Saturday, March 29, 2008

Yahoo News ALWAYS on top of the BIG STORIES!

Klugman sues NBC over 'Quincy' profits

Sat Mar 29, 6:57 AM ET

Former "Quincy, M.E." star Jack Klugman sued NBC Universal Friday, claiming the studio is lying about the show's profits and owes him money. Klugman, 85, played the crime-busting Dr. R. Quincy on the show from 1976 to 1983.

His 1976 contract with NBC entitles him and his company, Sweater Productions, to 25 percent of the show's "net profits," according to the suit filed in Superior Court. Klugman claims his copy of the contract was lost when his agent died, and NBC has refused to provide a copy.

The lawsuit aims to force NBC to divulge the contract and award Klugman attorneys' fees. It also asks the court to clarify the terms of the agreement.

"I recently heard that they made $250 million and it's still on TV in Germany. I don't want their money. I want my money," Klugman told The Associated Press. "I worked my tail off. I got up at four in the morning and stayed at the studio. I did rewrite, I edited."

Calls to NBC Universal Friday seeking comment Friday were not immediately returned.

NBC provided Klugman with an accounting statement showing the series had lost $66 million through 2006, according to the suit. However, Klugman said he believes NBC is lying, and that it made money.

....

As a child of the 70's, it makes me feel good to know that Quincy is STILL on the case. For those of you to young to know the TV show quincy... It was kind of like CSI minus the special effects. Which meant there was more time for all the grandeur that was the 70's!

Also this is yet another example of how the entertainment business tries to cheat EVERYBODY! White, black, brown, red, yellow, khaki... I mean come on! QUINCY?! How does a TV show LOSE money 23 years AFTER it went of the air?

Go get 'em, Quincy. Go get 'em!

And since they're remaking everything else... How 'bout The NEW Quincy? They could do like they always do and just make the NEW Quincy a hot, young, woman. She could be his granddaughter... Wait... gotta go pitch a TV show...

Monday, March 24, 2008

The worst part about this story is that it's being directed by JOHN SINGLETON.

The A-Team Countdown Begins

Mon Mar 24, 5:14 AM PDT

If you've been holding your breath for The A-Team movie, well, we feel sorry for you.

But help is on the way for you and your oxygen-deprived brain. So just hold on. Until June 12. Of next year. Feel better? You should, actually.

The release date, as reported by Variety, is the first for the long-discussed, long-suffering project.

John Singleton, who last yelled cut on Four Brothers, will direct; Michael Bandt and Derek Haas, who helped shoot the lights out with 3:10 to Yuma, are writing the screenplay.

As reported, the movie will follow the basic recipe of the 1983-87 TV series: Take four ex-military men; add one war crime they didn't commit; mix in chases, pursuits and more chases.

Given the source material, Singleton has promised an action movie, a serious action movie—"wall to wall kicking ass and talking s--t," as he put it to Collider.com. The film presently is sans actors, A-list, B-team or otherwise, as Singleton himself has made very clear.

"I don't know who is in the cast yet, so all this bulls--t of who is saying who is this person and who is [this person]," Singleton told Collider.com.

Singleton did allow that he "really, really want[s]" Woody Harrelson to play "Howling Mad" Murdoch, the sanity challenged pilot given life on the TV series by Dwight Schultz.

In the interview, conducted in January, Singleton sounded a lot like a man who's been a little bit hounded by fans demanding to know who's going to play Mr. T.

"Nobody is playing Mr. T—the character's name is B.A. Baracus," the filmmaker reminded.

And, no, before you bother Mr. Singleton again, B.A. Baracus hasn't been cast yet, either. Ice Cube, however, has thrown his Mohawk into the ring.

"Hell yeah," the Barbershop multitasker recently told blackfilm.com when asked if he'd consider copping a "Bad Attitude," as it were, "especially with John Singleton directing!"

