He didn’t shave.

I’ve been against shaving ever since I saw that Paul and George hated it in a teen magazine back before I had whiskers.  I kind of see it like making the bed…why?  Especially if you’re just gonna sleep in it tonight!

I put on my look.  To the best of my ability.  Sure, I was wearing my jeans and had my collar turned up, but I’d shaved, meticulously, I felt that Jerry would judge me.

But he didn’t judge me, he wanted to be my friend.

Attitude.  Superiority.  Bullshit.  That’s the entertainment business.  Take some self-possessed gangster or dork, put him in a three thousand dollar suit and he’ll look down his nose at you, asking not only what have you done lately, but what can you do for him today!

But Jerry was completely different.  He was warm.  He immediately launched into a personal story, the kind which people I’ve known for years won’t tell, involving his family.

He wasn’t looking for sympathy.  He was communicating.  As one human being to another.

I was sold.

As Jerry said, "Talent loves me!"

Now I know why.

He ate the Jerry Weintraub Special, linguini and clams.  It was right there on the menu

it’s first on the menu in the restaurant, but scroll down to "Seafood" to see it here:

Menu – Il Piccolino

being at Il Piccolino was like eating in his dining room.  Not that Jerry acted the king, he doesn’t bark orders.  Then again, he’s capable…

Like with that family story he told me.  You don’t want to make him angry, he can be a BULL!

Reminded me of my father.  He could be the nicest guy in the world, but if you pissed him off, if you disappointed him, if you didn’t give him the proper respect, he went OFF!  My dad could have played Joe Pesci’s part in "Goodfellas".

And like my father, Jerry knows it all comes down to money.  Everybody’s looking for it and it comes with control.  Not that he needs payback for a favor.  Every day he wakes up to fifty people asking for favors.  That’s quite an account to draw upon, if you think about it.

So he’s fourteen and working at Goldberg’s.  A minor hotel in the Catskills.  And Sam LeFrak comes in for a meal and asks him WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

Which, of course, is what I asked Jerry about LeFrak.  Sam came for the kosher food, he didn’t trust the Concord.  But the Concord was THE hotel.  So Sam took Jerry to meet the owner.  He just heard from the great grandson last week. You see once you’re part of Jerry’s family…

And speaking of family, he ultimately went to see his wife, Jane Morgan, appear at the Concord.  Didn’t want to, but the Mafiosi he knew demanded it.  Not that Jerry ever was in bed with the Mob, but it’s best to pay respect.

It usually made Jerry too uptight to watch Jane perform.  He was anxious she might make a mistake.  And when three bozos at the table behind him kept talking, he turned around, put his finger in front of his lips and said SHHH!

They laughed in Jerry’s face.

Whereupon Jerry jumped over the table and started beating the shit out of one of them.  A melee erupted.  Which only ended when a Mafioso whipped out a gun, scaring even Jerry.

The owners of the Concord called up a judge.  They turned a hotel room into a courtroom.  They put up an American flag and everything.  And this Sullivan County judge said to Jerry…"He hit you first."

And Jerry says that wasn’t right.

And the judge interrupts him and slowly says once again, HE HIT YOU FIRST!

THAT’S RIGHT YOUR HONOR!

Case dismissed.

But, but, BUT the talker said, what about my $300 suit, it’s ruined!

The judge told Jerry to give him three hundred bucks.  Jerry said, "If I pay him $600, can I hit him again?"

That’s 2 a.m. Catskills justice.

And then there was Elvis.  He was the linchpin, he was the road to success.  The Colonel demanded Jerry show up with a million dollar check, and he did.  Then the Colonel asked him what kind of deal he had in mind…  Jerry said he didn’t, that he hadn’t thought that far!  And the Colonel said he wasn’t sure what was right either.  Then the Colonel offered a 50/50 split.  Yup, the Colonel and Elvis would split 50% and Jerry got the rest.  HUH?  Talk about another era in concert promotion!

Eventually Jerry paid Elvis and the Colonel 80%.

And he only paid Zeppelin 80% too.

But I thought Peter Grant demanded a 90/10 split!

But Jerry’s deals with the arenas were so good, his 80% was worth more than the other guy’s 90%.

