Bartcop Entertainment News - Sunday, 26 August, 2001

(Bartcop Entertainment)

Sunday

26 August, 2001

'Official' One-Month Anniversary Issue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reader Query

It's a question you have to ask yourself when you get home around 12:30am and 
find out that a huge name in R&B and pop was killed in a plane crash.

At some point on Saturday Aaliyah and 7 other people were killed when a small 
plane crashed after taking off to the Bahamas to shoot a video.

I read this news off the AP wire on yahoo when I got home tonight. I have 
searched high and low through all channels and have found nothing on this story. 
Though I caught the tail end of something about it on Faux News but who knows 
why they would be saying.

So I wait and watch MTV for MTVnews, which airs at the top or bottom of every 
hour. It comes on and I believe I'll have some type of confirmation of this 
tragedy from the station that has supposedly been the forerunner of the music 
industry and news for the last 20 years. What do I get when it finally comes on? 
Some ridiculous Faux News style fluff piece on the fact that AJ from the 
Backstreet Boys is out of rehab and they have resumed their tour. 
One question. 
WHO DA FUCK CARES???? You'd think that the death of a BIG name in the music 
world, a girl who was just embarking on a big movie career (she's supposed to be 
starring in the next two Matrix movies), and is only 22 would be bigger news 
than some guy only 12 year old girls care about getting out of rehab.

I don't care that it's 12:30 at night, this is their job, right? To roll their 
ass out of bed and report when huge news happens. And if they AP has it on the 
wire and Faux News has picked it up then it should be easy to report the bare 
facts and move on, right? I remember something like seven years ago I just 
happened to be watching MTV when the news came down about Kurt Cobain killing 
himself they had a marquee scrolling until they broke in with the actual news. 
Now they can't be bothered? What the hell????

I hope for everyone's sake this is a hoax (but I feel like it isn't because I 
hope like hell the Associate Press wouldn't go off half cocked with no fact 
checking on a story, but the story I read had a quote from the Minister of 
Tourism from the Bahamas), but if it isn't I'm am more than infuriated and 
disappointed with MTV. They have truly put themselves on the list of the great 
Media Whores.

 ~~Ali

Look Who's Posting At Amazon

Former House Speaker, and serial philanderer, Newt Gingrich is making the most 
of his voracious reading habit and love of the Internet by writing personal 
reviews of books he likes and posting them on Amazon.com. 

With 47 posted, Gingrich ranks 473rd among Amazon reviewers. As one of the ``Top 
500,'' he has his own page on Amazon.com, with a biography, photograph and a 
list of books he has critiqued. 

``Half the things I read are light fiction, while the rest relate to politics, 
technology and warfare,'' Gingrich said. 

To read the rest, Newt

Concert News

This weekend's Reading and Leeds festivals are set to attract thousands of 
revelers, with some of the biggest names in rock and dance music to take to the 
stage.

``Bad boy'' rapper Eminem and controversial rocker Marilyn Manson will take to 
the Reading stage on Sunday. 

When the chainsaw-wielding star toured Britain last February he sparked protests 
for his misogynistic and homophobic lyrics. He was subject of a police probe 
after pretending to take Ecstasy tablets during his gigs.

Manson was recently charged for allegedly assaulting a male security guard during 
a U.S. performance.

To read about the tours of America's most lucrative exports, MM & Eminem  

Food News

Two women have been arrested on suspicion of selling drug-laced fairy cakes to 
fans at the Reading Festival, police said.

So far police have made 180 seizures of cannabis and 20 of Class A drugs such as 
heroin and ecstasy at the festival west of London, the spokeswoman said.

To read more, No Recipe Given 

BartCop TV Is Here!

Visit the site at BC TV

The 'Vidiot', has updated, again!

There is even more to check!

The Vidiot.

An amazing amount of information, on an amazing variety of TV shows, thanks 
to our Vidiot.

What's On eBay?

Madonna fans seeking a memento from the Material Girl's past have until Sept. 20 
to bid on the U.S. pop star's childhood home.

Bids start at $324,000. But so far, there have been no bites on the four-bedroom, 
two-bath home.

``Madonna lived in this home with her father, step-mother, and seven siblings 
from the time she was in sixth grade until she left for the University of 
Michigan,'' it says.

``Madonna's father and step-mother occupied the house until they sold it in July. 
No one else has lived in it since their departure. This house has been Madonna's 
stopping point when visiting her parents or when on tour in the area.''

Ebay declined to identify the seller. 

``It's a great way to get a lot of publicity,'' Pursglove said, noting 7,500 
individuals have logged onto the Madonna listing since it went online on Tuesday.

To read even more, Casa di Ciccione 

NEW!

Check it out at BC Astrology.

Have you ever checked out Robert Johnson's or Andres Segovia's horoscope?

Pretty cool stuff!


(And, to read Buzzcook's riff, see bcEntertainment (7/31/01)).

