From Mount Trumpmore to the Moon: Yesterday Was a Doozy

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction; other times, they're the same thing.

QUICK NOTE: If any of my people will be in or around Austin, TX, on April 22, I’ll be the featured speaker at the Brownstone Institute Supper Club. Tickets are available at the hot pink link (and FWIW, this is not a paid gig for me; your money goes to dinner and the Institute, not my water bill or legendary cat habit). Should be a fun night. :)

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Picture me doing what I do—frantically scrolling the internet in search of something ridiculous to write about—when I see it. They proposed it and I joked about it and now here it was, actually happening: Mount Trumpmore.

“Secured by ropes, a team of intrepid sculptors chisel away at a very famous quiff as the shock first addition to Mount Rushmore in 85 years is revealed,” the Daily Mail wrote. “The world-renowned memorial to the US’s most revered presidents is having a controversial fifth face added in the form of one Donald J. Trump. The 45th and 47th US president is joining legendary predecessors George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.”

Did Trump approve this? Did he order it? In the middle of a war? Are taxpayer dollars paying for it? Is the media going to cover it? Will there be enough weighted blankets in the world to mop up the liberal meltdown?

All of these things were metaphorically streaking through my brain at the exact moment I realized that I am a bona fide, card-carrying, premium-grade sucker.

“Good one,” one commenter wrote. “You had me for a sec,” said another. “Best. April Fools. Post. Ever.”

[*Checks calendar*]

Right. Of course. Obviously.

So rude.

As I continued my search for something newsworthy to skewer, I realized that the entire mediasphere was participating in the festivities. “The War’s Finish Line Is in Sight,” Reuters roared. Yeah, right. “Kristi Noem’s Husband Accused of ‘Bimbo’ Cross-Dressing Fetish in Leaked Messages and Photos,” the New York Post joked. Maybe crossed a line there, but as headline pranks go, it was… visual. “NASA Sends 1st Crew to the Moon in 53 Years,” WRAL wisecracked. Oh, so I guess we just dusted off our map to the Moon, fired up the rockets, and forgot to mention it until now? Exactly how stupid do you think I am?

Apparently, very. Because all three of those headlines turned out to be real. After briefly scanning the first two (and seeing some pix of Mr. Noem that I can never unsee; bless), I figured I had to cover the Moon thing. The one that I had literally not even heard a single peep about, even though my actual job is to read news headlines all day every day.

As I was prepping this piece, NASA was busy prepping to launch four astronauts on a ten-day trip around the Moon—the first time humans have traveled beyond low Earth orbit since 1972. (To clarify, the eleven-minute Katy Perry press tour to the edge of the map doesn’t count.) Every single media outlet I visited was running “live updates” a full eight hours before the anticipated takeoff.

“The astronauts are walking to the van that will take them to the launchpad.”
“The crew has boarded the van.”
“The astronauts are now en route to the launchpad in the astrovan. It’ll be a 15-20 minute drive.”

Riveting, it was not.

Sometimes you’ve gotta recycle the gems.

The mission has been christened Artemis II, and allegedly it will take the astronauts on a half-million-mile trip around the Moon before “splashing down” (is it me or does that sound eerily hopeful?) in the ocean off San Diego on April 10. There will be no lunar landing, just a loop. A celestial drive-by. The goal, we’re told, is to test the spacecraft, pave the way for an actual touch-down “sometime in the next few years,” and eventually set up a “long-term human presence on the Moon.”

You know, like how you plan a weekend in Scottsdale to see if it’s somewhere you might want to retire.

The media is super-hyping the mission’s firsts: first woman, first Black man, and first Canadian to go to the Moon. First crewed flight of the Space Launch System (SLS). First use of laser communication from deep space to transmit high-speed, high-def video. First fully functioning toilet in space. First ultra-high-speed reentry (25,000 MPH, making this group the fastest-moving humans in history). First time we’ve treated “going back” somewhere like a historic breakthrough.

All of which raises an entirely new slew of questions: how, exactly, did we go from nothing whatsoever to “we’re launching humans around the Moon tomorrow” with zero buildup? Where was the drumroll? Where was “Trump Takes the Moon”? Where were the breathless countdown graphics, the panel discussions, the ominous music and B-roll of rockets at sunset? What happened to the Space Race after 1972? Did everyone just collectively decide, cool, we did it, and pivot to pickleball? Because I feel like “hey, we’re sending humans back around the big ball of cheese for the first time since cable TV was invented” is the kind of thing that might have come up before Greg from WRAL was live-blogging a van ride to the takeoff site.

Maybe it’s just me?

Regular readers already know I’m highly suspicious of the original “Moon landing” story. Equally notable (questionable? dubious?) is that we let more than a half century pass before we even thought about a return trip. I know, we won the Space Race! We didn’t need to think about it! Plus it was so darned expensive, and I guess NASA doesn’t have access to the same money printer the rest of the federal government does. Anyway, that’s why we took the technology that got us there and either destroyed it, lost it, or shoved it into a drawer labeled “Moon stuff” (nobody really knows, TBH) and called it a day.

Until now! And—conveniently—it’s all going down just as Costco-sized crashed spaceships are being discovered and Congress is holding UFO Transparency Hearings and the White House is reportedly preparing to release “the UFO files” on its newly registered website, aliens.gov (but actually). Let’s just say the timing is… curious.

