« April 2011 | Main | June 2011 »
THE KENNEDY CENTER AT TWILIGHT (photo by Carol Joynt)
The Kennedy Center revival of Stephen Sondheim's 1971 hit, Follies, is proving to be a hit with Washington audiences. Apart from the obvious reasons, why is that? I try to answer the question in my New York Social Diary column today. Please read it here.
OUR PARIS HOTEL ROOM, SUMMER, A FEW YEARS AGO
It's tough to figure out where to begin on a blog post such as this one, but let's just leave it to this: my holiday weekend has been defined so far by hot dogs, lobster roll, limeade, Mojitos, French rose wine, grilled chicken, ice cream, movie matinees, a Sunday night party with friends, a good book, tank tops (yes, even with breast cancer surgery, it's doable!), Coppertone (the smell recalls 100 summers, even those I haven't lived yet), there some tanning, naps the Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City" (ancient but still iconic),because, after all, I'm doing it urban. No beach, no country, no mountains for me this weekend. It's been asphalt and bricks and back gardens, and all good.
As for the limeade and lobster rolls, I always return to one treasured (and almost ten-years-old) cookbook, which is named, appropriately, The Lobster Roll. Buy it now and I promise it will be worn and stained (in a good way) by Labor Day. It is my summer go-to. And here's the special feature of well made (meaning fresh) limeade: the base converts perfectly for Mojitos!! Just add rum and mint. I took a big bucket of same to the swingin' shindig/book party hosted for me last night by neighbors Margaret and David Dunning.
IS THIS AN AD FOR EYEWEAR? NO. IT'S OF GUESTS AT THE DUNNINGS PARTY: ANN BONHAM, WOODY KAY AND JESSE JOAD
The party rocked and we sold books. I love these small at-home book parties. It was a 6-8 that went until 11pm! At the beginning I didn't know most of the guests, but by the end I did. As I noted, summer in the city.
Would I like to be on a beach? Of course. But a nearly empty beach. After writing my NYSD column this morning, I stole away to the air-conditioned peace of my local Bijou and watched Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris." In true Woody fashion it is full of itself, but in true Woody-of-olden-days fashion it has some authentic humor and it is a Valentine. His best films always are a Valentine to something: Manhattan, the boroughs, appropriate women, inappropriate women, the U.K., and with this film, Paris. OMG, it's my Paris, too, and I missed it, but loved seeing it lookin' so good.
We should all be young and in love and in Paris. Or in love and in Paris. Plus Le Train Bleu to the Riviera!
MY HOSTS AT MORGAN STANLEY IN TYSONS, CLAIRE M.S. MEADE AND CYNTHIA DE LORENZI
Another great interview experience. It happened this morning over breakfast with the folks who do "Success In The City," chiefly interviewer/host Cynthia de Lorenzi. Wonderful audience, good questions, and I was seriously touched by the beautiful bouquet of long-stemmed pink roses. "Here she comes, Miss ..." That's what it felt like.
HOW ABOUT THOSE BEAUTIFUL ROSES?
I loved meeting all the members of the group and especially doing an event outside the borders of Washington, DC. More more, please. When the video is up I will link to it asap. For now, thank you to Claire M.S. Meade of Morgan Stanley, our host; Cynthia; and Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman. Great start to the day. But now, since I got up at 5:30 a.m., there may be need for a nap, to rejuve for tonight's big event, the book party at City Tavern Club, ironically, just steps from where the story basically begins. The info for the party is on the "home" page. Please join us, but do remember to RSVP.
Cover your eyes if your tender, before reading on:
Oh, Oh! And I totally forgot: when I got back to my car in the lot near Morgan Stanley there was a card in the windshield. Written on it in a bold hand was: ASS HOLE!
Unh? Not sure that was meant for me. Maybe my old rust bucket matches the ancient ride of the man who is macking on some other dude's woman, because, well, usually women aren't called that particular word. We're called plenty of others, for certain, but that's generally not one of them. I put it into my pocket with the plan, at the appropriate time, to pay it forward.
If Georgetowners want a forecast of how Vornado feels about Georgetown Park Mall and, significantly, our neighborhood, please regard their apparently soulless treatment of the guy with the National Pinball Museum; they set him up with his dream and now, according to him, have given notice to scram. So much for supporting the little guy and bringing much needed LIFE to that dreary pile of bricks.
