Can you say John Cleland?
Or, for those out there fond of word puzzles. Johnny Miller.
Two proper names. Take the first name, drop the third letter. Change the first vowel to another vowel two alphabetic positions before. Change the first consonant of the first name to the sixth letter of the alphabet.
Take the second name, drop the last two letters. Change the first letter to a different consonant that occurs earlier in the alphabet. The new letter has a straight middle connecting piece, not an upside-down hat middle connecting piece. The second name now describes a land feature that can look like the right side-up picture of the discarded middle letter piece.
The author in question here is not the Judge John Cleland of Pennsylvania who tried Jerry Sandusky. Nor is it the Professor John Cleland who is a Professor of Medical Demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Nor the Scots born John Cleland who is a championship English auto-racing driver who is now a sports commentator and owner of a car dealership. Nor is it the late Dr. John Cleland, a Scottish anatomist at the University of Glasgow who died in 1925 at the age of 90. The author in question is John Cleland (1709-1789), the English writer and novelist best known for the erotic novel, Fanny Hill.
From the Wikipedia entry about the novel:
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known as Fanny Hill) is an erotic novel by English novelist John Cleland first published in London in 1748. Written while the author was in debtors’ prison in London, it is considered “the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel”. One of the most prosecuted and banned books in history, it has become a synonym for obscenity.
The book is written as a series of letters from Frances “Fanny” Hill to an unknown woman, with Fanny justifying her life-choices to this individual. At the beginning of her tale, Fanny Hill is a young girl with a rudimentary education living in a small village near Liverpool. Shortly after she turns 15, both her parents die.
The novel was published in two installments, on November 21, 1748 and February 1749, respectively, by “G. Fenton”, actually Fenton Griffiths and his brother Ralph. Initially, there was no governmental reaction to the novel, and it was only in November 1749, a year after the first installment was published, that Cleland and Ralph Griffiths were arrested and charged with “corrupting the King’s subjects.” In court, Cleland renounced the novel and it was officially withdrawn.
However, as the book became popular, pirate editions appeared. The book eventually made its way to the United States. In 1821, in the first known obscenity case in the United States, a Massachusetts court outlawed Fanny Hill. The publisher, Peter Holmes, was convicted for printing a “lewd and obscene” novel. Holmes appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He claimed that the judge, relying only on the prosecution’s description, had not even seen the book. The state Supreme Court wasn’t swayed.
In 1963, Putnam published the book in the United States under the title John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. This edition was also immediately banned for obscenity in Massachusetts, after a mother complained to the state’s Obscene Literature Control Commission. The publisher’s challenge to the ban went up to the Supreme Court. In a landmark decision in 1966, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Memoirs v. Massachusetts that Fanny Hill did not meet the Roth standard for obscenity.
So the real Fanny Hill novel has an exciting literary and political history:
- The English publishers used a pseudonym incorporating a family name (1748)
- Initial Government reaction to the novel was a delayed time bomb (1749)
- The author disowned it in Court at one point (1749)
- The book was literally Banned in Boston (1821)**
- The first U.S. publisher complained the Court had treated the book unfairly (1821)
- A century later, a new U.S. edition was Banned in Boston again (1963)
- Government reaction the second time around was immediate (1963)
- The novel was scandalously explicit and erotic (1748-1963)
This litany of parallel events reflects echoes of the real Donald Trump.
In 1966 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Fanny Hill was not obscene (March 21, 1966), Trump was 19, turning 20. He was a sophomore in college. Fanny Hill had been in the news prominently and circulating in print since 1963. Although Trump has not shown much interest in literary affairs since, it is inconceivable that a teen-aged New York male in 1966 didn’t know about (i.e., read and peruse) a copy of Fanny Hill (likely more than once).
The Putnam paperback edition cover price was 95 cents. The hardcover edition was available for just $6. There may well not have been a copy at the Trump house in Queens, but surely there were copies flooding Philadelphia.
As to collegiate interest, the student newspaper at Boston’s Ivy League University, The Harvard Crimson, followed events rather carefully in a series of articles about the ban, the prosecution, the defense witnesses, the trial, and book sales in Harvard Square. (February 7, February 21, March 14, May 25, May 27, and May 29). The trial began Wednesday, May 27, 1964 in Suffolk Superior Court in Pemberton Square, Boston, 52 years ago this week.
From The Harvard Crimson, February 7, 1964:
Fanny Hill‘s popularity has extended to Harvard Square. Local bookstores reported yesterday that sales of the book were breaking records. The Coop said it had been selling “like mad,” and another store stated that “it is impossible to keep it in stock.” One store suggested that sales had increased yesterday after news of the Attorney General’s action.
