Justin Timberlake does his best Jessica Simpson impersonation as he stands in front of a cutout of the aspiring country singer onstage at the 2008 ESPY Awards held at NOKIA Theatre L.A. LIVE on Wednesday in Los Angeles.
The singer earned raves as he alternated between self-depricating humor (at one point, he poked fun at his infamous 2004 Super Bowl performance with Janet Jackson, saying “I wanted to be the only guy at a football game to get to second base”) and playfully mocking audience members (he lowered his nose to one of David Beckham’s Tom Ford shoes and proclaimed, “Smells like $250 million to me!”). He also performed several big musical numbers.
“If I made the decisions, I’d ask Justin to be [our] entertainment every week,” Monday Night Football host Stuart Scott told reporters during the show. “After what he’s putting down tonight … Justin can come hang out with us on the set anytime.”
Seconded snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler, who won best female action sport athlete: “Not only is he funny, but he obviously knows [the sports] he’s talking about. I was here two years ago when Lance Armstrong was hosting and he did a great job, but JT is ruling it.”
Even the athletes he poked fun at seemed impressed. “It’s all in good fun,” said Terrell Owens, whose emotional news conference after the Dallas Cowboys’ season ended was spoofed during the show at L.A.’s Nokia Theater. “He’s had some funny dialogue; his interaction with the crowd is good. He’s an entertainer, and he did a great job.”
Rush will be making their first U.S. television appearance in more than thirty years on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report.”
The Canadian band Rush, which hasn’t performed on U.S. television in more than three decades, will play their classic “Tom Sawyer” on the Comedy Central show Wednesday (11:30 p.m. EST). The Geddy Lee-led trio, which is currently on tour, hasn’t played on U.S. television since 1975.
Rush is only the latest act to perform on “The Report,” which has steadily edged closer to “Ed Sullivan Show” territory. With increasingly frequent musical performances, “The Report” has grown a variety-show impulse, evident in other upcoming bookings. The rapper Nas will perform on July 23, Toby Keith will return for a second performance on July 28 and Crosby, Stills and Nash will play on July 30.
The Stephen Colbert-hosted comedy show was originally launched as a parody of conservative political punditry — and shows like “The O’Reilly Factor” do not make a habit of hosting music performances. But “The Report” circus has expanded into musical realms, often with its sonorous host joining in. John Legend, Neil Young, R.E.M., Tony Bennett, Peter Frampton, Willie Nelson, Barry Manilow, John Mellencamp, the Roots and Carole King have all performed on the show.
Cool. Here’s a video of Rush playing “Tom Sawyer,” albeit not on “The Colbert Report.”
Rod Stewart: Grave Digger
After playing semi-pro soccer, Rod the Mod abandoned his athletic dreams to work with the dead. He dug graves at London’s Highgate Graveyard but laid down his shovel after just a few weeks.
Chubby Checker: Chicken Plucker
Before he was twisting, the rock ‘n’ roll legend was plucking. As a teenager, the man born Ernest Evans tore the feathers off dead chickens at the Fresh Farm Poultry Market in Philadelphia, where his boss gave him the nickname “Chubby” and occasionally let him sing to customers over the loudspeaker.
David Lee Roth: Hospital Orderly
Long before Van Halen, the not-yet-Diamond Dave fluffed pillows and emptied bedpans in a hospital. It’s a career field he almost went back to post-stardom — in 2004, Roth started training to become a paramedic.
Madonna: Doughnut Slinger
As a struggling dancer in New York City, Her Madgesty worked behind the counter at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Times Square. She was reportedly fired for squirting jelly on a customer.
James Brown: Pool Ball Racker
He was “the hardest-working man” even pre-show business! Brown grew up in Augusta, Ga., during the Great Depression, taking on several odd jobs to earn money, including shining shoes, washing cars, picking cotton and racking pool balls in local bars.
Gwen Stefani: Floor Scrubber
The Hollaback Girl’s very first job was mopping floors at a Dairy Queen near her home in Fullerton, Calif. She eventually left to work at a department store before joining her brother’s band, No Doubt.
Dorian Leigh, who combined pristine blue eyes, curling eyelashes, an arresting intelligence and intoxicating sexuality to become one of history’s most photographed models — perhaps the first to truly merit the adjective super — died Monday in Falls Church, Va. She was 91.
