CANTO EIGHT. STEVEN MNUCHIN.
Steve Mnuchin in his gilded palace of finance
Gnawed upon some crackers smeared with pungent liederkranz.
His duties as the trumpsman held responsible for cash
Were starting to taste bitter with the tang of dusty ash.
The rich were paying less and less, the poor were being dredged,
And brave Mnuchin didn’t know how money could be pledged.
In his savage anguish Steve Mnuchin sighed out loud:
“I wish that back in Hollywood I might soon be allowed!”
No sooner said than done, when Father Chronos heard his plea;
The god sent Steven reeling back to 1923 --
To Hollywood, the Golden Age of silent movie play,
Where custard pies and title cards were part of every day.
A limousine of verdant pink stopped next to him, and honked.
The door flung open and the banker inside then was plonked.
A man in black beret and with a monocle bade him find
A way for Theda Bara to make Rudolph lose his mind.
“You’re the big producer” said this Tinsel Town bootlick,
“So come up with some action and some sentimental schtick!”
Mnuchin grasped the problem right away -- the script was flat,
And needed some hysteria (with maybe molls and gat.)
“Have we got the funding to get Al Capone onboard?”
He asked his venal sidekick as the limo engine roared.
They got the mobster on a plane that very day so fleetly
That Capone did not have time to dump his prey concretely.
Mnuchin reveled in his time warp fantasy, until
Ben Turpin was assigned to him -- and then twas all uphill.
The actor with strabismus was a comic low and keen,
Who wanted nothing better than to be conked on the bean.
He shook hands with Mnuchin, then performed a one-oh-eight
that took Mnuchin with him so he cracked open his pate.
Before he could recover Turpin grabbed a custard pie
And at producer Steven he did let it wildly fly.
The goo upon his head began to dribble down his neck,
And Steven hollered right out loud to “Give that man a check!”
“Then find me someone more refined to fill the comic role --
A Chaplin or a Keaton; anyone who’s not a troll!”
But all the comics he could find were still too crass and rude,
And so big Steve Mnuchin started thinking hard and shrewd.
Being a producer when the movies still were young
Was making him go crazy -- he would surely come unstrung!
And so Mnuchin called upon Dad Chronos one more time
To bring him to the present where the trumpsmen ruled sublime.
Back in his bright palace, Steve Mnuchin had this to say:
“Better all the clowns you know, than those of yesterday!”
(to be continued)
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