Good Story News

The more they saw Chris Montez at the Fest for Beatles Fans in Chicago, the more they wanted to call him and say "Let's dance!"

2009-08-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

The Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans is winding down tonight-- if "winding down" is the right description for an all-star rock 'n'roll blowout capping s weekend that starred the likes of Ronnie Spector, Earl Slick and two of The Hudson Brothers, among others with longstanding Beatles connections.

As thousands of fans passed through the O'Hare Hyatt Regency Hotel on the most humid day of the summer, the name most talked about as a future Fab Fest fave was that of Chris Montez, featured in a preview of Frozen Pictures's new project, El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story, that opened the Fest on Saturday with a grand screening in the Grand Ballroom and created more buzz this afternoon with a more intimate encore showing followed by a lively Q&A with director-writer-producers Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns.

Montez' winning personality, guileless honesty and brilliant talent as a singer and musician were equalled by the surprising story of his experiences headlining over the Beatles on the UK tour that coincided with the release of their first album and the first stirrings of Beatlemania.

Q&A

The duo promised the film will debut at a Fest for Beatles Fans in 2010, and there's already talk of Chris Montez appearing along with it.

Beatles Fan Fest goes wild for Chris Montez

2009-08-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

There were cheers, laughs and even gasps as the preview of the new film, El Viaje de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story, was unspooled this afternoon at the Fest for Beatles Fans in Chicago.

Directors Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns took the stage in the Grand Ballroom of the O'Hare Hyatt Regency Hotel to introduce the work-in-progress about the influential singer and musician who headlined a UK tour in 1963 with the Beatles as his opening act. Co-headliner Tommy Roe was another fan favorite as he and Montez revealed behind-the-scenes nuggets, breaking news and making history with untold stories (hence the gasps) before hundreds of Beatles fans.

Directors Kearns and Hudson introduce the film
(Fellow producer and Director of Photography Joachim Blunck remained in LA)

"This was the audience we were most nervous about," said Kearns after the credits rolled. "They know the history. They know the Beatles story. If we could tell them something new, we we were on the right track."

"And we did," added Hudson. "It went over really well."

Hudson and Kearns, who've brought the Frozen Pictures flick The Seventh Python to two past Beatle fan fests, say the final work will encompass all of Montez' career and influence. They hope to bring it to a Beatle fest in the Spring.

Before the 34-minute preview was shown, fans were stunned by the trailer for an upcoming Frozen Pictures production, Apple Pie Heroes, which chronicles a reunion of The Hudson Brothers.

The Fest for Beatles Fans hosts a second screening of both works tomorrow at 1:30, followed by a Q&A with our pals from Frozen Pictures.

The Seventh Python movie and two-thirds of The Hudson Brothers combine for a historic evening at The Comedy Shrine

2009-08-15T08:33:00.001-07:00

The Comedy Shrine in Naperville, Illinois was the center of the show business universe last night with a screening of The Seventh Python and a performance by its producer Brett Hudson and brother Mark Hudson in a special evening outside Chicago.

Frozen Pictures' acclaimed, award-winning film about Monty Python cohort Neil Innes made its fourth Chicago area appearance at the legendary comedy club and museum, while the Hudson brothers took time from their fan-flocked weekend at the Fest for Beatles Fans at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare.

The crowd of comedy and music fans gave a rousing reception to both segments of the evening. A delay in getting the Hudsons from the Beatlefest to the club was covered by a raffle and a Q&A by Seventh director Burt Kearns that began to reach its stretching point around the time he played the audience music from his iPhone to explain Frozen Pictures' new film about Chris Montez (which will be previewed at noon today at The Fest for Beatles Fans).

It was generally agreed that the Hudsons were hilarious, working off Mark Hudson's solo show material that was highlighted by his story of a Hudson Brothers song about Joni Mitchell whose trajectory to hit status was derailed by the line, "Joni, I want you to blow me..." The fact that the next phrase was "blow me a kiss..." didn't matter.

The Comedy Shrine, with its extensive comedy collection (just about every inch of the 4800 square-foot place is filled with comedy memorabilia), is one of the most unique attractions in all of America. Located in an upscale minimall in downtown Naperville, the pop culture treasure is the brainchild and labour of love of veteran comedian and Emmy winner Dave Sinker, a longtime friend of the Hudsons.

Dave Sinker in his Comedy Shrine

"Surprises" promised as Chris Montez movie gets Saturday morning preview at Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans

2009-08-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

Our pals at Frozen Pictures tell us they've just left the F&F Digital Post facilities in Los Angeles with copies of their special Beatlecentric preview of their new nonfiction film project, El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story.

Next stop is Chicago for special screenings of the half-hour teaser of a musical documentary about the Mexican-American rock and pop legend. The film is the first in-depth look at Montez's career, which has spanned almost fifty years, developing alongside artists like Ritchie Valens, The Beach Boys, Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Beatles and Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, with an influence that extends from punk rock to roots rock to lounge and easy listening.

WATCH TABLOIDBABY.COM THIS WEEKEND
FOR THE FIRST PHOTO AND VIDEO UPDATES
FROM THE CHICAGO FEST FOR BEATLES FANS

The big screening will take place at 11 am Saturday morning in the Grand Ballroom of the Chicago's O'Hare Hyatt Regency Hotel, as the "Early Bird Special" before doors open for the latest Fest for Beatles Fans. Screenings of Frozen Pictures' Neil Innes film, The Seventh Python, drew upwards of a thousand people and standing ovation at past Beatlefests. The film will also be screened Sunday afternoon, followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

"We've got all kinds of surprises in store," says Burt Kearns, who directed along with Brett Hudson. "Beatles fans will be arguing on the way out the door-- and they'll have a lot more to look forward to."

The Chris Montez project, described by Hudson as "an only-in-American tale," was produced by Hudson, Kearns and Joachim Blunck, who's also Director of Photography. Filming continues after the crew returns from Chicago, where they're also showing The Seventh Python Friday night at the nearby Comedy Shrine club.

Sunday night in Tulsa: There will be Bloodline

2009-08-11T08:02:00.001-07:00

Producer René Barnett brings her controversial, acclaimed documentary film Bloodline back home to Oklahoma on Sunday, August 16th, in an exclusive one-night-only event at Tulsa’s historic Circle Cinema.

The movie investigates the popular theory that Jesus Christ married and fathered children with Mary Magdalene, finding the real story behind The Da Vinci Code. It caused a furor upon its release in theatres, has been presented around the world, and has only grown in popularity and influence since its release on DVD.

René Barnett is a native Oklahoman who worked for years with director Bruce Burgess on the project, presents the film on Sunday at 7 pm. The screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session that's bound to be spirited.

Barnett is a veteran producer whose television credits include Ripley’s Believe it or Not and Strange Universe. She is also host of the syndicated radio program Night Vision.

She got her start in radio at KAKC in Tulsa, as the newscaster who also provided occasional live sound effects on "Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi's Unfilmy Can Festival," a zany late night show featuring Tulsa natives Gailard Sartain and Gary Busey.

Bloodline runs at 7 pm Sunday night. The Circle Cinema is located at 12 South Lewis (at 1st Street) in Tulsa. More information at 918-592-FILM and the cinema website.

Coming to Naperville, Friday, August14th

2009-08-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

Click photos to enlarge. More information here and here.

Chris Montez movie-in-the-making gets a sneak preview August 15th at the Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans

2009-07-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Lucky participants at the Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans are about to become a very select film audience on the morning of Saturday, August 15th, when they get the first sneak preview of El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story.

And of course, it's a got a Beatles twist.

Tommy Roe and Chris Montez, who headlined a UK tour in 1963.
The Beatles were their opening act.

We've been hearing about the Chris Montez film bio project since last summer, when it was announced by our pals at Frozen Pictures. While the guys have spent the past twelve months running their Neil Innes biopic, The Seventh Python, through film festivals and special screenings around the country and the world, they've also been shooting the definitive work about the influential and diverse rock and pop musician who went to school with the Beach Boys, launched the lounge movement, and is hailed as the successor to the first Mexican-American rock star, Ritchie Valens.

Chris Montez at the site of the Wilson brothers' childhood home
(a California Registered Historical Landmark),
where he'd jam with the future Beach Boys

We caught up with them earlier this month at the Grammy Museum, where Chris was participating in a tribute to Ritchie Valens, and their crew has been filming around Chris' hometown, Hawthorne, California.

In March 1963, Chris headlined a tour of England with Tommy Roe. The opening act was a group called The Beatles. That month will be the focus of the preview shown in the ballroom of The Hyatt Regency O'Hare on Saturday morning, August 15th.

"We're looking forward to the fans at the Beatles Fest," says director Burt Kearns. "We got a great reception when we screened The Seventh Python and now we're able to give a little back with some Beatles history. Chris' Beatles tour took place at the cusp of Beatlemania. Their first album was released midway through, the fans were wild-- the audience will be very surprised at the revelations."

"Including the truth about Chris' fist fight with John Lennon. It's been forty-seven years, and no one's gotten the story right until now," says producer Brett Hudson, who will also be performing at the Fest with Mark Hudson-- another third of The Hudson Brothers.

The Seventh Python-- the hit of last year's Chicago Beatles Fest-- won't be forgotten. The film is being screened at the world-renowned Comedy Shrine club in neighboring Naperville on Friday, August 14th.

The Seventh Python returns to Chicago! One night only! The Comedy Shrine! With special performance by Mark & Brett Hudson! Friday, August 14th!

2009-07-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

So what is it with The Seventh Python and Chicago? The veddy-Anglocentric award-winning nonfiction feature about the veddy-British musical satirist, rock 'n' roll legend and Monty Python compatriot Neil Innes from our pals at Frozen Pictures returns to the Chicago area on Friday, August 14th, with a one-night-only screening and (two-thirds) Hudson Brothers performance at The Comedy Shrine.

The announcement is great news for comedy and Monty Python fans... but begs the question why, after entertaining audiences and winning standing ovations around the world-- from Perth, Australia to the New Jersey Meadowlands-- The Seventh Python keeps returning to the City of Big Shoulders in the American Heartland?

Since the film's premiere at the American Cinematheque's Mods & Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood, it's played at:

The Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans...

The Chicago International Movies & Music Festival...

The Wilmette Theatre...

and now...

The Comedy Shrine
22 E. Chicago Avenue
Naperville, Illinois
630.355.2844

So what's the secret to Chicago?

"The secret to Chicago is-- there is no secret," says Seventh Python director Burt Kearns. "Chicago is a comedy capital. They've got The Second City there, but also universities, where some of the finest comics and comedy writers were schooled. There are a lot of comedy legends in and around Chicago."

One of those legends is Dave Sinker. The longtime Hudson buddy, Emmy-winning writer and Second City veteran runs The Comedy Shrine, and came up with the idea of bringing back The Seventh Python for a return engagement.

The Friday evening show on Chicago Avenue in Naperville is set to begin with a screening of the hilarious film starring John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Aimee Mann, Matt Groening and many others, followed by a special performance by Brett and Mark Hudson (they'll arrive after they appear at The Fest for Beatles Fans at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare). Brett produced the film. Mark, the noted music producer and performer, was music supervisor.

Click here for tickets. Arrive early so you'll have some time to check out the extensive comedy memorabilia collection. They don't call it The Comedy Shrine for nothing.

Python in Perth, Bruce: Australian film festival launches tonight; tickets selling fast for two screenings of The Seventh Python

2009-07-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

The Revelation Perth International Film Festival launches today in Perth, Australia, along with great excitement for the two prime-spot screenings of The Seventh Python.

The Saturday, July 4th presentation of the acclaimed, award-winning documentary about legendary pop satirist, wit and Monty Python cohort Neil Innes will be the Australian premiere of the film from our pals at Frozen Pictures that's received accolades and standing ovations as its made its way across America through film festivals, special event screenings and Beatles fan conventions since its premiere at the American Cinematheque's Mods & Rockers Film Festival last summer.

The 12th annual Revelation Perth Fest is perhaps the most respected film festival in all of Australia. One film reviewer writes: "Under the curatorial leadership of author Jack Sargeant for the second year running, Revelation aims to bring new, weird, interesting and unusual features and documentaries that wouldn't otherwise get screened in cinemas to Perth audiences."

There's particular excitement about The Seventh Python-- enough that the musical comedy doco is getting two screenings at prime times. Along with the Saturday, July 4th showing at 7:15 pm, The Seventh Python will also be screened on Friday, July 10th at 7:15 pm.

click photo to enlarge

One reason for the buzz Down Under can be found on the Festival website: "Alongside many interviews The Seventh Python features numerous versions of Innes’ songs including the Australian version of The Philosopher’s Song."

Australian readers, click here to get your tickets.

American Dunkleman makes The Globe!

2009-06-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Globe, the edgy supermarket tabloid that's scarfed up by millions of Americans each week, is highlighting American Dunkleman!

You remember American Dunkleman. It's the proposed television comedy series starring former American Idol host Brian Dunkleman, was hailed as "hilarious" earlier this year when a trailer for the based-on-real-life laughfest hit the Internet. The series from our pals at Frozen Pictures got great attention from the likes of the Los Angeles Times and The National Enquirer, which had fun with the producers' tongue-in-cheek Facebook campaign.

Now the current issue of The Globe tabloid features American Dunkleman. The fact that the weekly tabloid with a finger on the pulse of Middle America chose to seek out and publish a story on the show is yet another indicator of American Dunkleman's mainstream appeal.

The story is another juicy tease with an A+ tabloid headline:

'IDOL' IDIOT PLOTS SITCOM SALVATION

FORMER American Idol host Brian Dunkleman is attempting a TV comeback by shopping around a sitcom about his life.

Called American Dunkleman, the series plays on Brian's real-life reputation of having made "the biggest mistake in the history of show business" when he walked away from his role as "Idol" co-host after the show's first season.

Since leaving FOX's talent fest, his career has nose-dived, while his co-host Ryan Seacrest went on to make a fortune as a radio DJ and TV producer.

The comedy series follows the fictional Dunkleman as he attempts to get back into the television business.

A source says: "His character embarrasses himself and disappoints his friends while constantly being reminded that he could have been a millionaire if he'd stuck with the show."

So what about the show?

"We're negotiating, we're pitching and we've got one especially hot prospect we hope will become a reality soon, says Frozen's Brett Hudson. "This series will introduce America to a Brian Dunkleman who was never revealed on reality television. He's a true comedy idol!"

"Multitalented, ever-clever, never going to be halftime at the Super Bowl": Chicago Tribune features The Seventh Python

2009-06-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

A week ago, we featured pictures from a Chicago Tribune photo shoot featuring music and comedy legend Neil Innes, star of The Seventh Python, the nonfiction musical feature film from our pals at Frozen Pictures. The session was part of a media blitz surrounding the historic Innes concert and film screening at the Wilmette Theatre on June 9th, and accompanied an interview with Innes by Tribune writer Marc Caro.

The feature runs in today's issue of the Trib (which has already called the film "magical, mysterious, whimsical, hysterical!"), a little late for the Wilmette show but just in time for The Seventh Python's pair of showings at the Relevation Perth International Film Festival July 4th and 10th:

Chicago Tribune
'Seventh Python' has been
making his mark
for more than four decades
But Neil Innes is far from a household name
By Mark Caro, Tribune reporter
June 21, 2009

Neil Innes was browsing the stacks at Vintage Vinyl in Evanston when the clerk brought over copies of several albums by Innes' anarchic '60s jazz/rock/comedy collective, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

The records were priced at $50 apiece, prompting the 64-year-old British singer/songwriter/pianist/guitarist to marvel, "Is that what they are? Hmm. Well, good luck."

