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Update on Broadway Star Nick Cordero: Holes in His Lungs, Still in a Coma and on Ventilator, Fighting for His Life

Roger Friedman
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Update on Broadway Star Nick Cordero: Holes in His Lungs, Still in a Coma and on Ventilator, Fighting for His Life

Nick Cordero’s wife, Amanda, has been updating his situation on Instagram stories. This young woman is just amazing. I don’t know how she’s doing it. She’s the mother of a toddler, and her whole life has been turned upside down.

To wit: Amanda Kloots reported on Thursday that Nick– who is in a coma, still on a ventilator, and has an amputated leg– has holes in his lungs. They are bad. Kloots says in her video that their doctor said if Nick were a man of 70 and not 41 “we’d be having an entirely different conversation.” But the doctor told her if it was his brother, he’d say keep fighting.

Kloots says that she’s struggled with crying and breaking down but she “will not give up hope.” Remember, she has never been in the hospital room with him because Cedar Sinai won’t allow it. She can’t take the chance of getting sick an infecting their little boy, Elvis. So she goes every day at 3pm to the outside of the hospital and blasts Nick’s song, a recording called “Live Your Life.”

Today the plan was to do a scan of Nick’s lung with ink to see what’s going on. He’s been septic and he’s had internal bleeding. His oxygen level has been low. This poor guy. This is torture and it’s cruel, but he’s fighting. And wouldn’t it be great to see him at the 2021 Tony Awards? Everyone is praying for him and that family.

See here, the Broadway cast of “Waitress” — his most recent show– singing for him.

iTunes Chart Manipulation Continues for Mediocre Old Albums by Divas: Madonna’s “American Life” is Next

Roger Friedman
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iTunes Chart Manipulation Continues for Mediocre Old Albums by Divas: Madonna’s “American Life” is Next

Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2” is fading back into obscurity after its four day run up the iTunes charts. Number nothing on Sunday, number 1 on Monday, number 18 tonight on iTunes. Where will it be tomorrow? Falling, falling, falling.

Meanwhile, now that the fan bases for 80s divas have figured out how to game iTunes, the competition is fierce. Madonna’s “Bedtime Stories” from 1994 is number 1 tonight, no number to back it up. Just a faked surge in sales. Even better, Madonna’s really dreadful “American Life” is suddenly number 14! From Friday to Tuesday night it sold 4 copies. FOUR. Someone went out of their way today to throw a few bucks at it. The numbers will be in tomorrow.

These aren’t beloved albums that sold well in the first place. They were terrible and were not big hits. They are obscure. Maybe that’s what makes the game interesting to the players, like the 17 year old kid Rolling Stone found in Connecticut.

The Michael Jackson fans have launched their own campaign to make “Invincible” a hit. So far there’s no sign of it. But by the morning, who knows?

iTunes has said nothing so far. But these are scams, and they reveal iTunes’ security issues. If someone thought it through, the next thing would be gambling on an album’s chart position. Now that would be interesting.

A Connecticut Teenager Tells Rolling Stone How He Gamed iTunes on Behalf of Mariah Carey, Now Michael Jackson’s Fan Will Try, Too

Roger Friedman
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A Connecticut Teenager Tells Rolling Stone How He Gamed iTunes on Behalf of Mariah Carey, Now Michael Jackson’s Fan Will Try, Too

Congratulations to Tim Chan from Rolling Stone. He’s solved the mystery of how old albums by old divas are hitting number 1 on iTunes. Good work tracking this kid down.

David, a 17 year old from Connecticut who was five years old when Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2” came out, decided to try and make the album number 1 by gaming iTunes.

“I saw that the album was discounted (iTunes priced it at $4.99 compared to $9.99 for most new releases) and it was slowly gaining momentum on the iTunes chart, so I, along with a few other fans, thought, ‘Maybe we should get it to Number One,’” David told Chan. “It happened before with Glitter; why not make it happen again?”

Yeah, why not? Kids have nothing else to do but game iTunes. Chan didn’t ask David if he’s behind the Madonna or Janet Jackson campaigns. It’s likely he just gave someone else the idea.

Now the Michael Jackson fans are pushing #JusticeforInvincible for Michael’s 2001 final album. Let’s see if it works.

It’s strange that the fans don’t realize this is actually a scam, it’s not real, the charts are being manipulated. I wonder if iTunes will just go along with this or make an effort to stop it. And it’s not about Mariah or Madonna or anyone. It’s about the fact that it’s wrong for any artist. But the fans want to make it something else. Not too smart.

Murdochs Wave White Flag with NY Post Purge: At Least 25 Staffers Furloughed or Laid Off as Paper in Free Fall

Roger Friedman
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Murdochs Wave White Flag with NY Post Purge: At Least 25 Staffers Furloughed or Laid Off as Paper in Free Fall

Years ago, in 1993 when the NY Post almost ceased publication for good, the drawing of founder Alexander Hamilton on the front page showed a tear falling from his eye.

