This is what people who used to go to Elaine’s say to each other on the occasion of an accidental meeting: “Where do you go now?”

It’s as if there’s a secret, and it must be shared.

Elaine Kaufman died five years ago on December 3rd. You’re asking, why did I wait to mention it until now? I just couldn’t do it. I thought about it, but it seemed like I needed more than a minute to think about Elaine, whom we miss so much.

A bunch of people did get together at Neary’s on December 3rd, organized by Peter Khoury of the New York Times. Neary’s is way east on 57th St. I was all the way downtown and west at some event. It was too hard to get there. So already you know what’s changed. Because back in the day, no matter where I was at 11pm, Second Avenue and East 88th St. was just a cab ride away.

Five months after Elaine died, the restaurant closed. The regulars know why it all happened, we discuss it regularly. There is a lot of anger. One day maybe the story will be told, how Elaine came to her demise. And then the restaurant, too. But truth be told, those months after her death were really weird. You’d sit there and kind of wait for her to come back through the doors.

And little by little, things started to disappear: the flat bread on the tables, the waiters. We were being sent a message.

But I digress.

Where do we go now? Nowhere. There is no way to recapture what Elaine gave us. She gave us home. And on New Year’s Eve, when dates didn’t work out and nothing you planned elsewhere clicked, you gravitated back to Elaine’s. The place was jazzed up with ornaments and lights and balloons. There was a golden cast over the mundane tables, and live music. People you saw all year were dressed up.

And there she was, Elaine in her tent dress, sparkling, holding out hope for the new year. “We’ve been waiting for you,” she’d say. “What took you so long?”

Happy New Year, Elaine.

Update: Bill Cosby will be arraigned later today in Pennsylvania after his official arrest. He committed aggravated indecent assault, says District Attorney.

Earlier:
An arrest warrant has been issued for entertainer Bill Cosby for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple employee Andrea Constand at his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania mansion in January 2004, according to People magazine.

A press conference is imminent.

If Cosby is arrested and arraigned it will bring some satisfaction to the dozens of women who’ve come forward in the last year or more. The formerly beloved comedian has turned out to be a Jekyll and Hyde who has just about a life long history of drugging and assaulting women. Their stories by now are well known.

It’s a very sad ending to what was a heralded life and career for Cosby. He became a role model and educator, a paragon of virtue as a family man and father. For his long time fans, Cosby’s implosion came as a shock.

More to come…

It’s hard to believe, but six and a half years after his tragic death, yet another court case involving Michael Jackson is going on right now in Los Angeles.

The case is billed as Qadree El-Amin vs. Michael Jackson Estate (John Branca, John McClain). Although she’s not named as a plaintiff, the person lurking behind this effort to extrude money from the Estate is Michael’s former p.r. lady and “manager,” Miss Raymone Bain.

When Tom Mesereau, Michael’s criminal attorney, fired her right before the jury decision in June 2005 for Jackson’s child molestation case, she called me. I was driving back to L.A. after another week in wonderful Santa Maria, California. I turned right around. Raymone, who’d ruled the roost, was out.

Yet she returned a year later, after Jackson’s self-exile in Bahrain and other places. She was his manager now, and would be until Tohme Tohne ousted her in a coup. The Raymone Era could take up its own book. She sued Michael for $44 million after he died. Well come on, why not? Ah, Raymone. She is a legend. She should get points for tenacity and perseverance.

El-Amin et al’s complaint, filed in May 2013– almost four years after Michael’s death-alleges that back in 2006 he, someone named Broderick Morris, and Bain’s assistant all contracted with Jackson to start a new company that would house all his film and recording projects. They have documents to prove it, they say.

Who is Qadree El-Amin? I have no idea, really. But from 1997-2013 he has about 20 cases in civil court. They range from breach of contract to a domestic dispute to a divorce. There’s also a paternity case and several Small Claims cases. Whoever he is, Mr. El-Amin is no stranger to L.A. Superior Court.

The complaint El Amin filed is full of mistakes in its timeline and generalizations about Jackson. I’m sure Howard Weitzman– handling the trial himself, I hear– is going to town on this stuff, as well as the omission of how Tohme got rid of Bain and how she wouldn’t let go. (Then, of course, Tohme wouldn’t let go.)There’s no jury, but the trial judge must be getting an earful.

By the way: My favorite part of the complaint is an exhibit– in which El-Amin et al add on their June 1, 2006 contract with Jackson. The agreement claim that Michael intends for his son Prince to become Chairman of this new company they all started together when the boy “finishes scoool.” Yes, that’s the way it’s written, just above Michael’s floating signature. LOL.

Good luck!