Lawyers Using Wiretaps Say It Isn’t So!
from the Washington Post
Hollywood’s Bugged Over Wiretaps
LOS ANGELES, March 6 — “It’s the star-studded list Hollywood‘s been waiting for,” gushed the trade paper Variety as opening arguments began Thursday in the criminal wiretapping and racketeering trial against Anthony Pellicano, the fallen Gumshoe to the Stars.
The list of 127 potential witnesses includes stars Sylvester Stallone, Chris Rock and Garry Shandling, Paramount head honcho Brad Grey, chief of Universal Studios Ron Meyer, former super-agent Michael Ovitz and the celebrity lawyer Bert Fields.
The government charges that Pellicano, 63, used his listening devices to gain an edge for his rich clients as they faced ugly child-custody battles, messy divorces and lawsuits. His fees began with a non-refundable $25,000 retainer. According to court documents, hedge fund manager Adam Sender paid Pellicano $500,000 during his legal struggles with movie producer and Nevada gubernatorial candidate Aaron Russo. “And what did he get for that?” the prosecutor asked. “Wiretaps.”
The Pellicano case has been hyped for years, ever since the FBI busted into the private detective’s Sunset Boulevard offices in November 2002 and seized a trove of evidence, including $200,000 in cash and two hand grenades.
Pellicano has long been described as the ultimate fixer, the shamus with a whiff of wiseguy connections who did the dirty work of getting his clients out of jams (and out of the press), who had the reputation of getting what other dicks could not — what prosecutors called “the gold standard” for confidential, inside information that could only be gotten with illegal wiretaps.
Regardless, Pellicano appeared in court looking less like Robert Mitchum and more like Wilford Brimley in tennis shoes and a green windbreaker as he served as his own attorney, a role that required him, when addressing the jury during his opening statement, to speak of himself in the third person: “Mr. Pellicano was a very demanding boss and very secretive about what he did and why he did it.” As Pellicano himself put it, “His clients loved him when they needed him.” And then, he suggested, they turned on him.
The Angriest Frey Fan, Round #2
Well, when we last left off with Bill, he was asking to be removed from the James Frey mailing list. Unfortunately, the only e-mail that Bill provided wasn’t in the database, so the e-mail list guy kindly wrote Bill and asked if he might have signed up under another address blah blah.
Here was Bill’s response, which while not quite so lyrical as his last missive, is still a comforting continuation of the brashly original style established in his astonishing debut…
From: Bill <bill>
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2008
To: JAMES FREY Blog <blog@BigJimIndustries.com>
Subject: RE: Pre-Order James Frey’s new novel BRIGHT SHINY MORNING
Bless you for the prompt reply. May your penis grow to 1,000 inches or your vag be tighter than a white man’s ass on his first day in Federal Prison – whatever the case may be. On point, yes, my return email is as follows:
By way, is that fucking lying cunt dead yet? If not, there is no God.
Rev. Dr. Bill
[ and then he left his phone number ]
Ahem – no one will be calling, Bill.
The Latest from America’s Greatest Living Director
from the New York Times
On Ramps and Off, Free-Falling Through Time
Gabe Nevins as Alex in the 2007 film “Paranoid Park,” directed by Gus Van Sant. photo by Scott Green/IFC Films
Paranoid Park is a swooping skateboarding free zone where young men learn to fly. It’s also the title of Gus Van Sant’s most recent film, a haunting, voluptuously beautiful portrait of a teenage boy who, after being suddenly caught in midflight, falls to earth. Like most of Mr. Van Sant’s films “Paranoid Park” is about bodies at rest and in motion, and about longing, beauty, youth and death, and as such as much about the artist as his subject. It is a modestly scaled triumph without a false or wasted moment.
