“In the New Hollywood, Sumner Redstone Is a Man Out of Time”

Nothing’s changed.

Except maybe execs have closer relationships with their offspring. Otherwise, it’s the same as it ever was, pussy and power. Except the execs have more power than they ever did! Talent ain’t king, the man with the money is. And that man has more cash and lives a better lifestyle than any mogul in history. And despite the carping, it usually still is a man. And although the few female executives are not known for their trysts, one thing’s for sure, they can go mano a mano with their male contemporaries, they’re anything but warm and fuzzy.

Bugs me when major media gets it wrong, oftentimes intentionally. The players whitewash the truth if they’ll go on record whatsoever. There’s not a single man pooh-poohing Sumner’s efforts, if anything they ADMIRE HIM!

Except for getting caught.

I’m just saying if you think today’s execs don’t want to get laid as they willfully extract their pound of flesh from anything in their path, you’re not in the game. And it’s not only in media, tech is the worst, you can’t tell those people what to do. They tell YOU what to do. They tell GOVERNMENTS what to do! Yup, coming down on Indiana and North Carolina, the governor of Georgia caved, it’s like a bad Mafia movie.

Used to be the exec was a conduit, a necessary part of the chain who most people were unaware of. Then the “New Yorker” did profiles of them, Tommy Mottola took over Sony Music and today, the execs make much more than the acts, year after year. Warm and fuzzy my ass, cutthroat and duplicitous.

And Rupert Murdoch marrying Jerry Hall may be laughable, because of his age and her need to be with someone rich and famous, but if you don’t think today’s movers and shakers are employing the same playbook, you don’t know that Evan Spiegel is dating Miranda Kerr. Oh, you don’t know who Mr. Spiegel is? Well, believe me, everybody under thirty does, the app titans are the new moguls. But wealthier.

Want to challenge a majordomo? Screw with his lifestyle. Make him fly in the back of the plane, make him fly commercial. Make him drink wine with a screw-top. Make him give up his American Express Centurion card. And not only keep him from having sex, but TALKING ABOUT IT! Oh, these guys talk about the babes, it would horrify you. Especially the language they use and the denigration evidenced. They’re smart enough not to air their dirty laundry in public, but behind closed doors…

Everything’s behind closed doors. Thank god we’ve got the press, but it rarely goes deep enough in any sphere. It’s a tool the rich and famous manipulate, whether it be Kim Kardashian calling up gossip sites to come shoot her at a restaurant or a fat cat employing a PR person to trade stories, to keep out of the press that which will hurt by delivering some other item.

And the press is envious of the players. Reporters too want to fly private and get laid. They’re raring to eat at the trough of these bigwigs, if they can consume more than the crumbs that fall off the table, a ride on the jet, the number one traded currency, or… Meanwhile, the execs paying lip service to them, their benefactors, are laughing behind their backs, how they’ve gotten the better of the reporters.

It’s all smoke and mirrors. A way to keep the proletariat working. As if everybody could write a successful app, everybody could be a YouTube star, everybody could be Lady Gaga. The people bitching loudest about streaming payments don’t get any. But they think they deserve them, because in today’s culture everybody can play and the press keeps trumpeting the stories of the downtrodden who’ve broken through.

It’s almost impossible to break through. Admire the winners for their pluck, for navigating the gauntlet. As for friends, they don’t have any, they’re too busy stabbing each other in the back. Of course they’re nice and charming with the reporters. That’s what they DO! Ask any band that’s been wooed to be signed and can’t get anybody from the label on the horn shortly thereafter. As for actors…good luck collecting on that profit percentage!

Laura M. Holson had a premise and she wrote a story to fit it, damn the truth. The only buzz in Hollywood is that this got public. You always want to keep the sun out, or spin the story if it gets revealed.

And Sumner Redstone is not the only one who thinks he’ll live forever. Doug Morris is 77 and still running Sony Music, he ain’t gonna give up the reins to some young ‘un, not because of the money but because of the power base, he still wants to shake ’em up and let Vivendi know it made a mistake by squeezing him out. And the boys have their toys, and it’s not only planes but babes, and you may wish it isn’t so but just by saying it that does not make it true.

The quotes in this story remind me of “Casablanca,” it’s just the usual suspects rounded up to cover up the truth.

Because the softies, the PC police, those who never made it… Can’t handle the truth.

That men with big appetites don’t restrict their goals to winning, they want so much more. And they take it. Barriers are made to be broken. Do you think they’re going to go gently into that good night?

It’s not in their character.

Neither then nor now.