Donald Trump has had 19 businesses fail. Voting for Trump because he is a good businessman is like hiring Keith Richards as a personal trainer. 

This is National Procrastination Week. So I guess Hillary Clinton put off winning Michigan until the next election.

In a rebuttal to Mitt Romney’s accusations of failed businesses, Donald Trump held an infomercial of all of his products. Not a big seller?  The Trump Hand Lotion Reduction Cream. 

According to the porn site, Pornhub, the most searched word is lesbian. And after writing that, my next computer task is erasing my browser history.

A study claims the end of a marathon-watching session can lead to sadness. It’s called: Downton Abbey Crabby. 

“Downton Abbey” just aired their series finale. Have not seen this many rich white people upset since Starbucks did not put Christmas symbols on their red cup.

“Downton Abbey” just aired their series finale. You know what this means? There will be a lot of zombies with British accents on “The Walking Dead.” 

The Two Extremes of the Male Condition

Donald Trump Is A Lot Of Things. Tough Is Not One of Them.

One of the reasons people vote for Donald Trump is because they think he is tough. Thus they think, because he is tough, he is a leader. 

What about Donald Trump do they think is tough? His fake New Jersey accent? He grew up a spoiled brat in luxury. Trump’s parents had to pull the last desperate move of rich people who want to toughen up their weakling, spoiled brats: sending him to military school to toughen him up.  

Does firing people make Donald Trump tough? The fact that Trump likes to fire people, does that make him tough? In my life, I have only met one man who truly enjoyed firing people, Bob Feldabum. (Not real name) Bob Feldabum was my manager for about ten days at Prudential Securities in downtown San Diego. 

Bob Feldabum talked about how he loved firing people. He said he hated to go a week without firing someone. It made his week. He loved putting his fat feet up on his big desk and firing someone.  I know because that is how he fired me. 

Bob fired me from Prudential Securities six months after my mother died of breast cancer and six months before my brother died of AIDs. Why did he fire me?  Because my sales commission numbers had dropped off 20% while flying back to Chicago to be with them while they were dying. 

But, if Feldabum, had not fired me, I probably would not have become a comedy writer.

You will not find a fatter, weaker, more cowardly, useless human being troll than Bob Feldabum. And yes, like Trump, Feldabum wore expensive tailored shirts and suits and he also had a hilariously bad combover. They are, as the expression goes, cut out of the same cloth. 

When did acting tough, like Donald Trump, become more important in this country than actually being tough? 

Does anyone honestly believe Ice Cube is a tough guy? Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of Ice Cube. He has made a fortune in rap and acting from literally nothing. But he is an entertainer, like Madonna. He is a type of singer. He is a short, doughy little movie star who lives in Beverly Hills. My dog, Wally, is tougher than Ice Cube and Wally is afraid of his own bark. 

Ditto tiny, little Mark Wahlberg. Marky-Mark once beat and almost killed an old Vietnamese man, blinding him in one eye in the process. It sent him to jail. But he is not tough. Marky-Mark is a scrawny little weasel bully. 

Anyone who thinks developing a pimp-roll strut, wearing a Raider jacket, having six-pack-abs, scowling and pointing a gun sideways makes them tough has not met a Navy Seal. They have not met the great pre-steroid decathlete, Rafer Johnson. They have not met the greatest football player ever, Walter Payton, rest in peace, or hockey legend Mark Messier. 

I have met them. These guys are genuinely tough. True, born leaders. 

When I met Seal Team One, Rafer Johnson, Walter Payton and Mark Messier, they all had one basic thing in common: this incredible steely-eyed look of confidence which makes you want to follow them into battle. They are born leaders and winners. And they don’t have a cocky, arrogant or boastful bone in their body. They have no reason to be cocky. They are the real thing. 

My track coach at UCSB, the late, Sam Adams, was the same thing. The genuine article. A born leader of men and women. 

It is not just men. Woman also have that look. Look at Ronda Rousey. Layla Ali. Abby Wambach. They have that same quality. I have met women who have that look: Gold medal soccer stars, Shannon Macmillan and Julie Foudy. All of the women heptathletes at UCSB also. 

