Goth Heat Before Elvira? Carolyn Jones

Morticia attends sweetly to the manic, leering Gomez

Do you remember some of the bizarre things that people brought to school for "Show & Tell"?

My fourth grade classmates showed up with snakes, geodes, SSP Racers, Creepy Crawlers, and a cat skeleton. But the coolest thing I ever was "shown & told" was when my classmate Terry Moriarty produced her aunt, Carolyn Jones - famous as Morticia Addams in the TV series The Addams Family.  Auntie graciously entertained us, even camping it up a bit as she led us in some vampy finger-snapping (though not in costume)!

When we "met," Carolyn was between marriages (she'd been Aaron Spelling's first wife, divorcing in 1964). She advised us all that, if we liked The Addams Family and were ready for something more "literary," we try Dark Shadows. I never saw the appeal.

As a 10 year old boy, I was only beginning to understand what the excitement was all about - but had already sorted the 1960's brunettes into a mental toybox: Julie Newmar, Yvonne Craig, Peggy Fleming, Claudine Longet, Barbara Feldon, Diana Rigg, Karen Carpenter, Stefanie Powers and, shortly ... Susan Saint James.  By the time years later that Elvira emerged... I was altogether primed.

Happy Hallowe'en !!!

Going to School with Paul Volcker

"Worried about inflation? I've been worried about inflation ever since I went to college and my mother would give me an allowance that wasn't big enough, in wartime"

(Paul Volcker, Princeton '49 - on October 26, 2010)

When Giants Walked The Earth: Thirty years ago, Paul Volcker strode the stage with my graduating class at Hamilton College ('80) as he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.  Yesterday, I had the chance to recite for him his words that had inspired me that day, about the role of the entrepreneur in society, when I met the towering former (1979-1987) Federal Reserve Bank Chairman at the Global Absolute Return Congress in Boston.

Towering? This gentleman is 6' 7" tall.  Up close, he struck me instantly as a gentle, very elegant vulture, a Leonard Baskin man/bird hybrid.  He's a warm guy, and he was touched that someone would remember that day, and his particular honor: "It was really the first time I received one of those!" When I mentioned that he'd used a word that day that one of my freshly-educated classmates had never heard before, Paul the cut-up asked me, "Was it 'integrity'?"

Today Volcker is 1st Chair of President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Porter / Volcker - Haircut Review:

The Volcker Rule:  Noting on the spot that he clearly continues to have such a soft spot in his heart for my alma mater, and with nothing to lose (but principal), I took my chance to ask Dr. Volcker his advice on investment strategy for the Hamilton College endowment.

"Well how much is it?"  "About $540M, down from $743M before the crisis."  "Hmm... about a 25% haircut - not too bad."  "Anything in particular that they should be doing?"  "Keep doing what they're doing!"

Commencement Program - Hamilton College, Clinton NY, May 25, 1980 / October 26, 2010

See Also: Christina Romer and the Economics of Celebrity

               Ben Stein and I: Watergate Co-Conspirators

Camelot on the Connecticut, Act 1: John F. Kennedy

This is one of those "tenuous" posts, wherein the connection between me and the person in question is a bit ... stretched.  Thank you for granting me the license to make this attenuation:

Ready for the 100-yard drive uphill to speak at AC Cage

On this day in October 1963, President John F. Kennedy came to our town, to speak at the groundbreaking for the new Robert Frost Library, to be built at the head of the beautiful Amherst College quadrangle.  The "young and gallant" Kennedy was repaying a favor to Frost, the President's favorite American poet, who'd recited his poem The Gift Outright at Kennedy's inauguration in January, 1961.

Frost passed away two years later, and on this day was to be honored with the commemoration, after his decades teaching at Amherst College.

