POLITICAL SATIRE

Carlson’s Time on the Couch

Shrink says the little *ucker has “Mommy Issues”; or else his bow tie was once tied too tight

The following is the keynote address at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, which was held virtually May 1–3. Dr. Frederick Chilton delivered the remarks.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen; medical doctors of the brain and analysts of all other stripes — yes, all you psycho-quacks out there, I’m talking to you, too. I am pleased to be with you as we gather our collective noggins virtually. Here’s hoping that the country reaches herd immunity to the Trump Virus by next year, when I’m excited for our in-person confab in NOLA. Hurricanes on me, OK? Pat O’Brien’s lets you keep the glass. Or at least they used to. No telling these days, what with COVID protocols and all.

The topic of my talk with you today is the Oedipal Complex, a Freudian term familiar to our circle and known in common parlance as “Mommy Issues”. I have selected a well-known and often rightly disparaged television host — what this individual really accomplishes each evening is to harangue his guests into submission, so maybe television hollerer, screecher or yowler is more precise — *ucker Carlson. Don’t worry — there’s a reason for the asterisk, which I will get to shortly.

Mr. Carlson’s bio is readily available in the public domain, which is why I’m certainly surprised that few have addressed this issue before. His mom was an artist, and hailed from a long line of Italian Americans; hence, I suppose, *ucker’s often fiery demeanor. Although, I must admit, I’ve always thought this Faux News “presenter’s” frequent ability to rant off the charts, as it were, is something of a faux persona itself. In my professional experience, nobody shrieks, cackles and carries on like this in real life. But it’s all about the ratings in *ucker’s world, folks.

Back to the Boy and his Mom. Lisa Carlson (née Lombardi) was an artist who wished to pursue a “bohemian” lifestyle. She abandoned little *ucker and his younger brother Buckley (seriously, folks, who names their kids Tucker and Buckley?) and disappeared. *ucker was 6; Buckley a couple of years younger. There is no record if their dad, a media mogul named Richard, had forced the boys into wearing whacked-out bow ties at such an early age, but I no doubt would have left my family, too, had that been the case.

It should be noted for the record that Mommy abandoned the boys and their dad in the mid-70s, well after San Francisco’s 1967 “Summer of Love”. I’ve noticed, however, that *ucker — even today — is pretty slow on the uptake, so maybe he inherited the tendency to miss popular culture trends from his mother’s side of the family.

I guess I should note here that Lisa Lombardi Carlson’s urge to vacate the family premises to pursue a calling more suited to her creative, I guess, personality is a topic *ucker never talks about. Or, I should say, hardly ever. Once, when asked about his maternal estrangement, he did throw a bone to his interviewer. He characterized his mother’s abandonment as a “totally bizarre situation — which I never talk about, because it was actually not really part of my life at all.”

Yeah, right.

Add to that the fact that shortly after his wife left him with these two boys (just assuming here), Mr. Carlson Senior whisked *ucker and Buckley (again with those names, huh?) from the open-minded ether of the Bay Area to the then ultra-conservative confines of Southern California. And then married a frozen food heiress. And then, bizarrely, re-named the boys in a strange bid to rewrite their pasts to more fully delineate their futures. Daddy Carlson’s name is Dick, so go figure.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson and his younger sibling, Buckley Swanson Peck Carlson. I wouldn’t blame you if you are having trouble following this thread, but there you have it. *ucker’s Pops married a Swanson. As in Swanson frozen foods. I don’t know about you, but my favorite was the fried chicken TV dinner. You know, unbox that tasty sucker and place it in your oven — no microwaves back then, people! I especially loved the way the “fresh” fruit and veggies complemented the “crispiness” of the chicken. Three pieces, all dark meat. Probably why, to this day, I have no taste for the chicken breast. Not a boob guy. Just sayin’.

Wonder which of these fast-food predecessors *ucker and Bro Buckley favored? Because my recent, though thin, analysis of his psyche tells me New Mom and Old Dad left those boys at home alone — a lot.

A lot of *ucker’s past, after his needy childhood, has been written about before. Raised in La Jolla, in a house overlooking La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. Briefly educated at a Swiss boarding school (he claims he was “kicked out” — those “Mommy Issues” surfacing periodically, I suppose), then at a couple of institutions (where the upper echelon warehouses its children whose only claim to fame could ever be that Mommy — yes, Step Mommy adopted the boys — and Daddy are loaded) called La Jolla Country Day School and the Buckley School. And no, I have not a clue how attending a school that has the same name as your little brother would affect a young preppie nitwit.

Of course, the ’rents got tired of *ucker by the time he hit puberty, and sent him clear across the country for high school, at Newport, Rhode Island’s St. George’s School. Nothing like a playground for the progeny of the rich and the empowered to finish off a little bow tie-wearing weasel. No word if Brother Buckley followed in *ucker’s footsteps.

Young *ucker desperately, I’m told, wanted to go to Harvard. Still longing to impress his long-gone mommy, and all that. John Harvard’s namesake put the big kibosh on that, bow tie or not. *ucker settled for Trinity College — after his prep school headmaster intervened on his behalf. Easy to get in, if you have the 60,000 smackeroos yearly for the tuition. And if Daddy, most certainly, makes a few down payments on the side. Please note that this fee does not cover books and other supplies, nor transportation or, naturally, bow ties.

But here’s where it gets interesting, folks. *ucker, finally free of his family’s financial fortitude though not his mom’s departed demons, was ready to strike out on his own. He wanted to break free of the bonds that had bound him to ill-gotten privilege. So he applied to the CIA.

The only thing that stood out to the Agency, it appears, is the fact that *ucker was “gabby and insubordinate”, according to a New Yorker account. He instead headed to Little Rock, Arkansas, of all places. And after bouncing around in the cable television ethersphere after that, he ended up with his very own yack show, “*ucker Carlson Tonight”, where he’s been browbeating guests and pretending he’s somebody since 2016. I wouldn’t discount Daddy’s Millions on that score, either.

Mommy died, leaving *ucker and Bro Buckley $1 apiece, out of an estate worth at least a million. Just think of the depth of the enmity between Mommy and her Baby Boys. No wonder *ucker sued her estate for that amount. He lost, BTW.

In my professional opinion, *ucker Carlson is a divider, not a uniter. He likes to sling racist rhetoric to stir people up, and he’ll disagree for the sake of being a stone cold jerk. He furrows his brow, practically bending over backwards to have America recognize his displeasure with the political status quo. He’ll shriek in this nonsensical high-pitched tone, while practicing classic persona interruptus. He lies, he stretches, he pontificates. Seriously, he’s a prime candidate for Gaslighter’s Anonymous, although there’s nothing secretive about his motives.

Our boy *ucker has suffered advertiser boycotts of his show and, increasingly, calls to cancel this tedious weeknight charade. And in the rethuglican political cesspool, nothing is more harmful than cancel culture, especially to a schlub like *ucker.

His limited bio points to a guy who’s just in it for the money. Or, even more so, just for the attention. He’s nothing but a little *ucker, canceled by his own mommy. Dear Colleagues, it only makes sense.