When I first got to San Diego in 1986, downtown was seedy. Nothing like the polished hipster vegan haven it is now. There were tattoo parlors, bail bondsmen, pawn shops, dive bars and strip joints all of which catered to Navy sailors. A few times I wandered into a seedy, Navy bar and it was almost as bad as you would think. A bunch of drunk skinny little horny idiots all trying to get themselves beat up. 

So when I was invited to a party for Navy Seals hosted by their Navy Seal commander, to be blunt, I was a little leery. My biggest fear was they would be douche-bags who wore sunglasses at night like the tools in “Top Gun.” 

Boy, was I wrong. 

If somebody said the party was a ten-year reunion for Stanford’s baseball or track team, it would have been utterly believable. One or two were big, most were not. Some were black, some were white. One Latin. They were all amazingly fit. They were all eerily calm with that steely look of leadership. 

All the Seals had that Rafer-Johnson- like air of confidence that must come from knowing you can kill somebody with your thumb if you have to, but not wanting to because you have done it. 

That same Navy Seal Team One commander and I - I am proud to say - became friends. It was flattering to be liked by a guy like that. On my 40th  birthday, he gave me a mind-blowing present: an official Seal Team One baseball hat. He made it clear he did not give this present out to anyone. It meant he considered me worthy to walk around pretending to look like I was a former Seal. 

Let’s put it this way: he probably would not have given a hat like that to Jonah Hill. Sorry Jonah.  But true. 

To be totally truthful, I swear not one time did I lie about being a Seal while wearing that hat. So when someone in a bar or a store asked if I was a Seal, I would say something cute like, “For National security reasons, I can neither confirm nor deny that.” 

Then my conscience would make me confess. Each time.

One time I was wearing the hat when I was in line in a bank in Chicago around 1994.  A tough-looking, young Navy officer in dress blues ran over and jumped in front of me and saluted me waiting for me to return the salute and he yelled:

"Sir, it is an honor to meet a man from Team One, Sir."

Everyone in the bank turned to look. The officer had a look on his face of barely-contained excitement, his eyes as bright as headlights, like I was Michael Jordan, Eric Clapton and Paul Newman rolled into one. 

Everyone should be looked at like that once in their life. It is a look I will never forget. 

The look of crushing disappointment on that same face a second later when I told him I was not a Navy Seal was something I will also never forget. Although I still have the Seal Team One hat and treasure that hat, I have never worn it in public since. 

(There are some people who do lie about being Navy Seals. Some have even written books lying about being a Navy Seal. They should be shot. No. Really. Shot)

Just being a great and famous athlete does not cut it as being a tough leader either. When I met baseball Hall of Famer, Steve Garvey, that guy is such a smug, phony weasel, I felt like I had to take a shower after shaking his cologne-drenched clammy hand. Had the same feeling about George Brett. Same feeling with Bruce Jenner, for that matter.

One time I briefly met Jim Brown at the United Terminal in O’Hare airport. Arguably the greatest football player who ever lived besides Walter Payton. Jim Brown did not have the same look of a leader in his eye like Walter Payton. Jim Brown’s look was the genuinely scary and bone-chilling predatory-look of a dangerous leopard or lion that is trying to decide if you’re a threat or something to eat. Either way, you're screwed.

A true leader cannot enjoy hurting people, especially women. Or enjoy firing them. People confuse meanness - or sadism - with toughness. They are not the same. In fact, they are the opposite. Leaders are kind. Bullies, like Trump, are the biggest losers alive. 

When somebody pretends to have that Seal-tough look and they don’t have it, you know they are, A, a liar, and, B, a weakling and C, a giant phony. 

Donald Trump is all three. 

People have different reasons for voting. Yes, I despise Trump. That does not mean I despise someone for voting for Trump. 

If somebody wants to vote for Trump, go ahead. All I am saying is don't vote for Trump because you think he is tough.