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From 'TBH Politoons'
Great Site!
Thanks, again, Tim!
Really Cool Link
Joe's Cyber Art Cafe
Joe's Cyber Art Cafe
Another One From 'TBH Politoons'
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Looking For A Great Read?
The Daily Brew
The Daily Brew
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
So far, good news on the lizard-front. Mo is still with us. The kid was up a dozen times last night. Nothing like philosophizing at 4am with a 9 year old, so the humans were dragging a bit Saturday, too.
Lots of parties in the neighborhood Saturday. One even had fireworks. The really good, but, not very legal kind. Realized I have turned into an old poop - between the bottle rockets soaring toward the dry roof, and cringing when
the sparklies looked like they were going to set up camp on the northeast eaves...
We had a death in the family this past last week. In tales, he has been referred to as 'LUMA' (the self-professed 'Last Uncastrated Man (in) America). He was an Alaskan. If Alaska had a ranking for the characters it produces, LUMA would have been
in the royal court.
While running a family-owned, fairly remote, fish site, the poor bastard locked himself out of the cabin. He had a massive coronary while trying to enter through a window. Once again, a modicum of luck was involved, and in spite of an active local
bear population, he was recovered, intact. Bye, Ro-Pah.
Tonight, Sunday, as is tradition, CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes'. It's followed by the movie 'The Negotiator'.
NBC starts with 'Dateline', and follows a rerun of 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', then debuts a new reality series 'Crime & Punishment', also from Dick Wolf.
ABC starts the night with the movie 'Toy Story' and follows with reruns of 'Alias' and 'The Practice'.
The WB has the movie 'The Big Hit' and follows with a rerun of 'Angel'.
Faux has 2 reruns of 'Futurama', then reruns of 'Simpsons' and 'King Of The Hill'. 'Fresh Meat Goes To Alaska' follows.
UPN has the weekly rerun of 'Enterprise' and then an episode of 'Stargate SG-1'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Awarded Knighthood - #1 Version
Michael Philip Jagger
Sir Mick Jagger celebrates his knighthood along with five other stars of the stones today as the curling team who brought Olympic gold back to Scotland receive accolades in the Birthday Honours.
The Rolling Stones frontman, one of Tony Blair's boyhood heroes, heads a list that continues the New Labour tradition of honouring the unsung and unconventional.
As well as the amateur sportswomen of the curling team, there is a timely knighthood for Bobby Robson, the former England football manager, who becomes Sir Bobby on the morning of England's latest World Cup match.
The drag artist Danny La Rue is made an OBE, and Peter Blake, a leading light of the pop art movement and the man behind the Beatles' seminal Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover, receives a knighthood.
Of nearly 1,000 awards, half were made to "ordinary" people, including a lollipop lady, a hospital volunteer and the operator of a mobile shop in Aberdeenshire.
The knighthood for Jagger had been widely leaked and he said friends and relatives had taken great delight in teasing him. Sir Mick, 58, said: "I've had people on their knees, and I've even had plastic swords waved at me."
Awarded Knighthood - #1 Version
Garbage On Tour
Shirley Manson
Shirley Manson, lead singer of American rock band Garbage, performs during their concert in Bilbao, late June 13, 2002. Garbage has started an European tour.
Photo by Vincent West
Awarded Knighthood - #2 Version
Michael Philip Jagger
Mick Jagger has been awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.
Jagger, who appears on the list as Michael Philip Jagger, singer and songwriter, becomes a knight for "services to popular music".
Despite his age - he will be 59 on July 26 - Jagger has perfected the art of growing old disgracefully with a string of flings with models, one of which resulted in a love child in his mid-50s.
Jagger, who did not appear at the Golden Jubilee Palace pop concert, jokingly complained during a recent television documentary about missing out on royal recognition.
Jagger says he is "delighted" at the news.
Awarded Knighthood - #2 Version
Liberal Radio !
Erin Hart
Liberal radio - what a concept!
Join Erin Hart at regulation time (9 pm to 1 am [pdt]), Sunday only, on www.710kiro.com or www.kiro710.com (It's
a browser thing).
KIRO (Entercom) has stopped streaming audio. Boo. Hiss.
There's still the chatroom, but, it's not the same.
Visit Erin's fan page (courtesy of the amazing 14Dem), http://www.erinistas.com/, or to join her mailing list, drop a
note to erinistas@aol.com
Sees Benefits of Aging
Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood says there's an upside to being a veteran in the movie business.
