'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The weather was nicer than mid-January usually allows.
Thought the 'LOTR' responses would go here, but, today got too busy & the page too full, so maybe tomorrow.
Dear old dad & his babe drove from northwestern PA to Cleveland so they could fly to Cincinnati....huh? From Cincy they flew south to catch their 'Polka Cruise'.
Tonight, Sunday, Holy Crap - CBS has pre-empted '60 Minutes' for the NFL Play Offs. Filling the rest of prime time is a RERUN 'CSI: Miami', then a movie 'The Long Kiss Goodnight'.
NBC has the 'Golden Globes'. For a complete list of the Golden Globe nominees, click here.
ABC starts the night with a remade-for-tv movie 'Sounder', directed by Kevin Hooks, who was the son in the original 1972 movie (if you've never seen it, it's worth the effort - and then some). It's followed by a RERUN 'Alias', and a RERUN 'The Practice'.
The WB opens with the weekly RERUN 'Gilmore Girls', then a fresh 'Charmed', and a fresh 'High School Reunion'.
Faux begins the evening with a RERUN 'Simpsons', and then a RERUN of the movie 'Something About Mary'.
UPN offers the weekly RERUN 'Enterprise', and then 'Stargate SG-1'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Big Dog Watch Continues
Bill Clinton
Former President Bill Clinton watches the ball in the distance during a game of golf at the Cap Estate Golf Club, in Gros Islet, St. Lucia, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2003. Clinton arrived on the Caribbean island
for a one-day vacation early Saturday and he is due to leave late Saturday, said Embert Charles, director of Lucias government Information Services.
Photo by Chris Brandis
Auction News
Jagger-Lennon Recording
A London record dealer said Saturday that he plans to sell a rare recording of a musical collaboration between Mick Jagger and John Lennon.
Tom Fisher said the 30-year-old recording of the blues song "Too Many Cooks" features vocals by Rolling Stones frontman Jagger with ex-Beatle Lennon on guitar.
Fisher said he bought the record four years ago from a man who said he was a friend of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood.
Fisher said he recognized Jagger's voice but didn't know Lennon had played on the record until he put it up for sale.
He said the auctioneer had sent it to Jagger, who verified it was genuine and confirmed Lennon's involvement. It reportedly was recorded during the months in 1973 and 1974 Lennon
was separated from wife Yoko Ono — Lennon's so-called "Lost Weekend" period.
The track was never released, although a version of the song with Jagger singing and Lennon credited as producer has appeared on bootleg compilation albums over the years.
The record — made directly from the recording session's master tape — will go on the block as part of an auction of rock memorabilia.
Jagger-Lennon Recording
Guesting On 'Will & Grace'
Madonna
Madonna will make her episodic TV series debut in May on NBC's "Will & Grace."
She's just one of the big names being called on by the sitcom to help juice up ratings during upcoming "sweeps" months, which are used to help set local advertising rates.
Demi Moore and Minnie Driver also will guest star on "Will & Grace," NBC said Friday. In February, Moore will play a former baby sitter to Jack (Sean Hayes) who meets up with him again.
In another February episode, Driver plays a woman who romances Karen's former husband and then really makes Karen (Megan Mullally) angry by befriending pal Jack.
Madonna
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Raise Money Together
Five Former First Ladies
Former first ladies Betty Ford, Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Betty Ford Center for substance abuse in elegant style.
The rare gathering brought the women and about 600 others who paid up to $5,000 per dinner to benefit the nonprofit center in Rancho Mirage.
"It's a real sisterhood. We love getting together," Mrs. Carter said after posing for pictures with the other first ladies Friday night. They later mingled with a small group of friends in a VIP room adjacent to a ballroom.
Mrs. Bush, wearing her trademark polka-dot dress and white pearls, chatted with talk-show host Larry King, while Mrs. Reagan, in a red gown, talked with Mrs. Carter and actor Kirk Douglas.
The black-tie gala, which was set to raise $1.6 million, featured a who's-who of Hollywood, business and political heavyweights and included videotaped messages from resident Bush and first lady Laura Bush.
Douglas and King were joined at the festivities by other luminaries, including Merv Griffin and Republican Rep. Mary Bono.
