“Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy”: https://amzn.to/3lehXP5

He called his daughter the c-word, on more than one occasion.

I’d tell you that’s all you need to know, but there’s more, much more.

I only picked up this book because it was co-written by James B. Stewart, author of “Den of Thieves,” the best financial book I’ve ever read.

But it starts out trashy.

Now if you’ve read all the reviews, and there have been a plethora, you don’t need to read “Unscripted.” But you might want to. Not so much for Sumner Redstone’s crudity and salacious activities as the duplicity of the executives and the boardroom shenanigans.

But let’s start off with Sumner. Although well-publicized, at the end of his life he had two live-in girlfriends. One he was engaged to, the other who he dated previously. And there was a third woman brought in to sexually satisfy him. Never mind that he continued to call the former private airline flight attendant who he essentially stalked and browbeat into submission, in all ways if not sex.

You see it’s about the money. Sumner spread it, bought women houses. Laid so much cash on them that not only did they never have to work again, they became philanthropists in their own right.

As for the CV of these women…

Maybe you don’t live in Hollywood, i.e. the greater Los Angeles area. Because if you did, you’d find the best-looking women in America. Toned and treated… They come to Hollywood to make it, oftentimes without portfolio. Their looks are their calling card. And they have to make bank before their looks fade.

I know, I know, it sounds kind of offensive, but it’s true. Just like the boyfriend who’s been on TV, but has also been in jail. And the talent manager who made his mortgage by gambling in Vegas. You see L.A. is one of the few places where your backstory does not matter. Where you went to college, even if you went to college…no one cares. Everybody flies by their wits. They spice up their looks, go out on the town and lay layers of b.s. on everybody, hoping that something will stick, that they’ll make a connection and end up with a development deal or…

And I mention all this because there’s a good chance this is not who you are. You jumped through the hoops, you went to college, you have a respectable job, you’re not DESPERATE! That’s what lies beneath the shiny surface, this con has got to work. And I say all this because I can’t relate to these money-grubbing women abusing and ripping off Sumner, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, alienating him from his family in the process, not even telling him his mishpucha called.

And that’s a question in the book. Does the apple not fall far from the tree, does Shari Redstone have Sumner’s DNA, or…

So Sumner bought Viacom, built an entertainment empire essentially from scratch. He wasn’t about getting along, he was about winning. And at the top tier of entertainment… One thing you’ll learn if you have access is these people are very very smart. Maybe not educated, but extremely intelligent, and certainly street smart, because you can’t get anywhere near this rarefied atmosphere unless you are. And Sumner, an Ivy League graduate with a law degree, is brilliant. As for said law degree… He sues people on a regular basis. You might freak out if sued, but the heavy players, those with deep pockets, use lawsuits as a chisel, they want to see what you’re made of, whether you can rise to the occasion. And, of course, they want to win.

But Sumner becomes incapacitated. Delusional. He truly believed he was going to live forever, that the rules of nature didn’t apply to him, but they did. And Shari takes over the empire and…

The guys won’t listen to her. It’s an old boys’ network. So offensive… This is what women are up against. It’s not about what is good for the corporation, but what is good for one’s relationships. Not that women are always better, the live-in girlfriends hire a female attorney who caters to their wishes when it’s obvious they’re ripping off Sumner.

But, Shari’s always asking questions, wondering about the future, and…

The CBS board doesn’t want to hear about the future. Furthermore, they’re paranoid. They blame every bad event on Shari, believing she’s going behind their back. And it’s all about loyalty. You need your votes. And to break this loyalty is nearly impossible.

That’s CBS, at Viacom…

Philippe Dauman, Sumner’s surrogate son, takes over and runs the company into the ground. He’s got no business plan, other than buying back stock. As for the creative touch? Zippo. this is what Wall Street doesn’t understand about entertainment. It can’t be boiled down to zeros and ones. It’s amorphous. Which the Street does not like. But then they see these high-flying executives and the returns, and they want in on the action. Believe me, there’s nothing sexy about being a banker. Even Lloyd Blankfein. Or the heads of Apollo. They might be rich, but they’re not hot, they don’t have the country hanging on to their every word, everybody does not want to sleep with them, so they sidle up to entertainment, hoping some of the shine will rub off on them.

