'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Comment
Re: Stolen Truck
What an irony. Just two weeks ago, all of us at 'WKRP' were required to undergo the mandatory-ever-since-the-Adrianne-Alpert-incident-annual mast-equipped-truck safety training.
The two rules we learned which Mr. Runningcrane violated, are:
1. Never move the vehicle with antenna raised.
2. "Look Up and Live".
NOT included in our training were:
1. Don't leave beer cans or other incriminating evidence in the vehicle.
2. Don't steal the vehicle.
Actually, the training did include deleriously happy mob and angry violent mob situations - this in the wake of the Lakers' 2002 victory "celebration" at LA's Staples Center.
Essence was "abandon vehicle, remove media credentials, run like hell!"
Vehicles with masts raised are top-heavy and easily tipped over.
'WKRP' Fred
Thanks, Fred!
Selected Sunday Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
from Mark
Let There Be War
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Great weather, again.
I'm having some e-mail trouble. Have received so many samples of SoBig that my mail boxes are clogged. Heh - the virus isn't the worry - it's just the volume of mail keeps putting me over limit.
So much mail that while I'm emptying a folder it fills up, again.
Mail I want is bouncing, and I have no idea it's bounced. < /whine>
Neighbors are restless tonight.
Tonight, Sunday, CBS starts the night with '60 Minutes', followed by a RERUN 'Without A Trace', then a 2-year-old, previously unaired, made-for-tv movie 'Code 11-14'.
NBC opens the evening with the pre-taped, but FRESH 'Women's Gymnastic World Championships', followed by a RERUN 'American Dream', then a RERUN
'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', followed by the Series Finale of 'The Restaurant'.
ABC begins the night with the movie 'Hero', followed by a RERUN 'Alias', then a RERUN 'The Practice'.
The WB has the weekly RERUN 'Gilmore Girls', followed by a RERUN 'Charmed', then another RERUN 'Charmed'.
Faux has a RERUN 'Futurama', followed by another RERUN 'Futurama', then a RERUN 'Simpsons', followed by a RERUN
'King Of The Hill', then a RERUN 'Malcolm', followed by another RERUN 'Malcolm'.
UPN has the weekly RERUN 'Enterprise', then the movie 'What About Your Friends: Weekend-Get-Away'.
A&E has 'Biography' (Steven Spielberg), followed by 'Who Killed Laci Peterson?'.
AMC offers the movie 'Alien Resurrection', followed by the movie 'Alien Saga'.
BBC -
[7pm] 'Ground Force America' - Philadelphia;
[8pm] 'Faking It' - Vicar Turns Second Hand Car Salesman;
[9pm] '3 Non-Blondes' - Episode 3;
[9:40pm] 'The Office' - Episode 6;
[10:20pm] Coupling' - Unconditional Sex;
[11pm] 'Faking It' - Vicar Turns Second Hand Car Salesman;
[12am] '3 Non-Blondes' - Episode 3;
[12:40am] 'The Office' - Episode 6;
[1:20am] 'Coupling' - Unconditional Sex;
[2am] 'Ground Force America' - Philadelphia; and
[3am] 'Faking It' - Vicar Turns Second Hand Car Salesman. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'Full Circle With Michael Palin', followed by 'Inside The Actor's Studio' (the voice cast of 'The Simpsons'), followed by 'The Desilu Story'.
History has 'Apollo 13', followed by 'Failure Is Not An Option'.
SciFi has the movie 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day', followed by the movie 'Cyborg 2'.
TCM celebrates the fabulous (and often over-looked) Myrna Loy, a devout Democrat & feminist.
[6am] 'The Naughty Flirt' (1931);
[7am] 'Wife vs. Secretary' (1936);
[8:30am] 'Penthouse' (1933);
[10am] 'Test Pilot' (1938);
[12pm] 'Love Crazy' (1941);
[2pm] 'The Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer' (1947);
[4pm] 'The Ambassador's Daughter' (1956);
[6pm] 'The Best Years Of Our Lives' (1946)
[9pm] 'The Thin Man' (1934);
[11pm] 'After The Thin Man' (1936);
[1am] 'Shadow Of The Thin Man' (1941); and
[3am] 'The Great Ziegfeld' (1936). (ALL TIMES EDT)
Participants in the 10th EuroPride procession, dressed as characters from the film the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy (R) and the Tin Man, walk through central Manchester, August 23, 2003. EuroPride is the biggest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender festival in Europe and is taking place in Manchester between August 15-25.
Photo by Andrew Fox
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Hosting Late-Night Talk Show
Tavis Smiley
Fans of National Public Radio talk-show host Tavis Smiley soon will be able to see as well as hear him.
Smiley will host a new PBS late-night talk show beginning in January 2004, according to KCET/Hollywood, the Los Angeles public television station that will produce the program.
"The Tavis Smiley Show" will offer a mix of news and pop culture coverage, KCET said. It will air weeknights as part of the PBS lineup that includes "The Charlie Rose Show."
