'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Reader Comments
Re: Battlefield Earth
Marty, after reading your comment about the Skiffy
Channel running "Battlefield Earth" tonight, I thought
you might want to read this article about how SCI FI
is changing its slogan to
"Where Bad TV and Movies Go To Die"...
And if you like that, you might want to read some of
the other Edgar Harris entries, such as the report on
the new "Babylon 5" telemovie being written by Hunter
S. Thompson, the Saturn Awards merging with the Golden
Raspberries, George Lucas suing to keep the name "Star
Wars" on the national missile defense system, and
Canada apologizing to the UN for "Lexx"... Edgar Harris
Paul R
Thanks, Paul!
He's Been Busy (Watch This Space)
The Worried Shrimp
from Tim H
Re: Larry King
It's been said before. It's worth saying again. Nearly 20 years removed
from the glory days of his once-fascinating overnight radio show, this
guy does more harm than good to CNN--even as host of its top-rated show.
So at what point does CNN wise up and rein in "Larry King Live" to save
itself?
More a courtier than an interviewer even under the best of
circumstances, the oft-married King is at present squandering his
prime-time hour on CNN by obsessing over a woman. A dead woman. Laci
Peterson.
For the rest, Larry King
Thanks, Tim H!
Selected Reading
from that Mad Cat, JD
Balloon Terror Alert System
Balloons Of Mass Destruction
-Mark
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still overcast, still not complaining.
The kid is pretty excited about the last day of school.
Little does he know he's going to shovel out his bedroom sooner rather than later. Heh heh.
Tonight, Thursday, CBS starts the night with a FRESH 'Amazing Race 4', followed by a RERUN
'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation', then a RERUN 'Without A Trace'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Harrison Ford and Chris Elliott.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Juliette Binoche, Lara Logan, and Pete Yorn.
NBC begins the evening with a RERUN 'Friends', followed by a RERUN 'Scrubs', then a RERUN 'Will & Grace',
followed by a RERUN 'Frasier', and then a RERUN 'ER'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Jennifer Aniston, chef Tyler Florence, and Sugar Ray.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan is Kasey Chambers.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Eric Christian Olsen & Derek Richardson, and John Mellencamp.
ABC opens the night with a RERUN 'That's Incredible: The Reunion', followed by the FRESH 'Global Extremes: Mt. Everest/4Runners Of Adventure', and then
'PrimeTime Thursday'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel are Orlando Jones, and the Roots featuring Cody, with this week's guest co-host Jay Mohr.
The WB offers a FRESH 'The O'Keefes', followed by another FRESH 'The O'Keefes', then
an hour-long RERUN 'Jamie Kennedy'.
Faux has a FRESH 'Stupid Behavior Caught On Tape', followed by a FRESH '30 Seconds To Fame', and then 'The Pulse'.
UPN fills the night with 'WWE Smackdown!'.
A&E has 'Biography' (James Coburn), followed by 'Columbo: A Trace Of Murder'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Searchers', followed by the movie 'Rio Grande'.
BBC has 'Ground Force' - Jersey (7pm), 'Changing Rooms' - Painswick (7:30pm),
'Father Ted' - Old Grey Whistle Theft (8pm), 'Father Ted' - Song For Europe (8:30pm),
'Faking It' - Hot Dog Vendor to Chef (9pm), 'Faking It - Ballet Dancer to Wrestler (10pm),
'So Graham Norton' - Rod Stewart/ Rosanna Arquette (11pm), 'So Graham Norton' - David Hasselhoff (11:30pm) (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo offers 'Cirque du Soleil: Alegria', followed by 'Cirque du Soleil: Quidam'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jon Stewart is Ludacris.
History has 'Modern Marvels', followed by 'UFOs: You Didn't Know', then more 'Modern Marvels'.
SciFi has the movie 'Robin Cook's Invasion'.
TCM continues their Thursday nights in June celebration of Bollywood with 'Rangeela', followed by 'Dil Chahta Hai', and then 'Sholay'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Mecca Cola has received over 1,000 initial enquiries within two days of its "No More Drinking Stupid" advertising campaign which is trying to cash in on the fierce anti-US sentiments in Pakistan.
