Who's Going To Hell This Week
Helen A. Handbasket
From 'TBH Politoons'
Great Site!
Thanks, again, Tim!
A Time of Fire and Reunion
5 Years Ago Today
By AL MARTINEZ
Michael Dare threw a party over the weekend to celebrate the anniversary of the riots five years ago.
Its specific intent was not to look back in pleasure to that time of fire and rage, but to acknowledge one small, bright element of the human storm.
Those who gathered at Dare's Hollywood home were there to commemorate the reunion of a father and son who, in a sense, owe that reunion to the violence that tore through the city. It brought Michael Jr. home.
I don't believe in clinging to a bad dream and wasn't going to write about the riots. But this is different. Anything good that emerges from chaos requires acknowledgment.
The story begins in 1987, when Dare, a respected freelance film critic, was asked by the Sony Corp. to try out its new camcorder.
He accepted the job by photographing his year-old son Michael Jr., better known as Buster, who, as a single father, he was raising alone.
I saw the three-minute video of the beautiful little boy, just beginning to walk, baby-talking his way around the house. At one point Buster took off his clothes but daddy kept shooting. It was a classic family video of a naked toddler happily exploring home and garden.
The result of the video, which Dare offered willingly to Sony and wrote about in Movieline magazine, was subsequently devastating. It got to the L.A. County Department of Children's Services and two years later Dare was accused of having made a sexually explicit film. Buster was taken from him.
* * *
The power of Children's Services to remove a child from a home is awesome. A year ago I wrote about another man accused by a neighbor of molesting his son. Father and son were separated and, though the accusation was almost instantly disproved, the separation lasted for 145 days.
Buster was 3 when a social worker and two policemen took him away screaming for his daddy. Dare remembers an officer saying, "There's nothing you can do about it, so don't try."
Dare immediately began efforts to get his son back. A member of the Film Critics Assn., he showed the video to its membership. The association's president, Charles Champlin, once arts editor of the L.A. Times, wrote an open letter regarding the video.
In it, he said the tape "is totally devoid of any prurient, pornographic or otherwise indecent intent. It is on the contrary a father's charming and manifestly loving portrait of his son."
Dare tried to have the Dependency Court judge hearing the case view the video, but the effort bogged down in legal delays.
"It was a case of being guilty until I could prove myself innocent," Dare said as we sat in his dining room, waiting for Buster to come home from school. "I was never actually charged with a crime. Had I been, due process would have required them to prove me guilty."
A therapist at the group home wrote the social worker handling the case: "I have no proof, knowledge of, or reason to believe that his father, Michael Dare, has ever sexually abused Buster nor that he is likely to, nor that Buster is at risk in his care."
But still they kept the boy. Then L.A. exploded.
* * *
Buster was in a group home in South-Central L.A. The date was April 29, 1992. Dare visited his son regularly during the nine months they were separated and on this day was allowed to take him home overnight.
He remembers: "On the way to the house, we stopped for ice cream at Thrifty's on Pico then came home and turned on the television. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The same Thrifty's was burning to the ground."
The riots had begun. Dare was supposed to have returned Buster by the next morning, but the group home was a dangerous place to be. The social worker threatened to send the police to get the boy if he wasn't returned.
"The cops never came," Dare says with a wry smile. "I guess they were busy at the time."
Dare kept his son and wrote Superior Court Judge Shari Silver explaining the situation. A day after receiving the letter, Silver, who had viewed the video and found it innocuous, ruled that Buster could stay with his father, and the following month granted him full custody.
Children's Services subsequently cleared Dare completely. A spokesperson for the agency said there were no other charges against him and explained that they are obligated to investigate every allegation of child abuse, even though it may eventually prove false. The nature of the process, she added, sometimes requires months to complete.
As I finished the interview with Dare, Buster came home from school. At 9, he remains a handsome boy with the kind of happy, open face so attractive in the young. The relationship between father and son is obviously a loving one.
Dare tries to put the memory of their trauma behind him. But the abundance of verbiage on the anniversary of the riots brought it all back, so he decided to cast civic chaos in a different light. It was the day that Buster came home, and they had a party.
Copyright Los Angeles Times
http://home.earthlink.net/~dare2b
Many thanks to Michael Dare!
