#also emmy campaign for jess when

[thececeverse]

JASON DAY-FUJIWARA is a Japanese-English actor, visual artist, videographer, businessman, and semi-retired model. Born on January 4th, 1997, Jason began his career as a child actor and model in 2004, and his earliest jobs came in the form of Abercrombie campaigns and print advertisements for Burberry and Chloe. His acting debut didn't come until 2005, in which he had a supporting role in a British soap opera. Prior to his breakthrough, Jason became a prominent young TV actor in England, and his popularity led him to a role in the 2011 Disney film, Lemonade Mouth.

In 2014, Jason was one of two co-stars in the film Sister. The film was an international success, and it won him a Young Hollywood Award, a Saturn Award, and even his first Golden Globe. Sister saw recognition at the Academy Awards, and won the GLAAD Media Award for Best Outstanding Film. The film's success catapulted Jason into semi-stardom in the United States, and he found his way into an Emmy-nominated television film later that year. In 2016, however, he would be transformed into an established actor seemingly overnight.

Jason would secure the role of Jess (later Jax) Takeda in Stranger Things, and his character's subsequent popularity turned him into a beloved actor. As a result, he's since achieved roles in major productions such as Squid Game, The Power of the Dog, Dune, Fast X, the Knives Out trilogy, Scream, Mad Max: Furiosa, Succession, Bridgerton, and Shiai—the latter of which garnered him a Best Actor nomination at the 2024 Academy Awards.

In addition to his booming acting career, Jason also has a booming modeling career. In 2013, he signed a contract with IMG Models, and a year later, he was sent to Paris and London to make his Fashion Week debuts. In between 2014 and 2016, he was seen as a rising star within the modeling world, booking shows and campaigns for the likes of Valentino, Alexander Wang, and Louis Vuitton. Jason's career as a model came to a rather abrupt end in 2016, though, when he announced that he would be taking an indefinite hiatus from modeling. The hiatus would thankfully end six years later, when he returned to the runway for Paris Fashion Week in 2022. Now, he's an ambassador for Celine, Hermès, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Saint Laurent's "L'Homme" fragrance, and is the first male ambassador for SK-II. Additionally, Jason also happens to be the founder and CEO of Day Media Corp, a gallery and media company, mainly for photography and videography. Founding the company in 2021, it has gone on to be immensely successful.

In 2018, Jason came out as a demiboy, changing his name from Jocelyn Charlene Day to Jason Day-Fujiwara. In his post, he expressed his feelings of gender dysphoria and confusing attraction to women, which he had been feeling for over two years at that point (which was also one of the reasons he decided to step back from modeling). Three years later, he would publicly come out as a transgender man, citing his then-girlfriend for giving him the courage to do so. Since then, Jason has been a staunch activist for the LGBT community and other marginalized groups, regularly speaking at charity events and making frequent appearances at Pride.

In 2019, Jason met his future wife, Aikawa Chouka (also known as Love). Meeting during the table reading before the production of Stranger Things' third season, the two clicked instantly due to their shared Japanese heritage and similar social standing (as Jason's father—Jonathan Day—is the president of the Day Banking Group, while his mother is a wealthy heiress and cast member of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills). Interestingly enough, they also attended the same Swiss private school at the same time, and their mothers were very familiar with each other. They became immensely close over the next two years, to the point where a relationship between their characters on Stranger Things was written in due to their intense chemistry, and by 2021, the internet was beginning to notice just how close they were. Everyone's suspicions were confirmed on Valentine's Day of that year, when both Jason and Chouka confirmed their relationship on Instagram. The world couldn't have been happier, and they've since gone on to become an iconic couple, even tying the knot in 2024. Their lavish Italian wedding has gone down as the "wedding of the decade."

Now, Jason has cemented himself as a beloved celebrity, becoming known as one of the best and most popular actors of the modern age. With his string of iconic roles, activism, booming business, and aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed, it doesn't look like Jason will be going away anytime soon (especially since he's married to Chouka).

[tabloidtoc]

OK, April 17

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: The Robin Williams nobody knew -- his last words, inner struggles and loving heart 

Page 1: Big Pic -- Scott Disick lifts daughter Penelope and plays with her cousins Saint West and North West and a pal 

Page 2: Contents 

Page 4: Julianne Hough and Brooks Laich’s second chance -- just two months after separating Brooks and Julianne are giving their marriage another shot 

Page 6: After years of rumors regarding her well-being Britney Spears is preparing to set the record straight on a TV chat or podcast interview 

Page 7: Buzz has been building for months over the possibility of Matthew McConaughey running for governor of his home state of Texas, Elizabeth Hurley has openly drooled over George Clooney and his wife Amal Clooney isn’t happy about it, Charlize Theron may seem intimidating to some but not stuntwoman Dayna Grant -- everyone knows how Charlize is an acquired taste and isn’t too social in Hollywood and it’s a breath of fresh air for Charlize to have a genuine friendship

Page 8: Kathie Lee Gifford is mourning the recent death of her dear friend and colleague Regis Philbin and plans to team up with his widow Joy Philbin to honor him in any way she can, Kristen Stewart was nervous enough when she signed up to portray Princess Diana in the upcoming biopic but her anxieties have only worsened because of her touch and go romance with screenwriter Dylan Meyer, fresh off her 79th birthday Martha Stewart is upping her efforts to find a sexy new suitor and she’s turned to close pal Snoop Dogg to help make that happen 

Page 10: Red Hot on the Red Carpet -- from blush to magenta stars rock pretty pink frocks -- Regina King, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lashana Lynch 

Page 11: Cynthia Erivo, Sarah Hyland, Laura Dern 

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Olivia Munn vs. Kris Jenner, Minka Kelly vs. Hailee Steinfeld

Page 13: Gwyneth Paltrow vs. Chloe Bennet 

Page 14: News in Photos -- Brooke Shields works out in her backyard in the Hamptons 

Page 16: Tallulah Willis and her mom Demi Moore both don pieces from her new clothing line Wyllis, pregnant Katy Perry showed off her baby bump at the beach in Santa Barbara, Tom Felton skateboarding in a Venice park 

Page 17: Madelaine Petsch and her dog Olivia, Demi Rose 

Page 18: Ashley Benson and G-Eazy hold hands while hiking, Jon Bon Jovi lip-synching, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson crafting with daughters Jasmine and Tiana 

Page 19: Elsa Hosk on a weekend getaway, Brody Jenner and his dog, Chrissy Teigen and daughter Luna were twins 

Page 20: Catching Rays -- whether for work or plays stars are spending the season outdoors -- Dorit Kemsley in a water-gun fight with her kids, Bella Hadid shot a campaign for Michael Kors in L.A., DJ Khaled on his custom Sea-Doo 

Page 21: Christina Milian and boyfriend Matt Pokora in St. Tropez, Ireland Baldwin with her dog on the beach, Shanina Shaik on vacation in St. Tropez 

Page 22: Carol Alt at the Filming Italy Sardegna Festival

Page 23: Katie Holmes picked up some CeraVe while running errands, Hannah Ann Sluss waited for a cab in L.A. 

Page 24: Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy’s love nest -- the pair are slowly but surely settling into their new abode 

Page 26: Take It Easy -- your favorite stars share their secrets for staying cool calm and collected -- Elizabeth Hurley, Jennifer Aniston, Selena Gomez, Heidi Klum, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley 

Page 28: Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner’s first days as parents to daughter Willa 

Page 29: Though movie buffs were excited to hear that The Pelican Brief’s Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington would be reuniting 27 years later to star in the upcoming Netflix drama Leave the World Behind but the casting news didn’t sit well with Julia’s husband Danny Moder, though Jim Carrey and Renee Zellweger ended their romance two decades ago Jim recently confessed that Renee was the great love of his life and before the interview he quietly reached out to her in hopes of rekindling their friendship and maybe more but Renee isn’t eager to jump into a relationship right now, it’s only been seven months since Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden welcomed their daughter Raddix via surrogate but the pair are already thinking about baby No. 2 

Page 30: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are hunting for property in the California countryside to set up a home and a working farm, since Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel hit a rough patch last November he’s agreed to draft a midterm agreement to help Jess feel more secure in their marriage -- Justin’s pledged that any proven cheating will result in Jessica getting the lion’s share of their assets as well as primary custody of the kids, Love Bites -- Ciara and Russell Wilson welcomed their second child together, Tarek El Moussa and Heather Rae Young engaged, Vanessa Morgan announced she’s expecting a son in January then three days later the baby’s father Michael Kopech filed for divorce 

Page 32: Cover Story -- Robin Williams’ untold story -- Robin’s meteoric rise and heartbreaking fall six years after his tragic death 

Page 36: Sandra Bullock’s wedding joy -- Sandra secretly wed longtime love Bryan Randall in a superromantic ceremony on her birthday 

Page 38: Reality Bites -- these stars got their first moments in the spotlight appearing on unscripted TV shows -- Cardi B, Lady Gaga, Kesha 

Page 39: Emma Stone, Aaron Paul, Jamie Chung, Laverne Cox, Josh Henderson 

Page 40: Interview -- Ellie Goulding -- music therapy -- the British singer explores her darker side on her latest album 

Page 42: Gisele Bundchen fit at 40 -- find out how Gisele got into the best shape of her life 

Page 43: Forty Never Looked So Good -- see how these supersvelte stars who also turned the big 4-0 this year stay in shape -- Jordana Brewster, Olivia Munn, Zooey Deschanel, Kristen Bell 

Page 46: Style Week -- Olivia Culpo’s collaboration with Prive Revaux 

Page 50: Sassy school-year must-haves -- Storm Reid 

Page 52: Dorm Decor -- Kiernan Shipka 

Page 54: Entertainment 

Page 55: Q&A with Damian McGinty 

Page 58: Buzz -- Rebel Wilson trying to lose weight in 2020 

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Jennifer Aniston reacting to her Emmy nomination for The Morning Show, Prince William on the worst gift he’s ever given Duchess Kate, Melissa Gorga on teen daughter Antonia, Mark-Paul Gosselaar on rewatching Saved By the Bell for his new podcast, Catherine Zeta-Jones on how she and Michael Douglas will celebrate their 20th anniversary this fall 

Page 61: Trista Sutter on why The Bachelorette ends in more lasting relationships than The Bachelor, Andy Cohen on auditioning for a role on Sex and the City, Billy Eichner tweeting about Taylor Swift’s new album Folklore 

Page 62: Horoscope -- Leo Charlize Theron turned 45 on August 7 

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Zachary Quinto

[suzannebyrne]

Aaron Paul Recalls How His ‘Breaking Bad’ Co-Star Jonathan Banks Helped Him Court His Future Wife

Aaron Paul and Jonathan Banks hugging it out at the 2013 Emmys. (Photo: Mark Davis/FilmMagic)

Aaron Paul is quite the Romeo, but he has nothing on his former Breaking Bad co-star Jonathan Banks.

The Path actor, 37, shared a throwback photo from set of the Emmy-winning show, when he played that meth-making punk Jesse Pinkman and Banks, 70, was the heavy Mike Ehrmantraut, a character he’s now playing on prequel Better Call Saul. Paul said he remembered the moment “like it was yesterday” because his co-star, “who wears his heart on his sleeve,” helped him court his future wife, Lauren Parsekian Paul.

Just ran across this shot of this beautiful man and I and I had to share it. There's a story behind this shot. This day. I remember it like it was yesterday. Memories are funny that way. This was the first day back to work after falling head first in love with my wife. Feeling the heat of the Albuquerque sky as I told him about what had happened to me that past weekend. I went on and on about what I was feeling and he interrupted me and asked me a question. He said "Do you put the moon and the stars in the sky for her"? I said I hope so. You don't know?!? You must know. I called her and he asked her himself and then he sang to her. It was incredible. That's the type of man that he is. Loud bark and no bite who wears his heart on his sleeve. He's also a huge romantic so that's why he wanted to put us on the spot. A couple of years later I asked him to read a poem at our wedding. He asked me if I had one in mind and I said that I wanted him to choose one. I know it will be perfect. And it was. I love this picture. I love this man. Jonathan Banks you beautiful beast you, I miss you every single day. ⚗️

A post shared by Aaron Paul (@glassofwhiskey) on Feb 20, 2017 at 8:12pm PST

“Just ran across this shot of this beautiful man and I and I had to share it,” Paul wrote in the caption. “This was the first day back to work after falling head first in love with my wife,” whom the Idaho native memorably met at Coachella and kissed on the ferris wheel.

Related: Celebrities With Meet-Cute Stories

He continued, “Feeling the heat of the Albuquerque sky as I told him about what had happened to me that past weekend. I went on and on about what I was feeling and he interrupted me and asked me a question. He said, ‘Do you put the moon and the stars in the sky for her?’ I said, ‘I hope so.’ ‘You don’t know?!? You must know.’”

So the men called Lauren, the movie star-pretty co-founder of anti-bullying non-profit Kind Campaign.

“I called her and he asked her himself and then he sang to her,” Paul recalled. “It was incredible. That’s the type of man that he is. Loud bark and no bite, who wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s also a huge romantic so that’s why he wanted to put us on the spot.”

Lauren and Aaron Paul at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2016. (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

When Paul married Lauren in 2013 in a Parisian carnival-themed wedding in Malibu, most of his Breaking Bad co-stars were there, including Banks, whom he asked to participate in the ceremony. (Bryan Cranston was a groomsman.)

Related: Breaking Bad Fans Crashed Aaron Paul’s Wedding

“A couple of years later I asked him to read a poem at our wedding,” he wrote. “He asked me if I had one in mind and I said that I wanted him to choose one. I know it will be perfect. And it was. I love this picture. I love this man. Jonathan Banks you beautiful beast you, I miss you every single day.”

There’s a chance that the men will — or have! — worked together on this season of Better Call Saul, which premieres April 10. During an appearance on Ellen, Paul teased a possible cameo on the show, which is helmed by Breaking Bad’s Vince Gilligan.

As for Aaron and his wife, seems like the next milestone in this relationship is starting a family. In December, the actor whisked his wife away to Thailand for her 30th birthday — and surprised her by bringing along her best friends. In a reflective post on Instagram, Lauren wrote that she was open “for the idea of little babies running around our house” and “the idea of a little more routine.”

More From Yahoo Celebrity:

9 Photos That Are Just So Rihanna

Celebrate Kurt Cobain’s 50th Birthday With His Most Irreverent Quotes

Celebrities Pose With … Themselves

[blackkudos]

LeVar Burton

Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. (born February 16, 1957) is an American actor, presenter, director, and author. He is best known for his roles as the host of the long-running PBS children's series Reading Rainbow, Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the young Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots. He has also directed a number of television episodes for various iterations of Star Trek, among other programs.

Early life

Burton was born to American parents at the U.S. Army Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in West Germany. His mother, Erma Gene (née Christian), was a social worker, administrator, and educator. His father, Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, was a photographer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps at the time he was stationed at Landstuhl. Burton and his two sisters were raised by his mother in Sacramento, California. Burton was raised Roman Catholic and, at the age of thirteen, entered St. Pius X seminary in Galt, California, to become a priest.

Burton attended St. Pius X Seminary in Galt and graduated in the class of 1974. While in seminary, he read works by the philosophers Lao-Tzu, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard which caused him to question the Catholic dogma that Catholicism is the only true religion. At seventeen, Burton left the seminary to enroll at the University of Southern California with a drama scholarship. While at the University of Southern California, Burton was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Theatre.

Career

Early work

LeVar Burton made his acting debut in 1977 when he played Kunta Kinte in the ABC award-winning drama series Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley. Burton's audition for the role of Kinte was the first of his professional career. As a result of his performance, he was nominated for the Emmy for Best Actor in a Drama Series. Burton reprised the role of Kunta Kinte in the 1988 television film Roots: The Gift. When asked about the societal impacts of Roots, Burton is quoted as saying, "It expanded the consciousness of people. Blacks and whites began to see each other as human beings, not as stereotypes. And if you throw a pebble into the pond, you're going to get ripples. I think the only constant is change, and it's always slow. Anything that happens overnight is lacking in foundation. Roots is part of a changing trend, and it's still being played out."

Burton played a role as a visitor to Fantasy Island, was a participant in Battle of the Network Stars, a guest of the Muppet Show's televised premiere party for the release of The Muppet Movie, and a frequent guest on several game shows. In 1986, he appeared in the music video for the song "Word Up!" by the funk/R&B group Cameo.

Burton accepted an invitation to host Rebop, a multicultural series designed for young people ages 9–15, produced by WGBH for PBS.

Reading Rainbow

Burton was the host and executive producer of Reading Rainbow starting in 1983 for PBS. The series ran for 23 seasons, making it one of the longest-running children's programs on the network. Furthermore, the series garnered over 200 broadcast awards over its run, including a Peabody Award and 26 Emmy Awards, 11 of which were in the Outstanding Children's Series category. Burton himself won 12 Emmy awards as host and producer of the show.

After Reading Rainbow went off the air in 2006, Burton and his business partner, Mark Wolfe, acquired the global rights to the brand and formed RRKIDZ, a new media company for children. Reading Rainbow was reimagined as an all new application for the iPad in 2012, and was an immediate success, becoming the number-one educational application within 36 hours. At RRKIDZ, Burton serves as co-founder and curator-in-chief, ensuring that the projects produced under the banner meet the high expectations and trust of the Reading Rainbow brand.

On May 28, 2014, Burton and numerous coworkers from other past works started a Kickstarter campaign project to bring Reading Rainbow back. To keep with the changing formats to which young children are exposed, his efforts are being directed at making this new program web-based following the success of the tablet application he helped create in recent years. His desire is to have the new Reading Rainbow be integrated into the classrooms of elementary schools across the country, and for schools in need to have free access. The Kickstarter campaign has since raised over $5 million, reaching triple its goal in only 3 days.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

In 1986, Gene Roddenberry approached Burton with the role of the then Lieutenant Junior Grade Geordi La Forge in the Star Trek: The Next Generation television series. La Forge is blind but is granted "sight" through the use of a prosthetic device called a VISOR, which is worn over his eyes. La Forge started out serving as the USS Enterprise's helmsman, and as of the show's second season, had become its chief engineer. At the time, Burton was considerably better known than Patrick Stewart in the United States, due to his role in Roots and Reading Rainbow. The Associated Press stated that Burton's role was essentially the "new Spock".

Burton also portrayed La Forge in the subsequent feature films based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, beginning with Star Trek: Generations in 1994 through 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis.

In addition to acting in the franchise, Burton also directed two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and several episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise.

Other appearances

On television, Burton has helped dramatize the last days of Jim Jones's suicide cult in Guyana, the life and times of Jesse Owens, and the life of the nine-year-old Booker T. Washington. He portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the 2001 film Ali. He also portrayed Detroit Tiger Ron LeFlore in the television movie One in a Million, The Ron LeFlore Story.

In 1987, Burton played Dave Robinson, a journalist (sports writer), in the third season of Murder, She Wrote, episode 16 – "Death Takes a Dive", starring Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.

In 1992, a clip of Burton's voice was sampled by DC Talk for the track "Time is..." on their album Free at Last. The sample is at the very end of the song, in which Burton can be heard saying: "Whoa, wait a minute." He has also lent his voice to several animated projects including Kwame in the cartoon series Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990–1993) and The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1993–1996), Family Guy, Batman: The Animated Series, and Gargoyles. Burton is on the audio version of The Watsons Go to Birmingham: 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. Burton has been cast as voice actor for Black Lightning in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies DVD. In an ironic twist, Burton taped a recycling field trip for YouTube.

Burton appeared several times as a celebrity guest on the Dick Clark–hosted Pyramid, from 1982 until 1988. Burton also was the strongest link in the special Star Trek episode of The Weakest Link. He defeated his final opponent Robert Picardo and won $167,500 for his charity, a record for the show at that time and the largest amount won in any Celebrity Edition of the show (it was later surpassed by a $188,500 win in a "Tournament of Losers" episode).

He has made appearances in such sitcoms as Becker.

Burton is the host and executive producer of a documentary titled The Science of Peace, which was in production as of 2007. It investigates the science and technology aimed at enabling world peace, sometimes called peace science. The film explores some of the concepts of shared noetic consciousness, having been sponsored in part by the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

He appeared in an April Fool's episode of Smosh pretending to have taken over the channel and making various edits at popular Smosh videos.