So Trump was undoubtedly exposed to Cleland’s work, and the subject matter described in graphic terms. Trump’s developing views on sexual mores and standards were almost certainly influenced, for good or ill, by his own idiosyncratic reaction to what he read and heard or imagined about the novel. Fanny Hill was big for collegians of the male persuasion from 1963-1968.***
John is a Trump Family Name
There are male relatives named John in Trump’s paternal family tree going back continuously to 1727. At least one male named John, first or middle, in all eight generations. Earlier family genealogy is harder to trace by means of routine internet searches, but there is no reason to believe the name popped up spontaneously in the early 1700’s. Donald Trump is steeped in the family tradition name of John. As are his own eldest son, and his grandson. Four generations before, and two more after. The name John is a natural sound for Trump, it rolls off his genetic tongue. And it has been so in his father’s family since decades before Fanny Hill sprang from the mind of John Cleland.
The use of pseudonyms is a familiar strategy in business and politics, as well as literature. It is a tactic Trump has used himself from the very beginning of his career. An early example is a deception he employed more than once in college,. While buying run–down and fixer-upper units in Philadelphia as a student, which was his first independent venture in the real estate game, he used dummy names in keep prices low, He didn’t want a seller to recognize that the real beneficial buyer was Trump, and possibly raise the price because Trump was known to have money and resources. Trump did not subscribe to or act with transparency in his earliest business dealings.
Later in business, Trump would use the John Miller and John Barron as fictional stand-in characters to generate publicity for himself, deflect questions about his business practices, and promote his commercial projects. There are multiple known examples: New Jersey Generals Football Team (to sports reporters), the 57th street Bonwit Teller limestone relief panels destruction scandal (1980), pumping his love life to People magazine (1991), threatening to counter-sue undocumented Polish workers he had employed and underpaid (1990), the Trump Castle fiasco (1984), and others.
There is clearly a well-documented history of his repeated pattern of dishonest publicity seeking behavior. In fact, many New York reporters seemed to have figured it out for themselves, and played along as a kind of inside joke, with a nod and a wink. If you didn’t figure it out, it just showed you shouldn’t be playing in the New York journalism Big Leagues. You snooze, you lose. That acceptance is all consistent with the Trump attitude of “It’s not my job to do your job.”
Now he has been caught red-handed or red-mouthed on audio tape, because a People reporter thought to make a tape, and keep it., and then give it to the Washington Post. Good for her, and good for them. Heads up journalism. Actually, a public service, if the guy wants to audition to lead the Free World.
This collection of facts makes it all the more curious that Trump, faced with a physical smoking gun (on audio, anyway) chose to double down with a direct stupid denial, after his refuting Tweets, lackluster spokesperson performance, and his own indirect denials about rampant fake Trump voices and his earnest declaration that the tape doesn’t sound like him, failed to quell the doubts about his honesty in this matter.
Trump seems to have lost his sharp edge. Where is the real Donald we have come to expect? The usual bold Trump response would be ”Yeah it’s me on the tape, so what. I used a fake name to make my case and influence the reporting. It worked, didn’t it? In fact, I used more than one fake names. It wasn’t illegal. I don’t care really what you think as a reporter. Drop Dead. I’d do it again.” The Mr. Tell It Like It Is, Politically Incorrect, Self-Funding Trump his followers love so much is Missing in Action. Weak Tea.
Maybe this trying to act all Presidential and stuff, now that he is the One, the P.N., has gone to his head or made him a little soft where it counts. Maybe he figures a President shouldn’t use a fake name to promote himself. To be true to his own persona, Trump needs to throttle on through. No brakes or he risks the engine stalling out.
It is possible the majority of voters in this country who are not now ticket holders on the Trump Express will decide that a documented history of publicly lying by deception, in person, about both business and sexual romantic matters, on multiple occasions is not acceptable for the nation’s CEO, Trump’s conduct may not be punishable in a Court of Law, but it is certainly no recommendation for the job. His behavior pattern goes back to 1966, almost 50 years.
When did he stop beating the fake spokesman horse? Or has he figured out a new angle to do the same thing? Like re-tweeting fake autographed endorsement baseballs from Pete Rose, for instance? Or re-tweeting fake crime statistics about ridiculous black on white crime rates from phony research groups?
At any rate, I suspect John Miller will be on a long vacation out of telephone contact, until after November. You can bet the ranch there will be no blockbuster press conference where the mystery Mr. Miller shows up to validate his past work product as legitimate, and provide the names of the various firms he worked for bedfi9re Mr. Trump. Take long odds on this bet, if you can get them.
Weak misdirection will not work on the Big Stage for the next six months. The lights are too bright and too many people are paying attention for the sleight of hand moves.
