'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another sunny day, but, the weather is changing. Static electricity happened while brushing one of the cats (which of course pissed her off), and
also tipped a change in the forecast - we're less than 3 miles from the ocean, so humidity is usually a given.
Talked to dear old Dad in PA. He's got a cold, and the high was 11 (F). He's not a happy camper.
We're slowly slogging our way to a science fair project. The laser is out - the school sent home a list of approved options, and, jeez, not one of them sounds interesting. The project must 'prove' something that's already been
proved. Long, long time ago had an art teacher who didn't like original artwork. She preferred her students copy something - her rationale being only 'good' things were printed, and therefore worth copying (the classroom walls had an abundance of
pictures of children with gigantic eyes, a la Walter Keane). Who'd a thunk Priscilla would have been so prescient.
Tonight, Thursday, CBS opens the evening with the FRESH Season Finale of 'Star Search', then a FRESH
'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation', and a FRESH 'Without A Trace'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Stupid Pet Tricks and The Pretenders.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Gabrielle Union and The All-American Rejects.
NBChas altered their schedule tonight - currently, it's a FRESH 'Friends', followed by a RERUN
'Friends', then a FRESH'Will & Grace', followed by a RERUN 'Will & Grace', and finally, a
FRESH 'ER'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Dr. Phil McGraw and Molly Shannon.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Matthew McConnaughey and Hunter S. Thompson.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Dave Attell and Tonic.
ABC has dumped the scheduled made-for-tv movie for the 'Michael Jackson Special' documentary that hit the fan this past week. Think it runs 90-minutes, but with commercials...'PrimeTime Thursday' follows.
The WB opens with a RERUN 'High School Reunion', then a FRESH 'Surreal Life', and a FRESH
'Jamie Kennedy'.
Faux starts with a RERUN 'Joe Millionaire', followed by 'The Pulse'.
UPN has 'WWE SmackDown!'.
TCM celebrates Black History Month tonight with musicals. WARNING - there will be stereotypes that may not sit well with a 21st century audience, but there are also incredible performances.
First up,
Cabin in the Sky (1943), directed by
Vincente Minnelli and
Busby Berkeley, and starring
Ethel Waters,
Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson,
Lena Horne and
Louis Armstrong.
Next is
New Orleans (1947) (and written by the soon-to-be-blacklisted
Herbert J. Biberman), with
Louis Armstrong (as himself),
Woody Herman (as himself), and the always amazing
Billie Holiday, as 'Endie'.
Then, it's
Hallelujah (1929), followed by
Show Boat (1936), directed by
James Whale - yes - this is the version with
Paul Robeson.
Rounding out the night are
Zouzou (1934) and
Princesse Tam Tam (1935), both of which star the incomparable
Josephine Baker.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
A worker puts finishing touches on carnival masks depicting, among others, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (center) and (right-not complete) and U.S resident George W. Bush(R) at a costume factory in a
suburb of Rio de Janeiro, February 5, 2003. Spanish-born craftsman Armando Valle rushed to fill orders for 12,000 of the popular masks of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, U.S.resident George W. Bush and
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ahead of carnival festivities.
Photo by Sergio Moraes
Guernica Hidden as U.S. Speaks on Iraq
UN Cover-Up
In a bold cover-up, the United Nations on Wednesday concealed behind a blue cloth and a row of flags the world body's treasured tapestry of "Guernica," the celebrated Picasso anti-war masterpiece.
The tapestry hangs outside the U.N. Security Council, where Secretary of State Colin Powell was presenting the U.S. case that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction and war may be needed to make sure it disarms.
But U.N. officials insisted no symbolism was intended in the decision to hide the tapestry.
The cover and flags were meant only to provide a strong visual clue to television cameras filming diplomats in the corridor, the officials said.
Picasso's Guernica commemorates a small Basque village in northern Spain that was used by Germany for bombing practice for more than three hours on April 27, 1937.
The raid killed or wounded some 1,600 civilians and left the village in flames for three days.
UN Cover-Up
Talks Trash TV, War
George Clooney
Filmmakers should not shirk from raising the intellectual bar and promoting debate, whether the subject is trash TV or a looming war in Iraq, U.S. actor George Clooney said on Wednesday.
In Rome to promote his directorial debut, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," Clooney said Americans needed to chew over the repercussions of a war to disarm Iraq, which the U.S. government accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction.
