Political Quick Thought: As expected, Keith Ellison won the primary
in our district. If elected, he would be the first black person to
represent Minnesota on the national level, and would be the first
Muslim in Congress. Also as expected, the slime began almost
immediately. Republicans have no hope of winning this race, but the
more they can throw mud at Ellison the more they hope the mud will
stick to Democrats in general. Republicans are disgusting, and they
should be turned out of office, all of them, to teach the party a
lesson.
Memory jogger: What ever happened to the Anthrax
terrorists? Bush isn't even looking for them. Were they the
Christian Extremists who are friends with Ashcroft and W? The
killers are still out there. All the people who harbored terrorist
Eric Rudolph are still out there. You are not safe under a
Republican administration.
American
Pop is an animated film, with rotoscoped images and bits of
culture flashing behind the characters, that takes us from the end of
Fiddler on the Roof to the era of Syd and Nancy.
Maybe a bit beyond. In between, it covers One Upon A Time In
America, Lady Sings The Blues, The Benny Goodman
Story, Dobie Gillis, Head and many others. In 96
minutes, American Pop covers four generations of Jewish musicians in
their quest to make a life and to make music. It nearly succeeds.
The wide panorama of 20th Century America is seen from near the
bottom. War, violence, death and drugs are tempered with hope,
family, some kind of love and an attempt to live an honorable life.
All the main characters in American Pop try to be a mensch, even if they
don't know the Yiddish word. They nearly succeed.
I saw
American Pop when it first came out in 1981. I loved it. One of the
people with me didn't like some of the song choices. The punk rocker
at the end sings "Night Moves" and that threw him. Didn't bother me
much. Punk is about giving up, and American Pop is about persevering
across generations.
Starting off with the pogroms that kill
the devout patriarch and drive the family to America, the story
continues in jazz clubs in the early part of the century which
created a unique American music and in the speakeasies of Prohibition
which created gangsters. The despair of the Depression is alleviated
by WWII, giving a purpose to people who don't know their own
strengths. The be-pop 50s slide into the protest rock 60s. The punk
70s slide into the techno 80s. The film ends on an uncharacteristic
high note.
Each era is well represented by music and images.
No song is sung all the way through, though the music selection is
excellent. The mood is evocative and sensual. It paints a picture
with daubs of sound, and the images reverberate. Like an
Impressionist painting, it's best viewed from a bit of distance. Like
a jazz improv solo, individual notes are less important than the
riff.
No film can hope to cover most of a century in an hour
and a half, and American Pop is more of a ride than a history. It
works best if you have an appreciation of history and knowledge of
music. I liked American Pop a great deal, but as an appetizer more
than a main course. On the Shockwave scale of 9 to 23, with 23 being
top, I give American Pop about a 19.
Ralph Bakshi almost
changed animation. Almost. His solution to the expense of creating
animated movies was to throw static images behind main characters.
This is better than Hanna-Barbera limited animation, but still feels
artificial. Wizards
uses the same technique, as does his attempt at The
Lord of the Rings. These are good experiments, but didn't change
how people made films. We had to wait another couple of decades for
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and CGI.
Fritz
the Cat is still fun (though I haven't seen it for a while) and
his Mighty Mouse
series was cancelled by the sphincter conservatives before it had a
chance. His frenetic style was adopted by bad music videos, which
isn't his fault. He stretched the acceptability of big budget
animated features, which is to his credit.
Bakshi's career
lasted 40 years, and he still makes appearances at conventions. He
may not have been the animation pioneer of his hype, but his films
are still watchable and his influence is still felt.
zEN mAN (observing a beautiful sunset in Puntarenas, Costa Rica as the kids take turns going into the water from the high platforn...what a wonderful sillouette)
Howard Zinn: Robert Birnbaum talks with the author of A People's History of the United States (identitytheory.com; from 2001)
HZ: I think that pressure exists on young people who want to be poets, actors and musicians. Both because their parents are looking in on them and wondering how their kids will survive and paying huge tuition for them and also thinking themselves of their own future and decide, "No, I can't be a poet. I can't be a musician because I won't be able to survive." So yes, it's a culture so dominated by the need to make money and be successful in the orthodox sense that it cripples creativity...
Robert Urban: Conservative Republican Barry Goldwater's Pro-gay Legacy (afterelton.com)
The life and political legacy of conservative American politician Barry M. Goldwater (1909-1998) gets a liberal makeover in HBO's new documentary Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater. Although the documentary touches only briefly on Goldwater's pro-gay activism, it will nonetheless be of special interest to gays who seek to understand the American political process, as it sheds light on how the religious right has risen to power in the Republican Party.
