Big Apple Dreamin' - On Tour with Alice Cooper

I've just finished reading Louder Than Hell, and it's a great book - as the cover blurb attests:

"THE BOOK EVERY METAL FAN SHOULD OWN" - Alice Cooper.

The authors employ first-person accounts to trace the evolutionary history of Metal from progenitors Blue Cheer, Mountain and Black Sabbath through the later strands of heavy-, NWOBH-, glam-, thrash-, industrial-, nu-, speed-, death-, dark-, black-, and dork-metal (plus hardcore and metalcore).

"I looked around and I noticed that everyone I was trying to be like was dead.  I went, 'I get it. Alice has got to be one thing. And I've got to be another.  I can't co-exist with Alice; Alice has to be a character I play onstage.'  When the curtain comes down, he doesn't really want to live my life, and I don't want to live his. He lives two hours a night on stage.  He doesn't play golf, he doesn't want to be married, he doesn't want children.  He doesn't like anything except what he does onstage, and you leave him up there.  To this day, we have a great relationship."

Vincent Furnier/Alice Cooper,

Louder Than Hell

!t Books, (C) 2013

In LTH, Alice Cooper earns Founding Father status for his early incorporation of dark on-stage symbology and theatrical make-up, both so widely and persistently imitated as to have become iconic.

Motif # 1

In early July, 1997 I was on business in NYC and staying at the Righa Royal Hotel on West 54th.  Waiting in the lobby for a colleague before heading out in suit & tie to the first meeting of the day, I was seated with Wall Street Journal in hand as Alice emerged from the elevator and walked briskly across the diagonal to the front door.

We shared the lobby for all of 5 seconds.  I instinctively dropped the Journal and rose from my chair.

Maybe I Scared Him . . .

Now, in the late 70's my college band got a lot of mileage out of playing School's Out every spring, blasting away on the quad following the last day of classes.  Naturally, I tried to yell out "School's Out!" but - in the excitement - could only produce a very loud and unintelligible grunt: "HHhnhguuhyaugghhnnt!"  If you've ever heard the Derek and Clive routine wherein Peter Cook describes the sound made by a rival fan whom he claims to have kicked "square in the bollocks!" at an Arsenal-Spurs game, that's the sound I made .  Maybe not unlike what Alice is used to hearing from the louts and punters 20-deep at the front in a general admission show.

He looked up, smiled and raised an eyebrow at me as he reached for the revolving door and exited into the New York City summer sunshine.

I like to think that he's wondered from time to time who that obstreporous clod in the suit was.

"Skyscrapers and subways and stations
Staring up at the United Nations

New York is waiting for you and me, baby
Waiting to swallow us down
New York, we're coming to see what you're made of ... "

Alice Cooper, 1972

Big Apple Dreamin

Also Part of the Scene:
Took A Trip In A Gemini Spacecraft: My Hollywood Dinner with Bowie and Iman.

In Love? with Sharyl Attkisson

Sharyl Attkisson Kozaki

She came to visit us at Discovery Channel when we were nobodies, and she was in her first (CNN) correspondent job, before then making her way with the big networks.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Now, Sharyl Attkisson's longtime employer CBS News is "irked" by her aggressive coverage on Benghazi, of which the White House and the HRC 2016 Election Committee are understandably wary.


Although we did not undertake any journalistic projects with Sharyl at the time, nor later, then (1991), she certainly made an impression.  Friends Steve Cheskin, Danny Salerno and Mark Kozaki in particular behaved as though they were smitten with Sharyl, almost to point of incapacitation.  Intrepid Mark petitioned her later at her CNN offices for pictures, and we all received them by mail with gracious thank you notes.

For all I know....

George Schultz: Marking History with the Secretary of State

NOT EVER

In May, 1993 (Bush 41 administration) as my wife and I waited with hundreds of others in line to enter the brand-newly opened Holocaust Museum, we had our line cut by statesman and former Reagan-era Secretary of State George Schultz.  Schultz had done a solid job as Secretary of State, supporting a president with an ambitious agenda for world change, at an important time, and was now between assignments.

