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On Facebook, Alec Baldwin goes after HarperCollins, publisher of his “Nevertheless” memoir. Hah hah. They’re going to love this. I bold faced the good part.
Welcome to the NEVERTHELESS Facebook page. This site presents me, and the reader as well, the opportunity to read supplemental material that did not make it into the original edition of my memoir, either due to the publisher’s deadline, the perceived flow of the book or the author’s poor memory.
Also, the published edition contains SEVERAL typos and errors which I was more than a little surprised to see. The editors at Harper Collins were, I imagine, too busy to do a proper and forensic edit of the material. Therefore, the first posting here, in the coming weeks, will be an index of corrections and amendments to the text in order to bring it more in line with my original intent.
After I post those corrections, I will offer essays on film, politics, actors/actresses and anything else that I did not address in the original book. Maybe even entire chapters that did not reveal themselves earlier on.
Also, I will post several more photographs from my collection. The book does appear to be a bit lean in that department!
Now, my first correction/amendment:
When I write that I am “in love” with Megan Mulalley or Kate McKinnon or Tina Fey, I mean that I am in love with their talent. As a happily married man who wants to stay that way (ahem), I wanted to clarify that.
The Beatles will release a 6 CD suped up version of Sgt. Pepper to commemorate the 50th anniversary. There are two CDs for the album itself, two CDs of “sessions,” a DVD and a BluRay disc. The package goes on sale May 26th for the June 1st celebration. There isn’t more info yet, just this YouTube promo. But I would guess they’ll offer Sgt Pepper remastered and remixed in the same formats as the Beatles “1” album from last year. That will mark the first real upgrade for the album. The album will now include the two sided single that preceded the album’s release– Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever– but were left off the finished project. There may be upgraded versions of outtakes that appeared on the Anthology album. Whatever it is, we’ll want it, and we’ll buy it, and it will all be very, very good.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Anniversary Edition releases include:
A CD featuring the new ‘Sgt. Pepper’ stereo mix, complete with the original U.K. album’s “Edit for LP End” run-out groove.
Deluxe: Expanded 2CD and digital package features the new stereo album mix on the first CD and adds a second CD of 18 tracks, including previously unreleased complete takes of the album’s 13 songs, newly mixed in stereo and sequenced in the same order as the album. The second CD also includes a new stereo mix and a previously unreleased instrumental take of “Penny Lane” and the 2015 stereo mix and two previously unreleased complete takes of “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
Deluxe Vinyl: Expanded 180-gram 2LP vinyl package features the new stereo album mix on the first LP and adds a second LP with previously unreleased complete takes of the album’s 13 songs, newly mixed in stereo and sequenced in the same order as the album.
Super Deluxe: The comprehensive six-disc boxed set features:
CD 1: New stereo album mix
CDs 2 & 3:
– 33 additional recordings from the studio sessions, most previously unreleased and mixed for the first time from the four-track session tapes, sequenced in chronological order of their recording dates
– A new stereo mix of “Penny Lane” and the 2015 stereo mix of “Strawberry Fields Forever”
CD 4:
– Direct transfers of the album’s original mono mix and the “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” singles
– Capitol Records’ U.S. promotional mono single mix of “Penny Lane”
– Previously unreleased early mono mixes of “She’s Leaving Home,” “A Day In The Life,” and “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” (a mix thought to have been erased from a tape in 1967, but discovered during archive research for the anniversary edition)
Discs 5 & 6 (Blu-ray and DVD):
– New 5.1 surround audio mixes of the album and “Penny Lane” by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, plus their 2015 5.1 surround mix of “Strawberry Fields Forever”
– High resolution audio versions of the new stereo mixes of the album and “Penny Lane” and of the 2015 stereo mix of “Strawberry Fields Forever”
– Video features: 4K restored original promotional films for “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Penny Lane,” and “A Day In The Life;” plus The Making of Sgt. Pepper, a restored, previously unreleased documentary film (broadcast in 1992), featuring insightful interviews with McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, and in-studio footage introduced by George Martin.
