SHORTEST OPENING CHAPTER EVER I was sitting in the Miss Worcester Diner with my dad one day in 1965 when the guy behind the counter delivered my cheeseburger and said to him, "John, is there anything you can't do? Some guys who come in here say you're the best mechanic they ever worked with, other guys say as a carpenter and electrician you could pretty much build your own house. On top of which you play a great accordion, and I hear you were a pretty goddamned fast man on the Gaelic football field both over in Ireland and right around the corner here in Crompton Park. But if someone asked you to pick one thing and say that's what you are, how would you answer?" My dad looked up from his coffee and said, "An American." If you're going through hell, keep on going. --Winston Churchill Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of my way. --General George S. Patton OH SAY CAN YOU SCREAM Dear Hillary supporters: So it wasn't the end of the world. Trump was victorious. And one year later the sky hasn't fallen, the sun still rises, and Cher didn't move to Canada. Plus, Canada's not building a wall to keep US out. Yet. There will be no Trumpageddon. Or Hillary Apology Tour. Dear Trump supporters: Despite what your hero says, the press is not the enemy of the American people. The real enemy of the American people is butter--and politicians who have no sense of humor. Too many of us have turned into chubby fast-food junkies who can't take a fucking joke. The president is guilty on both counts. And no matter how many misspelled tweets and blabbermouth declarations he makes, there was no voter fraud or Yugest Inauguration Crowd Ever Seen. Period. And Trump won't be impeached for election ambiguities or for damaging the ozone with a massive carbon footprint comprised mostly of hair spray. It's very simple math: the House of Representatives can't agree on a catered lunch, never mind removing the president. Democrats moan, Republicans groan. Hillary speaks, the president tweets. Leaving people like me to ask the really important questions, like: Whatever happened to covfefe-flavored covfefe? American politics has always been a clown show, but our latest presidential circus finished as a fifty-fifty proposition that left this country divided right down the middle. Trump's hyperpatriotic motto "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" resonated with one-half of the population. The rest bought into the ultrabland "HILLARY FOR AMERICA!" They both promised to bring back manufacturing jobs. Which will all be done by robots within the next seven years. And this clowniest of all clown shows ended up with no clowning at all. Funny friends I love from both sides of the aisle have lost their minds and all attempts at humor as they rage-tweet against Republicans or tweet-brag at the Democrats in a nonstop series of social media insult bombs. Hillary and Trump are both infected by the unfunny flu. Now they're coming to get the rest of us. But not on my fucking watch. #MakeAmericaLaughAgain Fake News: Trump won in a landslide. Alternative Fact: Hillary handed him a last-minute squeaker. Trump promised to drain the swamp. He didn't. He just filled it up to overflowing with rich friends and family members. Just like Hillary would have done. And each tribe still drenches our electronic devices on a weekly basis, continuing the political turmoil with ridiculous partisan bullshit. Chelsea Clinton tries to tell Republicans-at-large that she doesn't care about money. After a three-million-dollar wedding to a hedge fund founder. Eric Trump says Democrats aren't even people--unless they play golf on Trump-owned courses, I'm guessing. Because Eric's only real contribution to society so far is knowing the difference between a nine iron and a lob wedge. And how much to charge you for using both. #MakeAmericaGolfAgain Meanwhile, nothing gets done in D.C. They hold hearings to form committees to figure out sound bites to get book deals and fatter lobbying funds. They're not fighting for us, they're fighting for TV time--and free filet mignon. And what are the actual voters doing? We're worried about Russian wiretaps on our Chinese phones while driving Japanese cars made in Mexico and sipping Guatemalan lattes topped off with Canadian milk. #MakeAmericaAnxiousAgain Trump puts a tanning bed in the Lincoln Bedroom. Hillary gets paid for making speeches about why she isn't sleeping there. While I'm still trying to decipher exactly what her motto was supposed to mean. "HILLARY FOR AMERICA"? She would have been better off with a more truthful approach: "HEY, AMERICA--IT'S MY FUCKING TURN!" Trump won with 306 electoral college votes, finishing forty-fifth out of the fifty-eight presidential elections in American history. Most high-ranking civil servants would shy away from discussing such pedestrian results and humbly enter office hoping to change people's minds with four years of positive bipartisan action. Not