"One advantage of getting older is you can philosophize and try new things," the 72-year-old actor-director said Friday night at the Maui Film Festival. "What are they going to do to you?"
Eastwood, a part-time Maui resident, was honored with the festival's Silversword Award for his 48 years of making movies.
While the festival is identified with "life-affirming films," Eastwood joked that some of his movies have been accused of being "life extinguishing."
Clint Eastwood
'Deep Throat' e-Book Imperiled
John Dean
Nixon White House counsel John Dean had been all set to lay out his latest theory Monday about the identity of the mysterious Watergate tipster who helped topple a presidency.
Online magazine Salon.com had promised in April that on the 30th anniversary of the June 17, 1972, Watergate burglary, "John Dean and Salon.com will unmask the real Deep Throat."
Now it seems, maybe not.
Dean said his Deep Throat information has been adamantly denied, and editors are making last-minute changes in the 40,000-word e-book.
"What's happened is, as the field has narrowed, the denials have become much more forceful. But there are only 'X' number of people out there who can fall into the clues and who could
have been Deep Throat," Dean told The Associated Press.
Salon.com managing editor Scott Rosenberg said he's still aiming for a Monday publication date for the e-book. But he admitted what began as a project to remove the veil from one of
America's greatest political mysteries has become more complex in recent days.
The idea was to publish Dean's theories as an e-book available to paying subscribers, providing a financial boost to the struggling Internet company.
John Dean
Eases Immigration Rules
Oh, Canada
The federal government is loosening some of the new rules governing who gets into Canada as an immigrant or refugee. Immigration Minister Denis Coderre
announced regulations Tuesday that will make it easier for skilled workers, unmarried couples and others to enter the country. The regulations ease some
concerns about the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which has been criticized for being too strict.
Coderre said while Canada needs people with university education, it also needs skilled workers.
The new regulations will also allow common-law couples, including same-sex couples, to apply for immigrant status even if they don't meet
the one-year cohabitation requirement.
The changes involve the point system used to determine who gets into Canada. The system grades applicants according to: education,
language proficiency, employment, experience, age and adaptability.
Oh, Canada
Interesting Link
Leaflets
Leaflets Dropped Over Afghanistan
Four From Alex - #1
Jennifer Love Hewitt - 'BareNaked'
Movie and television star Jennifer Love Hewitt will release her Jive Records debut album "BareNaked" on Sept. 24, her label said on Thursday.
The self-titled single track will be shipped to radio on June 16, to be aired on July 1.
The video for "BareNaked" will debut on MTV's "Making The Video" the week of July 15.
"BareNaked," the single, was co-written by 23-year-old Hewitt and Meredith Brooks, who produced the album.
Jennifer Love Hewitt to Release Album 'BareNaked'
Four From Alex - #2
Bugs & Brendan Fraser
After slapstick roles opposite mummies, monkeys and weasels, it figures Brendan Fraser's next role will team him with a certain wascally wabbit and some of the most famous 'toons in the world.
Fraser has signed on to costar with Bugs Bunny, Daffy, Tweety and Taz in Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the first feature for Warner Bros.' revived animation unit since 1996's 90-minute Michael
Jordan commercial cum feature, Space Jam.
Like Space Jam and the 1988 hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the new Looney Tunes comedy will mix live action and animation. The plot follows Bugs and company as they leave their cozy confines at the
Warner Bros. backlot in Hollywood and team with Fraser on an Indiana Jones-like adventure that will take them to such far-flung locales as Africa and Las Vegas in search of the father of
Fraser's character and the mythical Blue Diamond.
Gremlins director Joe Dante will helm the new flick, which was written by Larry Doyle, a former Simpsons scribe who also penned the upcoming Ben Stiller- Drew Barrymore dark comedy Duplex. Dante's
last picture was 1998's Small Soldiers, which blended computer-generated animation and live action.
In addition to Bugs' big-screen return, Warner Bros. also plans to produce a new series of Looney Tunes shorts that will play theatrically in front of other Warners films, as well as on the studio's
Website. Additionally, a new Baby Looney Tunes series is set to debut this fall on the Cartoon Network.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action starts shooting July 29 and is slated to hit theaters around Thanksgiving 2003.
Bugs & Brendan Fraser
Four From Alex - #3
FBI Watches Wake
It was like a scene out of "The Godfather."
FBI cameras with telephoto lenses clicked away from across the street as mourners dressed in black walked with their heads down into a Queens, New York funeral home for
the wake on Thursday of John Gotti, the Mafia boss whose movie star panache earned him the nickname of the "Dapper Don."