I'm sure it is Vornado's legal right to do this, but that's not the point. It would be nice to see some community consideration from the big guy. After all, if I recall, the Pinball Museum was given lots of encouragement to get set up. Why go through all that tedious effort only to have the rug pulled out?
Does Vornado have the community's best interests in mind? I wonder. The fact that they floated Target as a possible mall tenant should be message enough about their bottom line "vision." Is there not room in that plan for a Pinball Museum? One wonders if any Vornado executive has walked the village, met the residents, spent any time here trying to understand what the community is about.
Again, my recommendation: tear down the damned eyesore. Build a village center. Have shops, bistros, apartments and a plaza that's open to the sky. Create something that's meaningful and innovative. Build something of sustainable quality and people will come. It's that simple. Or, settle for a slash and burn cash-in ethic, a company that will have its way with us, and then depart and leave the wreckage behind. It's time for Mayor Vincent Gray to get involved and pay attention to what Vornado has planned. Please look out for us, Mr. Mayor.
Anyway, here's The National Pinball Museum details as reported by WTOP Radio News. Note: they are waiting for comment from Vornado. Aren't we all?
WASHINGTON - Stoppers. Bells. Flippers. And the occasional tilt.
That's what you'll find with the more than 900 classic pinball machines at the National Pinball Museum in Georgetown.
However, this summer, the last pinball will drop, and the museum will close its doors.
David Silverman opened the museum six months ago in the Shops at Georgetown Park mall.
Last Thursday, he got a letter from the new mall owners, Vornado Realty.
"In that letter it basically says we're taking your lease ... and we're throwing you out in 60 days," Silverman says.
Silverman signed a lease that allows mall owners to void it at any time.
He says his original contract ends in December, so he's questioning why the company is shutting him down in just two months.
"Nothing's going to be going in between the time we have to get out and ... December," Silverman says. "I'm like in a state of panic, because it took me six months to build this place, $300,000 to do it. I don't have a penny."
WTOP has contacted Vornado Realty for comment.
WTOP's Thomas Warren contributed to this report.
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE "INNOCENT SPOUSE" AMAZON PAGE FIND THIS LINK FOR REVIEWS
If you have read "Innocent Spouse" and liked it, please consider writing your own review for Amazon.com. It is a great forum for reader opinions. It is isn't complicated and doesn't take long and I will be enormously grateful. The "Innocent Spouse" page is here.
TREATS FROM RED TRUCK BAKERY
A private book party tonight for "Innocent Spouse." Quite the bomb and def the money. I was thrilled to be the in the light. We sold a lot of books. Among the guests was Brian Noyes, owner of the awesome Red Truck Bakery in Warrenton, Va., one of those "definitely worth the trip" regional venues. Couldn't help but post this pic of the bag of treats he brought me. Oh, Brian. You are the man.
ARCH CAMPBELL, JIM VANCE AND BOB RYAN AT NATHANS BACK IN THE DAY
I had a wonderful and funny time with Arch Campbell today, taping "The Arch Campbell Show," which airs tonight at 8:30 pm. We talked about "Innocent Spouse," of course, but also a lot of other topics and did some silly Arch antics. The show is somewhere between "Wayne's World" and the afternoon follies. If you love Arch, as everyone does, you won't want to miss the half hour broadcast. If you miss it tonight it will air Friday evening at 8:30, Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and again at at 9 p.m. All on NewsChannel 8. When there is a link I will post it here.
MY VIEW OF THE JIM BOHANNON SHOW STUDIO WEDNESDAY NIGHT, WITH PRODUCER SCOTT CARR THROUGH THE WINDOW
It was great fun doing The Jim Bohannon Show last night. Me, on the third floor of the nearly empty CBS News building, in the Westwood One studios, with a producer and an engineer, Jim down in South Carolina, and it felt entirely late night talk radio, which I happen to love. To listen to a replay of the show, click on The Jim Bohannon Show. Toggle through to the second hour and you'll get my interview.
