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From 'TBH Politoons'
Great Site!
Thanks, again, Tim!
He's Been Busy, Again!
the worried shrimp
Jesus Freak...
(Thanks, Marc!)
Reader Question
Re: Guitarist Poll
In that poll for greatest guitarists, was Alvin Lee of Ten Years After
nominated? That band was featured at Woodstock, if you'll recall.
Eckhard
I don't know, Eckhard. Today got a little too busy, will do some poking Thursday.
Thanks
Freshly Updated!
Rackjite
http://rackjite.com
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The fine city of Long Beach today left a note on my front porch saying the property needed to trim the hedge on the back alley. Only problem is there is NO hedge on the alley. There's a
fence, with vines that originate with the next-door neighbor (which we keep trimmed), but no hedge. Called the city. The inspector said that there was most assuredly a hedge on the back of this property. I tried to
explain that there was no hedge, but he'd have none of it. He knew what he saw.
Way back in my Disney days, had a boss who swore ''Reality doesn't matter. Perception does.''
And to think I used to argue with him.
Caught some of '60 Minutes II' and considering there's a deserter in the white house, couldn't believe Dan Rather was out to pull
Bob Kerrey's good leg out from under him. Boo. Hiss.
Tonight, Thursday, CBS starts the night with a fresh 'Big Brother 3', then follows with reruns of 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' and 'The Agency'.
On a rerun Dave (from 6/17/02), the scheduled guests are Stupid Human Tricks, Tom Cruise, and The Flatlanders.
On a supposedly fresh Craiggers, the scheduled guests are Director Robert Evans, Jennifer Esposito, and writer Bill Scheft.
NBC offers reruns of 'Friends', 'Scrubs', 'Will & Grace', 'The Rerun Show' (which is supposed to replace 'Just Shoot Me'), and then 'ER'.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay are Jennifer Aniston, comic Justin McKinney, and Monica.
Scheduled on a fresh Conan are Paul Rudd, Isaac Mizrahi, and Dave Chappelle.
Scheduled on a fresh Carson Daly are David Duchovny and Mitch Fatel.
ABC has the movie 'Excess Baggage' followed by 'PrimeTime Thursday'.
The WB starts with a rerun 'Reba', then 2 reruns of the 'Jamie Kennedy Experiment', and then a rerun of 'Off Centre'.
Faux has a fresh 'Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction' and then 'Pulse'.
UPN has my original 'home team' (the Pittsburgh Pirates) visiting Rupert's Doggers. Beat 'em, Bucs! Still have my Bob Prince Green Weenie.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Draws Second Lawsuit
'The Osbournes'
Whose life is it anyway? And who really came up with the warts-and-all concept of Ozzy Osbourne's life-in-the-raw reality hit show on MTV?
Nearly two weeks after a film producer sued the tattooed British rocker and his wife, claiming they stole his idea for a TV show about them, a
Web-based entertainment company has brought a similar court action against the couple.
The latest lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, says the Osbournes' deal with MTV breaches an intellectual property rights
agreement the couple signed in December 2000 with Threshold.TV Inc., formerly Threshold.com.
The suit says that under its contract Threshold acquired exclusive rights to Ozzy Osbournes's "name, likeness, image, identity, persona, trademarks
and right of publicity" for online works and non-Internet programming.
The agreement, signed for a term of three years and 90 days, expressly covered "live-action and animated programs ... or other off-line works,
as well as the right to make sequels, remakes, spin-offs and derivative works," the suit said.
For more details, 'The Osbournes'
San Francisco
Dick
Ed Holmes, impersonating Vice President Cheney demonstrates against Vice President Dick Cheney in front of pro-Cheney supporters, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2002, in San Francisco. Cheney
was in the Fairmont Hotel making a speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.
Photo by George Nikitin
Time To Bring Back Teddy Roosevelt's 'Trust Busters'
Clear Channel
If you want to hear Aretha Franklin or Lauryn Hill or Metallica on the radio in San Diego, you have no choice but to tune to a Clear Channel station. The same
goes for sports talk, local news and Rush Limbaugh.