He makes occasional appearances on This Week in Tech, where he is a self-proclaimed "nerd", and also participated in the Consumer Electronics Show 2010.

In 2010, he made an appearance on Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! as the ghost of himself in the episode "Greene Machine".

In February 2011, Burton made an appearance as himself on NBC's Community in the episodes "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking" and "Geothermal Escapism".

Burton has appeared as a fictionalized, humorous version of himself on The Big Bang Theory, first appearing in the episode "The Toast Derivation", in which he almost attends a party thrown by Sheldon (before swearing off Twitter), in November 2012 in the episode "The Habitation Configuration", in which he appears on "Fun With Flags" in exchange for lunch and gas money, and again in the November 2014 episode "The Champagne Reflection", in which he returns for the 232nd episode of "Fun With Flags" in exchange for Sheldon deleting his contact details.

In 2012, he had a recurring role as dean Paul Haley on the TNT series Perception. For the second season (2013), he became part of the regular cast.

In 2014, he had a guest appearance in an introduction section for the 200th episode of Achievement Hunter's show, Achievement Hunter Weekly Update (AHWU). In May 2014, he appeared as a guest on the YouTube channel SciShow, explaining the science behind double, tertiary, and quaternary rainbows. Late in 2014, he had another guest appearance on a 24-hour Extra Life, a fund-raising organization for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals, stream by Rooster Teeth.

Directing

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Burton directed episodes for each of the various Star Trek series then in production. He has directed more Star Trek episodes than any other former regular cast member.

Burton is on the board of directors for the Directors Guild of America.

Burton has also directed episodes of Charmed, JAG, Las Vegas, and Soul Food: The Series, as well as the miniseries Miracle's Boys and the documentary The Tiger Woods Story. He also directed the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie Smart House starring Katey Sagal, Kevin Kilner, and Jessica Steen.

His first theatrical film direction was 2003's Blizzard, for which he received a "Best of Fest" award from the Chicago International Children's Film Festival, and a Genie Award nomination for his work on the film's theme song, "Center of My Heart".

Personal life

LeVar Burton married Stephanie Cozart-Burton, a professional make-up artist, in 1992. He and his wife currently live in Sherman Oaks, California. LeVar Burton has two children, a daughter Michaela (Mica) with his wife, and a son, Eian Burton (born 1980) from a previous relationship.

Philanthropy

Burton serves on the board of directors for the AIDS Research Alliance, a non-profit, medical research organization dedicated to finding a cure for AIDS.

Filmography

FilmTelevision

Director

Awards

Nominations

1977 Emmy — Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Performance in a Drama or Comedy Series — Roots (Part 1, "Kunta Kinte")

1998, 2001, 2005 Image Awards variously for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series and Outstanding Youth or Children's Series/Special — ' Reading Rainbow ' (both as Self and as Executive Producer)

1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1999 Daytime Emmy — Outstanding Children's Series — Reading Rainbow (Executive Producer)

1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007 – Daytime Emmy — Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series — Reading Rainbow (Self)

2004 Genie Award — Best Achievement in Music-Original Song — Blizzard (Co-composer "Center of My Heart")

2006 Black Reel Award — Best Director-Television — Miracle's Boys

Wins

1990 Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7030 Hollywood Blvd. for television achievement

1992 Peabody Award — Reading Rainbow (as executive producer of episode, "The Wall")

1994, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2003 Image Award — variously for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series and Outstanding Youth or Children's Series/Special — ' Reading Rainbow ' (both as Self and as Executive Producer)

2000 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album – The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.

1990, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 Daytime Emmy — Outstanding Children's Series — Reading Rainbow (Executive Producer)

2001, 2002 Daytime Emmy — Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series — Reading Rainbow (Self)

2003 Television Critics Association Award — Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming — Reading Rainbow (Executive Producer)

2004 Chicago International Children's Film Festival — Best of Fest — Blizzard (Director)

Books

Aftermath, 1997, ISBN 0-446-67960-7

Wikipedia

[biofunmy]

A Show That Laughs at Boris Johnson, and May Have Aided His Rise

BOREHAMWOOD, England — There are many theories about how Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, another politician leading Britain’s exit from the European Union, rose to power.

They were destined to lead thanks to their drive and privileged backgrounds, some say. Or they were best able to tap into a public mood that had soured against the European Union.

But a good many watchers of British television and politics trace the two men’s ascent to something else: “Have I Got News for You,” a long-running BBC quiz show that began its newest season this month.

An institution in Britain, “Have I Got News For You” began airing in 1990 and runs on Friday nights on the BBC’s main channel, averaging 4 million viewers. Highlights appear on Twitter and YouTube, while old episodes play endlessly on Dave, a comedy network.

It’s a simple show. Two captains — Ian Hislop, the much-feared editor of Private Eye, a satirical magazine, and Paul Merton, a comedian — are joined by star guests, often politicians, to joke and answer questions about the week’s news.

Political guests are subject to continual mockery, especially if they have a scandalous past or their policies appear muddled. But for those willing to be laughed at, and to laugh at themselves, the show has become a way to endear themselves to the public in a country where self-deprecation is an art form.

[Back to the voters: Boris Johnson won backing to hold a general election on Dec. 12.]

The show is mentioned repeatedly in profiles of Johnson and Rees-Mogg. Johnson’s appearances were “pop culture classics,” wrote Sonia Purnell in “Just Boris,” a biography. “In the end his TV career may have proved his greatest electoral asset,” she added.

Johnson’s first appearance, in 1998, occurred when he was a journalist and failed Conservative Party parliamentary candidate. Richard Wilson, one of the show’s executive producers, said he saw Johnson, straw-haired and spouting arcane references, on a news show one night, thought, “He’s a slightly ludicrous figure,” and decided to book him.

During Johnson’s appearance, he was asked about a notorious episode in which he was secretly recorded offering to help a friend find the address of a reporter whom the friend, who was later convicted of fraud, wanted to beat up.

Johnson flailed around a bit, but kept his wits.

“I’m not ashamed of it,” he said.

“What are you not ashamed of there, Boris?” he was asked.

“Whatever there is not to be ashamed of,” he added. The audience howled with laughter.

Johnson ended up appearing six more times, honing his bumbling persona in the process. (He would mess up his hair just before the cameras rolled, Wilson said.) For one appearance he was even once nominated for a BAFTA, the British equivalent of an Emmy, for “best entertainment performance.”

Meanwhile, his political star rose. He won election to the House of Commons in 2001, then became mayor of London (he stopped appearing on “Have I Got News For You” after announcing his candidacy for that role). He became prime minister this July following discontent over how his predecessor, Theresa May, had handled negotiations to extricate Britain from the European Union.

Emily Rayner, a civil servant standing in the queue for a recent taping of the show in Borehamwood, a commuter town north of London, said she knew people who had voted for Johnson “because they thought he’s got character, he’s been on ‘Have I Got News for You.’”

