Jann Wenner: Say Nice things About Him
Jann Wenner is a great magazine publisher and, with the undisbutable brilliance of Lennon Remembers, a great rock critic at some points of his life. But he is a sycophant and a groupie and an egomaniac who uses his powerful position to curry favor with his buddies in the biz. He cut Lester Bangs loose, he cut Paul Nelson loose, he wants the reviews he wants and if you don’t give em to him he won’t publish them or worse he won’t publish them and won’t use you again.
This all comes to mind because of yesterdays Media Ink column in the New York Post by Keith J. Kelly. In a report about Springsteen getting 10 million bucks for his autobiography he mentions how Lewis McAdams has been working on an authorized biography of Jann Wenner (did you notice that I SAID AUTHORIZED) for five years. Why? Because McAdams wants to write a serious biography and Jann wants a book about how great he is and won’t let any of his friends speak to McAdams. Kelly writes: “The bio, while written with Wenner’s cooperation, was supposed to be fair and independent. One major stumbling block is that Wenner won’t deliver key people to talk to MacAdams, including his wife, Jane Schindelheim. Wenner left his wife in the mid-’90s for former Calvin Klein model Matt Nye. Jann and Schindelheim never formally divorced and remain partners in the business.”
In other words, Wenner is fucking with yet another writer and this one doesn’t even work for him.