In the radio world, this pattern is about as unusual as a "first-time caller, longtime-listener."
From Honolulu (seven stations) to Des Moines, Iowa (six), and Ft. Myers, Florida (eight), Clear Channel Communications dominates the dial across the country.
But nowhere is its domination more prevalent than in San Diego. The world's largest radio company controls 14 stations there -- a half-dozen more than anywhere
else in the United States -- and it still has room to grow by looking to the south.
Over the past three years, Clear Channel programmers sacked San Diego disc jockeys and replaced them with voices from out of town, hoodwinked listeners by airing
national contests as if they were local, and rolled out cookie-cutter radio formats designed elsewhere. Meanwhile, the company sweet-talked Mexican station owners
across the border and tore through legal loopholes in order to build its mini-empire.
For a valuable read, Clear Channel
Useful Link
The Memory Hole
The Memory Hole [rescuing knowledge, freeing information]
Picked Up By ABC
'Monk'
Struggling ABC is getting more programming help from the cable TV world, adding a USA Network deal to one just announced with HBO.
ABC will air episodes of the new detective drama "Monk" following their debut on USA, the networks said Tuesday.
ABC called the agreement to rerun episodes of "Monk" beginning Tuesday "an innovative summer programming experiment."
"Monk," which stars Tony Shalhoub as an obsessive-compulsive private investigator, was a top 10 cable draw when it debuted in July and has continued performing well for USA.
ABC's Tuesday airings of "Monk" will follow each episode's original Friday showing on USA. As part of the agreement, USA won't show any episodes in between, the networks said.
'Monk'
Hmmm.....in checking this out, next Tuesday, the show ABC will use for its 'premiere' of ''Monk'' is last Friday's 'Mr. Monk Goes To The Carnival'
(The Official Web Site for "Monk" on ABC).
~ Tuesday, 9pm
~ Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Mr. Monk Goes to the Carnival
Then, going USA network, the line-up is -
~ Thu, Aug 8 11:00 PM MR. MONK GOES TO THE CARNIVAL
~ Fri, Aug 9 10:00 PM MR. MONK GOES TO THE ASYLUM
~ Wed, Aug 14 7:00 PM MR. MONK GOES TO THE ASYLUM
Which leads to the schedule into the future (and the inevitable reruns) on USA.
USA NETWORK | Monk - The Show: Episode Schedule,
so, basically, the Friday show on USA will be on ABC on the following Tuesday.
Members Hurt in Taxi Crash
Oasis
Three members of the British rock band Oasis are recovering after being hurt in a car crash.
The musicians were in a taxi Tuesday afternoon when it was involved in a head-on collision with another vehicle in downtown Indianapolis.
Noel Gallagher, Andy Bell and Jay Darlington were taken by ambulance to a hospital, where they were treated for shock, cuts and bruises, according to a statement issued early Wednesday by
concert promoter Clear Channel Entertainment.
Gallagher, who was sitting in the front of the taxi, suffered heavy facial bruises and seat belt cuts. Darlington, a keyboard player, injured a hand and was to return to the hospital
for further treatment on Wednesday.
Doctors have ordered the musicians to rest for two days to let medication take effect, the statement said.
Oasis
Woman With An Opinion
Christina Ricci
Christina Ricci is dying to sink her claws into movie hunk Josh Hartnett. "I know he's got a girlfriend, but I could so corrupt him," the man-eating moppet boasts to
the London Sunday Times. "He would be a hot date, and that is what I need right now. I have met him, so I know what I am talking about here. He's a nice, home-loving
boy with a great body and great eyes. And when he reads this, he's probably going to run a mile."
Christina Ricci
Bonn, Germany
Bill Clinton's Chapel
A wooden chapel bequeathed to Bonn three years ago by former U.S. President Bill Clinton has turned into a liability for the city, which has had to pay 100,000 euros (dlrs 96,700)
to save the historic structure from hungry beetles, authorities in the former German capital said Wednesday.