Photo by Dominique Faget
Remember This Date
Thursday, June 26, 2003
To Roll Out Campaign CD
Bob Graham
Frank Sinatra crooned "High Hopes" for John F. Kennedy and a version of "Hello Dolly" touted Lyndon B. Johnson's candidacy. Now, Bob Graham wants to add his name to the presidential hit parade.
Coming next week is "The Bob Graham Charisma Tour 2004," a 10-track CD featuring Graham's long-standing campaign song, "We've Got a Friend in Bob Graham," plus a new Latin-beat, Spanish version called "Arriba Bob" and an ode dedicated to his trademark workdays, "I've Done Every Job, Man."
The album is being produced by Graham friend Frank Loconto, who provided vocals and lyrics for many of the songs.
Other tracks on the CD include "Bob Graham, The ONLY Candidate," to the music of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer;" "My Beautiful Adele," a ballad dedicated to Graham's wife; "G.W. Bushonomics, Supply Side, Economic Blues;" and "My Black and White Friend," a ditty about the replacement cow valve used in Graham's recent double-bypass heart surgery.
Bob Graham
www.grahamforpresident.com
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Starts 2nd Season
'Monk'
Only the top of Adrian Monk's face is visible. His eyes move apprehensively back and forth. He's creeping up a narrow, iron stairway that opens onto the roof of a clock tower.
His elbows wedged to his sides, his hands curled close to his face, the obsessive-compulsive detective played by Tony Shalhoub steps cautiously into full view.
"I imagine this is your worst nightmare — a crime scene on a roof," says Monk's police colleague, Capt. Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine).
"No," Monk responds, as he characteristically wipes the residue of Stottlemeyer's handshake from his fingers. "It's my fourth worst. No, wait, fifth ..." He muses back and forth, finally explaining, "I didn't bring the list with me!"
The clock tower is a key plot element in "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School," the season opener of "Monk," airing Friday, June 20 (10 p.m. EDT), on the USA network.
For more, 'Monk'
Urges Britons on Safe Sex
Elton John
Sir Elton John warned young people on Wednesday that they would be "throwing their lives away" if they ignored new government figures showing a sharp increase in sexually transmitted diseases in Britain.
John spoke as he opened a memorial garden for two former patients at a hospital clinic for people with AIDS and HIV in London.
The memorial garden, aimed at helping to relax AIDS and HIV patients who visit Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, northwest London, was paid for by a special screening of hit movie "The English Patient," directed by Anthony Minghella, a friend of the two AIDS victims the garden honors.
Minghella, who attended the opening, said the garden "will provide a bit of air and an oasis of peace for current patients and for future patients."
Elton John
Beachgoers, with their territory marked by small walls of sand, enjoy the sunny weather at the beach of Travemuende outside of northern German city of Luebeck June 11, 2003. The beach of Travemuende is one of the most popular areas of Germany's Baltic Sea coast and is building up to the high season starting in July.
Photo by Joachim Herrmann
Earns $20,000 From Songwriting
Orrin Hatch
When Sen. Orrin Hatch had a recent meeting with Bono of the rock band U2, the Utah Republican took the opportunity to show off a bit of his own songs.
The Irish singer-songwriter, who met with Hatch to discuss hunger and AIDS in Africa, seemed impressed, but he cautioned Hatch. "They're actually beautiful, but the brothers will never play or sing them," Bono said, Hatch recounts in his memoir. Why? Hatch asked. "Because of who you are, man," Bono replied, suggesting Hatch would have more luck if he changed his name to "Johnny Trapdoor."
In 2002, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee took in $18,009 from moonlighting as a songwriter, according to his latest Senate financial disclosure.
It is Hatch's most successful single year as a songwriter; he has earned $65,986 in songwriting royalties since 1997. It comes on top of his $150,000 Senate salary and investment income between $56,000 and $122,000. The disclosure forms only include broad ranges for most income.
Senate rules prohibit senators from receiving more than $22,500 in earned income in addition to their salary, but royalties for writing books or songs are exempt from the limits.
Hatch was also paid $2,123 last year for a voiceover he did for a character in an animated religious film. The voiceover work has now paid him $11,012 in royalties since 1995.
Orrin Hatch
The Music of Sen. Orrin Hatch
Withdraw From Pooh Case
Lawyers
The lawyer for the company suing Walt Disney Co. over merchandise royalties to Winnie the Pooh said on Wednesday he was withdrawing from the case, leaving his client to seek new counsel.