The wake, attended by his widow Victoria, daughters Victoria and Angela and son Peter, and friends, was held in Maspeth, N.Y., not far from Gotti's home neighborhood of Howard Beach, Queens.
Local people lined up to watch the parade of mourners file into the funeral home, the women dressed in black dresses or pantsuits and the men wearing black and sunglasses on a gray, overcast day.
Traffic outside the funeral home was choked by a steady procession of vans delivering flowers. Huge floral displays were toted into the wake, many in horseshoe designs and others that spelled out "Grandfather," "Uncle," and "Brother."
Gotti is expected to be buried on Saturday at the family's mausoleum at St. John's Cemetery in Middle Village, Queens, next to his son Frank, who was run over by a next door neighbor when he was 12 years old. The neighbor subsequently disappeared and his body has never been found.
He will not receive a Catholic funeral Mass despite a request made to the Brooklyn diocese by the family.
"The diocese has decided that there can be a Mass for the dead sometime after the burial of John Gotti," Father Andrew Vaccari, chancellor of the Diocese of Brooklyn, said in a statement.
'Dapper Don' Gotti Has Wake as FBI Watches
Four From Alex - #4
A Flowery Farewell
Outside the funeral home in Maspeth, the floral deliverymen unloaded the petals of John Gotti's psyche.
Not that anybody was counting, but the Yankee emblem and the 5-foot-tall Cohiba cigar each cost a cool $500, and the martini glass, with eight real Spanish olives wedged together on a stick to look like one big olive, went for about $450.
Here, for the notoriously bad-luck gambler, came the red boxing gloves, and the horses made of flowers: a white one with a red saddle and the number 13, a brown one with the number 7, a black one with the initials "JG."
A Flowery Farewell
A Flowery Farewell - The Entire Version
Newsday.com - Slide Show: Gotti's Wake
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Lowest Rated in 20 Years
NBA Finals
The Los Angeles Lakers' slam-dunk NBA championship victory over the New Jersey Nets during a sports-saturated week of television proved to be a ratings air ball for the NBC network.
The Shaquille O'Neal-led Lakers' four-games-to-zero rout of the Nets in the best-of-seven series drew the lowest ratings for National Basketball Association finals competition in more than 20 years,
according to Nielsen Media Research figures issued on Friday.
This year's NBA Finals yielded the lowest household rating for a pro-basketball championship since the 6.7 rating posted by CBS in 1981, when the Boston Celtics beat the Houston Rockets in six games.
Although the NBA Finals marked a disappointing end to NBC's 12th and final year with exclusive broadcast network rights to pro basketball, the General Electric Co. -owned
network boasted greater success with the NBA playoffs overall.
Exclusive network broadcasting rights to NBA games passes next year to ABC, a unit of The Walt Disney Co. .
NBA Finals
42nd Playboy Jazz Festival At The Hollywood Bowl
Bill Cosby
Comedian Bill Cosby enjoys the sounds from the stage of the Hollywood Bowl as he hosts the 42nd Playboy Jazz Festival Saturday, June 15, 2002, in Los Angeles.
Photo by Reed Saxon
Back On The Charts
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley is expected to score a posthumous hit with a Dutch remix of 1968's "A Little Less Conversation."
Dutch musician Tom Holkenburg, known in Europe as the disc jockey of the techno-group Junkie XL, remixed the song for a Nike television commercial. Although a contemporary remix, "Elvis
vs. JXL — a Little Less Conversation" leaves Presley's distinctive vocals intact.
The single, which was released throughout Europe on Monday, sold more than 67,000 copies in Britain the first day, more than the total sales of last week's No. 1 on the
British charts, "Light My Fire" by Will Young.
The single will be released in the United States on June 25. "Our people in America are confident they will also have a No. 1 with this," Bradley said.
"A Little Less Conversation" was written by Mac Davis and Billy Strange for the 1968 film "Live a Little, Love a Little." The original was also on the soundtrack of the 2001 movie "Ocean's Eleven."
The remix was approved for the Nike ad by Presley's estate, although Junkie XL was asked to change its name to JXL to avoid a reference to drugs. "They were delighted with the song," Bradley said.
Elvis Presley
BartCop TV!
'Lucky' & 'Snitch'
FX - 2 New Series
FX is going for "Lucky" 13 and enlisting a "Snitch" as part of a plan to serve up original programming in primetime during the first eight months of 2003.
