TIME TRUMPET: 2010 Edition (Part One)

(This is a one off written adaptation of the British TV series "Time Trumpet". I'm fully aware that there is an American version being made. I look forward to seeing it. This was made in part for my appreciation for the show and as a cool writing exercise. This is part one of a two part series. -Mez)

We are now in the year 2049. Today, people sing their way to work with musical cars and we finally figured out where the beef went.

Joining me in examining the year 2010 are those who lived during that time and comedians of today. Together we hope to understand the year that was 2010.

RACISM

2010 was a year of great advancement in science, arts and thought, while also being a year of great transgressions.   

Racism as we know it today has been eradicated and is now remembered at the former site of Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee. Relics of America’s racist past are kept there to remind people what the country once looked like.

But in the year 2010, racism was boiling to a point. The line between racism and bigotry were being blurred.

Rush Limbaugh was an outspoken critic of then President Barack Obama’s presidency; even though the president did things Rush had agreed with. His blatant hypocrisy was later revealed to be a misstep that led to a story breaking about him being a paid actor named Lester Corntrow.

Lester Corntrow at 75: They paid me lots of money to just say these things. I was desperate for money at the time and they really wanted someone for the long haul, but after I was exposed I had to stop.

Rush Limbaugh was exposed by the leading journalist of the time, Katie Couric.

Dana Gould (Comedian): Katie Couric was the perfect package. Attractive and with a brain. She was smart, but not too smart that people would be able to mistake her for a journalist.

Katie Couric’s nightly news show pulled in record ratings as the country tuned in to see her latest exposés.

Katie Couric’s breaking of the story that country singer sensation Taylor Swift was dating rapper Soulja Boy would prove a divisive issue for the country.

Paul Scheer (Comedian): It’s that classic American story. America falls in love with sweet country singer. Katie Couric then exposes her dating a rapper. America, out of nowhere, falls out of love with her.

Album sales dropped for the singer as she desperately tried to prove to the country that she was still their little girl they loved. But the country, although without admission, wasn’t ready for their sweet girl to date someone from a different race. Soulja Boy on the other hand used the animosity to produce the now infamous Crank That (Soulja Boy) video that began to hypnotize the country.

Aziz Ansari (Comedian): Everyone thought it was just a harmless music video. But then people started to get sick.

Actor Jon Hamm was one of those people that contracted the sickness.

Jon Hamm at 76: I remember seeing that video and before I knew it I was jockin on them. And I never jocked before. It was like I was possessed and I couldn’t stop dancing.

Host: Do you mind talking about that experience?

Jon Hamm at 76 (looking down): Only if you want me to relive the darkest period in my life.

The Center for Disease Control deemed the video a health risk and the White House followed suit declaring Soulja Boy a national security threat. 3 days later Soulja Boy was killed in a stand off against federal agents.

Taylor Swift was distraught.

Jackie Clarke (Comedian): That was the same year she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. And that was after she started dating People Magazine’s Whitest Guy in America, John Krasinski. 

OBAMA

In 2008 President Barack Obama was elected as the fist African American president amidst rumors that he wasn’t born in this country. A year later, as a publicity stunt to help smooth relations between the DMV and American citizens, President Obama’s secret would be revealed. After waiting 2 hours in line, only to learn that the DMV was now closed and unable to renew his license, President Obama proved the rumors true when he frustratingly began speaking Dutch.

Although President Obama’s Dutch birthplace provided a number of outraged commenter’s, his most divisive issue was his race.

Paul Scheer (Comedian): They would make jokes that Bill Clinton was blacker than him. (Starts to laugh hard.)

Host: Why would they say that? 

Paul Scheer (Comedian): I’m not entirely sure…

Joe Biden, best known as the only living Vice President who could rebuild a '54 Chevy from scratch, spoke to the American people's insecurities about Obama's race.

Joe Biden at 81: The problem was that it was hard for people to place their black ideals into Obama, who acted very white. And I tried to help the kid, but nothing worked.

President Obama seemed to try to hard when proving that he was half black. Not surprisingly Katie Couric began to dig and what she found was shocking in most kinds of ways.

Joe Biden at 81: He told me when he asked me to be his vice president that he wasn’t really half black. That his black half was actually white, pretending to be black.

Sarah Palin, a leading intellectual mind among people who believed books actually don't contain any words in them, never doubted for a moment that something was wrong with how Obama looked.

Sarah Palin 78: Ya know it just goes to show you, that hiding the truth from Americans never works. I always tell the truth to the American people. Just like Betsy Ross. When Ben Franklin asked her to make an American flag, she told him she could do it. She could have lied to Benjamin Franklin, but she didn’t.

President Obama was ashamed of hiding this secret from the American people. He offered his resignation of his presidency, but the paper work proved to costly and time consuming. He would go on to serve the rest of his term instead.  

(Continued in Part Two)