Issue #40
Disinfotainment Today
By Michael Dare
UNDO THE COUP
'TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another day near nice enough for a postcard.
Running late & the page is large.
Tonight, Tuesday, you can tell it's Sweeps! CBS opens the evening with a FRESH 'JAG', then a FRESH 'The Guardian', and a
FRESH 'Judging Amy'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Matthew McConaughey, Jon Gruden, and the Roots.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Peter Facinelli and comic Elizabeth Beckwith.
NBC starts with a FRESH 'Fear Factor' (an 'all-female' show), then a FRESH 'Frasier' (with Bebe Neuwirth, as Lilith guesting), followed by the
Series Premiere of 'A.U.S.A'M., then a FRESH 'Kingpin' (which beat 'Dragnet' ratings-wise Sunday night).
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Steve Irwin, Arsenio Hall, and Floetry.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Patton Oswalt, Tom Cavanagh, and Kenny Chesney.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Horatio Sanz and Morcheeba.
ABC begins with a FRESH '8 Simple Rules', then a FRESH 'Jim', followed by a FRESH
'Bonnie' (with Robin Williams guesting), followed by a FRESH 'Less Than Perfect', and a FRESH 'NYPD Blue'.
The WB offers a FRESH 'Gilmore Girls' and a FRESH 'Smallville'.
Faux has a FRESH 'American Idol' and a FRESH '24' (Day 2: 6pm - 7pm).
UPN has a FRESH 'Buffy', then a FRESH 'Abby', and a FRESH 'One On One'.
FX has a FRESH 'The Shield'.
MTV has a FRESH 'The Osbournes'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Dave Hansen of Grand Isle, Vt., iceboards below a solar halo on Lake Champlain, Vt., near the Vermont/New York border on Monday, Feb. 3, 2003. The ring around the sun known as a halo is a
fairly common weather phenomenon caused by ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. Hanson was iceboarding from Vermont to New York state and back again across the ice on Lake Champlain, which
has only frozen over between New York and Vermont once in the last six winters.
Photo by Rob Swanson
Rallies at Peace March
Hunter S. Thompson
Journalist Hunter S. Thompson and former Colorado Gov. Dick Lamm helped hundreds express their fear and loathing over a potential war against Iraq.
Thompson, who was involved in many anti-war protests during the Vietnam War and was a critic of President Nixon during the Watergate investigation, said presidents can be driven out of office.
"You can beat City Hall," said Thompson. "I've been to a few of these things. I've become almost homesick for the smell of tear gas."
Hunter S. Thompson
(Dr. Thompson is scheduled on Conan, Thursday night.)
[Hey Asterisk - you still out there?]
Daughter Seeks Redress
Beatrice Welles
Beatrice Welles, the daughter of Orson Welles, has filed a lawsuit claiming she is the owner of the rights to film classic "Citizen Kane."
The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, names Turner Entertainment Co. and RKO Pictures as defendants. (Turner bought the film rights from RKO). It alleges that Welles entered into
a 1939 contract to write produce and star in "Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons." According to the complaint, a 1944 agreement between Welles and RKO terminated the earlier agreement and restored
the copyrights in the films to Welles.
The suit seeks a ruling on which contract is applicable. It contends that if the 1944 agreement is in force, Welles' heirs own the rights to "Kane" and "Ambersons." Even if the 1939 agreement is in force,
claims the suit, the family is contractually entitled to 20% of the profits from the films, and the defendants have failed to pay royalties.
Beatrice Welles
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Daughter Objects to Film
Frieda Hughes
The daughter of the poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes has written an angry poem to protest the British Broadcasting Corp.'s decision to make a film about her family, believing it will be a
voyeuristic retelling of her mother's suicide in a gas oven, news reports said Monday.
Frieda Hughes' 48-line poem, entitled "My Mother," to be published in the next issue of "Tatler" magazine, criticizes both the makers and the potential audience of "Ted and Sylvia," currently
in production and starring Gwyneth Paltrow as the tortured Plath.
"Now they want to make a film/For anyone lacking the ability/To imagine the body, head in oven/Orphaning children," it runs.
"The peanut eaters, entertained/At my mother's death, will go home/Each carrying their memory of her,/Lifeless — a souvenir./Maybe they'll buy the video."
Hughes, 42, says she has been pestered to collaborate by the producers of the $11 million film which explores the fiery relationship between the celebrated American poet and Hughes, who later
became Britain's poet laureate. Hughes was 2 when her mother killed herself.