My parents were invited to attend the event, within walking distance of our home.  With an out of town commitment that weekend, they blithely decided, "We'll catch the President another time."  Were my brother and I, at ages 4 & 3 and in care of a weekend babysitter, in position as the President's helicopter touched down on the baseball field and the presidential Lincoln whisked him to the quad for his appearance? Our beloved sitter Kate McGrath insists yes! The event is so mythic as to be apocryphal, and my memory is not clear.

JFK's words delivered that day are enshrined on the Kennedy Center's River Terrace in Washington DC:

I LOOK FORWARD TO AN AMERICA WHICH WILL REWARD ACHIEVEMENT IN THE ARTS AS WE REWARD ACHIEVEMENT IN BUSINESS OR STATECRAFT. I LOOK FORWARD TO AN AMERICA WHICH WILL STEADILY RAISE THE STANDARDS OF ARTISTIC ACCOMPLISHMENT AND WHICH WILL STEADILY ENLARGE CULTURAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL OF OUR CITIZENS. AND I LOOK FORWARD TO AN AMERICA WHICH COMMANDS RESPECT THROUGHOUT THE WORLD NOT ONLY FOR ITS STRENGTH BUT FOR ITS CIVILIZATION AS WELL.

Local folklore has it that, on the way out of town, Kennedy's entourage stopped at Stan's Drive-In Market in Hadley and the President left with a short-order burger in a sack. Always, I have been fascinated by what may have transpired in those quick minutes by the roadside. Twenty seven days later, he was gone forever.

All summer long in 1977 I worked many days at the serene Frost Library, proofreading and fact-checking a book on Ralph Waldo Emerson, and I never - not once, ever, that summer, nor ever since - entered this building without feeling awe at the power and might of the intellects conjoined on that October day.

* Daria D'Arienzo, supreme Amherst College archivist, documents the 10/26/63 on-campus proceedings here, although she does not confirm details on the hamburger...

See also: Camelot on the Connecticut, Act 2: Liz and Dick Booze Cruise
                Camelot on the Connecticut, Act 3: ... Slept Here 

R.I.P. Bob Guccione - An Afternoon in Caligula's Lair

The publishing world lost a giant today. I am proud that I met paesano Bob Guccione

It was 1991 and Discovery Channel was having continued success with our primetime Science block, and the strategy was to get away from one-off's and look for branded collaborators with pre-promoted appeal.  This led to exploratory sorties or projects with Disney-owned Discover Magazine, James Burke, Arthur C. Clarke, and other recognizables.  But the most fantastical of these discussions is the one that led Clark Bunting, Denise Baddour, Tim Cowling  and me to stroll one brisk autumn weekday afternoon up 67th street off the park in NYC and into the 22,000 sq. ft. Guccione manse for a meeting with Bob and his wife Kathy Keeton.

Bob had summoned us to discuss "putting Omni magazine on TV."

Once inside, we stepped up wide marble stairs, past enormous amphorae to a regal Great Hall: carpeted, gilded and decorated with enormous classical statues.  The home was populated by at least 4 very large, copper colored dogs of Great Dane dimension.  The dogs lounged with us.  Bob and Kathy sat in thrones, it seemed, and we reclined like Roman senators.  The only thing missing was a languid Penthouse Pet to feed me grapes from above....  Somehow in the smalltalk phase we identified that both his family and my mother's had emigrated to Joisey from southern Italy - mine from Naples and his from Sicily - and we talked about spectacular Greek ruins in Taormina, Agrigento, and Siracusa, spots I'd visited while living in Sicily years earlier.

Then we got down to brass knuckles and velvet gloves.  Bob was the consummate businessman: totally focused, impressively literate and knowledgeable on the wide range of scientific subjects covered in Omni, and a keen Discovery Channel viewer.  He was clear and deliberate about what he wanted, and understood that we'd want corresponding benefits. 

There was development follow-up with Omni super-editor Patty Adcroft, and a few more conversations, but the vines that we watered that day ultimately bore no fruit.  Bob was bold and genuine in his pitch; the timing just wasn't right for our budding little original production unit to engage on a large seven-figure commitment, or to properly promote the resulting series.  Like so many development discussions, it was great while it lasted, but the first flush of promise came to naught and the event exists as a bit of a one-afternoon stand.

