'Best of TBH Politoons'
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
ANNALEE NEWITZ: Three reasons to hate Facebook (sfbg.com)
Poking is just the beginning.
Jim Hightower: CASHING IN ON AMERICA'S VETERANS (jimhightower.com)
Roger Chapin calls himself a "non-profit entrepreneur." You might call him a money-grubbing hucksterŠ or worse. ... "I am proud to contribute my time and financial support to Salute America's Hereos," wrote retired Brigadier General Arthur Diehl III in a fundraising letter. Actually, Diehl didn't exactly "contribute" his time, and much of the financial support flowed to him - he was paid $5,000 a month by Chapin's charity.
What I did during the strike (latimes.com)
Writers tell tales of picket lines, bad lines and even bread lines.
Michael Hamersly: The Go-Go's still got the beat (McClatchy Newspapers)
When the Go-Go's released "Beauty and the Beat" in 1981, they couldn't have predicted how successful, and influential, the album would become. On the strength of the hits "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "We Got the Beat," the Go-Go's became the first all-female band to top the Billboard charts, inspiring young women around the world to rock out themselves. The group went on to score the hit "Vacation," its video becoming an MTV sensation back when music videos still mattered.
Mosi Reeves: "Bradford Cox: Boy Wonder"(atlanta.creativeloafing.com)
Deerhunter leader grows inward with solo Atlas Sound release.
RYAN HENRIQUEZ: "Flux as Inspiration: An Interview with Oakley Hall" (popmatters.com)
Pat Sullivan and Rachel Cox take us from Morrissey to Blake to the Clancy Brothers, while warning us not to eat the fish. The Brooklyn indie band discusses this and more with PopMatters.
John Anderson: Colin Farrell is not your ordinary hit man (Newsday)
Bruges, the Belgian port city known for its medieval architecture and Flemishness, is referred to in such unspeakable terms during the upcoming "In Bruges" that one would have expected the town to convict actor Colin Farrell and director Martin McDonagh of high crimes in absentia, and exile the movie to Luxembourg. Lincoln Caplan: What Gives? (slate.com)
Ray Pride: 'Diary of the Dead' Goes for the Headshot (newcitychicago.com)
George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead had its U.S. debut at Sundance in January and was easily one of the fiercest pictures on show. In fact, I'm not aware of any fiction features that might hold such sting.
Michael Hurtt: How Mick Collins and the Dirtbombs Killed Classic Rock (metrotimes.com)
It's been nearly three decades since Collins first picked up a guitar with the sole intention of "murdering the Eagles." Since then, the tall, bespectacled, deep-voiced rock 'n' roller from Detroit has been scorned, worshipped, categorized and just plain misunderstood by a music world often more interested in labeling than listening.
Emma Soames: How can over-70s keep fit? (guardian.co.uk)
Research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that taking up exercise after retirement can prolong your life, greatly increasing your chances of living until 90.
AN UNDERGROUND CLASSIC ABOUT ART EXPLAINS THE IMMEASURABLE VALUE OF PHILANTHROPY.
Animator vs. Animation (alanbecker.deviantart.com)
Oakley Hall: Multiple Songs
Link From Vic
Ipana's Beaver
Somebody ask for Ipana toothpaste with Buck Beaver?
Reader Comment
Re: 'Jericho'
I watched all the 1st season episodes on UHD last week and it really blew my mind. I'd never even heard of the series before, and I'm an actor! This show needs juice. It's something we've all been thinking about all our lives -- nuclear attack on the U.S. Have you seen it?
Happy Trails, until ...
Kevin K. from West L.A.
Thanks, Kevin!
I watched an episode early last season, and then kept up on the viewers peanut protest.
You'd have thunk CBS would have recycled the first season again during the strike, but I guess Les Moonves prefers we watch his wife in prime time.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Mostly sunny but cold for these parts.
China "Regrets"
Steven Spielberg
China voiced its disappointment on Thursday over movie director Steven Spielberg's decision to quit his Beijing Olympics role because of China's policies in Sudan and said the Games would be a success regardless.
"We express regret," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a news conference. "All preparation work for the Beijing Olympics is proceeding smoothly. The Chinese people are willing to work with artists from around the world with wisdom and talent and the Olympic Games will be a success."
The Hollywood director said he pulled out of his role as an artistic adviser because China was doing too little to help halt the bloodshed in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where Khartoum-linked militia have battled rebel groups.
Nine Nobel Peace laureates also wrote to Chinese President Hu Jintao urging him to change policy towards Sudan, where China has big oil investments. Beijing has often said it is working for peace in Darfur.
