Author: authoress

Winchell

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The Book of the Week is “Winchell, Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity” by Neal Gabler, published in 1994. Two cliches that apply to the likes of Walter Winchell’s role in the evolution of the American entertainment industry include: THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, AND DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN.

Born in April 1897 in East Harlem, Winchell got into Vaudeville as an adolescent. In the 1920’s, there were about six major New York City newspapers, and readers had their favorite columnists. In August 1924, Winchell got his own column, specializing in Broadway gossip in the newly launched Evening Graphic.

Winchell’s career took off. By summer 1929, he was writing for the Hearst-owned paper, the Mirror. The following spring, he launched a radio show, and the following summer, he acted in a movie. He associated with Mobsters, advertising their night clubs while he received protection from them.

Winchell vacillated between suffering from imposter syndrome, and behaving like an alpha male with hubris syndrome. He was a dream dispenser for his readers; they aspired to adopt the lifestyle of “Cafe Society.” In the 1930’s, this set consisted of star-struck social climbers, heirs and heiresses who had done nothing to merit their own celebrity.

Winchell acquired significant power to make or break peoples’ fame with his column, by promoting or smearing them. During the Depression, he honed his showmanship and propaganda techniques, becoming a strong political influencer. Beginning in 1933, he flacked for FDR and smeared Hitler. His rhetoric was anti-Communist, anti-Fascist and anti-isolationist.

Lacking significant formal education, Winchell rode a wave of success based on envy, anger and vengeance, into the 1950’s. The author wrote, “The real grievance was the control he exercised over his social and intellectual superiors and what that control portended for the elites.”

Read the book to learn a lot more about Winchell and others that smacks of other public figures whose rises and falls have been largely similar, in the history of this country.

He’s All Alone – BONUS POST

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Thanks to the American political atmosphere of the last eight years, the courts have been busier than ever. One party on both sides of the system, George Santos is yet another tragic figure abandoned by his supporters, who is meeting his downfall. Here’s a little ditty that tells his story.

HE’S ALL ALONE

sung to the tune of “We’re All Alone” with apologies to Rita Coolidge.

In court the cases begin,
and they may never end.
Crying foul, George San-tos will dream,
his acting we’ll still see,
forever more, forever more.

He makes the tabloids beam,
coming apart at the seams.
He rants and raves, among the knaves of ours.
He won’t be forgotten now.
He’s all alone. He’s all alone.

Cue the videos, enjoy the fight.
Santos will find his light.
You’ll continue to watch him now.
He’s forced to account, you’ll see all his sins.
He knows how to pretend.

Once the truth is out,
the defendants lose their clout.
Drama-queens do, lawyers too.
So fast-en your seatbelts for the trend.
For years and years, for years and years.

Cue the videos, enjoy the fight.
Santos will find his light.
You’ll continue to watch him now.
He’s forced to account, you’ll see all his sins.
He won’t be forgotten now.

He’s all alone. He’s all alone.

Cue the videos, enjoy the fight.
Santos will find his light.
You’ll continue to watch him now.
He’s forced to account, you’ll see all his sins.

No slow news-weeks now. Too-ooh much.

Will

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The Book of the Week is “Will” by Will Smith with Mark Manson, published in 2021.

Born in September 1968 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Will described in detail what he learned from the people in his life, from the cradle onward. His life has not always involved the wealth and privilege conveyed in his hit song, “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”

Smith related anecdotes in which, like his father– he displayed poor impulse control. Smith’s father could be a mean drunk, while he himself sublimated the traumas he experienced from his family’s dysfunctionality through constant goal-oriented activity.

If Smith took even a short break from his fantasy life, and later, his working life, he would be forced to acknowledge other people’s emotions and possibly even face his own shortcomings. So he laser-focused on competing to be the best at whatever he was doing, in completing a mission.

The lowest point in Smith’s existence came in the early 1990’s, when he was saddled with crushing debt load. To make matters worse, his association with gang members posed a life-threatening situation. Law enforcement had caught up with them. Smith got in trouble when a friend protected him with a knockout punch to his attacker: “But as I sat in that jail cell, facing aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy, simple assault, and reckless endangerment charges for a punch I hadn’t even thrown…” He obviously grew from experience, but didn’t elaborate further.

Smith earned bragging rights for making movies that allegedly made more money than any other Hollywood actor’s movies, including Tom Cruise’s; he spent a longer amount of time than anyone else in promoting his movies in foreign countries, and performing in free concerts for his fans.

Read the book to learn many more details about: Smith’s childhood, the people who guided his careers, his wrongheaded notions that led to love-life failures, and some of his misbehaviors and extraordinary achievements.

