Donald J Trump: I am honoured to announce that Jose Canseco will now be serving as the US ambassador to Pakistan.
Donald J Trump: Jose Canseco, great guy and helluva ballplayer. Got to know him well on Celebrity Apprentice. Made great pizza under pressure. Only used the highest quality ingredients. Shouted out the orders clearly.
Donald J Trump: Didn’t always like the way he looked at Ivanka, but what can you do? He’s a man. I’m her father, and I still look. What curves. She’s a 10.
Donald J Trump: Jose has slept with countless women. Quality, deluxe women.
Donald J Trump: But not Ivanka.
Donald J Trump: Pakistania, lock up your ladies!
Donald J Trump: Very proud to announce that still hot ex-supermodel Nicki Taylor is the new US Ambassador to Russia.
Donald J Trump: Way she handled Gary Busey on Celebrity Apprentice made it clear to me that she can handle whatever you throw at her.
Donald J Trump: You can thank me later, Russia.
Donald J Trump: I am honoured to announce that the great WWE superstar star Goldberg, will now be the US Ambassador to the Jews.
Donald J Trump: Pure winner. Went 173 matches without a single loss. Commanding presence on Celebrity Apprentice. Can lift a helicopter over his head.
Donald J Trump: Should really turn things around for the Jews– bring our people closer together after all Hillary did to tear us apart.
Donald J Trump: Palestinia, you better watch your step.
Donald J Trump: Proud to announce that the beautiful Kaitlyn Schoeffel, Miss New Jersey 2017, will be the new US Ambassador to casinos all around the world.
Donald J Trump: Real firecracker.
Donald J Trump: Kaitlyn isn’t just another hot lady in a bathing suit, but is also an incredible dancer with great, American values and manners.
Donald J Trump: Beauty Pageant questions are tough. No way to prepare. HUGE challenge for ordinary people.
Donald J Trump: But not Kaitlyn, knocked the question about confederate statues out of the park! Just wow.
Donald J Trump: Real team player. Never hear about a sexual harassment suit from her. Class act, class ass. Perfect for the casino community.
One of the repeating themes I’ve encountered is that people cannot believe that somebody who made them laugh so much could possibly have such a sad and broken interior. There’s an obvious lack of empathy in such a position, in that these people cannot see a life beyond the surface one that they so greedily absorbed. To be a celebrity in our culture is to give up one’s interior, becoming a vessel in which the schizophrenic projections of the public push everything else out. It must get awfully stormy in there, and in the end celebrities exist as sacrifices to our need, the actual person (or self) tossed beautiful and adored into the raging, all-consuming volcano of our culture.
Williams himself said that in America they really do mythologize people when they’re dead, and prophetically, he’s now being mythologized. His death means whatever we need it to mean. For some people, it’s a clarion call to awaken the public to the insidious dangers of depression, to others it’s about the dark weight that many comedians carry with them on stage. Everybody seems to have something very real and personal that they feel in his death, but usually end up cannibalizing Williams in an attempt to find some sort of meaning, and perhaps even redemption, in this small, solitary and very sad act.
However, the one thing that seems universal is that everybody is declaring Robin Williams a genius. Although I am of the right age to have experienced the full sweep of his career, I was never much of a fan. I mean, I don’t have a favourite Robin William moment, and like a lot of people I saw a riot of pathology in his performance rather than genius. His need was so great and his onslaught so relentless, that I found it completely exhausting to watch him. He drained me, and I just wanted to hug him into stillness, letting him know that everything was going to be okay, even if it wasn’t.
His comedy was based on recognition rather than content. Middle-of-the-road and Baby Boomer friendly, he was an unfiltered convulsion of mimicry and pop culture references. He was elliptical, swinging from one character to the next before you could think about what he was actually saying, apparently being content in simply getting a reflex response from the audience instead of a contemplated one. You laughed because you recognized his characters, not so much because of what they were saying. It was nostalgic, even old-fashioned, and in a weird way I think Williams would have made for a fantastic silent movie star, so exaggerated was his stage personality. Creating the manic illusion of edge, Williams was safe and not very challenging. He had kind and vulnerable eyes, and always seemed to want to please us, for us to feel good about ourselves, and I think we loved him for that rather than his talent.
