Just a quick note to let you all know what’s been happening this month over here at INAM.

Because the site was down for about a week, many of you have been emailing to ask where this e-zine went. I’m in awe of all the thoughtfulness.

But never fear—all is okay now.

We were hacked a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue. (I guess the hackers confused us with a major mag! I’ve seen some very erroneous estimations of my net worth on the internet, and I guess people who don’t know me believed them. But I can guarantee those statements were off by several zeroes! Sadly for me.)

So INAM was reduced to what techies refer to as “the white page of death!” As both luddites and technophiles can well imagine, I was sick over it!

What I imagine hackers look like.

But thanks to my web developer, Lou, and Ty over at my web hosting site, (not to mention Mr. X for funding it all!,) we finally got it back up and running, just about as good as new.

The only real casualties, (besides my hair falling out from the stress–seriously,) were the last two months of comments on my various articles. They were all lost. I welcome every comment my loyal readers make, and believe me—I haven’t taken the loss of them lightly.

So, if you’re one of the people who posted one, and have the time and inclination, I’d love for you to please re-post a version of what you wrote, if you can remember your sentiments.

And if you haven’t ever commented before, this would be a lovely time to begin! We’ve brought the entire site back up to speed, so having the comments refreshed would be very welcome, as well.

To start the ball rolling, as soon as INAM came back on-line, this was the very first new “comment” we received, (which I absolutely adore, of course,) that someone posted on my About page: celebpie.com/karen-salkin-comedian-wikipedia-bio-husband-and-net-worth. Even though there’s a tiny bit of erroneous info on there, I thought it would be fun to share after the bleak experience of being hacked.

And now, onward and upward! There are many fun columns coming up on here. (After the Olympics, of course.)

And as always, thank you so much for reading this e-zine. I appreciate each and every one of you!

You guys think that I go out a lot in Los Angeles, right? Well, you’ve never seen a schedule like the one I kept for the past three weeks in New York. It was insane, even by my own ridiculous standards.  I went out in that time span more than I do in two months in LA! I got an average of only three hours of sleep a night the entire time, except for one night towards the end of my trip, when I conked-out at 7PM! (But, of course, I was up and at ’em again at 2AM!)

Central Park. Photo by Karen Salkin, as is the one at the top of the page, of approaching LA from the sky.

Here’s a very weird aspect of my life in NY, that I always forget about until I’m living it: In LA, we all get to go home in-between daytime and nighttime events, and chill, nap, regroup, debrief, change outfits and make-up, whatever. But in NYC, you have to be prepared for every event you have all day and night when you leave the house in the morning. And since no one can take their own cars anywhere during the day, (and most of the night, as well,) you have to carry all your accoutrements with you!!! All over town! Even if we do multiple events in LA, which require different attire, we have it all in our vehicles! I’ve often used a car as a changing room here.

As a matter of fact, the first day I was in the Big Apple this trip, I forgot all that because I hadn’t been there for awhile, and was already time-constrained from the minute I exited the plane at almost midnight the night before. So I erroneously assumed I could go back to the Upper East Side after my Midtown event during the day, to change and go back to that same area for an evening Gala. In the rain, no less. When I mentioned that plan to someone at the first event, she was horrified and set me straight about my timing snafu. So I had to go buy an entire new outfit for the Gala! That was a definite pain in the butt, but I wound-up with an an adorbs LBD and…an even cuter cotton coat!!! (But don’t get all twisted on my behalf—they were both on sale, of course.)

Another view of Manhattan. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I do plan to share the many tales of my entire crazy trip with you, some of the highlights of which I hope that you’ve already been reading about on here as I’ve gone along. (If not, you can still do that at any time—my daily columns in this e-zine are published in perpetuity.) I had to stay up overnight several times to write about each adventure!

And they’re not done yet. Even though I’m back at home base in Los Angeles, I still have tons of New York experiences to tell you about. So stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for all of it.

And then back to LA stories, which I’m sure there will be plenty of. Just after I sleep for a few months days.

What I was greeted by at LAX–no more convenient curbside pick-up! Shuttles only. Grrr. Photo by Karen Salkin.

I especially thank my great East Coast friends Manny Greitzer, Sheila Tracy, Lauren Clarke-Bennett, Barbara Burton, and Jill Parker, without whom none of the past month would have been possible. And Sharon Lieberman and Yuri Davidov, who came through in a big-time way on an especially stressful assignment. (Don’t ask.) Honorable mention goes to all the others who made the time to see me, which I always appreciate and never take lightly.