I never had any dealings with Penthouse magazine - that is, no professional dealings - but did have an awkward moment in 1987 when Vestron Video, publisher of both the National Geographic's home video line and Penthouse Video, used a cut-rate duplication vendor who mixed up some tapes on the assembly line, resulting in one of our National Geographic customers opening a Nat Geo box, popping a tape into the VHS deck and getting an eyeful of Keisha Dominguez and Teri Weigel. Survival being of the fittest, in the end, we all survived.  And thrived.

Obituary:   The King is Dead - Long Live the King!

Robbin Crosby: Ratt Infestation at Radio City Music Hall

Through a close connection at MTV Networks, I scammed two tickets to the 2nd Annual (1985) MTV Music Video Awards.  The scene: screaming with the throng at the red carpet, fighting for drinks in the upper lobby, talking my way to the backstage media area with my National Geographic employee ID card ("SURE it's a press credential!") and being floored by Run DMC's performance in black suits, hats and white Adidas.

The Infestation Has Begun...

As the smoke cleared and the barricades fell at the end of the event, I vaulted the center section, 4 rows back from the stage, and found myself shoulder to elbow with 6' 5" red-leather-clad Ratt guitarist Robbin "King" Crosby.  Now I was a wild Ratt fan but I always thought Warren Dimartini had a hotter pick than Robbin; nevertheless, there was the King and I smartly exclaimed "Hey! Robbin Crosby!  Wow, man, it's great that you're here!"  What a dopey thing to say.

Crosby looked at me and beamed. Clearly out of his mind.  "Cool, man, yeah that's right!"  He slapped me on the back with his pick hand as we shuffled past each other in the row.

In his heyday, Crosby played a Gibson Flying V and later teamed up with Jackson Guitars who manufactured a custom axe they named the "King V" in his honor.  Lucky fellow Robbin dated Tawney Kitaen for 7 years and allegedly fought O.J. Simpson over her. In time he succumbed to drug problems, eventually contracting 'needle' AIDS, and he died in 2002 of a heroin overdose.  He weighed over 400 pounds at the time of his death.

"When I die, nobody cry at my funeral, in fact let's all have a party; I've lived the life of ten men. I lived all my dreams and more." (R.C.)

Condi Rice Made Me an Extraordinary Offer!

We Hit It Off ...

T'was a dream job, at a dream time: Stanford University recruited me as Director of Educational Technology Ventures in late 1997, to organize and assist ed/tech start-ups that Stanford undergrads, grad students and faculty were dreaming up, by facilitating connections with Sand Hill Road investors.  In fact the HR office shared a parking lot with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers - just breathtaking (if such things leave you breathless).

So between October and March I visited campus 4 times, was offered the position and hunted for real estate.  My boss would be Mariann Byerwalter, a star Cardinal grad who'd been way up in Bank of America and had come back to the alma mater as CFO to engineer the Stanford Hospital & Clinics consolidation and oversee Business Development. My four year old daughter would one day go to Stanford for free, and in free time I'd mill about among the Burghers of Calais, pondering life in the Rodin sculpture garden....

Following our second visit, Mariann led me to a small office for a private meeting with her boss, the Provost.  The go-between from Diversified Search of Philadelphia had alerted me that this Provost with a funny first name was a brilliant Sovietologist and a Washington insider rumored to be on the short list for a cabinet post, should GWB emerge as the candidate (odds were long at that point, three years ahead of the 2000 election).