The death was announced by her grandson Thibaut Dubois.
Ms. Leigh graced seven Vogue covers in 1946, according to a New Yorker magazine article of the time, and in the next six years appeared on more than 50 more covers of various magazines, Playbill reported.
Her images in Revlon’s “Fire and Ice” nail polish and lipstick campaign in the 1950s — “For you who love to flirt with fire …who dare to skate on thin ice” — were shot by Richard Avedon and became Madison Avenue legend.
“Dorian was truly the best model of our time,” Eileen Ford, the doyenne of the modeling agency industry, said in an interview with The Roanoke Times in 1997. “She instinctively knew what every photographer wanted, and she came alive just at the moment the shutter clicked.”
Cecil Beaton wrote in his book “Photobiography” (1951) that Ms. Leigh was as demanding as the eminent photographers who shot her, including Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Irving Penn.
He said she could convey many moods, including “the sweetness of an 18-century pastel, the allure of a Sargent portrait, of the poignancy of some unfortunate woman who sat for Modigliani.”
Ms. Leigh’s mystique was enhanced by her many romances, which included five marriages — counting the one in Mexico to a Spanish marquis who turned out to be already married. There were also the many real or imagined affairs with famous writers, musicians and photographers, eagerly tabulated by gossip columnists. Ms. Leigh was definitely attractive, standing 5 feet 5 inches, with an hourglass figure and an alluring smile.
source: Dorian Leigh, Multifaceted Cover Girl of the ’40s, Dies at 91 [ny times]
As I was sorting through my Sunday Washington Post so that I could throw everything but the Parade and Washington Post Magazine my wife reads into the recycle bin, my attention was grabbed by this photo montage on the front of the Style section:
For a second, I thought they had juxtaposed Barack Obama with Malcolm X (the newsprint version is grainier than the digital one). But the Obama as Will Smith and John McCain and John Wayne comparison is more apt.
Wonderful moment in John Ford’s “The Searchers,” from way back in 1956: John Wayne, as the surly, violent Ethan Edwards, signals to his young compadre that it’s time to move on in their pursuit of Scar, the Comanche chief who’s murdered their family and kidnapped the youngest daughter, Debbie.
“Let’s go, blankethead,” he scowls to the young Martin Pawley.
I love the Duke’s pronunciation of the word “blankethead”; it radiates contempt for the young and the untested. Ethan is using the blast of scorn to tell the young man not only to get going to his horse but to get going in growing up, to acquire sand, grit, salt and all the other granular metaphors for old-guy toughness and savvy. Blankethead: It’s a three-syllable telegram on the theme of the fecklessness of youth, and nobody but Wayne could turn it into poetry.
But in the same instant, I remember Will Smith in the original “Men in Black.” The hotshot young cop has been recruited to an alien-hunting team secretly HQ’d in a New York bridge, and now he’s working for Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn. Torn and Jones are babbling about something and not paying attention to Smith. There’s a moment of frustration on the young face, and he interrupts with his own blast of scorn: “Hey, old guys!”
It’s a voice full of impatience, annoyance, even contempt, suggesting they haven’t the energy, the quickness or the attention span to take care of business. It’s on him, now, the new guy, the kid: He’s got to keep them from wandering off, losing track, drifting as the old are wont to do.
A former teacher pleaded guilty Wednesday to fleeing to Mexico with a 13-year-old student so she could have sex with him. Her plea was part of a deal to ensure she’ll spend less than a decade in federal prison.
Kelsey Peterson, 26, cried in court and shook her head when the prosecutor said she started having sex with the boy when he was 12 years old and a student at Lexington Middle School, where she taught.
But the former math teacher pleaded guilty to a charge of transporting a minor across state lines to have sex, and avoided a similar charge that would have carried a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence.
The plea agreement calls for a sentence of at least 70 months in prison, up to a maximum of 87 months. The judge could decide on a different sentence, but that would give Peterson the right to change her plea, said federal prosecutor Jan Sharp. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for September.
Her family burst out of the court room Wednesday shouting at reporters, telling them to “ask (the victim) how old he is,” and saying Peterson is being unjustly accused.
Peterson’s attorney, James Martin Davis, has publicly questioned the boy’s birth certificate. Davis said the boy was likely at least 16, and that he was the aggressor.
Amy Peck, an attorney for the boy and his family, said that suggestion was disgusting.