Another leading Brexit voice, Rees-Mogg, the House of Commons leader, also got widespread attention from the show, which introduced many people to his antiquarian manner of speech and dress.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, has been on the show as well, though he was already well known by the time he first appeared.

For those disinclined to favor Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Brexit, or all three, the show has become an easy target for finger-wagging.

“‘Have I Got News for You’ is partially responsible for this whole mess,” wrote Stuart Heritage in The Guardian in April. Johnson’s “entire buffoonish eye-rolling Oh-Boris smokescreen of a persona” was “forged in the fires” of the show, he said. It had also given Rees-Mogg “a reputation as a harmless, self-deprecating Victorian caricature,” he added.

Some of the complaints seem far-fetched. The show can hardly be accused of being pro-Brexit or pro-Boris, rarely passing up an opportunity to send up either.

On Tuesday, after Johnson accepted the European Union’s offer of a further delay to the Brexit process, a Tweet from the show’s popular Twitter account said: “As UK heads into third Brexit extension, country looks forward to another three months of bickering, amateur dramatics and absolutely nothing being achieved before asking the EU for another one.”

Hislop, one of the captains, dismissed the idea that the show was behind Johnson’s success. “If we ask someone on and people like them, that is up to people,” he said in a telephone interview, pointing out he had never given Johnson an easy ride.

(In a 2014 TV documentary about Johnson, however, Hislop said, “There is a sense of guilt that part of Boris’ success has been built on his performances.”)

The show had been blamed for the rise of politicians on the left too, Hislop said. He expected criticism soon if Jess Phillips, another popular guest, became leader of Britain’s Labour Party. “If in 10 years’ time, the country is falling apart due to the fact Jess Phillips has moved violently to the left and totally screwed everything up, there will be people who’ll say, ‘She’s only popular because she was on “Have I Got News for You,”’” he said.

Jimmy Mulville, co-founder of Hat Trick Productions, the company behind the show, said he didn’t lose sleep over Johnson’s or Rees-Mogg’s rise. If anything “gives me cause for concern” about the show, he said, it was when politicians have used it to rehabilitate their public image. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor who was accused of beefing up the case for Britain and America to invade Iraq, had done just that, Mulville said.

Still, he said, such guests were too high-profile for the show to turn down.

The program sometimes makes headlines itself. Not long after the Britain voted for Brexit in 2016, Gary Lineker, a former soccer star, made a joke on the show about how Brexit may not be completed for 10 years. “That’s not fair,” he said. “Most of the people who voted for it will be dead by then.” It prompted outrage from some Brexit campaigners.

Last year, “Have I Got News For You” was accused of being sexist for not booking enough female guests. This May the BBC pulled an episode 20 minutes before broadcast because it featured Heidi Allen, then the leader of Change UK, a small anti-Brexit party. The BBC feared that the publicity the episode gave to her party would breach impartiality rules around the European elections. (The show’s producers said that they offered to air the show with a square covering Allen’s face and bleeping everything she said, but that the BBC declined.)

At a recent taping, the guests weren’t controversial: Layla Moran, a member of the Liberal Democrats and Sara Pascoe, a comedian.

But some comments did cause sharp intakes of breath from the more sensitive members of the audience. At one point, there was discussion about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that included scathing sarcasm about Prince Andrew’s association with Epstein (the BBC’s on-site lawyer, who watches all tapings for potential libel, didn’t appear to object).

Boris Johnson may not have been a guest, but he was a presence throughout.

The first quiz round was called “Boris’ Brexit Balls-ups” and made fun of his most recent embarrassments, including allegations that he directed public funds toward a friend and that he had once written a failed film script called “Mission to Assyria.”

The host played a clip of one of Johnson’s constituents calling him a “filthy piece of toe-rag.” “And that��s his mother,” Merton said. It got one of the biggest laughs of the night.

Sahred From Source link Arts

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[theconservativebrief]

The world doesn’t make sense anymore.

The wrinkles in the simulation were inconsequential at first. The Chicago Cubs won a World Series. La La Land was the Best Picture for about two minutes, until it wasn’t. The Atlanta Falcons gave up a 28-3 lead and lost a Super Bowl. These events — which all happened within six months of each other — were weird, to be sure. Unless you were directly involved in one of the aforementioned properties, however, you probably just enjoyed the oddness of it all.

But the wrongness of the world has turned more sinister, to many. The exit of the UK from the European Union, the rise of alt-right nationalism, the election of Donald Trump — these are things that aren’t supposed to happen. And yet here we are, in a world that feels like it’s tearing itself apart, a 2-year-old caught in an eternal temper tantrum.

If you spend time on Twitter or Facebook, this voiceless howl becomes all the more inescapable. If you doubt me, click on literally any tweet announcing major political news from a media personality and watch as the chasm deepens the further down you scroll. The message is clear: There has to be a failsafe. There has to be a button to press, a piece of footage to find, a magic word to speak, to put everything back on track, to get back to the world as it was — safe and predictable and a little taxing but largely fine, right? Largely fine.

Enter Tom Arnold, the ’90s comedian and ex-husband of Roseanne Barr, who’s going to find that magical bridge back to the world we thought we lived in, or utterly tank his reputation trying.

What’s a show like this without a giant wall of evidence? Viceland

The most 2018 thing about Viceland’s new series The Hunt for the Trump Tapes with Tom Arnold is how impossible it is to tell which portions of it are self-promotion and which parts of it are sincere. On some level, I really do think that Arnold wants to take down Donald Trump, by any means necessary. On another level, though, I don’t understand why he thinks he’s the guy to do it beyond the fact that it will get him back on TV.

I’ve only seen two episodes (out of a proposed eight), and each of them is at once 22 minutes and 13 years long. In the course of watching the first — in which Arnold tracks down tapes of Trump’s appearance on Howard Stern’s radio show, tapes that he gets from clandestine operatives in a motel room in the middle of the night, but which he probably could have just torrented if he really wanted them — I was pretty sure the episode was just wrapping up, only to realize it hadn’t even reached its first commercial break.

Yet there’s something oddly watchable about Arnold throwing himself against the rocks of reality, trying to wear them down. He possesses the same lack of shame that Trump boasts, which means he’ll do anything for his show, or to promote his show. And he at least targets not Trump directly but those who enabled him on the way to the presidency, men like Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, who is rumored to possess a bunch of footage of Trump saying racist and/or sexist and/or homophobic things on the set of that show. (Now Arnold is reportedly claiming this footage has made it into the hands of Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker journalist.)

But it’s here where things become even murkier, because Arnold and Burnett had … some sort of confrontation at an Emmys party over the weekend, which Arnold claims involved Burnett attacking him, while Burnett’s wife (Roma Downey) claims the reverse. (Arnold, at least, has filed a police report.) And presuming an altercation happened (and there are enough witnesses to suggest one did), it’s not clear if Arnold got into a fight to promote his show, if Burnett did so because he feels rattled by Arnold’s irritating persistence, if one man was goading the other, or if it was some combination of all of the above.