He thought about autographing them, then reconsidered: "It would probably devalue it if I signed."

He inspected the back cover of "Gorilla," the Bonzos' 1967 debut album, on which was listed a song called "Death Cab for Cutie." "That came from an American crime magazine which I found in Deptford Street Market [in London]," Innes recalled. "It was this lurid cover; it said, 'Death Cab for Cutie.' "

Paul McCartney liked the song so much that he tapped the Bonzos to perform it in the Beatles' rambling TV movie "Magical Mystery Tour." A Seattle-area rock band subsequently took the song title as its own name and became so popular that the phrase's origins have become all but forgotten.

So it goes for the multitalented, ever-clever Innes, who has been making his mark for more than four decades without ever becoming a household name.

"I'm never going to be halftime at the Super Bowl," he dryly acknowledged.

The Bonzos had one British hit, Innes' jokey-folky "I'm the Urban Spaceman" (produced by McCartney under the name Apollo C. Vermouth), and appeared regularly on the madcap British TV series "Do Not Adjust Your Set," which featured future Monty Pythonites Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. But the band never exceeded cult status, particularly in the U.S.

Innes wound up providing musical contributions to "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975). He's the minstrel singing about Brave Sir Robin, and he's also a peasant who gets crushed by a gigantic wooden rabbit. His impact on the troupe was such that Terry Gilliam dubbed him "The Seventh Python," also the name of Burt Kearns' documentary that brought Innes to town earlier this month for a screening and performance at the Wilmette Theatre.

Post-Python, Innes and Idle created the Rutles, a Beatles parody group that debuted on the duo's British TV series "Rutland Weekend Television" before starring in their own 1978 NBC television special "All You Need Is Cash." It was the week's lowest-rated show among the major networks yet provided the "mockumentary" template for "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984) while sustaining a steady level of belovedness among Beatles and Python fans.

Innes eventually spun off a second Rutles album without Idle in 1996 ("Archaeology"), and a solo Idle cobbled together a rather lame Rutles follow-up film in 2005 (the straight-to-DVD "Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch"). When Innes performed a solo show in Los Angeles in 2003, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening was among those who showed up to pay their respects, and Kearns started work on "The Seventh Python."

Innes now has more paunch and less hair than when he played the John Lennon doppelganger Ron Nasty, but he's in anything but a retiring mood. His one-man show, which he performed at the Abbey Pub and again in part at the Wilmette, is called "A People's Guide to World Domination," a decades-spanning collection of his songs around which he wraps his theme "that the individual is being wiped out by the mass media." In typically cheeky fashion, the show climaxes with Innes leading a mock march in which he swears in the audience as "Ego Warriors," whose salute is the familiar thumb-to-the-nose gesture.

Innes is eager for 2010 to arrive because that's when his current publishing deal expires, and he's so miffed at its terms that he's waiting till then to release any new music.

"When we did the second Rutles album, I was naive enough to think if I paid a lawyer, that that lawyer would represent my best interests," he said, bursting into laughter. "No! How stupid could you get?

"I am off the hook on Jan. 1 of next year, so I will be actually doing more, being a bit more prolific. I'm just so fed up with being burgled. At the age of 65, I shall be free, so I should become a complete fame slut now."

By this point Innes was sitting outside with former Hudson Brother (and "Seventh Python" co-producer and co-writer) Brett Hudson at Argo Tea down the street from Vintage Vinyl. Neither of these two veterans was pining for the good ol' days or lamenting the demise of a record industry devoted to producing physical products.

"Quite frankly, I'm glad that part is gone," Innes said. "In many ways, what's the difference for people like me and Brett? They took all the money then."

The two of them laughed.

"I'm glad that the record business has changed and isn't what it was," Hudson said. "Because now we have a chance to make some money."

"It's gone full circle back to Woody Guthrie," Innes said.

"You're absolutely right," Hudson said.

"And, hello, we can get on street corners and say what's what," Innes said.

"You're right," Hudson said. "Woody Guthrie. We can come back. It's true."

Innes laughed. "This era is our era."

mcaro@tribune.com

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune

Exclusive! More video and photos from the big Neil Innes & The Seventh Python event at the Wilmette Theatre and beyond!

2009-06-13T14:33:00.001-07:00

A Chicago Tribune photo shoot at the legendary Vintage Vinyl record store (from the movie High Fidelity) in Evanston, Illinois:

Downtown Chicago, heading to the WLS studios to be interviewed, along with The Seventh Python producer Brett Hudson, on the Roe Conn radio show:

Showtime at the Wilmette Theatre:

Above center: The Seventh Python costars Rutling Ken Thornton & Vet Ken Simpson

Signing a poster for the publican at the after-party:

What a night! Neil Innes and The Seventh Python make comedy history at the Wilmette Theatre

2009-06-11T11:26:00.001-07:00

They laughed. They cheered. They sang along. They got free movie posters! And for four hours last night, the crowd that packed into the historic Wilmette Theatre in suburban Chicago were at the center of the rock, pop, comedy and movie universe as Neil Innes brought his live show to the Wilmette stage, along with a command screening of The Seventh Python, the movie about his life and work.

The Wilmette's Nili Yelin Wronski introduces MC and comedy legend Tim Kazurinsky

And what a show. A crowd mixed equally with Innes aficionados and curious movie buffs welcomed the Monty Python collaborator and roared with laughter as he recounted stories of his work in the rock music legends, brought his own legend up to date with biting, witty songs that took hits at mass media and corporate culture, and performed treats like "Run Away," a rare call-and-response outtake from Monty Python & The Holy Grail, and his new "Imitation Song," the "final" offering from his Rutles alter ego, Ron Nasty.

After the film and a brief intermission, Innes joined producer Brett Hudson, director Burt Kearns, and Monty Python historian Howard Johnson in a lively panel discussion with questions field from the audience by local comedy hero and Saturday Night Live veteran Tim Kazurinsky.

Neil Innes spent more than an hour after the show signing posters and memorabilia for a long line of fans

Exclusive! Neil Innes at soundcheck

The evening, organized by Wilmette Theatre publicity whiz Nili Yelin Wronski, certainly cemented The Mette's reputation as a cultural hotspot and a center of Chicago's movie and music scene.

Next stop for Innes is Thursday's launch of the Secret Policeman's Film Festival at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

The Seventh Python heads to the Revelation Perth International Film Festival in Perth Australia on July 4th and 10th.

(Tabloid Baby's Sam Peters, who arrived late to the show because of a "bad oyster" (!), adds: "The Wilmette Theatre is a splendid place, full of interesting artistic folks, with a top concession stand and ample parking! A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to owner and gracious host Sam Samuelson, comedy giant Tim Kazurinsky, projectionist Chad Byers, and ace publicist, organizer and go-to gal, Nili Yelin!")

"Magical! Mysterious! Whimsical! Hysterical!" The Chicago Tribune raves over The Seventh Python in advance of historic show at the Wilmette Theatre

2009-06-05T09:58:00.001-07:00

As legendary pop music satirist Neil Innes rolls across America in a concert tour that culminates Tuesday with a once-in-a-lifetime live performance alongside a screening of the acclaimed, award-winning film bio, The Seventh Python, at the historic Wilmette Theatre in suburban Chicago, the prestigious Chicago Tribune raves today about Neil and the Frozen Pictures movie:

Chicago Tribune
June 5, 2009

A glimpse of Neil Innes

It takes a special guy to warrant the attention of The Beatles. Not everyone can (or could) call members of the Fab Four close-and-personal friends and collaborators. Enter Neil Innes. Known as "The Seventh Python" due to his work with the legendary Monty Python comedy troupe, this musical satirist can call on Paul McCartney if he ever wants Macca to produce another single for him, or if he needs a guest member for his Beatles parody group, The Rutles. Innes' own magical and mysterious tour through life is the subject of a new film, "The Seventh Python." The only thing more whimsical and hysterical than his songs is Innes' real-life story. In addition to concert footage of Innes' live performances, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Terry Jones also make appearances on camera to talk about their mate. Enjoy a viewing of this pre-fab film, and then partake in a heart-to-heart with the film's director and Innes himself. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Wilmette Theatre, 1122 Central Ave., Wilmette. $25; 847-251-7424 or wilmettetheatre.com.

"A must for Python fans!" Excitement builds for Neil Innes and The Seventh Python at the Wilmette Theatre

2009-06-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

Excitement is building and tickets are reportedly selling at a rapid clip for the history-making Night of The Seventh Python at the historic Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago. For the first time, legendary musical satirist Neil Innes will perform live following a screening of The Seventh Python, the acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction musical film about his career, philosophy and influence, and the importance and significance of the event is being amplified by rave reviews and press throughout the Chicago area.

"When the film premiered at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre at the American Cinematheque's Mods & Rockers Film Festival, (festival curator) Martin Lewis had Neil there for a Q&A, and a special concert the following night. And while Neil's been on hand for other screenings, this is the first, and possibly only time the film will be followed by a concert by the real thing," said director Burt Kearns. "What makes it even more exciting is that this be the finale of Neil's US concert tour. This will be great!"

Great? The Chicago Sun-Times News Group agrees. Their wide-ranging suburban weeklies feature an interview and a three-star (we're assuming out of three) review of the film, to which we add exclamation points as we summarize:

"In this... genial documentary...much is made of the surprising un-famousness of Neil Innes, an unofficial member of Monty Python (perhaps best remembered as the teasing minstrel in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), with all of the surviving Pythons among those giving testimony regarding his remarkable talent!

"Its best service is providing the opportunity to appreciate Innes' musical career, beginning with the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and continuing with the Pythons (where a particularly brilliant side project was his score for the Beatles parody 'The Rutles'). Featuring live performances of charming tunes! There's also a nice recipe for Belgian Waffles in the credits!

"A must for Python fans!"

In the feature, The Seventh Python breaks his silence, Innes talks about the film and his illustrious carer under the radar. Here's a taste:

Q: What's your favorite moment in the film?

A: They (interview) someone on Hollywood Boulevard, who says, "You're making a documentary about a guy nobody's ever heard of." I'm rather unusual in show business as being a bit shy. If I could do all my work and not have to be made a fuss over, that would be nice.

Q: Are you writing new songs?

A: I've been working quietly at getting myself out of the mess I got myself into by not paying attention when I signed things. I'm happy to say that on Jan. 1, 2010, I get my publishing catalogue back. It frees me up to come out with the newer stuff I've been working on, because otherwise it was going to be swallowed up by white-collar multinational companies. So I will probably, at the unlikely age of 65, come out from behind my camouflage and say, "Hey, I'm ready for halftime at the Super Bowl!"

The Seventh Python screens Tuesday night June 9th at 7 pm the historic and hip Wilmette Theatre, 1122 Central Ave., in Wilmette, Illinois outside Chicago. The $25 ticket price includes a movie poster and details can be found at www.wilmettetheatre.com.

More to come...

"Engaging & revealing": Magazine features Neil Innes and The Seventh Python on the road to Tuesday's history-making event at the Wilmette Theatre

2009-06-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

With pop music legend Neil Innes receiving rave reviews on a United States concert tour that culminates in a much-anticipated appearance alongside the acclaimed, award-winning film The Seventh Python, the Bonzo, Rutle, Monty Python cohort, Ego Warrior and heretofore hidden treasure, talks about his reaction to the film and the subsequent showers of appreciation in a magazine interview that's just hit the stands.

Innes shares the stage with the Frozen Pictures Innes biopic at the historic Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago on Tuesday June 9th. And as he continues his concert tour, fans, and folks who are about to discover him, can read an excellent interview by writer Jack Elbel in the new issue (#64) of The Big Takeover, the very hip and forward-looking Brooklyn-based music magazine.

A brief excerpt from the article in the magazine you must hold in your hands:

JE: The Seventh Python must stoke your ego and provoke your contempt for fame simultaneously. Will you have difficulty maintaining your power of invisibility with a film about yourself in circulation?

NEIL: Well, it’s not really up there with The Dark Knight, is it? [laughs] I quite like that they went around with a photograph of me and nobody recognized me. One woman in Windsor said, “It’s not that Russian that got poisoned, is it?” - clinging to the idea of "it's got to be somebody who's been on the news."

JE: I particularly enjoyed the testimonials in The Seventh Python from your Python mates, during which they celebrated your vices. John Cleese described your deadly cigarettes, which were apparently "so strong, they were like something the police would throw at you during a riot."

NEIL: Cleese would arrive like an ocean-going schooner and demand, "Give me one of your cigarettes." He never really bought any of his own [laughs], but he was rather tempted by my incredibly strong cigarettes - which I only used to smoke half of. It was very wasteful. They were killer cigarettes, but I certainly didn't smoke them all the time, and I never smoked them all the way down.

"The Seventh Python is an engaging and revealing look
at the 'accidental career' of beloved musical satirist
and creative powerhouse Neil Innes,
a predominantly unsung figure despite
over four decades in the public eye and ear."
– Jeff Elbel, The Big Takeover

JE: You can see the writer's mind in his anecdotes. John's insistence that you had developed an admirable approximation of a British accent despite the "fact" that you're Belgian was very funny, too.

NEIL: John will take something absolutely incredible, and look it in the camera until it backs off. "He is from Bruges." [laughs]

JE: Michael Palin seemed to relish the story about how you would harangue the night porter for drinks after hours.

NEIL: It's funny to see Michael's interpretation. The way he says it, it makes it sound like I'm a complete alcoholic desperate for a drink!

The thing is, being on the road with a group, you would come back late [after the show]. After you've been on stage, you're pretty up [from adrenalin], and you can use something to quiet yourself down. Most hotels in the UK would be closed up. Usually, there's a night porter who's got a cupboard with a few miniatures in it. You could get a couple of shots of whiskey or something as a nightcap.

I got used to the fact that they would say, "No, it's too late." If I went, "Now look, there's a night porter's cupboard. What have you got in there?" ... if you insisted, politely and nicely as well, they'd normally get it out. That's all it was; I wasn't driving motorbikes around the corridors, demanding booze.

Neil Innes in The Seventh Python

JE: What do you make of a statement like the one Eric Idle made, suggesting that you should have paraded your talent around the states more often, and that you owed it to people?

NEIL: That is a more conventional showbiz approach. I want it all, though. I want all the toys and all the friends, and all the anonymity. I'm a greedy bastard, and I want even more than most people.

JE: Less is more.

NEIL: More or less, less is more!

JE: Did you learn anything about yourself through the film?

NEIL: I already knew how prickly I can be sometimes. I thought Michael was very good about saying, "Well, he knows what he wants." That was the thing about working with Python; everybody has an opinion, and you don't get anywhere from just nodding and being polite. But eventually the best solution comes forward. It's up to everybody else not to have any grudges and go along with the majority...

Jeff Elbel & Neil Innes take the Ego Warrior oath

JE: The Seventh Python underscores what you’ve always said about degrees of celebrity before - that it's easier being a Rutle than a Beatle.

NEIL: Fame and money have become the twin pillars of modern-day culture. I like to go off into fantasies about it. I love the idea of a D-list celebrity, which is someone who’s been hit on the head by Tiger Woods’ golf ball...

JE: George Harrison had a reputation as an insightful person. With distance from the most extreme years of Beatlemania, did he become more comfortable with his status?

