G.H. Harding

MADONNA AT THE VMAs — 42 years ago Lady M first appeared on the VMAs and her opening appearance Sunday night was definitely something to see, but I have to admit, it felt to me very, very dated. Almost like I had seen it before. Also, the song they performed, “Bring Your Love,” sounded liked a bastard version of maybe her biggest hit “Vogue.” The segment which seemed to morph into a washroom seem out of place too. Was it a winner?

Then with Charlie XCX and Sabrina Carpenter joining her, the song tuned to “Dancetreia Afterhours.” Again, somewhat dated.

Fox News called that opening number a showstopper. Really?

Per Deadline: The MTV Video Music Awards may not have the same meaning as it did in the 1990s but it’s clear that this year’s event had more juice than in a number of years. Per Nielsen’s fast nationals, the ceremony hit an 11-year high and was up over 50% over the numbers from last year.

For a spirited take on the show, check out this from Hollywood Reporter andVariety

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-news/2026-mtv-vmas-best-moments-1236713378/

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/vma-ratings-cbs-mtv-most-watched-since-2015-up-last-year-1236877733/

BEAT STREET RETURNS — Beat Street was a film from 1984; Harry Belafonte was involved an mega-producer Arthur Baker did the music. Poised to return to Broadway, the original film was produced by Belafonte and David V. Picker, with music by Belafonte and Baker, story by Steven Hager, screenplay by Andrew Davis, David Gilbert & Paul Golding, and directed by Stan Lathan,

Beat Street starred Rae Dawn Chong, Gus Davis, and Jon Chardiet.

The film was a culmination of early-rap music, from Afrika Bambaataa to The Soul Sonic Force. Indie labels such as Tommy Boy; Prelude; Profile; Next Plateau; West End; Emergency; and Buddah had broken through like never before.

The film was a so-so hit; more historical than anything else. A fresh take may be the answer. Read via Deadline:

https://deadline.com/2026/09/beat-street-broadway-nas-creative-team-1237116101/

SHORT TAKES — Micky Dolenz, whose new EP Timeless is a critical hit, speaks to Ken Sharp for Rock Cellar Magazine this week …

Tiffany and Bobby Shaw (Facebook)

SIGHTING: NY-promo man Bobby Shaw at Tiffany’s last Spandex performance in NYC …

As expected, Tom Cruise’s Digger -opening this week- has scored reviews from positive to negative. I loved Birdman,but director Alejandro G. Inarritu, is one not to ever second guess. Right now, it’s a dead even 50% split. The always-scintillating Pete Hammond from Deadline had one great review, check it out here: https://deadline.com/2026/09/digger-review-tom-cruise-movie-1237115519/…

Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen and his father Martin Sheen are back playing father and son for the first time in over a decade. The duo is headlining Happy Jack, a comedy series for AMC. The half-hour family comedy has been greenlit for six episodes and will start production at Warner Bros. Studios, in the studio where Friends was filmed, for a 2027 launch. The pair have portrayed on screen father and son in a number of movies and series, most recently on Anger Management, the sitcom that premiered on FX in 2012, and most famously in Wall Street … In the new trailer for Netflix, The One About Matthew Perry, the late Friends star reflects on his TV success and the toll it took. In a voiceover early in the clip, Perry says, “I said God, you can do anything you want to me just please make me famous.” When fame arrived, Perry reflected, “God did not forget the other part.” take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iM1AOFxoDI … Happy Bday Elizabeth Neff and Chuck Taylor!

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Rusty Cutchin; Phil DiMauro; Mike Sigman; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; Race Taylor; Ross Zappin; David Adelson; Lee Jeske; Pete Townshend; Vince Aletti; Bob Siegal; Michael Musto; Don Wardell; Arthur Bell; Roger Friedman; Denny O’Connor; Phil Goldstein; Marty Ostrow; Lorylace; Kevin Mazur; Chuck Pulin; Bob Gruen; Ebet Roberts; Andy Greene; Abby Rose; and ZIGGY!