To run an entertainment business you have to know talent, you have to know creative, and if you don’t… Top talent will not work with you. They want someone they can relate to, who understands them, who coddles them. Moonves wasn’t even involved on the financial side, he was all about the shows…after all, the shows are what make the money. Dauman is in charge of the fading MTV, and what does he do? Nothing. There’s an asset that he’s allowing to go down to zero. Shari wants to get rid of him, but Dauman doesn’t want to go.

And there’s so much money involved. Moonves made $700 million running CBS. Not as much as the bankers, but that’s plenty. He didn’t start the company, he didn’t own the company, that’s quite a level of compensation.

But Moonves is still susceptible to the machinations of a down on his luck talent manager, who represents someone Moonves took liberties with, to say the least. So Moonves takes his calls, responds to his texts… You’ve got to know, access is number one in entertainment, and very few have it, and those bragging usually know someone down the food chain. Moonves was on top. Yet he was beholden to this manager.

And everybody lies. Or doesn’t answer. Especially Moonves. Nothing happened. Then it was consensual, and then…

“Unscripted” will tell you how business really works.

It will also tell you that money is not enough for these titans, they belive they’re entitled to sex, and oftentimes cross the line to get satisfied. Like the woman who came in and gave Moonves head on a regular basis.

You won’t learn how the business really works reading the trades, reading the words of some outsider trying to make a living by giving you advice, but they get right down to the real nitty-gritty in “Unscripted.”

And in many ways, it’s despicable.

The stars aren’t sexy. I’m not talking about physical appearance, I’m talking in advertising terms. They’re no longer special. They’ve been demoted image-wise. And traditional media doesn’t want to admit this.

Want to know who’s a star? Greta Thunberg. Because she believes what she says, irrelevant of whether you agree or not.

You see the generations have changed and this is unfathomable to boomers and Gen-X’ers. Because they remember when.

Call it the internet. Sly Stone had it right, everybody is a star. Actors in momentary pictures can’t compete. Even Kim Kardashian is being eclipsed. Because the paradigm changed. TikTok is all about being real, testifying, and the movie stars were never real, they were built by the studios for the audience to adore.

And we did.

The Oscars used to be a ritual. Not only because of the movies, but because we got to see the stars. This was rare. We had no access to them. Now we have access to everybody. Everybody’s on the same plane except for the billionaires. They’re the ones people look up to, or look down on today. Because they’ve got enough money to do it their way, to write the rules, and it’s always about the rules.

Talk to a Gen-Z’er, ask them what is hot. Chances are they’ll mention a TikTokker or YouTube influencer you’ve never heard of. But they spend hours with these people, it’s like they’re friends. We never thought we were friends with the movie stars, never ever.

I didn’t bother to watch the Oscars. I stopped about seven or eight years ago, when I was traveling and couldn’t tune in…and realized I wasn’t missing anything.

And the only people talking to me about the movies were oldsters. It’d crack me up when my contemporaries told me they went to the movies. Really? You took all that time? When there’s so much entertainment at your fingertips in your house? You drove, parked, sat through previews and commercials because..? It’s kind of like baseball, the younger generation decided it wasn’t interested. It was too slow, they didn’t grow up with the game, they had no allegiance. Everything has a time frame, everything is superseded, but many people can’t accept this, that their time is gone.

Before he became a pariah, Woody Allen was a genius. Whose girlfriend was Diane Keaton, who was not only beautiful, but had her own unique identity. Remember when women started wearing vests? Keaton started that. The two were exotic, and you had no access to them whatsoever. You could only see them on screen, Allen famously didn’t even go to the Oscar show. He thought competition in the arts was a fool’s errand, an artificial construct placed upon that which cannot be judged. I agree, but that’s not the point. We hungered for more information. They put out a double album of Allen’s early standup routines. We couldn’t get enough. We salivated for more. Today we’ve got too much, of not only the individual, but everything.

And the movies themselves are not visceral enough.