NEIL: No, he was always [wary of fame]. To his credit, he wasn’t fooled by show business. He once said in an interview; “It’s all very well, wanting fame and fortune, and good luck to you if you find it. But you still have to find yourself.” Money can’t buy anyone love, you know.

Great stuff! And this brief selection only hints at the insight on both sides of the conversation.

The Neil Innes interview appears in The Big Takeover's issue #64. If you can't find it, you can order it by clicking here.

Neil Innes live with The Seventh Python: On June 9th, the Wilmette Theatre in Wilmette, Illinois will be the center of the comedy universe

2009-05-29T13:44:00.001-07:00

Neil Innes has landed in America and will launch his pre-summer concert tour tomorrow night in New Jersey. The Seventh Python's one-man, multimedia jaunt into the Heartland all leads up to a slambang finale at the historic, hip Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago, where the musical satirist and very funny genius will take questions, talk and perform around a screening of The Seventh Python, the acclaimed, award-winning Innesmovie produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures.

The Wilmette Theatre, as these photos show, is gearing up for an all-star comedy audience on Tuesday, June 9th. The Q&A following the screening will include director Burt Kearns, producer Brett Hudson, Monty Python historian Kim Howard Johnson and, as moderator, comedy legend (SNL, Police Academy, Curb Your Enthusiasm) and local hero Tim Kazurinsky.

Tuesday, June 9th, 7 pm.

(Later that week, Neil lands in Hollywood, where he'll be appearing live Thursday, June 11th and Friday, June 12th at Martin Lewis' Secret Policeman's Film Festival at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre.)

Watch this space...

THESEVENTHPYTHONMANIA! Neil Innes invades America! Kicks off concert tour! Appears with film in Illinois! At Secret Policeman's Ballfest in Hollywood!

2009-05-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Musical treasure and legendary satirist Neil Innes lands in America tomorrow to kick off a pre-summer tour that will be capped off with live appearances alongside some very special films: in Wilmette, Illinois for a command performance of The Seventh Python, the nonfiction musical comedy about his life and work from our pals at Frozen Pictures, and alongside Martin Lewis as the Mods & Rockers film program kicks off a monumental bicoastal festival dedicated to the The Secret Policeman's Ball concert film series.

"Off to USA tomorow," Innes twittered hours ago. He'll be landing in New York and opening his acclaimed one-man multimedia concert tour in New Jersey, before touching down June 9th at the historic Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago, where he'll perform live before an audience that includes Chicago's comedy elite after a showing of The Seventh Python.

Two days later, he'll be onstage at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard (where The Seventh Python had its world premiere last summer), with impresario and producer Martin Lewis to launch the film festival that will be showing the entire series of Amnesty International benefit concert films that began 30 years ago (the shows started out as comedy galas featuring popular British comedic performers and later expanded to include top rock stars, inspiring musicians like Bob Geldof, Bono, Sting and Peter Gabriel and events like Live Aid and Live 8):

Thursday June 11, 2009 - 9:30 pm
The Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood

Opening Night Extravaganza!
Three World Premieres in one night!
Series star Neil Innes and series co-creator/co-producer Martin Lewis in-person

REMEMBER THE SECRET POLICEMAN'S BALL? (2004, 75 min)
THE SECRET POLICEMAN ROCKS! (2009, 60 min)
THE SECRET POLICEMAN'S RARE NUGGETS! (2009, 15 min)
The Opening Night of the festival features no less than three premieres and an in-person appearance by Neil Innes (Monty Python and The Rutles) to share his memories of appearing in three of the first four Amnesty shows. There will be the World Theatrical Premiere of a superb documentary about the “Secret Policeman’s Ball” series – crammed full of vintage clips and contemporary recollections by the stars. This will be followed by the World Premiere of a new special celebrating 30 years of rock performances for Amnesty. And finally the World Premiere of some wacky outtakes and rarities from the Secret Policeman’s vaults. Given the wealth of Monty Python fans and Amnesty supporters in the entertainment community – the opening night audience is likely to be rather star-studded…

Friday June 12, 2009 - 7:30 pm
The Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood

Double-bill of the first two shows before they had the "Ball" title
Two US Premieres!
Series star Neil Innes and co-creator/co-producer Martin Lewis in-person

PLEASURE AT HER MAJESTY'S (1976, 101 min)
THE MERMAID FROLICS (1977, 52 min)
THE SECRET POLICEMAN'S RARE NUGGETS! (2009, 15 min)
The “Secret Policeman’s Ball” title was first used for the 1979 Amnesty show – but the seeds of the series were planted in 1976 and 1977 with these two pioneering shows organized by John Cleese. These shows subsequently became regarded as part of the “Secret Policeman’s” canon. “Pleasure At Her Majesty’s” is the film of the 1976 show “A Poke In The Eye (With A Sharp Stick)” which was to British comedy what George Harrison’s 1971 “Concert For Bangladesh” was to rock music. A gathering of the British comedic tribes. Never before screened uncut in the US. Includes the only-known documentary footage of the Monty Python troupe rehearsing. “The Mermaid Frolics” stage-directed by Monty Python’s Terry Jones has never been seen in the US in any form. Never on TV, VHS or DVD. This double-bill of rarities is a delight for fans of Monty Python, Beyond The Fringe and British comedy. Followed by a quickie nightcap of outtake treasures from the vaults. Expect to see familiar faces among the many aficionados of British comedy in the audience…

Here's the Innes itinerary:

Neil Innes US Tour

Saturday 5/30/09
The Record Collector
358 Farnsworth Ave
Bordentown, NJ 08505
609-324-0880
(website)

Sunday 5/31/09
Rams Head Tavern Annapolis
33 West Street
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 268-4545
(website)

Tuesday 6/2/09 8:00 PM
B.B. King's Blues Club and Grill
237 W. 42nd St., New York, NY 10036
(website)

Wednesday, 6/3/09
Sellersville Theater 1894
24 W. Temple Ave.
Sellersville, PA
215-257-5808
(website)

Thursday 6/4/09
The Bop Shop Atrium
(formerly Bodhi's Cafe)
274 N. Goodman
Rochester, NY 14607
(585) 271-3354
(website)

Friday 6/5/09
The Winchester
12112 Madison Avenue
Lakewood/Cleveland OH 44107
(216) 226-5681
(website)

Saturday 6/6/09 7:00 PM
The Abbey
342 W. Grace
Chicago, IL 60618
(website)

Sun 6/7/09 8:00 PM
Magic Bag
22920 Woodward Avenue
Ferndale, MI 48220
(website)

Tues 6/9/09
Screening of Seventh Python
Mini-concert & Q&A with Neil
The Wilmette Theatre
1122 Central Ave.
Wilmette, IL 60091
(847) 251-7424
(website)

Thurs 6/11 9:30
Friday 6/12 7:30
Secret Policeman's Ball Film Festival
Grauman's Egyptian Theatre
6712 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028
(website)

The festival is also showing in NYC. Click here for more information.

And watch this space for the latest!

John Altman's Big Band swings into LA!

2009-05-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

John Altman, the Emmy-winning composer, conductor, arranger, musician and "The George Martin of The Rutles" electrified a packed ballroom at the Four Points Sheraton at LAX this afternoon as he led a swinging, brassy big band through original and classic compositions to launch the Los Angeles Jazz Institute's 2009 Big Band Festival.

The John Altman Big Band, featuring Altman's saxophone and a shiny brass section opened the four-day fest, which in a nod to Frank Sinatra, is dubbed A Swingin' Affair.

Altman flew into Los Angeles from London last week in time to be special guest as The Seventh Python opened the Pacific Palisades Film Festival. Altman appears in Frozen Pictures' film about Neil Innes, is in fact the star musician in the band that backs Innes in much of the concert footage and joins Innes in one of the biggest laugh-inducing gags of the film.

Neil Innes & John Altman in The Seventh Python

Video: Brett Hudson on the TV show Extra, talking about Farrah Fawcett, cancer, alternative answers and The Klinik movie

2009-05-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

EXTRA! BRETT HUDSON ON WEDNESDAY'S EXTRA; TO TALK ABOUT FARRAH'S CANCER FIGHT AND CARRY IT ON WITH THE KLINIK

2009-05-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

Tabloid Baby pal Brett Hudson of Frozen Pictures will be featured on the syndicated infotainment show Extra on Wednesday to talk about his experience at alternative cancer treatment clinics in Germany, and to talk about his new nonfiction film project, The Klinik, which will reveal the story Farrah Fawcett wanted to tell in her ill-fated documentary that was turned into an exploitative imitation tabloid special produced by NBC News with all its GE conflicts of interest.

Hudson, former Seventies pop icon and producer of the current award-winning, acclaimed nonfiction musical film, The Seventh Python, beat throat cancer and through his blog on The Klinik website has become a leader in the alternative movement.

The Seventh Python strikes again! Film about Neil Innes delivers a crowd-pleasing, laugh-filled opening to the Pacific Palisades Film Festival

2009-05-15T16:38:00.001-07:00

The Seventh Python, the nonfiction musical comedy picture about Monty Python cohort, Rutles mastermind and Bonzo Dog Neil Innes opened the Pacific Palisades Film Festival in Pacific Palisades, California last night, once again leaving audiences wiping their eyes, cheering and thanking producers for introducing them to the everyman musical genius philosopher and joker.

Director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson with comedy acting star Stuart Pankin

This being Pacific Palisades, home to stars and movie industry heavyweights including Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Ben Affleck, Kate Hudson and Steve Guttenberg, the screening at the Pierson Playhouse just off Sunset Boulevard was not only filled to capacity ,but filled with celebrities; among them actors Stuart Pankin and Vernon Wells, Bloodline producer René Barnett, filmmaker Roger Nygard (whose latest documentary, The Nature of Existence, screens at the festival tonight), roller derby announcer Danny Wolf, Sam Peters, Hollywood private eye Danno Hanks and Seventh star John Altman, the film composer, conductor and "George Martin of The Rutles."

Bob Sharka introduces the Pacific Palisades Film Festival & The Seventh Python

Festival director Bob Sharka showed off his comedic skills as he introduced the film and later called out director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson. Sharka, founder of the Palisades Friends of Film group which sponsors the festival, spoke later of plans to raise awareness and support to expand the Friends of Film program through the year.

Kearns & Hudson at the Friends of Film party

After the screening, the group headed off to a Friends of Film party at a private home, where Kearns and Hudson received huzzahs from likes of Robert Loggia, Seymour Cassel and Stacy Keach, who was honored with a lifetime achievement award.

The view from the projection booth-- Chris Carter of Breakfast with The Beatles
interviews Neil Innes in a scene from The Seventh Python

Next stop for The Seventh Python: The Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago on June 9th, for a special comedy event that includes a screening and live performance by Neil Innes himself.

The Seventh Python opens The Pacific Palisades Film Festival next Thursday, May 14th!

2009-05-08T13:31:00.000-07:00

The excitement is building for the screening of the award-winning The Seventh Python at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival next Thursday night, May 14th. The nonfiction comedic musical biopic of legendary satirist Neil Innes was hailed last week by the local Palisadian-Post as "riotously entertaining."

This week, the paper focuses on the film's producers, our pals at Frozen Pictures. Some highlights from Michael Aushenker's article:

Monty Python's Innes Doc Opens Film Fest

Call Neil Innes the missing link of the legendary six-man British comedy troupe Monty Python. Or perhaps Shemp to their Three Stooges. You'll also call him funny, outrageous, even musically inclined. The enigmatic Innes is the subject of a documentary, 'The Seventh Python,' which opens the Sixth Annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival on May 14.

'Neil's a great songwriter, a great comedian, and a great philosopher,' says 'Seventh''s director/co-producer, Burt Kearns. 'And all this while rejecting the star-making machinery, which is quite relevant today.'

With the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band in 1968, Innes recorded 'I'm The Urban Spaceman,' the group's only hit, which was produced by Paul McCartney.

'Neil appeared in The Beatles film 'Magical Mystery Tour,'' Kearns continues. 'He appeared in the last season of Monty Python's 'Flying Circus.' They did a parody of the Beatles called The Rutles. It was brought to 'Saturday Night Live' by Eric Idle in the late 1970s. The Rutles took on a life of its own.' Indeed, when 'Spamalot' arrives in L.A. in July, the Python musical will contain Innes' ditties ('Brave Sir Robin').

'Our film is a crowd-pleaser, with lots of laughs and songs,' Kearns says.

'How it came together, that's a movie unto itself,' says 'Seventh' producer Brett Hudson.

Kearns has lived in Pacific Palisades since 2000... and the documentary has other local ties. Supervising producer Alison Holloway lives here (conveniently, Kearns' wife) and associate producer Joachim 'J.B.' Blunck, an Emmy-winning producer/director and former Palisadian, now resides in Malibu, where producer/musician Hudson (one of the original Hudson Brothers and an uncle of actress Kate Hudson) also lives. And, Kearns notes, 'My son Sam is a production assistant on the film.'

...Kearns met Hudson in the late '90s while working on Miramax's 'The Best Money Can Buy'...

Kearns and Hudson formed Frozen Pictures, producing documentary-style programming, including 'All the President's Movies' for Bravo, Showtime's 'My First Time,' and 'Adults Only: The Secret History of the Other Hollywood,' which, after Court TV tried to bury it with a Sunday-night airing, pulled in the highest ratings for original programming in the channel's history.

'What Burt and I like to do,' Hudson says, 'is not give our point of view. We lay the truth out and let viewers decide.'

In 2006, Frozen released the Burt Reynolds comedy 'Cloud Nine.'

Kearns got the idea for 'Seventh Python' while working on a doc called 'Death of a Beatle.'

'I went to London and traced John Lennon's life,' he says. 'The person I wanted to interview was the guy who played John Lennon in The Rutles.'

'As a musician, I listen to his melodies, his harmonics,' Hudson says. 'He's very clever. The guy had fame in front of him on a silver platter and he rejected it. Given my background, I find that unique.'

Kearns credits associate Bonnie Rose for playing a key role: 'Bonnie had brought him to Hollywood in 2002. We thought he'd be a good documentary subject.

'I don't like what tabloid television gave birth to, this whole culture of stalking celebrities. The film with Neil is an antidote to that, the way he could influence culture and not be a part of it.'

...'It's not archival-looking black-and-white footage,' Kearns says. 'You're seeing the Pythons today.'

Last summer, 'Seventh Python' debuted at American Cinematheque's Mods and Rockers festival, and has since screened in Chicago, New Jersey, and at the Las Vegas Film Festival, where it won a Golden Ace Award.

Up next for Frozen: documentaries on Latin rocker Chris Montez, and on John Lennon's seven-month 'lost weekend' (in Los Angeles) with mistress May Pang. Last year, Hudson conquered throat cancer, and this inspired 'The Klinik,' about his journey to Germany to get cured. This is also in development, as is the pair's scripted comedy, 'Live From The Gaza Strip.'

For now, all eyes are on 'Seventh''s Palisades premiere.

'This is literally a homecoming,' Kearns says. 'To be invited to the festival is in itself a great honor. And then to be opening it!'

'The Seventh Python' screens with Jennifer Clary's short, 'The Christmas Conspiracy,' at 7 p.m., Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd.

Tickets: www.FriendsOfFilm.com.

The producers of The Seventh Python have dedicated the evening to the late Dom DeLuise.

Every ticketholder gets a free The Seventh Python poster!