Steven Spielberg
Campaigns For Seals
Pamela Anderson
Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson followed in the footsteps of French actress Brigitte Bardot on Thursday by campaigning in Paris for the protection of baby seals.
Anderson was to perform a burlesque striptease later at the Crazy Horse cabaret to the tune of 'Harley Davidson', a song written by Serge Gainsbourg and sung by Bardot in the late 60s.
Anderson said she would deliver a letter from Bardot to the Canadian ambassador to France urging him to stop seal hunting around the Arctic.
"It sickens me not just as a Canadian but as a human being," the 40-year-old actress told a room crammed with photographers shouting for her attention at Bardot's animal rights foundation.
Pamela Anderson
Said A 'Bad' Word
Jane Fonda
NBC News is apologizing again - this time for Jane Fonda.
The 70-year-old actress used a vulgar slang term on the "Today" show Thursday while talking about the play "The Vagina Monologues." Fonda is appearing in a 10th-anniversary performance.
Fonda said she was asked to perform a monologue with a slang term for vagina as the title - and Fonda used the term itself on the air.
NBC has recently apologized for misogynistic comments made by Chris Matthews and David Shuster.
Jane Fonda
The Holy Grail Of Bluegrass Guitars
Lester Flatt's 1950 Martin D-28
Marty Stuart and Connie Smith gave a sweetheart gift to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, just in time for Valentine's Day.
The Grand Ole Opry stars, who are married, have donated Lester Flatt's 1950 Martin D-28 guitar. The instrument, which some have called "the Holy Grail of bluegrass guitars," was used on most of Flatt and Earl Scruggs' classic recordings and live performances.
Stuart fell in love with the guitar and often played it until Flatt retired and disbanded his group.
Stuart thought he'd never see it again, but after Flatt's death in 1979 he was able to buy it from Flatt's daughter, Brenda, and has had it ever since.
Lester Flatt's 1950 Martin D-28
Wins $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize
Jose Antonio Abreu
Venezuelan economist and musician Jose Antonio Abreu, who has built a "cultural renaissance" in his home country through innovative music programs for young people for three decades, has won the $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize.
Abreu, 68, devised "El Sistema," the National System of Children and Youth Orchestras of Venezuela that comprises more than 100,000 young musicians and has had "enormous impacts on how music education is carried out throughout the world," said jury chair and Canadian composer Paul Hoffert.
"The young people who have come through this system . . . have proved the value of music education in general," Hoffert told a news conference Thursday.
Abreu expressed "endless gratitude" for the prize in a statement from Caracas.
Jose Antonio Abreu
Fall Fractures $1M Violin
David Garrett
David Garrett, a former model who has been called the David Beckham of the classical scene, said he tripped while carrying his 18th century violin as he was leaving London's Barbican Hall after a performance, smashing it to bits.
"I had it over my shoulder in its case and I fell down a concrete flight of stairs backward," Garrett said Thursday. "When I opened the case, much of my G.B. Guadagnini had been crushed."
Garrett said he bought the 1772 violin for $1 million in 2003, and he is now hoping to get it repaired in New York, where he is based.
David Garrett
CW Cancels
'Girlfriends'
The CW's Monday night comedy series "Girlfriends," the longest-running live action comedy on network television, is ending after eight seasons, the show's creator announced on Thursday.
The series about three friends navigating life and love has been a linchpin of the CW's Monday night lineup, and was previously on UPN. Star Tracee Ellis Ross earned six consecutives NAACP Image Award nominations as best comic actress, winning once.
"Girlfriends" is the second-highest rated series with a predominantly black cast, behind "The Game." The only such show to produce more episodes was "The Cosby Show."
Mara Brock Akil, the show's creator, said she's in talks with the CW to put together a retrospective show about the series' history.
'Girlfriends'
Launching `WayOutTV'
Damon Wayans
Damon Wayans is taking "In Living Color" to the Internet.
The 47-year-old comedian has announced the debut of "WayOutTV," a collaboration with YouTube that will show sketch comedy videos that he produces.
Wayans described the venture as "In Living Color 2.0" - an online version of the hit 1990s TV series that made him and his brothers Keenen Ivory, Shawn and Marlon famous.
Damon Wayans
Guilty Plea In Killing
Adrienne Shelly
A construction worker has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting he strangled actress Adrienne Shelly while trying to rob her in her New York City apartment.
Diego Pillco entered his guilty plea Thursday. The illegal immigrant from Ecuador said Shelly had threatened to call police after she caught him stealing money from her purse.
Pillco will receive 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on March 6.
