The Parts Left Out of "Chicago 10" by Paul Krassner
In 1967, Abbie Hoffman, his wife Anita and I took a work-vacation in Florida, renting a little house on stilts in Ramrod Key. We had planned to see The Professionals. "That's my favorite movie," Abbie said. "Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin develop this tight bond while they're both fighting in the Mexican revolution, then they drift apart." But it was playing too far away, and a hurricane was brewing, so instead we saw the Dino Di Laurentiis version of The Bible. Driving home in the rain and wind, we debated the implications of Abraham being prepared to slay his son because God told him to. I dismissed this as blind obedience. Abbie praised it as revolutionary trust. This was the week before Christmas. We had bought a small tree and spray-painted it with canned snow. Now, we were tripping on LSD as the hurricane reached full force. "Hey," Abbie yelled over the roar, "this is powerful [bleepin'] acid!" We watched Lyndon Johnson on a black-and-white TV set, although LBJ was purple-and-orange. His huge head was sculpted into Mount Rushmore. "I am not going to be so pudding-headed as to stop our half of the war," he was saying, and the heads of the other presidents were all snickering to themselves and covering their mouths with their hands so they wouldn't laugh out loud. This was the precise moment we acknowledged that we'd be going to the Democratic convention in August to protest the Vietnam war. I called Jerry Rubin in New York to arrange for a meeting. On the afternoon of December 31, several activist friends gathered at the Hoffmans' Lower East Side apartment, smoking Colombian marijuana and planning for Chicago. Our fantasy was to counter the convention of death with a festival of life. While the Democrats would present politicians giving speeches at the convention center, we would present rock bands playing in the park. There would be booths with information about drugs and alternatives to the draft. We sought to utilize the media as an organizing tool, but we needed a name so that journalists could have a "who" for their "who-what-when-where-and-why" lead paragraph. An appropriate word to signify the radicalization of hippies. I came up with Yippie as a label for a phenomenon that already existed, an organic coalition of psychedelic hippies and political activists. In the process of cross-fertilization at antiwar demonstrations, we had come to share an awareness that there was a linear connection between putting kids in prison for smoking pot in this country and burning them to death with napalm on the other side of the planet. It was the ultimate extension of dehumanization. And so we held a press conference. A reporter asked me, "What happens to the Yippies when the Vietnam war ends?" I replied, "We'll do what the March of Dimes did when a cure for polio was discovered; we'll just switch to birth defects." But our nefarious scheme worked. The headline in the Chicago Sun-Times read, "Yipes! The Yippies Are Coming!" What would later happen at the convention led to the infamous trial for crossing state lines to foment riot. As an unindicted co-conspirator, I felt like a disc jockey who hadn't been offered payola. Flash ahead to 2005. I got a call from director Brett Morgen, who was working on a documentary about the 1960s antiwar movement. It would have no narrator and no talking heads, only archival footage and animated re-enactments based on actual events and transcriptions of trial testimony. However, Allen Ginsberg levitating during meditation can be construed as cartoonic license. Brett invited me to write four specific animated scenes: 1. "Birth of the Yippies": This would include the hurricane, the meeting and the press conference. Excerpt: "[The house is shaking mightily on its stilts. ABBIE, ANITA and PAUL are looking out the window through wildly waving curtains as the house feels like it will be swept away. Books are falling off the shelf. Newspapers are swirling around the room.] ABBIE [screaming]: This whole house is gonna blow straight out to Cuba! [lightning strikes] We're coming, Fidel! [sound of thunder] Sock it to us, God!" 2. "Got Permit?": We meet with Chicago deputy mayor David Stahl, attempting to get a permit for the revolution...oops, I mean permits to sleep in the park, set up a sound system and march to the convention center. Excerpt: "STAHL: C'mon, tell me, what do you guys REALLY plan to do in Chicago? PAUL: Did you ever see that movie, Wild in the Streets? [A thought balloon shows the image of a group of teenagers dumping LSD into the water supply.] STAHL: Wild in the Streets? We've seen Battle of Algiers." [A thought balloon shows the image of a guerrilla woman, fully covered except for her eyes, planting a bomb in a cafe.] What would occur in Chicago that summer, then, is a clash between our mythology and their mythology. (The Chicago Tribune later reported that Bob Pierson - a police provocateur disguised as a biker and acting as Jerry's bodyguard - was "in the group which lowered an American flag" in Grant Park, the incident which set off what The Walker Report: Rights in Conflict would describe as "a police riot." Pierson wrote in Official Detective magazine, "I joined in the chants and taunts against the police and provoked them into hitting me with their clubs. They didn't know who I was, but they did know that I had called them names and struck them with one or more weapons.") 