And, yes, we know Ice Cube doesn't really have a Mohawk to throw into a ring. But that could change.

"I wouldn't try to duplicate what Mr. T did," he told the Website. "I'm going to bring my own flavor to it, and I am going to do the Mohawk."

The race seems wide open for the roles of Col. "Hannibal" Smith, the disguise-handy ringleader, and the smooth-talking "Face" Peck, played on the TV series by the late George Peppard and the still-plugging-away Dirk Benedict, respectively.

Even with the cast undetermined, an announced director and a release date marks the furthest along the movie has gotten since the project started raising hopes nearly 10 years ago amid a spate of TV-to-film conversions, à la Charlie's Angels, The Mod Squad and Wild Wild West. Per the calendar keepers at the Internet Movie Database, on June 12, 2009, the big-screen A-Team will go head-to-head with an Eddie Murphy comedy called NowhereLand. Which is about where The A-Team movie used to live.

Copyright © 2008 E! Online, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

A letter from Barack's minister to The New York Times

March 11, 2007
Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
9 West 43rd Street
New York,
New York 10036-3959


Dear Jodi:

Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for two hours. You told me you were doing a "Spiritual Biography" of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.

For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he was. For two hours I shared with you what a genuine human being he was. I told you how incredible he was as a man who was an African American in public service, and as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or the other whether or not she was going to run.

I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how idealistic he was. We talked about how refreshing it would be for someone who knew about Islam to be in the Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn't I think it would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval Office who not only knew about Muslims, but had living and breathing Muslims in his own family? I told you how important it would be to have a man who not only knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to 9/11/01 in the Oval Office, but also how important it would be to have a man who knew what Sufism was; a man who understood that there were different branches of Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed Jews; and a man who was a devout Christian, but who did not prejudge others because they believed something other than what he believed.

I talked about how rare it was to meet a man whose Christianity was not just "in word only." I talked about Barack being a person who lived his faith and did not argue his faith. I talked about Barack as a person who did not draw doctrinal lines in the sand nor consign other people to hell if they did not believe what he believed.

Out of a two-hour conversation with you about Barack's spiritual journey and my protesting to you that I had not shaped him nor formed him, that I had not mentored him or made him the man he was, even though I would love to take that credit, you did not print any of that. When I told you, using one of your own Jewish stories from the Hebrew Bible as to how God asked Moses, "What is that in your hand?," that Barack was like that when I met him. Barack had it "in his hand." Barack had in his grasp a uniqueness in terms of his spiritual development that one is hard put to find in the 21st century, and you did not print that.

As I was just starting to say a moment ago, Jodi, out of two hours of conversation I spent approximately five to seven minutes on Barack's taking advice from one of his trusted campaign people and deeming it unwise to make me the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print? You and your editor proceeded to present to the general public a snippet, a printed "sound byte" and a titillating and tantalizing article about his disinviting me to the Invocation on the day of his announcing his candidacy.

I have never been exposed to that kind of duplicitous behavior before, and I want to write you publicly to let you know that I do not approve of it and will not be party to any further smearing of the name, the reputation, the integrity or the character of perhaps this nation's first (and maybe even only) honest candidate offering himself for public service as the person to occupy the Oval Office.

Your editor is a sensationalist. For you to even mention that makes me doubt your credibility, and I am looking forward to see how you are going to butcher what else I had to say concerning Senator Obama's "Spiritual Biography." Our Conference Minister, the Reverend Jane Fisler Hoffman, a white woman who belongs to a Black church that Hannity of "Hannity and Colmes" is trying to trash, set the record straight for you in terms of who I am and in terms of who we are as the church to which Barack has belonged for over twenty years.

The president of our denomination, the Reverend John Thomas, has offered to try to help you clarify in your confused head what Trinity Church is even though you spent the entire weekend with us setting me up to interview me for what turned out to be a smear of the Senator; and yet The New York Times continues to roll on making the truth what it wants to be the truth. I do not remember reading in your article that Barack had apologized for listening to that bad information and bad advice. Did I miss it? Or did your editor cut it out? Either way, you do not have to worry about hearing anything else from me for you to edit or "spin" because you are more interested in journalism than in truth.

