Ozzy Osbourne's tour manager was found dead in his Birmingham, Mich., hotel room, the Oakland County Medical Examiner's Office said. Bobby Thomson, 50, was found around 4:30 p.m. yesterday (July 24) in his bed at the Townsend Hotel in the Detroit suburb, near where the Ozzfest tour will play tonight.
Thomson had battled throat cancer for 18 months, Ozzfest's publicist told the Detroit Free Press. It appeared he had died in his sleep.
"We are devastated by the loss of our dear friend Bobby," Osbourne said in a statement. "He has been a part of our family for 23 years and loved very much. He will be greatly missed by all of us. Our sincerest sympathies go out to the Thomson family.''
An initial examination showed no sign of foul play and an autopsy was scheduled for today. Born in Wallyford, Scotland, Thomson lived in Saugus, Calif., north of Los Angeles. He is survived by his wife, Terri, and two sons, ages 19 and 10.
The young woman accusing Kobe Bryant of rape bragged about the alleged assault at a party last week - and gave a graphic description of the NBA star's anatomy, partygoers said.
Steve Evancho told NBC News that he was surprised when the 19-year-old woman showed up at his house party on July 15 - three days before prosecutors slapped Bryant with sex assault charges.
"She was bragging about the whole thing," Evancho said, adding that the woman seemed "happy. She was having fun."
She even answered a question about the 6-foot-7 L.A. Lakers star's manhood, five people at the party told NBC.
"She answered with a gesture and a description," said NBC correspondent Michelle Hofland. "They couldn't believe it."
A spokeswoman for the Eagle County, Colo., district attorney declined to comment on the story yesterday.
Other friends have said the woman was stunned and upset after the June 30 incident at the Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, where she worked at the front desk.
The report comes as a friend of the woman said the woman felt "a certain amount of chemistry with" Bryant when she showed him around the ritzy mountain resort near Vail.
After showing Bryant around the lavish lodge, she accepted his invitation to go to his room, Luke Bray told The Denver Post.
"She had thoughts of declining," Bray said. "But he had been nice. She felt safe about doing that."
Bryant raped her when she tried to leave, Bray said.
Conviction promised
Bray also echoed his wife, Starlene Bray, who has said the woman suffered obvious injuries.
"I can't wait for this to get in front of a jury so they can see what happened," Luke Bray said. "Their jaws will hit the floor, and they will convict him."
Bryant, married with a 6-month-old daughter, insists he had consensual sex with the woman.
Meanwhile, today's Globe supermarket tabloid published a photograph of the accuser on the cover with a black bar covering her eyes.
"This is the No. 1 face in America that people want to see, and so we decided to go with it," said editorial director Jim Lynch.
The woman's name is not mentioned.
Mainstream media outlets have refrained from identifying the accuser or showing her picture, though some of her personal information has appeared on the Internet and a syndicated radio talk-show host has aired her name.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Internet users who allow others to copy songs from their hard drives could face prison time under legislation introduced by two Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday.
The bill is the strongest attempt yet to deter the widespread online song copying that recording companies say has led to a decline in CD sales.
Sponsored by Michigan Rep. John Conyers and California Rep. Howard Berman, the bill would make it easier to slap criminal charges on Internet users who copy music, movies and other copyrighted files over "peer-to-peer" networks.
The recording industry has aggressively pursued Napster (news - web sites), Kazaa and other peer-to-peer networks in court and recently announced it planned to sue individual users as well.
In a series of hearings on Capitol Hill last spring, lawmakers condemned online song swapping and expressed concern the networks could spread computer viruses, create government security risks and allow children access to pornography.
Few online copyright violators have faced criminal charges so far. A New Jersey man pleaded guilty to distributing a digital copy of the movie "The Hulk" in federal court three weeks ago, but the Justice Department (news - web sites) has not taken action against Internet users who offer millions of copies of songs each day.
The Conyers-Berman bill would operate under the assumption that each copyrighted work made available through a computer network was copied by others at least 10 times for a total retail value of $2,500. That would bump the activity from a misdemeanor to a felony, carrying a sentence of up to five years in jail.
It would also outlaw the practice of videotaping a movie in the theater, a favorite illicit method of copying movies.
"While existing laws have been useful in stemming this problem, they simply do not go far enough," said Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee (news - web sites).
The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) praised the bill and said it would help them fight illegal online copying.
One copyright expert said the bill paints online song-swapping with too broad a brush as much of that activity does not rise to a criminal level.
"We don't think it should be the role of the FBI (news - web sites) to treat all copyright infringement as criminal," said Mike Godwin, staff counsel at Public Sector, a nonprofit group that frequently disagrees with the RIAA.
A Conyers staffer said the bill had won the backing of many Democrats but Republicans had yet to endorse it.
The staffer said backers hoped to discuss the bill at a hearing on Thursday and combine it next week with another sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, who chairs an intellectual-property subcommittee.
"Once we have the opportunity to analyze the bill language we will be able to determine how it affects our fight against piracy," a Smith spokesman said in an e-mail message.
NEW YORK - Celia Cruz, who went from singing in Havana nightclubs to become the "Queen of Salsa," died Wednesday, her publicist said.
Cruz, who was 77, died of a brain tumor. She had surgery for the ailment in December but her health faltered. She died at her home in Fort Lee, N.J., according to her publicist, Blanca Lasalle.
Ruben Blades, a frequent collaborator and friend, called Cruz a classy icon whose dynamic performances became her trademark.
"Celia Cruz could take any song and make it unforgettable. She transcended the material," Blades told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday night. "With Celia, even the most simple of songs became injected with her personality and her vigor."
"I don't think you could hear anything she ever did and be indifferent," he said.
Cruz studied to be a teacher in her native Havana, but was lured into show business when a relative entered her in a radio talent contest, which she won. She later studied music at the Havana Conservatory and performed at the world-famous Tropicana nightclub.
In the 1950s, Cruz became famous with the legendary Afro-Cuban group La Sonora Matancera. She left Cuba after its 1959 revolution for the United States in 1960, and never returned.
With her powerful voice and flamboyant stage shows, Cruz helped bring salsa music to a broad audience.
"She became a symbol of quality and strength, and she became a symbol of Afro-Cuban music," Blades said. "You couldn't be a fan of Celia and not be a fan of Afro-Cuban music, because she was Afro-Cuban music."
Cruz dazzled not only with her voice but also her personality. Always flashing a wide smile, the entertainer gave a highly energetic stage show, punctuated often by her trademark shout, "Azucar!" in the middle of a song. The word, which means sugar in Spanish, became her catch phrase after a waiter apparently asked her, to her surprise, if she wanted sugar in her coffee.
Her alliance with fellow salsa star and "Mambo King" Tito Puente resulted in some of the biggest success in her career. The two recorded albums and regularly performed together, and they were considered legends of the genre.
She was also a member of the Fania All-Stars, the Afro-Cuban music collective that recorded for the Fania record label in the 1970s, along with Blades and Willie Colon. She dazzled listeners with fiery songs such as "Quimbara."
She recorded more than 70 albums and had more than a dozen Grammy nominations. She won best salsa album for "La Negra Tiene Tumbao" at last year's Latin Grammy Awards, and won the same award at this year's Grammy Awards. Among her other best-known recordings are "Yerberito Moreno" and "Que le Den Candela."
