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It's
been a rainy past few days in the city. Tuesday at 5:00 PM.
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Wednesday. Torrential
showers, a little sun, heat-beating-down humidity and more torrential
showers has been the weather in New York for the past few days.
Deep summer is quiet time in the City if only to keep as cool as
possible.
On Tuesday, around the corner from me, Mr. Al
Gordon celebrated his 102nd birthday.
Mr. Gordon is well known in the financial
community as well as among his friends,
and in his neighborhood for his prowess as a runner.
He’s been a jogger for more years than most joggers
have been alive. Legend has it he once ran from his apartment
on Gracie Square to LaGuardia Airport to catch a plane.
I think he only gave up running a very few years ago,
although up until recently he was still going to the
office very early every weekday morning.
Sometimes a car would pick him up (I know this because I’d
see him while walking my dogs) and sometimes he’d make the
short hike over to East End Avenue to catch a cab. A long tall drink
of water all his life, and reed thin, from the super-exercise no
doubt, Mr. Gordon, I’m told, loves nothing better than to pack
away the calories with a nice big portion of Beluga caviar when he
sits down for his repast, which very possibly is what he did on his
bday.
Mr. Gordon has a reputation for being a no-nonsense, straight shooting
kind of a guy. Years ago, when he was head of his building’s
board, he always interviewed any new candidate for an apartment.
And because he had work to do, the interviews were conducted at 8:15
sharp in the morning before the market opened. And no matter who
you were – because Mr. Gordon is also a fair-player, you had
to have that interview. At 8:15 in the morning.
Many years ago now, there was a candidate for an apartment who was
at the time working in Washington. For the President. In his Cabinet.
Because he was living in Washington at the time, he tried to move
his appointment time up since he had to fly up from the capitol for
his interview that same morning. Nothing doing. Fair’s fair,
Mr. Gordon would see him at 8:15. And 8:15 it was. The man showed
up. He was accepted into the building also.
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Mme.
Chiang Kai-shek. Photo: AP.
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Mr.
Gordon is not the oldest guy on the block, it should
be noted. Well, oldest guy, yes. But his neighbor, Mme.
Chiang Kai-shek celebrated her 105th birthday only a few
months ago. The legendary lady lives in a kind of baronial splendor.
At one point Mme. Chiang was said to have more three dozen in staff,
working three shifts to see to her every need (and her dogs – she
has three). In fact, her staff required staff too: just to make
the meals served every day. A long time resident of the neighborhood,
after awhile all that Peking Duck got to be a little cloying for
the nasal passages of some of the neighbors and so, questions were
raised along with the eyebrows; and changes were made.
Although she is rarely seen these days, Mme. Chiang continues to
go out “for a ride” regularly, accompanied by five others
in a limousine and another van full of security people. Even if you’re
nearby, you can never see her because she’s a little bit of
thing, so diminutive that when she departs or arrives, surrounded
as she is by security, she’s not visible. I did catch a quick
glimpse once though. Jet black hair, in that famous chignon, and
a face about thirty years younger than her age.
More than a half century ago, Mme. Chiang was considered the most
powerful woman in Asia, and indeed the world. She also had the distinction
of being a mortal enemy of Chairman Mao, which can
explain the security. Such is life now, however, that most of the
people in the neighborhood have never heard of Mme. Chiang Kai-shek,
or her husband the Generalissimo; and so when the shining black motor
entourage passes by, out for a leisurely spin, most passersby don’t
know what they’re seeing. |
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The
Tribeca Grand Hotel
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Late
yesterday afternoon I went down to the Tribeca Grand, that
very hip luxury hotel just below Canal, to participate in a
forum on the subject of “gossip.” It was when the
limousine picked me up that I learned about the shooting deaths
at City Hall.
What started out as panic and hearsay, within a matter of less than
an hour, became facts, victims and mystery. At first the radio reported
that shots rang out from the balcony over the council chamber, fatally
wounding a councilman, Mr. Davis from Brooklyn.