We'd arrived early to be admitted when the doors opened.  It was about 20 minutes to opening time when up to the curb pulled a big black town car.  Out popped a couple of muscle-men, one springing to the door handle to release Schultz who strode purposefully right past us and into the museum.  What I recall was the brilliant shine of his black power-shoes.  He stomped right by and into the museum, getting a twenty minute head start on We, The Rabble.

. . . ?

The museum was then - and is now - a breathtaking monument to human strength, faith, soul, and perseverance.  I recommend it to anyone unafraid to confront the worst, and eager to be uplifted by the best, in human nature.

One of the memorable exhibits is a railroad transport car, through which one passes to enter a huge space that is overfilled with the confiscated shoes salvaged by the Nazis from the victims they murdered.  The room in which this huge trove of shoes was piled smelled of leather and death; it was overpowering.  Never Again.

We have come a long way in this country and the world, with Holocaust scholarship.

I feel privileged to live now in a town with a university that supports the endeavor of Holocaust study with the resources and collection of the recently opened the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies.

I never got to speak with Mr. Secretary - he blew right by us.  But twenty years later, I still recall the impression that his shoes left.

George Schultz

Secretary of State Comity Club

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, before which John Kerry appeared as a war protester in 1971, and of which he most recently has served as Chairman, today confirmed him in a comity vote as U.S. Secretary of State. 

The nomination will now go to the full Senate for another comity vote.

Electras wild-man bass player John Kerry (standing, left of drummer) - St. Paul's Academy, Concord NH, 1961

If you believe in diplomacy, then U.S. Secretary of State is a pretty influential role on the world stage.  I hope our next Secretary of State John Kerry, with whom I dined in style one evening, has as much success and influence as did Reagan Chief of Staff and G.H.W. Bush Secretary of State James Baker, with whom I attended church services, in his day (1989-1992).

With a reeeeeaaaal stretch, one could argue that Katherine Harris has been the most influential SOS in recent history - as the fifty State Secretaries of State each get to count the votes in their own state.  And after our history together, she's still my favorite among the three...

Mary Schapiro, My Favorite Commissioner

I normally don't call attention to a friendship with someone who's currently in a position of truly extraordinary importance, ... as my associations with some of the other notorious among the Celebrity tapestry could present them with - by what mathematicians call the associative property - a disastrous public liability!  But now that Mary Schapiro has resigned as Chairman of the SEC I can safely reveal that we are friends, and through the most political of Washington connections: the sleepovers, trick-or-treat nights, and classroom hi-jinks of our schoolgirl daughters.

Supply/Demand: D.C. Cupcake Wars

Mary and I were soccer side-liners for years and years as our girls were growing up.  We did our part in the school pageants, fundraisers and field days, and the girls got hula lessons at Mary's house one wild afternoon.  The year that I was a "classroom parent" (don't ever sign up for more than one tour of such duty, please!), we arranged for Ms. Mackie's 5th grade class to venture forth on a field trip from DC to NY, where Mary hosted them at her FINRA offices and arranged a bell-ringing at the stock exchange.  

Here's what Mary looks like when she's about to serve you a designer cupcake.  Or, in my case, two:

She's done a fantastic job getting the SEC back on solid footing.  I did have occasion to visit the SEC on business twice during Mary's tenure (although one of those times she had to duck out for an emergency summons to speak with friends in Congress), and I came away with greater respect for the work and mission of the institution, and of course reinforcement of the deep good feelings I already had toward my friend.  I'm due back there next month and I'll really miss her!

Power Play: look for six at the Sands Casino's high-stakes Texas Hold 'em table: Christina Romer, Paul Volcker, Dan Mudd, Tura Satana, Mary and me . . . !

Surf's Up: on the Flight Deck with Brian Wilson

The one and only, the great Brian Wilson.

In 1994, I was being recruited for a CEO job with Luna Imaging, an L.A.-based start-up with Getty funding.  Before my visit to meet the entrepreneur, when I would stay at Shutters on the Beach and get the pitch, I first snuck out to the coast for a screening meeting during a half-day stop-over in LAX with Gary Hromadko, the VC backing the venture.