Called the "Queen of Salsa" and the "diva of Latin song," Cruz remained energetic late into her career, popular with young audiences as well as old. At last year's Latin Grammys, she showed up wearing a frothy blue-and-white headpiece and a tight red dress and gave a hip-shaking performance.
In 1987, she was honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and several years later, the city of Miami gave Calle Ocho, the main street of its Cuban community, the honorary name of Celia Cruz Way.
Cruz also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian Institution and in 1994, President Clinton honored her with an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Recording Academy and Latin Recording Academy issued a statement Wednesday that read in part: "One of Latin music's most respected and most revered vocalists, Celia Cruz was an icon of salsa, tropical and Latin jazz music. ... Thank you, Celia, for teaching all of us that life should be lived with much `Azucar!'"
Pop and salsa singer Marc Anthony, a friend who recently paid tribute to Cruz at a gala concert, said in a statement: "We are witnessing the end of an era. She is simply irreplaceable and its just an honor to know that she was a part of my life."
Blades said Cruz's music and the legacy she left behind would live on.
"The real death begins when you forget," he said. "No one is going to forget Celia."
HARLESTOWN, R.I. -- The chief sachem and seven other members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe were arrested yesterday by State Police in what onlookers described as a violent raid of the tribe's new tax-free tobacco shop.
Governor Donald Carcieri called the raid ''truly regrettable, but clearly necessary'' after tribal leaders said they would cease operations of the smoke shop only if the governor dropped his opposition to a casino the tribe has been trying to build for years.
Carcieri said the troopers entered the reservation under a court-issued search warrant that he ordered be executed.
''We do not take today's actions lightly,'' Carcieri said. ''We deliberated long and hard before authorizing today's response.''
Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas and other tribe members were arrested as police entered the Narragansett Smoke Shop, which opened Saturday. State Police also confiscated the cigarettes that remained on the shelves and took about $900 from the cash register.
Colonel Steven Pare, the superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police, said all eight arrested tribe members had been released by last night. Seven were released on personal recognizance, while one tribe member posted bail.
Pare said one person was injured in the melee. But Paulla Dove, a member of the tribe's council, said that between eight and 10 people complained of injuries. Some of them, including her 36-year-old son, Adam Jennings, were taken to the hospital. Dove believed her son may have reinjured an already sore ankle.
A videotape of the raid shows state troopers marching toward the smoke shop and forcibly opening its doors. Several tribe members who resisted were wrestled to the ground and handcuffed.
The video also shows Thomas with his arms wrapped around a state trooper at the top of the shop's front steps, while one tribe member appears to have his hand on the trooper's throat. Shortly afterward, two troopers pull a man down the steps, and then pull Thomas after him.
The tape also shows a police dog nipping at the clothing of a man who is handcuffed and face-down on the ground.
''The Narragansett Indian Tribe did what it's always done -- it stood to protect its land,'' said Thomas, who had a swollen right wrist and bandaged left arm. ''It's unfortunate because it's 2003.''
Pare said State Police officers in plainclothes were inside the store and handed a search warrant to the clerk that ordered the tribe to ''stop the illegal activity.''
The officers were told in the store that the tribe did not intend to acknowledge that order, Pare said, and the troopers then entered the shop.
Attorney General Patrick Lynch said the videotape showed the officers acted with restraint.
A hearing on a motion to issue a temporary restraining order was scheduled for today in Superior Court.
Carcieri said his administration had been meeting with the tribe and had said it would work to stimulate their economy.
''I indicated that I was willing to discuss the possibility of entering into some sort of compact with the tribe, but first they must cease operations'' of the smoke shop, Carcieri said.
''Their demands were totally unacceptable,'' he said. ''They demanded . . . that in turn for closing the smoke shop, that I must drop my opposition to a casino.''
LOS ANGELES - Jazz great Benny Carter, a master of melodic invention on the alto saxophone who also was a renowned composer, instrumentalist, orchestra leader and arranger, has died, friends said Sunday. He was 95.
Carter died Saturday, after being hospitalized for about two weeks with bronchitis and other problems, said family friend and publicist Virginia Wicks.
"A big, big person walked out of the room yesterday," said friend and producer Quincy Jones (news). "A great human being."
Known as a virtuoso alto saxophone and trumpet player, critics praised Carter for his originality and improvisation that helped launch the golden age of big band jazz in the 1930s.
His compositions, which include "When Lights Are Low" (1936) and "Blues in My Heart" (1931), became jazz and big band standards, and many saxophone and trumpet players continue to measure their work against his solos.
But it was his work arranging and composing — and receiving credit — for movies and later for television that opened doors for many black musicians and composers.
Carter was largely self-taught as a musician, playing both saxophone and trumpet before becoming a bandleader in the late 1920s.
In a career that spanned more than six decades, he performed with or wrote music for nearly all of jazz's early greats, including Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie.
St. Louis-based trumpeter Clark Terry, another early jazz pioneer, said Carter was truly revered by other musicians.
"We always called him the king because he was probably the most highly respected musician of the whole lot of us," Terry said.
Though he is perhaps best remembered as a saxophonist, Jones said Carter's greatest contributions to the form were his compositions and arrangements.
Carter was a member of a generation of early jazz musicians responsible for changing public attitudes about the style, which grew out of blues and spiritual music and was largely performed by black musicians, Jones said.
"They came out of this thing that was supposed to be the wicked music, and they brought it to life, and it turned into one of our greatest art forms," Jones said.
Born Bennett Lester Carter on Aug. 8, 1907, in New York City, he attended an integrated elementary school. He took piano lessons from his mother when he was 10 years old, and later studied with a private teacher for a year.
Carter picked up the trumpet at age 14. But after failing to master it in a week, he traded it for a saxophone, he once told reporters. Carter mastered the trumpet a year later. By age 15, he was a regular at Harlem night clubs.
In 1928, Carter made his recording and arranging debut as a member of Charlie Johnson's Orchestra. With no formal music education, Carter taught himself to arrange music on two of the orchestra's recordings, "Charleston Is the Best Dance After All" and "Easy Money." Later that year, he joined Fletcher Henderson's orchestra and assumed arrangement duties.
Carter expanded his duties to include composing and in 1932 put together his own orchestra, but the band struggled financially and disbanded in 1934.
But his reputation as an arranger had grown.
"You got Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and my man, the Earl of Hines, right? Well, Benny's right up there with all them cats. Everybody that knows who he is calls him `King.' He is a king," Louis Armstrong (news) once said.
In 1942, Carter reorganized his band, which included bebop pioneers Gillespie and Kenny Clarke and later modernist Miles Davis. He disbanded it in 1946 in part because of his growing Hollywood career.
In the 1943, Carter arranged music for "Stormy Weather," an all black musical. In 1944, Carter appeared in MGM's "Thousands Cheer" with Lena Horne (news). He went on to arrange music for "An American in Paris," (1951) "The Guns of Navarone" (1961) and Busby Berkeley (news)'s "The Gang's All Here" (1943).
