'Purple Rain'

A lot of the destruction we are witnessing in Washington, DC is the direct result of Trump’s lifelong racism and his never-ending quest for retribution. This is personal for the narcissistic bigot with the inferiority complex.

It all stems from the moment he and Melania fired the chief usher of the White House on the morning President Biden was being sworn in. This house manager would have most certainly been let go anyway (he was brought in from Trump’s DC hotel after Donald and Melania fired White House Chief Usher Angella Reid in 2017, a Black woman hired by Obama in 2011), but the timing was meant to disrupt protocol and impede an elegant transition - so the new first couple couldn’t get into the White House without some delay. Not only did Donald and Melania skip the inauguration, they spat in the Nation’s face on their way out of the door.

Trump stole as many documents as he could, ordered his White House Chief of Staff to burn the rest in his office fireplace - and flew off on Marine One with a glinting anger in his eye, making a promise to himself to come back and burn it all down.

That is what we are witnessing now; from the East Wing to USAID, the Kennedy Center to The Washington Post. Trump is disfiguring the DC we have always known and replacing it with a grotesque tribute to himself and the septic culture that spawned his ilk.

A monument to greed and brutality, not to mention imperialistic tendencies that should have been jettisoned from this nation’s consciousness a century ago. Aggression is no substitute for acumen but that is not what MAGA would have this nation believe.

‘Greed is good’ and ‘might is right’ is no way to run country but it’s a great way to bring down an empire. Never lose sight of the fact that Trump’s core mission is to destroy the U.S.A. on behalf of the oligarchs and Vladimir Putin.

From IndyCar races around the National Mall to UFC Fights on the White House lawn, the administration’s planned events are as much a repudiation of decorum as titillating spectacle. The ‘bread and circuses’ portion of our orange Nero’s pie. Trump’s destruction of the performing arts, a culture of intellectualism and an informed citizenry is being fed into the wood chipper in favor of high octane hijinks.

Why be sensitive and introspective when you can be loud and violent?

Pistons and punches in place of pirouettes and prose.

The Kennedy Center will not reopen after Trump strips it to its bones to lash out at America. At least not as we have always known it. He will rebuild it in his brand image and turn it into some ghastly ‘America First’ multiplex which will no doubt include a Trump Hotel, retail space for MAGA-friendly businesses - such as a Kid Rock Bar & Grill and patriot-themed podcast studios.

Think TPUSA live from Washington, DC or ‘Lindell TV’ broadcasting from the Trump Entertainment Complex. Along with his ballroom, the Kennedy Center takeover gives the former ‘developer’ an enormous footprint in Washington - not just in real estate but in psychological square footage.

The Trumps will attempt to use these facilities to enlarge their base and maintain the hold they have culturally over the existing one. Christo-fascist organizations, like CPAC, can bring in a lot of programming and events designed to buttress and expand their following and indoctrinate the younger generation.

This is why Charlie Kirk had the backing of conservative billionaires for his Christian nationalist grooming operation on college campuses. And why his wife didn’t skip a beat in continuing to grift when he fell victim to the very gun culture and endemic violence his and other organizations protected and proselytized through a bastardized interpretation of the 2nd amendment. (Which by the way, was originally conceived to appease anti-Federalist slaveowners in Virginia like Patrick Henry, to guarantee autonomy over state militias in the event of an uprising of enslaved people. The revolt in Haiti in 1790, and subsequent rebellion in August of 1791, was very much on the minds of wealthy, white southern land owners when the 2nd amendment was ratified in December of that same year).

It is no accident that Trump is removing any reference to slavery from our national parks and museums.

If you think Trump will allow such valuable riverfront property to revert back to the living memorial for John F. Kennedy you haven’t been paying attention. I am quite confident he already has the foreign investors lined up to build on his ever-expanding, tax payer-funded empire.

There’s no place for true performing arts in the ‘America First’ movement but plenty of room for bowling alleys, bro-country and movie theaters featuring mindless pablum - like the ‘Melania’ documentary, which was funded by the same billionaire that destroyed much of The Washington Post and who immediately received Pentagon contracts for his space flight company.

A grinning Jeff Bezos greeted the execrable Pete Hegseth at Blue Origin headquarters the Monday morning after the ‘Melania’ premiere; putting 40 million dollars directly into the Trumps’ pockets and paying out billions for Bezos.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post has ceased to function as the venerable newspaper most of us have always known. Bezos has fired over a third of its staff and shuttered its international bureaus, entire photo journalism department and ironically, eliminated WaPo’s sports page on the week of the Super Bowl.