We met in the American Airlines Ambassador Lounge and sat in the big lounge chairs.  There, sunk comfortably into a huge chair ten feet away with a confidante?  Brian Wilson!

Although I'd resisted my band-mate Dave's proselytizing in college about the Beach Boys, I eventually could admit I admired Brian - much more for his ballads than for the Beach Boy surf rave-ups.  Especially because he was secure enough, whole enough (or crazy enough?) to write and sing with great emotional vulnerability about fear, and alone-ness, and crying, and doubt, and hurt - in songs like "In My Room,"  "Girl Don't Tell Me,"  "Caroline, No" and " 'Til I Die."

Brian Wilson at the Bridge - on Sunset

Flash forward to 1994 and by this point in my life, I was a confirmed fan, but had not yet developed a complete appreciation for Brian's production genius that would be fulfilled when I came late to Pet Sounds, and - finally - when SMiLE finally had its 38-years-late release.  Still I felt I had a kindred spirit in that he was the only other person I knew of who admired and openly praised the Four Freshmen - to others they were Squaresville, 'though not to me, and Brian has always honored them as his harmonic inspiration.

Perfect Pitch

Gary and I spent a little over two hours talking.  Sometime before we wrapped up, Brian and his friend stood up, shook hands and parted.  As he walked away from us, I thought of the anonymous silhouettes, receding against the day-glo horizon, in the classic key-art poster from the Bruce Brown film "Endless Summer."

I was too awe-struck, and too much captive of the interview moment, to get up and introduce myself.  But I felt the warmth of his sun* ... and knew I'd now truly been in California!

Precision Genius

 . . . "Lately, I'd been depressed and preoccupied with death...Looking out toward the ocean, my mind, as it did almost every hour of every day, worked to explain the inconsistencies that dominated my life; the pain, torment, and confusion and the beautiful music I was able to make. Was there an answer? Did I have no control? Had I ever? Feeling shipwrecked on an existential island, I lost myself in the balance of darkness that stretched beyond the breaking waves to the other side of the earth. The ocean was so incredibly vast, the universe was so large, and suddenly I saw myself in proportion to that, a little pebble of sand, a jellyfish floating on top of the water; traveling with the current I felt dwarfed, temporary. The next day I began writing "'Til I Die", perhaps the most personal song I ever wrote for The Beach Boys...In doing so, I wanted to re-create the swell of emotions that I'd felt at the beach the previous night."

'Til I Die - Surf's Up, 1971

* Something interesting here.

On-Air with Diane Rehm

Diane Rehm at the mic. and kicking it

I took communion - or ate glazed donuts - as a member of St. Columba's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, with a variety of notables - Ray Suarez, Mort Kondracke, Judy Woodruff, and occasionally (C&E) James Baker.  Also in the lifeboat with us?  NPR's wonderful Diane Rehm.

Tea & Simit by the Bosphorus: and NPR on the radio!

Diane and husband John were among the faithful, and among the very involved.  I enjoyed meeting and getting to know Diane, and especially hearing her distinctive voice.  Mesmerizing!

We two exotics spoke once or twice about our shared roots in Turkey - she from Mersin and I, Istanbul - and in fact it was Diane who recommended the new Cafe Divan on Wisconsin Avenue, NW when it opened, as the place I must go for döner kabap.  She knew her stuff.

Today, at 11:00 a.m., Diane is presenting a fantastic program on Claude Debussy and I wouldn't miss it for all the world. Neither should you!

Mor-ton!! Backing up Mr. Kondracke in the Pew

Kondracke: One of the Last True Journalists

I became familiar with Morton Kondracke as many did in the 1980's, by watching The McLaughlin Group - in its time a jarring "pundit / shouter" show that seemed boisterous, but maintained a higher level of discourse et decorum than almost any of its 21st century cable news descendants.  By today's standards it is quaint, even dignified.  How we've devolved!

When I joined St. Columba's Church congregation, I eventually settled into a regular seat in the second pew, right of the aisle.  Mor-ton! was the regular in the first pew, with his dear wife Milly.

Over nearly ten years, we exchanged the peace hundreds of times.

Milly passed away in 2004.  R.I.P.

