'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Recommendation
'Warsaw Pact'
I got a new CD from 'Warsaw Pact', I believe it's self titled.
It's a great mix of jazz, hip hop, and social commentary.
Think Dave Matthews meets The Roots meets Rage Against the Machine. Highest reccomendations.
Never have I had the oil monopoly explained so eloquently within a wicked groove.
~ Kyle
Thanks, Kyle!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Foggy morning, overcast day, weather is changing.
Did the grocery shopping, and then picked up fresh crickets for the lizard & spider at Reptiles Unlimited, and, no, that's not a paid spot. Doubt they know my name, but
they really know what they're doing, and I love competence.
Once again, Bill Maher had the best show of the week. If you have access to HBO, it re-airs Saturday (tonight) at 11pm/est (8pm/pst) on HBO E2, and again at 2am/est (11pm/pst) on HBO-W2. The 3 panelists are
Arianna Huffington, Monica Crowley (Ph.D) & Dennis Miller. Near half-way in the audience starts to boo Dennis. Just remember, maintenance on a Montecito mortgage & the upkeep on his dental caps will keep Dennis
scrambling, well, til Rupert throws some $ his way. Just dawned on me, though, that if Rupert was that interested in Dennis, he'd have made a bid by now....
It was exactly a year ago (BartCop Entertainment, Friday 15 March, 2002) that there was an adventure at what is referred to as 'Men's Central', 450 Baudet, downtown LA. ; )
Tonight, Saturday, CBS opens the evening with a FRESH 'Touched By An Angle', followed by a FRESH
'The District', and then a FRESH 'The Agency'.
Once again, NBC uses Saturday night as the dirty clothes hamper of programming. First up is a RERUN 'Law & Order',
followed by a RERUN 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', and then a RERUN 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
For what it's worth, it's a FRESH 'SNL', hosted by Salma Hayek & musical guest Christina Aguilera.
ABC has the movie 'Frequency'.
The WB offers the movie 'Lock Up'.
Faux weighs in with a FRESH 'Cops', followed by a RERUN 'Cops', and
then 'America's Most Wanted'.
UPN has the movie 'It Takes Two'.
While I realize that TCM is celebrating the Oscars, tonight the topic seems to be 'colors'. 'She Wore A Yellow Ribbon', followed by 'Red River', then 'The Pink Panther', and finally
'Green Dolphin Street'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Legendary Cuban musician Israel Lopez 'Cachao' (C) smiles with Hollywood honorary mayor Johnny Grant (L) and his wife Estele (R) after being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame March 14, 2003 in Hollywood, California. Cachao, born in Havana in 1918, is a Grammy Award winning musician, composer and innovator who had to stand on a wooden box to reach the strings of his bass. He is credited along with his brother with the creation of the 'Mambo.' In back center is actor Andy Garcia with his 13-month-old son Andres and actor Edward James Olmos (back R).
Photo by Robert Galbraith
Rock & Roll Hall O'Fame Airs Sunday Night
VH1
An edited version of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony will be shown on VH1 on Sunday (March 16) at 9 p.m. ET. The two-hour program will feature all the highlights from Monday's (March 10) event at New York City's Waldorf Astoria, in which the Police, AC/DC, the Clash, Elvis Costello, the Righteous Brothers, and others were inducted.
One of the most passionate induction speeches was given by Audioslave and former Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello. The axe-man described the Clash's political impact and urged people to follow the band's philosophy.
"Tonight we will honor the Clash and Joe Strummer with toasts and applause. But the best way to honor them is by putting the Clash's philosophy into practice. By waking up each morning knowing that the future is unwritten, and that it can be a future where human rights, peace, and justice come first, but is entirely up to us. To me, that's what the Clash was all about."
Morello also talked about the priorities of the Clash, saying that its fans, morals, and spirit always came first.
"The Clash really aren't gone at all," Morello said, "because whenever a band cares more about its fans than its bank account, the spirit of the Clash is there. Whenever a band plays as if every single person's soul in the room is at stake, the spirit of the Clash is there. And whenever a stadium band or a little garage band has the guts to put their beliefs on the line to make a difference, the spirit of the Clash is there. And whenever people take to the streets to stop an unjust war, the spirit of the Clash is definitely there."
