Last night's Al Smith dinner in NYC revealed the final piece of the puzzle about Donald Trump.
He has no sense of humor.
As a comedy writer by trade who has made his entire career out of making people laugh, like most other comedy writers I take the job very seriously.
There are all kinds of humor, both high and low and you pretty much get what you pay for. There is no accounting for personal taste and I think what we gravitate towards, comedically reflects the things that made us laugh right out the gate.
Growing up, my parent's comedy was mine too. I grew up adoring Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, Jack Benny, Burns and Allen, The Three Stooges, Jerry Lewis, Bob and Ray, the parade of swaggering comics on Ed Sullivan like Alan King and Henny Youngman until I went my own way when youth co-opted comedy and suddenly comics were rock stars in arenas, from Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Garry Shandling to Dice Clay and man the first year of SNL---which I went to often because I was dating a cute NBC page.
The best part wasn't the air show; it was the run-through which was chock full of stuff that would not, to this day, get on the air. And nothing was better than Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (I'm currently launching a new series for SEESO with comedy genius Paul Reiser which is a loving valentine to the behind the scenes world of the Tonight Show set in 1972 Burbank. Even our hero is from Valentine, Nebraska which is a real place.
Guys like Paul and I basically went to the University of HA whose professors included Norman Lear (I was on Fernwood Tonight) to Garry Marshall.
Being Jewish helps too as my people pretty much invented comedy. Comedy is the soulful, symphonic music of those who knew pain and suffering like no other. Working next to Mel Brooks on Mad About You was like sitting near a Talmudic scholar of funny. And best of all: he was SWEET, KIND, GENEROUS and ADORABLE. I thought, God, if I have lunch next to him, I just know he's going to start feeding me out of his plate.
Here's the thing: brilliant comedy is not a weapon (which is why I loathe sarcasm). It is a shield of defense but it is also a kind of U.N. interpreter who sits in a basement office of your heart, translating events for you en- route to helping you understand our often terrifying or just plain insane world by whispering thoughts in our head that will simply tickle us, just like mommy and daddy did during our formative years.
Which brings me back to Shecky Trump performance last night---which was roundly and justifiably booed--at a charity event!!
Trump and especially Malign-ia could not possibly looked more out of place. Hillary and Trump were separated like God and state by Cardinal Dolan. Hillary was the life of the party, chatting up everyone, while The grumpy Trumps sat there like a muted pet owner and his stupefied greyhound, pretty much ignored by the crowd. At one point Trump started drinking soda through a straw and he looked like the poor shnook kid in the school cafeteria who was just asking to be smacked upside the head with a tray by the next passing bully. And seeing him dressed up like that made him look like he was playing Daddy Warbucks in the Camp Dalmaqua production of "Annie."
The problem was he was simply not capable of fitting in with that atmosphere because the particles of charity make him gag an suffocate with epi-pen efficacy.. All those good feelings were that foreign to him. And then he did his routine. Obviously he and I grew up in very different worlds. I'm guessing, while I was laughing at Buddy Hackett, he was laughing at the cripple girl who was just pushed down the stairs. We both grew up in Queens and he's a lot older than me, but I have seen his kind all over the neighborhood: the pouty angry private school kie with a blue chip on his shoulder.
Trump's routine, no doubt written by Stephen Bannon and Roger Ailes was the antipathy of what he was supposed to do. His jokes were pointedly vicious. Cruel. Humiliating. Gee, I can't wait to see his first state dinner when he does a routine for the visiting Kim Jong Il---who will no doubt be wearing an explosive vest---no---his quivering assistant will. One joke too many and boom: welcome to Designated Survivor: the Trump years. Let me reiterate: people BOOED at a charity event.
Hillary was, well, presidential. She just smiled and nodded like a put upon parent, while waiting patiently to dip into the arsenal or jok3 that she was carrying.
Hillary's routine was Hill-arious. Not perfect. There were a few Yale or Harvard inspired wise-guy jokes that was more tonic than gin. But for the most part, she brilliantly infused the comedy with a compassionate speech about human decency which, in the end, was, well, charitable. There was not a shred of madness in the Methodist.
Trump also made me realize me that his millions of shmoo-shaped, cranium deformed followers have no sense of humor either. It's like there's no comedy in the trailer parks of America. Just camel cigarettes, cases of Michelob light and a feeling of entitlement that they think minorities are systematically stealing from them. And who better to be their leader than the man who whenever he has said horrible things, publicly said later, "it was a joke! I was kidding."
No he wasn't.
You would have to at the very least know on some level what comedy is and why it exists on this planet, which is why most Americans, thank God, will be laughing all the way to the polls.