Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Council Chamber
(1892)

"Thank the Lord or somebody for such small blessings."

Scripture predicted that many strange things would appear during EndDays, but if these are, indeed, EndDays, even stranger things have manifested. I suspect that no self-respecting prophet could or would have unashamedly predicted what we see emanating from our Administration Still Remarkably Uninterested In Administering Anything. That label alone would have challenged even an experienced Ezekiel to announce. “And, verily, The EndDays will bring an Administration Still Remarkably Uninterested In Administering Anything.” Even the more devout and penitent would welcome such news with a heartfelt, “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.” Our actual experience, given that these might be those long-anticipated EndDays, surprises us all, however Nostradamus-hardened we had become. This life, as usual, wouldn’t really qualify to be believable fiction. That’s probably the primary way we can determine for certain that these times are not, in fact, fictional. We’re not delusional, merely present and attentive. Nobody could credibly MakeUp this stuff.

Perhaps at the top of what would have previously qualified as unbelievable stands the now common practice, broadly engaged in by self-proclaimed conservatives, of males wearing MakeUp. I’m not talking about surreptitious applications of Just For Men® intended to cloak an encroaching grey around the temples, but spackle every bit as thick and obvious as anything a Gay Blade Louis The Eye-Ex Whatever wouldn’t have been caught dead without at Versailles, replete with mouches. Our incumbent has always worn copious amounts of the most obvious fake tan on almost all exposed skin, as if to pretend that he plays golf in the nude. (Shudder, shudder!) But he fancies a Florida tan, more orange than bronze, and iridescent even when viewed in full sunlight. He’s not dead yet, but nobody who sees him in life was ever moved to comment on how lifelike he looks. He looks like death, inexpertly warmed over. He’s haphazard, too, with application, edges prominently not quite reaching his hairline, so that the underlying beached whale pale clearly shows around his face’s perimeter. It gives him a curiously demonic, haloed appearance.

His Vice sports eyeliner that makes him appear poorly drawn, as if the sketch artist had failed to return to smudge out his initial reference lines. I’m uncertain the message he intends to send by appearing such, but I can report that whatever he intends, I can classify what’s received as a definite mix. I’m confused, especially when he goes off on one of his frequent rants against drag queens reading stories to kids, because he presents as a refugee from drag queen college who’s forgotten to remove the evidence. The effect leans far into ridiculousness, which might make sense if the purpose was supposed to be stealth. Who would suspect that anyone suited in such a clown uniform could be capable of inflicting real harm on anyone but themself and some hapless snooping fashion detective? He, like his boss, might be even more dangerous for their ridiculous getups. Their sense of style easily lulls the unsuspecting into vulnerable ease, on those fleetingly rare moments when they can stop laughing or launching milk out of their nostrils when encountering their appearance.

Yes, theirs seems a truly absurd obsession, though their MakeUp might be the only thing they present in public that actually comes even close to disclosing their underlying truth. They are, or must be, deeply insecure, for their MakeUp renders their appearance deeply superficial, shallow as Hell. They present as carrying no depth, or depth they’d rather not present in public, tenaciously two-dimensional. This probably discloses more than enough for any observer to conclude that they must be up to something even they consider shameful. Those who appear unable to disclose their shoes-off selves seem incapable of holding the public’s trust. They simply must be up to something surreptitious, something that seems certain to embarrass us since it certainly seems to embarrass them enough to move them to slap so damned much MakeUp on what’s obviously a pig.

The Biblical references to EndDays had to be written as allegories, and it seems from here, if we are, indeed, living in EndDays now, that our days, our news stories seem like allegories, too. We must read behind the headlines and between the lines to find any underlying truth, any truth under the obviously lying MakeUp. What does it mean when an incumbent shows up at his own press conference made up to resemble a freaking orange? Might he be preventing himself from telling bald-faced lies? Might that MakeUp protect him from charges that he committed what every witness confirms he actually did commit, but, unfortunately, not bald-facedly. Without that prima facie bald-faced evidence, it might be that we cannot properly prosecute. He probably knows that. He pretends to be something he isn’t. He never hasn’t. He’s truthful to a fault, if that fault is the fact that he wears his cover-up on his face, for everyone to see, and has never once given anyone a peek at whatever horrifying mess lurks underneath. Thank the Lord or somebody for such small blessings.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz