'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Bonus Komix
from Rob C
Another Radio Station Changing Format
Sadly, KLAC in Los Angeles dropped its all-talk format today to return to music. Along with the hosts swept away was the legendary Michael Jackson, who had
previously spent 32 years on KABC, an eloquent liberal/moderate voice in a sea of right-wing pundits.
Until he resurfaces, he can be reached through his web site - Michael Jackson Talk Radio
~~ Larry
Thanks, Lar -
This one slipped under my radar, but it sure bites! Let's not forget it was the ''radio geniuses'' at Disney who cut Michael Jackson lose after 32 years in the first place. And then proceeded to load the airwaves
with syndicated right wing hate. Bean counters über alles.
And Another Fresh One!
The Worried Shrimp
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
A pretty nice day for December.
Talked to dear old dad in PA. He's still not happy with the cold, or his gas bill. At least he's consistent.
Long time ago used to fritter away time online playing trivia games. Met some wonderful people and over the years some of us started meeting at Christmas time in Pasadena.
All 'Tater Tots' in the area are invited - Sunday, 22 December.
Tonight, Thursday, CBS starts with a fresh 'Survivor: Thailand', a fresh 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation', then a fresh 'Without A Trace'.
Scheduled on a fresh Dave are Alison Janney and Martin Scorsese.
Scheduled on a fresh Craiggers are Rob Schneider and model Veronica Varekova.
NBC opens with a fresh 'Friends', then a fresh 'Scrubs'< followed by a fresh 'Will & Grace', then a fresh 'Good Morning, Miami', and capped with a fresh 'ER'.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay is the Wallflowers.
Scheduled on a fresh Conan are Patrick Stewart, Paget Brewster, and Brian Setzer.
Scheduled on a fresh Carson Daly are Andy Richter and Busta Rhymes.
ABC kills an hour with a fresh 'Dinotopia', follows it with a RERUN 'The Best Commercials You've Never Seen (And Some You Have): The Holiday Edition', and caps the night with 'PrimeTime Thursday'.
The WB opens with the RERUN 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer' then follows with a RERUN 'Jamie Kennedy' followed by another RERUN 'Jamie Kennedy'.
Faux has the movie 'Drop Dead Gorgeous'.
UPN kills the night with 'WWE Smackdown!'.
TCM celebrates Alec Guinness. If you only know of him as
Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi from Star Wars (1977), and you like smart and funny,
here are 4 of his best.
First up is The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), then
The Man in the White Suit (1951), followed by
The Ladykillers (1955), and finally,
'All At Sea' (1958), the first movie I haven't been able to find at IMDb.com (!) -
Guiness portrays a seaman who can't bear the sight of water but buys a rundown pier which he transforms into an amusement palace.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Rockefeller Plaza
Carson Daly & Robin Williams
Talk show host Carson Daly, left, smiles while listening to comedian Robin Williams during the taping of 'Last Call with Carson Daly' outside on New York City's
Rockefeller Plaza, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2002.
Photo by Michael Simon
Stars Appeal For Peace
Nobel Concert
Music artists honoring Jimmy Carter at his Nobel Peace Prize concert Wednesday said they want to send a message of peace to the current U.S. administration.
Carter, 78, accepted the prize Tuesday for his decades of peace efforts, and urged all people to seek peaceful solutions in a world put on edge by terrorism and a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.
American actress Jessica Lange, who along British actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, is hosting the concert, said "It is time to move beyond this terrible and dangerous agenda
set by our current government."
The three-hour peace concert drew performers like Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Angelique Kidjo, opera soprano Jessye Norman, Michelle Branch, Joaquin Cortes, and Josh Groban.
At a news conference ahead of the concert, many of the entertainers expressed relief at being in a city obsessed with peace in world seeming preoccupied by war.
Nobel Concert
www.nobel.no
CBS Pulls Tom Sizemore Cop Show From Lineup
'Robbery Homicide Division'
CBS has pulled the police drama "Robbery Homicide Division" off its schedule, saying the move was sparked by low ratings and unrelated to the recent arrest
of its star, Tom Sizemore, for allegedly hitting his girlfriend.
The critically hailed series, which a CBS spokesman described on Wednesday as placed on "indefinite hiatus," marks the second new CBS show to misfire this
season. The freshman comedy "Bram and Alice," which starred noted actor Alfred Molina , was canceled earlier this fall.
