Sad news in the world of love and romance and international media moguls. After 6 years of wedded bliss, Rupert Murdoch, 91, and Jerry Hall, 66, have filed for divorce. Siting that old standby: “irreconcilable differences.” . . . But the good news, ladies?? Ole’ Rupe is back on the market!!
Rupert owns a piece of just about every facet of mass media — for awhile he even owned his own movie studio (though I believe he sold it). Though his first and enduring love has always been newspapers. . . Back in 1977 when I was doing comics for the underground newspaper the Berkeley Barb, I was surprised that Murdoch actually showed up one day at the Barb’s office and consented to do an interview. . . There was a bit of trepidation among some of the staff — that this ultimate “capitalist pig” might be plotting to actually buy the righteously radical Barb and add it to his collection of zillions of other newspapers (Murd was famous for doing hostile takeovers). As unlikely as that seemed, considering how little money the Barb made (it would go out of business a few years later). . . But I think — old news hound that he was — he was just curious about the Barb, which was a bit of an oddity in the publishing world. And just wanted to check out the newsroom and the whole operation of an underground newspaper just to see how it worked.
Ace Backwords is a former cartoonist, writer and semi-normal human being. He's been sleeping in the bushes in the Berkeley hills for the last ten years with his four feral cats, Moo Cat, Fatty, Mini Scaredy and Micro Scaredy. Future plans include growing old and dying. Preferably in that order.
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