Maybe he should just stop and hand it off to Herbert Allen, Jr. Jr. (if there is such a thing).
There’s really no point to these blow fests every year.
The only thing we learned this year was that if you are powerful in business you probably suck at comedy.
It’s nearly 10pm here and I’m bored out of my mind.
Sometimes liquor is a great cure for boredom. Not this time and the internet is awful in the summer with everything being written by interns while the normal writers are on vacation. (Actually, the internet is pretty much always awful.)
I did notice on Deadline.com (which is the reason I’m blogging) that Spike TV is producing “Tut”– an event series starring Sir Ben Kingsley based on the life of King Tut.
SIR BEN KINGSLEY ON SPIKE TV?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Spike TV is the lowest of the low. Maybe a few WWE wrestlers can make cameos in “Tut” and cross-promote.
It seems like this kind of production would need muscle guys slathered in oil screaming at each other.
Is it that easy these days to get Sir Ben Kingsley in a TV series?
Or has his career sunken so low that he has to appear on Spike?
Either way – Manka Bros. is leaping into this phenomenon called “Event Series” with an incredibly ambitious slate that I just thought of in the past few minutes.
Highlights from our upcoming productions include:
“Attila” – A 20-part event series based on the life of Attila the Hun.
“Stalin” – A 15-part event series based on the life of Joseph Stalin.
“Arianna” – A 19-part event series based on the life of Arianna Huffington.
“Quixote” – A 9-part event series based on the life of Don Quixote.
“Thor” – A 12-part event series based on the life of the Norse God Thor.
“Khan” – A 30-part event series based on the life of Khan Manka (Sr.)
“Einstein” – A 12-part event series based on the life of Albert Einstein.
“Super” – A 17-part event series based on the life of Super Dave Osborne.
“Confucius” – A 5-part event series based on the life of Confucius.
“Fillmore” – A 13-part event series based on the life of Millard Fillmore.
“Wagner” – A 20-part event series based on the life of Robert Wagner.
“Wagner” – A 6-part event series based on the life of Richard Wagner.
“Picasso” – A 4-part event series based on the life of Pablo Picasso.
(Note: All of these may star Sir Ben Kingsley or actors who know Sir Ben Kingsley.)
——————————————-
The list goes on and on.
I can think up names of historical figures all day long with the best of ’em. (Are you paying attention, Ben Silverman?)
And Manka Bros. is going to own this market of thinking up event series ideas based on people’s lives (ideas that strangely didn’t appeal to anyone in Hollywood over last few decades even though the source material was always just sitting there).
I may return to the States later this week to attend Comic-Con even though they said they wouldn’t invite me back after mylast keynote address.
The great John Grisham once wrote there is a “Time To Kill” (or Jesus said it in the Bible – I don’t know)… but last night was almost my time to kill several asshole billionaire millennials.
I just wanted to strangle them with those tight t-shirts they’re so proud of wearing.
Herb Allen has lost control of this conference. He has been overly enamored and completely overrun by the arrogant pricks that are the Silicon Valley t-shirt mafia.
Let me step back…
After a fucking long day of interviews and presentations from the likes of Phil Jackson and Larry Page (Larry talked about robots – that’s the pot calling the kettle black – he IS a robot!) in which they said everything and yet nothing, all we in the captive audience wanted to do was relax, have a drink and a little fun.
Every year, there is always one night that is set aside for some type of entertainment in which we, the attendees, are the entertainers.
This year, Herb decided it would be fun to put on skits and songs like kids do at real summer camps. It sort of sounded like fun – many emails were sent back and forth from everyone and we all agreed.
Warren Buffett fought very hard to put on some sort of Broadway musical but there weren’t enough female moguls available to fill all the parts of something like that.
So short little rehearsed sketches or songs was the final decision.
Tim Armstrong was going to be at the piano (he plays better than Lang Lang, you know) and would accompany anyone that needed it.
But then punk ass Zuckerbergdecided he didn’t want to do a skit or song. He wanted to do improv and have an improv jam.