"Robbery Homicide Division" will be replaced on Friday nights by a new courtroom series, "Queens Supremes," starring Oliver Platt, CBS said.
The network spokesman said the decision to dump "Robbery" from the CBS lineup was based entirely on low viewership and was "totally unrelated" to publicity
surrounding Sizemore's arrest Saturday on suspicion of domestic battery.
'Robbery Homicide Division'
Wears Star Trek Millstone With Pride
William Shatner
For Hollywood star William Shatner, Star Trek is a millstone he wears with pride around his neck.
Back on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise for the launch of the biggest Star Trek exhibition ever staged, he even boldly forecast on Wednesday that the cult science fiction
saga could last another millennium.
And the fans are everywhere: "They are growing like a fungus," he said. "They are exuding from the ground and the skies."
Shatner, who wrote a book about the fans called "Get A Life," said: "I found they mostly like each other. They are more interested in each other than us. I was somewhat humiliated."
The $47 million exhibition, which is being launched on December 18 in London, will go round the world from Europe to the U.S. and Australia "on a five-year mission to
seek out new audiences, to boldly go where Star Trek has never gone before."
For the rest, William Shatner
Order of Arts and Letters, Paris
Christopher & Gitte Lee
British actor Christopher Lee, left, smiles as his wife Gitte shows his medal after he was made an Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters in Paris, Wednesday, Dec.11, 2002.
Photo by Michel Euler
UK Premiere
'Lord of the Rings'
The stars of "The Lord of the Rings" descended on London for Wednesday night's British premiere of the latest fantasy saga -- but one of them was not happy.
Christopher Lee, who plays the evil wizard Saruman, felt that the first film in the $300 million trilogy was not given enough recognition by the Hollywood Oscars last year.
Lee said: "It's outrageous that the first film, and indeed the director, were not both given Oscars -- the film and the direction were so superior to anything that came up for
an Oscar that I thought it was quite disgraceful."
He told BBC radio it would bring shame on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences if the second film -- "The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers" -- was similarly snubbed.
'Lord of the Rings'
Encore With Lost CD
Phil Hartman
Slain comedian Phil Hartman is getting a posthumous encore with the release this week of a CD featuring lost routines he recorded 25 years ago.
The CD, entitled "Phil Hartman's Flat TV," includes parodies of news broadcasts, coffee commercials and audio sketches about a wildly dysfunctional family.
He recorded the album in the 1970s while working as a graphic designer, but the tapes were never published and remained forgotten in storage until
this year, said John Hartmann, the comedian's brother.
"I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams," said Hartmann, who is also trying to revive several scripts
the late comic wrote. "This (album) is my brother doing what he loved."
Hartmann said he doesn't know of any other recordings made by his brother. "This is one time only," he said.
Phil Hartman
Gets FX Talk Show
Orlando Jones
The FX cable channel is planning a talk show starring actor-comedian Orlando Jones.
The weeknight half-hour program will premiere by early next summer, FX announced Wednesday. No time slot for the Los Angeles-based show has been determined.
Jones has appeared in feature films including "The Time Machine," "Evolution" and "Drumline," which opens Friday. From 1995 to '97, he was a writer and troupe member
on the Fox network's sketch comedy "MAD TV." He has also been the commercial pitchman for 7-Up.
Eddie Feldmann, who was co-executive producer and head writer of the HBO series "Dennis Miller Live," will be an executive producer.
Orlando Jones
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Hollywood Pays Last Respects
Rosemary Clooney
Hollywood paid belated last respects to singer Rosemary Clooney on Tuesday night with a star-studded gala in which a show business who's who recalled what a wonderful woman she
was while Tony Bennett and kd lang teamed up to sing "What a Wonderful World."
It was a night to remember as singers Linda Ronstadt, Diana Krall, Bennett, Lang, Keely Smith, Mimi Hines and Michael Feinstein serenaded an audience at the Beverly Hills Hilton
hotel that ranged from celebrities including Nancy Sinatra, Diahann Carroll and Bob Hope's wife Dolores to nurses and neighbors of the singer who died last June after six decades singing jazz and pop tunes.
Her nephew, actor George Clooney, recalled her as a woman of wicked wit. He said that when he sent her a note asking "What's the hurry" in 1996 when she married a man she had lived
with for decades, she replied "We had to, I'm pregnant."