As we head into this weekend’s Super Bowl Sunday, The New York Times has raised their autocracy tracker for the United States to a level four out of ten.

That means the call is coming from inside of the house.

I have worked on at least a dozen Super Bowl Halftime shows going back to the immediate post-9/11 era.

DHS would often make us jump through hoops with elaborate security theater (parking in far away lots and shuttling crew in on school buses - which added many hours to already very long days) and conspicuous show-of-force scenarios. The threat of foreign extremist terrorism conspicuously on the forefront of the minds that were slowly being trained to ignore the emerging domestic threats, that paradoxically a red state, hyper-militarized culture itself was creating.

We can see the results of that mindset in Minnesota. We can also see the hope and bravery that will be its undoing.

The Super Bowl itself began to feel like a flex of America’s security and military muscle. That continued through the Obama era but metastasized at the dawning of the Trump era - it all started to feel like a caricature of a once proud republic.

The pageantry felt more plastic and MAGA-centric.

The toxicity and division was palpable in the ‘America First’ age - so I took myself off the call sheet. My last halftime show was ironically in Minneapolis. I was credentialed the following year for Atlanta but decided not to go, as a comedy video of my stand up act revealing Trump’s behavior on the set of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ had recently gone viral and the death threats and trolls had entered the chat. I figured a week in Georgia wouldn’t help with my anxieties, so I gave up my gig to allow space for another path.

I am proud of many of the performances I was involved in logistically as a member of the halftime production’s talent department, most notably Prince in Miami in 2007 and Bruce Springsteen in 2009; both were in Florida and both times it rained like crazy. Nature adding an improvisational element to the highly choreographed and rehearsed performances.

Prince asked Don Mischer, the legendary producer who passed away last April and to whom I owe my career in live TV, ‘Can you make it rain harder?’; the tropical deluge was already coming down sideways in sheets but Prince gave a performance for the ages.

One of my roles was leading the Florida A&M University marching band on to the field, where they immediately started slipping and sliding (and the battery powered light strips on their uniforms began to short circuit) but never missed a beat or a note of the funky and tight arrangement that Prince personally wrote for them, and that they had spent the previous three days perfecting in the parking lot.

In all my years on the show, Prince had the most hands on approach and commitment to the music.

My responsibilities also included assisting with the coordination of the flyovers that occurred at the end of the national anthem, which often had me spending many hours with elite Navy and Air Force pilots from our Armed forces including the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels.

I would escort the ground signal team on to the roof of the stadium so they could visually communicate with the fighter jets at the exact moment the anthem reached its melodic crescendo. Usually this involved a member of the flight team flashing the pilots with a handheld mirror on my cue when I tapped them on the shoulder, just as the singer was reaching ‘home of the brave’. As a formation of fighter jets closed in on the stadium, I would listen closely to the audio feed on delay through a tiny earpiece. Most years we got it right.

We always had fun. At the same time, the professionalism and skill of the pilots and their teams was never not impressive.

It was an honor to participate and work along side these dedicated service members. My favorite part though was bringing the flight crew down on the field for an on camera shot on the sidelines during the third quarter. Everybody seems to turn into a kid again when they walk on that field and it was a pleasure to give those airmen and women that experience and thrill.

A couple years into Trump’s first term I’d had my fill of live television and felt my skills might be of better use elsewhere. I gave up the access, excitement and semi-regular gigs that took decades to build up but I spoke my mind and followed my heart. In times like these we must sometimes trade privilege for purpose.

I have found that to be worth its weight in gold, though my frustrations and fears for our country persist.

I am deeply concerned that NBC decided to edit out the boos JD Vance received from the Olympic crowd during the opening ceremony but not at all surprised. The Peacock network had an outsized role in enabling the rise of Donald Trump’s political career.

A POTUS that attends a prayer meeting in the morning, lying about lost elections and attacking his political opponents, and then goes home and posts racist videos about America’s beloved 44th president is no friend to democracy or to liberty itself.

Trump’s words and actions are a direct link to the bondage and subjugation of this country’s slave owning past. That it happened in the first week of Black History Month is also no accident.

It is, indeed, intentional and we need to stand up to it - and stop it.

We are becoming a gross cartoon of the worst elements of ourselves, denigrated daily by the racists in our midst. The imagery the White House chose, in their disgusting attempt to degrade a former first couple that exemplifies grace and achievement, seemed to spur a rare outrage on both sides of the aisle.