And here we are again. Rupert Murdoch’s money losing but headline making tabloid is in a downward spiral that even he won’t tolerate. Or make that, his kids.

Yesterday saw a purge at the Post that they’ve never experienced during Murdoch’s second reign. At least 25 staffers are out, furloughed or outright laid off. The names will be noticeably missing to anyone who still follows the Post– and there are plenty.

Said to be out is long time business writer John Crudele. He’s been there for at least 30 years. Furloughed are editor Steve Cuozzo, the popular editor and restaurant reviewer; Lois Weiss, whose real estate column is a must read; Michael Riedel, the theater columnist whose poison pen drips with dramatic ink. I’m told that about 9 people in the sports department are out, maybe for good. There are possibly 20 total furloughs and 6 completely gone.  Terrific arts editor/writer Barbara Hoffman is also out. Same for Serena French, fashion editor.

Still roaming around, however, is former editor in chief Col Allan, still there as a Murdoch shadow to real editor in chief Stephen Lynch.

The horoscopes remain, as well. But they didn’t predict this.

Don’t start gloating that you “always hated the Post” and so on. For one thing, these people are all talented journalists whose contributions make the Post so regrettably readable every day. For another, the tabloid press is what saves New York from ignorance. If we just had the New York Times for information, no one would know a thing. The tabloids quickly expose scandals for better or worse. We need them more than you think. The reason Los Angeles lumbers along mired in unresolved crimes is that they have no tabloids. You can literally get away with murder there. Not in New York, where the tabloids will run down every lead and make sure all 8 million of us know about it. The Post and the Daily News must remain alive, like it or not.

Let’s hope that when the pandemic is over, and life returns to some normalcy, the Post will bring all of these people back.

PS A salute to the late Vinnie Musetto, who wrote the Post’s most famous headline, “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” We miss you, Vinnie!

UPDATED Another Bizarre iTunes Chart Jump: First It Was Mariah, Now it’s Madonna with 1994 Album “Bedtime Stories”

Roger Friedman
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UPDATED Another Bizarre iTunes Chart Jump: First It Was Mariah, Now it’s Madonna with 1994 Album “Bedtime Stories”

THURSDAY 12:30pm: LOL “Bedtime Stories” is number 1 right now. Through Tuesday night it has sold 87 copies, up from 70 the day before.  Mariah’s album has dropped to number 10. It was number 1 on Monday with just a few copies. iTunes has lost all credibility. Someone spent $170 on Madonna. I hope they’re happy.

EARLIER Last week, Madonna’s 1994 album, “Bedtime Stories,” sold 20 copies via streaming. This week, from Friday through Monday night, the same album sold 70 copies.

Somehow, “Bedtime Stories”– not a landmark recording– has landed at number 4 on iTunes tonight.

The Madonna album follows Mariah Carey’s “E=MC2,” which hit number 1 on Monday on iTunes even though its sales don’t reflect such a success.

Strangely, each of those albums– dormant for years– had a spike in sales on February 14th, then subsided. Now they’ve taken a second run at the top of the iTunes charts.

It’s the same, too, for Janet Jackson’s “Control,” from 1986. It was nowhere and is now number 7 or 8 on iTunes. Since Friday, “Control” has sold 337 copies. Last week, it sold 87.

None of the numbers for this week, for these divas’ old records, are comparable to current hit records. But somehow iTunes is counting them as top 10 hits. Three hit singers from the 1980s with fanatic fan bases. It’s likely not a coincidence. Someone is manipulating the iTunes chart.

The fan bases are all angry with me. They think I “hate” these singers or that I’m blaming the women themselves. None of it is true. But the peculiarity of the sudden jump in sales, the fact that the real numbers do not reflect these chart positions, and that they all had jumps on February 14th, raises a lot of questions.

The iTunes chart is often peppered with catalog albums. Right now there are some by the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Fleetwood Mac. James Taylor’s Greatest Hits got a bump, too. But that’s always attributable to something going in the media for the act. And those names I just mentioned are all in the news. Or their prices were deep discounted. But this is something else.

Some of the sales of old albums is also about the lack of new releases right now, and people looking for “comfort music.” But those three divas, and those particular albums don’t fit in that category. Whatever’s going on, it ain’t kosher. Will there be more of this? A Whitney Houston album? Stay tuned…

 

Cis Corman, Hollywood Powerhouse, Famed Casting Director, Barbra Streisand’s Closest Advisor and “Surrogate Mother,” Dies at 93

Roger Friedman
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Cis Corman, Hollywood Powerhouse, Famed Casting Director, Barbra Streisand’s Closest Advisor and “Surrogate Mother,” Dies at 93

Cis Corman has died at age 93 in New York. She was Barbra Streisand’s closest advisor, her BFF, a Hollywood powerhouse, and a famed casting director. I used to call Cis in the 80s and 90s about politics and Hollywood, she was a great sounding board and knew everything.