Reader Comment
Macs & Slowness
I'm sorry that you put the wired mag take on the new Imac. Wired mag
has several stories on the Mac and usually they are all bad. They are
also wrong! I think they get checks from old Bill himself.
I've had Macs since 1984 so I don't have a balanced view on them. If
you take the stupid Mico$oft stuff off they work just fine.(Wonder
why that is?) They will hold their own against wintels machine. Icab
browser smokes Internet Explorer like Carvile does to GOP on
crossfire!
I hope you have gotten some other letters pointing this out. I drive
over the road so have not gotten back to you.
~~ Michael H.
Thanks, Michael. Right now, sure wish I had a Mac...jeez, got more virii around here than smirk has burst capillaries.
How I Survived the LA Riots
10 Years Ago Today
By Michael Dare
South Central was not my favorite part of town but I had gotten to know it
well. My social worker behaved as though I was supposed to be grateful for
her kindly allowing my four-year-old son Buster to be moved from a group
home in El Monte to a group home in South Central but it wasn't so much of a
blessing. Though he was now physically closer to his home in Hollywood,
which is what I had been asking for, there was no freeway between us. Having
to use surface streets made the trip take just as long. Look at a map and
you'll see a thousand different possible routes from Melrose and Fairfax to
Slauson and Arlington. For months I explored, discovering all the shortcuts
and intersections to be avoided. I knew where to get ice cream, I knew where
to get donuts, I knew where to get incredible ribs, and only the
functionally illiterate would have had the slightest problem finding liquor.
It was April 29, 1992. I wended my way from the comfort of ultra-liberal
West Hollywood to South Central. I was picking up Buster for an overnight
visit, which is the final stage on the visitation scale before any child is
actually physically released to the parent from the county. They'd had him
for nine months and we had had hundreds of visits. Down San Vicente to Pico,
Pico to Arlington, Arlington over to Crenshaw and Martin Luther King. I was
blocks away and needed a cigarette so I stopped at a place called "The
Smoke Shop" hoping they might carry American Spirit, only to discover that
all they sold were chemicals for cocaine processing in large quantity. A
different sort of American Spirit. If I was being followed by the county,
this was a bad place to stop.
I decided I'd get cigarettes afterwards since I couldn't smoke during the
visit anyway. A suburban street, just a line-up of homes, one standing out
because of a fenced in backyard full of toys and sandboxes and slides and
children, all black except mine, including the women running the group home,
who were doing a great job. The place was spotless. I couldn't hope to
create a cleaner or healthier environment at my home, which made getting my
kid back another sort of challenge. Man, how can you compete with a fully
funded, well-stocked group home? This place looked MUCH healthier for a kid
than my bachelor digs in an old, faux-Spanish, red tile and stucco Hollywood
courtyard full of rock musicians and degenerates.
I knew I was being watched. It was a tricky situation because the women of
the place have confided in me that they have heard my social worker bragging
about her "white baby" and they think it's terrible and they think Buster
doesn't belong there. So they're on my side. I went to the front door, got
buzzed in, and went to the desk first. It was a makeshift office between the
living room and the kitchen - a big playroom where all transactions took
place. I showed my ID and signed a paper promising to bring him back in good
shape, and they signed a paper stating he was in good shape when he left.
I sat down to watch TV while waiting for them to bring in my son. The Rodney
King case was on the news. The women pulled up chairs to watch since the
verdict had apparently come in. Suddenly all the kids came running in.and
they were all over me, six little kids, all under five. I was the only
father who visited the home, so any time I showed up it turned into playtime
for all. They were being raised by women so the presence of a male made them
all go nuts, jumping all over me, playing, I didn't mind, love kids, I'm
daddy to all of them, the more the merrier, it's hard to tear myself away
but in the midst of all this mayhem I hear the word "Innocent" repeated
over and over from the TV.
The adults in the room look at each other in stunned disbelief. Innocent?
How could they be innocent? The whole world saw the tape Obviously they did
it. We were in complete agreement that the verdict made absolutely no sense.
We kept watching as the commentators showed the tape again, explaining that
it wasn't that the four cops were innocent of delivering the beating to
Rodney King but that they were innocent of WRONGDOING. In other words they
were just behaving the way cops were supposed to behave under those
conditions. The LAPD was vindicated. I pulled up a chair and watched when
the women started looking at each other nervously. We agreed this was bad.
