Martini Shot

So, here's what went down a few weeks ago. Maybe you read about it. My agent, and his entire agency, were bought by another, larger, agency for a lot of money. Now, for years, they had been denying that they were even interested in such a thing. "Oh, no, never, we like our independence," they'd say. "Besides," they'd add, "we think our agency is worth a lot of money, and we're pretty certain there's no one out there with enough cash to make a deal..."

Here's a bit of technical background. One of the things you need to record, when you're shooting on a soundstage, or for that matter, on location, is the noise that the place makes all by itself. The noise of the room. I know, it sounds silly, but each place has its own special sound, and it's important to record that sound so that later, when you have to fix an audio track, or record a wild line, you have something to put underneath it so that it blends in with the rest of the audio track that was recorded live...

In the summer, all of the big media moguls gather in Sun Valley for a conference put on by investment banker Herb Allen. I couldn't make it this year. But I did see pictures of them, marching around in their awkward leisurewear and when I did, I thought of this story...

Let me ask you a question: if someone gave you, say, 50 million dollars today, would you think that's a lot of money? I'm not ashamed to say that I myself, me personally, would...

In pretty much any kind of labor dispute, I instinctively side with management. This, I know, is a character flaw, and yet I can't seem to shake it...

Sometimes when I'm reading a magazine article, or one of those awful New York Times news analysis pieces, the reporter will feel compelled to say, in the middle of referring to a person or a place, something like, "full; disclosure: the author is personally acquainted with... " you know, whatever they were writing about. So if they're writing about Yale or Harvard, they'll say, "full; disclosure: this reporter is a graduate of Yale," which didn't really need to be disclosed, actually: you can tell someone went to Harvard or Yale just by the tortured non-logic of his argument, and how often he uses the word "obviously.;" The full-disclosure ruse is just a way of bragging to people about something that it would be pushy or la-di-da to mention any other way -- full disclosure: this reporter is short-listed for the Pulitizer Prize; full disclosure: this reporter once saved a kitty's life -- all wrapped up in disingenuous ooze.

I have a friend who's an excellent chef. The other parents at her kid's school know that she's a great cook, and so at some point, during that awkward, stilted small-talk parents engage in when they're talking to their kids' friends, one parent asked her 10 year-old son, "So;! What's your favorite thing that your mom cooks?"...;