The number of advertisers who have left your show in the last two days is now up to 22.
They are: GlaxoSmithKline, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Constant Contact, UNTUCKit, Sanofi, Allstate, Ainsworth Pet Nutrition/Rachael Ray Nutrish, T. Rowe Price, Mitsubishi, Wayfair, MileIQ, Lexus, Bayer, Esurance, Credit Karma, True Car, The Wonderful Company, Society of Human Resources Management, Coldwell Banker and Orkin.
Fox News is moving them to other shows. They are not stopping them from leaving O’Reilly. When Fox News wants you gone, Bill, they step aside so the avalanche doesn’t dust up their shoes.
The end is near. Who will take your place? How about that Jesse guy? Or Greg Gutfeld? Believe me, Bill Shine is working on it.
What becomes a muse best? Aging well, which is what Bebe Buell has done. Mother of movie star Liv Tyler, Buell was best known in the 70s and 80s as a Playboy playmate, Ford model, and girlfriend of rockers like Steven Tyler (father of Liv), Todd Rundgren, Elvis Costello, Rod Stewart, etc. She wrote all about it in a bestseller called “Rebel Heart,” that showed class and humor.
But Buell always wanted to be the rock star, not the muse. A surprisingly gifted songwriter who has a way with lyrics, she’s had a keen eye observing 40 years of rock royalty. Last night — and again tonight– she’s at Joe’s Pub performing her songs, reminiscing and leading a miraculous two piece band that consists of her husband Jim Walls (a whiz who can make two sound like four) and a Nashville drummer named Mindy Wright.
If you have any interest in the rock world of the last four decades, Buell’s show is for you. Last night Little Steven van Zandt and his wife Maureen showed up, as well as singer Jenny Muldaur, downtown publicist Kelly Cutrone, rock fixture Liz Derringer, and so on. Like yours truly, they adored the sheer chutzpah of a 60 plus rock “glam-ma” who’s seen it all and reports it back to wittily in song.
Think of Bebe as the American Marianne Faithfull (actually one of idols), who navigated dangerous passages and came out a winner. Like Marianne, Bebe has a husky voice that has surprising sweetness and handles intricate turns in rock belting. That’s not so easy. Plus, she’s not singing covers– these are her songs, refined over the last few years. Two of them are country songs– a result of moving to Nashville. One of them, written with Crystal Gayle, called “By a Woman,” is yearning to be a hit on country radio.
A lot of the songs are autobiographical. To former lover Rundgren “Can You Forgive?” spells out their problems and asks for resolution. “Too Sweet for this Town” is really about a Virginia Beach girl who landed at age 18 at Max’s Kansas City and was immediately critiqued by Andy Warhol and Lou Reed. “Jacuzzi Jungle” recalls her brief stint in Los Angeles. “Black Angel” is an ode to Joey Ramone, Buell’s late friend who encouraged her to keep writing and singing.
And don’t worry– there’s plenty of gossip about her early efforts to get the boyfriends to take her seriously. When she was a teenager she was hanging out with the Cowsills, but progressed quickly to the Rolling Stones.
I hope this is the beginning of an occasional residency at Joe’s Pub. Bebe is so honest and endearing, she’s like a blast of fresh air. She also recalls a time when rock and celebrity were new and exciting in New York, a nostalgia that’s quite appealing. I hope Little Steven takes some of her songs and makes a “Broken English” album for her. It would be a lasting document.
The show is called “The Walking Dead,” and that may come true pretty soon. The Season 7 finale had the lowest rating since Season 3– just 11.35 million viewers. And that number was down over 6 million from Episode 1 of this season, which drew 17.03 million viewers. The AMC hit is in free fall.
