Consciousness-Raising with Ted Turner

Ted Turner believes that men should be barred from holding elected position for the next one hundred years.  I guess he now feels that women are suited to positions of true professional and public leadership.  Nice to see Ted's thinking on the matter has "evolved."

Sail On, Sailor

In February of 1985, I helped my boss, President of the Washington DC chapter of Women in Cable, organize a luncheon speech that Ted headlined, where he proceeded to lecture the assembled 95%+ female crowd:

"Can't believe these girls down at CNN who go out an' have a baby and then want to come back to work after two weeks, put that little baby with a nanny?!?  It's crazy!  Now it's a fact, a proven FACT, that a baby needs its mother's love - not its father's love, not "a Parent's" love - its Mother's love!  Mama's gotta stay home with that baby!"  One of the professional ladies present politely cleared her throat and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Turner, but I would hope that - at least after they have borne a child - you would refer to these female employees of yours as 'women,' not 'girls.' "

"Naaaah, now, listen, Honey...  lemme explain..."  (Collective gasp and disintegration of crowd).  I admired his confident, self-destructive impulse.

But we'd met before.  In 1982 I was writing business plans at CTM for pay-TV sports networks, and we were trying to package a roll-up of all the regionals into SSN, the Super Sports Network.  Ted was then at war with acting Commissioner of MLB Bud Selig because of the rogue move of pulling his games out of the MLB network TV deal to feed his own channel.  We thought, correctly, that he was likely to opt out of SSN (as would the Cubs and Mets, building similar superstation deals with WGN and WOR respectively); nevertheless, Turner and our CEO Bob Schmidt were old jock buddies and Ted came by our offices in McLean, VA to learn more about the SSN plans.

Ted strolled into Bob's corner office, and I wandered by.  "Porter, get in here!" yelled Bob.  "Got someone I want you to meet!"  He introduced me to Captain Outrageous, telling him I was an up and coming second baseman or some such nonsense.  We yukked it up a bit and then Bob said to Ted, "I had your friend Bud in here last week," and pointed at the desk, where a new Rawlings baseball sat on a display stand.  Ted stared at it, scowled, picked it up an tossed it a few times in the air.

Commish Strikethrough

"Gotta pen?"  Bob pulled the Mont Blanc from his shirt pocket.  Ted grabbed it, boldly slashed a line through Bud Selig's autograph, signed his own, and handed the ball back to Bob.

In a later life, Ted launched our National Geographic EXPLORER series on TBS where it anchored the Sunday evening prime-time block, and he supported it generously for many years, always taking a personal interest, joining (and commandeering) the quarterly planning meetings, and treating us to CNN studio tours he personally led, and to Braves and Hawks tickets whenever we came to town.  He loved National Geographic like a young Indiana Jones.

Only women in elected office?  Maybe ol' Jane Fonda got through to him.

Glamour and Boldness - A Pairing That No One Could Have Predicted

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....

Swing Time in the NBC Commissary with Betty Furness

Dapper Fred, Glamorous Betty

She danced with Fred "Lucky Garnet" Astaire (Swing Time, 1936), and had a good run in the 30's as an RKO contract player. 

But by the time I came along, Betty Furness had served as a consumer protection advocate in the Johnson administration, and had become well-known for consumer affairs reporting on NBC, alongside of - and sometimes substituting for - Barbara Walters.

In the late 1970's, Betty's reporting for NBC was appearing regularly on both the nightly news and the Today Show.

Once at that time, during the college spring break holiday, with brothers and cousin I was visiting my uncle whose office at NBC sat high above the skating rink at Rockefeller Center.

NBC Reports: Furness on Chemicals in Food, Sept. 8, 1976

We marveled at Uncle Tony's executive suite complete with shower, snagged tickets to sit in the audience for Saturday Night Live (host: Christopher Lee, musical guest: Meatloaf), and then headed to the cafeteria for lunch.

Now, the NBC Commissary has been the setting, or itself the butt, of many, many jokes dating back to The Tonight Show and Laugh-In, and the tradition had been perpetuated on SNL.  So we felt excited just to be allowed in there!

A Thermometer for French Fries?

We had just settled in with our lunch-room trays, when Tony pointed out the elegant and proper looking woman at the next table as Betty Furness.  She was eating a healthy, responsible meal of cottage cheese and fruit and she eyed us and our plates of fries with a bit of disdain.

We didn't think much about it at the time, and she thought even less about us I suppose.  But how many women can say they've danced with Fred Astaire?  If I'd only known it at the time, I'd have shaken her hand....

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!

Citizen Kelley: Standing with Local Hero Larry Kelley

Sound and Fury

(Amherst, MA. September 11): 
We in scholarly Amherst like to think we're the center of wisdom.