"I wrote a letter to them saying, 'No, I don't want to collaborate,' and they kept coming back," Hughes said in an interview with The Sunday Times. "Why would I want to be involved in moments
of my childhood which I never want to return to? I want nothing to do with this film. I will never, never in a million years go to see it."
Hughes, who is literary executor of her mother's estate, has banned the BBC from using any of Plath's poetry in the film. As she says in the poem, "They think I should give them my mother's
words/To fill the mouth of their monster/Their Sylvia Suicide Doll."
Frieda Hughes
A boat crew races past a finish line during a traditional boat race celebrating Tet, Lunar New Years at Lenin Park in Hanoi Monday Feb.3, 2003. Vietnamese held traditional boat races to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
Photo by Richard Vogel
First Job Offer
Chelsea Clinton
She doesn't graduate from Oxford until the spring, but Chelsea Clinton may have already lined up a job in New York. The former first daughter has been offered a position with McKinney, the powerhouse consulting
firm. "I know she had an interview and got a good offer," a pal of Chelsea's tells New York magazine. Sources say her starting salary would be about $65,000.
Chelsea Clinton
Next Artistic Director At 'The Old Vic'?
Kevin Spacey
Hollywood star Kevin Spacey is to take over as artistic director of one of Britain's most famous theaters, The Times said on Tuesday.
It said that the dual Oscar winner would take the helm at The Old Vic, the 180-year-old London theater that needs a huge injection of funds to ensure its survival.
Spacey, who won Hollywood's ultimate accolade for his haunting performances in "The Usual Suspects" and "American Beauty," is reported to have given a six-figure sum in support of the venerable theater.
Kevin Spacey
New Documentary - Coming Soon To ABC
Michael Jackson
Pop superstar Michael Jackson revealed in a surreal television documentary about his extraordinary lifestyle that his third child was born to a surrogate mother he had never met.
"I used a surrogate mother and my own sperm cells," Jackson said of his third child, who he infamously dangled over a Berlin hotel balcony in November to show off to his fans.
Asked how he selected the mother of Prince Michael II, the famously reclusive superstar told a British television documentary: "It didn't matter to me as long as she was healthy. I didn't care what race as long as she is healthy."
"I used a surrogate mother and she doesn't know me," the 44-year-old old self-styled "King of Pop" told ITV1 interviewer Martin Bashir.
He revealed that after Paris was born "I snatched her and just went home with all the placenta and everything all over her. I'm not kidding. Got her in a towel and ran. They said it was fine... And I got her home and washed it all off."
"I have slept in a bed with many children. I slept in a bed with all of them when (Home Alone child star) Macaulay Culkin was little. Kieran Culkin would sleep on this side, Macaulay Culkin was on this side, his sisters in there. We all would just jam in the bed."
Jackson ended the 90-minute portrait with a poignant pledge: "If there were no children on this earth, if someone announced all kids were dead, I would jump off the balcony immediately."
For more, Michael Jackson
Has A Dark Side
Phil Spector
A millionaire by 21, washed up by 26, Phil Spector has spent most of his life living out an existence as the Orson Welles of rock 'n' roll.
Following his arrest on Monday in the shooting death of a woman at his hilltop mansion in Los Angeles, the 62-year-old producer has returned to the spotlight for the first time in decades.
Tyrannical, reclusive and eccentric, but mostly just a genius, Spector was the brains behind such 1960s tunes as the Crystals' "He's A Rebel," the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling."
He pioneered the "Wall of Sound" -- layering tracks of percussion and pianos and guitars and keyboards and horns on top of each other so that the resulting package hit listeners like a Wagnerian
avalanche. He once called them "little symphonies for the kiddies."
Spector was just 17 when he wrote and produced his first No. 1 hit, "To Know Him Is To Love Him" -- a line taken from the inscription on his father's gravestone -- for his high school group, the
Teddy Bears. The teen tycoon would go on to produce 17 top-10 U.S. hits in a decade.
But Spector's output was overshadowed during the 1970s by tales of his dark side -- a messy divorce from second wife Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes, gunshots in the recording studio, etc.
One troubled project was his 1977 work on Canadian folk singer Leonard Cohen's "Death of a Ladies' Man" album. According to Cohen biographer Ira B. Nadel, Spector at one stage pointed a loaded .45
pistol at Cohen's throat, cocked it and said, "I love you, Leonard." To which Cohen replied, "I hope you love me, Phil."