An improv jam in the Great Hall of the Moguls (The Limelight Ballroom)?
The fuck?!
And Herb Allen caved immediately and said it was a great idea. Much better than what he had planned.
So the skits were off and I witnessed what was possibly the worst display of comedy I have seen since our pilot episode of “My Wife Left Me For Bucky Dent.”
I would have preferred to sit and watch Barry Diller play video games on Twitch than to watch this terrible terrible improv show.
True horror is watching Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Weiner and Ben Horowitz improvising a rap version of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song (on an audience suggestion by Jeff Bezos).
Words can’t describe the discomfort we all felt when General Stanley McChrystal was pulled up into a scene where he was asked to get a reservation at a Mexican restaurant from an unintelligible Mexican waiter (played painfully by Les Moonves).
The General was genuinely angry and absolutely flustered by the whole experience.
It was gut-wrenching.
But the young punks ate it up.
I haven’t seen people laugh at something so awful since I was kneed in the nuts by Sumner Redstone in front of his family.
Other lowlights include:
A Charlie Rose chiquita banana bit (no further comment necessary)
A painful first date improv which took place at a laundry mat featuring Marissa Mayer (who still refuses to fix her thrashed voice– though she was the first to arrive, well ahead of schedule) and Michael Bloomberg. There was so much silence and embarrassment that people started shouting out things for them to say. They still stood, unable to come up with anything and then just stopped.
To finish, Harvey Weinstein jumped up and did a sort of one man show where he is ordering God to make some changes on Earth. It sounds funnier than it was because his changes were so stupid and it went on like 25 minutes.
It was a complete humiliation for everyone involved.
I don’t use them. I make fun of those that use them.
I didn’t go to business school so I didn’t learn how to speak cliches in meetings.
I went to drug-taking-son-of-movie-mogul school and we didn’t use buzz words except for “far out.”
It seems that everyone you hire from Ivy leagues schools has lost their ability to express themselves in a natural way.
Yet we keep hiring them because there are only so many drug-taking sons-of-movie-moguls in the talent pool and we can’t take a chance on someone from Arizona State (seriously).
But today, a buzz word is apt.
Manka Bros. and Hollywood MUST PIVOT!
Last night, as I got hammered with my old media buddies and talked about the houses we own and the places we’re planning to go for the summer – I noticed over in a corner a bunch of the young tech heads who weren’t getting that drunk and who weren’t talking about anything other than the products they create.
We have NO CHANCE against much younger people who want to do nothing but talk about their work.
There are too many distractions in Hollywood.
We are rich men living rich men lives.
We drink a lot of expensive wine and scotch.
If we’re just going to concentrate on our work all the time we may as well live in a fleabag apartment in Pacoima and take the bus to work.
The spoils are the reason we got in this business.
So here I am with Rupert(who is not allowed to buy my companyat any price. I’m a real mogul – not a hired mogul) and Haim Saban and a few other old media guys at the bar getting lit.
Over in one corner, sporting various wearable devices (Google glasses, Oculus viewfinders, GoPro cameras, etc.) are Larry Page, Sergey Brin,Mark Zuckerberg and the Pinterest guy and the GoPro surfer guy… and they’re freakin’ talking about the shit they make!!
And then I spot Bob Iger wearing that virtual reality helmet.
What?! Bob Iger?!
You see, Bob is no idiot.
He knows what the Hell is going on.
Though he does look ridiculous in his high collar shirt with the Oculus thing on his face pretending to be skydiving.
All this change has been happening and we have been so ignorant and so resistant!
I left my old drunk friends at the bar and squeezed my way into the hacky-sack circle of tech punks and I learned a few things.
First of all, according to the Google guys, we need to get a YouTube channel and probably buy some multi-channel network (called MCNs) of some sort.
I think we should buy it back for whatever it costs and maybe one of those gamer channels where dumb asses pay to watch other dumb asses play video games on the internet.
