Trump In Atlantic City:
Addendum
Act Two
Act Three
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Trump In Atlantic City
A Play
by Matthew Paris
Act One
Scene One
(Enter Donald Trump. He sings.)
Trump's Song
Some of the pumpers want to know:
What pumpers pump the pump.
When you're playing cards with casino guards
You cannot trump a trump.
The bums and bumpers want to know
Who bumps, who gets bumped
When you want to tussle with major muscle
You cannot trump a trump.
Some people say in a causal way
They hate my wrestling style.
I'd slam these bums and assorted crumbs;
It isn't worth my while.
Some of the dumpers want to know
Who's dumping, who gets dumped.
When you're making cash or dumping trash
You cannot trump a trump.
If the bones where I jump seem unpleasantly plump
I might pat a frump on the rump
Steal a quick feel if she has some appeal;
You cannot trump a trump.
Go stomp and chomp with vicious pomp
Be a champion chimp or a chump.
Where nothing is real but cards or a wheel
You cannot trump a trump.
(Exit Donald.)
On the empty stage enter Mephistopheles and Michael, an
angel. As they talk several beautiful women in scanty costumes
take their places in a tableau on both sides of them.)
Mephistopheles-I've conferred with the grand puppeteer
He seems delighted that the seraphs
Whom he asks to hover like shadows
Over sundry hinterlands and nooks
Of America have offered the mob
As angels often proffer such dark fare
Rich and rare chambers of corruption
For the many, not the few. Some boons
Leave the hapless beneficiary a jade
Without hope. We residents of heaven
Hear their prayers often, in ascent
From their incendiary abysses.
Michael- You are amply and dourly saturnine
When contemplating them, Mephistopheles.
Mephistopheles-My aim for all humanity is no less high
At bottom than God's, good Michael.
There are savants on Earth who take up
Elevations nearly at birth. Others
Need more picaresque means to soar
To the same aery niches where angels
Savor our deities heavenly felicities.
Michael- Plainly, you don't anticipate another flood.
Mephistopheles-Our liege no longer offers a brute anger
To jades and the Earth's assorted libertines.
That is the coded message of the rainbow.
Consider this American I focus on, here
In these casinos in Atlantic City, inns
Where the servants bring one amarants
Skilled in impersonal erotic rites
Along with the cologne of monastic liqueurs.
Once our deity had realized low pleasure
Was more worthy of this impish species
Than the diverse yokes of common labor
He and I have long conspired to bring
Amusement to the rabble through jinns
Of divine energy who offer the gulls
Interminable thrillers and low comedy.
Michael- Your taste in such diversions baffles
The very seraphs sojourning in paradise.
Mephistopheles-Come now, I fashion all rank fantasies
For earthly souls, not for aery spirits
Ambling through these high pavilions of light.
Michael- They are superior to what you offered Faust:
A tavern frolic, an affair with a maid
The flesh of bright gold of the errant Helen.
Mephistopheles-I gave him diversions that are now banal.
A beautiful woman he provoked to ire or she
Invited him to some inconsequential irritations
Before a month of amorous paradise had perished.
I gave him mortal company in terns, exotic ale.
At times I passed though town roguishly as a monk.
I offered him pleasures, all dun and stale
Abhorred everywhere but Wittenburg. Consider
How he slavered locked wit the silver flesh
Of Helen without thinking she was an abettor
To betrayal, a source of butchering war.
On top of that this Faust was glumly insolent.
Michael- You shrugged it away. You are excellent
At such politic deference. All in all
I must commend you for your tolerance.
Mephistopheles-That provincial necromancer of Wittenburg,
Was one more hermetic austere wizard
With low hungers for parades of sheer carnality
That would embarrass an innocent lizard.
I found him tedious and so would you.
Michael- I hardly spend my leisure cultivating churls.
You will fare better with this Donald Trump?
Mephistopheles-Michael, we spirits all are motile as Creation
Offers us it long seasons to its seraphim.
We often go disguises Mafioso in America.
Who would believe in that land of dullish atheists
Who we really are? I am called Ambrosio
You are Rico, a conniving bawd from New Orleans,
We are very shallow here in our corruptions.
We pitch vices that would bore imbeciles.
I even vote sometimes, never mind for whom.
Damnation is a mere snug motel in the desert
On one's way to a city aptly named Los Angeles.
Don't debase the souls of anyone, not even dogs.
We are in fact the champions of pleasure in volume
A taste I must say leads to more corruption
Than a scant month in a hermitage. I have
No enmity for any human nor do you, Michael
We punish or admonish nobody. We honor them
As evangels lower than angels of a cosmic freedom.
Donald Trump I must say is someone I value.
He is much more a starry pilgrim who embodies
In his long seasons of vice a kind of quest
For kingdoms deeply beyond banality
A bravery I admire. I wish in his ardor
For truth he were one of us in heaven.
Michael- One day he may be. Does he play the harp?
Mephistopheles-Not well. At present Trump is much content
To amuse himself if hardly cautiously here
In Atlantic city in the numinous delights of Eros.
One finds such fragrant vessels amply sojourning
In his multitudinous casinos. Donald is clever.
It's not even that he much values their caresses;
He finds them a relief from the amours manners
He'd been privy to in college. In that I must say
He is at once a traveler to another country
And a trekker in the shadowy hinterlands
Whose celestial choices are quite sensible.
Michael- Luckily we've closed the realms of Hell.
Mephistopheles-That peculiar pit with its wretched flames
Was one of our liege's stellar mistakes. What
Point is there for him to punish anyone for vice
When he created freedom? We all here in heaven
Have liberty to be evil or insufferably dull.
He's grants the same deep power to humanity.
Michael- All creatures on this Earth who creep, fly
Cleave the water or gobble the perfumed air
Are armed with the means to take up tedium
Or embrace the dun malice of the sinister.
It is God's first thought before he took
Light from its of sable folds of darkness.
Mephistopheles-It's up to man now to create their hells.
I think they're better at it than most angels.
Even Lucifer would find the Pandemoniums
They fashion from alloyed steel too morbid
To be spas in of his infernal architecture.
Michael- I visited the old infernal regions once.
They are a dark museum. Some demons gifted
With a feel for history have mounted rites
Of fiery dumbshow with its screaming robots.
It is curious how spectacles that seemed
Immortal in the past become mere fossils.
Mephistopheles-That is the lightless burden of motility.
Michael- You were a prince there once among them.
Mephistopheles-To be a baron in an abattoir is hardly fare
One might recall as fetching in one's memoirs.
I am more a cousin to felicity nowadays
In league with God to mount banal corruptions.
Michael- This fellow Trump I may presume is worthy
Of your less than moral focus. You rarely
Waste your patrician moments on mere churls.
Mephistopheles-I may do so out of habit. Why would angels
God and demons be at all distracted, Michael
By the antics of kings, wizards, frumps
Assorted mortals and the twitches of lice?
Perhaps we had no other fare for delight
Once; these parlous times are long gone.
It is the edict of God to bless America
With the edgy guerdons of the rebellion
From an insufferable thralldom demons
Along with spirits of more nameless aspect
Have honored given that our excellent deity
Has ordered us to orbit such high liberty.
Of course I find it to the purpose of Hell
To aid Heaven. We really have no other labor
But offer God such picaresque service.
Here he comes, Ask him, angel, who might be
His guide in the ashes, his lapidary champion.
(Enter Donald Trump.)
You seem baffled by these long parades
Of pleasure, Donald. I'd hardly guess
The whores in this casino would be riddles
To pique your spirit as you amble like Eros
The blind imp, through these velvet chambers.
Donald- They offer me nothing. I can taste fresh flesh
Anywhere. Whatever souls they have within them
Don't seem that intriguing. They bore me
Like bland lobster pasta at a steam table.
Mephistopheles-This is my cousin from New Orleans, Rico.
His customers are jades who crave the unknown.
He comes through here to look for novelty.
Donald- Glad to meet you, Rico. I guess the blackjack
Isn't too much different in your town.
It's all about the croupier winning, johns
Walking from a slot machine with empty pockets.
Michael- We all depart from any brazen run of lights
At least somewhat lightened in our purse.
Donald- Yeah, I know. I guess the worms don't care
What kind of guy they nip and gobble.
Still I think I'm not your ordinary lunch;
I never will be, Rico. I had the bravery
To do what no one in the Wharton business school
Had dreamt of with my dough. What the hell
Did most of these young honchos do, Rico?
They took up quiet ways to put away a stash
Do some number with the five star hotel whores
Eat a steak or two with California wine
And buy themselves a maybe genuine Renoir.
They hide away in landfill. Palm Beach or Malibu
They watch a slew of game shows on television.
Michael- You of course have never joined them, Donald
In these tedious orgies. I commend you.
Donald- I never liked them when they were in class
Studying the blind maelstroms of economics.
They had no courage, Rico. I am ready to die.
While I'm alive I won't walk through that ritual
They pitch at you when you've got a bit of green
Though I'll run the dump where they pay golf.
It's not what being an American is for anyone
To imitate the European way of taking pleasure
We are vulgar, Rico. It's okay. The revolution
Wasn't won by fancy Englishmen. I'm the one
Who wrestled Vince McMahon on television.
I've done reality shows that have more sleazy
Than most French porno. I'm very comfortable
With trash, Rico, very comfortable. We're
All some run of garbage in this country.
Michael- We might be one enormous run of landfill.
It suits me too I've got to say. My folks
Were rural folk from rocky Calabria.
I never hoped to be another noble here.
Donald- You run the world of pleasure, don't you?
You're the one who brings the slot machines
And whirling colored wheels to the casino, Rico?
The people who ran my school were damned weak
On being sated or even happy. They wanted saints
To run a business, I knew better. I never
Taught them candied values in a Sunday school.
Michael- What were they, I wonder? To endure like stones
The brutish staleness of a deadly common life?
To embrace sour flesh, to drive nowhere
In a car or take a seat and wait for death?
Such vigils in the deep shadows of comfort
Would be insufferable to toads. You will well
Donald, to take up the satanic energy
That vaults one out of such soft labyrinths.
Perhaps they were there for you to disdain
Them as a foul cloaca or the ordinary hardly
Worth the passage of your dun mortality.
Donald- I liked to be among the White trash whores
I hired for my gambling halls, Rico. There's
Something in the wisdom of a bought woman
Who knows she's always been for sale somehow
That gives her an intelligence that's hard
To find among the virginal bunch you meet in
Outside of brothels in the Ivy League.
Mephistopheles-It's an iron maxim of carnality, Donald.
Lovers after many unctuous disappointments
In chambers if they are at all reflective
Are much more accommodating from their losses
To even their dun amarants. Loss breeds charity.
I commend you for your nether quest for wisdom,
Donald. Only an elevated soul or criminal knows
Where to look for such stark midnight felicity.
You are most sensible if you confine your search
To the delicious inner life of an honorable woman.
Donald- Yeah, they have lost much more than we have
In a hotel room, Ambrosio. We men are flattened
In our hearts, I guess as old time hunters
Should always be when they stalk quail or look
For in the woods the poop of a clan of deer.
Luckily we only need to bring down stupid prey
To live; hey, otherwise we might be smarter
Than we are. I revel in the sluts I keep
For fun as camp companions in my hotels.
They have more simple insight than any priests
Or lawyers. I would never be someone's attorney.
I'd have to lie much more than I might do
When filing my fabulous income tax returns.
Michael- You have been twice fortunate to be blessed
Donald, with the dun sagacity of trollops.
This country does well in valuing habit
Measure, austerity and caution as instruments
Of some small virtue. They are less perceptive
In the sugared fulcrums of discreet pleasure.
Mephistopheles-Some enemies offer delight. Your posh casinos
Are attended often by gulls who've narrowed
Their intents to the fall of a steely ball
Into one snug crevice rather than another.
They live and perish on light tumbles of dice,
Hermetic turns of a croupier's hidden ace.
Of course there are no different than a broker
Or a banal pilgrim walking blindly as mortals do
With a promise only of a death in the future.
Donald- Look, I plan to honor that chit for oblivion
As much as my customers. Before I join the dust
I intend to be what this damned world needs
More than ministers and Wall Street bankers:
A pimp for small itches. I may not make folks
Happy; I might give them though whatever passes
In the world of animal commerce a bit of fun
Some nastily call crime. It's more ambitious
Than a loser drooling over a ticker tape.
Mephistopheles-It might be your instrument of pure power.
Donald- Let's not be too damned stupid, Ambrosio.
I know who is powerful. To guess even their name
Is a kind of peril, let me tell you. Yet when
They want their privacy and servant who honor
Their itches they all come here; they rent out
Floors in my hotels. They wallow in the arms
Of some slut I bring to them from the wilderness.
Michael- The world can easily do within kings; it does
More badly when it has a paucity of bawds.
No mortal or the gods reside in any countries
Lacking proper corruptions. Only Heaven is free
Of vice; it's God's draconian decree, not ours.
Mephistopheles-You don't live there yourself out of choice.
Michael- I sojourn where the local diversions honor
My own narrow notions of how I care to embrace
My trek through an immense starry eternity.
