I had a Steinway Grand upright piano, a marvel of instrumentality, better than playing an actual grand, where strings are parallel to the ground. Once the top of a grand piano is opened, the sound all goes off to the player's right. This is better for the audience but worse for the player. With my Steinway, the strings were perpendicular to the ground, so if you took the front panels off, which I did, the sound all went directly to the pianist. It was like playing piano IN a piano, and anyone else around who wanted the full impact of each note had to stand behind or sit on the bench right next to the player. Any musician who ever entered my house was drawn to it immediately.
John Belushi brought Van Dyke Parks over and I'll have to stop right there. You know who John Belushi is and how he got to my house, but Van Dyke Parks, wow, Van Dyke was a hero, scorer of films (The Two Jakes and Popeye), Brian Wilson's writing partner (Heroes and Villains), musician extraordinaire (That's him playing cello on Good Vibrations), one of the founders of Warner Brothers Records, produced Ry Cooder and Randy Newman's first albums, but most importantly, his own Song Cycle, a major masterpiece, the most expensive album ever made at the time, giving new meaning to the words eclectic, dynamic, double entendre, and overproduced, a full orchestra and more, a new sound every second, among the best lyrics ever written, as some anonymous writer says at Wikipedia, "a head trip of orchestral textures and traditional Americana-meets-psychedelic pop song structures."
Song Cycle came out in 1968 and unfortunately there was no lyric sheet or internet to look them up in, so I sat at my typewriter and transcribed the whole album, I don't even have to look at it to quote whole passages: "I (I echo) came (came) west (west) unto Hollywood, never-neverland juxtaposed to BBD&O beyond San Fernando on hillside manors (manners?) on the banks of toxicity, those below and those above the same. Dreams (dreams) are (are) still (still) born in Hollywood. I don't understand, just suppose the youngster knows he's had it good, fear and fortune and up through the babble on the fair banks complicity, by your leave or stay beyond the game. Head your head to the ground round." When I told him what I had done, he told me he'd lost his only copy and asked for mine. I gladly complied which is why mine's missing. Only in typing his words, feeling them flow from my fingers, did the depths of his imagination emerge. Did he say "by Palm Desert springs often run dry" or "buy Palm Desert springs off and run dry?"
His next two albums, Discover America and Clang of the Yankee Reaper went off in whole other directions, exploring calypso and other island music. His most famous compositions are certainly on the Beach Boy's Smile, which has just been re-released (for the first time - long story).
He got one look at the Steinway and asked if he could give it a try. By all means. He immediately immersed himself into one of the greatest performances it's ever been my honor to witness. Once he stopped, I can't have said anything but "Oh my God, what was that?"
It was Souvenir of Puerto Rico, one of the greatest solo piano compositions of all time, by Lois Moreau Gottschalk. (MP3 of it here.)
Who?
And Van Dyke told me the whole story...
Lois Moreau Gottschalk was the very first American composer, unless you want to get technical about it. Benjamin Franklin composed a few ditties. You must listen to Franklin's compositions but once to understand not only why Franklin isn't known for them but why you'll never listen to them again. Why Gottschalk isn't well known is something we must put a stop to right now. Considering the fact that the composers he influenced, everyone from Aaron Copeland and Stephen Foster to Scott Joplin and Randy Newman, are so well known, it's rather startling that someone in the eminent position of "First American Composer" languishes in obscurity. Maybe because he's Jewish? Maybe because his piano pieces are so incredibly difficult to play?
He was born in New Orleans in 1829 to a German Jewish sailor from London and a white Creole Haitian mother, and he quickly grew from child prodigy to the most famous pianist in the New World. After studying with Franz Liszt at the Paris Conservatoire, he spent much of his time touring the world, including Cuba and Central and South America, where he was incredibly influenced by the indigenous music. His compositions ended up containing elements of Creole, African, minstrel, South American, Spanish, Mexican mariachi, West Indian and Cuban melodies and rhythms. He returned to America in the 1860s, and despite being born in the south, he supported the Union during the Civil War. Gottschalk became the first Bob Hope, touring battlegrounds during the war doing solo piano concerts for Union soldiers.