“He was a 12-year-old boy and the defendant knew it,” Peck said Wednesday. “The result of this lower plea could have been obtained without playing to every racial stereotype that there is.”
Sick, sick, sick. Did I tell you this was sick?
source: Kelsey Peterson Pleads Guilty to Fleeing, Sex with 13-Year Old Student [transworld news]
It appears that one of the prime beneficiaries of President Bush’s Economic Stimulus Plan was the porn industry.
An independent market-research firm, AIMRCo (Adult Internet Market Research Company), has discovered that many websites focused on adult or erotic material have experienced an upswing in sales in the recent weeks since checks have appeared in millions of Americans’ mailboxes across the country.
According to Kirk Mishkin, Head Research Consultant for AIMRCo, “Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market.”
Jillian Fox, spokeswoman for LSGmodels.com, one of the sites reporting figures to AIMRCo, added, “In a June 15, 2008 survey to our members, thirty two percent of respondents referenced the recent stimulus package as part of their decision to either become a new member, or renew an existing membership.”
The economic stimulus plan, which includes a check for up to $600 for individuals and $1200 for married couples (among other benefits), is the product of an agreement between House leaders and the Bush Administration, focused on reviving a struggling economy in the wake of a flagging economy.
Fox also added, “Getting more people to buy porn was probably the last thing Bush had on his mind when he came up with his ’stimulus package,’ but we’ll take it.”
DMX has been arrested at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on outstanding warrants. Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Aaron Douglas says the rapper, 37, was taken into custody Wednesday morning after arriving from Florida. DMX (real name: Earl Simmons) is being held on a $1,075 bond for driving with a suspended license and a $10,000 bond stemming from previous drug charges.
Douglas says DMX had failed to appear in court and warrants were issued. He is expected to appear before a judge late Wednesday. His lawyer in Phoenix, Cameron Morgan, declined TO comment.
The musician/actor has had a recent string of run-ins with the law. He was arrested Friday in Miami on charges of attempting to purchase cocaine and attempting to purchase marijuana.
Way to give rappers a bad name, dude.
Interestingly, country music star Glen Campbell had a song, recorded before Simmons/DMX was born, called “By the Time I get to Phoenix.” It had nothing to do with getting arrested, though. But, five years ago Glen Campbell was arrested — in Phoenix — on drunk driving and hit and run charges.
Clearly, the lesson here is that, if you’re a popular singer who commits crimes involving your vehicle and intoxicating substances, you should stay the hell out of Phoenix.
Source: “DMX arrested in Phoenix on outstanding warrants” (AP)
If you ever wanted to see Mini Me having sex, a judge says it’s okay:
The woman in a sex tape featuring Verne Troyer — best known for his role in the “Austin Powers” movies — says she allowed celebrity Web site TMZ to broadcast snippets of the tape. Troyer’s ex-girlfriend, Ranae Shrider, signed a declaration filed in federal court in Los Angeles stating the tape was created with her video camera. Her statement prompted a judge to allow TMZ to reinstate a post featuring snippets of the tape.
The judge had temporarily barred TMZ from showing or broadcasting any portion of the tape on its Web site or TV show. The post was restored by Tuesday evening.
The judge has still barred a porn distributor named in a $20 million lawsuit filed by Troyer from distributing or taking orders for the 50-minute tape.
Troyer starred as Mini Me in two “Austin Powers” movies. His lawsuit alleged the tape was stolen. Shrider’s statement says she believes she also owns the tape, but so far has only given permission to TMZ to air it.
This gives more credibility to Justice Potter Stewart’s famous line about pornography (actually, obscenity, if you want to be technical about it): “I know it when I see it.” Still, there are some things I don’t want to see. This may just top the list.
The latter, the June 25th report that launched the suit in question, makes light of the whole matter,
Yes, that’s Mini-Me Verne Troyer in a sex tape shot with his former live-in girlfriend at the couple’s apartment. A third party has snatched up the tape and although no deal has been made, we hear dealer Kevin Blatt, who brokered the deal for Paris’ video, is entertaining a $100k offer from SugarDVD to distribute the nastiness. We would have thought the tape was worth at least ONE BILLION DOLLARS.
You can also view the actual video there, if you must. Gone Hollywood wouldn’t do that to you!
