'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Today's Suggested Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
Special Friday Feature
'Ark of Darkness'
Starting today, going to try a weekly episodic thriller
"The Ark of Darkness", a Political/Science-Fiction work, tells the tale of a frightening journey into the last place anyone would want to be left behind, Hell.
Set in the present day, a biblical researcher and former astronaut discovers, via satellite imaging, an ancient shipwreck, not on Mount Ararat, the legendary location of Noah's Ark, but 1000 miles due east in the mountains of southern Russia.
The expedition quickly meets with disaster.
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast morning, sunny afternoon.
The 4th grade field trip to Rancho Los Cerritos was a lot of fun, but I'm tired.
Also did the farmer's market/CostCo loop. Artichokes, asparagus & strawberries are peaking. Lots of 'food ladies' at CostCo. Much better snacking than on a Wednesday.
Tonight, Friday, CBS is supposed to start the evenning with a FRESH 'Star Search', followed by a
RERUN 'Hack', and then '48 Hours'.
Scheduled on a FRESH (?) Dave are Kate Winslet, Dennis Regan, and Rufus Wainwright.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Amanda Bynes and Liam Lynch.
NBC is supposed to offer a FRESH 'America's Most Talented Kid', followed by the Season Finale of 'Ed', then
a RERUN 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Rosie O'Donnell, Neal McDonough, and Boomkat.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Seann William Scott, Luiz Guzman, and Joe Jackson.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Jamie Kennedy, Colin Quinn, Vincent Pastore, Uncle Kracker, and Robbie Williams.
ABC is supposed to open with a RERUN 'America's Funniest Home Videos', followed by a RERUN
'8 Simple Rules', then a FRESH 'Regular Joe', followed by '20/20'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Regis Philbin, Godsmack, and this week's guest co-host David Alan Grier.
The WB has a RERUN 'What I Like About You', followed by a FRESH 'Greetings From Tucson', then
a RERUN 'Reba', and a RERUN 'Grounded For Life'.
Faux weighs in with the movie 'Big Daddy'.
UPN has the movie 'Fled'.
Check local PBS listings for 'NOW With Bill Moyers' - if you're not watching it, you're really missing some GREAT TV!
HBO has 'Real Time With Bill Maher', but, don't get your hopes up too high.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton hugs Willie Nelson at a concert in New York City April 9, 2003. The concert was held to celebrate Nelson's 70th birthday.
Photo by Jeff Christensen
Baseball's Hall of Shame
'Bull Durham' Event Canceled
Baseball's Hall of Fame has canceled its tribute for the 15th anniversary of the film "Bull Durham" because of the anti-war stance of the movie's stars, Tim Robbins and his longtime partner, Susan Sarandon.
Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan, canceled an April 26-27 celebration of the film, saying Robbins and Sarandon endangered U.S. troops in Iraq by flashing peace signs to cameras at the Academy Awards ceremony last month and by speaking against the conflict.
The actor and Sarandon were to participate in a discussion of baseball and the film with writer-director Ron Shelton and actor Robert Wuhl, who also played in the film, at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
But on Wednesday, Petroskey told Robbins in a letter that he had canceled the event because "as an institution, we stand behind our President and our troops in this conflict."
In a letter to Petroskey, Robbins said he was dismayed. "As an American who believes that vigorous debate is necessary for the survival of a democracy I reject your suggestion that one must be silent in times of war.
Robbins, 44, said Petroskey apparently faxed his letter to the media at the same time he mailed it to Robbins "to make it a story, the message of which is, if you oppose this administration, you can be punished."
Ron Shelton, the film's director, said: "I can't believe that this country has come to the point where people of disparate political opinions can't gather together to celebrate something we can all agree on -- baseball and films."
Actor Kevin Costner, a Republican who played a lead role in "Bull Durham, said in a statement: "I think Tim and Susan's courage is the type of courage that makes our democracy work. Pulling back this 'invite' is against the whole principle about what we fight for and profess to be about."
'Bull Durham' Event Canceled
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach
Josh Brolin
Josh Brolin says his girlfriend Diane Lane has never come out and said she doesn't like him racing cars, but he can tell by the look on her face she's not too keen on it. He says "a few sour faces, a few lemons in the mouth."
This Saturday he'll race at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in Southern California. Brolin has been racing cars for years and says he loves the focus and determination it takes to race a car. "Everything else goes away for that moment and it's wonderful. There's nothing like it, and I love the extremity of that, just for a moment. I don't do drugs, I do racing," Brolin told AP Radio.