Please make plans to come to one of two (or both) book signing events this weekend. I promise they will be interesting. On Saturday at 2:30 pm I'll appear at The Newseum for a Q&A and a signing. It'll be a nice day. Come downtown, get lunch someplace fun, wander the news museum and then stop in for my appearance. Books will be available to buy and get signed. You will have to buy a Newseum ticket to attend.
Sunday afternoon, another day that's predicted to be pretty, there will be a reading by me from "Innocent Spouse," plus audience Q&A, at St. John's Church in Georgetown. It begins at 5pm. There will be wine and food and Georgetown Cupcakes ... all donated on behalf of the event, a fundraiser for the D.C. Public Library's Georgetown branch. No admission fee, but proceeds of book sales will go to the library. If you already have the book, buy another for a friend and get them both signed.
Do me a favor: suggest a signing to your local book store. I will gladly make myself available.
A TRAY OF CHEESEBURGERS AT SHAKE SHACK
I make trips to NY that begin with a stop at Shake Shack. I stand in line. I get a burger, a bag of fries and a shake. I sit outside at one of the metal tables, take my first chomp and lift off into a kind of burger Nirvana.
Well, the good news is Shake Shack has arrived in DC and the opening was tonight in the old Fuddrucker space on Connecticut Avenue. Here's more about the party and Washington's burger bonanza on New York Social Diary.
THE GEORGETOWN HOME OF DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KAHN
In my New York Social Diary column today, a wee bit on DSK in Georgetown and a whole lot more on my whirlwind week in NYC for the launch of "Innocent Spouse. Read it here.
By JESSE KORNBLUTH
Published: May, 2011
Category: Memoir
When Carol Ross was 22, Walter Cronkite hired her to write the evening news. He had a crew of writers, but she was his personal writer, the one who sat next to him, just out of camera range. No fool he --- Carol Ross was not just young and talented, she was extremely attractive. Gossip followed, none of it true.
When I met her, she was 24. I had an instant crush, which resulted in a dinner or two. There were many guys meeting her after the broadcast that year, and I don’t think she noticed any of us --- she was consumed by her job, and then she was consumed with leaving it to crew on a boat in the Caribbean.
Our next dinner was thirty-five years later. She had another name now, having married John Howard Joynt III. And a very different situation: Howard Joynt, the popular owner of a popular bar in Georgetown, had died. He left behind a five-year-old son and a very puzzled widow, for right after his death, the IRS showed up to demand $3 million in back taxes, penalties and interest.
Carol Joynt didn’t have $3 million. And then there was the problem that couldn’t be assessed so neatly --- she really hadn’t known her husband. At all. He was tall and affable, quick to open the champagne, and he had cast himself as her protector, and she bought it all.
Oh, there were signs. Early in the marriage, he hit her. Pushed her out of the car at night, in a rainstorm, far from home. Drank himself into a hate-spewing jerk.
But then Howard would be his adorable self again. And Carol would go back to sleep.
There are many memoirs by women who don’t know their husbands until they die --- for me, the biggest jaw-dropper and gold standard is Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal, by Julie Metz --- but none has the brutal irony of “Innocent Spouse.” [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
The irony: She had to convince the IRS that she was an “innocent spouse.” Let me translate that legal term of art into common English: The journalist who worked for Cronkite and Charlie Rose and Larry King --- the professional with an inborn knack for ferreting out The Facts --- had to convince professional skeptics that, in her personal life, she was spectacularly incurious. In a word: an idiot who she signed tax returns she never read and was clueless about her husband’s cavalier business practices.
It’s to Carol Joynt's great credit that she writes as a professional. She knows what the peg of the story is --- how did a smart woman become so dumb --- and she confronts it head-on:
I wasn’t proud of what [the IRS] report said about me, but not because the facts were wrong. They were right. It made clear that in my marriage, I had given over control of my life to another person. Sheltered would be the polite word. Idiotic seemed more like it, even stupid: 'Throughout her adult life, Carol steadfastly avoided getting involved in financial matters because she knew they were complex and she did not understand them.' When the report didn’t make me feel like a fool, it made me feel like a concubine: 'Carol was enticed and overwhelmed by Howard’s . . . obvious comfort in a good life she had never before experienced. . . . She fell in love with Howard believing he would be able to take care of her and would never let anything happen to her. That was her Faustian pact.' There it was, the truth I was unable to speak. I’d sold myself for what I thought would be a better life.
