Kerry Ashton
Actor / Solo Performer / Voice-Over Specialist
Produced & Published Playwright & Author
Director / Theatrical Producer / Songwriter & Singer
  • Home
  • Bio
    • Overview
    • Singer/Songwriter
    • Director, Producer, Master Class Teacher
  • One-Man Play
    • Kerry Ashton's History with "The Wilde Spirit"
    • Show History & Reviews >
      • Reviews & Press from Long-Runs >
        • Resume of Long Runs
        • Press from LA 1977-1978
        • Press from Off-Off B'way 1982
        • Press from Las Vegas 1983
        • Press from P'town 1990-1992 >
          • P'Town 1990 Press
          • P'Town 1991 Press
          • P'Town 1992 Press
          • P'Town 1995 Editorial
        • Press from Key West, FL 1995
        • Press from Off-Broadway 1996
        • Since 2000
      • Reviews & Press from Road Engagements 1977-2000 >
        • Resume of Road Engagements
        • Sponsor Testimonials 1977-2000
      • Poster Art 1997-2013
      • Brochures 1977-2013
    • Performance DVDs >
      • DVD 1996 Off-Broadway
      • DVD 1992 Musical Version: Live from Provincetown
      • DVD 1990 Provincetown
    • Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording on CD and MP3 Download >
      • Selections from the Off-Broadway Cast Recording
    • Musical Version: Live from Provincetown: Kerry Ashton Sings Wilde (1992)
    • MP3 Download of Digital Soundtrack Recording
    • Digital Soundtrack Recording
    • Audio Books
    • Published Musical Score & Songs >
      • Vocal Selections from THE WILDE SPIRIT
    • Other Audio & Video >
      • YouTube Video Clips of Play Performances
      • Digital Video Clips of TV Interviews
      • Audio Clips of Radio Interviews
    • Author's Notes on Oscar Wilde
    • Oscar Wilde in Photographs
    • Engaging a Performance
    • Licensing "The Wilde Spirit"
  • Writing
    • Published Works Overview >
      • Saint Unshamed:A Gay Mormon's Life
      • Red Hot Mama
      • The Wilde Spirit
      • My Life as Oscar Wilde
      • Buffalo Head Nickels
    • Published Musical Score & Songs >
      • CD of Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording >
        • Selections from the Off-Broadway Cast Recording
      • CD of Musical Version: Live from Provincetown
      • DVD of Musical Version: Live from Provincetown
      • Vocal Selections from "The Wilde Spirit"
      • Digital Soundtrack Recording
    • Published Audio Books
    • My Life as Oscar Wilde (The Screenplay)
    • Licensing Rights
  • Acting
    • Acting Reviews >
      • Letters of Recommendation as an Actor
    • Head Shots as a Professional Actor
    • Photos of Roles Played
    • Audio & Video
    • Voice-Overs
  • Contact
    • Mailing List
  • Blog
  • Store
    • Books >
      • SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON'S LIFE Hardcover
      • SAINT UNSHAMED: A GA|Y MORMON'S LIFE Audio Book
      • SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON'S LIFE Paperback
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (Published Play)
    • Audio Books >
      • SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON'S LIFE Audio Book
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (Audio Book) (Off-Broadway, 1996)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (Audio Book MP3) (The Musical 1992) Kerry Ashton Sings Wilde
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (Audio Book MP3) Live From Provincetown, 1990
    • Audio & Video Products >
      • SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON'S LIFE Audio Book
      • THE WILDE SPRIIT (DVD) (Off-Broadway 1996)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (DVD) (The Musical, 1992)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (DVD) (Live From Provincetown, 1990)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (Audio Book MP3) Off-Broadway 1996
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (Audio Book MP3) (The Musical, 1992) Kerry Ashton Sings Wilde
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (Audio Book MP3) Live From Provincetown, 1990
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT Original Off-Broadway Cast Recoding CD
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording 1996 (MP3 & PDF Download)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (MUSICAL VERSION, 1992) ON CD
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (MUSICAL VERSION 1992) MP3 Download
    • Plays & Musical Plays >
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT
      • RED HOT MAMA The New Sophie Tucker Musical
      • MY LIFE AS OSCAR WILDE (Play)
      • BUFFALO HEAD NICKELS
    • Sheet Music & Scores >
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT Vocal Selections
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording CD
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording (MP3 & PDF Download)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT CD (THE MUSICAL) (1992) Kerry Ashton Sings Wilde
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT (THE MUSICAL) CD 1992 (MP3 & PDF Download)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT Digital Soundtrack Recording (MP3 Audio File Download)
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT Original Off-Broadway Soundtrack Recording (MP3 Download)
    • Poetry & Song Lyrics >
      • THE WILDE SPIRIT VOCAL SELECTIONS

HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED

11/25/2018

0 Comments

 
​In my new memoir, SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON’S LIFE—Healing From the Shame of Religion, Rape, Conversion Therapy & Cancer To Find My True Self, which goes on sale on March 27, 2019 (though advance copies can be purchased now on my author’s website at www.KerryAshton.com), I talk about our unfortunate presidential election in 2016, saying in part:
 
“In November 2016, America chose an incompetent and racist bully, a pathological liar, and a self-confessed pussy-grabber as the next president of the United States. But this idiotic and dangerous new president had a huge amount of help in getting elected, first from the Kremlin, then from the former FBI Director’s unwise decision to make public statements about his opponent only days prior to the election, and lastly from our outdated Electoral College. Only with help like that, could such a buffoon and demagogue be elected president in the first place.
Since that fateful election two years ago, it has become harder to know what to believe in or in whom to believe. The current occupant in the White House lies about anything and everything, attacking the very institutions that uphold our democracy and the rule of law—solely to protect himself—even as his lies are presented as facts in the far-right media, while 40% of Americans believe every lie he utters. Indeed, a new Civil War is upon us, with each side claiming its own facts. But perhaps, given the nature of our current national politics, I should refer to it as our country’s first Uncivil War.
I still hope and want to believe that Americans can find a way to reunite as one country and one people, but that seems unlikely at present. Indeed, the only goal of the current White House seems to be to ‘Make America Hate Again’.”
 
Notice please that I never mention by name the current occupant in our White House. I prefer not to mention his name aloud, as that alone gives him a power and respect that I deeply believe he is unworthy of. If anything, He Who Must Not Be Named—who has given nasty nicknames to anyone and everyone who he sees as a personal enemy—has earned the distinction of going unnamed and unnoticed.
 
He Who Must Not Be Named, i.e. the Orange Monster in the White House, is not and never was worthy of the constant attention and billions of dollars worth of free publicity that America’s media outlets afforded him since he first descended the golden escalator in a certain unnamed tower on 5thAvenue in Manhattan. 
 
Since the 2016 presidential election, attention had sustained and fed the Orange Monster’s ego, propelling toward increasingly reprehensible behavior. Indeed, the current occupant of the Oval Office behaves like a spoiled three-year-old, and throws a tantrum whenever he does not get his way or whenever he perceives even the smallest slight to his incredibly fragile ego. Since he behaves like the spoiled brat that he actually is, the American press should start covering him as such. Indeed, the OM needs a time-out. Like a tantrum child, he needs to be put in a corner and ignored until he can learn how to behave, it not presidential then at least like a grownup.
 
Despite all of the OM’s distressful remarks about Fake News and that our free press is “the enemy of the people,” it is press coverage and public attention that he has always lived for, and it is all that he cares about. Being a pathological narcissist, the OM cannot survive without attention; he craves it in the same way that a baby craves a mother’s breast. The OM feeds on attention. The press coverage that follows his every itch, twitch and tweet provides him with the very oxygen to continue unabated in his attempts to destroy every institution of our democracy, one disgusting tweet at a time.
 
As of today, the Washington Post estimates that He Who Must Not be Named has lied on average 10 times a day since he took the oath of office to faithfully execute the laws to defend the constitution of the United States from all enemies both foreign and domestic. And his lying has only gotten worse over time, with the Post Fact-Checkers reporting recently that he told an average of 30 lies per day during the last month leading up to our recent midterm election. Of one thing we can be certain: His truth—the one we all may one day be forced to accept under his endless authoritarian rule, if we are not careful—will always be one that glorifies him alone. 
 