Josh Brolin
Hollywood Walk O'Fame Star #2,222
Regis Philbin
Regis Philbin, the daytime co-host of "Live with Regis and Kelly" and former star of the ABC's evening game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" received the 2,222nd star on the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk.
Disney chairman Michael Eisner, talk show host Larry King and comic Don Rickles were among the celebrities who gathered Thursday to praise Philbin for his 40 years of broadcast experience.
"I guess they've loosened up the rules lately to include people like me, but I'm grateful for it and it's a big thrill. But I don't consider myself to be in their league," Philbin said.
Regis Philbin
Snarky Gossip
'Mr. Big'
Details magazine claims that Hollywood is obsessed with the size of its leading men. It says a list has been kept since the 1940s, updated through a post office box in Palm Springs, of those who "share one singular chracteristic: big box office" in the realm of physical endowment. Besides Liam Neeson, Matt Dillon and Kevin Costner, Details names Bruce Willis, Jason Priestley and Sean Penn. "One celebrity stylist claims to have heard (from gossipy ex-girlfriends he's worked with)" that Tobey Maguire, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell are particularly well-endowed.
'Mr. Big'
Underwent Weight-Loss Surgery
Anne Rice
For best-selling author Anne Rice, weight-loss surgery was a matter of life and breath.
Before the gastric bypass operation, she couldn't walk more than a few steps without losing her breath. She suffered from sleep apnea and her blood pressure was above normal.
"When you're fighting this type of battle your entire life, surgery is a very legitimate answer," Rice, 61, told The Times-Picayune for Wednesday's editions. "For me, it was the best possible choice. I feel like I've already got a big part of my life back."
Since her Jan. 15 surgery, her insulin dosage has been cut in half. Her blood pressure is normal and her nurses have told her she breathes well at night.
Rice has lost 44 of the 254 pounds she weighed when she decided on the surgery. She wants to lose 100 pounds or more, with a goal of being healthy enough to go on a book tour this fall.
Anne Rice
Mother Not Murdered
'Dr.' Laura
The mother of radio talk show host Dr. Laura was not murdered, as police originally thought, but died of natural causes, the county coroner's office has concluded.
Authorities said Wednesday the fact that the reclusive Yolanda Schlessinger had been dead for as long three months before they found her body in the bathroom of her Beverly Hills condominium helped contribute to the mistake.
On Wednesday, coroner's office operations chief Craig Harvey said Yolanda Schlessinger died of arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which could have triggered a heart attack, stroke, aneurysm or other catastrophic event.
"There's a vast difference between what you see with your eyes versus what you see under the microscope," Harvey said. "Things that seem wrong all of a sudden have a logical explanation."
'Dr.' Laura
'The Odd Couple' Reunite
Tony Randall & Jack Klugman
The two halves of "The Odd Couple" had an emotional reunion at the Newberry (S.C.) Opera House.
Tony Randall surprised his '70s sitcom co-star, Jack Klugman, after the second curtain call of "On Golden Pond," in which Klugman stars.
The opera house's director, Deborah Smith, said Randall walked on stage Tuesday just as Klugman glanced to see whether he was getting flowers.
"The expression on his face was absolutely incredible," Smith said. "I don't think there was a dry eye either on stage or in the audience."
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Never Break Up
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Crosby, Stills and Nash never break up. They just stop talking to each other for a while, according to group member Graham Nash. "We're tied by this music, it ties us together and will continue to be way more important than any argument that we've ever had," Nash told AP Radio.
The audiences have a lot to do with their longevity as well. Nash says their fans have always allowed them to branch out, rather than just demand a nostalgia show of hits. "Our audiences have always loved us, they've always known that we're going to experiment, they always know that they're going to hear songs that they're familiar with and they always know that they're going to hear brand new songs," Nash told AP Radio. He says their fans have never changed; they've just allowed the band to entertain them and make their world a little better.
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Martha Burk, Chairperson of the National Council of Women's Organizations speaks during a press conference in Atlanta, Georgia April 10, 2003. Burk's group on Thursday intensified its campaign to smash the gender barrier at Augusta National Golf Club, calling on corporate members of the host of the prestigious Masters tournament to resign over its all-male membership policy.
Photo by Tami Chappell
Seals $6.6 Billion DirecTV Deal
Rupert Murdoch
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp Ltd clinched a deal to take control of U.S. satellite television company DirecTV, but the company's shares slid 9 percent on Thursday on concern over the hefty $6.6 billion price tag.
