Since There Is Great Scrutiny on the “25-Second Explanation” of Senator Marco Rubio, Below Are the 25-Second Presentations of Other Candidates from the Past, Who Became President
A. I did not cross-dress in Delaware. I crossed the Delaware to address the enemy–a battle which I won, by the way. And furthermore, my teeth are not made of wood. I get cavities, not termites. (G. Washington)
B. I really didn’t split rails. I wasn’t always honest. My wife drove me crazy. I have smoked opium. I don’t really personally know any black people. (A. Lincoln)
C. I did Marilyn Monroe but she liked my brother better. I used a lot of double entendres about the “Cuban missiles.” And by the way, don’t drive in topless cars. (J. Kennedy)
D. By the mob definition, I am not a crook. By some definitions, I might be a crook. But let’s not be picky. I basically hated people, but still wanted their votes. I opened up China, so thank me the next time you get Takee-Outee. (R. Nixon)
E. I did not have sex with that woman. I did let her have sex with me. How can you say no to the dreams of young people? (B. Clinton)
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Well, actually, because it’s 1946, one is not allowed to say “pregnant.” Preferable is with child, in the family way or on the nest.
You are about to be born. While you are still in your mother’s gentle jail, two atomic bombs are exploded, with tens of thousands of casualties.
You, too, are going to be part of a “boom”–yes, an explosion of births due to men returning from war, seeking the comfort of family and the pleasure of their wives’ company. By the time you are three years old, China has joined the Soviet Union, becoming Communist.
By age four, the world is back at war, in Korea.
When you are six years old, the Supreme Court makes a decision on Brown vs. Board of Education, decrying segregation in the South. It would take thirteen years of bloody confirmation.
When you’re eight years old, you suddenly are confronted with a Cold War, which threatens to heat up periodically, causing your local village to build a bomb shelter near the school.
In like manner, when you’re sixteen, you feel the anxiety of global annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
And then comes the roller coaster:
At seventeen years of age John Kennedy is shot.
At eighteen the Beatles arrive, disrupting the social consciousness of a society already reeling from the death of a President.
At twenty-two, you stand by and watch as both Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy are gunned down by no-name nothings.
Also in the same year you watch the Vietnam war escalate as thousands of young men your age are dying in the jungle.
At twenty-three they put a man on the moon.
And when you’re twenty-four, National Guardsmen gun down four students at Kent State.
On your twenty-eighth birthday, Richard Nixon resigns as President of the United States, acknowledging a conspiracy to defraud the American people.
The fear of your youth and the anger of your adolescence culminates into an adult cynicism.
Yes, the Baby Boomers became the adult Gloomers–and they passed onto their offspring a sense of mistrust, causing their children to constantly seek ways to escape reality.
It is rather doubtful if we can get out of the bland and bizarre depression that the country is experiencing without understanding how we got here.
We’re all too cynical.
We are too engrossed in ways to escape our lives instead of embracing them. And it is causing us to selfishly close up possibilities which just might make us better people.
Now you know how you got here.
Why don’t you go out today and do your best to reject the cynicism … and inhale some sort of new breath of life?
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Click for details on the SpirTed 2014 presentation
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
The reason for my indifference was that my parents were antagonistic against the now-deceased President. Mom and Dad were staunch Republicans, always voting “a straight Party ticket.” Perhaps worse, their political leanings often came with a nasty side order of insults and insinuations.
Two of their favorite words when referring to “that other Party” were queer and Communist.
I was twelve years old–I didn’t know what either word meant. But I surmised that “Communist” meant attempting to overthrow all the good things in our society, including candy and ice cream, and “queer” had something to do with Hollywood stars hanging around the JFK/Camelot White House.
So when the announcer from CBS came on to give a report about what had transpired since the Dallas shooting, I realized that my parents were in the room and it was a great opportunity for me to make some brownie points with them. Christmas was coming up and I had asked for a transistor radio. I was at that awkward age when I wasn’t sure if Christmas gifts came from Father Christmas or Father Cring. I thought I might please Mom and Dad by making a derogatory comment about the late President when the report commemorating his death took a commercial break.
So when the announcer said that the President was killed just a month ago, I clapped my hands in glee and shouted, “Nice shot!”
I turned, smiling, expecting approval from my overseers. But instead, for some reason they frowned, gasped–and my dad walked over, slapped me in the head and ordered me to my room. I lodged a few half-sentence objections, but he was trailing behind me, literally pushing me toward my destination.
Once imprisoned in my bedroom, I sat in a chair, confused.
What had happened? Wasn’t I just repeating what they had said all the previous weeks? Didn’t I hear them point out that he had brought this on himself? That he was the cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs and the rising cost of hamburger? What did I do wrong?
You see, what I was not privy to was the fact that my parents, over that thirty-day period, had repented of their narrow-mindedness and realized that a very interesting but flawed man had been brutally murdered in a country where such foolishness should be forbidden.
They had changed their minds about some things without telling me.
So when my dad struck out at me, he was really attacking his own prejudices, which were now speaking back at him, taunting him for his nasty opinions.
I was the victim of his own repentance.
But what really bothered me was whether this would jeopardize my transistor radio at Christmas. I was so relieved three days later when it was under the tree and I was given access to the rest of the world that existed beyond Letts Avenue.
Yes, my tiny radio became my “ear to the queer.” All the things I had not been allowed to listen to, consider or wonder about were suddenly being piped to me through a little speaker.
As I look back at it I feel shame–not because I was a stupid kid saying something ridiculous, but because it took me too many years after that irresponsible day to finally learn how to think for myself.
It was too long before I comprehended what really happened in Dallas on that horrible afternoon. It had nothing to do with politics. It was stupidity, arrogance and prejudice … given a gun.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
Click for details on the SpirTed 2014 presentation
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
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