A 750-page doorstop of a book about the entertainment industry is not typically where one goes looking for insights about municipal politics. But so it was with Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency. A sidelong reading of the book offers a sort of back door into understanding Rahm Emanuel’s problematic public image during his time as Chicago mayor—through the figure of his hotshot talent agent brother, Ari.
Ari’s most revealing moment in the book, however, comes when he recalls breaking the news to his bosses that he would be leaving CAA to go to work for rival agency InterTalent:
His veneer of composure cracked again earlier this month. While at a bar during a trip through Washington, D.C., Rahm flipped off a consultant who asked if he would be running for president in 2020. When the gesture garnered attention in the room, someone informed Rahm that Megan R. Wilson, a reporter for the Hill, had witnessed the incident. To which he replied: “I don’t give a fuck who she is.” The incident made only a small ripple, probably because Rahm’s outsize ego has always seemed more at home back in the capital, where his outbursts—whether he was confronting an obstructive U.S. representative in the showers of the congressional gym or reportedly telling a male White House staffer, “Take your fucking tampon out and tell me what you have to say!”—were seen as extensions of his apparent passion for the legislative process. (Speaking of Rahm’s shower confrontation, Powerhouse features a scene in which former CAA agent David Greenblatt recalls Ari buttonholing him in the company’s lone bathroom.)
