By Paul Krassner<\/p>\n
Welcome to Camp Mogul
\nby Paul Krassner<\/p>\n
My irreverent friend, Khan Manka, Chairman & CEO of Manka Brothers Studios, had broken his ankle and was afraid he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to attend the 26th annual gathering of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most powerful executives and their trophy wives in Sun Valley, Idaho.\u00c2\u00a0 I really wanted to spy on this summer camp for billionaires, so I suggested that Manka get a wheelchair, then I could serve as his official wheelchair pusher, and he immediately went for the idea.<\/p>\n
This by-now traditional five-day extravaganza for 300 guests has been hosted by Wall Street investment banker Herbert Allen, President and CEO of Allen & Company.\u00c2\u00a0 There were moguls all over the campground, overflowing with the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most influential leaders in business, entertainment and media.\u00c2\u00a0 I could feel myself developing a severe case of imposter syndrome.<\/p>\n
Saturday was Talent Night, and it was absolutely hysterical.\u00c2\u00a0 Part-time Sun Valley resident Tom Hanks served as the emcee.\u00c2\u00a0 Warren Buffet was the opening act, with a medley of Jimmy Buffet songs, all sung out of tune.\u00c2\u00a0 Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos skillfully juggled five Kindels (wireless electronic books).\u00c2\u00a0 Edgar Bronfman from Warner Music–dressed like the character Tevya in *Fiddler on the Roof*–sang with zest, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I Were a Rich Man.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang–who had turned down an offer from Microsoft to buy Yahoo earlier this year–sang a duet with the ex-CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates, harmonizing on a song from *Annie Get Your Gun,* \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Meg Whitman of eBay did a striptease, auctioning off each item of clothing, one at a time, and over 3-million dollars was raised for an\u00c2\u00a0 unnamed charity.<\/p>\n
There had been a lot of drinking in the evening, and it was obviously too much booze that loosened up Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tongue.\u00c2\u00a0 He was shouting at the moon: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who says there are 27 million slaves around the fucking world?\u00c2\u00a0 How would anybody know?\u00c2\u00a0 Do they have census takers or what?\u00c2\u00a0 Where can I get one?\u00c2\u00a0 You tell me!\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll decide!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Also, a screaming match broke out between Google co-founder Sergei Brin and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, over the infamous cover of the *New Yorker,* which depicted Barack and Michelle Obama, the new President and First Lady, as a terrorist couple doing the fist-bump gesture in the Oval Office.\u00c2\u00a0 Sergei thought it was a brilliant satirical illustration, but Eric thought it was racist and irresponsible.<\/p>\n
Last year, the surprise guest was former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.\u00c2\u00a0 This year, it was Steven Beschloss, the editor of a new magazine which will be launched this fall and be delivered to 100,000 U.S. households with an average net worth of $25-million.\u00c2\u00a0 There were piles of preview copies scattered about.<\/p>\n
While Beschloss was holding court in an outdoor area, annoying mosquitoes kept buzzing around the crowd.\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, yelled at him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I gues we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never hear *your* readers whining about a mental recession.\u00c2\u00a0 And those of your subscribers who are in the sub-prime mortgage industry–these mosquitoes are *their* fault, because, along with all the home foreclosures they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re responsible for, the stagnant water in abandoned pools turns into new breeding grounds for mosquitoes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Others drowned him out by singing the mogul version of good old-fashioned camp songs, such as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This Land Is *My* Land, This Land Is *My* Land\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153KumBuyYahoo.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but notice that billionaire activist Carl Icahn snapped his fingers as if having an epiphany; a week later he ended up on Yahoo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s board of directors.<\/p>\n
Khan Manka explained that the bigwigs at these events have so-called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153informal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d meetings which always take place where a pair of individuals can have their discussions alone without any interruption–on the golf course, hiking along an isolated trail, fly-fishing at Silver Creek–but Manka had been privy to only one specific example that he could share.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Back in 1995,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he told me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Disney honcho Michael Eisner met with Robert Iger, who was then the head of ABC.\u00c2\u00a0 And exactly one month later, these two giant companies merged into one media megamonster.\u00c2\u00a0 Coincidence?\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think so.\u00c2\u00a0 Their deal had been sealed when Eisner and Iger exchanged friendship bracelets that they had worked on at Camp Mogul.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\n—————-
\nPaul Krassner is the author of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d available at paulkrassner.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Paul Krassner Welcome to Camp Mogul by Paul Krassner My irreverent friend, Khan Manka, Chairman & CEO of Manka Brothers Studios, had broken his ankle and was afraid he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to attend the 26th annual gathering of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most powerful executives and their trophy wives in Sun Valley, Idaho.\u00c2\u00a0 I really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argonaut360.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}