Donald- Boy, you two sure can run the language better
Than a politician on a tear. You should be poets.
Michael- Poets are without shekels, shunned, desolate
Dun pariahs. Some indulge them in the colleges.
We are this country's shadowy harpers, Donald.
A fine Italianate descent disposes one to honor
All the haunting instruments of carnal beauty.
We would no more waft banalities than a Doge
Or God would consign high Venice to landfill.
Donald- You must feel you're living like a gypsy baron
Slumming in the wrong country. Maybe you are.
Michael- These tethering native alchemies that keep me
Here, Donald, are hardly those one savors much
In the stale maws and stews of ancient Italy.
We all do better here. By that we mean we have
More wealth. The worst of us turn everything
To gold like the late King Midas. Some if sons
Of some ancient fiefdom that offered vice
At least for kings have had the small temerity
To ask themselves softly: lucre for what?
Do they take up golf or cultivate a hunger
For quail, decide to cleave the spumy sea
With a well oiled yacht or perhaps garner
An island where one is the local baron
Who fits eldritch laws to one's antic whims?
No, I suspect the profits from our speculating
That have turned us all to gamblers in volume
Mostly go to watching fantasies on television.
Donald- I agree, kid. I never was a guy with dough
Who liked to watch football. Still, I ambled
Into sleaze because the other choice was death.
I really have no taste for gutter games.
I love this country but I've got to say
We've made a hellova terrible case for measure.
We all want this goddamned place to be a brothel.
Even the music is for creeps and adolescents.
Mephistopheles-Each of us appears in ages that are worthy
Of a benign heavenly intent. Your advent
In Atlantic City, Donald, as cordial mahatma
Of these casinos by the sea would be seen
By prior adepts as a high edict like lightning
From our whimsical deity to make the vulgar
Equal to the false gods, scrambling barons
Who have done much injury on earth once
Claiming they are priests or kings. Our honest
Potentate is most fortunately no revenger.
Yet he wants our very clods to take up all
The suave and lightless corruptions of power
To acquaint their spirits afterwards with dun
Surmises for their scheming to command vapor
That in the end are variations of a mirage.
Michael- One's often more cordial to the dark angels
After some low and jaded revel of satiety.
Donald- Yeah, I guessed that pretty quickly when
I slept as part of the usual hiring process
We run often in the entertainment business
With two or three of these gilded beauties I have
Working here near the crap tables. When you get
To know them you become someone who's been
Fool enough to tumble into bed with emptiness.
No wonder the delight is so intense, Rico.
If rotgut pleasure vanished from the world
We might have sanity enough to act differently.
In fact it's not much of a choice to love
Amusement or to find it trivial, is it?
It's all about a dumb affair with phantasms.
There must be maybe in Delaware or Cuba
Some posh hotel for a guy like me to live
Out a run of dumpy years that has some clout.
Mephistopheles-For angels, Donald, there is much immortal
Reflection. The genius of humanity has never
Been intelligence. The seraphs value you
For roguish freedom, not a taste for cognition.
Michael- We are a species who are gamblers, Donald.
We wager in strange places for the mere turn
Of a card. We have memory but no great talent
To perceive the consequences of dun fortune.
Donald- There's not much I could say for power either,
Rico. I've been a sort of king or baron given
What I've done or can do whenever I please
With my cash. What is satisfying even to a dope
In being a damned zircon star around which nothing
Orbits but bums, natural trollops, a few creeps
Mewling dogs begging for a small favor?
Michael- Some of the younger moons are very beautiful.
Donald- So what? I'd rather own a building. It usually
Is whatever the hell it is after twenty years.
Michael- You're the very champion of perpetual amusement
We've been looking for. You don't pretend to
Value any of it. You're outside the very magic
Halls of vapor we're pitching to the rabble.
Donald- I'm not a celibate, Rico. I'm indifferent
To trivia. It's not too hard to be detached
To anything that loses its flavor after a month.
Mephistopheles-Have you thought you might be President,
Donald? You could be the leader of a people
Elevated by that very inevitable day of fatigue
You'd be a prophet if one of ultimate satiety.
Donald- Wow, that's one damned hilarious idea. But why
Me? I've got actors, wrestlers and clowns for you
Who'd all be happy to take you up on that number.
They do my club work for me as entertainers
Near the baccarat tables. I'd like to be
The quiet guy who makes the telephone call
That keeps the sons of bitches doing the tango.
Mephistopheles-People always want to be gods, puppeteers
More than front men. Even that bunch on Olympus
Liked a little invisibility. It's not quite
Being a proper deity of course. To be unseen
But all too explicable is a parody of heaven.
Michael- To be inexplicable yet visible in this world
Is the usual stratagem for many lovers.
Mephistopheles-Do you know the fulcrums of tactical success
In politics. Donald? A day in Washington
Is pocked with slander and contention.
Donald- Yeah, if anybody's slightly famous in America
They're pilloried as if they all for treason.
That's why I take the role I do in media.
I'm always a media bad guy. I tell people
They're fired, I fix wrestling matches
Insult all kinds of people with impunity.
I'm a fake but real magnate. It's all imaginary.
In that town everyone seems certain
Their appoints are morons, decadents
Or secret enemy agents hired by Commies
To corrupt children and dogs while they piss
On the flag or bring down the goddamned republic.
I like where I seem to be: in a tinker toy Hell.
Anyway who is going to vote for a sleazy guy
Who runs a gambling joint and is some sort
Of fancy pimp? What don't you ask Hugh Hefner?
Mephistopheles-Hugh can't be bothered with politics. He likes
To drink whiskey sours and hang out naked
At his own luxury sky blue swimming pool.
Anyway he's much too old to run the country.
Michael- He's too controversial. He's less of a bawd
Then you are; he's sort of pious in his way.
Donald- All right, let him do laps at his ice palace
Naked. The son of a bitch did make nudity legit.
Son of a gun, I couldn't be what I am publicly
Without that bastard. Since we're all looking
For a casual love life after a marriage like him,
He's even ordinary. Rico, there's an lawful lot
Of failed intimacy out there Hugh Hefner hit on.
He's a smart guy, just dumb enough to know
What everybody else in America is hurting from.
Michael- Donald, nobody s happy with the covert rule
Of bankers either. Even the Democrats who once
Were advocates of common people or seemed to be
Are owned by Wall Street speculators. They feel
Isolated. Some Black folk elected a champion
With a bit of color who did nothing for anybody.
They are even more disgusted with the current
Toadies who run our government than White trash
Boozing crackers wearing masks, drinking bad wine.
Donald- Well, what can I do about it all, Rico? Do I
Look like a sewer cleaner? Sometimes I may stink
Like people who swab the floors of latrines;
I sure as hell was never any worse than them
If maybe I could have been better. Anyway
I represent a bunch of scooped out bums
Much more effectively out of Washington.
Mephistopheles-Atlantic City is not yet the capital, Donald.
You lead; still you aren't quite legitimate.
Donald- Sometimes you can have more power by being
A voice from the bottom, kid. When I tell people
I did this or that they either say, I did
It, or, shit, I wish I had the balls to do it.
If I seem mean or vulgar, without mercy, Rico
Even a demon in a pile of manure somewhere
That's what they all want to sniff wafting up
Like a turd from those imaginary cloacas.
Michael- Perfect. You live for them. You descend
To nether regions to be their true champion.
Donald- I never meant to be a hero, Rico. I was
Goaded by a fear I might be nothing at all.
Mephistopheles-We are all haunted by such imps of indolence.
Donald- I've wondered many times, Ambrosio, why others
Aren't like me. They started with the cash
I did. Is there some baron in Washington
Or New York that commands us al with money
To eat frogs legs, eat caviar and play golf?
The damned diet alone is much too hard on frogs.
Can't a millionaire rebel against another kind
Of fancy prison? They say a beggar loses nothing
By being brave; what do I give up but sanity
When I take up some convention that never speaks
For me? I hand over my life. I that important
Enough at least for me to protect and cherish?
Michael- We all from spirits, viruses and angels
Must value both our character and freedom.
Donald- Sometimes I wonder whether I've just slipped
From one jail into another one. Even crime
Can be narrow and banal as a round of golf.
How many felonies are there in the law books?
Maybe a hundred, a thousand. Then there's nothing.
Is any common perp somebody whose found a door
Into Nature? I want to know who and were I am
If it takes me a whole damn life to get there.
Mephistopheles-Even God who reflects on life forever discovers
Insights in riddles after many aeons that once
Had cost his holy spirit gobs of near eternities
To surmise. For this reason one should listen
To talkative and more explicable angels, Donald.
They're no more bright than men; they've known
More seasons of loss and hope, new mornings
That outdo in repetition and some disappointment
The dark and silent wisdom of the turtle.
Donald- I'm ready to make a deal with anybody, even God;
Right now he must be very busy. He doesn't seem
To talk to anyone though people talk to him.
Mephistopheles-You're lucky, Donald. It's much more perilous
When our excellent deity offers his opinions.
Donald- If I were to run for President the public
Would be looking for a very different fellow
That the usual lawyers, generals and priests.
I don't have any more attraction for the voters
Than somebody who's too jaded to make big trouble.
Michael- It is the genius of our older citizens
To be often asleep or much too and weary
To be ruled by corruption, caprice or vice.
We have in mind to fuel your elevation
Not with brassy praise of your equivocal
Character, Donald, but a sense of odium
The voters feel when contemplating the face
Of your insufferable opponent. Democracy
Is often a fragile tyranny foaled by repugnance
For a greater run of pious empty despots.
Donald- All right, I get the picture, Rico. Sure as
Hell, you can't say I'm a good guy whose character
Is a mirror of some iconic virtue. Still
I might be better than a run of foreign agents,
Creeps, assorted evil aliens and degenerates.
Michael- Precisely. We have to find a candidate
Whose character is clearly worse than yours.
We shouldn't have to look too hard for empty
Or demented spirits in Washington lurking
Like crocodiles in the nether bogs of politics.
Donald- You'll have to look a little harder, Rico
Than you think. I'm a hustler, gambler, pimp.
Michael- Trust me, Donald; you are much more honorable
Than most men in our government. Besides
The public recognizes in your very revels
The soul of a pilgrim, a celestial seeker.
Donald- Some people might call my life a travelogue.
I never felt it was, Rico. I started dipping
A few toes in the water on a South Sea island.
I look back and feel lucky a few bare hungers
Were legitimate. Yet whatever I found in crime
If better than what I might have married
Or bought in a brothel was just as limited
As virtue. I like to talk to some evangels
Many of my friends call quacks and rubes
About their dim sense of what is going on
Beyond the sunny line where the clouds touch
The powdery foam topping the scalloped bed
Of the sea. They know some things one does
Are right and others wrong, Rico, if they
Don't ever guess why beyond saying dumbly
It's the edict of a god. I know why, Rico.
What damage or boons one does while waking
And walking the Earth alters character.
I can't be any better or worse than what I do.
Michael- What is that? You are a businessman. You are
Bawd, chef and croupier to gulls; you pitch
Illicit pleasure. Do you mount wars, oppress
A diverse set of scramblers with absurd laws
Only the dead or ultimately boring could live by
Tax the usual hapless rabble to protect them
From bronzed, implacable and imaginary enemies?
As people go on this planet you are virtuous
If not quite saintly, Donald. This empire
You inhabit with its soporific air of peace
Its commerce of easy delight gives legions
Of gulls with empty stomached more opportunity
For corruption than the stale haunts of Lucifer.
Donald- All right; let's do it, Rico. I'm your man.
(Exit Donald, Michael and Mephistopheles.)
Trump In Atlantic City
A Play
by Matthew Paris
Act Two
Scene One
(Enter Donald and Mephistopheles.)
Donald- Ambrosio, I've had my season of gamblers
Lushes, beauty contests, oily sluts,
Gonorrhea doctors, dog race fixes, pimps
Even hitmen out to take out politicians
Who have some problems with stupid pleasure.
I've hired entertainers who play blackjack
Charming suckers who end owing me a bundle.
Atlantic City can pall on a lush or creep
After a night with gilded business women.
Mephistopheles- Your plaints offer a heavenly music to me
Though I feel compassionate when peering
At the commodious misery you've endured
From a surfeit of cunning pleasure.
Satiety is not felicity, Donald. Delight
Locks one in a carapace as much as jail.
It is instructive to be rich, familiar
With all the deceits and blandishments
One can take in while in soft commerce.
Donald- You mean the brothel world I run here
Works only to send me fleeing from it.
Mephistopheles- Flights from Ur or Egypt is the common trek
We pilgrims finally take into the desert
If we are wise, Donald. Even dusky angels
Are prone to sojourn in markets, warm huts
Filled with a gaggle of assorted carnal
Intimates. The rites offered nocturnally
By such seeming allies are a cold deceit
That apes affection with a sweet swagger.
Donald- Yeah, it's all cheap business, Ambrosio.
Still I like the criminal commerce here
More than the three card monte games they play
Outside Atlantic City. Vice has honesty
You can find in a more legit suburban dump.