3. "Acid Testimony": I decide to take a tab of LSD at lunch before testifying--call me a sentimental fool--but why? "PAUL: To enhance the experience. No, actually, because I wanna throw up in court. I've learned that if I drop acid with a big meal, it always makes me vomit. That way, I don't have to memorize all those dates and places. And it'll be my theatrical statement on the injustice of the trial." Abbie was furious and stopped speaking to me. Ten months later, I mailed him a movie ad for The Professionals, which resulted in a reconciliation. 4. "Women's Liberation": The purpose of this scene, taking place at the feminist protest of the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, is summed up by former Yippie Robin Morgan: "ROBIN: And so we say goodbye to the male-dominated peace movement. Women will no longer serve as their second-class comrades. No more working hard behind the scenes while the male superstars do all the grandstanding and get all the credit and achieve all the notoriety. No more playing a critical role in building a movement but then being denied access to the policy-making process." Although Brett "loved, loved, loved" the scenes I wrote, the backers objected to the use of LSD, fearful of diverting attention from the main focus of the film. I was disappointed, if only for the sake of countercultural history. The CIA originally envisioned employing LSD as a means of control; instead, for millions of young people, LSD served as a vehicle to explore their own inner space, deprogramming themselves from mainstream culture and living their alternative. The CIA's scenario had backfired. Anyway, my suggestion - instead of referring to it as acid, Abbie could yell, "Hey, this is powerful [bleepin'] aspirin" - was rejected. Thus, the hurricane, which was originally going to open the film, has been omitted from the film, but of course it'll be on the DVD. My "threat" in the "Got Permit?" scene that the Yippies would pour LSD into the reservoir, and the entire "Acid Testimony" scene, are also out. Unfortunately, the "Women's Liberation" scene isn't included because of time restraints. Ironically, I was supposed to do the voice for my own animated character, but Abbie's son, Andrew, had auditioned to do his father's voice, and though he sounds eerily like him, he couldn't act, so it was decided to hire actors to do all the voices. In an interview during the trial, Abbie said, "We don't wanna be martyrs. We wanna live to see the overthrow of the government. Be a great [bleepin'] movie." Brett's goal isn't that ambitious, but when he called to tell me that "Chicago 10" had been selected to open the Sundance Film Festival, he said, "Wouldn't it be great if Abbie's legacy turns out to be that he helped to end the war in Iraq?" I hadn't seen any of the rough cuts and didn't know what to expect at the festival screening. Well, I loved, loved, loved it. Brett got a standing ovation. Although he was born two months after the protests in Chicago, he has managed--with the determination of a salmon swimming upstream to spawn, aided by 180 hours of film, 50 hours of video, 500 hours of audio and 23,000 pages of trial transcripts - to reveal in this unique neodoc, the horror and the humor, the rhetoric and the reality, of those events and their aftermath, in a style and rhythm calculated to resonate with - and inspire - contemporary youth. Yippie organizer Jim Fouratt said it "excites the imagination." Nick Nolte, who does the voice of prosecutor Thomas Foran, asked defendant Tom Hayden for his reaction. "I think that Brett authentically and brilliantly captured the experiences and the feelings of what we were going through," Hayden replied. Then, turning to Brett, he added, "So thank you for the next generation from our generation." Structurally, the film alternates between the action in the streets and the progress of the trial, with the utterly shocking imagery of defendant Bobby Seale, national chairman of the Black Panther Party, being bound, gagged and shackled to his courtroom chair for insisting on his constitutional right to represent himself after being turned down by the Elmer-Fudd-like Judge Julius Hoffman. I would've liked to see Dick Gregory's fervent recitation of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence at an un-birthday party for LBJ, but I'm grateful for the inclusion of defendant David Dellinger saying "The power of the people is our permit" at the start of the march from the bandstand to the Amphitheater. And I would've liked to hear Phil Ochs' song, "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," as the background music for that march, but I appreciate the use of Eminem's rap, "Mosh," as accompaniment instead. In fact, Brett had wanted to call the film "Mosh," but "Chicago 10" encompasses the eight defendants plus attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass. Whatever the title, though Sundance may be a long way from Ramrod Key, the spirit of Yippie lingers on.