We also got to know each other just a bit.  For instance, I very much enjoyed a half-day enrichment session that he led at the church, organized by our rector Jim Donald, called "Working for the Common Good."  Mort led our small group in a series of explorations on finding soulful meaning in one's daily work.  Tom Chappell of Tom's (of Maine) Toothpaste also shared the couch with Morton for this nice and uplifting Saturday's exercise.

Mort has served as Executive Editor of both New Republic and Roll Call, written for the Wall Street Journal and appeared on numerous TV news outlets.  He got his start as President of The Dartmouth newspaper and incidentally, as a class of '60 grad, he overlapped there with Chris Miller in the Animal House era.  To-ga!

When I mentioned once that I knew him, my mother, a Morton fan, instructed me to ask him "What kind of a name is 'Kondracke,' anyway - Assyrian?"

Morton is a genuinely nice, committed, caring guy who works his tail off and thinks clearly about what he has to say before spouting off.

I admire Mort Kondracke!

Shot-Gun Buzz Aldrin: "Good Luck, Mr. Armstrong!"

All bid fond adieu to Neil Armstrong today in a solemn and private Ohio ceremony - our dignified American hero and first man to set foot on the moon.  No greater glory than this moment of human achievement.  I never met Neil...

Buzz, Buzz and BEYOND

But I did meet Buzz Aldrin! 

My team interviewed him for the Discovery Channel CD-ROM "Beyond Planet Earth" in 1992 and I got to know just what a hard-charging self-promoter this gent was.  We parked him in the studio at Capitol Video on Wisconsin Ave., and he delivered the goods.

Buzz: Moon as Steppingstone to Fame

He did lots of work for Discovery Channel in the early years, and on and on - appearing on-air, on the road, and in special events when we had space-theme programming to sell.

As gracious and reserved as small-step Neil was, that's how eager to make a giant leap for the limelight was ol' Buzz.  Since we were always looking for publicity, it suited us just fine.  Still, when I spoke with him, it seemed almost as though Buzz wanted us to forget that Neil had been down the steps ahead of him.

He'd ridden in the side-car, and it bugged him no end.

So I never met Neil, although when my friend David pointed out Neil's house up the block from his own in Spring Valley, DC to me, we stood in the road and gaped.  Like you and everybody else, I kept a scrapbook, drank Tang and watched TV rapt all night in July, 1969 as Apollo 11 touched down.

The Armstrong family has asked us all - everyone who looks up to the sky to dream, to wonder, or to fall in love - to peek at tonight's Blue Moon and think of Neil.  I will see you there.

"Ad Astra Per Aspera"

The eulogy that wasn't...

The legacy we love to believe...

And Buzz: Keep On Truckin' !

R.I.P. Mike Deaver, My Old Neighbor

Shopping Cart Week, III:

Mike Deaver, credited as the master media magician who helped to create the Reagan mystique, died five years ago today.

Mike Deaver, Deputy Chief of Staff to Ronald Reagan

A loyal conservative of whom Nancy Reagan said, "He was the closest of friends to both me and Ronnie in many ways ... he was like a son to Ronnie," Deaver's association with Ronald Reagan dated to California days.  Mike reportedly saved Reagan's life during a flight aboard a campaign plane in 1976, using the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge a peanut stuck in the Gipper's throat.

Shocked, I tell you!

Although I was not a fan of Deaver's at the time he served, and was not impressed by his perjury conviction afterward, he seemed to be a gentle and humble chap when we would run into each other in the SuperFresh grocery store at Yuma and 48th streets, NW - a block from the home where I lived from 1990 to 1998.

Everyone who's Anyone ... at SUPERfresh

As lone cart-pushers, we passed each other in the aisles so many times that, after a few years of this, we took to acknowledging each other with a standard-issue grin-and-nod.  Once, to finally break the ice I said to him, "I was hoping you'd be here!"  He laughed.

The next time we met in the cereal aisle, Mike said to me "I've been expecting you!"  I replied with the question "What time will we be shopping next week?"  Eventually, we introduced ourselves - "Mike" and "Tom," no last names.