In 1979, while producing punk band the Ramones' "End of the Century," Spector pulled a gun on Dee Dee Ramone after the bass player had taken a swing at him.
For more, Phil Spector
Backs Middle East TV Network
Budget
resident Bush on Monday threw his support behind an American-style Arab TV network that would replace traditional propaganda tools such as the staid Voice of America radio network with the latest in music and news.
In his proposed budget for 2004, Bush set aside $30 million for the Middle East Television Network. The money goes to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which supervises the U.S.' nonmilitary international
broadcast services, including VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
resident Bush recommended no increase in funding for the Corp. of Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes money to public radio and TV stations, and no special allocation of funds for the digital TV transition.
Public broadcasters say the president's $380 million allocation actually represents a decrease, since he is suggesting the CPB use up to $100 million of the total funding for its digital transition. In each of the past couple of years, public broadcasters
have received between $20 million and $25 million specifically for the digital conversion.
Bush didn't snub either the National Endowment for the Humanities or the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA supports projects aimed at enriching the nation's cultural heritage. Bush set aside $117 million for the NEA, a slight increase from 2003.
The NEH would receive a total of $152 million, with $25 million going to expanding the "We the People" initiative, designed to "promote the study of our nation's history, institutions and culture," according to the budget.
For more, Budget
Disbanding Jersey Films
Danny DeVito
Danny DeVito's Jersey Films, the edgy production company behind such films as "Erin Brockovich," "Get Shorty," "Pulp Fiction" and "Out of Sight," will disband when its deal with Universal Pictures expires at the end of 2003.
The split is a surprise, since there was no hint of feuding, restlessness or acrimony among DeVito and his partners, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher. Sources said they get along fine, but
after 12 years, the principals found their interests going in different directions.
DeVito formed the company with Shamberg in 1991, when the latter was the producer of such films as "A Fish Called Wanda" and "The Big Chill." Sher joined shortly thereafter from Lynda
Obst Prods., where she was associate producer on "The Fisher King." She was made full partner several years later.
A spokesman for Jersey confirmed the partners will go their separate ways but will continue to work together on all Jersey projects in development at Universal. They are currently in
production on a still-untitled comedy directed by John Hamburg and starring Ben Stiller, Jennifer Aniston, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Debra Messing. It is unclear whether any of them
will carry on the Jersey banner beyond preexisting projects.
The split does not impact Jersey Television, which Jersey partner John Landgraf will contine to run. Currently in a deal at Sony, Jersey has two pilot commitments for the upcoming season.
Danny DeVito
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Cancelled After Five Years
'Dawson's Creek'
"Dawson's Creek" -- the show that turned the WB into a bona fide network -- will sail into the sunset this May after five angst-filled years.
The WB plans to air a two-hour "Dawson's" finale May 14.
Season to date, "Dawson's Creek" is still the WB's No. 2 program among adults 18-34 (3.3 rating/10 share, up 6% from last year) and is its 4th-highest rated series in the persons 12-34 demo (3.0/9). "Dawson's"
still holds the WB's record for best-ever rating among the 12-34 crowd (6.3/17). In its heyday, the show dominated especially with female teens, where it once pulled an astounding 19.3 rating and 48 share.
'Dawson's Creek'
Vi Redington, widow of Joe Redington Sr., stands next to the life-size, bronze memorial statue of her late husband, titled 'Father of the Iditarod', during its unveiling at the Iditarod Trail Committee headquarters
Saturday, Feb. 1, 2003, in Wasilla, Alaska. The Friends of Joe Redington Sr. raised $35,000 for the statue, carved by Joan Bugbee Jackson. The group presented the statue to the Iditarod Trail Committee on what would
have would have been Redington's 86th birthday. Redington, who is credited with starting the Iditarod Trial Sled Dog Race, died of cancer in 1999.
Photo by Al Grillo
Dismisses Oscars as 'Political Campaign'
Meryl Streep
Actress Meryl Streep has poured scorn on the race for Oscar glory, saying the movie industry's most celebrated event had almost deteriorated into a "political campaign"
Streep is a double Oscar winner who could break the record for most nominations next week. But she said she found the quest for Academy Awards distasteful.
"I find it alarming that all the campaigning for Oscars is getting like a political campaign," she told Tuesday's Daily Telegraph newspaper. "It really is distasteful.
"It won't be long before they start paying for television commercials for best picture, best actor and all those things."
Meryl Streep
Double Deals for Revolution Epic
Disney
Disney is near a double deal with "We Were Soldiers" writer-director Randall Wallace for his historical epic "Love and Honor."