The cash-and-stock deal, which fulfils Murdoch's long-held dream to break into the U.S. satellite TV market, will result in a bigger-than-expected share issue to raise money. News Corp's forecast that DirecTV will only start adding to profits in 2006 added to investor worries.
The acquisition comes almost two decades after Murdoch first tried to enter the U.S. satellite TV business and rounds out his effort to build a diversified U.S. entertainment conglomerate. DirecTV's 11.3 million U.S. subscribers, the most in the country, complement News Corp's European, Asian and Latin American satellite services.
The deal, which is expected to pass anti-trust regulators, brings to a close General Motors Corp's two-year effort to sell DirecTV's parent company, Hughes Electronics Corp. It also provides the automaker with a welcome chunk of cash for its underfunded pension plan.
However, the FCC and the Justice Department may have questions about whether the acquisition of DirecTV would allow Murdoch to use TV programming as a club against cable companies and EchoStar. Housing DirecTV within Fox may cause regulators to seek assurances from News Corp. that it would not withhold key programming EchoStar needs to compete, experts said.
Rupert Murdoch
End of Glamorous Era
Concorde
When Concorde flies off into the sunset for the last time in October, it will be the end of a glamorous era for the celebrity travelers who crowned it queen of the jet set 30 years ago. News that both British Airways and Air France are retiring the needle-nosed supersonic jet will sadden the stars who made its passenger list read like a Who's Who of the rich and famous.
Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who regularly traveled on Concorde, was among them.
"It is a beautifully designed piece of engineering and, for me, traveling by Concorde between Europe and New York has been a joy for many years," he said. "I will definitely miss it."
Any rocker, model or superstar worth their salt has traveled in Concorde's plush, if slightly cramped, cabin, guzzling champagne and lobster at more than the speed of sound.
Many of its most devoted regulars achieved fame about the same time it first took to the skies in 1969 -- former Beatle Paul McCartney, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, actress Joan Collins, and singers Sir Elton John, and Phil Collins among them.
Although the bulk of Concorde's daily business was made up of business travelers, traveling on the jet was part and parcel of the rock star life and a visible sign that they had truly "made it."
Concorde's history is littered with rock star moments.
During the music marathon Live Aid in 1985, Phil Collins famously used the supersonic service to allow him to play at concerts in London and Philadelphia on the same day.
More recently, McCartney picked up his guitar on a pre-Christmas flight and within minutes had a group of otherwise staid businessmen belting out a string of Beatles' hits.
Concorde
Stolen in Broad Daylight
Sean Penn's Car
Actor Sean Penn's car -- with two guns in it -- was stolen in broad daylight as he had lunch on a busy street just a block from the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, police said on Thursday.
Penn, 42, who lives just north of San Francisco, was driving a black 1987 Buick Grand National, a collector's favorite. The thief also made off with two guns in the car that Penn had a permit to keep, a handgun and a Smith and Wesson revolver.
Police have not recovered the car, Kusmiss said.
Sean Penn's Car
Bangkok Postponed
Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones' first-ever Thailand concert, scheduled to take place Thursday night, has been indefinitely postponed due to band members being stranded in India following mechanical problems with their private plane, organisers said.
"Although Mick Jagger arrived in Bangkok April 9, the other three members were stuck in Mumbai (Bombay) because their private plane had technical problems," a BEC-Tero official told AFP.
A statement on the band's website said the concert would be rescheduled at a later date but gave no indication of when.
The British band had already cancelled concerts in Hong Kong and mainland China over concerns of a deadly atypical pneumonia virus sweeping parts of the globe.
Rolling Stones
North American Tour
Lou Reed
With the help of producer 7 Aurelius (Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys), Lou Reed has reworked his classic song "Walk on the Wild Side."
The new version of the song, titled "Walk on the Wild Side (Georgie Joins the Army)," is available on the singer's official Web site (
www.loureed.com) and sports a newly written verse: "Georgie went to join the army / earn some money to keep the family out of harm's way / now he's in the desert looking out for gas / he never dreamed of kickin' no Iraqi ass."
Reed will kick off a four-week North American tour June 3 in Philadelphia, to be preceded by an April 21-22 stand at New York's Bowery Ballroom and a European trek, which begins May 5 in Dublin. The shows come in support of his latest Sire album "The Raven," as well as the upcoming compilation "NYC Man: The Ultimate Lou Reed Collection."