We'll go no more a-shopping: Mike is gone, the SuperFresh market is gone, and I am long gone from Washington DC.

Rest In Peace, Public Servant

On-Island w/ Peter Barnes, the Nantucket Cat

 Arrival 5:00pm today!

With a three year old in tow, my wife and I were strolling out of Black Eyed Susan's on Nantucket's crooked little India Street after a fantastic stack of pancakes (batter made with a special ingredient - Orange Juice), when we spotted a small commotion next door in the children's clothing/toy store.

Turned out to be a book signing, and the kiddie-lit author was (then-)CNBC financial news correspondent Peter Barnes.

Nantucket Islander Peter Barnes

Got to shake hands and speak with him a bit, and we yakked about Washington DC where we then lived, and where he served then as host for the CNBC financial/political analysis show "Capitol Gains."  Today, Pete's the senior Washington correspondent for Fox Business News.  A class act, and a Nantucket fanatic.

Like An Ac-Ro-Bat

There is now an entire genre of formula-driven book titles for kids, with endearing characters (bears, dogs, etc.) set in resort locations.  For instance one can find Barnaby Bear in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Central Park, and probably by now in Aspen and Carmel.  Well, in June, 1997 the formula wasn't yet old and it was a refreshing novelty to find a book set on Nantucket.  Nat quickly became a family favorite.

We enjoyed this book dozens, perhaps a hundred or more times.   And we still recite the sing-song rhymes about Nat and his pal, Captain Pat, whenever prompted.

Pinning that Monkey Tail on Donna Rice!

You all remember the excitement in 1987 when a rare role model in the American Rhapsody, Yale Divinity School grad Gary Hart, dared the media to put a tail on him and try to substantiate the rumors that he was fooling around.  Well, Gary got his wish.


From Wikipedia:

Hart '88? Monkey Business '87!

Soon after meeting Rice, Hart announced that he would run for nomination as the Democratic candidate for President. Having enjoyed a surprisingly strong campaign in 1984 against the eventual nominee, former Vice President Walter Mondale, he was widely perceived as a front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 1988. However, rumors shortly thereafter began circulating about his having an extra-marital affair, leading the candidate to challenge the media to surveil him, and to also claim that anybody who did so would "be very bored." The day before Hart's dare to the media was to appear in The New York Times, however, two reporters for the Miami Herald observed Rice coming out of Hart's Washington, D.C. townhouse, and their story was published on the same day that his challenge appeared in the Times.

"President Hart"

While Hart contended that the reporters could have no knowledge of exactly when Rice arrived or why she was there, his popular appeal nevertheless suffered a major blow, and polls taken almost immediately afterward found him to be 10 points behind Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. Two days after their initial story, the Herald obtained a photograph of Rice sitting on Hart's lap in Bimini aboard a luxury motor yacht named Monkey Business lent by socialite Lillian Briggs. The celebrity tabloid National Enquirer immediately published the photograph, and within five days, Hart had decided to drop out of the Democratic Presidential nomination race.^[2][3]

Early on, a 'Marketing' career

Well, turns out that the comely Rice had tried her hand at a variety of callings.  She had been a marketing specialist in south FL for a pharma company before all the fuss.  After the fuss, she found an audience as celebrity endorser for No Excuses jeans, but by 1994 had found her true calling - protecting children from exploitation and abuse on the internet. 

For almost 20 years she's done a great job with Enough Is Enough, and she's still at it.

So it was in that mode and guise that Donna appeared, in 1998, and we came face to face.  I was out hob-nobbing at a big weekday-evening confab in Reston,VA with Mario Morino and the NetPreneur crowd when, Lo and Behold: Ms. Rice (by then Hughes, married to NoVa area venture capital guy Jack).

She was instantly-recognizable, very friendly, vivacious, and/but totally on-message.  I shamelessly referenced my then-four-year-old daughter to get the ball rolling, and eventually, artlessly, brought up politics (but not Presidential) - however, I couldn't get her out of trade-show-booth mode. . .

A bit like Jeannie Francis ?

. . . Just as well.

