Bob, I worked with Chris for almost 11 years. From 1989 to 2000.  He is a true legend, a true entrepreneur and truly loved by almost everyone who’s lives he touched. He was literally the James Bond of the music business. A style of doing business and dealing with artists that was simply unique.   Her thought global when most thought local. Almost everything I’ve learned in the music and any meager success I may have had I owe to Chris Blackwell and his tutelage.

Larry Mestel

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Chris Blackwell. there is absolutely nothing to say, other then he was the true essence of what some call a “record man”. the artists ALWAYS mattered more then the money. a great song or album (on anyone’s label) excites him more then how much money he or they were making.

what he did at Island, was true magnificence! the label was all about the talent and it revolved around his core beliefs and loves as a human being within the world as he saw it. he taught us that music is a universal language and sent me on my path of discovering that alternative music was not about charts, but about feelings. those that spoke languages we did not understand, but made us groove and dance and laugh and cry.

sure, we all remember him bringing Bob Marley and U2 to the world, but it was so much more. Traffic, King Sunny Ade, Ali Farka Toure, Nick Drake, John Martyn, the B-52’s, Fairport Convention, Jimmy Cliff, Sly & Robbie, Toots and the Maytals, Joe Cocker, Tom Tom Club as well as the aforementioned Free, Cat Stevens, Marianne Faithful, Grace Jones, Tom Waits and so many, many more.

genius is a word that gets thrown around so casually and i am not sure what it’s true meaning is anymore, but i believe it is held up for those that reach higher and deeper then us mere mortals and therefore affect change in the world. Chris Blackwell is a all of that and more. he has always been my guiding light and i am forever in his debt in more ways then he will ever know.

long may he run…

Gary Gersh

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It was 86-88 when Chris Blackwell offered me a job at Island Pictures. I had just completed the Rock of the 80’s TV Series for Paramount, then TV development for Pierre Cossette Prod. I had one hand in music the other in TV/film. Having written a few screenplays I was trying to sell ideas…always a tough call in LA.

Chris saw that and gave me an office at Island Pics.

I met Matt Dike who had a club….Power Tools in downtown LA, where few traveled at that time.

I hired Matt to DJ a Island film release party for Mondo New York.

To this day Power Tools was the coolest club ever, Matt had GO GO cages hanging from the 30’ ceilings.

Studio 54, Limelight, etc could not compare to Power Tools.

Later, Matt played me tracks he made at his loft on Santa Monica.

Tone Loc’s WildThing, Young MC’s Bust a Move… among the tracks.

I called Chris and asked if he would sign these guys, Delicious Vinyl.

He did on the spot, I called friends at KROQ, had lunch with Lee Masters Prez MTV at the Sunset Marquee.

A few days later Wild Thing went on power rotation at KROQ and MTV.

The rest is history.

That is Chris Blackwell, he had what all great record guys have..gut instincts, great ears, and the will to move on it.

They don’t make em like that anymore.

Chris is eternal as is the music he championed.

Marty Schwartz,

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Hey Bob,
thanks for the heads up, can’t wait to read it.

Even though I’ve only met the man once, it was a memorable encounter and hands down one of those magic nights that only seem to happen in New York or LA. It was September 10, 2010, Fashion’s Night Out (a questionable but very fun attempt to get people spending again after 2008/09) when all the major stores in NYC were open late, full with special events and appearances all over town.

Chris Blackwell had a book signing for the just released The Story of Island Records: Keep On Running at Barneys, and I went with my friend Lori who had been Branson’s right-hand for 25 years and knew him that way. As we get there, I see Chris signing and chatting with the admirers standing in line, but as I turn around, another one of my heroes, Harry Belafonte, is casually browsing the cashmere sweaters on the shelf. Of course, he was there to support his friend Chris, so I respectfully kept my distance and just enjoyed the scenery. My friend Lori comes back from talking to Chris and says he’s inviting us to come to his house after, would I like to go? Hmm, let me check my schedule and have my people call your people… OF COURSE I want to go. This night is getting better by the minute.

We get to Blackwell’s penthouse on the Upper West Side, which stretches across the whole building, filled with amazing photos from many of the Island acts, especially those of Marley. It’s a small gathering, and there’s a dreadlocked dude working the iTunes in Chris’ living room, where a few fine ladies are eager to dance. But… this must be the only Jamaican in New York who doesn’t know how to rock a crowd, I mean I was shocked how bad his music selection was, and this at Chris friggin’ Blackwell’s house?! No way will these lovely dancehall queens be deprived! Long story short, the guy let me, the white boy, take over, I plug in my iPhone and start DJ’ing (it helped that I had a DJ residency at Lenny Kravitz & Denzel Washington’s Bowery lounge at the time, so I had jams on standby), and we’re off to the races, everybody startin’ to get down.

