Post: Thank you President Trump for inviting us to this magnificent palace that you call Mar-a-Lago and for allowing the Post to get your opinions on Congressman-elect George Santos.

Trump: Well, I’m glad to have you here. Thanks for your praise for my beautiful country club. Most people don’t know that I built Mar-a-Lago with my bare hands, some lumber, a hammer, a saw and a bucket of nails.

Post: Well, I didn’t know that. But I do know you’re a busy man. So with your permission, I’m going to turn on my tape recorder and start this interview.

Trump: Please don’t turn on that machine. I’m much more extemporaneous if I’m not being recorded.

Post: Okay, I’ll just take notes. First question, should the Republicans in the House allow George Santos to be seated as a congressman?

Trump: Of course they should. He’s a Republican role model. When I was first in my class, in that Ivy League college that I attended, we had a name for students like George, we called them “embellishers.” They took the truth and added a little fluff to it. I love the way George said, “I put a little bit of fluff on my résumé.” We all did that stuff. It helped us get accepted to university, make friends and influence people, get great jobs and it even helped me get elected president.

Post: Do you think Santos is the first openly-gay Republican elected to Congress.

Trump: Say what! I thought we threw those gay folks out of the party after I was elected. He’s probably straight and is bull s—-ing to get some of those queer votes. But when I win in 2024, George will admit he has taken “the conversion” and has been reborn a straight man. You’ll see.

Post: Santos also claimed to be Jewish, when he wasn’t. Why do you think George said that, “He is a proud American Jew.”

Trump: Let me tell you something I know very well. The Jews, they got lots of money; they like to buy access to politicians in exchange for donations; they like to get favors in exchange for their gelt.

I know. They use to send me really big donations until I broke bread with my close buddy, “Kill all the Jews” Kanye, and one of his neo-Nazi friends. Some of those Jews are just too damn sensitive. They already forgot what their money bought them. But the Israelis still remember. The good news is that now that George ain’t a Jew, I’ll invited him to the “Christians Only” Sunday services in the White House in 2025.

I ask you, if George Santos is so bad, why didn’t the New York Times vet him before the elections. Somebody obviously paid them off.

Why didn’t Nancy Pelosi hire a private investigator to dig up some dirt on good old Santos before the elections. Are you going to try to tell me Nancy never heard the words “opposition research.” She can’t be that stupid? Let me take that back. She’s a Democrat. And the Democrats will never indict me. They’re afraid of me. I know all their dirty little secrets.  And take my word, George will sit in the Congress for the next two years.

Just you wait and see.

A kid with a laptop could have dug up that Georgie Boy didn’t work for Goldman Sacks or Citigroup or graduate from Baruch College.

Post: Are you considering George Santos as your running mate in 2024?

Trump: Well, he has been loyal to me and I like loyalty. I love loyalty. He was on the Ellipse for my rally on January 6th. I don’t know if he was yelling, “Hang Mike Pence” but he may have. He says I won the 2020 election. He’s a superb liar, for example he claims he has 11 million dollars in assets when he doesn’t even own a pot to piss in. He seems like the kind of guy I trained when I was President of Trump University. Both of us have long histories of working with charities.

But one thing that hurts him a little is he most likely has paid more taxes than I have. Ya know, if he and I were in a “lie off” contest, I’d beat him by a country mile. He’s small potatoes when you compare him to me. Remember, I’m the inventor of the “Big Lie.”

Post: Some people are saying, “That George Santos is a Democratic plant that they are sending to Washington to embarrass the Republican party?” is that true.

Trump: That’s the dumpest question I’ve ever heard. After Marjorie “Laser” Greene, that Louie Gohmert guy, Lauren “I Love Putin” Boebert and all my shenigans nothing—and I mean nothing— can ever embarass any Republican ever again. We’ve already hit the bottom of the barrel. George is just icing on the cake. But rather than thinking of George Santos as an embarassment, look at him as an excellent role model for American elementary school students and Evangelical preachers across this great nation. What American parent wouldn’t want to have a kid just like George?

Post: President Trump thanks so much for this enlightening interview. Do you have any last thoughts you want to add to my story.

Trump: I have one question for the Post’s readers?

Post: What’s that?

Trump: How does Trump/Santos 2024 sound to them?

Post: I’ll add that question to my story. Thanks again for your warm hospitalty.

About a year ago, Blake and I decided to enter “We Need Rent Money” in the Central Florida Film Festival.

We had a plan.

If  Blake’s movie was selected to be screened, he’d fly in from Oregon, his mom, Shelley, his brothers, Jason and Travis and Travis’ wife Kat would meet and celebrate WNRM’s Florida premiere in Mount Dora.

About a year ago, my wife and I booked a cruise never thinking about the Central Florida Film Festival. Yes, we are poor planners

Well, you know what happened?