Santa Ana winds took away the humidity and upped the heat.
Tonight, Monday:
CBS opens the night with the SERIES PREMIERE'The Class', followed by the SEASON PREMIERE'How I Met Your Mother', then the SEASON PREMIERE'2½ Men', followed by the SEASON PREMIERE'Old Christine', then the SEASON PREMIERE'CSI: The 2nd One'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Dr. Phil McGraw, ventriloquist Willie Tyler and Lester, and "Survivor" castoff Sekou Bunch.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Edward Norton, Ethan Suplee and LeToya.
NBC begins the night with the 2-hour SEASON PREMIERE'Deal Or No Deal', followed by the SERIES PREMIERE'Studio 60'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Jason Lee and Elton John.
Scheduled on a FRESHConan are Gisele Bundchen and Madeleine Peyroux.
On a RERUNCarson Daly (from 6/7/06) are Vince Vaughn, and Juliette & the Licks.
ABC starts the night with the SEASON PREMIERE'Wife Swap', followed by a FRESH'Wife Swap', then the SEASON PREMIERE'Supernanny'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 9/8/06) are Tyra Banks, Jason Statham, and Papa Roach.
The CW offers a RERUN'7th Heaven', followed by the infomercial 'ET Presents The CW: Launch Of A New Network'.
Faux has a FRESH'Prison Break', followed by a FRESH'Vanished'.
MY has a FRESH'Desire', followed by a FRESH'Fashion House'.
A&E has 'Crossing Jordan', 'CSI: The 2nd One', 'Driving', another 'Driving', 'Gene Simmons', and another 'Gene Simmons'.
AMC offers the movie 'Silver Streak', followed by the movie 'Jurassic Park', then the movie 'A Civil Action'.
BBC -
[2:00 pm] As Time Goes By - Episode 1;
[2:40 pm] Are You Being Served - Top Hats and Tails;
[3:20 pm] Keeping Up Appearances - Episode 1;
[4:00 pm] The Avengers - Invasion of the Earthmen;
[5:00 pm] Footballers Wives - Episode 5;
[6:00 pm] BBC World News;
[6:30 pm] Cash in the Attic - Page;
[7:00 pm] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 51;
[8:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 4;
[8:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 19;
[9:00 pm] Secret Smile - Episode 1;
[10:30 pm] Unsolved - Episode 6;
[11:00 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 11;
[11:30 pm] Whose Line Is It Anyway? - Episode 10;
[12:00 am] The Benny Hill Show - Episode 52;
[1:00 am] Secret Smile - Episode 1;
[2:30 am] Unsolved - Episode 6;
[3:00 am] Footballers Wives - Episode 1;
[4:00 am] Silent Witness - Ep 1 - A Time to Heal;
[6:00 am] BBC World News. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Inside The Actors Studio', 'Million Dollar Listing', and another 'Million Dollar Listing'.
Comedy Central has 'Scrubs', another 'Scrubs', an old 'Jon Stewart', an old 'Colbert Report', 'Mind Of Mencia', 'South Park', 'Blue Collar TV', and another 'Blue Collar TV'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJon Stewart is Former President Bill Clinton.
Scheduled on a FRESHColbert Report is Will Power.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'UFOs: Deep Sea UFOs', 'Lost Worlds', and 'Da Vinci Code: Bloodlines'.
IFC -
[06:00 AM] The Secret Agent;
[07:45 AM] Secrets & Lies;
[10:05 AM] The Matchmaker;
[11:45 AM] Short: Little Valerie;
[12:00 PM] Black Sunday;
[01:30 PM] Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!;
[03:00 PM] The Secret Agent;
[04:35 PM] Greg the Bunny: The Addiction;
[04:45 PM] Secrets & Lies;
[07:15 PM] Ash Wednesday;
[09:00 PM] Beyond Rangoon;
[10:45 PM] The Weight of Water;
[12:45 AM] IFC News Special: This Film Is Not Yet Rated;
[01:00 AM] Beyond Rangoon;
[02:45 AM] The Weight of Water;
[04:45 AM] Yo Soy Boricua, Pa'que Tu Lo Sepas!. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Sundance -
[07:20 AM] Um Filme Falado;
[09:00 AM] In the Edges: the Grizzly Man Session;
[10:00 AM] Mitchellville;
[11:30 AM] Winning;
[12:30 PM] Ford Transit;
[01:45 PM] Make It Real (to me);
[02:45 PM] Deadline (Director's Cut);
[04:20 PM] Weed;
[05:30 PM] In the Edges: the Grizzly Man Session;
[06:30 PM] Winning;
[07:30 PM] Signe Chanel: Episode 2: Doubts;
[08:00 PM] The Hill: Episode 4: What Should Democrats Be Saying?;
[08:15 PM] A Different War;
[08:30 PM] House of Boateng: Episode 5;
[09:00 PM] 10th District Court;
[11:00 PM] Torture: The Guantanamo Guidebook;
[12:00 AM] The Beguiled;
[01:45 AM] K;
[03:10 AM] S21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine;
[04:50 AM] Cowards Bend the Knee. (ALL TIMES EDT)
Musician Eric Clapton performs in St. Paul Minn., Saturday, Sept. 16, 2006. Clapton is playing only eight dates in North America as part of his world tour.
