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MSNBC really rode rough shod over CNN on Monday and Tuesday.
Jen Psaki clobbered CNN’s Kaitlin Collins both nights, bringing 1.1 million twice.
There was a lot of planted negative publicity about Psaki’s ratings, saying she’d lost a lot of Rachel Maddow’s viewers. But Psaki is smart and engaging, and it takes time to build an audience. Now she’s up and running. Good for her.
Meantime, Jake Tapper faces the fact that he will never exceed MSNBC in total viewers. On both Monday and Tuesday, MSNBC took him to task with bigger numbers. Tapper has a slight edge in the jey age demo, but not much. And it’s not like either cable news network is getting quality ads for younger demos.
Tapper has finally stopped flogging his book every night. Sales are a disaster. Even CNN can see that. Time to cut bait and move on!
And guess who’d doing the best? Lawrence O’Donnell at 10pm. He’s averaging 1.4 million viewers a night. I guess he solved his contract problem back on June 4th. MSNBC can’t afford to lose him!
Tony Macaulay was finally inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame last night.
It took at least 20 years to get him in. His name used to be on every nomination list, and he was always overlooked. Mariah Carey got in before him!
Congrats to Tony. He wrote or co-wrote many pop classics including “Build Me Up Buttercup” and “Baby Now That I Found You,” for the Foundations “Last Night I Couldn’t Get to Sleep at All,” for the Fifth Dimension, “Smile a Little Smile for Me” and “Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes,” and “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again.”
Tony had a nasty fight with music publishers in 1974, winning the right to be able to sue them. That may be one reason he was never inducted in the past. The SHOF is controlled by music publishers.
A Brit, Tony is 81, and managed to live long enough to get into the Hall of Fame. Bravo!
PS The Fifth Dimension, which introduced countless famous songwriters, still has no award from the SHOF. Ridiculous. They were innovators. Their back up band were musicians from Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew, for god’s sake.
First the good news: as a tribute to Brian Wilson, fans have sent 13 Beach Boys singles to the iTunes Top 100.
They’ve also sent 5 Beach Boys albums and 2 Brian Wilson albums to the top of the albums chart. “God Only Knows” is the number 1 single, and “Pet Sounds” is the number 1 album.
But fans are missing out on Brian’s solo albums, “Love and Mercy,” and “Imagination.” They’re also not picking up the Beach Boys’ “Holland” and “Surf’s Up.” The title track of the latter is a masterpiece.
Brian’s cousin Mike Love and sometime co-songwriter– who he loathed — and who sued him long ago — grieved in his own special way last night. The day after Brian died, Mike showed up to get an award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And he performed. The man has no shame. He proved only the good die young. What a tool.
(His appearance reminded me of when Joseph Jackson brought a Michael Jackson impersonator to the BET AWards in 2009 four days after Michael died.)
HBO put on the dog last night, as they used to say before PETA.
For season 3 of “The Gilded Age,” the cabler took over Cipriani 25 Broadway and filled it with exotic flowers and delicious food.
This was a sold out screening at the Tribeca Film Festival of Episode 1, and a Q&A with creator Julian Fellowes and the cast moderated by a sock-less Frank Di Lella of Spectrum One.
On stage: Cynthia Nixon — looking the most glamorous I’ve ever seen her, Christine Baranski (always glamorous), Carrie Coon (Beautiful and very funny), Denee Benton, Louisa Jacobson, and Morgan Spector wearing a Lanvin top Liberace would have adored.
Spector’s famous actress wife Rebecca Hall was in the audience with their very cute 7 year old daughter. So was co-star Kristine Nielsen, taking a night off from Broadway’s “Smash.” (“Gilded” fans would never know from her straight laced German cook in the show how hilarious she is on stage.) And when the remaining cast and crew were asked to stand up, the enormous number of them got thundering ovations.
Also in the audience: the great S. Epatha Merkerson from “Chicago Med” and previously “Law & Order” for hundreds of seasons. She’s able to be home in New York for a bit during the “Med” hiatus, and loving it. Just the sight of Epatha (Ep-AY-tha) on endless reruns on TV is a comfort. A great, underrated actress.
