Pictures of the Insides of an Amishman

Some Reflections on Truth in the Age of Trump

The lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, the endless stream of never-ending lies. Trump lies about big things, small things, insignificant things, and things of enormous significance. The problem is that he was already the biggest liar in history, telling the most lies at the highest rate to the most people for ten plus years, and it's now getting worse. There is no new low to which Trump will not stoop. That's a big problem. 

But all politicians lie, right?

Yes, all politicians lie, but most tend to shade the truth to their own favor versus spouting flat-out falsehoods.

PolitiFact rates politicians' statements as being true, mostly true, half true, mostly false, false, and pants on fire. Sixteen percent of Kamala Harris's statements are rated false. Here's one from last year. "There are polls that also say I have great approval ratings.”

Yep, that was false! Remember when nobody liked her? Haha. It's also the normal type of thing that every politician would say. It's the type of thing that any of us would say. Sure, maybe she took a poll in her household and she was very popular. 

Kamala has 0% pants on fire lies, and good thing, because her candidacy would not have survived even one.

In stark contrast, Donald Trump makes "mostly false" or "false" statements 57% of the time, and AN ADDITIONAL 19% of his statements are rated "pants on fire." Somehow 76% of his statements are garbage. Only 3% are listed simply as "true."

To use a Trump phrase, he is lying "at a level nobody's ever seen before."

(A quick aside, watch out for those true statements too, because he's warning of bloody deportations, and blanket tariffs estimated to increase the debt $7 trillion and using the military and justice department to go after his enemies.)

If anyone doesn't believe that Trump lies that much, just read the the Washington Post's catalog of 30,573 demonstrable lies that he told while president, and then get back to me. Don't read a few and skim, don't stop at a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand. Read all 30,573 and get back to me.

As a boy, when Trump saw Pinocchio tell lie after lie after lie which caused his nose to grow, and grow, and grow, and then sprout twigs, then branches, then leaves, then a bird made a nest, then laid eggs, which then hatched, followed by them flying away, and then the leaves turned brown, then fell off... in his bizarro world he must have seen this as an aspirational tale. Perhaps he wants to fight global warming by lying a new Amazon rainforest into creation. 

What is the truth? Who is to say? Am I to say? Should you trust me? No, of course not. Read as much as you can and judge for yourself. 

Again by contrast, Trump believes that if something comes out of his mouth, is not to be questioned. For many, the simple fact that it came out of his mouth, indeed makes it true. Someone who tells you that they are the only one in possession of the ultimate truth... they are a liar. This is a hallmark shared by, and I'm sorry to say it but it's true, it's shared by every single cult leader.

There's always a perfect current lie of the day. I started writing this a few days ago and I keep having to update it.

A few days ago the lie was that Biden was doing a terrible job with the hurricane relief, and that the governors of Georgia and South Carolina were both critical of him. In truth, they were each publicly praising the job he was doing. Publicly, on camera, undeniably praising him. To say the governors were critical is a pants on fire lie. 

Trump's hurricane lies were actually causing people to not even sign up for relief at a time when over a hundred million dollars had been given out. Some people pass off his lies as "just words", but this is one of many examples where they have demonstrably negative real-world impacts. 

Take a second and think about that, he's flat-out exploiting a tragedy for political reasons. Pants on fire lies at a time like this should be disqualifying.

(Another aside, imagine if Biden went to the stricken areas and nonchalantly threw out some paper towels to a small group of people. Every last one of us would have thought that he was certifiably insane, and even grounds for removal through the 25th Amendment. Trump would have led the charge, but in reality Trump would have been raging at Trump himself, who famously did that in Puerto Rico. It was par for the course though, it might have captured one news cycle, until Trump's next whopper of the lie diverted the media's attention.)

When I was writing that though it came out that Trump posted that the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, announced that he was supporting Trump. Dimon immediately came out saying it was untrue. Again, it was just some garbage he made up. Biden and Harris got good economic news (better than expected job numbers, unemployment dropped, inflation is back to normal), so he had to do something, right?

