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Lost New York: More Artifacts from a Distant World

Roger Friedman
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I loved Joni Evans‘ piece in the Sunday New York Times about how the little things about book publishing have evaporated. You can read it here.’When I worked at Ballantine Books in 1983 we had one computer, set up in a small closet. It was made by Xerox and ran a program called Xywrite. In a short time it changed our lives. My cherished IBM Selectric II was starting to look like a relic.

Eight years earlier, at my first job ‘ during college ”we had something called a Quips machine. It had a telephone attached to it. You put a piece of paper in it, dialed the number of someone else with a Quips, and 18 minutes later the page went through to the receiver. By ‘83 they were called faxes, and the send time was cut in half.

Office equipment is not the only way New York has changed in that time. Back in those days, the city was dotted with bookstores, record stores, stereo shops. I had a routine, which I think was common, of stopping in the Doubleday shop on Fifth Avenue and 57th St. while waiting for the downtown bus. Four blocks south, on the opposite side of Fifth, there was another Doubleday, with a spiral staircase. A few more blocks south there was the beautiful, ornate Scribners, and Barnes & Noble across the street from it at 48th St.

It’s all a thing of the past now. The Kindle is here.

You would linger in book stores, and in record shops. This was before the Virgin Megastores, which are gone now, and around the time of Tower, which has also vanished. There was Sam Goody just about everywhere, and the Record Hunter. When it was LPs, you thumbed through rows and rows of them. When CDs came, there was the ooh and ah of what had been transferred, and the debates of vinyl vs. disc. Ha! It didn’t matter. Now music is compressed into our computers, the stores are memories. The big behemoths are closed, and now even the little shops ‘ like the Discomat on West 4th St. ”reside in dreams.

There aren’t many good landmarks to stop and browse in during a walk through Manhattan. That is, unless staring at shoes is of interest to you. How lovely it used to be to see which shops had which titles, whether in books or music. Very little was centralized or computerized. A clerk might have “to call the other store” to see if they had what you were looking for. There was no way to look it up. And so a walk home from work could be broken up by these little investigations. Wasn’t that the whole point of “the city that never sleeps”?

Carly Simon Will Serenade 9/11 Ceremony This Week

Roger Friedman
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‘

Getty photo

Getty photo

Good news: legendary soft-rocker Carly Simon has been tapped to perform at the 9/11 ceremony this Friday at Ground Zero.

Simon, with her band including kids Ben and Sally Taylor, will showcase a gorgeous, new acoustic version of her Oscar winning hit, “Let the River Run,” according to sources.

“Let the River Run,” coincidentally, is one of the tracks on Simon’s new CD, “Never Been Gone,” set for release on October 27th, on son Ben’s Iris Records. I just happened to listen to an advance copy of this album over the weekend ‘ it’s ten of Simon’s biggest hits reworked in a contemporary setting, with two new songs as well. It’s a great project.

Some of the re-done numbers could easily be hits all over again a la Eric Clapton’s “Layla” from his “Unplugged” album. They include “You’re So Vain,” “Anticipation,” “You belong to Me,” “The Right Thing to Do,” and a sensational new take on her original 1971 hit, “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be.” (Simon has had more than a dozen top 40 hits but isn’t in the Rock and Roll you-know-what. What can we say at this point?)

Anyway, sources also say Carly and sister Lucy will accompany their older sister Joanna to Walter Cronkite’s memorial service this Wednesday at Lincoln Center. The Simons and Cronkites are old, old friends from Martha’s Vineyard. Joanna Simon Walker, who was recently widowed, and Cronkite were very close in the last couple of years, a fact that many credit to Cronkite’s good health and humor after his wife Betsy died.

Update: Neverland Trademarks Will Go to Estate

Roger Friedman
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We can relax a little.

I am told that the many trademark requests filed by Colony Capital for Neverland are not going to remain in their current state.

A source says that the Trademark filings will all be transferred to Michael Jackson’s estate. We will not be seeing toy guns or anything like the items listed in the item below with Neverland Valley Ramch.

