This dude has been in the news a lot, talking all kinds of weird shit while telling people he wants to run for President. There is a disgustingly rich guy from New York City who might make an okay president, but it’s Michael Bloomberg, not Donald Trump. My humble opinion.

Anyway, I have a few Facebook friends who seem to be taking Trump’s candidacy pretty seriously. I try so hard not to judge, but I’m only human, and also, I enjoy judging. Instead of getting cranky with people I like, though, I’ll just offer a simple anecdote. This, excerpted from my never-to-be-published autobiography Shit That Would Turn You White, is why I couldn’t possibly vote for the guy:

October, 2003. I’m at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City to play keyboards with Jessica Simpson’s band. This concert is being filmed simultaneously for Jessica’s reality show and the season finale of another program, which has not yet begun to air – something called The Apprentice. (All through rehearsal, a woman named Omarosa has been hovering with a camera crew and claiming to be the hotel’s liaison to the band… but whenever we actually need anything she refers us to Jessica’s production manager and disappears. In the broadcast cut of the show, Omarosa will be featured in a lengthy plotline about “losing the band at the airport” which I, watching for the first time at home, will find funny because we took Amtrak. I know, I know, we’re all aware that reality shows are phony; we’re just humoring the nice people who make them.)

The band has been briefed on how to interact with The Donald should he enter the room in which we are sitting or possibly standing. Rules include “Do not make eye contact” and “Do not speak unless spoken to.” Our production manager jokingly tags “Do not ask him about his masterpiece, Purple Rain” at the bottom of the list.

So it’s the night of the show, five minutes after what was supposed to be our downbeat. The Taj Mahal’s sold-out Xanadu Room is packed with 14-year-old girls and their moms. Back home in NYC, everybody’s watching the last game of one of the many, many, many World Series the Yankees would not win between 2001 and 2009. Jessica is still in her dressing room for some reason. And the band is chilling in a makeshift greenroom at stage right, enjoying soda from an iced tray of those cute little hotel bar bottles. From down the hall, we hear this:

“That’s it, this concert’s over. We’re going to the Yankee game!”

And then, about twenty seconds later and a few yards closer:

“That’s it, this concert’s over. We’re going to the Yankee game!”

The voice is familiar. It also says:

“KWAME!”

We, of course, have no idea what KWAME means because no one has seen The Apprentice yet. In his search for the mysterious KWAME, Donald Trump enters the room. As per our orders, we ignore him, and he leaves. Then we hear, from just outside:

“She’s not coming out. Forget it, this concert’s over. We’re going to the Yankee game!”

Why does the dude keep saying the same thing over and over again? For the cameras, maybe? There had been a couple in the greenroom earlier, but they’re gone now. Has he just been repeating himself to random people as they walk by?

Trump re-enters our little space, paces, checks his watch. We decline to make eye contact and speak unless spoken to about Purple Rain. Trump grabs a hotel bar bottle of soda, opens it, takes a sip, screws the cap back on and returns it to the tray. He turns to us and speaks:

“So you guys are the band?”

We nod. Trump selects a fresh bottle from the icy tray, opens it, takes one sip and puts it back.

“How long have you guys been together?”

No one in the group says anything. It’s my first gig with these guys and the drummer’s second. Not much of a story there. But somebody has to respond, so I blurt out:

“We’re celebrating our second millennium together.”

The band laughs nervously; Trump gives me this weird look, as if to say I can and will have you killed if you are in fact sassing me. Then he swigs from a third bottle of soda and puts it back. Jessica is now about fifteen minutes late to the stage. Executive privilege! The Donald sez:

“She’s not coming out. Okay. This is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go on stage. I’m gonna say to the audience: Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, Jessica Simpson can’t be here tonight. But it’s okay – I’ve got my band here, and I’m gonna RAP. How about that? Should I do that?”

We laugh as if we think he should do that, but of course we don’t really think he should do that. He sips from a fourth bottle (this time a bottle of water with his face on the label). Then some guy comes into the room. Trump says – with identical inflection:

“She’s not coming out. This is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna go on stage with the band. I’m gonna say to the audience: Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, Jessica Simpson can’t be here tonight. But it’s okay – I’ve got my band here, and I’m gonna RAP. How about that? Should I do that?”

The guy laughs. This delights Trump so he delivers the same line to the next three people who walk through the greenroom. There are no cameras present. Is The Donald really this needy?

Forty-five minutes pass before Jessica finally emerges, which gives Trump time to sample every bottle in our beverage tray. We have an otherwise pleasant conversation, but it’s like he’s compelled to exert dominance – my hotel, my drinks.

The band takes the stage; Jessica waits in the greenroom. Trump delivers an introduction that I think is meant to be the announcement he tried on us and four civilians, except with three thousand people watching, this is what comes out:

“Ladies and gentlemen, sorry, Jessica Simpson’s not here. Naw, here she is!”

I don’t normally share stories like this in public forums. In this case, I feel like I’m providing a service. Trump, to me, is the living embodiment of the Baby Boomer disaster that has been inflicted upon our society. He’s greedy, needy, intellectually lazy, entitled, arrogant, myopic, destructive and weak. I saw everything I needed to see that night… Facebook friends, if you trust me at all, believe it when I say that Donald Trump is not Presidential material. Now if only you’d stop posting photos of babies where pictures of you are supposed to go. I’m sure you all still look better than I do.