Paul Krassner is the author of One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist, published by Seven Stories Press; he publishes The Disneyland Memorial Orgy at www.paulkrassner.com.
Anti-Gospel Song of the Week
I Wasn't There So I Don't Know
by Michael Dare
(works pretty well to the tune of O Mary Don't You Weep from Bruce Springsteen's latest album of Pete Seeger tunes, but anything'll do)
God made it all in seven days
God made it all in seven days
God made it all in seven days
but I wasn't there so I don't know
Adam and Eve never wore no clothes
Adam and Eve never wore no clothes
Adam and Eve never wore no clothes
but I wasn't there so I don't know
Tower of Babel was mighty tall
Tower of Babel was mighty tall
Tower of Babel was mighty tall
but I wasn't there so I don't know
Noah led the animals two by two
Noah led the animals two by two
Noah led the animals two by two
but I wasn't there so I don't know
Moses led his people to the promised land
Moses led his people to the promised land
Moses led his people to the promised land
but I wasn't there so I don't know
Mary was a virgin and she still gave birth
Mary was a virgin and she still gave birth
Mary was a virgin and she still gave birth
but I wasn't there so I don't know
Christ rose up from his bloody grave
Christ rose up from his bloody grave
Christ rose up from his bloody grave
but I wasn't there so I don't know
A Few Words in Defense of my Country
By Randy Newman
I'd like to say a few words in defense of my country Whose people aren't bad nor are they mean Now, the leaders we have, while they're the worst that we've had, Are hardly the worst this poor world has ever seen. Lets turn history's pages, shall we? Think of Caesars, for example. Well, the first few of them, they were sleeping with their sisters, Stashing little boys in swimming pools, burning down the city. One of them, he appointed his own horse to be counselor of the empire. That's like vice president well, wait, that's not a very good example. But here's a good one, the Spanish Inquisition, Putting people in terrible position. I don't even like to think about it. Well, sometimes I like to think about it. Just a few words in defense of my country Whose time at the top may be coming to an end. Oh, we don't want your love And I guess respect is out of the question at this point. At times like these, we could sure use a friend. Hitler, Stalin men who need no introduction. Much worse. King Leopold of Belgium. That's right, everyone thinks he's so great. Well, he owned the Congo, you know, and he tore it up, too. It was the Switzerland of Africa. He took the diamond, he took the gold, he took the silver. You know what he left it with? Malaria. You know, a president once said, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself Now it seems like were supposed to be afraid. Its patriotic, in fact. Afraid of what? Why, afraid of being afraid. That's what terror means, isn't it? You know, House of Wax, stuff like that. Not anymore it doesn't. You know, it pisses me off a little when I think that this Supreme Courts going to outlive me. A couple of young Italian fellas and a brother on the court now, too. But I defy you, anywhere in the world, to find me two Italians like the two Italians we got. And as for the brother, well, Pluto's not a planet anymore, either. The end of an empire is messy at best And this here empire's ending just like all the rest. Like the Spanish Armada, adrift on the sea, Were adrift in the land of the brave and the home of the free. Good-bye, Good-bye, Good-bye.
Download an MP3 of a live performance of this song, which isn't on an album yet, here (at the bottom of the page).
Free Movie Download of the Week
Over the past quarter century, an increasingly influential movement on the far right has waged a sustained war on the Constitution as we know it. Ultra-conservative politicians, judges, professors and activists would overturn decades of precedent to shred the fabric of popular laws protecting workers, consumers and public health, expand executive power at the expense of basic civil liberties, and impose a narrow social agenda on the rest of the body politic.
"If they succeed," says University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, “we will, without really seeing it happen, end up with a very different country - one that's both less free and less equal.”
Quiet Revolution traces the growth of the ultra-conservative movement, shines a light on its strategies, and breaks through its rhetoric to expose how it envisions reshaping American law and life.
I Feel So Much Safer Now
"The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries including Iran and China who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions. The sales include fighter jet parts and missile components.