Photo by Andy King
The lead singer of the band U2 brought his fight against AIDS and poverty to town. Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, visited the downtown Nordstrom store Saturday to promote a designer T-shirt that will raise money to pay for AIDS medication and medical care in Africa.
The shirts are emblazoned with the logo of Bono's "One" campaign against poverty. They are made in Africa by Edun, a fair trade clothing label started by Bono and Hewson. The company will donate $10 for every $40 shirt sold to a fund supporting the health care of the factory workers who make the shirts.
The shirt factory is in a village in Lesotho in southern Africa.
Nobel Laureates Shirin Ebadi of Iran, Betty Williams of Ireland, Jody Williams of New Jersey and Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Central America held a news conference during PeaceJam at the University of Denver on Sunday , Sept. 17, 2006, where they talked about 'Hope' and 'Peace.' Ten Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and 3,000 students from around the world are participating in the PeaceJam conference that ends on Sunday.
Photo by Ed Andrieski
The U.S. military in Iraq has imprisoned an Associated Press photographer for five months, accusing him of being a security threat but never filing charges or permitting a public hearing.
Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.
Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.
Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide - 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.
A company that started out as a joke celebrates ten years in business. Founder Jeremy Cowan says that starting out, he and his friends just thought it would be fun for Jews to have their own beer and brewed up something called "He'Brew." Ten years later, with 2 million bottles sold, it's not a joke anymore.
Cowan says he likes the beer, but wouldn't want to abandon the inside joke that started it all, the punch line being "don't pass out, pass over."
The tiny San Francisco-based brew, which depends almost as much on schtick as it does on brewing expertise, is celebrating its anniversary with several new beers. They include a rye-flavored tribute to the late comedian and free-speech icon, Lenny Bruce.
The hotel that inspired the cult television comedy Fawlty Towers is to re-launch after a 1 million pound makeover -- but guests will be spared rants by the rudest hotelier of all time.
John Cleese was prompted to write the classic 1970s series with his then wife Connie Booth after staying with the cast of Monty Python's Flying Circus at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay.
Cleese called hotelier Donald Sinclair "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met" after they were berated for their table manners and had a timetable thrown at them when they asked the time of the next bus to town.
Actress Prunella Scales, who played Basil Fawlty's waspish wife Sybil in the comedy that became a worldwide hit, is to commemorate the relaunch on Monday by unveiling a plaque at the hotel.
Music promoter Neil Boorman smashes branded household items after burning his designer clothes in his 'Bonfire of the Brands' in London September 17, 2006. Boorman decided to destroy all his branded goods, from shirts to vacuum cleaner, as an experiment to live without using any labelled or branded goods in today's British consumer society.
Photo by Luke MacGregor
The four original members of R.E.M. gave a rare performance Saturday night as the group was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
Saturday's reunion performance was by far the largest and the first that was publicized in advance. Many of the roughly 1,500 people at the Georgia hall's black-tie induction ceremony clearly were there to see the group.
Also inducted Saturday were Allman Brothers founder Gregg Allman, writer-producers Dallas Austin and Jermaine Dupri, and the late Felice Bryant. Bryant, along with husband Boudleaux Bryant, wrote country and rock standards including "Rocky Top," "Wake Up Little Susie" and "Love Hurts."
A 23-year-old Welsh call center worker won a television contest on Saturday to star in a revival of the musical "The Sound of Music" on the London stage.
Connie Fisher was chosen by viewers to play the lead role of Maria in London's West End and landed a six-month contract.
The contest, entitled "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?," was launched by composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber and attracted 6,000 hopefuls.
He decided to hunt for an unknown after failing to secure U.S. actress Scarlett Johansson for the role.