Driving home from hiking just now I heard the theme to “Midnight Express” on Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown from this week in 1979. Man was that movie a big deal. It was directed by Alan Parker, who was not known for special effects, but story. And Giorgio Moroder was at his peak. His time passed too. But for a moment there he was everywhere. We hungered for more, there were stories about the real Billy Hayes. We wondered if we’d take the same risk. Then again, this was when the goal of a college student was to spend a summer in Europe, bumming around. Airfares were cheap and so were the lodgings. I remember sleeping twenty to a room, on cots. Kids today wouldn’t stand for that. But they also see no reason to go to Europe. Why? They’re already in college, they don’t have to build their resumé, it won’t help them get a job…

I’m not saying they should stop making movies, then again they’re so much less satisfying than series. There’s more buzz on series than movies. I mean how many people have told you about “Ted Lasso”? And let’s be clear, they paid for that too!

And unlike Giorgio Moroder’s theme from “Midnight Express,” the songs nominated for Oscars today were not hits, we’ve never heard them, how great can they be? It’s like the Oscars are a sideshow. And Tom Cruise didn’t even show up. Jack Nicholson knew showing up and being cool was part of his image, it made him even more cool. But in real life, Tom Cruise isn’t cool. A cooler person is Kelly McGillis, a star of the first “Top Gun” who wasn’t called back for the sequel, she said she looked like a regular sixtysomething woman. She’d moved on. Tom Cruise looks barely older than he was during the first film. What’s there to believe in?

And we all want something to believe in.

And the change is we believe in ourselves. We think we can do it, we can make it. First and foremost, we’ve got the tools, and they’re free, or close thereto. Anybody can put music on streaming services, and post to TikTok. And if you’re innovative enough, you too can be famous, maybe only in your own town, but… And there are people just like you who got rich online. They’re not nepo-babies. They didn’t start with a leg up. They made it purely on their wits.

Of course there are people who worship BTS. And Taylor Swift. And even the aforementioned Kim Kardashian. But they’re young, looking for something to hold on to, they haven’t been disillusioned yet.

That’s the flip side. Sure, you can become rich and famous, but odds are low. And you’ve got a low-paying job. And everybody with a brain doesn’t even go into the arts. It’s not the zenith of culture. That’s the economic titans. The revolutionaries delivering exotica to us virtually, instantly. Come on, ChatGPT is cooler than any movie, any record. Forget the blowback from the media, about its imperfections. We’ve been hearing about AI for a decade, and here it is. And it can write your school paper and… Wow, that changes things.

And I’m down on Elon Musk, but he did change an entire industry. Elon Musk made the electric car the standard, all over the world, a decade from now the only gas guzzlers you’ll see on the road will be old, passé.

So the Oscars are a circle jerk. Almost like the Wizard of Oz. We’re supposed to be overwhelmed, impressed, but when the curtain parts, when we see the people behind the show…they’re not giants, they’re very small, and they’re flawed.

I don’t care if the ratings go up. They won’t double. All awards shows have this problem. The stars are not as big as they used to be. And we can see them all the time online. What’s so special about the show?

Nothing.

“US regulators bail out SVB customers, who can access all their money Monday”: https://cnn.it/3ZI4b6m

This is why people have no faith in the government.

This is why Trump got elected. The rank and file were pissed, and they wanted to upset the apple cart. Meanwhile, the GOP brass has ceded the entire party to Trump to its detriment, proving that nobody is home, at least nobody with balls.

The bottom line is nobody ever pays a price. Nobody ever goes to jail. You might be caught with a small amount of dope and go to prison, but you were represented by an overworked public defender who doesn’t really care about you, never mind your outcome. They probably advise you to plead, so they have less work. This is how innocent people end up in jail. They’re told if they lose at trial the penalty could be much worse, is it worth the risk? Better to do a couple of years. Meanwhile, everybody with money gets a high-priced lawyer and gets off with probation. Fair I ask you?

Fox News is caught with its pants down and never mind that its audience is unaware of what has come out in discovery in the Dominion suit, they’re much more worried about their pocketbook. Who is going to make depositors whole? THEM!