Clinton, who was attending a Group of Eight summit in nearby Cologne in 1999, donated the white colonial-style Stimson Memorial Chapel as a goodbye gesture to the Rhine river city
as Germany's government transferred to Berlin.
But the cash-strapped city administration is now complaining it "turned out to be a worn-out and — in parts — rotten present."
"Rhine damp and the voracious longhorn beetles which, with an unquenchable hunger for wood, feasted on the roof and in the tower, had worked hard to destroy the timberwork," the city said in a statement.
Americans living in the former West German capital gathered at the chapel regularly over 50 years. It was named for Henry L. Stimson, the U.S. secretary of war in President Franklin
D. Roosevelt's Cabinet during World War II.
Bill Clinton's Chapel
Huntington Library
Corpse Flower
Soleah Nicolis, right, holds her nose as she leans in to get a whiff of the rotten stench emitted from the morphophallus titanum, known to Indonesians as
the "corpse flower," as it begins to bloom Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2002, at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif.
The plant has been seen in bloom only about 15 times since its first U.S. display in New York in 1937.
Photo by Nick Ut
Has Alzheimer's Disease
'Dear Abby'
Pauline Phillips, who created the "Dear Abby" newspaper advice column in the footsteps of her twin sister "Ann Landers," has Alzheimer's disease, her family said on Wednesday.
"Dear Abby," which answers letters from the lovelorn and the lost, has been written since 1987 by Pauline Phillips' daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who issued a statement saying her 84-year-old mother's memory
loss has been gradual.
Phillips lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Morton Phillips.
"Out of respect for my father and his wishes, I have not been at liberty to discuss my mother's Alzheimer's publicly," Jeanne Phillips said in a statement. "That may change one day, but right now, I hope it's
enough for the people who love her to know that she's physically healthy and is receiving the best professional care in the world, surrounded by family who love her."
'Dear Abby'
Cincinnati Lifts 'Festival-Seating' Ban
Bruce Springsteen
A ban on the festival-seating arrangement that contributed to a fatal 1979 stampede at a Cincinnati arena will be lifted for a Bruce Springsteen concert this fall, officials said.
Springsteen requested that the city reinstate general-admission seating for his Nov. 12 concert at U.S. Bank Arena. Managers of the venue said they were
eager to try it anyway to compete with arenas in other cities that allow the arrangement for top acts.
Eleven people were trampled to death Dec. 3, 1979, when fans rushed the doors at the arena — then known as Riverfront Coliseum — for a concert by The Who. Cincinnati later banned
festival seating, allowing reserved seats only, and implemented new crowd control measures.
Cincinnati police gave permission for the variance at the Springsteen concert. Tickets go on sale Saturday.
Bruce Springsteen
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Picks Her Favorites
Nancy Sinatra
Singer and actress Nancy Sinatra on Wednesday picked the three greatest men she has ever met -- her father Frank, Elvis Presley and Peter Fonda.
At the age of 62, she said she has already written her epitaph: "I sometimes feel it will be: Daughter of Frank Sinatra; she sang 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin."'
Speaking to The Scotsman newspaper, she singled out the three greatest men she had ever met. They were: her father with whom she starred in the film "Tony Rome;" Presley who she appeared with
in "Speedway" and Peter Fonda, her co-star in the 1966 biker movie "The Wild Angels."
Sinatra had no regrets about having stripped off in her mid-50s to appear nude in Playboy Magazine, earning $250,000, boosting publicity for her singing career and striking a blow for the older woman.
"Look at (59-yearold) Mick Jagger," she said. "He's out there kicking ass and working hard and enjoying life and bringing his music to his fans.
Nancy Sinatra
Snarky Gossip
Anna Nicole Smith
Anna Nicole Smith nearly lost her 16-carat diamond necklace last week on a shopping spree in SoHo. In the Big Drop boutique, "she had taken it off to try on a
turquoise Noir necklace, and forgot about it," said one witness. The former Playmate left the store with her camera crew, but sans bijou, and "an assistant had
to run after her." Then, on the way to the Tardini shop to continue the spree, she tripped and broke her heel.