One of the most important and critically marginalized American filmmakers working in the commercial mainstream, Mr. Van Sant has traveled from down-and-out independent to Hollywood hire to aesthetic iconoclast, a trajectory that holds its own fascination and mysteries. The Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr has been instrumental in Mr. Van Sant’s recent artistic renaissance — evident in his newfound love of hypnotically long and gliding camera moves — though his tenure in the mainstream has left its mark too, as demonstrated by his rejection of straight narrative. As in three-act, character-driven, commercially honed narrative in which boys will be boys of a certain type and girls will be girls right alongside them.
The boy in “Paranoid Park,” Alex (the newcomer Gabe Nevins), lives and skates in Portland, Ore., where one evening he is implicated in the brutal death of a security guard. In adapting the young-adult novel by Blake Nelson, Mr. Van Sant has retained much of the story — a man dies, Alex writes it all down — but has reshuffled the original’s chain of events to create an elliptical narrative that continually folds back on itself. Shortly after the film opens, you see Alex writing the words Paranoid Park in a notebook, a gesture that appears to set off a flurry of seemingly disconnected visuals — boys leaping through the air in slow motion, clouds racing across the sky in fast — that piece together only later.
The book on L.A.’s indie spirit
Author Josh Kun read his book at Skylight Books last year.Robert Lachman, Los Angeles Times
Writers offer chapter and verse about their favorite independent bookstores in Southern California.
What is it we love about a good bookstore? The selection? The intelligence of the sales people? The ambience? It’s those things, but I think it’s something else: I think a great bookstore is a place where you feel you can go to find your tribe, to be around people who make them feel, well, less alone.
They’re looking for their kin. The same is true with book lovers. We want to find our corner bar equivalent, a place where, if everyone doesn’t exactly know our name, at least they recognize and accept our particular obsession.
Portrait of a Bookstore in Studio City might be vying for the title of smallest bookstore in the world, but what it lacks in space it makes up for with its passionate staff. Led by owner Julie von Zerneck, the team, including head buyer Lucia Silva, make thoughtful selections from the new and keep a strong collection of the old on hand, so that whenever you’re in need, there’s something there to grab your interest. It may not be the broadest selection in town, but the collection is wonderfully edited, and all the staff members love to talk books. The store is a little like the home library you wish you had filled with people who are as obsessed with books and reading as you are.
—
Marisa Silver
[ click to read more in the LA Times ]
Because Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Don Cheadle, Jamie Foxx, Terence Howard and Denzel and Mos Def Weren’t Available
Race row as actor Robert Downey Jr ‘blacks up’ for new film
Last updated at 17:38pm on 7th March 2008 
Comments
Actor Robert Downey Jr has in the past been applauded for his edgy roles. But his latest may be a step too far – as the actor dons make-up to play a rather convincing looking black man in a new Hollywood film starring comic actor Ben Stiller.
In a still from film Tropic Thunder, Downey Jnr is sandwiched between Ben Stiller, and a blonde Jack Black.
Scroll down for more…
Controversial: Actor Robert Downey Jr is virtually unrecognisble seen here sandwiched between actors Jack Black, left, and Ben Stiller, in an image from new film Tropic Thunder in which he wore a wig and make-up to look like a black man
With his afro hair and brown skin, he is virtually unrecognisable as the 42-year-old star of stage and screen.
Downey Jr plays a worthy Oscar-winning actor taking on a role originally written for a black actor, and rather than re-write the part, he goes method.
Clearing anticipating a backlash, Downey Jr told a US magazine: “If it’s done right, it could be the type of role you called Peter Sellers to do 35 years ago. If you don’t do it right, we’re going to hell.”
The National Book Critics Circle Awards
Every year the NBCC presents awards for the finest books and reviews published in English. Below are the 2006 winners. Also avalable: The 2007 NBCC Finalists, as well as submission guidelines, all current and past winners and finalists, >,and a detailed description of how we select titles for the awards.
For more information about the 2006 awards, see our blog series, “The 2006 NBCC Finalists – 30 Books in 30 Days,” for links to reviews and more information, as well as board commentary on each title chosen as a finalst, and online videos of the 2006 NBCC Finalist Readings and Awards Ceremony.