"In one case, federal investigators said, the contraband made it to Iran, a country President George W. Bush branded part of an 'axis of evil.'
"In that instance, a Pakistani arms broker convicted of exporting U.S. missile parts to Iran resumed business after his release from prison. He purchased Chinook helicopter engine parts for Iran from a U.S. company that had bought them in a Pentagon surplus sale. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, speaking on condition of anonymity, say those parts made it to Iran.
"The surplus sales can operate like a supermarket for arms dealers.
"'Right Item, Right Time, Right Place, Right Price, Every Time. Best Value Solutions for America's Warfighters,' the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service says on its Web site, calling itself 'the place to obtain original U.S. Government surplus property.'"
Santa Fe police will soon be able to seize the cars of motorists merely accused of drunken driving. No trial or actual conviction necessary.
Rachel Bevilacqua lost custody of her son for participating in the Church of the SubGenius. Upon learning the details of the SubGenius parody of religion, the judge apparently lost his temper completely, and began to shout abuse at Rachel, calling her a "pervert," "mentally ill," "lying," and a participant in "sex orgies." The judge ordered that Rachel is to have absolutely no contact with her son, not even in writing, because he felt the pictures of her performance art, which satirized The Passion of the Christ, were evidence enough to suspect "severe mental illness." Please check out the details of this insane case here.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby -
"The people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature."
- James A. Garfield -
"The good cannot seize power, nor retain it; to do this men must love power. And the love of power is inconsistent with goodness; but quite consistent with the very opposite qualities: pride, cunning, cruelty."
- Leo Tolstoy -"
"A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with."
- Tennessee Williams: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof -
"In the end, it is not the culture from which we came but the one each of us is helping to create that will matter. It is our common fate rather than our disparate pasts that will ultimately describe, redeem, or destroy us."
- Sam Smith -
"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power."
- P. J. O'Rourke -
"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."
- Confucius -
"The average American is subjected to 3,000 commercial messages a day. If you have a good day, a half dozen people will tell you a truth worth remembering. Thus the lies win out 500 to one."
- Sam Smith -
"The reason that George W. Bush insists that 'victory' is achievable in Iraq is not that he is deluded or isolated or ignorant or detached from reality or ill-advised. No, it's that his definition of 'victory' is different from those bruited about in his own rhetoric and in the ever-earnest disquisitions of the chattering classes in print and online. For Bush, victory is indeed at hand. It could come at any moment now, could already have been achieved by the time you read this. And the driving force behind his planned 'surge' of American troops is the need to preserve those fruits of victory that are now ripening in his hand. At any time within the next few days, the Iraqi Council of Ministers is expected to approve a new 'hydrocarbon law' essentially drawn up by the Bush administration and its UK lackey, the Independent on Sunday reported. The new bill will 'radically redraw the Iraqi oil industry and throw open the doors to the third-largest oil reserves in the world,' says the paper, whose reporters have seen a draft of the new law. 'It would allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil companies in the country since the industry was nationalized in 1972.' If the government's parliamentary majority prevails, the law should take effect in March."
"Things are seldom as they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream."
- Gilbert & Sullivan: HMS Pinafore -
"Every nuclear weapon is a portable Auschwitz."
- Daniel Ellsberg -
"Intelligent discontent is the mainspring of civilization."
- Eugene V. Debs -
"I'm an Essex girl. You know how you know if an Essex girl has an orgasm? She drops her fries."
- Helen Mirren -
"An adult is one who has lost the grace, the freshness, the innocence of the child, who is no longer capable of feeling pure joy, who makes everything complicated, who spreads suffering everywhere, who is afraid of being happy, and who, because it is easier to bear, has gone back to sleep. The wise man is a happy child."
- Arnaud Desjardins -
"Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from the music."
- Ezra Pound -
"There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else."
- James Thurber -
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
- Frederich Nietzsche -
"The rapture is not an exit strategy."
- Jesus Christ -
"For some reason my mind keeps turning to food. I know I have not eaten all the eclairs I always wanted."
"Most pundits concentrated on Iraq and wacky health insurance stuff. But that's just bubbles and blather. The real agenda is in the small stuff. The little razors in the policy apple, the nasty little pieces of policy shrapnel that whiz by between the appearances of the Presidential tongue.