New York's Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived late, and Ford Center officials said she had remained in Washington for the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee vote to name
Tom Ridge as the nation's first Homeland Security Department chief.
Former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, who turned 90 on Dec. 22, is still recovering from a stroke in May and was unable to attend, her spokeswoman, Betty Tilson, said Friday in Austin, Texas.
Money raised during the gala will help pay the bills of poor patients.
Five Former First Ladies
Fox: TV Fib OK (Didn't They Base A Whole Network On The Premise?)
'Joe Millionaire'
Fox executives are making no apologies for "Joe Millionaire," the reality series built on a lie.
"I think that when people get involved in these unscripted shows these days, they know they're in for a ride," Gail Berman, Fox's entertainment president, told the Television Critics Association.
Marriott, 28, already has turned out to be more than a construction worker: He posed for underwear ads. There's been speculation that a real plot twist could be in store — that Marriott actually may be wealthy.
Asked about that possibility, Berman was guarded.
"What we presented to the American public in our promos is accurate," she said. "We are not lying to them."
Berman was asked if the public would feel it had been deceived when the show's finale airs Feb. 17.
"I think the American public is going to be extremely satisfied by the ending of this show, extremely satisfied," she replied.
'Joe Millionaire'
Hosting 'New Jersey Idol'
Joe Piscopo
The New Jersey Nets are trying their own version of the popular "American Idol" reality TV show, with comedian Joe Piscopo as host.
The grand-prize winner on "New Jersey Idol" will receive the use of a recording studio's time and facilities to record a demo cassette or CD; a session valued at $5,000.
"We might be able to find the next Springsteen, the next Lauren Hill, the next Queen Latifah," said Piscopo, who appeared on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" in the 1980s.
Contest hopefuls, ages 18 to 34, will be asked to submit a vocal rendition of a song recorded a cappella.
The judges will pick four singers to perform at the halftime of eight Nets games, starting Jan. 29. Those games will serve as first-round elimination contests. Winners will
be determined by the fans' applause.
Joe Piscopo
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Officially Canceled After All
'Providence'
The fate of "Providence" no longer hangs in the balance — the NBC series is officially canceled.
The two-hour wedding episode that aired last month was the series' swan song, NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker said Friday.
The executive had wavered about "Providence," a family drama in which Kanakaredes played a physician. He decided in October to cancel the series, which had slipped
among younger viewers, but said a month later he was reconsidering the move.
"I'm not afraid to admit I may have made a mistake, and we'll see," Zucker said then.
But keeping the series wasn't the right move, he said Friday. The time slot it held could be used to launch a fresh drama with growth potential.
"Given that we're not going to have many places to put on new dramas, it made sense to end 'Providence' now," Zucker said. "But I tell you that we looked at it very closely."
'Providence'
Left to right, Native American Floyd Red Crow Westerman, famed protest singer Joan Baez, actor Martin Sheen and Reverend Cecil Williams of the Glide Church join the anti-war protest in San Franciso on January 18, 2003.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans opposed to waging war in Iraq rallied on Saturday in several cities demanding the White House back down and give U.N. weapons inspectors a chance.
Photo by David Paul Morris
Woman With An Opinion
Patricia Heaton
"Everybody Loves Raymond" star Patricia Heaton has a message for the raucous Osbournes - shut up, already!
"I'm no prude, but this was such a vulgar and disgusting show," Heaton told the Cleveland Plain Dealer (where her brother is a reporter). "What was passing for humor basically ranged from stupid to
vulgar - and I just thought, 'I'm not going to be part of this.'
"So I walked out and said, 'Get my car - I'm leaving.' "
Heaton, who stars as comely wife Debra Barone in "Raymond" opposite Ray Romano, was supposed to present a video retrospective encompassing the last 30 years of the American Music Awards.
But she just stood up and walked out of the Shrine Auditorium in Hollywood - saying she was disgusted by the "onslaught of lewd jokes and off-color remarks.
"The entire evening became about bleeping," she told the Plain Dealer. "It was as if they were trying to become more like the MTV awards. But it's one thing if this kind of stuff is on MTV at 10
at night. It's quite another if it's on ABC at 8 o'clock. I don't know what Dick Clark was thinking."
