I really believe President Donald Trump, big-brained, many-worded upholder of the Bible and the flag, could forget the words to “99 Bottles of Beer On The Wall.” After all, he forgets he’s married from time to time. Hello, Stormy? President Elvis is waiting in the jungle room.
Well, maybe Trump wouldn’t forget the words to “99 Bottles of Beer.” He’ just sing the first 12-pack, and then figure he’d had his beer, and he’d go bankrupt.
Most recently, carrying on the proud tradition of in-office senility proudly established by President Ronald Reagan, Trump forget the words to “God Bless America.” It’s not a long song, either. I could understand it if he forgot the words to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which is a long song with a lot of illegal immigrant words in it.
“I see the little silhouette of a man/
“Donald Trump, Donald Trump, can you dance with the Russians?
“Players take a knee and it’s very, very frightening to me.”
No. No. No. Trying to match Donald Trump to a rock song is like trying to buy gay wedding cake in Christian Colorado, home of the most recent crucifixion, but certainly not the last.
I know all the words to “God Bless America” because they used to play it before The Golden Gloves, an amateur boxing tournament I’ve been covering for 25 years. They play the national anthem now, but it used to be “God Bless America,” and the guy who ran the tournament back then may have believed that was the national anthem. Boxing isn’t like football in that boxing’s occasional stabs at patriotism are usually small-scale and sometimes poorly organized.
So, in my rough-hewn, pass-the-ammunition kind of way, I am a “God Bless America” expert.
In 2018, it goes like this:
“God bless America, land that I’ve bilked./ Hold her down now, like a cow now/ Until I extract all the milk./ From my rich friends on the golf course/ To the Nazis, white as foam./ God bless America/ My home sweet home.”
Or maybe it was “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“Rob Mueller, no he will not let me go, let him go./ Rob Mueller, he will not let me go, let him go./ Rob Mueller, he will not let me go, let him go.”
No. It was a patriotic song.
“Oh, beautiful for spacious thighs/ For amber waves of hair/ For syntax mangled lustily/ And a porn star in my lair./ America, America/ I’ve groped your daughters fair./ But if I let you keep your guns/ I know you wouldn’t care.”
And yet “Bohemian Rhapsody” bursts back into the brain like the FBI kicking down the door to your attorney’s office.
“But I’m just a rich boy, The New York Times hates me./ He’s just a rich boy from a rich family./ His bone spurs will save him from the Vietnamese./ Easy come, easy go, to the ‘Nam he didn’t go.”
No. No. No.
“Oh beautiful, in Michigan/ In poor and poisoned Flint./ In Puerto Rico, where we said/ We’d help, but then we didn’t./ America, America, school shootings every day.”
No. Too dark. Who the hell wants to sing that before the big game? The football players are kinda dark, too, and you see what that got us. Poor dark folks: If they stand up, they’re in the way; if they kneel, they’re disrespecting the flag; and if they lie down, it just proves they’re all lazy.
Maybe someday, we’ll all remember the words, and we’ll sing them together again.