A FACE IN THE NETWORK

My dream now: Budd Schulberg and Paddy Chayefsky come back to earth to collaborate and create a new masterpiece, “A FACE IN THE NETWORK!” Where Ivanka Trump pushes the button at the end of “The Donald On The Road” Tv show as a bloviating The Donald, spews venom among his rap team headed by Kanye West as cameras roll. The Donald, thinking the mic is “dead” rants with giddy delight: BELOW A POSSIBLE CHAYEFSKY/SCHULBERG SCENARIO. Enjoy.

The Donald

Night suckers….they’re like putty in my hand.

Kanye

No The Donald, they’re my suckers.

The Donald

Kanye, my man, shut up and let me do the talking and the thinking. You’re so dense you tweeted for a loan from Zuckerberg.

Kanye

Hell man, you should be tweeting for a loan. Your sorry ass is broke.

THe Donald

Nah, look at those boobs out there in the audience screaming and cheering me! They’re sending in millions! A hundred here and there from their pensions, money they steal from their grandmas sending it to me, cause I’m their saviour.

 

Ivanka looks on in horror from the control booth. She SUDDENLY sees her father for who he is, a greedy, arrogant narcissist! Disgusted she reaches down and turns on the mic. Suddenly the studio audience is awash in the yammering of The Donald.

 

The Donald

And soon they’ll be living in their cars and on the streets to finance me and my Emperor-ship!

Kanye

Emperor? Man that’s bogus, you’d be President, dude.

The Donald

(cackling)

Nah, that’s just to get in! Once I’ve got my hand on the button, they’re gonna anoint me Emperor of The Americas!

 

Ivanka turns up the volume as she sobs. Trump’s men try to wrest her away, but she nails them in the balls with her six inch stilettos!

Montage:

 

The audience, homes across America, bars, street corners as Americans react in stunned terror at the words coming from Trump. He is a monster after all!

 

In the studio:

The audience rises in a wave and storms the stage. Kanye, sensing imminent doom, runs into the wings and locks himself in the bathroom.

 

Ivanka falls over the console is giddy tears.

 

The Donald looks on in horror. He cannot stop the mob! The descend upon him!

 

In the melee it takes security guards ages to pull back the crowd.

 

On the stage floor

All that’s left of The Donald is his hair!

We Are Happy Now…#1

WE ARE HAPPY NOW

father’s day

19 June 2016-jdj

#1

The Pond –

You are still so young in this place in my mind

I am younger still, hardly a person, caught in

the faerie mind of the newly born and toddler

not at all concerned about any of those things that

will clog my mind as an adult, things

That at the end of the day were useless to take up

Space in my mind and heart and soul

That I am learning now…learning late, but learning

 

So there you are; young and strong and friendly

You are my father and I love watching you do anything

I am four-years-old and you must be forty or forty-one

Never mind that, you are digging a hole in our large and perfect

Backyard, and as you dig you tell me of your childhood

The sad childhood of the foster child who lives on

A farm in Glen Allen, Virginia during the depression,

Yet in that sad childhood you romped in the countryside and

Swam in a pond and to reinforce that memory of yours you are

Making a pond for me and my brother but not for swimming

But to send small wooden boats that you have made for us skimming

Across the water. Someday you say we will have a swimming pool

And be in the water all of the time. You kept that promise too

But today I sit on something, I cannot see it in my mind’s eye

and I sit and study you, watch you dig and listen to your

Stories of the sad boy in Virginia, but you don’t tell

Them sad, you are matter-of-fact and very calm and don’t

Leave out any detail. It is easy to listen to you with

Your very soft Continental voice with a hint, just a hint of

Southern gentleman

And you dig and I listen and the sun shines down on us

In this perfect Southern California day

I drink a 7UP and my feet dangle, I remember that

Always, and as you dig and I drink and the sun shines

down in perfect pre-Ozone fearing brilliance I tell you

That some day I am going to live in New York City

And you, being a good listener and charmed by anything

Your adored four-year-old girl says, nod and say that

will be nice Jan. I tell you that I will dance like the men and women

In the old movies I love to watch on afternoon television;

Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly are the forces who have captured

My imagination. You keep digging and tell me

about when you used to take my mother dancing. And I drink my

7 UP and you dig and the sun shines

and I understand

We are happy now