He later composed and arranged music for 20 television series, including "M Squad," (1957-60) "Ironside," (1967-75) "The Name of the Game" (1968-71) and "It Takes a Thief" (1968-70).
His success as one of the first black musicians to break into the lucrative film scoring market and, eventually to be credited for his work, opened the door for others. He also succeeded in using his influence to push successfully to desegregate the Musicians' Union's white and black locals.
While Carter continued to arrange and compose music, he stopped touring in the 1950s and 1960s and began to fade in the jazz scene. In 1969, approached by a sociologist who felt Carter was not receiving recognition as one of the great contributors to jazz, Carter began lecturing at colleges.
In 1976, he returned to performing live at Michael's Pub in New York and later that year recorded "The King," which featured duets with Gillespie.
"I don't look back at the good old days. The good old days are here and now," he once said.
Carter was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987 and the congressional designation as a National Treasure of Jazz in 1988. In 2000, he was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton (news - web sites).
Jones said he felt after visiting Carter in the hospital that "the king" had simply decided it was time to go.
"He said he had lived, for 95 years, the greatest life he could ask for, and he wanted to leave us like he lived with us, which was in such dignity," Jones said.
A 24-year-old man from Hamilton, Ontario, was murdered Tuesday night outside Toronto's Molson Amphitheatre following a concert featuring Jay-Z and 50 Cent. According to homicide Detective Cory Bockus, Msemaji Granger, who attended the concert with a group of friends, was approached by at least two men at around 10:20 p.m. as the show was ending. Numerous shots were fired at close range, hitting Granger in the upper body and head.
The gunmen then reportedly blended in with the crowd as they moved through the parking lot. Granger was taken to the hospital in critical condition and died yesterday (July 2). The shooting happened as a Canada Day fireworks display was concluding nearby at Ontario Place. Police now believe Granger was "targeted."
Jay-Z and 50 Cent's Rock the Mic tour plays Camden, N.J., tonight.
Soul Man Barry White Dies
Fri Jul 4, 5:15 PM ET By Marcus Errico
Barry White, whose baritone pipes provided the soundtrack for many a make-out session during the past four decades, died Friday morning in Los Angeles, according to his longtime manager, Ned Shankman.
A publicist said White was 56, but most musical references list his birthdate as September 12, 1944, making him 58.
White passed away around 9:30 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The deep-voiced funkmeister had been in ill health for years. Chronic high blood pressure resulted in kidney failure, and White was admitted to the hospital last September to await a transplant. While undergoing dialysis treatment in May, he suffered a stroke that impaired his speech and left him partially paralyzed.
Known for warbling such get-it-on hits as "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe," "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," "Your Sweetness Is My Weakness," "It's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me," "I'm Gonna Love You, Just a Little More Baby" and "Love's Theme," White chalked up worldwide sales in excess of 100 million, including 106 gold albums, 41 platinum albums, 20 gold singles and 10 platinum singles. He also worked behind the scenes as a writer and producer.
White won his first two Grammys for his last studio album, 1999's Staying Power. His 'toon self famously saved Springfield, hometown of The Simpsons , in the fourth-season episode "Whacking Day," when his trademark vocals solved the town's serpent problem.
In May, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to rename a recreation center in the city's South Park neighborhood after White, who was born in Galveston, Texas, but grew up in the area.
Shankman says he and White had been working on a duets album, scheduled for release later this year on the Def Soul label.
White, who married and divorced twice, is survived by eight children--daughters La nece, Deniece, Nina, Shehera and 4-week-old Barriana, sons Barry Jr. and Darrell and stepson McKevin (the son of his second wife, singer Glodean James of the White-produced group Love Unlimited)--and his companion and Barriana's mother, Catherine Denton.
Great White has revamped a proposed 55-city tour to raise funds for the families of victims killed during a February fire at its performance in West Warwick, R.I. The Jack Russell-led group planned to tour with fellow hard rock acts L.A. Guns and XYZ, with proceeds going to the victims' families.
According to L.A. Guns' official Web site, in the wake of the tragedy, "venues were requiring [Great White] to purchase additional insurance and it just wasn't realistic."
"We are very disappointed," L.A. Guns drummer Steve Riley wrote. "We were all set to go. Whatever the reason for it going down, we want all our people to know we got involved in the first place because we really thought it was a good idea about the memorial fund since it hit us so hard with losing so many friends and fans."
Great White will instead embark on its own tour, for which 12 dates are thus far confirmed, beginning July 22 in Sterling, Colo. Proceeds from those shows will go to The Station Family Fund, named for the club where the disaster took place. 100 people, including Great White guitarist Ty Longley, were killed in the blaze, which is believed to have started when the band's pyrotechnics set fire to foam that had been placed around the stage as soundproofing.
Owners of the nightclub insist they did not know Great White planned to use pyrotechnics during its concert. Members of the band claim otherwise. A grand jury is investigating to determine whether criminal charges are warranted.
Here are Great White's tour dates (venues TBA):
July 22: Sterling, Colo.
July 23: Colorado Springs, Colo.
July 25: Salt Lake City
July 26: Denver
July 31: Omaha, Neb.
Aug. 1: Sioux City, Iowa
Aug. 2: Jane, Mo,
Aug. 3: Clear Lake, Iowa
Aug. 7: Sturgis, S.D.
Aug. 8: Medina, Minn.
Aug. 9: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Aug. 10: Marionette, Ill.
Lenny Kravitz Forms Label
Sat Jun 28, 5:43 PM ET
By Melinda Newman
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Lenny Kravitz (news) has formed Roxie Records, an imprint named for his late mother, Roxie Roker, that will be distributed through Warner Bros.
He remains signed to Virgin Records as a recording artist and will release a new studio album, "Funk," in the fall, according to a spokesperson.
"Lenny and I have a long-term relationship," says Jeff Ayeroff, Warner Bros. "creative czar," as he refers to himself. Ayeroff worked with Kravitz when he was co-chairman of Virgin Records America. "Lenny and I have always talked about the next phase of his career. This is what I call his Quincy Jones (news) phase," Ayeroff says.
Among the first signees to Roxie is vocalist Dan Dyer, who is at work with engineer Matt Knobel on his debut album. Knobel worked behind the scenes on Kravitz's 2002 album, "Lenny."
By CHRISTINA ALMEIDA
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 29, 2003; 7:54 AM
LAS VEGAS - In a city known more for sin than virtue, a group of virgins from around the country gathered this weekend to send a message: wait until marriage.
It was a clash of the "Good Girls" and the sin-seekers as about 200 teens, parents and youth counselors descended on the Strip to pass out cards promoting abstinence.
"What better place to bring this than Sin City?" said participant Deanna Grimm, 24, of Sioux Falls, S.D. "They need to hear it."
About 750 people traveled to Las Vegas to attend the seventh annual National Abstinence Clearinghouse Conference, which runs through Sunday. Featuring seminars on the history of abstinence and the consequences of premarital sex, the convention's theme is "Beyond the Neon: Creating a Culture of Character."
Convention exhibitors displayed various abstinence items, including "Keep It" underwear depicting a large red stop sign with the message "No Trespassing."
"(Abstinence is) a very important message to spread to teens all over," said Grimm, who works for the Abstinence Clearinghouse. "A lot of kids don't know about the dangers of premarital sex."
