#TBT Philadelphia 1970-71: When FM radio was the new kid on the block

Thanks to my old friend Arnie Holland, let's #TBT to 1970-71 when Arnie edited 34th Street Magazine, an arts and culture magazine at our alma mater, Penn.

I had no memory of writing this article until Arnie mentioned it yesterday.

I went to see him today at his home office where he pulled out a box of the original magazines and I shot this photo of the actual pages.

I wrote all about this new exciting thing called "underground radio." Think it will catch on?

I knew the University of Pennsylvania murderers!

Yeah, I knew Ira Einhorn, the Earth Day murderer guy. He hung out at Penn, but he was not a student. We ran his bullshit rap from time to time in the The Daily Pennsylvanian.

I also knew the other Penn campus murderer, Steve Weinstein aka "Ye Olde Tobacconist".

The only murderer I DIDN'T meet at Penn was Donald Trump, who didn't want his picture in the yearbook.

Donald Trump makes cover of Penn alumni magazine

(PNS reporting from PHILADELPHIA) Donald Trump, Wharton School Class of 1968, is the new cover boy of a University of Pennsylvania alumni magazine mailed today to Penn grads across the country.

“PENNDEJO magazine will only publish this single issue,” editor Arne Mather Marmon, Wharton School Class of 1969, told PNS in an email. “We want to to memorialize the most famous UPenn ‘Quaker’ in appropriate style.”

#TBT 1967 WHITEY NEEDS SHOCK

 

My story in The Daily Pennsylvanian. Full edition here (PDF).

I knew my 2011 Donald Trump story 'had legs'

In April 2011, I was the editor of AOL's Brentwood Patch on Los Angeles' ritzy Westside. The next month I was fired for alleged "racism."

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In April 2011, Donald Trump's "birther" noises reminded me that he had been in my class at the University of Pennsylvania, when I was managing editor of the student newspaper.

I wanted to know more about this loud-mouthed vulgarian, so I looked for his photo in our Class of 1968 college yearbook. Unlike me (yearbook photo), he wasn't there.

I asked Trump about it in an opinion piece for Patch:

Dear Donald Trump: Where Is Your College Yearbook Photo? 

The bouffant reality star and real estate flipper questions the President. Here's a question for Trump.

Although the story was popular, it never got as big as I had hoped. And I got fired a few weeks later, so I was not inclined to promote the URL.

In October 2012, I resurrected the question on POCHO, my Ñews y Satire site, but never heard back from Don.

Flash forward.

Earlier this week, The Donald was bragging about his success at Penn's Wharton School, contrasting it with Senator John McCain's Annapolis performance. One smart reporter wanted to learn more about the nominee wannabe's college career.

Nancy Dillon, L.A. Bureau Chief for the N.Y. Daily News, found my old story and asked me for comments.  I made the headline on Tuesday:

Donald Trump's UPenn classmates have 'no memory of him,' doubt his claims of being top in class

Talk show hosts Roe Conn and Anna Davlantes of WGN in Chicago were next.

Here's audio of my 8-minute Wednesday segment in which I called Trump "an enigma wrapped inside an enchilada."

And last night (Thursday) I was on NBC/Universal's ACCESS HOLLYWOOD with the 1968-vintage Penn yearbook, (photo by STACY) looking, fruitlessly, for Donald.

Click here for my brief appearance on the July 23 episode. I start at 1:55.

What have I learned this week?

• It's possible to be briefly famous in 2015 for NOT KNOWING SOMEONE in 1967-68
• I was right about that story. And it outlasted Brentwood Patch.

Listen: Donald Trump Was My College Classmate, A True Story

Roe Conn and Anna Davlantes of WGN had me on their Chicago talk radio show today (7/22/2015) to discuss my University of Pennsylvania classmate Donald Trump, the mystery man of the Class of 1968.

He's "an enigma wrapped inside an enchilada," I explained.

NYDailyNews quotes me on self-proclaimed college BMOC Donald Trump: ‘No one remembers him’

Nancy Dillon of the New York Daily News interviewed me Tuesday about my University of Pennsylvania classmate Donald Trump:

“No one remembers him,” another former classmate, Dennis Wilen, said Tuesday.

Now a writer in California, Wilen was managing editor of the campus newspaper and said he only learned about Trump when the billionaire became famous in New York.

“I think he’s a racist blowhard,” Wilen said Tuesday. “And if you have to rely on something you did in the ’60s to validate what you’re saying today, you’ve lost your way.”

Nancy's story is here.