Dear Reader, whoever you are, the two of us would be ashamed of ourselves if we acted this way. 

As I was writing about that, it came out that Trump actually doubled down on the impact of the Iranian attack in 2020, that left some members of the military with brain trauma, or as Trump calls it, "just headaches." To Trump, if they were actually injured, that would reflect poorly on him. Apparently they were asked to downplay their injuries, to lie about them to make Trump look better.

But it always gets worse.

Now Trump and his son Eric are saying that the Democrats were behind the first assassination attempt, as if it wasn't simply some loser nihilist, registered Republican, who was made fun of for not making the rifle team, who wanted to go out leaving a mark. Fortunately, he deserved to be laughed off the rifle team.

Don't you love how Trump takes something like saying he is a threat to democracy (you know, because he desperately tried to steal the last election a hundred different ways), and uses it as a reason to demand zero criticism? Critics wanted to see him killed? Nonsense. Since he's a threat to democracy, and we believe in democracy, we want him beaten at the ballot box. Nobody suggested he should be killed versus being beaten at the ballot box. Nobody. And there's no evidence that criticism of Trump inspired his would-be assassin, whose Google searches showed he was looking for Trump or Biden rallies in his area. Pants on fire.

Just to put this violent-rhetoric-from-the-left nonsense to bed, Trump himself suggested executing General Mark Milley who was his own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he suggested a military tribunal for Liz Cheney (for being critical of him), he said "2nd amendment people" would stop Hillary if she would win, he made rally jokes about Paul Pelosi getting attacked in his home with a hammer. The list goes on and on, and on. These are actual Trump statements, with Trump as the original source, not ridiculous confabulations and insinuations. And yes, they are taken in context.

The vilification of the Haitian immigrants through repeated lies was only a few weeks ago but feels like ancient history at this point.

For all of his smoothness, JD Vance is his brother in deception. What kind of politician would say this in a debate? "I believe the rules were that you were not going to fact check me."  

Lies are their strategy, their way of life. Trump's own communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said that Trump told her to just lie over and over and over and people will believe it's true. 

Perhaps Trump adopted George Costanza's maxim, "It's not a lie if you believe it," and changed it into his defining philosophy. We all know now, the same as we knew when we first saw that Seinfeld episode, even if he convinced himself that his lies are truth, it's equally deceptive.

There's a reason for this degradation of the public conversation. It's what his former strategist (and current inmate) Steve Bannon called, "flooding the zone with shit." It's a strategy for dealing with the media. It's Putin's strategy in Russia. You put out such a high volume of disinformation, even saying things that contradict other things, so that the citizens literally lose the ability to even discern the truth.

The intent is not to inform, the intent is public disorientation. 

This is what's going on too when he says that Kamala is mentally disabled, when he says that he's better looking than her, when he says that he has a beautiful body for sunbathing, much better than Joe Biden's. It's what's going on when he says that he could have been bigger than Elvis, if he had a guitar. Sacreligious, right? Do you get the idea that he believes that he could walk on water for longer than Jesus?

It's just a constant flow of total garbage, and the result is chilling. In a recent poll, 54% of voters agreed with the statement that they've "disengaged from politics because they can't tell what's real."

What can I say, it's a great strategy if you care about nothing other than yourself.

In his book, Lying, Sam Harris wrote, "By lying, we deny others a view of the world as it is. Our dishonesty not only influences the choices they make, it often determines the choices they can make—and in ways we cannot always predict. Every lie is a direct assault upon the autonomy of those we lie to."

I believe that Trump's lies reveal his contempt of the people who believe them, his own followers. Why deny them the truth? What is there to be afraid of? Withholding the truth proves that they don't have his respect. In his fantasy world he is separated from the rest of us. 

Downplaying military brain injuries is one thing, but remember when it came out that for months Trump was endlessly upbeat about how we were conquering Covid, while he told Bob Woodward on tape that he knew exactly how dangerous and deadly it was. "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic." So lie, because we can't handle the truth, even though we have to live with the truth? Do you see what I mean about his lies having real world impact? Those who are suffering pay the price for Trump downplaying tragedies to make himself look better. 