The reception was mixed Friday night as the virgin brigade passed out about 5,000 "Good Girl Cards" to mostly female passerbys, many clad in short skirts and low-cut tops. The event was designed to counter dozens of people who routinely hand out color ads for scantily clad entertainers and escorts on the Strip.
"I like being handed these (Good Girl Cards) more than the porn ones they usually hand out," said Corrie Bouma, a 23-year-old teacher's aide from Hawthorne, N.J., who was in town on vacation.
But Clare Rose disagreed with the group's message, saying it should focus more on sex education.
"They're being narrow-minded and naive," said the 21-year-old who was walking by with friends. "People in this day and age are not, not going to have sex."
But the movement has grown in recent years, with more than one million teens and college students registering their virtue with True Love Waits, one of several abstinence campaigns. While True Love Waits is a faith-based organization, the Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Abstinence Clearinghouse is not.
Many supporters cite increases in sexually transmitted diseases as reason enough to wait until marriage. Studies show that in the United States there are about 45 million cases of herpes, 20 million cases of human papillomavirus (HPV) and 900,000 people living with AIDS.
"There's no condom on the face of this earth that can prevent HPV. It's so highly contagious," said Melodi Hawley, a 21-year-old director of a sex and family education office in Denham Springs, La. "And we're not told this. I tell kids, and they say, 'human papa-what?'"
A national study published last week by the conservative Heritage Foundation found that girls who begin sexual activity at age 13 are twice as likely to become infected by a sexually transmitted disease as girls who begin having sex at the age of 21.
The study also found nearly 40 percent of girls who start having sex at ages 13 and 14 will give birth outside of marriage. And they're more than three times as likely to become single mothers.
"The earlier a girl had begun sexual activity, the less likely she was to be happy in her life many, many years later," said Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a speaker at the convention.
For Luis Galdamez, a 36-year-old abstinence educator from Wildomar, Calif., it was important to stress that anyone can practice abstinence until marriage, even if you're no longer a virgin.
"It doesn't matter who you are, what you believe. It's your body. It's your choice," said Galdamez, who spoke at the event. "You're worth the wait." http://www.abstinence.net
Mystikal pleaded guilty to sexual battery of the infirmed and no contest to extortion Thursday in a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, district courtroom, dodging a rape charge that carried a potential life sentence.
The rapper was charged with aggravated rape in July for allegedly forcing his hairstylist to have sex with him and two bodyguards on the condition that he wouldn't turn her over to police for stealing his checks (see "Mystical Charged With Rape, Extortion").
As part of the plea bargain, Mystikal (real name Michael Tyler) will serve five years probation for the extortion charge, and may receive up to 10 years in jail for the battery charge, according to prosecutor Sue Bernie. He'll be formally sentenced on both charges September 25.
"We entered a true best-interest plea," Mystikal's attorney J. David Bourland said of the extortion plea, "saying we don't agree that he's guilty of anything in that regard. ... We will accept that [plea] on the basis that probation is guaranteed for that particular matter."
As opposed to sexual battery, which carries a minimum two-year jail sentence, the lesser charge of sexual battery of the infirmed is applied when the victim is incapable of resisting by reason of a stupor, or abnormal condition of mind, from any cause, and the offender should have known of the victim's incapacity.
"One way of committing the crime of sexual battery of the infirmed is if it's committed against somebody who is of advanced age or physical infirmity, and that's what most people think," Bernie said. "But there are other ways of committing it."
A sexual battery of the infirmed charge comes with a possibility of probation.
"If I were to go to trial on this matter, that is not the charge I would have selected," Bernie said, "because I believe they were guilty of rape. [We took the plea] so that there would be no trial. So that the victim doesn't have to go through the additional trauma of a trial."
Mystikal, 37-year-old Leland "Poke" Ellis and 35-year-old Vercy "V" Carter threatened to tell authorities that the woman, 40, was cashing the rapper's checks without his approval unless she would have sex with them. After arresting Mystikal and searching his home, police found a videotape of the act (see "Mystikal Videotaped Alleged Rape, Police Say").
Extortion charges against Ellis and Carter were dropped when they pleaded guilty to sexual battery. They are scheduled to be sentenced September 25 as well.
The Associated Press
Friday, June 27, 2003; 9:23 AM
ALHAMBRA, Calif. - Los Angeles County health officials are urging anyone who ate at a Taco Bell restaurant in Alhambra a few weeks ago to get vaccinated for hepatitis A after a worker was diagnosed with the liver disease.
Officials said customers' risk of contracting the disease was low and the immune globulin vaccinations were precautionary.
"We have no way of knowing if this person contaminated the food," said Laurene Mascola, chief of Los Angeles County's Acute Communicable Disease Control Program.
Officials learned of the worker's diagnosis Thursday, and recommended vaccines for anyone who ate at the restaurant on Commonwealth Avenue on June 12 or 13. The vaccination only is effective if received within 14 days of exposure.
Hepatitis A symptoms include yellowing of eyes and skin, nausea, appetite loss, vomiting, stomach cramps, dark-colored urine and fatigue.
A call to Taco Bell headquarters in Louisville, Ky., on Friday was referred to the Irvine public affairs department, whose phone was answered with a recording before business hours.
June 23, 2003
The computer hot shots at the University of Buffalo have developed a new technology that transmits the sensation of touch over the Internet. The breakthrough in what is called haptic technology can help with a huge range of activities including surgery, sculpture and music.
The system uses a virtual-reality data glove to capture the sensation, feeding it back through a computer to another person. Thenkurussi Kesavadas is the director of UB's Virtual Reality Lab. He says the sensation of touch is the brain's most effective learning mechanism, more than hearing or seeing, and holds a lot of promise as a teaching tool.
Hip-hop artist Lil' Kim, known for flaunting her jewelry, said someone stole $250,000 of it at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday -- including her signature "Queen Bee" necklace.
The 27-year-old rapper, whose real name is Kimberly Jones, was on her way to Los Angeles for Tuesday's BET Awards, where she is nominated in the best female hip-hop artist category.
Lil' Kim was catching an 8:45 a.m. flight on which she intended to carry a Louis Vuitton bag filled with as much as $500,000 in jewelry including the necklace, which she has worn in several of her music videos. But an error at the check-in counter caused the bag to be mixed up with eight other pieces of her luggage, her attorney Mel Sachs told The Daily News.
She realized the mistake and the flight was delayed while the bag was retrieved from the baggage hold. Although some of the jewelry was still in it, other pieces were gone and the bag looked "tampered with," said Sachs.
Alan Hicks, a spokesman for the Port Authority, which runs the airport, said Lil' Kim "filed a report for lost jewelry, and the incident is under investigation by the Port Authority police."
Sachs said that the 4-foot-11 rap artist was upset, but "should be commended for acting responsibly and being patient."
Jam Master Jay Probe Looking At DJ's Longtime Friend Randy Allen
NEW YORK — An investigator on the Jam Master Jay case said Thursday (June 19) that police are now looking into whether the DJ/producer's longtime friend Randy Allen, a.k.a. MDR of the group Rusty Waters, was involved in the murder.