In these pages, you see her reach out to powerful friends, and you see them come through. You follow her efforts to run her husband’s business long enough to resolve its tax problems. She works overtime to be a good mother to her son. She starts an interview show at the restaurant that is honest, satisfying work and becomes the invaluable Washington correspondent forNewYorkSocialDiary.com. She dreams of “widow sex” but fends off suitors.
This is not exceptional material. Sadly, it’s all too common --- this is an old, old story. Happens every day. And will continue to happen as long as men feel the need to dominate and women can’t summon the guts to confront.
What makes this memoir exceptional is Carol Joynt’s unending honesty. She doesn’t spare herself --- on many pages, she really does come off like an idiot. And you really do want to scream: How can you be so dumb? But she perseveres. She learns. She gets it right. Her son’s okay. She’s still walking.
And, in the end, she does the hardest thing --- she comes to terms with the father of her son, her lover, her protector, her fraud of a husband. As she writes:
I try not to carry grudges or to remain angry. Like sea anchors, they stop forward motion. I needed to move on to survive. Howard was dead. What good was it to waste time and energy on anger toward a dead person? For the longest time I didn’t sense anger, and only toward the bitter end did I come to terms with how it nested deep inside me. I resented that he left me a bankrupt business and no road map, a manager who worked against me, landlords who didn’t want me and who were incapable of trusting a woman as a business owner, and this financial mess he’d got himself into that consumed me, my resources, my energy and the time and happiness I should have had to devote to raising our son. I was angry at myself, too, and shared the blame. When I finally at long last was able to close the business and regain my freedom, I cut loose that last sea anchor: my anger.
I wasn’t wrong to like this woman. You won’t be either.
With wedding season upon us, you know we have to bring up those love and money topics: whether you should you sign a prenup and how marriage affects your finances.
And here’s another one: how your husband can keep financial secrets in a marriage and leave you with $3 million in debt when he passes away.
It sounds like a financial urban legend, but it happened to Carol Ross Joynt. In 1997, Joynt was 47 years old and living in Maryland, a successful producer for Larry King Live, mother of a healthy little boy, and happily married to her husband Howard, who owned the legendary Georgetown restaurant and bar Nathans. They lived a lavish lifestyle complete with vacation homes and designer clothes, and she was very much in love.
Then Howard died from pneumonia. Joynt’s grief was multiplied by the shocking revelation that he had hidden a financial mess from her for years–most notably, he was under investigation for tax fraud, and the IRS was turning to her for the $3 million owed.
In her new book Innocent Spouse, Joynt reveals in painful yet honest detail how she coped with becoming a widow, a tax delinquent, a single mom, and the owner of a struggling business in one blow, and how she beat the rap with the help of the IRS’s “Innocent Spouse” clause.
We interviewed Joynt to find out what she learned from her harrowing experience.
No. When it came to our finances, he always said, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll figure it out.” It never even occurred to me–because marriage is trust–that I might have been able to prompt him to explain.
Ironically, knowing all the numbers now, we could have been okay–we just would have had to cut back. But since he didn’t discuss it with me, I wasn’t able to make that recommendation. I would have said, “We’re not living like this. We have to downsize.” I can’t bear debt.
About two weeks after he died I was asked to come see his tax lawyers. They told me he had been under investigation for tax fraud, and that since I was his heir, I was now responsible for the debts. The actual debt was $800,000, but with the penalties and interest over five years, it came to $3 million. I told them I didn’t have that money.
He had been lying about many aspects of our financial situation. He told me that he was getting $20,000 a month from his trust, and I found out it was $15,000 every three months. I also found out that the restaurant, Nathans, was hemorrhaging money. I didn’t know that his father used to bail him out periodically, to the tune of around one to two million over his lifetime.
Whatever income level you’re at, if the bottom falls out, it’s chaos. When he died we had a lifestyle we couldn’t afford, and I had to quickly regroup. I had to sell the house and ratchet down. I was swimming in quicksand. I would take a painting and sell it, or take a piece of furniture and sell it. I was always selling things. I was like Scarlett O’Hara, taking down the curtains to use.