It might be the first incident where the GOP didn’t pretend they hadn’t seen the post, as has been their infuriating practice over the last decade. That is not insignificant -and where they may not yet have fully grown a backbone, there are signs that a few may indeed at least have cartilage.

It is also a sign of how untethered Trump is becoming in his behavior, and from his political own base.

The addictions and predations that have fueled POTUS over a lifetime have taken their toll; an always aberrant personality is somehow becoming even more unhinged before our very eyes.

Gone are the attributes his MAGA faithful, and plenty of his marks in the past, found at least mildly charming. He no longer smiles for the camera, so to speak. Trump lashes out in anger and slips into the soporific stupor that is essentially his waking state these days.

The late night Adderall binges that certainly fueled his latest tweet storm are still very much a factor in our nation’s discourse, but the folks that at one time would have ignored it are becoming increasingly alarmed.

This is a positive development in a country with a mainstream media trained to look the other way, that usually approach wealth and power with deference and discretion.

If the American press had been honest with people about who Donald Trump was - and has always been - in 2016 we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead, they allowed a corporate whitewashing of a sexual predator and lifelong criminal.

European media doesn’t seem to suffer the same blind spots when it comes to Trump, though they are being attacked by the same reactionary, tech billionaire forces that have caused such upheaval in the States.

Perhaps this is a result of POTUS’ corrupt leadership in pressing Ukraine to capitulate to Russian demands; appeasing Putin’s murderous rampage on innocent people and withholding arms and munitions from Ukrainian forces, making the killing easier for the Russian strongman.

As far as I see it, the Trump/Kushner clan are essentially employees of the Kremlin, and this now includes the Witkoff family as well. Their gamble is that they will destabilize the global order and lock down power so much at home that their malfeasance and treasonous behavior will go unpunished.

So far they are correct; Jared most especially. Those creepily adhering to the shadows have always been the tip of the spear when it comes to collusion and cooperation with the Russians that Trump so slavishly admires. Men like Trump, and now Steve Witkoff, use their sons as surrogates in criminal enterprises, negotiating deals outside of the purview of their public businesses.

These methods were already firmly established before Trump became POTUS, which is one reason for the depth and fluidity of his criminal operation and his deference to Putin.

Jeffrey Epstein had already collected decades worth of kompromat on the elite businessman and politicians that also swam in Trump’s circles and shared his illicit and immoral proclivities. Trump and his coterie were not uninvolved or unaware of the breadth and logistics of the global sex-trafficking operation Epstein and Maxwell ran, as he was himself as involved in its logistics as he was in his own nefarious activities. Men like Howard Lutnick, who appeared on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ and lived next door to Epstein were also aware of the operation and how Trump’s consiglieri had partnered with Putin.

I watched as Jared and Vanky flitted around an event space in Trump SOHO in 2010 and Trump Organization associate, Felix Sater, made introductions to a bevy of very mobbed up looking Russians.

It was like a job fair for bad actors and it also happened to be a ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ after party. Just like the ones a couple years later when Trump would post Hells Angels at the door of a ballroom in the Museum of Natural History and longtime friend of Donald’s, and ex-con, Chuck Zito would hold court, mad mugging the guests.

One would walk through this ominous greeting committee to find the likes of Mark Burnett and Dennis Rodman. It was surreal and strange, and in many cases had just followed some sort of tirade against finale contestants by Trump.

Trump used the ’n-word’ (as he regularly did) to protest the obvious choice of Holly Robinson Peete as the third season winner of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’, choosing instead to crown Brett Michaels - who required EMTs on set due to a brain injury received the previous year on TONY Awards. (I was present - it resulted from Brett skipping rehearsal and not understanding the blocking. The Poison singer walked downstage into a descending heavy scrim which hit his head). He would have been no sane person’s choice, especially over the supremely qualified, skillful and polished Holly Robinson Peete. Most CEOs would have tripped over themselves to bring her into the fold.

Instead Trump reacted reflexively, refusing to believe a woman of color should be the winner when a white man was available. It was like reverse affirmative action designed to reward mediocrity; Brett Michaels essentially received a participation trophy from the boss.

We can see echoes of this in his current administration when POTUS refuses to fire obviously ill-fitting cabinet members like Kristi Noem or the leathery little Nazi, Greg Bovino, while attacking African American women, such as Letitia James and Lisa Cook, who stand up to his cruelty and corruption.

Carrying the burden for far too many citizens still sitting on the sidelines.

It’s game day. Get in the game.

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