YouTube is buying something called Twitch and I think we need to get into that as well. Some Twitch channel that dumb asses will pay us to watch.
I have ordered my assistant, Vicky Adler-Modry, to give these instructions to the Manka Business Development group to make all of this happen immediately!
(Note: She shouldn’t have to do that because, as you know, reading my blog is mandatory and subject to termination if you don’t!)
Manka Bros. must PIVOT, DISRUPT, LEAN IN and EXECUTE!
CAPISCE?
Today, there is an endless stream of horrific PowerPoint presentations that I said I would attend. There is break this afternoon before our dinner tonight and annual variety show. FYI, Harvey Weinstein and I are doing an old Cheech & Chong bit which should surely kill in that room.
If anyone needs to reach me – the afternoon window is your only chance.
Make this shit happen or all of you are toast and I’ll restaff with new recruits from Arizona State!
I contemplated not going at all to the Herb Allen’s Sun Valley snorefest, but decided it was in my company’s best interest… ah, fuck that, I just wanted to get away from Hollywood which is so freakin’ boring in the summer.
But something magical happened to me on the two-hour flight up here from Burbank.
Captain Randy let me fly the plane for a bit over the mountains and it was just so beautiful that I actually started to smile. And I decided then and there to try and make this week a POSITIVE experience.
Over the past few years (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), I was so negative about the pointlessness of the whole week, that I didn’t even try to have a good attitude.
But none of that this year, I am going to be a willing participant no matter how stupid the activity.
I may even try to drum up a little business for the studio.
We haven’t done any major deals in a while and we’re just sitting on a bunch of cash which I really haven’t found any use for (except for a few personal real estate transactions).
One deal that definitely won’t happen, Manka Bros. will not buy DreamWorks Animation so stop with the texts, Katzenberg– though I will keep the champagne you sent to my room.
So, I have a arrived – one of the first ones here as always. As I sip my champagne (not the first of the day – I had a couple of belts on the plane) while dictating this blog over the phone to my assistant, I am genuinely excited about what is to come.
There are great changes happening in our business – even though my mogul brethren and I hate to acknowledge it – and we must embrace these changes or die.
We don’t want the dorks from Oculus Rift taking over the store.
WE will continue to produce and control the best content known to man (and wo-man) and no one is going to take that away from us.
Movie studios have always been the incubators of the world’s greatest creative minds and NOT relic-filled museums.
But I digress so that I may drink.
I understand the best bartender on the planet, Bin Tran is back at his post in The Drankin’ Hole after taking last year off (family emergency my ass).
It was brought to my attention that CBS news correspondent Lara Logan is getting some backlash for her 60 Minutes report on Benghazi. In fact, I have heard that she may not be allowed to return to CBS News.
If that were to happen, Manka Bros. would like to hire her to run our news department.
We have several news initiatives that we are planning to launch including a documentary channel (Manka Docs) and a Vice-style guerrilla news operation (Manka Vice) in which we will be covering the major conflicts around the world.
It’s a very ambitious plan but we feel that Ms. Logan would be perfect to lead these efforts.
We don’t care if news is reported inaccurately. We just care that it’s reported and gets on the air.
So – I look forward to Ms. Logan calling my office and setting up a lunch (or dinner).
If possible, maybe this weekend (or tonight). I could be in New York in four hours. I have a plane.
After an exhaustive design competition – and millions of dollars spent – Manka Bros., in our search for a new exciting logo for the 21st century has decided to revert to the past in order to push forward into the future.
THE ICONIC MANKA OX LOGO – designed by my uncle – the great Khan Manka (Sr.) – IS BACK!
Supposedly, the origin was that my Uncle was infuriated that Louis B. Mayer had the balls to use a lion as his logo. He would say (paraphrasing) – “I’ve never seen such a pussy try to act so tough – trotting out that lion like he’s Tarzan or some shit.”
My Uncle (and his brothers) grew up with an Ox. They were raised in a one room shack in Bulgaria.