Heaton was replaced by a prerecorded audio clip introducing the retrospective.
Patricia Heaton
Reflects on Sundance Film Festival
Robert Redford
Amid the glitz, celebrity-watching and dealmaking that has overrun his Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford figures now and then he has to step out from behind the scenes and remind people it's really all about movies.
Redford generally prefers to stay in the background so his own star power does not steal attention from the films. Some years, he has not even attended the festival if he was busy shooting a movie. But this year,
Redford has taken a higher profile, introducing the opening-night film Thursday with a passionate statement of Sundance's mission to encourage diversity and dissenting opinions.
"Sometimes, I feel the need, if anything, to remind people of who we are and what we're doing," Redford, 65, said in an interview Friday. "It sometimes gets blurred by all the surrounding factors, the media, fashion,
parties, which is fine. That's all part of the deal, but it's not THE deal.
"Everybody should have a good time, but it's the filmmakers and how we program for them that matters. We program for diversity, not commerciality."
"I wanted to explain why I think Sundance is more relevant than ever right now because of the role it plays, particularly in terms of a kind of freedom of expression," Redford said. "I got a little uneasy
when I started to see there was a hint of this notion that normal parts of a democratic process were being treated differently, like it was unpatriotic to ask questions. And independent film, that's exactly what it does. It has the courage to ask things.
"In times of fear, we tend to go to safe places. Is there still going to be room for works addressing difficult issues, particularly if they're not either encouraged or being addressed on other levels?"
For more, Robert Redford
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Shown Leaning on Cop Car
Diana Ross
A police videotape shows singer Diana Ross walking around and leaning on a police cruiser while two officers talk to her, but it doesn't have audio of the singer's comments.
The 42-minute videotape, released Friday, was shot when Ross was arrested for drunken driving Dec. 30. She has pleaded innocent to the charge.
The grainy color video does not include footage of Ross, 58, dressed in jeans and a sweat shirt, taking a field sobriety test.
Diana Ross
Princess Elettra Marconi tours the historic site where her late father, Guglielmo Marconi's first wireless transmissions across the Atlantic took place 100 years ago, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2003, in Wellfleet, Mass. Behind Marconi to the
right and barely visible in the snow, is a piece of the remaining foundation from the original transmission building.
Photo by Julia Cumes
Troubled Picture?
'Lemony Snicket'
Director Barry Sonnenfeld is looking for work. The "Men in Black" helmer has just been fired off "Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events," starring Jim Carrey. The troubled picture has already lost producer Scott Rudin over
budget disputes with Paramount. Sonnenfeld, whose rep did not return calls, has said that the "Unfortunate Events" series are his favorite books.
'Lemony Snicket'
Charter Flight
'Naked Air'
Passengers aboard a May 3 chartered flight from Miami to Cancun, Mexico, dubbed "Naked-Air", will be free to drop their pants, shed their bras and underwear and move about the cabin au naturel.
Castaways Travel, a Houston-area travel agency that specialises in "clothing-optional trips," is offering what it bills as the world's first all-nude flight for $499 (309 pounds), round-trip.
"Once the aircraft reaches cruising altitude, you will be free to enjoy the flight clothes-free," the agency's website says.
But those thinking about engaging in monkey business on the trip are warned: "Inappropriate behaviour is not condoned for this nude flight."
Seats aboard the chartered Boeing 727-200 jet are reserved for the first 170 passengers, and the destination is an all-inclusive "Nude Week" vacation at the El Dorado Resort & Spa in Cancun.
Castaways bills Nude Week as the first event of its kind to be held Mexico. Guests at the resort on the Caribbean coast will only have to cover up when they are in the hotel's restaurants and reception areas. The bars are fair game for the naked and the nude.
'Naked Air'
Researchers Translate
DNA Code As Music
Imagine the human genome as music. Unravel DNA's double helix, picture its components lined up like piano keys and assign a note to each. Run your finger along the keys.
Spanish scientists did that just for fun and recorded what they call an audio version of the blueprint for life.
The team at Madrid's Ramon y Cajal Hospital was intrigued by music's lure — how it can make toddlers dance and adults cry — and looked for hints in the genetic material that makes us what we are. They also had some microbial genes wax melodic.