The basic cable network has placed a 13-episode order for the half-hour dramatic comedy series "Lucky," starring John Corbett ("Sex and the City"), and ordered a pilot for drama series "Snitch."
This year's "The Shield" was the network's first scripted drama. The other scripted original series the network has on the air is the satirical "Son of the Beach." FX also continues to develop its original movie slate.
"The Shield" goes back into production in September for a January start. "Lucky" will likely join the schedule at some point thereafter; production rolls this summer in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Set in Las Vegas, it revolves around the exploits of Michael "Lucky" Linkletter (Corbett), who wins $1 million in a poker tourney only to find himself broke a year later. Finding his way back on his feet and on his game
proves difficult, as his circle of support comprises con artists, compulsive gamblers and loan sharks.
Shooting on the offbeat Los Angeles-set drama "Snitch," about a hustler who reluctantly turns FBI informant, is scheduled for this summer.
FX - 2 New Series
Trafalgar Square, London
World Cup Fans
England football fans celebrate their team's 3-0 win over Denmark in the World Cup in Trafalgar Square, London, June 15, 2002. London was swathed in a sea of red and white flags as England secured a place
in the World Cup quarter finals.
Photo by Stephen Hird
Teacher Suspended
Manitoba Math Test
A Canadian teacher has been suspended after shocking a small northern Manitoba school by distributing a math exam that included questions about pimps, prostitutes, machine guns, cocaine trafficking and getting "knocked up."
The math proficiency test included questions such as: "Rufus is a pimp for three girls. If the price is $65 per trick, how many tricks per day must each girl turn to support Rufus' $800 per day crack habit?"
And then there was the trouble with Hector.
"Hector knocked up three girls in his gang. There are 27 girls in his gang. What is the exact percentage of the girls in the gang that Hector knocked up?"
Parents of the 13-year-old and 14-year old students who attend Juniper School in Thompson, Manitoba, said they were outraged.
The test appeared to be modeled after an exam called "The City of Los Angeles High School Math Proficiency Exam," found on an Internet joke site.
Manitoba Math Test
Reader Essay
from Nina Eliza
I Don't Hate Madonna So Much Anymore
Because I love music, and I was 13 when MTV first aired, I watched the channel avidly - just like every other music-loving 13-year-old at the time. Back then, the only videos MTV had to play were European acts like the Cure or the Eurythmics, and "arty" American acts like Devo or REM. Inexplicably, there were also a lot of Rod Stewart videos, but we endured; Because MTV was still the best way for some teenager out in the sticks to find exciting new tunes.
It never occurred to us that MTV wasn't some benevolent entity on the side of good and the true, serving the youth and valiantly challenging the stodginess of American radio. Of course, we now know that MTV was never anything more than a money-grubbing corporation like any other money-grubbing corporation. If we'd known then that we, as the first fans, would be sold out to the likes of Pepsi and Eddie Money, perhaps we wouldn't have watched in the first place.
I distinctly remember the moment I saw Madonna's first video, one summer afternoon when I was on my way out the door. As I watched her writhe around on a soundstage, hair and clothes carefully disheveled, I remember that I laughed out loud. Her singing was amazingly both shrill AND thin, and the nasal qualities of her phrasing were like nails on a chalkboard. Worse still, her ta-tas and la-la's were all hanging out, as was her belly button, for heaven's sake. The song itself ("Lucky Star") was a trite, pedestrian dance tune. Chic could fart a better dance number. I walked out the door thinking, who in hell is this chick trying to fool. Obviously, she was a talent-less little tramp who'd most certainly blown somebody for a record deal. We, the Youth of Today, will see right through her, one and all.
It's 20 years later, and looking back, it's easy to tell that I was a little right and a lot wrong. I watched in horror as that little tramp made millions and millions and millions, pushing far worthier singers closer to suicide. I watched her re-make herself time and again, in a craven effort to be constantly in the spotlight. I watched Kurt Loder, a rock writer I admire and respect, kiss that little tramp's ass from right to left and up and down for the MTV specials shedeigned to show up for. That little tramp, with her sleazy power-mongering take on female sexuality, said that Sinead O'Connor was "as sexy as a light bulb". Who on Earth was this chick fooling? The answer was everyone, apparently, except me.
The apex of my hatred came in 1987. Warner Brothers had yet another banner year - in part because they had both Prince and Madonna on their roster. To celebrate, Warner Brothers proceeds to unceremoniously ax several of its older performers. Among these folks were Louden Wainwright III, Van Morrison, and Bonnie Raitt.