As dusk shrouded the summit of Whiteface Mountain, Juan Klavins aimed his headlamp at the bird in his left hand, its head between his fingers and its wing extended to expose a crimson vein.
The 26-year-old Argentine researcher deftly pierced transparent skin with a hypodermic needle and filled two fine glass tubes with blood to be tested for mercury. The bird craned its neck to eye the swarming gnats, impatient to resume feeding.
The fledgling was a rare Bicknell's Thrush, subject of a long-term study by the Vermont Institute of Natural Science on the bird's breeding grounds at high elevations in the Northeast and its wintering grounds in the Caribbean.
Bicknell's Thrush is a cousin of the American Robin but is smaller and slimmer, with a brown back and wings, chestnut tail, buffy breast and speckled throat. Unlike the common Robin, Bicknell's is rarely seen, living in dense fir forests on high mountaintops. It is identified more often by its lilting flute-like song than by sight.
Surfers line up in an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most surfers on one wave at Muizenberg in Cape Town September 17, 2006. Organisers claimed a new record of 73 surfers standing on a wave for 5 seconds, beating the previous total of 53.
Photo by Mike Hutchings
Johannesburg restaurant Gramadoelas gives diners the chance to see how South African food reflects the diversity of its people.
More than 30 years ago, Gramadoelas defied stringent apartheid-era laws to allow blacks and whites to eat together and now, more than a decade after white rule collapsed, this restaurant in the heart of South Africa's economic capital remains one of the only eateries that serves worms.
For the less adventurous, Gramadoelas offers a range of Cape Malay classics - a cuisine born of slaves from Indonesia and Malaysia who were brought to South Africa's Cape by Dutch settlers to serve as household chefs.
They infused hearty but tasteless Dutch meals with Eastern spices, spawning dishes like bobotie -- spiced minced lamb topped with a savoury egg custard.
Claudio Paulo Pinto pops his eyeballs out of their sockets, in Belo Horizonte, 340 kilometers (210 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday, Sept 16, 2006. Claudio Paulo Pinto is looking for work. That's his job _ looking. Pinto can pop his eyeballs at least 7 millimeters (0.3 inches) out of their sockets, a national record for eye-popping according to RankBrasil, an organization modelled after the Guinness Book of World Records that lists Brazilian records. Pinto says he's been extending his eyes since he was nine years old and 'it doesn't hurt a bit.'
Photo by Eugenio Savio
In the last 150 years, the Dutch have become the tallest people on Earth - and experts say they're still getting bigger. It is a tale of a nation's health and wealth.
Prosperity propelled the collective growth spurt that began in the mid-1800s and was only interrupted during the harsh years of the Nazi occupation in the 1940s - when average heights actually declined.
With their protein-rich diet and a national health service that pampers infants, the Dutch are standing taller than ever. The average Dutchman stands just over 6 feet, while women average nearly 5-foot-7.
An entertainer with The Thames Festival Night Carnival walks across Blackfriars Bridge as the carnival nears its end, with some hundreds of dancers, musicians, performers and floats taking part in the spectacle Sunday Sept. 17, 2006.
Photo by Edmond Terakopian
A German art student hoodwinked police in northern China's famed terracotta warrior museum by disguising himself as a clay soldier among a forest of ancient statues, state media said.
Pablo Wendel jumped into an archaeological pit showcasing several thousand terracotta soldiers, found a spot to stand and frustrated police who had difficulty finding him amid the 2,200-year-old warriors, Xinhua news agency said.
After finally locating the art student, Wendel refused to budge and police at the museum near China's ancient capital of Xian were forced to carry him off "as if he were a log," Xinhua said.
Wendel, 26, told police that since he was a child he had been fascinated by the terracotta warriors, created to protect the nearby tomb of the legendary Emperor Qinshihuang who united China over 2,200 years ago.
This 1907 Harley-Davidson is one of the Vintage Museum of Transportation in Oxnard, Calif., and Wildlife in this photo taken in April 2004 are from a collection of about 100 rare cars and motorcycles owned by late Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler which will be auctioned next month. The collection includes a 1904 Mercedes 40/45 Sports Touring and a 1931 Duesenberg J Special Phaeton by LeBaron. The sale could reap $25 million.
Photo by Gary Phelps
You have reached the Home page of BartCop Entertainment.
Make yourself home, take your shoes off...
Go ahead, scratch it if it itches.
The idea is to have fun.
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Anything that increased your blood pressure, or, even better,
amused or entertained?
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How about a favorite TV show, movie, book, play, cartoon, or legal amusement?
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