What happened? Very simple. The season opener, highly anticipated, was so bloody, gory, intense and out of whack with any reality that viewers fled- in droves. While someone at AMC seems to think Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s portrayal of Negan is a hit, it’s simply a huge turn off. Maybe he’s too good an actor. But I, for one, left the minute he brandished that barbed wire club and never returned. I was not alone.
Nearly five million fans were gone after week 1. Of course, the cliffhanger return episodes always do well, and then there’s some fall off. But a look at the chart above (thanks to Wikipedia) shows nothing ever happened before in the “Walking Dead” history that compared to this debacle. After the 5th season return– the highest rating ever for the show at 17.30 million–the next episode dropped by about 2 million. And the numbers came back. This time, they did not.
AMC and the “Walking Dead” creators had better think about what Season 8 is going to look like, and how to lure back more than just their cult believers. Otherwise, the party is over. And the zombies have won.
Beat Generation superstar Jack Kerouac’s multimillion dollar estate has always been a nightmare. But in recent years controversies about forged wills and infighting were all handled by Kerouac’s brother-in-law, John Sampas, whose sister Stella was Kerouac’s widow. Now, with little fanfare, John Sampas has died (on March 9th) at age 84. His death has so far only been reported in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Over the years, the Sampas family became a lightning rod for Kerouac scholars and followers who need permissions and rights. But there were no other heirs after Kerouac’s mother died in 1973, Stella died in 1990, and Kerouac’s only child, daughter Jan, died in 1996. (A nephew, Paul Blake, has tried but failed over the years to get involved with the estate.) Once Stella died, John Sampas became the representative of their siblings in the handling of 27 posthumously published works. On his own, Sampas owned the right to several books including “Visions of Cody” and part ownership of “On the Road” and “Dharma Bums.”
In recent years, the Kerouac estate has benefited also from the sale of the original scroll of paper upon which “On the Road” was typed, and a letter Neal Cassady wrote to Kerouac in 1950 that was considered the basis for the world-famous novel of bumming around America in the late 1950s. The scroll was sold in 2001 by Tony Sampas, a nephew, for $2.4 million to the owner of the Indianpolis Colts. The letter was later sold for over $200,000.
John Sampas’s death might have thrown the Kerouac estate into yet another chapter of chaos, but it’s not going to happen. John’s appointed heir is the son he adopted as an adult, John Shen-Sampas. Shen, a lawyer and graduate of Columbia University Business School, will inherit John Sr.’s interests and take his place among family members in the administration of the 27 works. (Another nephew, Tony Sampas, owns a third of the rights to “On the Road” with John Shen and another relative.)
But John Sampas’s Boston attorney, George Tobia, tells me the family has decided that a nephew, Jim Sampas, will succeed John Sr. in running the estate. Jim produced the 2013 movie “Big Sur,” based on Kerouac’s novel, and worked with his uncle on the estate for about a decade. “He’s the right one to take over,” says Tobia.
Just to give you some perspective: Kerouac died in 1969 at the young age of 47. He was outlived by his own mother. Kerouac would have been 95 this year, the same age as Carl Reiner, Betty White, and Doris Day– three celebrities who are still in the news. But he lived fast and he lived hard, and left an amazing legacy.
Tobia, by the way, says new projects are on the horizon following the completely awful 2012 movie adaptation of “On the Road” by Walter Salles in 2012. “There are many other properties, and ways to do things,” he said.
Think the awards season takes a long time? Wait til 2018.
The next Academy Awards show won’t take place until March 4th, 2018. That will be a full two months after the Golden Globes. Even if the nominees are released on December 25th, by March 4th they will nostalgia pieces.
But nothing can be done. The Winter Olympics cause this problem every four years. NBC has the Olympics, and it dwarfs everything else on TV. ABC doesn’t want to risk pitting the Oscars against some big luge race from Korea, especially with the Oscars ratings way down.
So all those movies like “Dunkirk” and “Mary Magdalene” and “Mudbound” that we think might be in the race will just have to wait. Producers will have to come up with something unique to bring in viewers at that late date.