Here comes May… my last month of work in NYC. Maybe I’ll appreciate The City more when I don’t have to go there every week. Gimme a couple years on that one.

I’m really looking forward to summer in Albany. It was a messy first year; I still don’t feel established, but things are finally starting to settle. Some old friends have rematerialized, and I’ve made a few good new ones too. I’ve even been able to convince a couple people to relocate, which will be fantastic (for me, for them, for Capitaland). Once I’m in town full-time, I can finally have something of a life here – get out and see some shows, walk down to the riverfront, visit Saratoga, catch a few drive-in double features.

I am pretty desperate to find a haunt, and a little surprised that I haven’t after 11 months ’cause it’s not for lack of trying. I suppose for most people “haunt” means a bar; for me it’s someplace where grownups (or at least people of grownup age) can chill and chat over coffee, and get a decent bite to eat early or late. When I lived on the Lower East Side, that was the Moonstruck Diner at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 5th Street. LB and I went there every morning for five years. When their service got too shitty to ignore, we headed two blocks north to Virage. I never got comfortable enough in Brooklyn to haunt a place – everything closed early in Dumbo, anyway, and haunt rule #1 is that the place be open at whatever hour you need it to be. (Rule #2: it should be less than ten minutes away on foot.)

Denny’s is too far from me to qualify; the restaurants on Lark Street, even the ones open late, are too crowded and too expensive. I seem to find myself at Café Madison a lot, because their breakfast is so awesome, but I can’t walk there and they close at 2pm (which also disqualifies a few of the great old diners in town, and The Buttery, my favorite place within walking distance). Dunkin Donuts at the corner of Lark and Madison is always there for me, but it can get sketchy.

I did have a great cheeseburger at McGeary’s a couple weeks ago (it tasted like a Fuddrucker’s burger, which to me is an excellent thing), and the place seemed really warm and welcoming, lively but not so chaotic as to crush a good conversation. It’s within acceptable walking distance, if just barely. McGeary’s just may be the place. I’m open to suggestions!

——-

I feel like it’s been months since I put “She Loves You (NO NO NO)” online for download. It’s only been what, three weeks? Maybe I’m just antsy ’cause my May 7 single is really really cool. I’m not gonna spoil it… let’s just say it’s something new from the distant past, and if you’ve been with me for a while, it features some familiar folks brought together in a surprising way.

My June single is just about ready, too… and July’s offering will be crazy. Matt Biscuiti suggested I do “something big” on my birthday. Let’s see if I can oblige him!

I seem to be at a point in life where all of my public school classmates are getting divorced. There are so many custody battles being documented in real time on my Facebook wall right now… sorry to be a cavalier douche about this, but it’s actually pretty good reading. Definitely more interesting than what was for lunch, or how much Monday sucks.

If Facebook had existed when we were 27, our walls would have been splattered with breakup drama, followed by lots of engagement announcements six months later. It was shit-or-get-off-the-pot time… anyone whose relationship wasn’t the relationship ended it and married the next person he or she saw.

These are the people they’re divorcing now. Here’s a song for both sides.

Wait, what’s a Song Foundry Single Of The Month?

It’s how we’re gonna do things around here for a while. On the 7th of every month, you’re gonna get something new. It might be a Skyscape track, or Hanslick Rebellion, or a JD jam from the vaults that you’ve never heard before. Or, like this month, a brand-new solo studio track (finished yesterday!) with special guests Tony Levin, Anton Fig, Earl Slick, Maryann Fennimore, Mike Keaney and Ralph Carney. Listen, download, and please pass it on – if you like what you hear, share it on Facebook or elsewhere. That’s all I ask.

(Sevendys isn’t part of this. Sevendys is extra; Sevendys cannot be contained!)

It’s the Sevendys model that inspired this change: record, mix, release. Seems simple but it’s not. You have to actually record, mix, and then release. When you’re making full albums, it’s really hard to get to step three because first you have to record everything and then you have to mix everything. Waiting to track one last instrument on one last song? If that takes a year, then your whole album, all that work, sits in limbo for at least a year. Not a particularly efficient way to do things.

I like to work on six or seven albums at a time, slowly bringing them to completion over what could be years. When I feel a song approaching doneness, I focus on that one and knock it out. But then the track just kinda sits there until the rest of the album is done.

With Sevendys, we go into the studio, cut four complete tracks, and simply release them as they’re mixed. For example, “Enjoy It” was mixed the day before it was mastered, and released ten minutes after the master was approved. That’s exhilarating. I’ve got Eric Jarvis, who only started mixing my stuff last year, telling me how great it is to work with somebody who just gets stuff online and out so fast, and I’m cracking up because I really move glacially slowly. But Sevendys has managed to put out something in every month of 2011 so far, and I see no reason why that will stop.

Lots of italics in this post! I am emphasizing all kinds of shit, WHOOOOOOOO!

I’ve decided not to wait around for albums to happen anymore. There are mechanisms for collecting singles into albums and pressing albums into cool physical products, and I’ll still do that stuff, because I love to do it… but I see no reason to hoard tracks for moments so far in the future, they may as well never come. Let’s enjoy “She Loves You (NO NO NO)” today!