'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast morning, dappled sunny afternoon.
Watched 'NOW With Bill Moyers' on KCET, channel 28 in LA (it reruns here at noon on Sunday). Mighty damn fine TV!
Also caught 'Real Time With Bill Maher'. Panel guests were Doug McIntyre (from KABC, the Disney radio flagship in LA, and one of their typical hatemongers, but with a soft spot for gays); Michael Eric Dyson (who needs to make more eye contact with the camera & rely less on Jesse Jackson cadences); and the always wonderful Arianna Huffington, who really deserves more of a soapbox. Paul F. Tompkins sucked, as usual. Glib has never been so misdefined - yeah, 'girls really don't want to get into Augusta because it's not as cool as they think....or
it's only rich women that want in....and, oh yeah, Tiger Woods is only an honorary member...why would they want to join. Ich verstehe, Herr Tompkins.
Tonight, Saturday, CBS is supposed to open the evening with a FRESH 'Touched By An Angle', followed by a
FRESH 'The District', and then a FRESH 'The Agency'.
NBC is supposed to offer a RERUN 'Law & Order', followed by the FRESH made-for-tv movie (and intro to a mini-series) 'Hunter: Back In Force'.
'Saturday Night Live' is FRESH, with Ray Romano hosting, and music by Zwan.
ABC is supposed to have a RERUN 'America's Funniest Home Videos', followed by the movie 'My Best Friend's Wedding'.
The WB here has basketball - Clippers visiting the Nuggets, and followed by the movie 'Honey, I Blew Up The Kids'.
Faux starts the night with a FRESH 'Cops', followed by a RERUN 'Cops', and then 'America's Most Wanted'.
'Mad TV' features 'The Folkmen', (Michael McKean, Christopher Guest & Harry Shearer), from the soon-to-open film, 'A Mighty Wind'. Damn, I love these guys. Anybody else find the guy auditioning with the piece from 'Goodfellas' in 'Waiting For Guffman' hysterical?
UPN has the movie 'Saving Isiah'.
HBO has a FRESH 'Dennis Miller Special' at 10pm (est).
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Mexican dancers from Grupo Calli dance in Aztec-style head dress to mark the end of the Aztecs exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, April 11, 2003. The Aztecs exhibition became one of the top ten most popular exhibitions ever staged at the Royal Academy, receiving more than 450, 000 visitors since its opening in November 2002.
Photo by Toby Melville
Cancels Cooperstown Visit Over 'Bull Durham' Snub
Roger Kahn
Sportswriter Roger Kahn has canceled an appearance at baseball's Hall of Fame after the museum scrubbed a 15th anniversary tribute to the film "Bull Durham" because of the anti-war stance of its stars.
Kahn sent a letter to Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey on Thursday to protest the Cooperstown, New York, museum's snub of Tim Robbins and his longtime partner, Susan Sarandon.
"By canceling the Hall of Fame anniversary celebration of "Bull Durham" for political reasons, you are, far from supporting our troops, defying the noblest of the American spirit," wrote Kahn, who was to speak there in August about his new book.
"You are choking freedom of dissent. How ironic. In theory, at least, we have been fighting this war to give Iraqis freedom of dissent. But here you, through the great institution you head, have moved to rob Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and (writer-director) Ron Shelton of that very freedom."
Kahn's 17th book, "October Men," is about the 1978 New York Yankees. He is best known for "The Boys of Summer," about the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. That 1972 book has sold about 3 million copies.
Roger Kahn
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Funds Cambodian Wildlife Sanctuary
Angelina Jolie
Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has agreed to pay $5 million over the next 15 years to set up a wildlife sanctuary in a former Khmer Rouge-controlled area of Cambodia, a senior charity official said on Friday.
Jolie, who fell in love with the war-scarred southeast Asian nation while filming the action movie "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," has already paid a first installment of $350,000 to get the ball rolling, Mounh Sarath, head of Cambodian Vision in Development, told Reuters.
The project aims to protect more than 49,500 acres of forest in northwest Cambodia, which five years ago was still controlled by remnants of the brutal ultra-communist Khmer Rouge, responsible for the genocide of the "Killing Fields."