Having watched the series, I find it possible to assume any of those scenarios is true. It seems at least plausible to me that Burnett has something to hide. (Rumors of Apprentice outtakes that contained jaw-droppingly offensive statements from Trump predate the man’s run for president.) But watching Arnold in his show is like being cornered by a Trump-hating relative at a family barbecue on one of those long, hazy days in August. He has his hand on your shoulder, and he’s in your space, and he’s talking at way too loud of a volume. And even if you agree that Trump has to go, boy, you wouldn’t mind talking to literally anybody else for a while.

This is Arnold’s “strength” as an “investigative journalist,” I guess. He keeps chiseling away at the wall he’s certain separates him from the truth, using his lack of shame and too-big personality as his tools. But the best moments of the show come when he tries to enlist others in his circle — his wife, his millennial writing partner — into his adventures, and they seem uniquely uninterested in whatever it is he’s doing, hitting their marks for the camera but little more.

Perhaps the most telling sequence involves Arnold staking out the favorite restaurant of his old True Lies costar, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the second episode. When Schwarzenegger appears, Arnold tries to get him to open up about Trump, to say something inflammatory on camera, but he forgets to ask Schwarzenegger if he heard anything from the crew during that one season when the former governor hosted The Celebrity Apprentice.

There’s something approachably sad about this whole sequence, about Arnold trying to be best pals with someone who’s still so much more famous with him, about how he forgets his core mission in that moment, perhaps because he still longs for fame, too. Schwarzenegger became governor, and Trump became president.

But what happened to Tom Arnold? He disappeared. And now he’s returned to rebalance the scales of justice. Honestly, if he did, it would make about as much sense as anything else that’s happened of late.

Tom Arnold (left) and executive producer Jonathan Karsh discuss The Hunt for the Trump Tapes at the 2018 Television Critics Association summer press tour. Jesse Grant/Getty Images for A+E Networks

In its own way, The Hunt for the Trump Tapes underlines a certain brand of the anti-Trump #resistance, a brand that believes Trump is a once-in-a-lifetime aberration, a nightmare that can be stopped if the right piece of information can be found to wake everybody up — and not, instead, a manifestation of a certain American id that has always and will always be there. These arguments seem, to me, to ignore that the right piece of information has been found over and over and over again, and yet those who support Trump continue to support him because he has no shame.

Maybe this makes Arnold the ideal person to bring Trump down, then, because someone with a similar lack of shame might be just the person to fly into the maelstrom, Captain Ahab style. (This ignores, of course, that Captain Ahab dies, and he drags nearly everybody else on his ship to the bottom of the ocean, too, while Moby Dick presumably escapes.) Maybe if Arnold turns the end of a presidency into just as big of a sideshow as its birth was, everything will revert to normal.

I’m not holding my breath, though. The Hunt for the Trump Tapes is illuminating in that it underlines how much Arnold’s qualms with Trump stem not from policy differences, but from the thought that Trump is just kinda, well, gross. He doesn’t want to find the tapes of Trump saying racist and sexist things on the set of The Apprentice because he deeply believes those things should not be said — though that’s one of his motivations. No, he first and foremost wants to find the tapes of Trump saying racist and sexist things because he believes that’s the easiest way to end a presidency.

As with much of the knee-jerk, anti-Trump stuff that floats around social media, there is a kind of grief in The Hunt for the Trump Tapes: a grief that never got past the bargaining stage, that never could accept the idea that so many citizens voted for a man who bragged about committing sexual assault, who made fun of a reporter with a disability, who early in his campaign called Mexicans rapists.

It is a grief of a man who seems to believe that if just the right piece of footage is found, if just the right sequence of images is exposed, Trump voters will cower at the sheer, bright, dazzling light of its truth, then be forced to admit they were wrong.

But throughout Trump Tapes, Arnold runs into people who say, “Well, uh, what could you possibly find that’s worse than [insert damaging piece of Trump footage here]?” and Arnold admits that he doesn’t know, but he has to keep going. He has the TV show, sure, but he also has his certainty. He must know, on some level, that even the worst footage he finds would be rationalized away by Trump supporters within a news cycle and that Trump’s vilest behaviors are treated as added value by many of his supporters.

But he keeps going, because at some point, he’ll bump into the thin curtain that separates this reality from the one that must exist elsewhere, where no Chicago Cubs World Series victories exist and where the president is some boring woman everybody complains about, and then he’ll be able to pass through and maybe bring the rest of us along with him. Tom Arnold wants to ditch Trump, sure, but what he really wants is a sense that the world he once thought he lived in wasn’t a lie.

The Hunt for the Trump Tapes with Tom Arnold debuts Tuesday, September 18, at 10:30 pm Eastern on Viceland, which is a cable channel you might get. I didn’t mention that every time the show cuts to commercial, you get to see some old-school VHS tapes getting splashed with a yellow-ish liquid, so presumably there’s going to be a Very Special Pee Tape Episode. Get excited, America!

Original Source -> The Hunt for the Trump Tapes with Tom Arnold, explained

via The Conservative Brief

[investmart007]

MOSCOW | Iceland, Mexico, England vie for US World Cup support

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MOSCOW | Iceland, Mexico, England vie for US World Cup support

MOSCOW — American soccer fans: Iceland’s prime minister wants your support.

The United States is absent from the World Cup for the first time since 1986, which means up to 325 million Americans are temporarily free agents.

Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir says her island nation about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) off Norway’s coast is the perfect pick for their passion. Iceland is the least-populous country ever at soccer’s showcase with just 350,000.

“We can do with more supporters. We absolutely need them,” she said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “We’ve got a lot of support from people around the world. I think a lot of people like the way the Icelandic team played. I think the team spirit really was something that people liked.”

Costa Rica, Egypt, Morocco, Peru and Saudi Arabia already are out, and Argentina is on the verge of elimination, but alluring alternatives remain for those still unsure how to release their pent-up fervor with no U.S. red-white-and-blue to root for.

About 200,000 tickets were bought by American residents for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, second behind only the host nation and up from approximately 130,000 four years earlier in South Africa. The U.S. remains second this year, but the total is down to approximately 87,000, FIFA said. That means more soccer supporters back home.

Reyka Vodka set up viewing parties in a dozen or so states to recruit fans for “Strakarnir Okkar,” the nickname of Iceland’s “Our Boys.” Viet Lam, a 35-year-old emergency room pharmacist from Seattle, was at The George & Dragon Pub to watch Iceland’s 2-0 loss Friday to Nigeria, which started at 8 a.m. PDT. He first visited Iceland in 2013 and has gone back two more times.

“I just fell in love with it. It was my first solo trip ever,” he said. “I was gone for seven weeks and it was first stop. The landscape doesn’t look like anything else.”