"First, there was the announcement the regime will, give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers. In case you missed that one, the President is talking about creating a federal citizen profile database.
"There's a problem with that idea. Its against the law. The law in question is the United States Constitution. The Founding Fathers thought the government had no right to keep track on a citizen unless there is evidence they have committed, or planned to commit, a crime.
"But the Founding Fathers didn't imagine there were millions and billions of dollars to be made by private contractors ready to perform this KGB operation for the Department of Homeland Security, tracking each and every one of us to keep tabs on our status.
"These work databases will tie into voter verification databases required by the Help America Vote Act. And these will tie to the databases on citizenship and so on.
"Will Big Brother abuse these snoop lists? The biggest purveyor of such hit lists is Choice Point, Inc. those characters who, before the 2000 election, helped Jeb Bush purge innocent voters as felons from Florida voter rolls. Will they abuse the new super-lists? Does Dick Cheney shoot in the woods?"
dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is free and may be reproduced in any form, preferably parchment. It consists of information from dozens of sources, cut up, thrown in the air, and recycled randomly. It is sent all over the place, so I apologize if you're seeing the same thing twice. If you see a joke, graphic, or news item that came from or through you, thanks, send more, and please accept the fact that much of dIsInFoTaInMeNt ToDaY is unacknowledgeable, and if I sought permission from everyone whose bastardized material showed up here, I'd never get anything else done. Please note that I don't even put my own name on it except those places I do. If you're still pissed off, hey, it's either satire or fair use.
Thanks,
Wendy Shoofitz
Until further notice, Disinfotainment Today is posted here.
THE PROBLEM WITH NOVELS (dailyhowler.com)
Yesterday, former Cheney aide Cathie Martin testified in the Libby trial. In the Post, Dana Milbank uses his incomparable skills with body language to tell us how she "seemed." What is gained when brilliant analysts tell us how a person "seemed?" In campaign coverage, reporters frequently let us know the candidates "seem" and "appear," especially at our less disciplined major papers. We'd be much better off if they'd STFU-if they'd simply report what the candidates said. Novels can be purchased at Borders. We don't need reporters to type them.
Too much, too young (guardian.co.uk)
Our children have never been fatter. Nor have they ever been so prone to eating disorders like anorexia. What can parents do? How do you steer your kids away from one danger without pushing them towards the other? Lucy Atkins has some practical advice.
Mark Swed: A classic coup (calendarlive.com)
Dictator-conductors once ruled their orchestras with iron batons. These days, uppity musicians often run the conductors. Is music better off?
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'NCIS', followed by a RERUN'The Unit', then '48 Hours'.
On a RERUNDave (from 12/11/06) are Matt Damon and Barbara Walters.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Julie Bowen, Terry Crews, and Michael Meehan.
NBC starts the night with 'Dateline', followed by a RERUN'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', then a RERUN'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Diane Keaton, Ivanka Trump, and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Kristin Davis, Bob Saget, and Paolo Nutini.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Michael Irvin and Padma Lakshmi.
ABC opens the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by a RERUN'Big Day', then a FRESH'Big Day', followed by a FRESH'Boston Legal'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Christina Applegate and Patton Oswalt.
The CW offers a FRESH'Gilmore Girls', followed by a FRESH'Veronica Mars'.
Faux has a FRESH'American Idol', followed by a FRESH'House'.
MY has a FRESH'Wicked Wicked Games', followed by a FRESH'Watch Over Me'.
A&E has 'CSI: The 2nd One', another 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', still another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter', and yet another 'Dog The Bounty Hunter'.
AMC offers the movie 'Three Amigos!', followed by the movie 'Happy Gilmore', then the movie 'Happy Gilmore', again.