As for the other big inductees: Elton John inducted Elvis Costello, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler inducted AC/DC, No Doubt's Gwen Stefani inducted the Police, and Billy Joel inducted the Righteous Brothers.
VH1
More 'Who Cares What You Think'
Satellite Uplinks
The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."
According to Ms. Adie, who twelve years ago covered the last Gulf War, the Pentagon attitude is: "entirely hostile to the the free spread of information."
Ms. Adie made the startling revelations during a discussion of media freedom issues in the likely upcoming war in Iraq. She also warned that the Pentagon is vetting journalists according to their stance on the war, and intends to take control of US journalists' satellite equipment --in order to control access to the airwaves.
Another guest on the show, war author Phillip Knightley, reported that the Pentagon has also threatened they: "may find it necessary to bomb areas in which war correspondents are attempting to report from the Iraqi side."
For a lot more, as well as video & audio links, Satellite Uplinks
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Pulled From Air
Dixie Chicks - Part 1
There are a lot worse things in country music than your wife leaving you or your dog dying. There's (sic) stations not playing your music because you done gone and said some things against the resident.
Music superstars the Dixie Chicks are finding out that criticizing resident Bush's plans for war in Iraq can cost you air play, big time.
Country stations across the United States have pulled the Chicks from playlists following reports that lead singer Natalie Maines said in a concert in London earlier this week that she was "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
Dixie Chicks - Part 1
Well, effing-A, Natalie is right! Smirk was bred & born in Connecticut, not Texas. Oh well, like my old boss Chuck used to say 'It's the perception, not the reality.'
The Apology
Dixie Chicks - Part 2
Angry fans and radio stations appear to have rapidly clipped Dixie Chick Natalie Maines' antiwar feathers. The country singer apologized Friday evening for saying her band is ''ashamed that the resident of the United States is from Texas'' -- comments that prompted furious online posts and phone calls from listeners, and boycotts from some country stations. ''I apologize to resident Bush because my remark was disrespectful,'' Maines said in a statement released by her publicist. ''I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with the utmost respect.''
She also seemed to soften her antiwar stance in the face of protests. ''While war may remain a viable option, as a mother, I just want to see every possible alternative exhausted before children and American soldiers' lives are lost,'' she said in her new statement. In an earlier statement on their website, the Chicks had taken a stronger stand: ''While we support our troops, there is nothing more frightening than the notion of going to war with Iraq and the prospect of all the innocent lives that will be lost.''
Dixie Chicks - Part 2
A giant wall of flatbed screens displays a view on the Grand Canyon at the booth of the Korean electronic giant Samsung at the tech fair CeBIT in Hanover, Germany, Friday, March 14, 2003.
Photo by Eckehard Schulz
Guesting On 'The West Wing'
Matthew Perry
"Friends" star Matthew Perry has signed to guest star in two episodes of NBC's White House drama "The West Wing." He'll play Joe Quincy, a Republican lawyer looking for a gig as a White House associate counsel. The segments are set to air April 23 and 30.
Booking Perry, who stars as the wisecracking Chandler Bing on "Friends," wasn't tough. It turns out he's a major fan of the Aaron Sorkin drama.
Casting could give "The West Wing" a much-needed Nielsen boost. The show's numbers have been sagging this season opposite ABC reality show "The Bachelor."
Matthew Perry
500,000 Copies Sold - So Far
The Osbournes - The DVD
Ratings for "The Osbournes" have been slipping, but fans have already bought more than 500,000 copies of the DVD set, featuring the first season of the MTV series. The average price is about $24.99.
About 80 percent of the roughly $12.5 million spent so far goes to Miramax - which placed a winning rights bid of $7 million - and distributor Buena Vista, with the Osbournes taking their piece out of that portion, according to estimates by trade publication Video Business.
Although nowhere near the record 1.6 million units sold of the first season of "The Simpsons" on DVD, the rapid pace of sales could easily move "The Osbournes" into the elite echelon of TV series that have topped a million in sales.
The Osbournes - The DVD
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Treated for Pneumonia
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash is being treated at a Nashville hospital for pneumonia, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The 71-year-old singer, who was admitted Monday to Baptist Hospital, is in stable condition, said Melissa Cantrell.