The end product is "Genoma Music," a 10-tune CD due out in February. "It's a way to bring science and music closer together," said Dr. Aurora Sanchez Sousa, a piano-playing microbiologist who specializes in fungi.
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is composed of long strings of molecules called nucleotides, which are distinguished by which of four nitrogen-containing bases they contain: adenine, guanine,
thymine or cytosine, represented as A, G, T and C. These became the musical notes.
French-born composer Richard Krull turned DNA sequences — a snippet of a gene might look like AGCGTATACGAGT — into sheet music. He arbitrarily assigned tones of the eight-note, do-re-mi scale
to each letter. Thymine became re, for instance. Guanine is so, adenine la and cytosine do.
For the rest, DNA Code As Music
In U.S. Cities & Around The World
A Day of Protest
A look at a selection of anti-war demonstrations Saturday in U.S. cities and around the world:
_Washington: At least 30,000 marched, part of a far larger crowd that rallied outside the Capitol, in the day's cornerstone protest. Signs branded America a "Rogue Nation," and demanded, "Disarm Bush."
_San Francisco: Tens of thousands packed downtown streets, holding signs that read "Peace for All Nations" and "Patriots for Peace," in an action that, like Washington's, drew people from far away.
_Portland, Ore.: Streets rang with drumbeats and peace hymns, and marchers hoisted signs with slogans like "Grandmas for Peace," in a protest that drew thousands.
_Des Moines, Iowa: More than 125 marched two miles in temperatures that felt as if they were below zero. "Saddam Hussein is a problem to the world," said marcher Mark Kloster, "but is he such a problem that we should kill innocent people?" _Indianapolis: A crowd that reached 600 huddled at the base of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in temperatures in the teens for a two-hour rally.
_Florida: "Smart Bombs Dumb Move," said at a sign at a St. Augustine protest that drew 200 people. "It's great to see an army for peace instead of an army for death and war," said activist David Thundershield Queen. About 400 people assembled in Venice. About 500 in Tampa rallied outside the gates of MacDill Air Force Base, home to U.S. Central Command, which would coordinate an Iraq war.
_Albuquerque, N.M.: About 800 protested near the University of New Mexico campus; 500 marched downtown to rally outside an Army recruiting office.
_Lansing, Mich.: Several hundred marched 20 blocks to the Capitol.
_Montpelier, Vt.: About 3,000 marched. One sign: "Regime Change at Home."
_Houston: About 300 came out.
_Orange County, Calif.: About 300 marched to the Nixon Presidential Library.
_Richmond, Ky.: Demonstrators laid out life-sized dolls representing dead Iraqi children.
_Las Vegas: Tourists gawked and motorists honked as 200 protesters rallied on the Strip. One sign: "Elvis hates war."
_France: In the third nationwide anti-war demonstration since October, 6,000 shouting protesters in Paris shouted in English "Stop Bush! Stop War!" and set off firecrackers.
_Turkey: Communists demonstrated outside a theater showing the latest James Bond movie to protest the U.S.-British alliance that they claimed was planning to make war on Iraq.
_Russia: Outside the U.S. Embassy, Russians chanted "U.S. hands off Iraq!" and "Yankee, go home!" A banner read: "Iraq isn't your ranch, Mr. Bush."
_Japan: Students wearing face masks lampooning resident Bush or carrying toy guns with flowers rallied in Tokyo.
_Middle East: A march in Cairo, Egypt, drew 1,000 people. About 4,000 in Lebanon, waved posters showing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. In Jordan, 300 protesters in the predominantly Palestinian district of Nuzha in the capital, Amman, burned U.S., British and Israeli flags and denounced Bush.
_Italy: Activists among 2,000 protesters in Bologna tried to break through a police line around an unrelated demonstration of rightists, and police responded with tear gas. American residents in Florence were among around 2,000 who formed a human chain near the U.S. Consulate.
_Germany: Hundreds of protesters rallied outside the U.S. Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg.
_Pakistan: Hundreds marched in several cities. In Lahore, about 200 students and human rights activists tried to march on the U.S. Consulate, but police stopped them and allowed half a dozen to deliver a resolution to American officials.