Innuendo about Allen and his sister Lydia's possible involvement was aired in public last month when the hip-hop legend's mother was interviewed by the New York Daily News. She said she was upset because she had not heard from Allen since her son's slaying and because Allen had not be cooperating with the police.
"That hurts me more than words will ever say," she told the paper. "All of these years, Jason [Mizell, (Jay's real name)] and Randy have been friends. We were all as close as close can be, and I haven't seen Randy since my Jason was killed. You're his friend for 20 years and you don't want to talk to the police about what happened? You don't come to my house after he died? You want to say you don't know anything?"
Last year police gave no credence to published reports claiming that Allen, who raps with Jay's nephew Boe Skags in Rusty Waters, had anything to do with killing (see "NYPD: Rusty Waters Rapper Not Suspect In Jam Master Jay Case"). One theory said that the rapper wanted to kill his record-spinning friend to collect an insurance policy on Jay's life.
Allen professed his innocence to MTV News late last year. "It took me for a spin," he said. "That's the meanest thing you can do to somebody, to say that their best friend is involved with something like that. On the radio yesterday they said I was in jail. We make records, man. We're not into life insurance and sh-- like that. That's not a part of none of nobody in my clique. We don't go around worrying about things like that. It's all crazy. The part of it that hurts me the most is that's just some made up sh--. I don't know why somebody would do that."
On Thursday the investigator on the JMJ case also dismissed a report that came out in New York's Newsday this week. The article painted a picture of a deadly love triangle between Jay, his wife, Terri Corley-Mizell, and Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, whom federal investigators have recently linked to money-laundering scandal involving Murder Inc. Records (see "Alleged Drug Lord Linked To Murder Inc. Sentenced To Prison").
Newsday's report said that according to police and music-industry sources, investigators were looking into whether Terri and McGriff were romantically involved and, if so, whether their relationship caused a rift between Jay and McGriff that led to the Run-DMC DJ being murdered.
A source close to the Mizell family told MTV News on Thursday that the family thinks the story is just a smokescreen to throw police off the trail of the real killers.
Jam Master Jay was killed at his Queens studio on October 30 (see "Jam Master Jay, Run-DMC DJ, Killed In Shooting"). Police continue to follow leads, and they emphasize that the only way for them to solve the case is for witnesses or people with information about the crime to come forward. So far, they said, that hasn't been happening.
For full coverage of the Jam Master Jay case, see the Jam Master Jay Reports. For a feature-length look at why the case has stalled, check out "Jam Master Jay: The Streets Is Watching, But Nobody's Talking."
By ERIN McCLAM
The Associated Press
Saturday, June 21, 2003; 11:27 AM
NEW YORK - Mike Tyson was arrested early Saturday after a brawl with two men outside a Brooklyn hotel and was charged with assault and disorderly conduct.
The former heavyweight champion was treated for minor cuts to his hands after the two men apparently retrieved an object from the hotel lobby and used it against him, police said. Police added they had no further information on the object.
The brawl broke out about 5:30 a.m. outside the hotel where Tyson was staying, police said. They did not immediately have information on what started the fight.
The Brooklyn district attorney's office said Tyson was expected to be arraigned late Saturday or early Sunday.
A call to Shelly Finkel, adviser to the 36-year-old Brooklyn-born boxer, was not immediately returned.
The two other men in the brawl also were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Police identified one as Nestor Alvarez, 24, but they did not identify the other.
One of the two men and a woman who was with them were taken to Bellevue Hospital and treated for minor injuries, police said. Tyson was not taken to the hospital.
Tyson, with a long history of legal trouble, was convicted of rape in 1992 and was sentenced to six years in prison. He served three years before being released on parole.
In a Fox television interview last month, Tyson said he was so angry about the conviction he wanted to rape his accuser, former beauty pageant contestant Desiree Washington, and her mother.
In 1997, he bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear during a bout. Tyson's Nevada boxing license was suspended for a year, and he was fined $3 million. In 1999, he was released from a Maryland jail after serving 3 1/2 months for assaulting the two motorists.
Last year, he threw a punch at Lennox Lewis' bodyguard at a news conference announcing a fight between the two, setting off a brawl between Tyson and Lewis.
June 18, 2003
AP JERUSALEM -- A stone box touted as the oldest archaeological evidence of Jesus is, in fact, a well-crafted fake, Israeli archaeological experts say.
The box, an object known as an ossuary, was said to have contained the bones of Jesus' brother James.
Carved on one side is an inscription in the ancient language of Aramaic bearing the legend: "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus."
Officials with Israel's Antiques Authority announced Wednesday that while the box may date from the correct era, the inscription is a forgery added at a much later date.
"The inscription appears new, written in modernity by someone attempting to reproduce ancient written characters," the officials said in the statement.
They said that a panel of archeological experts had agreed unanimously with the findings.
The box first came to public attention in October last year when French archaeologist Andre Lemaire identified and translated the inscription.
June 18, 2003
Stacy Young's family says the young mother of two believed her "Toughman" boxing contest would be a fun challenge — but she never thought it would end up costing her life.
Young, 30, of Bradenton, Fla., died Monday, two days after she was knocked out and suffered brain damage during a boxing match with another woman. The match was part of a "Toughman" competition, which matches amateur fighters.
Young's sister, Jodie Meyers, said Young decided to enter the competition Saturday after attending the previous night's competition.
"It was a challenge and something we could joke about later and say I did this wild and crazy thing," Meyers said. "She never expected anything at all dangerous was going to happen."
Meyers said Young, who was 240 pounds, was matched with another woman based on her weight before she stepped in the ring with her family looking on. She and her opponent were considered an even match by Toughman even though Young outweighed her opponent by 60 pounds. Meyers said Young was knocked down repeatedly, and that her doctors believe the young mother received a deadly blow as soon as the match got started.
"Looking back at her gait during the fight — that was probably when she received the fatal injury," Meyers said.
The Sarasota Police Department has since opened an investigation into the death of Young, who was married and had two daughters, aged 12 and 9.
By TED BRIDIS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 17, 2003; 5:22 PM
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.
The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.
During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.
"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.
"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.
"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who has been active in copyright debates in Washington, urged Hatch to reconsider. Boucher described Hatch's role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee as "a very important position, so when Senator Hatch indicates his views with regard to a particular subject, we all take those views very seriously."
Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation.
"It's just the frustration of those who are looking at enforcing laws that are proving very hard to enforce," said Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department cybercrimes prosecutor and associate professor at George Washington University law school.
The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil lawsuits. The Recording Industry Association of America recently won a federal court decision making it significantly easier to identify and track consumers - even those hiding behind aliases - using popular Internet file-sharing software.
Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners, partly because of risks of collateral damage when innocent users might be wrongly targeted.
"It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of limiting the damage."
Last year, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ignited a firestorm across the Internet over a proposal to give the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies. It would have lifted civil and criminal penalties against entertainment companies for disabling, diverting or blocking the trading of pirated songs and movies on the Internet.
But Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary panel on the Internet and intellectual property, always has maintained that his proposal wouldn't permit hacker-style attacks by the industry on Internet users.