Listen to Woodward's audiobook, The Trump Tapes, and discover exactly how little he cared about the people being affected by Covid, and how much he cared about how bad it made him look.

(And now just today, somehow exactly as I was writing this, Bob Woodward, perhaps the greatest journalist of the generation, is reporting that Trump gave Covid tests to Putin for his personal use, at a time when nobody here could get them. Putin told him not to tell anybody. Again, if what you're doing is good, why withhold the truth?)

The Big Lie of his presidency though, of course, was that he won the 2020 election, which he declared on election night, when it was still impossible to even know.

The Big Lie of the Moment, is that the 2024 election is rigged, which he has to say to hedge his bet. It would be off brand for him to lose, so in his mind, it is literally impossible for him to lose. He wins, or it was rigged. Fair, right? Yes, that's a perfectly fair election to a liar.

Daily he puts me in mind of Voltaire's prescient quote from hundreds of years ago- "Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Or if you prefer, how about Psalm 55 v20-21?

"My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant. His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords."

This all comes down to one key thing, perfectly summed up with two words, the same two words that the interviewer in Magnolia asked Tom Cruise's character, Frank T.J. Mackey. The question ended up breaking him, leading to his salvation.

"Why lie?"

Trump is far beyond the chance of any kind of come-to-Jesus moment where he realizes that it's wrong to lie, but I refuse to believe that our country is beyond redemption. We just have to ask ourselves one question. 

Why believe lies?

Buddha, Verse 223, Dhammapada- "Conquer anger with love, evil with good, meanness with generosity, and lies with truth."

Those words are as true now as they were 2500 years ago. It's time for Trump to learn that Buddha would have been... very unfair to him. Feel free to fact check me.

Where does this end? I don't know, but when his most violent supporters are being inspired by his lies, January 6th might look quaint. For Voltaire's sake, Kamala needs to win.

October 8, 2024

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If Mayor McCheese reaches the end of his term, and I don't like Ronald McDonald's hamburger policy, I'm going to vote for him anyway if he's running against the Hamburglar. The fact that Ronald McDonald isn't perfect isn't as important as the fact that he's distinctly better. I mean come on, we have a business to run, and we can't do it if we don't have any hamburgers. That's just obvious.

October 8, 2024

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Marginalian- Harry Clarke’s Haunting 1919 Illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories

https://www.themarginalian.org/index.php/2012/05/07/harry-clarke-edgar-allan-poe/

October 8, 2012

Postscript: This picture crosses my mind often, as a metaphor of the current state of the world. The Descent Into the Maelstrom.

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Huh, Trump's very own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, called him a "wannabe dictator" in his retirement speech. Trump now suggests Milley be put to death over some calls he made to China, and now he has to take appropriate safety measures. If nobody on the left ever said one bad word against Trump, his own people have said more than enough to last for eternity, starting with his own sister.

October 8, 2023

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Saw a suspicious guy at Giant tonight while I was getting my stuff rung up. He looked like if Oscar Isaac was starring in a Shakesperean play about opium-smoking glam rock pirates.

He had just come in and was rolling a mini-cart to the bathroom super-slow. The cashier said to me, "See that guy there? He steals so much stuff. Security follows him around every time he comes in." For some reason he wheeled his little cart right back out. I looked for him but he was gone.

What a mess. You can draw attention to yourself, OR be a thief, not both!

October 8, 2022

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Mike Pence op-ed, 2001- "Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking does not kill."

Hmmm, so maybe he WASN'T the best person to head up the Coronavirus task force???

October 8, 2020

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People say Trump is now a dictator because he's demanding his attorney general to lock up his political enemies. NAHHH, fortunately he still just a wannabe dictator. He'll only be a dictator if Barr actually does it!

Reminds me of the George Carlin joke- "I have as much authority as the Pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it."

Apparently just enough of us still don't believe that Trump is a dictator.

*By the way, why is he tempting Barr and Pompeo today in the middle of all this dexamethasone 25th amendment talk? He knows they both vote on it, right???