BBC -
[1:00 PM] As Time Goes By - Episode 5;
[1:40 PM] Are You Being Served? - Ep. 3 Our Figures Are Slipping;
[2:20 PM] Keeping Up Appearances - Episode 2;
[3:00 PM] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 31;
[4:00 PM] The Saint - Ep. 16 Escape Route;
[5:00 PM] The Avengers - Ep. 27 Pandora;
[6:00 PM] BBC World News - BBC World News;
[6:30 PM] Cash in the Attic - Episode 1;
[7:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Ep 16 Ransom;
[8:00 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 3;
[8:30 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 4;
[9:00 PM] The Avengers - Ep. 23 Homicide and Old Lace;
[10:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 9 The Empty Child;
[11:00 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 5;
[11:30 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 11;
[12:00 AM] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 32;
[1:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 9 The Empty Child;
[2:00 AM] The Avengers - Ep. 23 Homicide and Old Lace;
[3:00 AM] Touching Evil - Episode 1;
[5:00 AM] Bodies - Episode 1;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News - BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Top Chef', 'Real Housewives', another 'Real Housewives', and still another 'Real Housewives'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', last night's 'Jon Stewart', last night's 'Colbert Report', 'Chappelle's Show', 'South Park', and 'Lisa Lampanelli'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Donna Shalala.
FX has the movie 'The Green Mile', followed by a FRESH'Dirt'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Lost Worlds', 'Ancient Discoveries', and 'Man Moment Machine'.
IFC -
[06:30 AM] George Washington;
[08:10 AM] ¡Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!;
[09:40 AM] Ararat;
[11:40 AM] January Media Lab Results;
[11:55 AM] George Washington;
[01:30 PM] IFC News Special;
[01:40 PM] Ararat;
[03:40 PM] Gerry;
[05:30 PM] George Washington;
[07:10 PM] The Flats;
[09:00 PM] In America;
[10:50 PM] Metroland;
[12:35 AM] Nine Queens;
[02:35 AM] In America;
[04:25 AM] Metroland. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has 'Stargate SG-1', another 'Stargate SG-1', still another 'Stargate SG-1', and 'ECW'.
Sundance -
[06:00 AM] Haiti: The End of the Chimera?;
[07:15 AM] Through My Thick Glasses;
[07:30 AM] The Galindez File;
[09:30 AM] Fearless Freaks;
[11:15 AM] Reach the Rock;
[01:00 PM] Secret Ceremony;
[03:00 PM] The Mighty Celt;
[04:30 PM] New York Doll;
[06:00 PM] One Punk Under God: Episode 1;
[06:30 PM] In the Edges: the Grizzly Man Session;
[07:30 PM] Series 7: The Contenders;
[09:00 PM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 2: Didn't Mean To;
[09:30 PM] Short Hymn, Silent War;
[10:00 PM] The Motorcycle Diaries;
[12:15 AM] Down to the Bone;
[02:00 AM] IN SHORT: Festival 5;
[02:30 AM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 2: Didn't Mean To;
[03:00 AM] Twentynine Palms;
[05:00 AM] The Galindez File. (ALL TIMES EST)
Julie Andrews (R), who is getting a lifetime achievement award, poses with actress Mary Tyler Moore at the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles January 28, 2007.
Photo by Lucy Nicholson
Air America Radio, a liberal talk radio network, said Monday that it had reached a tentative agreement to be sold to the founder of a New York area real estate company. The network also said that Al Franken, its longtime headline personality, would depart next month.
The agreement with Stephen Green, the founder and chairman of SL Green Realty Corp., appears to rescue the struggling network, which has been seeking a buyer since last fall when it filed for bankruptcy reorganization after reaching an impasse with one of its creditors.
Any sale would have to be approved by the bankruptcy court. The company has signed what is called a letter of intent to sell itself to Green and expects to agree on financial terms soon, Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn said.
The network said in a statement that Franken's last day on the air would be Feb. 14, and that his noon-3pm ET time slot would be taken over by Portland, Ore.-based talk show host Thom Hartmann.
Sacha Baron Cohen, creator of the hit comic character Borat, has been named one of Britain's most powerful men on a list that puts him one place behind Prince William.
The 35-year-old comedian debuted in 19th place on GQ magazine's annual list, announced on Monday. The publication said the ranking showed men "shaping the fabric and direction of the nation" over the next 12 months and beyond.
Cohen topped the likes of BSkyB chief executive James Murdoch and Britain's Prince Charles, heir to the throne and father of Prince William.
"Not since John Lennon has an English entertainer had such an effect on the world: George Bush was briefed on him, the Kazakh government briefed against him and the film Borat ... hit the No. 1 spot in America last autumn," the magazine said.