In 1865, he was forced to leave the United States as the result of a scandalous affair with a student at the Oakland Female Seminary. During a concert in Rio de Janeiro, he collapsed from a burst appendix and died three weeks later. His remains were returned to the United States and are presently interred at the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. His burial spot was originally marked by a magnificent monument which has eroded considerably over the years, and the Green-Wood is actively seeking donations to restore it.
Picture if you will a Civil War battlefield, a horse-drawn cart pulls a grand piano into a gathering of troops, and just before the soldiers march off to sacrifice their lives, Gottschalk rolls up his sleeves and proceeds to play a magnificent piece of music, and then please tell me why there's never been a movie or even a tacky History Channel special about him.
I ran to a classical sheet music store, bought a book of Gottschalk's piano pieces, and dived into Souvenir of Puerto Rico. By the next time Van Dyke came over, I had the first two thirds down and played it for him. A smile and a "you got it" was all I needed and all I got. We became pals and I ended up shooting his wedding.
Tony Martin Jr., Van Dyke Parks, Sally Parks,
Harry Nilsson, Jack Nicholson,
plus two ladies and a bishop.
I already gave you the MP3 so you've got no excuse not to have listened to Souvenir of Puerto Rico by now (unless you've got dial-up). Now what's your excuse for not learning how to play it?
You are cordially invited to listen to the following other pieces by Gottschalk, all magnificent, which were strangely hard to find. These MP3s were found around the internet with no credit for the performer. If it's you, please let me know.
"If OPEC were to switch to the euro as the standard for oil transactions, it would have serious ramifications for the US economy. Oil-consuming economies would have to flush the dollars out of their central bank holdings and convert them to euros. Some economists estimate that with the market flooded, the US dollar could drop up to 40% in value. As the currency falls, there would be a monetary evacuation by foreign investors abandoning the US stock markets and dollar-denominated assets. Imported products would cost Americans a lot more, and the trade deficit would be magnified."
"Europe's dream of promoting the euro as a competitor to the U.S. dollar may get a boost from Saddam Hussein. Iraq says that from now on, it wants payments for its oil in euros, despite the fact that the battered European currency unit, which use to be worth quite a bit more than $1, has dropped to about 82 cents. Iraq says it will no longer accept dollars for oil because it does not want to deal 'in currency of the enemy.'"
"What we do know is that the Quds force was instrumental in providing these deadly IEDs to networks inside of Iraq. We know that. And we also know that the Quds force is a part of the Iranian government. That's a known."
- Dubya -
"We know exactly where Saddam is hiding his WMDs. They're North, South and West of Tikrit. That's a known."
- Donald Rumsfeld -
"Tertiary neurosyphilis, is the most interesting form of syphilis from a cultural point of view. Just before the onset of paralysis, the sufferer is beset with delusions of grandeur, a sense of understanding everything, a sense that he is on the verge of some monumental discovery which will forever change the course of history, as well as a sense that some divine electricity is coursing through his veins."
"Clean the fountain of your soul until it becomes perfectly pure. Fix your eyes on your heart until your heart becomes an eye. Give up doubts and put the pitcher of your heart against that fountain. When that pitcher is filled with the water giving delight, Withdraw yourself and submit to its Owner His home. When you leave it, God doubtless comes to His home. Never let the devilrobber enter the home of your heart, For once it has entered it, it is very difficult to throw it out."
"One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams."
- Salvador Dali -
"The total of America's military bases in other people's countries in 2005, according to official sources, was 737. Reflecting massive deployments to Iraq and the pursuit of President Bush's strategy of preemptive war, the trend line for numbers of overseas bases continues to go up.
"Interestingly enough, the thirty-eight large and medium-sized American facilities spread around the globe in 2005 - mostly air and naval bases for our bombers and fleets - almost exactly equals Britain's thirty-six naval bases and army garrisons at its imperial zenith in 1898. The Roman Empire at its height in 117 AD required thirty-seven major bases to police its realm from Britannia to Egypt, from Hispania to Armenia."
"I blame God for losing the war in Iraq. It's entirely his fault. If it weren't for him, none of this would have happened. The civil war? God's fault. The faulty intelligence? Obviously God's to blame. The hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed? God's idea. He wanted it all to happen. If we can give him thanks, we can give him blame too. What a guy."
- The Random Atheist -
"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
- Friedrich Nietzsche -
"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -
"There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."
- Albert Camus -
"All of the classic anti-Semitic myths are being reinvented and re-deployed against Muslims...