Source: TMZ allowed to repost portion of actor’s sex tape [YahooNews]
Angelina Jolie’s obstetrician, Dr. Michel Sussmann, assured the press at a news conference in the South of France today, that all is well with the expectant mom – something that she and Brad Pitt want the world to know. That’s right, she’s still pregnant!
“Everything is normal,” the obstetrician said in French, as he also said in English, “She is very well, and she’s okay. … Brad and Angelina want everyone to know that everything is going well. It is simply a visit of surveillance, no birth.”
The babies, he said, will arrive “in the weeks to come.”
Angelina was probably resting up in the hospital, watching TV and laughing her ass off — forced to set the record straight.
Pitt arriving at hospital with Zahara and Shiloh
Jolie, who is expecting twins, checked into the medical center this weekend. Since that time, the media has been on a frenzy — with two tabloids even reporting two different gender combinations. By the way, both of those mags are just now hitting the stands — they’ll have to live with the shame for a whole week.
Sussmann added about his patient,
“Angelina is very, very nice, she will stay in the hospital until the birth. I will stay with her.”
No wonder she’s having the babies in France — can you imagine the frenzy that would have ensued at a hospital in say… Hollywood?
source: Angelina Jolie’s Doctor: ‘Everything Is Normal’ [people]
Presenting The 25 Funniest People in America. From Conan O’Brien to Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey to Craig Ferguson, let’s count down the names of the entertainers who make us laugh the hardest.
25. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running with Scissors — about being raised by a nutso shrink who studies his poo and rents the back shed to a pedophile — is unbelievably disturbing. And sidesplitting. At first we felt guilty giggling at his adventures with an electroshock therapy machine, but Burroughs knows that laughter is the best antidepressant. Much better than booze, which the author struggles to kick in his equally effervescent follow-up, Dry.
24. CATHERINE O’HARA
After her run on SCTV in the late ’70s, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with O’Hara. Fortunately, Christopher Guest did. In Waiting for Guffman, she and Fred Willard are tracksuit-wearing answers to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; in Best in Show, she’s a onetime floozy with a prize terrier and a torrid past; and in A Mighty Wind, O’Hara shows off a subtler comic touch, proving that humor doesn’t always mean a pie in the face.
23. SARAH SILVERMAN
The Lenny Bruce of the 21st century might be this hot, foul-mouthed, button-punching stand-up. Silverman is ruthlessly funny about topics like sex, the Holocaust, and 9/11, which may be why The Sarah Silverman Program has a permanent slot on our DVR. Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, she’s f—ing Matt Damon.
22. DAVE CHAPPELLE
The fact that Diamond Dave is all but absent from the comedic stage these days doesn’t invalidate his funny. After all, Chappelle’s revered Comedy Central show — on which the wiry comic gleefully engaged in crass T&A humor, swore like a sailor, and mocked everyone in the multiculti rainbow, confronting race in a way that is positively Pryor-esque — is still the best sketch comedy this country has seen in more than a decade. For that alone, he deserves a spot on any list like this.
21. DEMETRI MARTIN
You know what’s funny? Palindromes and anagrams. ”Shut up, Grandma,” you say, but we say shut up yourself and watch Demetri Martin work a stand-up mic. ”A drunk driver’s very dangerous. Everybody knows that. But so is a drunk backseat driver — if he’s persuasive.” The floppy-haired heir to Steven Wright won a prestigious award at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking him from the comedy underground to…the comedy slightly less underground.
20. DIABLO CODY
Not to be partial, but the newly minted Oscar winner showed off her comedic — and emotional — chops with her debut screenplay for Juno. Did we mention it won an Oscar?
19. CRAIG FERGUSON
Late night is the province of the mono-name. Jay! Dave! Conan! Then there’s that Scottish guy, two-name ID required: Craig Ferguson. You know, the one who can’t quite be pinned down. Since taking over CBS’ Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, Ferguson has brought a fresh burst of energy to the format. He’s reinvented the opening monologue, doing away with most of the topical jokes and just ad-libbing about his life. Along with fresh energy, he’s brought something else — ratings. Ferguson, 45 and a brand-spanking-new U.S. Citizen, doesn’t get as much media attention as time-slot competitors Jimmy Kimmel or Conan, but with an audience of just under 2 million, the great Scot outperforms the former and has climbed within 500,000 viewers of the latter.
