'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Comment
No-CARB Diet
You owe it to your fellow Americans to go on the No-CARB Diet in 2004
No Cheney
No Ashcroft
No Rumsfeld
No Bush
Thanks, Shari!
Need to give up Rice, too!
Selected Saturday Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Cooler & quite pleasant.
Got some great junk mail - it came with a paper 'prayer rug'. It states "This Prayer Rug is soaked with the Power of Prayer for you. Use it immediately, then please return it with your Prayer Needs Checked on our letter to you." It must be mailed to a second home that needs a blessing after you use it.
On the other side, there is a picture of a very waspy Jesus, with his eyes closed. They promise that if I stare at Jesus long enough his eyes will open & stare back into mine.
Back in the 80s, one of my uncles was in the print trade amd did 'prayer rugs' for a local televangelist. My uncle thought the 'good rev's' scam was the sweetest racket he'd ever encountered.
Ah, memories....
Today is the 2nd anniversary of Marc Perkel's unplanned vacation in downtown LA, followed by a road trip to Long Beach. ; )
Tonight, Saturday, CBS begins the night with the Season Finale of 'Star Search', followed by a FRESH 'Hack', then a
RERUN 'The District'.
NBC starts the night by throwing away a FRESH 'Tracy Morgan', followed by the evening's traditional fare of 'nothing but RERUNs' - a RERUN 'Whoopi', followed by a
RERUN 'Frasier', then a RERUN 'Happy Family', followed by a RERUN 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
'SNL' is FRESH with Ben Affleck hosting and music by N.E.R.D.
ABC opens the night with the movie 'Dr. Doolittle' (Eddie Murphy version), followed by a RERUN 'America's So-Called Funniest Videos'.
The WB offers the movie 'A Walk On The Moon'.
Faux has the usual 'Cops', 'Cops', and 'America's Most Wanted'.
'MAD TV' is FRESH, with Kevin Smith.
UPN fills the night with the movie 'F/X'.
A&E has 'City Confidential', 'American Justice', 'Cold Case Files', and 'City Confidential'.
AMC offers the movie 'In Harm's Way', followed by the movie 'Navy SEALS', then the movie 'Midway'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 3;
[6:40pm] 'My Hero' - Episode 3;
[7:20pm] 'Keeping Up Appearances' - Episode 4;
[8pm] 'Rebus' - Mortal Causes;
[10pm] 'Trust' - Episode 3;
[11pm] 'Dead Ringers' - Episode 5;
[11:30pm] 'Dead Ringers' - Episode 4;
[12am] 'Rebus' - Mortal Causes;
[2am] 'Trust' - Episode 3;
[3am] 'Dead Ringers' - Episode 5;
[3:30am] 'Dead Ringers' - Episode 4;
[4am] 'Rebus' - Mortal Causes;
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Queer Eye', followed by the movie 'Good Will Hunting', then the movie 'Good Will Hunting', again.
Comedy Central has 'MAD TV', followed by double shots - 'Reno 911!', followed by another 'Reno 911!', 'Chappelle's Show', followed by another 'Chappelle's Show', and
'The Man Show', followed by another 'The Man Show'.
History 'Punishment', followed by the movie 'Escape From Alcatraz', then 'Escape! Tales Of Suspence', and 'Vanishings'.
IFC:
[4PM] 'Darien Gap' (1996);
[5:45PM] 'Johnny Stecchino' (1991);
[7:30PM] 'Dinner For Five 22';
[8PM] 'Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas' (1998);
[10PM] 'Requiem for a Dream' (2000);
[11:45PM] 'Another Day In Paradise' (1998);
[1:30AM] 'Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas' (1998);
[3:30AM] 'Requiem for a Dream' (2000);
[5:15AM] 'Short: A Pregnant Moment' (1999)
[5:45AM] 'IFC In Theaters'. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has the movie 'The Beast', followed by the FRESH made-for-sci-fi-channel-movie 'Snakehead Terror'.