"The hatred of Jews first turned into mass hysteria due to accusations of - believe it or not - bioterrorism. When, in late medieval Europe, the Black Death began ravaging populations, Jews were accused of causing the disease by poisoning wells. Epidemics of anti-Semitic hysteria have been coming and going in waves ever since...
"It is one thing to accuse a religious minority of poisoning wells. It is quite another to poison them yourself, and then blame the religious minority. That is what has been going on for decades, as false-flag terrorist incidents are staged - with Muslims serving as patsies and scapegoats.
"The process began with the demonization of Arabs. Palestinian and Arab resistance to the Zionist settler colony in Palestine - every bit as natural, inevitable and morally justified as Algerian resistance against French settlers and Kenyan and Rhodesian resistance against British settlers - has been demonized in the Western media with the help of false-flag attacks like the one against the Achille Lauro.
"Former Mossad agent Ari Ben-Moshe has revealed that the Achille Lauro hijacking, and the emblematic murder of American Jew Leon Klingoffer, was a Mossad operation designed to make Palestinians look violent and bloodthirsty.
"Ben Moshe reveals that the Mossad unit responsible for the Achille Lauro affair specialized in such false-flag attacks, and was extremely successful in its 'anti-terror' mission. One wonders how many other incidents of 'Arab terrorism' were directed by this unit." - Kevin Barrett: False-Flag "Islamic Terror": The New Blood Libel -
"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty."
- Abraham Lincoln -
"Zealotry of either kind - the puritan's need to regiment others or the victim's passion for blaming everyone except himself - tends to produce a depressing civic stupidity. Each trait has about it the immobility of addiction. Victims become addicted to being victims: they derive identity, innocence and a kind of devious power from sheer, defaulting helplessness. On the other side, the candlesnuffers of behavioral and political correctness enact their paradox, accomplishing intolerance in the name of tolerance, regimentation in the name of betterment."
- Lance Morrow -
"One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't."
- Lyn Nofziger, Press Secretary for President Reagan -
"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life."
- Theodore Roosevelt -
"American military operations for a major conventional war with Iran could be implemented any day. They extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will enable President Bush to destroy Iran's military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using conventional weapons."
"Under 'CONPLAN 8022' (Contingency Plan 8022), the Omaha-based command center is now commissioned to strike anywhere in the world within minutes of detecting a target deemed a threat to the United States' national security. And the projected attack against Iran - which could well include nuclear as well as conventional weapons - will be planned, launched and coordinated by StratCom."
"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
- Abraham Lincoln -
"Al-Qaida is alive and well and thriving thanks in part to the Internet, terrorism experts told a House Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday.
"A panel of experts painted a picture of an Islamic terrorist organization far different from the one President Bush portrays: that 'al-Qaida is on the run.'
"On the contrary, said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University, 'al-Qaida is on the march.'
"The organization has regrouped from the setbacks it suffered when U.S. military forces drove it out of Afghanistan.
"Hoffman credits al-Qaida with some degree of involvement in attacks that were planned and prevented in August 2006 to blow up 10 airliners flying from Britain to the U.S., in the 2005 subway and bus bombings in London, and 2004 attacks that were foiled in London, New York, Newark, N.J., and Washington.
"Hoffman warned that Bush's strategy of surging an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq to try to quell the rising sectarian violence there is exactly what al-Qaida wants."
"Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions."
- Cullen Hightower -
"I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is."
- Charles Lamb -
"Saddam Hussein's rushed execution looks even more suspicious now that the trial of his co-defendants has resumed with prosecutors playing an incriminating tape recording of the dead Iraqi dictator discussing chemical weapons but now without any possibility of him fingering U.S. officials and others who may have helped him get the poisons.
"President George W. Bush and his supporters are sure to cite the tape recording as further evidence of Hussein's guilt and thus vindication of Bush's decision to press ahead with Hussein's controversial hanging on Dec. 30.
"But the troubling reality virtually ignored in the major U.S. news media is that Bush also silenced a particularly dangerous witness who could have implicated prominent U.S. officials from both his fathers and his own administrations.
"The hasty execution prevented the Iraqi judges from turning to Hussein after the tape was played on Jan. 8 to question him about its authenticity and its context. Another obvious follow-up would have been how had Hussein obtained the dangerous chemicals that he allegedly deployed to kill tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds.
