AJ Soprano, electricians & the media star

 Thanks to the miracle that is streaming, I've been catching up on old HBO series that I mostly missed, back in the day for wont of premium channels. I'm talking "The Sopranos" and "OZ" so far. Donald Trump gets generally favorable mentions from time to time in both series, because at the time, he had the appearance of a young, fit, successful, multi-millionaire businessman. Young AJ Soprano, for example, wanted to fly helicopters for Trump and work his way up the Trump ladder of success. 

A couple years ago I saw an episode of "This Old House" where Bob Villa was interviewing Ivanna Trump about the nearly completed Trump Tower. It was a real fluff piece, but what struck me as odd was that she was the hostess, not The Donald. I thought a guy of his ego would want his face dominating the TV, not his plump wife. He didn't show until the end. Maybe he orchestrated the whole thing to keep her busy while he was with a mistress? Thought crossed my mind. Quite likely though that his absence was to portray him as "Busy making a multi-million-dollar deal, Bob, so I only have a few minutes until I'm off to the next deal..."

People, at least those outside of New York City, respected and admired Trump back then. He was a poor man's idea of a rich man with his gold toilet, garishly golden penthouse apartment, planes, AJ's helicopter, and other trappings of wealth. Mostly bullshit, of course, but he had enough money to make people think he didn't have enough money.

Around the time of OZ and the Sopranos, I was working construction in Memphis. Electricians, because they literally controlled the power on many jobs, also controlled the radio on many jobsites. I like electricians, but the motherfuckers liked Howard Stern back then. So, did Trump. He'd come on a talk glibly about basically wanting to fuck his daughter. I recall an electrician gleefully exclaiming, "THIS GUY WANTS TO FUCK HIS DAUGHTER! OH WOW!" 

You know, you play with electricity long enough, you're going to get zapped a few times. You get used to it; they tell me. 

What no one knew at the time was that Trump was building his political persona with his Stern appearances and others including "The Apprentice". I've only seen clips of that show. That kinda crap is not must-see-TV for me. Gary Busey being told to operate a lemonade stand is not interesting to me. People liked it though, and it went on for like 14 seasons. It had C and D list celebrities pretending to work for this big-time, now billionaire business stud. Oh boy. How fucking interesting. 

It worked though. Working men saw him as the billionaire they could have a beer with, though Trump famously doesn't drink. You know this because he tells you that. It must be true. The electrician who was so wowed that the guy wanted to fuck his pretty daughter, found the guy relatable. Well, that is creepy, but rich people can do whatever they want... That was the message. 

And here we are today. The guy is on our TV and internet every goddamned day, and once again in the position of power to do whatever he wants. One can't help but think that this was all by design, from soup to nuts. Whose design remains to be seen. Who could create such an insane, actual-reality show and make it work? I don't know. Not sure I want to know. I just wish AJ Soprano had become his helicopter pilot. Fade to black.