parody | Literature and Libation

This is entry #3 in the series “Nom de Bier” – good beer reviewed by famous auth…er…people (as emulated [or parodied] by me). I do not claim to speak for these authors, nor am I an expert scholar in their particular style, so please feel free to correct/admonish as you see fit.

The following is a transcript of Donald Trump’s rally at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival:

(Patriotic, 80s inspired rock music plays loudly)

ANNOUNCER: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the next president of the United States of America: Donald J. Trump!

(Applause)

TRUMP: This is so. So incredible. Beautiful. Really.

(Applause)

We…we have had, no matter where we go…you know, it’s a movement, folks. This beer thing is a movement.

Well first off, let me just say, and people love this about me, but I know beer. I’ve been around a lot – to so many places, Germany, England, I have a jet. And you know people know me as a beer person. I’ve had all the beers. So many beers. Even ones that no one else has heard of. I know. That’s the thing. I know beer.

(Applause)

It came out recently that we’re at 4000 breweries. Four thousand! We had to send 700 breweries away. We have by far the most breweries. It’s not even a contest.

Can you believe it? All these babies crying about it and the media telling lies. You can’t believe it. You can’t believe the lies. Brewing business is huge. It was a mess but now it’s gonna be huge. We’re gonna make American beer great again.

HECKLER: “American beer is already great!”

(Boos from crowd, Trump signals to security)

TRUMP: Can we get that guy out of here? Jeez.

(Eruption of applause)

You know it’s always the same thing with these people. Unemployment is eighteen percent. Twenty percent. And these guys whine about jobs. The brewing industry made jobs. And we’re gonna create even more jobs. Even Greg Koch called me – he’s a good friend, he loves me – and he said Donald you know what you’re doing is amazing. It’s a movement. And we’re gonna talk about it. Love that guy. Beards are great.

(Applause)

But we gotta be tough with these people. You know. We gotta take back brewing. No more imports. There are eleven million imports in this country and they’re stealing sales from American beers. When Mexico sends beers, it’s not sending its best beers. They’re not sending American IPAs. They’re sending beers with lots of problems. They’re sending lagers. They’re clear bottles. And some, I assume, are good beers.

And how are we gonna fix it?

(Crowd shouts in unison, “Ball!”)

That’s right, we’re gonna make them can their beer with Ball®! We’re gonna make Mexican breweries pay for Ball® too. People say it can’t be done, but we can do it. America can do it. We’ll work with Ball®. Working with Ball® will create jobs. Should only cost, what, maybe four dollars. I can do it for less. Cans are cheap. Maybe three dollars. And there will be a truck from Ball. We get rid of all the imports, and only let the best ones back in.

(Eruption of applause)

But that’s just a start. We need American breweries to win again. None of this second to China. China. American beer will win again. People wanna hear the truth, so we’re gonna talk about that too.

We have a disaster called the big lie – distribution, distribution. Yesterday it came out that costs are going, for people, up 39, 39, 49 and even 55 cents a six pack. The price of bombers is through the roof. You literally have to get hurt during a brewery tour and sue to afford anything, it’s virtually useless. It’s ridiculous. un-American.

(Applause)

But there’s beer here, good beer. That’s cheap and not made by China. I know because I have tasted all the beers. When I was in Virginia – great state, great people. Virginians love me. I got this beer from Charlottesville. It’s got peppers. Peppers. Peppers in beer. Only in America. It says “king” on it, so you know I like it.

(Laughter)

It’s good. You know. Big. Bold. American. There are hops. So many hops. This beer isn’t a sissy loser. You won’t see Hillary Clinton drinking this beer. She’d say “ooooh, it’s too spicy” and the lie and say it wasn’t spicy. It’s spicy.

(Mr. Trump pantomimes Mrs. Clinton waving her hand in front of her mouth to cool it down, followed by laughter and applause)

OK. OK. You know? I’m just saying this beer is good for America. What? It’s a great beer. I know great beer. Seven point five percent. That’s huge. Huge. Better than our GDP under Obama. It’s a winner and we’re all gonna win soon.

(Applause)

Bernie Sanders, President Obama, I highly think you should drink this beer quickly. It might teach you something about America, OK. You know, America? But the media won’t report this. They hate me, the media. They hate the truth. Very dishonest people. Print this. Print this. Drink this beer. It’s American. Not an import. We don’t want imports here. Drink this beer. They won’t print that.

(Laughter, applause)

But don’t sit back and just say, Donald Trump is doing well. Trump will save breweries. The more we can win by, you know, the more power we have in a sense, because it’s like a mandate. But you have got to go out and buy beer. And I will tell you this. It has been an honor to be here, I love this beer, I love the people here. It’s been an honor.