Before he died, the lawyers figured we had a cost of living of over $500,000 a year. It went down to about $75,000 after I paid taxes on the restaurant. And whatever money I had in savings ultimately went back to Nathans, because I kept trying to save the restaurant.
It was always my highest priority to pay for my son’s schooling. At the time, the DC school system was not robust so I kept him in private school. Now a friend is helping pay for his education at Georgetown, and he qualified for some loans.
The lawyers I inherited from Howard didn’t believe me when I said I had no idea what had been going on. Luckily, I found new attorneys who believed me, and after a year, I won on the Innocent Spouse relief. The Innocent Spouse relief absolved me of any guilt in the tax fraud case, and it meant they couldn’t come after my assets. The IRS still got Howard’s estate, but at least I got to keep whatever was in my name.
If I hadn’t been granted Innocent Spouse, I would have lost my house , I would have lost my income, I would have lost my savings.
I think anybody at any economic level can relate. The message in my story is that I got a lawyer who believed me. Don’t try to take the IRS on yourself. It may cost you, but it will save you in the long run. A good lawyer will protect you. In every town in America, there is a lawyer who can deal with the IRS.
You’re shark bait, because you’re perceived as vulnerable, and I had to become hip to that. A plumber would come, he would tinker around, I would give him a check, he would leave, and it wasn’t even fixed! People just feel they can dump on you. For whatever reason, women aren’t given the same credibility as men. You have to be a little stronger, talk a little louder, be a little more assertive.
I would say, “I’m a widow, can you please make sure you get this right?” I was basically saying, “Take advantage of me.” I don’t do that anymore.
It was one of the great bars of Washington, but it couldn’t afford itself. Its rent was ridiculously high, the insurance and taxes were ridiculously high.
At first I thought I could turn the business around and get income from it. After the first year, I signed a personal guaranty on the lease because I thought I could sell the restaurant. That was my biggest mistake. No one who owns a small business should use their own money. The smart small business owners always use someone else’s money and they don’t sign personal guaranties.
Without the guaranty I could have filed for bankruptcy the moment I learned Nathans was bankrupt. Instead, I became personally responsible for the restaurant’s debts.
My only asset at this point was my home, which I owned free and clear. So I had to take out a half a million dollar mortgage on my home to fund my getting free of Nathans: paying off the landlords, paying the tax and other debts I was legally bound to as an LLC.
Well, I had to leave my job as a producer to focus on the restaurant. I have a just a little bit left. I make about $25,000 a year, and I have a half million dollar mortgage to make payments on.
I tell my friends, I’m a post-Jimmy-Choo woman. I gave up all that stuff. In the end I didn’t really need it. It became symbols of what wasn’t real. I can still appreciate things, but I don’t covet them. If I miss anything, I miss the freedom of travel, and being able to go where I want, when I want. I miss the luxury of time, and things that are taken care of.
Don’t not fall in love. Falling in love is the best thing in the world. I wish that everyone falls in love with the man of their dreams.
But if you are on a joint tax return, don’t just take it for granted. An accountant did our taxes, and I didn’t even read them; I just signed them. That was just stupid. Also, if you end up being the heir to your spouse’s business, it would behoove you to learn something about it.
I’m always telling my son, like Reagan said: “Trust but verify.”
Carol had a fairytale life, until the lies at its foundation caused it to crumble and come crashing down. She admits that she was just too trusting (actually, she bluntly calls it being stupid) by putting her financial life into her husband’s hands and always taking him at his word.
So talk to your partner or spouse. Keep a separate checking account (learn how to open one here) and credit card (find the right card for you). Ask to be a part in all the financial decisions. And always read the fine print before signing anything.
(NOTE: There were no criminal charges filed in the case of J. Howard Joynt. Not against him or Carol as his heir. It was a tax fraud case, but not a criminal tax fraud case.)
CELEBRATING AT THE MOFFETT'S WITH THEIR DOG HENRY
Twelve years of living it, two years of writing it, and at long last "Innocent Spouse" arrives in bookstores, and in the mail for those who pre-ordered from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders. I got this great message a little while ago: "The book arrived at lunchtime and totally derailed my plans to be on a disciplined work schedule today. I thought it would be good, and it is good--it's terrific! Wow! Congratulations! I hope you enjoy every moment of the launch!"