Angelina Jolie
An Iraqi worker cleans a mosaic featuring former U.S. President George Bush as guests step on it at Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad, Tuesday, Sept.10, 2002. Iraq faces the threat of possible U.S. strikes if its government does not allow access to U.N. arms inspectors.
Photo by Amr Nabil
Woman With An Opinion
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo's relentless bashing of resident Bush might have doomed her new ABC sitcom.
Garofalo is set to play a producer of a TV newsmagazine on "Slice O'Life." But ABC has been deluged with calls and e-mails from patriotic types threatening to boycott the network and its advertisers if the sitcom gets on the schedule, reports MSNBC.com's Jeannette Walls.
ABC reps had no comment.
The war "is a manufactured conflict for the sake of geopolitical dominance," Garofalo declared to the Washington Post in January, in one of her many outbursts against the resident. "There is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. You never even get that idea floated in the mainstream media. If you bring it up, they hate the messenger. You've ruined everyone's good time.
"I won't stick my head in the sand and have history roll right over me," she declared. "I refuse to allow my government and the mainstream media to bully me into accepting a war that is immoral and illegal. If it means people make fun of me or think I'm a jerk, or I lose a job here and there, that means nothing to me."
Meanwhile, an ad the Dixie Chicks shot for Lipton Brisk iced tea might never air.
Chicago-based ad agency Leo Burnett created the Lipton commercial which — unbeknownst to Lipton or the Dixie Chicks, sources say — was shot at the former Spahn Movie Ranch outside L.A., the infamous Manson family hangout.
Janeane Garofalo
'Deliver Us From Weak & Stupid Politicians'
Atheist Can Pray
An atheist who sought to pray in City Council meetings for deliverance "from weak and stupid politicians" got the blessing of the Utah Supreme Court on Friday.
The court ruled that if officials in Murray, Utah, want to pray during government-sponsored events, the opportunity to pray must be equally accessible to all who ask.
The Supreme Court's 4-1 ruling reversed the dismissal of a lawsuit that Tom Snyder, 71, filed in state court in 1999.
"Thanks to the Supreme Court for reaffirming that constitutional protection," Snyder said. "There should be no government preference for one religion over another or a preference for religion over non-religion."
He and his lawyer have been pursuing the lawsuit since 1994, when Snyder filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Salt Lake City suburb for allowing other pre-meeting prayers but refusing to let him offer a prayer addressed to "Our Mother, who art in heaven."
Among other things, the prayer asked for deliverance "from the evil of forced religious worship now sought to be imposed upon the people ... by the actions of misguided, weak and stupid politicians, who abuse power in their own self-righteousness."
Atheist Can Pray
Bullets Fly in LA
Snoop Dogg
A gunman in a speeding car opened fire on a motorcade carrying "gangsta" rapper Snoop Dogg and his bodyguards, slightly injuring one person and leaving police on Friday with few clues as to who might be shooting at one of rap's biggest stars.
The sometimes controversial 31-year-old rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, was questioned by Los Angeles police detectives after the Thursday night shooting, an LAPD spokesman said, but was unable to shed much light on the incident.
"We talked to him last night and he was very cooperative," Sgt. John Pasquariello said. "He just doesn't know a lot."
Broadus was riding in a motorcade of five vehicles with eight armed bodyguards -- most of them off-duty police officers -- when one of three men in another car fired multiple rounds from a semi-automatic handgun, Pasquariello said.
Three of the vehicles in the convoy were struck by bullets but the "gangsta" rapper, who was riding alone in his Cadillac, was unscathed. One of his bodyguards was grazed in the back by a bullet and suffered a minor injury, Pasquariello said.
Pasquariello said Broadus's bodyguards included six police officers who normally patrol schools in the nearby city of Inglewood and two state parole agents.
Broadus, who was born and attended high school in the Los Angeles suburb of Long Beach, became one of rap's biggest star's after his debut album, "Doggystyle" topped the charts.
Snoop Dogg
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Vietnamese Actor Exiled
Don Duong
A leading Vietnamese actor branded a traitor by Hanoi for appearing in a Hollywood Vietnam War film said on Friday that he was deeply saddened to be forced to leave his homeland this week.