Cutting to the chase, here is Buzzcook's list of guitar gods:

Chick Webb

Robert Johnson

Albert King

John Lee Hooker
Hell if you don't already know John Lee, no link will save ya.

Joe Pass

Django Reinhardt

Andres Segovia

Mr. Guitar

Music News

A U.S. condom and sex toy retailer said on Friday it had started marketing a 
brand of condoms featuring the singer's face on the package and called, of all 
things, ``Madonna Condoms.''

The package shows a headshot of Madonna, taken from a series of nude photos made 
in 1979 by photographer Martin Schreiber. He sold the rights to the pictures two 
years ago to VDM International which in turn sold the U.S. rights to CondoMania, 
a company that sells sex toys and condoms.

A spokesman for Madonna had no comment, but sources close to the star said she was 
upset by the U.S. release of the prophylactics.

To read the whole sordid tale, prophylactics

TV News

The Minister of Silly Walks is in repose.

Dressed in a blue polo shirt and blue jeans with his feet propped up on a coffee 
table, John Cleese sips his tea as he talks about his latest project, a 
documentary on the human face.

On his wrist, a watch with the likeness of Kermit the Frog.

``My wife bought me an expensive watch for Christmas, some Swiss something or 
other,'' Cleese says. ``And it was beautiful, but it lost three minutes a day. 
How can you have a watch that loses three minutes a day? So I switched to Kermit. 
And he's quite accurate.''

From such quirks have sprung a career spanning 35 years, including classic comic 
pieces such as ``The Ministry Of Silly Walks,'' ``The Dead Parrot Sketch,'' and 
the ``Upper Class Twit Of The Year.''

Now the 61-year-old founding member of the Monty Python comedy troupe, who helped 
create the classic ``Fawlty Towers'' TV series and starred in such films as ``A 
Fish Called Wanda,'' and most recently ``Rat Race,'' is turning his attention to 
the human face.

Starting Sunday, The Learning Channel will air ``The Human Face,'' a four-part 
documentary written and hosted by Cleese that explores the physiology of the face 
and how it communicates emotionally and culturally.

The segments are connected by short links with supermodel Elizabeth Hurley and 
Python alumnus Michael Palin, who created a travel documentary of his own.

Cleese, who is slated to be in the ``Harry Potter'' film later this year, said 
the experience will help him in his next project, which he hopes will be a 
documentary on Christianity. ''I'm very much interested in making a video series 
about people who are not satisfied by what the church is offering.''

To read this article in its entirety, John Cleese & 'Faces'
 

TV News

A four-hour series that is very informative, very entertaining, very different 
and hardly seems like a documentary at all.

All members of People Against Punning, look away now. "The Human Face," a four- 
hour series tomorrow and Monday on the Learning Channel, simply demands to be 
described as cheeky.

That is largely because it is narrated by John Cleese, who tackles this odd 
subject by mixing the fearless humor of his "Monty Python" days with what seems 
to be a genuine curiosity. The result is a very informative, very entertaining, 
very different program that hardly seems like a documentary at all.

Mr. Cleese is aided by an assortment of experts and celebrities, principally 
Elizabeth Hurley, who is his straight woman and, sometimes, his example: in Part 
1, a miniaturized Mr. Cleese strolls across Ms. Hurley's face, using it to make 
his points.

Perhaps most remarkable about this inventive series, though, is that its best 
moments aren't zany at all. The program pauses occasionally to talk to people 
with maladies of the face, some of them difficult to look at a man with facial 
cancer; a young girl whose face cannot vary in expression; a man who has lost the 
ability to recognize faces, including those of his children. Mr. Cleese here 
shows himself to be a sensitive but not condescending interviewer, another 
surprise from a man who has given us many over the years.

To read this version, More John Cleese

History In The News

During the hunt for communists in the 1940s, congressional investigators heard 
hours of secret testimony about how left-wingers in the movie industry were 
trying to paint Tinseltown red. 

Newly released transcripts reveal the House Committee on Un-American Activities 
was told that Soviet sympathizers made a science out of seeding films with 
communist propaganda. 

Actors, screenwriters and producers - mostly friendly witnesses with 
anti-communist views - testified in Los Angeles in the late 1940s that communists 
infiltrated trade unions, slipped jabs at capitalism into scripts and schooled 
young actors on how to inject pro-Soviet doctrine into scenes. 

``Hollywood is one of the main centers of communist activities in America due to 
the fact that our greatest medium for propaganda - the motion pictures - is 
located here,'' actor Adolphe Menjou testified in a closed-door May 1947 hearing. 
``It is the desire of the masters in Moscow to use this medium for their purposes, 
which is for the overthrow of the American government.'' 

It's been more than 50 years since members of the committee took their 
anti-communism bandwagon to California and summoned Hollywood figures to testify 
at public hearings, which led to blacklisting of some of filmdom's most famous 
names and ruined hundreds of careers. What witnesses told the committee in 
executive session has been sealed until now. 

