This Week Tonight With A Bad Sandwich

"It's like a panda driving a motorcycle eating an ice cream. We get it Gary, you're adorable but if you don't stop licking that thing we're going to crash and you're gonna end up as panda glue"

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HI team. Jesus. This week has been a hell of a year, huh? Good grief. So much has gone on, I feel like I don’t know what to say or do, and frankly, it’s made me a little paralyzed. However, almost everything that happened this week falls into the category of something that I really like to gorge on, in terms of internet content, so I’m just gonna lay it all out and hopefully this will be enjoyable to all of us on the basis of the “if I like it, at least some way it’s worthwhile content” model. Ready? Strap in for Last Week Tonight with Bad Sandwich Beyond Thunderdome:

The Election

Who could have seen this coming. One second we’re cruising along literally just trying not to die of a disease or get evicted because of a pandemic and massive hemorrhaging of available jobs, and the next, there’s an election going on and the notion that the most dangerous human on earth may no longer hold the most prominent position of power we’ve ever created as a human race (being Ghengis Khan or whatever notwithstanding) was something that was actually on the table. I personally was thrilled at this prospect. I don’t really so much care for the other guy, but uh…much less bad of a guy, and wow, what a thing! It was downright exciting. 

Over here, we have some guy, and over here we have a blatantly racist evil stupid dumbfuck fast food chugging grifter shithead, and there was an opportunity to maybe have the second guy not be the person that was in charge of us anymore. Who doesn’t love that idea? 

Well, here’s the thing, about 70 million americans apparently don’t love that idea and so the night of the election was one fraught with abject terror for (for example) me, and the shit was looking dark. Of course, this being a pandemic, there was a tacit understanding that this would be a slow process, and furthermore, we were told that the blue voting types were gonna be voting mail in while the uh...chumps(?) were gonna all be walking up to the polls with their AR’s and Beef and Cheddars and ballots and therefore the count would heavily skew towards the incumbent night of BUT THAT WAS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT!

But it didn’t stop me, your humble narrator, from being worried. I don’t like the guy who is currently our lame duck president. I don’t like him at all. I think he’s mean and I think he looks like he smells like diapers. So despite everything I know about how the world works, I kinda started to spiral on election night. It was genuinely scary. And it led to what I think is one of the shittiest dumbest things that I’ve dealt with on Twitter, which was:

Me Tweeting On Election Night

Okay, so when shit looked grim, I sent out this tweet: 

Brendan Kelly, provocateur/total dildo @badsandwich

worst case scenario, we have lived through this before. we will survive.

It has been (and instantly was!) heralded as tone deaf. I understand that perspective, as I’m a white guy who is not exactly living in my car (not that you’d ever be able to tell from my appearance/smell) and I personally have not yet died of COVID. 

Someone even went so far as to suggest that the way I rebutted to criticism was a “masterclass on how to fuck up having done a tone deaf tweet” which, I have to appreciate the language there, but no. That is straight up wrong. And here is why:

I was sitting in a room of close friends and family (I believe there were 4 of us total) and everyone was freaking the fuck out. I said to them “okay, here’s the thing...worst case scenario, this is already happening. It’s not like it’s gonna be a massive step down. They’ve already stuffed the courts, they’ve already stripped LGBTQ+ rights from marginalized groups, they’ve already let a deadly pandemic run rampant, they’ve already deployed black ops stormtroopers to destroy peaceful protesters and they’ve already done literal concentration camps for kids. It’s very grim, but we can and must survive. It’s not getting markedly worse. We’ve survived so far and we must remain strong and hopeful and remember that we can endure.” 

That seemed to chill out the people I was with, but that’s too long for a tweet, obviously, so I went for a stripped down version on Twitter, since it seemed, based on the quick workshopping in the room, to be the kind of thing that the kinds of people that I identify with needed to hear. I still stand by the language in my tweet, but fuuuuuuuuuuck me if everyone didn’t take it as an opportunity to tell me I was nothing more than a silver spoon sucking clueless elite who had no idea of what was happening. 

But here’s the thing: let’s say I was in Auschwitz, for example, with my son. Let’s say that we noticed a lot of people heading out to do various things (showering comes to mind) and not coming back. Let’s further say that we were looking at black plumes of smoke billowing out of the various crematoria that surrounded the bunker my son and I lived in (and PLEASE, spare me the “but you’re not even Jewish” shit. Make it the slave camp that Darth Vader sends people to then, it’s just a metaphor). Even with all the black carbon that was once my family and friends pluming out of those smokestacks, I’d look at my son and say “hey bud, we’ve survived this far. We can survive this” EVEN IF IT WASN’T SOMETHING I PERSONALLY BELIEVED because that’s just what you do. Hope doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It needs to be germinated, and in hopeless times, it’s crucial that people who have the presence of mind to say something positive DO say something positive. 