The accord will guarantee a greenlight for a film to begin filming in the fall for a Christmas 2004 release while, Disney-owned Hyperion will publish Wallace's novel of the story around Christmas this year.
Wallace has used history to fuel his scripts "Braveheart," "Pearl Harbor," "Man in the Iron Mask" and "We Were Soldiers"; he also directed the latter two. Once again, true events inspire this project, an 18th century story framed around
the Revolutionary War that will be set mostly in Russia.
When Wallace shopped "We Were Soldiers," he was able to get rich deals from Paramount and Mel Gibson's Icon Prods. banner because he personally had optioned the book on which it was based. Once again, he brought a complete package, with a finished novel and greenlightable script.
So Disney has now brought another epic-sized film to its slate. To do that, the Mouse House was willing to satisfy Wallace's desire that his novel not be trivialized as a novelization of a film. When his William Morris agents took this
package to market, Wallace was insistent that the novel precede the film by a full year.
Disney
Studio Pulls Trailer
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures has pulled its trailer for "The Core," which shows the Space Shuttle in jeopardy, but the studio is holding to its March 28 release date for the sci-fi thriller.
The Viacom Inc.-owned studio asked exhibitors to stop screening the trailer following Saturday's space shuttle Columbia disaster and it is reviewing its advertising to make certain the campaign is sensitive to the tragedy.
Paramount decided in the fall to delay release of "The Core" from November in order to give more time to complete f/x shots. Helmed by Jon Amiel ("Entrapment"), the picture revolves around a group of NASA "terranauts"
who must travel deep underground after the Earth's inner core stops rotating, which creates a host of natural disasters that threaten life on the surface. It stars Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank.
Paramount Pictures
Baby News
Casper Matthew De Vere Drummond
Claudia Schiffer, who is married to British film producer Matthew Vaughn, gave birth to their first child at an exclusive London hospital last week but did not immediately decide on a name.
"They have decided to call the baby Casper Matthew De Vere Drummond," a spokeswoman for Schiffer said Monday.
Schiffer's spokeswoman said she did not know why Casper was chosen but said the baby's surname was not Vaughn because Schiffer's husband had changed his name earlier in life.
Casper Matthew De Vere Drummond
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Vatican Approved
Harry Potter
Harry Potter fans, relax. The Vatican says the kid is all right.
The question of whether J.K. Rowling's books and the films on the boy wizard have a positive influence came up at a news conference on Monday where the Vatican presented a document on "New Age" spirituality, which contain elements of the occult.
"I don't think that any of us grew up without the imaginary world of fairies, magicians, angels and witches," said Father Peter Fleetwood, a Vatican official who worked on the document.
"They are not bad or a banner for anti-Christian ideology. They help children understand the difference between good and evil," he said in response to a reporter's question.
Harry Potter
A parishioner's hand touches the glass that protects the statue of the Suyapa Virgin at the Suyapa Basilica in Tegucigalpa, Honduras Monday, Feb. 3, 2003. The three day long annual festival for the Virgin of
Suyapa, the patron saint of Honduras, begins with a pilgrimage from El Piliguin, where legend says the tiny (6 cm) wooden statuette was found by a poor farmer in 1747, to the Suyapa Basilica. Believers line
up to see the statue they say has been a source of miracles.
Photo by Ginnette Riquelme
Sue British Magazine
Zeta-Jones & Douglas
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones were "deeply distressed" when "stolen" photographs of their wedding appeared in a celebrity magazine, their lawyer told Britain's High Court Monday.
Michael Tugendhat said the Hollywood couple were the victims of conspiracy by Hello! to snatch pictures of the wedding after an offer to buy them was turned down. They are suing the magazine for breach of privacy.
Hello! claims the pictures were offered on the open market and it was entitled to publish them.
Zeta-Jones, 33, and 58-year-old Douglas signed an exclusive deal with OK! magazine for pictures of their wedding in New York in November 2000.
But rival Hello! hit the streets three days earlier than OK! with its own "exclusive" photographs of the lavish wedding at the Plaza Hotel.
The couple are suing Hello! magazine; its Spanish counterpart Hola!; the magazine's proprietor, Eduardo Sanchez Junco; media consultant the Marquesa De Varela; her company Neneta Overseas Ltd.; and freelance photographer Philip Ramey.
The case is expected to last for three weeks.