I build hotels, Ambrosio because I know
They're cavort deserts. You don't find
Any wind demon you call in for room service
Even talking crap one hears in a marriage.
Mephistopheles- That is one virtue of an excellent hotel.
Donald- I've lost something too. It might be nothing
Or a kind of vague hunger for sugared lies.
Mephistopheles- Your lightness of cognition might be at best
A trivial dole for your liberty. When spirits
Are not mice who succumb to the hungers
Of the crocodile or the owl we outlast
Our jousts with these dragons and hawks
Which lurk in mud or stalk us dauntingly
From the black crevasses in the azure sky
Donald- Atlantic City and hotel life is a refuge
For a lot of us, Ambrosio. Yet I feel
Nothing at all while I caress some font
Of beauty or consume lunch ripped from cattle.
I wonder sometimes whether I am deeply dead
A ghost among swine at a starry feast.
Mephistopheles- Let us hope the dead who haunt such revels
Are in their hopes wiser than the living.
(Exit Donald and Mephistopheles.)
Scene Two
(An empty stage. Enter Mephistopheles and Donald.
Donald sings.)
Assessment
If Genghis Khan has come and gone
With his bloody habits and time
It seems to me that politics
Is a world much lower than crime.
Some things are tragic, others black magic;
Nothing is ever sublime.
It seems to me that politics
Is a world much lower than crime.
A conquering force of men on a horse
Massacres zillions like ghouls
While legions of priests discreetly feasts
On kids in the courts and the schools.
Bluebeard loved a big wedding-
Butchered wives one at a time.
Still it seems to me that politics
Is a world much lower than crime.
When they fried crazy Ted, Bundy said:
I strangled these sluts without bias.
When he slept with unknowns and their desiccate bones
Ted Bundy was never pious.
Jeffrey Daumer ate his prey
Lapped up the mucus and slime.
Still it seems to me that politics
Is a world much lower than crime.
Killers I know are never slow
To slay for a dirty dime.
Still it seems to me that politics
Is a world much lower than crime.
Donald- It seems too quiet here to give a speech
Ambrosio. I guess a cemetery is supposed
To be a place for folks who like a lot
Of silence. Still I don't hear any crowds
Of corpses cheering me with waving banners.
Are you certain any of the dead are here
To take up any role in my campaign?
Mephistopheles-In a democracy the populace is often mute
Or civilly discreet. You have in what appears
To be a world of empty vapor more pure spirits
If long perished than one might find screaming
For your ascent than any rally of the living.
This assembly has more influence than armies
Of shadows who shuffle through the maize
Of work and banal dalliance. They haunt
The animate among us with august counsel.
If many of the defunct do not hunt down
Deer or quail beyond a span of decades
They are no less vocal in their laudation
To the quick and visible among a vast choir
Of such singular integrities. Many a claque
Of cunning hustlers has soared to thrones
From the accolades of these perished champions.
Who knows better than the ancient souls
Who've outlasted a consortium of fools
What might be a clever policy for kings
What dark honey would be most commodious
To mobs when ladled by a pack of priests?
Donald- I'm used to rallies with a little bit of noise.
We've toured the zoos, preached to elephants.
Promised tax breaks to assorted worms.
We've even honored all the hopes of hippogriffs.
I've let iguanas I have a cunning plan to damn
Whole oceans to produce a necklace of swamps.
Last week we toured the loony bins and promised
Chits for public housing for the violently insane.
I've got from one huge clearance sale in Deadwood
Ten thousand blow-up couches for imbeciles
Rubberized to catch the falling excrement.
I've told the prisoners in seven lockups
They will all have jobs as guards of perps
Who're dangerous and luckily imaginary.
Mephistopheles-If they don't vote they will be all the more
Your servants if they are hardly clamorous
In their honor to a gaudy liege. Democracy
Donald, is the last defense of any despotism.
Donald- I've like to change the voting age to birth
To get the infant vote, Ambrosio. I feel
If you're here on Earth you should be given
All the means to influence the local kings.
Mephistopheles-You will be baron of the bawling lot of them.
Donald- You're sure the dead are listening, Ambrosio?
I always thought their souls were long gone
To some starry dump beyond the purple edge
Of the ether once they bolted from Earth.
Anyone who hangs out in a cold cadaver must
Gets bored with the bare bones atmosphere.
Mephistopheles-The standards of what might be acceptable
In life decline somewhat when one has perished
Donald. It might be insights given the dead
By the courts of vanity. If one has loved
A bit one might surmise once one has been
A lover for awhile that Eros offers vapors
Less agreeable that many common Swiss resorts
Where the judgment of the stolid residents
Is less insane than the ferocious whims
Of hunting bosky amarants. The ivory moths
That orbit around the mahatmas of power
Are no less weary of their faery service.
Donald- Hey, maybe we'd might be much better off
If we never knocked the worst of our hungers.
Mephistopheles-That nut of lunacy might suit you mortals well
Enough. No crone or angel can calculate
One might collapse before one knows one's madness.
Mice might do well to embrace insanity
Since few outlast the resident mirages.
Donald- I hope the dead can vote. I guess one day
They will. If they're looking for a living
Champion I'm ready to act for them, Ambrosio.
Mephistopheles-What could be the interests of the dead,
Donald? For some it's maundering mutely
In oblivion. They might do it in comfort.
It was their sage habit often when living.
Do you think the lately defunct are wilier
After death than they had been when animate?
Donald- Yeah, why would they be? Dumb is dumb, I guess.
I've often wondered why we ask the buried spirits
To be allies when in life they were as stupid
As they were? I'd never pray to any god
Who was a tomcat or a drunken party imp.
I never liked the Buddha much. He binged
On sweets too much for me. I never thought
The others were much good for anything
But condemning folks while doing nothing.
Well, what do I know about gods? Nothing.
Mephistopheles-You know, I hope, what sage promises to offer
Corpses, Donald. The dead need very little.
At times they like revenge. We lack a cup
Of blood to give them to repair to brothels
Of one more low season of bone-laden revels
An inebriate night of saurian amorousness.
Donald- Okay, I am ready for the sermon. I feel
A little weird I must say looking for the vote
Of anyone who's dumped this planet. Hell,
I'll do it. Why not? Maybe I need them.
Mephistopheles Tomorrow we tour the crematoriums, Donald
You candidates have much to promise ashes.
Donald- Yeah, an iron plaque commending them we paste
On urns. Okay, baby, here I go, Ambrosio.
(Donald moves downstage. He sings.)
Atlantic City Strut
When the rooster crows
At a trace of the sun
That chicken knows
What the damned have done.
You might feel sorrow
Rue or pity
In a pale tomorrow
In Atlantic City.
Maybe you trusted
Some carrion beast.
You sure feel busted
At the usual feast.
You might feel sorrow
Rue or pity
In a pale tomorrow
In Atlantic City.
Maybe you gambled.
Maybe you're broke.
Maybe you've rambled
Sniffed too much coke.
You might feel sorrow
Rue or pity
In a pale tomorrow
In Atlantic City.
If you've looked like a soul
You never had willed
A mole in a hole
Landfill has filled
You might feel sorrow
Rue or pity
In a pale tomorrow
In Atlantic City.
I know you all are patient in your tastes
For revenge and equity. So am I. We living
Aren't really much less hungry for our portion
Than you rotting ghosts might be. We weep
At losses and endured much rich disappointment
Much as you do if we take our abrasions
To the high arenas of America. The great burrs
Of our levelling politics meet to debate
Over bottles of rye whiskey such assemblers.
Who are you? Look, I m speaking not to you
Alone but the desperate souls who've haunted
Our planet, folks. I am the guy who brings
The miseries of dire wolves and pterodactyls
To an eternal congress. I am the representative
Of frogs, iguanas, fish and insects. I bring
The checks of punishment for many crimes done
Not all that casually by paramecia, streptococci
Galloping viruses and assorted Cambrian ghouls.
All of you and all of them are cousins in woe.
Mephistopheles-You move me, Donald, in your dun hyperbole.
You might include your hope to honor spirits
Who have walked upon this planet, high estates
No less worthy of a place in august government.
Donald- Yeah, ghosts, vampires, imps, jinns as well.
You sure anyone is listening to me, Ambrosio?
I feel alone here talking bullshit to the trees.
Mephistopheles-The mute assents of the dead, disenfranchised
By the narrow tastes of the jejune cannot
Be heard too easily by any among us. Donald.
The whispering angels listen to their hosannahs..
Donald- I hope you're right. I feel stupid. Let me
Go on. Maybe I've got a dark constituency
Among seraphs and phantoms. Here I go, baby.
What did kings or priests who've run America
Promise you though it looked good after monks
And gang leaders from the old country treated
You insects and toads? A chance for fancy house
Arrest in a suburb? A spasm in a good hotel?
A bit of comedy from a silicon rectangle?
I'll do better than that; I have to, no?
I'll give you whatever you want. If what
You hunger for is nothingness, you've got it.
If you've got an itch for pleasure, take it.
If you have some sense and want your freedom
From any government I'm your man. Some of you
Have had to take your privacy by dropping dead.
Drop away, you sons of bitches. Drop, drop
Right to the bottom. I don't give a shit.
If I'm given your vote to rule America
Believe me, I will guarantee your franchise
To be a lout, degenerate or to be nobody.
Mephistopheles-That's perfect. I've been thinking you might
Make a similar speech to the denizens of Mars.
Donald- What are you talking about? There's no one there.
Mephistopheles-Many great military campaigns are pursued
On asteroids and assorted moons beyond Pluto
We're there is nothing but a few bacteria
Swimming clumsily in a frozen lake of methane.
Donald- I've got nothing to say to any Martian,
Ambrosio. Not a word. Nothing at all, baby.
Mephistopheles-Nothing, Donald, is what they all want to hear.
Say it. Less than nothing is even better.
(Exit Donald and Mephistopheles.)
Scene Three
Dannemora Speech
(Enter Donald. He sings.)
Im White And Im Proud
People talk abut our weapons of war
Flush toilets and a whole lot more
How to made credit balloon and increase.
I say: look at our tools for love and peace:
A executives plump at the top
Sitting in chairs till they crumple and plop
Stop at the infinite places to shop
Savor at the pleasures that never stop.
Ill say it out aloud:
Im White and Im proud.
I might be clever at running a jail
When the usual classical slammers fail.
Weve got a hellova better deal
Well sell you hot dogs, watery java
Munching on doughnuts, frozen baklava.
We built more hoosegows with glass and steel
That hardly are dungeons; theyve got more appeal.
While your brains and your blood congeal.
Controlling the crowd
Were White and were proud.
Maybe you dont feel that mediocre.
Maybe youd rather play football or poker
Youre a mean motorscooter, a bad go-getter.
Weve got a racket thats even better.
You watch animal porno on a small computer
Take in the mayhem from an android shooter.
Waiting for death on a fancy pension
The posh electronics will catch your attention.
Youre divinely endowed.
Youre White and youre proud.
Youve heard of Apollo, maybe Zeus
Up in the mountains with rotgut juice
Whose ethics are absent or awfully loose
Sometimes disguised as a swan or a goose
Inebriate libertines slouched in their chairs
Running a run of illicit affairs.
I might be in touch with the high and divine
Drinking their nectar, ambrosia and wine
Aloft on a cloud.
Im White and Im proud.
Then: A la W.S. Gilbert
There are aliens among us who deserve my dun polemic
Infesting our great country like a goddamned epidemic.
If youre worried about China Ive got a clear preventative.
I am the very model of a modern representative.
My popular agendas might take a run of years.
Ive many secret lieges like my democratic peers.
Im never indecisive, never even tentative.
I am the very model of a modern representative.
Donald- I want to thank you all for inviting me here
To Dannemora. Yeah, I could be drinking
Fancy wine in New York City after gobbling
Down a brace of quail and pheasant; over lunch
Im glad to share some rice and beans with you,
Talking over politics, telling dirty jokes
In this newly built zircon dining room
Youve gotten from the state. Ive looked
In the refrigerators, had a tour of freezers
Where you keep glue to sniff; Ive got
To say your chefs do more with collard greens
And macaroni with a mustard sauce than I could
Ever got in any good hotel. Im sill not moving
In here; Ive sure got jobs for your best cooks.
We all talk on the outside of these enormous walls
Like you inside this dump about our vision
For America. Hey, I know youve got one too.
Your main agenda I would guess is to creep out
Of here one way or another, right? Well, guess what;
You arent the only omens who want to slip
Away like a ghost from someplace, drive a Chevy
Somewhere in the night, camp out in a snug motel
With some teenage floozie with a fifth of Bourbon
Way beyond the last sunset. Maybe you might think
Its any different in the suburbs or hotels
Or on a yacht or even in an palatial joints.
Believe me, we all want to break out somehow.
Maybe habit, terror holds us back, who knows?
It isnt stone or steel towers with machine guns.
Maybe its built in the soul we cant spend three weeks
Anywhere without a nagging voice in the middle
Of the night telling us we might be bunking
In a grave or playing blackjack in a hoosegow.