"I'm concerned that in the United States we are not embracing what we normally do, which is have a debate on the subject," Clooney, 41, told reporters.
"I hope that we will continue to raise the level and have people ask the tough questions," he said at a press conference shortly before Secretary of State Colin Powell began laying out his case against Iraq to a skeptical United Nations.
Clooney -- acclaimed for his leading role in long-running hospital drama "ER" and film roles in "Batman and Robin" and "A Perfect Storm" -- decried the U.S. trend of spoon-feeding audiences easily digestible escapism.
"Are you going to feed them something so they don't have to think, or are you going to try and raise the bar and see if they'll catch up?" he asked.
Cinema and television were powerful tools for sparking discussions, he said, but admitted that challenging American viewing audiences was not always appreciated.
"Mostly I'm searching for stories that interest me, a lot of times that don't have all the answers...which is not necessarily popular right now in the United States," the greying actor explained.
George Clooney
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
British Audiences Laugh at Play Mocking Bush
'The Madness of George Dubya'
British theater-goers are flocking to a new farce that mocks resident Bush as a pajama-wearing buffoon cuddling a teddy bear while his crazed military chiefs order nuclear strikes on Iraq.
"The Madness of George Dubya" -- which mercilessly satirizes British Prime Minister Tony Blair as well as Bush -- has proved such a success at a fringe theater in London that it is moving to a larger venue next week for an extended run.
Director Justin Butcher wrote "The Madness" in three days after Christmas -- then rehearsed it in six -- in a fit of pique against the American establishment following a brush with some U.S. security agents on a trip to Romania.
The agents were in Bucharest preparing for an imminent Bush visit and interrogated Butcher and a friend in a hotel after overhearing a conversation between them that they said they were "not comfortable with," the director said.
"That was a key influence in my feeling that in the arts scene we were in need of a wakeup call about the influence of American imperialism in the world," Butcher told Reuters after a full house had again cheered his play to the rafters.
"This is not a racist, anti-American thing. It's a satirical attack on what the U.S. and British governments are doing."
As well as echoing in its title a 1994 film, "The Madness of King George," about Britain's 18th century King George III, Butcher's satire re-works plot elements from Stanley Kubrick's 1964 classic "Dr. Strangelove."
Throughout the play, Bush -- with a cowboy hat and Superman T-shirt as well as his pajamas -- wanders around uttering an idiot's commentary from the bunker (or "bunkbed" as he calls it) where his "special guys" have put him for safekeeping.
"Often times I get confused and forget stuff," he says, as he rails against the risk from "Islamic tourist states."
"Tourists are brown folks who get on planes and come to America and do bad things, so we're having a war on tourism," he says in one of various risque wisecracks in the play.
Enlivened by slapstick song and dances, the play tracks the consequences of a psychotic, eye-bulging American general's decision to launch preemptive nuclear strikes on Iraq.
Trashing the United Nations as a "bunch of pinko, degenerate subversives" and Bush and Blair as a "pair of goddamn degenerates," General Kipper puts the world on the brink of war before an
al Qaeda operative disguised as a cleaner produces the secret code to recall U.S. fighter pilots.
Amid the humor, a dignified speech by the Iraqi ambassador to a panicked Blair is the seminal political moment of the play. Audience laughter fell to a hush on a recent night as the actor
offered a withering critique of Western hypocrisy toward Iraq.
While criticizing President Saddam Hussein as a "butcher" -- "We hate him, but we hate you more," he tells the U.S. and American officials -- he also hails the Iraqi leader as an "Arab Robin Hood,
the only one to give Uncle Sam the finger."
Details of the play are on the Internet at www.themadnessofgeorgedubya.org.
The Madness of George Dubya
Thanks, Martin-Newman!
It looks like as if three men walking behind are seen through the body of graduate student Kazutoshi Obana during a demonstration of optical camouflage technology at the Tokyo University in Tokyo
Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2003. The demonstration conducted by Faculty of Engineering Prof. Susumu Tachi is an early stage of his research that will eventually enable camouflaged objects virtually transparent by wearing an optical device.
This photo was taken through a viewfinder that provides with a combined image of moving images taken behind Obana and him wearing a luminous jacket that makes a transparent effect. The technology can be useful for various professions
such as surgeons who wish their own fingers and surgical tools won't block the view of affected parts and pilots who wish cockpit floors were transparent for landings.