Which brings us to a major new event happening right now in the lightly imagined world of the literary Donald Trump, a non-politician running for President. Would be Presidents have a biography to fashion in their own way.
A Newly Discovered Memoir by Johnny Miller
A hand written manuscript recently uncovered is a treasure trove of previously unknown letters and fragments from one Johnny Miller to an undisclosed party.
The book is written as a series of letters from Johann “Johnny” Miller to an unknown friend, with Johnny justifying his life-choices to this individual. At the beginning of his tale, Johnny Miller is a young boy with a rudimentary education living in a small enclave in Queens, near the fabled borough of Manhattan. Shortly after he turns 13, both his parents pack him off to school upstate.
Some excerpts follow.
Letter No. 3: On his Early Childhood
I didn’t spend much time with my Papa while a young boy. He was always working. I do remember a number of times playing with my blocks underneath his desk while he argued over the phone and negotiated deals. I learned how to never give in, and never give up, no matter what. I also remember borrowing my younger brother Bobby’s wooden blocks and making a tall building by gluing his all together with mine. When he asked for his blocks back, I just told him having a tall block building was much better for me than having to return his blocks back, so he should get used to it. Also, I forgot any the blocks were his, and not mine. Too bad.
Letter No. 6: On Driving with Papa
On Sundays, Papa would sometimes take me with him when he drove around for work. We used to collect rents all over, once in awhile in the bad parts of town. I learned to always stand by the side of the door and not directly in front, in case somebody wanted to get tough with my Papa or refuse to pay. I would write down their name and address so Papa to come back later and fix them good.
Sometimes we would also go to building sites Papa owned to check up on his workers, who he complained would goof off and act lazy, if he if didn’t always check up on them. We would walk around and pick up unused nails on the ground, and put them back in the supply bins to be used the next week. Never waste anything or leave a penny on the floor, Papa would say.
Letter No. 9: On Leaving School Near Home
I was quite a problem in school. Papa was rough on us at home, and I wanted to share that with the other kids. They were pretty soft and easy to control. Once in a while I would have to shove or push someone to make my point. Once I punched a teacher who wouldn’t listen to me. Although Dad was rich the sissies at the school wanted me to leave, so I decided to go somewhere else on my own.
Papa and Mama sent me to a tough boarding school about 60 miles away from our house. The discipline was pretty harsh from dawn to dusk. But we got to play soldier dress-up, with uniforms and guns and everything, and to march around in formation, and they even taught us to shoot a gun. It was just like the real army. In fact, I was so organized, I was put in charge of cleaning and counting all the guns in my dorm. I was quick at math and learned exceptional organization and efficiency skills. I also figured out how to pay the little kids 10 cents to clean and oil the guns and equipment for the older cadets while I supervised, so I learned how to outsource and make a profit by charging the older ones 25-75 cents per item (polished shoes, folded belts, making military corners on beds, etc.)
Also the tradition was that the upper classmen got to dominate the under classmen. We could insult them, make them do stupid mindless stuff, to amuse us and bully them around, as long as it wasn’t too physical. The teachers turned a little bit of a blind eye to this, as long as things were under control and nobody ratted to their parents. I really blossomed under this kind of system. I even became almost the top cadet. Well, I was the top cadet of my dorm, just not the top cadet of the whole place. But he only got the job by sucking up to the head of the school, so that wasn’t fair. The job should have been mine. Everybody respected me.
Letter No.13: My Older Brother Freddy
As a teenager I looked up to my older brother Freddy. He was eight years older than me. He was already in college, drove a fancy sports car, had a speedboat, wore only nice clothes, belonged to a fraternity. He was movie star handsome, and got all the girls just like that. I wanted to be like him. I was even a little jealous at what a great life he had in college. He thought I was kind of a pain in the ass, trying to hang out with his friends, and meet girls and stuff.
He didn’t get along with Papa in business and left to become an airline pilot with TWA only two years out of college. He was a free spirit and got to do what he wanted, even though it made Papa mad. But Freddy did help me get girls to come to my school for dances and on weekend dates. I had the best girls of any who visited the school, and so they named me the Ladies Man in my senior year. Nobody at the Academy knew it was Freddy who made it happen. I was very proud of my success, and never told anybody how it happened.
Letter No. 16: Going Off to College
When I graduated from the Military Academy, I thought about going to film school so I could learn about making movies, being around celebrities, and fine art and culture, which I didn’t have much exposure to at school, and almost none at home, except going to Church. But that was a non-starter with my father. “Waste of money”, he told me. Also by now ,my brother Freddy was in real hot water at home since he didn’t want to do the right thing and go to work for Papa in the family business. He went off to be an airline pilot and then married a sexy stewardess, who didn’t measure up with Papa. I figured the best thing I could do was to stick close to home and go to a regular college nearby. So I did that to make the old man happy. And it did My brother was making it easy for me to take over the prime spot after Papa. It was a cinch.