Inmates Released from Guantánamo Tell Tales of Despair
by NewsRoom/NyTimes.com
Inmates Released from Guantánamo Tell Tales of Despair
By CARLOTTA GALL with NEIL A. LEWIS
ABUL, Afghanistan, June 16 — Afghans and Pakistanis who were detained for many months by the American military at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba before being released without charges are describing the conditions as so desperate that some captives tried to kill themselves.
According to accounts in the last three months from some of the 32 Afghans and three Pakistanis in the weeks since their release, it was above all the uncertainty of their fate, combined with confinement in very small cells, sometimes only with Arabic speakers, that caused inmates to attempt suicide. One Pakistani interviewed this month said he tried to kill himself four times in 18 months.
An Afghan prisoner who spent 14 months at the camp, at the American naval base at Guantánamo, described in April what he called the uncertainty and fear. "Some were saying this is a prison for 150 years," said Suleiman Shah, 30, a former Taliban fighter from Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan.
None of those interviewed complained of physical mistreatment. But the men said that for the first few months, they were kept in small wire-mesh cells, about 6 1/2 feet by 8 feet , in blocks of 10 or 20. The cells were covered by a wooden roof, but open at the sides to the elements.
"We slept, ate, prayed and went to the toilet in that small space," Mr. Shah said. Each man had two blankets and a prayer mat and slept and ate on the ground, he said.
The prisoners were taken out only once a week for a one-minute shower. "After four and a half months we complained and people stopped eating, so they said we could shower for five minutes and exercise once a week," Mr. Shah said. After that, he said, prisoners got to exercise for 10 minutes a week, walking around the inside of a cage 30 feet long.
In interviews at their homes, weeks after being released, he and the freed Pakistani detainee talked of what they said was the overwhelming feeling of injustice among the approximately 680 men detained indefinitely at Guantánamo Bay.
"I was trying to kill myself," said Shah Muhammad, 20, a Pakistani who was captured in northern Afghanistan in November 2001, handed over to American soldiers and flown to Guantánamo in January 2002. "I tried four times, because I was disgusted with my life.
"It is against Islam to commit suicide," he continued, "but it was very difficult to live there. A lot of people did it. They treated me as guilty, but I was innocent."
In the 18 months since the detention camp opened, there have been 28 suicide attempts by 18 individuals, with most of those attempts made this year, Capt. Warren Neary, a spokesman at the detention camp, said today. None of the prisoners have killed themselves, but one man has suffered severe brain damage, according to his lawyer.
The prisoners come from more than 40 countries, and include more than 50 Pakistanis, about 150 Saudis and three teenagers under 16, a majority of them captured in Afghanistan, said Dr. Najeef bin Mohamad Ahmed al-Nauimi, a former justice minister in Qatar, who is representing nearly 100 of the detainees.
Dr. Nauimi represents many of the Saudis, and American lawyers represent about 14 prisoners from Kuwait. There are also 83 Yemenis, he said, and a sprinkling of others, including Canadians, Britons, Algerians and Australians, and one Swede.
Since January 2002, at least 32 Afghan prisoners and three Pakistanis have been released from Guantánamo Bay. Five Saudis were recently handed over to the Saudi authorities. Yasser Esam Hamdi, an American-born Saudi, was moved from the camp to a military brig in Norfolk, Va., in April 2002. Captain Neary said 41 people had been released in all, but he could not give a more exact description.
At the same time, the military is preparing to place about 10 of the prisoners before a military tribunal soon, officials said this month.
Mr. Muhammad, who spent 18 months in Cuba before his release, said that "when they first took us there they would not let us talk, or stand or walk around the cell.
"At the beginning it was very hard to bear," he added. "There was no call to prayer, and there was no shade. In the afternoon the sun came in from the side."
Under the current routine, a majority of the prisoners remain in their cells but for two 15-minute periods a week, in which they walk around the cage and take a shower. In addition, the call to prayer is played over the prison's loudspeakers five times a day, according to Capt. Youseff Yee, the Muslim chaplain who oversees the religious needs of the Guantánamo prisoners.
Conditions improved after the first few months, and prisoners were moved to newly built cells with running water and a bed, Mr. Shah said. Interrogation was sporadic and it varied in length and intensity. Sometimes they were questioned after 10 days, or 20 days, and then not for several months, prisoners said.
But it was the uncertainty and fear that they would be there forever that drove many of them to despair, prisoners said.
"All of the people were worried about how long we would be there for," Mr. Shah said. "People were becoming mad because they were saying: `When will they release us? They should take us to the high court.' Many stopped eating."
One Taliban fighter from the southern province of Helmand, who only uses one name, Rustam, said in May that he was driven to trying to hang himself because he was in a block of Arabs and Uzbeks he described as "crazy."
"There were some very strange people, they were hitting their heads on the wall, insulting the soldiers, and that is why I hated it," said Rustam, who is 22, in an interview in an Afghan prison in Kabul. "I think they were really crazy people, and that's why I kept asking to be taken out for questioning."
When he tried to hang himself, Rustam said, the guards found him quickly. "They untied me and said `Don't do this,' " he said. "They gave me medicine, but it was no good. They put me under supervision and moved me to another place."
Mr. Muhammad, one of three Pakistani prisoners to be released at the end of April, said he first tried to hang himself because for months on end he was surrounded by Arabs and could not speak their language.
"It was difficult not talking to anyone for so long," he said. "It was because of the jail. They put me in a block full of Arabs, they were only letting us out for a very short time, and it was very difficult. I could feel myself going down."
After 11 months in the prison camp, he tied his bedsheet to a ceiling wire and hanged himself from it at 4 o'clock one afternoon. "I don't know what happened," he said. "They took me to the hospital. I was unconscious for two days."
Only after that suicide attempt, Mr. Muhammad said, did his American keepers tell him that he was only being held for questioning, and that one day he would go home. Tranquilizers were prescribed, he said, but he stopped taking the tablets after a while and attempted suicide again.
Then the doctors gave Mr. Muhammad a powerful injection that he said left him unable to control his head or his mouth or eat properly for weeks. Although he refused to have the injection, the military medical personnel gave it to him by force, he said. He made two further attempts to kill himself that he said were more protest actions at the conditions.
"We needed more blankets, but they would not listen," he said. "And I kept asking them to take me to the Afghan and Pakistani side. All the time I was with Arabs. I did not speak my own language for months." Mr. Muhammad also threatened to kill himself again if he was given another injection. He remained on tablets until his release, he said.
American officials have confirmed that one prisoner who tried to commit suicide remains in the prison hospital with severe brain damage. Dr. Nauimi said the prisoner was Mish al-Hahrbi, a Saudi schoolteacher. He said that the teacher became desperate over not knowing what his future held and that he tried to hang himself. The teacher was resuscitated but is unlikely to recover from a severe hemorrhage, the lawyer said.
Back home with time to ponder their ordeal, the former prisoners now want to demand compensation.
"The Americans said if anyone is innocent, they will get compensation," Mr. Muhammad said. "They held me for 18 months, and so they should give me compensation. They told me I was innocent, but they did not apologize."
Human rights organizations have raised concerns about the conditions at Guantánamo Bay and the unclear legal status of the detainees. The American military has refused to consider them prisoners of war, even though a majority were captured on the battlefield, and does not allow them access to lawyers. No charges have yet been brought against any of the detainees, some of whom have been there for 18 months.