The National Archives released more than 600 boxes of records this month from the 
committee's investigations of Hollywood, the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazis, 
civil rights and anti-war activists, atomic espionage and the case of Alger Hiss, 
a former State Department official accused of being a communist spy. The Klan 
probe was stopped after the HUAC's chief counsel, Ernest Adamson, announced the 
committee did not have enough data to investigate. 

Not all the witnesses were friendly. 

On May 12, 1947, committee members called Johannes Eisler, whose brother was 
believed to be a top leader of the Communist Party in America. Believing the 
committee was on a witch hunt, Eisler, who composed music for movies, 
intentionally dodged questions about his trips to the Soviet Union and whether 
he attended Communist Party meetings. 

Stripling suggested Eisler might be lying but said his accusation was ``not 
on-the-record.'' 

``Of course not. Not anything decent or fair would get on the record,'' said 
Eisler's attorney, Ben Margolis. 

``I can sue you for calling me a liar,'' Eisler chimed in.

Excerpts Of Transcripts

Excerpts from transcripts of testimony Hollywood figures gave to the House 
Committee on Un-American Activities during executive sessions it held in 1946 
and 1947 in Los Angeles: 


``In 1943, we did a picture in the studio, in which I tried desperately to get 
out of, called `Song of Russia.' They wanted me to do it. I didn't want to do it 
because I thought it was definitely communist propaganda. In other words, it 
happened to paint Russia in a light in which I personally had never conceived 
Russia.'' 
- actor Robert Taylor. 


``We are all conscious of the fact that we have a great many of them (communist 
sympathizers) ... well, you might call them parlor pinks. I don't think they are 
out-and-out communists running around with a sickle and hammer, but they are in 
sympathy with that phase of things. It is so cleverly covered up that you are 
left wondering, but you can't put your finger exactly on it.'' 
- actor Richard Arlen. 
 

``I did grab (actor) Cary Grant one day in the commissary. I pulled him down 
beside me in a little booth. I said, `Cary, be careful of this script they are 
going to give you. It is packed with communism, and they are going to make you 
say it, and I know you are not a communist.''' 
- Lela Rogers, a writer, one-time assistant to the president of RKO Pictures and 
mother of actress Ginger Rogers. 
 

``I don't think you can stop anybody from singing the praises of Russia, if they 
believe it is a good country. I think it is a part of our fundamental law that a 
man has got a right to say what he believes. But when he participates in American 
institutions and deliberately tries to subvert those institutions to become an 
instrument of a foreign power, that is something that is fundamentally wrong and 
has to be stopped.'' 
- Hollywood labor leader Roy Brewer. 
 

```The Master Race' dealt with the efforts of three war prisoners to escape from 
Nazi Germany. The American major, I believe it was, was a middle-aged, tired, 
potbellied symbol of broken-down capitalism and ineffectual democracy. ... But 
the Russian lieutenant was a statue by (French sculptor Auguste) Rodin. He was a 
symbol of strength and power and the will to carry on. And, as the picture 
progressed, we were led to feel that the leadership in this microcosm of 
international cooperation must look to Russia for all of its vigor.'' 
- screenwriter Jack Moffitt. 
 

``The Writers Guild is just loaded (with communist sympathizers). I mean, I 
would say roughly 90 percent. ... Sometimes it is hardly detectable, and yet 
their influence is there. ... I have seen so many instances - it makes your 
blood boil - of the bankers. He chews at his cigar and tobacco juice drools down 
his mouth as he talks. They will get a character with a bad mouth to start with. 
There is something wrong with his lips, or something. In the dialogue, it may be 
sweetened and right, but when this fellow plays the role, when you see him, you 
don't like bankers.'' 
- Leo McCarey, producer, director, writer. 

 

``A communist, I found, is a man who likes to go to meetings and talk all night 
and pass laws.'' 
- Rupert Hughes, conservative writer and director. 


To read either article, completely, Hollywood 'Reds', or Excerpts

To search out the National Archives, National Archives

Still MISSING




Marc Chagall's "Study for 'Over Vitebsk'"

Welcome !
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.

The idea is to have fun.

Do you have something to say?  
Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better, 
amused or entertained?
Use your words to inform the rest of us.

Do you have a great album no one's heard? 
How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?  
A popular artist that just plain pisses you off (Britny and 'N Sync don't count, 
they piss off EVERYONE)? 
A box set the whole world should own? 
Vile, filthy rumors about Republican musicians?
Just plain vile, filthy rumors? 
A picture of yourself clad only in panties and sitting on Phil Donahue's lap? 
This is your place.

Send it to Marty

Don't send it to BC....

Or send it to this Marty

Please, don't send it to BC!

Or send it to this Marty


Please, Do NOT send it to BC!


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