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Trump has randomly fired the head of the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. He’s never been in the Gallery, or any other museum.
This is what he blathered on Truth Social: “Upon the request and recommendation of many people, I am herby terminating the employment of Kim Sajet as Director of the National Portrait Gallery. She is a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position. Her replacement will be named shortly. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Trump is angry that Sajet commissioned portraits of JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon, Temple Grandin (famously overcame autism), Joy Harjo (former US poet laureate) and famed movie director Steven Spielberg. He would rather have chosen Hitler, Putin, Kim Jung Un, and Scott Baio.
Sajet has been director of the Gallery since 2013. She’s Nigerian by birth and was raised in Australia. She’s the first woman ever to hold the position at the museum.
As with the Kennedy Center, this is another boneheaded decision by a person who shouldn’t be sent out for sandwiches.
In her heyday, Mariah Carey was famous for “sampling” songs, meaning — as Maurice White once told me — eating the whole buffet.
Mariah turned White’s song, Best of My Love, into her “Emotions.” (You hear it below.) The Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” became her “Fantasy,” and so on. Some samples were cleared. She was also sued for plagiarism and settled many times.
It turns out in that back in 2005, Mariah covered a 1975 record called “Here Comes That Feeling Again” by the Dynamic Superiors. The original song was co-written by Motown greats Eddie and Brian Holland, aka as Holland-Dozier-Holland. Mariah called it “When I Feel It,” after changing a few words and adding her own.
Guess who didn’t ‘feel it’? The Hollands. Mariah couldn’t get her version cleared, so the song languished for 20 years.
But now finally a deal has been struck, and “When I Feel It” is released today on the 20th anniversary edition of “The Emancipation of Mimi.” Mariah sounds great because she’s singing a real R&B as opposed to one of her yodeling scat hop hop inventions.
The two records are very similar. I hope this sparks an interest in the Dynamic Superiors, too. Someone should do a podcast of all the R&B staples there were used to make “new” records, like Alicia Keys with “Empire State of Mind” and Beyonce with “Crazy in Love.”
Taylor Swift has been able to buy back the albums Scooter Braun took from her, then sold to Shamrock Holdings.
She writes on social media:
“To say this is my greatest dream come true is actually being pretty reserved about it.” Thanking the company that sold the rights to her, she added, “All I’ve ever wanted was the opportunity to work hard enough to be able to one day purchase my music outright with no strings attached, no partnership, with full autonomy. I will be forever grateful to everyone at Shamrock Capital for being the first people to ever offer this to me. … My first tattoo just might be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”
When Taylor left Big Machine Records, Braun and the label’s Scott Borchetta took her masters and sold them to Shamrock.
Swift went ballistic, properly, and re-recorded all the albums as “Taylor’s Version.” They outsold the original albums. Shamrock, which paid millions to Braun and Borchetta, was left hanging.
Now Shamrock has sold the masters back to Taylor for a nine figure sum. She can afford it. She’s a billionaire.
She writes: “I’m trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent, but right now my mind is just A flashback sequence of all the times I daydreamed about, wished for, and pined away’ for a chance to get to tell you this news. All the times I was thiiiiis close, reaching out for it, only for it to fall through. I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now. I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get say to say these words:
“All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.”
Now there will be two versions of all the original albums available in all formats.
What a crazy story. All that work Taylor did to make the re-recordings! Of course, she made a lot of money from them, too.
Miley Cyrus was almost out of luck with her new album, “Something Beautiful.”
Before it was released tonight, Miley struck out three times with “End of the World,” “More to Love,” and the title track. They all went nowhere fast.
It didn’t make sense. They were all good songs even if the production on “More to Lose” was a mess.
Tonight she released a new video for “Easy Lover.” It’s more funky than the usual Miley Cyrus song, with a backbeat from the early 80s that sounds like she’s going to launch into Carly Simon’s “You Belong to Me” with Michael McDonald.
This is not the same “Easy Lover” as Phil Collins and Philip Bailey took to number 1 in the 80s.
But this may be an easy hit, dance-able and catchy with a good hook. The video is PG sexy, which won’t hurt. It’s interesting that the only people not credited on the YouTube video are the writers. Did someone write this song?
He’s planning to upstage Donald Trump on his birthday and the day of his military parade in Washington.
The Pope is virtually hosting a huge mass at Chicago’s Rate Park, hone of the White Sox, on June 14th in the afternoon.
The Pope will appear live from the Vatican via video screens.
