From NEW YORKER profile of Trump’s myth maker Mark Burnett.

Excerpted from Patrick Radden Keefe’s NEW YORKER profile of producer Mark Burnett—infamous for packaging the APPRENTICE version of Donald Trump which conned viewers into believing Trump should be President of the United Statrs:

“The Apprentice” portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth—a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. “Most of us knew he was a fake,” Braun told me. “He had just gone through I don’t know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.” Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, “We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.”

Did Burnett believe what he was selling? Or was Trump another two-dollar T-shirt that he pawned off for eighteen? It’s difficult to say. One person who has collaborated with Burnett likened him to Harold Hill, the travelling fraudster in “The Music Man,” saying, “There’s always an angle with Mark. He’s all about selling.” Burnett is fluent in the jargon of self-help, and he has published two memoirs, both written with Bill O’Reilly’s ghostwriter, which double as manuals on how to get rich. One of them, titled “Jump In!: Even if You Don’t Know How to Swim,” now reads like an inadvertent metaphor for the Trump Presidency. “Don’t waste time on overpreparation,” the book advises.

America and the Free World deserve someone better than a star of a Mark Burnett-produced reality show.

Omarosa Manigault, who achieved fame as a caricatured villainess on the early run of Mark Burnett's THE APPRENTICE (which starred the current Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump) spoke these chilling words recently:
“Every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump,” she says. “It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, whoever disagreed, whoever challenged him — it is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”

John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten not a fan of AMERICAN IDOL and THE VOICE.

Remembering an interview Bill Maher once gave where he voiced his strong dislike of contestant-elimination reality shows ("You're off the island!")

Now, here's John Lydon (who recently resurrected his seminal post-Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd) with a similar-to-Maher take on THE VOICE and AMERICAN IDOL:
http://www.nme.com/news/sex-pistols/64031?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fanpage-nmenews-johnlydon

Guilty of watching CELEBRITY APPRENTICE this season..

Yes, I condemned it as a cartoon graveyard awhile back, but I admit to again watching THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE in its again-stretched-to-two-hour-episodes 2012 season.

And last night Donald Trump fired his walking/talking conflict of interest Dayana Mendoza--Miss Universe (and the Miss Universe pageant is now controlled by the Trump empire).

I felt a bit sorry for Ms. Mendoza as Clay Aiken (in what seemed to be a semi-staged outburst) objected to her trying to tell him what to do (since she was the Project Manager for her team) by referring to himself as a "grown-ass man."

But at least the show benefits some deserving charities.

I also hope these organizations overlook the occasions of sexism, wooden line-readings from Eric Trump and one unfortunate comment a few episodes back--a "joke" about waterboarding a contestant to get information from that person.

The cartoon graveyard of THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE.

Perhaps Paul Simon was prescient in his lyrics for "You Can Call Me Al" when, in the first verse, he wrote:
Why am I soft in the middle?
The rest of my life is so hard!
I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption!
Don't want to end up a cartoon,
In a cartoon graveyard...

THE CELEBRITY APPRENTICE--which began as a sort of B-and-C-list-celeb-prolong-moment-in-the-sun-plus-charity-donations parody of the original APPRENTICE format (which still survives in the UK in less schlocky form, with Alan Sugar as the Trump equivalent)--seems to have morphed into an unbearable steroid-laced mockery of itself, based on last night's season premiere.

Kudos to supermodel emeritus Cheryl Tiegs for deciding she didn't want to emulate Meat Loaf, Gary Busey, Joan and Melissa Rivers, Dennis Rodman, etc. etc. and give Donald Trump/Mark Burnett the loud, face-making, over-the-top antics deemed "good television."

Time to rebrand TLC as The Unlearning Channel.

Assuming there will be a lot of who-cares passivity regarding this press release about the Republican operative teaming up with the woman who will do just about anything to stay on television:
http://www.popeater.com/2010/07/22/sarah-palin-to-take-kate-gosselin-and-kids-camping-on-kate-plus/?icid=main

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