by Noah
I once knew a very successful songwriter and producer who lived up near the Hollywood sign in the Lake Hollywood area above L.A. Whenever I took him out to dinner, he had a place in Santa Monica that he preferred because they had a top-level wine list and a variety of cheeseburgers and meatloaf dishes, both with fries, of course, lots of fries. Mind you, this place also featured some great seafood and other delights, but he liked what he liked, so ground beef it was and he always left with a week's worth of cheeseburgers and meatloaf meals for his microwave. We'd walk out of the restaurant to get my car from the valet parking guy and Mr. Songwriter would be carrying a stack of aluminum pie plates full of dead cows and fries. Oh and a bottle of the restaurant's special gravy and, yes, a bottle of wine or two. I paid for dinner. He paid for his "extreme takeout."
I'll give my late associate (Yeah, he died at a relatively young age) credit. At least, unlike Señor Trumpanzee, he had no taste for fast food burgers and such. No, only the most expensive cheeseburgers would do! Funny thing is, he wasn't overweight at all, not like the obese Orange Menace To Society who somehow hasn't dropped dead, yet. My associate had other issues, most of which centered around so many massive insecurities that, well, I guess they just wore him out. Working with him was a bitch. Outside of work, he could be charming, very witty, well read, and all that. He was fine, even if the nice stuff was just a veneer. But, at work he treated everyone around him like they had no humanity at all. Everyone was just an inanimate object to pound and otherwise abuse. Even the singer was just another instrument. No matter who the singer was, they might as well have been a saxophone. Working with him was a supreme test of wills. It was exhausting, often even the saving him from himself part. I won and I won for both of us and the record company involved.
When I think back on the person I've just described, I can't help but think about what it might be like to have to sit in a room with Trump every day. I can't help but think about how Trump uses people and has no regard for their humanity, They are just a means to an end. Psychosis. The massive insecurities also came into play with that. My former associate's insecurities always telegraphed what bullshit he was going to try next. It frustrated him whenever I headed off some bit of his madness. He'd even ask people how I could have known. It wasn't rocket science. I just knew the animal I was dealing with and what he was capable of. I imagine that, in the coming years, we will hear some really frightening, and I mean frightening, stories about what it was like in the Trump White House.
Coda: I can vividly remember visiting that house in Lake Hollywood. Our meetings were always in the kitchen, the very large kitchen. It was where Mr. Songwriter/Producer seemed most comfortable, other than sitting at a piano. In the kitchen, there were always two things; a complete 4 by 3 by 3 skid of Heinz Ketchup, and, a similar sized skid of paper towels. I kid you not. Could the kitchen in Mar-a-Lago be the same? Maybe one day we will know. I can tell you one thing, and that is that when I asked Mr. Songwriter/Producer why he had so much ketchup, his answer was simple and matter of fact, "I never want to run out."