I plan to enjoy every minute. The initial minutes may be more anxious, leading up to the Today show on Wednesday and then, after that, less anxious and more fun. I'm psyched about Today but still, it is Today. And then the boffo book party at The Palm Court, which is a fantasy come true for a girl who lived in hotels in Europe. Also, got my heart broke in the Palm Court. So many memories, but this will be the best. Thursday I'm on the Fox Business Report with Gerry Willis, which will be interesting and fun and possibly relaxing. She does a smart show.
Whatever will be will be. At this point I just go along with my baby. It's all done. All written and rewritten and rewritten. It now belongs to the readers and it will be their impressions, their feelings, carried by the words about the book they say to others. I want them to enjoy it, that it takes them on a wild journey, that they learn a lot, riding on my back, living with me through one challenge after another. I want readers to live it and feel it. Sit up all night with it, read it on the beach, not be able to put it down.
Send me your questions. Don't be shy. Come to the book signings. Set up others. You got a gig for me, I'll be there.
For now, I'm getting off the grid for a while. Hopping in the car and aiming it toward the open road. Feels right. Getting away, way away...
That's my dream.
Two early write ups today come from Wowowow.com here. And The Georgetown Dish here.
PLEASE BUY IT AND THEN PLEASE WRITE SOMETHING ON AMAZON; IDEALLY SOMETHING FLATTERING.
THE CAVE DWELLER ELITE AT THE TUDOR PLACE GARDEN PARTY
On New York Social Diary today I write about Eric Ripert's appearance last week on The Q&A Cafe. There's good reason why he is a world famous chef. Also, a visit to the week's best social event, the annual Tudor Place Garden Party. Read it all here.
THE "INNOCENT SPOUSE" COCKTAIL, BEFORE BEING DEVOURED....
I plan to make myself an Innocent Spouse cocktail and when I'm done, before I devour it, I will take a photo and post it here. If I get the recipe right I'll post that, too. My son brought me a bouquet of flowers and then returned to cramming for exams. A friend is coming for a late and long lunch. It's a beautiful day. And Amazon sent a message saying they were shipping my book to those who pre-ordered. That's cool and a swell Mother's Day gift.
btw, you can buy this very drink every night at the M Bar on New Hampshire Avenue (the Renaissance West End Hotel) for the month of May and the proceeds go to the Children's Miracle Network. Do it!
As for the recipe:
Take a rocks glass
Muddle a bunch of fresh mint and a couple of teaspoons of Domino's Superfine Sugar
Add 2 ounces of Bacardi white rum
Add the juice of one lime
Add ice to fill the glass
Top off with French rose champagne...and a wedge of lime
Drink it feeling innocent, but realize later that you were naive!
“INNOCENT SPOUSE, A Memoir” By Carol Ross Joynt (Crown. 280 pp. $25)
One can easily imagine the ladies of “The View” grilling Washington journalist Carol Ross Joynt about the financial and emotional soap opera chronicled in “Innocent Spouse,” her memoir of love, death, betrayal, survival, re-invention and major name-dropping.
“Girlfriend, your ‘knight in shining armor’ slapped you around, blackened your eye and even dumped you out of the car in a rainstorm, and you never called the cops? Or a divorce lawyer?” Whoopi Goldberg might demand.
“Wait,” pipes up Elizabeth Hasselbeck, “not only does he have no life insurance to take care of you and your son, but after he dies, you discover he owes the IRS, like $3 million, and now it’s your debt?”
“So Keith Hernandez, the ex-Met, stood you up on your first ‘widow date,’ ” interjects Joy Behar, “you refused Walter Cronkite’s marriage proposal, and you really never slept with the married New York mystery chef? Details. We want details.”
It’s uncertain whether Joynt, who worked for Time and UPI, Cronkite, Charlie Rose and Larry King, among others, will ever appear on the ABC-TV yak-fest to explore these questions or the larger issues raised in this domestic cautionary tale: Why do allegedly smart women who competently manage their money when single blithely cede financial control to the men they marry? How well do any of us really know our mates?