A conspiracy theorist might wonder about it. She might even postulate—briefly and purely for fun—that either they’re trying to redirect attention to something shiny and far away, they’re laying the groundwork for a new trillion-dollar “space economy”… or they’re using taxpayer dollars to plan and plot an escape route to their vacation planet for when they unleash nuclear war or the next plandemic.

Could be any of those… or none. It could just be that NASA wanted to beat Elon to the Moon. What do you think? LMK below!

(If nothing else, lift-off is cool to watch. I’ll give it that.)

p.s. As I was writing this, I had a flashback to a blog post (remember those?) I wrote about fifteen years ago and had to resurrect it. Technically it’s a day late, which is probably a good thing. You’re welcome.

April Fools Can Suck It*

*that was the actual title

My kids came home from school today all fired up, rattling off the many “hilarious” April Fools pranks their friends were bragging about pulling on their families.

“Can we do that?” they begged. “It’s so awesome!”

“I hate April Fools,” I told them. It’s true. I also hate Halloween and Disneyland and TV and chocolate and cotton candy and honestly, I don’t know why anybody ever let me have kids in the first place, because clearly I was not built for this crap.

“Please help us think of a prank! PLEASE!” they begged, so of course I was googling ten minutes later, on account of the guilt I have about hating everything my kids love. The very first thing I discovered in my search is that people are batshit crazy. I am not even making that up.

Here are just a handful of the “super-fun, kid-friendly pranks” I found that people are actually, willingly engaging in:

1. Put a rubber band around the kitchen sink’s sprayer and wait until someone turns the water on. Hahaha that’s so awesome and also who do you suppose is going to clean that nightmare up? Or console the whiny kid whose hair just got soaked (the same kid who freaks out if her part is two millimeters off center)? That would be me, jerk. So thanks for the super fun idea, but I’ll pass.

2. Turn up the volume as high as it can go on someone’s computer or radio before they turn it on. Great. Now my kids are orphans because I just had a heart attack. Way to go, Internet. I hope you feel good about yourself.

3. Buy some clothes that are several sizes too big for your kids, so that when they put them on they’ll think they shrunk! So this is how rich people do April Fools Day! Oh, Biff, you’re just too, too much. Look at all of these positively gargantuan garments. For a fleeting moment, I thought I was withering away! (Also, my kids are not idiots. But nice try.)

4. Grab a few pairs of your hubby’s or kids’ undies and sew them together. Next time they go to grab a clean pair, they’ll get more than they bargained for! You’re joking, right? I have a “sewing pile” in my closet overflowing with shorts that need buttons and skirts that need hemming and straps that need shortening. None of it fits anyone and it’s all out of style because it’s been there since 1997. But I’m going to whip out a needle and thread and stitch some perfectly good skivvies together as a joke? Exactly how much crack are you smoking these days, Internet? I’m calling Betty Ford.

5. If you happen to have a blow-up doll hanging around, dress her up and strap her in the passenger seat of a friend’s car. If you happen to have a blow-up doll hanging around, you probably don’t have many friends. I’m just saying.

6. Put a sheet or two of plastic-wrap over the toilet seat. I don’t know about you, but scrubbing piss off my bathroom floors is just a little slice of heaven in any otherwise ordinary day. When I see (smell) that delicious yellow ring, I dance a happy jig every time. All day long I sit and wonder how I might possibly get more of this unique and pungent delight in my life. Thanks again, Internet! You never let me down.

7. Smear Vaseline on your door handles. Or maybe draw a mural on your leather sofa with Sharpie instead—because it would be easier to clean.

8. If you know someone who loves Oreo cookies, scrape out the white creamy filling and replace it with white toothpaste. Okay, fine. This one isn’t that bad because at least I’d get to eat the filling. Do you think they’ll notice my teeth marks in the chocolate part, though?

9. Coat a bar of soap with clear nail polish so no suds will form. What a total waste of nail polish. Everyone knows kids don’t touch soap.

10. Make fake “ice” and psyche out your kids with warm beverages. You guys. This is like a full-on craft project involving blocks and tin foil and craft beads and the actual oven. So that you can PSYCHE OUT YOUR KIDS WITH A WARM BEVERAGE. Who has this kind of time on their hands? Because I would like to outsource literally every miserable task in my life to them.

11. Fill a bowl with Skittles, M&Ms and Reese’s Pieces. Now you’re just being an asshole, Internet. Pranks are supposed to be harmless and fun.

12. Put some powder on top of the ceiling fan blades and wait for someone to turn it on. Respectfully, who hurt you? Also see #s 1 and 7 and then please, get help.

13. Scrape all of the deodorant out of someone’s Speed Stick and replace it with cream cheese. And then the person with sticky cheese pits killed everyone else in the house, I hope you’re happy.

At press time, we are still looking for a “super-fun, kid-friendly prank” that will not end in a homicide. I welcome your thoughtful suggestions.

Don’t ever do this to me or anyone else.

Yes, these are the types of things I used to write before I was busy exposing corruption, fighting tyranny, and calling out wokeism. Anyway, I hope nobody got played with a fake snake or a positive pregnancy test yesterday. Thanks for indulging me. :)

Coming soon in Spanish and Portuguese! (English version available here.)