Shelly appeared in the movies "The Unbelievable Truth" in 1989 and "Trust" in 1990. She wrote, directed and co-starred in "Waitress," which also featured Keri Russell.
Adrienne Shelly
Missing Art Reappears In NYC
Jean-Michel Basquiat
An $8 million painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat has been located in a Manhattan warehouse after apparently being smuggled out of Brazil, federal prosecutors said.
Prosecutors filed papers Wednesday seeking to seize the 1982 painting, called "Hannibal," in an effort to help Brazilian authorities claim it.
U.S. authorities said Wednesday they found the painting in an Upper East Side warehouse in November.
A courier had brought the painting from London into the U.S. via John F. Kennedy International Airport in August. No mention of the work's celebrated creator was made and the painting was valued at merely $100 on customs declaration forms, prosecutors said.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Arrested For Shoplifting At LAX
Bai Ling
Chinese-born actress Bai Ling was arrested for shoplifting at Los Angeles International Airport after a gift shop employee accused her of stealing two magazines and a pack of batteries, police said on Thursday.
Ling, who has appeared in such films as "The Crow" and "Red Corner," was taken into custody on Wednesday afternoon after leaving the store with two tabloid magazines and the batteries, Los Angeles Airport Police spokesman Jim Holcomb said.
She was booked on suspicion of shoplifting the items worth $16, a misdemeanor, and ordered to appear in court on May 5.
Holcomb said the 37-year-old actress was cooperative and admitted to police officers that she hadn't paid for the merchandise.
Bai Ling
Nude Venus Poster Banned
London Underground
A 16th Century painting of Venus featuring the Roman goddess of love wearing little but a smile has been deemed too risque for the eyes of London's Tube travellers.
London Underground bosses have banned a poster of the 1532 work by German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, promoting an upcoming Royal Academy exhibition.
Advertising standards on the tube are vetted by the company CBS Outdoor. It states that posters can not "Depict men, women or children in a sexual manner, or display nude or semi-nude figures in an overtly sexual context."
In 2001 it refused to pass a 17th century portrait by Sir Peter Lely of a mistress in Charles II's court nonchalantly exposing a breast on a poster for a National Portrait Gallery show.
London Underground
Fans Have Long Wait
`24'
One fallout of the Hollywood writers strike is that fans of Fox's drama "24" have to wait until next January to see Jack Bauer again.
The network has committed to air a full season on consecutive weeks and had been planning to start last month. If it had started airing new episodes soon, the season finale would not have taken place until the summer, when TV networks rarely show their high-profile programs.
Even though eight episodes for this season had already been filmed before the beginning of the writers strike, producers would have had to ramp up production soon to complete the season.
So "24" represents this television season's most prominent casualty due to the writers strike.
`24'
Judge Rules Against
Mick Fleetwood
A US judge ruled in favor of the British Broadcasting Corporation Thursday in a long-running dispute with Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood over distribution rights, local media reported.
The dispute centered on a music-sharing deal signed in 2001 in which Fleetwood was supposed to get clearance to release archived material from artists including Bruce Springsteen, U2, Elton John and Santana.
A judge in the state of Maine said that Fleetwood's business partner Joseph McNulty was "obsessed" with wresting exclusive rights from the BBC, even though it was not in the terms of the agreement, the Portland Press Herald reported.
Judge James Haines said BBC executives had tried to make the deal work, and did nothing illegal when they severed the relationship in 2003.
Mick Fleetwood
In Memory
David Groh
David Groh, the handsome, hardworking character actor who was best known to television viewers as the easygoing man Rhoda Morgenstern married and divorced during the run of Valerie Harper's hit 1970s sitcom "Rhoda," has died. He was 68.
Divorce was not a subject generally addressed on television in the 1970s, and when Groh's character, Joe Gerard, and Harper's Rhoda Morgenstern split up during the show's third season, viewers were stunned. Their marriage had resulted in one of the show's highest-rated episodes, and when they split people sent them condolence cards.
He portrayed the nefarious D.L. Brock on the daytime soap opera "General Hospital" from 1983 to 1985 and had recurring roles on "Baywatch," "Law & Order" and other shows.
His film credits included "Get Shorty," "Two-Minute Warning" and "Broken Vows," and he appeared on Broadway in Neil Simon's "Chapter Two" and Jon Tolin's "Twilight of the Golds."
Groh was born May 21, 1939, in New York City and attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright scholarship. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he returned to New York to study at the Actors Studio.
He appeared in the television shows "Dark Shadows" and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" in the 1960s before landing "Rhoda."
He is survived by his wife, Kristin Andersen, his son, Spencer Groh, his mother, Mildred, and his sister, Marilyn Mamann.
David Groh
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