October 8, 2020

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I think a lot about Christopher Hitchens' position on the immorality of Jesus' "love your neighbor, turn the other cheek" philosophy. He said, "Go love your own enemies, don't be loving mine. My enemies are the theocratic fascists; I don't love them, I want to destroy them." There's a lot going on it that!

October 8, 2019

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It just crossed my mind that congressional Republicans want to discount the entire Mueller Report, as not relevant to the impeachment inquiry. Now let's think about this a minute. The Mueller report was about, in part, whether Trump colluded with Russia to help win the 2016 election. The impeachment inquiry is about, in part, whether Trump's effort to collude with Ukraine to help win the 2020 election is an abuse of power. He's admitting the current thing that they're fighting keep hidden in the prior thing!

October 8, 2019

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Sloth and I visited an Amishman in the hospital today, he might have had a mild heart attack. He was telling us that tomorrow they were going to open up a vein and send a small camera into his heart to see what's going on. Right on cue Sloth asked him if they are allowed to have pictures taken of the inside their bodies. Good one!

October 8, 2017

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FINALLY, Republicans can toss out Reagan's idiotic "11th Commandment": Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican. 

This is how they got into this situation, by the way... too afraid to speak against Trump early in the primaries (even though the entire time he was going after their families and their faces.)

October 8, 2016

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I've heard of an October Surprise, but never Every-Day-of-October Surprises. Eight days in we have this hot-mic-degrading-women scandal (which could certainly cause previous rape accusations to be seen in a new light), PTSD soldiers aren't as strong as other soldiers, the "charity" Trump Foundation pays his legal fees, he lost a billion dollars in one year, round-the-clock tweets and comments about the weight of a former Miss Universe, and there must be some I'm missing. 

I might have WAY too much belief in the rationality of the average person... but I do think it's the last nail in his political coffin. Perhaps some will switch their vote, but I see many more of his former supporters staying home.

Nate Silver had given him a 40% chance of winning a week or two ago, it's currently at 18%, and of course that wouldn't include data from scandals in the last couple days.

October 8, 2016

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What do you think of Chavez winning reelection in Venezuela? But more importantly what do the poor of Venezuela think?

October 8, 2012

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Don Larsen pitched his World Series perfect game on this day in 1956, the only one ever, only one in 24.

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Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men were captured in Bolivia on this day in 1967. He would be executed the following day.

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Harry McClintock, of Big Rock Candy Mountain fame, was born on this day in 1882.

BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN

One evening, as the sun went down

And the jungle fire was burning

Down the track came a hobo hiking

And he said, "Boys, I'm not turning

I'm headed for a land that's far away

Beside's the crystal fountains

So come with me, we'll go and see

The Big Rock Candy Mountains"

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

There's a land that's fair and bright

Where the handouts grow on bushes

And you sleep out every night

Where the boxcars all are empty

And the sun shines every day

On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees

The lemonade springs, where the bluebird sings

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

All the cops have wooden legs

And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth

And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs

The farmers' trees are full of fruit

And the barns are full of hay

Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow

Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

You never change your socks

And the little streams of alcohol

Come a-trickling down the rocks

The brakemen have to tip their hats

And the railway bulls are blind

There's a lake of stew, and of whiskey too

You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

The jails are made of tin

And you can walk right out again

As soon as you are in

There ain't no short-handled shovels

No axes, saws nor picks

I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day

Where they hung the jerk that invented work

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this comin' fall

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

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Chevy Chase was born on this day in 1943. 

Stephen Colbert at the Chevy Chase roast.

“The only thing I think of when I look at this man is, ‘There but for the grace of God, go I.’ Why would I tempt the Comedy Gods to leave me pale and pear-shaped — a humorless husk of my former self haunting the halls of Hollywood like some sort of walking, waking cautionary tale, shapeless and odorless and colorless, gray-on-beige, a comedy lamprey just sucking the joy out of everything I touch?”

Chevy sat their squirming and irritated.

On Dirty Work, Norm MacDonald bit his penis, true story.

Richard Belzer said, "The only time Chevy Chase has a funny bone in his body is when I fuck him in the ass."