Sometimes its a chance to steal, a job, a woman
Or a mortgage. Maybe even God has enemies. Hey,
Weve all committed crimes, injured lots of folks
Had our mean and rotgut ugly days. Look, when I
Do evil, any evil, I consult my lawyers first.
If its not super legal I wont do it. I might
Hire other guys I know, pay some thugs to do it.
Thats why when I am though with sharing chow
With your folks Im able to walk out of here.
(Exit Donald.)
Scene Four
(Enter Donald)
Trumps Reflection
Some people have a cause.
Some people think its funny.
Some people make the laws.
They usually print the money.
Some people have a taste
Even a kind of passion
A bit of dough to waste
Wherever its the fashion.
When youre a bum you know
What fools might be for you.
With a wallet stuffed with dough
Youll do what rich men do.
All the clout youll get
Might maybe last an hour
King of a shadowy set
You might think its power.
(Exit Donald.)
Scene Five
Disneyland Speech
(Enter Donald.)
Donald- Mickey! Ive been wandering through Disneyland
Looking for you in the iconry and sweaty crowds.
You must be the biggest mouse on Earth, I guess.
Most people hated mice once, tried to kill them
You little bastards were trying to gobble down
The same ripe fruits we ate. No more, Mickey.
Here in America youre God; you grin down like one.
Youre a happy guy. Any god who was a once a mouse
Would be. We were all like you once, came here
With a bag of bread and sausages, a funny accent
Told the guards some Rumplestilskin name
Went on to look for bum bottom work somewhere.
One day with a bit of cash we joined the funhouse.
None of us look like mice now. Not even you.
(Exit Donald.)
Scene Six
(Enter Donald.)
Around the Block
I like a woman whos done it all
Someone you cant shock
Hot to trot at the strutters ball;
Whos been around the block.
When in bed she never plays dead;
She never looks at the clock
Or tells you things her husband said.
Shes been around the block.
Im maybe not bright; Im always polite
I never try to offend.
When we get tight I dont want to fight.
Im there for good sex in the end.
I hate a night with a woman who might
Be pious as Plymouth rock.
Give me a she whos ready for me
Whos been around the block.
Emigration Stomp
That looks like a goat meat taco.
That might be a beef tamale
The smoke isnt grass for Morocco;
Its Mexican weed, by golly.
Weve banned beer and whisky here
Locked up our alien Commies
Columbian drugs, Samarkand rugs
Iroquois wahttafugamis.
Some like smoke, a bit of coke,
While they mangle English grammar;
They put peanut butter on an artichoke
On their way to the slammer.
We put people in jail for sipping ale
Now were banning enchiladas.
Whatever you do, dont say: Abu.
Like Arabs with infatadas
One day its Jose we lock up on a day;
Well throw in Tyrone too.
Its the name of the game; the aim is the same.
Someday it might be you.
(Exit Donald.)
Scene Seven
The Central Park Speech
(Enter Mephistopheles and Michael.)
Michael- One does eat well at these fetes that Donald
Throws in this New York hotel. Ive come
To rail that poultices for some folk
May be something of a pretext to consume
A duck without the payment of a hefty bill.
Mephistopheles- Humanity is much more viscerally content
After dining on an bit of roasted fowl.
Its why some think or hope the corpulent
Are more accommodating than the slender.
A torporous daze is the low gift of caterers
Who honor the lethal art of slaughter.
Michael- Youve worked at offering a candidate
Who opposes Donald in bellicose debates
No one could vote for but an imbecile?
Mephistopheles- I have done all one needs to fashion iconry
Filched from the dead hopes of the bottom
A woman that would clearly garret anyone
Including her dead mother For a scant coin,
A liege no one could love, eminent in treachery
Skilled in managerial ineptitude, a bladder
With dyed hair, tainted with harsh androgyny
Empty of all poetical music but a yapping sound.
She is a vintage crone who must fail all
Who bring her votes, a haunch of well cooked lamb
Or even offer her name as a whispered liege
While they mumble to the spirits in prayer.
Michael- Mephistopheles, you are a quintessential demon.
How have you or armies of your imps done
This singular and vintage bit of thaumaturgy?
Mephistopheles- Not easily. It is the genius of democracy
To give the rabbles one day in their life
When they can vote to put in office one
Of two scoundrels or imbeciles to parade
In front of citizens hardly no less gulls
Or villains as their kings. I merely found
One much more odious than Donald to be
Champion of Democrats who needed others
Much more likely to be loyal to the workers
Than such mischievous impostors. She is
An open lackey to the billionaires, a punk
For any covert autocrat. I let her talk.
Michael- Amazing. You have more sophistication
In a world of commoners than some have had
In ruling over kings. You might consider
Running for some august office here yourself.
Mephistopheles- I am no commoner, I was not born here, I am
Not much gifted as my servant Donald might be
At persuading any mob I speak for them. Otherwise
I might indeed be something of a statesman
Among this nation even overtly as myself.
I am beyond corruption. I cant be bribed.
I really want Americans to live as well
As possible. Im much more their champion
Than they are themselves. I lack their vices.
Im never greedy. Why hoard any goods
When there is always more such provender?
Why look to youthful hopes for wisdom
When jejune souls among us know nothing?
Why try to lock the mortal present in amber
When the Earth itself is prodigal with honey?
Michael- You are a living brief for your advocacies.
If I can I might one day vote for you.
Mephistopheles- Its not my talent for persuasion, Michael.
I am an angel armed with Gods truth.
(Enter Donald.)
Donald- I hope all you people had a hellova meal.
I dont mind springing for a feed sometimes
When the company is folks I like to be
With, all of you suckers miles beyond a mask
Of good and evil. Two kinds of scramblers
Understand our games these days: whore s
The criminal, anyone who works in business.
The whore knows her dirty customers are much
More equal than any bigot ever guesses. Crooks
Are just guys who run a bit of commerce
Governments dont like too much; maybe
Thats the way they want it too. No taxes.
Theyve got enemies; theyre not much out
To lock them up in a dump like gangs with clout.
Theyll waste them in an alley, throw them
To the fish. The businessmen gives lots of jobs
To bums who generate some heavy profit;
Hell keep a much of it as he can carry.
None of us are revolutionaries, folks. We need
Cops to keep the damned streets free of trouble.
Revolutionaries are the sort of folks who like
To things simple; hey, nothings quite that way.
I say the next rebellion is one youll see
In the pond below us in Central Park where
Bacteria ooze in the mute shade of the trees.
The viruses have had enough of any other life.
They are coming for us though the funky sludge
Where geese swim, herons prey on minnows.
They wont find their way up here too quickly.
They also can be corrupted; its hard to guess
What might be a degenerate in a paramecium.
Be patient, folks. Theyre coming like death.
Lets watch the carnage over roasted shrimp
We wash down quickly with dry white wine.
(Exit Donald, then exit Michael and Mephistopheles.)
Scene Eight
Five Star Hotel
Donald- When nobody loves you, not even your cat
You might need to repair for a spell
When the pickings are thin, your wife is too fat
To a good five star hotel.
If the whores have a vomit-like tinge on their breath
The plumbing sometimes has a smell
That reminds you unduly of feces and death
Its not a real five star hotel.
You know one from even the French speaking clerks
Alert to a tinkling bell
Not the usual jerks with their cynical smirks.
It must be a five star hotel.
Nobody gets nervous about the service.
All of their guests discover
If a girl or a meal isnt ideal
The bellhop brings you another.
Life on this Earth beginning with birth
Is never quite Heaven or Hell.
Youll live like a beast at a fabulous feast
In a good five star hotel.
(Enter Michael and Mephistopheles.
Mephistopheles- Your opponent has leaked a distressing report
That you carnally fondled young women, all
Much less than strangers. Shes let on gleefully
To the press youve done them some small injury.
Donald- Look Ambrosio, Ive run a fabulous casino
In Atlantic City, worked on wrestling gigs
With guys like Vince McMahon, the Hulk
Spent days doing reality shows with actresses
Whove casually balled thousands of men
And many women, my hotels have their pimps
And legions of funky women; could I have come
Away from all that craziness with manners
Angels on their silver thrones admire? Its not
That I love the glitter of the world of sleaze
Either. Im indifferent to it. Im no tomcat
Like that bitchs husband Bill. I dont tell
Women Im lonely, Im depressed, I dont
Complain to any floozie in my joint I need
Their goddamned company. I dont, Ambrosio.
With me its on the line with any woman.
I am generous, amusing, might be fun
For three weeks if we like each other.
What is wrong with that? Im an honest bum.
Mephistopheles- Believe me, I would be the last to chide
You, Donald for such religious honesty.
Donald- Its more than that, Ambrosio. You know
Why folks will vote for me? I live all day
The way they want to live. This contry
Is fatigued with craven crumbs and punks
Whose ass is owned by men with big pockets.
Im the guy wholl tell the plutocrats
To drop dead. I am a plutocrat. I may be
Rich; Im the only billionaire who wrestles
Runs a good casino and is known as one
Who knows as many bad guys running crime
Or commerce they call felonies as might
Be on the side a friend to a few nice people.
Michael- Donald, thats why were backing you. You might
Have been, I think, somewhat more discreet.
Donald- Rico, if I lose my character I lose everything.
Believe me, you or the world can dredge up
A million masks with nobody there behind them.
They float in the ocean like old cola bottles.
They like me for the vices some ministers might
Say they hate in me. They think Im diabolic
Chilly, evil. Im none of that. They run
From me in public only because they hate
The echo of their own humanity. Do you guess
If people locoed virtue overmuch here
Theyd claim I was some resident devil?
Do I muscle anyone to come to my casinos?
Have I forced a single customer of whores
In my hotels to ball unfriendly strangers
For a scanty piece of change? Does anybody
Knock my very affordable Calliphorine wine
And great gobs of creamy lobster pastas?
Have I drafted, gulled or seduced anyone
To do any damned thing whatsoever? What
These idiots a breach of ethics or call
Vice, Rico, has no champions, no rewards;
Those damned johns with a few bucks dont
Ever sleep with the corrupt or play blackjack
On salary. Im not a college telling the gulls
Theyll be paid zilch but will be an influence
To bring the country a European unappreciated
Richness. I couldnt do that to these fools.
Im cruel but not that cruel. I am a conduit
To what a lot of people like and pay for, Rico.
Michael- Unquestionably. You have to be yourself.
Unless you are setting fires to orphanages
Your generous commerce should never be a crime.
Donald- It always will be, Rico. It saves on taxes.
Michael- Let it be then, Donald. If we dont have
Felonies both pleasurable and external to us
We all might lose our morals altogether.
(Exit Donald.)
Mephistopheles- Can you disguise yourself as Putin, Michael?
Michael- I think so. Like you Im hollow ghostly stuff.
Mephistopheles- We need this icy monarch for our denouement.
Michael- I can emulate a seraph or a toad. Consider this:
Vladimirs Song
(After Danny Kaye)
Ive circumcised tigers, wrestled with bears
Outdone Satan with odious airs
Yet one cant murder all of ones foes
Even the powerful joust with their woes.
In politics I was cunning and clever;
Not even czardom lasts forever.
I could move to America and be a star
As a pianist and singer in a Jersey bar.
All that seems so distant now;
All that seems so far:
Those glorious nights
As a Russian commissar.
I drank enough swill
On Raspberry Hill
To have more than my fill
Of Raspberry Hill.
I gave girls a pill
They felt a bit ill
They turned breathless and still
On Raspberry hill.
They felt somewhat chill
Slaves to my will
When I pickled my dill
On Raspberry Hill.
All that seems so distant now;
All that seems so far:
Those glorious nights
As a Russian commissar.
Once I was a Russian prince
Im gobbling pizza, cant buy a blintz.
Downing hoagies with orange pop
Cant stop shopping till I flop and plop.
I moved in for the kill
With consummate skill
They talk of me still
On Raspberry Hill.
I emptied the till
Like a whale eating krill
Just grist for my mill
On Raspberry Hill.
Mephistopheles- You might have a career as an impostor.
You know of course that Donald has had chats
With Russian emissaries whose aims are clear
Enough: to makes America a hidden soldier
In the service of that rather chill imperium.
They lent our candidate a pile of lucre
Larded him and many of his fancy courtiers
With whatever such vodka-laden regimes can offer
To the gulls in the way of bribery from palaces
To legions of soft vessels for carnal comfort.
Michael-That is of course a shallow dabbling in treason.
Mephistopheles- It might be ordinary treachery. America has had
Along the way no lack of such conspirators.
Was it ever n the service of England, slavery
An avaricious corporate collegium or an army
Of Bourbon-sodden generals hungry for war?
Perhaps any action from the common selling out
Of oneself fancy house arrest in a white collar
Office or taking up at home the pious ingestion
Of a chicken is a dark and wretched perfidy.
Michael- Luckily for us the holy spirit is not a chicken.
Mephistopheles- I wonder how well the puppeteer has planned
This modern etude in republican life he deems
Preferable to external woes familiar to us
Systematic theft by despots and sugared cons
Run by the usual scented hierophants. It seems
As much as this poor humanity is organized
At all it is doomed to be an exercise in woe.
