In The Chaos Household
Thursday Night TV
Watched 'Friends' - ewwwww, talk about jumping the shark, this show has jumped
the whole freaking aquarium. The 2nd story of Monica & Chandler's honeymoon was mean-spirited,
whiny and unfunny. The primary story of Rachel & her sperm donor, Ross, was not quite
as bad, but, that's not saying much.
Also watched 'Will & Grace, but kept wishing it was titled 'Jack & Karen'.
Followed that with 'Just Shoot Me', which had an episode featuring David Spade, but
I watch it for George Segal. (What can I say - have a soft spot for banjo pickers). Can
remember George on the old 'Smothers Brothers Show' - wish that show was in
syndication.
Tonight, there doesn't seem much of interest to me, except for a couple of old movies
on AMC - both are titled 'The Raven', and both have Boris Karloff. One is in black and
white, and the other is a Roger Corman "classic" with Karloff, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre,
and an incredibly young and studly Jack Nicholson.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
Beans, Beans, The Musical Fruit...
"Survivor 3"
``Survivor'' returned Thursday for another round of roughing it, this time from
Africa and with a can of beans the deciding factor in who became the first of
16 players voted out.
As usual, CBS' new ``Survivor'' stranded a diverse band of castaways from all
over the United States in the middle of nowhere - this time Kenya's dry, grassy
Shaba National Reserve. Then they were divided into two competing tribes:
Boran and Samburu.
Trudging with supplies to their campsites, the castaways soon were complaining.
And butting heads.
Their first ``immunity'' challenge: a race to light three fire towers. Samburu
won, which meant the eight members of the opposing Boran tribe had to appear
before host Jeff Probst at tribal council.
Voted out: Diane Ogden, a mail carrier from Lincoln, Neb. She and Clarence
Black, a high school basketball coach, had sneaked a can of beans, much to the
anger of their fellow tribe members. In the resulting dispute over who was to
blame, she lost.
``Survivor: Africa,'' which was taped last summer (and whose winner CBS is
jealously guarding), follows two wildly popular editions. The first ``Survivor''
was a national craze in summer 2000, and ``Survivor: The Australian Outback''
was the highest-rated series last season.
Scant buzz ushered in this edition, and a ``Survivor'' preview special last week
drew just one-third the audience of its NBC rival ``Friends.''
Far graver issues of survival dislodged ``Survivor'' from Thursday's scheduled
8 p.m. start time in the Eastern and Central zones. Deferring to President
Bush's televised news conference, the premiere didn't begin until about 8:45 p.m.
What impact that delay had on the ``Survivor'' audience remains to be seen, but
there's no doubt ``Survivor: The Australian Outback'' kicked off with more
fanfare last January: Its lead-in was the Super Bowl.
Survivor 3
Picking Up Where BC Left Off...
"Boondocks" (9 Oct 01)
Really like this one...gonna let it ride another day.
Fun Link
A Wise Warning
A Wise Warning
Thanks, Alex
Where's The Big Dog?
Bill Clinton
Both Bill & Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton were at the memorial service at the
Pentagon 11 October, 2001.
Oh, That FCC...
Commercials For PBS
As television makes the switch to digital broadcasting, public TV stations can
run commercials for the first time.
The Federal Communications Commission, in a 3-1 vote, ruled Thursday that the
stations can display advertisements on some of the new data or subscription
services - more likely to be viewed on personal computers and special TV
attachments than on the family set.
Digital is a new, more efficient technology that allows broadcasters to transmit
much more programming over the same channel than is possible with traditional
analog technology.
The nation's 354 public television stations now are funded solely through
private donations and government subsidies.
The commission retained the current advertising ban on public TV's free
over-the-air programming. That means no commercial interruption of PBS classics
such as ``Antiques Roadshow,'' ``Masterpiece Theatre,'' and ``NOVA'' beyond the
corporate sponsorship messages that now are aired.
The FCC also ruled that an undefined ``substantial majority'' of a station's
entire weekly digital capacity must remain noncommercial.
In allowing ads on some of public TV's new digital services, the commission said
public broadcasters will now be subject to a 5 percent tax on revenue from those
new channels.
Congress determined that broadcasters must broadcast only digital TV by the end
of 2006 and return their analog channels to the government for other uses.
Though few people own still-pricey digital TVs, relatively inexpensive
converters can be used to view digital programming on regular sets. About 40
public TV stations now broadcast in digital.
Public-interest groups see the FCC ruling as a threat to the mission of public
TV to provide a noncommercial broadcast alternative.
``The sale of advertising puts on the block one of the very things that makes
public television special and different from commercial broadcasting,'' said
commissioner Michael Copps, the lone dissenter.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell disagreed.
``The soul of public broadcasting is in no way compromised,'' he said. ``I don't
think it is a path to commercialization, but an extension of one that already exists.''