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Lawrence Weschler, Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences (McSweeney’s). 
[ click to view the National Book Critics Circle website ]
On your knees, abruti!
French women ‘are the sexual predators now’
By Henry Samuel in Paris
in Telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 5:25pm GMT 07/03/2008
French women are becoming increasingly assertive in their sexual habits, while one-in-five younger French men “has no interest in sex”, according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of the nation’s love lives. Women now have more than twice as many partners as they did in the 1970s, according to the study by the French Aids research agency, which is backed by the government.
“Are women just like men?” asked Le Nouvel Observateur yesterday, which released extracts of the Study on Sexuality in France, a 600-page tome that brings together 12,000 in-depth interviews with people of all ages conducted during 2005-06.
One of the biggest changes in recent years, according to the report, was that male and female sexual behaviour had become increasingly similar.
The proportion of French women who claim to have had only one partner has dropped from 68 per cent in 1970, to 43 per cent in 1992 and 34 per cent in 2006. A woman’s average number of partners has risen from under two in 1970 to over five today, while a man’s has remained the same for four decades, almost 13.
French women’s first experience of sex is now almost as early as that of the opposite sex: in 1950 there was a two-year difference, but the gap has narrowed to four months, to around 17 and a half. Meanwhile, more women remain sexually active for longer than previously: nine-out-of-10 women over 50 are sexually active today, compared to just 50 per cent of that age group in 1970.
“The good old dichotomy (male predators, females patiently awaiting the warrior’s return in front of the cave entrance) is in big trouble”, said Le Nouvel Observateur.
The Angriest Frey Fan
Thanks to everyone on the mailing list who responded so positively yesterday. The words were kind and the clicks were fruitful – you managed to push Bright Shiny Morning‘s Amazon ranking from the mid 15,000s all the way to #277. Again (and again and again) – thank you.
Alas, not all of you were so gracious – especially Bill here, who is the winner whether he likes it or not of an autographed copy of Bright Shiny Morning for this most meticulously rendered rant…
From: Bill <bill>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 28
To: JAMES FREY <blog@bigjimindustries.com>
Subject: RE: Pre-Order James Frey’s new novel BRIGHT SHINY MORNING
FUCK BIG JIM UP THE ASS!! I hope he get’s ass cancer, that lying fuck. I want him to die in front of his mother, wife, and children. Don’t sent me his nonsense ever aging. Is that pussy fuck dead yet? I hope to God that he is….the fucking cunt pussy-ass!!!!
Bill
Thanks, Bill – book’s in the mail.
To the rest of you Bills – please feel free to place your ravings on the message board.
The man who ruined the novel
Alain Robbe-Grillet turned the masses against inventive fiction. Now that he’s dead, will experimental writing make a comeback?
By Stephen Marche in Salon
March 6, 2008 | I should have felt grief at the news of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s death last week. Instead I recognized in myself only confusing relief. He was a great champion for the innovative novel, so in a way I owe him: I’m a novelist, and while I would be loath to call myself avant-garde, my first book did have 
marginalia all the way through and my second was a literary anthology of an invented country. But the truth is, Robbe-Grillet was a disaster for innovative novels. After him, literary innovation, experiment with form or anything mildly unconventional came to be seen as pretentious and dry, the proper domain of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys and nobody else.
He was probably the most famous novelist in history who never wrote a famous novel, which may be why his obituary writers barely mentioned his fiction. Appropriately, his most celebrated work, the film “Last Year at Marienbad,” was inspired by somebody else’s novel, Argentine writer Adolpho Bioy Casares’ “The Invention of Morel” — in South America, postwar fiction combined innovation with pleasure in ways that escaped Europe and America.
The “new novel” or “nouveau roman,” as Robbe-Grillet defined and explained it in his famous 1963 essay, was high art at its unpalatably highest. It applied rules and regulations, opposed subjectivity and tried to dissolve plot and character into description. The approach was perceived, he admitted, as “difficult to read, addressed only to specialists.” The “art novel” became the preserve of high priests. Many novelists you’ve probably never heard of were deeply influenced by Robbe-Grillet. Even more damaging, though, was the effect his radicalization and elitism had on readers in the English-speaking world: They took a look at the future of the novel according to Robbe-Grillet and walked in the opposite direction.
