Mixed Metaphors

“Speak your mind even if your voice shakes.” — Maggie Kuhn

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” — Will Rogers

The past couple of weeks (and longer) have featured perfect examples of when to pick up the mic, when to drop it, who should pick up the mic, and who should refrain from talking and listen for a change. In the opening of this essay, I offer contradictory quotes, examples of opposite sentiments. Sometimes we need to know when and who should pick up the mic, and when and who should shut up and listen. Yes, this includes me.

“Dropping the mic” entered the lexicon as early as the 1980s by rappers and comedians before becoming a meme. From Wikipedia, “A mic drop is the gesture of intentionally dropping one’s microphone at the end of a performance or speech to signal triumph. Figuratively, it is an expression of triumph for a successful event and indicates a boastful attitude toward one’s own performance.”

This essay began percolating in my mind following the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday, April 28, 2018, which featured comedian Michelle Wolf. Immediately she became the center of a debate regarding her performance, crude comments, and treatment of Sarah Sanders and the White House. Detractors thought the emphasis should have been focused on the First Amendment and the awards presented that evening. The irony for me was Wolf was practicing her First Amendment rights as an invited guest and performer. In my view, she dropped the mic. 

Following are some of my social media posts reprinted in the order they appeared:

April 29 at 6:14am 

This morning while I had my cup-a-joe, I watched Michelle Wolf’s comedy remarks. There’s a lot of debate (and Tweets) about how crude, inappropriate, and scathing her comedy routine was, and how the emphasis should have been on the First Amendment and the awards presented at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Yes, some of her material made me cringe too, and some of it seemed mean-spirited. What I found interesting though is that when a woman comic has a podium she’s often going to skewer different targets and raise different topics which Wolf did last night, including #MeToo, Trump’s racism, the Press Secretary’s lies, and the Republican Congress’s and the 24-hour media’s (including CNN) collusion and profiting from Trump. When the audience began moaning at some of her biting humor, she remarked, rightly so “…(you) should have done more research before you got me to do this!”

Her last words were, “Flint still doesn’t have clean water.”

Watch Michelle Wolf’s performance here and you be the judge.

April 30 at 8:15am  

I find it interesting that when Michelle Wolf takes the podium as an invited comedian, she’s criticized for name-calling and being raunchy, however when the current POTUS calls citizens, media, elected officials, his cabinet members, and leaders of other countries names in his uninvited Tweets, makes fun of the disabled or disadvantaged, and BEHAVES in a filthy and raunchy manner, when he’s called out on it or asked to be accountable for his words and actions, he calls the coverage Fake News.

April 30 at 10:24am 

I’m grateful that Michelle Wolf’s routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner has sparked a debate. Here are some additional thoughts of mine: I’ve done stand-up comedy in the past, and sometimes I chose to do topical humor. In writing my material one of my goals was to provoke the audience to think about and debate the issues I was addressing, which sometimes required me to step over the line on how I would treat others in my personal life. Many comics from Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, to Richard Pryor and Chris Rock, to two of my favorites, Kate Clinton and Paula Poundstone do the same.

The comic, Hannibal Buress is credited for calling out Bill Cosby. Some of Michelle Wolf’s material included name-calling and was raunchy, made me cringe, and she has us talking about the issues. I’m grateful for people who push the limits of good taste sometimes so we can take an inventory of our personal values (I’m not including POTUS in this remark. He’s exceeded the limit of challenging good taste and decorum).

April 30 at 1:42pm 

“Wolf’s routine burst the bubbles of civility and performance, and of the separation of media and comedy. It plunged the attendees into the reality that is, in the Trump era, the stuff of comedy. Through her obscene humor, Wolf exposed the obscenity of the fictions—and the fundamental unfunniness of it all. Her last line, the most shocking of her entire monologue, bears repeating: Flint still doesn’t have clean water.” — From The New Yorker article, How Michelle Wolf Blasted Open the Fictions of Journalism in the Age of Trump

April 30 at 2:38pm  

One more article of what happens when a woman speaks truth to power…

I ended up posting two opinion pieces, and yes, I admit I was beginning to obsess about this issue.

Michelle Wolf’s WHCD Honesty Is What America Needs Right Now

Shut up about Michelle Wolf if you’ve been silent on Trump’s offenses

May 1 at 7:18am 

Apparently, I’m not ready to stop talking about Michelle Wolf and neither are late-night hosts. Watch The Daily Show host, Trevor Noah’s take on the controversy.

I did finally stop talking about Michelle Wolf and metaphorically dropped the mic, finally. It took someone else — a celebrity known for grabbing the mic away from a woman and picking up a mic when sometimes it would be better to be silent — to divert my attention. Kanye West grabbed the mic again (which is in fact his First Amendment right) and spoke about his support for Trump. His remarks about 400 years of slavery ignited a backlash and he sought sympathy for how he was treated for his weight, the liposuction procedure he had as a result, and the depression he suffers from.  Yes, you guessed it, I posted on social media again, and like the comedian I am — and inspired by the bar that Michelle Wolf raised — I simply stated the following:

May 2 at 6:55am

“Without naming names, let me go on record, liposuction doesn’t help if you’re full of sh*t!”

Okay, it was time for me to not pick up the mic again. Like Kanye, it was time for me to shut up and listen. I did. I started to pay closer attention to who grabbed the mic, who dropped the mic, and who should shut up and listen.

Here’s What I’ve Learned:

• Paul Ryan should not have picked up the mic when he fired Chaplain Patrick J. Conroy and said the following, “This is not about politics or prayers. It was about pastoral services. And a number of our members felt like the pastoral services were not being adequately served or offered.”
• Father Patrick J. Conroy dropped the mic when Republican tax bill was being debated in a prayer on November 6, 2017, before the legislation became law. “As legislation on taxes continues to be debated this week and next, may all Members be mindful that the institutions and structures of our great Nation guarantee the opportunities that have allowed some to achieve great success, while others continue to struggle. May their efforts these days guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”
• Former Mayor of NYC, and newest member of Trump’s legal team, Rudy Giuliani waded into the fray when he picked up the mic and implicated his boss, the POTUS, in the Stormy Daniels silencing payoff in his interviews on Fox News. If that wasn’t enough, when he tried to clarify his remarks, he kept the story in the news and forced Trump, Sarah Sanders, and his staff to respond. Later, Giuliani picked up the mic again when he allegedly misspoke about Trump’s role in the AT&T merger and influence peddling with Michael Cohen, again.
• Trump needs to stop picking up the mic, tweeting, and telling lies (euphemistically referred to as untrue or misleading statements) totaling 3,000 so far as of May 9, 2018, his first 466 days as POTUS, averaging 6.5 lies per day.
• Congressman Devin Nunes needs to stop picking up the mic. He needs to censured.
• Fox News needs to shut up and stop telling lies and giving unequal time to Trump and fake news.

• Stormy Daniels and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have been dropping the mic every time they’ve picked it up.
• The #MeToo continues to drop the mic.
• Puerto Rican citizens continue to drop the mic.
• Residents of Flint, Michigan continue to drop the mic.
• DACA Dreamers and immigrants continue to drop the mic.
• Activist students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School continue to drop the mic.

And, on this Mother’s Day, let’s acknowledge all the mothers, daughters, and women of the world who are speaking out on behalf of their families, their children, their rights, and their bodies as they pick up the mic, find their voice, and to quote Maggie Kuhn, “Speak your mind even if your voice shakes.”