"I had to leave under pressure and I am very, very sad about it," Don Duong, who arrived with his family in San Jose, California on Wednesday, said in an interview. "Deep down in my heart I never wanted to leave.
Duong, 44, a popular national actor, fell from grace last September after playing a Vietnamese officer opposite Mel Gibson in "We Were Soldiers." Hanoi said the movie, which portrayed a U.S. battle victory over the North Vietnamese, was unflattering and inaccurate.
"I don't regret making the movie; I just played a role in it," he said, adding that the final edited film was not as historically accurate as the original script. "But the Vietnam War is still a controversial topic.
Duong also acted in "Green Dragon," a 2001 release that starred Patrick Swayze, which depicted the life of Vietnamese refugees in a U.S. camp after the Vietnam War.
After falling from favor last September, he was banned from leaving the country for five years or from acting in any movie during that period. Duong was also fined about $5,000, a stiff penalty by local standards. Police often came by his home.
Don Duong
Doormat in Baghdad Hotel Dismantled
Al-Rashid Hotel
There was a bit of unfinished business left over in Baghdad from the 1991 Gulf War. The U.S. Army has taken care of it.
At the Al-Rashid Hotel, President Bush the elder is a doormat no more.
U.S. soldiers visited the battered Al-Rashid on Thursday night wielding hammers and chisels, and dug out the intricate tile mosaic of the former president that was used for years as a state-sponsored insult.
In its place, they laid a portrait of Saddam Hussein.
Taking shoes to the face is not exactly a compliment in any culture, but in the Arab world it's a particular slam. Pointing the soles of one's feet at someone is a grave insult.
Saddam personally picked the Al-Rashid for the insult to Bush senior. The hotel was heavily trafficked by foreign guests and the base of operations for journalists during the 1991 war — and the place where, on the night of the first American airstrike in January 1991, Arab guests huddled in the basement and shouted "Death to Bush."
The mosaic, an unflattering portrait of Bush with his teeth bared in a scowl, was installed later in 1991 right in the Al-Rashid's doorway complete with a caption in Arabic and English: "Bush is criminal."
The location made it almost impossible to avoid. And for years, it worked.
Al-Rashid Hotel
BFEE At Work
Richard Perle
Random House just inked a deal with Richard Perle, who recently resigned the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board, and David Frum, the author of "The Right Man: the Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush," for a book on what's next in the war on terrorism.
Richard Perle
Baby News
Daisy Boo Oliver
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and his wife, Jules, have become parents for a second time, a spokesman for the couple said Friday.
Daisy Boo Oliver was born Thursday at a London hospital, weighing 8 pounds, 4 ounces.
Her older sister, Poppy Honey, was born in March 2002.
Oliver, 27, gained fame through his television food show "The Naked Chef," which showcased his stripped-down cooking and cheerful Cockney patter. His series runs on the Food Network in the United States.
Daisy Boo Oliver
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Tries to Prove Rape Claim
Yun Keyong Kwon Sung
The lawyer for the woman who's accusing Celine Dion's husband of rape turned over a jacket he says is proof. Robert Langford handed over a traditional Korean jacket in a brown bag to a Las Vegas detective.
Langford says the jacket is smeared with the DNA of Dion's husband, Rene Angelil. Langford's client, Yun Keyong Kwon Sung, claims she was wearing the jacket March 19, 2000, when she says Angelil raped her at a hotel in Las Vegas.
Police investigated the complaint but did not prosecute Angelil because of lack of evidence. Sung and her husband say they did not give the jacket to police earlier because they were threatened, although Langford won't say by who.
Yun Keyong Kwon Sung
A large crowd strolls past a set of topiaries at the Cypress Gardens theme park in Winter Haven, Fla., Friday, April 11, 2003. The owners announced that they will be shutting down operations Sunday due to a drastic drop in attendance since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. Attendance was good Friday after people heard it was closing.
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
On Life Support
Dr. Atkins
Diet guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins was in a coma and on life support Friday after falling on an icy sidewalk and hitting his head earlier this week.