Trump is planning to spend $100 million later that day with his absurd display of power, a la Adolf Hitler.
The celebration will also include a Mass, music, a film, and in-person testimonials about Pope Leo XIV, a South Side native and lifelong White Sox fan.
Leo knows what he’s doing. His message of peace will certainly be read between the lines for digs at Trump’s militaristic endeavor. The mass will probably get better or more coverage than the parade, and he knows it.
Brooks Boyer, the White Sox executive vice president and chief revenue and marketing officer, told MLB.com last week that the pope “has an open invite to throw out a first pitch” at any White Sox game.
Jake Tapper has been yapping about Joe Biden for two solid weeks.
CNN has allowed him to excoriate Biden 24/7, carrying on incessantly with few quoted sources that Biden was incompetent during his presidency.
Biden’s book, “Original Sin,” with Alex Thompson has had more publicity than any book of recent memory thanks to CNN’s collaboration.
But now come the disappointing sales.
53,737 print units sold, per Circana BookScan for the first week.
That’s not good news. That’s about 1/10th of the people who watch Tapper’s nightly show.
On Amazon, the book has held on to the number 3 spot. But today it’s starting to drop.
By comparison: Bob Woodward’s book “Fear: Trump in the White House” sold 1.1 million copies in its first week.
No one will be happier about this news than Tapper’s critics on social media. They are horrified by the book.
I’m more unhappy about Tapper lying all year about writing a stealth book about a subject he was covering in real time. It’s totally unprofessional. He would only have been rooting for Biden to look bad in the famous debate last June, as well as all other times. It was to his advantage.
CNN should be embarrassed but they won’t be. They are so desperate for ratings they are now featuring interviews with fringe witnesses in the Diddy trial. But the Tapper experience has been a bust. It wasn’t worth it.
The one number you can’t trust from TV is streaming.
Those ratings are not released publicly, and who knows how they’re derived? Shows watched on phones, laptops, through tin foil hats.
This goes for HBO, Netflix, Apple, etc.
This week, HBO said the season 2 finale of “The Last of Us” had 3.7 million viewers “across all platforms.”
But the actual number on HBO’s regular channel was not that high. The total was 680,000 — down 20,000 from the previous week.
That means the show fell by 250,000 from the premiere to the finale.
“The Last of Us” made some real errors this season. They killed off the show’s hero, Joel, played by Pedro Pascal. They put the relationship between Bella Ramsey’s Ellie and Isabel Merced’s Dina on the front burner. The show became dark — not just in theme, but in lighting. It was hard to see!
Producers say they’re following the video game plot that is the foundation of the series. But that’s been a huge mistake. If “MASH” had done that, the series would have been over in 2 seasons. The Korean War didn’t go on for 11 seasons. If Pascal insisted on leaving, they should have written in a substitute. Ellie is lovely but not a lead character.
Let’s hope the powers that be have learned a lesson. Next season needs a jolt, or “The Last of Us” won’t make it to a fourth season.
EXCLUSIVE We are all rooting for Billy Joel’s speedy recovery from his recent illness.
Billy has been diagnosed with fluid on the brain, and is currently receiving treatment including physical therapy.
But the other bad news is that we won’t be seeing Billy in public for a while. He’s already cancelled all of his shows through the year and into 2026. An indefatigable performer, Billy is sure to be back on stage and better than ever.
The illness, however, is bad news for the Tribeca Film Festival. Billy was set to appear at the Fest’s opening night on June 4th, where they will debut a new HBO documentary about him. “And So It Goes,” directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, is sure to be a banger.
Billy might have also performed at the opening night since it’s being held at the Beacon Theater.
Imagine the hero’s welcome if he surprised the Beacon audience. But it’s not going to happen. Instead, he’ll get a thundering standing ovation in his absence.
The Beacon show is sold out, but there are three more screenings that follow through the Fest at theaters around town. Check the festival site.
Bruce Springsteen has just dropped an absolutely beautiful track called “Adelita.”
It’s sure to set Donald Trump off again.
Listed as “non-lyric author” on the Mexican-tinged ballad is Maria Herrera Sobek. Her bio says she’s Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at UCLA Santa Barbara. That’s DEI, Trump’s obsession. He hates it because it stands for equality.
Sobek is a highly respected academic anx musician, the kind of person who would scare Trump to death.
“Adelita” is from the big “Tracks II” box set coming on June 27th. Bruce has already released a couple of tracks but this one is my favorite so far, and could easily be a radio hit. He should play it live. Stunning.
