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Imagine this: the Kansas City Chiefs return to the Super Bowl one more time, and Taylor Swift is the musical act during halftime.
Blow your mind? Is there enough money in the world to cover this?
Today Taylor and Travis Kelce of the Chiefs announced their engagement right before football season begins and Taylor drops her next mega number 1 album October 3rd.
Ka boom!
The couple “broke” Instagram with 24 million likes apiece. Apiece. This is not normal, even for them. Taylor’s recent high was 11 million for the announcement of her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Travis’ high for likes was 6 million when he and Taylor did their podcast.
So a total of 48 million likes in one day is a big, big deal. Their audience has spoken. If the Chiefs play well and Taylor’s album is enormous, the Super Bowl combo will blow apart all records.
Then get ready for the wedding next spring. It will be covered like something from the Royal Family. Can you imagine the red herrings for dates, places, etc. The huge tents to block paparazzi? The overall subterfuge? The guest list?
Stay tuned. Taylor and Travis are the story for 2026, certainly one to take the focus off of politics.
The stars were out in force last night at East Hampton’s Guild Hall for a monumental fundraiser.
Like most Upper West Siders, the stars want to stop the razing of the West Park Presbyterian Church on 86th Street and Broadway at this moment in our history could not be more apt. The historic church was where Joe Papp incubated his ideas about the public theater, where today community comes together to inspire young artists, playwrights, dancers, and actors like those on the stage.
And so they came to raise funds for the cause, with a staged reading of William Goldman’s Oscar winning screenplay for “All the President’s Men.”
Robert Downey Jr. and Ramy Youssef led this cast in the reading directed by John Benjamin Hickey and dedicated to Mark Brokaw. The group included Victor Garber as Deep Throat (now known as Mark Felt), and the Washington Post team led by Nathan Lane as Ben Bradlee, spearhead organizer Mark Ruffalo as Harry Rosenfeld, and Julianne Moore as Katherine Graham.
What can you say, really, in the face of so much talent? Downey, now an Oscar winner for “Oppenheimer” after years of playing Iron Man, was a sublime leader of an extraordinary pack.
The sold out audience at Guild Hall and actors on stage were treated to the presence of “All the President’s Men” legendary reporters Woodward and Bernstein, as well as CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Gywneth Paltrow was seen buzzing around but left quickly for Goopier things.
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were only 29 and 28, respectively, when they embarked on the unfolding of the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.
After the reading, the journalists who shook our world in 1972 spoke about how youth and naivete led them to make the mistakes and discoveries that led to the truth, important ingredients for a free press. Woodward said he still uses the same strategy of knocking on people’s doors to speak to them. If he leaves at 9, he may be home by 9:30 if a door is slammed in his face.
After they wrote the book, Robert Redford came calling. “Woodstein” — as they came to be known — hung up on him, as you do when Hollywood comes your way. But Redford insisted on making the film as a buddy movie. Two guys with opposite personalities working together to make something historic. His persistence paid off.
Alec Baldwin moderated the post Q&A. When he asked award winning actor Wendell Pierce why he got involved, the actor told his story of his New Orleans neighborhood being the worst flooded during Hurricane Katrina. This being the 20th anniversary of the ravaging storm, he remembered his effort in rebuilding his community, house by house.
Landmarked, the hulking brick church on West 86th St. with its stained glass, and period detail, should of course be defended from the developers who want to strip the space from its history to some commercial blah. All of these protections are threatened, said Mark Ruffalo, in an impassioned speech about why he has gathered an army of celebrities to fight against the crass cruelty of our current political moment. Nixon was bad, they concurred, but the social politics now are much worse.
Closing, Bob Woodward recounted the final words of Nixon resigning in a brief flash of self-reflection: remember, the hate inside you brings you down.
Lorne Michaels said he’d be culling his cast for the 51st season of “SNL.” He meant it.
Gone today is three year vet Devon Walker, who was fine but never broke out like Sarah Sherman or Marcello Hernandez. Two writers also exited.
Walker posted a notice to Instagram that didn’t indicate whether he left or was sent home. I’d guess the latter is true.
Michaels said recently there’d be more changes. We know Sherman and Hernandez will be ok. So will the rest of the main cast including Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, James Austin Johnson, Colin Jost, Michael Longfellow, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang. (Jost can’t leave. He’s paying off that ferry boat he bought with Pete Davidson.)
It’s the supporting players that will probably be switched out, like Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim, and Jane Wickline, who would be in trouble. Stay tuned..