Michael- You cant doubt the charity and deep resources
Of our Creator if he is either clandestine
By taste or malgre lui ineluctably unknowable.
We must be patient as immortals at their best
Are sometimes known to be. It is an option
Accessible of course most easily to the deathless.
Mephistopheles- One might be a mote hungering for a bit of light
A beetle clawing through dung for provender
Yet never know the periocular imperial vices
Familiar to our corrupt modern humanity.
They are bribed to shrug or wink at vice,
Take up crime when it poses as freedom
At least not some ordinary domestic poison.
They take the money, cultivate a smiling silence.
Someone in this damned imperium has to bake
And bring the orange juice and pepperoni pizza.
Michael- They do. Efficiently, noiselessly, decorously.
Mephistopheles- Someone has to pick the crops, slaughter pigs
Flush the toilets, give the suave lawns
Of beheaded grass and clover a sculpted mein.
In a secret slave state, Michael, if cattle
Are far away they bellow as much in death
To the seraphs of the upper air as they crumple
And perish doing other mens work, bleed
Well enough as any ancient hero in a joust
While they are harnessed, scooped out by priests
Or deftly dispatched in an exotic abater.
Believe me, Michael, there will be a reckoning.
Michael- Perhaps you will preside over it, my friend.
You after all among the sundry dusky angels
Are hardly a stranger to evil, an innocent
Ignorant of all manner of fashionable felonies.
You are a certified master of disdain, ippissimus
Among unctuous pietists of all honey-larded evil.
Mephistopheles- You chit me for crafts I no longer value.
I have lost any taste for the judiciary mode.
Too many actions Id once thought repugnant
Are apparently now virtues. Even alehouse bawds
Can be kings. Devils can be philosophers.
Now Im schooled by everything; I condemn nothing.
Michael- You seem to trust in God more than you did once.
That is amusing. Id thought you were the angel
Who defined the very wild freedom of Creation
With your various acts of spite and rebellion.
Mephistopheles- Do not mistake me for a porker, Michael.
I am still the archangel I have always been.
I still say all this easy wealth in volume
Is a massive check for gluttony and pride
Sheathed with sugars and soporific opiates
For the nether armies of those sated churls.
It is a singular feat of acrobatics to be sane
When one is even moderately affluent; it is
An insufferable chore for the jaded to be other
Than porcine sots gobbling swill they deem
In their swinish imperium high gourmet fare
Hardly the aery banquets offered by heaven.
Michael- Still youre more deferent to the puppeteer.
Mephistopheles-I always was at heart,
Michael. I am his son.
(Exit Michael, Mephistopheles.)
Scene Nine
(Enter Donald)
The Pilgrimage
Someone plays an old guitar;
Someone else tells a story.
Somebody opens a bar.
Somebody talks of glory.
When you amble in any direction
Down a trail or a tree lined path
With some with carnal affection
Some with a grisly laugh
You end up in a space
A campfire warming a clearing
A refuge, a quiet place
Where the carnage is out of hearing.
Politicians Song
(After W.S. Gilbert)
Ive thousands of opinions on God to circumcision.
I seem to be the sort of man whose clever at decision.
I diagnose a palsy or an invalid condition.
I am the perfect paradigm of any politician.
I slander my opponents with a risible derision.
Im ready to confront them in a colorful collision.
I seem to be your butler, not the acme of ambition.
I am the perfect paradigm of any politician.
I speak of criminality like zealots on a mission.
I list their many follies with a surgical precision
Legitimize some felons with a federal commission.
I am the perfect paradigm of any politician.
I offer you a turkey, a chicken or a pigeon.
I threaten my opponents with the fires of perdition.
I laugh at any vaudeville of visible contrition.
I am the perfect paradigm of any politician.
(Enter Michael and Mephistopheles.)
Are they ready for me out there? Ive written
A novel Inaugural speech you both might enjoy.
Mephistopheles- We expect you to be audacious, Donald.
You always have been. Youre possibly
The first oligarch since Vince McMahon
To battle in a wrestling ring. You act
In tawdry television shows the peerless
McMahon turns down. Youve shown a mastery
Of low Republican debate, exposed them
As a sideshow act. Youve vanquished Hillary
A candidate you might have us to thank for.
Donald, youre nimble with insults, deft
At gags, an ippissimus of vaporous invective.
If you are ever boring in this zircon ritual
Of elevation we know it wont be you.
Michael- We both defer to you in politics as raw
And low life fare, swill fit for swine.
Donald- You think too much of me. Its all an act
Like wrestling. I wonder whether your agendas
Are as honest as my own. Why would you want
A guy like me to run America when you had picked
The scoundrels you usually often do? Rico
Something covert is up with both you guys.
Damned if I know what the hell it is, kid.
Mephistopheles- We are, Donald, messengers of deeper forces
Than you know. Let us leave that revelation
Where it is; well say no more. Your age
Is hardly one that honors any common boon
But leaden merchandise. I will say this:
If the purpose of mortality is to peer
Within a desperate compass piteously brief
At sagacity once a dun province of angels
You have with wealth and many willful acts
Taken in like a breath a modicum of the divine.
Both of us, bringers of such high libations
To your humanity, are no less mercurial.
Theyre alms to sagacity once only God
And his illuminated seraphs knew. Donald
If we tender stray bits of prophecy as well
To your enemies, your lovers, your countrymen.
This American nation is Gods celestial harbor
For once beleaguered and unhappy folk
To take up a starry voyage into darkness
Or the ramparts of an ineluctable light.
We have as youve surmised a shadowy intent
That comes to us from celestial sources
We must honor. These gleaming riddles are
Our lieges. We do these sublime seraphs
Amused by Earth a sheathed service.
Donald- You always treated me with honor. Thanks.
I felt sometimes you were some cosmic uncle
Cheering me on as I wandered as far
From the anonymous business school idiots
I knew in school as I could get. I guess
I was born a rebel; I dont know why.
Michael- Your spirit is immortal as the soul of angels.
The mystery is only that an army of humanity
Never acts to take up who they are, Donald.
One hardly has to be a king to disdain
The low siren songs and gold that keeps men
Remote from their character and liberty.
To take a bit of coin to live anothers life
Or someones alien notion of ones nature
Is hardly worthy of judgment of the Nameless One.
Donald- Well, nobody could say that about me, baby.
Way back when in military school I said, kid
I may be just a piece of sleaze or worse
I might try every vice as if its nose candy;
I am never going to be anonymous or ordinary.
Mephistopheles-Youve acted very earnestly upon your principles.
Donald- You bet I have, Ambrosio. I was a wrestler
An actor in a scuzzy t-v show, produced
A run of stupid beauty contests, a casino
Managed room service for a run of hotels
That would satisfy a half-dead Asiatic prince
Slept with whores and married them sometimes
Even run for President as a veteran fancy pimp
When nothing in America could get worse among
The usual lawyers and empty headed scramblers
In the cellars of government. I was desperate
As a kid but other people ate their desperation.
I couldnt. Never could. I had to be a creep
If I had to rather than shrug, go to bed
With hygienic strangers in a wealthy oblivion.
Why the hell I did the capers alone I dont know,
Ambrosio. Am I by myself in common despair?
Youd think Id be the damned general of an army.
Michael- At least theyve voted for your courage.
It was all they could do. You were an icon
Of their anger. No one likes a burial much
When they are dewy and living. You stood
On their plastic tomb like a fierce angel.
Donald- You both must have had your prior moments
Like my own infancy and youth, I think.
Youre both too damned sympathetic to me
Though Im a hero to think of me as a rat
A dragon, a demon or just staidly monstrous.
Mephistopheles- It is clever of you to discern our delight
At your resolutions. One must be silent
In this material world at who one is
Where we all might be, or one might seem
Lethally impolite in banal social company.
Yet I can tell you I have been as desperate
As you have, Donald, once. I have rebelled
From heaven itself. I have founded cities
Of momentary pleasure, even been at times
Evangel for whatever mimicry I can muster
To clothe the toffish garments we wear
To disguise what is grimly an opaque woe.
Michael- You never in your gift for high architecture
Put up in a nether region beyond the ether
The felicitous emporiums of innumerable bawds
Like the salt taffy castles of Atlantic City.
Mephistopheles- Yes, our nephew Donald has indeed eclipsed us.
With freedom humanity can outdo angels.
Donald- I had no choice. It was crime or death.
Mephistopheles- Admittedly. Yet you know already, Donald
The price of the saving satanic energy
That led you upward from the suburban catacombs
Was eventually to care about no one, value nobody
See Creation as mineral beings in collusion
Feel no charity for wights less rich in luck
Never love or hate anything though you pay well
Enough for everything. Its a bawds philosophy.
Donald- Ive had enough of that. If its sure as hell
Better than death, even pimping for youth
Beauty and corruption in a Atlantic City
After three weeks can be dumb and tedious.
Mephistopheles- Sometimes when all else fails in our character
We are saved by our weariness with such banality.
If we had temptation worthy of us we might all
Be in Hell, Donald. I too have chosen charity
Above pleasure. I cant bear such minor libertine
Contempt. Beside being insane its too easy.
Once it was different. Now Im on civil terms
With entities one might think would disdain me.
After all some louts have called as a demon.
I was a raffish bawd, an alehouse companion.
Above us the fires of the phenomenal world
Hung in the night as beacons offering ciphers
To the travelers beyond the sour fragrance
Of the tavern. Ive watched the courtesans
Of many kings grow old, dank, senescent
The fashion and idea of many courts wither
Seem stale and dunly brown as old apricots.
Shouldnt we have in passing some charity
For whatever thrives then crumples in a day
And a parlous night? Are we such lobsters
With a scarlet carapace that we disdain
The woe of animate archers who wander
Like celestial butchers on the stellar hunt?
Its unbearable in demons if they amble
Long enough in the astral reaches of Hell.
The Holy One himself has given us the freedom
To be stupid and evil. If we are dusky angels
We can be a seeming pander to such desolation.
One day we depart from such realms of deceit
And mockery. We grow weary of our vanity.
We become compassionate to mortal life
When all else fails, even our rich capacity
For amusement. That is the wisdom of the Throne.
The Nameless One waits for virtue to become
As comely as those numinous courtesans whod once
Distracted us from our peculiar portion.
We take up if tardily the journey of angels.
Michael- Certainly humanity has not much patience
For its bawds. They must as well be weary
Of their more colorful hierophants;
They go to gypsies for their garbled oracles.
We hope to found a strong republican corps
From voters in America, immune, proof
Against greed and its gluey sting.
We hope that all Americans will cultivate
An indifference to material fortune worthy
Of the children of a starry being you call God.
Donald- Thats why you prefer a pimp and gambler
From Atlantic City managing this country?
Maybe. It could also be you think I might
Sometimes make you both a little profit.
Mephistopheles-We cannot be bribed or otherwise corrupted.
You of all people sense what we are, Donald.
You always had a strong satanic strain
Worthy of your gift for much adaptability.
You called up when no one else was brave
Enough to say: I wont be dull and ordinary.
Often gods pick their protesting favorites
Without consent from those they elevate.
Not you, Donald. You invoked us like demons.
We both have answered your jejune prayers.
Donald- I never asked for any of my portion, Ambrosio.
My dad gave me wealth, I had some swagger
And a bit of social charm with the women.
Sure, I adorned my life with harsh adventure.
Thats all. At bottom, I accept the weather
Like any other man. Have you heard me mumble
Once, let me die here, God, a mewling dunce
Gobbling the leaves of the blue lotus? Never.
Michael- Thats why we picked you, Donald. We needed
A philosopher. I hear the crowd beneath
The balcony. Its time for your Inaugural.
Donald- I hear them too. You think I can lead these bums
To any place more than the next bed or bar?
Maybe. Im committed, right? I ran, debated
Put on crazy hats and told lies. Let me do it.
(Donald walks downstage to a parapet.)
I told you people I was here to make America
Great. Maybe not exactly great. Lets say
Acceptable. That doesnt mean of course
You wont feel wild rage and grief. Youll
Feel trapped by pain or too much pleasure.
Youll be poisoned by some dumb misery.
Youll be just as disappointed in your life
As anyone locked up in a maximum security
Jail. Its not you wholl be great; still
America might be. I love this goddamn country.
When you live in places that are great
You feel lousy in comfort. You want to die
Expensively in a truckload of lilies.
You feel a weird and ugly malice to all
But youre stupidly healthy. You want
To be loved or love somebody, something;
All you can do, you poor slob is to be
Stupidly amused. Well, folks, if thats
Greatness, if its one more pile of manure;
It beats everything else, doesnt it?
Goddamn it, lets be great. If we cant be great
We sure as hell should try to fake it.
Thank you.
To Mephistopheles and Michael.)
Hows that for being smart?
Mephistopheles- Excellent.
Donald, youve inspired me to be great myself.
Once in Wittenburg Id thought I was.
I had the gaudy garb of a minor prince.
I swaggered with arrogance. Was I great?
Maybe not; I never was that comfortable.
(Exit Donald, Mephistopheles and Michael.)