Nevertheless, often, we can be as closed-minded as many an academic 'burg - and in our most grandiose overreaches we achieve a pettiness, didacticism and tragedy worthy of Horton Foote's Orphans' Home Cycle characters of Harrison, East Texas.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...! 

Kevin Joy and Larry Kelley unfurl the Big One on the Town Common, 2011

Counterpoint: Each year on September 11, Larry Kelley and many other local citizens, police and firefighters help bring attention to this momentous day in the history and life of our nation.  Believe it or not, this upsets some in the town.

Viewed from within the Amherst bubble, Fox News appears downright alien

Larry was called to Boston last week to appear on Fox News, to explain to the rest of Planet Earth just how we in Amherst make sense of things, such as debating whether and how we ought to raise the flag on 9/11.   Predictably, we have a Professor here in town who attested before the Town Select Board on September 10, 2001 - the evening before the attacks - that Amherst should not fly the American flag because "[The U.S.] flag is a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and oppression."  This was eleven years ago, and got us plenty of attention in the aftermath as you would imagine.

What's rich is that so many fellow travelers here used to believe (circa 2000-2008) that dissent was the highest form of patriotism; now, in our current 'flap' over whether to raise the flag on 9/11 we simultaneously prove, and truly get to re-test, this maxim.

Tell It, Brother

Fast forward to 2012: There's more to the story, but in a nutshell one third of the town electors like to see the flag, so citizens get to see it once every fifth year.  What ???  Essentially, many in Amherst have "mixed feelings" about being part of the United States, the balance know that the town should observe 9/11, and so the Select Board put the flag-flying to a vote of the unruly 200+ Town Meeting congregation some years ago and - like Mayor Villaraigosa last week - made the determination that the vote had gone 2:1 against flying the flags.  The ingenious solution? Fly the flags every third year, to reflect public sentiment!  Then, at ten years, the Select Board voted to make it every fifth year because - I suppose - 5 years is an easier rhythm to remember than 3.

You're Wearing That, Larry ??

As town gadfly, Larry Kelley's daily local impact - and his occasional national prominence - are notorious, and thus frequently rankle the populace and the powers that be.

Flag-raising is only one front for soldier Kelley, and this week's national media attention not the first time he's figured in Amherst's questionable notoriety.

Loyal local patriot Stanley Dornakowski

In large part through Larry's civic-minded agitation, the melodramas of Amherst's high school drama department - (1999: first school or town ever to ban West Side Story, which has been performed in over 3,000 communities, over imaginary "racism"; 2004: righteous acting-out by staging the Vagina Monologues) -  have brought Amherst under Good Morning America's lens and drawn international O'Reilly Factor scrutiny for the healthy dose of opprobrium that some think we so richly deserve.

Fanfare for the Common Man (photo - C. Jones)

Larry is also an entrepreneur (and married to an entrepreneurship professor - they know what-of they speak in that household) who has operated a successful local fitness and instruction business, and had a hand in establishing a superior Chinese Immersion Charter School in the area, naturally a threat to the local public school hegemony.

Now he energetically publishes the fine "hyper-local" news blog Only In Amherst.

Larry holds everyone's feet to the fire, including mine.  He forces the town government to be more transparent, the school committee more accountable, the university - administration, students, and the larger eco-system such as party-house landlords - to be more responsible.

He raises the standards of local journalism through competition and innovation.

We need more Larry Kelleys.

Cinda and Larry frame the real issue

As a sixth generation Amherst native, Larry also contributes much to the community in his role of ersatz local history curator.  The current speculation on the existence of a second photographic image of our Emily Dickinson is something Larry reported on 3 weeks ahead of the local press, and he has the bloodline to pursue the facts.  Larry is a Local Hero.

Remember Our Heroes today

And meet two of mine: Ann Judge and Jerry Della Salla

Ted Koppel Out-Ran My Wife !

Shopping Cart Week BONUS:

During our courtship, the current Mrs. Porter often noted for me that her choice in men ran to the cerebral...

No sucker for good looks or a glib line she, I was reminded again and again: she appreciated a man with a strong intellect.  Notwithstanding her passing references in unguarded moments to hunks like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and their ilk, she pressed this point - that what really excited her was a scholarly man.  Her ideal swain: Ted Koppel.

Koppel: Cerebral

Perhaps this was her way to assure me that, while I must not consider myself a handsome nor captivating escort, I could take consolation and think myself a wise man - after all, what else could explain her wanting my company?

Koppel: Shana Keppola (That hair!)

Now, any canny hyperbole aside, she truly had a "thing" for Ted Koppel.  My theory: I counted my wife among those millions Koppel had no doubt put soothingly to sleep in his days as NIGHTLINE anchor, with that reassuring, somnolent cadence and that trance-inducing 11:30pm timeslot.