Johnny Carson on Chevy Chase- "He couldn't ad lib a fart at a bean-eating contest."

People really don't like Chevy Chase. (Except Norm Macdonald, who apparently really likes him.)

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Johnny Ramone was born on this day in 1948, seven years before anyone ever heard of rock and roll, and on his seventeenth birthday, future Ramones bass player C. J. Ramone, was born.

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Sigourney Weaver was born on this day in 1949.

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Notable deathdays- Franklin Pierce (1869), Whitey Ford (2020)

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The Onion headline- Buddy System Responsible For Additional Death

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Gizmodo- Breakthrough: The world's first net-positive nuclear fusion reaction

Our grandchildren will view us as dinosaurs.

http://io9.com/breakthrough-the-worlds-first-net-positive-nuclear-fu-1442537401

October 8, 2013

Postscript: I've been reading these headlines for like 20 years.

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IFLScience- Researchers Find Link Between DNA Marks And Sexual Orientation

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/link-between-dna-marks-and-sexual-orientation-found-men

October 8, 2015

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Vice- Robert De Niro Wants to Punch Donald Trump in the Face

http://www.vice.com/read/robert-de-niro-wants-to-punch-donald-trump-in-the-face

October 8, 2016

Postscript- Great headline! I don't support the violence, but he is a bully asshole!

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I'm not going to cast aspersions on anybody's looks... but I think it needs to be mentioned that if Trump saw a video of Biden wearing Fred Flintstone makeup like this, it's all he'd talk about from this second until his last word. It would be Hillary's emails, times fake news, raised to the hoax power. If you ever see Biden wearing Fred Flintstone makeup, bet your life savings that Trump's parents were a set of wind-up chattering teeth and the Tasmanian Devil. I guess his normal makeup person realized her life is more important than making him look... you know, the way he looks?

(I wanted to check myself... a Facebook search showed that the only time I even referred to him being orange was once when I made this joke... his tie is red, his face is orange, his hair is yellow, his wallet is full of green, his suit is blue... therefore his underwear is purple. Harmless fun.)

https://youtu.be/lw78cZIAROU

October 8, 2020

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Oh no, Kim Batiste died. He threw a ball away in the ninth inning of the first game of the 1993 NLCS, allowing the Braves to tie the game. Minutes later he got the game-winning hit and was paraded around of his teammates shoulders. Forever a symbol of failure and redemption.

https://youtu.be/aoQNXrWt9mo

October 8, 2020

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George Carlin- “I don’t think we should be governing ourselves. What we need is a king, and every now and then if the king’s not doing a good job, we kill him.”

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Jerry Seinfeld, on the differences between his upbringing and Richard Pryor's- "There was no drama in my family, or in my life, or in my world. Would have I been funnier if I grew up in a whorehouse in Peoria raised by prostitutes? Absolutely. But this is what I had to work with."

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Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays- “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

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Bob Dylan- "Everybody’s wearing a disguise; To hide what they’ve got left behind their eyes."

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Confucius- "The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."

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Interviewer- "How do you feel about women's rights?"

Groucho Marx- "I like either side of them."

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Diderot- "Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths."

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Niccolo Machiavelli- "It is better to act and repent than not to act and regret."

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Sigmund Freud- "Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to taking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young."

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Sherman Alexie- "Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained."

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Stephen King, The Body- "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12 - Jesus, did you?"

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John McWhorter, Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care- "For all but the sliver of poetry fans, over the past forty years popular song lyrics have been the nation’s poetry."

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Edgar Allan Poe- "Never to suffer would never to have been blessed."

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Rodney Dangerfield:

-What a childhood I had. My parents sent me to a child psychiatrist. The kid didn’t help me at all.

-From my wife, I don’t get no respect. I fell asleep with a cigarette in my hand. My wife lit it.

-I tell ya with girls, I don’t get no respect. I had a date with a girl, I waited two hours at the corner. A girl showed up. I said “Are you Louise?” She said, “Are you Rodney?” I said, “Yeah.” She said, “I’m not Louise.”

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