I Married One of Leonard Nimoy's Secret Selves!

Lisa, by Nimoy

Turns out I am now married to a celebrity.

Leonard Nimoy photographed Lisa in late 2008 (and talks about her here), to reveal her 'true identity' in his Secret Selves project, opening at Mass MoCA on Sunday, August 1 (Members' preview reception today). At Leonard's stunning Full Body Project exhibit at Michelson Gallery, I asked him about the reaction he'd gotten - mine having grown intensely positive. "Men - nearly universally - are first curious and then deeply intrigued and moved. Women are universally terrified!"

You remember Leonard Nimoy, don't you? He wore those funny ears... when he performed on Broadway in Equus!

Wrigglin', Wranglin' Charlie Rangel

Oy, nischt git! Like Captain Ahab, this sham artist plunges ahead to trial, and seals a fitting legacy of total disgrace. I warned him...

Strolling proudly up 5th Avenue in NYC during the annual Israel Independence Day Parade on Sunday, May 14, I heard a commotion as we passed a reviewing stand on the shoulder of Central Park at 68th street. "Charlie Rangel! There's Charlie!" I wheeled toward the commotion. What unBELIEVable audacity, I thought, but heading uptown we'd crossed into his district, and why shouldn't he come out to pander?

This cat was conked. In person, the hair was incredible: slick, silver, like a chrome helmet: "That phony, lye-conked, metallic-looking hair," as Alex Haley described the process. I was already past him as our eyes met, each of us beaming. I started to lift my right hand in his direction. His eyebrows went up, a big smile began to break, and his arm began to rise in salutation - my right index finger extended to find its target - we were only 15 feet apart as I smiled too, and bellowed "YOU'RE GOING TO JAAAAAAAAAIL !!!"

Sooner or later, justice is gonna gitcha, Charlie!

UPDATE: November 16, 2010

JUSTICE SERVED (and PROPHECY FULFILLED?) - GUILTY ON 11 COUNTS

Godspeed, Tucker Carlson

I nearly met Tucker Carlson!

My degenerate (Harvard-credentialed) best friend has angled for years to get close enough to take a swing at this guy. But I happen to admire Tucker - and even moreso now, that he and The Daily Caller have broken the JournoList political reporters' collusion scandal.

In late 2000 as the internet bubble was bursting and my start-up WomensNewsLink.com was suffocating without second-round investment, events led me to the beautiful wooded McLean, VA home of Dick Carlson, a Washington 'dean' if there ever was one. I'd been briefed with his 30+ page "Curriculum Vitae," a bottomless trove of publications, appointments, and towering professional achievements including past President of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Director of Voice of America, and past U.S. Ambassador to the Seychelles. Dick's delightful intellect brought to mind my father's Professorial milieu and colleagues back at the academy, as we chatted in the sunlight-splashed living room for most of a late Friday afternoon. The spacious home was both rustic and stately, with a huge glassed floor-to-ceiling display of (what? - swords? walking sticks? wine bottles?) in the foyer.

As I rose to leave, there on a small side table was a sterling silver frame with a black and white portrait of a bow-tied young man, whom I instantly recognized as Tucker Carlson - then on CNN with Bill Press hosting a hysterical new show called The Spin Room.

Much more recently, Tucker's young kids entered the same school that my own daughter had attended from 1999-2008, but by then we had moved away from Washington DC. So although I feel a connection, we haven't met. Yet!

George Steinbrenner, R.I.P.

In the winter of 1982 I was a wide-eyed young man working in Washington DC, and lucky enough to have my esteemed boss Bob Schmidt introduce me to the notorious owner of the New York Yankees club, George Steinbrenner.

Bob and I had attended a Paul Kagan Pay TV Sports conference that day. MLB teams were all joining with basketball and hockey franchises and local cable companies, forming regional TV networks (SportsVision, NESN, Box Seat, Prime Ticket & Home Team Sports all emerged at this time), and our little firm CTM represented the Yankees organization in its negotiations with Cablevision-owned SportsChannel. At 5:00pm we sat in the atrium bar of the Omni Shoreham hotel – the same Shoreham immortalized by Jim Bouton in Ball Four as a locus of Yankee debauchery in the Mickey Mantle 1960’s. Over an hour we three had a couple of drinks apiece and I sat rapt, listening as these two jocks shot the breeze about the Yankees’ prospects for 1983 (it would be third place, 7 games in back of the Orioles but still ahead of the Red Sox, 20 games out), how Washington had fared since the Senators departed for Arlington TX, and the competitive, brutal personal disdain in which the ballclub owners held one another. I admired the World Series ring on his notably delicate fingers.

Mr. Steinbrenner then shared a fresh anecdote: during the preceding weekend, he had been visiting his daughter Jessica, then a student at Sweetbriar College in Lynchburg VA, 3 ½ hours south of Washington. This interested me because at the time I was dating a lovely French girl who’d have been Sweetbriar class of 1983 but had been invited to leave the institution due to misbehavior early in her career. In any case George, while in a restaurant “trying to enjoy a soda with my daughter,” was approached by a woman patron who smiled and politely said “I’m so sorry to interrupt you - but I hope you won’t be too insulted by this: has anyone ever told you how much you look like that awful George Steinbrenner?” I hooted at his response – “In fact I have heard that a couple of times before, Ma’am, and I always try to take it as a compliment!”

Before settling down to business the next time I am at Fenway Park, I shall try to enjoy a soda, in his honor. This Red Sox fan found Mr. Steinbrenner to be a humble and charming man. I’m glad that I met him.