Which is why they hate the coastal elites.

I am a coastal elite, but I’m not rich and powerful like these fat cats, I’m not bending the rules, breaking the law, I hate the people at the top too!

Timothy Geithner saved his cronies, his brethren didn’t go to jail. Sure, the economy was saved, but how come no one who blew it up paid a price?

Have we completely forgotten about 2008? Is it that long ago that no one remembers? I certainly do. The bankers blew up the economy. So Congress made some rules to prevent this from happening again and…

The execs at Silicon Valley Bank lobbied to get rid of them, and they succeeded!

It’s not like these people were unaware of the situation, that’s why they sold stock before the implosion. Now the government is agitating to get the money back, but that’s not good enough, for me or most of America, put these suckers in JAIL! That’s a deterrent. If jail is in the offing, you might think twice before breaking the law. It’s not like these guys, and it’s almost always guys, are uneducated nincompoops. No, they went to the best schools and they’re educated up the yin-yang. But they know that life is all about relationships, and government is a revolving door, and the Congresspeople of today are going to need jobs in the future so… Don’t expect the elected officials to be hardas*es.

George Carlin said you can vote, do so if it makes you feel good, but it doesn’t matter, the owners of this country won’t allow you a voice.

No, don’t speak truth to me. I know, I know, the government had to make depositors whole in order to prevent runs on further banks.

And yes, I know that by raising the interest rates these banks ended up holding long term assets at low rates.

But isn’t this the job of the execs running the banks, to foresee this?

I’m bad at my job and I get fired. These guys are bad and they get rescued by the government, and I pay for it.

And sure, you have the yahoos down south messing with our cultural soul, passing laws banning books, never mind abortions. But really, it all comes down to money, and Silicon Valley, so many of these entrepreneurs, are dyed-in-the-wool blue. Hell, Sam Bankman-Fried was quite the philanthropist, the left wing people who took his money didn’t ask any questions, didn’t do any vetting. I mean the guy made his money in crypto, doesn’t that raise a red flag? Never mind the outright fraud that was ultimately revealed. No, if you’ve got money, we’ll take it!

Like all those guys who received the benefit of Jeffrey Epstein’s largesse. Private jet whores, who seem to have forgotten that abusing young women crosses the line. Yup, they’re so powerful they think they can get away with anything. Even worse, they usually do!

How about Jenna Ellis, the lawyer who…

“Jenna Ellis, a lawyer who represented President Donald J. Trump after his loss in the 2020 election, admitted in a sworn statement released on Wednesday that she had knowingly misrepresented the facts in several of her public claims that widespread voting fraud led to Mr. Trump’s defeat.”: https://nyti.ms/3ywHjKT

She was censured. Boo-hoo. She needed to be DISBARRED! Lose her license. She’s an officer of the court. I’m a lawyer, I know there are penalties for unethical behavior. At least in the constantly derided California.

And then there’s Tom Girardi, who gave a million bucks to the guy investigating him.

Getting the theme here? There are no guardrails for the rich and powerful. But for you??

You don’t have the money and the relationships and they don’t want you to. The average person has no idea that almost all elite universities are need-blind, if you apply and get in, the institution pays the freight if you come from a poor family. This could be promoted all over the country, so those smart kids living in backwaters could lift themselves up. But the elite don’t want you to know this! Because if you get in, then maybe their kid won’t.

It’s like getting an elite MBA. Forget what you learn, it’s primarily about relationships. The average person is starting off with their hands tied behind their back. And told to be afraid of breaking the law, when the elites run around willy-nilly.

And it’s not like the educated elite are on career paths to give back.

As per the “New Yorker”: 

“According to the Harvard Crimson, which conducts an annual survey, more than sixty per cent of the members of the class of 2020 planning to enter the workforce were going into tech, finance, or consulting.”: https://bit.ly/3LiW5wK

No, they want to be risk-free, they want to ensure they don’t fall down the economic ladder and have to live with the rest of us.

Makes you angry, doesn’t it? The rich elites act with impunity and…

So when someone tells you they can get back at these people, you’re all ears.

