My summer has been CONSUMED writing the Tiger Woods biography. But last weekend I took a much-needed break to go see U2’s Joshua Tree tour. It’s strange to write that sentence, given that I went to see the Joshua Tree tour thirty years ago. But U2 is doing a 2017 version of the tour to commemorate the epic record. This post is about looking back and going forward.
This post is about David Crosby’s concert for a friend.
I know a CEO who wears cowboy boots and blue jeans and keeps a folded wad of crisp Ben Franklins in his pants pocket. His name is Glade Knight and he lives on a ranch outside Richmond. Twenty-five years ago he rescued a private girls school that had gone under and turned it into a liberal arts college called Southern Virginia University. I started teaching there 10 years ago. And even though I now reside in Connecticut, I run the university’s Institute for Writing and Mass Media, a non-profit that I founded to help students prepare for careers in media. You can check out what we do in this new video.
This actually happened.
Yesterday I was at a rehearsal with David Crosby in LA. He and his band are getting ready for the tour that starts next week. Partway through the rehearsal, David stepped outside for some air. A blue Corvette pulled up and the window went down. The driver was Paul McCartney.
You know things are out of whack when you bring your work to the bedroom. But my wife has been out of town for the past couple weeks and I’ve got a deadline looming on a big biography. So I’ve been keeping my laptop beside my bed, enabling me to write until I fall asleep, and then resume the moment I wake up.
I’m in the board room at Simon & Schuster, my publisher. The walls are white. There is a l-o-n-g rectangular table surrounded by high-back chairs. My students are sitting in them. Each student has a cell phone on the table. But the students are looking at my editor, Jofie Ferrari-Adler. He’s at the head of the table with a bunch of bestsellers spread out before him – The Oregon Trail, Hothouse, Rin Tin Tin, Men in Green. He’s talking about what makes a great cover.
Jeff Benedict is the bestselling author of sixteen non-fiction books and he’s a television and film producer. His latest book, The Dynasty, is the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots under Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Published in 2020, it was an instant New York Times bestseller. In 2018, Jeff co-wrote the #1 bestseller Tiger Woods. Jeff was an executive producer on the HBO documentary “Tiger” that was based on the book and aired in 2021. The book is currently being developed into a scripted series, which Jeff is executive producing. Jeff is also the executive producer on a documentary based on his book Poisoned that will air on Netflix. Jeff has written over 100 stories and has been a special-features writer for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, and the Hartford Courant, and his essays have appeared in the New York Times. His work has been the basis of segments on 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning, HBO Real Sports, Discovery Channel, Good Morning America, 20/20, 48 Hours, NFL Network, CNN, and NPR.
 |
 |