Dom DeLuise

2009-05-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Dom DeLuise was not only a great comic actor and personality, he was a pal and neighbor. Dom was sought to do a cameo in Cloud 9, the Burt Reynolds comedy produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures (written and produced by Golden Ace Award winners Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns along with their pal, Academy Award winner (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) Albert S. Ruddy, but previous commitments kept it from happening.

Dom & Burt with Bob Sharka of The Pacific Palisades Film Festival

Said Kearns this morning: "Our movie The Seventh Python opens the Pacific Palisades Film Festival on Thursday, May 14th. We'll be dedicating the evening to our pal, Dom DeLuise." Hudson added: "Dom was a big man in more ways than one."

Tabloid Baby: "Shadows Still Remain "is a tour de force... among the great works of American literature"

2009-04-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

From TabloidBaby.com:

We spent the weekend reading Shadows Still Remain, a new mystery thriller about a bright and beautiful NYU student who goes missing and turns up dead on the Lower East Side, and the tough rebel female detective who gets the case and spends the rest of the book trying to hang onto it.

The book’s been out less than a week in the States and already it’s got fan pages and readers asking about a sequel— and with good reason. Shadows Still Remain is the best mystery of the year so far.

We know the author. Peter de Jonge got his sheepskin from Princeton, cut his teeth on small town newspapers, polished his craft writing magazine features and made his bones co-authoring three books with James Patterson (the most successful of which contained a character named Burt Kearns, but we’ll get to that another time).

Shadows Still Remain is de Jonge's first solo and he wrings every last bloody note out of it. Through economy, empathy, detail, wit and a dark, resigned view of humanity’s potential for depravity, he brings the world and its characters to life and keeps the reader hooked as expertly as Richard Price, who covers similar territory in his latest book that’s out now in paperback.

With hard-rocking, hard-drinking hard luck girl detective Darlene O’Hara, de Jonge has created his Harry Bosch, a literary character of great unplumbed depths who’s sure to be welcomed in periodic returns over the next couple of decades.

We’re not going to give away too much. You buy a copy and try to find the time to rip through it as quickly as we did. The title Shadows Still Remain is taken from a phrase from a line in a Guns N’ Roses song highlighted by Slash’s tour de force guitar solo.

Peter de Jonge’s first solo is a tour de force of his own, a novel that transcends the mystery and police procedural genres to take its place among the great works of American literature.

Celeb-seeking Brit Jules Segal makes headway in quest to meet 500 stars; does public service by letting us know that Jesse Draper is a female

2009-04-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

We told you about Jules Segal, the Brit who's in America on a mission to meet 500 celebrities and get them to sign his British flag as part of his US-Say charity project. In our role as instigator and adviser to our fellow journos-- meaning we point you to good stories to feature-- we gave you all the information you needed to get a bang-up great story about a guy who's given himself three months to complete the project (including a book about the "special relationship" between the US and UK), which he's financing by placing bets on his progress with a Brit bookmakers.

Jules has been in Hollywood the past few weeks. He reported yesterday on meeting Brett Easton Ellis and bring us up to date on the quest to meet celebs who were selected through a UK Facebook poll. OJ Simpson was at the top of the list. Fats Domino was 500th. (There are merely 499 people more famous than Fats Domino?)

"Replies are starting to trickle in," he tells us. "But it's somewhat demoralising to learn that the likes of Steve Wynn and Alex Trebek are too busy to meet me even for thirty seconds.

"But at least they got back to me, so that was nice of them."

Notice Jules isn't stalking anyone. With that proper British upbringing, he's asking-- and asking nicely, sending letters, going through channels-- in other words making the task even harder for himself. But he's made some headway.

"Children's TV presenter Jesse Draper met me at Urth Caffe in West Hollywood, although I forgot to bring the all-important flag for the 'flag signing ceremony.'

"The flag wass signed by racing drivers Al Unser Jr. and Bobby Rahal down in Long Beach the other day. I got lost in East Compton on the drive back."

"Meanwhile, Tiger Woods' old coach and all-round golfing guru Butch Harmon promised to meet me in Vegas in a few weeks time, whilst Liza Minnelli had indicated that she will sign the flag when-- or if-- I make it to New York. Bruce Campbell says he'll grant me the few seconds I need if I makes it to Miami and Dennis Rodman and Carl Lewis may also be meeting me in the next week or two over on this coast.

"So a bit of ink at the very least will make it onto the flag.

"I've even received a message from the 'Scheduling Department' of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He suggested that they may be able to shoehorn a brief meeting into Arnie's hectic schedule. I'll believe that one when I see it!"

Do you know any of the 500 from Jules' list (which you can see here)? All they need do to make history and get some good publicity is take 30 seconds to meet the young pommy and and scribble on his flag.

He comes recommended.

As for our media and journo pals: This is a good story. You oughta cover it.

Rock'n'Reel mag features The Seventh Python

2009-04-15T17:32:00.001-07:00

“The news is 24/7. When we were young, television had the decency to close down. And peace returned to the planet. There’s no peace now; this is why I battle on about it, it’s time for individuals to come out of the woodwork and say – like the Network movie – ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take any more!’ I feel like that. A lot of people feel like that. But then is it all I can do, make jokes about it?”

The Seventh Python is getting international magazine exposure along with the current buzz over its Golden Ace Award from the Las Vegas Film Festival, its choice as the Opening Selection of The Pacific Palisades Film Festival (May 14) and its special June 9th presentation (complete with Neil Innes concert) at the Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago.

The March-April issue of the UK's Rock'n'Reel magazine features The Seventh Python subject and star Neil Innes in article entitled 'Songs in the key of laughter.' It's a snapshot of the self-deprecating genius on the road and the succinct writing by Boff Whalley (lead guitarist for Chumbawamba!) manages to encapsulate Innes' career, worldview, philosophy and wit in a way that should only whet the public's appetite for the nonfiction film about him.

And of course, the article features Neil speaking about the movie:

"The Seventh Python. Its quite sweet-- but it's difficult for me to judge! And have sort of 'dodged it' for most of my life so to be labelled The Seventh Python-- what can you do? There's a lovely moment on it -- the film makers came over to ask people in Windsor, they got photographs of me and they said to people on the street, 'Do you know this man?' and nobody knew. One woman said, 'It's not that Russian who was poisoned, was it?' It's fabulous. They did it on Hollywood Boulevard, too, asking people the same question, 'Do you know this man?' And there's this lovely moment where this guy turns round and says, 'You're making a documentary about a guy nobody's heard of?' Yes! Let's have more documentaries about people nobody's heard of, because everyone's got a story to tell..."

Rock'n'Reel is a hip and handsome British publication, focusing on an eclectic music mix ("Roots, Rock, Blues and Beyond... since 1988"-- the current issue covers everyone from Grease Band/Wings' Henry McCullough to Gomez, and like all the great British music mags, comes with a free CD). It's got distribution in the United States (mainly through Barnes & Nobles and Borders bookstores). Look for it!

Exclusive! The Seventh Python is chosen to open The Pacific Palisades Film Festival on May 14th

2009-04-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Seventh Python has been chosen as the Opening Selection of the prestigious sixth annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival.

The acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction musical film about genius pop satirist Neil Innes will be presented at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 14th at Theatre Palisades at 941 Temescal Canyon Road off Sunset Boulevard.

Tickets are $10.

The announcement of the latest accolade for the film produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures comes a few short days after The Seventh Python picked up a Golden Ace Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival.

"It's enough of an honor to be accepted at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival. To be named Opening Selection is a real treat," says Seventh director Burt Kearns. "We've been around the country and are heading around the world. This hometown screening is bound to be a highlight."

"You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll sing along," promises producer Brett Hudson. "We'll definitely get the festival off to a rollicking start!"

The Pacific Palisades Film Festival in the star-studded, industry-heavyweight hometown at the end of Sunset Boulevard is sponsored by the Friends of Film organization, which will award actor Stacy Keach its Lifetime Achievement Award at a VIP party after the screening of The Seventh Python.

The Seventh Python has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "charming and illuminating," and "serious yet comical... a must-see" by Associated Content.

The film was produced by Brett Hudson. It includes appearances and performances by the likes of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Aimee Mann and Matt Groening. It is brightened further by animation from Bonnie Rose, who beat George Lucas to win The Colbert Report Green Screen Challenge.

Along with director Kearns, more than a few members of The Seventh Python production team, are current or past Pacific Palisades residents. So are Steven Spielberg (current) and Jerry Lewis (past).

Find ticket information at the Friends of Film website.

The Seventh Python wins Vegas Golden Ace Award

2009-04-13T03:01:00.000-07:00

At a ceremony that included the raffle of breast augmentation surgery (won by a Tina Fey lookalike) and featured hundreds of independent filmmakers vying for attention, Frozen Pictures' Neil Innes biopic The Seventh Python was awarded the Golden Ace Award for documentary filmmaking at the second annual Las Vegas Film Festival.

Frozen Pictures partners Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns bounded onstage to accept the award just hours ago at the Sunday night ceremony at the Eastside Cannery Hotel and Casino. "Thank you to the Las Vegas Film Festival. The very idea of the Golden Ace Award is a tremendous way to support and recognize independent filmmakers everywhere," said director Kearns, who was, for some reason, wearing a Barry Manilow t-shirt. "This film is about a man named Neil Innes, who is a brilliant songwriter and satirist. We hope distributors especially are curious to see it, and we'll see you next month at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival in Los Angeles."

This just in: Seen in deep conversation with Hudson and Kearns earlier in the day and sharing the Frozen Pictures awards ceremony table with Kearns' wife (and Seventh Python supervising producer) Alison Holloway was Las Vegas-based film and television producer and music impresario Jerry Peluso. Peluso, who was a producer on Frozen's 2006 documentary feature Basketball Man, told our Sam Peters that he and the Frozen team have agreed to collaborate on an as-yet-unnamed music-related film project that he wants to see completed in time for release on 09.09.09.

Watch this space as details develop.

photos by Sally Jade Holloway Kearns

Tickets on sale for The Seventh Python extravaganza at The Wilmette Theatre

2009-04-08T15:12:00.001-07:00

Tickets are now on sale for the special June 9th evening of The Seventh Python at The Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago.

The evening at the historic theatre and performance center just north of Chicago will feature a screening of the acclaimed, award-winning film, a discussion with the director and producer, and a special live performance by the film's subject and star, Neil Innes. It's expected to feature many shining stars of the Second City's comedy elite.

"This just might be the most exciting event on The Seventh Python preview tour," says director Burt Kearns, who along with producer Brett Hudson is heading to the Las Vegas International Film Festival this weekend to pick up The Seventh Python's Golden Ace Award "for superior and standout filmmaking." "Chicago is a hub of great comedy and some of the greatest names in the field will be there."

"This will be our third Chicago screening," Hudson says. "The interest in Neil Innes and all things Monty Python shows this isn't just a film for hipsters on the two coasts. The support for this film is coming straight from the Heartland! Our success in the Midwest, combined with the cheering audiences at all our screenings, prove that The Seventh Python is real crowd-pleasing, mainstream entertainment!"

Indeed, Innes' appearance comes amid a US concert tour that includes appearances in New York City, Annapolis, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.

The Seventh Python, a production of Frozen Pictures, is coming off wildly-appreciated showings at the NY Metro Fest for Beatles Fans, also attended by the star. The film will also be screening in May at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival in Los Angeles.

More details to follow.

Brett Hudson's Beatles Fest cancer remarks spark international response, makings of a movement

2009-04-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

Brett Hudson's surprise, emotional discourse on his fight against cancer last weekend at the NY Metro Fest for Beatles Fans continues to resonate throughout the world, as hundreds of victims, relatives, professionals and fans have contacted him and his related businesses, offering to help his cause.

The popstar-turned-producer was at The Beatles Fest to perform and meet fan in his role as a former member of The Hudson Brothers, as well as to present The Seventh Python, the Neil Innes biopic he produced with his Frozen Pictures. It was during a Q&A on the making of the film that he announced Frozen's next project is The Klinik, a film that uses his own battle against throat cancer-- and his treatment at alternative treatment centers in Germany-- as a starting point for revealing alternative and experimental treatments and therapies, and exposing the American medical system that denies patients such protocols.

Hudson's remarks-- and his announcement that he's starting a foundation to give others access to the choices-- sent an electric jolt-- and a bracing shot of reality-- through the fan convention, that drew thousands to celebrate the music and legacy of The Beatles. As word spread through the Crowne Plaza Hotel and beyond, it's generated offers of donations and thousands of hits on The Klinik website, where "Brett's Blog" (currently down for maintenance) has already been a major gathering point.

"It was great to see you in Jersey! I'm so happy to see you filled with energy and enthusiasm. It was also great to hear you talk about your fight against throat cancer and how you have become a survivor. People have to be aware of their options, not just the ones offered by their American doctors. If you decide to document your crusade against cancer and would like any assistance with videotaping or video editing, do not hesitate to contact me..."

"you are truly an amazing man........ BLESS YOU"

The sole negative reaction was recorded hours after Hudson's lecture, by an attendee who wrote on The Examiner website:

"...Hudson spent a goodly amount of his Sunday forum session... sharing his stories of cancer survival and his battles with the U.S. healthcare system. Without sounding unsympathetic to his personal plight, it was an inappropriate diversion from the festivities to say the very least."

Occasional Tabloid Baby contributor Sam Peters, who attended the forum session and sent us the earliest, excited reports about the positive response, reacted this morning:

"The guy what wrote that? I heard Neil Innes sing his theme song when they showed The Seventh Python: How Sweet To Be An Idiot!" Peters told us when roused this morning. "Here's a little tip to that schnook. Don't write about things you're not smart enough to comprehend. I was there and Hudson's talk was a lot more appropriate than playing Cars songs on the ukulele-- no offense to the great musician Gregg Hawkes who did so. Cancer has killed as many Beatles as crazed gunmen. George Harrison died of the same cancer that Hudson's beat. Paul McCartney would never have got tied up with that one-legged ex-hooker if his beloved Linda hadn't died of cancer. Ringo's ex died of leukemia.

"You think that was inappropriate? Hudson made the Beatles Fest relevant to today. The guy that wrote that? I know where his head is. And he should get a little help from his friends to pull it out!"

Whew. Then there were the notes of support:

"I can honestly say that I would not be here today had I not had the escape that was The Hudson Brothers...My daughter is healthy and happy...I am physically healthy and have insurance that is so far cooperating with helping me stay emotionally healthy. I am not only inspired by your strength and fortitude, but I am inspired by the countless Americans who have to endure the sub-par medical care we have in our country. You are right, politicians and government cannot fix this FUBAR system... we have to do it... I will join any group, write to any congressman and do whatever I can in my power to make sure everyone and their brother sees the klinik movie so change can start to happen. When your movie is complete and people start to see it there will be a revolution. Bravo! If I can help in getting even one more person to see it then might not have, then I will be on my way to paying my debt to you..."

"I hope all is well with you, and that you are on your way to feeling more energetic and healthy. Your blogs happen to be in perfect timing with what I am teaching in Pharmacology. I just finished discussing the fentanyl 'transmucosal' narcotics (lollipops!). I hope you don't mind, but I showed the students the photo of your neck, and the images of you in the mask. I heard a couple of audible gasps when I showed the photos..."