Now, and you can’t make this up, as if on cue, in STRUTS Grace Jones in a hoodie, miniskirt, and high heels, and starts to “breakdance”!!! in the middle of the floor. In high heels. Needless to say, I was in total bliss mode, you couldn’t wipe off that grin on my face, even more so afterward when she came up to me, we hugged it out and ended up talking for a good half an hour.

As the night progresses, I make my way into the kitchen, where Chris is holding court with pals, among them our mutual friend Tommy Silverman, legendary label founder of Tommy Boy Records in his own right. I’m thinking, but of course Tommy is here, it all makes sense, movers and shakers always stay within close proximity to each other, game recognizes game.

Chris, ever the cool gentleman, then sits me down at his kitchen island and we start to chat after he pours me a big glass of his own Blackwell Rum punch while his Jamaican chef is whipping up delicious food for everyone. For a music fanboy like myself, that night was a slice of heaven.

Fredrick Weiss

PS: I did run into Harry Belafonte at a movie screening a couple of years later and got the chance to meet that legend then, as well.

___________________________________________

Jim was VP of sales at Island from 84 to 87. I was running Tower 4th&Broadway for part of that time. Upstairs/Downstairs. Chris traveled light; same white leather jeans which he’d pair with a t-shirt from whatever airport gift shop(s) he happened to depart from that day.

That was indeed, the High Life.

Randi Swindel

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One of the highlights of my 15 year stint in the music business was sharing a spliff which Blackwell rolled from one of my cigarettes in the Chelsea offices of Kurfirst-Blackwell Entertainment and Palm Pictures where I was an intern back in 2004. The truth was that even Blackwell still got nervous before interviews and needed the calming effect of cannabis to get through it. Reading your perception that you didn’t truly know him after 320 pages makes me wonder if revealing too much of himself in the interview was part of the anxiety.

-Stu Walker

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You are right on U2, Bob
I remember listen to The Fly the first time in the car with me dad. He pulled over so we could listen to the song. We didn’t understand the song, it was so far behind of everything else you heard those dats on the radio.
It was indeed spectacular!

I bought Achting Baby and it was so great.

Kris Keijser

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Hey Bob,
I know exactly how it was.
I worked through all of it.
So I’m really looking forward to reading “The Islander”.
Great review.
Thanks.
Michael Wright

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I LOVE Chris Blackwell. Before I could sign my contract with Island Records in 1988 I had to go meet Chris at his house.

I was getting the biggest deal Island had ever given a new artist so I thought I was special but I really wasn’t.

Turns out Chris wanted to talk to me about my weird blend of Hendrix meets James Brown guitar funk rock and to maybe get me into a Latin Rock thing.

He said he thought the world was ready for a new young Carlos Santana on guitar.

I was like Huh??? Then I explained that I was not Mexican but I was a Native American Apache and I did not speak Spanish.

I could tell he was a little bugged that I wasn’t into it but he was cool and I signed the contract.

When he would be in the Island office in London, NYC or Hollywood people would all be nervous but I would just walk in and talk to him about all the amazing music he had been responsible for that I loved like Blind Faith, Nick Drake and the amazing My Boy Lollipop which I loved as a kid. He was amazing to talk to about music history.

Chris would walk into a semi formal room of ballers with a pair of sandals and a Hawaiian print shirt and sometimes get asked to leave when people thought he was a bum.

I LOVED that and I really loved that I got to work with him.

Stevie Salas

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Ref:Chris Blackwell

Looking forward to this book.

In the UK Island was VERY well known to music nerds in the 70’s.

The label logo, either the pink one or the cartoon palm tree one, was a signifier of quality, of something different, exciting, bold.

The first Roxy Music album, mind bending, like something beamed in from Mars, Free – how could they be so authentically gritty, they were teenagers, King Crimson – reinvented and unrecognizable with every release, Sparks – deranged subversive pop with a smile and a bite, Marley – spreading the gospel of Jamaica to  the world, and of course,THAT voice – with Spencer Davis, then with Traffic and then solo, that VOICE – undeniable.

If it was on Island, I went out and bought it – simple as that.

