SpicyTricks

(CNN) -- Out here at Curmudgeonly Arms, where feral dogs stalk the moors, and nothing is judged more deserving of the application of the lash than those who pursue the undeserving baptism of fame, there exists a grotto, well secluded from the main estate, that is rendered in faux marble, with vine leaves curling about the ankles and thighs of the naked personage of the one who styles himself Donald Trump.
Nearly 20 years ago I (as Lord Curmudgeonly) began blowing the whistle in print on the Grand Vizier of Bombast and Cant, from his various wild claims for everything from being a multi-billionaire, to his stated ambition to run for the presidency of the United States.
And Trump is certainly right about one thing: As he said to me on CNN's American Morning a couple of weeks ago, "Christopher has made a good living out of writing about me."
But he left out the flip side of the same sentiment: Donald has made a good living out of writing about and discussing himself also -- though whereas Lord Curmudgeonly has trafficked in the currency of facts, Mr. Big Stuff has trafficked in the currency of bombast and baloney.
Today, May 16th, Trump finally fessed up -- through a press release -- that, in effect, his latest stated interest in running for president was no more credible than either of his previous two such faux-campaigns: first in 1987, and then again in 2000.
Lord Curmudgeonly (that would be me) wrote about Trump incessantly through all of that, marveling always at how the media seemed to take him at his word on everything from his allegedly supercalifragilistic wealth to his seriousness of purpose as a presidential aspirant.
In the year 2000 I published a prize-winning cover story for the late JFK Jr.'s magazine, George, on Trump's publicly puffed-up career, which to me at least called to mind one of those overhead floats in the Macy's Day Parade -- larger than life and suspended above the fray, yet filled with nothing but hot air and the dreams of little children that all they were witnessing was somehow magical and real.
Now, once again, we know otherwise. In his own words, Trump has decided not to run for president because, "Business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."
How many times will he be able to tell this joke before the audience starts streaming from the theater? My own opinion is this: He's not finished yet. Generally speaking, Americans seem to have the attention span of gnats, and eight years from now who's going to remember that for the past thirty years Donald Trump has been playing the media for fools to promote his books, raise his rents and hype the ratings on his TV shows?
Like the Energizer bunny, he never quits, and in 2020, I predict that he'll be back again, with his same stale braggadocio mesmerizing a whole new generation of believers all over again: Franken-Trump lives!