Planned by Clooney's five children by actor Jose Ferrer to be both a memorial and an Irish wake, the evening included reminiscences by many friends including designer Bob Mackie,
daughter-in-law Debbie Boone and Clooney's brother Nick.
Rosemary Clooney
Düsseldorf
'Die Toten Hosen'
Die Düsseldorfer Punk-Rocker "Die Toten Hosen" haben am Nacktsein Gefallen gefunden.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quits Acting To Pursue Photography
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy says he's through with acting.
After more than 50 years, the "Star Trek" star says he's had enough of movies. "I won't take a job that takes me away (from home) for any length of time — my life
is too good. I've spent too many weeks in trailers on cold locations, hot locations, away from family and home."
Nimoy says his passion now lies in being behind the camera — as a photographer. "I've had a lot of offers that I've turned down. My agent knows not to bring me stuff,
unless it's something I can do in a day or two or in connection with some (personal) traveling. Photography fulfills my creative needs."
Leonard Nimoy
Candidate for LAPD Post
John Miller
John Miller, co-host with Barbara Walters of the ABC News magazine "20/20," is expected to return to the thin blue line as a top aide to his old friend, Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton,
sources familiar with the situation said on Wednesday.
A network source told Reuters, "John made us aware some weeks ago of his discussions with the LAPD, and ABC News gave him its blessing to go ahead with those talks, understanding that John has
always had a lifelong passion for public service."
An announcement on his move is expected in the coming days, the source said, adding that Walters would remain as the solitary host of "20/20" while the network decides on a replacement for Miller.
Miller, 44, worked with Bratton in the 1990s when Bratton was chief of the New York City Police Department and Miller was deputy police commissioner for public information during the
early administration of then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
John Miller
5 Year Contract
NFL, DirecTV Extend Deal
The NFL extended its agreement with DirecTV for five years Wednesday, giving the satellite service exclusive rights to the league's subscription package in a deal worth $2 billion.
The NFL's average take will rise to $400 million, more than three times the $130 million it is getting from DirecTV this season under an expiring five-year
contract, an industry source close to the negotiations told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Included in the agreement, which runs from 2003-07, is the launching of a 24-hour NFL Channel on DirecTV as early as next year. DirecTV has shown NFL games since 1995.
The league has deals with Fox, CBS, ABC and ESPN worth a total of $17.6 billion from 1998-05.
NFL Sunday Ticket allows subscribers to see all out-of-market games each Sunday during the regular season.
NFL, DirecTV Extend Deal
Regains Custody Of Children
Paula Poundstone
Comedian Paula Poundstone on Wednesday regained full legal custody of three adopted children she lost during a child-endangerment prosecution, her lawyer said.
Poundstone appeared in a juvenile courtroom but it was a formality, said attorney Rich Pfeiffer. Poundstone's children had already been staying with
her for a few days at her Santa Monica home.
Poundstone lost custody of her three adopted children after pleading no contest last year to a felony count of child endangerment and misdemeanor
infliction of injury on a child. The endangerment charge involved drunken driving with children in her car.
The children were placed with a court-approved foster parent, a friend of the comedian. Poundstone, 42, was allowed daily, monitored visits with the children.
Paula Poundstone
One Fan's Rankings
'Star Trek' Villains
Villains both menacing and lackluster have gone after the crew of the starship Enterprise through 10 feature films in the "Star Trek" franchise.
1. Khan Noonien Singh, "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" — Ricardo Montalban creates one of sci-fi's nastiest lunatics and gives probably the best performance ever in a franchise that's had more
than its share of bad acting. Reprising his role from the '60s TV show, Montalban hisses, rages and chortles with gleeful menace, all the while paraphrasing "Moby Dick's" Ahab as Khan hunts his own great white whale, James Kirk.
2. The Borg Queen, "Star Trek: First Contact" — Alice Krige is a true ice queen, a part-flesh, part-machine bad girl who woos android Commander Data as she tries to turn all life on Earth
into cybernetic Borg drones. While most "Trek" alien makeup and wardrobe is corny, Krige looks quite the sexpot with her glistening, grayish skin, tight black suit and dreadlock-like tubes sticking from her head.
3. General Chang, "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" — Christopher Plummer makes for a jovially black-hearted enemy as a Klingon leader conspiring to quash peace efforts and turn the
Earth-Klingon Cold War into an all-out battle to the death. You've just got to love a bald villain with a patch over one eye who quotes Shakespeare in the "original Klingon" and bellows Bard lines in the thick of combat.