Very bad. Finally, one of them said "I think you should take your son now."
Good idea. I separated my offspring from the herd and got the hell out of
there.
On the way home, Buster and I stopped to get some ice cream at a Thrifty
nearby. We got home, turned on the TV, and saw the place we had just stopped
for ice cream burning down.
Like everyone in L.A., we were stuck to our televisions for the night. For
most people, watching the riots on television was like watching a report
from a foreign country. Nobody from Hollywood or Burbank or Westwood ever
visits South Central, so the destroyed landscape they watched was beyond
recognition. But Buster and I knew the neighborhoods first hand. We watched
in a daze. "Look Buster, there's that fried chicken place we go to burning
down." "Look Daddy, there's my pre-school."
I was supposed to return him the next morning but the local TV news made the
trip look suicidal. Luckily, the phone rang and it was the group home. "It
isn't safe to come anywhere near," they said. "Stay away." I agreed to keep
Buster through the weekend.
Then I remembered all his stuff, his clothes, his toys, were still at the
group home. I told them I'd try to get there to pick up his stuff. "Stay
away," they said. Buster needed toys, he needed puzzles, he needed his
books, his videotapes. All the cool stuff I had for him was at the group
home. There was nothing for him to do. A friend agreed to watch him for an
hour while I snuck back through the riots to the group home to pick up
Buster's stuff, which they willingly gave me, wishing me luck as I headed
home. Got home to see Reginald Denny pulled from his truck and beaten.
"Why are they doing that, daddy?"
"Because he's white."
"So what?"
"Some other white men did a bad thing to them, so they think it's okay to do
a bad thing to another white man, even though this white man had nothing to
do with the white men who did something bad to them, and actually it wasn't
them but some other black guy the white men did a bad thing to."
I've felt that way myself. I was once ripped off by some bikers. For years
I'd look at bikers and snarl, vowing vengeance till I finally realized that
taking revenge against someone who simply shares physical characteristics
with the people you're really mad at is insane. Revenge has got to be
personal. Some day I'll get those bikers. But I didn't tell Buster that.
On Monday Buster was supposed to be returned again. Our social worker,
Rhonda Wilson called and asked why I hadn't returned my son. I told her it
wasn't safe and the group home agreed. She told me that the group home has
no authority over the decision as to whether my son should be returned. She
ordered me to bring him back immediately or she would come by to pick him up
herself.
This seemed as good a time to make my stand as any. I decided I'd keep him.
Me and Charlton Heston. They'd have to tear him from my cold dead hands. Let
the cops show up. Haven't they got anything better to do?
Every client on earth is told by their lawyer never to talk directly to the
judge unless they are asking you a question. I disobeyed that advice and
wrote a personal letter to the judge and send it overnight.
I got a call the next morning from my attorney who said "What did you do?' I
told her.
"Judge Silver came in this morning and did something I've never seen a judge
do," my attorney told me. I guess she got my letter. First thing in the
morning, before getting to her schedule, Judge Silver ordered all
representatives in the Dare case into the court, then made a motion and
ruled on it without arguments. Nobody had ever heard a judge rule on her own
motion, much less without arguments.
At first it was hard to make sense of the ruling, which basically said I
could keep my son until my social worker proved it was safe for him to be
returned. Why not just give him to me? "Then they'd have to admit that the
group home wasn't safe and they'd have to return all those other kids," my
attorney explained. I panicked. By leaving the decision in Rhonda Wilson's
hands, the situation didn't seem changed at all. There was nothing to stop
her from simply calling the next day and saying "It's safe. Return him." But
my attorney explained this was a big victory, that the burden of proof had
shifted from me to them. The judge had presumed it was safe for Buster to
stay with me, so I no longer had to prove it.
Rhonda Wilson called the next day and said "It's safe, return him."
"Don't tell me it's safe," I said. "Tell the court. You've got to prove to
them that it's safe, not me."
She was furious. "That wasn't what the judge ruled."
"Yes it was," I said, knowing full well that neither of us were actually
there when the ruling was made.. "My lawyer told me I could keep him."
"Well that's not what I was told," she replied a little unsurely. "I was
told that his return was left at my discretion." She was truly unhappy at my
assertion that she had been overruled, but she had to face the fact that the
ruling was ambiguous and could be interpreted in my favor. Now that Buster
was in my possession, the burden of proof was back on her to justify another
removal from his home.