From our perspective, in 2008, Robbe-Grillet’s essays on the new novel don’t seem so much wrong as silly. It’s not that his tenets are false but that tenets in general seem faintly ludicrous. We haven’t rejected the philosophical basis of his novels but the notion of having a philosophical basis at all. Now more than ever, what could be more antiquated than the avant-garde? The trend toward 19th century modes in fiction is peaking, or perhaps has already peaked. “Atonement” may turn out to be the high-water mark, a novel that owes more to Sir Walter Scott than to Ridley Scott. Bookstores are drowning in an ocean of coming-of-age novels and short story collections — fiction produced with about as much originality as the schedules to tax returns, with as much flair as junior high school book reports. Every time I receive a copy of a new novel about growing up Russian or growing up Portuguese or growing up whatever, I have the same desperate thought: Can’t we all agree we’ve written this book before and that we don’t have to write it again?
The Man Who Ruined The Short Story
snipped from GalleyCat @ MediaBistro
The Short Story’s Doing Fine. Deal With It.
Last week’s video clip with Story Prize director Larry Dark apparently touched a nerve with one or more frustrated writers—it’s hard to tell just how many because all the bitter, bitter emails came through the anonymous tipline. Anyway, all the messages ran roughly the same, culminating in this assertion:
“Maybe artistically, it’s still ok, but commerically the short story is DEAD. That’s D-E-A-D. Who ever heard of a short story writer as a valid career? Sorry, not in THIS time period.”
Quick, somebody tell Alice Munro she doesn’t have a valid career. She’s up in Canada; you can swing by George Saunders‘s house on the way and break the news to him as well. I’ll stay here in New York and let Amy Hempel and Deborah Eisenberg know it’s time for them to move on.
I can see the whiny, no-doubt-anonymous objection now: “Yeah, but if those last four weren’t creative writing professors…” But if we started saying you couldn’t be “successful” as a writer unless all you did to make money was write—well, let’s just say the ranks of successful writers would be a lot less interesting.
(UPDATE: Yep, that very complaint came in barely 75 minutes after this post went live, adding, “If you do not have an MFA and therefore pander to academia, you are an OUTSIDER. Just FYI.” Note to anonymous outsiders: Perhaps the reason your stories aren’t getting published isn’t that the literary world is artistically bankrupt. Just FYI.)
The man who ruined the Beatles
check this frustrated (see above) distortion pedal-on-11 bootleg gem from Lennon’s Imagine sessions (play below)…
“I was the first gift you ever gave to your mummy.”
One Day by Michel Gondry
If Marilyn Had Been Raised on BGH…
from the Village Voice
MICHAEL MUSTO as LINDSAY LOHAN as MARILYN MONROE
. . . in ‘The Ultimate Re-Vamping’
by Michael Musto
March 4th, 2008 12:00 AM
Heath Ledger died in the nude, but most of today’s young female stars live in the nude, albeit while teetering on the precipice of oblivion and trying to join him there. Whereas yesterday’s sexpot Jane Fonda had to apologize just for saying the word cunt, most of these refreshingly shameless bimbettes are only sorry when you can’t see theirs, even if the exposed pubes give the lie to their natural blondeness.