The Donald. He decided to ignore the math and manufacture fantasy figures about My Amazing Victory and My Large Electoral College Numbers and The Biggest Mandate Ever. Can you really trust this man when he says, "I guarantee there's no problem," regarding the size of his own penis? Forget Billy Bush and "grab 'em by the pussy." Here's some REAL locker room talk: guys with big cocks don't boast about them. They're too busy fucking. Meanwhile, how insane is it that our most recent round of presidential debates devolved into a discussion about the girth and length of a male candidate's genitalia? Let me speak for every guy I know--from both ends of the political spectrum--when I say this in a VERY bipartisan voice: Ewwwww. And let me publicly record the reaction of every woman I know from age nineteen to ninety: EWWWWWWWWWW! If we ever needed proof that it's time for a woman to lead this country, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump provided it live one night on national TV when they both acted like fourteen-year-old boys at a circle jerk. I'm surprised Carly Fiorina's head didn't explode. Can you imagine her beginning a debate by saying, "The education budget is tight and so is my vagina"? No. The only recorded instance of Carly discussing her breasts in public was to warn other women about early cancer detection. While Trump and Rubio aimed street-corner crotch arrows at each other, Carly was focused on real issues, whether you agreed with her or not. So clearly one would think much of America was primed for a smart, classy, female voice speaking into its most powerful public microphone. And former Secretary of State Clinton seemed to have that bull by the horns. Two weeks before November 8 she held what looked like an insurmountable lead. Part of which actually held up, because Hillary won the popularity portion of the contest by almost three million votes. Which is probably how many e-mails she erased during the course of her campaign. If you're a Hillary fan or an extreme die-hard liberal, stop reading this book right now. It's only going to melt your lefty gossamer wings. Go buy Elizabeth Warren's new book: I May Look Like Annette Bening, But I'm Really a Native American. It'll teach you how to pay higher taxes while quoting Rosa Parks. If you're a Trump fan or an extreme-right-wing conservative, close this book and put it back on the shelf immédiatement (that's French for "now"). 'Cause otherwise your sanctimonious Second Amendment toes will curl up and pretty soon you are gonna be wicked fuckin' pissed (that's Boston for "angry"). Go to the current affairs and politics section of the bookstore, which is where you should find something to soothe your soul. Like the latest edgy Ann Coulter book that might as well be titled Democrats Can Suck My Dick. By the way, I can pretty much guarantee you that Ann's dick is bigger than both Donald's and Hillary's combined. Whether you like her or not, Ann doesn't take shit from anyone. I wish Bill O'Reilly had placed a midnight masturbation call to Coulter. His cock would still be stuck in a No Spin Zone. If you're holding a hardcover copy of this book or perusing it on an iPad or your smartphone, it's late 2017 or early 2018 and America remains the greatest country on earth. If you're watching these words fly through the air on the new Apple iGram (their Hologram Launchpad Device), it's 2028 and some of you are probably still flipping out about what a popular-vote drubbing Senator Jon Stewart and Congressman Stephen Colbert just took from President-elect Dwayne Johnson and Vice President Joe Piscopo, even after all those lurid stories broke about Joe banging The Rock's seventeen-year-old babysitter. But all was seemingly forgiven when Joe did his hilarious throwback Sinatra impression as he guest-hosted SNL the weekend before Election Day. Referencing the May-December relationship during a parody version of "My Way"--with twenty-two-year-old cast member Suri Jolie-Pitt-McConaughey-Cruise playing the object of his affection--the former New Jersey governor slayed on social media with members of Generation Y's Second Wave Millennials. In retrospect it's clear the country was due to go Republican again after eight years of Elaine Benes. But the good news is that ex-President Louis-Dreyfus will soon return to HBO and star in a half-hour comedy series written and created by her former second in command, Vice President Larry David. And even though all he did was play golf for almost two full terms--establishing a probably never-to-be-broken Guinness World Record for Most Consecutive Days Playing a Sport (2,837)--David deserves our thanks for stepping in to take over after Bernie Sanders went off the rails with his Free Health Care for Former Isis Members proposal in March 2021. President Rock, whose famed campaign slogan #ChiselMeIn really caught fire, has sworn to uphold his promise to change the spelling of "America" on day one of his new administration, officially replacing the e with a u. President Trump--who was forced to resign from office after admitting his Trump ties were made by Chinese orphans paid in organic rice balls ("This isn't some cheap rice out of an Uncle Ben's box, folks. I hear it's the best-tasting rice in the world!")