She called the next day. "Mr. Dare, we do not believe you had the right to
pick up your child from the group home. But since you have already done it,
your son obviously thinks he's staying with you, so we believe it would be
detrimental to return him. We don't think it's good for him to be shuttled
back and forth. Though we disagree with what you did, for his mental well
being, we will recommend to the court today that your son be released to you
until the next hearing."
I took Buster with me several times to see Dr. Tirengal, my court appointed
therapist. I didn't mind. I wanted the court to hear that my son was doing
well from someone they trusted. I was out of the room when Dr. Tirengal
asked Buster "If there was anything at home that you could change, what
would it be?" When the parents aren't around, this is a standard question
asked of children who are potentially abused. It gives them the opportunity
to say "I wish daddy wouldn't hit me" or "I wish they wouldn't tie me to the
bed." After giving the question serious thought, Buster replied "I'd like to
change the water in the goldfish bowl."
A month later, he was finally legally and physically mine. I feel better
now. There is no precise moment when the pain stopped. There are all the day
to day pains of living to take the place of the single predominant pain that
occupied my life for so long. At least I'm no longer apt to break into tears
at strange moments.
As the one person on earth who actually benefited from the riots, I want to
thank the judge in the Rodney King case, Stanley Weisberg, who was also the
judge in the McMartin Preschool case, and who is also the very same judge
who gave me custody of Buster three years previously. His original decision
has withstood a brutal attack, and stands steadfast once again. My son is
mine, not just because Weisberg's original decision was sound, but because
one of his juries made a horrible mistake, and I decided to stand my ground.
The city went crazy, 50 lives were lost, but I got my son back.
I want to thank the Rodney King jury for returning my son to me in the most
profoundly appalling possible way. Thanks a lot. I also want to ask them if
they believe the Warren Commission since they suffer from the same strange
malady; they believe what others tell them rather than their own lying eyes.
One look at the Zapruder film and you can't fail to notice that Kennedy's
head is knocked back and to the left. A simple combination of optical input
and common sense leads anyone with the slightest knowledge of the laws of
physics to come to the conclusion that the bullet came from the front and to
the right. Yet people still insist upon believing experts who tell them the
opposite.
One look at the Rodney King tape and you can't fail to notice that an
unarmed man is getting severely beaten by several other men armed with
sticks and guns. Charles Manson did not get treated that way when he was
arrested. Sirhan Sirhan was shown all the courtesies when he was escorted to
jail. But Rodney King, a man guilty of driving too fast and acting
belligerent, was beaten within an inch of his life. The cops may have been
following established procedure, but to a whole lot of people, that was no
excuse. The jury insisted upon believing the experts who told them the
opposite of what they could see with their own eyes.
How can we explain away people with such little regard for their own senses?
Why do they trust others more than they trust themselves? How can so many
people conclude that their own eyes are wrong? Though there's no
justification for the damage they did during the riots, the actual community
of south central insisted upon believing their own eyes, that Rodney King,
despite being a sleazeball, behaved like Gandhi before him, defying
authority in the strongest and most moral possible way. He kept standing up.
"As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is
connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is
an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because
it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its
place and responsibility in relation to other meshes."
- Buddha -
*************************************************
ONE OF THE TOP 25 ENTERTAINMENT SITES ON THE NET
says E-On-line
Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle
when visiting http://home.earthlink.net/~dare2b/
*************************************************
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Had a virus problem Monday. Lousy way to piss away a day. Seem to be a lot more of them around currently.
Tonight, Tuesday, it's all fresh on CBS with 'JAG', and the 2nd half of 'Dancing With The Dead'.
Scheduled on a fresh Dave are Debra Messing and Wilco.
Scheduled on a fresh Craiggers is Billy Bragg.
It's fresh on NBC where they start the night with 'Bob Hope's Funniest Outtakes' (hosted by Kelsey Grammar), then, a
'Cheers' reunion on 'Frasier', 'Scrubs' and the special that jumps the gun by a month, 'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: 10th Anniversary'.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay are Darrell Hammond and Michael Bolton.
Scheduled on a fresh Conan are Al Franken, Christa Miller & Nappy Roots.
Scheduled on a fresh Carson Daly areErika Christensen.