"YOU AMAZE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow, Brett, I can hardly believe that you were at the NY Beatles Fest. Wow! You are a 'soldier/trooper' for sure! I viewed many of the pics, videos, your blog, the Tabloid Baby write-up that you had, and was so proud of you for speaking up for what you believe in!! So good to see your SMILING FACE. Brother, I don't know how you have done it and continue to do it! You are ONE SPECIAL PERSON!"

"There seem to be so many people that have no integrity, have no conscience, have no heart and will lie as they are looking right at you. Then you meet people or others you know do something so good and sometimes so unexpected that it somehow makes it all okay. Those moments bring tears of gratitude to my eyes..."

Reached this morning, Hudson confirms that he's been "overwhelmed" by responses on various platforms including Facebook, MySpace, websites, email and telephone.

"All the personal praise is very flattering-- but this is not about me," he again insisted. "This is about saving lives and giving people who need financial help the same opportunity I had. Giving them the opportunity to go where they they will get the best treatment for their illness. I'll get the word out when the time's right to support this cause-- if not by donation but in their hearts.

"Most important: speak out! It's also important to simply spread the word!"

Exclusive: British guy comes to America to write book on US-UK relations-- and to meet 500 celebs

2009-04-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

We don't subscribe to the idea that British people all have bad teeth. We understand that the island nation discovered fluoride sometime in the Seventies, just as they managed to spin out a chef or two and learn to cook in the past fifteen years. We do hold the belief that all British men have had at least one gay experience, and that even the most lady-killing British male is overcompensating for a buggering in his schooldays-- a prejudice enforced over the weekend when we cracked open Victor Spinetti's book and later on the Virgin America flight home read an Esquire UK article about some hot tart named Rosamund Pike who claimed her hottest romance was with a guy who turned out to be gay and that they and his new boyfriend now go on threesome vacations together, not that there's anything wrong with any of that but which simply isn't so taken for granted in America.

Which leads us to Jules Segal, a young British guy who's arrived in the States to research a new book and embark on a stunt crusade to get 500 US celebrities "to sign a British flag with messages of support for the British people" (the flag will be auctioned for a kids' charity).

Jules pulled off a similar stunt in the UK, in which he got celebs like Cheri Blair, Ian McLellan, Jonathan Ross and Chris Martin, the bedwetting guy from Coldplay and a lot of people we're not familiar with (but who are very familiar in the UK) to shake his hand. He got a lot of publicity and a book out of the deal: Greeting The 500.

Now, like Sacha Baron Cohen, Toby Young and Marco Pierre White (well, not Marco Pierre White...) he's headed across the pond, and like de Tocqueville and Allan Whicker before him, will take the pulse of the big country while exploring the "special relationship" between the UK and the US, and speaking to Americans about their views on all things British, "our accents, our bad teeth, the Beckhams, our music, our common foreign policies, whether we should always go to war together..."

And then there are the 500 celebrities, a list he gathered from a Facebook poll and whom he's approaching quite formally, quite British, actually, through letters and proper channels as opposed to the good old American tradition of stalking.

We like the idea that Jules' project started out as a bet. Jules' mate gave him a list of 500 UK celebs and six months to get his photo taken shaking hands with as many as possible. He needed to meet 20% of them to win the bet. Gambling comes into play this time as well:

"Jules has very little money, no full-time job and the residue of a gambling habit. In order to finance his trip, he has placed two bets with the William Hill bookmaking firm. One of these bets relates to how many of the 500 he will manage to meet in 90 days, the other bet will be paid out if amongst others, he meets Tiger Woods, Scarlet Johansson, Kanye West, Emeril Lagasse and Daniel Negreanu and completes a pre-arranged task with each of these individuals..."

The list follows. If you are on it or have an in with someone who is, you can reach him here.

We spoke to Jules this week, he comes recommended by our pals at Anorak and we'll be keeping track of his progress.

Jules in in Los Angeles now. He's got quite a task ahead. Some of his target celebs are in prison; one or two may be dead.

Fellow journos: go out and do your jobs, run a feature on the US-Say project and book this guy for your shows.

Segal's List
‘500 Americans’

50 cent Aaron Sorkin Adam Sandler Adam West Al Jarreau Al Roker Al Sharpton Al Gore Al Pacino Al Unser Jr Alan Dershowitz Alan Alda Alan Greenspan Alex Trebek Alex Rodriguez Alexi LalasAlice Cooper America Ferrera Andre 3000 Angelina JolieAnn Coulter Anna Wintour Anne Rice Annie Liebowitz Anthony Bourdain Antonio Fargas Ariana Huffington A Schwarzenegger Arsenio Hall Art Garfunkel Ashley Olsen Axl Rose Barack Obama Barbra Streisand Barbara Walters Barry Bonds Ben Stiller Beth Ditto Betty Ford Betty White Big Bird Bill Bryson Bill Cosby Bill Maher Bill Clinton Bill Gates Bill Murray Billy Crystal Billy Graham Billie Jean King Billy Ray Cyrus Bo Derek Bo Jackson Bob Beamon Bob Dylan Bob Woodward Brad Pitt Bret Easton Ellis Britney Spears Bruce Campbell Bruce Springsteen Bruce Willis Burt Reynolds Butch Harmon Calvin Klein Cameron Diaz Carl Lewis Carly Fiorina Carrie Fisher Carson Kressley Casey Kasem Charles Barkley Charles Manson Charlie Kaufman Cheech Cher Chevy Chase Chris Rock Christopher Gardner Christian Bale Christian Slater Christina Aguilera Christy Turlington Chubby Checker Chuck Norris Chuck Palahniuk Cindy Crawford Clint Eastwood Colin Powell Condoleeza Rice Courtney Cox Courtney Love Dale Earnhardt Jr Dan Rather Dan Brown Dan Aykroyd Dan Castellaneta Dan Marino Dan Quayle Dane Cook Daniel Libeskind Daniel Negreanu Danielle Steele Danny de Vito Dave Brubeck Dave Chapelle Dave Grohl Dave Lee Roth David Duke David Geffen David Blaine David Copperfield David Hasselhoff David Letterman David Lynch David Mamet David Schwimmer David Soul Debbie Harry Debbie Gibson Dennis Hopper Dennis Rodman Denzel Washington Derek Jeter Diana Ross Diane Sawyer Dick Cheney Duane Chapman Dolly Parton Don King Donald Rumsfeld Donald Sutherland Donald Trump Donna Karan Donnie Wahlberg Donny Osmond Doris Day Doyle Brunson Dr Dre Dr John Dr Ruth Dr Phil Drew Barrymore Dustin Hoffman Ed Moses Eddie Murphy Eliot Spitzer Ellen DeGeneres Emeril Lagasse Eminem Evander Holyfield Fats Domino Fergie Florence Henderson Frank Oz Frank Gehry Fred Savage Garth Brooks Garry Shandling Gary Busey Gary Coleman Gary Larson Gene Simmons Gene Wilder George Foreman George Lucas George Romero George Lopez George Pataki George W Bush George Clooney Gilbert Godfrey Gore Vidal Grace Jones Greg Louganis Gwyneth Paltrow Harper Lee Harrison Ford Harry Connick Jr Harvey Weinstein Harvey Keitel Hayden Panettiere Heidi Fleiss Henry Winkler Henry Kissinger Hilary Hahn Hillary Clinton Howard Stern Hugh Hefner Hulk Hogan Ice Cube Ice T Iggy Pop Isaac Mizrahi Jack Nicklaus Jack Black Jack Nicholson Jackie Chan Jackie Mason James Gandolfini James Horner James Earl Jones James Ellroy James Hellwig James Woods Jane Fonda Janice Dickinson Jason Bateman Jasper Johns Jaws (Richard Kiel) Jay Leno Jay-Z JD Salinger Jeff Gordon Jeff Goldblum Jeff Koons Jeff Skoll Jenna Jameson Jennifer Aniston Jennifer Lopez Jermain Jackson Jerry Rice Jerry Bruckheimer Jerry Springer Jesse Draper Jesse Jackson Jesse Ventura Jessica Simpson Jessica Alba Jim Brown Jim Davis Jim Carrey JJ Abrams Joan Rivers Jodie Foster Joe Montana Joe Pesci Joe Torre John Glover Roberts John Williams John Irving John Bobbit John Cusack John Daly John Glenn John Grisham John Malkovich John McEnroe Jon Stewart John Travolta John Wooden Johnny Depp Jon Bon Jovi Jordin Sparks Jordy Chandler Jorge Posada Josh Holloway Judd Nelson Judith Sheindlin Julia Roberts Justin Timberlake Kanye West Karl Rove Kate Hudson Kathleen Battle Kathy Ireland Kathie Lee Gifford Katie Couric Kato Kaelin Keanu Reeves Kelly Slater Kelly Clarkson Ken Starr Kenny Rogers Kevin Bacon Kevin Federline Kevin Smith Kiefer Sutherland Kim Cattral Kirsten Dunst Kobe Bryant Laffit Pincay Lance Armstrong Larry King Larry Seinfeld Larry Craig Larry David Larry Hagman Lee Corso Leonard Nimoy Leonardo di Caprio Linda Carter Lindsay Lohan Liza Minnelli Loretta Lynn Lou Ferrigno Lou Reed Louis Farrakhan Lucy Liu M N Shyamalan Macaulay Culkin Madeleine Albright Madonna Magic Johnson Malcolm Glazier Marc Jacobs Marie Osmond Marilyn Manson Marc McGwire Mark Zuckerburg Martha Stewart Martin Scorsese Martina Navratilova Mary-Kate Olsen Matisyahu Matt Damon Matt Groening Matthew Broderick Maya Angelou MC Hammer Meatloaf Mel Brooks Michael Bloomberg Michael Chertoff Michael Dell Michael Douglas Michael Griffin Michael J Fox Michael Jackson Michael Johnson Michael Jordon Michael Moore Michael Phelps Michelle Kwan Michelle Wie Mike Judge Mike Tyson Mikhail Baryshnikov Missy Elliot Moby Molly Ringwald Monica Lewinsky Mookie Wilson Morgan Freeman Morgan Spurlock Mr T Muhammed Ali Nadia Comaneci Nancy Cartwright Nancy Pelosi Neil Armstrong Neil Diamond Nicole Richie Noam Chomsky N Schwartzkopf OJ Simpson Oliver North Oprah Winfrey Oscar de la Hoya Owen Wilson P Diddy Pamela Anderson Paris Hilton Pat Sajak Patricia Arquette Patty Hearst Paul Auster Paul Shaffer Paul Teutul Paul Wolfowitz Paula Abdul Pauly Shore Pee Wee Herman Penn Jillette Perez Hilton Pete Sampras Peter Falk Peyton Manning Phil Mickleson Philip Glass PJ O’Rourke Prince Queen Latifah Q Tarrantino Quincy Jones Ralph Lauren Ralph Macchio Ray Liotta Reese Witherspoon Reggie Bush Regis Philbin Revered Al Green Richard Gere Richard Petty Rick Warren Ricki Lake Robert Rauschenberg Robert DeNiro Robin Williams Rodney King Roger Clemens Roger Ebert Ron Howard Ron Popeil Ron Jeremy Rosanna Arquette Rose McGowan Rosie Perez Ross Perot Roy Innis Ru Paul Rudolf Giuliani Rush Limbaugh Ryan Seacrest Samuel L Jackson Sara Silverman Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Michelle Gellar Scarlett Johanssen Scooter Libby Sean Penn Siegfried & Roy Serena Williams Seth Macfarlane Sharon Stone Sheryl Crow Smokey Robinson Sophia Coppola South Park guys Spike Jonze Spike Lee Stephen Sondheim Stephen Colbert Stephen King Steve Buscemi Steve Carell Steve Guttenberg Steve Jobs Steve Martin Steve-O Steve Williams Steve Wynn Steven Spielberg Stevie Nicks Stevie Wonder Susannah Hoffs Sylvester Stallone Ted Danson Ted Koppel Ted Turner Teddy Kennedy Terry O’Quinn The Fridge The Rock Thomas Mesereau Tiffany Tiger Woods Tila Tequila Tim Gunn Tim RobbinsTim Sale Timbaland Tom Anderson Tom Brokaw Tom Clancy Tom Cruise Tom Hanks Tom Selleck Tommy Franks Tommy Hilfiger Tommy Moe Tony Danza Tony Hawk Tony Robbins Tony Romo Tonya Harding Traci Lords Ty Pennington Tyra Banks Uma Thurman Vanilla Ice Vanna White Vera Wang Verne Troyer Vince Vaughan Vincent Gallo Walter Kronkite Warren Buffett Weird Al Yankovitch Wentworth Miller Wes Andersen Whoopi Goldberg Will Ferrell Will Smith William Shatner Willie Nelson Wolfang Puck Woody Allen Zach Braff Zsa Zsa Gabor

Brett Hudson stuns, inspires crowd at Fest for Beatles Fans, announces plans for cancer film, foundation project

2009-03-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

A routine question-and-answer session about the making of The Seventh Python turned into a newsmaking and emotional highlight of The NY Metro Fest for Beatles Fans this afternoon, when producer Brett Hudson broke from the script to deliver a broadside against the American medical establishment and a call to arms in the fight against cancer.

The Seventies pop star-turned-Hollywood writer and producer, who's been performing at the Fest with his brother Mark Hudson, has received international attention and kudos since it was revealed early last year that he was battling throat cancer and had succeeded against great odds thanks to state-of-the-art treatment not widely available in the United States. His advocacy of other cancer patients and the crucial importance of individual determination of treatment and a positive attitude, displayed on a widely-circulated blog, has attracted a worldwide following and given Hudson a new mission that he pushed to the forefont today.

Well-attended

Hudson had earlier introduced The Seventh Python with director Burt Kearns and star Neil Innes at a well-attended afternoon screening, and had rushed from an autograph session to join Kearns was onstage at the Crystal Ballroom to discuss the making of the film.

The discussion had led to future Frozen Pictures projects, including a Hudson Brothers reunion and a film about Sixties rocker Chris Montez, when Hudson stopped the session to bring up the project that has been foremost on the Frozen Pictures agenda.

"On August 27, 2007, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer. My doctors told me to get my affairs in order and that I wouldn't survive six months. I proved them wrong.

"I was headed toward a morbid operation to remove my larynx when my dear friend Cher, whom I've known for 35 years, led me to a doctor in Germany, and today I don't have cancer.

"Bottom line: You go to Germany, they'll cure your cancer. You stay in America, they'll cure you if you survive the treatment."

Help!

The crowd, there to hear the dishy show business behind the scenes stories and scandals, wastransfixed as Hudson, wrapped in a scarf that many assumed was worn in homage to the skiing sequence in Help! but which he explained he wore to protect his radiation-scarred neck from sunlight, took them down a dark alley that each and every one could relate to. He explained that Frozen Pictures is already at work producing a nonfiction film called The Klinik, which uses his own experience as the jumping-off point for a larger-themed story about innovations and obstacles in cancer treatment.

"I don't care if you see the film or buy the DVD, but go to the website The Klinik Movie dot com, Klinik spelled 'k-l-in-i-k' and spread the word."

Farrah

Hudson then detailed some of the most intimate details of his illness, spoke movingly about others who've sought him out for help and amazed the crowd as he told of the state-of-the art treatments that removed 14 tumours from Farrah Fawcett's liver-- not to mention his own throat cancer.

