Comedy central

It'll be one of those questions: where were you when democracy died?

It's all over but the shouting. On the heels of Jeffrey Epstein's party pal—Mr. Underwear—Alan Dershowitz making the absurd argument the liar-in-chief can do anything he wants as long as he believes it's for the good of the country, today 51 chickenshit, spineless, ball-less GOP senators united against the country and constitution they took an oath to defend by voting not to allow first-hand witnesses and documents in the unstable genius' impeachment trial.

So now it's Trump unplugged and unleashed. He now knows—although I think he's known it all along—he can initiate any level of corruption, destruction, chaos and havoc, and he won't be checked on it. It's the saddest day in American politics since the Kennedy assassination.

But if you know anything about me—and if you don't by now then I don't even know where to go with that—you know that, gosh darn it, I'm a cockeyed optimist. The silver lining to all this is at least comic relief is on the way.

This Tuesday night is Trump's annual Hate of the Union Speech before congress. He'll open with the line presidents always open with: The state of the union is strong. He'll then ramble off script about the impeachment hoax, call Adam Schiff names, blame Obama for it all and say how he'll investigate Hillary.

Applause applause applause.

Then he'll slur on about evil immigrants, how he'll finish getting the wall built (right after he repairs the chunk of it that blew over in the wind), how climate change is a hoax and how he's demolished all those pesky regulations that guaranteed things nobody needs, like clean air and water.

The Republican sheep—I'd say snowflakes except snow is clean—will applaud every laugh line, knowing if they don't they run the risk of having bad things said about them in a tweet. That and losing Trump charity donations backchanneled to their re-election campaigns.

He'll wrap up his set with something about how he's just getting started, and needs four more years to get the job done. Or eight, because why the hell not? He's heard many people are saying that would be a good idea.

Like every comedian's set, eventually the red light will cue him his time is up. I'm pretty sure I know how he'll wrap it up.

"Well everybody, looks like my time is up. You've been a great democracy. Don't forget to tip your senator. Goodnight!"

Flush with embarrassment

Years ago, I went to New York. I don’t remember the reason for the visit, but since when does anybody need a reason to go to New York?

What I do remember is getting to the city around 6:30 a.m. and going to the apartment of my friend Susan, who was from New York but who I’d worked with in L.A.

I think it's safe to say she wasn't amused when, unannounced, I was knocking at the door of her one-and-a-half room apartment, suitcase in hand, at sunrise because my hotel room wasn’t ready.

But in spite of the fact I’d inadvertently gotten to see her without her makeup on, something she was extremely unhappy about, she let me stay a few hours until my room was ready.

The room I was waiting for was at the now long gone Biltmore Hotel on 43rd and Madison. Not only was it one of NY’s architectural landmarks since it opened on New Year’s day in 1913, it also happened to be smack in the center of the NY advertising scene (the show Mad Men gets its name from Madison Avenue), and I’d just started my first job at an agency.

I was still in awe and wonder of the magic, creativity, nice people and fun of it all.

You know, just like I am now.

Anyway, I checked in and went up to my room. What dawned on me as I was in the elevator was that I hadn’t gone to the bathroom since I’d gotten off the plane at Kennedy. So when I got to the room, I dropped my suitcase on the floor, ran to the bathroom, closed the door and then proceeded to pee like a racehorse.

Now, at this point, you might be asking yourself why I bothered to close the bathroom door when I was the only one in the room. Good question, and it’s the one I’d be asking myself in a minute.

When I was done, I washed my hands, grabbed the crystal doorknob not unlike the one you see here, turned it and pulled the door open.

Except the door didn’t open. The doorknob, stem and all, came out of the door.

For a minute I thought it was funny, and the sound of my laughter was echoing off the tile walls. That went on for awhile until I realized I needed to get out of there.

I tried several times to put the doorknob back in, but it wouldn't catch. Did I mention this was July? It was hot and disgusting outside, and getting pretty warm inside.

Since I was on a higher floor, I couldn't yell out the window for help. So I wound up doing the only thing I could do. Banging the doorknob I was holding against the door, and screaming for help like a little girl.

It was not my finest moment.

After what felt like about fifteen minutes, I'd worked up a good sweat because of the heat and humidity. At least I had water and towels to wash off.

Finally hotel security came to the door and set me free. Then they called maintenance to come fix the doorknob.

I thanked him, turned on the air conditioning as high as it would go, then flopped on the bed and slept for three hours.

When I talked to my friend Susan later in the day and told her what had happened, she reacted exactly like any New Yorker would in July.

She said, "You have air conditioning?"

Well-placed blame

My good friend Michelle Purcell once said you can never underestimate the power of well-placed blame. As usual, she was right.

Clearly this is something all ad agencies, or marketing communication collectives, or integrated media-agnostic think tanks, or whatever the hell they're calling themselves this week have a deep understanding of.

At agencies, blame gets passed around faster than a Kennedy driving to the liquor store at closing time.

Or to paraphrase Groucho's "whatever it is I'm against it", the internal battle cry is "whatever it is, I didn't do it."

The reason is pretty obvious. If you've ever been fired from an agency, all it means is that you showed up. But agencies, especially the ones owned by holding companies (is there any other kind?), run on fear and no one likes getting fired, especially for a mistake they made.

Like underestimating the client's budget by $12 million.

Scheduling a shoot on a Vancouver beach in winter.

Telling the client you can get it done without checking with anybody if what they're asking for can be done. Then not getting it done.

Rather than man up and face the music, walk into an agency and you'll see so much finger pointing it looks like a master class in giving directions. Ironically for a business that believes consumers have to have an emotional attachment to their product, many of the players have no personal attachment to their decisions or actions. At least if they backfire.

However if they succeed, then the ground shifts from the blame game to the taking credit game. That's the one where anyone who was in the building and passed a meeting in the conference room where they were presenting a successful campaign takes credit for it.

Agencies don't have a monopoly on either behavior. Anytime you have an office with the kind of politics, ego and ambition found in agencies, the same primal survival instincts kick in.

I don't mean to paint in broad strokes - this is not to say you can't find responsible people with a finely honed sense of integrity, grit, decency and honor in agencies. You can.

But if you can't, don't blame me.