ABC is fresh with the season (if not series) finale of 'Dharma & Greg', followed by the season (if not the series) finale of 'Spin City'. A fresh 'NYPD Blue' moves back to
it's old time slot, too.
Scheduled on a fresh bill Maher are Michael Tucker, Trace Adkins, Tara Setmayer & Nia Vardalos.
The WB is also fresh with 'Gilmore Girls' and 'Smallville'.
Faux is all '70's Show' all evening. One fresh episode, an hourlong tribute, and then supposedly the 'viewer's choice' of episodes.
UPN has fresh episodes of 'Buffy and 'Roswell'.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Interview In 'Esquire'
Johnny Carson
Ten years after he bowed out as host of "The Tonight Show" and slipped into retirement, late-night comedy icon Johnny Carson vows he "ain't going back on television,"
not even to celebrate NBC's 75th anniversary.
In a rare interview to appear in the June issue of Esquire magazine, Carson, 76, said he recently rejected a personal appeal from NBC Chairman Bob Wright to join NBC's
biggest stars past and present for a live, three-hour special airing May 5.
"That ain't gonna happen, uh-uh," he told Esquire reporter Bill Zehme. "I know NBC means well. But I am retired. I ain't going back on television.
Of the NBC special, he said, "It's gonna be one of those self-congratulatory things. 'Come look at what we've done! Look how good we are!' I'm just not going to do it.
I made that decision a long time ago, and it's served me well."
However, he regularly indulges in a card game with an exclusive poker club whose regulars include Steve Martin, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Chevy Chase and media
mogul Barry Diller. Last month, he closed his production office in Santa Monica and moved its streamlined operations into smaller quarters in Fullerton,
California, run by his nephew, Jeff Sotzing.
"Can you believe this Enron mess?" the magazine quoted Carson as saying. "I love how (Bush's) good friend 'Kenny Boy' suddenly turned into 'Mr. Lay.' ... Give me a break!"
Johnny Carson
Faux's Faux Colonel
Joseph A. Cafasso
Joseph A. Cafasso knows people retired admirals, generals, government officials. More to the point, he has said, he knows his way around the netherworld of counterintelligence
through contacts he built during a sterling career as a lieutenant colonel in the Special Forces.
The Fox News Channel thought it had found an asset when it hired the gruff, barrel-chested former military man as a consultant to help in its coverage of the
fighting in Afghanistan. He claimed to have won the Silver Star for bravery, served in Vietnam and was part of the secret, failed mission to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980.
For more than four months, Mr. Cafasso assisted and shared tips with reporters, producers and on-air consultants. Then on March 11, he abruptly left Fox amid
complaints that he had overstepped his bounds and had become an annoyance. Soon afterward, Fox News, and many associates of Mr. Cafasso, learned that his office
style may have been the least of his problems. The real story, many people say, was that he was not who he said he was.
People at Fox News had taken his credentials at face value. So had the presidential campaign of Patrick J. Buchanan, for which he was an organizer; WABC radio in
New York; and several representatives, military officials and activists to whom he had sold himself for years. But records indicate that his total military experience
was 44 days of boot camp at Fort Dix, N.J., in May and June 1976, and his honorable discharge as a private, first class.
For the rest, Faux's Faux Colonel
Feeling Beat?
The Blue Neon Alley
Jack Kerouac at the Blue Neon Alley
BartCop TV!
New Agent, New Contract For New Season?
'The Osbournes'
Being terminally weird is paying off big time for Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I hear the Osbournes just switched television agents, from CAA to Endeavor, and
inked a second season deal with MTV that may be worth up to $20 million. If this sounds a high fee from a cabler, just remember that the Osbourne family show is
far and away the highest-rated program the formerly all-music channel has ever had.
Visited Jay
More Ozzy
Singer Ozzy Osborne, right, makes an unannounced appearance during a taping of the "Tonight" show, handing Jay Leno a bouquet and congratulating Leno on
his 10th anniversary as the show's host, Monday, April 29, 2002, at NBC Studios in Burbank, Calif.
Photo by E.J. Flynn
'Best' White House Ever?
Texas
Texas prides itself on thinking big, but the supporters' lunch President Dubya threw the other day was too enormous for even the Lone Star State to cope with. About 70
corporate jets flew into Waco Airport for the barbecue, overwhelming the ground staff and leading to lengthy delays in refueling and restocking the aircraft. The lunch
was off the record to the media, but sources say an affable George Bush was proudly boasting to his rich guests that he has the best White House staff ever, and that not
one of them has leaked anything to the press - unlike previous administrations.
