Many famous people employ a bodyguard to protect them from the public. But in the case of legendary “Wall of Sound” music producer Phil Spector, the bodyguard was usually there to protect the public from Phil. Spector was licensed to carry a handgun, and often had one on hand. During the mid-70s, while recording John […]
Kanye & Kim: last train to Splitsville
“I still think I am the greatest,” Kanye West once said. In this respect, at least, his ego shared the same heights as Donald Trump’s. But as events this month have revealed, we see how the myth of Icarus can play out in different ways for different people. For Trump, it was hubris that got […]
Grandmasters of Chess
Given the recent popularity of The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, people in the Covid era may soon be searching their closets for that chess set they haven’t touched since university years. After all, who isn’t piqued by a 1500-year-old game whose basic rules are easy to learn, yet whose complexity is such that it took […]
Sean Connery: From Scotland With Love
When Sean Connery first appeared in the role of James Bond, Agent 007 of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, women around the world found themselves in a martini state of mind, at least stirred if not shaken. From his first appearance in the movie Dr. No, female fans sighed breathlessly, yes, please, we’d like to see […]
Eddie Van Halen: Runnin’ with the devil
Eddie Van Halen’s signature style featured a wicked combo of guitar virtuosity and high-risk stage antics, the first of which catapulted him into the pantheon of guitar gods, the second of which put him in the hospital more than once. His Vedic horoscope is an excellent example of how a fortunate combination of yogas, an […]
Jeff Bezos: Croesus of the internet age
Long before the Covid-19 pandemic made shopping-by-Amazon a virtual necessity, Jeff Bezos had already built a mousetrap that brought the world beating a path to his door. Since the inception of Amazon.com in 1994 as an online marketplace for books, the company has since expanded in multiple directions, now selling virtually every kind of consumer […]
Jerry Falwell: thumping more than his Bible?
“Rahu made me do it,” Falwell explains to a packed media scrum, in response to a series of allegations, revelations and speculations that have come spilling out of his now-unzipped private life. For years, it’s been an open secret at Liberty University, the flagship of Christian evangelical higher education where Falwell was President until this […]
Ghislaine Maxwell, procurer for the privileged?
Ghislaine Maxwell, now under arrest and suicide watch, has fallen from the privileged perch she once held as alleged procurer of girls for the pleasure of powerful men. Maxwell is the long-time intimate of Jeffrey Epstein, who supposedly killed himself in jail last August awaiting sentencing for sexual abuse of multiple underage women. Maxwell and […]
Kala Sarpa “twins” Paul McCartney & Brian Wilson
By the mid-Sixties, The Beatles and the Beach Boys loomed large in pop music, one the leader of the British Invasion, the other the epitome of California’s surfing culture. Ironically, each band was also the other’s inspiration. Like so many other musicians, the Beach Boys were in awe of The Beatles’ songwriting, and the Beatles […]
Alexander McQueen: l’enfant terrible of fashion
A fashion show by Alexander McQueen was never anything less than a spectacle. Whether it was just his innate sense of drama, or the perverse delight he took in shocking his audience of fashionistas, he pulled out all the stops. His half-naked models, their scarcely-concealed buttocks or breasts leaving little to the imagination, would stride […]