18. JACK BLACK
Black is an entirely new classification of human: the frenetic slacker. Before his turn as doofus band reject/inspirational teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was the Ritalin-deprived half of Tenacious D (along with his partner, Kyle Gass) and the list-obsessed record-shop shlub in High Fidelity. He is, inarguably, the coolest fusion of music and comedy since Spinal Tap. (And, if Tropic Thunder is as good as we’ve been led to believe, we’ll forgive him that whole Nacho Libre business.)
17. DAVID LETTERMAN
With a receding hairline and a jogger’s grim jowls, Dave is no one’s idea of a hip comic, and he likes it that way. New-school gone old-school, the upstart who first pumped irony into the talk show still rails against the stupidity of the powerful and yet has the charm to melt Julia Roberts.
16. AMY SEDARIS AND DAVID SEDARIS
Big brother is the best-selling author of the sublime autobiographical essay collections Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, full of terrific riffs about stuff like his cuckoo-clock North Carolina clan and his midget guitar teacher. Little sis was the rubber-faced star of Comedy Central’s truly strange Strangers With Candy, as well as coauthor of the book Wigfield.
15. WILL FERRELL
See, there’s this man-child who latches onto Will Ferrell in most every role he plays — and good luck getting the little guy to let go. As a result, we are treated to inspired displays of dolt-trapped-in-the-headlights hijinks, be it in the form of Old School’s keghead Frank the Tank (who goes from repressed to regressed to undressed) or Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, the dumbest, most earnest NASCAR driver on the circuit — who’s also the most comfortable with his sexuality.
14. RICKY GERVAIS
Okay, so he doesn’t spend all that much of his time in America. We don’t care. Whether as the creator of The Office and Extras, a supporting actor in movies like For Your Consideration or Night at the Museum, or doing killer stand-up (as seen most recently in Grand Theft Auto IV), he’s still as funny as the dog’s bollocks.
13. ELLEN DEGENERES
DeGeneres, whose career seemed all but kaput a few years ago, has earned back adoration simply by being her affably dry self on the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Whether it’s her circuitous monologues, her deadpan celebrity interviews, or that vocal turn as Dory in Finding Nemo, she remains one of the cleanest, coolest funny ladies around.
12. DAVID CROSS
All conversations about his genius start here: Along with Bob Odenkirk, he created the cunning HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which routinely put SNL to silly shame. And not only does Cross work little miracles in supporting roles (remember his role as feckless freak-job Tobias on Fox’s Arrested Development?), he can drop some pretty fearsome stand-up (who else talks about being raped by the Virgin Mary?). Simply put, this dude never kowtows for his funny.
11. CONAN O’BRIEN
Smarty-pants isn’t usually a compliment, but O’Brien wears them so well. When this Harvard geek isn’t riffing on Muammar Gaddafi in his monologue, he’s making absurd innovations in low-brow comedy. Now, let’s see if those absurd innovations will play on The Tonight Show….
The Saturday Night Live scene-stealer has found her stride in her third season, thanks to breakout characters like the Target clerk and the obsessively competitive Penelope, as well as spot-on impressions of Jamie Lee Curtis and Suze Orman.
9. LARRY DAVID
Because he’s a balding, neurotic, self-consumed, multimillionaire malcontent who reacts to most social interactions as if he just took a whiff of some really bad cheese. Because the only thing he hates more than these situations is himself. Because he’s the most hilariously doomed white-guy antihero we’ve ever seen, and has no problems taking on every sacred cow. Because we have no idea how much of this Larry David — from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm — is swiped from the real Larry David. And because both Larry Davids co-created one of the best comedies ever, Seinfeld.
8. AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT
The funniest married couple on the list. (Sorry, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.) When they’re apart (she, on Saturday Night Live and in Baby Mama; he, late of Arrested Development and currently guesting on 30 Rock), they’re great. But when they’re together, as when they played brother-and sister figure skaters in Blades of Glory, they’re resplendent. So let’s get those crazy kids together more often, shall we?
7. MATT STONE AND TREY PARKER
Now in their eleventh season of South Park, these potty mouths with a purpose continue to remind us what full creative control gets you: moments so wrong, they’re right (Ben Affleck falling in love with Cartman’s hand comes to mind). Added bonus: The ninth season episode, ”Trapped in the Closet” contains the most sober explanation of the background of Scientology you’ll ever hear.
