PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
Donald J. Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current President of the United States, in office since January 20, 2017. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality. He took over his family’s real estate business in 1971, renamed it The Trump Organization, and expanded it to involve the construction and renovation of skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. Trump also started various side ventures, including branding and licensing his name for real estate and luxury consumer products. He co-authored several books, including The Art of the Deal; and from 2003 to 2015, he was a producer and the host of The Apprentice, a reality television game show. Trump was elected president against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton; his victory upset the expectations of polls and analysts. He became the oldest and wealthiest person ever to assume the presidency, the first without prior military or government service, and the fifth to have won the election despite losing the popular vote. (More from Wikipedia)
It didn’t register right away, but eventually I noticed that Presidential candidate Donald Trump had the Twisted Sister song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” playing at a lot of his early rallies. Lead singer and songwriter Dee Snider personally gave Trump permission to use the song. I have written of their music video for this song before, featuring Animal House star Mark Metcalf and several lines of dialogue from the movie also. (Even the song has some of the dialogue in it).
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Arlo Guthrie’s father Woody Guthrie has been in the news lately; among other notes along the same lines, a reworking of one of his best known songs, “I Ain’t Got No Home” came to light in his papers that included a scathing indictment as a racist of “old man Trump”, that is, Fred Trump, the father of Donald Trump. Guthrie had signed a lease in December 1950 at one of the elder Trump’s apartment complexes near Coney Island, called Beach Haven and began noticing the lily-white neighborhood where it was located.
(March 2016)
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I have also noticed a lot of deaths, particularly it seems in the past year; Leon Russell passed away the day after I set up a modest web page on him, as just one example. Clearly these musicians mean a lot to people, and not just the most famous among them. As I write this, Leonard Cohen’s death was more than two weeks ago, yet his photograph still shows up on the “In the News” block on the Wikipedia main page. Cohen’s death notice is in the middle of the list, while Donald Trump’s election the following day is at the bottom.
(Year 7 Review)