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Presley Gerber was beautiful. Almost startlingly so. He had the genetics of two models, the face of his famous mother, Cindy Crawford, and an entrance into a world most people spend their lives trying to reach. He was born into money, fame, access and extraordinary privilege. He became a model himself, working for major fashion houses.

Kaia and Presley Walker Gerber

His sister, Kaia Gerber, became one of the most recognizable models of her generation. From the outside, the Gerber family seemed to possess the kind of life our culture continually tells us is the prize.

Rande Gerber, Cindy, Kaia and Presley Gerber

Presley Gerber died Sunday at 27 years old. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, he died at a rehabilitation facility. His family has confirmed his death and asked for privacy during what their representative described as a “very difficult and painful time.” As of this writing, no cause of death has been determined.

Rande Gerber, Cindy, Kaia and Presley Gerber

That last fact matters. We do not know what killed Presley Gerber, and his death should not become an invitation for strangers to diagnose him after the fact. What we do know is what he chose to tell us while he was alive.Presley had spoken publicly about depression and his struggles with mental health. He created “Mental Health Mondays,” using his social-media platform to discuss those struggles and try to help other people experiencing their own. Years earlier, he tattooed the word “misunderstood” across his face, later explaining that he chose it because that was how he had felt throughout his life.

In December 2025, his disclosures became considerably more troubling. He spoke publicly about panic attacks, loss and the medications he was taking. He also expressed fear about medication withdrawal and frustration that, after seeing numerous psychiatrists, he felt he needed more direction in managing what he had been prescribed. He told followers that he was speaking because he hoped someone listening would realize that they were not alone.

There is something heartbreaking about that now.

We live in a culture that is very good at measuring what somebody has and remarkably bad at understanding what somebody carries. Presley Gerber had beauty. He had famous parents. He had money. He had access. He had opportunities most aspiring models could only dream about. None of those things tells us what it felt like to wake up inside his mind every morning.

That may be the hardest thing for people to understand about suffering. Pain does not conduct a financial background check before entering the room.

Money can buy excellent doctors. It can buy treatment, privacy, beautiful surroundings and opportunities unavailable to millions of other people. Those advantages are real and should not be romanticized away. But money cannot guarantee peace. Beauty cannot guarantee self-worth. Fame cannot guarantee that somebody feels seen. Loving parents cannot climb inside an adult child’s mind and repair everything hurting there. Sometimes the people who appear to have been handed the entire world are fighting battles invisible to everyone looking at them.

Presley’s life also reminds us how little a photograph tells us. We look at beautiful people standing on red carpets and unconsciously complete the rest of the story ourselves. Beautiful means happy. Wealthy means safe. Famous means fulfilled. Successful means whole. None of those equations is reliable.

Perhaps that is why the word Presley once chose to put on his face feels so haunting today: misunderstood. We cannot know everything he meant by it, and we shouldn’t pretend that we do. But we know that a young man surrounded by enormous privilege nevertheless felt misunderstood strongly enough to write the word across the face the world considered so beautiful. There is an uncomfortable lesson in that.

We spend enormous amounts of our lives chasing the things we imagine will finally make us safe from unhappiness. More money. A better body. A beautiful face. Recognition. Connections. The right family. The right address. The right career. We look at people who possess those things and think they have somehow crossed an invisible border into a life where ordinary human suffering cannot reach them. There is no such border.

Presley Gerber was someone’s son. He was someone’s brother. He was a young man who struggled, talked publicly about those struggles and tried to turn some of what he had experienced into something that might help another person. Whatever the medical examiner ultimately determines about how he died, that deserves to be remembered alongside the photographs, the famous surname and the headlines.

Twenty-seven is terribly young. And somewhere tonight, behind all the celebrity attached to this story, there is a mother and father who have lost their son and a sister who has lost her brother. Fame does not protect them from that grief either.

You can be gorgeous. You can be famous. You can be born into money, prestige and opportunity. You can seemingly have the world waiting at your feet. And you can still hurt.