I went to classes, but I was bored to death and didn’t pay much attention. I wanted out in the worst way. After two years, mu brother Freddy did me one last huge favor. He fixed it with one of his high-school buddies who worked at the college to get me accepted as a transfer student to an Ivy League school, in the Wharton school at the University of Pennsylvania in their undergraduate school of business. I didn’t really meet their strict transfer requirements exactly based on my own two year record in college, but it showed me, in bright lights, the importance of having friends in the right places. Who would ever know how I got in? I was so proud. When I graduated, so was Papa. I was a smart boy, and had a fancy Ivy League sheepskin. I was ready to go to work for the family business and make it really big. My brother Freddy was out for good.
Letter No. 19: The Summer of Love and the Draft
I missed the excitement of the 1967 summer of love, since I was always working for Papa and travelling back and forth to school and home. Besides all the real action took place on the West Coast. But after graduation in 1968 I was ready to make up for lost time. Back in New York City, I was ready to make my mark for love and money. Of course there was the problem of the Draft. The country was chewing up young men wholesale to go to a foreign war against little yellow people (even if they were Commies), and I wanted none of that. Even though I had a special invitation to join up because of my Military School training, no thanks. I had typical student deferments when I was in college, but they expired when I graduated. I wasn’t up for any more academics, so I ended up classified as a 1-A and at big time risk. Talk about a serious bummer and buzz killer.
You know for a bunch of incompetent government bureaucrats those fellas sure worked fast. I only graduated at the end of May 1968. They mailed me a questionnaire on June 24, and reclassified me as 1-A on July 9, barely two weeks later. I never saw anybody move so fast.
The Draft Lottery wasn’t going to be held for another 18 months (December 31, 1969 for 1970 call-up), so I had to do something fast in the summer of 1968. Even though I had been captain of the baseball team in high school, and played varsity football and soccer, and did all that marching and drilling, I needed a medical excuse.
With Papa’s help I found a sympathetic doctor who discovered I had a terrible condition, heel spurs, in both feet, mind you. This horrible condition meant I couldn’t serve my country in the military, no matter how healthy I looked on the outside. So I was made a !-Y, good to go for civilian exercise of all my potential to be all I could be. Best of all, the particular brand of heel spurs I suffered from required no operations, no medications, no doctor visits, no treatment of any kind ever. Can you believe such a lucky horrible illness to have? No enemy fire, jungle rot, ambushes, or Punji sticks for this clever boy. 58,307 less clever boys were not so lucky. Too bad for them.****
A number of letters in sequence are missing at this point from the work, according to a typed index found later. In those letters Johnny was said to describe his lousy date with a famous and beautiful young actress, moving to Manhattan and the big time, hanging out at Studio 54, and meeting the love of his life, a smart blond Czech Olympic level skier (though she wasn’t actually on their national Olympic Team)
Here are some more excerpts from later letters.
Excerpts from Johnny’s Letters on Sports
I was such a good athlete myself, I always wanted to own a sports team. I tried to buy the Cleveland Indians in 1983 but got shut out. I tried to buy the Buffalo Bills football team in 2014, but got shut out again. I did buy the New Jersey Generals in 1982, sold them right away, and then bought them back again a year later, at the end of 1983. I made a bad bet trying to go up against the N.F.L. directly and our U.S.F.L. League went bankrupt, and I lost my money. We sued those NFL monopolists and won, but the jury didn’t understand the tremendous damages I suffered to my name and pocketbook, due to some dirty lawyering by.
They jury awarded the U.S.F.L. triple damages, with interest, but the total was only $3.76. Those cheapskates. That’s right, the N.F.L. gave our League a certified check for less than $4 bucks. To share by all the owners. I was so mad at this. And the other owners were plenty mad at me, unfairly though. Why, my legal bills alone were 100,000 times higher than that, at least.
The only saving grace was I got to write the whole thing off as a tax deduction, so losing the team didn’t hurt me too much. More of my real estate profits stayed in my pocket. In the end the NFL actually did me a favor. And after all, I did technically beat them. But, I still would like a real NFL franchise some day. Just to get even and make them respect me.
As for other sports I started a long-distance bicycle race (Tour de Trump, of course) in 1989 which flopped after two years. I had the absolutely brilliant idea of planning a 10-stage course from Albany, New York to Atlantic City New Jersey, those two East Coast garden spots. I started the United States Poker Championship poker tournament in 1996 which lasted longer, about 10 years before it died. I promoted boxing matches, and messed around with some professional wrestling for fun, like WrestleMania. Mostly to help my hotels and casino business, and so I could hang out with celebrities and beautiful women attracted to the bright lights.