Anna Nicole Smith
Mycenaean
Pottery
Ancient Mycenaean ceramic pots, left and right, are seen in an undated file photo. Such pottery was used to hold the bitter, narcotic mix of dried juices from opium poppies. In
center is a dried opium poppy.
Photo by Joe Zias
Wedding News
Mutter - Previn
Conductor-composer Andre Previn and violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter are newlyweds.
Previn, 72, and Mutter, 39, were married in New York, Jonathan Brill, Previn's representative at Columbia Artists in Manhattan, said Wednesday.
He said the wedding took place Aug. 1 but could give no other details.
Previn has been married twice, to singer Dory Previn and actress Mia Farrow.
Mutter's first husband, Detlef Wunderlich, died in 1995.
Mutter - Previn
Russian Space Agency Says Pay Up
Lance Bass
Russia's space agency said on Wednesday it might scrap plans for 'N Sync singer Lance Bass to join an October mission to the International Space Station because he had failed to meet a payment deadline.
"There are a number of deadlines for the installments to be paid, but the first part has already been delayed. Theoretically, we can already dissolve his contract," Rosaviakosmos spokesman Sergei Gorbunov said.
Bass, backed by a consortium of companies rounded up by a Hollywood producer, has signed a preliminary contract but has yet to secure a final deal guaranteeing a seat aboard the
Soyuz craft. He is already training in Star City, just outside Moscow.
"His backers have sent us a letter asking us to set back the deadline to August 9," Gorbunov said. "If they do not pay up on the 9th, I don't know what will happen. Maybe we
will follow their wishes again, and wait again. But we cannot wait forever."
Lance Bass
Tolkien Obsessives
'Lords of the Ring'
Forget the classic saga and the blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" movie -- welcome instead to the wonderful world of a small-town Tolkien admiration society.
Here you can master the intricacies of the ancient Elvish language, marvel at the mighty clash of wizards and sing along to the surprise hit "We Are the Champions of Middle Earth."
All the ingredients are there for the surprise hit of this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival -- a tongue-in-cheek look at the obsessives who revel in recreating the fantastical world of JR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, voted the
greatest book of the 20th century by British readers and now winning a whole new audience with the epic film adaptation.
The show is called "Lords of the Ring" and features actors Chris Chilton and Stuart Robb.
One day they were jostling with 20,341 other shows for attention at the world's largest arts festival. The next, they garnered rave reviews, appeared on primetime BBC news and shook their
heads in wonderment as talent scouts and journalists descended on their tiny 100-seat venue.
For a bit more, 'Lords of the Ring'
BartCop TV!
'The Show Must Go On'?
Broadway
The shows will go on at "The Producers," "Hairspray" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie," but the three Disney musicals — "The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Aida" — will
not as Broadway grapples with whether to cancel performances on Sept. 11, the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.
September is usually a glum box-office month on Broadway. The tourists are gone. Children are back in school. The Jewish holidays provide a double whammy, too, with Rosh Hashanah falling next month on Sept. 6-8 and Yom Kippur
Sept. 15-16. And this year, there will be a big National Football League celebration in Times Square on Sept. 5 that is expected to last past the 8 p.m. curtain time for Broadway shows.
The following shows will be dark Sept. 11:
"Aida," "Beauty and the Beast," "Cabaret," "Chicago," "42nd Street," "Frankie and Johnnie in the Clair de Lune," "Into the Woods," "Les Miserables," "Noises Off," "Oklahoma!", "The Lion King," "The Phantom of the Opera," "Urinetown" and "Mamma Mia!"
These shows will perform Sept. 11:
"I'm Not Rappaport," "Metamorphoses," "Proof," "The Boys From Syracuse," "The Graduate," "The Producers," "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife" and "Thoroughly Modern Millie."