Apart from executive producing three Streisand films (Mirror Has Two Faces, Nuts, Prince of Tides) Corman was a major casting director. Her credits included Raging Bull, The Deer Hunter, Yentl, The Last Temptation of Christ, The King of Comedy, and one of my favorites, Author! Author!”

Corman told Vanity Fair about Barbra’s early days in a 1991 interview: “I didn’t know she could sing for two years. I met her when she was fifteen or sixteen at our acting class at the Curt Conway Studio. She was my maid-in-waiting in a play we did at the studio, Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning. We became her surrogate family. I had four kids. I had roots. I had a refrigerator full of food. Barbra’s appetite for work is only matched by her appetite for food. . . . She had come to the house and my husband and I were sitting around eating in the kitchen. She said, ‘Ya know, I’m going to enter a contest for singing.’ I said, ‘Why would you do that? You don’t know how to sing.’ She said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ ‘Well, sing for us,’ I said. It was rather a silly thing to say. She said, ‘I’m too embarrassed. Well, all right, I’ll sit on the table and look towards the wall.’ So she sat down and faced the wall and sang Harold Arlen’s ‘A Sleepin’ Bee.’ She turned around when she got through and we were drenched in tears. It was something I’ll never forget.”

This is a big loss. Condolences to her family and friends, and to Barbra.

Streisand wrote on Instagram tonight:

“I first met Cis Corman in acting class when I was 16! She was 32 and had four children. She remained my best friend and surrogate mother since then. I treasured our lifelong friendship, her intelligence, her taste, and her integrity. I loved Cis dearly and will miss her forever. She was also Auntie Cis to my son Jason.
Cis cast our first film for Barwood Films, Up the Sandbox. Cis went on to become a pre-eminent casting director for Marty Scorsese, Sergio Leone, and Michael Cimino. She was the president of my Barwood Films and Barwood Television which received several Peabody awards for our television projects, several of which were Emmy winners, including three Emmys for Serving in Silence about gender discrimination in the military. We shared the conviction that a film has to serve some key social purpose, and the issues addressed in our television projects included the significant and disregarded history of women in film, the importance of gun control legislation (our film about the Long Island train massacre), gay adoption and one about non-Jewish rescuers who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
I love you, Cis.”

 

View this post on Instagram

Rest in peace, dear Cis. I first met Cis Corman in acting class when I was 16! She was 32 and had four children. She remained my best friend and surrogate mother since then. I treasured our lifelong friendship, her intelligence, her taste, and her integrity. I loved Cis dearly and will miss her forever. She was also Auntie Cis to my son Jason. Cis cast our first film for Barwood Films, Up the Sandbox. Cis went on to become a pre-eminent casting director for Marty Scorsese, Sergio Leone, and Michael Cimino. She was the president of my Barwood Films and Barwood Television which received several Peabody awards for our television projects, several of which were Emmy winners, including three Emmys for Serving in Silence about gender discrimination in the military. We shared the conviction that a film has to serve some key social purpose, and the issues addressed in our television projects included the significant and disregarded history of women in film, the importance of gun control legislation (our film about the Long Island train massacre), gay adoption and one about non-Jewish rescuers who saved Jews during the Holocaust. I love you, Cis.

A post shared by Barbra Streisand (@barbrastreisand) on


 

UPDATE A New Jackson Family Scandal? Taryll Jackson Leaves Foundation Dedicated to His Late Mother, Tito’s Wife DeeDee

Roger Friedman
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UPDATE A New Jackson Family Scandal? Taryll Jackson Leaves Foundation Dedicated to His Late Mother, Tito’s Wife DeeDee

EXCLUSIVE UPDATE: The person getting the $33,000 salary is Henri Hebert, listed as executive director of the Dee Dee Jackson Foundation. Henri Hebert is listed on the imdb as a reality TV show producer whose last credit was 2015’s “The Jacksons: The Next Generation.” She has no background in running a charity. That $33,000 could be going to someone in need. But this is so Jackson family. Where do they find these people?

BREAKING: Taryll Jackson is one of the 3T’s, Tito Jackson’s sons, and Michael Jackson’s nephews. He and his brothers Taj and TJ (guardian of Michael Jackson’s kids)  had formed the Dee Dee Jackson Foundation in memory of their mother. Just now Taryll resigned from the foundation with a post on Instagram. Here it is. Keep refreshing. Dee Dee died in 1994 in a swimming pool. Four years later her boyfriend was convicted of murdering her.

The Dee Dee Jackson Foundation, only two years old, has just $25,000 in the till. No salaries were paid in 2018. But in 2017 when the balance for the year was $11K, salaries of $33,000 were paid to someone, unspecified in their Form 990 tax filing. Something fishy’s going on. But the Jacksons and charities were never a good match.