I predict this is the breakthrough season for “The Gilded Age.” Unlike “Downton Abbey,” “Gilded Age” is full of humor and laughs juxtaposed with the drama of New York society in 1883. The production value has also increased with a richer color palette that will resonate on the small screen.
Fellowes, who’s sidelined in a wheelchair right now with back issues, was erudite and full of fun. We laughed because all anyone asks him or the cast — just as with “Downton Abbey” — “What will happen next?”
(At the Q&A, Carrie Coon almost blurted something out, but Fellowes reprimanded her before she could reveal anything.)
“This is all they ask!” he cried with mock exasperation, and shook his head. When I told him there are at least two more seasons left in this sparkling production he said: “I agree. We’re finally at the point where there’s less exposition. Everyone knows the characters, has favorites, and they’re rooting for them.”
I’ve seen the whole season, and I can tell you that Baranski and Nixon are like US Tennis pros as their characters struggle for domestic dominance in their mansion. They reminded me of Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton in “Downton.” Nothing better!
The great and amazing Mel Brooks is turning 99 years old on June 28th.
He just announced he will reprise his original character of Yogurt in a sequel to his hit, “Spaceballs” on its 40th anniversary.
Remember, at the end of “Spaceballs,” there’s a card that reads: “Coming soon Spaceballs: The Search for Money.” It’s taken all this time, but they’re doing it!
Bill Pullman and Rick Moranis, who were in the original film, will return as well. Moranis is coming out of retirement.
The movie is set for release in two years when Mel could be 101 years old.
Brooks is famous for playing the 20 Thousand Year Old Man with Carl Reiner in a classic stand up routine. Now it may come to fruition.
The new “Spaceballs” is directed by Josh Greenbaum from a script by Benji Samit, Dan Hernandez, and Josh Gad.
The likelihood is that Gad will play the John Candy role of Barf (or his son) from the original movie.
While the title, plot details, and rest of cast are being kept under wraps, the film has been described by those who have not yet read the script as “A Non-Prequel Non-Reboot Sequel Part Two but with Reboot Elements Franchise Expansion Film.”
Everything must now be done to make Mel makes this premiere. Put him in a Ziploc bag, freeze him, bubble wrap him. He’s a national treasure!
Melania Trump may actually be granted her wish, sort of.
Everyone knows Melania is furious she hasn’t been on the cover of Vogue. She’s the only first lady they’ve ignored. Jill Bide, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton have often had that distinction.
Now the new editor of Vanity Fair, an unknown named Mark Guiducci, could make Melania’s dream come true. Guiducci, according to sources, told the staff at a meeting this week that he wanted to feature “The Real Housewives of Mar-a-Lago.”
He also said Joe Rogan, conservative podcaster, would be a good subject as well.
This might fall in line with Wintour’s recent visit to the White House. She and a couple of fashion execs met with Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to discuss the huge tariffs Trump has placed on their products. For Wintour to even set up such a meeting is unusual considering her fealty to the Democrats.
But Wintour is a practical person. Vanity Fair is fading. If she could horse trade a fawning cover of Melania for lower tariffs, she’d do it in a minute.
Melania did appear on the cover of February 2017 Mexico Vanity Fair. The picture showed her dining on diamonds.
Meantime, insiders say Conde Nast employees are furious over the Guiducci hiring. Wintour, they say, interviewed 50 more qualified candidates to be global editor but had no intention of hiring them. They say she always knew that Guiducci, who has only had Vogue bylines about Anna, would be her choice. Some are claiming his hiring is in violation of HR rules.
And what is Guiducci’s salary? As of June 7th, the job was still being advertised for $136K- $166K. I wrote about it in April and the ad is still up. Since Graydon Carter used to make $2 million, and Radhika Jones must have been paid $500K a year, this is bargain basement.
CNN has wasted a lot of time on Jake Tapper’s book.
“Original Sin” sold just 8,500 copies in its third week. That’s about half of what it sold the prior week.