6. CHRIS ROCK
Television failed him (Saturday Night Live didn’t know what to do with his bright-bulb humor, and his HBO talk show couldn’t contain him). The movies didn’t get him (though this is as much Rock’s fault as anyone’s, given he wrote and directed his most recent starring vehicles, the underperforming Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife). But on the stage, Rock is a man on a mission, mercilessly tackling race, religion, money, and relationships. And his missionaries are legion.
5. STEVE CARELL
Sometimes, it hurts so good. The pain, the discomfort, the agony of watching Carell’s Michael Scott work himself into another awkward scenario on NBC’s The Office…and almost work himself out. And the fact that we don’t hate Michael — on the contrary, we feel a warm, chocolatey pity for him — is a testament to Carell, who leavens the bald incompetence with wide-eyed awe.
4. JON STEWART AND THE ‘DAILY SHOW’ TEAM
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the most consistent laugh machine on TV — and the only news source for scores of cynics and slackers. It’s not often that a comedy show can tackle politics, embrace a cogent point of view, and still maintain its anarchic spark. The scribes at The Daily Show pull it off four nights a week. As the heart and soul of the show, Stewart is evenhanded but never meek; as an interviewer, he can make his guests comfortable even as he’s taking them apart. Then there’s his gang of ”correspondents,” who soldier straight-facedly into the great American absurd and take no prisoners. Empirically speaking, there’s nothing funny about what’s going on in the world right now. Yet here we are each week, chortling.
3. TINA FEY
It takes a certain self-confidence to play a woman who accidentally dates her third cousin, erroneously assumes her neighbor is a terrorist, and gets called the C-word by a colleague (especially when said character is based on you). ”I love going to those uncomfortable places,” says Fey, who stars as 30 Rock’s workaholic TV maven and is also the NBC show’s creator and exec producer. ”I’ll go down any weird avenue.” Maybe this year’s surprise Emmy win for best comedy will empower Fey to pursue some dreams for her alter ego. ”Liz Lemon could do an international adoption for a Russian baby and get the paperwork wrong with the European dates and somehow end up with a huge, muscular 13-year-old. Yeah, I could see that.” Hopefully we will too.
2. STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE ‘COLBERT REPORT’ TEAM
The once (and, we’re sure, future) presidential nominee, author, and dedicated windbag also happens to be one of the smartest satirists working today. Heck, if all the dude had on his resume was the legendary 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he’d go down in comedy history. But week-in and week-out, Colbert takes aim at the political-industrial complex — and I don’t care if there’s no such term — and spins the facts into truth. Or truthiness. Whichever’s easier.
1. THE JUDD APATOW POSSE
Can you even remember what movie comedy looked like before writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and his ever-expanding comedy clan (including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd) came along last summer with two stiff shots of cathartic humor — the oops-she’s-preggers romp Knocked Up and the high school raunchfest Superbad? Today, when studio execs have a comedy that feels flat or formulaic, the call goes out to ”Judd it up” — sweet irony for a man once best known for critically beloved flops like TV’s Freaks and Geeks. ”It was always my dream to become a verb,” Apatow deadpans. ”That’s what I wrote in my high school yearbook.”
Yesterday, a French court ordered eBay to pay almost $60 million in damages to Louis Vuitton for allowing the sale of fake LV items.
I conducted a simple search on eBay which produced just under 2,700 entries for Louis Vuitton!
The court has now stopped eBay from selling four kinds of perfumes, which are Givenchy, Christian Dior, Guerlain, and Kenzo. They will also not be allowed to sell six LVMH brands.
The court determined that eBay had committed “serious errors” by allowing the sales of fake LVMH goods. They also said eBay violated the perfume sales distribution network, which was setup by Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior Couture.
Of course, eBay said they are going to launch an appeal, believing the court did not uphold copyright law. A spokesperson for eBay has said,
“This decision is not based on combating counterfeit material. It is based on LVMH’s desire to protect its commercial practices and exclude competition. This is being done at the expense of the consumers and sellers to whom eBay is always offering opportunities.”
The case, which started a year and a half ago, stated that eBay knowingly allowed the sales of counterfeit products on its site.
Frankly, how could eBay possibly know if each item listed is in fact authentic, if they are not able to personally inspect each item for themselves? On the opposite side of the coin, I own a Louis Vuitton — if I want to place it on eBay and sell it, I should have the right to do that.
source: eBay fined for selling fake Louis Vuitton goods online [afp]
There’s been much speculation regarding Madonna’s failing marriage to Guy Ritchie, now we may know why.