Making the world their gynecologist in the tradition of sex bombs from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna, the Britneys and Parises have never been able to resist the chance to do intimate sex tapes that accidentally leak out to the entire populace or to create panty-less car-exiting shots that paparazzi just happen to catch from smack up-close between the kneecaps. Flaunting what they’ve got and pretending it’s an accident, the tartlets have long turned spreading their legs into career moves, using their fertile crescents as cash registers, even while making us believe they’re really just “singing,” “acting,” or “promoting my perfume.” They’re wily about their guilelessness and clever about their clotheslessness. Beating Paris at her own game, Britney even had a completely naked head for a while! Of course it all started with Marilyn, and Lindsay Lohan—or at least her publicist—seems to have gotten that memo. In lieu of community service, Lindsay recently paid some boobalicious homage to Marilyn’s famous Bert Stern spread, titting it up in New York magazine with a string of pearls, swatches of chiffon, and some colorful fake flowers, all helping to shine spotlights on her very real dumplings flapping around like they probably did in the rehab bathroom. Some dummo actually thought this would be a good move for the career-challenged-at-21 starlet—and honey, it was!
ForeWord Magazine Indy Book of the Year Finalists
FOREWORD BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
ForeWord Magazine announces the finalists in the tenth annual Book of the Year Awards. These books represent some of the best work coming from today’s independent press community.
Nearly 1,600 books were entered in 61 categories. These were narrowed to 658 finalists, from 350 publishers.
The winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers, selected from our readership. ForeWord’s Book of the Year Awards program was designed to discover distinctive books across a number of genres.
Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, as well as Editor’s Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction will be announced at a special program at BookExpo America at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on May 29. The winners of the two Editor’s Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each. The ceremony is open to all BEA attendees.
Van Gogh Used to Dip Sunglasses in Chocolate, Too
from MediaBistro
Lest you think that New York‘s “Best of New York” issue is worthy of your attention for its cover(s) alone, we thought we’d highlight some of the magazine’s design-related picks (that said, it’s also worth picking up a hard copy, as the “Best of” feature is strewn with some excellent photos by Jamie Chung, including the above one of a pair of chocolate-dipped spectacles). But onto the best of the Big Apple…In the “home and help” section, the magazine chooses chairs for design obsessives ranging from “the modernist” (CB2‘s Hippie Arm Chair) and “the chic parent” (Lisa Albin‘s Mod Rocker for kids) to “the classicist” (the cane-seated Carimate designed by Vico Magistretti) and “the innkeeper” (Anthropologie‘s painted wood Madeline chair). Some retail newcomers are singled out as worthy destinations for those shopping for contemporary home furnishings (Soha Style in Harlem), mid-century modern wares (Brooklyn’s GalleryQB), and lighting (the new Tom Dixon shop-in-shop at ABC Carpet & Home). Taking home the honors for Best Shoestring Architect is Thread Collective, the “five-member architecture-and-design collective that specializes in stretching puny spaces on the cheap,” while Creative Signs and Awnings is your best Gotham source for Oddball Decor (it’s where Bruce Nauman gets his neon signs made).
Best Room in a Major Museum goes to MoMA‘s Jackson Pollock gallery, while the Best Alernative Art Space honor is bestowed upon Participant Inc. Perhaps most exciting is the designation of gallerist and UnBeige founder Jen Bekman‘s art-for-everyone portal, 20×200.com, as Best Starter Art Collection. She describes the site, which offers limited edition artworks at prices ranging from $20 to $2,000, as “a gateway drug to the art world.”
CIBO MATTO – Beef Jerky
Click on player below to listen –
Moses Was A Raver
snipped from Breitbart
Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher
High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.
Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.
“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio.
Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.
[ click to read full article on Breitbart ]
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium
The Tell-Tale Cel
Wiki Wiki Wiki tsk tsk tsk…
from WIRED
Wikipedia Founder Hit With Relationship Trouble, Allegations of Excessive Spending
By Megan McCarthy 
March 03, 2008 Categories: People
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales didn’t have such a good weekend. First the blogosphere and then Wikipedia itself lit up with news of his messy breakup with controversial Canadian TV pundit Rachel Marsden. Now, accusations are flying that Wales has been living the high life on the expense account of the nonprofit foundation he created.