Buh-Bye PBS
Silliness
Afghan TV Guide
AFGHAN TV GUIDE
MONDAYS:
8:00 - "Husseinfeld"
8:30 - "Mad About Everything"
9:00 - "Suddenly Sanctions"
9:30 - "The Brian Benben Bin Laden Show"
10:00 - "Allah McBeal"
TUESDAYS:
8:00 - "Wheel of Terror and Fortune"
8:30 - "The Price is Right If Osama Says It's Right"
9:00 - "Children Are Forbidden From Saying The Darndest Things"
9:30 - "Afganistan's Wackiest Public Execution Bloopers"
10:00 - "Buffy The Yankee Imperialist Dog Slayer"
WEDNESDAYS:
8:00 - "U.S. Military Secrets Revealed"
8:30 - "When Northern Alliances Attack"
9:00 - "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pita Bread"
9:30 - "Just Shoot Everyone"
10:00 - "Veilwatch"
THURSDAYS:
8:00 - "Fatima Loves Chachi"
8:30 - "M*U*S*T*A*S*H"
9:00 - "Veronicas Closet Full of Long, Black, Shapeless Dresses and Veils"
9:30 - "My Two Baghdads"
10:00 - "Diagnosis: Heresy"
FRIDAYS:
8:00 - "Judge Laden"
8:30 - "Funniest Super 8 Home Movies"
9:00 - "Captured Northern Alliance Rebels Say the Darndest Things"
9:30 - "Ahmeds Creek"
10:00 - "No-witness News"
and...
"Refugee: The Afghani Outback"
"Malcolm in the Middle East"
"Everybody Loves Rudy"
"Fresh Prince of Saudi Arabia"
Thanks, tort
Name Change Ahead?
"Anthrax", The Band
The thrash-metal band Anthrax might change its name. "It's as though it's 1937
and I'm a bandleader named Freddie Hitler," lead singer Scott Ian, 37, told
the Washington Post.
"Maybe we should change the name now. A friend suggested Basket of Puppies."
Ian, who came up with the name 20 years ago in high school biology class, said,
"People keep coming up to me and saying, 'Hey, wouldn't it be funny if you got
anthrax?' I'm like, 'Oh, that would be hilarious.' " He's stocked up on Cipro,
the antidote for the germ.
"I will not die an ironic death."
"Anthrax", The Band
BartCop TV!
Visit the site at BC TV
The 'Vidiot' never seems to rest!
Every show on TV must be listed--days worth of reading there.
For an amazing variety of information on an astounding array of tv programs check out
BC TV!
Disney News
Buh-Bye 'What About Joan'
ABC announced a major revamp of its Tuesday night lineup, pulling the plug on
Joan Cusack's What About Joan and bringing back NYPD Blue.
Joan, a midseason replacement show last season, has become the second casualty of the fall
season. CBS axed Danny earlier this week.
ABC immediately yanked Joan off its schedule. Two episodes into the season, Joan
averaged 8.7 million viewers to go with its 6.1 household rating and 9 share.
Those numbers were substantially lower than its lead-in, Dharma & Greg, which
averaged 10.9 million viewers and a 7.3 rating/11 share after two airings.
Spin City will permanently fill Joan's 8:30 p.m. ET/PT slot effective November 6.
(Dharma & Greg reruns will hold down the vacated time period until them.)
As part of the makeover, ABC will bring back NYPD Blue to its Tuesday roster,
but an hour earlier than usual--at 9 p.m. The network had initially shifted its
veteran cop hit for Wednesdays at 10 p.m. when it unveiled its schedule in
May. (20/20 will continue to occupy the Wednesday slot.)
Holding in the Tuesday 10 p.m. spot will be the rookie legal drama Philly.
Additionally, the new Jason Alexander sitcom Bob Patterson will move from
Tuesdays at 9 p.m. to Wednesdays at 9:30. All the changes will be in place
as of November 13.
The shakeup boils down to a simple numbers game. Traditionally, Tuesday nights
have been to ABC what Thursdays are to NBC--a ratings juggernaut. ABC had
dominated the day for years, thanks to hits like Roseanne and Home Improvement.
But this year ABC's Nielsens are in the tank--the network finished third behind
NBC and CBS last week.
"People are looking for the comfort of familiar shows from last year, familiar
time periods, and seeking out news," ABC programming boss Stu Bloomberg tells
the Associated Press. "[Cusack was] such a pleasure to watch. Yet her show was
not performing well...we had to shore up the schedule."
Despite the drastic overhaul, ABC might have some even bigger changes ahead.
Faced with a dwindling advertising market, the network is toying with scrapping
its Saturday night programming altogether, according to a report this week in
the Los Angeles Times.
Buh-Bye, Joan
New! Updated!
BartCop Astrology
Check it out at BC Astrology.