--praised President Rock's victory on his hit Trump Network TV show Big League, Big Hands, while gifting each audience member a free photo of himself and fourth wife Hailey Baldwin. Meanwhile, Melania's controversial 2019 deportation by Donald made news again after New York City mayor Chelsea Clinton welcomed the ex-first lady back to the United States during Fashion Week, only to find out her father, Bill, was accused of groping several models during the show, which stole the media spotlight from the release of Hillary's latest best-selling book, Orange Is the New Electoral College: My Prison Epiphanies. Sound ridiculous? Not anymore. What may have played out like political science fiction a scant twelve months ago now seems to be a foreseeable future. This is what happens when Amuricans have such limited alternatives. Last year, if you asked me the famous "who do you want answering the White House phone at three o'clock in the morning" question, my response would've been immediate: Not Bill Clinton. While he's getting blown by another pudgy intern. And no more members of the Bush family. Especially ones not named George. What the hell kind of name is Jeb? Sounds like a jar of discount fucking peanut butter. He should've copped that old advertising catchphrase for his campaign motto: "Choosy conservatives choose Jeb!" I agree with what David Letterman once said: "Bush presidencies are like the Godfather films: you're better off stopping after two." I've had enough of the Clintons and the Bushes, the same faces and arguments for the last three decades. Forget hope and change--what happened to choices? In a country where you can buy sixty-seven different flavors of ice cream, binge-watch 435 TV shows, and customize your morning coffee until it's actually just another flavor of ice cream, how is it we only get two political parties to pick from? What the fuck? This year, having blown through eight bazillion dollars and sixteen months of televised screaming, we were left with these two options: an apricot-colored man who refers to himself as Ratings Machine DJT, and a woman who hasn't worn a dress since 1985. What. The fuck? Hillary reminds me of an angry math nun I had in seventh grade. So every time she began bellowing out another stilted speech on TV, my spine would harden like I forgot to do my homework. And whenever she managed to lower her humorless voice to its Nurse Ratched register, I turned into Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: it just made me wanna piss her off even more. Hillary's patronizing Missile of Shame launchpad approach often backfired. The basket of deplorables were already supporting Donald, but a lot of undecided voters were turned off by her lecturous indignation. Hard to be smug when you sound like a seagull. That's not sexism, folks. It's nunism. Then she would go on Ellen or Fallon or some other breezy talk show and be charmingly relaxed with a sunshiny smile and a happy disposition. What. The. Fuck. You can count on half of one hand the times Trump has actually laughed out loud in public. Once on Fallon when Jimmy mussed up the astonishing mound of chemical products that hold his head in place, and once more at the annual Al Smith Dinner when Hillary zinged him with some great one-liners. He certainly wasn't smiling when Obama and Seth Meyers peppered him comically at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner. His skin was so thin you could practically see his Big Mac brain stem vowing revenge. It was a joy to observe. Like a scientific experiment in pomposity. I love watching Trump deal with descending the stairs of Air Force One. THAT'S a true laugh jackpot. He looks like a timid toddler every single time--eyes glued to his feet as if he's just downed a stolen bottle of Tia Maria and didn't know he had to exit the aircraft. Watch his process whenever he deplanes: 1. Stand stock still. 2. Quickly wave to whoever the fuck. 3. Stare down and pray: Left foot, right foot. Repeat. 4. EYES DOWN! DON'T LEAN TOO FAR FORWARD! WE CAN DO THIS! Each time he reaches ground level the sense of relief is deafening. Check the Access Hollywood tape. The disgusting misogyny grenade overshadowed his concern about exiting that bus. He stood at the top of the stairs, paused for a moment and said, "It's always good if you don't fall out of the bus. Like Gerald Ford, remember?" Then he took a deep breath, stared down, and began to gingerly move his worried white feet. Excerpted from Why We Don't Suck: And How All of Us Need to Stop Being Such Partisan Little Bitches by Denis Leary All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
