This one’s kind of fun. (If you can’t handle a little light satire without getting your sensibilities all in a wad, you’d better leave off reading right now.)
Most of our presidents have had one or two nicknames. Dutch; The Gipper. Bubba (or Slick Willy, to his detractors). W.
So, my friend and Hollywood screenwriter Myrna Sokoloff is thinking it over and gives us this piece over at Big Hollywood called ‘The Smile’: A Perfect Presidential Nick Name, suggesting one for our sitting president.
I thought about it for a minute. And you know how a lot of the old comic book characters have names that sort of capture their essence, whether villainous or good? Kingpin. Spiderman. Green Goblin. The Joker. Well, I think Myrna may have nailed it with “The Smile.”
He mesmerizes, hypnotizes, delights. A hero’s Hero from toe to toothy grin. When he enters, rooms brighten and hearts flutter. The style, the swing. That certain je ne sais quois. And that smile.
Oh, to be near The Smile.
The comic book pages turn; the reader is entranced; but wait, what’s this?
A page is turned. He is caught unaware, there, at the top of page 17, in slide 3. He is alone, half-undressed. He startles, turns, forgetting himself. His eyes stare back, cool, empty.
And you, poor reader, are stunned. You scan his face; you are aghast. Where his mouth once was, there is a gaping hole.
And The Smile…?
It is there, on the dressing table, next to his watch and cuff links. It shines; it sparkles; but it is not an ornament.
No, it is alive – alive?! – and all at once you see the horrifying truth:
The Smile is the master, and the man is its accessory!