Taryll writes: “One of my biggest hurdles in life has been using my voice and standing up for myself. Something I’m working on and will exercise now. I am stepping away from DDJF/Power of Love Show. I love my Mother, the foundation we have created in her honor, and BOTH of my brothers. But if we can’t practice what we preach then what’s the point? People can say, think and assume what they want. I’m standing in my truth. It’s not easy and it’s not pretty, but it’s mine and I will learn from it, grow from it and be better for it. #love”

Stay tuned…

Mariah Carey Sales Mystery Ending as Fan Frenzy to Drive Album Up Chart with Discount Purchases Subsides

Roger Friedman
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0
Mariah Carey Sales Mystery Ending as Fan Frenzy to Drive Album Up Chart with Discount Purchases Subsides

Mariah Carey’s fans are no Einsteins, that’s for sure.

Their effort to push a twelve year old album to the top of the iTunes charts is subsiding today. “E=MC2” has dropped from number 1 to number 3. The party is over.

Yesterday, they — or someone — actually bought around 500 downloads worth of that album but it wasn’t enough to keep it at number 1. By tomorrow the 2008 recording should be on its way back to oblivion. The total through Monday night is 1,200 downloads. Someone spent $120,000 to make that happen. That’s Mariah’s budget for a week of nail maintenance.

If it was the fans– and they tell me on Twitter it’s them — I don’t get it. Why waste the money? Mariah Carey is loaded beyond your dreams. She’s not sending you the money. For 9.9 out of 10 fans, I think you’d gasp if you could see the way she– or any top stars– live day to day. It’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

When the chart week is over and it’s all counted up on Friday, “E=MC2” will not show up in the top 20 or maybe 30. The whole fraud will have been for naught. Congrats.

 

 

Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong Has Conquered Broadway, Now He Wants to Be on CBS Soap “The Young and the Restless”

Roger Friedman
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Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong Has Conquered Broadway, Now He Wants to Be on CBS Soap “The Young and the Restless”

Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong has already conquered Broadway with his musical, “American Idiot.” Now he wants to be Victor Newman. Armstrong told James Corden on last night’s “Late Late Show” that he wants to be on the CBS soap “The Young and the Restless” or “on a soap opera.” Corden offered to set him up on the show, which films for now in the same building. Armstrong also plays Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now” with his sons. The boys look younger than him, which is weird, but no weirder than anything else these days.

Irrfan Khan, Great Indian Actor, Star of “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Namesake,” “Salaam Bombay,” Dies at 53

Roger Friedman
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Irrfan Khan, Great Indian Actor, Star of “Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Namesake,” “Salaam Bombay,” Dies at 53

We’re waking up in New York to news that the great Indian actor Irrfan Khan has died in India at age 53. Two years ago he he was diagnosed with an neuroendocrine brain tumor. Somehow he managed to make one more film, called “Angrezi Medium,” that looks terrific. I hope it will get a western release with subtitles (although some of it is in English).

I met Irrfan when he starred in Mira Nair’s extraordinary film, “The Namesake,” in 2006. He’d been a star in India since debuting in Nair’s “Salaam Bombay” (now sadly known as “Hello, Bombay!” on the imdb). In the intervening years he’d become a big Bollywood star. But “The Namesake” was in English, and had all the right elements. Irrfan took off like a rocket.

I remember that after we met and I interviewed him in Toronto, we ran into each other in quick succession in New York and Los Angeles. Irrfan was laughing. “Wait,” he said, “I see you there and there and now here! How is that possible?” He was kidding, but wide eyed.

Two years later he starred in “Slumdog Millionaire” as the police detective who’s interviewing Dev Patel, and the rest was history.

Irrfan’s trajectory from then on was pretty incredible. He just never stopped working, whether it was in comedy or drama, Western or Eastern films. And he never changed. He was always that wide eyed happy presence with a gift for making his roles come alive and resonate on film. I was really thrilled when he turned up in “Jurassic World,” and we had a good laugh about how far he’d come. Among his other films were “Life of Pi,” and “The Mighty Heart,” with Angelina Jolie.

But he couldn’t beat the cancer. According to reports he was admitted admitted into the intensive care unit of Mumbai’s Kokilaben hospital on Tuesday with a colon infection. Irrfan is survived by his wife, Sutapa, and sons, Babil and Ayan. I doubt they will ever read this, but I hope they know how loved and respected Irrfan was, and what a loss this for movies and the friends he made over here.

PS Kal Penn, his “Namesake” co-star wrote on Twitter: “Irrfan’s art and humanity will be badly missed. Never seen someone use the beats of silence so beautifully to convey so much about who we are. Sending love to Sutapa and the family.”

 

 

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