Of course you do.

The congratulatory email arrived and said:

Dear Blake,
Congratulations, your film submission has been entered into Official Selection for the 17th Annual Central Florida Film Festival!
Your film will be screened during our next festival which runs the weekend of January 20th through January 22nd, 2023.
Our judges have hard decisions to make each year, given the many great entries we receive and we’re honored that you have been accepted into our 17th Annual International Film Festival!
We are screening all films at EPIC THEATRES AT MOUNT DORA, located at 2300 Spring Harbor Boulevard, Mount Dora FL, 32757.  
Our festival begins the morning of Friday, January 20th, 2023 and will close at our after-party following our award ceremony on the evening of Sunday, January 22nd.
All show times will be announced in early January, 2023.
Kindly check our Facebook and Twitter pages and our web site www.CentralFloridaFilmFestival.com for additional information and updates as they become available.
Congratulations again, and I look forward to seeing you at the festival!

Well, you guessed right.
The family reunion ain’t happening because of that damn cruise.
C’est la vie.
And this episode of life reminded me of two of my favorite sayings :

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. (Robert Burns) ;

Make plans and Hashem laughs (an old Yiddish proverb and Woody Allen).

Well, thanks Central Florida Film Festival for your loving acceptance. We are sorry to say, “We can’t make it because our plans went awry, G-d laughed and we’re terrible planners.

Hopefully, our friends and fans in the Orlando area will fill some of your theater seats.  

As a seventh grader, I learned why coal miners carried caged canaries into their mine shafts.

And what I learned made me feel sorry for these poor, little, beautiful, yellow song birds. It was bad enough that they were caged but housed in a cold, dusty, pitch-black coal mine seemed a bit much.

For I once owned a yellow canary and I loved listening to her sing.

So I asked my teacher, “Do canaries stop singing while they’re in mines?”

And my teacher admitted, “I really don’t know but logically the miners must listen to them when they chirp and when they stop chirping it sets off an alarm.”

Then she explained, “Canaries are early warning signs of danger. These little finches protect the lives of the coal miners because their lungs are more sensitive to carbon monoxide than our human lungs. If the canary looks sick, it’s an indication that deadly, odorless, carbon monoxide gas is present. I bet you kids didn’t know that some miners even invented a resuscitation cage with an oxygen cylinder to revive the canary after they fell ill. This act of resuscitation allowed the bird to be used multiple times.”

Even with oxygen cylinders, I still felt sorry for those poor canaries being stuck in noisy, dark, man-made caves filled with coal dust. It sounded like hell to me.

Then I asked myself, “Are there Jewish canaries in our American mineshaft?

No, not those FBI or ADL statistics on anti-Semitic acts in the USA.

Those numbers are often skewed by several handfuls of racists and bigots.

Then it hit me.

Our canaries were menorahs.

Yes, our menorahs displayed in stores or painted on shop windows, or beaming on large screens in NBA arenas or at halftime shows in NFL stadiums.

So I decided to conduct a menorah study, acting as if I were a bird watcher at Hyde Park, I’d tour my town looking for, counting and recording every time I spotted a menorah.

And here are my finding:

I spotted three seven-foot high, white Chabad menorahs planted in the soil of my town;

In my 7-Eleven,  I observed a small blue and white menorah with nine blue bulbs resting above a display case of rolling papers;

In Tark’s, my favorite redneck seafood and chicken wing dive, an old, sun burnt, yellowish-white plastic menorah with red light bulbs stared me in the face;

In Taste of the City, my breakfast hideaway, as I munched on: rye toast covered in sweet, Smuckers strawberry jam; a Swiss cheese omelet; a cup of salty grits, I observed painted on their front window latkes, dreidels and menorahs singing “I have a little dreidel, I made it out of clay”;

At Sonny’s, my favorite Philly cheesesteak eatery, I saw a copper menorah resting on a shelf above their grill.

I smiled.

Menorahs seemed to be everywhere.

Our canaries were healthy and singing.

I scratched my head and wondered:

Had I wasted too much ink on the likes of our modern-day Antiochus’ —Kanye, Marjorie or the Donald?

Was I giving to much of my time to these belchers of carbon monoxide?

Was the picture of hate painted on our electronic screens too dour?

Had I focused too much of my energy on the negative and not enough on the positive?

For our temple had plenty of sacred oil.

And our Jewish canaries sang loudly and clearly, perched on the shelves of  gas stations, painted on the windows of restaurants and dug deep into Chabad’s soil.

So as I lit the candles on my hanukkiah, my family listened as I added a new prayer:

Thanks America for your loving kindness.

You continue to restore our sense of security in this land of miracles.

And for that, we are very grateful.