Concerned about their prolonged detention without trial or clear legal status, the head of the International Red Cross, which visits the detainees, urged the Bush administration last month to start legal proceedings for the hundreds of detainees and to institute a number of changes in conditions at the camp.
Cmdr. Brian Grady, the staff psychiatrist at the camp's medical facility, said in a recent interview that most prisoners suffering from depression brought their symptoms with them to Cuba.
"I don't know what the effects of this particular confinement are," he said. "I'd be hesitant to comment." Officials at Guantánamo have generally dismissed the notion that the confinement and uncertainty about the future are specifically to blame.
"I would not particularly say these circumstances are a factor," Commander Grady said.
But Jamie Fellner, director of the United States program for Human Rights Watch, said in an interview that that was highly implausible.
"These conditions of confinement by themselves over a prolonged period are enormously psychologically stressful," she said. "Added to that is the uncertainty as to the future."
Ms. Fellner added that her group had not found any credible reports of physical abuse and that it had investigated several accounts of beatings and such that turned out to be unfounded.
Hospital officials said that about 5 percent of the inmates were suffering from depression and that they were being treated with antidepressants, typically Zoloft.
RADIO STAFFERS OBJECT TO AOL ADVERTISING DEAL
Requires DJs to Include Product Plugs Within Editorial Content
June 16, 2003
By Jon Fine
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- A $15 million advertising and promotional deal between Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting Corp. and struggling online service America Online is raising hackles as some
Radio stations receive free broadband service in return for on-air plugs within editorial content.
radio staffers perceive a breach of the separation between editorial and advertising content.
185 stations
The deal, brokered by Len Short, America Online's executive vice president of brand marketing, consists of two parts, a $15 million ad buy and a barter-like content arrangement whereby stations receive the AOL for Broadband service in exchange for DJs and other talent promoting the broadband offerings. The deal, which began June 1, involves the bulk of the company's 185 stations.
It is the requirement that DJs make on-air reference to AOL content that has agitated some. A staffer who insisted on anonymity at KMOX-AM, a talk station in St. Louis, said all three Infinity stations there participate in the promotional deal.
'Blurring of the line'
The staffer commented: "It is somewhat a blurring of the line, most definitely. ... The biggest difference between this and almost anything else is that [in other situations] you would say 'sponsored by' or 'brought to you by.' That's not showing up in this at all."
A spokeswoman for AOL said the arrangements did not extend to news departments, and that it targeted DJs "where schmooze is the order of the day." The KMOX staffer, who confirmed the spokeswoman's comment, said the deal with that station is slated to last for two years.
An Infinity spokesman said news stations could opt out of the deal, and that "enhanced guidelines" were being prepared for stations to address the concerns raised by the KMOX staffer. "Those guidelines make it clear this is a marketing partnership," he said.
Charlie Lake, program director for oldies station WJMK in Chicago, said the deal is "as straightforward as the running of commercials."
"I don't have any problem with it," Mr. Lake said. "It's advertising. They are paying us for it, and that's that. I'm not aware of any controversy."
AOL's evangelists
The AOL-Infinity deal also involves Detroit news station WWJ-AM. That situation was first reported in the Detroit weekly Metro Times, which reprinted on its Web site a memo from WWJ Operations Manager Georgeann Herbert that included the line: "While AOL would LOVE [sic] us to be 'evangelists' for their product, do stay close to your comfort zone when it comes to promoting material." (Ms. Herbert did not respond to a call seeking comment.)
The memo said the station had to refer on-air to content on AOL for Broadband six times a day and send at least three mentions per week back to AOL. The staffer in KMOX described a roughly similar system.
The deal was brokered by Mr. Short and Dave Goodman, Infinity's senior vice president of marketing promotions. A call to Mr. Goodman's office was referred to an Infinity spokesman.
Struggling online service
AOL continues to struggle to find its footing in general and, more specifically, to hatch a credible broadband strategy. In early June, Wayne Pace, chief financial officer of AOL parent AOL Time Warner, told financial analysts that the online service has lost more than 1 million dial-up customers -- its core cash-cow business -- since late 2002. AOL has about 26 million subscribers.
Media consolidation
The AOL-Infinity deal went into effect one day before the Federal Communications Commission moved to broadly deregulate aspects of media ownership, which would allow a company in a medium-size market to own a daily newspaper, two TV stations, eight radio stations and the local cable system. Foes of that move cited concerns over the integrity of local news and information as one reason for opposition.
~ ~ ~
Elizabeth Boston and Tobi Elkin contributed to this report.
Funeral Fund Provides for Jazz Pioneers
Fri Jun 13, 2:27 PM ET
By STEVE BRISENDINE, Associated Press Writer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - They soared with Bird and got down with the Count, putting the intersection of 18th and Vine on every jazz fan's map.
"It was the Kansas City style," said 87-year-old pianist and bandleader Jay "Hootie" McShann, who gave sax icon Charlie "Bird" Parker his first steady gig, in 1940. "They knew it on the East Coast. They knew it on the West Coast. They knew it up north, and they knew it down south."
But one by one, the city's jazz pioneers are falling silent. And after a lifetime of playing for a living, some musicians can't afford the cost of dying.
That's where the Coda Jazz Fund steps in.
The fund bought headstones for bassist David Daahoud Williams and trumpeter-bandleader Oliver Todd, who lay for years in unmarked graves. Williams was only a few yards away from the elaborate slab covering Parker's resting place.
The fund also paid to mark the graves of entertainer Speedy Huggins and pianist-singer Elbert "Coots" Dye. The fund was there when Rudolph "School Boy" Dennis, who stepped into McShann's band when Parker left, died with a month's worth of fixed income — $538 — to his name.
"This was a man who played with (Count) Basie and Bird," said Dennis' sister-in-law, Barbara Dennis. "Charlie Bird stayed at his house. He knew him like I know my own children."
The Coda Jazz Fund paid for Dennis' funeral and cremation — down to the programs and a courtesy car for the family.
"It wasn't just, 'We'll pay half,' or, 'We'll pay so much and you pay the rest,'" said Dennis' niece, Stephanie Adams. "They took care of everything. I call them our undercover angels."
In music, the coda marks the spot where a repeated section skips ahead, usually to a point near the end of a composition.
"It's not the end, but it points to the end," said Steve Penn, creator of the fund and a columnist for The Kansas City Star. "This is sort of a coda to these guys' lives."
Penn is a native of Kansas City, Kan., and a part-time trumpet player. He was inspired to start the fund by a chance nightclub encounter shortly after guitarist Sonny Kenner's death in January 2001.
Kenner's daughter was in the club, where he had often played, and was selling copies of his compact discs to pay for the upcoming funeral.
"We started talking about all the fund-raisers they were going to have so they could bury him," Penn said. "I thought, 'That's just terrible.' But I saw the goodwill. People were just snapping up those CDs."
After securing his newspaper's sponsorship, Penn began putting things together with the help of Kansas City's jazz community. The fund officially launched in April 2002, with its first benefit concert a month later. All the performers were from, or had ties to, Kansas City.