My Uncle used to ride the Ox while plowing the field for their meager potato crop – which yielded barely enough to feed the Ox.
The Ox means survival.
The Ox means strength.
The Ox means new technologies, platforms and international expansion.
The Ox means MANKA BROS.
After Khan Manka’s death in 1937, my father – the asshole Harry Manka – said he always hated the Ox logo and tried to design several logos himself but failed miserably every time (see below).
Eventually, in 1948, my father ran into the designer Herbert Bayer in Aspen, CO.
My father attempted to have the Austrian arrested for being a Nazi in hiding – but he proved to be incredibly wrong. Bayer was actually forced out of Germany by the Nazis in 1938 and settled in the U.S.
My father never apologized but did pay him $10 to design a new logo (see right).
Bayer needed the work – so he did it – and it became the logo for Manka Bros. for 65 years.
P.S. – The company-wide Holiday party scheduled to be at the Pickwick Bowling Alley and Ice Skating Rink in Burbank has been cancelled. Details to come at some point.
A completely… totally… unbelievably fucked up summer.
And everyone is at fault.
But mostly, the fault lies in our film slate development strategy.
The reason?
ORIGINAL FILMS FAIL
Did you morons seriously believe we’d have a global, four-quadrant hit with “Monty” (the animated praying mantis who becomes an atheist)?
Or “Flap Yo Wings”? A hugely overbudget original 1930s-era musical?
From this day forward, I do not want any of you Ivy League eggheads to think creatively again.
From this day forward, we only produce sequels of previously popular films; adaptations from popular books (preferably from our Manka Books division); and other popular IP such as board games and cartoon characters.
I do NOT want to hear about anything I have never heard about before!
Capisce?
Hey, Robin Rafe, what made you think “The End Of Daves” was a home run? And what made you think July 4th weekend was the perfect time for it?
Because of you idiots, this past summer may be the last summer I am able to spend at my house in the Seychelles.
Thanks for ruining the best three months I spend all year!
I can’t wait to see how our next original film will do – “The Beer Hunter” – sounds hilarious – only it’s NOT A FUCKING COMEDY!
Great work, guys.
Really looking forward to the failures we have in 2014.
So – to be clear – I want everyone in theatrical (and television, for that matter) development to call your agent contacts and tell them all to fuck off with their original ideas. I want only sequels of hits and other movies based on strong previously popular IP.
Hell, why don’t we just start making our own version of “The Wizard Of Oz”? Apparently, no one has the rights.
And I know we haven’t started shooting the “Captain Stoppo” movie yet – but let’s get going on a sequel as well. Or better yet, we should start thinking about five of everything before we start a project.
And if I hear of one writer or producer in a pitch meeting that tries to slip in an idea that they thought up all by themselves, I will have them thrown off the lot and ruined forever in show business.
Thirty-five years ago, an Exorcist was sent to Stage 8 on the Manka Bros. Studios lot.
Strange shit was happening there and the only logical explanation was ghosts.
The film being shot on the stage was a horrible roller disco movie called “Juggle Boogie” – a sort of “Hatfields & McCoys” story about two rival juggling families who both owned roller discos across the street from one another.
I had only been on the job as head of studio for a little over a year. My father died in 1976 (and is buried underneath the Main Admin building – Bldg. 2) and left me the “keys” to the studio at the tender age of 18.
And now we, apparently, had a demonic possession of one of our sounds stages. Something I really didn’t want to deal with. At that age, I just wanted to be playing in my band, the amazing “King Khan.”
But I digress…
Initially, the reports of doors banging and food disappearing were easily blamed on cats, rats and the fat Studio Tour guide (Randy Wilcox) that used to steal all the food off of various production sets.
But when the all cats, rats and Randy Wilcox were discovered dead one morning, we knew something was afoot.
I had always heard rumors that the land where the Manka Bros. Studios currently resides was once used for a few Keystone Cops productions directed by Mack Sennett and that there was, in fact, an unsolved massacre of several Cops during a particularly grueling movie shoot.