The singer has been hosting late-night visits from New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez at her Central Park West apartment in New York City.
A ringless and grim-faced Ritchie, 39, arrived in New York City from London yesterday after several weeks apart from his family. A source said that the $28-million-a-year Rodriguez, 32, has made numerous solo nighttime visits to Madonna, 49, at her spacious home and would sneak out “as late as midnight.” Says the source, “All the doormen are talking.”
Rodriguez attended Madonna’s April 30 NYC concert; the singer sat in his seats at a Yankees game on June 22 (it was the first time she ever was photographed at a Yankees game). Her son Rocco, 7, also sported Yankees gear on June 25 while playing in Central Park.
Rodriguez, married with two young daughters, has already faced speculation about cheating: In 2007, he and a stripper were reportedly spied in Toronto, Miami and Dallas.
Complicating matters: Former Yankee slugger Jose Canseco – who once dated Madonna – wrote in his book Vindicted that he “hates [A-Rod's] guts” because he once hit on his wife.
OOooh scandal! It’s always a story about cheating, isn’t it? Alex Rodriguez sounds like a real tool, you would think that Madonna would have better taste than that. Once a cheater, always a cheater.
What others said:
Gawker says, “The New York Post must be devastated, for whom this would have been the most perfect story: a singer who made her name in New York with the city’s most hated sports celebrity.
Dlisted says, “I don’t even watch to picture these two bumping muscley genitals. They probably get stuck all the time, because Vadge’s muscled-up chocha traps A-Rod’s rod.”
source: NY Yankee Making Late-Night Visits to Madonna’s Apartment [us]
A supermodel plunged to her death Saturday afternoon by leaping from her Lower Manhattan apartment window in an apparent suicide.
Ruslana Korshunova, barely shy of her 21st birthday, apparently jumped from the balcony of her residential building in Manhattan’s Financial District, police tell the New York Post.
Authorities said there appeared to be no signs of a struggle having taken place inside the 9th-floor apartment, which the green-eyed, 5′8″ beauty had occupied for only two months.
The Kazakhstan-born “Russian Rapunzel,” as she was known, had appeared as cover girl on editions of French Elle and Russian Vogue, as well as in ads for Marc Jacobs, DKNY, Vera Wang and Christian Dior.
“Our hearts are with her family,” a spokesman for her agency, IMG (which also represents Heidi Klum and Kate Moss) told the Post.
A former boyfriend, Artem Perchenok, 24, told the paper that the two had watched the movie Ghost and that he dropped her off at home at 5 a.m. Saturday. “She was a good person,” he said.
The Daily News suggests that Korshunova had become despondent over a lost love. She poured her heart out on the Web in the months leading to her apparent suicide.
“Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably,” the sandy-haired knockout wrote in a poem that concluded: “And never regret anything that made you smile.”
The Kazakh beauty wrote that love “blinds,” “sets souls afire,” and “is always the answer” in emotion-soaked passages posted on a social networking site.
Korshunova volleyed between Russian and English in her heartfelt prose, but love was a central theme no matter the language. “Do not confuse love and desire,” she wrote in Russian in her most recent posting May 30. “Love is the sun, desire - only flash. Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life.”
The soulful note warns of the perils of sacrifice.
“Love does not take away from one in order to give to another,” wrote Korshunova, a 20-year-old thousands of miles from her native Kazakhstan. “Love - this is the essence of life. But you will not give your life to another.”
Korshunova’s most telling message came three months ago: “I’m so lost. Will I ever find myself?”
She appeared angry in some postings, brokenhearted in others.
“I’m a bitch. I’m a witch. I don’t care what you say!!!” she wrote March 11. “I know what it is. I know why my other relationships didn’t work out, ’cause I’m unpredictable. Why are you afraid of it?”
In January, she wrote, “It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out.
“My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high,” she wrote in a March note.
This is very, very sad.
UPDATE (James): Fox News has shown video of Korshunova’s body . I think the family could have done without that. Sad, indeed.
Authorities said there appeared to be no signs of a struggle having taken place inside the 9th-floor apartment, which the green-eyed, 5′8″ beauty had occupied for only two months.