Forgive me for having a momentary lapse. I forgot that The New York Times was leading the bandwagon in trumpeting why it is we should have gone into an illegal war. The New York Times became George Bush and the Republican Party's national "blog." The New York Times played a role in the outing of Valerie Plame. I do not know why I thought The New York Times had actually repented and was going to exhibit a different kind of behavior.

Maybe it was my faith in the Jewish Holy Day of Roshashana. Maybe it was my being caught up in the euphoria of the Season of Lent; but whatever it is or was, I was sadly mistaken. There is no repentance on the part of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times. You should do well with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my face and told me a lie!

Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. ,
Senior Pastor
Trinity United Church of Christ

Friday, March 21, 2008

Political Correctness is the NEW Racism

Shock jock named king of politically incorrect

By Arthur SpiegelmanFri Mar 21, 11:21 AM ET

"Nappy-headed hos," the phrase that cost radio shock jock Don Imus his job and triggered a debate on how far free speech can go, was named on Thursday as the most egregious politically incorrect turn of phrase in 2007.

Trailing behind that phrase in the annual survey by Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com), a word usage group, were "Ho-Ho-Ho" and "Carbon Footprint Stomping," said the group's president Paul JJ Payack.

"Ho-Ho-Ho" made the list after a staffing company in Sydney, Australia suggested to prospective Santas they drop their traditional greeting in favor of "Ha-Ha-Ha" so as not to invoke images of the derogatory slang term for women.

"Carbon Footprint Stomping" is a phrase used to describe flaunting environmentally "green" activities by doing things like driving gas-guzzling Hummers and flying private jets, which in these energy-conscious times might be considered the height of political incorrectness.

New York-based Imus was fired from his popular morning radio program by CBS in April 2007 after a national controversy erupted over his use of the "Nappy-headed" phrase to describe the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Imus later apologized and met with the team to ask for forgiveness.

Last November, he was hired by a different network.

"It is no surprise that 'Nappy-headed hos' was selected as the top politically incorrect word or phrase for 2007," said Payack. "A year later that phrase is still ricocheting about the Internet, even affecting Christmas-season Santas in Australia "

Among other examples on the list are:

"Fire-breathing Dragon" -- Children's book author Lindsey Gardiner was asked to eliminate a fire-breathing dragon from her new book because publishers feared they could be sued under health and safety regulations.

"Wucha dun did now?" -- The subtitle of a "Ghetto Handbook" distributed by a Houston school district police officer to enable readers to speak "as if you just came out of the 'hood."

"Gypsy skirt" -- The colorful layered skirt was given a new name, "Traveler Skirt," since police in Cornwall, a county in southwest England, believed the term "Gypsy Skirt" might be considered offensive to Gypsies.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Todd Eastham)

...

I guess when you call it political correctness it sounds cuter.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

DAMN SKIPPY!

Angela Bassett gets Hollywood star

Thu Mar 20, 11:15 PM ET

Angela Bassett has had good days — becoming a mother to twins, winning a Golden Globe, being nominated for an Academy Award. Then there was Thursday.

"Do you ever have one of those days? I woke up and the sun wasn't really shining but then it burst through the clouds and it was glorious. Hallelujah!" Bassett exclaimed to the crowd at the ceremony for the 2,358th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bassett, 49, was joined by husband Courtney B. Vance, their children and guests Forest Whitaker, Laurence Fishburne and Rick Fox, her co-star in the new film "Meet the Browns," out Friday.

Fishburne, who starred alongside Bassett in 1993's "What's Love Got to Do With It," highlighted Bassett's resilience in the industry. She landed an Oscar nomination for the role portraying Turner triumphing over abuse.