Here are Lou Reed's North American tour dates:
April 21-22: New York (Bowery Ballroom)
June 3: Philadelphia (Tower Theater)
June 4: Vienna, Va. (Wolf Trap)
June 7: Boston (Orpheum Theater)
June 8: Gilford, N.H. (Meadowbrook Farm)
June 10-11: New York (Town Hall)
June 13: Toronto (Massey Hall)
June 15: Chicago (Skyline Stage/Navy Pier)
June 19: Tempe, Ariz. (Marquee Theater)
June 21-22: San Francisco (Warfield)
June 24: Los Angeles (Wiltern Theater)
June 26: Saratoga, Calif. (Mountain Winery)
June 28: Portland, Ore. (Roseland Theater)
June 29: Seattle (Moore Theater)
Lou Reed
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Musicians With Cameras
Playboy Models
Someone has finally heeded Nelly's advice.
The Grammy-winning rapper, whose hit song "Hot in Herre" urges the overheated to cool off by completely disrobing, is one of several musicians who picked up cameras to photograph a bevy of Playboy models posing in the buff.
His efforts are chronicled in the home video and DVD "Playboy's Hip Hop & Rock," released in stores Tuesday.
Other musicians who participated include Ja Rule, Xzibit, DMX, Bret Michaels, Tommy Lee, Korn's Jonathan Davis and Disturbed's David Draiman.
Playboy Models
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, left, and Greenwood, Miss. resident Phillip Carnaggio, second from left, discuss Scalia's interpretation of the constitution as it relates to abortion as they walk past a group of abortion rights advocates on the University of Mississippi campus, Thursday, April 10, 2003, in Oxford, Miss. Scalia had just delivered the James McClure Memorial Lecture in Law on the campus and was on his way to a public reception.
Photo by Robert Jordan
Baby News
Marion Jones
Olympic champion Marion Jones is to become a Mom in July. Tim Montgomery, the world's fastest man, is the father.
Jones, who won five medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, told the Los Angeles Times she plans to resume training later this year with the aim of preparing for the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The birth rules her out of this year's world championships in Paris in August.
The child will be the first for Jones, 27, who won gold in the 100 metres 200m and 4x400m relay and bronze medals in the long jump and 4x100m relay.
Montgomery, who set a world record of 9.78 seconds for the 100 metres last September, has a 21-month-old daughter from a previous relationship.
Marion Jones
CEO Charged
`Girls Gone Wild'
The man who makes "Girls Gone Wild" mail-order videos is facing sex- and drug-related charges after parents complained to police that he told minors to lie about their age on camera.
Joe Francis, chief executive of Mantra Entertainment, was arrested last week after searches of five locations and a private jet turned up videotapes that corroborated the stories of four 17-year-old girls and a 16-year-old, police said. In the "Girls Gone Wild" videos, college-age women bare their breasts while partying.
The girls came across a "Girls Gone Wild" van March 31 and were asked to go to a motel room to act out nude scenes in front of a video crew, police said. Two did and were paid $100 for their performances.
"One of the 17-year-old girls came clean to her mother, and they called us," said Bay County sheriff's spokeswoman Ruth Sasser.
Police said they found video to confirm that Francis told the 16-year-old to say she was 18 when he filmed her baring her breasts.
`Girls Gone Wild'
Cancels Invites to Asian Guests
Italy's Far East Film Festival
Organizers of Italy's Far East Film Festival have canceled invitations to several Asian directors, actors and producers, fearing the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Pressure from local health authorities in the northeastern city of Udine led organizers to cancel 22 invitations to film personalities from Hong Kong and Taiwan, two countries hit by the SARS contagion, said festival spokeswoman Sabrina Baracetti.
The festival, now at its fifth edition, runs from April 24 to May 1 in Udine, 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of Venice.
Italy's Far East Film Festival
Jessica Lynch TV Movie
NBC
The story of Jessica Lynch -- the U.S. soldier taken prisoner in Iraq and miraculously rescued -- is to be made into a television movie, with or without her family selling her story.
NBC television said on Thursday it was starting work on a script about the 19-year-old POW, who has become the most human American face of both the heroism and horror of the Iraq war.
Few details have emerged of Lynch's ordeal as a POW and her family have told competing media outlets they are not ready to discuss selling the rights to her story.
NBC said however that it was going ahead with a TV movie that would likely be broadcast toward the end of this year.