I also bought three beauty contests and got to be a very hands-on owner from 1992 to 2015. Now there was some sporting opportunities, even if it was mostly look don’t touch for me. A fellow has to be flexible in such matters.
Of course there were all my gambling sporting interests, from 1984 until about 2009. I owned about 40% of all the legitimate gambling in Atlantic City from 1990 on. My name was in neon lights 24/7/365, just a quick helicopter ride from the Tower in Manhattan to show and play. I got all the action and excitement, and didn’t have to bet any money at the tables to get comped at the hotels, restaurants and shows. Now that’s the only way to go.
Now, I did stay three years too long after the gambling market in Atlantic City turned south, but I personally didn’t lose my shirt. It is true that my companies declared bankruptcy 4 times (actually 5 times, if you count the 2014 edition, when I still owned 10% of all the stock), including the first time a year after I opened the biggest of all my properties, which I financed with about $700 million in junk bonds, but c’est la vie, as the French would have it.
I know there have been investor analysts who totaled the total bankruptcy price tag at $4.75 billion, which is a lot of money, unless you personally have $10 billion, like I do. But they miss the point. I didn’t lose $5 billion dollars, it was other people’s money (OPM, baby). Besides most of it was from bankers, and who cares what happens to those sharks? They are all adults. They should have known better. As for the little people, I suggest you keep your money under a mattress if you don’t know how to invest. That’s American free enterprise.
But the capper is, I didn’t really lose anything at all. The magic of U.S. tax law. All my paper losses were business expenses and I got to deduct them against my taxable actual income from real estate buying, selling and property renting. How much did I make? You’ll never know. That’s why I have lawyers and accountants, so I pay the absolute minimum in personal taxes, even down to negative numbers, like in 1988. I did slip up there because the New Jersey state authorities got a look at my actual tax returns. I don’t intend for that to happen again. I guarantee it.
But I saved the absolutely best sports deal for last. Golf is my passion. You can play into your 70’s or 80’s and not look too foolish. It is mostly a rich man’s game played in the best clubs, and mostly white folks on the links themselves. A round of golf is a great place to meet business friends and celebrities, black and white, and make deals without a lot of government snoops around. You can tell tall tales. Best of all, I decided to buy up some of the better golf properties, so I can play on my own courses, whenever I want. I avoid the hassle of having to apply for club memberships, paying initiation and membership costs, and annual greens fees, for starters.
I own or run properties in Scotland, Ireland, Dubai, and Puerto Rico. O.K. I did run a Trump golf course in Puerto Rico until 2015, when they went bust. But you can’t find Puerto Rico mentioned anymore on my Trump Golf website. My IT boys scrubbed it pretty clean, pretty damn fast, last summer. (My IT boys are even faster than those pesky Selective Service dudes at the Draft Board in 1968).
See, here’s the thing. Jetting around, visiting my courses to play a few rounds, and of course have a business meeting or two to keep it all Kosher, means that all the expenses (even the jet travel, if my managers and accountants are on the beam) I rack up are tax deductible as business expenses. So, in reality, Uncle Sam pays part of the ride for me to fly to Scotland and play golf.
So does your average American citizen, if you pay the IRS anything for taxes each year. Your individual contribution to my welfare and happiness may only be a fraction of a fraction of a cent each, but it all adds up. More to the point, it doesn’t cost me. If I were just an average rich guy, it would be tough to write off all those golfing expenses. But own the gold course, Open Sesame. What a country!
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why more billionaires don’t just buy their own entertainment locales. My Papa taught me never to leave a penny on the ground. Millions or pennies, no difference.
Almost all or my golf properties are private clubs, but the newest in New York City (at Ferry Point) is a public course owned by the taxpayers there.
But this course is a beauty. First of all, it is built on top of a former municipal land fill. The city had to spend millions extra to haul off and clean up toxic waste when it was built. Plus my investment requirement is to build a $10 million clubhouse within 5 years. No down payment, no earnest money. The only guarantee in the contract is to pay the City at least $300,000 each year after 5 years. Chump change. I charge twice as much as the other 14 city owned gold courses do for a round of golf, because it’s me running the course. I have a sweetheart deal.
I only have to pay 7% of the revenues to the city for the next 25 years, so I get to keep more than 90% of the profits. Even better, I don’t owe the city anything in fees for the first 5 years. And the City pays for all the water to maintain the golf course and greens, a perk worth about a $300-400 thousand dollar bonus for me each year. Best of all, I can close the course to the public for up to 20% of the year. Why does this matter? Because now I can try to get a P.G.A. tournament to come to an upscale public golf course located in New York City (an attractive draw to the P.G.A. for the publicity and common touch), but I get to keep all the course and TV money it will generate.