Former American star Landon Donovan is part of Wells Fargo’s “Vamos Mexico” marketing campaign, proclaiming on a scarf: “My other team is Mexico.” The 35-year-old hopes El Tri can reach the quarterfinals for the first time since 1986.

“I find myself rooting for Mexico, having been there and seeing how the people have suffered over the years with this fifth game,” Donovan said. “I think if fans need a team to get behind, they can get behind Mexico and hope to see that happen.”

Given that Mexico is the Americans’ biggest rival, Donovan’s ads provoked an angry riposte.

“I’d rather cut off my toe than root for (Mexican flag),” tweeted former U.S. forward Taylor Twellman, now ESPN’s lead soccer analyst.

Donovan responded with a statement saying “my heart bleeds red, white and blue and no one should ever question my allegiance to and support of US Soccer and its national teams,” but reiterated that with no American team to cheer for he will root for Mexico.

The American Outlaws supporters group chartered two Boeing 767s from Houston that brought 530 fans to Brazil in 2014, and the U.S. Soccer Federation said it sold its official allotment of about 2,000 tickets.

This time?

“AO didn’t organize anything,” co-founder Korey Donahoo said.

Mexico has the biggest base for attracting U.S. fan affection.

Among 43 million foreign-born U.S. residents in 2015, 11.58 million were born in Mexico, according to the Pew Research Center. The next seven-highest totals were all countries that failed to reach the World Cup: China, India, the Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Korea was ninth at 1.06 million. World Cup teams included Colombia (13th at 698,000), Germany (16th at 577,000), Peru (17th at 451,000), Ecuador (18th at 441,000), Poland (19th at 417,000), Iran (20th at 392,000) and Russia (21st at 389,000).

England was 28th at 318,000, and Iceland 149th at 4,400.

“For me it will be reminiscent of when I was a kid at the 1994 World Cup when I was wearing Valderrama wigs and cheering for Colombia!” American midfielder Alejandro Bedoja said, referring to star Carlos Valderrama’s blond Afro. “I have so much family still living there, and it only feels natural for me to show support for the country of my heritage. I’ll be eating a lot of empanadas and arepas and drinking Colombian coffee, all while cheering on for the Colombian team.”

Several American players planned to root for their club teammates.

“When you come into training there is always games on here while you’re getting prepared to go out or when you’re coming in and doing rehab,” American forward Clint Dempsey said. “If there’s games on, you’ll watch it. If my family, my kids, if they want to watch it or family, if my brother is in town or family is in town and they want to watch it, then yeah, we’ll check it out. I’m not opposed to it.”

Tony and Emmy Award-winning British actor James Corden, host of “The Late Late Show” on CBS, recorded a segment with England players Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Jesse Lingard, Jamie Vardy and Kyle Walker appealing to Americans for their support.

“Prince Harry. Harry Styles. Harry Kane. I may be your third-favorite British Harry,” Kane said.

“We’re forgetting Harry Potter,” Corden interrupted.

In Reykjavik, Jakobsdottir hopes to see purple jerseys throughout the world.

“If I can say something about the Icelandic team, which I think also is part of the Icelandic national psyche,” she proclaimed, “is that we never give up hope.”

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By RONALD BLUM, AP Sports Writer,By Associated Press

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[stigbrodersen-blog]

An Interview With Atlanta Hawks NBA Owner, Jesse Itzler

Jesse Itzler is a dynamic and inspiring entrepreneur that has grown his empire from the ground up. Jesse got an unconventional start in the music industry where he quickly accomplished difficult feats. ��

For example, within a couple years he was already listed in the Billboard Hot 100 and he won an Emmy for a song produced for Inside the NBA.  By 2001, Jesse had transitioned into an entrepreneurial venture where he founded a fractional jet card company called Marquis Jet. 

After building and growing the brand into one of the biggest jet card companies in the world, he sold the business to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway within a decade. Since the sale of Marquis Jet, Jesse has founded The 100 Mile Group, which is a holding company named after his incredible endurance challenge of running 100 miles in less than 24 hours.  

Today, Jesse is the part-owner of the Atlanta Hawks among various other equity positions. Below is the inspiring interview he gave on the We Study Billionaires Podcast where he talks about being a founder, building a brand, selling a business and designing an extreme endurance challenge.

Preston Pysh: A lot of successful individuals often want to talk about their concluding accomplishments, but Phil Knight does a great job of talking about the early days of Nike in his book Shoe Dog. We want to hear about the beginnings of Marquis Jet.

Jesse Itzler: I recently just got a chance to hear Phil Knight live at a conference. It was interesting to hear his story about how many times Nike almost went out of business at first. Knight and his partners were able to get through the hardships because they had trust in each other. 

A lot of people can relate to the fact that he had no prior experience in the shoe business. For many of people, not having prior experience can feel like a deterrent. They are hesitant to start something because they are fearful of the inexperience. 

For Knight — and myself — not having prior experience was a blessing because we knew that this meant we would do things differently and yield different results. Personally, I had no prior experience in aviation. In the late 1990s, I was a guest on a private plane. 

By the time my partners and I got off the flight, we knew we had to figure out how to fly privately more often. We had the idea to have access to private planes with none of the responsibilities where it could be ready in an eight-hour notice anywhere in the country; it would work like a debit card for private jets. The problem was, we had no airplanes. 

The idea came about because we were frustrated consumers. When we investigated the private aviation business, we realized it was very expensive, so we wanted to make it more affordable. The existing options had many issues, so we wanted to make it simpler. 

We thought about what the perfect program would be for us and thousands of customers if we could create it from scratch. We thought backwards from there, and that became the Marquis Jet that created billions of dollars in sales.

Stig Brodersen: How did you go through the process of raising capital when you founded the company?

Itzler: That is a great question especially if you are starting a capital-intensive business like a private jet company. First of all, I would say that taking in money on any level comes with great responsibility. You have to think through many questions like who you are taking the money from, what you are going to spend the money on, why you need the money when the right time is to raise the money. You need to recognize that this is going to be stressful because losing money for yourself and losing other people’s money have different responsibilities and emotional burdens. 

This might sound obvious but this responsibility comes with communication, updating your investors, and responding to questions. I have never raised money before, so this was a new process for me and my partners. I would say that we did it at the right time. Instead of coming up with a plan and convincing investors with our business plan, we had already secured a partnership with NetJets that promised to provide the airplanes. 

We went to raise capital with not just an idea but also with a partnership in place, which made it a little easier for investors to bet on two people with no experience in aviation. We also put in our own capital. It was not a lot, but it showed that we were also taking the risk. We wanted to make the valuation fair for our investors, so every investor got the same deal. We went to friends and family first because that would have the least emotional responsibility. 

More importantly, we could say that we raised a certain amount of money before we asked strangers for money. Then, we tried to bring in credible individuals. This does not have to be a seasoned investor. It could just be a neighborhood lawyer, anybody that could bring a story for others. 