It does sound as though Colony Capital’s efforts to exploit Michael Jackson in death are coming to an end. The Jackson executors ‘ John Branca and John McClain ‘ are taking firm stands on protecting Michael’s image and likeness, and his associated endeavors. There won’t be any “Heal the World” bandaids or “Remember the Time” alarm clocks either. No “Man in the Mirror” dressing tables.

Brad Pitt Drives “Basterds” to $100 mil This Week

Roger Friedman
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Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has just crossed the $95 million mark and is heading toward $100 million before the end of the week.

This makes the Brad Pitt blockbuster the first $100 million movie for The Weinstein Company, which been in business for four years. By comparison, respected mini studio Focus Features ‘ releasing films since 2002 and home to the great Ang Lee ‘ still lacks a film that’s broken that magic number. (Although, the Coen Brothers‘ “A Serious Man” may be their breakthrough, you never know.)

For Pitt, “Basterds” is his 7th $100 million-plus film in this decade. The others include the three “Oceans” movies, “Benjamin Button,” “Troy” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” Brad’s done a lot better in the 00s than in the 90s, when it wasn’t clear whether he could “open” a film. His list of flops in that decade is long, including “Sleepers,” “Devil’s Own,” “Fight Club,” “Snatch,” “The Mexican,” “Seven Years in Tibet,” and “Meet Joe Black.”

Brad’s success shows a couple of things: that it takes longer for actors to hit their stride than actresses, and that he’s improved not only as an actor but in choosing the right projects.

Whitney Houston in at No. 1 with 300K-Plus

Roger Friedman
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Whitney Houston makes a triumphant return to the album charts this week at No. 1 in her debut week. Her album, “I Look to You,” sold more than 300,000 copies.

The final count is in, and hitsdailydouble reports a whopping 301,000 copies sold.

And just think: Next Monday and Tuesday, Whitney holds court on “Oprah” for two hours total. She’s on her way to 1 million in sales in less than a month. That’s quite an achievement for a singer who hasn’t had a new release in seven years, was considered “washed up” by gossip naysayers.

Houston can be proud of herself for what she’s done to recover from her personal problems. And then, of course, there’s Clive Davis, Larry Jackson, Richard Palmese and co. at Arista Records, Whitney’s trusted aide de camp Lynn Volkmann, sister-in-law Pat Houston and mom Cissy. It takes a village, after all. Now just think what Clive’s pre-Grammy dinner will be like this year!

Whitney has hits galore on “I Look to You,” but I still say, when they release Leon Russell’s “A Song for You,” it will trigger an avalanche.

Whitney has the jump on Mariah Carey, whose own new album is coming on Sept. 29 with lots of hits included. It’s too bad there aren’t any record stores anymore! What with the Beatles action and these ladies, there would certainly be traffic!

Neverland Owners’ Trademark Requests for Jackson Souvenirs

Roger Friedman
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Michael Jackson’s partners in his Neverland Ranch, Colony Capital LLC, have filed 20 trademark requests to brand the ranch for souvenirs with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

I do mean lots of souvenirs. Here’s a partial list of where Colony would like to see the Neverland name stamped. If they’ve forgotten something, it beats me:

Games and playthings, namely: plush toys, paper dolls, dolls and accessories, toy action figures, toy vehicles, toy cars, toy trucks, toy bucket and shovel sets, roller skates, toy model hobbycraft kits,’ musical toys, jigsaw puzzles, badminton sets, bubble making wand and solution sets, toy banks, puppets, toy balloons, yo-yos, kites, baseball bats, balls of all kind, play wands, board games, playing cards, and children’s games to play during travel; ornaments, and decorations for a Christmas tree; sporting goods, museum services- namely: operating a museum in Michael Jackson’s former home and providing tours thereof; providing theme park services; entertainment services, namely: live shows and events; tennis and golf resort services; recreation and sporting club services; organization of meetings and conferences as well as clothing, footwear, headgear, and printed matter, namely: post cards, holiday/greeting cards, art prints, art reproductions, bumper stickers, stickers, decals, tissue/giftwrap, printed tickets, posters, wall calendars, flags and pennants of paper, printed and paper emblems, brochures, catalogs, and merchandise bags; books, namely: non-fiction books about Michael Jackson, activity books, address books, appointment books, coloring books, picture books, and comic books; paper and paper articles, namely: photographs, stationery, memo pads, notebooks, envelopes, pencil sharpeners, pen and pencil cases and boxes, pens, pencils, erasers, rulers, paper weights, staplers, binders, notebooks, stationery consisting of writing paper and envelopes, memo pads, writing tablets, paper table cloths, paper napkins, paper coasters, and paper mats; money clips, and in keeping with Michael Jackson’s theme of peace ”toy rockets, toy guns, toy holsters.

