My Heroes

My Heroes

At different times of my life I have admired many different people for any number of qualities. When I was four and living in Santa Monica, I remember discussing my heroes of the moment, who were the firemen and policemen of the local forces. The German woman with the Hispanic-sounding first name (Maria) that had come with us from Venezuela to care for my sisters and me, fed into my hero-worship by inviting the firemen and policemen over to our house to awe me. Personally, I suspect she was also looking for a husband, so both purposes were served. But we all grow out of childish things and I went on to admire baseball players, Olympic skiers, race car drivers, the guy riding the Laverda 750 motorcycle, the preppy guy who got all the girls in high school, several rock n’ roll singers, Woody Allen, John Reed (my early banking hero) and my Centenarian mother, who I wrote a book about called Mater Gladiatrix. The things that drive me to admire people have to do with courage and accomplishment, and perhaps a little about panache. Like everyone, I find role models and wish I could or will be more like them.

The subject of role models is a fascinating and evolving subject that probably most changes due to our current belief systems. I watch the current spate of photojournalism about President Barack Obama, and despite being generally ambivalent about his accomplishments during his eight years in office (somewhat of a testament to the power and perhaps dulling influence of the balancing of governance built into the Constitution), I see a man of great presence who understood the multi-dimensional importance of his role in history and at the same time was a wonderful human being at all times. I cannot think of one story or publicized instance where I found myself cringing that he was doing the wrong thing.

Along with the heroes, there are also always the goats, as Charlie Brown might say. For every Christ, there is an anti-Christ. And in national politics, the antithesis of the good represented by Barack Obama is the bad represented by Donald Trump. In fact, I will go one step further and suggest that Barack Obama, who I believe is a good man on any absolute standard, may also look that much better in contrast to the standards, or lack thereof, being exhibited by Donald Trump. In the same way of suggesting that I do not recall seeing a derogatory example of Barack Obama’s actions or decisions, I can genuinely, although somewhat admittedly biased, say that I cannot think of a decision or action undertaken by Donald Trump for which I have any respect. The laundry list of negative examples is long and well documented from his embracing of autocrats to his denigration of human suffering. Since I am not “Pro-Life” as a matter of policy or in favor of a conservative, originalist Supreme Court, even the most noteworthy “accomplishments” that some might claim do not appeal to me as positives. I would go a step further and say that there is ample evidence on these and all of his decisions to question his motivations for any of these choices. When someone supports a program for clear and obvious reasons of self-interest rather than the absolute righteousness of the decision, I believe that may not throw the decision into the “bad” category, but it certainly prevents it from being deemed a good thing in regard to the respect and exemplary aspect that it might garner in determining whether it is worthy of being cause for role modeling.

None of you are shocked to know that I don’t like or respect Donald Trump in the least. Believe it or not, I developed that view long before he ever took a serious place on the national political stage. I know I’m not the only person who considered Trump’s candidacy for president to be a joke, a lame effort to promote his brand and reclaim some of his fading Apprentice mojo. His years of pretending on reality TV to be a good businessman when everyone in the New York and New Jersey business communities knew otherwise, was a joke. But reality TV success is not necessarily a function of depicting reality. It is showmanship, pure and simple, and while it doesn’t appeal to me just like Borat comedy did not appeal to me, I do understand how some people can find the spectacle and perhaps the absurdity of it all entertaining. But my familiarity predates Trump’s TV career as well. During my two year stint as a big league NYC real estate developer, I was CEO of Africa Israel USA, which controlled $3 billion of deeply distressed NYC real estate, and that won me a surprising seat on the New York Observer’s Power 100 list at #67. It is noteworthy that The Observer was owned by Jared Kushner, who was gifted the landmark newspaper as a graduation present in 2006. In 2008, Donald Trump ranked #38 in that list, but in 2009, the year Jared and Ivanka were married, and the year I made #67, Donald vaulted to #16. Imagine that. I’ve met the man several times, at his office on 5th Avenue, at Mar-a-Lago in the disco and at his Trump Soho project. I tried working a deal with Ivanka (no-go), and Kim and I sat next to Don Jr. and his first wife at the Redeye Grill before a Carnegie Hall gig. In addition to all of that, as a charter partner at Bankers Trust, I worked for the Chief Credit Officer (Joe Manganello) while he negotiated Trump’s first big real estate credit fiasco and workout in 1989 and I got all the sordid details right from the horse’s mouth. So, I feel somewhat qualified to opine on the man in more than a distant and casual observer manner.

I find none of the shenanigans and trainwreck that is the Trump Re-election campaign surprising or shocking. The man is and has always been the anti-Christ, which makes the evangelical support he gets all the more difficult to explain.

But I do not look these days to politics for heroes. Watching Joe Biden empathize with a child of a fallen COVID victim is heartwarming. Watching Kamala get up into Mike Pence’s face is satisfying. Watching AOC stand up to puerile Congressmen acting out their gender fears on the Captial steps is encouraging. But standing up to the Republican snakes in Congress is not what enlivens me. I’m into real snakes these days to get me excited. Last night we had to call Cal Fire to come and get our second rattlesnake of the summer (we got two others ourselves). This was a monster snake worthy of the three heroic firemen who came and removed the beast. I have returned to my four-year-old self and consider my heroes to be our local firemen, who we treated to a deli feast for their bravery. If Joe and Kamala win on November 3rd, as I expect, I will give them a free deli dinner as well for their snake removal heroism.