Atkins, 72, slipped Tuesday yards from his Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in midtown Manhattan. The city had been hit by a snowstorm Monday.
Atkins underwent surgery Tuesday to remove a blood clot that formed after he fell, but he remained in critical condition Friday at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Dr. Atkins
Won Court Fight Over Photos
Douglas & Zeta-Jones
Hollywood couple Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones won a court battle on Friday against celebrity magazine Hello!, which printed unflattering -- and unauthorized -- photos of their wedding.
Zeta-Jones, who is due to give birth any day, was outraged at the pictures, some of which showed her being fed cake by her husband. The photographer gatecrashed the 2000 wedding in New York and secretly took pictures from a camera at his hip.
The month-long case, seen as a landmark test of celebrity privacy rights, ended at London's High Court in March but the presiding judge reserved his verdict until Friday.
The case offered a glimpse into the pampered lives of the stars, who munched on mints from a silver dish in court despite a clerk's reminder that food was forbidden.
At one point Zeta-Jones, diamonds glittering at her ears, neck and hands, said that while a million pounds might be a lot to some people in the courtroom, it was "not that much for us."
Costs of the case are estimated at three million pounds ($4.7 million).
Douglas & Zeta-Jones
Egon Schiele Painting
'Krumauer Landschaft'
A townscape by the expressionist artist Egon Schiele, which was looted from its Jewish owners in the Nazi era, is set to go under the hammer in London in June.
"Krumauer Landschaft" by the Austrian Schiele -- who is famed for his angular nudes and tortured self-portraits -- is expected to fetch between five and seven million pounds ($8 and 10 million), Sotheby's auction house said on Thursday.
Schiele's 1916 painting of his mother's home town was seized by the Nazis from Viennese textile magnate Willy Hellmann in 1938, but it was requisitioned from the Neue Galerie in Linz, Austria earlier this year and returned to his heirs.
"Sixty years on, it is important to recognize the enduring rights of holocaust victims and their heirs," said Erika Jakubovits, Executive Director of the Presidency of the Jewish Community in Vienna, which helped find the work.
'Krumauer Landschaft'
Looking For Work
Dennis Miller
Walk into Dennis Miller's hotel room and you won't find him primping for the photographer ("I can't even look at photos of myself" ) or working the phones to line up more gigs.
Miller's smart - too smart to pretend the ending of his HBO talk show after nine years (handled quite gracefully by the network) was anything other than a pink slip.
"People said to me, 'What, you just didn't want to do it anymore?' I said, 'No, I got fired!' " laughs Miller. "It was a nice firing. It was as nice as it gets. But I got let go. I would have done that until I got to playing Hume Cronyn's part in 'Gin Game.' "
So other than his regular appearances on "The Tonight Show," what projects is he working on?
"Nothing! I'm out of the loop," says Miller, at ease with recognizing a little breather when he sees one. "But I had a nine-year run. At that point I'm just thankful. They bought me my house, for God's sake."
"I should be able at 49 to figure out how not to be in show biz for a little bit while it's not my time. All I know is this town does not react well to sweat acts. I think they want you to handle your imminent periodic demise with a suitable degree of aplomb and then they'll let you back in."
Dennis Miller
More Compassionate Republicans In Texas
Disabled Activists Arrested
Twenty-five activists for the disabled, most of them in wheelchairs, were arrested during a demonstration against Gov. Rick Perry's proposed cuts in services to the disabled.
Six members of the disabled-rights group ADAPT were arrested Thursday when they wouldn't leave Perry's Capitol office when it closed at 5 p.m. The others were issued summonses when they refused the leave the Capitol when it closed five hours later.
All were charged with misdemeanor criminal trespassing, which carries fines of up to $2,000 and 180 days in jail. Those who were arrested said it was worth it to promote their cause.
"It beats dying in a nursing home," said Danny Saenz, who is stricken with cerebral palsy.
Proposed House budget cuts would eliminate attendant services for about 56,000 people in Texas, reducing programs to assist the frail elderly and primary home care. Financial aid for prescription medication also would be reduced.