"You get a lot of no's in this business and you have to have that desire and determination which is what Angela has," Fishburne said.

Whitaker gushed that Bassett was "a powerful artist, a beautiful person, a mother, a wife, a friend who illuminates my life."

Born in New York City and raised in Florida, Bassett snagged bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale before starting her career in theater and then moving on to film.

Her film credits include 1998's "How Stella Got Her Groove Back."

At the ceremony, she recalled moving to Los Angeles from New York in 1988.

"I meant to stay six months but I stayed. Today my cup runneth over!" Bassett said. "I am crying now, I cried yesterday and the day before. ... This day is so, so special to me."

...
And now you're asking yourself... "Self, what other stars have ummm... stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?"

List of Stars on The Hollywood Walk of Fame

Notable names that pop out at ME at first glance...

Paula Abdul
Tony Danza
Big Bird
Tyne Daly (Cagney of Cagney and Lacey)
Ann B. Davis (Alice from The Brady Bunch)
Emilio Estefan, Jr. (Gloria's Husband... I think.)
Sharon Gless (Lacey of Cagney and Lacey)
Pat Sajak
Vanna White
Dennis Quaid
Randy Quaid
Nichelle Nichols
Magic Johnson (Under the heading of MOTION PICTURES???)
Arsenio Hall


My favorite Angela Bassett story is about how she turned down the role in Monster's Ball that ultimately won Halle Berry the Oscar, because apparently she thought the story of a black woman who's husband is executed on death row and then falls in love with one of the prison guards was undignified. My favorite part about this story is that she said this AFTER Halle won the Oscar.

YouTube Clip of Halle Berry at The Oscars

P.S. Did you know that you actually have to pay $25,000 for your star. (Well, at least your people do. Anybody could pay for you... even your fans or friends... not that I'm suggesting anything.)

P.P.S. Denzel Washington DOES NOT have a star. Racism.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I was gonna write a blog about this Geraldine Ferraro/ Barack Obama thing but...

then Keith Olberrmann put it pretty good.



Whew!

Thanks, Jason.

I just made $20.74 in digital downloads!

WHOOOHOOO!

I am FINALLY officially a part of the New Late 20th Century Economy... in the early 21st Century. I put my debut stand-up comedy CD on CD Baby.com, and I have admittedly done a sub par job of promotions. (Did you even know I had a CD?... I thought not.) But today I got an E-mail from CD Baby that says I have sold $20.74 in digital downloads. Again I say....

WHOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I'm so filled with questions. Who are these people? How did they come across my album? How can I get my 20 bucks from CD Baby?

Anyway... Here is my first big promotional push for the CD. Click below and contribute to my digital EMPIRE!

(insert evil laugh here)

Photobucket

Saturday, March 8, 2008

I have feeling news stories like this are going to become more abundant as the years go on.

The Tiger Woods of Swimming

I never thought I'd say this buuuuuuuuuuuuuut...

You go girl!

(That made me feel creepy all over.)

I have to admit my least favorite line in this whole article is... "Neal stands out, anyway, because of her deft strokes and her dark skin."

"deft strokes and DARK skin..." Yuccky!

Thanks to Jason for letting me know about this.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

I just can't get enough of Dick Gregory's Stuff...



I've seen my future. Now I have to go work on the beard.

An Article written about me by Wanda Sabir...

W. Kamau Bell Curve: The show designed to end racism in about an hour.

Wanda Sabir

I had so much fun at W. Kamau Bell Curve last month at the Sheldon Theatre in San Francisco. It was funny and educational at the same time. I didn’t know what to expect except that it would be about race and that if I brought someone of a different race to the event I’d my guest would get in free or half off or something like that. When I walked into the theatre, it was full. People were scooting over so some of the hopefuls out in the lobby might get in. Kamau, has become a Bay Area phenomena in just four runs, this weekend his first foray into the East Bay. Guest where? The Jewish Community Center of the East Bay on Walnut Street. They don’t bite. No seriously, I worked there as a preschool teacher over twenty years ago before the name change.