NBC
Boycott of French Eateries Un-American
NY Chefs
Dozens of New York's top restaurateurs are cooking up a campaign to deal with diners snubbing the city's French restaurants in a fit of pique over France's objections to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Chefs and owners of some of the city's finest eateries, including the 21 Club, Petrossian, Citarella and Tavern on the Green gathered at Le Cirque on Thursday to reveal a full-page ad to run in local newspapers on Friday urging the public to celebrate the city's diversity and not shun the French.
The ads will run under the banner of NYC & Company, the city's official tourism organization.
Jacques Capsouto of Capsouto Freres restaurant in Lower Manhattan said the backlash against the French is an added burden during already difficult economic times.
"There's a lot of things for the industry," he said. "We have bad economy. We have a bad stock market. We are downtown. The winter has been very cold. There's a war going on. There's a French name. There's no smoking -- so all together it's making it bad."
"The strength of New York is that most people come from different countries," he said. "My name is Capsouto, from the 15th century Portugal. My parents were born in Turkey. My brothers and myself were born in Egypt. We lived in France for a short while and made New York our home.
"My chef has French parents, but was born in Queens. My pastry chef is Chinese. My floor staff comes from all over the world. We are all together here. One city."
NY Chefs
Set to Invade Italy
Fox News
Rupert Murdoch's flag-waving Fox News, fresh from its ratings victory in the United States, is set to challenge Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's television news channels in a battle for the airwaves.
Murdoch's News Corp last week got a green light from the European Commission to buy Italian pay-TV channel Telepiu in order to merge with its Rome-based Stream channel.
The new network, to be called Sky Italia, move will create a near monopoly in Italian pay-TV.
But analysts said on Thursday that Fox News "Italian-style" is likely to pitch impartiality rather than patriotism in order to compete in news with the networks owned by the center-right leader, and to a lesser extent with state-broadcaster RAI.
Bursting onto the media turf of Berlusconi, who doubles as the country's prime minister, it is set to bring a brand new voice to a country where much of the press is tied up with business and political interests.
Berlusconi's empire includes three television stations, a newspaper and a publishing house while through his political office he has jurisdiction RAI. RAI and Mediaset's channels hold a near-duopoly of Italian free-TV.
Fox News
Another Special for Fox
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson, who delivered millions of viewers to ABC, NBC and Fox during the February ratings sweeps, will be the subject of a two-hour Fox special to kick off the next sweeps period.
The program, with the working title "Michael Jackson's Private Home Movies," will offer a peek into the pop star's private home movie collection, Fox said.
The April 24 show will provide "unprecedented access to thousands of hours of never-before-seen footage revealing his real life, family and friends," the network said.
Michael Jackson
Placed In Program
Joshua Jackson
"Dawson's Creek" co-star Joshua Jackson was accepted into an alcohol education program after his arrest at a hockey game.
Jackson was placed in the progam Wednesday after admitting he was drunk and disruptive at a Nov. 9 Carolina Hurricanes game. The 24-year-old plays Pacey on the WB television drama, which has been filmed mostly in Wilmington during its six-year run. The series' two-hour finale airs May 14.
As part of the program, Jackson must attend 15 hours of alcohol and substance abuse education, which costs $150, and complete 24 hours of community service. He also must remain employed and not be convicted of any misdemeanor or felony charges while in the program.
Joshua Jackson
In Memory
Edward Keating
Edward Keating, the founder and publisher of Ramparts, a leading left-wing magazine in the 1960s, has died of cancer at age 77, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday.
Backed by family money, Keating founded Ramparts in 1962 and the magazine became a feisty, left-wing Catholic publication that took on the church, the political establishment and the Vietnam War.
"He published the most important alternative publication in the country at that time and it had a big impact," former Ramparts editor Robert Scheer told the Chronicle.
One famous Ramparts article in 1967 detailed how the CIA had funded the liberal National Student Association. The magazine also tackled other much debated issues of the day such as theories that President John Kennedy was killed in a conspiracy.
As family funding ran low and the publication sought new ways to raise money, Keating was removed as publisher in 1967; the magazine eventually folded in 1975.
In 1971 Keating published a book on Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton titled "Free Huey!."
Keating died on April 2 at Stanford Medical Center.
Edward Keating
Mia the Meerkat stands on the shoulder of Mark Habben, an animal activities presenter at London Zoo, Thursday April 10, 2003. The meerkats have a new state-of-the-art home at the zoo, part of a development called 'Happy Families', which also includes new enclosures for otters and marmosets. PHoto by John Stillwell
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'The Osbournes'
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