Disabled Activists Arrested
www.adapt.org
www.capitol.state.tx.us
Radio Station Broadcasts Whale Sounds
KAQU, Sitka
Sitka radio station KAQU is broadcasting what may initially sound like static. But listen closely and you will hear the underwater sounds of the ocean near Whale Park, and maybe even whales.
Clay Culbert, former owner of Clay's dive shop, told KCAW radio in Sitka that he helped set up the new whale radio station.
Whale radio is a low-powered FM station of 100 watts that was the brainchild of a group of West Coast marine mammal biologists. When they came to Sitka for a whale conference, they discovered the town is an ideal place to set up a listening station where whale sounds can be monitored.
The new station is set up with a hydrophone in 80 or 90 feet of water. It runs up a long cable into the storage room at the Whale Park restroom where the radio equipment is kept. The sounds of the ocean travel onto a small transmitter which sends the signal out on a little antennae that sits outside the building.
This is not the first whale radio station. There are others around Vancouver Island, the San Juan Islands, and a new one is being installed in Kodiak.
KAQU, Sitka
In Memory
Eva 'Little Eva' Narcissus Boyd
Singer Little Eva, who as a teen-ager recorded the hit 1960s dance song "The Loco-Motion," has died after a long battle with cervical cancer, her manager said on Friday. She was 59.
Eva Narcissus Boyd died on Thursday at Lenoir Memorial Hospital in Kinston, North Carolina, manager Brenda Cape said.
"She had cancer. She fought it for a long time," Cape said.
Boyd was working as a baby sitter for songwriters Carole King (news) and Gerry Goffin when they asked her to record a song they had written called "The Loco-Motion" in 1962.
The song was a hit for Little Eva that year and again for Grand Funk Railroad in 1974.
Boyd had other minor hits including "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" in 1962 and "Old Smokey Loco-Motion" in 1963. She sang background for The Drifters, Ben E. King and others.
Cape said Boyd continued to work until October 2001 when she became too weak from her illness to perform.
Boyd is survived by two daughters, a son, 15 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Eva 'Little Eva' Narcissus Boyd
In Memory
Jerry Bittle
Nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist Jerry Bittle died of a heart attack while scuba diving in Honduras on Monday. He was 53.
Bittle's comic strip "Geech," based on small-town Texas life, appeared in newspapers nationwide for nearly 21 years.
Wry to the point of sarcasm, it is centered on a gas station and garage that has never had a door on its women's restroom.
Bittle, who later created "Shirley and Son," was The Albuquerque Tribune's first editorial cartoonist.
A native of Wichita, Kan., who worked as a staff artist at the Wichita Eagle, Bittle moved to Albuquerque in 1975. He moved to Dallas in 1978.
Bittle is survived by his wife, Trisha, of Dallas, and daughters Jordan, Carrie and Abby Bittle.
Jerry Bittle
In Memory
Jutta Hipp
Jutta Hipp, a German-born jazz pianist who cut short her musical career to become a dressmaker, died Monday. She was 78.
No cause of death was determined, said Tom Evered, general manager of Blue Note Records, under which Hipp recorded.
As a young adult, Hipp studied at the Leipzig Academy of Graphic Arts in what became East Germany. But when Russian troops occupied Leipzig in 1946 she moved to West Germany.
In 1954, Leonard Feather, an American jazz critic and record producer, arranged for her to come to the United States.
While working with Feather's agency, she recorded three records on the Blue Note label: "Jutta Hipp With Zoot Sims" and two volumes of "Jutta Hipp at the Hickory House."
Low self-confidence stopped her from playing jazz, and Hipp moved to Queens and earned her living in obscurity as a seamstress. Friends said they never heard of her performing again.
Jutta Hipp
Brazil's Picuruta Salazar rides the 'Pororoca', a wave which flows upstream and reaches a height of 4 meters on the Amazon in Brazil. The wave happens every year, between February and March, when the ocean whips back on the Amazon river and creates a giant swell that flows upstream for hundreds of miles. Salazar rode the wave for 37 minutes through the rainforest setting a new record.
Photo by Juergen Skarwan
'Ark of Darkness'
New - 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.
'The Osbournes'
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