It is a desolate, moonless night on the Mississippi delta. There’s nothing there at the intersection of Highways 61 and 49, just outside of Clarksdale. Eerily silent, only the sound of your own tinnitus.
Just before midnight, a long black limousine quietly rolls up. A door opens from the back and a lone, burly figure steps out into the dark, an ankle-length topcoat shrouding his frame, his bright orange hair burning noticeably in the absence of any other light. The limousine slinks off, leaving the solitary man standing there, his lower lip pushed forward. It’s not a cold night, but you can almost see his breath.
From nowhere another figure appears, a stranger, an apparition. He glides, it seems, without moving his legs. He’s wearing a raggedy top hat and tails. It’s too dark to tell his color, but you can see that he’s smaller, more compact, smoking a spliff the size of a cucumber. He’s carrying a guitar, looks like an early 1930s Gibson L-00, kinda like Robert’s…
The stranger’s voice is a rasp, sawing wood. It’s got a mirthful, almost gleeful edge to it.
“Well, Donald. Here we are again. What is it now? You want something else?”
“Yes sir, I do…” says the man and his orange hair flames up again.
“So you want to make another deal, do you?” He roars with laughter like thunder, and smoke comes out of his mouth. “Shall we review where we already stand? Let’s see, there was the real estate empire…for that you gave me your soul. You swore that was all you wanted, but you weren’t ready for the bankruptcies, were you? So you owed me all those minority evictions. Then there was the casino, and how’d that work out for you, huh? You promised me Ivana for that, and I wanted her so bad that I agreed. I didn’t realize that you didn’t own her, and she got away.”
Another roar of laughter. “Then The Apprentice…Oh, you loved being a small-time TV star, didn’t you, you and that Reagan. For that you gave me your first born son. Poor kid, still doesn’t know about it…So what is it now, Donald? And, more importantly, what can you offer me?”
The stranger waits.
“I want to be president,” the man whispers.
Another thunderous laugh from the stranger. “Well done, Donald. Well done. I think we may be able to do something here. But here’s what you have to do. You must be prepared with untruth, incite violence, turn people against one another. Can you do that?”
“I’m okay with that,” says the man. “To be president…”
“And you have to humiliate yourself. Every day. When I told you last time you could kiss and grab any woman you wanted, you didn’t have to go and brag about it. So we’re going to release the tape. And you have to keep the hair…”
The man trembles.
“You’re going to have to lose televised debates…to a woman…”
The man looks as if he’d been stabbed.
“But you’re going to win, even though you lose,” the stranger cryptically tells the man.
The man falls to his knees. “What’s in it for you?” he croaks.
“Well, I’ll tell you…you’re going to deliver to me, through the votes you’re going to win, all those evangelicals, hah! They’ll all be mine; all those poor middle-class people, you’re going to somehow make them believe that you care about them. I’m going to tell you who gets cabinet positions, jobs. Just ask Reince about that, he’ll tell you who. You’ll do away with Social Security and Medicare, and education, and the environment, Ooo, no more tree huggers…Oh, it will be worth it, Donald, I’m telling you. Before you know it, all these nations will be at each other’s throats, and it will all be your doing, you, you, Donald, you…”
A huge crack of thunder claps and lightning pierces the sky as the man collapses face first on the ground. The stranger puffs up to three times his size and disappears in a cloud of sulfur smelling smoke.
I wake up in a cold sweat.
Well, I now know where this paper leans. So I won’t be picking it up anymore. Careful media, there is 50% of the population that is not getting sucked into your mindset! The liberals lost, so just lick your wounds and deal with it!
Delta blues musician Tommy Johnson, not Robert Johnson, first sang the tale of “meeting the devil at the crossroads”. Way!
Wait a minuet, Woodstock Times, this is not a dream, I’ve seen it already on TV right down to the weird, backwards bright hair you describe and proposing a leader for the EPA that declines to acknowledge Climate Change. The song to be played on that old Gibson is a new song with a refrain that goes something like, “Believe me, I’m going to bring your job back from (wherever) and then, Your Fired!” This nightmare is not about half of the 55% of us who voted one way or the other but about the half of us that have expectations impacted by not recognizing the devil artfully coning us.