Sundance:
[5:00PM] 'Festival in Cannes' (Feature);
[6:45PM] 'Sidewalks of New York' (Feature);
[8:35 PM] 'Anatomy of A Scene: Sidewalks of New York' (Original Production);
[9PM] 'Ridicule' (Feature);
[10:45PM] 'Le Dernier Reve' (Short):
[11PM] 'Black Picket Fence' (Documentary);
[12:35AM] 'Fulltime Killer' (World Cinema);
[2:20AM] 'The Dream Catcher' (Feature);
[4AM] 'Marathon' (World Cinema);
[5:30AM] 'Searching for Paradise' (Feature). (ALL TIMES EST)
TCM:
[6am] 'Ring Of Fire' (1961);
[8am] 'Ride The Pink Horse' (1947)
[10am] 'The Hallelujah Trail' (1965);
[1pm] 'The Last Outpost' (1951);
[2:30pm] 'Dawn At Socorro' (1954);
[4pm] 'Stagecoach' (1939);
[6pm] 'To Hell And Back' (1955);
[8pm] 'Chariots Of Fire' (1981);
[10:15pm] 'Walk, Don't Run' (1966);
[12:15am] 'Pat And Mike' (1952);
[2am] 'Caddyshack' (1980);
[4am] 'A Thousand Clowns' (1965). (ALL TIMES EST)
Legendary blues musician Bobby Blue Bland, center, poses for photographers with singer Patti LaBelle, left and actress Phylicia Rashad during a media reception prior to the 20th anniversary National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters dinner Friday, March 12, 2004, in Washington. Bland was to receive NABOB's Pioneer in Music Award, LaBelle was being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award and Rashad was a guest presenter for the evening.
Photo by Ron Thomas
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Responds to Indecency Uproar
George Carlin
George Carlin famously dissected "The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" as a way to explore what everyone was so uptight about.
Thirty-two years later the same debate is still raging, now fueled by Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash, the suspension of Howard Stern's radio show from six stations and new House legislation that would raise a performer's indecency fine from $11,000 to $500,000.
So what does the 66-year-old Carlin think of the current handwringing over what is indecent, profane, obscene, immoral, lewd or insulting?
"More of the same, more of the same. What are we, surprised?" Carlin told The Associated Press on Friday
He blamed it on religious moralism, media commercialism and election-year politics.
For the rest, George Carlin
www.georgecarlin.com
Set for June
World Guitar Congress
Guitarists from classical, jazz, country, rock, blues, flamenco and fusion styles will gather in June for "The First World Guitar Congress."
About 50 musicians will participate, including electric guitar pioneer Les Paul, classical guitarist Sharon Isbin and jazz musician Pat Martino. Composers Jim Hall and Ronaldo Miranda also are scheduled to participate. Emilia Segovia, wife of the late guitarist Andres Segovia, is the honorary president of the event.
The event is scheduled June 2-9 at 10 different venues at Towson University and Baltimore. Two concerts are scheduled at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore.
World Guitar Congress
World Guitar Congress Info
French singer Charles Aznavour poses for the photographers in front of the Berlin landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, Friday, March 12, 2004. while promoting his latest album 'Je voyage', or 'I Travel.' Aznavour will perform on stage in Berlin on March 20, 2004.
Photo by Roberto Pfeil
Heads Back to the Big Screen
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand is heading back to movie screens for the first time in eight years to play Ben Stiller's mom in a sequel to the hit comedy "Meet the Parents." A spokesman for Universal Pictures said Friday Streisand is in final negotiations for the role.
The sequel, "Meet the Fockers," is set to go into production April 5 with Jay Roach back as director. The film is slated for release on Dec. 22, the studio spokesman said.
All the principal cast members from "Meet the Parents" -- Stiller, Robert De Niro, Blythe Danner and Teri Polo -- are returning for the sequel, along with Dustin Hoffman, who has been cast as Stiller's father.
Barbra Streisand
Newest Star on Hollywood Walk O'Fame
Dr. Seuss
In a ceremony that would have impressed plain-belly and star-belly Sneetches alike, children's author Dr. Seuss was posthumously honored on Thursday with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Seuss died in September 1991 at age 87. His widow, Audrey Geisel, 82, accepted the honor on her late husband's behalf.
Seuss' ties to Hollywood date back to his World War II service as head of the Animation Division of the Armed Forces Motion Picture unit under then Col. Frank Capra. He shared writing credits on a 1947 post-war film about Japanese propaganda, "Design for Death," which won an Oscar for best feature documentary.
Universal footed the $15,000 bill for the event -- $5,000 of which goes to the care and maintenance of the 2,249th star to be enshrined in the sidewalk along Hollywood Boulevard and adjacent streets.
Dr. Seuss
Coming 31 March, 2004
Air America Radio
Air America Radio will debut its programming on radio stations WLIB (AM 1190am) in New York, WNTD (AM 950) in Chicago and KBLA (AM 1580) in Los Angeles and a station in San Francisco to be named before launch.