After revealing that his treatment has cost him more than $400,000-- despite insurance-- he broke the big news:

Foundation

"I will take my fee for this film-- with the exception of the Writers Guild payment, because I need their insurance, which is great-- and I will use it to start a foundation. I'm not going to put my name on it, I don't need that. I'm going to use it to help people who can't afford to get treatment. The way it is now, if you've got the money you can live, if you don't have money, you don't have the choice. I want to pay for transportation to treatment centers, for medicine. I want people to have the same choices I have."

(clockwise from top: Greg Hawkes, Martin Lewis,

Earl Slick, Brett Hudson, Neil Innes, Mark Hudson)

The Seventh Python selected for Pacific Palisades Film Festival; Beatlesfest adds second screening

2009-03-22T10:13:00.001-07:00

The Seventh Python has picked up another accolade-- named just hours ago as an official selection in the prestigious 2009 Pacific Palisades Film Festival. The nonfiction film about legendary pop satirist and Monty Python cohort Neil Innes-- produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures-- will be a highlight of the film fest in the town at the end of Sunset Boulevard that's home to Hollywood heavyweights like Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Ray Liotta, Larry David and Kate Hudson (niece of Seventh writer-producer Brett Hudson)-- not to mention the film's director and several other members of the crew.

The festival will take place May 14th to 16th. We'll have information on screenings as they become available (we only got this information when one of our loyal readers sent us a tip from Facebook).

The Seventh Python is being featured later this week at the New York Metro Fest for Beatles Fans in the New Jersey Meadowland. We've also just learned that a second screening has been added to the much-anticipated "early bird" screening at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March 28th. The film will be shown at 1:45 p.m next Sunday-- followed by a Q&A with Hudson, director Burt Kearns and the film's star, Neil Innes.

Next stop: Las Vegas, where the filmmakers will pick up the Golden Ace Award from the Las Vegas International Film Festival on April 12th. The Vegas screening time will be announced soon.

Stay tuned...

The greatest voice on radio

2009-02-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

"Hello, Americans. You know what the news is. In a minute, you're going to hear... the rest... of the story." Up until last week, we were saying those words along with him in the car at 7 pm while we were waiting to hear one of our few, maybe our only, radio appointments, with The Rest of The Story, and try to figure out who he was talking about before he revealed the name at the end. Paul Harvey was an old kook with a very interesting background, with early years including a Section 8 mental illness discharge from the Army Air Corps during World War II and other shenanigans, and up until the end he was the greatest voice on radio. Whenever we were our there in a car somwhere in America, whether we were barreling through Kansas, speeding across Texas or on the road to Vegas, we'd cut the music around noontime and search the dial for his Paul Harvey News & Comment, which was about the most American thing you can ever hear when all you see is sky and the highway ahead of you. His reports were the best-written on radio and television both, witty and economical, with a point of view and full of quirky pauses and internal punchlines. Recently the local ABC affiliate started running Mike in his news spot and it wasn't the same. You know Mike, the radio veteran, the guy who wanted to be president. Only you know him as Mike Huckabee and that's why we changed the station and now you know... the rest... of the story.

Good day!

The Seventh Python producer says film festival selections and awards will lead to new screenings

2009-02-25T10:56:00.000-08:00

More news from The Seventh Python front: The City of Chicago and The Chicago International Movies & Music Festival are gearing up for the arrival of the acclaimed nonfiction film from our pals at Frozen Pictures, which is being featured in a prime festival showcase on Saturday night, March 7th. Frozen's already got a team on the ground laying down promotion in the Windy City as the film's selection for the prestigious CIMM Fest competition slate has shined an international spotlight on the hilarious and moving flick-- and the man at the center, legendary and still-vital pop satirist and Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes.

And on the heels of the Python's Golden Ace Award from the upcoming Las Vegas International Film Festival, Seventh co-executive producer Keith Walker announced today that film, which also stars Python alums John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, will be screened for the general public as well as distributors during the Las Vegas festival, which runs April 9-12.

"Since we've already been honored with the Golden Ace, we won't be screening the film in competition at the Vegas fest," Walker tells us this morning. "But this prestigious award has gotten a lot of people asking where they can see it in Vegas. We're arranging screenings in a movie theatre. We'll be inviting the cast of the Beatles' Love show from The Mirage, some folks who worked with Spamalot when it was in town-- and a magician or two."

The Atlanta-based Walker, a veteran producer who's the Southern and East Coast emissary for the LA-based Frozen Pictures, says he's also arranging screenings in his hometown.

"Atlanta's been Monty Python country from the beginning. Spamalot, which includes Neil's music, is coming to town next month. Elton John's got a place here. And we've got a great music and film scene. Folks can't wait to see The Seventh Python."

Watch this space for details for announcements about Los Angeles and other cities.

(The Seventh Python will also be shown March 28th at 11 a.m. at the NY Metro Fest for Beatles Fans, the world’s largest Beatles fans convention. Director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson will be on hand for the screening in the ballroom of the Meadowlands Crowne Plaza Hotel— along with Neil Innes himself, who will be performing and signing autographs throughout the weekend.)

A major film festival award for The Seventh Python

2009-02-13T16:40:00.000-08:00

The Seventh Python has picked up a major prestigious film festival award as it begins a new round of screenings across the country.

The musical nonfiction film about legendary pop satirist and Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes has been named winner of the 2009 Las Vegas International Film Festival's Golden Ace Award.

The festival judges announced that the film from our pals at Frozen Pictures “demonstrated superior and standout filmmaking and is deserving of special recognition” as one of the best among nearly 2000 films submitted from over 50 countries around the world.

The Las Vegas International Film Festival takes place from April 9th to 12th. The Seventh Python director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson will be featured at the awards ceremony and will soon announce Las Vegas screening dates for the film that weekend.

Fans across the country will also have the chance to see The Seventh Python in coming weeks.

The film, which featured Python alums John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, along with Innes fans and friends like Aimee Mann and Simpsons creator Matt Groening, has been chosen as an official selection of the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival, and will be screened in competition on March 8th. Director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson will be on hand to discuss the film after the 8 p.m. screening.

The Seventh Python will also be shown March 28th at the NY Metro Fest for Beatles Fans, the world’s largest Beatles fans convention. The screening in the ballroom of the Meadowlands Crowne Plaza Hotel will take place at 11 a.m.—an “early bird special” for festivalgoers, by popular demand after a similar showing at the Chicago Fest drew more than a thousand people and a standing ovation.

Kearns and Hudson will be there— along with the star, Neil Innes himself, who will be performing and signing autographs throughout the weekend.

The Seventh Python was the opening selection of the American Cinematheque's 2008 Mods & Rockers Film Festival. Watch this space for announcements of more screenings leading up to the crowd-pleasing movie's inclusion in the Revelation Perth International Film Festival in July.

Fox cancels winner of first courtroom series Emmy to make room for Republican politico talking head with scandal-plagued background & worse ratings

2009-02-09T17:30:00.000-08:00

We read today that Warner Brothers Television has sold its courtroom strip series, Judge Jeanine Pirro, to the Fox Television Stations for next fall. The show had been running on Fox's CW Daytime lineup, and news isn't earthshaking at all-- until you read between the lines and realize what's been sacrificed to make way for the new arrival.

We've learned that the Fox Television Stations Group has canceled another courtroom strip show to make room for the former Westchester County DA and legal expert on Fox's recently-canceled The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet. They've given the axe to Cristina's Court, the series featuring crossover Latina star and legal eagle Cristina Perez.

Cristina's Court was doing a 1.1 household rating.

Judge Jeanine Pirro has been doing a 0.6 household rating.

Last year, Cristina's Court won the first-ever Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom series-- beating out Judge Judy (for whom the category was carved out).

Judge Jeanine Pirro is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican politico.

Cristina Perez is a rare crossover star from the Spanish-speaking Telemundo network, the first Hispanic TV judge to cross over to English-language television.

Jeanine Pirro is the former district attorney for Westchester County whose political career was burdened and often flummoxed by the philandering escapades, mental problems and criminal acts of her now ex-husband, Albert. She was still married to Albert when she announced in 2005 that she would seek the Republican nomination to challenge first-term Senator Hillary Clinton.

Cristina's Court generated buzz with its "Sex on The Bench" ad campaign.

Jeanine Pirro's unsuccessful run as Republican candidate for New York Attorney General was complicated by a federal probe when it was revealed she'd wiretapped her then-husband because of his philandering.

According to the Syndicated Network Television Association, Cristina Perez ranked as one of the most trustworthy and influential syndicated hosts on television, ranking second behind Oprah Winfrey among adults 18 to 34 years old.

Republican adviser and Fox News president Roger Ailes is also chairman of the Fox Stations Group, and calls the shots on what runs on the stations.

Wouldn't it be a nice twist for Cristina's Court to pick up another Emmy?

"ENOUGH!" Another death on Palisades Drive

2009-02-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

There was another death this weekend on Palisades Drive in Pacific Palisades, the long mountain road off Sunset Boulevard near the PCH that leads up to the posh Palisades Highlands housing development where stars like Ray Liotta, John Mayer and Steve Guttenberg reside. According to the LA Times: "an 18-year-old Pacific Palisades resident died after he lost control of his car and spun into oncoming traffic.

Nicholas Rosser was driving on Palisades Drive near Sunset Boulevard on Saturday when he collided head-on with a pickup truck at 5:50 p.m., said Lt. Cheryl MacWillie of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. Rosser was pronounced dead at the scene."

This is apparently the third death on the road since 2007, and all three fatalities involved a student at Palisades High School (no alcohol or drugs were involved in any)-- including a recent incident in which a Palisades High School kid ran over a woman on his bicycle in the early morning hours.

Locals have been trying for years to get the LADOT to do something about the dangerous conditions on the the unlit, unsafe racetrack that's creepily lined with memorials to the victims of its twists and turns (Ray Liotta himself was arrested for DUI back in 2007 after he slammed his Escalade into a couple of parked cars on the road).

One parent has a Flickr page dedicated to lives lost on the deadly two-mile stretch ("People Die on Palisades Drive") and pointing out that "center dividers, sidewalks and bike lanes would go a long way to fix this problem."

And today a group including top Hollywood scribe Steve Zaillian is demanding action from local officials like Bill Rosendahl (the same ones who pat themselves on the back for spending our money on costly Tsunami Hazard Zone signs) and is holding a meeting tonight.

There's a meeting tonight. Here's the email notice we just received:

Dear Neighbors:

After the occurrence of another fatal accident on Palisades Drive (Saturday) we are requesting immediate action by the City of Los Angeles to implement safety measures on Palisades Drive and Sunset Blvd.

A meeting will be held at Rustic Canyon Park, Monday, Feb. 2, 2009, 8:00 PM, Gallery Room. We want to discuss possible solutions to traffic issues on these high risk streets, and send a letter to City officials requesting immediate action. Those of you not able to attend, we know you are as concerned as we are, so please forward the attached letter to Councilman Rosendahl (BillRosendahl@aol.com) and Mayor Villaraigosa (mayor@lacity.org) with any changes you deem appropriate.

Please forward the attached letter to all of your contacts in the Palisades / Brentwood area.

Thank you for you concern.

Photos from Peter Duke's Flickr page

Bob Lee's classic interview with Brian Wilson makes note of the Beach Boy's relationship with rocker and documentary subject Chris Montez

2009-01-24T20:45:00.000-08:00

Bob Lee, a writer at the forefront of the Los Angeles rock 'n' roll journalist pack, met up with one of the greats recently and showed why he's tops in the music writing field. Lots of journos and muso crits have lined up to interview Brian Wilson lately but few used the time to create a classic article that adds new information and insight to a well-thumbed history.

That's what Bob Lee does with his short-but-deep piece in LAist. And it's not only the type of left field question that will pop a pop genius out of his psychotropic reverie:

Do you have a favorite chord?
A favorite chord? You mean in music? Uh, E!

Check out Bob Lee's interview with Brian Wilson here.

Our pals at Frozen Pictures are chuffed about this exchange:

I noticed that another guy from Hawthorne named Chris Montez, who did "Let's Dance", is having a documentary made about his life this year. You knew him?
Yeah, I met him in high school.

Was he involved in music at that time?
Not at the time, no. But later, I heard his record and I flipped. I loved it.

Have you seen Chris at any time recently?
No, not in forty-some years.

We heard God Only Knows on the radio this morning. While driving on the PCH!

Sad about MAD

2009-01-24T07:31:00.001-08:00

From satires of Britney Spears to Barack Obama, MAD magazine has made something of a cultural comeback in recent years. So we're sad to report that starting with issue No. 500, to be published in April, the monthly satire mag will become a quarterly. It will expand to 56 pages from 48. The changes were announced by DC Comics, the Warner Brothers Entertainment unit that publishes Mad.

In wake of Israel's Gaza attacks, Wohlgelernter's interview with Jon Voight becomes a hot topic again

2009-01-03T09:42:00.000-08:00

Israel's recent retaliation in the Gaza Strip has directed worldwide attention to Elli Wohlgelernter-- recently announced as Tabloid Baby's 2008 Journalist of The Year-- and his videotaped interview with an unlikely Hollywood Zionist.

The journalist known to Internet viewers as "Our Man Elli in Israel "was honored by the Tabloid Baby site for his tireless, influential and groundbreaking coverage of the Israel Baseball League and its surrounding hoopla and mischief, but as a correspondent for the Israel Broadcasting Authority, he also covers politics and war.

In May, Elli interviewed actor Jon Voight, who stands out in his industry as a conservative, pro-Israel hawk, touching on the issues of Hamas and the rocket attacks directed at Israel from Gaza. The interview was posted on YouTube in the Spring, and has been subject of a surge in viewership after Israel's raids this week.

By this morning, the clip had logged more than 100,000 views.

The YouTube rankings at the turn of the New Year reflect its prominence:

#100 - Most Discussed (All Time) - News & Politics - Israel
#20 - Most Responded (Today) - Israel
#7 - Most Responded (Today) - News & Politics - Israel
#72 - Most Responded (This Week) - Israel
#23 - Most Responded (This Week) - News & Politics - Israel
#53 - Most Viewed (All Time) - News & Politics - Israel
#36 - Top Favorited (All Time) - News & Politics - Israel
#24 - Top Rated (All Time) - News & Politics - Israel

More fuel for Elli's Pulitzer, we'd say.

First photo! Pacific Palisades' 76 ball comes down

2008-12-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

The Conoco Phillips oil corporation sees little value in the classic orange 76 balls that advertised their filling stations, but the mechanics and attendants at Jakel's 76 on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, California, surely did. They snapped way with their camera phones and disposable cameras as workers arrived Saturday at noon to remove the ball, cut down the pole on which it had spun for fifty years, and drove it away for smashing.

A mechanic on duty this morning told us the station owner Frank Jakel had fought the corporation for years in an effort to keep the Palisades landmark glowing. But he said that Frank sold the place and the new owners didn't care.

Grinch oil company takes Pacific Palisades' 76 ball

2008-12-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

The distinctive, revolving, retro orange ball, high above Jakel's Union 76 service station at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Via de La Paz in Pacific Palisades, California-- the last town before Sunset hits the Pacific Ocean-- has been taken down and replaced with a waist-level sign on the corner.

The ball, advertising "76," was removed and its pole sawed down at noon yesterday, according to a service station employee who witnessed the surprise takedown.

A local journo noticed last night that the sky was empty where the spherical sign once shined as a beacon above the station and the adjacent Gelson's parking lot.

This morning, we spoke to attendant Zig, who was working yesterday when the Conoco Phillips troops arrived and got to work quickly and efficiently, removing the ball with a crane and cutting in half the pole it had topped.