Bert Fields, a thorn in Disney's side from other cases as well as the Pooh trial, told Reuters that he and his legal team at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman would withdraw shortly as counsel for Stephen Slesinger Inc., which holds the U.S. merchandising rights to the honey-loving bear.
Fields declined to discuss the reasons for the move but said that he still believed Slesinger would beat Disney in court.
Slesinger has employed a number of law firms during the more than a decade that its owners, the family that acquired rights from British author A.A. Milne around 1930, have sued Disney, accusing it of shortchanging payments due.
Lawyers
Banned In Egypt
'Matrix Reloaded'
The Hollywhood science fiction hit movie Matrix Reloaded has been banned in Egypt for threatening to offend traditional religious views on the creation of humankind, the chief censor revealed.
The director of artistic censorship, Madkur Thabet, said that "despite its excellent technical level, the film was banned because it deals with subjects like human existence and creation.
In addition, he said, "the film has too many scenes of violence at a time when we are trying to fight this phenomenon."
Matrix Reloaded
"Cosmic Synchronicity"
Van Gogh
Those lucky enough to travel to the southern French village of Saint-Remy-de-Provence have a chance of seeing a moonrise as it was painted by Van Gogh 114 years ago, astronomers said Wednesday.
"Evening Landscape with Rising Moon," showing a nearly full, yellowish moon peeking above a hilltop with wheatstacks in a monastery field, was painted by Van Gogh in 1889.
A team led by Donald Olson, a professor of physics and astronomy at Southwest Texas State University, travelled to the village armed with maps, aerial photographs, western records and letters written by the artist.
They calculate that the time of the moonrise was 9:08pm on July 13 1889, the US magazine Sky et Telescope reports in its July issue.
Furthermore, the moon that rises over that hilltop this July 13 will be in almost exactly the same spot and phase as when Van Gogh painted it.
This is because of a "cosmic synchronicity" called the Metonic cycle, a term named by the Greek astronomer who discovered that it takes 19 years for the Moon to return to the same point in the sky and be at the same point in its cycle as it was at the start.
There have been six Metonic cycles since Van Gogh's sojourn at St.-Remy.
Van Gogh
The Family Stone Reunion
No Sly
The Family Stone, the California band that paved the way for modern funk, is back in the recording studio for the first time in 32 years.
But missing is Sly Stone -- the heart and soul of a band that blended race, gender, music and politics in a glorious evocation of Sixties idealism.
Sly Stone, 59, the innovative producer, singer, songwriter and keyboard player behind Sly and the Family Stone has not recorded an album since 1982. Drug-related legal and medical problems have haunted him over the decades and he declined comment for this story.
Hailing mostly from the small northern California town of Vallejo, Sly and the Family Stone smashed cultural stereotypes with its black rock guitarist, white funk drummer, female horn player and blend of soul, rock and R&B in hits like "Dance to the Music."
The band played at the 1968 Fillmore East concert, the 1969 Woodstock festival, and it was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
For more, No Sly
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Book Sets Barnes & Noble Record
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's memoirs set a Barnes & Noble sales record for nonfiction books on its first day on store shelves, the company said Tuesday.
The company said the former first lady's White House memoirs sold more than 40,000 copies in the first 24 hours it was available, instantly making it an in-house best seller.
Late Monday, publisher Simon & Schuster, which paid $8 million for the tome, announced it would print an additional 100,000 copies, on top of an extraordinary initial printing of 1 million copies.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Für die monumentalen Aktaufnahmen des amerikanischen Künstlers melden sich, wie hier in Barcelona, stets Tausende von freiwilligen Models.
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Not Looking to Take Five
Dave Brubeck
By this time, you'd think Dave Brubeck might be getting sick of "Take Five." After all, he's been playing it practically every day since his theme song became the first million-selling jazz record in 1959.
Striding along in five beats to the measure instead of the usual four, the tempo of the piece was one he used to hear during his boyhood, when the hoofbeats of horses sounded it out on country roads he traveled in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.
He'll be playing the many-gaited number during his third appearance at the Playboy Jazz Festival on Sunday, when Hugh Hefner and his hutchlings will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the annual West Coast event.
