Pawing through the archives, I came across this old post documenting my unlikely participation in a star-studded televised awards show banquet. The most significant part was meeting the delightful Judy Blume for the first time (and our risqué banter that nowadays would probably get either or both of us twitch-hunted and fired if either of us had proper jobs.)
But it also contains a Trump anecdote, the only one I've got.
He was a fellow nominee and also a presenter with his co-author of some book on finance or real estate or somesuch. As I recall it, the story was that he was upset about his table location, and he expressed his dissatisfaction by refusing to read his part of the contrived dialogue on the teleprompter, leaving the co-presenter, who could barely speak English, to try to read both parts. To surreal effect. Trump just stood there with his arms folded, surveying the crowd imperiously. At the time, I thought he resembled Mussolini, and I drunkenly muttered "Mussolini" to Judy Blume, who squeezed my arm and whispered something I cannot at the moment recall because I don't want it read into the record at any future trial that may materialize. The awkwardness was interminable, all the way up till it was terminated, amidst a whole lot of "rhubarbing" from the assembly, by Anderson Cooper rushing in and saying "let's give 'em a big hand" and moving things along.
I was going to say I'd forgotten said anecdote till pawing through its archive reminded me, but that's not really true. It was firmly in my memory. The thing I'd managed to forget was that the Mussolini of the Quill Awards and the current President of the United States are the same guy; I simply didn't connect the two till I thought about it. But, they obviously are. The same guy, I mean.
As a final note, I got ridiculously drunk on the banquet wine that night and we're all lucky nothing bad happened.