"Guitar Greats" is still on hiatus, but, this week, it's a look at 'The Birth of
Aviation', and a relevant USA horoscope courtesy of Marc Penfield.
Very interesting reading!
May The Force Be With You
New Religion - Jedi
Forget about King Arthur and the knights of the round table. A new Force is
spreading through the onetime kingdom of Camelot.
Thousands of wannabe Luke Skywalkers in Britain have apparently converted to the
Force, listing "Jedi Knight" as their faith on the country's 2001 national
census form, Britain's Web-based news service Ananova reports.
Spurred reportedly by a fan's jokey email campaign, more than 10,000 Britons put
down George Lucas' mythical Star Wars religion as their own, forcing the
government's Office for National Statistics to classify "Jedi Knight" as a
separate category in compiling the statistics.
"When the forms are processed, all data is encoded and we have given Jedi Knight
a code because a large group of people have entered it on their forms," an ONS
spokesman tells Ananova. "But we are not saying that this is an official religion."
Referring to the mass conversion to the Force as "total nonsense," the spokesman
says people who put down Star Wars as a religion on the forms cause major
headaches for census officials.
"As far as I'm aware, nobody within the government will make this an official
religion no matter how many people sign up to it. It is a really useless piece
of information," groused the spokesman, who's obviously a member of the Dark Side.
While the ONS has added the Jedi category, it has no plans to include statistics
on Force followers in with data on the more established faiths. At least for now.
Officials say if there are enough respondents, the data will reflect it.
Lucasfilm did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Even if the ONS decides to modify its report, we won't learn exactly how many
Jedis populate the United Kingdom until the census comes out. And it's not due
until fall 2002 at the earliest.
Jedi's In Bloom
Memphis, TN
National Civil Rights Museum
Sidney Poitier says he was moved by his first visit to the National Civil Rights Museum.
``That experience today, for me, walking through the museum, enlightened me,''
the 74-year-old actor said Wednesday. ``I have always looked at my history as
very special. I will from now henceforth look at my history as very, very special.''
The museum is the site of the former Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King
was slain in 1968.
Poitier was in Memphis to receive the museum's annual Freedom Award. The other
recipient of the award this year was former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias.
Sidney Poitier
New!
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Don't worry about the HTML, just send text, or rich text, or a Word document, photos, video, whatever you have, and Michele will take care of the rest. Don't hesitate to write with any questions you may have and bring on the recipes!
To check out 'Train Station Chicken', and more (like 'Cranberry Autumn Tea'),
In The Kitchen With BartCop
The Shrinking Media World
NBC Buys Telemundo
NBC announced Thursday that it is buying Telemundo Communications Group Inc.,
the No. 2 Spanish-language broadcaster in the United States, for about $2 billion
in cash and stock.
The deal would give NBC a strong foothold in the burgeoning arena of Hispanic
media, which has attracted the attention of major media conglomerates due to the
rapidly expanding Hispanic population.
Speaking at a news conference, NBC chairman Bob Wright said the company had been
in talks to buy Telemundo for more than three years.
GE's stock rose $1.04 to $38.95 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Sony Corp. currently owns about 40 percent of the closely held Telemundo, while
Liberty Media, a company controlled by cable pioneer John Malone, has a
35 percent stake. The rest is held by other investors.
NBC is the only major network not owned by a larger media empire. ABC is owned
by Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. owns CBS and UPN; Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
owns Fox; and AOL Time Warner Inc. owns WB.
Earlier Thursday, GE reported that NBC's revenues had tumbled 45 percent in the
third quarter. Like other broadcasters, NBC has been hit by a revenue shortfall
as advertisers pulled back in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
NBC is believed to have bested a rival bid for Telemundo from Viacom, which in
addition to CBS also owns MTV, the Paramount studio, Blockbuster and numerous
radio stations. Viacom had already expanded into niche broadcasting with the
purchase of BET, a cable network aimed at black viewers.
The deal is not expected to face major regulatory hurdles. Even after combining
the 10 full-power television stations owned by Telemundo with the 13 stations it
already owns, NBC's national audience reach would remain under 30 percent, well
under the 35 percent cap currently permitted by the government.
In addition to the NBC broadcast network, NBC also owns CNBC, the business news
cable channel, a half-interest in news channel MSNBC along with Microsoft Corp.,
as well as a minority stake in Paxson Communications Corp., owner of the
family-friendly PAX broadcast network.
NBC/Telemundo
NBC may be the only major network not owned by a larger media empire, but, it is
owned by GE...and, well, at least Disney doesn't manufacture nukes and weapons of mass destruction
on the side.
The 3 tones NBC uses to identify itself are the notes 'G', 'E', 'C'...as in
General Electric Company.
