People

By Belinda Luscombe

NO INTERIM CEOS ALLOWED!

What does STEVE JOBS have to do to get some respect? Apple's co-founder is finally back at the core of the company and beginning to put a bite on its decline, but he's still a nobody to security guards. Following his keynote address at the Mac World convention in New York City, Jobs suddenly found himself barred from the main show floor by a zealous young security guard who observed that Jobs didn't have the appropriate pass. When the many Appleistas with him offered him theirs, the security guard threatened to confiscate the passes and call state troopers. Despite the flurry of frantic cell-phone calls and cries of "Don't you know who this is?" the guard refused to budge. Jobs had to retreat and find a generic pass with which to enter his own convention. Maybe the guard was a Windows user. --Reported by Daniel Eisenberg

AND STEINBECK NEVER HAD A HIT SINGLE

JIMMY BUFFETT'S memoir, A Pirate Looks at 50, hit the No. 1 spot on the New York Times best-seller list. He's one of only six authors to have had books at the top of both the fiction and nonfiction lists. Even odder, one of each of the other authors' books seems to have an odd resonance with a Buffett album.

AUTHOR BOOK BUFFETT ALBUM

Ernest Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea Son of a Son of a Sailor John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath Banana Wind William Styron A Tidewater Morning Floridays Irving Wallace The Twenty-Seventh Wife Don't Stop the Carnival Dr. Seuss Oh, the Places You'll Go! You Had to Be There

LIFE, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

"July 8, 1998, 8:45 a.m. That's the day the waiting stopped." It sounds like James Kirk, but it's BILL KRAFT describing the moment he found out Star Trek was going to be commemorated on a stamp--an event for which Kraft has been campaigning for 12 years. "It represents such fine ideals, like nonviolent resolution of conflict where possible," says Kraft, an interlibrary-loans assistant in Minnesota. He organized petitions, got Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and some Senators to write to the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee. The committee rejected the idea. Then came the Celebrate the Century series, in which the U.S. Postal Service had people vote on which icons represented the '60s best. That's all the opening Kraft and the Enterprise Stamp Committee needed. The battle is won. What will Kraft do now? "If I found another project I could feel passionate about," says Kraft, "I might beam aboard again."

PERP OF THE WEEK [RUPERT MURDOCH]

For Failing to appear in court in India on charges that his Star TV network was broadcasting "vulgar and obscene" material.

CHANCES OF CAPTURE The arrest warrant, issued in Delhi, will be hard to serve on Murdoch unless he visits India.

REWARD No job offer from Fox.

CELEBRITY REAL ESTATE HAND-OFF

As we all know, celebrities are special people with special needs. And, as the glossy shelter magazines keep telling us, they have special homes too. So when it comes time to sell, where do they find buyers? Among other celebs, of course. In last week's trades:

SELLER Paula Abdul BUYER Tom Arnold DESCRIPTION Beaut peach 6,800-sq.-ft. Spanish-style villa in excl 90210 ZIP. Gated comm, 5 brs, pond w exotic Japanese fish, fntn, winding pool leads to sunny kit. Many convs. Stunning vus PRICE $2.4 million (although it was valued at $3.2 million in 1995)

SELLER Jasper Johns BUYER Spike Lee DESCRIPTION Lvly Italianate 4-stry, 9,000-sq.-ft. home in prestig 10021 ZIP. Courtyd w fntn, 32-ft. frontage, once owned by Gypsy Rose Lee! PRICE With the place next door, which was bought by a nonceleb, a reported $7.2 million (Johns paid $4.77 million for the two)

With reporting by Daniel Eisenberg