That Time I Met Donald Trump

Before I tell the story of how I met Donald Trump, I'd like to make a couple of predictions. 

Prediction #1: During the week of July 18th, Cleveland, Ohio, is going to burn down. Honestly, it's a minor miracle that Cleveland didn't catch on fire when the Cavaliers won the NBA championship last week. But when the Republican National Convention comes to the Quicken Loans Arena in just under three weeks, the riot-inciting hate speech of Trump and his supporters may well lead to a conflagration that would make Chicago '68 look like a garden variety be-in.

Prediction #2: There is absolutely no way Trump wins the general election in November. First of all, the way the Electoral College has been trending the last few cycles (coupled with President Obama's approval rating), any Democrat probably beats any Republican, even a Democrat as unpopular as Hillary Clinton. On top of this, Donald Trump is a classic tea-party candidate (without the official affiliation) who appeals to the far right but is too radical for the average voter. Trump's campaign rhetoric has been so absurd that I'm inclined to believe that he's doing it on purpose, to drive the Republican Party right off a cliff. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that he and Hillary got together over coffee a couple of years ago and hatched the whole sordid scheme. They're friends, and he's been a Democrat in the past. Hillary surely knows how unpopular she is, and she knows that the more conservative her opponent is the better chance she has of winning. In the process, Trump has exposed the base of the party for what it is. They took the bait, and the party leadership is rightly mortified, which is why some of the rioting might take place on the convention floor in prime time. Talk about reality television.

The only rational thing I heard Ted Cruz say during the primaries was when he told a Trump supporter, "With all due respect, sir, he is playing you for a fool." If it isn't obvious by now that Trump is playing a long con, you haven't been paying attention. His smear of Mexican immigrants as rapists wasn't said off the cuff when he thought the microphones were off; it came in his official announcement for the Republican nomination. And the rest is history. From an art history standpoint, it might be the most successful piece of performance art ever, but that's another story.

Anyway, I met the man back in the late nineties, when I was living in Manhattan and doing freelance work for the League of American Theaters. The League was responsible for recruiting Broadway stars to participate in the Donald J. Trump Fifth Avenue Mile. I was a regular runner then, and I often ran in 10K races in Central Park, coordinated by the New York Road Runners Club. This is the organization that puts on the New York City Marathon each year, and they were also in charge of the Trump Mile. This annual event actually consisted of something like thirty mile-long races, each one associated with a different group or organization. There was one race featuring world-class sprinters, one featuring local high school athletes, one featuring Wall Street lawyers, and so on. 

The Broadway Mile (as our division of the Trump Mile was called) was supposed to feature Broadway stars, but by the eve of the race, there were only three confirmed participants. I got a call from my contact at the League. "Hi, Ned. What are you doing tomorrow?" I knew right away that she needed me to run the race, as filler, so to speak.

Here's a gratuitous picture of me as a runner from around this time, although this picture was taken in Charleston.

My contact told me to report to the V.I.P. tent in front of the Plaza Hotel the next morning. I said, "I like it already!" I was the first of my cohort to arrive. I was told that our race would start in about an hour, and maybe fifteen minutes beforehand we would be driven in a limousine to the starting line in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They used the word "limousine." I told them that since the race was only a mile, I would run to the starting line to warm up. They said, "Suit yourself."

But when my cohort arrived, we bonded quickly and I easily changed my mind. The Broadway "stars" turned out to be Martha Washington from 1776 and two understudies from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. When our time came to be escorted to the starting line, our "limousine" was a two-and-a-half-ton Dodge pickup truck. We all climbed into the bed of the truck and were whisked the wrong way up Fifth Avenue toward the museum. It was a gorgeous October morning. The street was lined with spectators and I started waving like a fool. I felt like Kramer.