Then it was reported that because no one is allowed to enter City
Hall without a search – except the council members and those
with them – it was speculated that the killer entered with
a council member. Then it was reported that Mr. Davis did bring a
guest in with him, a man who had once been his political opponent
(and had lost the race to him). Then it was reported that a second
man had been shot, by a plainclothes cop, in the balcony above the
council gallery. That man was identified as the same man who had
been brought into the council chamber (without being searched) by
Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis knew a little something about guns. He was an ex-cop who
left the force to run for office. He was a proponent of gun control.
He was right. But it’s a hopeless argument; people don’t
care. Mr. Davis cared. His reward was running for election against
some fool. With a gun.
Meanwhile
at the Tribeca Grand, nice and cool and quiet
compared to the teeming crisis clogged streets of lower
Manhattan, people were gathering for this aforementioned
forum. On Gossip.
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Jesse
Kornbluth
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The event
was sponsored by the publisher and authors of a new book called Buzz.
By Marian Salzman, Ira Matathia and Ann
O’Reilly, (published by John Wiley and Sons).
All three authors are experts in the field of advertising,
marketing and promotion. Big time. The book is almost a manual
on the art of creating a hot product, a brand, marketing a
new product, or even an old product in need of the new.
They called us together to discuss the business of getting the
word out: starting with gossip. Moderator was Jesse Kornbluth,
author, former editor of AOL, bon vivant, and insouciant
anecdotalist. Also devoted lover of gossip (like most of us whether
we admit it or not). Panelists were Heather Vincent,
television producer currently working on Tina Brown’s
show for MSNBC, Topic A; Elizabeth Spiers,
the columnist/items manager for the very popular web site Gawker.com.
If you haven’t been to Gawker.com yet, just know you are
out of the loop. And when you do finally go to Ms. Spiers’ site,
please, whatever you do, don’t forget who sent you.
Oh, and the other panelist was this one, David Patrick
Columbia. The authors of “Buzz” prepared us
well with some numbers from a marketing survey they took about “gossip.”
Such as:
28% of Americans surveyed would rather spend a leisurely Saturday
morning reading People than the New York Times.
75% percent of those surveyed think Americans are obsessed with
Hollywood gossip.
38% are obsessed with gossip about the British Royal family.
37% think Americans are obsessed with Beltway gossip. Gossip “still
smacks of sin” for many Americans (well, why not?).
Of all flavors of gossip, “funny” rates as most popular
with 44%.
Men enjoy humor mongering the most (53%), and especially men from
18-34 (54%).
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Heather
Vincent, Elizabeth Spiers, and DPC
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Heather
Vincent and Elizabeth Spiers
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Jesse
asked us if we ever had stories that we didn’t write
and why. We all answered yea. What and why for
me? Stories about politicians.
I told them the story about how many years ago, there was a city
commissioner whose limousine was often seen, red whirly lights flashing,
speeding up the avenue, no doubt on its way to the Mayor’s
mansion for a late night confab.
One night, about eleven o’clock, as I was returning home in
a cab — driving slowly, fortunately — this aforementioned
commissioner’s car came bounding out of a side street, running
the light and dashing north to Gracie Mansion.
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Click
on image to order
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I recognized
the license plate number because the first time I saw that official
car run a light was one winter’s night as I (and the official)
was leaving a movie premiere and heading to the after-party. My
cab was able to “follow that car” which turned out
to be going to the same destination. And as my cab pulled up behind
on arrival, from out of the limousine with the flashing red lights
ahead of me jumped the commissioner himself. It was then that I
took down the plate number in memory.
Why wouldn’t I write that story if I had it today? Because
people, especially public servants, who habitually run risks that
endanger others are obviously not concerned with others’ safety.
Therefore the matter of my safety, under those circumstances, is
mine alone.
As for the panel today, it was concluded by all concerned that finding
material to fill columns or produce talk shows on a regular, even
daily basis, is damned tough to do. Don’t you feel sorry for
us? No? The audience agrees with you. They could have cared less.
They just wanted the scoop. Like the rest of us. |
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Jesse
Kornbluth, Ira Matathia, Marian Salzman, Heather Vincent, DPC,
and Elizabeth Spiers close out the show
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