Supposedly – and this has never been mentioned in public before – the murdered Cops were buried under the area now known as Manka Bros. Stage 8.
I happen to know for a fact that while the incident is true – it actually happened at Universal and the poor Keystone Cops who were slaughtered are actually buried in a mass grave under Universal Studios Stage 12.
What all that means is that we didn’t know what the fuck was going on at Manka Bros. Stage 8.
(And any of you Margie Louise conspiracy theorists can take a hike – that murder is unsolved, not relevant, and I will one day write about it… not today.)
So – back to the story – the Exorcist (I think he was from Tujunga) was called in. His named was Father Cain and I recognized him.
It turns out, Father Cain was an actor (Cain Montgomery) that used to audition for TV shows but never got a part. Sort of like those whack jobs who try to be actors for years and then decide to become palm readers and spiritual guides.
Father Cain said he saw “The Exorcist” and thought that would be a really cool job.
When he entered Stage 8, his eyes rolled back in his head and he started to jerk around like an acting class chicken (very unconvincing).
Because “Juggle Boogie” was already three months over schedule and nearly $1 million over budget (1978 dollars!) we continued to shoot while Father Cain attempted to exorcise the demons.
To his credit, Father Cain immediately found the demons – they weren’t very clever – and ordered them to leave the sound stage.
The demons were pretty harmless – just playing backgammon and trying to trip up the actors as they skated by.
It turns out, the “demons” were just some old character actors who my father wouldn’t let out of their “lifetime contracts” and, basically, kept ownership of their souls.
Father Cain and the Manka Bros. Legal department told me it would be very simple to rid the stage of the ghosts – just let the dead actors out of their contract obligations and they’ll ascend either into Heaven or Hell depending on the way they conducted their lives.
I refused. A deal is a deal.
To this day, there is a still a bunch of weird shit happening on Stage 8.
P.S. – Why the cats, rats and Randy Wilcox died is still a mystery. Maybe it was because of all that “demon poison” that some idiot prop guy kept putting out before they called the Exorcist.
I’m sure the planners of these conferences (not just Herb Allen’s but corporate offsites the world over) always dream great things will happen – that an idea will emerge that changes the world; that partnerships will form to create new and better companies… such wasted optimism.
And at the beginning of the week, most attendees seem to go along with the party line (drinking the Kool-aid and vodka, if you will).
And even though I have been cynical from the beginning (read every Day 1 post I’ve ever had from previous conferences (2009 – 2010 – 2011 – 2012 – and 2013) – deep down there is a slight tinge of hope that this might be worth my time.
But then the week drags on – and we drink at the bar late at night – have a hangover breakfast with lots of greasy meats – go to some mindless panel about how important content, sports and new distribution platforms are in all our lives – play golf – get drunk – eat wedding caliber food – get drunk some more (repeat repeat repeat)…
Maybe it’s because most of the attendees (like me) are so old and set in our ways.
Perhaps the new ideas will come from the Herb Allen III conference in Phoenix next year (because Herb Allen III is younger!) that focuses on new media… younger moguls, newer, fresher ideas (based on older, staler ideas) – a new energy that everyone seems to need.
Or not.
The biggest problem with Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference is the new moguls all try to act like old moguls – try to hang with the heavy scotch drinkers and cigar smokers, try to wear the Polo shirts that only an old mogul can look right in… it’s not easy to be an old mogul and actually look like an old mogul.
Out of the millions of stiff, awkward middle managers in media companies around the world only one or at most two will rise to become a true mogul (i.e., Ben Silverman will never be a mogul – try though he may; and the jury is definitely still out on Thomas Tull who is attempting to buy his way into moguldom).
You can’t fake it. It has to be organic.
Image Courtesy Of Manka Bros. Media Blogger: OnMedea http://mankabros.com/blogs/onmedea
It was originally titled Day 3 – “China” – because there was a huge focus today on China opportunities and how do media companies (and businesses in general) crack that Chinese nut?
