NBC’s Tom Brokaw is now onto “The Brokaw Files.” The Military Channel. Tomorrow it’s air-traffic controllers discussing America’s 9/11 skies.
“I grew up in Dad’s South Dakota Army base. I’ve always been associated with the military. June 6 was D-Day’s 69th anniversary. I saw great stories in Normandy. Veterans, looking exactly like those who raised me, wanted to not talk about the God-awful things. Wanted bad memories behind them. That’s when my life changed. I knew I had to tell those stories.”
Covering war, has he ever been scared?
“Yes. In Beirut in the bad days. A rocket went off behind me. Iraq and Afghanistan had excellent security, but I was constantly aware of danger. Driving through Baghdad you didn’t know where the front lines were. Suddenly you’re slowed by enormous pedestrian traffic. Is it deliberate or not?”
Back to the beginning. His first job.
“A science major right out of college doing weekend news. I learned fast there’s no such thing as a dead microphone. I did something bad one night. Since then I’ve done mostly right. The job paid $90. I begged for $100 because my wife’s father was a doctor, and a three-figure salary would impress him. I got it, but they said they’d never give me another raise. And didn’t.
“In ’62, with this job in Omaha, I was the 23-year-old first reporter to cover the president of the United States who’d just been shot.”
About the Army sex scandals: “Outrageous. It’s the century of women. Women are presidents, ambassadors, Cabinet members, CEOs, half the law students are female. Women have taken power positions at war speed . . . Abuse should be a felony.”
Israel’s beauty in NYC
Age 21, Yityish Titi Aynaw, Miss Israel 2013, has already experienced much.
Born in Gondar, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s Israeli community — her first name means “look to the future.” Losing both parents, she emigrated to Netanya, Israel, at 12, lived with her grandmom, made new friends, learned a new language, found a new home.
She joined high school’s student council, served three years as an army officer, entered the pageant “as an opportunity to engage social change” and is currently visiting New York.
You heard it here first
Just because I bring you the latest information, let it be known that Charlie Sheen’s bed has had so much traffic, it has a passing lane.
Honors damp but colorful
Mother Nature alone could rain on Bloomberg’s parade. Hizzoner’s annual Made in New York Awards night needed only Billie Holiday to sing “Stormy Weather.”
Awardee Heidi Klum removed her shoes. Such long legs that, posing with Bloomy, she and he resembled the figure 10.
Speaking of shoes, awardee Harvey Fierstein’s red/orange/green/blue/purple/pink psychedelic leather jobs looked like an eye chart. “They’re New Balance,” he said. “Wide widths. For fat f – – ks. You get them on the Internet.” Yeah. Sure.
Speaking of Harveys, fellow awardees were the Weinstein brothers. Bob graciously talked about Harvey. Harvey naturally talked about Harvey. “My new movie’s ‘The Butler.’ Oprah’s in it. She’s a wonderful actress.”
Awardee Spike Lee: “One question. Why didn’t Tom Hanks win a Tony?” He then answered: “Such stuck-up phonies. So full of themselves.”
Awardee Audra McDonald to Spike’s vegan wife, Tonya: “Cicely Tyson’s 79. Her face has no lines. She told me she’s a vegan. She takes six shots of wheatgrass a day.”
Alan Cumming, alongside HBO awardee Sheila Nevins and Entertainment Commissioner Katherine Oliver, drank a drink with one arm glued down. “I got this Kenneth Cole suit so fast nobody removed the tag that rings if it’s stolen.” Beneath his limb hung a long dark green plastic marker imbedded under the right armpit. Nice. And he was an awardee.
Asked her key to success, Lifetime Achievement awardee Barbara Walters replied: “I slept my way to the top,” and some eavesdropping nutcase actually wrote down the line.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.