Got the picture? The requests were made on August 12, 2009. Sycamore Valley Ranch, which made the filings, is the joint venture of Colony Capital LLC and Michael Jackson. Of course, the problem with at least some of this is that the town of Los Olivos, California, where Neverland fills 2,900 acres, is against the ranch being turned into a Graceland-style museum. The road that leads to Neverland is a country two lane blacktop that runs through horse country. A private school sits across the street from the Neverland entrance.

Colony has invested over $50 million in Neverland so far. They probably figure they’re going to make their money back somehow. Of course, they don’t seem to realize that Jackson had parted company with Neverland in June 2005 and didn’t want to go back. And that there are many associations with the ranch, including police raids, searches for evidence and pornography. Jay Leno is probably getting Back to School jokes ready right now.

But Thomas Barrack, who owns Colony, lives in the county and sources say he is pressing on the local government to give him what he wants. Whether or nor he succeeds remains uncertain. In the meantime, I think they should make Neverland into a Playmobil Playset where the gates open to find zoo animals, rollercoasters, and several Rolls Royces and Bentleys. Featured characters could include Colony’s Tohme Tohme, Bubbles the Chimp, Shmuley Boteach, and Tatum O’Neal.

The, er, attempted selling of Michael Jackson continues.

(A tip of the hat to michaeljackson.hu)

Neverland NOT Sold, Certainly Not to Designer

Roger Friedman
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Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch has not — NOT — been sold to designer Christian Audigier. It still belongs to Michael’s estate and Colony Capital LLC.

How did this story get legs? Audigier may have purchased the Holmby Hills estate where Michael died. At least, he’s telling people he did. When Jackson died, Audigier — which is French for publicity vacuum — took huge billboards out in L.A. saying goodbye to Michael. He’s gone on TV proclaiming that they were good pals and working on a line of clothes together in secret.

Whatever.

Anyway, Audigier — who’s responsible for the pedestrian Ed Hardy line of clothes — has not, however, bought Neverland. The 2,900-acre ranch remains as is, awaiting some decision from the Jackson estate and Colony about what will happen. In all likelihood, it will be marketed next year and sold off. There’s nothing left in the house. It’s all gone.

Meantime, Michael’s brother Randy has issued some kind of statement complaining about news organizations that tried to film Michael’s funeral on Thursday night. Randy says it was a private family affair. And of course, it’s being sold to A&E for profit.

Other observations from the funeral on Thursday night: Rebbie Jackson would not go anywhere near her father, Joseph, and as such ceded her monitoring of Michael’s three kids. Janet Jackson shepherded the kids through the service.

Beatles Dominate Charts, 40 Years Later

Roger Friedman
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Amazon.com is listing not one or two but seven Beatles albums in its Top 20 CDs.

Is it 1969 or 2009?

The CDs — the first remastered since the original Beatles digital discs were issued in 1987 — won’t be released until Tuesday. The next day — 09/09/09 — is officially Beatles marketing day as the group’s “Rock Band” video game is launched.

But for those of who, god forbid, don’t care much about video games but are audio-centric, Tuesday is the day. Amazon’s listing right now has Susan Boyle’s unreleased album at No. 1, Whitney Houston’s comeback at No. 2, and then the Beatles — “Abbey Road,” “Sgt. Pepper,” “The White Album,” “Let it Be,” “Past Masters” and “Magical Mystery Tour” have squeezed out the new Jay-Z album and several other new releases. Coming up fast behind them are the rest of the Fab Four’s catalog: “Rubber Soul,” “Revolver,” “Meet the Beatles,” etc.