'Best' White House Ever?
Saturday Night Live
Darrell Hammond
Star magazine's Jose
Lambiet reports that Hammond - best known for his uncanny impersonation of Bill Clinton - spent time in alcohol-and-drug rehab earlier this year. The tab
tattles that Hammond checked into the Hazelden Center in Minnesota in February, and has attended an out-patient addiction program in Manhattan. Hammond's reps did not return calls.
Darrell Hammond
'Tour Of The Seven Continents'
Sao Paulo
Pose dans le parc de Sao Paulo
dimanche 28 avril 2002, 16h56
Plus de 1.800 candidats s'étaient portés volontaires sur l'internet pour poser nus. Les participants recevront en guise de remerciement une photographie dédicacée par le photographe américain Spencer Tunick.
Photo by Mauricio Lima.
Sounds Good To Me
Clinton-Clinton Ticket?
Imagine a Clinton-Clinton ticket in 2004, with Hillary on top and Bill as her vice-presidential running mate. "It's perfectly within the bounds of the Constitution," a political
insider points out. Bill Clinton, a fundraiser without equal, still has enormous influence in the Democratic Party. His pal Terry McAuliffe is still chairman of the Democratic National
Committee.
Clinton-Clinton Ticket?
Services Set
Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes
Grammy-winning trio TLC doesn't plan to replace Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who died last week in a traffic accident in Honduras.
The funeral for Lopes will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. in Lithonia, a suburb of Atlanta. A private "visiting" for family members and friends will take place in
Atlanta on Wednesday night, said TLC manager Bill Diggins.
Lopes was killed Thursday when the sport utility vehicle she was driving rolled over near Jutiapa, about 150 miles north of the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa.
Seven other people, including her sister and brother, were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
The singer had been involved in another fatal accident about three weeks ago, when a van she was riding in struck and killed a 10-year-old boy. Stephanie Patterson,
Lopes' personal assistant, was driving the van, said Greg Adams, public affairs officer for the U.S. Embassy in Honduras.
No charges were filed by the boy's family because Lopes and Patterson "acted so well, in such a good fashion ... (and) were with the child until his last moments,"
according to a story in La Prensa, the San Pedro Sula daily newspaper.
Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Lawsuit Filed Against Penthouse
Anna Kournikova
Anna Kournikova is going to sue Penthouse magazine to prove the photos are a fraud.
The raunchy skin mag has published an explicit, 10-page pictorial in the June issue of what it says are the court lovely's "full and firm" 36C breasts.
The mag's editors say Anna peeled off her top at Miami's trendy South Beach. But Kournikova's camp insists the busty beauty in the spread is "definitely not" Anna - and her lawyers plan to sue.
Anna Kournikova
Revamping Some Practices
Walt Disney Co.
Walt Disney Co. has revamped some corporate governance practices and hired a consultant to review those changes, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The moves come amid intense scrutiny of corporate governance practices since the collapse of energy trader Enron Corp., whose board has been repeatedly attacked by critics.
In the past, critics have alleged that Disney's board lacks independence, the Journal reported. Among changes implemented by the entertainment giant is a higher
stock-ownership requirement for board members, it said.
Disney
Last Minute Stay
Paul McCartney
Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney on Monday won a last-minute court order preventing the auction house Christie's from selling his handwritten lyrics to the famous song "Hey Jude."
The sheet of note paper with the scrawled lyrics had been expected to fetch up to 80,000 pounds (dlrs 116,000) at an auction scheduled for Tuesday, but McCartney took the matter
to the High Court, claiming the valuable piece had disappeared from his home.
In a ruling in his favor, the lyrics will remain at Christie's London headquarters until ownership is decided by agreement or a trial.
'Hey Jude' Lyrics
Replacing 'Rolling Stone' Editor
Jann Wenner
Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, is replacing the top editor of the magazine and shifting its focus away from long features in favor of shorter, newsier stories on music and entertainment.
The change comes as Rolling Stone faces declining newsstand sales and the perception of an older readership while an upstart music magazine, Blender, has been hitting a nerve with younger readers.