Photo by Shizuo Kambayashi
Join Forces to Save The Old Vic
Kevin Spacey & Elton John
Hollywood star Kevin Spacey and pop veteran Elton John joined forces on Wednesday to save one of London's most famous theaters, the Old Vic.
They staged a glittering, star-studded charity concert to raise 500,000 pounds ($826,000) for the historic theater whose leaking roof is in dire need of repair.
Elton John is chairman of the Old Vic Theater Trust while Spacey was named earlier on Wednesday as the new artistic director of the theater made famous by such acting giants as Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton.
Spacey, who won Oscars for his roles in "The Usual Suspects" and "American Beauty," was master of ceremonies for the big night, initially appearing in a pink wig disguised as Elton.
The flamboyant showman then joined Spacey on stage to launch into a duet of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."
The performance of the actor, a life-long Democrat and active campaigner for President Bill Clinton, was warmly applauded by Clinton's daughter Chelsea, who is in Britain studying Oxford University, north of London.
"I was thrilled to support the Old Vic and hope to do so many times in the future," she later told Reuters.
Among the most eagerly awaited stars at the concert was U.S. rock star Courtney Love, arrested and cautioned on Tuesday by British police for causing "harassment, alarm and distress" during a transatlantic flight.
The singer, who admits to having a "potty mouth" for her foul language, was unusually reticent about the incident but still managed to upstage her peers.
At the climax of the show -- for which guests had paid up to 1,000 pounds ($1,600) a head -- Love stripped on stage to her skimpy underwear and fishnet tights and draped herself across the grand
piano to sing "The Bitch Is Back" with Elton at the keyboard.
Kevin Spacey & Elton John
Carrying On Family Traditions
Billy Bush
resident Bush would have winced had he seen his cousin Billy Bush at Guastavino Sunday night. The "Access Hollywood" correspondent was doubly buzzed at the post-premiere party for "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." Besides
drinking, Billy partook of a funny-looking cigarette which was passed among his friends. He boogied up a storm with "about six girls at once," says our spy. But one model wasn't impressed with his awkward dance moves. "Isn't
that the guy from 'Access Hollywood'?" she sniffed to another mannequin. "What a dork!"
Billy Bush
Greenlighted At NBC
3 Pilots
NBC greenlit a trio of pilots Tuesday, including efforts from comic Howie Mandel and radio personality Phil Hendrie.
Howie Mandel, who had a short-lived talk show several years ago, has refashioned his "Tonight Show" hidden-camera pranks into a sitcom, and will essentially play himself.
The Hendrie project stars the nighttime L.A. radio talker as a former city cop who moves to a gated community, where he encounters the crazy residents as its new head of security. It will
feature a number of characters created by Hendrie for his KFI-based syndicated show.
NBC also picked up "Happy Family," a comedy about would-be empty nesters whose grown children end up moving back in.
3 Pilots
Share Pain
Ted & Jane
Turner told CBS' Mike Wallace that he has lost up to $8 billion as his shares plummeted and has had to slow payment of the $1 billion he promised to the United Nations.
Now his ex is facing a similar headache. When the pair married, Fonda reportedly agreed to take $10 million in Time Warner stock in lieu of a larger settlement in any future divorce. That stock was worth nearly $70 million when they split in 2001.
It was around then that Fonda announced she was making the largest single donation in the history of Harvard University: $12.5 million for a major research center on sex and education. But then came the AOL merger and the
company's ensuing financial calamities. For Fonda, the other shoe dropped last week, when Harvard announced Fonda was unable to complete the gift because of declining stock prices. Plans for the center have been dropped
and Harvard will return most of the $6.5 million Fonda had already donated.
Ted & Jane
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Complains About British Press
Madonna
Madonna has complained to Britain's press watchdog about a magazine article claiming she was pregnant, the Press Complaints Commission said Wednesday.
A commission spokeswoman said the singer-actress had contacted the organization to say a report in celebrity magazine Heat was "inaccurate."
Heat reported in its latest issue that Madonna, 44, had visited a birth specialist in London at the end of last year. The magazine noted her baggy clothes and that she'd stopped dying her hair, which some pregnant women choose to do.
Madonna's spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, was quoted by the British Broadcasting Corp. as saying there was no truth in the report.
The commission said it would contact Heat in an effort to settle the matter. If no agreement is reached, the commission could rule that the magazine had breached Britain's press conduct code, although it has no power to fine offenders.