First of all, you can’t (there’s that cynicism again!). But it’s absolutely true.
To get the scale in China that companies need would require being able to grow our businesses into significantbusinesses. Just making a few bucks here and there and having a movie work every once in a while isn’t going to cut it. We need to have a significant presence in China to make it worth all this effort.
And as soon as a foreign company gets a significant presence in China – the Chinese government will dial you back. They may not kick you out but they may decide not to distribute your movie for “censorship issues,” or not to release your new handset because of “environmental reasons”(ridiculous, right?) or not offer your content in a streaming service due to some other excuse that the government won’t even attempt to make creative or fair.
I led a panel this morning on “How To Properly Bribe Chinese Officials.” I’ve written on this in the past – and have learned over the years you can actually get a lot more accomplished by offering bottles of Slivovitz and cartons of American cigarettes than by offering cash or personal favors (i.e., helping to get a Chinese government official’s kid get into Harvard, etc.)
We just have to be realistic about China. It’s fine if your expectations are low and you are okay with having a small business and making a little bit of money or using the cheap labor to build your toys and American flags. But for distributing content and for growing a huge, profitable business – China sucks and will always suck.
The only excitement left at this year’s conference (and wasn’t Building-A-Bike and a nauseous river raft ride enough excitement for one person) is tomorrow’s media panel with Rupert Murdoch,John Malone and Barry Diller (the same team from yesterday’s disastrous “Build-A-Bike”exercise).
Watching three guys who really hate each other attempting to be cordial (while offering nothing new) should be truly entertaining.
Or not at all. That’s the problem – just when you think maybe something will come out of the conference, nothing does.
Outside of that, the drunkening continues.
I have now been forced to make my own drinks because Vin Tran has had some sort of breakdown and can barely function (he talks often about bringing shame to his family).
There is a rumor the great Bin Tran will triumphantly return for the final night of the conference since his daughter gave birth yesterday (congratulations, Bin – never go away again).
And the year before for that was the disastrous Burning Mogul.
This year, Herb decided to focus on team building. And what better way to do that than by building a bunch of bikes for underprivileged kids in the Sun Valley area (which probably means those kids whose parents earn less than $1 million).
My initial reaction was exactly the same as Sheryl Sandberg’s who said: “What kind of crappy ass bullshit is this waste of goddamned fucking time?!”
After a morning with Roger Goodell talking about how great the NFL is and a presentation by Larry Page talking about how great Google is (the only negatives seemed to be that both the NFL and Google have an extraordinary number of head injuries) – we now have to build bikes.
Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference – Early 1900s
Bikes are a big part of Herb’s Sun Valley gatherings. We all ride around on them all week looking like dorks.
Bikes were even a part of the very first Herb Allen gathering – presumably with Herb Allen’s grandfather (Sr. minus 1) – back in the early 1900s (see right).
But seriously, we’ve all made our fortune building very successful teams. You don’t get to the top of the media world without a little bit of knowledge on how build a winning team.
So nearly everyone complained when we all gathered in the Great Hall of the Moguls and saw a big pile of bike parts in the middle several round tables.
Kazuo Hirai’s “Fuck this!” was probably the loudest one I heard in the room (and there were many).
But as we got into the exercise, I began to realize the value and learning how difficult it is for a room full of arrogant pricks to actually work together and produce anything at all. Maybe there was a lesson to be learned here.
See, we moguls don’t have to do anything by ourselves. We are driven everywhere, our food is prepared for us, everything we own is always taken care of by others… if you do something yourself, you are weak and a loser. Some of us even have our own ass wiped (I promise not to mention any names, Harvey).
But we weren’t just going to be building bikes (and this is where the genius of Herb Allen really shines through), we were going to be building bikes with people we hate.
Rupert Murdoch was teamed with his sons James and Lachlan…
Barry Diller was teamed with Leslie Moonves and John Malone…
I could go on and on with hateful matching – but, basically, if one person was known to hate another person, they were put on the same team.