Now, in the spring of 2000 I was working closely on an internet (bubble) news venture with Tara Sonenshine, who'd been Koppel's longtime producer at ABC News.  Through Tara, I learned Ted was a neighbor in Potomac, MD - but due to good breeding, I'd never have dreamed of trading on our friendship for a cheap 'hit job.'

Koppel: Dapper

Not so my dear wife. One Friday evening, as we were in the Sutton Place Gourmet supermarket in Bethesda to grab a few items and head home, there in the crosshairs among the flatbread, flavored oils, and porcini mushrooms: TED KOPPEL.  My wife gasped, spluttered, and tried to drag me toward him.  I slipped her grasp.

She closed the gap to six feet and cried out (I liberally paraphrase): "Mr. Koppel, Mr. Koppel! Ohyouaresuchagreatjournalist!!  Ooh,oh! And I always say that if I had to be stuck on a desert island with only one person and it couldn't be my husband, I'd pick you, you, YOU!"

Koppel: Pincer move

Koppel looked quizzical for a second, then my wife blurted out "I'm picking up a few things for shabbos. You too?" (gambling, using the Ashkenazic pronunciation, reaching for the Jewish connection). Oy... 

The picture of grace, Ted cheerily responded, "I'm sure you'll have a wonderful evening - Shabbat shalom!" as he wheeled on his heels to briskly charge away down the nearest aisle before giving any chance for reply.

I helped my wife to catch her breath and make it to the car.  We carried our groceries home, and enjoyed a lovely evening.

Bedtime Hypnotist Koppel

But at 11:30:05 that night, did I catch her standing a-twinkle at the window, looking at the moon....

And seeing . . . Ted?

"... this just in ... " :  ABC moves Nightline to 12:35am

Yasher Ko'ach, Chuck Todd!

Shirat Ha'Yam congregation on Nantucket is a quirky little synagogue, tucked like a hemit crab into the historic Unitarian Church at 30 Orange Street in town, enlivened by a highly-transient summer population and - I'm told - a tiny but hardy off-season crew.  Many hoi polloi move-&-shake through in the summer months, and the sked of Friday evening services is programmed like Fred Silverman's Friday evening TV network slate, with guest speakers and stars a-plenty.

CBT - Scene of Intrigue

Shirat HaYam at Nantucket Unitarian

This past Friday was a Washington "power" theme, with guest rabbi Stuart Weinblatt of Congregation B'Nai Tzedek in Potomac MD, and NBC News Chief White House correspondent and Political Director Chuck Todd both in town.  Chuck is such a savvy prognosticator and an insightful handicapper of the political scene, so I was interested to hear what he would say.

Lo and behold, we found ourselves seated directly in front of Chuck and his lovely wife Kristian (who turns out to be a Democratic operative - Fritz Hollings, John Edwards, Gary Condit..), which means I got to give him the standard 'Well done' upon exit from the bimah following his erstaz d'var torah, and was able to chat afterward at some length.

Chuck shared a number of keen observations:

• On the election: "The race will be extremely, extremely tight .... Each week, I go back and forth believing one will win, then the other ... It's the economy versus demographics... at the moment, Obama is running a better campaign" (this last at precisely the instant Obama was telling a crowd in Roanoke "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.")
  
  
• On the simplistic campaign messaging so far, both sides: "It's small politics, and we've got big problems, and both candidates know it."
• On bias: "All corespondents are biased because of our personal histories - I grew up in Miami and I will typically be the only one in the pool bringing up Cuba, because I am so interested in it."
• On cynical character assassination: "Obama can't win on 'Are you better of than you were four years ago?' so he's trying to change the discussion to 'You'll be better off four years from now if you stick with me' by demonizing Romney."  Chuck astutely characterized Obama's current villainization of Bain as an obvious, transparent attempt to "Swift-boat" Romney.
• On the "father/son" impetus: "Every presidential candidate seems to have a drive related to his father: Obama, Clinton - they didn't have fathers. Bush, W. - his father's legacy, and George H.W.Bush's father Prescott before him.  Romney? His father's unfinished business as a candidate in 1968."

That's Sen. Kerry's (wife's) house, to left of Brant Point...

Gamely sporting the de riguer Nantucket reds yarmulke, our speaker took questions on topics like "Why do those mean Republicans keep trying to suppress and dis-enfranchise voters with Voter ID laws?" - which Chuck explained as a Republican strategy for getting out the vote.  He went on to argue that there is very little evidence of fraudulent vote-casting that would harm Republicans, although he was willing to say that Democrats will not admit that virtually all voters DO have ID, and there's no good reason a voter cannot obtain an ID in the next 4 months if s/he cares to vote on November 6.  Chuck's reasonable compromise? Grandfather the grandfathers: anyone over 65, who's been voting w/o ID for that long, gets to go on voting incognito.