Mark Hudson

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Thanks, Bob, for this piece on Chris Blackwell – his story needs more telling.  I’ve got a little-known story about him that may surprise some people.  In 1986, before Chris asked Lou Maglia to be the president of Island Records, Lou was casting about between gigs and finding himself in a moment of, shall we say, ‘personal reflection’. Somehow, through a network of music biz connections too byzantine to recount, Lou decided to take an interest in helping a small indie label I was working at in Sacramento called Exit Records.  The twist here is that the label was run by a somewhat radical group of evangelical Christian musicians who also had a desire to do some rather hip and artistic music at a time when neither of those terms were associated with the church and/or pop music in general.  However, after Amy Grant broke through on A&M Records, Exit was able to glom onto that association and managed to get secular distribution on A&M for a time, but we wanted more.  Much more.  And it was at that time when Lou stepped in and actually began trying to help us turn our big dumb thoughts on ‘changing the world for God’ with our music into a reality.

It wasn’t long into that relationship that Lou got the call from Chris Blackwell to come and manage Island Records.  Lou agreed to the gig, with one caveat — that he be allowed to bring our little indie label with a handful of artists (including Charlie Peacock, The 77s and others) into the deal.  We knew this was an insane move on Lou’s part (and we begged him to leave out the religious aspect of our work), but since Chris had already planned a trip to Japan shortly before calling Lou, Chris agreed to fly to Sacramento to come check out our artists and do an “in person” audition at the church we were doing all this at.  We didn’t tell him it was a church, though, for fear of spooking him out, so we tried “sanitizing” the church by removing all manner of anything that would give us away.  Fortunately, since we met in an industrial warehouse space, this wasn’t too difficult to do, but I am beyond confident that Chris saw through the whole silly ruse.

Chris arrived in his characteristic flip flops, shorts and Hawaiin shirt and sat through the auditions one by one.  Suitably impressed, he made his way to the pastor’s office (the pastor’s wife was running the label) to ‘talk business’.  I sat there spellbound, taking in this decidedly worldly man and his calm and relaxed demeanor.  He was most definitely a man of leisure, yet so coolly and calmly passionate about music.  He gave my band a lot of encouragement and told us to get out on the road and start playing lots of clubs (good advice that we took to heart). Then, surprisingly, he decided to cancel his trip to Japan and fly back to New York to ink a “P&D” deal for our label with Island, a situation that was thrilling for all of us.

Unfortunately, shortly after bringing our little label into Island, U2 came out with The Joshua Tree and the entire 30 member staff had to go gonzo 24/7 in order to barely keep up with that level of success.  We got a lot of good press and other perks from Island, but, in point of fact, even other artists who were signed around the same time we were (like our idols The Comsat Angels) were not able to gain much ground sales-wise, given the momentous task it was for a comparatively ’boutique’ label to keep up with a monster album like The Joshua Tree.  Indeed, it would take the entire Atlantic/Atco/Warners machinery to handle it and Island was hanging onto their wigs and keys just trying to keep up.  I’ll bet that U2 would have sold tons more copies of Joshua had it come out on CBS or one of the other majors, but the band remained loyal to Chris, which says a lot.

The only reason I’m telling you all this is that Chris did something for us that he didn’t have to do, and he did it at personal inconvenience to himself simply to please his new label president who happened to take an interest in a ragtag group of musicians trying to do something different.  I have never forgotten his kindness, and I learned a hell of a lot about the music business that I would have never known otherwise.

MICHAEL ROE

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I’ve Been following your posts for many years now. Always an interesting read. Our band is still making music and touring (thanks to our loyal fans as there is no radio that supports new music from vintage artists unfortunately). Look forward to checking out the Chris Blackwell book.

There is a direct connection with Glass Tiger and Island Records. They were the first record label to show interest in the band and helped us cut our early demos. Chris even flew to Canada to see us at a small local pub in Bradford Ontario called “The Village Inn”. We were convinced we would be the next act to get signed by Island in 1986 however as soon as Chris shook our hand we knew it wasn’t in the cards. Our early songs had a tinge of the U2 sound and I guess that was too close for him.

His right hand guy, Doug Chappell here in Canada was our first music industry “believer” and worked hard to get us across the finish line with Island. He sat in on our rehearsals and studio sessions but Chris didn’t hear it so he passed on us. Doug would later leave Island because of that issue. Wasn’t the first time that Doug would find a cool new band and Chris would put the boots to it.