"In that sense, Hussein's silence was golden for the international arms dealers who supplied his regime and for government officials who facilitated the shipments.
"Former President George H.W. Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and current Defense Secretary Robert Gates were among those who could breathe a little easier after the hangman's noose had choked the life out of Hussein."
"Last year researchers at the University of Chicago took the Prius down a peg when they turned their attention to another gas guzzling consumer purchase. They noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius."
"The US military has appealed to the producers of 24 to tone down the torture scenes because of the impact they are having both on troops in the field and America's reputation abroad. Forget about Abu Ghraib, forget about Guantanamo Bay, forget even that the White House has authorised interrogation techniques that some classify as torture, that damned Jack Bauer is giving us a bad name."
"Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same."
- George Bernard Shaw: Man and Superman -
"However improbable the origin of life might be, we know it happened on Earth because we are here. Again, as with temperature, there are two hypotheses to explain what happened - the design hypothesis and the scientific or 'anthropic' hypothesis. The design approach postulates a God who wrought a deliberate miracle, struck the prebiotic soup with divine fire and launched DNA, or something equivalent, on its momentous career."
"Again, as with goldilocks, the anthropic alternative to the design hypothesis is statistical. Scientists invoke the magic of large numbers. It has been estimated that there are between 1 billion and 30 billion planets in our galaxy, and about 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Knocking a few noughts off for reasons of ordinary prudence, a billion billion is a conservative estimate of the number of available planets in the universe. Now, suppose the origin of life, the spontaneous arising of something equivalent to DAN, really was a quite staggeringly improbable event. Suppose it was so improbable as to occur on only one in a billion planets. A grant-giving body would laugh at any chemist who admitted that the chance of his proposed research succeeding was only one in a hundred. But here we are talking about odds of one in a billion. And yet... even with such absurdly long odds, life will still have arisen on a billion planets - of which earth, of course, is one."
"God and country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed."
- Luis Buñuel -
"Under any circumstances, the Bush administration's sudden, explicitly political dismissal and replacement of United States attorneys in judicial districts across the country would be very troubling - both as a violation of American law enforcement traditions and as a triumph of patronage overcompetence. But as the story behind these strange decisions unfolds, a familiar theme is emerging. Again, the White House and the Justice Department have been exposed in a secretive attempt to expand executive power for partisan purposes. And again, their scheming is tainted with a nasty whiff of authoritarianism. There is much more at stake here than a handful of federal jobs...
"To ensure that no U.S. attorney could be fired on a whim and replaced with a malleable hack, the relevant statute required that whenever a vacancy occurred in midterm, the replacement would be appointed by federal circuit judges rather than by the president. Getting rid of irksomely honest and nonpartisan prosecutors was difficult if not impossible.
"But that wholesome safeguard was breached in December 2005, when the Senate renewed the Patriot Act. At the behest of the Justice Department, an aide to Sen. Arlen Specter slipped a provision into the bill that permitted the White House to place its own appointees in vacant U.S. attorney positions permanently and without Senate confirmation. So silently was this sleight of hand performed that Specter himself now claims, many months later, to have been completely unaware of the amendment's passage. (Of course, it would be nice if the senators actually read the legislation before they voted, particularly when they claim to be the authors.)"
"Anna Nicole Smith's condition downgraded to dead." - fark.com -
"Summary: On January 17, InsightMag.com posted a story stating that Sen. Barack Obama attended a madrassa as a boy and that this information had originated from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's camp. With the aid of the conservative media, InsightMag.com's anonymously sourced report turned into 11 days of baseless accusations against two leading contenders for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination."
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." - J. Edgar Hoover -
"Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it."
- Woody Allen -
"Ali Shalah, popularly known as 'the man in the hood' in a famous photograph depicting the torture suffered by Iraqis at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, today spilled the beans on the inhumane treatment he received at the detention centre.
"Ali, who now heads an organisation representing tortured victims in Iraq, captivated some 2,000 people with his story at the three-day War Crimes Conference at the Putra World Trade Centre, organised by the Perdana Global Peace Organisation headed by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
"'My nightmare began on 13th October, 2003, when I was arrested and put in a small room, which I later found out to be a toilet, which was flooded with water and human waste. I was interrogated in that room.'"...