Now 82, Brubeck was a hot article for the first Playboy Jazz Festival in Chicago back in 1959, and he hasn't cooled down all that much since.
He just put out his 160th album, and he just got back from doing 15 one-nighters in Britain, by bus, all of them sold out -- including a record-setting performance at London's Festival Hall, where they had to reduce the size of the mixing board to jam in a few more seats.
For the rest, Dave Brubeck
Is He Going To Run?
Jerry Springer
First there was Jerry Springer, host of a popular TV talk-show in which guests frequently come to blows while the television cameras roll.
Then there was "Jerry Springer: the Opera," -- a current hit on the London stage, examining the debauched world of exhibitionist television.
Now, comes Jerry Springer, would-be US senator.
The millionaire talk-show host Tuesday announced the formation of an exploratory campaign committee, increasing the likelihood that he will run for Ohio's US Senate seat, as has long been rumored.
Springer, a Democrat, has said he would say for sure in July whether he will run.
Jerry Springer
Britain's TV Cooking Diva
Nigella Lawson
The French have been sensual eaters for hundreds of years. Rarely, though, have they taken the same pleasure in cooking.
This may be why British television diva Nigella Lawson has become such a hit in a country otherwise traumatized by the boiled meats and lurid jellies of teenage language exchanges across the Channel.
Nigella's three series, all of them shown on the French cooking channel Cuisine TV, have accomplished the seemingly impossible by making home cooking sexy. Like the "Naked Chef" Jamie Oliver, Nigella is always referred to by her first name.
She is also refreshingly relaxed about fat, an issue that especially plagues Americans, who have nonetheless gleefully adopted her show. "I don't worry about it at all. I recently heard of a survey in which Americans and French were asked what they think of when they hear the words "chocolate cake." The Americans said "guilt" and the French said "celebration."
Nigella Lawson
Exchanged Vows in San Francisco
Turlington & Burns
Christy Turlington and actor-director Ed Burns tied the knot in San Francisco.
They were married Saturday at a church in the city's North Beach district. The 34-year-old bride wore Galliano as U2 singer Bono walked her down the aisle, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Bono performed live during the ceremony, and guests included Sting and Vin Diesel. The reception was held at the newly opened Asian Art Museum.
Turlington & Burns
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Archive to Be Auctioned
Vita Sackville-West
The literary archive of Vita Sackville-West, spanning her career as writer, gardener and broadcaster, is expected to fetch up to $320,000 at auction.
The collection of more than 8,500 handwritten and typed pages, including unpublished poems written when Sackville-West was just 11, is being sold by her son, Nigel Nicholson, Sotheby's said Tuesday. The auction is scheduled for July 10.
"The archive comprises the greater part of Vita's surviving literary papers, including a substantial amount of unpublished material," Sotheby's said in a statement. "It represents all aspects of Vita's writing ... from her adolescent plays and histories to her later lyric poems, stories, novels, travel-writing, biographies, broadcast book reviews, garden features and even her personal and intimate dream notebook."
There are also writings about her marriage to the diplomat and writer, Sir Harold Nicholson, and the affair with Violet Trefusis.
Vita Sackville-West
Sotheby's
A painting by Paul Gauguin, unseen in public for over half a century, will be the star lot at a June 23, 2003 auction in London of Impressionist and Modern Art. 'L'Apparition,' seen in this promotional photo, was made the year before Gauguin died on the French Polynesian island of Hiva Oa in 1903. The painting has been in private hands since it was last sold in 1944 in New York.
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Makes Case for Merger on Stern Show
Melissa Gilbert
From the raucousness of SAG membership meetings to the raunchiness of "The Howard Stern Show," advocates of merging the nation's two biggest actors unions have taken their campaign on the road.
Needing 60 percent support from voting members, Screen Actors Guild president Melissa Gilbert appeared Tuesday morning on Stern's radio show and did her best to maintain a PG-13 posture (much to Stern's chagrin) while simultaneously politicking in favor of union consolidation.
Under the merger plan, SAG would join with its sister union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) in forming a new entity called the Alliance of International Media Artists, folding performers like Gilbert and Stern under the same umbrella organization.
Stern endorsed the plan last week.