Air America Radio
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Considered Quitting
Kurt Cobain
In the months before he shot himself, American rock legend Kurt Cobain was considering quitting his band Nirvana to work with his wife, singer Courtney Love, according to a previously unpublished interview.
Nirvana's tragic frontman said he had a stronger musical affinity with Love's own band, Hole, than he had found with any other musicians, according to Britain's "Uncut" magazine, which will publish the interview next Monday ahead of the 10th anniversary of his death.
Cobain said in the interview, originally intended for French television, that he was thinking of moving away from his grunge roots toward acoustic music.
"It might be nice to start playing acoustic guitar and be thought of as a singer and a songwriter, rather than a grunge rocker," he said. "I could sit down on a chair and play acoustic guitar like Johnny Cash or something, and it won't be a big joke."
Kurt Cobain
An Australian Museum curator looks at rows of folded, serrated teeth on the jaw of a bull shark on display at the Australian Museum in Sydney March 12, 2004. One of the most aggressive species of sharks, bull sharks are found in oceans and estuaries around the world from the Pacific to the Amazon River and are believed responsible for many shark attacks on humans. Omniverous bull sharks often lurk in murky waters near popular swimming spots and can attack swimmers they mistake for struggling or injured fish.
Photo by Will Burgess
Sheds 58 Pounds
Jerry Lewis
There's a lot less of Jerry Lewis these days. The comedian has lost 58 pounds, and is hoping to shed 22 more after weighing as much as 260 pounds while he was taking steroids for pulmonary fibrosis.
He checked in Oct. 6 at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas for a managed withdrawal from prednisone, a steroid he was taking for the chronic lung ailment. He was discharged Jan. 16.
Lewis turns 78 Tuesday, but said he never thought he'd live to see 76 because of the chronic back pain from the many falls he took as part of his high-energy comic routine dating back to the 1940s. He said that since having a "pain pacemaker" surgically implanted in April 2002 to block pain signals to his brain, he no longer suffers.
Jerry Lewis
Self-Destructing DVDs Rolling Into Florida
Disney
Walt Disney Co. hopes to capitalize on exploding interest in its self-destructing DVDs by expanding trials of the discs into Florida and other major markets in April, the company said on Friday.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Disney's video unit, plans to cut the price to $5.99 from $6.99 as it nearly quadruples the number of outlets with the discs, aimed chiefly at video renters who find returns a hassle, a spokesman said.
The self-destructing EZ-D DVDs, developed by privately held Flexplay Technologies, quit playing 48 hours after they are opened as a chemical reacts with air, obscuring the tracks on the disc so a laser cannot read them.
Disney
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Lawsuit Accuses Extortion
DirecTV
A racketeering lawsuit filed this week in federal court accuses DirecTV of using a national campaign against satellite TV piracy to extort millions of dollars from consumers.
Duplicating complaints brought in California, the class-action fraud suit centers on letters sent by DirecTV to suspected hackers whose names have showed up on credit-card receipts and store records.
The lawsuit says DirecTV and its former parent, Hughes Electronics, have used the letters to intimidate people into paying $3,500 each and more to avoid being sued for piracy or signal theft. It says at least 10,000 people since mid-2002 have paid settlements and that many did so under duress.
DirecTV
Kashmiri people walk through a mustard field with apricot trees in Kanibal on the outskirts of Srinagar March 12, 2004. With the onset of spring in the troubled Kashmir region, the mustard fields, almond and apricot trees bloom.
Photo by Danish Ismail
Another Charmer Courtesy Clear Channel
'Elliot in the Morning'
The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday that Clear Channel Communications Inc. should pay the maximum penalty of nearly $250,000 for airing a sexually explicit radio broadcast.
Clear Channel, the nation's largest radio-station owner, should pay $247,500 -- the maximum indecency fine allowable by law -- for an episode of "Elliot in the Morning" that aired on stations in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Delaware, the FCC said.
Earlier this month, Clear Channel agreed to pay $755,000 for airing indecent material by another disc jockey, Bubba the Love Sponge.
'Elliot in the Morning'
Interview Bites Him On The Ass
David Crosby
Three weeks before he was arrested on marijuana and gun possession charges, singer David Crosby told a newspaper he was through with drugs.
Crosby, who was to perform Friday in Frederick, told The Frederick News-Post in a mid-February interview that drugs were no longer a part of his life.
The newspaper published the story Thursday.
