Yes, “It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world” and the 1963 epic comedy film could almost be the bewildering, pot-boiling backdrop of today’s Presidential Inauguration festivities in DC.
The film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer starring Spencer Tracy with an all-star cast, is about the madcap pursuit of $350,000 ($2,738,000 today) in stolen cash by a diverse and colorful group of strangers.
The ensemble comedy cast featured Edie Adams, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, and Jonathan Winters, all of whom are today awaiting Senate confirmation. Just kidding, Sean. (please tell press secretary Sean Spicer not to throw my blog out.)
Today indeed is a most momentous day, but what in the hell are we coming to.
Some lunatic tries to set himself on fire outside Trump Tower.
CNN does a serpent segment about what happens if President Trump is assassinated. Who came up with that one? Charles Manson?
The ever-infuriated and feisty lawyer Larry Klayman charges CNN’s Wolf Blitzer should be arrested for promoting deviously-wicked suggestions to the crazies out there, which is understandable as many of them are probably listening to voices in their heads egging them on to violence, God forbid, like the Fort Lauderdale International Airport shooter.
I know Larry and I know how mad he can get, particularly when he’s on TV or in a courtroom with Clintons.
Then the Hollywood Reporter comes out with an “Inauguration Survival Guide” as thousands of protesters prepare to upset the today’s apple cart.
“Spontaneity” is the goal, says Academy Awards producer Michael De Luca, who welcomes Streep-like activism even if many viewers and advertisers might wince.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair announces with fanfare on the House floor he will not be attending the inauguration of Donald Trump.
That follows civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis calling Trump not a legitimate President, provoking nearly 70 Democratic members of Congress to skip today’s inauguration, many incensed that President Trump dare criticize Lewis for calling him an illegitimate President.
Many call the president-elect’s perceived insult of Rep. John Lewis the final straw when Trump tweeted Lewis was “all talk, talk talk-no action or results. Sad.” in reference to Lewis’s alleged inability to fix his own congressional district.
Meanwhile the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s youngest daughter Bernice King, whom my PR firm TransMedia Group once represented, told a gathering at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta not to give up hope and “Don’t be afraid of who sits in the White House.
“God can triumph over Trump,” she said, drawing a standing ovation, one of several times she was interrupted by thunderous applause.
As record warm temps sweep the globe — 65 degrees in New York in January! — Al Gore opens Sundance with ‘An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power’ and reveals his private chats with Donald Trump: “I won’t get into the details. I don’t want the Russians to hack it.”
The film and entertainment industry still doesn’t have a script to follow as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar toNorman Lear unpack what it all means in The Hollywood Reporter— and what it requires of stars, creators and citizens.
Well, let’s all stand and give President Donald J. Trump his due. What awesome courage to be the Commander-in-Chief of a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Country, not to mention the leader of the mad, mad, mad, mad world in chaos.