"On the 15th day of detention, Ali was given a blanket, in which he made a hole and used it to cover himself.
"Soon after this, the former lecturer said he was forcefully placed on top of a carton box containing canned food, had wires connected to his fingers and ordered to stretch his hand out horizontally, and the electricity was switched on.
"'As the electric current entered my whole body, I felt as if my eyes were being forced out and sparks were flying out. My teeth were clattering violently and my legs shaking violently as well. My whole body was shaking. I was electrocuted on three separate sessions,' he said to pin-drop silence in the hall.
"Throughout the torture, he said the interrogators would take photographs of him.
"He said he was then left alone in the cell for 49 days, and during this period the torture stopped.
"'At the end of the 49th day, I was transferred back to the tents and after 45 days at the tents, I was informed by a prisoner that he overheard some guards saying that I was wrongly arrested and that I would be released.
"'I was released in the beginning of March, 2004. I was put into a truck and taken to a highway and then thrown out. A passing car stopped and took me home,' he ended his tale." - 'Man In The Hood' Tells Of His Tale In Abu Ghraib -
"Start every day with a smile and get it over with."
- WC Fields -
"Laughter is an instant vacation."
- Milton Berle -
"Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing."
- Wernher von Braun -
Satan Doesn't Want You to Know
The 13th Amendment didn't abolish slavery, it legalized it: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Disinfotainment Today is apparently for free and seems to appear weekly. Go ahead, reproduce it daily, I dare you. Go ye forth and cut and paste and see where it gets you. Disinfotainment Today consists of information from oodles of sources, cut up, thrown in the air, and trod upon, just like my life, just like yours, just like America. Everything is everywhere, so I apologize if you're seeing the same thing twice, unless you like it, in which case good for me. If you see something that you feel should be attributed to you, or if you think I actually OWE you anything, please accept the fact that much of everything that everybody does is unacknowledgeable, and if everyone had to seek permission from all their influences, artistic progress would grind to a standstill. Legally, it's either satire or fair use, but should you be thinking of suing me over something, you should know it wasn't actually me who did it, it was someone else, unless you're Salvador Dali, in which case go ahead, prove it.
Dana Priest and Anne Hull: Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility (washingtonpost.com)
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
Michelle Conlin: Get Healthy-Or Else
In August, Joe Pellegrini got yet another nagging phone call. It was his health coach, a woman working on behalf of his employer, the $2.7 billion lawn-care company, Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. The 48-year-old executive knew the spiel by heart. "Have you been to your doctor yet? When are you going?" Then the prescription: "You need to lose weight and you really, really need to lower your cholesterol."
STEPHANIE COONTZ: The Romantic Life of Brainiacs (boston.com)
College-educated, highly successful women have long had a reputation for marrying less (and having lousier sex). But in a historic reversal of past trends, these women now triumph in matrimony. A marriage historian explains.
The kid enjoyed his 'President's Day' off from school.
Tonight, Tuesday:
CBS begins the night with a FRESH'NCIS', followed by a FRESH'The Unit', then a RERUN'CSI: The 2nd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Barbara Walters, shark attack survivor Eric Nerhus, and K-os.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Patricia Heaton and Parminder Nagra.
NBC starts the night with 'Dateline', followed by a FRESH'Law & Order: Criminal Intent', then a FRESH'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Bill Maher, skydiving accident survivor Michael Holmes, and Rodney Atkins.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Heather Graham, Lewis Black, and Explosions in the Sky.
Scheduled on a FRESHCarson Daly are Michael Rapaport, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals featuring Charlie Musselwhite.
ABC opens the night with a RERUN'America's So-Called Funniest Home Videos', followed by 'Primetime', then a FRESH'Boston Legal'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Ellen DeGeneres, Skeet Ulrich, and Pretty Ricky.
The CW offers a FRESH'Gilmore Girls', followed by a FRESH'Veronica Mars'.
Faux has a FRESH'American Idol'.
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 'The Quiet Man', followed by the movie 'Dances With Wolves'.