Super best of all, I negotiated this deal with Mike Bloomberg while he was mayor of New York. He thinks he is such a smart guy. I negotiated his pants off with this deal. What a sucker. Who’s the best dealmaker? As for the average New York taxpayer, you can go look somewhere else for money to pay for city services. Naturally, you can play my course, 80% of time anyway, as long as you pay up when you do. And better pray there’s isn’t a drought on the East Coast either.
Excerpts from Johnny’s Letters on Other Business Ventures*****
I have made money hand over fist since about 1974 with my first big real estate deal (Grand Hyatt, New York). Most of my business winnings have been in real estate, then a reality TV show, and for the last ten years in golf. But I’m no 3-trick pony, not me. I have a keen eye and a superlative track record in all kinds of other general business ventures. My Papa said everything I touch turns to gold. He was real proud of me, and he was right.
Along the way, I have always had an eye out for other brilliant ways to make a buck, or few million of them. Not all of them have been successful. In fact, the list of my failures is longer than the catalogue of successes for most rich people. No matter. My hide is like the finest grade of India rubber. Like pure rubber, I have a large stretch ratio and high resilience, and is extremely waterproof. Failures don’t stick to me, better than Teflon.
I bought an airline and renamed it Trump Shuttle dba Trump Airlines (1988-1992), failed to pay the lenders, and lost it. Same for the Trump Airlines helicopter service to the Hamptons and Atlantic City casinos. Same flop fate for the Trump Vodka (2006-2011) liquor company. I really like the slogan “Success Distilled” though. I want to use that one again. Same flop status for Trump Tea (2010-no longer available) in four gourmet flavors (Mar-a-Lago, Union Square, Park Avenue, and Westchester) which was based in Chicago.
Same floppiness for the Trump Network (2009-2011), a vitamin supplement multi- level marketing opportunity. Jealous unfair loser critics called it a pyramid scheme. Same for Trump Steaks (2007-2007). Same for Trump men’s fragrances (three different ones: Donald Trump: The Fragrance, Success by Trump, Empire by Trump).
Same for Trump Home Mattresses by Serta Mattresses (2009-2015). Same for Trump Signature Collection menswear line at Macy’s (2004-2015). Same fate for Trump: The Game (1988-1989, redo 2004) board game, flopped twice. Same with Trump University (2005-2010), which wasn’t any kind of school really. The pettifogger New York Attorney General has sued me for civil fraud. Bur what does he know? Same for the glossy Trump Magazine (2007-2009). My lovely daughter Ivanka graced the cover with her beautiful self. She’s a beaut. Same for GoTrump .com (2006-2007), my luxury travel service and search engine.
Same for Trump Mortgage (2006-2007) financial services firm, and Trump Fire (2004) and Trump Power (2004) carbonated juice drinks. Same for Trump’s American Pale Ale (2007). Same for Trumpnet (1990-1992) a “corporate telephone communication services” This flop never got off the ground. Same for Trump Card (1990-1991), the TV game show. Same for Trump On the Ocean (which lasted all of 4 months in 2012), which was a restaurant and catering hall on Jones Beach Long Island. Before Hurricane Sandy hit and wiped it out. Those ungrateful locals treated me so badly, I decided not to fix it up. Good tax deduction though.
Same flop fate for Trumped! (2004-2008) talk-radio show (actually a two-minute inspirational audio comment series from me, the Deal and Inspiration Master). Same for Trump New Media (1998) a video-on-demand and high-speed internet services firm that suffered a failure to launch. Again, not my fault. My planning was faultless and genius quality.
By my count, that’s only 24 flops and out-of-business disappointments on my record. How about the successes? There is Trump Coffee (2012-2016), which is sold on Amazon, How about Trump Cufflinks, sold by Paolo Giardini in outlet stores and by mail order. The best is Trump Ice bottled water which can be purchased at all Trump properties including the hotels, bars, clubs, restaurants, snack bars, and golf courses that serve beverages. My latest fabulous financial form for 2016 shows I made $280,000 from this one business alone last year. It is popping, man.
And don’t forget the Wollman and Lasker public Ice Skating Rinks in Central Park in New York, which are mine to run. I renovated Wollman in 1986, and I’m still making money from running it (1986-1992, and 2001-present) Now, it is true that in 1991 those hot dog vendors and pretzel boys, George and Tom Makkos bid $5 million for the 6-year contract, while I only bid $1 million. But I run a classier show, everybody knows that. My touch is worth at least $4 million is prestige for the City. There are many more, trust me. I just can’t think of them right now, There are so many. Oh yeah, better add Trump Model Management to the winners list. Such world class beautiful women, how could I forget them?
