Yetnikoff Walter - Howling at the Moon

THEY SAY all stories break down into three acts. And if a life is nothing more than a good story, mine looks like this:

Act 1, I start to get crazy.

Act 2, I get crazier.

Act 3, craziest of all.

I say this to prepare you. If I sound like I was outlandish or out of control, well, I was. Sometimes I could see my own craziness. Sometimes I couldnt. Sometimes I used it to get my way. Sometimes it used me to destroy my world.

In telling this wild tale, Ive tried to stay true to my state of mind at the time. Im not interested in detailing a tedious history of the music industry and its various executives, but rather in tracing my own journey, following the bizarre twists of a life turned reckless.

Youll see how my inability to pull punches only added to that recklessness. If my inner wolf was howling, I let him howlno matter whom I might offend.

So Im going back.

Im reliving the past the only way I can.

As I write this today, I believe Ive been restored to sanity.

But in restoring my memories, Im staying in the moment, crazy as the moment might seem.

THE FIRST LADY
AND THE LAST MAN

AFTER HER third orgasm, Jackie O looked at me with a mixture of gratitude and awe.

Jack was a powerful lover, she said. Ari was a passionate man. But you, Walter Yetnikoff, youre nothing short of astounding.

I smiled a knowing smile. I knew I was good, but Id never before satisfied a woman of such standing. After all, for those who came of age during Camelot, Jackie was our queen.

Be my king, she said. Love me like this for the rest of my life. Take me, Walter. Take me again...

I was on the verge of doing just that when a blast of jackhammers shattered the reverie. Jackie wasnt there. Jackie was a dream. The jackhammers were real. Outside my apartment window jackhammers were messing with my head. A skyscraper was going up. My dick was going down. Jackie was disappearing into the fog of my early morning mind when I realized something almost, but not quite, as good as the dream: In real life, I was having lunch with the real-life Jackie O. In three or four hours, wed be exchanging pleasantries at 21. In her role as book editor, Jackie was soliciting my autobiography. I was flattered, but my boozy brain was also convinced that it was me she wanted, not simply my tell-all memoirs in which I exposed the antics of everyone from Barbra Streisand to Mick Jagger. And if Jackie wasnt quite ready to embrace me romantically, I would woo and win her. I would charm her, coax her, show her that if shed be my first lady, Id be her last man. To do this, though, I needed a drink. Now. Now I really needed the goddamn jackhammers to stop hammering.

I crawled out of bed, stumbled onto my balcony and did what any reasonable man would doscreamed my head off.

Turn off those machines! Stop the noise!

No one heard me; no one cared. I lit a Nat Sherman cigarette and poured a stiff drink. I screamed some more. From his terrace, a neighbor in a pinstriped suit looked at me like I was a crazy drunk. I raised my glass and toasted his concern. Vodka in the morning is good. Vodka in the afternoon is even better. Not to mention healthy snacks of coke and grass. Maybe my neighbor didnt approve of a middle-aged businessman like me getting blasted at 8 A.M. Maybe he was on his way to Wall Street, where his world was neatly ordered. Well, my world was wildly disordered. And I liked it, liked it because I thrived in it, ruled it, worked it where it made me rich and so infamous that the queen was coming to call. Because Jackie had changed her name to Onassis, only one question remainedwould she change it to Yetnikoff?

Jackie Weds Walter, the newspaper would read. Peace at Last Between Gentiles and Jews.

The wedding would take place at the Plaza, the same hotel where I wed Cynthia, my current wife, who was twenty years younger and for years my secret lover. Now that the secret was out, the love was losing steam. Maybe I was afraid I was losing steam. Maybe thats why I cultivated other secret lovers, why Jackie would find me so fascinating and ultimately set me free from my obsession with women. Jackie would settle me down, and I would sex her up, and we would live happily ever after. If only Cynthia would answer the phone. The phone was ringing off the wall.

Im on the treadmill! Cynthia shouted from the exercise room in our two-story penthouse.

I dont care. Answer the phone.

Answer it yourself.

It was Nurse Nancy from my doctors office.

Dr. Covit needs to see you today.

Impossible.

He says its urgent.

Put him on the phone.

Hes not here.

Then whats so urgent?

Hell tell you.

Ill call you back.

I started worrying. Itd been a week since my checkup. What did he find? I didnt want to know. I didnt want to hear his speech about how I had to stop drinking and drugging. I lit up another Nat Sherman, hit the vodka a little harder and headed back out to the balcony. I still hadnt shaved or dressed. Mr. Wall Street was gone. But his well-built wife was there, watering the plants. I watched her bend over and considered the convenience of having a secret lover in the same building. That would result in chaos. I liked chaos. But I didnt like answering my own phone, which was ringing again.

Cynthia!

She ignored me. The ringing wouldnt stop, so I schlepped back inside and picked up the phone. There was a whirling noise on the other end of the line. Through the cacophony, I couldnt mistake the high-pitched voice of Michael Jackson.

In 1989, Michael Jackson was still the biggest star on the planet. The eighties belonged to him. Thriller had set the world on fireover 40 million copies soldand Bad was a blockbuster. Id known Michael since 1975, when he and his brothers joined our Epic label, and watched his career zoom into orbit. I might have even helped. Anyway, we were close. He called me his Good Daddy because his biological Bad Daddy, whom he feared, was threatening and remote.

My father never hugged me, Michael told me one afternoon while taking me on a tour of his Neverland ranch.

You want a hug, Michael? Heres a hug.

I gave him a good hug, praised him inordinately and reassured him continuallyyes, you are the greatest. I meant it. Who doubted his fabulous talents?

My role as Michaels corporate caretaker, though, was not without complexities. At the end of 1987, Id arranged the sale of CBS Records to Sony, a deal that bloated my already overbloated ego and consolidatedor so I thoughtmy power. Part of that consolidation rested in my relationship with our big moneymakers, Michael chief among them. I assured Sonyand Michaelthat the transition would yield fatter profits for everyone. That meant the key playersthe big brass in Tokyo and the artists in Americawere more dependent on me. My maneuvers put me in the middle of the action: an indispensable monarch, the King of Records comforting the King of Pop.