When we got to the museum, the steps were packed with more spectators. There was a PA system set up, and before I knew it I was being announced to the crowd. "And from the League of American Theaters: Ned Hartley!" I smiled and waved to the crowd. My head was swimming. At one point I was vaguely aware that my contact was talking to someone behind me, but I didn't know who it was and I wasn't paying attention to what they were saying. Then I heard this soft, benevolent voice say, "I want to thank you so much for coming out today, Ned." I turned, offered my hand and said, "Thank you," and I did a double take: "Mr. Trump."

I'm going to be honest with you. My first impression was that this was a handsome man. I didn't look at his hair, and we did not speak at length. Somebody from the Roadrunners Club took a picture of my cohort flanked on one side by Trump and on the other by then Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Man, I wish I had a copy of that photo. Also, the race T-shirt was pretty cool. Here's a detail of an old photograph of a friend of mine wearing the shirt. Note that the lettering is in gold, of course.

As for the race, I came in second. When the actors (two women and one man) arrived, they all confessed that they weren't regular runners, and one of them looked at me and said, "Well, we all know who's going to win." I only mention this because it led to one of the best parts of the story. I reminded them that I wasn't allowed to win, and I recommended that the three of them hold hands and cross the finish line together. Which they did! My contact and I held back, which was good for her because shortly after the start of the race she informed me that she wasn't a runner at all and was already starting to experience shin splints. It was easily the slowest mile I ever ran.

The top three male and female finishers in each race division were awarded a round silver-plated trophy platter. I overheard a race official wondering how he was going to distribute the female awards, since the top two women had essentially tied. As for me, I was awarded the platter for Second Place--Male. I don't know where it is now. For many years my dog ate off of it.

Enlightened Mad Men

This is a discussion board post that I wrote for one of the online classes that I teach. The discussion prompt asked the students to describe two works of art with a similar theme. I went first to give them an idea of what we were looking for.

Mad Men is a serial television drama that ran on the AMC cable channel for seven seasons, airing its final episode in 2015. The primary theme of Mad Men is United States culture in the 1960s, seen through the perspective of the advertising industry. Other main themes are personal relationships, the search for identity, women in the workforce, alcoholism and the Civil Rights movement. The series was created by Matthew Weiner, who had previously worked as a writer for the HBO series The Sopranos.

The series follows the exploits of fictional copywriter and creative director Donald Draper (born Dick Whitman) and his relationships with his two (successive) wives, his children, many mistresses, and his young protégé in his ad agency, Peggy Olson.

A major theme toward the end of the series is the concept of enlightenment. SPOILER ALERT: In Season Seven, Don's first wife, Betty, learns that she has inoperable lung cancer and decides to forgo chemotherapy or radiation treatment. She accepts her fate and chooses not to fight the cancer. I suppose it is debatable as to whether this is an enlightened decision or not, but the last time we see Betty onscreen, she is walking up a flight of stairs toward a source of light, and above her head is a light fixture that symbolically represents a halo.

(screenshot from Mad Men, via Netflix)

This is a perfect example of how film and television are the natural successors to the art of painting. Weiner here is referencing any number of paintings that represent the ascension of the Virgin Mary into heaven. One of the best-known examples is by Titian.

Titian, Assumption of the Virgin (Venice, ca. 1516-1518; oil on wood, 22' 6" x 11' 10") (Kleiner 643)

These two images both show a woman moving upward, with each woman's head symbolically surrounded by light, suggesting enlightenment.

In the last episode of the series, the same formal device is used in an image of Don Draper, when Don has literally experienced enlightenment at a "hippie" retreat on the California coast.

(screenshot from Mad Men, via Netflix)

Here's another of my favorite images from the series.

(screenshot from Mad Men, via Netflix)

Betty is verbally sparring with a rival female neighbor, and their cigarettes symbolically take the place of swords. There are many examples in the history of western painting of sword fighting, and again Weiner is providing an update on a traditional formal device.

Edward Hartley

 

Works cited:

"Matthew Weiner." Internet Movie Database. Web. IMDb.com Retrieved 15 June 2016

Kleiner, Fred and Christian J. Mamiya. Art Through the Ages. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.