On Friday, reports surfaced that the married-but-divorcing Internet icon carried on a clandestine affair with Marsden. Evidence of the affair included lurid IM transcripts, which appeared on Silicon Valley gossip blog Valleywag. On Saturday, Wales posted a statement on the Wikipedia Foundations website (which he later moved to his personal site) denying that his actions went against Wikimedia Foundation’s policies, and stating that the affair had ended. Marsden responded by listing the clothes that he left at her house up for auction on eBay.
Burma Unshaven
from the LA Times
Laughing through the junta’s gag
Myanmar’s famous comedy troupe, unable to publicly stage its satirical routines, still pokes fun at the ruling generals nightly at home. “Joking shares the suffering,” says one member.
By Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 4, 2008
photo by Paul Watson / Los Angeles Times
MANDALAY, MYANMAR — The generals, to put it mildly, can’t take a joke.But the Moustache Brothers make their living mocking fools, including those who wear military uniforms. So they have drawn a battle line in this country’s long struggle for democracy with a small stage that cuts across their cramped living room, site of the three-man comedy troupe’s nightly performance.
The military regime silenced street protests last fall by arresting and, in some cases, shooting peaceful demonstrators. That has left dissidents such as comedians Lu Zaw, Lu Maw and the lead satirist of the family, Par Par Lay, to tend the embers of opposition by poking fun at the regime.
In the past, the junta that rules Myanmar — also known as Burma — has tried to shut them up too, hoping to intimidate them with prison terms, hard labor and torture. But the comedians are exploiting a loophole in a ban on their act by staying on the attack at home, in English, with biting humor that ridicules the junta as a bunch of bumbling thugs, thieves and spies.
The Moustache Brothers, one of Myanmar’s most famous comedic acts, are determined to get the last laugh.
“Joking shares the suffering,” said Lu Maw. “That’s what the government is afraid of because jokes are like wildfire. They want to hide deep problems under the covers, and jokes spread the word, mouth to mouth, door to door and outside the country. Then they are disgraced. They are ashamed.”
Vengeful Lesbian Cites Oprah Frey Fantasy on YouTube
from Lezberado
The Greatest Story Never Told
Weinsteins option Bob Marley biopic
Staff and agencies
Tuesday March 4, 2008
guardian.co.uk
Bob Marley on Hellshire beach, 1973. Photograph: Esther Anderson/Corbis
The first ever biopic of Bob Marley is in the works, after film producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein optioned the rights to the autobiography of the reggae star’s widow, Rita Marley.The movie will be based on the 2004 memoir No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley, which chronicles the couple’s tempestuous 15-year marriage until his death from cancer in 1981. The couple had four children together, survived several separations and affairs – Marley could have fathered as many as 22 children, and legally recognised ten – and an assassination attempt in 1976.
ita Marley will serve as executive producer on the project. “This is about a girl from the ghetto and a boy from the rural areas,” she told Variety. “It’s more than being a superstar – we have trod the rocky roads. It’s more than just a story, it’s a reality.”
“Every inch of me is in there,” she also told The Hollywood Reporter. “I don’t want a fairy tale or Cinderella story.”
Marley would like her husband’s daughter-in-law, singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill, to portray her. “Lauryn would be ideal [to play me],” Marley explained. “She sees my life as her life.” Hill is married to Rohan Marley, the son the reggae star had with Janet Hunt.
The as-yet-untitled project will be directed by Rudy Langlais, an executive producer on the 1999 Denzel Washington film The Hurricane. The film will be an “epic romance”, Langlais told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s miraculous that Rita is still here after being shot in the head,” he added, referring to the assassination attempt on the couple.
Screenwriter Lizzie Borden is currently in Jamaica to finish the script. Filming is set to begin early next year with a view to release the biopic in cinemas in 2009. It’s expected the movie will partly be filmed in Jamaica.
It is as yet unclear who will portray the legendary musician. The film-makers are looking for two actors, one who would portray Marley aged 15 and the other one as an adult.
The project comes hot on the heels of another film about the reggae star. Martin Scorsese announced last week that he will direct a documentary about Bob Marley, co-produced by his son Ziggy. They are looking to release the film on February 6 2010, on what would have been the singer’s 65th birthday.
