyptic, historical or contemporary end of the world scenarios where occasionally we are left with some small ray of hope at the end. But only if we choose to look for it.
And who says Gen Z is not paying attention to the world these days?
Olivia knows
Good. For. Them.
Gen Z, I mean.
As for this baby boomer, I had to stop reading at some point for the palette cleanser of Saturday Night Live this weekend with guest host Chris Rock. Somehow he managed to do socially relevant, edgy and sometimes even dangerous comic commentary about the past, present and future all through his monologue and in each sketch he was in.
How did he pull it off?
As far as I can tell, it took three things:
Talent
Smarts
Not giving a f-ck what the powers-that-be think.
Which is more than I can say for the TWO multi-BILLIONAIRE founder/owners of Meta (Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp blah, blah blah…) and Amazon/Blue Origin/The Washington Post blah, blah, blah…
Like a bad Lex Luthor casting call
But what’s $1 million apiece to the 2025 inaugural party for the new POTUS/Time 2024 Man Of The Year, that NOT ONE of my smart, talented friends (Note: Which means ALL of them) will be watching in January because we love democracy and truly don’t give a….
Well, you know. You really do.
And so do many, many, MANY more.
What I’ll be doing on Inauguration day
But back to SNL. Again.
If like me and my friends, and their friends, you too need a palette cleanser – and a Christmas stocking stuffer for the family – try the Chair’s repeat shameless self-promotion. Yes, repeating once again this week instead of writing one more word about politics.
It will take you through 50 years of a lot of funny, smart and sometimes even dangerous social commentary. And bring you back to many years quite different than 2024.
Some of them were good or great. And a few of them were….well, none were exactly like this year.
If you’re upset you can’t afford holiday presents, or that you even have to buy holiday presents, be cheered by the confirmation once again of this salient fact –
Money does NOT buy happiness.
But you can rent it, right Chairy?
The richest man in the world was having a hissy fit this week because a bunch of reputable journalists posted stories about him and his whereabouts he didn’t like and couldn’t control.
Yes, Elon Musk is THE richest person on EARTH and a bunch of silly, bitchy and not even very revealing comments about him by reporters who work at places like CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post pissed him off. Not to mention a college student in Florida and what he wrote on his Twitter account.
He screamed (Note: Well, posted very loudly) they were violating his privacy by revealing the comings and goings of his private jet when that information is public record. Forget that some of those reporters never even wrote about where he was. They were instead commenting on his latest follies on the social media platform he now owns.
See, the richest man in the world bought Twitter for $44 billion this year in order to steer public discourse to his own liking.
Ho Ho Ho
And even if it collapses under the weight of his toddler-y tantrums as he leads a band of digital dingbats to troll the libs, he will still be a multi-billionaire.
What it won’t do, though, is fill the deep hole of distaste for that which and those whom he cannot silence, or at least control.
Us.
Or, put in the spirit of holiday movies like It’s A Wonderful Life:
Elon will forever be Mr. Potter and….
WE ARE ALL GEORGE BAILEYS.
OK but the happy one right?
He will NEVER get his hands on our buildings and loans because we don’t look at the entire world as something we could ever, in reality, fully control.
Certainly not with the cash and clout we have available to us in Christmas, 2022.
And how lucky are we for that?
Yes, lucky.
Because we also learned this week that, aside from money, being the MOST POWERFUL PERSON ON THE PLANET (Note: Which these days comes accompanied by a ton of money, or at least financial “opportunities”) also can’t come close to buying happiness. Or even contentment.
Certainly not self-respect.
Bah humbug!
Yes, of course we’re talking about Tr-mp. That’s a given. But only in service or making a much larger point.
I mean, what would it take for you to hire/authorize/perhaps pay (Note: Well, maybe not the latter) a digital artist to create inferior drawings of you as a cowboy, a superhero, an astronaut or even fighter pilot, with a a strange, air-brushed slapped-on replica of your face and hair where the head is supposed to be?
For your sake and mine, we’ll post this instead. #yikes
It could conceivably be a fun party favor on your 50th, 60th or even 70th birthday under a tent, given to all invited guests. You could imagine your spouse doing that behind your back without telling you, thinking you’d be pleased.
You might even be displeased but be forced to grin and bear it while resenting it, or even pretend to like it and then have it grow on you and sort of have it win you over because, hey, why not, what do YOU have to prove at this point, anyway, being so rich and powerful?
But no, imagine you actually WANT to create these faux objects d’art voluntarily, as YOUR merchandise from YOUR virtual merch store? And voluntarily publicize and sell them to anyone in the world who wants to buy them for $99 a piece?
Wait, this is serious!
Um… what?
In your mind you ARE a superhero. And maybe you were indeed an astronaut, a cowboy and a war pilot. Who is to say that you were not?
A liberal like me can joke all that he wants but hey, the Trump digital cards sold out in a day and they made $4.3 million.
I am clearly in the wrong business
At least that’s what THEY will counter.
But, well, is that a lot of money for a self-proclaimed billionaire? More importantly, does that raise the stock of the once most powerful man in the world?
Well, maybe there is an Iowa state fair looking for a superhero carnival barker in 2024 rather than a presidential candidate.
Been there and done that, you can hear Trump really privately thinking about running again.
So why not do the state fair?
If they pay enough and you can private jet in and out it might be good for the brand in the long run,And wouldn’t it be so great to be back up on a real stage among MY people?
You can imagine him contemplating it, even if he doesn’t publicly admit it.
Or perhaps it is just a simple money grift from the man born with no shame and then some.
Welcome back Potter
Already intellectuals are writing think pieces about these Trump playing cards, attempting to cast them as some post modern ironic, version of crypto art. They are NFTs, aka non-fungible tokens, after all. Which is nothing more than a fancy word for images each with their own digital stamp.
Sounds like a Sam Bankman-Fried scheme to me. But let’s not go down that road even if Larry David and Tom Brady already did.
Instead let’s stay with the idea of seriously marketing yourself as a real life cartoon character NOT in the Marvel or DC Universe when you actually once were a sort of Superman/person in real life.
It’s kind of like the end of Tar when she finds herself….
Oh, never mind. I don’t want to give it away.
Don’t worry Cate, we’ll have a podcast all about you #AwardsSeason
Even though I thought that movie was an unbelievably bloated, pretentious, obnoxious and sad excuse for…
Hey, that’s sort of how I think about Trump and Elon!
Two pieces of faux public art drowning in their own bottomless hubris as the rest of us celebrate this holiday season in ways they can’t understand and will never be able to buy.
notes from a chair 