On a Wild Nantucket Sleighride with Roy Bailey

Time to dream, and dream, and daydream again about Nantucket Island summers.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad, and here's a Nantucket reprise in honor of my parents spending the week now in Wauwinet...

In the Bailey Studio...

In the 1960's, one of Nantucket's great artists-in-residence was Roy Bailey, whose upstairs gallery above Miltimore's Dress Shop was on the corner of Orange Street and South Main Street, just up from where Mitchell's Bookshop now sits, and below Murray's Toggery.

Gorgeous

My parents knew Roy through some good mutual friends - natives, I'm obliged to point out - and collected a few of his pieces.

James Dean-esque and seductively dashing, Bailey was active in the art and performing arts community, and a regular in the Opera House, where a good martini could always be had, and a Coke at the bar would cost you $1 in 1968 (at the time, it was $.10 or .15 everywhere else on the island!).

Sixties island hoi-polloi would congregate in the Opera House after sailing, for evenings of tale-telling and tail-chasing.  It was a swinging scene among the yacht club set, up-and-comers, and Snopeses of all stripes.

Porters' Quarters, 59 Fair

At the time, we had a place on Fair Street, a short stroll away.

Now, if you read your Melville, you know that a Nantucket Sleighride is local (early 19th century) slang for the ride you and your (possibly doomed) friends took once the leashed harpoon you'd hurled found its mark in the whale's flesh and he took you for a long and rough ride, sometimes for hours... sometimes to the bottom of the sea.  Reference Captain Ahab.

Gentlemen of a certain age know well, also, that "Nantucket Sleighride" refers to a 5:50 rock classic (blended ballad/dirge and riff-rock roarer) from the 1971 album of the same name by monumental heavy/dinosaur band Mountain (alternately, to its 32-minute cousin from the live "Twin Peaks" album, much and painfully inferior).  As Mountain were preparing to release the great (I think their best) album Nantucket Sleighride, the band either selected - or commissioned anew - an etching by Bailey to illustrate the inner album spread.

I'd stared at this illustration ['Drawing of a Nantucket Sleighride'] many times - but only years later, after college, did I notice the attribution and realize it was ol' Roy who'd 'drawn' it.

"Three years sailing on bended knee ..."

So when in 1998 while biking into town now on Vestal Street I spotted Bailey's shingle, I hustled in to find him, aging and a bit brittle.

We introduced ourselves and chatted about the 'golden age' of Nantucket for ten minutes or so.  Then I revealed my real interest - to buy a print of the Nantucket Sleighride key art.

"Wow!" he shouted - "it's been years and years since anyone has even mentioned that piece to me!  I didn't think anyone remembered.  I barely remember it myself!"

Visit the Nantucket Whaling Museum

He did not have the print to sell - for all he knew, it had gone ages ago to Davy Jones' locker.  We reminisced and he let me know the connection had come about through a Nantucket fellow - "young man, don't remember his name now, but might have been a Coffin descendant" - who was friendly with the band and knew of their fascination with Nantucket, whaling, and the story of the whaleship Essex, all inspirations for the album.

Here is a nice Father's Day themed article about Roy Bailey.

Roy passed away in 2002 but he lives on in the memory of many a Nantucket "Golden-Ager' . . . as does this particular work of his in the hearts and minds of many I'd venture utterly unwitting rock fans of 40 years ago!!

Heat Wave: My Ice-Cream Eating Marathon with Ben & Jerry

I Scream, You Scream - We ALL Scream for Ice Cream!

I got to crash a weekend-long confab of Ben & Jerry's "Scoop Shop" Operators, with ice cream for breakfast, lunch, dinner and every possible between-meal snack.

Irresistible Delight, served up by Dynamic Duo

Ben & Jerry were rewarding the operators for their hard work by taking over a conference facility near Phoenix, gathering the scoopers to celebrate their success, preview the coming new flavors and "novelties," exchange tips, and discuss all things ice cream.