All Year Long – BONUS POST

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The year 2024 in America might get worse before it gets better, but it WILL get better. As usual, the media are whipping up the most heinous hysteria. Here’s a little ditty that explains the situation.

ALL YEAR LONG

sung to the tune of “All Night Long” with apologies to Lionel Richie and Universal Music.

My fellow Americans,
the media here
mislead you through teasing and mongering fear.
It’s extreme, this election year.

Trump will try to LIVE on (live on, live on, live on…)

His crew will lie, his crew will smear,
conspire and hate and scheme and jeer.

He’s the GOP PArty.
Calm down, don’t WORry, not forever.
Ignore his DANCE and song.

He’s the GOP PArty.
Calm down, don’t WORry, not forever.
Ignore his DANCE and song.

All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.

His lawyers all in the courts
play dirty tricks of all sorts.
They delay, they distract.

Trump will try to LIVE on (live on, live on, live on…)

Curious things will happen and
aging will take its toll.
He can’t help but lose control.

He’s the GOP PArty.
Calm down, don’t WORry, not forever.
Ignore his DANCE and song.

All year long (all year).
All year long (all year).
All year long (all year).
All year long (all year).

Yeah, IT might seem that
there’s no hope right now.

But wait for the fun.
It WILL come ’round.
He can’t possibly ignore
his troubles away.
The GOP party will change one day.

No more sheNANigans AND nonsense.
Yeah, the worm will turn.

That GOP party,
oh, it’s changing
Oh, change will come.

No more sheNANigans AND nonsense.
Yeah, the worm will turn.

Dough dough dough dough yeah,
Oh, that GOP party, yeah.

All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.
All year long (all year) all year.

People of all sorts,
they’re watching all the courts
all year long.

(all year, all year)

Yeah, I said

People of all sorts,
they’re watching all the courts
all year long (all year)

Yeah,
just wait, just wait!

(all year, all year)

Impresario

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“He was clearly in the early stages of what his colleagues referred to as Alzheimer’s, although it was never diagnosed as such. Whatever it was, it didn’t prevent him from functioning effectively much of the time, yet by this point…”

–Around 1969, Ed Sullivan began having “senior moments.”

The Book of the Week is “Impresario, The Life and Times of Ed Sullivan” by James Maguire, published in 2006.

Born in 1901 in East Harlem, Ed Sullivan grew up in the New York metropolitan area. He had a burning desire to become famous and rich. Therefore, beginning in his teen years, he met as many people as he could, and hung out at all the city’s hippest social clubs (celebrity hangouts) that featured alcohol and performances.

In 1948, he finally got to host his own show on TV, after paying his dues failing at radio shows and succeeding at writing a newspaper gossip column. Even so, he got lots of hate mail. His CBS-TV show, Toast of the Town was partially sponsored by Lincoln Mercury (car) dealers in Southern states. They were livid that he refused to stop shaking hands with and hugging black performers. Sullivan was racially egalitarian, but politically, rabidly anti-Communist.

With the 1955-1956 season, the show was renamed The Ed Sullivan Show— as the host had achieved his goals of wealth and stardom; media ratings, really. He began talks with Warner Bros. to make a movie of his life. In preparing the script for that endeavor, unsurprisingly, the clashing of egos resulted in back-and-forth shenanigans; summarized thusly: “When Jack Warner realized that Sullivan had completely thrown out Wallace’s second version… hearing of Sullivan’s plans for still more rewriting… He cancelled the film.” That was eight months after signing the contract.

In summer 1967, the CBS Standards and Practices department was strict about performers’ not saying specific words that smacked of sex or drugs. The band The Doors got away with “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” in its song “Light My Fire” because the show was live, and the lead singer disobeyed the censors.

Anyway, read the book to learn much more about: how The Ed Sullivan Show was able to stay wildly popular and attain high ratings for decades despite its host’s lack of charisma; (Hint: It changed with the times in featuring guests who entertained audiences of all ages, until advertisers’ demands changed); the people who helped make it so; and the secrets of Sullivan’s success.

Tangled Vines

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The Book of the Week is “Tangled Vines, Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California” by Frances Dinklespiel, published in 2015. The moral of this book’s main story is “Lawsuits followed and winemakers like Viader made mental notes never to be cavalier about the disposition of fire-damaged wine.”

According to the author, as of 2013, Americans drank the largest quantity of wine, 13% of all the wine of all the countries in the world.

In October 2005, a majorly evil crime was committed at the Wines Central warehouse on Mare Island in Vallejo. An assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern district of California– an expert in wine fraud and arson, and an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives assessed the damage and investigated the site. The latter used an acceleration-detection canine, also called an arson dog.