Trump In Atlantic City
A Play
by Matthew Paris
Act Three
Enter Michael. He sings. )
Emigrants Confession
I showed up at the dock in rags, hauling a bag of trash
Sold a bit of rubbish for a bit of crinkled cash
Couldnt read the alphabet much less the storefront signs
Worked the docks, the steel mills, factories and mines.
Ive traveled from realities where freedom was obscene.
Its a long way from the Gates of Hell to Playboy Magazine.
My old world was a barony of ordinary dread.
This one was less wretched; I might be better fed.
I played a lot of poker before I learnt the game.
My life would be better, at least not quite the same.
Ive traveled from realities where freedom was obscene.
Its a long way from the Gates of Hell to Playboy Magazine.
I clerked in city offices, jails of glass and steel
Watched computer porno, sold what stuff Id steal.
Sold underwater real estate, cars that fall apart
Knew who was merely cunning, who was really smart.
Ive traveled from realities where freedom was obscene.
Its a long way from the Gates of Hell to Playboy Magazine.
This porno life is trivial, hardly worth my while
It beats old desperations, service with a smile.
Maybe you dont give a shit; maybe you dont care.
Its not so bad to be a zombie sitting in a chair.
Ive traveled from realities where freedom was obscene.
Its a long way from the Gates of Hell to Playboy Magazine.
(Enter Mephistopheles.)
You look fatigued from travel. Cosmic treks are boring.
Mephistopheles- One does encounter infinite miles of emptiness.
Michael-I love this posh East Wing of the White House
In particular. I think they fumigate it well
It has iconic portraits of some Presidents
I much admire. Theres Washington on the far wall
Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.
If the furniture is still variable; the chairs
Comfortable, the ceilings unobtrusively decorous
I can't say Ive had too many brilliant meals
Within these confines but I don't think banquets
Are the genius of this domicile. America
Has never had a signature excellent wine.
Mephistopheles-Youre right. The whiskey isn't bad. The beer
Has gotten somewhat better. It was porcine swill
Once. Americans value liquor that gets them drunk.
Even their wine is a simple tool of pure utility.
Michael-Cultures like the French are wonderfully clever
At giving one an ample reason to be rich. I reckon
This republic has an equal reason to embrace
A recidivist harshness in its maw to honor
Both its savage past and its own sanity.
Mephistopheles- It is a refuge from regimes in which perhaps
Fifty people, cousins of the Hapsburg, were
Flush with stray coin. The varied feasts
The liquors you admire were ample consolations
For mortality in Europe of a few poltroons.
Everyone else were their servants, incarcerated
In these fetching decaying worlds, lucky
To feed on lentils and drams of tepid water.
Michael-For a stellar prince of Heaven such as you are
Youre always also a quintessential democrat.
No wonder you love this singular country. It
Represents you as your late exile from Heaven
Never quite did. America lately easily outdoes
In amusement for all, your city you properly
Call Pandemonium in its varied spiced delights.
Mephistopheles-If I were not as well the prince of my own barony
Admittedly Id be this countrys perfect patriot.
Michael-I think that table was one Lincoln sat at once
Enmeshed in his most difficult meditations.
This chaise lounge held the delectable flesh
Of Monica Lewinsky as she trades amorous banter
With the lascivious Bill Clinton. That wall
Had a copious book shelf that contained the tomes
Jefferson mused over while he ate his breakfast.
Mephistopheles-We are lucky to be here, Michael. Our friend
Donald hasnt invited us to this charmer to admire
Its fine traces of the admirable and iconic past.
Hes called us here from our amusements for aid
In his current difficulties. Youve been
Taken from explorations of houses of pleasure.
Michael-Its a safari that rarely captures any animals
Worthy of us. It might garner a few stray insects
And several glittering but ordinary lizards.
Mephistopheles-In my poor case I have been invoked by Donald
Though his occult means to conjure us while
Swimming through the methane lakes of Jupiter.
Michael-Youve always had a gift for such refreshment.
Werent you not all that prior to this moment
Savoring the raptures of the chill pilgrimages
Through the diamond storms on chilly Neptune.
Mephistopheles-They are some of my more superficial amusements
As resident baron of a great celestial city
I cant easily leave the commerce of my realm.
Id much prefer to journey I a great black boat
Through the remote lightless realms of infinity.
It is one of the major blessings of our Creator
That he has made this universe not only free
But a huge mass of air without a circumference.
Michael-What might you find in these outlined kingdoms
That might amuse an immortal like yourself?
You have seen everything, done everything.
Mephistopheles-Not quite. I never could. Nature may seem
To a younger angel like yourself to be more
Cyclical than you can guess. Even if we are
Jades we can count on the Nameless One to bring us
If were patient enough some talent for novelty.
Nature is not a machine like a mechanical toy
Whirling with lettering lamps to a known end.
Michael-What do you suppose our tyro disciple in pokier
Wants from us? Weve already been quite bountiful
If gifts from the divine are sometimes a new set
Of desperations. Hed wanted to be what he is.
Perhaps hed like to take up other illusions.
Mephistopheles-Id guess hes discovered while in this home
He lacks some instrument of character to be
The easy republican king hed hoped with means
To garner pleasure and power chits can buy
He felt as a mere bawd and innkeeper in a town
Of gamblers and whores he might have been.
Michael-What did he lack within his heart? Not ambition.
Mephistopheles-Hardly. In Atlantic City one can assume often
If not always one is in a town of denizens
Prone to be slaves of ferric or bribery.
Elsewhere there are spirits of honor like yourself
Who cant be put into harness with a show of gold.
here are many others in our universe whose morals
Preclude a tethering of their actions by any king.
Michael-One would hardly want them as ones enemies.
Mephistopheles- Right. Choosing the proper enemies is an art
Lost in American politics. We all can prosper
From our luck in income or generosity of friends.
The gift to sup and be civil to ones foes
Is the covert hub of the very craft of loving
Ones neighbor. We all might want to emulate
George Washington, the only President to be
Elected by acclamation. The man had no rivals.
Michael-In a world wallowing in slander thats a miracle.
Mephistopheles-Sometimes to the rue of all Nature produces
Singularities. Such miracles only happen once.
Michael-Our friend Donald is not one who has escaped
Such large and tiny quarrels. Perhaps you might
Scribble a manual of etiquette for Donald.
Hes sadly not an impeccable a politician.
Mephistopheles- Thats not the way of our Creator, Michael.
Were I to tell Donald what to do Id be
One more minor autocrat. That is precisely
What the Nameless One abhors. If God himself
Refuses to be any kind of monarch should I
Turn a petty baron of a city or stray spirit
Who needs above all to find those resources
Of maturity and self rule in the wilderness
As Moses, many saints and Washington did?
Michael-Then you will not aid him the very soul
You have already injured by answering his prayers?
That seems itself tyrannical and merciless.
Mephistopheles-Michael. I am bound by rectitude as much as you.
I never said I would not help him. I will.
I will give him some eddies with deception
To help confront his real and seeming enemies
Then discover what wisdom he needs to know
To come up like a whale from a salty sea
From some unhappy moments of despair.
Michael-Really. How will you do that? Offer Donald
A bit of passing theatrical comedy?
Mephistopheles- Something like that, Michael. We are spirits
Who can manifest ourselves as virtually anything.
I may enlist as well our distant cousin Lillith
In this didactic farce as one of the mirages.
Michael-You astonish me. You want him to be guided
Through a trove of illusions? Can such mendacities
Do him any service but distract him from his woes?
Mephistopheles- What else do illusions do in this Creation?
Do you think theyre trial or simply cloddishly
Corrupt? If freedom means anything at all, Michael
It is the liberty to be a fool. Yet at the end
Of such libertine stupidity is the elevation
We both as princes of the ether often enjoy.
Michael- Angels like ourselves are never public dunces
Like the offal of humanity. I guess that Donald
Thinks were Mafioso, that were bawds, run
Bordellos from Atlantic city to New Orleans.
We might acquaint him with our honest nature.
Mephistopheles- That might be a mistake. Once we offer others
Some mendacity we are obliged to honor it
No matter what absurdity our circumspection
Takes us to. Its not my character to revel
In opacity, believe me. I aim elsewhere
At a pellucid transparency. I dont think Donald
Is ready for a dialogue with the invisible
Barons of other worlds, princes whose very power
He might deftly scorn as medieval metaphysics.
Michael- Deception has that element of rampant darkness.
Youve spoken to our collage Lillith in her funks
In the out-worlds of the solar system? Id guess
She might be weary of the chilly pleasures some
Find agreeable in the ramparts of the night.
Mephistopheles- She owes me many favors. From the first trace
Of light in this cosmos I have been her liege.
Michael- Good. You understand the heady bonds of power.
Mephistopheles-Ive studied under a master of reality, Michael.
Power is never more an engine of loyalty
When those who honor it are given ample reason
To be moons who orbit round some cosmic duke.
(Enter Donald)
Donald- Ambrosio, Rico. Say, you guys look fantastic.
I guess it must be that Mafioso pasta you ladle
Out in steam tables to the brothel customers.
When they go up the stairs with some goofy broad
You have a midnight dinner on the leftovers.
This job in Washington has given me some problems
One of which is ulcers and a constant headache.
Maybe I should quit this job and run a whorehouse
And judge beauty contests as I sued to do once.
Mephistopheles-You wanted to be President. You are. Donald
One of the most admired burdens of your wealth
Has been the sometimes glum accommodation
Of the populace to your whims. You should enjoy
These high extensions of your will. Caprice
In situations cash can buy is the hap in peace
If always clothed in some force of the Very Rich.
Donald- You know how they made their bucks? They cheat.
They steal the silverware, cop the bath towels.
They pocket the stationary and the fancy pencils.
Mephistopheles-Sometimes the alternative to many woes are griefs
Much worse in venom than mere parochial griefs.
Its part of being tolerably flush to flout
The bitter measure others with less provender
Embrace in some less than wholly sweet indenture.
Donald- You dont know what a heady rebel Ive been.
How many rich men in America want to live here
in this dump for gaudy leaders? When youre smart
And have a dollar you want to be invisible.
The sharks are out there sniffing your blood
Believe me. you dont know who your friends are.
Mephistopheles-I am not a being who needs friends. Not yet.
Donald- Good. You may not have any. You might have maybe
A court of creeps and whores who flatter you.
Do you need their goddamned compliments?
You know who the hell you are. Sometimes
Of course youre not the guy youd like to be.
A quick one in a Chevrolet is not quite love.
You get accustomed to the pasta and red wine.
Sure, it all turns to bloody piss water and shit.
It might even take you over. I always wanted
Above all to do something other than take
Oodles of money and discreetly disappear.
Michael- We never thought you were dumb Donald. Perhaps
You coveted a bit of ghostly glory. Thats hardly
Singular for a mortal and his vanity in any life.
Donald- Rico, I could have been invisible. I could have
Shot deer in gilded parks under fancy house arrest.
I could have done nothing, been less than nothing.
We can all do nothing when were poor or dead
Rico. I am trying here clumsily to do something.
Michael- Very commendable. Sadly, sometimes doing nothing
Invites others one might value to do something
One doesnt like. Its a charity more known
In the alabaster portals of Heaven than in Hell.
Donald- What are those joints to me? Just fancy dumps.
Id rather be like you guys, in transit deep
In the shadows. At least its not entirely creepy.
Michael- Some pietists might find a bawd like you strange
If not entirely amusing. They want a leader
Who has other legacies than managing a world
Of bimbos. They might even choose a lawyer.
Donald- Do you think so? Id guess theyve been hungering
For someone like yours truly for decades, Rico.
They want a pimp, a clown, a caterer, a loan shark
A hotel clerk. Theyve had enough of therapists.
Michael- Well, in that case they all have what they want
Like you, Donald. This should be a happy country.
Donald- It isnt. I might be what they want; Im still
No more able to be President than any barrister.
Maybe they should get themselves somebody else
To run America: a bum, or chiselers like you.
Mephistopheles- Were not leaders, Donald. Were men of commerce.
We bring mortals whatever they want. Then we
Watch them wrestle unhappily with our gaudy
Gifts and well wrapped novelties. You see
Very well how much a tiny increase in delight
And intense spasms has brought a spangled realm
Of porcine epicures. We parse out opportunity.
Donald- Youre corruptors, sure. If you could youd be
As happy selling snake old. You arent evil.
Mephistopheles-It might be the wisdom of Nature to offer virtue
In the guise of vice. Yet some sagacity you lack
May not be in your ken because youve journeyed
Not to any honest wilderness only perfumed halls
Of injury and crime. You never learnt the skills
Masters of diplomacy theyve gleaned from ether.
Donald- Then I need your counsel. Will you help me?
Michael- Of course We are your angels, Donald. Well honor
Whatever you ask of us in all these deep matters.
Yet consider this, Donald: youre asking for
Succor in your current prayers that led you
Willfully to these hallowed halls of grief.
Donald- What would you like me to do, Rico, talk to bums
Whove been my close advisors? Ive done that.
Where the hell did it lead me but a grotto
And inner court of stupidity and misery?