"Black Hat" Todd

We talked about polling a bit, and Chuck classified only NBC and Fox as having truly first-class national polling activities - comprehensive, properly-weighted processes that involve a balanced oversight by paired Democrat and Republican polling professionals working together.

Another question pertained to viability of a third party, and Chuck laid out had a cascade of comparisons to 1992 (Perot), 1980 (Anderson) and even invoked T.R.'s Bull Moose party.

I was especially happy to hear him bring Americans Elect into the conversation - innovators who attempted this year to organize the first online Presidential nomination giving Americans a direct voice in the process.

My friend and old classmate Dan Winslow, future Attorney General of the U.S., is Chief Legal Counsel for Americans Elect.  Although unsuccessful in its maiden voyage in 2012, AE represents a robust, positive and non-partisan effort to advance and elevate American presidential politics and I wish them well.  Chuck expressed intrigue too.

All in all, a nice evening that provided equal measure of enlightenment (Mr. Todd) and atonement (Mr. Weinblatt), making for a fine start to a sunny week on-island!  Mazel Tov, Mr. Todd!

Two summers ago, Shirat Ha'Yam attendees were treated to the words of an earnest gent, recently departed of the Washington Post to toil for new Obama US representative to the United Nations Susan Rice.  This mensch assured the congregation that Obama would be "a strong ally to Israel" and "good for the Jews."  After three years of Obama's shredding of a lifetime of US-Israeli relations, this gent no longer can show his face on the island, for fear of being taken into the harbor and keelhauled - at sunset - by "Song of the Sea" congregants....

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.

Grabbing Lunch with Sam Donaldson

Unabashed Texan Sam Donaldson

When I visited Washington DC to tour Georgetown Univesity and GWU with my father in 1975, we stayed at the grand and stately Mayflower Hotel.  As a rube in the big city, I was amazed at the size of this hotel - a full city block long: one could enter on Connecticut Ave. and exit on 17th street.

The northern edge of the hotel was bounded by DeSales Street, NW, a one block long mid-block connector between the two avenues.  And opposite the Mayflower (just outside our window), across DeSales Street at mid-block, was ABC News' Washington DC bureau.  How cool - people making television, right there!

Ten years later, I was working 1/2 block away on 17th Street at the National Geographic Society, and we usd to graze around the neighborhood, picking off a number of researchers from NPR and ABC News when we were staffing up NG EXPLORER.

ABC sits chock-a-block with a parking garage and there was a small, greasy spoon lunch counter there in the mid-80's.  I don't remember the name of it but one day we were all piled in there, jockeying at the counter, when a loud, bold and insistently-recognizable voice cut through the din: "Ham and Swiss!  Right Here!! - That's Mine!!!"  He reached above and across the throng, grabbed the bag, threw a $5 bill at the counter guy who laughed, and he bolted.

"People ask me about my relationship with President Reagan. I say it was a case of two 'hams' discovering each other. Only I played the 'straight man' and he always had the last word."

One of his most widely remembered questions during his tenure at the White House came during the Reagan administration: "Mr. President, in talking about the continuing recession tonight, you have blamed Congress and mistakes in the past. Does any of the blame belong to you?" To which Reagan retorted: "Yes, for many years I was a Democrat!"

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!

Hallowe'en and The Visible Hand of the Market: Trick-or-Treat with Alan Greenspan

Smith got it right*

All Hallow's Eve, 2003 and I am the chaperone to my daughter and her fourth grade friends as we wend our way door-to-door toward the upper end of tony Chain Bridge Road, N.W. in Washington, D.C.

Knock! Knock!  A door swings open and NBC Newswoman Andrea Mitchell beams at the kids. I beam back - I've always thought Andrea was delicious.

Wealth Redistribution

Andrea reaches for the large candy bowl and prepares to offer it, but stops herself short as it's nearly empty and in need of replenishment.

Holding the bowl in mid-air, our lady of the house calls back over her shoulder, "Dear! More candy!"


A rustling of plastic is heard, and then a gnarled hand appears from behind the door, extends over the bowl, and deposits a 4 or 5 "fun size" 3 Musketeers bars.

Greenspan: Visible hand of the market

The hand retracts, then appears again - three more times, the hand extends, like The Addams Family's "Thing," but sporting French cuffs and a suit jacket.


Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, Ayn Rand acolyte** who freely admits the U.S. income tax system is a wealth redistribution scheme, doling out scarce resources to the needy.

A couple of Romantics

Fun Size from the Fed

...and,

this night, to the irrationally exuberant.



* Smith (1776): "It is not from the benevolence of the Butcher, the Brewer or the Baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages"

** Greenspan (1957): “ ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.” 
(emphasis mine)
 

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