Melissa Gilbert
Condo For Sale On EBay
Bob Crane
Bidders on eBay have another month to buy the condominium where "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane threw wild parties before he was murdered.
Real estate agent Ardy Haines said the current owners, Ron and Pat Herbst, hope to cash in on the publicity surrounding the 25th anniversary of Crane's death.
The Herbsts, formerly of Wisconsin, bought the condo in 1986 for their daughter while she attended Arizona State University. They didn't know about the condo's history until a yellowed newspaper article about the killing was left on their doorstep.
Bob Crane
To Close on Broadway June 29
`La Boheme'
Baz Luhrmann's opulent version of the Puccini opera, `La Boheme', will fold June 29 after a disappointing seven-month run and losses of about $6 million.
The reviews were largely favorably, although theater critics were more generous than opera reviewers in their praise of the production, which uses youthful, sexy singers and transplants the opera to Paris of the late 1950s. The opera was sung in its original Italian with English subtitles projected on screens.
"La Boheme" wasn't the only post-Tony casualty. "The Play What I Wrote" announced Monday it would close June 15 after a three-month run. And "A Year With Frog and Toad," a children's musical, said last week before the awards show, that it would end its brief run June 15. It lost the best musical Tony.
`La Boheme'
"Lost" Works Unearthed By The Tate Gallery
Joseph Turner
The Tate Gallery, which is trying to reunite all the paintings of 18th and 19th century British landscape artist Joseph Turner, has unearthed three previously unaccounted for works, the museum said.
The Tate appealed to private collectors and small galleries, asking them if they possessed any works by Turner, regarded as one of the founding fathers of English watercolour landscape painting.
Over the last two years, the Tate's appeal has led to the rediscovery, of three authenticated Turner works, including notably a watercolour, "Harlech Castle", painted in 1830 and which had not been seen in public since 1880.
Joseph Turner
Woman Sues Defunct Show
Rosie O'Donnell
The Rosie O'Donnell Show was sued for $3 million on Wednesday by a 71-year-old widow who alleges she was hit in the mouth by a hard rubber ball while attending a taping of the defunct television program.
The suit alleges the ball was "recklessly and negligently shot" in the audience using an apparatus similar to a sling-shot. It further alleges that over the next several hours she experienced pain and swelling in her lips and mouth and that ultimately small lumps appeared in her mouth.
For months after the incident, DeBellis claims she had to undergo painful cortisone injections in an attempt to make the lumps dissipate. She says she was also forced to take antibiotics and steroid medication which caused the elderly woman to have "extreme stomach discomfort."
"Furthermore, the pain and soreness around (her) mouth adversely affected her relationship with her boyfriend," the lawsuit says.
Rosie O'Donnell
Settles Suit by Former Adviser
Michael Jackson
Pop star Michael Jackson on Wednesday reached a confidential settlement of the breach of contract lawsuit brought by his former top adviser that was scheduled for trial next week, a court spokeswoman said.
Attorneys for Jackson and the plaintiff, Myung-Ho Lee, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Michael Jackson
'Disassociated' From Law Firm
Rob Campos
Rob Campos, the bachelor star of NBC's dating game "For Love or Money," has a choice of women. But he no longer has his job.
The Dallas law firm where he did independent contract work has let Campos go. The founder of Mathur Law Offices, Sanjay Mathur, said Wednesday the firm was severing its ties with him.
Mathur was unhappy with reports that Campos had been expelled from a military program in 1999 for drunkenly groping a female officer. He also didn't like Campos' behavior in the show's second episode this week, an alcohol-soaked party with him and 10 women in a hot tub.
Campos had worked for Mathur Law Offices as an associate attorney since December 2001.
Rob Campos
A coqui frog sits on a leaf in El Yunque rainforest in Caimito, Puerto Rico, in this Feb. 14, 2002 file photo. Two environmental groups have filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect a threatened species of the coqui frog, a national symbol of Puerto Rico. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday June 10, 2003, in U.S. District Court in Washington, accuses the federal agency of failing to draft a plan that would help the tiny frog species recover its numbers.
Photo by Gerald Lopez
'Ark of Darkness'
"The Ark of Darkness", a Political/Science-Fiction work, in tidy, weekly installments (and updated every Friday).
'The Osbournes'
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 4
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