I spoke to Kamau Monday evening up to the time he was heading out to the Punchline for a gig. He was the headliner he told me as the clock approached 8, so he didn’t need to rush off. Raised in Chicago, Kamau, which means “quiet and gentle warrior in Kiswahilli,” the tall brother comes across as anything but and his route to comedy through circuitous has certainly been one that the artist has maintained. There is an integrity in his show which includes multimedia, that is honest and unapologetic. From the racism litmus test where one gets to check one’s temperature, to a survey of recent media insults, to images of why the W. Kamau Bell Curve is still relevant, perhaps even more so as black people are disappeared behind walls or walled are erected to keep them distant and out of view, the show is relevant and irreverent and funny.

The show opens with “words you won’t hear in this show,” which are all the racial epithets especially the N-word. Nooses and the racial rubric are inspired moments in the show which is one that changes Kamau said, in the moment—he has his set list, but if the spirit moves him, he’s gone.

W. Kamau Bell Curve could be this nation’s first Truth and Reconciliation Hearing on Race. It’s something his mother, a former Stanford professor in African Diaspora Studies and author/entrepreneur, Dr. Janet Cheatham Bell, wants to happen. Leave it to her son, a child weaned on The Fire Next Time and the Souls of Black Folks to attempt this feat in the San Francisco Bay.

Kamau was a comedic wall flower until his best friend, Jason, invited him to a comedy open mic in Chicago where he sat in the audience for a few weeks before getting up his nerve to try the stage himself. “They weren’t that good,” Kamau recalled, which should have given him courage. Finally he performed, but it wasn’t until his mother suggested he enroll at Second City Conservatory, the place where Saturday Night Live gets it’s talent, that improv became second or third nature-—he kid felt his calling and well, it was on.

Kamau has opened for Dave Chapelle on a number of occasions and counts as one of his heroes Richard Pryor, his book, Pryor Conviction, one he used to perfect his writing and craft, said, as he has gotten older, certain ideas are hard to ignore—one of the them race. As he continues to develop material, he said the other isms: sexism, homophobia, etc. edge towards the chopping board. “It’s not good form to pick and choose,” he said. Even though he doesn’t get up and leave the venue when someone makes a joke about these subjects, as he does when a comedian thinks it’s funny to insult black people, he has looked more closing at his work to see if he is adding to the manucia masquerading as fun. “It’s all linked.” He said.

“There were things I’d accept at 21 when I first started doing stand-up comedy, not just stand-up but to get along with the group that I won’t put up with anymore. It’s not okay. My challenge is to find out why it isn’t okay and communicate that to people.” He’s reached his toxicity level.

“On the racial rubric,” Kamau explains, “I have levels one through five. As much as people believe a four or five is violence. If you’re experiencing ones and twos all day, that stuff is cumulative. It starts to feel like a four or a five.

“I don’t want to be the living example, but I also don’t want to put poison in the world either, “ he said. “I certainly don’t mind being honest and if people find that offensive, I thought about it before I said it. I’m not just cavalierly throwing it out. I respect people’s right to be offended

“Laughter is the soul saying yes.” Kamau quotes Quincy Jones. “This can go either way—good and evil, socially acceptable and otherwise.” So be careful what you say yes too folks it might come back to bite you. After his show, which opened with Paul E. Hunt’s fabulous band, I found myself quoting Kamau: “Black people are only 30 percent of Oakland’s population. San Francisco doesn’t have any black people.

Check him out March 1st & 2nd, 8:00 at the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay, 1414 Walnut Street, Berkeley. Bring a friend of a different race and your friend and your guest gets in for free!
General Admission $20 Visit http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/27298 and visit his blog http://thewkbellcurve.blogspot.com/ For a clip watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeaXzQYs2-M