I’m well aware I sound butthurt by this, and I fully own it. I am. I didn’t suggest anything like “well, bright side, at least we got that upper class tax break” (which, for the record, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy anyway) I said, we’ve survived and we can live through this too. That shouldn’t be a message that can be parsed into anything but a hopeful sentiment. Oh, people have died? Word? Go on. What’s next? You’re gonna tell me that the very systems I’ve dedicated my ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE to railing against for decades also have blood on their hands? Please, elucidate me, random shitheads. 

Anyway, the whole thing left me pretty despondent, but thank god I cheered up the second that I heard about:

Trebek

I am a HUGE fan of Jeopardy. I am NOT real friends with Ken Jennings, but I have become just vaaaaaguely friendly with Ken Jennings due to my superfandom. I texted him congratulations on the night of his GOAT win and he texted me back to thank me for the good words. I LOVE Alex, I love the show, and if I’m in a room where Jeopardy is on, I can usually hold my own in terms of answering quickly and correctly etc, but that’s not the point. Point is, I love that shit. Anyway... 

Alex strikes me as a secret pervert, but nothing AT ALL has corroborated this unfounded suspicion and he DID die at 80 so I gotta imagine I’m all wrong about that. 

Alex was cool and suave and, to paraphrase a dude I follow on Twitter ‘has always looked like he could eat pussy like a champ’ which, yes! Very crass! But kinda true too. Alex was cool and chill and I liked him. I am one of those people who gets defensive when someone would suggest that he’s not that smart and only seems so because he gets the answers fed to him via the judges. I KNOW this is true because anyone in any super public figure position (in my experience) is a complete braindead cypher, but I ain’t trying to hear that about Alex Trebek. I’ve met some of my very best friends as a result of passionate Jeopardy enthusiasm and I’ll miss his comforting presence. 

Who should replace him? Someone on Defector said Greg Davies (which would be fucking fantastic, even though he’s a little too cheeky) but I think Ken is a good choice. I also think, if I’m really going for it that LaVar Burton would be good (it’s been suggested already!) and that made me think that Patrick Stewart would be the best. PStew is perfect. The problem is that we’re just gonna have to bury him in a year or two too, so anyway. 

Jesus. Depressing. Anything fun happen this week? Oh! What about….

The Four Seasons

This is literally better than Christmas. First, Trump lost...which, really great development. Next, they book a press conference to discuss voter fraud at the Four Seasons, but, as you all know by now, it was actually a landscaping place. There’s literally NO WAY that the main guy wasn’t ridiculously bummed about this blunder (and it IS, to be clear, an extraordinarily embarrassing blunder), and the results were surrogate nazi Rudy Giulianni screeching about non-existent voter fraud in front of a storage locker festooned with tiny “Trump/Pence” signs, speaking at a podium better suited for an 8th grade valedictorian graduation speech than an envoy of the most powerful man in the world hurling incendiary accusations. 

As if the whole operation wasn’t completely slapdick enough, they had to go out in a blaze of abject humiliation. It’s so, so sweet. I love the whole thing. I will never not love it. I will someday be dying and it will be too late and the propofol will no longer be having any effect on my pain management and someone will lean down and whisper “Four Seasons Total Landscaping” and I will drift off this mortal coil in a stone fucking groove, man. 

But there’s more:

The Porn Store

Look, I love a good porn store as much as the next middle aged pervert with a mustache, but I have the funniest feeling that doing a “we’ve still got some juice and some dignity” speech in front of a storage locker while looking across the parking lot at Fantasy Island, a spot that sells dildos and whatever and also has jack booths/glory holes(!) was probably a pretty hard facade to maintain.

And COOL! I think all those things are totally fine. I think the name ‘Fantasy Island’ is really great and if you want to go into the jack booths in Fantasy Island and suck off a stranger through the wall, you shine on, bro. I love it. I LOVE that these greasy pigfucking slaveowner shitbags were humiliated due to their own incompetence in the presence of something that they all are into but publicly rail against. Oh! Speaking of:

The Crematorium

Yeah. This was the other thing on the block. I know I’m not telling you anything you don’t know already, as this shit’s been poured over by actual media sources ad nauseam, but yo...check out the death dealers forced to stand beneath the chimneys of the crematorium and profess that THEY somehow are the ones who have been wronged. Pretty great galactic poetry right there. 