They would have you believe Woody Allen went to the Moscow Film Festival and supports Vladimir Putin.
Allen did send a message of hope to Moscow Filmmakers and told them he’d “consider” making a movie there one day. Indeed, that won’t be happening. It was just nice to say. Woody turns 90 this fall. He’s not visiting an enemy war zone. The Post, as usual, made the whole thing into something it isn’t. Oy vey.
A source says: “He talked about his three trips to Russia and explained how if he does a movie about a country he has to write the script for that country specifically. Â He was kind but noncommittal.”
Woody sent me a message to deliver: “When it comes to the conflict in Ukraine, I believe strongly that Vladimir Putin is totally in the wrong. The war he has caused is appalling. But, whatever politicians have done, I don’t feel cutting off artistic conversations is ever a good way to help.”
He’s absolutely right. Moscow artists and filmmakers are suffering because of Putin. They were certainly thrilled to see a movie director as important as Woody sending them a message. Oh, the Post does it again.
The 79 year old soap star died August 15th from lung cancer. He worked until he couldn’t, leaving “GEneral Hospital” in November 2024 after 45 years of playing superspy Robert Scorpio. Rogers taped a surprise final episode not long before he died, and it aired in June.
Now it turns out he also taped a farewell episode for “The Young and the Restless,” where he played a con man for many years. It airs tomorrow, Tuesday. This was an actor devoted to his fans. And what a nice way to wrap up a 50 year career.
Rogers’ long time “YR” castmate Jess Walton — who should be on the ratings plagued show a lot more — taped the scene with him and also a tribute that’s on Instagram now.
And yes, “The Young and the Restless” dropped below 3 million viewers in the most recent ratings. They spent a chunk of the summer doing a poor remake of “Knives Out: Glass Onion.” They killed off four characters and gave none of them funerals. It’s time for a head writer change.
Bon Jovi’s famous drummer, Tico Torres, has hit social media.
He’s posted a video on the Bon Jovi official accounts refuting rumors that he or the band have retired.
Not true, he says. “Musicians don’t retire. Especially me.”
Tico says in fact: “We’re still making music. We’re better than we’ve ever been.”
I believe him. Jon Bon Jovi has had vocal issues, certainly, but he can still record if not tour like before. I don’t know where these rumors begin.
No one expects a band of 60 year olds — other than Bruce or the Stones — to be on the road endlessly. Why would they? And Bon Jovi had a new record out last year called “Living Proof.”
I’m sure we’ll be seeing Bon Jovi in 2026. Meanwhile, no one hits those skins like Tico. He’s a monster.
Kanye West’s memcoin or bit coin, trading as YZY, is in a free fall.
In less than a week its value has dropped from $3.1 billion to under $600 million. And it’s falling fast.
If you invested money in YZY, it’s pretty much gone like Kanye’s career.
I told you last week that experts say Kanye and a small group of cronies cashed in at the beginning, leaving anyone else to hang in the wind.
This morning the value of YZY is $568 million.
The value of the coin is based on “Kanye’s relationships.” But he has none. Adidas and other fashion contracts were killed when his rampant antisemitism surfaced. He has no record contract, and his self-issued music is mostly ignored.
Kanye’s only been able to do shows in far flung places like Korea. No one in the US wants him or even Europe. His professed love of Hitler and Nazis has made it impossible for him to promote anything except ill will.
His next show is later this fall in Brazil.
What better place?
PS: Google AI — like the Robot on “Lost in Space” — tells me: “The YZY token is now a high-risk, volatile asset. The rapid drop in value serves as a cautionary tale about celebrity-driven crypto projects, where short-term hype often disappears quickly, leaving regular investors with significant losses.”
Michael Richards is going back to stand up comedy.
It’s been 19 years (in November) since his onstage scandal when he dropped the N word and caused an uproar that never ended.
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Last year, Richards attempted a comeback with a memoir called “Entrances and Exits.” His publicity tour started with promise, but then he turned to Fox News’s Jesse Watters for an interview and it all went south. The book was a huge flop.
The comedy tour, named for the book, is starting at a handful of West Coast clubs.
The irony of Richards’ downfall of course is that “Seinfeld” and his Kramer character live on in endless reruns around the world. Richards is wealthy from that run. But he’s had no career since then unlike Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Jason Alexander.
Richards apologized for his hideous outburst as soon as it happened, and again in the book. But the appearance on Fox News set him up in the worst light possible since Watters is an unrepentant right winger with very shocking and different beliefs than most “Seinfeld” fans.