Perhaps Presley Gerber’s life asks us to stop assuming we know who has everything.

Sometimes everything we can see has absolutely nothing to do with what is happening inside.

G.H. Harding

BACHARACH FOR SURE — Regular readers of this column know that I hold a special place in my universe for Burt Bacharach. His music, from “Alfie” to “What The World Needs Now” are just exquisite works. Each one totally special but fused with Bachrach’s complex chord structures and time signatures. More often than not, you can spy a Bacharach-tune immediately.

 At the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater on NYC’s West Side, located in a YMCA no less, there’ s majestic show going on called Going Bachrach. 

With a terrific band led by Adrian Galante, and singers Ava Locknar, Meecah and John Pagano, they tackled Bacharach songs that are simply delightful to hear. Be it “Alfie,” or “Don’t Make Me Over,” these are just timeless classics in the Great American Songbook. They also did another personal favorite, Burt’s own “This Guy’s in Love With You.” A classic for sure from 1968!

I am a Bachrach fan, but the album he did with Elvis Costello in 1998, entitled Painted From Memory, is my all-time favorite. It’s even the album I’d take as a Desert Island Disc. Costello said that when the pair decided to team up, the songs they would create would be about lost love. Each and every song on the album is joyous and bittersweet. My favorite track on the album is “God Give Me Strength” and the team performed it. Just incredible. Take a listen:

Burt Bacharach and John Pagano

Pagano, who toured with Bacharach for decades, paused at one point to introduce a special guest in the audience, Burt’s widow Jane.

One of the best shows I’ve seen this year. Bacharach’s art was his marvelous songwriting. Staggeringly sensational show.

GOIN HOME — Enroute to my Going Bacharach show, I arrived in midtown a bit early to see what if anything had changed since I worked there some 11 years ago. I got off at 49th and 7th and walked uptown, passing the just re-opened Carnegie Deli. Now it sits about two blocks south from where it originally opened. At 5:15 PM it didn’t look all that crowded, but impressive nonetheless.

I continued on 7th to see the decades-old Wellington Hotel gone, and I suspect a new condo is in-store.

Nordstrom now occupies most of 57th and Broadway, TJ Maxx still occupies 57th and 8th, but Lee’s Art Shop and Salon Ziba are gone forever. Also, the Red Eye Grill is empty too, but the wonderful Trattoria Dell’Arte and sweet-shop Myzel’s,still stands.

I said to Tom Cuddy, after a brief, but satisfying dinner at the Astro on 55th and Sixth and who would join me for the show, it’s amazing what’s new, but also amazing what has stayed. It felt basically the same, but the foot traffic as well as the actual traffic has increased substantially.

I guess you can go home again!

SHORT TAKES – RIP Duncan Sheik. Loved his “Barely Breathing” and Broadway’s Spring Awakening. So sad. Take a read here: https://www.ocregister.com/2026/09/18/duncan-sheik-obituary/?utm_email=5484F4615516C44984F46420F6&g2i_eui=03856d5b039d3c9a315bd8ce19c296fb5da104b4694ec00c727ed48a7a8ae1ea&g2i_source=newsletter&active=no&lctg=5484F4615516C44984F46420F6&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.ocregister.com%2f2026%2f09%2f18%2fduncan-sheik-obituary%2f&utm_campaign=scng-orange_county_register-newscycle&utm_content=curated …

Micky Dolenz at Ameoba/West Hollywood

Here’s Micky Dolenz’s at last week in-store appearance at Amoeba Music in Hollywood tub-thumping his new EP Timeless … Happy Bday Donnie Kehr; Mark Bego; Richard Branciforte; and Suzan Kressel!

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Jarvis Cocker; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; John Boulos; Tony King; Pete Bennett; Allan Steckler; Cori Gardner; Roger Clark; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; John Sykes; Keith Sherman; Bill McCuddy; Tony Bennett; Bill Maher; Cindy Adams; David Fricke; Ken Sharp; Tone Scott; Mark Simone; Herb Rosen; Judy Kaufman; and CHIP!

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