The Presser Was A Snoozer, But The Pee Party Gushes On

John Locke might disapprove, but Rabelais would howl with laughter.

Donald Trump Press Conference Cold Open - SNL - YouTube 011417
President-elect Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) holds his first press conference since getting elected.

Maureen O’Conner explains the origin of all the Donald Trump pee jokes this week in The Sheer Perfection of Donald Trump’s Golden Shower in | New York magazine:

Wabi-sabi is the Japanese term for that which is perfect not in spite of its imperfections, but because of them. It’s a teacup whose cracks enhance its beauty, or an asymmetrical tableau that is nevertheless balanced. Things that are wabi-sabi are not perfect, but they feel perfect. Looking at them fills you with serenity — wabi-sabi is when everything is right, including things that are wrong, because they too are essential to the whole.

Last night I — and perhaps you too — encountered a wabi-sabi rumor. I didn’t think the rumor was true, but it was so deliciously satisfying that I could not look away. It was masterpiece of evocative specificity, a glorious symphony of sordid particulars. I couldn’t believe it, nor could I disbelieve it. More accurately: I didn’t care if I believed it. It was wabi-sabi, perfectly imperfect, wildly lopsided, and yet, somehow, balanced enough to stand. It was the tale of Donald Trump’s Russian prostitute pee party.

Wabi-sabi rumors are stories that are so unbelievable, they become perversely believable again. They feel right, even when you know they aren’t, and so they take on the force of legend. Examples include Richard Gere’s gerbil, Catherine the Great’s horse, and Taylor Swift’s immortal life as a Satanic priestess. They’re rumors so compelling that even when you realize they’re false, you stay up all night reading about parallel universes — because if Mick Jagger didn’t eat a Mars Bar out of Marianne Faithfull’s crotch in our universe, then surely there is some alternate reality out there, where he did?

Such is the case with Donald Trump’s golden shower. In retrospect, the most surprising thing about the golden-shower rumor is that we didn’t come up with it sooner. Though America spent the better part of last year cracking lewd jokes about our presidential candidates, the biggest joke of all was the product of overseas labor: a self-described “former British intelligence officer” who, in a widely discredited and error-riddled memo, claimed Russian spies may have filmed Donald J. Trump hiring prostitutes to “perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him” in a Moscow hotel room, as part of a psychosexual revenge plot against the ghost of President Obama, Michelle Obama, and their mutually respectful love for one another. The rumor appears on the second page of the document, which BuzzFeed published last night, where it’s highlighted in, um, yellow.

This tale of “TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow” is so preposterous that it feels, strangely, inevitable. Donald Trump, a germaphobe who brags about never hearing his wife fart, secretly orchestrated a Russian-prostitute pee party? Donald Trump, a “clean-hands freak” with golden hair, golden skin, and a golden home, paid a bunch of hookers for a golden shower. Donald Trump, who said Hillary Clinton “got schlonged” after taking a bathroom break during a debate: “I know where she went,” he said, face screwed with distaste. “It’s disgusting! I don’t want to talk about it. No, it’s too disgusting. Don’t say it, it’s disgusting!” Donald Trump, a man who doth protest quite a bit about corporeal disgust. Donald Trump. Loves. Pee.

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