As for the Democrats, they keep telling us it’s a big tent and we should wait our turn. When really they want the fat cats’ money, never mind the perks of knowing them.

This is how it works. Hang on the yacht, the jet…you cannot say anything negative about these people ever. Or do so once and you’ll be ostracized. Not only by them, but everybody they know. It’s the code.

And in truth, as you move up the economic ladder almost everybody becomes compromised. They owe favors. That’s how they got their position!

Artists used to be excluded from this b.s. But now they’re part of the combine. Assuming you want to call them “artists.” Everybody wants in and you’re left out. You don’t even see an opening. You’re working hard and you can’t make it on your income, because the BUSINESS OWNERS can’t give you a good wage or…

Vail Resorts raised everybody up to $20 an hour, primarily because they had trouble getting workers, and the recent quarterly report? Net income was $208.7 million as opposed to last year’s $223.4 million. But conditions were piss-poor in the east and Europe. And in any event, isn’t it worth $14.7 million to pay people a living wage?

But these same powers-that-be have told you not to trust facts, not to trust major news outlets. So everybody is full of sh*t. 

Hell, I’ll really throw a spanner in the works.

So everybody’s now saying Covid came from a lab, because the Energy Department said so with “low confidence.” That was in the news report, all of the news reports, the “low confidence” element. But most people just heard the headline. But the guy who wrote this piece in today’s L.A. “Times” is an expert. At the core of the story. You should read this article, but you won’t.

“Opinion: I called for more research on the COVID ‘lab leak theory.’ Here’s what I found out”: https://lat.ms/3FiUAL2

This guy Michael Worobey, “a professor and the head of the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona,” makes a strong case it wasn’t leaked from a lab. He’s open to facts saying otherwise, but they’ve yet to arise. But academia is left wing tripe, better to believe your next door neighbor.

Meanwhile, the educated elite, especially the rich and powerful elite, are laughing all the while. They’ve got you exactly where they want you. Uneducated and uninformed.

It’s a game. And you don’t have a piece, never mind having no idea where the board is. So you can’t play.

You’re gonna pay to make all these depositors whole. And I get it, most of them, if not all of them, did nothing illegal. But the people running the bank…

Expect to see them on the Riviera. But you won’t know who they are. Because the truly rich are smarter than entertainers, they keep their names out of the news, you have no idea who they are. But they’re winning and you’re not.

I had no idea who this guy was.

After conversing with Ebie in the business office of Staples/The Crypt, I entered the outer ring, backstage but not a dressing room, where the hangers-on hang out. And this guy started talking to me. He looked like a guy I’d hang out with in college. His big black spectacles were noticeable, but he had no attitude, no airs. I figured he was just another member of the entourage.

But then he told me he was an artist. Had written a number of hits.

Yeah, right.

And I ask him where he’s from and he says…Philadelphia.

Makes sense to me, except he’s talking about Philadelphia, Mississippi. I’ve actually been to Mississippi, it’s Memphis adjacent, but I can’t say I’ve ever known anybody from Mississippi. It’s a parallel universe. Where they keep trying to keep the Blacks down. High poverty rate. Low standards of educational achievement.

It was cognitive dissonance, this guy was anything but hick.

So I ask him about his journey. He’s telling me about a relative in Nashville and how he goes there to try his hand at songwriting and it was all so casual that it just didn’t square. If you were such a big swinging dick why have I never heard of you? I mean this guy is even talking about awards.

But these days someone can have a number one and not only have you never heard of them, you’ve never heard the record.

Just another wannabe.

But he told me he was performing that night, he’d written with Morgan Wallen, he was the middle act. And he ultimately took the stage and it was so loud and in-your-face that not only did it not sound like country, it was just a wash of noise, I didn’t get it.

But recently this guy has gotten a slew of press far outstripping his status in the business. I wouldn’t say he’s everywhere, but he’s getting featured in outlets that seem like they’d keep him at arm’s length, like the “New Yorker.”