Total sales come to 79,645 according to NPD Book Scan. On amazon, the corrupt account of Joe Biden’s time in office has fallen to number 42. It should be out of the top 100 by next week (amazon moves slowly).
Tapper and co author Alex Thompson constructed a hypothesis that Biden was a dottering old fool who couldn’t run the White House. They put him a wheelchair and suggested he couldn’t remember names. Of course, at the same time, Biden was giving cogent off the cuff remarks, interviews, and riding his bicycle. The book was fiction.
And still CNN pushed it on every segment for over two weeks, over and over. They co-opted other news personalities to debate it and promote it. But the real world rejected it. Even Jimmy Kimmel canceled a whole show just to dump Tapper from an interview.
The latest Bruce Springsteen release from June 27’s “Tracks II” box set would be covered by her in a minute.
“Sunday Love” is the song Burt Bacharach and Hal David never wrote. It’s also a subtle nod to Etta James’s “Sunday Kind of Love.” It’s a laid back, jazzy totally 60s number that shows Bruce in a wistful way. It’s his most coverable song since “Fire” and “Because the Night.” If I were Adele, I’d record it right now and put it out for summer. (Also, if I were Adele, I’d be working on an album.)
Bruce has released five tracks from the box set, each has been terrific. So looking forward to spending a summer with “Tracks II.”
Wednesday night’s Kennedy Center showing of “Les Miserables” was quite the scene.
While high rolling Trump donors were taking their seats, so were a lot of other less well dress — or more flamboyantly dressed — audience members.
Drag queens invaded the theater before Trump, Melania, and the Vances arrived. There are picture and videos galore.
Then came the public. People who had purchased tickets before Trump announced this was a fundraiser were all over the place, say my spies. They wore jeans. Some had anti-Trump T shirts. Because they’d bought tickets earlier, they sat cheek by jowl with formally dressed patrons who’d paid steep fees.
When the lights went down, I’m told, roughly 100 people were ushered down from the balcony to the empty seats in the orchestra. They made a lot of noise because the show had already started.
A source told me they’d been given free tickets. Another source reported that tickets were being handed out to fill the auditorium.
The only members of Congress spotted were Ted Cruz and Gym Jordan. The latter has likely never seen a Broadway musical.
As for the cast of “Les Miz,” understudies were used but not specially credited. The playbill included no mention of them. But I’m told about 10 main cast members each took an official day off.
When you can't change your Kennedy Center tickets cause Trump turned it into a fundraiser for his fascist friends, you make a statement out of it. pic.twitter.com/n4ZlzmhVp1
— Jason Tufele Carl Johnson (@jasontcjohnson) June 11, 2025
Donald Trump getting booed at the Kennedy Center made my night.
Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson has died at age 81. He suffered from neurocognative disorder akin to dementia.
With his brothers and cousin Brian formed The Beach Boys in 1961 and went on to overwhelming international success. Their records and Brian’s songs are literally the American soundtrack, from “California Girls” to “Good Vibrations” to “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”
Wilson’s life was a roller coaster of fame and success that led to struggles with drugs and mental illness. He spent years in the “wilderness” when he came under the spell of Dr. Eugene Landy, a Svengali who nearly cost him his life.
Brian was eventually saved by his family and his second wife, Melinda, who died last year. Among his children are Carnie and Wendy, who make up two thirds of the group Wilson Phillips.
I was lucky to meet and talk with Brian many times. When he published his first memoir in 1991, written with Todd Gold, the publisher held a small book party. Brian played the piano and sang his songs for the first time up close. It’s a memory I will always cherish. He also performed and toured constantly in the last 20 years, and played the Rainforest Foundation show with Sting and Trudie Styler at Carnegie Hall.
There will be plenty obits today and evaluations of Brian’s work. But just listen to those songs, like “Surf’s Up,” another masterpiece. Even the arranging on something like “I Can Feel Music” is complex and masterful. Watch all the Beach Boys records go to the charts this afternoon.
The music will live forever. Viva Brian Wilson. He’s finally out of pain, and reunited with brothers Carl and Dennis. God bless.