But, as comfortable and cozy as I was in my pal Emily’s childhood room in New York, let me tell you how absolutely correct Dorothy was–there’s no place like home!

So, I must ask you guys to do a small something for me. It seems that my Twitter account was recently hacked, which made my number of followers go down from about 15K to a bit more than 5K! (Yes, I know—those darn Russians!)

The “Karencature” that heralds all of Karen Salkin’s social media platforms. Taken from original art for Karen’s Restaurant Revue by artist Alfonso Jaramillo.

Since my web guy and I, of course, cannot figure out how to fix that situation, (because we don’t know the identities of my previous thousands of followers, so we can’t contact them to help remedy it,) I have to ask my readers to help me out here.

I know that many of you already follow me across my social media platforms, which I really appreciate, but if not, I’m requesting that you please do it now. Pretty please? (And, if you think you already do, please check because you might be one of the ones who was deleted in the hack.)

And, since I’m never just a taker, as a thank you to everyone who does this for me, once the numbers get back up there, I’ll be doing give-aways on my platform with the most traffic, which only those followers of mine can win!

Twitter is the most important bit of social media to me, and the one I think all of you will like best, because, in addition to tweeting out the links to my week-daily columns there, that’s where I post all of my auxiliary comments, especially about sports, fashion, TV, celebrities, and award shows, which I usually live-tweet.

Part of Karen Salkin’s very eclectic Instagram account.

But I promise that I won’t inundate you on any of my social media sites. On Instagram and Facebook, I just also post the links to my columns, and that’s pretty much it on those two. I know that many people use Insta as their main platform, but they don’t have an e-zine, as I do right here, so they have to post their thoughts there. And most are way better photographers than I am, which is good for them because IG is mainly a photo site.

So, if you do decide to follow me on any (and I hope, all,) of them, you don’t have to worry about my stuff taking up all your time. My posts will be merely a quick happy (and hopefully, amusing) note in your day.

A capture still from one of Karen Salkin’s YouTube videos. What was she saying that horrified her so?!

Plus, that will actually make reading INAM easier for you, because you don’t have to remember to click on here yourself—you’ll most likely see the daily reminders on social media!

And, let’s face it, many of you are obsessed with getting notices on your devices, anyway, so it should be fun to add one more person to your mix.

Thanks so much for doing it! And, while you’re at it, you may want to check-out my very few YouTube Videos! I’ve done them for the many fans of my former TV show, Karen’s Restaurant Revue, who keep asking me to resurrect KRR somehow, and then I realized that I don’t even know how to get the info out there to them! So, I really hope this will do it. (And if you’d like a preview before subscribing, here’s the link to my Casting Couch tale: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYKn2_EWaJM&t=8s.)

Here’s all the info you’ll need to follow me, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart in advance!

Twitter: @MajorCelebrity
Instagram: majorcelebrity
Facebook Fan Page: It’s Not About Me TV
YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/channel/UCF7mwI2jwcB2xB9dBCBxLZg.]

First of all, I want to thank everyone who already follows me on Twitter and Facebook.  And the people who read this e-zine regularly, too, of course! I can’t tell you how much I really appreciate the support.  It means the world to me. (I would give you all my first born, if I had one. Well, one for each of you.)

The original “Karen-cature” from my show, now my social media avatar. By artist Al Jaramillo.

And now I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally acquiesced to the many requests for me to get on Instagram, as well.  I still don’t know exactly what I’m doing, so I’m rolling it out very slowly. I sincerely hope that you will join me there; just please don’t judge yet. I know that site is all about photos, and I’m far from proficient in the art of photography. I can’t believe that so many people are! Some of the pictures on there are stunning!

So, my Instagram page is majorcelebrity. Or maybe it’s just Karen Salkin. (I really don’t know which is my moniker on there, since they’re both listed on my page.)

Either way, I hope that you will follow me on there. And if you don’t currently follow me on Facebook and Twitter, but want to, here are how those pages are listed:

Facebook:  It’s Not About Me TV
Twitter: @MajorCelebrity

My very first six Instagram posts!

I don’t put just the links to my almost-daily columns on these social media sites.  I usually tweet during awards shows, and comment on many, many sporting events, too.  I also occasionally let you know about events I’ll be attending, in case you’d like to go to them, too.

I’m not sure what will be happening with me on Instagram yet, but I understand it has to be all visuals.  So, expect to see lots of images of food from restaurants, and several of the many celebs I bump into around town. And, of course, my fingernails!

So, I’m optimistic that this will be a fun journey.  I look forward to sharing it with all of you.