(For a condensed version, try the fine The Best of Taj Mahal.) Today, he continues to make fine fusion albums, like 1999's Kulanjan, with Malian kora master Toumani Diabate, and less exciting but still eclectic recordings with his Phantom Blues Band. Spotify download music to computer.
An elderly widow named Vera Coking owned a small three-story house near Trump Plaza that casino magnates, including Donald Trump, had their eye on for years. Trump decided it would be a swell place to park limousines and made her an offer.
She refused, enduring a full-scale Trump charm offensive. “He’d come over to the house, probably thinking, ‘If I butter her up now, I’ll get her house for a good price,’” Coking told the New York Daily News in 1998. “Once, he gave me Neil Diamond tickets. I didn’t even know who Neil Diamond was.” The state of New Jersey, through a casino redevelopment agency, threatened to use eminent domain to seize the land and knock it down.
She was unfazed, describing Trump to the newspaper as “a maggot, a cockroach and a crumb.” Coking held firm and eventually won in court. She ultimately sold the property to billionaire Carl Icahn for $583,000 in 2014, after she had moved to a retirement home in California.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973- Bhagavad Gītā The Bhagavad Gita / translated with an introduction and notes by W.J. Oxford [England]: New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Indian vedas in english.
___ HAIR’S TO ME Trump could use self-deprecating humor, including the day in 2008 when he and daughter Ivanka opened the second hotel tower at the Tal Mahal, named — what else? — The Chairman Tower. He made a joke that the weather was windy that day and asked to have the ribbon-cutting ceremony moved indoors because “I don’t want to have my hair blowing all over the place.” ___ BATTLING MERV, BUILDING THE TAJ In the late 1980s, Trump was battling with entertainment mogul Merv Griffin for control of Resorts International, which had built Atlantic City’s first casino, and was in the process of building what would eventually become the Trump Taj Mahal. The dust-up ended with Griffin getting the company and Trump taking over the unfinished casino that would become the Taj, which when it opened was the largest casino in the world. Trump told New Jersey casino regulators he could hold down expenses because lenders were falling over themselves to lend him money at discount rates. But he eventually issued $675 million worth of junk bonds, carrying a 14 percent interest rate. An analyst at a Wall Street firm sounded the alarm about the project’s spiraling debt and said the Taj Mahal would need to take in $1.3 million a day just to make its interest payments, something no other casino had ever done.
Trump demanded the firm fire the analyst — and it did. Within a year of its star-studded opening in 1990, the Taj Mahal was bankrupt. ___ FAMOUS FRIENDS Trump regularly brought Hollywood, music and sports celebrities to his casinos. In April 1990, he set off a frenzy at the Taj Mahal by bringing Michael Jackson to tour the place during opening festivities. Mike Tyson had a birthday party there, and entertainers who played Boardwalk Hall invariably partied at Trump Plaza next door. During one celebration, he got Elton John and Dolly Parton to wish him a happy 44th birthday via video link. ___ A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK Around that same time, New Jersey regulators expressed concern about the $3.4 billion in debt on his Atlantic City holdings, warning that “the possibility of a complete financial collapse of the Trump Organization was not out of the question.” Then came Dad to the rescue.