Nor is this the first attempt to bring Bob Marley’s life to the big screen. In 1999, Hollywood studio Warner Brothers planned to make a biopic based on Catch a Fire, a 1991 biography by Timothy White. Rohan Marley and Lauryn Hill were then considered to portray Bob and Rita Marley, but the project fell through after director Ron Shelton, and his replacement George Armitage, left the project.
Even the Angels Thought Mick Was An Ass
from the London Telegraph
Hells Angels plotted to kill Mick Jagger
By Richard Eden, Deputy Editor of Mandrake
Last Updated: 2:25am GMT 03/03/2008
Sir Mick Jagger has long been regarded as one of rock music’s greatest troupers, but, until now, he has been unaware of how much of a survivor he really is.
The Rolling Stones singer was the target of an assassination attempt which only failed because the boat the would-be killers were using was swamped in a storm.
Details of the plot have been revealed by an FBI agent as part of a BBC series on the American crime fighting agency.
The attempt to kill Sir Mick was made by a group of Hells Angels after the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Concert in 1969, which the Rolling Stones had organised and for which the motorcycle gang reportedly provided security.
Meredith Hunter, a black 18-year-old member of the audience, was stabbed and kicked to death by a group of Hells Angels, in an attack captured on film cameras. As a result, Sir Mick allegedly refused to use their services again.
According to Mark Young, a former special agent, interviewed in BBC radio series The FBI at 100, which begins tomorrow, a boat of Hells Angels set out to take revenge on the singer at his holiday home in the Hamptons, Long Island, New York.
“The Hells Angels were so angered by Jagger’s treatment of them that they decided to kill him,” said Tom Mangold, who presents the series. “A group of them took a boat and were all tooled up and planned to attack him from the sea.
“They planned the attack from the sea so they could enter his property from the garden and avoid security at the front. The boat was hit by a storm and all of the men were thrown overboard. All survived and there was not said to have been any further attempt on Jagger’s life.”
[ click to read rest of article telegraph.co.uk ]
Dorm Gossip Turns Slimy on the Internet
By Marc Fisher at Washington Post
T.J. Bateman had never heard of JuicyCampus.com until a friend told him he had been discussed on the Web site, which urges college students nationwide to “give us the juice.” Someone wrote, anonymously, that Bateman, a senior at the University of Virginia, is a “pretty cool dude, but I hear he is part robot.”
Could be worse, Bateman figures. “I thought it was pretty funny, but then I saw a post on the same page with a couple of racial epithets, and that rubbed me the wrong way. The anonymity lends itself to much more vindictive attacks.”
Such as one that names another U-Va. student and says she “will sleep with any guy.” This sort of post has given JuicyCampus — which features message boards for 50 colleges, including the recent additions of U-Va. and the Naval Academy in this area — instant notoriety and the sadly resulting success.
The subject of that posting, a junior at the Charlottesville campus, didn’t know that a thousand people had read the slur against her until I told her about it.
“Initially, I wasn’t too concerned about it, although I did get angrier the more I thought about it,” she says. “Everyone I know feels that the Web site merely serves as an outlet for petty and immature people who have nothing better to do with their time.”
Not wishing to be associated with sexual sleaziness for the rest of her life, she contacted JuicyCampus asking that her name be removed.
Nothing doing. JuicyCampus guarantees anonymity to those who slime others, but disavows any obligation to those who are maligned on its pages.
From the site’s FAQ:
” Is the site really anonymous?”
“There is no way for someone using the site to find out who you are. And we at JuicyCampus . . . prefer not to know who you are.”
” How do I remove a comment I posted?”
“You can’t. Once it’s out there, it’s out there.”
Blogs Of Death
By HOLLY M. SANDERS in the New York Post
February 26, 2008 — No one seems to know why Paul Tilley, the 40-year-old creative chief of ad agency DDB Chicago, jumped to his death from the window of the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago on Friday. But that hasn’t stopped a barrage of finger pointing on several advertising blogs at the center of a controversy about what role, if any, they played in Tilley’s suicide.
