During the summer of 2001, I spent many days in a cramped 5th Avenue Manhattan office above 42nd street working with hard-core music/entertainment entrepreneurs building Artist Network Ventures, a US/UK based concern with heavy hitter (Mike Philipp, Quincy Jones, Dave Stewart) backing. In fact we toiled all day September 10th running between the offices and the AN board meeting at the St. Regis hotel a dozen blocks north. Among the motley crew: Hooman Majd, then most recently Head of Film & Music at Palm Pictures and previously EVP at Island Records (U2, Melissa Etheridge).
The next morning, all hell broke loose. I'd canceled a Tuesday morning meeting in SoHo to return very late Monday to DC by train, but was safely away from the Pentagon; NY office-mate Larry Werner described the scene on 5th Avenue for me and set about by week's end to re-open the business, with Hooman's help and others'.
I enjoyed knowing Hooman, who was clearly too deep a thinker to be toiling in the music biz. Here's an interesting account I found, of Hooman's views following the surprising elections in Iran in 2008. The new book promises to be highly intriguing.
Yours truly is as repulsed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as anyone in the US can be. But Hooman is the real deal: "100% Iranian and 100% American." I'm happy to know that he's got his finger on the pulse-beat, as Iran is so fascinating and influential a factor in the world of the 21st century.
UPDATE: Ahmadinejad's UN rant and Hooman's coverage in Daily Beast, here.
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