This photo supplied by the Opera News shows the five people honored Sunday night, Jan. 28, 2007, in New York, by Opera News with awards for distinguished achievement. They are, bass Rene Pape, left, Renata Scotto, second from left, joined by Metropolitan Opera music director James Levine, soprano Deborah Voigt, and tenor Ben Heppner. right.
Photo by Dario Acosta
Thirty years after the Band and their rock-star friends staged a final mega-concert known as The Last Waltz, songwriter Robbie Robertson says he and filmmaker Martin Scorsese still try to reunite by telephone every U.S. Thanksgiving to mark the anniversary.
Robertson says he and Scorsese, who directed the 1978 concert film of the same name, would "check in" every third week in November in honour of that farewell show, which included performances by some of the biggest names in music at the time.
"It's kind of a ritual, you know, that we would talk on Thanksgiving, ever since then," Robertson says in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles.
Clear Channel Communications Inc., the largest U.S. radio station operator, said on Monday it will hold a special meeting of shareholders on March 21 to vote on its proposed $18.7 billion private buyout.
The buyout offer from the company's founding Mays family and private equity firms Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners has come under pressure in the last few weeks, raising the possibility that some large shareholders will oppose the deal.
Clear Channel said its board of directors, excluding members of the Mays family and co-founder B.J. McCombs, had unanimously agreed the merger was fair and in the best interests of shareholders.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters this month that one of Clear Channel's largest shareholders, Fidelity Management & Research Co., intended to vote against the deal.
Ben Stiller and Scarlett Johansson are this year's recipients of the annual Hasty Pudding awards, given by a student drama group at Harvard University.
The awards, announced Monday, are given to performers who have made a "lasting and impressive contribution to the world of entertainment" by Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the nation's oldest undergraduate drama troupe.
Johansson, 22, will lead a parade through Cambridge on Feb. 15, then attend a roast in her honor and receive the "Pudding Pot." The ceremony for Stiller, 41, is Feb. 23.
International opera diva Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is being sued for 2 million Australian dollars (1.55 million US) for pulling out of a tour with Australian rock star John Farnham, after learning his fans threw underwear at him.
After agreeing to perform with Farnham, Dame Kiri watched a DVD of one of his concerts, which she was said to have found "absolutely horrendous", a Sydney court heard Monday.
The New Zealander thought Farnham talked too much and was concerned after someone's pants ended up on stage, the court heard.
Best known as the star of television's "Ed," Tom Cavanagh will host a series of 30-minute shows for the Smithsonian Institution's joint TV unit with Showtime Networks Inc., slated to launch in April.
The new company, Smithsonian Networks LLC, is set to announce Monday about a half-dozen of its initial 60 programs, including a co-production deal with the BBC's flagship "Timewatch" history series and documentaries focusing on the Smithsonian's treasured artifacts.
Cavanagh will host the six-part series "Stories from the Vaults" from the back rooms of the world's largest museum and research complex, which houses millions of items from art, history, technology and science.
Niki Taylor filed a federal slander lawsuit against E! Entertainment for alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress with its profile of the model in the new series "Blvd. of Broken Dreams." The U.S. District Court suit, filed Friday, also alleged fraud, breach of contract and invasion of privacy claiming E! Entertainment representatives falsely claimed the show would focus on Taylor's current life.
The cable network allegedly told Taylor and manager Lou Taylor, no relation, the show would feature current professional endeavors, including her signature fragrance, clothing line, upcoming cosmetics line and charitable foundation, the suit said.
Instead, the suit said, defendants E! Entertainment Television Inc., E! Networks Productions Inc. and a producer focused on Taylor's past hardships and characterized her as a celebrity "who risked everything ... and lost."
Last week's premiere episode of "Blvd. of Broken Dreams" was repeatedly shown on the cable network despite demands from Taylor's lawyers that it be pulled from the lineup, Taylor attorney Caroline H. Mankey said.
A detail from Jake and Dinos Chapman's new exhibition, 'When Humans Walked the Earth', is displayed at the Tate Britain gallery in London January 29, 2007. The exhibition runs until March 4, 2007.
Photo by Kieran Doherty
The California Highway Patrol recommended Monday that actress-singer Brandy be charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in a freeway crash that killed a woman motorist last month, a city attorney's spokesman told The Associated Press.