BBC -
[1:00 PM] As Time Goes By - Episode 9;
[1:40 PM] Are You Being Served? - Ep. 7 Shoulder to Shoulder;
[2:20 PM] Keeping Up Appearances - Episode 2;
[3:00 PM] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 47;
[4:00 PM] The Saint - Ep. 30 The Best Laid Schemes;
[5:00 PM] The Avengers - Ep. 9 The Correct Way to Kill;
[6:00 PM] BBC World News - BBC World News;
[6:30 PM] Cash in the Attic - Ep. 14 Jenkinson;
[7:00 PM] Cash in the Attic - Ep 10 Booth;
[8:00 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 5;
[8:30 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 9;
[9:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 3 The Unquiet Dead;
[10:00 PM] Doctor Who - Ep 12 Bad Wolf;
[11:00 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 2;
[11:30 PM] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 3;
[12:00 AM] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 46;
[1:00 AM] Doctor Who - Ep 12 Bad Wolf;
[2:00 AM] The Avengers - Ep. 24 Mission-Highly Improbable;
[3:00 AM] The Saint - Ep. 4 The Helpful Pirate;
[4:00 AM] The Prisoner - Ep. 8 Dance of the Dead;
[5:00 AM] The Persuaders - Ep. 4 Greensleeves;
[6:00 AM] BBC World News - BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EST)
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Cobert Report', 'Chappelle's Show', 'South Park', and 'Dave Chappelle: Killin' Me Softly'.
On a RERUNJon Stewart (from 2/7/07) is Ralph Nader.
On a RERUNColbert Report (from 2/7/07) is Steven Pinker.
FX has the movie 'Ray', followed by a FRESH'Dirt'.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Lost Worlds', 'Ancient Discoveries', and 'Man Moment Machine'.
IFC -
[06:30 AM] Jet Lag;
[08:00 AM] Unhook the Stars;
[09:50 AM] Everyone Says I Love You;
[11:35 AM] The Daytrippers;
[01:05 PM] IFC News Presents: Spirit Awards Nominations Special 2007;
[01:30 PM] Unhook the Stars;
[03:20 PM] Everyone Says I Love You;
[05:05 PM] The Daytrippers;
[06:35 PM] Secrets & Lies;
[09:00 PM] The Magdalene Sisters;
[11:05 PM] The Celebration;
[12:50 AM] Breaking the Waves;
[03:30 AM] The Magdalene Sisters;
[05:30 AM] The Celebration. (ALL TIMES EST)
SciFi has 'Stargate SG-1', another 'Stargate SG-1', still another 'Stargate SG-1', and 'ECW'.
Sundance -
[06:00 AM] Dark Water;
[07:45 AM] Love, Ludlow;
[09:15 AM] Georgi and the Butterflies;
[10:10 AM] Lucie Aubrac;
[12:10 PM] Jane Birkin - Mother of All Babes;
[01:05 PM] The List of Adrian Messenger;
[02:45 PM] Riff-Raff;
[04:30 PM] Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon;
[06:00 PM] One Punk Under God: Episode 4;
[06:30 PM] Love, Ludlow;
[08:00 PM] IN SHORT: Academy AwardŽ-Winning Shorts;
[09:00 PM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 5: Father and Son;
[09:35 PM] Wasp;
[10:00 PM] Mon Ange;
[11:30 PM] Bomb the System;
[01:05 AM] Adam & Paul;
[02:30 AM] City of Men - Season 3: Episode 5: Father and Son;
[03:15 AM] The Choirboys;
[05:15 AM] Lucie Aubrac. (ALL TIMES EST)
From left, entertainers Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Prince and David Chapelle watch the NBA All-Star basketball game in Las Vegas on Sunday, Feb. 18, 2007.
Photo by Kevork Djansezian
Sirius Satellite Radio plans to buy larger U.S. rival XM for $4.6 billion in stock to bring entertainers such as Oprah Winfrey and shock-jock Howard Stern under one roof, but a top regulator said the deal would face a tough time winning approval.
Under the agreement announced by the two companies on Monday, XM shareholders would receive 4.6 Sirius shares for each XM share held, or a 21.7 percent premium to XM's closing share price of $13.98 on Friday,
Sirius would be paying about $4.6 billion in stock for XM based on shares outstanding in the latest regulatory filings.
In a photo provided by the American Society of Cinematographers, cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, right, holds his award as he stands with presenter Martin Scorsese after he received the International Achievement Award at the American Society of Cinematographers 21st Annual Outstanding Achievement Awards in Los Angeles, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2007.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
Moved by the story of Megumi Yokota, a Japanese schoolgirl kidnapped by North Korean secret agents three decades ago, folk singer Noel Paul Stookey has penned a song he hopes will help bring her home.