Madonna
The Mistress of Ceremonies, Roseanne, center, wears fashion from the label 'Lane Bryant' during the 'The Grand Cabaret' Lane Bryant lingerie fashion show Tuesday, Feb 4, 2003 in New York.
Photo by Mark Lennihan
Pulls Commercial
Hewlett-Packard
Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. has pulled a popular television advertisement featuring an astronaut's safe homecoming in response to the shuttle disaster.
"Out of respect for those lost, we have canceled our 'Explorer' ad," HP spokeswoman Rebeca Robboy said.
The ad concludes with an astronaut in a space suit checking his mailbox, wiping his feet on the doormat, and then walking inside his home. A voice says, "With the help of HP's technology and servers, the world's space
agencies can focus on getting their employees home safely."
The second-biggest computer maker after International Business Machines Corp. is also removing the space-travel-themed ad from print media and billboards.
The campaign on which an estimated $375 million is being spent, is HP's biggest since it completed its acquisition of Compaq Computer last May.
Hewlett-Packard
Says Engagement Is Off
'The Bachelor'
Aaron Buerge, a 28-year-old banker from Springfield, Mo., proposed to Helene Eksterowicz at the end of the second season of "The Bachelor," ABC's romance-reality series in which an eligible guy chooses a bride from among 25 hopefuls.
Now, he says in the Feb. 17 issue of People magazine that the engagement was over by New Year's.
"There has not been any dagger throwing," Buerge said, adding that neither had been unfaithful. He said he and Eksterowicz, a 27-year-old school psychologist from Gloucester City, N.J., stay in touch by e-mail, and will explain why the romance died on a Feb. 20 ABC special.
'The Bachelor'
Baby News
Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson
Australian supermodel-actress Elle Macpherson has given birth to a baby boy, her publicist said Wednesday.
Aurelius Cy Andrea, born Tuesday morning, is the second child for Macpherson, 39, and her Swiss partner, Arpad Busson. The baby weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces.
Aurelius was born by natural delivery at the exclusive St. John and St. Elizabeth Hospital in northwest London, said Macpherson's publicist, Kimberley Witcombe. The hospital has been the favored
choice of other celebrity mothers, including model Jerry Hall and actress Sadie Frost, Jude Law's wife.
Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Blames 'Potty Mouth' for Arrest
Courtney Love
Singer-actress Courtney Love blamed her "potty mouth" after British police arrested her for verbally abusing cabin staff on a trans-Atlantic flight.
Police released the 38-year-old after cautioning her for causing harassment, alarm and distress to another person, the Metropolitan Police said.
Officers boarded the Virgin Atlantic flight from Los Angeles shortly after it landed at the airport west of London and arrested Love, who was led to a police van on the landing strip. She
smiled at a television camera and covered her face as she walked from the plane, flanked by two officers.
Love was upbeat about the nine hours she spent in police custody.
"It was fine," she said. "They were wonderful in there."
But she enjoyed her flight less.
"This is my second time on Virgin and my first time wasn't so great either," Love said. "I think that I have been flying British Airways for a long time and I will continue to do so."
Courtney Love
Visitors look at a snow statue of U.S. fleet admiral Matthew Perry, ancestor of former U.S. Defence Secretary William Perry, and his ship at the 54th Snow Festival in Sapporo, northern Japan,
February 5, 2003. About 30,000-tons of snow is used for 10 giant statues and sculptures and about 200 middle and small-size sculptures. The one-week mid-winter festival began on Wednesday and
the organizing committee said they expect about two million tourists to visit during the festival. Admiral Perry visited Japan in 1853 to bring the president's letter to Shogun of the Tokugawa government.
Photo by Kimimasa Mayama
Palm Springs
'Bridge of Thighs'
Venice, Italy, has the Bridge of Sighs. Now Palm Springs has the "bridge of thighs."
A pedestrian bridge that will connect two parts of a nudist resort - while crossing over a busy public street - has drawn national attention since construction began last month.
"I've heard it all: bridge of thighs, naked bridge, nudist bridge, you name it. I'm sure I'm going to hear more of it before it's over," said Stephen Payne, co-owner of the Desert Shadows Inn Resort and Villas, considered one of the world's most upscale nudist resorts.
"I really don't understand all the attention. It's just a bridge, isn't it?"
The 110-foot span, set to open later this month, has become an instant landmark in a city known as a playground for the rich and famous, with its expansive resorts, high-end boutiques and laissez-faire attitude.