Zeta-Jones & Douglas
Drug Bust
'Bachelorette'
How's this for a rebound? First you're dumped on national television then you're arrested for drug smuggling.
Just days after getting dissed by The Bachelorette, Greg Todtman was busted at New York's John F. Kennedy airport and charged with trying to smuggle drugs onto his American Airlines flight to Los Angeles.
During a routine search at a security checkpoint on Friday, airport personnel found a small quantity of drugs on the 28-year-old. Todtman was then booked by the Port Authority Police Department. No
word on what type of drugs the "importer" was attempting to smuggle on board.
When asked by the Associated Press if the allegation was true, Todtman responded, "That's not untrue." He said he was carrying two codeine tablets in a chewing-gum wrapper. The pills were supposedly to help him sleep on the plane.
"Learn the lesson from me. Have a prescription," he told the AP. "And don't have a piece of aluminum foil next to something that doesn't have any label on it."
'Bachelorette'
Hosting MTV's 'TRL Awards'
Carson Daly
Carson Daly will host the first-ever "TRL Awards," which take a wacky look at celebrity appearances on MTV's "Total Request Live."
The awards will be given out live on Feb. 17 at 4 p.m. EST, the new time slot for the afternoon video countdown show. Viewers can long onto MTV's Web site to vote for winners now through Feb. 10.
Daly, the show's longtime host, will be joined by MTV's Hilarie Burton, Damien Fahey, Quddus Phillippe, LaLa Vazquez, and other guests.
Carson Daly
MTV "Total Request Live" Web site
In Memory
Anthony Eisley
Anthony Eisley, the actor best remembered as half of television's glamorous detective duo on the series "Hawaiian Eye," died Wednesday. He was 78. No cause of death was announced.
Eisley played Tracy Steele to Robert Conrad's Tom Lopaka in the show.
The show, which ran from 1959 to 1963, also starred Connie Stevens as Cricket Blake and Poncie Ponce as taxi driver Kazuo Kim. The show frequently had crossovers with "77 Sunset Strip."
Eisley, originally billed as Fred Eisley until Warner Bros. changed his name to Anthony Eisley for the "Hawaiian Eye" role, began his television career in the 1950s with appearances on "Operation Secret," "The Real McCoys" and "Perry Mason."
Warner Bros. gave Eisley a contract and cast him for "Hawaiian Eye" after he was seen starring in the comedy play "Who Was That Lady?" at the Players Ring Theater in Los Angeles.
After "Hawaiian Eye," Eisley was sought out for guest appearances on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."
Anthony Eisley
In Memory
John Houston
John Houston, the father of pop diva Whitney Houston and a longtime theatrical manager, died from cardiac arrest after a long struggle with diabetes and heart disease, a family spokeswoman said on Monday. He was 82.
Houston died early Sunday morning at Manhattan's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital with his wife, Peggy, and his personal nurse by his side, said spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.
Houston and his famous daughter had locked horns in recent months as his theatrical management agency sued the pop star for $100 million, claiming the 39-year-old singer hired him and his business partner to help her with financial difficulties and to negotiate a record contract and were never paid.
The contract squabble did not keep them apart, however.
The rest of the Houston family made flight arrangements as soon as they could after being informed Saturday night that Houston was failing, Seltzer said, adding that Whitney arrived on Sunday from Miami, where she was shooting a magazine cover.
"The entire Houston family and John loved each other very, very much and each and every one of them had a chance to be with John (at the end)," Seltzer said.
Whitney was the youngest of four children Houston had with his first wife, Cissy, and was his only daughter.
Houston managed the backup vocal group called The Sweet Inspirations that included Cissy Houston and performed on hits recorded by Elvis Presley (news) and Aretha Franklin among others.
The elder Houston had drawn attention to the suit against Whitney from his hospital bed in December, urging her to "pay the money that you owe me."
He made the unusual public appeal on the syndicated television show "Celebrity Justice," a day after his daughter acknowledged a history of drug and alcohol abuse in an ABC television interview and said her father's suit was hurtful.
John Houston
Kamel im Schnee
Ein Kamel im Moskauer Zoo ist am Freitag mit Schneeflocken bedeckt. Die Wüstentiere gelten als einfach in der Haltung, zumal sie sich gut an die klimatischen Verhältnisse in der russischen Hauptstadt anpassen. Die meiste Zeit verbringen die Tiere denn auch unter freiem Himmel.
Photo by Adlan Khasanov
'The Osbournes'
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Critical Date Approaches
Nick's Crusade
