Proxima B, Next Stop!

We've just had news that Alpha Centauri, a galaxy a few light years away, might have a planet, called "Proxima b", that resembles Earth.

Look, I know we're on a decades old mission to discover new planets and civilizations, but I've been to Proxima b, and I can tell you it's no great shakes. 

Never mind my story.  I'm certainly not the first to have been there, and it's a little complicated about how I got there and got back.

I can't say that those I met on Proxima b are terribly sophisticated, nor is their technology as advanced as science fiction people would prefer it to be.  

The people, if you can call them that, are yellowish and small.  There's water and all the insects and animals that need it are plentiful.  They have forests, some cities (although they are not terribly organized), rivers and oceans of water.  So, they're kind of set.  They've mined iron, gold, and interesting minerals which if combined into some kind of weapon might be rather effective in blowing things up or reorienting whatever politics, such as they are, might exist.

I cannot decipher Proxima b language terribly well, in part because Proximas have eight waving arms and gesture a lot.  But we have communicated mainly because of the foam swimming pool noodles I brought along.  Plus, I took with me many cans of slightly out of date Smoked Kippers, which have proven to be a big hit.

Oddly enough, the Proximas believe that Earth is a better place than their planet. 

Waving my noodles, I tried to explain to the Proximas that Earth is a pretty good place, but not a place you'd want to go to.  Even if you are in a perilous situation, it’s not worth the light years.  I mean, unless you can get there in under a half hour.

Proxima, Next Stop!

We've just had news that Alpha Centauri, a galaxy a few light years away, might have a planet, called Proxima b, that resembles Earth.

Look, I know we're on a decades old mission to discover new planets and civilizations, but I've been to Proxima b, and I can tell you it's no great shakes. 

Never mind my story.  I'm certainly not the first to have been there, and it's a little complicated about how I got there and got back.

I can't say that those I met on Proxima b are terribly sophisticated, nor is their technology as advanced as science fiction people would prefer it to be.  

The people, if you can call them that, are yellowish and small.  There's water and all the insects and animals that need it are plentiful.  They have forests, some cities (although they are not terribly organized), rivers and oceans of water.  So, they're kind of set.  They've mined iron, gold, and interesting minerals which if combined into some kind of weapon might be rather effective in blowing things up or reorienting whatever politics, such as they are, might exist.

I cannot decipher Proxima b language terribly well, in part because Proximas have eight waving arms and gesture a lot.  But we have communicated mainly because of the foam swimming pool sausages I brought along.  Plus, I took with me many cans of slightly out of date Smoked Kippers, which have proven to be a big hit.

Oddly enough, the Proximas believe that Earth is a better place than their planet. 

Waving my sausages, I tried to explain to the Proximas that Earth is a pretty good place, but not a place you'd want to go to.  Even if you are in a perilous situation, it’s not worth the light years.  I mean, unless you can get there in under a half hour.

Trump Statue To Replace Michelangelo's "David"!

"You're fired!"

For hundreds of years people have stood in awe at Michelangelo's sculpture of "David", the biblical character who slayed "Goliath", a gigantic monster.

Today, Donald Trump announced that a statue of "The Donald" will replace the centuries old "David" as a result of a deal that includes the Italian government, the city of Florence, and the Galleria dell'Accademia which displays the "David". 

Said Trump, "The old art, where did it get us?  It's a disaster, folks!  Let's make art great again!"




Terms of the deal are unknown.

Unveiled outside a New Jersey Mall to a crowd of excited art enthusiasts, the statue will be shipped to Italy next week and installed permanently at the Accademia in the room where the David once stood, renamed the "The Magnificent Donald Room".














According to anonymous sources, the original "David" will be stored somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.

Unlike Michelangelo's preferred medium, marble, the statue of "The Donald" is composed of foam, butter, and plaster, with a veneer of urethane.  Louis d'una Schifezza, sculptor and noted New Jersey casino interior decorator, created "The Donald" using advanced industrial 3-D printing.

Art enthusiasts at the Mall shared their impressions of the historic sculpture:

Melania Trump: "It captures Donald perfectly. Sweet and fleshy!  He's a human, you know."

Ivanka Trump: "It reminds me of the showers I took with Dad after fishing trips."

Eric Trump: "It's a masterpiece.   Clearly it shows Dad as the Imperial Leader of the Universe in a kind of classical way."

Trump Brand Headed Totally South! Plus Bonus Observation!

 

Is it me, or is the "Trump" brand looking seriously poisonous?

I’ve been in the branding game for a while, involved in a lot of products and company images, and I’m picking up distinct signals that “Trump” is in the Red-Zone like Bon Vivant Vichyssoise was (fortified with 100% Botulism) about 40 years ago.  Or maybe Enron (financial Botulism).

For more than 20 years, Trump has been on a self-promotion/brand-building rampage. 

I can understand getting bored with stuff like schlepping to New Jersey to make deals with The Families to get some kind of foothold here and there, spending endless hours with lawyers (not accountants because you just don't want to know), swanning around with politicians in search of tax abatements, possibly looking at gigantic floor plans while pretending that you're interested, picking out things that look like gold but aren't.

To alleviate the humdrum, Trump launched himself into appearances in commercials for various random products, threw together the worst possible collection of merchandise and fraudulent operations like his "University", hired writers to produce books with his kisser on the cover, bought an airline, appeared in a crappy TV program, married three times, sponsored beauty pageants, bought casinos, worked the press like crazy, and plastered his name on anything that didn't move and many that did.  But mostly, none of these actually moved.  Anywhere.