But we will make America great again, I promise. Thank you.

(Uproarious applause and yelling, partially drowned out by patriotic 80s inspired rock music)

Grammarian’s note: I reviewed transcripts and videos of Trump’s recent debates and rallies, and found several consistent syntactical patterns. His grammar is canonically wrong in many ways, but his off-the-cuff speaking style masks a lot of errors until you actually see them written down in transcripts. He relies heavily on repetition, single word fragments, unqualified superlatives, and simple sentences. The language tends to be vague and full of generalities, and because he rarely uses transitive verbs, feels plodding and choppy. When he does use compound or complex sentence structure, it’s usually with periodic, middle-branching sentences that include non sequitur information. Occasionally, he will structure a sentence with an introductory clause or phrase, but then not finish the thought syntactically, ending abruptly before moving on to the next sentence. There’s also a lot that is difficult to classify, so I’ll just say it reads sort of like Hemingway if he’d recently been struck in the head by a tire iron.

6 months ago, I was told it might snow. Now I hear it’s too hot.

In case your skin and sweat glands aren’t working properly, the temperature outside is steadily rising. If I take the average of the temperatures I’ve heard on the radio, seen on the TV, and read on the internet, it is roughly 132 degrees Fahrenheit today.

It is undecided whether this weather is a freak heat wave, the aftermath of a solar flare, some unproven side effect of global warming, or just a normal Summer day. Records are being broken, thermometers are rapidly exploding into showers of mercury, and human spontaneous combustion is imminent. You should probably wear shorts.

I am sympathetic to those who continually note how hot it has gotten, seeing that it never really gets hot around here. It is very hard to acclimatize to extreme heat when you’ve never been so hot in your entire life. Some advice for the ill-prepared: buy one of those fans with a misting bottle attached to it, they are awesome.

Make sure to complain about the heat, even when it is very obvious that others around you are painfully aware of said heat. Ask anyone you see, who you know was recently outside, if it was “hot enough for them”; this kind of humor is classic and timeless, and may help distract people from the heat. Complain that you’re too hot in your clothes, and comically suggest that your boss allow office nakedness in response to the heat. Awkwardly glance at an attractive coworker as you make this suggestion.

Do your best to avoid moving. Remind those you see that you got excessively sweaty just walking the 30 feet from your car to the office door. Point to the sweat marks near your armpits as proof. Give people plenty of warning that they too might suffer a fate worse than sweat if they brave the scolding climate.

Always remember that heat is dangerous, so avoid going outside if at all possible. Tell your friends that you’ll wait for it to “cool off” before you leave the house. Never be satisfied that it has “cooled off” enough; you don’t want to risk dehydration and hyperthermia just to be social.

If you must go outside, take proper precaution. Spray yourself with half a gallon of perfume/cologne to mask the BO that will inevitably creep up after a long sweat session. Grab either side of your shirt and wave it back and forth to fan refreshing air across your overheating gut. Whenever you can, hike up your pants to cool off your legs. Don’t worry about your disgusting, sweaty leg hair or the alabaster sheen of your shins and thighs; no one will judge you since it is so hot outside.

Make sure you drink plenty of fluids. Beer is a great choice as it contains water, electrolytes, and alcohol. If you feel woozy, you’re probably just drunk (and definitely not experiencing the onset of heat exhaustion). If you have to perform any labor, make sure it is very intense to avoid prolonged heat exposure; better to frantically squeeze all of the work into an exhausting 15 minutes than stretch it across 4 hours. Less is more…or more is less…I ’m not sure; my brain is fried from the heat.

If you notice the heat, the best thing you can do is tell others about it, as they may have lived in Antarctica their entire lives, and may not recognize this phenomenon as “heat”. Some people may have teleported to work, and will appreciate you telling them the weather, as they didn’t have to go outside during their instantaneous commute.

If others in your social networks claim they have it worse, tell them that they are closing schools due to the heat. If the kids are in danger from the heat, it’s clearly too hot. You can also remind them how hot the Metro gets (and sucks!), and how slow people drive when their tires are literally melting onto the roadway. Double points if you point out how humid it is and how that humidity clearly makes our heat worse than “dry heat”.

(The Desert Shadow Dogs come out when it gets this hot. They scour the barren, burned landscape searching for collapsed, dehydration/alcohol poisoning victims. You have been warned. )

Be sure to appreciate how hot it is, because before you know it, you’ll be complaining about how cold it is. Hell, it might even get cold enough to snow this winter.

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