"Now no one will even know it was there," Zig said. "That ball was an original, it was up there since the station opened in what, 1955? I asked the guys what they were going to do with it and they said they were going to smash it! Smash it! I thought they'd put it in a museum."

Zig realized he was witnessing history. He said he called the local Palisadian-Post weekly newspaper but got no answer (it was a Saturday).

Note to the Palisadian-Post and LA Times: He also snapped several photos of the ball removal with the disposable camera he keeps in his car. Make sure you pay him for his work!

The ConocoPhillips oil company has been on a campaign to remove all its stations' classic orange balls, despite a fight from preservationists.

Chris Montez performs for 15,000 in Belgium

2008-12-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

Talk about an international audience! Sixties rock and lounge legend Chris Montez headed off from the first location shoot for his new Frozen Pictures biopic for a quick stop in Antwerp, Belgium-- and a sold-out show for fifteen thousand fans!

Chris starred at Sportpaleis in a wild rock 'n' roll show called Golden Years. Here's what they wrote about him on one Belgian site (translations welcome):

"The Golden Years was op zaterdag 13 december aan een jubileumeditie toe: het 20ste concert in een reeks die van start ging op 17 maart 1990. Misschien doen niet alle namen van de groepen onmiddellijk een belletje rinkelen, maar hun hits ken je zeker, ook als jongere! Lees ons sfeerverslag, ontdek de idolen van je ouders en bekijk hier en daar een clipje uit de oude doos. Een avond vol jukebox hits uit de jaren '60 en begin jaren '70, met niet minder dan 9 artiesten op de affiche...

"Chris Montez laat zich voor zijn set bijstaan door de muzikanten van Billy Joe Royal die na hem zal optreden. Ik denk niet dat opener 'Some kinda fun' hier een echte hit geweest is, maar 'The more I see you' was dat zeker wel! Chris Montez slaagt erin om het publiek een eerste keer van zijn stoel te krijgen bij 'Let's dance', een boodschap die iedereen dus opvolgt. En zelf wil hij ook niet achterblijven, en duikt middenin het nummer tussen het publiek om zelf een danspasje te placeren! Het spreekwoord 'mooie liedjes duren niet lang' is duidelijk van toepassing, want Chris mag nog even terugkomen om 'Let's dance' nog even opnieuw in te zetten!"

And they sent along these exclusive photos from the show that also featured legends like The Troggs, The Hollies, Gerry & The Pacemakers and Billy Joe Royal.

The concert was filmed for the Montez doco.

...and we say BOO to KCBS and KCAL TV News!

2008-12-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

At least one local TV news outlet-- well, two, thanks to corporate mergers and information consolidation-- showed up to cover the Tom Hanks Village Bookstore appearance last night. And then ran away without reporting it.

Though there were 200 people lined up outside, five mysterious security men about, big clear windows looking inside, and an important community story to cover, reporter Christina McLarty brags that she had the story killed because she was inconvenienced--- and ran back to the station two hours before airtime to giggle and complain on the station's blog:

Dec 17, 2008 9:18 PM
Village Books in Pacific Palisades
Posted by Christina

So....the store looks cute. But we went out there tonight (mind you braving the pouring rain and crazy traffic on the 405). The story had been set up for two days, Tom Hanks signing any bought items there in order to help a struggling neighborhood store get by in a tough economy. When we arrived, the store had 4 security guys in front of it. Inside, another security guy. I walked in to talk to the store owner and let her know we had arrived and were ready to start shooting. At the last moment, the owner and Hanks assistant said the star did not want cameras inside the store. About 5 security guards against me and a camera guy...we had to kill the story. But here's what I want to know, did Tom Hanks really pull the plug on a story that is all about getting the book store some notoriety!? Ugh, so frustrating. I have interviewed him before, several times...and he is SO cool! He is always a class act, talks to everyone, and even jokes around with the media! So why the cold shoulder? Ok, enough venting, it's almost Christmas so I wish him and the store well : ) Haha

Haha. What a reporter! Her photo says it all...

Here's one gal who doesn't know a good story!

(Insert corporate conspiracy theory here)

Village Books says Hooray for Tom Hanks!

2008-12-18T12:19:00.001-08:00

Close to 200 people braved the unusually harsh elements to crowd into Village Books in Pacific Palisades last night as local resident and Hollywood heavyweight Tom Hanks showed up to autograph books and DVDs to raise money to keep the vital bookstore from closing down.

Store owner Katie O'Laughlin tells us:

"We had almost 200 people who huddled in the freezing cold from 6:30 - almost 9:30! He is awesome. I'll send photos when I get them."

Will Tom's industry neighbors allow the bookstore to close because it's easier to send their personal assistants to Barnes & Noble? Will the town that's been home to Ronald Reagan, Jerry Lewis, Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, Aldous Huxley, Thomas Mann, Will Rogers and Irving Wallace allow this important cultural landmark to fall to high rents and corportate greed?

The fight to save the neighborhood bookstore continues...

A cold, rainy, windy day in Los Angeles

2008-12-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Save Village Books

2008-12-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

We've told you about the hard times for Village Books in Pacific Palisades, California, a perfect local bookshop that was a memorable stop on the Tabloid Baby national book tour nine years ago. Big box stores in the area, empty storefronts on the street and other economic woes-- not to mention the quixotic plight of the indie bookstore-- may soon put it out of business. So tonight, Tom Hanks is stopping by to autograph books.

No, he didn't write a book, but he's showing up at 7 p.m. tonight-- Wednesday-- to autograph "Tom Hanks-related" books and DVDs (the ads make it seem like he'll even autograph your Artie Lange book, which was strange but nice as well). He'll attract cameras and press and it will be a rally to save Village Books. Maybe he feels bad for forcing that lady to close her bookstore ten years ago in You've Got Mail-- look what happened to her with all the plastic surgery and permanent trout pout-- or maybe someone showed him what we wrote a year ago, when we wondered why a town in which cultural big shots like him reside can't support a bookstore, but more likely he's just trying to help out in town. Hanks is a local and he goes out of his way to be normal. We see him around all the time. at CVS, last week at Panda Express. The only difference between him and a real normal person is that he pays in cash from a big fat wad in a money clip. One of the kids noticed that.

Save Village Books. They're not some big indie like Powell's. They're a little shop on the corner. And they take online orders.

And by the way, Larry David should stop by next week. Then Spielberg, then Steve Guttenberg, then Kate Hudson...

Oscars to honor Jerry Lewis!

2008-12-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

American treasure Jerry Lewis will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Academy Awards ceremony on February 22nd.

Jerry has has raised over $2 billion for the Muscular Dystrophy Association through his annual Labor Day telethon.

His role in the telethon was revealed in the book Tabloid Baby.

Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, described Jerry as "a legendary comedian who has... brought laughter to millions around the world" and "helped thousands upon thousands by raising funds and awareness for those suffering from muscular dystrophy."

Jerry is 82 years young!

Frozen Pictures begins shooting the Chris Montez film biography

2008-12-10T19:55:00.000-08:00

We've just gotten word that the team at Frozen Pictures has gotten started on a musical documentary film to follow up their acclaimed, hilarious and heartfelt Neil Innes biopic, The Seventh Python.

The Chris Montez Film Bio Project shines the spotlight on the rock 'n' roller-turned-lounge music prince who, as the Frozen site says: "forged an incredible and incredibly influential journey through modern pop music, from rock ‘n’ roll to lounge, Latin pop to jazz.

"Artists as diverse as Sam Cooke, The Beatles, Frank Sinatra and The Ramones have worked with, played with or taken a cue from the Mexican-American kid from Hawthorne, California who went to school with The Beach Boys and was still a teen when was hailed as the successor to his hero, Ritchie Valens."

We know Chris from songs like Let's Dance and Call Me. The Frozen boys are set to reveal what we don't know-- like getting him to spill the real story of what went on during that UK tour of March 1963 when the Beatles opened for him, and he and John Lennon got into a fistfight (Paul broke it up). Not to mention going to school with the Beach Boys and jamming in the Wilson brothers' living room under the watchful eye (he only had one) of crazy dad Murry.

Principal photography got underway late last week. They shot at the Deerwood Studio in Simi Valley, where Chris and producer Vic Germano are laying tracks for three Montez albums-- jazz, Tejano and a rock 'n' roll one with Joe Brown's band, The Bruvvers. (Another Beatles and Neil Innes connection. Look it up and report back!)

The shoot will be international. That's got to be expected, as Montez is no relic but in demand around the world. In fact, his manager tells us that right now he's on his way to perform in Belgium. And with fans on the oldies circuit, among the rock and roll crowd, the lounge movement and millions of Latinos, this film is bound to have w-i-i-i-de appeal.

Exclusive photos abound here.

Kennedy Center honors for George Jones

2008-12-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

While the "mainstream" media focused on Barbra Streisand and even made a mention of paedophile Pete Townshend receiving Kennedy Center Honors in Washington last night, the real national treasure who got to wear the medal around his neck is the greatest singer in all the land and inspiration to us all, George Jones.

Congratulations to The Possum!

We were just listening to George's duet with Randy Travis, A Few Ole Country Boys.

What's your favorite George Jones song?

Requiem for Dr. Ruehl's public access dream

2008-12-04T12:20:00.000-08:00

A new California policy that takes effect January 1, 2009 will allow cable television companies to pay cities a fee instead of producing public access content for their channels. That means public access channels that provide a daily collection of independent talk, entertainment and discussion shows will be canceled. That means Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D., whose legendary sci fi and paranormal show, Mysteries from Beyond The Other Dominion, has been a vital part of alternative culture for more than two decades, will lose its television base.

Dr. Ruehl sent us this requiem for his dream:

The Quietus of A Grand Era!
by
Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D.

A weekly series! Numerous specials! Wide-ranging pilots! These are among the many and varied projects that I was able to produce over the past 24 years on public access in southern California. But sadly, the public access era is coming to an abrupt end as of December 31.

I just taped my 349th and last episode of "Mysteries From Beyond the Other Dominion" the other day for airing in December. No additional production dates are available. No longer will individuals such as myself be able to express their creative drives in television productions in a professional setting at a very modest cost. Indeed, the only expense entailed purchase of professional 3/4-inch tapes (recently replaced by DVDs).

When I started out in 1984, all but 1 of my 1st 100 episodes were produced in a small room (the satellite studio for Century Cable in Sherman Oaks) with just a single cameraman and hand-made credit placards that I pieced together myself. Actually, despite my profound lack of artistic ability, those amateurish placards still look pretty good today!

As we had limited facilities, with no VHS recording capability, I could only record the episodes on my own audio recorder. My mother co-hosted the show for the initial six episodes, but bowed out after that, disappointed that a national network had not picked up the show!

"...That has been one of the primary virtues of public access:
to permit individuals to express their creativity and determine
if television production is really for them. It has allowed everyone
who has had even the slightest scintilla of a dream
of entering the TV production realm to try his or her hand at it."

Just as I had completed my 100th episode, the outlet was closed in 1987, but, coincidentally, United Artists Cable was just gearing up its public access facility in nearby Van Nuys. I got in on the ground floor there, and while we bounced around from one room to another, including using the green room and kitchen for some shoots, the production values were somewhat improved. But still, Hollywood was not calling.

When I guested on the Pat Sajak talk show, the segment producer asked me if I was not tired of doing the show after five years, still confined to the public access arena. I replied that I loved every aspect of producing my programs and would continue as long as public access existed!

Fortunately, a write-up on my program appeared in the "Characters" section of L.A.Style Magazine, and a chap (Marc Lafia) leafing through it searching for photos shot by a friend of his noticed the entry concerning me. He and his associate (Todd Stevens) were looking for a TV show to develop and soon thereafter produced a number of pilots of my show.

Unfortunately, none was picked up, so Todd, with his contacts, became an associate producer on "Major Dad" in its penultimate season, shooting at Universal. He showed my tapes to Michael Lansbury (nephew of Angela Lansbury), head of new programming, and incredibly, within a few months, Universal and USA Network jointly purchased the fledgling Sci-Fi Channel which the creator could not get off the ground.

Because of Todd's connection, my program was one of the four new shows to premiere on Sci-Fi when it was launched in September of 1992. This was a classic case of "not what you know, but who you know"! And I can definitely attribute this degree of success to having my program on public access!

However, despite enjoying the highest ratings among the new entries and Universal execs praising me, the show was not renewed beyond 1994. So I returned to public access where I have been ever since, with more sophisticated equipment involving three-camera set-ups and multiple roll-ins, endeavoring to rematerialize on the national scene.

But with the quietus of public access, those forlorn hopes have apparently been dashed to the ground. While I produced 349 episodes, and some individuals a far greater number, the vast majority of producers have created far fewer. Many, for instance, have tried their hand at it and left after only one or two or a modicum of shows.

But that has been one of the primary virtues of public access: namely, to permit individuals to express their creativity and determine if television production is really for them. It has allowed everyone who has had even the slightest scintilla of a dream of entering the TV production realm to try his or her hand at it. It will truly be missed.

Personally, I have not yet come to grips with its loss, as I am always researching material for forthcoming episodes, and thinking of possible ways to enhance the show. It represents an essential part of my life which is now being replaced with an enormous void that cannot be filled.

But I am genuinely grateful that I at least had an opportunity to partake of it while it existed.

May the Power of the Cosmos be with You!

Dr. Franklin Ruehl, Ph.D.

Dr. Ruehl carries on with his popular Realm of Bizarre News spots on the Internet.

TV news picks up our tsunami sign terror story

2008-12-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

By watching this site, you can see how a Good Story spreads. We began by pointing out the TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE terror signs that popped up along the Pacific Coast Highway. In the days to follow, at least one website, then a newspaper, picked up the story, and last night the story reached a far wider audience when KTLA news reporter Lu Parker chased down the story for the KTLA Prime News 10 pm broadcast.

Emmy-winning Lu, one of the most respected broadcast journalists in Los Angeles, caught the story online and took it to that next level.

Stay tuned her to see where this good story winds up next!

(FUN FACT: Lu Parker was the 1994 Miss USA, succeeding 1993 Miss USA Kenya Moore, who starred in Cloud 9, the classic 2006 comedy from our pals at Frozen Pictures.)

Santa Monica newspaper picks up our tsunami sign terror story; finds prospects of a local disaster to be unlikely

2008-12-02T16:59:00.000-08:00

Our coverage of the sudden proliferation of TSUNAMI HAZARD signs on and around the Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles has spread throughout the Los Angeles media and been picked up by several news outlets.

The Santa Monica Daily Press newspaper today takes the reportage in a new direction. In a Page One story, Reporter Melanie Hanatani finds that the signs are part of a "public education campaign" by various city and state agencies, including the city of Santa Monica, although "the likelihood of a disastrous tsunami is highly unlikely because much of the city is protected by the bluffs.

"According to Paul Weinberg, the emergency services coordinator for the SMFD: 'The worst we would expect in the city of Santa Monica is ankle-deep water at Main Street.'"

Santa Monica Daily Press
December 2, 2008

Tsunami warning signs posted along PCH

BY MELODY HANATANI
Daily Press Staff Writer

Burt Kearns was enjoying a walk to Will Rogers State Beach with his two young children recently when an unfamiliar sign put a damper on the trip.

Illustrating a giant wave, the sign informed the trio that they were entering a Tsunami Hazard Zone.

The placement of the sign was perplexing to say the least for the Pacific Palisades resident.