The saga of Japanese kidnapped by Pyongyang's agents in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies is a highly emotive topic in Japan but has been little known overseas until recently.
North Korea says Megumi, kidnapped on her way home from school in 1977 at the age of 13, hanged herself in 1994.
But her parents believe she is alive and Tokyo wants better proof of her fate.
A rare edition of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's epic 1939 tale of Depression-era poverty, sold at auction for $47,800.
A number of other first-edition copies of Steinbeck works were sold Sunday at an auction held by Bonhams & Butterfields. A copy of "Of Mice and Men" sold for $7,768, "East of Eden" for $8,365 and "In Dubious Battle" for $11,353.
The books were owned by the author's sister, Elizabeth Steinbeck Ainsworth, who died in 1992. The Steinbeck family chose to sell the books to finance renovation of a Pacific Grove bungalow where Steinbeck wrote some of his books, said Catherine Williamson, director of fine books and manuscripts for Bonhams.
Bonhams believes the $47,800 price for the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Grapes of Wrath" is the world record for an at-auction sale for a Steinbeck novel, Williamson said.
A float depicting U.S. President George W. Bush being spanked by the Statue Of Liberty passes by during the Rose Monday carnival parade in Mainz, western Germany, on Monday, Feb. 19, 2007. Thousands of spectators attended the traditional street carnival parade in the state of Rhineland-Palatinates's capital.
Photo by Bernd Kammerer
Donald Trump and World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon will pick a wrestler to represent them in the ring April 1 at Wrestlemania 23 at Detroit's Ford Field, The Detroit News reported last week.
If their pick is beaten in the "Battle of the Billionaires," the loser will get his head shaved after the match, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.
WWE spokesman Gary Davis said the date of the event had prompted speculation that it was a hoax. But it's not an April Fool's Day joke, he said.
Australian customs officials searched Sylvester Stallone's hotel room and private jet on Monday, three days after seizing banned substances from the muscle-bound actor's entourage as he arrived for a promotional tour, a news report said.
Stallone was not stopped from leaving Australia, where he spent the weekend promoting his latest movie, "Rocky Balboa," after officials searched his plane on the tarmac at Sydney airport on Monday, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported, without citing sources.
Stallone and several people traveling with him were detained for several hours at Sydney airport on Friday as they arrived. Australian Customs Service national investigations manager Richard Janeczko said some contraband items were taken, but didn't identify them.
King of the Krewe of Bacchus, James Gandolfini, throws beads to revelers as he parades down St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana on February 18, 2007.
Photo by Sean Gardner
Actor Ray Liotta was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after crashing his car into two parked vehicles in Pacific Palisades, authorities said.
Liotta, 52, was taken into custody just before 8:30 p.m. Saturday and booked on a misdemeanor DUI charge, said Los Angeles Police spokesman Mike Lopez.
No one was injured in the collision. Liotta was alone in his car, Lopez said.
Lee Spievack holds the prop of a model airplane inside the craft store, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007, where he works in Cincinnati. In an August 2005 accident, about a half inch was cut off the tip of Spievack's right middle finger by a gas powered model airplane propeller. He says the finger grew back to normal with the help of an experimental treatment.
Photo by Al Behrman
Actress Bridget Moynahan, former girlfriend of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, is pregnant and Brady is the father, Moynahan's publicist said Monday.
The glamorous pair split up late last year after a three-year relationship. Brady, a two-time Super Bowl MVP, has since been seen with lingerie model Gisele Bundchen, and media outlets have reported the two are dating.
A Dec. 15 statement from Moynahan's publicist that said that Moynahan and Brady parted ways several weeks earlier.
On Monday, Moynahan's publicist, Christina Papadopoulos, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the actress "is over three months pregnant. Former boyfriend Tom Brady is the father."
Carnival revellers from the Unidos da Tijuca samba school parade during the second night of competition between the premier league of schools in Rio de Janeiro February 19, 2007.
Photo by Bruno Domingos
Police called to a Long Island man's house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set.
The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said Saturday his body was discovered Thursday when they were called to the house over a burst water pipe.
Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005.
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