Although it is being built to shield those using it from prying eyes below, city officials are touting it as a work of art.
The bridge is officially named the Lee R. Baxandall Bridge, after the 68-year-old founder of the Naturist Society and 30-year advocate of nude recreation.
'Bridge of Thighs'
Sonny Bono once called Palm Springs 'Death's Waiting Room'.
Admits Paternity
Ice-T
A Manhattan Family Court hearing officer on Tuesday ordered rapper Ice-T, a star on television's "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," to pay $4,000 a month in temporary child support after he admitted fathering a 15-month-old youngster.
Hearing officer David Kirschblum issued the order after Ice-T waived his right to a paternity trial when Kirschblum said DNA tests proved the rapper-actor was the father of Kevin Ice Marrow.
Ice-T, whose real name is Tracy Marrow, initially denied he had an affair with Linda Marie Sanchez, 27, from the New York City borough of the Bronx.
Sanchez, a Board of Education clerk, earns $589 every two weeks. She had asked for $8,000 a month in support.
Ice-T told the court he makes about $25,000 for each of 22 episodes a year on the popular television show. In addition, he earns between $5,000 and $10,000 apiece for personal appearances.
Ice-T
Plans Wall-To-Wall Olympics Coverage In 2004
NBC
NBC plans 24-hour a day coverage of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens spread across five networks as it tries to avoid the ratings disasters of past coverage of the world's most celebrated athletic event.
The network said in a statement on Wednesday that it plans to offer a total of 806.5 hours across NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo and Telemundo for the 2004 Games in Athens, nearly double its cover from the 2000 Sydney
Games and more than four times what it offered for the 1996 Olympics from Atlanta.
NBC said its 2004 programming would mark the first time that at least some coverage of every one of the 28 sports played at the Olympics would be televised. The network said Telemundo's coverage would mark the
first exclusively non-English broadcast of the games in U.S. history.
Despite a time difference between Athens and the eastern time zone of the United States of seven hours, the network also indicated it plans to offer some live programming.
For 2004, the network's coverage will begin at 2 a.m. EDT on MSNBC and run until 4 p.m. NBC will also come in from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Bravo will take up coverage from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., with CNBC adding cover
from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. NBC will jump back in from 8 p.m. to midnight and then again from 12:35 a.m. to 2 a.m. Bravo will provide midnight to 6 a.m. replays.
Telemundo's Spanish-language programming will run from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., NBC said.
NBC
Blues Celebration Kickoff
'The Year of the Blues'
Blues singer Shemekia Copeland thinks it's time the genre got an image makeover.
"Blues gets a bad rap because of what its called," said the 23-year-old, one of the blues' brightest new stars. "People associate blues with all the sad things that can possibly go wrong with their life. ... (but) the blues is what's happening."
Lovers of the genre are trying to spread that word in 2003, which has been declared "The Year of the Blues" by Congress. Director Martin Scorsese is producing a seven-part series for PBS to air this fall, and
the Experience Music Project, a museum in Seattle, is sponsoring an education program and traveling exhibit.
The official kickoff of the yearlong celebration occurs Friday with the "Salute to the Blues" concert at Radio City Music Hall. Blues legends such as B.B. King and Ruth Brown will be feted by pop, rock and R&B stars including Aerosmith,
Natalie Cole and India.Arie with collaborations designed to attract the non-blues listener.
The 77-year-old King, known as the "King of the Blues," also said he hopes the benefit will open minds.
"A lot of the kids, they think it's all pain, it's all hurt, it's all droopy drawers," he said. "It wasn't all like that in slavery."
Blues accounted for less than 3.4 percent of music sales in the United States in 2001; it's sales are so small it is lumped into the jazz category by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Blues supporters say one problem is that the music isn't played on mainstream radio. "People have to have things in front of them for them to pay attention, to go out and buy the album," said Copeland.
Negotiations are underway to broadcast the concert, directed by filmmaker Antoine Fuqua and executive-produced by Scorsese, on television or even make it into a theatrical movie release.
For more, 'The Year of the Blues'
`Year of the Blues' Web site
Ashley, the only koala from Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve to survive recent bushfires near Canberra, is spoon-fed a special formula at the National Zoo in Canberra January 31, 2003. Almost a week after
ferocious bushfires wreaked havoc, the injured Ashley was spotted clinging to the top of a gumtree.
Photo by Richard Briggs
'The Osbournes'
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Critical Date Approaches
Nick's Crusade