Because Herb knew that I would probably either not show up or not want to participate, he made me a facilitator . I just had to walk around the room and make sure people were completing their task.
The Great Gong Of The Moguls
Each team had 30 minutes. Herb Allen banged the Great Gong of the Moguls (left) and everyone started to build their bikes.
The first table I stopped at was with the team of Thomas Tull, Brian Roberts, Steve Burke and Jeff Bewkes. Tull and his new Comcast NBC Universal brethren seemed to be working together pretty well – with Jeff Bewkes disengaged, looking at his phone.
[For the record, Manka Bros. officially passed on a deal with Legendary weeks ago after Mr. Tull requested (on top of an insultingly low theatrical distribution fee of 8%) my parking space, complete access to my executive spa and vomitorium and a further demand that I call him “Lord Thomas.” The distribution fee I could stomach but the other things – all non-starters.]
After a few moments of harmony, things started to break down and Thomus Tull got really frustrated that he wasn’t being allowed to build the bike all by himself. So he decided to go to an unassigned table and build another bike himself. The Comcast guys tried to get him to stay by saying: “Lord Thomas, please, let’s give it another shot… you can put the wheels on… we won’t interfere… etc. etc.. (Humorous anecdote: When he tried to ride his bike at the end, the wheels fell off.)
I then moved over to Rupert Murdoch’s table. Rupertwasyelling at his son James “Righty tighty! Lefty loosey, you idiot!” Lachlan then repeated what he dad said but with less enthusiasm. “Chase Carey knows how to screw on a bolt!”
Things were really heated at the Barry Diller, Les Moonves and John Malone table. Definitely no love loss there. No one had budged an inch to start the process. Finally, Barry Diller said: “Whatever, let’s just fucking put this thing together and get to the bar.”
Les Moonves got right up in Barry’s face: “I hope you brought one of the little antennas, the TV in the bar ain’t free for you.”
Barry Diller: “I definitely brought enough little antennas for your mother! I think it’s adorable how you defend something so old as broadcast television. Like helping an old lady across the street.”
Les Moonves: “Yeah, I’d like to help your mother across the street!”
Barry Diller: “That’s not even an insult.”
John Malone got involved: “Frankly, I don’t care what you do to broadcast – but if you come after cable, Diller, I’m gonna have a problem with that. And you don’t want me or my karate friends in cable to have a problem.”
Barry Diller: “Oh my God, the testosterone of old media is so pathetic.”
I intervened before a silly slap fight broke out and reminded them of the task at hand.
I continued on. Most in the room were just talking or looking at their phones. There was one young group of Silicon Valley guys doing hacky-sack.
Then I heard one group finish because Sumner Redstone yelled “Bingo!”
Everyone looked over to see Sumner and Sergey Brin and Larry Page (with King Abdullah II of Jordan thrown in for good measure) posed in front of a gleaming new bike. They were all wearing Google Glass. (I don’t think Sumner remembered that the Google guys were also the YouTubeguys and that he was suing them for $1 billion.)
There was a non-caring disappointed groan in the room and then a non-caring round of applause for the winners.
And that was it – another Day 2 disaster at the Sun Valley conference.
The Build-A-Bike technicians came in at the end and finished all the bikes.
They actually turned out so cool that we all decided to keep the bikes for ourselves.
Because of my bad back, I passed on the river raft ride (there’s nothing more pathetic than a couple of hundred CEOs acting like they know how to white water raft).
I’m at the The Drankin’ Hole dictating this blog and then off to a BBQ hosted by Bobby Flay.
What will tomorrow bring? More bullshit. More crap. Don’t envy us. Our lives suck just as much as yours.
Good evening from my house in the Seychelles!
I did notice on Deadline.com (which is the reason I’m blogging) that Spike TV is producing “Tut” – an event series starring Sir Ben Kingsley based on the life of King Tut.
Khan Manka, Jr. – Chairman & CEO – Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company