Thankfully we also had Capitol Records interested at the time and because of Island’s interest they pushed harder to sign us. We played the Island deal against the Capitol deal and the rest is history – signed with Capitol in 1985 and released our “Thin Red Line” debut album in 1986.

I remember being super nervous that Chris Blackwell was in the audience for that showcase, he represented some super cool bands and I loved the diversity in acts that Island had on their roster. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to Glass Tiger if we signed with Island. Hard to say! We had an awesome run and are coming up to our 40th year together so no complaints!

Thanks Bob,

Sam Reid (Glass Tiger)

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In the early 1990s I stayed at the Marlin Hotel in Miami Beach at a time when Blackwell was intermittently living in the hotel in his own suite. He owned a number of properties in the area but the Marlin was his favorite.  It was still during the Art Deco Miami revival, and everything about the hotel was hip. Everyone was beautiful. I remember the restaurant was Jamaican-themed and served great authentic jerk chicken.

During our stay I hoped we’d bump into him as we heard he liked to party with guests on occasion. But it was not to be. Nevertheless, my stay was a memorable one, and for someone who was on the road living in hotels at least 100 nights a year for a few decades, that’s saying a lot.

Barry K. Herman, MD, MMM

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Hi Bob,

One of the many reasons I’m happy to have grown up as a kid in the UK. We had Island Records, we had “pirate” radio, who played Island Records, and we had bands -on- Island records that toured the UK regularly. This was “normal life” for us, and we reveled in the luxury of a massively diverse musical culture played in disparate venues. The Oval cricket ground? Yep. The Big Apple in Brighton with the bouncing floor? Absolutely. Rock, reggae, punk, you name it, we had it, and didn’t realize that we had an “edge” on the world of music back then. Blackwell was a music god when I was probably too young to understand what that meant and was dancing at the “youth club” to Monkey Man by Toots and the Maytals. It took years for the US to catch up.. by which time the UK had lost its edge and become corporate junk.

Still miss those days. Thanks for your insightful articles.. 🙂

Jill Henley- now a grandmother, but still a rock chick at heart.

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Maestro,

Love your review of the Blackwell book.

Chris Blackwell is a National Treasure of Jamaica.

Jamaica is a blessed place to have produced so many geniuses. The Greatest Black leader in history, Marcus Garvey who had 6 million followers in the 1930s, long before the internet and social networks!!!

Bob Marley the most important musician of our times. Usain Bolt the greatest runner of all time.

So let’s add to that list, the greatest record man of all time, Chris Blackwell. He created the most progressive and coolest record company in history, Island Records. But with all off this he is still totally unassuming and humble.

There are only 2 pictures of Chris and Bob Marley together as Chris didnt want to appear to be a svengali as Bob didn’t need any help as he was already a genius!!

When Bob was stranded in London in the early 70s, Chris gave Bob US$8000 on a handshake with no contract. No other human would have done this and the executives as Island Records gave Chris hell for this and said he would never see this money again as these were crazy Jamaicans who were going back to Jamaica with his money !! If Chris didn’t own Island Records but had done this at another record company, he would have been fired and put in prison!! But because he owned the company he could take this chance and that is what built the trust and bond between him and Bob.

Another brilliant thing that Chris did for Bob is to tell Bob that he had no chance of getting on black radio in America but should form a black rock band. Chris then took the original Catch a Fire tapes and added the rock element. Wayne Perkins opening guitar intro to Concrete Jungle is one of the greatest openings in music history!! And Rabbit Bundrick from the Who put on the keyboard spin that turned it into a rock masterpiece!!

When Peter Tosh left the Wailers he said some unsavory things about Chris. But instead of Chris being angry, he helped Peter to get a record deal!! Peter was going to sign with a small record label, but instead, Chris got the heavyweight Gary Kurfirst to get Peter a record deal with Columbia the biggest record company in the world!! Now Columbia and Peter Tosh could crush little Island Records and Bob Marley, so this would look like a terrible move. But Chris knew that Columbia would spend a lot of money on reggae and so “All boats rise with the tide”. No other human would have done this for Peter after having just been slagged. But Chris always says “Its just business, dont let personal things affect it”

Native Wayne Jobson

Ocho Rios

Jamaica

HITS ARE GETTING SMALLER

There’s an article by Anne Steele in today’s “Wall Street Journal” about the lack of new tracks in the hit parade.