...on sale today

What a sharp, friendly and modest person I met - extraordinarily intelligent, extraordinarily humble.  We scoped the vision for the Tech Ventures office, and the spirit of innovation on campus (without parallel in my view), and then Condoleezza and I shot the breeze about Washington DC: the Kennedy Center, restaurants she missed (Cities, B. Smith's, and we both loved the Belmont Kitchen), and her old Massachusetts Avenue apartment a short walk from my home in NW.  Only three years later did I fully realize how much I'd NOT said, how little reason I'd given her to think me worthy of the job.  Somehow, though, at the end of that hour she initialed Mariann's hiring recommendation and we shook hands as soon-to-be colleagues.

The recruiting process was a long one, and it happened that during this time my marriage was coming to an end. As circumstances changed, I had to reconsider the move and decline the offer.  It is the single career choice that I have looked back on with wistfulness.

Lots of my friends still obsess angrily about "W," but even they have to admit - 'though they do so secretly - that Condoleezza Rice has more class and grace than just about anyone who finds a calling in public service.

Watch this video and you'll see why I will ALWAYS be a Condi fan!!!

The Day We Moved Charlie Rich's Piano

"Who is the coolest guy, what is, what am?

That's fast-talkin', slow-walkin', good-lookin' Mohair Sam"

In '79, my girlfriend's family visited her older brother in Nashville, TN and I - on college spring break - tagged along.  Big bro' Casey Kelly, an accomplished singer and songwriter, took me to Randy Wood's Ol' Time Pickin' Parlor (combo custom instrument shop & bluegrass nightclub) and other points of interest.  Then Casey asked me to join his gang to move a piano (from one room to another in the same house).  Turned out to be Charlie Rich's house!

The Silver Fox was not home, and once we got behind closed doors we quickly did our job and then went on with our charmed lives.

Sample a rare, early (Elvis-era Sun session) Charlie Rich tune:
Courtesy of PowerPop: Key Changes of the Gods: "From 1959, please enjoy the great Charlie Rich -- one of the most unjustly underrated figures of American popular music in the second half of the 20th century -- with his infectious minor regional hit "Whirlwind"...

My Night in Sri Lanka with Arthur C. Clarke

"Would you believe in something beyond your understanding?"

- Russ Meyer, 1967

During the early 1990's we had a good run on Discovery Channel with supernatural, or "paranormal" themes, eventually building a regular program block and airing occasional Sunday night showcase Specials.  The success of Shark Week (all hail the maestro, Steve Cheskin) begat Aliens Invasion Week.  Paranormal show ratings were abnormally solid, and the advertisers loved the block.  A big reason for this was the audience that "spontaneously generated" upon the premiere of Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World in 1990.

As I was then directing the production management department and would also oversee selling the videotapes to viewers, I participated in the meet&greet telephone call to convince Sir Arthur to dust off his 1980 British (Yorkshire/ITV) series and allow Discovery to re-cut it for cable TV.  Arthur had ex-patriated to Sri Lanka, so that's where we tracked him down.

It was a weird call: at ACC's request we scheduled the call at 6:30am his time - 9:00pm ours (yes, he was nine and-a-half hours ahead).  My hilarious boss (Clark, no "e") gathered us in a dreary interior Landover, MD conference room, turned on the Polycom, and turned out the lights.  He produced a spooky flashlight and we clowned around with it during the call, like runny-nosed kids around a campfire - Clarke's dis-embodied voice floating in from Sri Lanka, his pronouncements all pretty ... inscrutable.  We made the deal though.  It was my only contact with the spirit world.

A.C. Clarke's brilliant science fiction stories opened minds to possibilities beyond reality, beyond imagination.  They are still changing perception today.  Mysterious World was one of the Discovery Channel shows that I actually watched, and loved!

Scientist/futurist before becoming a fiction writer, Clarke envisioned for the first time ever a system of orbiting, geostationary communications satellites.  The vision was realized decades later and is the basis for Discovery Channel's (and HBO's, and Fox News', and everyone else's respective) multi-billion-$$ businesses. Clarke himself never made a ha'penny on the idea - but he published it first here in 1945, in Wireless World.

"It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible. When this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them."

- Arthur C. Clarke, 1963