_India: Hundreds of communist workers burned an effigy of Bush.
_Britain: Near London, about 200 anti-war protesters demonstrated outside a military base. Several thousand marched in Bradford, home to a large Pakistani Muslim community.
_Norway: A few hundred demonstrators gathered in Oslo.
_China: A small group of demonstrators marched to the U.S. and British consulates in Hong Kong.
_Ireland: Protesters converged on Shannon Airport to protest its use as a refueling stop for U.S. military aircraft.
_Netherlands: Hundreds marched the streets of Rotterdam, Nijmegen and Leiden. In Uden, police detained 90 activists for trying to invade an air base where U.S. and Dutch forces are stationed.
_Sweden: About 5,000 marched peacefully in Goteborg.
A Day of Protest
In Memory
Richard Crenna
Richard Crenna, the Emmy award-winning character actor who starred as a lovesick teenager on "Our Miss Brooks" and Sylvester Stallone's Green Beret mentor in the "Rambo" films, has died. He was 76.
Crenna, whose credits also included "Wait Until Dark," "The Flamingo Kid," and television's "The Real McCoys," died Friday of pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, daughter Seana Crenna said Saturday.
"This came very sudden," she said.
Crenna's role on the CBS drama series "Judging Amy" was recently put on hold as he battled cancer.
"He was one of the brightest, nicest, funniest and most talented actors I've ever worked with," Sylvester Stallone said Saturday. "He was everyone's friend."
Crenna often played tough guys on screen, but at home he rarely lost his sense of humor, his family said.
"Even after 46 years, he had me laughing, even in the hospital," his wife, Penni Crenna, said Saturday.
Born in Los Angeles, Crenna's career began at the age of 10 when he broke into radio. The squeaky-voiced youngster appeared on "Burns and Allen"; later, he played love-sick teen Walter Denton on "Our Miss Brooks," moving with the show when it switched to television.
"For the first 20 years I was almost exclusively a radio actor — until television came in," Crenna told The Associated Press in 1999. "In those days, radio actors were considered actors who could talk, but they couldn't walk and talk at the same time."
Crenna disproved that theory, playing pitcher Daffy Dean in 1953 film "Pride of St. Louis" and bringing his Denton character to television and the big screen.
From 1957 through 1963, he played opposite Walter Brennan on the television series "The Real McCoys." In the show's last two seasons, Crenna directed some episodes; he later directed episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Lou Grant."
In 1966, Crenna appeared with Steve McQueen in "The Sand Pebbles," and played one of three con men who terrorized a blind Audrey Hepburn in the 1967 thriller "Wait Until Dark."
Crenna moved easily between television and the movies, and worked steadily through the years. He appeared in several critically hailed movies, including roles as the cuckolded husband in the steamy 1981 film "Body Heat," and as the conniving card shark opposite Matt Dillon in 1984's "The Flamingo Kid."
The latter role earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor.
He also portrayed Col. Samuel Trautman, the mentor to Stallone's "Rambo" character, in all three of those films.
Crenna later spoofed that role in the 1993 comedy "Hot Shots! Part Deux," a parody of such high-testosterone films. His character's name: Col. Denton Walters, a nod to his old radio persona.
He earned an Emmy for his 1985 performance as the title character in "The Rape of Richard Beck," where he played a macho, sexist police officer whose world changes after he becomes the victim of a sexual assault.
Crenna's work as a tough-guy cop became a staple. He played Lt. Frank Janek in a series of television movies during the '80s and early '90s, and appeared in 1999 in a four-hour television series about three generations of a police family.
Most recently, he appeared as the love interest opposite Tyne Daly on CBS' "Judging Amy." An episode featuring a wedding between the two characters was recently postponed because of Crenna's illness.
Crenna is survived by his wife and three adult children.
Family members were arranging a public service to be held Jan. 25.
Richard Crenna
A giant frog and a white bear, hot air balloons in the sky in the Swiss Alps, during the last week end of the 25rd International Hot Air Ballonn week, in Chateau d'Oex, Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2003.
More than 100 balloons from 19 countries took part in the meeting.
Photo by Martial Trezzini
'The Osbournes'
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