Cash, who has scored dozens of hits including "I Walk the Line" and "A Boy Named Sue," suffers from autonomic neuropathy, a disease of the nervous system that makes him susceptible to pneumonia. Robin said Cash was diagnosed with the disease about 15 months ago.
Johnny Cash
Rossi Castillo of Germany, part of the Shademakers dance group, smiles after getting into her costume as she prepares for the start of a carnival parade in Doha, Qatar, March 14, 2003.
Photo by Tim Aubry
Snarky Gossip
Jay Leno & Sandra Bernhard
Jay Leno was a kinky Casanova before he married his wife, Mavis, according to long-ago girlfriend Sandra Bernhard. The lush-lipped comic told Howard Stern yesterday that when they dated in
the 1970s, Leno slapped handcuffs on her before they had sex, spanked her, and was well-endowed to the point of discomfort.
Jay Leno & Sandra Bernhard
Picked Up By E!
'The Michael Essany Show'
Talk show host Michael Essany might be one step closer to the studio audience he dreams about.
The 20-year-old and E! executives announced late Wednesday that the channel will shoot more episodes of "The Michael Essany Show," which combines the talk show Essany hosts from his parents' living room with what it takes to put the program together behind the scenes.
Essany originally was signed for six episodes. The new contract will carry the program through May sweeps.
'The Michael Essany Show'
"The Michael Essany Show" Web site
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Divorce Settlement
Tim Allen
Actor Tim Allen and his wife have reached a divorce settlement, avoiding a trial that was to have begun Thursday.
Laura Deibel, who married the "Home Improvement" star in 1984, filed for a legal separation in 1999 in Superior Court, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple share custody of their 13-year-old daughter.
The settlement, terms of which weren't disclosed, was confirmed Thursday by the court. Representatives for Allen and Deibel did not immediately return calls for comment.
Tim Allen
A skier passes a chum, the local traditional dwelling, during a training session for the World biathlon championships, in Khanty-Mansiy, Siberia, March 14, 2003.
Photo by Alexander Demianchuk
Sues ABC Over 'Are You Hot?'
Howard Stern
Shock jock Howard Stern sued Telepictures Prods. and ABC on Thursday, claiming the reality series "Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People" is a ripoff of the videotaped version of his radio show, which airs on E! Entertainment Television.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also names as defendants series creator Mike Fleiss and co-executive producer and show runner Scott Einziger.
Einziger is the former producer of Stern's television show. Stern's former head writer, Jackie Martling, also was hired for "Hot," but is not named in the suit.
According to the complaint, which seeks more than $10 million in damages and alleges unfair business practices, unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets, Stern developed a segment on his show called "The Evaluators," in which he and his guests decided if a contestant was hot enough to be a playmate in Playboy magazine.
The suit claims "Hot" is strikingly similar to Stern's "Evaluators" in that it has a single male host and a panel of three blunt and harsh judges who use a laser pointer to highlight body parts during the critiquing process.
Stern also claims he was in negotiations to develop a show based on "The Evaluators" for network or pay cable before "Hot" was developed. Once "Hot" was broadcast, talks for Stern's show broke off, he alleges.
Howard Stern
Higher Dues for Some
Actors Union Merger
High-earning broadcasters and recording artists will have to pay significantly steeper union dues under a proposed merger between the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
The change, hammered out this week during four days of around-the-clock meetings, calls for the new umbrella union to adopt the SAG's current $5,200 annual cap on dues -- far higher than AFTRA's current cap of $1,840 on annual dues.
SAG members pay basic annual dues of $100, plus 1.85 percent of all earnings under SAG contracts up through $200,000 and 0.5 percent on all earnings from $200,001 through $500,000.
Merger backers say the plan would give union members greater clout in labor talks with the big media conglomerates that control a growing share of studios, television networks, music companies and radio and TV stations.
Opponents have argued that actors will lose their identity in the yet-to-be-named organization. They also have been critical of AFTRA using its resources to launch a jurisdictional fight last year with SAG over TV shows shot on digital, despite not having organized such key cable TV networks as CNN, MSNBC and CNBC.