I saw they did a story on him. I was too busy to read the story online. I waited for the magazine to come. And today after reading periodical after periodical I dove into the “New Yorker,” and read about the death of the humanities at colleges and HARDY.

That humanities article deserves its own screed. Did you know the state only pays 9% of ASU’s budget? These state universities… They’re so far from free. And if you’re gonna end up with a ton of debt you might as well study something practical, so you can pay it back and live your life, get married, buy a house and have children.

And then I read about HARDY.

And the content was interesting, although it was overwritten with no zest, no pizzazz, rock is supposed to electrify your body, excite you, enable you to transcend everyday life. And the writer said that half of HARDY’s album was rock. You know, the dying format.

There’s Active Rock, which is loud and fast and the singer screams and shouts and it’s a niche. And then there are a ton of imitations of what once was. They’re retreads, not new.

So the article said the first half of HARDY’S new album was country, and the second half was rock.

I was stretching and I just pulled up “the mockingbird & THE CROW” on Spotify.

The first cut was “beer.” Actually, I remembered this from the live show. Not that it’s hard to remember a song about beer.

The next cut featured Morgan Wallen.

Okay, this was country, what about the second half of the LP, the rock half?

Not that the country songs were unpalatable. Actually, they had the essence of Morgan Wallen, as in they were catchy.

So the first truly rock song is “SOLD OUT.” And I’m listening and I hear echoes of Kid Rock. Sans the hip-hop. But with the intensity, which you know if you’ve ever seen Bob live.

Okay, I’ve got it. I click to the next track, “JACK,” which is from the perspective of the whiskey itself.

And the first thing I notice is the guitar figure. It’s electric, but it’s simple, it hooks you, no effort is required to get it.

“Hey kid, let me introduce myself

I’m a friend of your dad’s when he had no one else

I’ll put the party in your life boy, you know I can

Have you ever wanted to feel like Superman”

Speaking of college… I went in the dark era, when there was no internet, not even DVDs, not even TV in this hamlet in Vermont. And at the end of freshman year they changed the state’s policy, you could drink at 18, and we did, we threw away our dope (well, not literally) and went down to the Alibi, which resembled a malt shop, albeit with alcohol, and got drunk and had fun. Dope put you to sleep, alcohol livened you up, you might have the best night of your life. And if you were down in the dumps, maybe the drink would help.

The following song was “TRUCK BED,” a concept that immediately puts you off, but there’s that hypnotic guitar and…then it occurs to me. Wait a second, this stuff is DIFFERENT!

It takes forever to get into most new albums, but every cut resonates.

And I’m thinking back to that conversation at Staples/the Crypt and I remember, HARDY radiated intelligence. And that’s rare in today’s mainstream music world. Sure, there are complaining alternative acts that are smart, but their music is unpalatable.

But HARDY definitely sounds like he’s from the south. And this is not the Allman Brothers. Which is actually good, HARDY is just not repeating a formula. There’s definitely a wise sensibility emanating from the tracks, the lyrics are not pablum…

Well, there’s that shout like Kid Rock, guitar figures akin to “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” like so many rock records, but it still sounds new. And there are changes. Yes, these are songs.

And then I start thinking of the audience. Youngsters are alienated. They need something to relate to. Especially those who are not cool, who are not on the football team, are not number one in their class, who are not influencers, who is speaking to them? NOBODY! They’re a forgotten generation. But you could be at home and put on HARDY and think someone was on your team. Not someone trying to become a brand (not yet, anyway), who was not pandering like in all those country songs written by committee about babies, pickups, religion… They try to be broad and appeal to everybody, but really they appeal to nobody, because they’re not authentic, not specific. Which is why Chris Stapleton is the most revered act in Nashville. He’s talented and uncompromised. And HARDY is not making the same music and certainly is not appealing to the same audience…

I ask you, are you angry? Do you remember when music was your religion, when you put it on and felt all powerful, when it made you happy, when it was more than rhythm…

Well, that’s HARDY, check him out.

P.S. My favorite cut is “I AIN’T IN THE COUNTRY NO MORE.” If you’re a rocker, if you wince and then smile when you hear a power chord, this might be right up your alley.