And Frank Barsalona hated Jerry for stealing Zeppelin.  And held a meeting of the regional concert promoters on Long Island with the agenda of freezing Jerry out.  And after the meeting, each and every promoter called Jerry to give him the details, and to say they still wanted to be in business with him.  Even Bill Graham, who labeled his acquiescence to Barsalona "a mistake".  Jerry asked Bill what he was thinking!  Jerry had all the acts!  Promoters need acts!

Jerry took care of Bill.  Let him put his name on all his Bay Area gigs.

And he also put Harvey Weinstein in business.  He got a call, could Jerry do a favor?  Let Harvey promote shows? Jerry said yes.  Allowing Harvey to clear $2500 a gig and act like a big shot.

What a web of relationships, what a web of favors owed.

But Jerry never understood music.  I think that’s one of the keys to his success, he never told acts what to do.  But he tired of reporting to talent.  He told Irving the problem with music is the act is the employer, whereas in movies, the producer’s the employer, he switched sides!

Billy Wilder told him music was fifty percent of a movie.  The other half was story.

And boy can Jerry tell stories. That’s what he’s all about.  He was a natural in the movie business.

But his first film was with Robert Altman, a notorious cokehead who never yielded profits.  Lew Wasserman said to get final cut.  Jerry didn’t even know what final cut was.  When he demanded it of Altman, Altman went berserk!  And then Jerry realized he needed it, if Robert could be this out of control.

And then Altman came back with a three hour movie.  And when Jerry said he had to cut it, Altman took "Nashville" to Pauline Kael, who said it was one of the four best movies ever made, but if Jerry cut it…

Jerry did the same thing with MGM.  They didn’t like "Diner".  He took the negative and showed it to Kael.  She loved it, said he’d done it again.  Did the MGM brass want to fuck with America’s number one film critic, who could literally open a picture?

They didn’t.

And that’s how Jerry’s stories go.  They’re peopled with legends.  Not that he’s name-dropping, they’re just part of the story.

Like Steve Ross.  Who was pissed at Frank Wells for selling "Cruising" to Lorimar.  Ross was about the buck.  And so is Jerry.  The problem with the music business today is you just can’t make enough MONEY!

And speaking of money…  He told me at length about Warner paying 500 grand for a new "Exorcist" movie.  Frank Wells said Jerry, Friedkin and Bill Blatty could keep it even if the film never came to fruition.

Friedkin and Blatty fought so much that there was no picture.  Jerry insisted on giving his share back.  But the other two?

That’s the movie business.

On Sunday Jerry has open house, five TVs blaring the NFL and a catered lunch.  If you’re a friend, you’re so forever. He wants his friends around him.

And you sit there for a while, and you hear the old names, like Merv Adelson and you ask yourself, is Jerry done?

Then he tells me about the Liberace movie.  I’d heard about this on Stern, that it was going to star Michael Douglas. Huh?  And didn’t they just close the Liberace museum in Vegas?

THEY CLOSED VEGAS!

That’s what I love about moguls, they’ll speak the truth nobody else will.  Vegas is in trouble.

And the movie isn’t about Liberace, it’s a STORY!  Of a guy who’s tortured that he’s gay and can’t come out, his audience is blue-haired old ladies.  Okay, very interesting.  But what’s fascinating is Liberace gets his boyfriend to have plastic surgery to look just like him, so Liberace can fuck himself!

Never heard that.

That’s a story.

In the straight world, they think it’s about education.  Graduate from the Ivy League and your life is made.  But if you think everything is to be learned in books, you’re sorely mistaken.

And in the entertainment world, they think it’s all about power.  The Tommy Mottola game.  I’m God, you’re a peon.  You might reign for a while, then you’re hated.

But power truly comes from camaraderie, having people love you, having people believe they can count on you, that you’ve got their back, that you come through.

Jerry’s all about coming through.  Makes him feel good.  If you’re not runnin’ with your buddies…

And all his buddies, from Clooney to George Bush, testified for the documentary of his life, airing on HBO in April.  They all tell the same stories.  Julia Roberts starts one, another famous face finishes it.  Because, you see, they all know Jerry.  He’s not two-dimensional, he’s positively three-dimensional.  He inhabits space.  He’s human, with flaws, but he’s lovable, you want to hang with him.  You can feel the respect.