And think of the people involved– nominations will be announced January 23rd. They’ll need a lot of Xanax to make it to March 4th!
Is Donald Trump killing off businesses in the Trump Tower neighborhood?
This morning, Ralph Lauren announced they are closing their Fifth Avenue store. It’s not the flagship– that’s Madison Avenue and 72nd St. But the Fifth Avenue story has the most visibility sitting there at the corner of Fifth and 55th St. on the east side of the avenue. This is a blow certainly for the Trump Tower area.
The Polo store is just a block away from the chaos at Trump Tower. The same block– from Fifth to Madison– is shut down on East 56th St by police with barricades. There’s no traffic at all.
In peril: the Ralph Lauren Polo restaurant beneath that Fifth Avenue store. In the last two years, the Polo has become a hot hot hot spot for the A list and the wealthy. The walls are covered in rich dark paneling, which are then adorned by hunting pictures. The cheapest items on the menu are a burger or a corned beef sandwich around $25. A source says “as far as I know, the restaurant is staying open.”
The Roger Ailes story is coming to TV. And it will be on Showtime, owned by CBS, which is governed by Les Moonves.
Even though Showtime has its own executives, nothing important about the media goes on the cable network without Les Moonves’s authority. And a mini series based on Gabriel Sherman’s “The Loudest Voice in the Room” is a big, big deal. It will undoubtedly cover Ailes’s sex scandals at Fox News, up to an including new revelations as they break. Sherman has made himself the expert on the extraordinary rise and fall of Ailes and Fox News.
The mini series, which was announced last October, just gained a network this morning. Jason Blum, who’s made a fortune in horror films, is making the ultimate horror film here. Tom McCarthy, Oscar winner for “Spotlight,” is executive producing but I guess he will direct at least one episode as well. “Loudest Voice” will be must watch TV.
Who will play Ailes? O’Reilly? Gretchen Carlson? That’s the next story. But I do see Richard Dreyfuss as Ailes. Hmmm….
Meantime, new lawsuits against Fox News and Ailes and O’Reilly continue. The crazy world of 1221 Ave of the Americas is finally being unmasked. It’s like Hitler’s last days…
UPDATE TUES MORNING: BMW has joined the list of advertisers pulling out of O’Reilly.
MONDAY NIGHT: Bill O’Reilly just doesn’t get it. The big unravel has begun.
Both Mercedes and Hyundai have pulled their ads from “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News following new allegations of sexual harassment by a former associate. This comes on top of Saturday’s New York Times story that Fox had already settled over $13 million in cases against the obnoxious right wing host.
The die is cast. O’Reilly will fight it. But now campaigns are popping up on Twitter and elsewhere chiding advertisers to leave the show. Whether or not he signed a new contract recently, O’Reilly is cooked if the money goes. And the money is leaving.
And this: for the third week in a row, Rachel Maddow on MSNBC has beaten O’Reilly in they key age demo, 24 to 54. That has to sting a lot. But Maddow is on the upswing thanks to Donald Trump. O’Reilly’s defense of Trump is falling on deaf ears.
The fact that this has spread suddenly into the mainstream– that’s a sign that Fox News is ambivalent to say the least about O’Reilly’s future. When they loved him, they protected O’Reilly. But those were the days of Roger Ailes, and those days are over.
On Monday Fox and O’Reilly were attacked twice by former associates. Jill Roginsky filed suit against FoxNews, Ailes, and Bill Shine for retaliating against her after she blew off Ailes’ advances and then wouldn’t endorse him in the Gretchen Carlson case.
At the same time, Lisa Bloom, attorney and daughter of Gloria Allred, held a press conference with her client Wendy Walsh. Walsh, a clinical psychologist who used to appear on “The O’Reilly Factor” and other Fox News programs, recalled her alleged treatment by O’Reilly– she says she couldn’t get a permanent role on his show because she’d rebuffed his sexual entreaties.
