You're a Special Guy

 

I was perusing the offerings on my Amazon Prime and lo and behold I saw that they had the first season of The Apprentice. You know, the series that really introduced President Trump to the American People. It was filmed in 2004 and it was a revelation. New York never looked so beautiful. It was the Bloomberg era where the effects of the Guliani reforms were still evident. Very little crime. Much cleaner streets. Very few homeless people in your face. A paradise compared to the hell hole you see now.

You know how it worked. A bunch of aspiring businesspeople try to be picked as The Apprentice to work in one of Trump's properties. He was using it to promote all of his businesses and his triumphs like the skating rink. They showed his buildings. His airplane. Even the water company he had for a hot minute. But that wasn't what threw me for a loop. Now it was the grace notes.

I got emotional at the littlest things. A shot of the dirty water hot dog stand. One of the tasks was renting an apartment on the street where we had our last apartment in Brooklyn on 3rd Street. But I wasn't devastated until Trump took the winning team to Yankee Stadium to meet my personal hero, George Steinbrenner.

I sat there weeping. I couldn't believe it. It was the Old Yankee Stadium. The real Yankee Stadium. The one where Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe Dimaggio, and Mickey Mantle all played. The one where I went to hundreds of games. The place my father took me to for my first game with the 1961 Yankees. Mantle, Maris, Ford, Yogi Berra. The place where I lived through the lean years with Horace Clarke and Roy White. The comeback years of Thurman and Reggie and Sparky. Then the unbelievable run of the core four when we came back to the days of Yankee glory. I had season tickets for about 25 years.

Trump took his group into the Yankee offices to meet George. They hugged each other and showed a great deal of mutual respect. George is as close as you can get to Trump. They were two peas in a pod. Great men who were misunderstood and hated by the liberals and the media. I only wish George had the chance to be President. I miss him every day.

They spent about five minutes at the old Stadium. Walking outside on the concourse. Going into the offices. Standing in the owner's box while George talked about the team and how he turned it around. I must admit I got pretty emotional.

The series itself is well worth watching. Trump seems very young but you can recognize the guy who is President now. The biggest thing I took from this show was how the iPhone has destroyed Western civilization. It was only 2004 but everyone had a flip phone. Nobody was surfing the net. They weren't glued to their phones. They took a call and then went on and lived their lives. It was jarring in fact. It just cemented the fact that phones are destroying us. Add AI in the mix and I shudder to think what it will look like in twenty years. 

I mourn the passing of the Yankee Stadium, George, and the old New York. I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.