It’s now 8 months into the Trump Presidency, and I imagine the paper has been filled with the opinions of readers in this regard. The following song “Hilary had to go” (sung to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row”) expresses some thoughts on the election and the present state of the electorate.
They’re selling postcards of the election
Barack Obama is feeling down
Hillary Clinton has gone to the beauty parlor
Show Time’s “The Circus”… has left town
Here comes poor old Tim Kaine
His fluent Spanish did him no good
If he had learned from poor old Jeb Bush
He could’ve known it… never would
And the Democrats they’re all crying now
As they tear their tickets for the inaugural show
They didn’t realize that Trump was right when he said
Hillary had to go
Khrushchev disguised as Machiavelli
says the cold war didn’t go so well
And Dante’s telling Beatrice: “Hillary is feeling
that she’s been banished to the depths of hell”
then in walks a forlorn John Podesta
his email password is in his hand
Instead of pursuing politics he’s thinking
“I should have played in a rock and roll band”
And the RINOS and never Trumpers seem so perplexed
they’re asking: How were we…to know
that this would be an election Trump could win ‘cos
Hillary had to go
The cable newscasters are all…so uneasy
They’re asking “How could we all have… been so wrong?”
They were listening to all the pundits
while the “Heartland” heard Trump’s…siren song
And in walks old Joe Biden
“I should have run… I do believe”
Then someone says Joe’s babbling again
Please tell him he…has to leave
and the only sound that is…heard right now
by a Clinton friend or foe
Is Donald Trump’s great, clarion cry
Hillary had to go
Now the left’s new plan…is “resisting”
Their heroes are continuing to deride
all that Donald Trump…proposes
still ignoring the election’s tide
Nancy Pelosi she now…is thinking
My Speakership is still alive
and Maxine Waters she still…is preaching
“Let’s Impeach President 45”
But though her impeachment talk is premature
Lady Maxine…ought to know
Trump’s impeachment still won’t change the fact that
Hillary had to go
Barack Obama…he is moaning
My legacy is now destroyed…of course
and Lady Michelle is saying “please stop Barack
‘cos I told you not to back…that horse”
And Huma Abedin has gone to searching
for a job in which she’ll succeed and never fail
a job that is safe and so secure
and that will keep her …out of jail
And the Jokerman sings “the winds of change blow fast
and sometimes they blow…real slow
but the answer that these winds are blowing now is
Hillary had to go”
Bernie Sanders he looks so rumpled
as he drives his old used car
He should be driving to Hillary’s inauguration
but now he’s driving to the nearest bar
All his followers are in confusion
they realize the graveness of their sin
It’s not that they didn’t vote for Hillary
it’s that they let her rival win
And the hopes they had that were once so high
have fallen oh so very low
and the reason that these hopes fell down is ‘cos
Hillary had to go
Johnny Depp is wasting all his talent
and he’s wearing another man’s clothes
He’s talking about assassination
As he appears in worthless shows
Sean Penn just flew in from Venezuela
He’s in a play on Old Broadway
He would have stayed in this social paradise
But he knew its revolution would begin today
And the four 3 stooges run onto the stage
Larry, Shemp, Curley… and Moe.
They say this play is over now because
Hilary had to go
Somewhere the darkest evening
It is turning into light
Somewhere a barren desert
has become a gardener’s delight
Somewhere there are people singing
and somewhere children laugh and play
But somewhere is somewhere else it seems
When the world appears to have gone astray
And your life may be filled with purpose
and your purpose pure as the driven snow
But these things seem so worthless now ‘cos
Hilary had to go
Yes I received your letter yesterday
about the book Hillary is about to write
Since her book is titled “What happened”
I guess she thinks she’s still in this fight
You spoke of Maddow, Blitzer, Kelly, Smith, and Matthews
Yes I know them…they are all the same
I had to rearrange their TV Stations
and give them all another name
Right now I don’t feel so good
don’t send me no more letters…no
Not unless the letters are about a book that’s called: “Why
Hillary had to go