You might say the lower I bid, the more prestige I confer on the project. It won’t help the City pay the light bill or clean the streets, and you can’t eat it, but there are other pleasures in life to be savored.
You may have heard of the old saw that to succeed in business you only need to be right a little more than half the time. Now, to be honest, a balance sheet of 24 other business flops (not counting the 4 casino bankruptcies in Atlantic City, or the Twenty-Nine Palms Indian Casino in California) versus 5 ventures still in business is not too impressive on the surface. But, I’m Trump. I don’t need 51% winners. I fly with 17%. I’m just not real big on following rules. If rules get in my way, I ignore them, talk my way around them, or negotiate a walk-away. My Three-Point Plan for Financial Success.
Here endeth the available text from the cache of letters in the Memoirs of a Man of Pleasure by Johnny Miller. There are other handwritten page waiting to be transcribed, at some future date.
Final Note on the Memoir
Trump’s lifelong, endless quest has been to earn respect, suitable to the Olympian scale of his self-identified Promethean talents. It is his unquenchable, fierce inner fire. A skeptical psychologist might say he has struggled all his life to simultaneously gain his Dad’s approval, displace his older more naturally gifted brother, to achieve intellectual distinction at school, to secure love and attention from all the pretty girls, to be taken seriously in the councils of men of wealth and power. But above all, to have money, lots of money, enormous, pornographicly large piles of money as the only universal yardstick of success and power and attractiveness.
Trump, in a nutshell, wants his
R E S P E C T
If he wins the election, will it be victory enough to slake his cravings? Somehow, it will not be enough. There are 193 other countries in the World to dominate, after all. And that loser, Jeff Bezos, of Amazon and the failing Washington Post, has a space exploration company (Blue Origin). Trump hasn’t gotten started yet. He just needs to figure out how to get someone else to pay for the Deal of A Lifetime.
American voters will just have to be flexible.
*A sample paragraph from the novel Fanny Hill, that caused the hair to curl on the heads of proper Bostonians in 1963:
“But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural curiosity, through the want of occasions in the strictness of his home-breeding, and the little time he had been in town not having afforded him one, was hitherto an absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all that manhood he was so nobly stock’d with; and it now fell to my lot to stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part of me, which such an oversiz’d machine was very fit to lay in ruins.”
**From the Wikipedia entry on “Banned in Boston”:
“Banned in Boston” was a phrase employed from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, to describe a literary work, song, motion picture, or play which had been prohibited from distribution or exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts. During this period, Boston officials had wide authority to ban works featuring “objectionable” content, and often banned works with sexual content or foul language.
Early instances of works being “banned in Boston” extend back at least to the year 1651. That year, William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, and the former treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote a book criticizing Puritanism. Boston, founded by Puritans and, at that time, ruled as a de jure theocracy, banned Pynchon’s book and pressed him to return to England. He did so in 1652.
Boston was founded by the censorious Puritans in the early 17th century. Boston’s second major wave of immigrants, Irish Catholics, began arriving in the 1820s and also held conservative moral beliefs, particularly regarding sex. The phrase “banned in Boston”, however, originated in the late 19th century at a time when American “moral crusader” Anthony Comstock began a campaign to suppress vice. He found widespread support in Boston, particularly among socially-prominent and influential officials. Comstock was also known as the proponent of the Comstock Act, which prevented “obscene” materials from being delivered by the U.S. mail.
Following Comstock’s lead, Boston’s city officials took it upon themselves to ban anything that they found to be salacious, inappropriate, or offensive. Aiding them in their efforts was a group of private citizens, the Boston Watch and Ward Society. Theatrical shows were run out of town, books were confiscated, and motion pictures were prevented from being shown; sometimes movies were stopped mid-showing, after an official had “seen enough”. In 1935, for example, during the opening performance of Clifford Odets’ play Waiting for Lefty four cast members were placed under arrest.
This movement had several unintended consequences. One was that Boston, a cultural center since its founding, was perceived as less sophisticated than many cities without stringent censorship practices. Another was that the phrase “banned in Boston” became associated, in the popular mind, with something lurid, sexy, and naughty. Commercial distributors were often pleased when their works were banned in Boston—it gave them more appeal elsewhere.
Prominent literary figure H. L. Mencken was arrested in Boston in 1926, after purposefully selling a banned issue of his magazine, The American Mercury. Though his case was dismissed by a local judge, and he later won a lawsuit against the Watch and Ward Society for illegal restraint of trade, the effort did little to affect censorship in Boston. The interracial romance novel by Lillian Smith, Strange Fruit, was also banned by the Watch and Ward Society. And in 1929, Boston’s mayor and the city censor banned Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Strange Interlude.