“The Song of the Summer Could Be Harry Styles, Jack Harlow, or Even Something From 2020 – The popularity of older songs, due to nostalgic listeners or TikTok trends, makes the ubiquitous summer jam harder to break through”: https://on.wsj.com/3M8sUsO

No, you can’t read it for free, you get what you pay for, and there are two tiers of people in music, insiders and outsiders, and they’ve got two completely different viewpoints based on information. I’ll get to that below.

But as far as tracks taking longer to make it, and staying longer once they do, that’s been well-known for years in the music industry.

But it’s the statistics that caught my eye here.

2019’s most streamed act, Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” garnered in excess of one billion streams.

“Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” was the biggest streaming track of 2020, with 920 million streams.

As for last year’s biggest smash, Dua Lipa’s “Levitating,” it was streamed a grand total of 627 million times.

And:

“In 2018, the top 200 songs were responsible for nearly one in 10 of all streams; in 2021, that metric fell to less than 1 in 20, according to Luminate. Last year, 95,000 songs hit one million streams, a 36% increase over 2018.”

Sure, there’s more money in hits, both in actual streaming payments and possibly the penumbra, i.e. touring, merch, sponsorships, etc. But music streaming is turning into television streaming, there’s so much product that nothing is as big as it used to be.

In other words, what the press tells you is ubiquitous is far from it, or at least has less impact than ever before.

But it gets even worse. Because the above are the raw streaming numbers, the chart numbers are manipulated, they include “sales.” But there are almost no sales. Sales might generate revenue, but they do not generate impact. It’d be like including DVD sales in a chart of what is the most popular movie… Almost all of the consumption is on television, streaming. So you get a skewed impression.

And the dirty little secret is some of the “biggest” acts in the business are not. You see they manipulate sales, with multiple versions of the same album and more to go to number one, and then their label spams the brain dead world of entertainment media, which repeats these numbers with no investigation whatsoever, giving a completely inaccurate view of what are the biggest acts out there, at least in terms of consumption, and that’s the world we now live in, actually it’s the world we always lived in, that which is listened to most delivers the most in return. Think of all the albums that went to number one the first week out and then straight into the dumper. There were no hit singles, the act might have even canceled its tour because of low demand.

But that’s what it’s like living in the disinformation society.

THERE IS NO FIXED PER TRACK PAYMENT ON STREAMING

Why this falsehood persists amongst the hoi polloi is completely confounding. It’s very simple. You divide the total amount of distributable income by the total number of streams. You end up with a rate per stream, and then you multiply by the number of streams a track gets. But the numbers are continually changing, the pool of income and the pool of streams, and therefore the rate per stream constantly changes, it’s temporary. (Of course there are different payments for on demand streaming and streaming radio, but let’s not confuse the issue.) So, if more people are subscribed to one service and listen more, the ultimate per track payment, which constantly fluctuates, could be low whereas a less popular service, one with fewer subscribers who listen less, might pay more. But if you think that’s where you want to be, that the less popular service is the one that should be championed, you’re just plain wrong. It’s essentially impossible to get the same number of streams on the less popular service with the less active subscribers.

It’s math, and musicians tend not to be good with it.

But it’s also evidence of today’s gotcha society, where someone must be at fault, there must be a bogeyman.

And the truth is Spotify has the most subscribers, and they are the most active. So that’s where you want to be. Because the aggregate is more important than the individual. I.e. a hundred streams at a penny are worth more than ten at a nickel.

But, once again, there is no per stream number, whatsoever. Sure, you can calculate it for a certain payment cycle, but it’s a factor of how many subscribers there were and what they were listening to.

Today there’s a lengthy story in the “Los Angeles Times” about how social media scares pregnant women with incorrect information:

“How Instagram and TikTok prey on pregnant women’s worst fears”: https://lat.ms/3t8oF9U

But it gets worse, the same people propagating this false information tell you not to trust mainstream media because it’s inherently biased and inaccurate. And the truth is the big three, the NYT, WSJ and WaPo, sometimes get it wrong. But they are light years more accurate than what you’re reading on social media. And if they get it wrong, intentionally, they’re liable to be sued.

So chances are what you believe is totally wrong, based on online spin/nonsense.

But those on the inside know the score.

Tune in today, May 31st, to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

“Page Six”: https://pge.sx/3wZFeqQ

“People”: https://bit.ly/3z5We05 

TMZ: https://bit.ly/3aoj1tP

This is just plain ugly.

Did Ari not consider the optics on this?

You may be unaware, but everybody who follows gossip and WME’s clients are, and now you know too.

So what we’ve got here is an exponent of the Reagan years, when it became all about money and you were proud to be rich. As for the little people…SCREW ‘EM!