You feel connected.  You feel you’ve got open access.  Anything you need.

But you don’t want to cross him…

And they said that no act ever broke on the Internet.

The old paradigm was to have a radio hit and then sell tickets.  But this doesn’t work so well anymore, look at all the Top Forty wonders who can fill the House of Blues, or can sell a few thousand tickets for a year and then…nothing.  Who wants to see Vanilla Ice?

The hits might have the glamour, but the money is in perennials, the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show, Cirque du Soleil…they never date and once is not enough.  Sure, there are stars with enough hits to tour forever, but there aren’t many.  But the most successful acts touring with a bunch of well known tracks realize it’s less about hearing the hits than the vibe.  The emphasis is on being there, experiencing something that can only happen live.  This is where rote re-creations of radio hits falters.  Truly live is a one time event, never to be repeated.  You don’t feel like you got someone else’s show, but only your own.  In other words, you had to be there.

You had to be at Straight No Chaser’s show at the Wiltern last night.  The audience was neither hipsters nor those following the flavor of the moment.  It wasn’t an industry crowd but regular people, who wanted value for money, who were not eager to be ripped off but were willing to spend for an evening of entertainment.

Straight No Chaser was very good.  Their show was well-written, it evidenced heart and was comprised of some of the greatest music of all time.  The music is the glue, the penumbra is the attraction.

When they sang "Tainted Love", you were brought back to the eighties, when new wave obliterated AOR and radio was never the same.

And even a hard core rocker would tap his feet to "Stayin’ Alive".  Come on, remember John Travolta walking down the street eating two pieces of pizza, one on top of the other?

Yes, Straight No Chaser is a celebration of music.  "American Idol" is a contest.  And they’re very different.  A Straight No Chaser concert is not about drama, rather it’s life-affirming!

And the people loved it.  They provided a standing O.  Spontaneously.  Because they dug it that much.  They got every one of their less than fifty dollars worth and I’d be stunned if they didn’t come back, to hear new music and new stories in the future.

The YouTube Christmas clip went viral.  That led to Craig Kallman signing the band and the Agency Group repping them for live appearances.

They’ve got no radio hits, but enough TV appearances to infect people, PBS has paid off especially well.  And despite the Atlantic deal, it’s not about records, it’s about the show.  It’s about going to the gig and experiencing the power and joy of music.

There’s no trickery, no fakery, no auto-tune, no image.  Just well-rehearsed numbers sung by people with good voices.  Ain’t that a concept!

Everybody thinks it’s about hits.  Call up the usual suspects, run the results up the flagpole.  That’s a game you can play, but it’s very expensive.

If you want to make it today you’ve got to think.  You’ve got to be willing to reinvent the wheel.  And the best place to start is the road.  A live gig can’t be stolen on the Internet and in this era where everybody’s constantly in front of a screen, it’s refreshing and exciting to go to a show.  Assuming you can get a ticket and it’s priced reasonably.

Straight No Chaser can work for thirty years.  It’s the Mannheim Steamroller/Trans-Siberian Orchestra formula, but it’s not beholden to Christmas.  Hell, Straight No Chaser played all summer in Atlantic City.

And is now on tour doing boffo at the b.o.

It may not be sexy.  It may not be in "Entertainment Weekly".  It may not be fresh.

But it’s good.  And it makes money.  And you can’t argue with that.

Straight No Chaser

Gary thinks I don’t like him.

He’s gay.  Can you get a straight decorator?

Felice used him to do her bathroom.  She got him from Koz.  Koz’s kondo is a showplace and so is Felice’s bathroom.  I’m afraid to take a pee in it, for fear I’m gonna fuck it up.  Actually, I’ll take a pee, but if you use the sink, and my dad taught me to always wash my hands after doing my business, it’s almost impossible not to get drops on the marble and it fucks it up and my middle class values can’t handle it and so I usually wash my hands in the bathroom off the bedroom.  But everybody who sees Felice’s bathroom oohs and ahhs.  You would too.

And now she wants to do the living room.

It’s been five years, almost six since she moved in.  The question arises, should she vacate the premises, get a new abode, or fix up what she’s got?