Tavis Smiley
Estate Trustees & Hollywood Bookkeeping
Burt Lancaster
Trustees of actor Burt Lancaster's estate have sued MGM, claiming the studio owes at least $2 million in profits for his films, including "Judgment at Nuremberg," "The Birdman of Alcatraz" and "Elmer Gantry."
The suit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges that from 1996 to 2001, MGM failed to pay the estate its proper share of revenues from the distribution of Lancaster's films.
The suit also alleges the studio charged excessive distribution fees and deducted excessive amounts of interest on production costs.
Burt Lancaster
French microlight pilot Christian Moullec flies with a group of Lesser White-fronted Geese (Anser erythropus) in a typical V formation, at the airshow of Dittingen, Switzerland, August 23, 2003. The French environmentalist raised the geese in an endangered species project in Sweden, and trained the birds to think that his aircraft is their squadron leader. With the aid of the microlight, Moullec was able to guide them, via a safe migration route which they subsequently pass on to future generations, from Sweden to protected winter quarters on Bislich Island, on the Lower Rhine.
Photo by Roger Schneider
Concerts to Honor
Daniel Pearl Music Day
The second annual Daniel Pearl Music Day will take place in October to encourage worldwide harmony in memory of the slain Wall Street Journal reporter.
The international series of concerts will be organized around what would have been Pearl's 40th birthday Oct. 10, according to a statement from the Daniel Pearl Foundation.
"We have a unique opportunity to promote a message of tolerance and the spirit of peace on Daniel Pearl Music Day," said jazz musician and composer Herbie Hancock. "I encourage other musicians around the world to join me in this message of harmony and understanding through music."
An honorary committee formed on behalf of the event includes Hancock, Elton John, Yo-Yo Ma, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, Ravi Shankar, Barbra Streisand, John Williams and other well-known artists.
Daniel Pearl Music Day
www.danielpearl.org
U.S. Comic Wins Top British Comedy Award
Demetri Martin
Geek was chic for U.S. comedian Demetri Martin on Sunday as he won Britain's most prestigious comedy award at Edinburgh's Fringe festival with a nerd-centric routine that drew on charts, graphs and palindromes.
Martin, provoking guffaws with a 222-word poem that read the same backwards as forwards, is only the second American to win the 7,500 pound Perrier Comedy Award.
Martin, a 30-year-old Yale drop-out, beat out the favorite, Australian Adam Hills, along with fellow American Reginald D. Hunter, Britain's Howard Read and the New Zealand spoof musicians Flight of the Conchords.
With an act packed with linguistic word games and mathematic minutiae, Martin has described himself as a "nomadic obsessive."
Demetri Martin
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Philly-Based Show Entering 2nd Season
'Hack'
It's sweltering and he's wearing a buttoned-down shirt and blue jeans, but actor David Morse appears cool and comfortable as he hops out of his taxi cab and saunters up the steps of a row home on the set of "Hack" in West Philadelphia.
"Hack" itself was originally to be set in New York, but producer Nan Bernstein said that Morse felt so strongly about filming the show near his home in Philadelphia that the producers decided it was worth the extra $40,000 to $70,000 an episode to film in the City of Brotherly Love.
So the show was moved to Philadelphia, where virtually all filming is done, pulling an estimated $38 million into the local economy during the first season alone, according to the Greater Philadelphia Film Office.
For a lot more, 'Hack'
Malaysian Juhara Ayob rehearses for her character as queen 'Puteri Cempaka Emas' for the Malay traditional 'Makyong' theatre dance in Kuala Lumpur on August 3, 2003. Makyong is performed with elements of dance, music, acting, singing, and storytelling. The theatre-dance, originally found in the north-eastern state of Kelantan and southern Thailand, was solely performed for kings and aristocrats until the beginning of the 20th century.
Photo by Bazuki Muhammad
Getting Married
Diane Lane
Diane Lane said she wasn't nervous about meeting her future mother-in-law, Barbra Streisand.
"I'd met her before on `Yentl,'" said the actress, who's marrying Streisand's stepson, Josh Brolin. "I've been around and I've met Barbra on different occasions for different reasons at different times. She'd forgotten that she'd read me for 'Yentl' and I was like, 'Good! Please lose the tape!'"
Diane Lane
Live Disc Debuts
Loudon Wainwright III
Loudon Wainwright III returns Aug. 29 with "So Damn Happy," his debut disc for Sanctuary Records. Recorded live at Largo in Los Angeles and the Mystic Theater in Petaluma, Calif., the set features five new songs and concert versions of others culled mostly from Wainwright's post-1990 output.
It also follows "The Last Man on Earth," Wainwright's acclaimed studio album released on Red House in 2001.
"I like the studio, but my songs are written to be performed," says the writer, whose live performances are unforgettable -- and periodically taped and released for posterity. "I don't write for other people -- or to go in the studio -- so I think of my audience: I earn my living as a performer, and records are sort of a side thought."
For the rest, Loudon Wainwright III
Trying to Go 6 Weeks Without Food
David Blaine
For his latest trick, magician David Blaine will try to last more than six weeks without food in a plastic box suspended high over central London.