In case you haven’t been following the game, the talent agencies have all taken private equity money, not only to grow their assets in a changing entertainment world, but to deliver a handsome payout for the execs.

I mean how do you feel about this if you’re a rank and file WME employee? How do you feel if you’re a client?

WME has fought the writers. Yup, the agency waned to triple-dip, represent the talent, take a packaging fee and own the production too. There have been concessions there, but one thing is for sure, these big talent agencies are no longer talent friendly, BECAUSE THAT’S NOT WHERE THEY MAKE ALL THEIR MONEY!

Yes, the UFC is WME’s cash cow, not movie stars.

And as a manager in Blackwell’s book told his bands…don’t smile in photos, no one has sympathy for a self-satisfied moneyed rock star. You’re supposed to be a man (or woman) of the people. When you lord your status above others…you’ve got today’s music business, uneducated nincompoops who are court jesters to the corporations who pay their bills. They think they’re ripping off the Fortune 500 when just the opposite is true, the Fortune 500 are using their names to make bank and depleting the credibility and lifespan of these acts, which are too stupid to understand this. As for their handlers? They don’t think long term, acts come and go, they want to get paid NOW!

Dig in a bit and you find out the wedding took place at the end of the Cannes Film Festival. But does Ari usually deign to attend these minor events? He’s got people for that. And even if he did go, you know that Larry David, Diddy, Elon Musk, Emily Ratajkowski and so many of the others did not. No, they all flew in. And if you think they flew in the back of the plane on a commercial airline…I guess you’ve never flown private.

Yes, if you own your own plane, or have access to one, you save so much time. I mean who wants to get to the airport hours in advance to go through security when you can just walk up and get on and take off?

But it gets even worse, the 61 year old Ari married a 32 year old. You’re not going to find a woman over thirty who approves of this, and if they’re older…they can’t get cast in productions unless they’ve had plastic surgery to look decades younger.

And we know this isn’t going to last. I mean what do you talk about to a woman who is thirty years younger. Oh Sarah, do you remember “The Brady Bunch,” never mind “All in the Family”? And MTV? MTV stopped playing videos by time Sarah Staudinger gained consciousness.

And Ms. Staudinger is a clothing designer. Remember when Henry Kravis married designer Carolyne Roehm? That didn’t last. Kravis is now married to economist Marie-Josée Drouin, someone who understands what he’s talking about, who he can bounce ideas off of, who is only six years younger. What is Ari going to ask Sarah about, the Kardashians?

But this is Ari’s trophy. He thinks the rest of the guys are envious. When the truth is the rest of his cabal are so narcissistic they don’t care who Ari is married to, they just care about themselves. So the joke is on Ari.

And what about Ari’s children? Kids have a hard time accepting new parents who are their contemporaries.

So what you do here if you’re smart, if you can see the landscape (which theoretically is what Ari is paid to do), is you get married by a judge, in his chambers, or in your house or backyard, and if you invite anybody, it’s a very small group of friends at most.

Or you don’t get married at all. I mean why? To have more children at 61? To give Sarah some security? Marriage is not the only way to do this, and I’m sure the prenup took months to negotiate.

I mean how detached can you be?

Sure, Ari may not have asked for this publicity, but at the end of Cannes in St. Tropez? The paparazzi live for events like this.

Used to be you got rich and you hid your wealth. Now you show off. Why? It doesn’t endear you to your customers. Hey Ari! Your agents better take a haircut, I’ll pay you less than 5% as opposed to the usual 10, you don’t need the money.

I mean Emanuel could have utilized the money and publicity for good. Like agitating for eliminating smoking from movies and TV shows, and assault rifles from the same productions. But no one cares about others today, they just care about themselves.

And you’ve got to realize times change. Trump’s moment is passing. I don’t care if you’re a MAGA believer, he can’t sell out a building, even if he’s giving the tickets away, and the candidates he endorses are no longer sure shots. Ari was cool when he was an unknown, when people found out the Jeremy Piven character in “Entourage” was based on him. But now Ari’s been in “The New Yorker”…his publicity people, and believe me, all of these big execs have one, if not a team, have gotten him in all these outlets, to impress…I’m not sure, maybe Wall Street, investors, but now the average person knows who Ari is and this wedding is just laughable on all counts.

Ari should just be glad people’s memories are short.

And he’s already got the $308 million he banked when WME went public.

Ari is what’s wrong with America.

Unfortunately, he’s not the only one.