The perpetrator committed: mail fraud (for shipping wine across state lines under a false name), interstate transfer of stolen property (because it wasn’t his wine to sell), arson, and tax evasion.

Fire destroyed millions upon millions of dollars’ worth of wine (stored in the warehouse) of mostly mom-and-pop wineries. As is usual in such instances, insurance claims of winemakers whose wine was covered, were denied, because the insurers contended that the wine was “in transit.”

In the single-digit 2000’s, Bill Koch of Koch family fame, didn’t spare a dime in finding out how he had become the victim of wine fraud. He employed investigators in various fields: ex-FBI agents, ex-Sotheby’s workers, a glass historian, and experts in cork and adhesives and labels. He sued the auction house and original seller of the wine.

Read the book to learn about the kinds of people who are passionate about making and selling wine, how they became victims of one especially bad actor, and a few other incidents in the life of the California wine industry.

Mar-a-Lago – BONUS POST

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As is well known, Donald Trump ignores ALL signs of decline in his popularity. Clearly, his downfall will be complete only: when the number of his ass-kickers (such as Judge Engoron, E. Jean Carroll, and Omarosa among others yet to emerge) exceeds the number of his ass-kissers (his attorneys, previously– Rudy Giuliani, Bill Barr, Alan Dershowitz, etc., etc., etc.), or, when he dies.

Here’s a little ditty of what he continues to sing, despite the wreckage piling up around him.

MAR-A-LAGO

sung to the tune of “Key Largo” with apologies to Bertie Higgins.

I’m better than the others.
I’m fighting so hard in the courts.
All these Witch Hunts together.
My accusers are losers of all sorts.
Watching my old testimonies,
and attacking me desperately.
America, I am your hero.
And you are my favorite country.

I do it all.
Protecting you and building the Wall.
Starring in my own great, great show.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.
All our enemies ran and hid.
So many, many things I did.
I could do them all again, I know.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.

America, don’t you remember–
I cancelled every bad deal.
We will never surrender.
I stopped the steal.
I made you rich. I will do it again.
‘Cause you love me still.
America, this can’t be the end.

I do it all. I do it all.
Protecting you and building the Wall.
Starring in my own great, great show.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.
All our enemies ran and hid.
So many, many things I did.
I could do them all again, I know.
I’ve just been planning at Mar-a-Lago.

I do it all. I do it all.
Protecting you and building the Wall.
Starring in my own great, great show…

I Should Have Honor

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The Book of the Week is “I Should Have Honor, A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan” by Khalida Brohi, published in 2018.

Pakistan’s Muslim men have a tradition of arranging marriages for their prepubertal daughters to clans they deem worthy. None of the female family members have any say in the matter.

It was through a stroke of great good luck that Grohi’s father (born in the mid-1970’s) received an education, instead of facing a fate of ignorance, poverty, goat-herding and hard manual farmwork as his siblings did. Too, the author won the “world parents lottery” in many ways. Her father refused to agree to marry her off before she was born (!) Her parents provided the same resources and opportunities to her and her sisters, as to her brothers. She attended school and was allowed to do almost anything her male counterparts were allowed to do.

The author was born in the late-1980’s, although when she began to travel internationally, her later-created identity documents were inaccurate by about a year. She became fluent in English and Brahui. During her childhood, her financially struggling, ever-growing family moved around a lot. At first, they lived in multi-generational households in rural villages and later on, upgraded to the cities of Hyderabad and Karachi.

Even so, Grohi’s mother and females in her large extended family were still enslaved in a life of domestic chores, which included feeding their farm animals and making cow-dung patties to be burned in cooking-fires. In other words, in most Pakistani Muslim households, the females were kept barefoot and pregnant.

On an even more extreme note, in the single-digit 2000’s (!) the males were allowed to physically abuse their wives (for any reason they rationalized, or none at all), and allowed to kill a female who brought shame to the family through misbehavior such as eloping. The latter situation occurs about a thousand times a year in Pakistan. Gossiping is the number one activity in rural-village communities, so everyone was under pressure to conform to the elder males’ rules.

The author realized that religion, caste or tradition had nothing to do with how such a punishment was justified. The elders were simply alpha males with hubris syndrome who were insecure, or enraged at the disobedience of their daughters. Grohi tried to change that. She founded a non-profit organization that empowered females by spurring discussions in Pakistan and internationally regarding gender equality. After much trauma, she was forced to switch to a less confrontational approach– by apologizing to the males, and convincing them:

  • that physically harming females was dishonorable;
  • that allowing female family members to work outside the home would financially help the household (and for that, they might need education), and
  • that the points above were their idea.

Read the book to learn an additional slew of information on the author’s family, and her trials, tribulations and triumphs in trying to change Pakistan’s entrenched gender-segregated, cruel culture.