Anywhere but Sun Valley, Please

It was near 100 degrees in New York City Wednesday. The asphalt was melting. The heat was a palpable presence you cut your way through as you made your sorry, soggy way down the street. The air was so thick you could eat it with a spoon, if it wasn't so toxic. And I couldn't have been happier to be here. After all, I could have been at the mogul fest in Sun Valley. Of course, I wasn't invited. But just the thought of it gave me a welcome shiver in all this heat.

There are people who fight for an invitation to the thing. Me, I'd rather be stabbed in the head.

For those of you who have been residing either in the real world or on Planet Mambo, the basic facts are simple. Herb Allen, whose business, like all men of his stature, seems to consist mostly of being Herb Allen, advises major moguls on business deals. He's like "Yenta the Matchmaker" only in big business. Once a year, he hosts a big extravaganza at his place in Sun Valley, Idaho, and anybody who is, was, or wants to be anybody, has to go there or they are dead in show business. If you are a mogul of any size, and you are not there? Your body discorporeates and your spirit is left to wander this spectral plane until it can find another career to inhabit.

All these gigantic egos coalesce around this event and rub elbows and psyches all week long. Naturally, the event swarms with journalists, bloggers and video types, all eager to suck up any shred of information, scuttlebutt, rumor, innuendo or, lacking any of that, fiction that may fall out of the sequestered assembly. For the most part, the Big Dudes stay away from the media. It's considered bad form to mingle with the groundlings on this occasion. But inside, the creme de la creme of the media that covers media helps hold workshops and Think Big Thoughts. That leaves really nothing for the swarm covering the thing, though. So the journalism that comes out of the event is a pretty limp affair.