"A Tale Of 2 Ditties"
Woody & Irving
Woody & Irving: Want to get your head ripped off and shoved into your front
pocket? Try waltzing into a crowded room these days and proclaiming Irving
Berlin's "God Bless America" to be (and you'd be lifting this from an essay that
appeared in the New York Times last year) "a supreme example of Tin Pan Alley's
empty artifice and bloated emotionalism."
That was almost certainly the way it sounded to Woody Guthrie as he
criss-crossed this land in 1940 being hounded, it seemed to him, by Kate Smith's
rendering of the wildly popular hit record.
In Joe Klein's excellent biography, "Woody Guthrie: A Life," we find that
"Irving Berlin's patriotic pop tune seemed to be everywhere. (Guthrie) heard it
in Pampa, in Konawa, on car radios, in diners, and it seemed that every time he
stopped in a roadhouse for a shot of warm-up whiskey, some maudlin joker would
plunk a nickel in a jukebox and play it just for spite. No piece of music had
bothered him so much since 'This World Is Not My Home,' although Bing Crosby's
narcotic, lay-down-and-die version of 'Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams, and Dream
Your Troubles Away' had come close. 'God Bless America,' indeed - it was just
another of those songs that told people not to worry, that God was in the
driver's seat. Some sort of response obviously was called for and, as he hitched
north and east through Appalachia's foggy ghostlands, a string of words began to
take shape in Woody's mind."
Guthrie's answer to Berlin's smash hit was "This Land Is Your Land," which he
originally titled "God Blessed America," and the song has in the intervening
years become a touchstone for folk, rock and country artists as the more starkly
gorgeous, grittier and glancingly critical (in its closing, frequently omitted,
verses) anthem to this country.
When Guthrie wrote "This land is your land," he meant it literally - that the
land was communal, in an economic sense:
Guthrie's tune trudges the breadth of the land in a black-and-white documentary
of its people and places, while Berlin's piece soars above it all in IMAXian
grandeur, from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam.
To say that one piece is better than the other in these days of tragedy in which
so many search for solace in music is caviling at best, but it's noteworthy that
were it not for Berlin's "God Bless America," Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land"
wouldn't exist.
Woody & Irving: by Tim Grobaty of the Long Beach Press-Telegram
As The Lyrics Were Copywritten...
"This Land" by Woody Guthrie
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie
Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
(Verse:)
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
(Verse:)
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
(Verse:)
The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
(Verse:)
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
Chorus
(Verse:)
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.
Chorus (2x)
©1956 (renewed 1984), 1958 (renewed 1986) and 1970 TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)
Woody's Lyrics by way of Arlo
Woody's guitar was inscribed with the phrase "This machine kills fascists".
He was a very WISE man.
But, then, I'm old enough to remember when 'New York Island' was 'Bedloe Island'...
First Person Diary
Ray Berry
Ray has temporarily (I hope), suspended 'Bush-Toons'. In its place, he has put
his daily diary of life in Manhattan since Tuesday.
Ray has great observational abilities, and a wonderful way with words.
To visit & read, www.bush-toons.com
In Memory
Dr. John C. Lilly
Dr. John Cunningham Lilly, who championed the study of interspecies
communications during a career that probed the mystery of human consciousness,
died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of heart failure. He was 86.
An inventor, author and researcher, Lilly was a member of a generation of
counterculture scientists and thinkers that included Ram Dass, Werner Erhard
and Timothy Leary, all frequent visitors to the Lilly home.
He never failed to stir controversy, especially among mainstream scientists.
Lilly gained renown in the 1950s after developing the isolation tank. Lily
saw the tanks, in which users are isolated from almost all external stimuli,
as a means to explore the nature of human consciousness.
He later combined that work with his efforts to communicate with dolphins, as
well as experiments with psychedelics.
``During a session in an isolation tank, constructed over a pool where dolphins
were swimming, I participated in a conversation between the dolphins. It drove
me crazy, there was too much information, they communicated so fast,'' Lilly
wrote of one such experience.
Dolphins figured large in the 19 books Lilly wrote, including ``Man and
Dolphin'' and ``The Mind of the Dolphin.''
``It was realizing there is a universe greater than just humans,'' his daughter,
Cynthia Lilly Cantwell, said of his research.
Lilly's work inspired two Hollywood movies, ``The Day of the Dolphin'' and ``Altered States.''
Lilly was born Jan. 6, 1915, in Saint Paul, Minn. He earned his bachelor's
degree at the California Institute of Technology and studied medicine at Dartmouth
Medical School before earning his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
During World War II, he conducted high-altitude research and later trained as a psychoanalyst.
In the 1950s, he began studying how bottlenose dolphins vocalize, establishing
centers in the U.S. Virgin Islands and, later, San Francisco, to study dolphins.
A decade later, he began experimenting with psychedelics, including LSD, often
while floating in isolation.
www.johnclilly.com
Still MISSING
Marc Chagall's "Study for 'Over Vitebsk'"