4. Commander Kruge, "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" — Typecast in comedy, Christopher Lloyd never got his due credit for creating the arrogant, vainglorious commander that set the
tone for future incarnations of the Klingon race. Lloyd brings single-minded hatefulness to the role, but it's a bit hard to accept a bad guy who speaks with the loony Rev. Jim's voice from "Taxi."
5. Dr. Tolian Soran, "Star Trek: Generations" — Malcolm McDowell has curled his lip into an ugly grimace in so many movies, it's a wonder his face hasn't frozen that way. McDowell
is quietly malignant as a mad scientist destroying solar systems to gain access to a roving celestial paradise. And he's the only "Trek" villain who dukes it out with both Enterprise captains, Kirk and Picard.
6. Adhar Ru'afo, "Star Trek: Insurrection" — F. Murray Abraham is cursed with a dumb name and a really bad skin condition as a deteriorating alien trying to steal a fountain of youth
from a planet of peaceniks. In a battle of evil wits, Abraham's delectably despicable Salieri in "Amadeus," which earned him an Oscar, could have made mincemeat of the whiny Ru'afo.
7. Sybok, Capt. Klaa, "God," "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" — Laurence Luckinbill as Spock's starship-hijacking half-brother, Todd Bryant as a renegade Klingon and George Murdock
as a malevolent entity posing as "God" add up to a trio of weenies in the franchise's worst movie. But William Shatner does get to ask the "Almighty" the choice question, "What does God need with a starship?"
'Star Trek' Villains
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Doc Wrote Prescriptions for Stars
Jules Mark Lusman
A doctor who had his medical license revoked last week frequently catered to the prescription drug demands of celebrities, including actress Winona Ryder, a newspaper reported.
Jules Mark Lusman, 49, examined some patients only briefly before prescribing drugs, according to a report by the Medical Board of California.
Singer-actress Courtney Love was among the patients named in the Tuesday story by the Los Angeles Times. Pat Kingsley, a spokeswoman for Love, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.
Lusman called the decision to revoke his license "grossly unfair" in an interview Monday with the television program "Inside Edition" from his mother's home in South Africa.
Jules Mark Lusman
Las Vegas, Nevada
'C.J.' & The Cub
A chimpanzee named 'C.J.' (short for Calamity Jane) 'grooms' a two-week-old leopard cub during a fundraiser for Animal Antics, an exotic animal rescue shelter, outside the Exotic Pets
store in Las Vegas, Nevada December 8, 2002. The rummage sale and photo shoot with exotic animals raised money to improve the living conditions for rescued exotic animals and to help
pay for their medical treatment, said Animal Antics owner Nikki Riddell. Riddell, a former animal trainer, keeps a variety of rescued exotic animals which she uses for educational purposes, she said.
Photo by Steve Marcus
Leads Airlift For HIV Children
Bono
Irish rock star Bono and Sen. Bill Frist joined the Rev. Franklin Graham in airlifting Christmas gifts to HIV -positive children in Africa.
The group, which also included Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and chairman of the Global Business Coalition
on HIV-AIDS, held a news conference Tuesday at Kennedy Airport, where an Antonov 225 cargo plane was loaded with 83,000 individual gifts packed in shoe boxes.
The airlift is part of Operation Christmas Child, a relief effort headed by Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham.
Bono
Goods Go To Auction
Napster
Computers, laptops and a slew of T-shirts with a grinning cartoon cat logo will go up for auction as the now defunct song-swap company Napster cleans out its remaining physical assets.
Santa Clara-based software maker Roxio bought the brand name and intellectual property after Napster's bankruptcy. The leftover computer parts, laptops and Napster-logo trinkets
are up for grabs at Wednesday's auction.
Available for purchase on the cheap are pallets of monitors and servers that were once used as the company amassed tens of millions of users looking to trade music for free online.
Napster filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and Roxio says it may launch some form of renewed service under the brand name in the near future.
Napster
Marks Centennial Exhibition
Egyptian Museum
The Egyptian Museum inaugurated its centennial exhibition Wednesday, unveiling 250 items that have never been displayed before, including one of the world's oldest prostheses — an artificial toe for a woman.
Many of the artifacts have been locked away for years in dusty crates in the museum's basement and storerooms, which contain more than 100,000 relics. Zahi Hawass, director of Egyptian
antiquities, said the treasures had been "excavated" from storage and cleaned for the exhibition.