Robert Love is stepping down as managing editor of Rolling Stone, Kent Brownridge, Wenner's top deputy, said in an interview Monday, confirming a report in The New
York Times. No replacement for Love was immediately named.
Brownridge said Rolling Stone was not responding directly to the competitive threat from Blender but to changes in the culture that require a more timely approach to
providing news about music, movies and other forms of entertainment.
For a bit more, Changes For 'Rolling Stone'
Season Cut By 1/3
Sarah Jessica Parker
Because of Sarah Jessica Parker's pregnancy, HBO has decided to produce eight episodes of "Sex and the City" for the upcoming season instead of the regular 13. And no,
Parker's character, Carrie, will not be pregnant on the show.
Parker and her husband, actor Matthew Broderick, are expecting their first child this fall. The announcement surprised "Sex and the City" fans, who wondered whether
her real-life pregnancy would mean a mommy story line for sex columnist Carrie.
Two of the new episodes are finished, and the other six will be shot starting in early May. The fifth season is schedule to begin in July.
'Sex In The City'
Songwriters Hall of Fame
Carole & Stevie
Carole King will receive the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame at the induction and awards ceremony on June 13.
Stevie Wonder will receive a lifetime achievement award. Garth Brooks will be honored with the hitmaker award. The event will be held at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers.
This year's inductees include Barry Manilow, Michael Jackson, Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, Randy Newman and Sting.
Carole & Stevie
Songwriters Hall of Fame Web site
Just Like Jerry Lewis?e
Woody Allen
Director Woody Allen says he just has no idea why his biggest fans tend to be from overseas, rather than in the United States.
"It's one of those inexplicable things," Allen told TV Guide for its May 4 issue. "People always like imported things better. We think that
imported cheese, imported wine is better by virtue of the fact that it's imported."
Allen will be presenting his new movie, "Hollywood Ending," at the opening night of the Cannes Film Festival next month in France.
Woody Allen
Rock & Roll, Part 2
Gary Glitter
Disgraced British glam rocker Gary Glitter may face deportation from Cambodia, where he has been living for several months, Cambodian Minister of Women's Affairs Mu Sochua said Monday.
Glitter, 57, an icon of the 1970s British pop scene whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was sentenced to four months in prison in 1999 after pleading guilty to 54 charges of child pornography.
He was discovered renting an apartment in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh by British tabloid journalists last weekend.
Glitter was arrested in Britain in November 1997 after a technician at a computer store discovered indecent images of young children while carrying out repairs to his computer.
Cambodia's weak judicial system and lax law enforcement have in recent years made the impoverished Southeast Asian country a haven for
pedophiles and child sex tourists.
Lt. Col. Pol Phithey, chief of Phnom Penh's Foreigner Police Department, said Gadd had committed no crimes in Cambodia but officers searched his
apartment Sunday and questioned him about his seven-month residency in the city.
Gary Glitter
Payback's A Bitch?
Anita Bryant
Margaret Cole expected great things when she went to work at the Anita Bryant Music Mansion, a plantation-style showplace with towering white columns and sparkling chandeliers
set in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.
The first to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, Cole, a 58-year-old Baptist, felt she was doing something good for the world: Anita Bryant, the show's star,
would belt out tunes from her '50s and '60s heyday, but the cornerstone of her act was a lengthy segment in which she preached her Christian beliefs.
Attendance was so sparse some nights that the manager put employees in the seats to boost the cast's morale. Cole, who worked in the ticket office, didn't mind.
"I thank God daily I have a Christian place to work," she told Tennessee labor investigators in August 2000. She scowled at locals who started to bad-mouth Bryant and Charlie Dry,
the singer's husband and business partner.
But even Cole gave up on the couple after six months of bounced paychecks and daily promises that God would bring forth new investors. She holds little hope of ever seeing more than $6,400 in missed pay.
Here in the hills of eastern Tennessee, the story is much the same for dozens of others who labored, often for weeks or months without pay, to produce Bryant's jaunty, toe-tapping show, "Anita With Love."
For the rest, Anita Bryant
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Still Seeking Volunteers
'The Osbournes'
Soon to be updated.
Put up a page devoted to 'The Osbournes'
C'mon....send your thoughts, your impressions, your views, your favorite quotes...
Scroll down for lots of addys to pick from (or 'from which to pick', for the truly anal retentive).