What’s going to be interesting about all this is that the whole Beatles catalog comes out on Tuesday individually and also in two boxed sets — mono and stereo. Beatles purists want their music in mono. Capitol already released mono versions of the first four albums on CDs a couple of years ago with the stereo versions. But fans will be expected now to disregard all that. That’s easy since those mixes apparently weren’t from George Martin’s original tapes. These are. Like most Beatles fanatics, I’ve preordered everything.

So get ready for an avalanche of Beatlemania. And lots of Beatles radio play. How utterly sad and ironic that Sony/ATV Music Publishing is enjoying boom times now that partner’Michael Jackson is dead.

Robert De Niro: This Could Be His Comeback Year

Roger Friedman
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Fans of Robert De Niro have been hopeful for a long time that he’d be back in the Oscar game. This year our wishes may come true.

After eons of bad action films, hit comedies (the “Meet the Parents” trilogy) and strange stuff like “Stardust,” the word is that De Niro has a winner.

“Everybody’s Fine,” is a remake of a Giuseppe Tornatore Italian film, directed by Kirk Jones (”Waking Ned Devine”). De Niro plays the father of Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale. Melissa Leo is featured. In the film, De Niro visits each of the adult children, trying to discover their relationships. Sources say the film is not an update of “About Schmidt.”

The main thing, early viewers say, is that De Niro does his best dramatic work in years. There’s Oscar buzz galore, which can only be good news for De Niro. It’s been a long time since the two Academy Award winner (”Godfather II,” “Raging Bull”) had this much positive talk — not since the 1995-96 period of “Heat,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Casino.”

De Niro’s Oscar nominations (other than his wins) were for “Cape Fear,” “Awakenings,” “The Deer Hunter” and “Taxi Driver.” Believe it or not, he was not nominated for “Goodfellas” or “The King of Comedy.” Go figure.

‘Guiding Light’ Murdered, and There’s a Killer

Roger Friedman
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Every soap opera tells at least one good murder story a year. Next week, the soap “Guiding Light” is the victim. There are several killers.

In today’s’New York Times, executive producer Ellen Wheeler says some comical things about how she has presided over the show’s death. But the truth is, as with Michael Jackson, the last person in the room is the prime suspect. Even though other doctors came and went, all giving Michael dangerous prescriptions, the police are investigating Dr. Conrad Murray.

Plenty of bad executive producers lorded over “Guiding Light” before Ellen Wheeler got there. Their names were Michael Laibson, Paul Rauch, and Jill Farren Phelps. They killed off popular characters, ordered ridiculous stories, and, in particular, went so far to clone the show’s main character. Yes, that’s right, human cloning, And no one at Procter & Gamble, which owns the show, had the good sense to stop them.

Lots of’other bad things happened, too. The popular actor on the show, Michael Zaslow, became ill with ALS. Rather than embrace and honor him, the show kicked him to the curb. It was miserable.

But Ellen Wheeler is the culprit in the final murder. A year and a half ago, not long after she took over the dying program, she threw out the sets, the video editors and the breakdown writers. The show was suddenly being filmed with shaky handheld cameras. The sound was terrible. There were no production values. The sets were “found” buildings in Peapack, N.J. They were ugly, awful. The people of Peapack should have sued. Their town could not have looked worse on television.

It was clear that under Wheeler, there was no rehearsal, and no respect for the actors, forget the fans. The ratings simply tanked. Wheeler did nothing to correct the situation. She just made it worse, adding loud rock music to scenes. It was impossible to hear the dialogue. It was equally difficult to watch scenes — you thought the camera operators had Parkinson’s Disease.

Procter & Gamble used to produce several soaps under the name Procter & Gamble Productions. When “Guiding Light” is done, they will be down to one: “As the World Turns.” The company changed the name of its production company to TeleNext to distance its big brands (Crest, Pampers and half the stuff in grocery stores) from the anger of soap fans. There’s a theory that P&G has been trying to get out of soap production for the past 10 years, since they canceled “Another World.” P&G is a monolith. They don’t comment on anything. But “World Turns” is definitely in their sights now.

As for Wheeler, her comments in today’s Times show that she is simply clueless, or deluded. She says, fans communicated to her that they liked the new format. This is highly unlikely, unless they were related to her. “Guiding Light,” is dead, and she killed it. If P&G/TeleNext lets her near “World Turns.” we won’t need Agatha Christie to figure out what happens next.

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