Broadway
Lhasa, Tibet
Potala Palace
Potala Palace, the greatest monumental structure in all of Tibet, is seen in Lhasa, August 7, 2002. Tibetans will become a minority in their own capital in the next
few years as ethnic Chinese migrants pour into the city to take part in a new drive to develop Tibet's economy, a top official said on Wednesday.
Photo by Claro Cortes IV
Hires New Agents
Arnold Schwarzenegger
True to his word, Arnold Schwarzenegger is back. Three weeks after he fired his William Morris agents, the actor has signed with rival firm Creative Artists Agency.
Even though his star has dimmed in recent years with such films as "Collateral Damage" and "End of Days," Schwarzenegger is being paid $30 million to reprise his role in Intermedia
Films' "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" for director Jonathan Mostow.
He was last in theaters with "Collateral Damage," which grossed just $81 million worldwide.
Before signing with William Morris, where he had spent the last five years, Schwarzenegger spent 15 years at Intl. Creative Management.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Affleck Film Protested On El Al Flight
'Changing Lanes'
Angry Ultra-Orthodox Jews covered a movie screen with blankets on an El Al flight from Zurich earlier this week in protest at the film "Changing Lanes," starring Ben Affleck, which they found offensive.
A spokeswoman for Israel's national carrier El Al said the incident lasted only a few minutes and was resolved by the captain who decided to cut short the in-flight screening during the flight to Tel Aviv Sunday.
Israel's Ma'ariv daily quoted passengers as saying a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews screamed at and insulted the flight crew when they refused to turn off the movie.
Amateur video footage showed a group of ultra-Orthodox women covering the screen with blankets and arguing with passengers who wanted to watch the film -- an action thriller about a lawyer and a businessman
involved in a car crash.
El Al issued a statement apologizing for the "unpleasantness experienced by all the passengers."
'Changing Lanes'
In Court On Porn Charge
R. Kelly
R&B singer R. Kelly made a brief court appearance Wednesday, saying nothing during a five-minute status hearing in his child pornography case.
Cook County Judge Vincent Michael Gaughan conferred with prosecutors and defense attorney Edward Genson, then set a Sept. 20 court date for discovery.
The judge also opened a package from Warner Bros. of Burbank, Calif., containing a tape of the syndicated "Judge Mathis Show" television program. Gaughan promised to provide
prosecutors and defense lawyers with transcripts.
Neither prosecutors nor Genson could explain the tape's relevance after the hearing.
The Grammy winner was indicted by a Cook County grand jury June 5 on 21 counts of child pornography stemming from a videotape authorities say shows Kelly having sex with an underage
girl. Sex with someone under 17 is a crime in Illinois.
Kelly has said he is not the man on the tape.
R. Kelly
Recovered 16 Years After Heist
Rubens 'Head of a Man'
A Rubens painting stolen from an Irish collection in a heist 16 years ago has been recovered, police said Wednesday.
The painting, called "Head of a Man," was one of 18 stolen in 1986 from Russborough House by a gang led by notorious Dublin criminal Martin Cahill, known as the "General."
The find means only two of the paintings stolen in the raid remain unaccounted for.
Russborough House, about 20 miles west of Dublin, is home to one of the world's most famous private collections, the Beit Collection, and has been targeted by art thieves three times.
Rubens 'Head of a Man'
British Comedian
Richard Herring
After the worldwide success of the "Vagina Monologues," British comedian Richard Herring felt it was high time to celebrate the joy of his manhood.
Herring had no idea how anxious man was about his prized possession until he launched a questionnaire on the Internet which solicited 3,000 heartfelt responses
from around the world on the taboos of sex.
The answers provided a rich mine of information and quirky statistics for "Talking Cock," his sell-out one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which takes an
offbeat look at man's innermost performance anxieties.
Last year, Herring performed one of his comedy shows in London alongside the Vagina Monologues and that got him thinking about how to tell man's side of the story. He
decided to do it with humor -- mixing ribaldry with poignant true-life confessions of insecurity.
For a lot more, Richard Herring
'The Osbournes'
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