We were fortunate enough to bring in people from Wall Street and entrepreneurs. In total, we only raised $5 million. I know this is a lot of money, but in the private aviation industry and when we had to spend money on advertisement, start a new category of business, and educate consumers on what Jet Card is, $5 million was not a lot at all. But we wanted to see if we could make it with $5 million, and we never raised money after that.

Pysh: Hearing this, I am curious as to how you guys acquired your endorsements and investors.

Itzler: Itzler: After Marquis Jet, I was involved in ZICO Beverages. We acquired customers predominantly by trial; we demoed our product everywhere, hoping that the product’s taste will convert customers. With Marquis Jet, we had the best product on the planet to demo. 

If I could fill a plane that holds 50 passengers by calling NBA players and asking them if they wanted a lift to their game, most of them would be addicted the second they walked on the private plane. 

A lot of the acquisition came from the people that had already purchased time on Marquis Jet. Our big strategy was to demo our plane and have people bring in guests — we would never have an empty seat. I am a big believer in PR. We were on episode two of The Apprentice, which was risky because we were not sure if it would be a success or fail. 

Word of mouth is also important. We cared more than anybody else. We always showed up on time, we carried bags, we followed up with phone calls, and we sent complimentary travel guides on the destination of our customers. We out-cared everyone else. This created a great reputation through word of mouth. 

And then there was no decision; if you wanted to fly privately, how could you at least not give us a call? Once we got the phone call, we serviced the hell out of them.

Pysh: This must have been a lot of hard work and networking. Itzler: Quite honestly, the work started before Marquis Jet. The work started in high school when I started friendships and kept those relationships my whole life. I kept my college relationships. I was networking every day from 21 to 28 years old. I sent 10 letters a day, which means I reached out to 3,000 people in a year. 

At a young age, I realized that getting letters is exciting. Hand-written letters are memorable; it only takes 32 cents to make an impact. So I started writing 10 letters a day to thank people for small things. If I got your business card and you had an impact on me, you were going to get a letter. I kept a list, and I built this network. It feels great to write a letter, and it feels great to receive it. This simple exercise was the pre-work of Marquis Jet.

Brodersen: You have all these great stories about Marquis Jet. What was your main motivation for you to sell the company eventually?

Itzler: We had been working really hard for eight years. Naturally, the market was changing. Other companies were getting in the game and the competition increased. 

We also got older and wanted different things. It was an amazing business with great cash flow, but after eight years it just felt like the right time to monetize it. We had a great partner in NetJets, and they were the natural exit for us since they supplied the airplanes. We were not trying to sell it to other companies. The transaction was quick because NetJets knew our business so well since we were partners the whole time.

Pysh: I would consider you an expert at branding. I read an article in which you wrote, “unless you start with $100 million marketing budget, any brand you start from a PowerPoint is just about inducing trial, changing customer habits, and repeat business.” Can you elaborate on this idea?

Itzler: Before branding, I think it starts with the product. You could have the best marketing campaign and best branding, which will induce trial — people will try it one time. But if the product is not great, it will never work. 

So before branding, I think the first investment is getting the product 100% right. You have to make sure that the whole experience related to the product is amazing. Packaging, customer service, follow-up, everything. Then it is time to talk about the brand. 

For me, it is about creating a strong emotional connection, and everything flows off of that. You want to be memorable, you want to be different and stand out, but you really want to talk to people about why you are in this, quickly. The one thing I would change about the quote hearing it now is that getting customers to change their habit is really hard.

Pysh: You have actually changed one of my worst habits. Before my first interview with you, I had a horrible habit of always drinking energy drinks. At the end of your interview, you gave a book recommendation, Fit for Life. At first, Stig and I thought it was a strange book recommendation. Then Stig reads the book, and he comes back telling me that I have to read it. 

Now I have two people I respect telling me to read it. So I read the book, and it changed the way I eat completely. I have not had an energy drink ever since I read the book. You changed my habit completely, and I have to thank you personally.

Itzler: You bring up a good point. Health is such an important part of how you feel. Money does not matter if you are sick. That is why I spend a lot of time working on how I feel. Nothing in this world matters if you are not happy. What you eat plays a big role in how you feel, and how you feel translates to how you operate in business as well.

Brodersen: If you could tell your 20-year-old self one advice, what would it be? Itzler: I would have to say being vulnerable is something I would have a conversation with myself about. A vulnerability is so important to success. I recently became a good friend with Tim Grover who is Micahel Jordan and Kobe Bryant’s coach. He mentioned that pressure is a privilege, and it is. If you get a raise or a new job, that comes with pressure but it is also a privilege. 

When I go around the country and speak to crowds, there is a lot of vulnerability. This comes with the best pleasure and reward in my life. I would tell my 20-year-old self to not shy away from vulnerability.

Brodersen: How do you cope with the vulnerability?

Itzler: A lot of self-talk to myself saying, go now. Do not over think it, do not shy away from it. It became a part of my life now. Every day I am trying to go out of my comfort zone. It is scary, believe me. This podcast, for example. What if the reviews are terrible? You just go ahead and do it because it leaves the most rewarding gifts.

Pysh: You are always doing extreme endurance type things. What is your next epic thing you have planned?

Itzler: I have an amazing event planned in October. I think it will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I think people can invest in themselves to grow from this. 

So the deal is, I rented Stratton Mountain in Vermont for a weekend. Everyone gets their own tipi tent with beds and heaters, essentially creating our own village. We are bringing in bands and food trucks and speakers. It is really festival-like, but there is a challenge. You can jog, walk, crawl, hike, whatever up the mountain. We are going to take a high-speed gondola down and go up again until you climb the height of Mount Everest, 29,029 feet. 

I say it is an investment in yourself because it is going to be a weekend with entrepreneurs and like-minded people where you will be pushed mentally. It requires patience and determination. I think it can be a life-changing experience. The goal is to meet all these amazing people and leave thinking you can do anything. 

Anyone that is interested, you can go to www.29zero29.com to get more information. I would love to see you guys from October 13th through 15th.

Brodersen: Lastly, from the business aspect, what surprised you the most about owning a sports team that you did not know before you owned the Hawks?

Itlzer: I am part of an ownership group of about 15 people who get along really well, which is kind of rare. I knew most of them before owning the team, and doing something with friends is amazingly fun. I did not realize that there are so much that goes into operations of sports teams. 

Look at the sponsors like Daily Fantasy challenges and others that emerge that were not here 10 years ago. There is a constant evolution. The community is so passionate about the team, which comes with a lot of pressure. When I am doing daily tasks like grocery shopping, people only want to talk about the Hawks. 

The biggest thing for me has been that I have become close with the players, but the nature of the business means that players come and go. This has been really challenging. You constantly build new relationships, which is a big investment with time and emotions.

 Check out this article and other similar posts on my Financial Blog.