First Felice went into a frenzy for new property.  You see where she lives is just over the hill from Mulholland, and I could explain all the angles, but the end result is you get little light.  In a perfect world you’d rip off the roof and put in something retractable, like at a sports stadium, but that’s impractical.  But moving is so expensive.  Even worse, you’ve got to find a place you like.

And while Felice was searching, she ran into Gary.  And somehow in this discussion about real estate, which is foreign to me, I lived in the same home for my entire growing up and have lived where I do now for decades, the concept of redecorating emerged.  And all of this transpired while I was on the road.  It was a fait accompli.  Not that I truly care, except for the stereo.

If you had asked me my number one possession in the seventies, that would have been it.  My parents wouldn’t let me get a good system while I was in college, they believed it would be stolen, like my Peugeot bicycle, but when I was finally ensconced in L.A. I went shopping.  And shopping.  I knew the speakers I wanted, but the rest of the equipment?

The speakers I wanted were JBL L100s.  The speakers I was going to get were the Large Advents.  Which cost $125 apiece instead of $333.  But in conversation at Pacific Stereo, my buddy Tony, a hondler extraordinaire, got the salesman down to $450 for the pair.  Of JBLs.  Which he didn’t buy.  Because negotiation was a sport and he was ultimately satisfied.  But hearing about this, I dragged Tony back to the store a few weeks later and got ’em for $470.

And then I needed a receiver.

I’d had this Sony picked out.  A brand new model.  List $600, I thought I could get it for four something.  But every salesman I spoke with, especially the cat at Federated, said that receiver would sound shitty with those speakers.  The JBLs were bright, and so was the Sony. What did he recommend?  Lux.  Which for my money gave me fifty watts and distortion, I couldn’t afford enough power.  My alternative was a Sansui, they had the right sound.  But I didn’t want Sansui.  But there was this super high end line, of integrated amps, I could get 110 watts a channel for $525 plus tax, one third off.  I pulled the trigger.

The sound was devastating.  It was like being at the show.  After I replaced my Dual turntable with a direct drive Technics, with a Stanton cartridge, since the Shure I thought I wanted from the ads was too bright for my speakers.

I was in heaven.  My idea of a good afternoon was dropping the needle and sitting in front of the speakers…  Remember when they mastered records to sound good instead of loud?

That Sansui burned up.  The smell frightened me.  I replaced it with an NAD with more power than the salesman wanted to sell me.  I told him, I didn’t EVER want to hear distortion.

But now I spend more time at Felice’s.  And she’s got  Bose.

Speak with any audio nut.  He’ll pooh-pooh Bose.  But it was installed before I met her, and it’s great for a girl, because it’s small!  It barely shows.  Except for the subwoofer.

That’s where we started today.  With Gary.  What were we going to do about the subwoofer?

Put it in the wall!  But then the sound will suck and you can’t just replace it with a better unit because it powers the whole system.

So we can replace it.  Everything!  We started off getting rid of the subwoofer, then Gary wanted to get rid of the satellites.  But if you replaced everything, you’d have to spend five or ten grand, and the front speakers would still have to show!

Finally Gary admitted it.  He’s all about show, I’m all about sound.

Can you sacrifice your identity?  Can you stop being Jewish?  Can you turn from a guy into a girl?

Trust him.

I don’t trust anybody with my audio.

He can do it for much less.

But then it will sound shitty!

And Felice doesn’t want to spend five or ten grand, but she’s enthralled by Gary, it’s like he’s Rasputin and she’s a Romanov and suddenly I’m the enemy.

How did I end up out?  I just want it to sound good!

Hi, you probably don’t know me, but I had to reach out and say thank you for your post:
Tubeify

It sums up what I wanted achieve when I started coding on Tubeify.
I wrote it to be what I always wanted in a music player and it thrills me that you enjoy discovering music in Tubeify as well.

As for legal issues, YouTube has an ASCAP license that covers all YouTube content including that embedded in other sites.
I hope the record labels won’t block Tubeify but instead enable YouTube ads to increase the amount artists are paid per view.

Again, thank you for your blog post, it really makes me excited about improving the service.

Tomas Isdal
Tubeify, Inc.