This city loves NY1. It’s comfy as a pair of bedroom slippers. Familiar. News, weather, time, headlines, traffic. Hectic becomes our lives and this city, so that’s a constant. Not the usual asinine, inane chatter that clatters up TV. It’s faces we know and trust. We love them.
We understand changing staffers. Younger also equates with cheaper. However, the backstage wrangling — being heard on an open mike — is getting repeated. Everyone treasures anchor Pat Kiernan. But being said is there’s an in crowd. Pat, Jamie Stelter, Annika Pergament share the same agent.
It’s also whispered that a cabal is in control — who’s hired, fired, suddenly mired.
Gossip gossips that they reject anyone who might equal — or, if possible albeit not probable — outshine their favorites. I’m hearing that maybe they even direct shots, segments, studios and in some cases, personnel. Executive producers have been on a rotating wheel.
Many NY1 addicts do not revere the recently added, aimless time-consuming chatter, which tells you nothing new and delays the bare bones of why we tune in to begin with. But I’m not as smart as management so maybe they know something we don’t. I’m just letting them know that beyond just firing a laundry list of anchors whom we’ve learned to respect and trust and then putting in place a chorus of younger, less experienced ones, it’s unsettling. And unfair to us.
Also, letting you know that the internal wrangling is growing external. Seeping out is that friendly NY1 is like distant relatives at a Thanksgiving dinner.
Off the table
Fleming’s an Upper East Side high-class foodery. A walletful of customers arrived for their longtime confirmed reservations. And didn’t get seated. Bounced. Their reservations? Canceled. Severely unhappy, they were redirected to another eatery. In came a gent. With assistance. Leg in a cast. In a wheelchair. Their table? His.
Hell hath no fury like classy New Yorkers when they’re hungry. The lucky eater was Ron Perelman, who owns the joint.
My name finally in lights
The York Theatre Company — in St. Peter’s Church on East 54th — has done its give-my-regards-to-off-Broadway 50 years. Its stages have been trod on by Tyne Daly, Glenn Close, Jim Dale, Kathy Najimy, Tom Jones, Judy Kaye, Richard Maltby. Sondheim’s been around. Jane Krakowski began there at age 14.
Its most recent musical “Enter Laughing” asked me to do a walk-on Saturday. I played a waitress in a soda fountain. In the audience, David Hyde Pierce applauded me loudly. The good news? Thank you for asking — I was fabulous.
The bad news? My show closed the next day.
‘Maiden’ voyage
In 1989, skipper Tracy Edwards (age 26) left England’s Southampton with — first-time only — an all-woman crew. A Round the World ocean yacht race flying the colors of Jordan’s sponsor King Hussein. Near mutiny, a craft broken in the raging sea, life and almost death. Now, 30 years later, “Maiden” is a documentary. And Whoopi Goldberg hosts Tracy plus her all-female original crew at Friday’s premiere.
Titles revealing
Know why we have so much mayhem in the world? Check our movie list: “Avengers,” “The Fast and the Furious,” “The Terminator,” “Kickboxer: Retaliation,” “The Dead Don’t Die,” “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” “The Hate U Give,” “The Predator,” “Deadpool 2,” “Predators.” More? “Buried,” “Down a Dark Hall,” “Death by Magic,” “Highway to Hell,” “Breaking Bad,” “Shooter,” “Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons,” “Hellboy,” “The Curse of La Llorona,” “Along Came the Devil,” “The First Purge,” “Revenge.” And leave us not forget “Venom” and “The Night Comes for Us.”
So, listen, have a nice day.
Question: Why do people knock the subway? It’s a city landmark. The first car started running in Manhattan in 1904. It just got to Brooklyn yesterday. Definitely only in New York, kids, only in New York.