I mean, if you were to select things that sum up the Trump single term presidency most accurately and succinctly, it’s probably cheap thrills in an offramp porn spot and a space specifically designed for disposing of bodies in a way that’s reminiscent of the 3rd Reich. 

Interestingly, I really did NOT suspect that there would be two references to concentration camps in this particular entry, but uh, live laugh love or whatever. 

Ben Carson has Corona

I am honestly shocked that there haven’t been more people posting shit like “wear a mask. It’s not exactly brain surgery.” I considered posting that and thought it was too obvious. Now I’ve seen that everyone is exactly like me and recognized the hacky nature of this low hanging fruit and let it be. Faith in humanity restored. 

Seriously though, this guy can die. What a choach. 

Everyone has Corona

Every goddamn day it’s a new record. I saw recently that South Dakota is rocking like a 46% infection rate, which sounds bleak, but here’s the thing: It’s gonna become the norm. That’s kinda how this ‘super infectious disease’ shit works. It spreads and the more it spreads, the more easily it continues to spread. It’s coming for everyone. Will we all die? Short answer: yes, long answer: not from COVID, but we will all be WAY more affected by it than any of us think we have been already. It’s not gonna get better until people recognize the seriousness of it and take precautions and actually let the thing do its rounds, but uh...ain’t nobody got time for that, as they say. Anyhow. This topic sucks. Moving on. 

Mandalorian

The Mandalorian is back and I’ve become used to the “every episode is uh...episodic” aspect of it, even if it kinda seems a little bit pointless at times. The whole thing where they dump references to all sorts of Star Wars: Rebels and the novels references into it....cool? I dunno. I think my friends would tell you I’m a fairly big Star Wars Nerd. I knew what a Mandalorian was before this show existed, for example (yes, low bar...shut up, dorks) but the fan service is over my head. I don’t know and I don’t care. Love the baby Yoda, love the Sergio Leone thematics, love the casual universe expansion. Also, I’ve had sex in my life so this shit only goes so far. 

Final call on the Mandalorian, remember when Pedro Pascal was the Viper on Game of Thrones and everyone was like “YO! HOTTEST DUDE EVER!” and then a week later he’s just gaming and it turns out he doesn’t actually have that spanish accent and he’s just another gameboxing Brooklyn nerd? That was a nice moment. Still, love this show. 

Everyone is drunk

How can you not be? I ask this seriously. We are all at home and there is nothing to live for. I used to think bars kept me honest in that “well, I spend what I spend and ya know....socializing and all that” but then, as the pandemic struck, I realized that I used to more or less drink for a very discounted rate at the spots I frequented. Now I’m just home and I’m BEHIND the bar. My computer is about 50 feet from my liquor cabinet and whooo boy, to say that it surprises me that I’m not regularly the drunkest person I come into contact with is an understatement. 

I’ve always been under this impression: I was part of a popular band when I was 16. I’ve always been a touring musician ever since I’ve been a grown up. For a goood part of that tenure, the notion that I like to knock back a few has played a huge role in my persona (this is where I should mention overtly that I don’t do shots...I quit doing shots about a decade ago, and it’s has, shockingly, never ONCE come up that I’ve woken up and said “wow, I wish I’d done more shots last night.”) BUT ANYWAY…

My point is that I have been afforded the kind of lifestyle where I can casually grab a cocktail or two and at times, it’s even encouraged! It’s certainly NEVER discouraged. And when I see these people who die of alcohol poisoning or whatever, all I can think of is “HOW?” I feel like you’d have to like, wake up in the night or something to do that, or, and this is more likely, take shots and drink like a teen when you’re no longer a teen, which I guess I definitely don’t do anymore. I don’t black out or start fights or wake up with regrets, but I DO sit around and pour another round whenever I please, and uh…look. It’s a pandemic. “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere” has turned into “4 is 5 in a pandemic” which also means that three is four and two is three and so by transitive property 11am is also 5pm and 10 is your classic happy hour.

Here’s the thing, even with the new pandemic rules, I keep it together these days, although I didn’t used to and I’m a middle aged father of 2 now so goddamned right I should keep it together. 

But how are you draftsmen and young assistant graphic designers and so forth getting through this without getting alcohol poisoning every single day? I was at least in a band and I had no choice but to sweat out everything every single night on stage. You’re just designing a new Pringles can 6 scotches in and it’s 330 and you’re cool? Or is it just a bacchanal out there?

Respect

Okay. I’m out. Congrats. The war’s over. The bums lost. Leave a comment.