Joynt offers familiar, albeit cringe-inducing, rationales. “He made me feel safe and secure and adored,” she writes. “I was serenely happy to be his wife. I believed that without him I could not exist.” (Mercifully the abuse he inflicted and she concealed during the first half of their 20-year union ceased after his depression diagnosis and Prozac prescriptions.)
But theirs remained a “Faustian pact.“ “I’d sold myself for what I thought would be a better life. In terms of possessions and the roof over my head, it was better. I was a good wife, homemaker, and mother. I stuck with our marriage when it was rough and savored the pleasures when it was good. I didn’t realize I was living in a fairy castle built on sand.”
Well, actually some of that grit hit the fan when, shortly after they met, she learned he’d lied about having already started divorce proceedings, but she stuck around anyway. “None of my business,” she claims. “I was madly in love, and as everybody knows, love is blind — and sometimes a little dumb.”
Alas, J. Howard Joynt III, her “irresistible rogue” of a lying saloon-keep who died of pneumonia in 1997, had many other secrets. Carol turned out to be wife No. 4, not No. 3. Howard’s trust fund payouts were a fraction of what he claimed. But the lasting damage came from his flagrant use of Nathan’s — his storied Georgetown bar and eatery — as a personal piggybank to support the family’s lavish lifestyle: expensive cars and boats, bespoke clothing, splendid vacations, live-in help, two Georgetown apartments and a house on the Chesapeake.
Joynt gets the irony that her journalism career — including encounters with presidents Gerald Ford through George W. Bush, as well as Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, Paul Newman, John F. Kennedy Jr., Liz Taylor and murderer Charles Manson — was “built on curiosity, instinct, and asking questions, and yet I never once questioned our life of quiet luxury.” That ignorance ended with Howard’s death, when she found her only hope of avoiding, or greatly reducing, that whopping $3 million tax debt was to convince the IRS that she was a clueless “innocent spouse.”
Since her husband’s lawyers felt she’d never win that designation, she hired a new team headed by the former IRS commissioner who had written the innocent spouse provision. (Ain’t Washington grand?) After a year of tough negotiations, Joynt prevailed. But her problems were hardly over.
She lost the battle to keep her part-time job as a “Larry King Live” producer while struggling to do right by her son, once refusing to work on Princess Di’s funeral from London because she’d miss his first day of kindergarten. She frantically tried learning how to run Nathan’s, from taming the mutinous staff to dealing with landlords, rodents, bureaucrats and even exploding manhole covers. (Anyone dreaming of owning a bar or restaurant should read this part several times.)
Despite sound advice from her lawyer to unload Nathan’s after her IRS victory, Joynt held on, hoping to sell it later for pots of money. That never happened, and in 2009, mired in bankruptcy and eviction proceedings and with her son in high school, she closed the doors, leaving with two gratifying if low-paying media gigs: the “Q & A Cafe” newsmaker interviews she started after 9/11, and a New York Social Diary blog that gives her entree to swank parties, restaurants and resorts.
Joynt was luckier than the average innocent spouse. Caring and influential friends, top lawyers and reclaimed assets helped her pay for a Georgetown home, ongoing therapy and her son’s private schools. We’ll see if this survivor’s tale also lands her a spot on “The View.”
Annie Groer , a former Post staffer who writes about politics, celebrity and design, is at work on a memoir.
NOTE: FOR EARLY REVIEWS OF "INNOCENT SPOUSE," PLEASE CLICK HERE.
THE RADIATION THERAPY TABLE AND "TRILOGY" ZAPPER; IT LOOKS FIERCE BUT THE ACTUAL ZAP IS PAINLESS
Every weekday since April 7th I've walked to Georgetown University Hospital to get my radiation therapy. I head out of the house at 7:30 am, cross from village from east to west, walk through the sleeping campus of Georgetown University, then into the hospital, down a long white corridor, down some steps and into the Radiation Oncology department where I sign in, take a seat and wait my turn with my fellow cancer patients. We're a small quiet group in the mornings, but we're convivial with each other and the staff.
For the patients it is a club, sort of, one none of us wanted to join. But we're there, working on getting repaired, and so be it. There's a table in the waiting room. On it is a puzzle. We each take turns trying to put the pieces together. That's us, in every way.