The ticket? My piece of the multi-front effort to launch Animal Planet cable network was the development and publishing of Animal Planet CD-ROM, an animal encyclopedia and one of the first ever "internet-linked!" titles (animal video profiles on the disc connected to MS Encarta entries).  We'd cut a fun cross promotion deal with Ben & Jerry - they'd promote Animal Planet and give a $5-off coupon for the CD-ROM on the lid of every carton of Rain Forest Crunch (2 million units) and we'd promote Ben & Jery's by advertising a "free pint" coupon inside every CD-ROM package.

Save Rainforest by Eating

Usually I'd send the project manager on the road to do these previews.  In this special case, I pulled rank and went west to do the demo myself.

Those days and nights in Phoenix were long, and filled with ice cream.  The guys by then were fairly rotund (occupational hazard) and jolly (I'd be too), and Jerry in particular was genuinely interested in where we planned to go with the television network.  We discussed at length over Peace Pops - at the time, Animal Planet was envisioned to be a nature documentary and human/animal interest channel, and a strong advertising play.  Of course now it has become nothing but exploitative "reality"....  A violation?  Perhaps we were meant for each other (read on).

My afternoon demo followed the Marketing presentation:

Remember, Ben and Jerry's' well-earned brand promise is rich-tasting deliciousness based on innovative flavor combinations and mix-in's.  No one was ever going to look to B&J for vanilla (though their vanilla is unquestionably delicious).  But in spring 1996, the Marketing department had the idea that vanilla was the future for B&J.  Marketing Girl's logic? "People buy our pints, but we need market share of Ice Cream 'Occasions' - nobody's going to buy pints of NY Super Fudge Chunk to serve with the Thanksgiving pie, or at junior's 10th birthday party."

Ben & Jerry - Young Idealists

Well, that idea never panned out.  People don't look to Ben & Jerry's for vanilla (and if they do want a gallon of vanilla, they won't visit the scoop shop and stand in line to see it hand-packed).

Talk about following your bliss: here are a couple of ice-cream loving best friends from Merrick, NY who conquered the world of ice cream.

Cool Like a Brain-Freeze:
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were so "cool" they could, in corporate life, violate their socially-minded/counterculture identification with moves like the hiring of expert CEO Perry Odak from U.S. Repeating Arms Corporation (manufacturer of Winchester rifles), and ultimately the $326M exit sale to corporate megalith  Unilever.  Both were the right move, btw.

But now the duo are "Occupy Wall-Streeters" ...

Credit Where Due:

Come to Northampton MA, visit Herrell's, and meet Steve - the Albert Einstein behind the mix-in.  He selflessly schooled Ben and Jerry and they took the concept all the way to the bank.  But only Steve has the Hostess Cupcake Ice Cream Sundae...!

Discovering Mickey Hart

I am first and foremost NOT a "Dead-head."  My wife has dragged me to latterday Be-Ins with Furthur, RatDog, the Other Ones, and sundry spin-off projects but it isn't working.  I guess it's over my head.

WORLDBEAT IT!

Groovin' & Grateful

But in 1990 I really enjoyed meeting Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart a few times while he was forging his career as ethno-musicologist on the Smithsonian Institution's dime.  My close colleague Denise brought Mickey in to Explore Our World and develop a Discovery Channel TV miniseries co-production for our "People & Places" strand.  On one occasion, Mickey had worked a hat-trick on his DC tour - an honest day's work at the Smithsonian, a pop-in to see us at Discovery, and then a performance at the Cap Center.  After our afternoon meeting, my colleagues went to the show; I passed.

Mickey had great energy and charisma.  He was comfortable pitching and fielding ideas - not desperate nor conniving as was the case with some of the shysters who came to Landover to shill projects.

A real delight to get to know.

Mickey gave me a 4-CD set of project work that he had produced, which I later gave away in a lead-up to courtship with Mrs. Porter.  In the end, Mick and our gang did not work out a TV deal.  But no matter: Mickey was busy establishing what now amounts to a tremendous cornerstone in the World Music movement, in partnership with Smithsonian.  Some of this stuff is interesting, although it doesn't have the "razor edge" that I usually listen for...

... and I still lack the Vision to appreciate the Dead or their ilk!

But check out the Mickey Hart Band if that's your cup of T . . . .