Similarly, during this era, there were periodic “purity campaigns” on radio, as individual stations decided to ban songs with double-entendres or alleged vulgar lyrics. One victim of such a campaign was bandleader Joe Rines, who in November 1931, was cut off in mid-song by John L. Clark, program director of WBZ, for performing a number called “This is the Missus,” whose lyrics Clark deemed inappropriate. Rines was indignant, saying he believed Clark was over-reacting to a totally innocent song, but Clark insisted he was right to ban any song whose lyrics might be construed as suggestive.
The Warren Court (1953–69) expanded civil liberties and in Memoirs v. Massachusetts and other cases curtailed the ability of municipalities to regulate the content of literature, plays, and movies. The last major literary censorship battle in the U.S. was fought over Naked Lunch, which was banned in Boston in 1965. Eventually the Watch and Ward Society changed its name to the New England Citizens Crime Commission, and made its main emphasis against gambling and drugs and far less on media.
***To the best of my memory, my own encounter with Fanny Hill began with the novelist D.H Lawrence in my 11th grade English class in 1966. I would have been 16. We had to read Lawrence’s novel Sons and Lovers (1913) for class. I think it was a one-week assignment. Sons and Lovers led, not unexpectedly, to Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) for outside reading.
I believe a classmate told me about Fanny Hill around that time and offered to lend me a copy. I accepted, but soon purchased my own paperback copy and returned his.
I read mine thoroughly.
Our spring semester’s reading list for English was focused on 20tth century novels, mostly European. During this time we studied James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). My friend Rod challenged me to go on and read Finnegan’s Wake (1939) which I found plenty difficult, though I did manage to get nearly all the way through. How much of the punning in the book was clear to me is another story. That was quite enough James Joyce for my junior English brain. The only person in our class that year, that I know of, who actually read (and seemed to get) Ulysses was Rod, who was both very intelligent and extremely tenacious,
Our section teacher, Mr. K. was a very animated sort who always wore a long sleeve shirt with a half loosened tie. He would pace around the room full of energy, waving his arms and gesturing excitedly, reading or reciting, and then suddenly point to someone to answer a series of rapid fire questions about the text. One of our spring assignments was to read the Kafka novel, The Metamorphosis (1915), which made a lasting impression on me. To this day, the mental image of Gregor waking up at home to find himself on his back as a beetle with his legs extended upward, for no discernable reason, still gives me the creeps.
See the Wikipedia entries for: D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), James Joyce (1882-1941), and Franz Kafka (1883-1924).
****Let’s be clear. Donald Trump was not a Draft Dodger. Trump did not violate the Selective Service Act. He took advantage of it. In fact, there is no legal import to the term. The polite term of reference was ‘Draft Avoidance.” The more caustic designation was loosely applied by regular people in popular parlance. Everybody knew what it meant, especially as it applied to the advantages enjoyed by white boys (and those minority men) who were in college. For all men of draft age in the late 60’s and early 70’s, including Trump, the Draft and its associated nuances was a huge deal. Those moments of decision are acid-etched in our brains. Each of you men knows what you did or didn’t do during the draft.
Phil Ochs from “The Draft Dodger Rag” (1965)
“Sarge, I’m only eighteen, I got a ruptured spleen
And I always carry a purse.
I got eyes like a bat, and my feet are flat, and my asthma’s getting worse.
Yes, think of my career, my sweetheart dear, and my poor old invalid aunt
Besides, I ain’t no fool, I’m a-goin’ to school,
And I’m working in a DEE-fense plant
So I wish you well, Sarge, give ’em Hell!
Kill me a thousand or so.
And if you ever get a war without blood and gore,
I’ll be the first to go.
Serving his country honorably in the Military was one golden patriotic opportunity Trump skated away from. Families of those who died and were wounded could rightly take offense as his cereal box patriotism 50 years later.
*****Selected Catalogue of Trump’s Business Failures.
Thanks and a grateful double tip of the Blogger’s Hat to these intrepid reporters who have waded through the fog, misdirection, and frequent bogosity that mark Trump’s various presentations of his actual business record.
- Donald Trump’s 16 Biggest Business Failures and Successes, by Jacob Koffler , Time (Aug. 7, 2015)
- How Donald Trump Made Millions Off His Biggest Business Failure, by Shawn Tully, Fortune (March 10, 2016)
- Donald Trump’s 13 Biggest Business Failures, by Tessa Stuart, Rolling Stone (March 14, 2016)
- A Complete List of Donald Trump’s Business Disasters, by Ashley Feinberg, Gawker (March 18, 2016)
- The Definitive Roundup of Trump’s Scandals and Business Failures, by Celina Durgin, National Review (March 15, 2016)
- The Emperor and his new clothes (Donald Trump and his new tea), by Dilhan Fernando, Integritea (August 24, 2010)