A pathological liar, the Orange Monster has filled the White House with sycophants who lie as much as he does, who happily and willingly acquiesce to his every lie, gesture and thought, like robotic twits. Indeed, the daily press briefing at the White House—once a place where news of our president’s actions were once disseminated with some measure of truth—has become an outlet for state propaganda, supporting this dictator-child’s worst whims and deceits. It features lie after lie after lie, in an effort to warp reality to support the OM with absolute loyalty while being as dishonest with the American public as possible. His constant lies are then amplified by the OM’s state-run, 24-Hour Propaganda Network, the aptly misnamed Fox News, and all of the other far-right propaganda outlets that support his agenda. And He Who Must Not Be Named benefits from all of this “fake news” coming from all of the far-right media outlets. 
 
But bad as it is, the mainstream media outlets join in spreading these lies by covering all of them constantly. In my view, mainstream American journalists and the major mainstream media outlets and networks should stop covering the OM when he tells a lie. Period. The fact that the OM is a pathological liar and constantly telling whoppers is no longer news. Everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows this. 
 
Yes, yes, I know. The OM happens to be our president (no matter how illegitimately appointed through the highly undemocratic Electoral College) and whatever he says and thinks is news. I’ve heard that line before. And it is total BS. When the OM tells the truth, of course the mainstream media should cover it. But when he knowingly tell a falsehood, mainstream reporters and media outlets should simply report that the president has lied yet again, for the 10th, 12thor 30thtime today, as the case may be. If people want to know the specifics of his latest falsehood, they have cellphones and they all know how to contact twitter to read his lies whenever they so choose. 
In reporting and printing out his every vile comment and lie, the media only pollute the public airwaves and further spread his lie to everyone far and wide, thus making the mainstream press part of the machinery that affords the OM his ever growing power. 
 
The OM’s lies should not be passed on to the public, commented on, repeated, or covered in any way. Covering the lies, reporting the lies, repeating the lies, makes the mainstream complicit in spreading his lies. Each reporter who does this is merely aiding and abetting the Orange Monster to disseminate and propagate his falsehoods, further spreading the OM’s crap. It becomes noise pollution. It wears all of us down, particularly those of us who give a damn about objective reality and objective truth. 
 
I would suggest that the legitimate mainstream press and all of the mainstream networks who care about news and truth, stop attending White House briefings. Rather, they should give a public statement on air that it is their network’s position that they will no longer cover such events, as they only spread lies, misinformation and propaganda of the state. Until the White House press secretary and the president return to reality, and speak with the support of actual facts, they should no longer be reported on or covered. The talking heads on CNN and MSNBC and so forth should simply say that the president has lied yet again, and that they are not going to propagate the lie by even mentioning it, much less showing the printed tweet on the air. 
 
Stop giving the Orange Monster oxygen. Stop covering his lies and his demented opinions. His good behavior should be rewarded with press coverage and attention. But, equally and importantly, his bad behavior should be ignored. Like any brat acting out a tantrum, the OM needs a time out. Indeed, the worst thing that any of us can do is give his bad behavior attention. As any parent raising an infant knows, giving attention to bad behavior only reinforces more bad behavior. A tantrum can soon turn ugly, when an infant starts throwing things. But our infant in the White House doesn’t just have toys he can throw from his crib. He also has nuclear warheads. The constant media attention focusing on his bad behavior must come to an end, and it must stop now!
 
That is why the OM should not even be named in public or referred to. Until he proves that he can act like a grownup president, we must ignore him. We need to starve his pathetic childish ego with a lack of attention. That is why I will always refer to him in my blog as He Who Must Not Be Named or simply as the Orange Monster. And he shall remain unnamed until a grownup returns to the White House, hopefully sooner rather than later for the sake of what remains of America’s institutions of democracy.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Kerry Ashton

    Author, Playwright, Actor, Director, Producer, Composer & Lyricist

    Visit Kerry Ashton's Author Page at Amazon Author Central by clicking on the link below:​

    Kerry Ashton @ AMAZON

    Archives

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018

    RSS Feed


    To comment, you must first send your name, address & email to the publisher at LynnWolfEnterprises@
    gmail.com. Then, your comment must be approved before it will be posted.
Official PayPal Seal

This Website, and all of its contents, including all text, photographs, art and graphics are fully protected under copyright laws of the United States. Any unauthorized use of any material content from this site without written permission will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. 

Copyright © 2018 by  Kerry Ashton. All Rights Reserved.