If the Mafia cant help me, nobody can.
Mephistopheles- We cant make you easily less rich or powerful
Than you are, Donald. It is only the trekkers
In the deserts who can contemplate emptiness
With some mastery. We can bring you to meet
With people you have thought were adversaries.
Donald- They aren't enemies? They're just annoyances.
Mephistopheles- There might be some skill in leadership
You could discover from that civil parlay.
Donald- I'll try anything. I guess the Mafia knows
How to talk to the devil. Maybe I can learn
Some unctuous competence gleaned from Hell.
Mephistopheles- You'd though so once, Donald. That's why you
Became a brothel keeper. You hooted gambling
Whoredom and banquets of honeyed swill.
Had it ever been a choice you regret?
Donald- No. I'd rather be a criminal than nothing at all.
Why should I hide from anyone because I'm rich?
Do you know how they live? Like jail birds.
You think I want to be a convict of success?
You think it's hard to be Black? Try being rich.
Mephistopheles-You don't and can't prefer another life. Donald.
Donald- Maybe. What the hell are the alternatives?
Mephistopheles-Not many you would find barely tolerable.
Donald- Look, I'm comfortable. I'm sated. I've had fun.
At least I never miss a meal. I make so many
Hotels I've always got some dump close by me
To get out the rain. I bribe people to feed me.
When people hassle me I tell them to drop dead:
Sometimes I say, baby, see you in court.
I've got heavy bucks to pay a team of lawyers.
Mephistopheles-Of course you'd have an unfamiliar experience
If you perished by some black turn of destiny.
Both corpses and varied sets of higher angels
Escape those pesky and distressing mortal
Vulnerabilities. So do fictions. One can't sue
One who is imaginary. They don't need lunch
Either. Few gods are bothered by the weather.
Michael- Wolves and the seraphim never go into litigation.
There are no celestial courts to accommodate
The sweaty woes of diverse infernal demons.
Donald- Yeah, maybe they settle. Look guys, I know zilch
About cherubs; I never ran a zoo, only hotels.
I can say a lot of people are apt to make trouble
In Washington and elsewhere because they live
Off a planetary truckload of stinks, leaky roofs,
Bad plumbing, when they steal a little coin
Legal mayhem. Look, I don't criticize them either.
Michael- God loves thieves. He makes billions of them.
Even daffodils and rose rob light from the sun.
Donald- Sure they do. They're all mugging the sunlight.
If you're hungry and a cockroach you come out
Of your little hole at night, look for crumbs.
Lizards never get to be middle class or rich;
They're always scrambling for a bit of dinner
They find in the trash, maybe a mouse corpse
Somewhere. That might be life, guys. You Mafioso
Never cultivate the social life at the bottom.
Michael- We accommodate them well enough, Donald. We own
Every bar, whorehouse and night club in America .
Donald- Yeah, you sell them pleasure, Watt the hell good
Is a laugh or a quick one in a Chevrolet? It just
Makes you stupid. You outlast it. It doesn't even
Kill you like pain. Your problems are never over.
Michael- At least you don't kill anybody, Donald. You
Honor their life. Your hungers have their limits.
Donald-No. Those old guys like Genghis Kahn had respect
For people. They were afraid of them. They shot
Them, enslaved them, slaughtered them, sometimes
By the millions. They all exuded piety. Hitler
Stalin were all pious. That's why I love
Corruption. Take it from me as a champion seducer
When you buy somebody you've got a contempt
For them you never have when you cut their throat.
I don't kill people because I can't make a buck
From murder. I don't own even one damned cemetery.
Mephistopheles-Donald, you brought us here to parlay with us
To remedy some quandary. What's your difficulty?
Donald- You're going to laugh at me, Ambrosio, You gave
Me what I wanted. Yeah, I'm President. I've got
More power than any damn king, more than any
Of these imaginary angels your know or seem
To know. I wanted as hell it. With your help
I got it. I'm not so happy here in Washington.
Michael- Perhaps you'd like Atlantic City better. You can
Leave here and return there if not decorously.
Make your capital Atlantic City though it should
Be Chicago. Make this town a capital of crab meat.
As President you've the right to make your capital
In Antarctica. Make the White House a latrine.
Donald- I've had enough good plumbing in Atlantic City.
Living with those pretty young whores is hellish
Like starring in an endless production of Hamlet
Forever. You know the well marked signature lines.
You're a little bored by the trivial ending.
Michael-Perhaps you might take residence in Monaco.
You'll hate the company but love the wine.
Donald- I don't drink much liquor, Rico. My brother Fred
Was knocked off sipping Cuban vodka daiquiris.
They never gave up rum when they went Communist.
Whores won't kill you like a bottle; they don't
Do you all that much good either. Yeah, it's nice
To think in a brothel you'd grope them for a dime.
You get over that dumb little thrill soon enough.
You two guys ought to know. You both are experts.
You run that fragrant bit of national commerce.
Michael- What are your difficulties, Donald? We all know
Our existence can be tedious or disappointing.
Donald- All right You know I've been a rich man's son
Who had the chance to do whatever I wanted.
I was a hotel builder, pimp, television star
Wrestler, judged some awful beauty contests.
Maybe you'd call all that trivial ambition.
Maybe it was. Now I've been the President.
What comes after that? Do I take up sainthood
Float to Heaven, have God tell me: do my job?
Michael-That's your problem? Donald, God hasn't got a job.
Donald-Yeah, he rested on Shabbos and liked the feeling.
Mephistopheles- Nobody will ask you to be God, Donald. Nobody.
I do detect in your celestial quandaries
Some flaw in your assessments you might mull
Over in your midnight vigils. You describe
Your life as one lived in desperate circumstances
In which one eats, sleeps with, kills or puts
All and everything into some bare or sheathed
Indenture. That really is not the case, Donald.
Donald- You think I'm greedy. I wanted to be President
To be a guy who wasn't satisfied with avarice.
If I were merely here in Washington to devour
I could have feasted on it discreetly enough
Without living in this dump, opening gardens
Of orchids, and taking in the resident slander
Like balmy weather. Don't you think the lobbyists
And Congressmen are all of that? The Senators
Don't even show up for their turn on the floor.
They're too busy stealing. I could bribe my way
Through the money whores of this corrupt town
Silently as any honcho on the phone all day
Handing out fragrant bales of funny money.
I've got the bare compassion to be here
Not elsewhere. When I look at television
The guy they clobber is me, not the creeps
And touts, the discreet brokers of influence.
Michael- You like the glory. You have a taste for posture.
Mephistopheles- Some people and some deities have charity
Within their moral actions that cannot be called
Lizard-like deferred interest. Every marriage
That produces children has had two frail spirits
Honoring the abysses between one and another
At least in their nocturnal rites of amorousness.
Donald- I'm too old now to be a whorehouse veteran.
By the way if you are critical of me, Ambrosio
Take a look at my rivals. What a nest of bums.
Mephistopheles- Your real antagonists are not these gargoyles;
It's the commoners who judge you as a manager.
Every despot less base than an imbecile knows
His august power comes from iron standards set
By assorted commoners. One cannot run a group
Of any kind who when one sleeps turns roguish
Slack, violent or takes up fashionable thievery.
Michael- You have agendas which are richly odious, Donald.
Donald- I don't believe a word of them. Yeah, I said
All kinds of baloney as all the politicians do
To get elected. Do you think I really care
Whether anyone comes in or put of this country?
I might want the contract for a wall. Do I hate
Mexicans? They work for me. They're good people.
After seeing what kind of life the rich in Mexico
Have give them, they're happy to take my money.
Do I think that Muslims are a billion terrorists?
Michael- No. You might think they are designated prey.
Donald- Do I? I love Mexicans. They work. They have honor.
They even bake my pizza. What do I give them back?
Money. I get a hellova meal and they get paper.
I appreciate Mexicans. They're all scramblers
Whom I've got to say are glad with good reason
To get the goddamned hell out of the hellholes
Their priests or kings or whatever have set up
For them. Hey, my grandpa came here just like them.
You talk about the citizens I sometimes represent;
They're the bigots, the neo-Nazis, not me, Rico.
Michael- You indulge them. You talk of greatness, Donald.
No one should be harnessed by a vaporous itch
To be imperial. Only kings and hierophants are
Hungry for a rich capacious ordinary life.
Besides, there is usually there is only one king.
Donald- How was I got get elected? How did you elect me?
Would you liked it if I ran on promises of virtue
And compassionate measure? This is an angry time
Filled with furious folks that could not know
Why they feel such fierce and sanguine rage
Michael- Unquestionably. You needed their assent, Donald.
We don't think you're crazy, Donald. You're mean.
Donald- You know why they're miserable? I know why, Rico.
They're slaves who've sold themselves for money.
They're morally no better than whorehouse bimbos
In Pandemonium. They're in life for the money.
Michael- Yes, that is the bloody fountain of their rancor.
Donald- What do they do with a few bucks when they get it?
hey sit in a chair and watch a parade of clowns.
Can you see these bozos marching to the mines
With a smile, digging in lethal tunnels for coal?
Are they hungry to sew cravats in a garment center?
Do they want to sit one more day in an office
Drinking bad coffee, watching porno on a computer?
They want Chinese to cobble their cheap shoes.
Michael One day it the Chinese won't want to be Chinese.
Mephistopheles- Why not give them labor as extras on movie sets?
Donald- They don't want jobs. Their bosses put blinkers
And a saddle on them once. They don't know what
They want. That's why they're overweight, drunk
And hungry for death. Look I chose to run a country
Of creeps, bums, frauds, vegetables, invalids.
This isn't a country, Rico; it's a veteran's
Hospital. Sure, I talk about greatness like Hitler
Or Mussolini. Nobody can remember them.
Michael Admittedly you'd be better off discreetly stealing
From the exchequer of the palace, siphoning
Lucre their generous budget for a sparse lunch.
Why do you say those things? Why make promises
To anyone that must fill them one day amply
With a trove of ashes? Aren't you in dread
Of their rage and bilious ultimate revenge?
Donald- I'd welcome it, Rico. I'd get me out of here.
Mephistopheles- You're restless, Donald. Be patent. If destiny
Has taken you to the mercurial glory of monarchy
It may have other blessings for you soon enough.
Donald- I wish I had been born like you guys, Mafioso.
Nobody elects you. You've got no real enemies.
Everybody likes a bit of pleasure. You sell
An honest product: spasms a buck or two can buy.
You're compassionate. You can handle the slander.
Michael- It is the bottom of they can do to us, Donald.
Luckily our customers have better opinions of us.
Donald- It used to be they put the Mafia in jail;
Now they the Mafia, pitching craps, blackjack
Whores, protection rackets to the rabble.
Still you need an army and a guy like me, Rico
To manage the government and take the kitchen heat.
Mephistopheles- You don't have to be Italian to be a Mafioso.
You were just as eager to purvey those consolations
As we were. Perhaps in being as President you've
Taken a step down. What else is government now
But piously managing a safe and legal brothel?
Michael- You wanted it, Donald. So did the army. Troops
Cops all come freely from a spa they'd thought once
Was a world far worse than shooting at strangers.
Donald- We often take what stale cuisine we can get, Rico.
Look at how I get here. The Democrats put up
An iron charmless lady no one wanted. Republicans
Ran debates that beat a carnival sideshow for dread.
The voters had a chance to see what provender
Was out there, my illustrious rivals, and said:
I got to get away from all these other bums.
Okay. Republicans were bananas for the past.
Democrats were queer for Memory Lane themselves
Mostly old maids mumbling at faded photographs
Rico, I was put here by a vacuum, an emptiness.
Michael- I can't dispute your sad analysis. In fact I honor
Grudgingly your richly saturnine descriptions.
Moreover I agree, we do accept the best of horrors
Whether we are kings or beggars, powerful priests
Or drunks railing at pale phantoms in the gutter.
You brought us here because you're tolerably brave
Yet still unhappy. Donald. I must say you won't find
Plethora of morals or mercy in your social company
Or neighbors in this city. One can sniff the spoor
Of many tigers abroad in this mystical metropolis.
Donald- Yeah, it's like a zoo with nothing but big cats.
None of the local whores will sleep with you.
It's a long step down, kid, from Atlantic City.
Michael- There's no lack of consolation here from tramps.
Power and its courts tend to conjure them here
With means that mirror the gravity of stars.
Mephistopheles- It's why the Nameless One has made this world
A realm of freedom. Even a toad is at liberty
To do as he pleases. He never is distracted
By a hetaera or stray employment in the courts.
Donald- I feel the same way. After judging beauty contests
Groping their very fetching if silicon boobs
Do you think I hunger for any amusement from sex?
I don't want a bedroom caper to be bad. I've had
Disasters. I know all about erotic catastrophes.
Everyone who comes to me for a quick one knows
What I am there for. I'm an honest man in bed.
Michael- You're hardly notably ambitious. You want great sex.
You look for it in a brothel. It doesn't mean
You have much love or intimacy with anyone.
Donald- You overestimate the joys of romance, Rico.