It remains to be seen how Richards will be greeted on this tour, or at more dates especially in major cities. This does remind me of when Bill Cosby tried to make a comeback after his scandals and was met with intense curiosity and scorn.
Donald Trump has been spewing his bile all night on Truth Social.
His latest subjects: NBC and ABC News. He hates them. He says they should lose their licenses. He omits CBS – which he thinks he now owns — as well as house organ Fox News, plus CNN and MSNBC.
Bigger questions about Trump’s health have risen to main stories. Why does no White House reporter ask him on live TV what the makeup is on his right hand, what the bruises are on his left hand, and what’s going on with his ankles? Is he wearing all the different baseball caps to hide something on his head?
Anyway, he also told all Democrats to GO TO HELL in a different post, as he sends the National Guard into 19 states — or tries to — in an attempt to invoke martial law.
On Friday night I found myself in the charming, horsy village of Bedford, New York for a very special screening.
Tentatively titled, “Do You Remember?,” this 90 minute film probably will never be released for public consumption. Clearing the music rights would be unimaginably difficult– and expensive.
A little over three years ago, a version of the film was shown at music mogul Clive Davis’s 90th birthday party at Casa Cipriani in New York. Now a tighter version, with quite an emotional wallop, made it to the screen at the Bedford Playhouse, which not uncoincidentally is named for Davis, who lives nearby.
The film is the work of superstar music producer Mark Ronson, along with actor/producer Erich Bergen. It show cases Davis’s remarkable career in pop music by offering an aural and video jukebox of hits he made or was associated with over more than 50 years. (Ronson’s mixes, and segues, are really spectacular.)
One after another, starting with Columbia Records acts like Blood, Sweat Tears, Sly & the Family Stone, and Janis Joplin, Ronson ticks off hundreds of pop hits, wending the way through Davis’s creation of Arista Records in 1974 with Barry Manilow and Melissa Manchester, his resurrection of Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick, to the discovery of Whitney Houston, Santana’s Grammy winning revival, and the launch of Alicia Keys, among others.
Intermittently, we see Davis briefly at different times in the chronology — including a famous clip of him circa 1973 when he was so moved by the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s new song, “Blinded by the Light,” that he sent out a clip to the Columbia Records salesforce of himself reading them aloud.
The film is an astonishing walk down memory lane as the music speaks for itself. Some songs and performances are in whole, some are just nanoseconds. But did we forget that Davis also resurrected rock bands at Arista, including The Kinks and The Grateful Dead? That he was the guy who signed the original “American Idol” winners — like Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson — to contracts? It’s a little mindblowing when you see him, in a white tennis sweater, sitting in a field of hippies at the Monterey Pop Festival, jiving out to Janis Joplin. He signed her to Columbia right after that. And let’s not forget Patti Smith, who was as cutting edge as could be in 1974, and Davis cross pollinating her with Springsteen in 1978 for “Because the Night.”
There were a couple of Davis’s friends in the audience at the Playhouse including “Titanic” actor Billy Zane. But 95% of the people were local music fans who were disarmed by the film’s magnitude. I know I was. A Q&A followed with Bergen (whom you know from the “Jersey Boys” movie and “Madame Secretary” on TV) and Davis on stage. I think it was taped. The interview should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Maybe the whole film will be there one day on display. Davis — who is known among his fans for occasionally telling a long story — concisely explained the history of pop music during its heyday. But what does explain Davis’s run in the music industry? Maybe only Berry Gordy at Motown and Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic came even close.
There is no other record company president whose career has had such breath and depth. The stars all loved him and even when they disagreed with him — and came around later to thank him. That’s saying a lot. Stars who didn’t want to record songs that later became hits, who took advice they might not have embraced, are all here, documented, happily, in their appreciation.
One story David didn’t get to tell. It came up during the pandemic when he interviewed Springsteen for the charity fundraising Quarantunes Zoom calls. (I hope those interviews see the light of day soon.) Bruce actually brought it up — that Davis, visiting him at an early rehearsal, suggested Springsteen “not just stand here” on stage during his songs but “move around” a bit. Bruce, who’d already taken Davis’s advice to go home and write two hits for his debut album — they became “Blinded” and “Spirit in the Night” — took that advice, and is still running around arena and stadium stages to the awe of massive crowds.
PS Best line of the night. Bergen asked Davis if he always knew this is how it would all work out, if he always knew how to embrace his history as something momentous. Davis, unflinching, responded, “No. I’m Jewish! I fear the future.” Wow. But he barreled ahead, a lesson to us all.