The CHP referred the matter to the city attorney's office for review, said spokesman Nick Velasquez.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in county jail and a $1,000 fine, Velasquez said.
For Anglicans who still haven't found what they're looking for, the Church of England is staging its first "U2-charist" communion service -- replacing hymns with hit songs by the Irish supergroup.
A live band is to play U2 classics like "Beautiful Day" and "Mysterious Ways" with special singalong lyrics displayed on a giant screen. Seating for the 500-strong congregation is to be re-arranged so everyone can dance and wave their hands.
The service is to focus on the Millennium development goals -- U2's lead singer Bono is a leading promoter of the targets to alleviate world poverty.
Jermaine Jackson said on Monday he wants his brother Michael to convert to Islam; and he believes the reclusive superstar has given it serious thought.
"Michael, I feel, needs to become a Muslim because I think it's a great protection for him from all the things that he's been attacked with, which are false," said the former Jackson Five singer who now lives in Bahrain.
"There's a strength and protection there," Jackson told BBC Asian Newtwork after finishing runner-up to Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in the "Celebrity Big Brother" TV reality show that was marred by accusations of racist bullying.
A model gets ready for the Tenth Moscow Championship of Hairdressers and Nail Art Designers in central Moscow, January 26, 2007. Over 300 artists are competing in the show, till the finals on Saturday.
Photo by Alexander Natruskin
About 10,000 Juneau residents briefly lost power after a bald eagle lugging a deer head crashed into transmission lines.
"You have to live in Alaska to have this kind of outage scenario," said Gayle Wood, an Alaska Electric Light & Power spokeswoman. "This is the story of the overly ambitious eagle who evidently found a deer head in the landfill."
The bird, weighed down by the deer head, apparently failed to clear the transmission lines, she said. A repair crew found the eagle dead, the deer head nearby.
Jennifer Lopez's first husband, Ojani Noa, was ordered Monday to enter arbitration with the pop star over his plans for a tell-all book about their brief marriage.
Lopez filed a Superior Court breach of contract suit nine months ago and got a restraining order barring Noa from publishing intimate details of their sex life. She also asked for arbitration.
On Monday, Superior Court Judge Victor H. Person agreed with Lopez' lawyer, Paul N. Sorrell, that Noa was bound to arbitration under terms of an October 2005 settlement of another lawsuit.
CBS has tossed "Armed & Famous" into the cancellation cooler. The new reality television series, which followed five lesser-celebrities during their time as gun-carrying reserve officers of the Muncie Police Department, has been axed after four episodes.
Producers planned seven episodes of "Armed & Famous," whose stars included former "CHiPs" star Erik Estrada, singer La Toya Jackson and Jack Osbourne. At least one unaired episode is to be shown this weekend on the cable channel VH1.
VHI will air the one new episode and the four already broadcast at 5 p.m. Saturday, said Laura Nelson, a spokeswoman for the channel. She said VH1 expected to show the last two "Armed & Famous" episodes if they were completed by its producers.
Carroll and Madelyn Pugh Davis, his writing partner of more than 60 years, were working on comedian Steve Allen's radio show in the 1940s when they learned Ball was looking for writers for her show, "My Favorite Husband."
When the show moved to television in 1953, Ball took her writers with her, changing the name to "I Love Lucy" and adding real-life husband Desi Arnaz to the cast.
Carroll and Pugh went on to work on every episode of the long-running show, as well as many episodes of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour," "The Lucy Show," "Here's Lucy" and "Life With Lucy." The latter show went off the air in 1986, three years before Ball's death.
Carroll and Davis also collaborated on several other projects, including the 1968 film "Yours, Mine and Ours" and the Arnaz-produced sitcom "The Mothers-In-Law."
Born Aug. 12, 1919 (some sources list 1918), in McKeesport, Pa., Carroll moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., with his family when he was 3. Married and divorced twice, Carroll is survived by a daughter.
In this photo provided by the San Diego Zoo, the 17-month-old giant panda, Su Lin, is seen Monday morning, Jan. 29, 2007, in a tree after keepers separated her from her mother, Bai Yun, for the first time, in San Diego. Over the next few days, the bears will spend the mornings separated from one another, coming back together in the afternoon. Giant pandas are critically endangered with only 1,600 left in the world, according to the San Diego Zoo.
Photo by Ken Bohn
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