What It’s Like to Get Kicked Out by James Dolan
The Knicks owner, better known for booting people from Madison Square Garden, had me tossed out of his band’s gig on Long Island.
From left: Byron House, Erin Slaver, James Dolan, Marc Copely, and Carolyn Dawn Johnson of JD & the Straight Shot perform at the Paramount in Huntington, N.Y., on July 12.
Photographer: Bobby Bank/Getty Images
Jim Dolan had me kicked out of a concert—his concert.
This wasn’t Madison Square Garden, the famous venue he owns and usually tosses people out of, but rather the Paramount, a small theater in Huntington, Long Island, where Dolan’s country-rock-blues band, JD & the Straight Shot, was second on a three-act bill. I was on assignment for Bloomberg Businessweek, which was working on an article about Dolan’s tenure as principal owner of Madison Square Garden Co. and the New York Knicks. (Dolan had declined to talk to the magazine for the story.) In the NBA, no current owner has fared worse recently—or endured an offseason as cruel as the current one. The magazine’s editors asked me to contribute a few sentences about the lesser-known Dolan—“JD,” frontman and lead guitarist. I bought a $38 ticket to see for myself.