A passion, a tight session with any slut
Turns into staleness, maybe some litigation
Very quickly in our hopeful and wonderful country.
Lawyers know it better than anyone. You should.
You both run places where many men get a bit
Of pleasure their money can buy. Most of them
Are married. Some of them were married twice.
You guys live off failure and death of the heart
Like vultures. You don't honor what sustains you.
Mephistopheles- Of course the world is crowded with louts
Poltroons, tramps, frauds width free choices
That define them well enough. They're chained
In their very alabaster castles by pure vanity.
They're lone kings without a court after a while
If women, ignored once the enameled surface
Of their flesh turns slack or dunly withered.
When merciless, arrogant, without charity
They suffer like cattle. I'd go much further
Than you have, Donald in trashing your subjects.
They're often swinish even in corruption.
They hunger for a parade of low amusements.
They'll betray or kill any seeming rivals
For a pocketful of copper or a tiny spasm.
What have you done in this zircon Pandemonium
To make it worse or better? You despise
Whatever you govern as unworthy of you.
You bribe night worms and leeches to flatter you.
Perhaps you're no better than your parasites.
Donald- Maybe. What would I do to be more elevated
Here in Washington? Bathe the big toes of lepers?
Mephistopheles- No. We certainly need more urbane sophistication
In our morals than supposed painted saints.
You might be kind from epicurean loneliness.
Perception, not action, goads many a pilgrim
To some felicity in spite of themselves. Could
You blow away the scorn you feel for those
Who amply deserve contempt? It might invite you
After a season to honor your own loss and woe.
Donald- I suppose I could. Why not? For a half hour?
Mephistopheles- You might give it a week, Donald. You are hardly
The only libertine who despairs in private
About a paucity of novel pleasure in this land
Of opportunity. Perhaps America has given
Its citizens a chance to take up progress
In misery no longer unthinkable to the poor.
Donald- Could be. I'll accept your counsel. Thank you.
Let me mull your sensible commentary. I'm grateful
You've given me this wonderful advice, Ambrosio.
I've taken you from business. Maybe you've lost
A whole bundle coming here to help me, not sell
The your affordable bladders in sufficient volume.
Mephistopheles- We owe you that high wisdom, Donald. After all
We've been your angels. We've dutifully answered
Your prayers. Call us when you need more counsel.
(Michael and Mephistopheles retreat to the shadows.)
Donald- Gone! Well, I've had Italian angels none have had.
Now these bastards tell me I lack charity. Could
That be one more honeyed labyrinth to be lost in
Forever? Maybe I should love my wife. I might even
Turn a little honest in my safaris in real estate.
Hey, I'm a builder. I might erect a Grecian temple
To virtue that impales the satin color of the sky.
Right now I need a quick one from somebody
Someplace. I'll hit upon my wife. She owes me
Some favors. I need the hit. Quickly.
Maybe I didn't eat a enough of a breakfast.
(Exit Donald.)
Michael- Your harsh sermon hasn't much reached his heart.
Mephistopheles- No. I am not quite fatigued with such pieties.
Angels never are. I make such discourses tirelessly;
Michael,it's a clever deity who drafts his foes
To speak for him. What sort of strange Creation
Is this where only hawkers for mephitic delights
Of staleness, vice, weakness, are vocal spokesmen
For the more aery virtues of Heaven? At least
We offer a low nosegay of louts a lacquered civil
Indifference. Why does this former puppeteer work
In such involute ways? Of course I accept
The circumspect wisdom of our enigmatic deity.
Michael- You've survived; he can't be utterly venomous.
Mephistopheles- I am his seraphic messenger. Tomorrow I will take
His riddling sagacity to the rich Pandemoniums
Beyond Atlantic City and Washington to all
The diverse celestial stews of the world.
I have done this labor for my father, it seems
Forever. I am after all uttering the garbled
And hissing voice of truth; I am the demon
Who counsels rakehells in a hellish whisper.
Michael-You are a barrister for all manner of bawds, sots
Fancy whores, betrayers, chilly gamblers, tapsters
Churls and unnameable empty headed libertines.
You outdo saints preaching to birds and fish.
You bring consummate mercy to frogs, beetles,
Mushrooms and the finny predators of the deep.
Mephistopheles- Yet I'm mostly a shadow in a cloak. In the mines
Of steaming sulfur I am often their only friend.
Michael-You might be more guilefully persuasive.
Sometimes even a high angel like yourself lacks
The gifts of an elixir to elevate fools.
I hope you've done this loutish fool some
Gratuitous service. We all need the grace
Oozing from a riddle. None of us, not even angels
Like ourselves should have to live by whim.
Mephistopheles- Only the Nameless has that divine prerogative.
Luckily he treats seraphs like a toad, a lizard,
Blind slug, armed with his inexplicable charity.
(Exit Mephistopheles.)
Michael- (Sings) Russian Spy
When you get our peepers on
X-ray Vegas tits and asses
Phony foamy silicon
Take them in with smoky glasses
When you use our special eyes
That peer though any lie.
You may not love your sad surmise
Like many another spy.
What are glittering smiles or money?
Ask the clowns who run the show.
Though truth can be absurd or funny
Sometimes, kid, there's nothing to know.
(Exit Michael)
The End
Trump In Atlantic City
A Play by Matthew Paris
Addendum
It seemed to me from the first time I saw Donald Trump on the Republican party debates on television that he was a character worthy of a play or novel in a way none of the other prospective leaders had been.
Like him or hate him, he was interesting, a sort of iconic villain, mutely satanic, a presence who clearly had been touched by lightning from worlds he had captivated beyond good and evil. He was a different sort of fellow from everybody else in that Republican tableau vivant of au courant iconry.
Yet I didn't want to write a play about a man whose ultimate resolutions of his life were going to happen in the future. It took me a long time to realize I might depict Donald Trump another way than an adventurer and rogue who had ascended to the Presidency through making his way among many improbabilities.
As I decided not to write about Trump lines for this play about Trump kept on appearing in my head. My intuition was at war with my conscious choice. Later I never saw the media trash anybody the way they excoriated Donald Trump. Their attacks were vitriolic, relentless and unfair. They misquoted him. They didn't even try to seem equitable when it was to their interest to at least appear as if they were making a mature and measured assessment of his speeches and actions. Something about Donald Trump ruled them to the point where all they could do is fulminate clumsily against this man. That showed my intuition right away something strange was up with him. I certainly didn't agree with most of the things he was saying. I think Mexicans as a whole are a plus for America. We need more people like them as Americans, not fewer. I feel the same way about Islamics. 99% of them are upright, moral, non-violent folks who want the same opportunity my great grandparents looked for when they came here. To me Mexicans and Islamics would bring an energy and richness to America it couldn't as a country of sometimes burnt out people offer itself.
I'm for the ideas on the Statue of Liberty. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free" isn't rhetoric to me.
I also found his groping of women deeply repugnant. It shows lack of character to treat anybody including women as other than severely equal. If we are going to have excesses as apparently we must, levelling should be our mistake, not bigotry. Of course there are always going to be people who treat men and women and even themselves with contempt. Still if one is aiming to be a politician it does lead to a two tiered society as much as any other bigotry does.
I did agree with Trump that the speculative world, the plutocrats had sold out the American people. Bernie Sanders thought so too. What anybody Sanders or Trump, was going to do about it seemed very vague to me. Trump did not help his own cause by lying as much as the media did, maybe more. I found particularly distasteful his so called Trump University: a clear cynical scam of resident gulls. Since Bill Clinton I never saw anyone with such an open record of immoral behavior elected to anything. Yet perhaps sometimes one is lucky to be deafened by the one's enemies. Trump's foes were not only terrible liars but were a familiar cabal of whom the common people had had enough. Usually when anyone embraces an unknown quantity one can be sure they have a desperation with the familiar and known that is even worse than anything they feel that can happen to them otherwise. One saw no sign at the Democratic National Convention that they wanted to acknowledge this pain truth. When Trump was elected I saw people marching against him in New York, rallies in public parks, other people crying, looking as if they had been mugged as they talked about him. It was all very primal. I wondered analytically whether I had ever seen this phenomenon in American politics before. I guess the last President that inspired such lauds and accordance and rage was Franklin Roosevelt.
Whenever I offered my own appraisal of Trump to anyone I was looked upon as somebody who didn't understand why he was deplorable or why he was a messiah. Trump resonated with everybody in some deep way.
After a while I realized I might have a play in depicting Trump's intuition to a world beyond good and evil.
That advent seemed worth a play.
It still seemed to me as if my intuition was telling me something about Trump and his inner life I wasn't acknowledging consciously. I've learnt the hard way by making a few false starts that ideas that strike me analytically as worth a play or a novel sometimes turn out to be duds because the inspiration for them isn't there.
Trump in his speeches and interview with Howard Stern had alluded very discreetly to a life beyond good and evil in which one could do all sorts of lewd things with impunity. He wasn't really as much attracted to these realms as slightly perplexed by them. He is a very smart man. He knows that whatever one does it alters one's character. His dilemma reminded me of Goethe's plot for Faust.
Then I thought I really had something worth writing.
If Trump had gone through out of early desperations a sybaritic refuge in a world of satanic energy he wasn't the only one in America who had done or thought of such a deed. He was in fact almost an ordinary protagonist in a ghostly army of Americans who with him and retreated with rage and despair from the American dream of the 50s with its narrow if moderately enforced Hitlerian notion of patriotism and virtue to a world of deep ontological freefall.
Trump unlike most people but like his predecessors in such deeds, Joseph and John Kennedy before him, could do it with great gobs of money.
If I could convince an audience that they were as much touched with this intent, that the only difference between some of them and Donald Trump was means and opportunity, that Trump was an ordinary protagonist among an army of similarly desperate citizens who resonated with him since he was at bottom one of them I would have achieved something one doesn't see often in a less ambitious candidacy for public entertainment. I've shown this play to friends as writers do for suggestions on posible improvement. If it is an original play, it can be enriched by caveats about its various excursions into the unknown. Since I'm a long time practicing playwright whose work was produced for over 22 years in New York I know the play is theatrically viable.
Yet for example my friend Les Weischelbaum called it "a closet play" both because of its heavy metaphysical element or that it was in verse at all, another friend David Zimmer, said, Mephistopheles and Michael talked too much alike. One friend, Dave Channon, got very mad at me because I wrote about Trump at all. He saw Trump not as a tortured human being but a satanic nemesis never to be acknowledged as anything but an ultimate scoundrel.
I listened to everybody. To answer Les' criticism I added some patter songs ala W.S. Gilbert. It lightens the material so that reader can have plenty of obvious yocks to attract him to read through the play at all. It seemed to me that my play was funny enough; after listening to Les I made it more funny in an obvious way. I can't get any more goofy than a parody of Putin's signature Blueberry Hill.
I agree with Les that when people today see iambic hexameter they usually aren't in the mood for laughing.
To answer David Zimmer's criticism I gave Michael a parody of an old Danny Kaye routine. It should make everyone laugh. Tgis is after all a comedy.
To answer David Channon's objections was harder; I am loathe to dismiss people as simple monsters. I've tried to disassociate myself from Trump to allay the fears of any reader that I might be supporting him or any of his policies. Maybe I went too far and made him less human; I don't know.
Yet the play isn't so much about Trump as is about how an entire generation of ordinary human beings got caught up or didn't in a net of amoral or immoral values by the presumptions of an imperial and egoistical society that claimed that reality is or should be about cut throat epicurean interest.
I went myself though that temptation in the desert in the 50s like Trump; I rejected it to try to live at least as presumptively a life of charity and compassion for others as Trump in a strange way had embraced the Faustian temptation while giving it an overt criminal sleazy mantle in Atlantic City. It's not as if I don't know what I think formed him. They gave all of us the same pitch. How well I was able to take up my direction is another story. I would hope that anybody reading or seeing this play would feel pity for Trump as well as perhaps a certain sadness at his deep moral weakness. Faust and Trump are weak.
They are also tragic because they are free.
In any case this better version of this play a year later, lighter, more readable has benefited I think from the responses to it of my friends.
I wrote this play at a time when poetry and the Arts in general hav not had a public anymore. The various people who in my lifetime claimed to be leading the Arts I must say did an effective surreptitious job of marginalizing any dissent to the excesses of this imperium besides a few grumbles, perhaps mumbled in Tibetan, while they pranced gaudily in the media seemingly trying to do the opposite. One can seem to be a dissenter yet casually and indirectly support an imperium by offering alternatives to it that are silly or insufferable to most people. As a harvest of that defunct vaudville this generation doesn't expect to find anybody either in poetry or theatre asking who and where we are now.
I'm not confessing anything nor inviting anyone to a Tibetan monastery. I'm trying not to mount any interest in myself in this play; I want to provide a fable of how an entire country got caught up in a set of values that are essentially self destructive and immoral. Right now the only people who do this are television comics. I'm asking an audience to assess who we are and how we live now. Moreover inferentially, if we look in the mirror, can we stand it? This play is a photographic parable.
It asks its readers to honor themselves, assess their place and adult power in the universe. That is what we all do down to the local bacteria.
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