Actors Union Merger
Unread Charlotte Bronte Novella
'Stancliffe's Hotel'
Charlotte Bronte, author of 19th century romance "Jane Eyre," has just published a new book.
"Stancliffe's Hotel," a 34-page novella written by Bronte in 1838 and until now read only by a handful of scholars, was printed in full in the London Times newspaper on Friday.
The original manuscript of Stancliffe's Hotel, kept in the Bronte museum in northern England, is a series of vignettes that mock romantic sentiment and masculine vanity.
The stories are set in Angria, a mythical world created by the Bronte sisters when they were children, and the book is known as an "Angrian novelette."
The novella, written in a fine hand on tiny pages each containing more than 1,000 words, was taken to Ireland after Bronte's death in 1855 and then shipped to the United States by an American collector.
The manuscript was eventually returned to the Parsonage Museum -- the small Yorkshire rectory where the sisters were brought up -- and has been occasionally displayed, but was considered of interest only to scholars.
'Stancliffe's Hotel'
Three Die Trying To Retrieve Phone
Latrine O'Death
Three Kenyans died trying to retrieve a mobile phone that slipped down an open-pit latrine while its owner answered a call of nature, a newspaper reported on Friday.
Anxious to recover her phone, the owner in the coastal town of Mombasa offered 1,000 shillings ($13.09) to anyone who would recover it, the Daily Nation said. Well over half the Kenyan population of 30 million people lives on less than $1 a day.
The first to try -- a 30-year-old radio technician -- failed to resurface after disappearing down a ladder into the latrine.
His friend went after him but slipped and fell. The third casualty, trying to rescue the others, was hauled out of the pit by neighbors after he inhaled the fumes and lost consciousness.
The man was rushed to hospital but died on the way.
The Daily Nation said police prevented a fourth man from climbing into the latrine and the search for the phone was eventually abandoned.
Latrine O'Death
Coming Back!
Farrell's
Remember the Pig's Trough (Plenty for two – just you and you), The Zoo (Divide it up, kids) and Mt. Whitney (Climb this one)? And the player piano in the corner, blaring ragtime as the the waiters run, the siren screams and the drum beats for birthdays? Farrell's Ice Cream Parlours – those zany restaurants where customers gobbled up gobs of ice cream – intends to make its return to Orange County this summer, more than a decade after the national chain died off.
The new owners of Farrell's, now based in Laguna Niguel, are finalizing negotiations to put one of the 1906-themed ice cream shops in The Block at Orange.
For a generation or two – the heyday was the 1960s and 1970s – Farrell's was a happy, madcap ice cream shop that doubled as a teenager hangout. Servers, topped in straw boater hats, made those celebrating birthdays stand up so all the customers could see to whom they were singing "Happy Birthday."
The signature scene: when a party ordered The Zoo – 35 large scoops of ice cream with bananas, hot fudge, whipped cream, cherries and nuts.
A waiter banged a drum at the table while two servers ran around the restaurant with the dessert on a wooden stretcher.
For the rest, Farrell's
Ski Area Sanitizes Mountain Name
Mary's Nipple
Pressure from uncomfortable skiers and other tourists prompted the Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort to blank out the second half of the name of one of its ski mountains.
Mary's Nipple is now just Mary's. "Nipple" has been covered with tape until new signs arrive in about two weeks.
But the sanitized signs have rankled some local skiers, who feel a bit of their history has been lost.
"If the name changed, it wouldn't be the same," said Mark Franklin of Driggs, Idaho, who has skied the mountain for 26 years without feeling offended. "It's always been Mary's Nipple to me, and probably 99.9 percent of the people around here will agree with me."
The name dates back three decades to a story about a redheaded waitress named Mary, who was working at Targhee's Trap Bar and streaked through it and the resort one night. The bartender compared her bare breast to a peak he had skied earlier that day and then attached the name "Mary's Nipple" to the mountain as a joke.
Mary's Nipple
Frieda, a nine-month-old female octopus, grips a jar containing her favorite seafood snacks of shrimps, crabs and clams at Munich's Hellabrunn Zoo March 14, 2003. Frieda learned to open a jar about three months ago and shows off her dexterity to visitors every Monday and Wednesday.
'The Osbournes'
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