Most of the anger appears to be directed at two sites – Agency Spy and Adscam – that subjected Tilley to scrutiny leading up to his death. Both bloggers defended their coverage yesterday.
“I see in the comments of this post that many will point fingers at this blog for Mr. Tilley’s death. That is unacceptable,” Agency Spy wrote in a posting.
The defense was in response to readers who blamed the public scrutiny and “snarky” comments for driving Tilley over the edge or – at least – contributing to the pressure-cooker atmosphere in the ad industry.
One commentator wrote on AgencySpy: “Trust me… as someone who’s known Paul for over 20 years… he heard and felt all those comments and whispers.”
The controversy reached the upper echelons of the ad agency world, when Nina DiSesa, the chairman of McCann Erickson New York, jumped in to complain about the blogs.
“These hateful advertising blogs seem to be written by people who are bitter about the business,” DiSesa wrote on AgenCySpy.
Although AgencySpy doesn’t disclose its blogger, George Parker, a veteran ad executive, writes AdScam.
“I suggest anyone who still feels pissed off at me and Agency Spy should contact DDB Chicago,” Parker wrote on his blog yesterday. “They know why he committed suicide. And it didn’t have anything to do with what he read on a blog.”
Do Your Part for Independent Publishers
Thirty-One Things to do for Small Press Month for Small Presses & Independent Publishers
(Sponsored by The New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) and PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association)
Click for the Small Press Month press release.
*Check out the events publishers have planned for this month and a larger version of this poster at www.smallpressmonth.org
1. Contact your local bookstore or library and suggest they put together a special display for National Small Press Month. You can obtain posters from: Small Press Month Coordinator at PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association, 627 Aviation Way, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266, Phone 310/372-2732. Or email April@pma-online.org. Please order in sets of two.
2. Suggest that your local bookstore offer a discount off Small Press titles this month. Offer a special discount on all of your titles.
3. Hold a seminar on “How to Get Published” or on a subject related to your books. You might wish to cooperate with other small presses in your area to get this event off to a roaring start. You might wish to charge a nominal fee for the seminar.
4. Contact the book review editor at your daily newspaper about any events that you plan. Also speak to the features editor. The business editor is always interested in a successful publishing story.
5. Send PMA your list of participating bookstores and libraries so that they may recieve Small Press Month Materials.
6. Be sure to inform PMA and The New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) about any activities you have planned for Small Press Month. PMA would like to include your information when contacting the media. Please send your plans to Lisa@pma-online.org.
[ click here to read the other 25 Things you can do for indy pubs ]
Bradley Center Moves Milwaukee Bucks Game To Basement
MILWAUKEE—The Milwaukee Bucks home game against the New York Knicks was relegated to the basement of the Bradley Center Tuesday, arena president Steve Costello announced to reporters, saying 
he was forced to hold the more popular Smucker’s Stars On Ice event in the main venue. “Normally only 200 to 300 people are in attendance for most Bucks games, so the basement will provide plenty of room,” Costello said, adding that the Bradley Center’s basement had a quaint and intimate atmosphere most NBA fans never get a chance to experience. “Every figure-skating event we host sells out, while it costs more for us to keep the lights on during Bucks game than we make off of ticket sales.” Costello said that when he created the event schedule for the year, he naturally assumed the Bucks season would either be over by now or that ownership would have moved the team to another city.
[ from The Onion ]
The Hippie Revolt
Pencil
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity.
To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300 degrees Celsius.
The Russians used a pencil.
Frank Zappa Discusses Pornography with The Prince of Darkness
Classic clip of a clean-cut Lead Mother discussing censorship on CNN. Check about 7 minutes in when Zappa tells a Washington Times columnist who accuses him of glorifying satanism, incest and suicide to “Kiss my [bleep]”, and the columnist comes back with “Oh yeah, take your teeth out and we’ll talk about it”???