I tweeted several things A) to have his back and B) because I'VE SEEN AND HEARD THAT SHIT, MYSELF. Trump may have had an allergy or a cold or maybe some gnat flew by (or up) his nose or something - but it was startling and really glaring.
I was watching that *SNIFF* debate Monday night and *SNIFF* immediately was taken back to the hallway I was walking through, where certain station personnel passed me by and *SNIFF* . At least one of these individuals was well known to partake of a little blow. The same kind of *SNIFF* that Trump was doing onstage. It was the FIRST thing that came to my mind, watching *SNIFF* Trump. Literally made me start seeing my early career flashing in front of my eyes!
Working in rock radio, one saw and heard this a lot. A LOT. Sometimes one even heard it on the air. I remember listening to one noontime anchor begin a newscast announcing the "Dooz at Dood" followed by lots of mouth and nose noises and clicks and weird sounds, and a *SNIFF* or two, from doing so much coke (like just a moment or two before stepping into the on-air booth for news time). This individual always sounded like that - on-air and off. Constantly so stuffed-up so as to barely articulate normally. And it WASN'T any chronic cold that was to blame.
This was in the late 70s when Studio 54 in Manhattan was THE thing and fast times were THE rule, and the stuff was EVERYWHERE, coast-to-coast, throughout the industry, and beyond, I'm sure. I knew people who kept a collection of those little white plastic coffee stirrers that McDonald's used to issue with coffee orders - the stirrers had tiny spoon configurations at one end - just perfect to dip into one of those tiny little screw-top vials in which so many people kept their cocaine. McDonald's discontinued those little "stirrers" as soon as this other "usage" for them was discovered. There were people who had one long pinkie fingernail, because that made a good little scoop, perfect size, to dip into the vial and "spoon" out just the right amount to bring up under the nostril. Hell, one Christmas, there was a station at which the entire air staff was gifted with special custom-made framed coke mirrors with the station's logo on them.
Later in my career, that chapter had ended, but Lordy Lordy, in rock radio in the 70s, it was EVERYWHERE. To the point where it was at times actual "currency" in various promotional campaigns.
I went to one Radio & Records conference (R&R was a major industry trade journal back then, that EVERYBODY on the staff waited for, hungrily, to come in the mail every week) where cocaine was everywhere. The Blues Brothers were the entertainment at the big banquet that was the conference finale. They were really new and hot at that moment and this was, as Joe Biden would say, "a big fucking deal". The hospitality suite in the hotel that the Blues Brothers' record label hosted was so packed with people wanting to see and be seen with Belushi & Aykroyd that you could barely get in. There was a coffee table in the living room of the suite - and its top was covered with a mound of cocaine - free for any and all to enjoy. Belushi had already made quite a name for himself as an afficionado - which, sadly, eventually contributed to his death. Obviously everybody thought it was first-class "hospitality"! You couldn't move in that room. Heaven forbid you'd need to go to the bathroom! Of course, in a scene like that, at an event like that, I would suspect more-of-the-same, piled-higher-and-deeper would be going on in the bathroom, too, and you probably wouldn't be able to get in there, either.
Anyway, that's an era LONG gone. But I absolutely do remember all the cocaine usage I saw, among coworkers and other associates and colleagues and friends in rock radio. And the *SNIFFS* I heard. Out loud and big and noisy and sustained like Trump's were, during the debate. I tried it myself back then, because it literally was everywhere in the industry and you never had to look far to find it (like maybe to the person standing next to you at any given time). Everybody around me was into it, so why not? I tried it a few times. Turns out I didn't like it. I soon realized that - shit, for the kind of money cocaine cost, I could get the same effect for free simply by sucking on an ice cube! All it ever did, for me, was freeze my front teeth and stuff up my nose so I couldn't breathe. Who the hell needs that? Besides, I rather enjoy breathing. Whatever cocaine was supposed to have done that was so great? Never happened for me. So I didn't go further with it. I never did discover what the appeal was. And I was QUITE content with that. Relieved, actually! I think there were some stations where I worked where I may have been the only one who didn't indulge. Now ... weed, on the other hand ... uh ...
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