One More Degree from Breitbart: On-Site with Soledad O'Brien

Up the Down Staircase/In Thru Out Door

She looks more than a bit shrill, shilling for the President on CNN last night, over the BreitbartTV release of Vetting, part I (of ___n.?)

. . . but in 1997-1998 she was a cute and perky hostess of a wacky show on new cable network ZDTV (later TechTV; later than that: G4).

Youthful Indiscretion

The show was called The Site, and was conceived to be a little bit like the TV equivalent of then-popular Yahoo! Internet Life magazine.  Our Soledad led the microscopic but hyped-up audience through a travelogue of sorts: a tour and review of neat websites.

Lordy, How We've Grown

It was my good fortune to work with the ZDTV-ers to launch and distribute the channel.  In the early days we spent a lot of time working and hanging out in the cool studio in San Francisco.  The internet was hot, The Site was new, and Up and Down the Spiral Staircase we ran, like giddy schoolkids.

Soledad and I were introduced and she won me over with her friendly smile, and funny name.

We didn't know each other well, nor for long, but I still perk up when I see her and I imagine she would make a worthy sparring partner.

The CNN implosion over the Breitbart "Vetting" video is striking - because she's usually a very good feature reporter.

Oh well!

Jobs for One and All - Walter Isaacson in Silicon Valley

Steve Jobs - Genius

Lots of hooting and hollering today about the new Steve Jobs biography.  I can't wait to read it!

Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson (he's also written bio's of Ben Franklin and Al Einstein) is a fixture of the American literary-intellectual firmament.  Within Time Inc. he helmed TIME Magazine and later CNN; more recently he's been head of the prestigious Aspen Institute.

"The Thinker" - Stanford's Cantor Arts Center

In the autumn of 1994 while he was "Editor of New Media" (a passing fancy) at TIME, Walt was invited to appear on the Stanford University campus for Della Van Heyst's vaunted Stanford Publishing Seminar (Della happened to be romancing FORTUNE Magazine, at the TIME).  I too was invited to join the same panel.

A fresh-faced Cardinal MBA student picked me up at SFO, whisked me to the campus and I wandered in the Rodin sculpture garden - to which I would return in 1997 - before joining the gang for a cookout preceding the evening program.  Walt appeared at the dais with tech reporter/author Kara Swisher, WSJ tech reviewer Walt Mossberg, and me - then Publisher of Discovery Channel Multimedia.

Our most interesting exchange that night, prompted by my observation during discussion of the future of books and magazines, concerned whether writing for interactive media was best and most creatively accomplished 'from whole cloth,' versus when adapted from literary source material.

One half of this Hollywood dichotomy is "Best Writing - Original Screenplay" (in 2011, David Seidler for The King's Speech) - from 1976 to 1978, in a fit of disclosure, the Academy formally referred to this category as "Screenplay written directly for the Screen - Based on factual material or on story material not previously published or produced").  The flip side of course is the Oscar for "Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay" (Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network - from Ben Mezrich's Accidental Billionaires).

Birches not Aspens - Walt Isaacson

At the time I was trying to negotiate a license with Warner Brothers for a CD-ROM tie-in with the upcoming Twister film, and separately (personally) developing a screenplay concept: a re-make of a film that had originally been produced in the mid-60's based on a 1950's Cold War novel. As he was then a Time-Warner executive-suite guy, I drew Walter out on the development processes at HBO and Silver Screen Partners.

I got the T-shirt...

The earnest Stanford kids pursued the thread, lobbing in some excellent comments and questions.

Walter was a nice guy - made some trenchant observations in his interesting New Orleans accent that is bent a bit conspicuously to the Brahmin by time spent in Cambridge.  He came off as pompous, I then thought . . . but not without solid justification, I now think!

Isaacson and I later shared the panel dais again in April, 1995 at the Software Publishers' Association confab in Atlanta.  More of the same, and a lot of fun!

Walt definitely got the big "get" with this book from Simon & Schuster.  Here's an excellent NPR story and interview from Fresh Air.  At this moment when "jobs" are the biggest issue of the election season, and "Jobs" the departing icon of American ingenuity and growth, can the biography fail to captivate?

  I think not !!

Steve Jobs - Zen and the Art of Innovation