Among the newly displayed treasures was a wooden artificial toe found on the mummy of a woman who lived during what scholars refer to as the Third Intermediate
Period between 1070 B.C. to 657 B.C. The toe, which was excavated near the modern city of Luxor, was found still attached to the mummy although it had been broken into pieces by tomb robbers.
The new exhibits also featured a statue of Kai, the high priest of the Pharaoh Cheops, who built the Great Pyramid of Giza between 2589 B.C. and 2530 B.C.
The statue showed Kai wearing a white kilt and seated in a chair, with minature statues of his children at his feet. His face bears a smile — rare among ancient Egyptian statues.
The Egyptian Museum was opened Nov. 15, 1902 as the world's premier repository of ancient Egyptian artifacts. Designed to exhibit about 5,000 artifacts, the
downtown museum has about 60,000 on display, including the treasures of the boy king Tutankhamun, who ruled Egypt 3,300 years ago.
Egyptian Museum
Brother Meant No Harm
Jermaine Jackson
Michael Jackson was "caught up in the excitement" when he dangled his infant son from a hotel balcony while fans below watched, but did not mean to harm the boy, his brother Jermaine Jackson said Tuesday.
"You judge a person by their intentions," Jackson said on CNN's "Connie Chung Tonight." "He is a wonderful father. He's a great dad. He's great to our kids, my kids."
Jermaine Jackson conceded that dangling the child out the window may have been unwise but said the media took the matter out of context.
"But, at the same time, he was caught up in the excitement," Jackson, 48, said from Los Angeles. "But they never showed the 60-some-thousand fans down there being excited about his presence."
Jermaine Jackson
Died From Cocaine
John Entwistle
John Entwistle, bass player of The Who, died from taking cocaine which stopped his heart from beating, a coroner ruled Wednesday.
Entwistle, 57, was found dead in his room at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas on June 27, a day before the band was to start a three-month nationwide tour.
The British verdict generally agreed with the analysis of Clark County Coroner Ron Flud, who attributed the death to a combination of cocaine and heart disease.
Flud concluded that the cocaine caused a heart attack by constricting Entwistle's coronary arteries, but British experts thought the drug had fatally interfered with the heart rhythm.
The British inquest was required because Entwistle's body was returned to his home country for burial.
Toxicology tests showed no alcohol but two types of cocaine.
John Entwistle
Merging With Autry Museum
Southwest Museum
The Southwest Museum, cash poor but holding a wealth of American Indian art and artifacts, will merge with the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage under an agreement
that rescues the county's oldest museum from extinction.
The Southwest Museum, founded in 1907, joins the younger Autry Museum, created by the late television cowboy in Griffith Park, under the same umbrella as the Autry's $100 million endowment.
The Southwest has a 350,000-item inventory of American Indian items. Autry director John Gray said the agreement gives the museums a chance to present "a dynamic dialogue
between the cultures that made up the American West."
Museum officials hope a new building will be constructed to accommodate Southwest programs adjoining the Autry's courtyard. The museums plan to retain separate identities.
Southwest Museum
Deputized Growers
Santa Cruz
Officials in Santa Cruz have taken another pot shot at federal drug authorities by voting to deputize two founders of a medical marijuana farm raided this fall.
Valerie and Michael Corral, founders of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, were deputized Tuesday by a 7-0 council vote. They now have the
authority to cultivate, distribute and possess medical marijuana under the city's ordinance.
Council members hope strengthening ties with the Corrals will increase legal protections for the couple, who are wary of future prosecution. They were
arrested and 130 of their plants were confiscated in a federal Drug Enforcement Administration raid in September.
The vote follows a highly publicized pot giveaway at City Hall on Sept. 17 - 12 days after the raid on the Corrals' farm near Davenport.
Community members in Santa Cruz repeatedly have supported medical marijuana. In 1992, they approved a measure ending the prohibition of medical pot.
Four years later, state voters approved Proposition 215, allowing marijuana for medicinal purposes. And in 2000, the City Council approved an ordinance
allowing medical marijuana to be grown and used without a prescription.
Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington also allow marijuana to be grown and distributed to people with a doctor's prescription.
Santa Cruz
Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana
A robin looks for berries on ice-covered branches in a honeysuckle bush at Mount Airy Forest in Cincinnati Wednesday Dec. 11, 2002.
Photo by Tom Uhlman
'The Osbournes'
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