I saw Bonnie perform that year at the Santa Cruz County Fair with my Mom; Norton Buffalo and the Neville Brothers were also on the bill. We each paid two dollars to get in.
Bonnie played a two-hour set with no record contract and her cut of our two dollars in her pocket. At one point someone shouted out, "Hey Bonnie, when's your next record coming out?" It was then she announced that she had no contract. She then said, in an uncharacteristic moment of bitterness, "maybe Madonna will show a little more of her boobs next year and Warner Brothers will take me back". At that point, I wanted to fly to New York and kick every inch of Madonna's bony white ass.
Today, at the age of 35 in the year 2002, my opinion of Madonna has mellowed considerably. Perhaps I'm the one who's mellowed, but I certainly hope not. There are some good reasons not to hate Madonna, and I have compiled a little list of them.
Ø She did it.
It's pretty hard for me to rag on a successful female in America for very long, since there still aren't that many. I've got to hand it to her sheer determination to win.
Ø She made the most of what she had, and bought what she didn't have.
When her first album reached number one, she fired her engineer and got Nile Rodgers (of - you guessed it -Chic fame) to engineer the second one. She knows her voice isn't great (and sometimes not even good), yet she has always hired the best people for everything, even (perhaps especially) the best singers and dancers. Lesser folk would fear being upstaged, but Madonna didn't let vanity interfere with her will to succeed. She's also hired the best vocal coaches in the business from day one.
Ø She tries really, really, hard.
You've got to marvel at what she did to get the lead role in Evita, and what she went through to make the movie. Pregnant with her first child, in an Argentinean winter, she acted her little bony white ass off.
Ø She's consciously tried to grow as a person.
As Gene Simmons shills around for the launch of his magazine, one can't help but marvel at the fact that he's managed to stay the same boorish asshole he was in 1976. In contrast, Madonna has been very candid about her quest for wholeness, sanity, and true happiness. Thanks to her being so open about it, I'm sure millions of her fans have followed suit. She has noticeably become warmer, more generous, and kinder. Today she wears a Britney Spears t-shirt rather than making the kind of snarky comments she made about Sinead O'Connor.
Ø She takes great care of herself.
She's a jogging, yoga-doing, drug-free, vegan mama. I would bet, as some baby boomers crawl towards 60, they would kill their own for the kind of longevity and vitality she's achieved.
Ø She's on the side of the good and the true.
Madonna was a tireless campaigner for AIDS causes long before it was fashionable. She's given money to some very good causes, and not just apolitical putting-blankets-on-babies charities that are so trendy among the famous. Her shining moment for me, however, was her statement following the events of 9/11. "Violence begets violence", she said. I've got applaud a perfect little koan with such a double meaning.
Ø She's a big fan of Frida Kahlo.
Any woman who admires the work of Frida Kahlo has hidden depths.
Ø She hurts.
I'll never forget her performance at the Oscars the year Evita came out. In a small, quavering voice, she actually sings "you must love me". That moment alone speaks volumes about the pain inside her.
Ø Her music isn't all that bad.
Perhaps the biggest sea change in my opinion is my take on her music. I actually like a few of her tunes now - "Take a Bow" in particular. Let's face it: the 80s weren't kind to top-ten music. I can forgive a 20 year-old getting her foot in the door with some obvious dance numbers. On the other hand, Britney Spears needs to go away now.
Perhaps the most important Madonna-related epiphany came to me this morning, and it's this: I bet that if I had Madonna alone in a room, she would be very candid about the one thing I always hated her for in the first place. I think she knows that if she hadn't been a white girl with dyed-blonde hair and a nice rack, she'd be doing something else entirely. She'd probably still be successful, but she wouldn't be an internationally famous pop diva.
As a matter of fact, I wanted to be an internationally famous pop diva. The thing was, I wasn't white, I wasn't thin, and I wasn't willing to do whatever it took. So it was just jealousy all along, pure and simple, and I've got to come clean. In the final analysis though, Madonna in her heart has always been more on my side than I've been on hers. So today, as Madonna re-brands herself yet again as a wife/mother /Elder Pop Stateswoman and fake Brit, I can finally say good on ya, Madonna, good on ya.
~~ Nina Eliza S.
Thanks, Nina Eliza
Still Seeking Volunteers
'The Osbournes'
Fairly freshly updated - 'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2 !
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
C'mon....send your thoughts, your impressions, your views, your favorite quotes...
Scroll down for lots of addys to pick from (or 'from which to pick', for the truly anal retentive).