“I was upset my son was suddenly worried to go walking on the beach,” Kearns said.

The Los Angeles Emergency Management Department began posting the signs along Pacific Coast Highway between the Santa Monica and Malibu borders and in Venice last week to warn of the possibilities that a natural disaster could strike. The signs identify tsunami hazard areas and point out evacuation routes.

The signs are part of a public education campaign being undertaken by coastal cities up and down the state to prepare residents for how to survive a tsunami, which is a series of waves usually brought on by an earthquake.

Many had no idea of the dangers posed by tsunamis until the catastrophic 2004 Sumatra Tsunami in Southeast Asia that killed more than 225,000 people.

“Any time an earthquake happens out in the western seas away from us, it could have an impact on us and the coastal communities,” Richard Deppisch,the emergency preparedness coordinator for the city of Los Angeles, said. “I think a lot ofthe public realizes that it could be dangerous if they live close to the water.

“Whether or not it happens in our lifetime, you can’t say.”

The city of Los Angeles and Santa Monica City Hall are among 14 Los Angeles County cities in the Operational Areas Tsunami Task Force, which formed in 1999 after several studies suggested that agencies formulate an emergency preparedness strategy much like they do for earthquakes.

The task force is currently waiting for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to complete a new map that identifies the tsunami hazard zones. The map, which is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2009, will allow the task force and its member cities to identify where warning signs should be posted, according to Jeff Terry, who heads the multiagency group.

The L.A. Emergency Management Department is the only member that decided to move ahead with its sign program, Terry said.

Once the map is completed, the task force will launch a demonstration project in several cities to gauge residents’ response to the signs.

The project is estimated to cost about $250,000. In the event of an emergency, the National Weather Service would send a tsunami warning to Sacramento, which would forward the notice to all local counties, which in turn would contact its coastal cities. Each city would then set into motion its own emergency response plan.

In Santa Monica, that plan would entail collaboration between the Santa Monica Fire and Police departments who would send out a mass notification for all affected residents to evacuate.

The impacted areas in Santa Monica include Palisades Beach Road,which is located north of the Santa Monica Pier, and the neighborhood west of Fourth Street in Ocean Park.

But the likelihood of a disastrous tsunami is highly unlikely because much of the city is protected by the bluffs, according to Paul Weinberg, the emergency services coordinator for the SMFD. “The worst we would expect in the city of Santa Monica is ankle-deep water at Main Street,” he said.

“About 99.9 percent of the city is absolutely protected.”

Weinberg said he expects to see similar evacuation and warning signs posted in Santa Monica. The signs could be covered by federal funds.

The office of L.A. Councilmember Bill Rosendahl contributed about $4,000 for the signs that were posted in Los Angeles.

Rosendahl said he has not heard any complaints from residents about the signs.

“The ocean is right there, it’s in our immediate presence,” he said. “It’s a precaution to do this.”

But some residents have wondered whether the signs are necessary.

Kearns, who runs the blog Tabloidbaby.com, commented about the new signs on his site, upset about the impact their presence would have on visitors.

“What’s next? A shark hazard zone, a fat people in Speedos zone?” Kearns said. “Everyone knows that we live in an earthquake area and that there’s the possibility of a tsunami.

“It seems to be an anti-tourist move.”

Tsunami sign terror campaign is statewide

2008-12-01T13:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the LAist Los Angeles news site for noticing our story on those TSUNAMI HAZARD signs that have that have shown up along the Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles (and for noticing us in our first weekend of operation!). They're the first to take our probe a step farther, finding that the California Department of Transportation is responsible for the signs, and is offering cities and towns along the coast a variety of styles and warnings (above).

And Tabloid Baby has just learned that the signs that appeared on the PCH along Pacific Palisades are set to be posted on beaches in Santa Monica and Venice next week.

In fact, the signs are set to appear along the entire California coastline, and have been posted for about a month in northern California, causing Franklin Stover of The Humboldt Beacon to ask whether the signs are the work of anti-development types and if their placement will drive down property values along the coast:

"... Approximately 400 of these signs were installed by Caltrans with a 5 percent loss due to sign stealing...

"The State of California's Seismic Safety Commission states in their Dec. 2005 'Findings and Recommendations On Tsunami Hazards and Risks' that 'over 80 tsunamis have been observed or recorded along the coast of California in the past 150 years, 9 causing minor damage in ports and harbors and 2 with major impacts.' It goes on to remind us of the Cresecent City tsunami of 1964 that resulted in four deaths. Finally, in that same paragraph, the study says, 'local earthquakes can produce damaging tsunamis that will provide very little warning time.'

"This brings me to ask what value the hazard warning signs have if I'm a motorist on 101 and a big tsunami reaches up and devours me and the road with it. In the time alloted (nearly zero) to respond, there's no way to move to high ground unless one is aided by extraterrestials.

"True to human nature, we've known about the risks of living by the coast for 150 years, but homes, highways, a mall, a community college, and a nuclear power plant dot the landscape along an area marked as a hazardous tsunami zone.

"Another thing that the hazard signs accomplish is that they tend to discourage development of those areas. This may be to the delight of progressives who don't want that kind of progress, but it brings up a question of declining property values. Now that these hazard areas have been carefully delineated, could land there be devalued since the risks of living there or running a business are at odds with Mother Nature? Should it be appraised at a lower level, however, economic opportunities within the tsunami hazard zone could be unleashed. Still, one must bear in mind what nature may have in mind.

Update: City of Los Angeles named on signs in Pacific Coast Highway tsunami terror campaign

2008-11-30T17:40:00.001-08:00

It appears that the tsunami sign terror campaign aimed at Los Angeles beachgoers is being waged by the city of Los Angeles itself. The "TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE" and "TSUNAMI EVACUATION ROUTE" signs that have appeared on the Pacific Coast Highway and its access road intersections are marked "Property City of Los Angeles."

The signs also bear the name "Maneri." The Maneri Sign Company is located in Gardena (City Hall reporters, do your thing...)

Our favorite so far?

At the three-way intersection of the PCH, West Channel Road and Chautauqua Boulevard, where drivers can leave the PCH and head along the low, flat West Channel into Santa Monica, or take a steep, rising hill up into Pacific Palisades.

Chautauqua Boulevard-- the steep, rising hill-- is marked "TSUNAMI EVACUATION ROUTE," as if one fleeing rising waters would need to be directed to choose the road leading to higher ground.

Drivers taking the low, flat West Channel Road route will find a LEAVING TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE sign a couple of hundred yards down the road. That would be a couple of hundred yards away from the beach and the direction of the approaching waters.

An investigation today revealed that the TSUNAMI EVACUATION ROUTE signs are posted along the Pacific Coast Highway before all major access roads north of the California incline in Santa Monica and south of Malibu (Veronique de Turenne of the Here in Malibu site tells us the signs have not been posted in Malibu).

The appearance of the signs has more than a few people wondering why the government would want to drive toursists and beachgoers away from the vast, wide beaches of Will Rogers State Park. There are suspicions that government officials have some advance warning of an impending earthquake or underwater test that would trigger a tsunami-- a long high sea wave caused by an earthquake, submarine landslide or other disturbance.

A 2004 study by researchers at the University of Southern California showed that a 7.6 magnitude earthquake could cause the seafloor under Catalina Island to be thrust upward violently, causing a tsunami along the Southern California coast.

The researchers at the Viterbi School of Engineering described the tsunami hazard associated with offshore faults, including one that lies under Santa Catalina Island, just 25 miles off the Los Angeles coast.

"Catalina Island itself exists due to earthquake-related uplift on a geologic structure known as a restraining bend," said Mark Legg, a geophysicist working with the USC researchers, in the August 2004 issue of Earthquake Spectra.

"Although most faults offshore Los Angeles and Orange counties are mostly strike-slip-- faults that move side to side-- bends in the fault line produce areas where the ground is pushed up during major earthquakes. One of these regions lies directly below Santa Catalina Island."

"Strike slip faults are not straight," added Jose C. Borrero, assistant research professor in the USC Viterbi School. "Bends in the fault trace produce regions where earthquake stresses cause the sea floor to pop up and generate a tsunami".

A random survey of shoppers at the Gelsons supermarket in Pacific Palisades this afternoon found a majority of respondents reacting in bemused disbelief. Said one: "Fear. More fear."

British TV priest attacks Disneyland

2008-11-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

A British priest says Disney is "exploiting spirituality" to sell its products and turning Disneyland into a modern day pilgrimage site.

On the second point, we agree. As regular pilgrims to Disneyland, that is.

Christopher Jamison has launched the attack in a new book about finding happiness. He says that Disney is the "classic example" of consumerism being sold as an alternative to finding happiness in traditional morality.

While the priest acknowledges that Disney stories carry messages showing good triumphing over evil, he argues it’s all a ploy to persuade people to buy Disney products.

"The message behind every movie and book, behind every theme park and T-shirt is that our children's world needs Disney.

"So they absolutely must go to see the next Disney movie, which we'll also want to give them on DVD as a birthday present.

"They will be happier if they live the full Disney experience; and thousands of families around the world buy into this deeper message as they flock to Disneyland.

"This is the new pilgrimage that children desire, a rite of passage into the meaning of life according to Disney.

"Where once morality and meaning were available as part of our free cultural inheritance, now corporations sell them to us as products.

"This is basically the commercial exploitation of spirituality."

Jamison is no monastic. He became famous as star of a BBC series called The Monastery.

Writes TabloidBaby:

"We'd have to argue that Disneyland, with its messages promoting world unity and the power of imagination, as well as its many rides and attractions that depict the journey through Hell in the journey toward redemption, does serve as an attractive and fulfilling pilgrimage site in a time when the traditional institutions such as the Catholic Church have betrayed the faithful so egregiously. Additionally, the heavy Disneyland security protects children against molesters."

In the book set for publication this week, Jamison also criticizes the obsession with celebrity, which he blames for creating jealousy and a society in which people are dissatisfied with their lives.

"Celebrity news magazines do no apparent external harm, but are a complete waste of interior time and space.

"Envy tells us to stop facing the challenges of the present life and to live in some future fantasy. Such envy drives a large part of our consumer culture."

He says that people need to learn to control their thoughts, and practice more self-discipline and self-control in their lives.

On that point, we must agree.

'TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE' signs spoil beach experience along the Pacific Coast Highway

2008-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Somebody's found a new way to spoil the Southern California beach experience. One of the kids began pointing it out this week while we were driving up the Pacific Coast Highway from Santa Monica towards Malibu. But we didn't get a good look until yesterday, walking down Temescal Canyon Road in Pacific Palisades toward the PCH, headed to Will Rogers State Beach.

There's a new sign posted at the intersection:

ENTERING
TSUNAMI
HAZARD ZONE

And on the other side of the street, leading up the hill, a companion sign:

LEAVING
TSUNAMI
HAZARD ZONE

TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE? Now there's a good idea! Not RECREATION ZONE or BEACH VOLLEYBALL ZONE, but something sure to send a chill down the spine. And it was certainly good enough to scare the kids who were old enough to read, filling them with worry and dread as they stood on the wide expanse of beach and looked out toward the ocean.

The signs are at every access road to the PCH from Santa Monica at least to Malibu and most likely farther along than that.

That's a lot of signs, and we've got to figure the expenditure was less likely the work of some politically-correct do-gooder inspired by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 (the natural disaster most Americans wouldn't have blinked at, had not a vacationing Western supermodel lost her boyfriend in the waters) than some politician who took advantage of the publicity and projections to slide this pork expenditure to a campaign-contributing sign company.

The "LEAVING TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE" is what gives away the game. It's one thing to post reminders for those approaching the beach. But is it really necessary to find an arbitrary point, a few dozen yards from the PCH, to post a sign to assure the hapless beachgoer, running from the approaching tide, that he's safe? Is that really the boundary of the TSUNAMI HAZARD ZONE? What if the person fleeing a tsunami sees the sign, stops running, and is sucked into the surf?

Which leads to other questions: Do government officials know something they're not telling us? Is an earthquake, Pacific Ocean anomaly or ice shelf phenomenon expected to cause a tsunami in the near future? Have the signs been posted to help combat lawsuits from victims and survivors?

No, the real question is why the bureaucrats needed to find another way make people afraid even when they're trying to forget their cares for a couple of hours. Most people headed toward the shores of a great ocean would assume the hazards of big waves, rocks, riptides, sharks, sharp objects in the sand, too much sun, and the sight of fat people on bikinis. That's a lot of signs.

Thanks for ruining it for the kids.

Good stories inspire a country doctor

2008-11-29T09:00:00.000-08:00

Dr. Crystal Bailey Gary and her husband Dr. Thomas Gary are family physicians who run the North Georgia Family Medicine center in Blairsville, Georgia. Dr. Crystal is one of those special people, dedicating her life to doing vitally important work and making other people's lives better.

And who'd think she was inspired by tabloid?

Dr. Crystal is the daughter of a legend: cameraman and mentor Lewis Bailey, who's guided the shoots and made the name of many a producer in tabloid television and network news (you'd surprised at how the two intertwine, then again if you read Tabloid Baby, you wouldn't be). Many of those producers knew Crystal back in the day as Lewis' fetching young assistant.

Dr. Crystal writes, and writes quite well, about the roots of her raising on the NGFM site:

"There is something to be said for kids 'from the sticks.' Growing up in the shadows of the Appalachian Mountains afforded me opportunities that others might consider obstacles. Life blesses some folks with silver spoons while others it simply blesses. I know that I belong in the latter category.

"The second of five children, I grew up where I was born-- in the tiny town of Young Harris, Georgia. As far as my memory will stretch, I recall that my parents always reinforced with my siblings and me a deep respect for hard work, persistence, and dedication. We balanced our summers working in the garden or water-sealing our driveway with exploring the surrounding woods and creeks. Any given day might find us decked out in makeshift 'jungle attire' which closely resembled my father’s safari hat and faded Muppet-Baby sheets, and armed with nothing more than a pair of trusty contraband scissors to ward off the perils of the forest. If the mountains of North Georgia could talk, they would tell tales of our imaginative exploits that paralleled the equally captivating adventures beamed to us from our analog satellite television receiver.

"In spite of our inherent rural ways, technology like the satellite dish, played a large role in our existence. My father owned a television production business that comprised a camera crew and equipment. I was almost thirteen when I began filling in for sick crew members, working as a sound technician and grip on location for such productions as Entertainment Tonight, 60 Minutes, and Dateline. These experiences exposed me to a world that even the most cosmopolitan person rarely encounters.

"For instance, how many other people can plead guilty to accidentally whacking Patrick Swayze in the head with a boom microphone? It did not take many production shoots with Hard Copy for me to learn that life encompasses a wide variety of people, all of whom have singularly interesting personal stories. I listened to the diversified complaints, questions, and afflictions that dominated the lives of these storytellers. These experiences opened my eyes to the burden that one ailment or worry can create. That knowledge gave direction to my life.

"From an early age I learned to appreciate the uniqueness of each individual. After learning to listen, I became interested in doing more than just lending an ear to these personal life stories-- I wanted to intervene. A profound respect and love for human life drives my desire to help improve the lives of those around me. What better role than 'family doc' enables a person to fulfill this aspiration? Not to mention, something tells me that I might consider staying away from any career choices that involve boom microphones.

"Thus, after twenty-odd years of stumbling through an amalgamation of turnip greens and UHF cables, I can honestly say that I was born to be a family doctor."