At first I was scared of radiation. The big Trilogy machine, me on a cold table beneath it, the awful buzz it makes when I'm getting hit with the painless zap, the overwhelming feeling of being a piece of meat. But then I began to focus on the patient who goes before me, a girl not even two years old, who has cancer in her eye, who has to be sedated each morning in order to remain absolutely still on the treatment table, who cries a little when she comes out of the room and into the loving arms of her young mother and father, who hug her as she shakes off the anesthesia. She's so sweet and brave (as are her parents), and I think if she can take it then so can I.
I chose to do the Canadian regimen of radiation therapy, which has been quietly introduced in the U.S. It's an option for those who qualify and qualifying has something to do with the size of the breast and the area that needs to be treated. The standard U.S. regimen is 33 zaps. The Canadian is 17, at a higher intensity, and five boosts, which are of a lesser intensity and focused solely on the spot of the surgery. The doctors say that they've found the Canadian and U.S. regimens bring the same results. My actual zap lasts no longer than 30 seconds. I was warned of possible fatigue and reddening of the skin, but these side effects have not happened (so far).
Each day I focus on that little girl rather than myself. And I focus, too, on the man who follows me, who arrives wearing his I.V. We smile at each other, say "hello," coming and going, coming and going. With different players, this goes on all day, every week day, at GUH and so many hundreds of other hospitals.
The little girl has her last treatment tomorrow. She will be done and the prognosis is good. I've done twenty one zaps and I have two to go. My prognosis is good. I will finish my treatment Thursday morning, just hours before interviewing Eric Ripert at The Q&A Cafe. Coincidentally, my first treatment was the morning of my interview with David Rubenstein. Go figure.
I don't know what the future holds for my overall health, which is generally quite good, or anything else for that matter. No one does. But I know this: I was a lucky one with this bout of breast cancer. Due to a routine annual mammogram it was caught as early as is possible, stage zero, and it was small and contained. I don't have to do chemo, only the radiation and, if I choose, Tamoxifen. So, we go forward.
THE BIN LADEN "MANSION," WHERE THE SEALS COMPLETED THEIR MISSION
Anyone paying attention to the news today -- American or allied -- is experiencing an exceptional appreciation of a mission well done by the U.S. military, the Navy SEALS in particular. For obvious reasons of their personal security, we may never know the names and faces of the individuals who tracked down and took down Osama bin Laden. That's unfortunate. In an earlier era, say if they had planted a flag on a strategic hilltop, they would be immortalized in a monument like the one marking Iwo Jima. Not sure we can do that in this century.
Regardless, I'm quenching my thirst on the intricacies of the mission and thinking this: James Bond is alive, there's more than one of him, and they are ours. They story is young. More details will come out. some may not be pretty. There may be liberal or conservative political backfire. That may be inevitable. Either way, we should let today be today.
Each September 11 I have a ritual. I make sure to do something that celebrates life, usually exploiting pleasures like family, a walk, a good meal, good wine, the company of friends. I do this on behalf of the people who lost that privilege. I also look through the New York Times' book of "Profiles" of those who died. For me, in that regard, today is no different. It's about the heroic efforts of the men (and possibly women, too?) who did the job in Pakistan, and the men, women and children who died on 9/11, and their families.
Carol Joynt has "a perfect eye, an infallible ear and the unequaled gift of rearranging the alphabet into words which both entertain and mean f**cking something."
-- "Hollywood Bob"
The Q&A Cafe is now in its 21st year. We launched in October 2001 at Nathans in Georgetown as a response to the September 11 terror attacks, and from that initial purpose grew into a weekly community interview lunch, the first "talk show in a bar." When Nathans closed in 2009 we moved to the Ritz Carlton Hotel and since 2015 our home has been The George Town Club. Some 500 notable individuals, from all fields, have appeared for interviews, which are taped and air Fridays on DC Cable. All are welcomed to attend. For reservations: 202-333-9330.
Visit this link to view our archive of broadcasts: The Q&A Cafe on YouTube
Emmy-winning CBS News producer, talk show guest wrangler, published author, host of The Q&A Cafe, print & digital journalist, filmmaker, photog, and former saloon owner. Read more...
Here is information for my popular memoir Innocent Spouse...
MEDIA: For book-related inquiries, please contact my agent, Laney Becker, at 212-243-8480