Rampage Victim: Ex-Wife #1

Learn how to be poorer than you already are!

 









All this in the name of his own personal "Trump" brand promotion. 

So here's a little Branding 101 before we get started:

 

Trump's first branding problem is that has relied on his own view that "if it's from Trump it's got to be good".  Just because he has swaggered around for years and feels he's a role model for the universe, doesn't mean that anyone identifies with his bloated personality and wants his steaks. 

On that note, his second is that he licensed his name to so many oddball product categories. If you have a successful laundry detergent brand, will consumers be delighted that you are launching a new Tide Pine Scent Ice Cream flavor?  That's what we're talking about here.  Although at this point, Trump Vodka Brain Freeze Ice Cream has a chance.

His third problem is that he overpriced all of his crappy merchandise.

Time to drop a few tons of these remainders on ISIS!

Fourth, the distribution of his products was hastily arranged and horrible.  Steaks from the Sharper Image? Oh, brother!

Fifth, he screwed everyone that he made deals with during this spree.

 No, I don't want a goddamn rotten steak!  Just pay me you sonofabitch!

Sixth, Trump is completely tasteless. 

"Hmm, T-Rump.  Hey, let's think about this."

Trump's licensing "program" was a full-on disaster well before he woke up one day after a double Geritol and decided he ought to try to outrun all his problems by becoming president.

Which brings us the biggest problem: attempting to license "Trump" to the U.S. Government as President of the United States. 


Since he announced his candidacy, Trump's performance onstage and public information from investigative journalists, opinion, global reporting, and the audio visual records of his appearances and interviews have revealed that Donald Trump is a man riddled with decades of failure and legal problems; he is an uber (white) nationalist; a provocateur; bigot; liar; cheat; and a fraud.  This guy has more dirty laundry than a college roommate and he has lawsuits trailing him everywhere like a few thousand seagulls following a fishing boat.

"OK, let's move 'The Center of it All' sign to the New Jersey Supreme Court building!"

What the hell is The Don going to put the “Trump” brand on in the future, other than weaponizing it and turning out Confederate and Nazi merchandise?

  

The guy has so poisoned what little his brand stood for during his "Ride-O'-Thunder" crazy-ass presidential campaign that I can't imagine any future business that is stupid enough to sign up for boilerplate Trump Agreement Clause 39B: "Humongous Trump sign on building or anything else (shirts, books, food, and any and all merchandise and visual identity persuant to this agreement)".    (OK, I might have to take that back).

But the signs are coming down all over the place! Guys in cranes regularly rip his name from his towers and towering failures, particularly casinos.

 

And what about the soon-to-be-opened "Trump International Luxury" (tacky) hotel in Washington, D.C. from which Muslims and Mexicans are banned (unless they wash dishes for $4.00 an hour)?  A colossal electric "Trump" sign will surely leer over the White House should Ms. Clinton occupy it.  What sweet revenge! 

The buildings he claims credit for are architecturally horrible.  The interiors of any of these things send you swooning back to the 1930's, or earlier.  Think: Titanic.  Actually, in a lot of these things, he's listed as "tenant" on lease documents.




 

"Hey, we've got a lot of good letters here.  You up for some Atlantic City Payback Scrabble?"

Listen, if you think Trump has the attention span and the interest of really being president for the next four years, think again. 

1.   It's pretty discernible that The Don is running for the presidency because he wants to "whack" people, put his own 1930's fawning mafia people into power, have everyone in the world kiss his ring, and temporarily bask in sunny beams of heavenly glory; which in his case would be better achieved by upping his already substantial LSD therapy.

2.  His "run for the presidency" is really a play for a better TV deal than the last piece of junk, more like a talk show SNL fabricated in which the late Phil Hartman played a belligerent Frank Sinatra as host:  http://bit.ly/2br9O2t.   

He’s really angling for the head spot at Fox News now that Roger Ailes, a fellow sleaze-bag, got canned for molesting young women in his employ (and is currently in The Don’s thrall as “advisor”). 

3.  The Don is playing his “constituency” (angry American lower class white males) like the suckers he’s always played.   When he talks about "supporters" he is really thinking "ratings."

  
I’ve had “Trump” up to here.

Maybe you have, too.

Bonus Observation!

Trump is a reincarnation of Busby Berkley.  




Google him.  A Hollywood film choreographer in the 1930's, Berkley specialized in utterly senseless and titillating musical extravaganzas featuring scores of voluptuous synchronized swimming women splashing around in faux Roman swimming pools and gigantic fountains on Hollywood sets, and it gets worse. 


 
 
(See esp. “Footlight Parade (1933),” a cinematic nightmare with Jimmy Cagney and a cast of millions who regularly materialize out of nowhere in pools, etc.  When this film is over (finally), you feel like you've just had a really bad mushroom experience.)

Trump’s taste in anything couldn’t be closer to the Great Depression period of have-not fantasy.

 

Imagine "The United States of America" signs being pulled off government buildings?   

It’s happened before. 

 

But nothing like what will happen when The Don becomes Commander-in-Chief and Master Hotelier.

The girls will be on the White House Lawn Fountain day and night!

Thanks, Dad, for bailing me out of my latest fiasco!