Starting Sept. 5, Blaine will live in a plastic box 7 feet long, 7 feet deep and 3 feet wide for 44 days without food or contact with the outside world, a representative said Thursday.
Unlike the feats performed by his hero, Harry Houdini, this latest challenge for Blaine won't be to escape, but to survive. All he'll have in the box is a tube for water and a tube for urine.
But he'll also have a good view of London. The box will be suspended 40 feet high from a crane next to the River Thames and near the historic Tower Bridge.
David Blaine
www.davidblaine.com
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Wins Copyright Case
Mystikal
Grammy-nominated rapper Mystikal did not break copyright laws when he used two Cajun sayings in one of his songs, a federal appeals court has ruled.
Emanation makes a hand-held toy called "Cajun in Your Pocket" that plays several Cajun phrases, and got a copyright for the word arrangements on Dec. 13, 2000.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Mystikal, whose real name is Michael Tyler, did not infringe on the company's copyright in his 2000 song "Shake Ya Ass."
The appeals court agreed with a district judge, ruling that the sayings — "We gon pass a good time, yeah, cher," and "You gotta suck da head on dem der crawfish" — are not original and therefore are not protected under copyright laws.
Mystikal
A paddle-wheel steamer of the Dresden, eastern Germany, Steamboat Shipping Company steams up the River Elbe near Dresden, Saturday evening, Aug. 23, 2003, during a steamboat parade. Dresden's paddle steamer fleet is the oldest and biggest of its kind in the world.
Photo by Matthias Rietschel
Family, Fans to Celebrate Life
Buddy Ebsen
The family of the late Buddy Ebsen wants fans to join in next week's tribute to the actor known to generations as Jed Clampett on TV's old series "The Beverly Hillbillies."
Ebsen's widow, Dorothy, will host the Aug. 30 "Life Celebration" for Ebsen, who died July 6 at 95.
Dick Van Dyke will host the event, which is open to the public, and actors Fess Parker, Lee Meriwether and Max Baer Jr. will share memories about Ebsen. The never-released, one-hour retrospective "The Buddy Ebsen Story" will be shown.
Buddy Ebsen
www.buddyebsen.com
Sparks Controversy
Auschwitz 'Souvenirs'
A Polish artist has sparked controversy in the Netherlands by selling "Auschwitz souvenirs" -- from crematorium fridge magnets to "Arbeit Macht Frei" key rings -- to remind people of the horrors of the Nazi death camp.
T-shirts with the menacing skull-and-crossbones symbol from the camp's electric fences and key rings bearing the camp gate's infamous German inscription "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Sets You Free) have been on sale at a Dutch art show since late July.
Agata Siwek, a 30-year-old fine arts graduate who grew up near Auschwitz, said Thursday the items she put on sale in the southern city of Den Bosch were intended to remind people of the Holocaust and the need to combat discrimination and war.
The exhibition has polarized public opinion, with some condemning it as offensive to Holocaust survivors while others have hailed it as a way to highlight the Holocaust and provoke debate about conflicts and atrocities in the 21st century.
Auschwitz 'Souvenirs'
Excessive Heat Takes Toll
Swiss Alpine Glaciers
Grayed by the heat and riven with deep cracks, Switzerland's mighty Alpine glaciers are shrinking at a record rate in this summer's sizzling sun.
The Alpine glaciers, source of some of Europe's biggest rivers, have been in retreat for more than a century, but the loss of ice has speeded this year as temperatures have soared.
"The rate of ice melt is some three or four times the usual amount," said Charly Wuilloud, head of the department of natural dangers at the Valais state forestry department.
For a lot more, Swiss Alpine Glaciers
Arrested in Atlanta Suburb
Bobby Brown
Singer Bobby Brown was arrested on a probation violation while dining with his wife, Grammy winner Whitney Houston, police said Saturday.
Brown was picked up Friday night at a restaurant in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta after an unidentified caller tipped authorities, said police Sgt. Chris Lagerbloom, a department spokesman.
Brown, 33, was taken to the DeKalb County Jail, Lagerbloom said. He did not know how Brown violated his probation.
Bobby Brown
Rips White House on NYC Air
EPA Watchdog
At the White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry.
Resident Bush's senior environmental adviser on Friday defended the White House involvement, saying it was justified by national security.
In all, the EPA issued five press releases within 10 days of the attacks and four more by the end of 2001 reassuring the public about air quality. But it wasn't until June 2002 that the EPA determined that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels — well after respiratory ailments and other problems began to surface in hundreds of workers cleaning dusty offices and apartments.
For the rest, EPA Watchdog
EPA Inspector General
National Security Council
Council on Environmental Quality
An unnamed baby anteater rides on the back of his mother, Sauna, at London Zoo, Friday Aug. 22, 2003. There is a competition to name the youngster, who was born in June
Photo by Matthew Fearn
'Ark of Darkness'
"The Ark of Darkness", a Political/Science-Fiction work, in tidy, weekly installments (and updated every Friday).
The Ark Group reunites and Flazer fulfills his destiny.
'The Osbournes'
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 5
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 4
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