David Crosby
A pink pickup truck and an Airstream trailer are seen parked on Ocean Drive at Miami Beach, Fla. Thursday, March 11, 2004. The trailer will be the home for socialites-turned-TV stars Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie during a 30-day road trip as they film the sequel to their hit reality televsion series 'The Simple Life.'
Photo by Bill Cooke
On Display In Detroit
'Whistler's Mother'
James McNeill Whistler left for Europe when he was 21 and never returned to the United States.
His most famous painting doesn't make its way across the Atlantic all that often either, which is what makes its upcoming three-month stay in Detroit so unique. Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1: Portrait of the Painter's Mother - better known as Whistler's Mother - has only visited the United States a few times in the past half-century. But beginning Sunday and through June 6, visitors can enjoy the 19th-century image at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Its home is the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
The Detroit exhibition, entitled American Attitude: Whistler and His Followers, focuses on the impact Whistler had on a generation of other American artists.
The 63 pieces in the show include 12 other paintings by Whistler as well as works by John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Wilmer Dewing and Henry Ossawa Tanner.
For a lot more, 'Whistler's Mother'
To Emerge in May
Cicadas
After 17 years of relative quiet, Mother Nature is bringing the noise. Periodical cicadas, a species of the grasshopper-like insects best known for the scratching, screeching "singing" of the males, will emerge this May, filling forests in more than a dozen states. Almost as abruptly as they arrive, they'll disappear underground for another 17 years.
There are at least 13 broods of 17-year cicadas, plus another five broods that emerge every 13 years. The last to emerge, Brood IX, was seen last spring in parts of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina.
This year, it's time for Brood X, the so-called "Big Brood," to surface. Its range stretches from Georgia, west through Tennessee and to isolated pockets of Missouri, north along the Ohio Valley and into Michigan, and east into New Jersey and New York.
No other periodical cicada covers so much ground. And with hundreds of them per acre in infested areas, the noise will be hard to miss.
For a lot more, Cicadas
PSU College of Agricultural Sciences Periodical Cicada Fact Sheet
In Memory
Alf Bicknell
Alf Bicknell, chauffeur to the Beatles at the height of their fame and inspiration for the song, "Baby You Can Drive My Car," has died at the age of 75, the band's former promoter said Thursday.
Sam Leach said Bicknell died at his home in Oxford, England on Tuesday. The cause of death was not given.
Leach said the chauffeur started working for the Beatles in 1964 during the filming of "Help."
"He was with them for four years including when they met Elvis (Presley) in 1965," he said. "Alf often recalled with pride how Elvis called him 'Sir' during that meeting."
In his autobiography, written with Garry Marshall, Bicknell said he became very close to the band. He described how John Lennon once stole his chauffeur's hat and flung it out of the band's car with the words, "You don't need that anymore Alf, you are one of us now."
At first, he drove the band in an Austin Princess with blacked-out windows; later, the group traveled in Lennon's Rolls Royce Phantom V.
The first time he drove the group, Bicknell recalled, "Every time I stopped at a traffic light I felt conscious of all the eyes peering in. Between sets of traffic lights, I'm getting faster and faster, and I pull up a bit quick outside this block of flats at one point and Bang! George (Harrison), who's sitting on the occasional seat, hits his head on the partition. Let's just say he was upset. A few choice words were said. I thought, well, that's it — the shortest job that's ever happened to Alf."
However, Bicknell stayed with the Beatles until they decided to stop touring in 1966.
Harrison once wrote, "Alf Bicknell lived moment to moment with the Beatles through those years ... Anyone who was beaten up by Imelda Marcos's bully squad is a friend of mine," a reference to the rough handling the band had while touring the Philippines.
Bicknell spent most of his career as a chauffeur, although he did a stint as an apprentice butcher and once worked as a circus clown.
For a time after leaving the Beatles, he drove the New Christy Minstrels in the United States.
He retired from driving in 1980 after injuring his right arm and made a new career talking about his experiences — but rejected all financial offers to "dish the dirt."
He is survived by his wife Jean and their son. Funeral details were not announced.
Alf Bicknell
A one-month-old baby Silver Langur (presbytis cristata) is carried by his mother at the Taman Safari park in Bogor, West Java on March 12, 2004. In Indonesia, the rare Silver Langur, which is found on the Sumatra, Java and Kalimantan islands, is one of the protected animals under a Forestry Ministry decree.
Photo by Supri
'The Osbournes'
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