The second concert was May 17 at the Gem Theatre in the 18th and Vine Jazz District. It sold out, even with ticket prices ranging from $50 to $100.
Among this year's featured acts were singer Karrin Allyson and alto sax player Bobby Watson — both natives of the area who have earned national acclaim. Another was St. Louis-based trumpeter Clark Terry, a former featured performer on NBC's "The Tonight Show" when it was based in New York.
Supporters of the fund say it also provides a way for Kansas City to reconnect with its jazz heritage. "The gift is never truly received until you acknowledge the giver," said the Rev. Emanuel Cleaver, who led the drive to renovate the 18th and Vine district when he was mayor from 1991 to 1999.
"The Coda Fund is giving back something that the city forgot to give, and that's recognition," said Barbara Dennis. "This is the first time that homage is really being paid to the people who made 18th and Vine what it is, and that's the musicians."
For Paul McCartney and Bernie Williams, all you need is glove.
The former Beatle's music company yesterday signed a deal with the strummin' Yankee slugger to market Williams' tunes for use in movies, television and other media.
"I was just blown away by his talent," said McCartney, 60. "It's a home run."
Williams, 34, called it a "dream come true" to work with the former Fab Four member.
"I've always been a big Beatles fan," said the All-Star centerfielder, who is on the disabled list after undergoing knee surgery. "It's an honor to have one of the greatest songwriters in music history supporting my project."
Williams, who often plucks his guitar in the Bronx Bombers' clubhouse, attracted McCartney's attention when the Liverpudlian attended a game at Yankee Stadium in 1999. McCartney heard about the soulful style of the gentle Yankee batting star but wondered if he had the talent to match the hype.
"I was intrigued to hear his music," said McCartney, who announced last month that his wife, Heather Mills, is pregnant.
No terms were announced for the deal between the Beatle and the Bomber.
Even before landing the deal, Williams was poised to jump from the cleanup spot to the Billboard charts.
The Puerto Rican-born Williams won a scholarship at age 13 to study classical guitar. He dreamed of a music career, but his talent on the diamond soon took over. A lifetime .300 hitter, Williams is a four-time Gold Glove winner and five-time All-Star.
Williams has veered toward jazz and blues in recent years. He has jammed with Paul Simon and picked up some tips from Bruce Springsteen.
His debut CD, "The Journey Within," will come out next month on GRP Records and include big names in jazz, such as pianist David Benoit and Grammy winners Bela Fleck and Ruben Blades.
McCartney's MPL Communications controls the rights to his solo tunes along with the music of Buddy Holly, Jelly Roll Morton and Mel Torme, among others.
"Working with Paul McCartney ... is a dream come true," Williams said. "It brings the whole album project full circle."
Hendrix owned at least three Sunburst Fender Stratocasters
A guitar owned and played by Jimi Hendrix has remained unsold at auction after failing to reach its reserve price.
The 1965 Sunburst Fender Stratocaster had been billed as the highlight of auctioneers Cooper Owen's "rock legends" sale in London.
They had expected it to fetch up to £150,000.
Hendrix, considered by many to be the greatest ever rock guitarist, died at the age of 27 in a London flat in September 1970 after overdosing on sleeping tablets.
The reserve price of the guitar was not revealed, although it was believed to be at least £100,000.
It had not been up for sale since it was presented to Hendrix's manager's assistant, Tappy Wright, shortly after the guitarist's death.
The guitar is one of three Sunbursts used by Hendrix.
Another, owned by Frank Zappa's son Dweezil, went up for sale last September.
It received a bid for £300,000 but Zappa declined to accept it.
June 13, 2003
(ABC NEWS) He helped save nine lives, and then took his own. Robert Long, the engineer who helped rescue nine trapped coal miners, committed suicide Monday night. Long, 37, shot himself outside his home in Somerset County, Pa.
It's unclear what prompted Long to take his life. But after playing a key role in last summer's dramatic rescue, Long became embroiled in a bitter public dispute with the men he helped save. The dispute centered on a controversial movie deal Long had obtained.
Hundreds of rescue workers spent three days working to free the Quecreek Nine, as the miners were called, from a flooded shaft 240 feet below the Earth's surface last July. After the nine miners were fished out of the depths, Long was hailed as a hero.
The media dubbed him the "man behind the miracle." Long, a Global Positioning System technician, used high-tech equipment to find the right spot to send down an air shaft that kept the miners alive while they were underground.
Microphone Stand Impales Pregnant Michigan Mom
34-Year-Old Fell From Second-Floor Loft
POSTED: 11:03 a.m. EDT June 12, 2003
UPDATED: 11:17 a.m. EDT June 12, 2003
GREEN OAK TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Doctors are preparing for an emergency Caesarean section for a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was impaled by a microphone stand in Green Oak Township, Mich.
Friends, Family Emotional Over Pregnant Woman's Injury
Friends Rush To Check On Woman
Jessie Wickham was listed in critical condition at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., according to reports by WDIV-TV in Detroit.
The accident happened at a home located in the area of Grand River and Academy around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to fire officials.
Wickham was getting her children ready for school when she became dizzy and fell, crashing through a banister, Police Chief Robert Brookins said. Wickham, who was reportedly set to give birth in about two weeks, was impaled in the chest by the stand.
She fell onto the 3-foot microphone stand, which was amid musical instruments set up on the first floor, officials said.
Wickham was able to call 911, and her 7-year-old son helped guide emergency workers to the home, the station reported.
The microphone stand was still in Wickham's chest when she was flown to the hospital. A makeshift landing pad was created for the medical helicopter at a nearby intersection.
Family friend Cindy Noonan said she was horrified by what the children had seen.
"It's terrible seeing your mother get hurt," Noonan said.
Friends told the station that the microphone stand just missed Wickham's heart.
Wickham's friends described her as a bass player and vocalist who opens her home to area musicians to practice.
Friend Lisa Huff said, "She's like the biggest-hearted person you could ever meet in your life; I mean, she'll give the shirt off her back to anybody."
Wickham's musician friends said they planned to have a benefit concert to help pay for her medical bills.
Spike Lee has won the first round in his name-game battle with Viacom as a New York judge on Thursday temporarily barred the media goliath from renaming its TNN cable network Spike TV.
State Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub on Thursday said Lee presented enough evidence at a hearing this week to warrant a trial to decide the fate of the network's new moniker. Until then, no name change can take place.
But just in case he can't prove his case in the courtroom, Tolub made Lee post a $500,000 bond to cover Viacom's potential losses.
The moniker makeover, announced by Viacom back in April as an attempt to revamp the floundering TNN as the first testosterone-centric cable network, was supposed to go into effect June 16. The network even held a big blowout Tuesday at, appropriately enough, the Playboy Mansion, to celebrate the launch. Would-be Spike TV stars Kelsey Grammer, Pamela Anderson (news) and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin were among those in attendance.
The Spike TV lineup was slated to feature a steady roster of pro wrestling, reruns of Baywatch, The A-Team and Star Trek, gadget review shows and adult-friendly 'toons like Grammer's Gary the Rat, Anderson's erotic superhero Stripperella and a retooled Ren & Stimpy.
Lee, accompanied by lawyer Johnnie Cochran, appeared before Tolum in court Monday to explain how he thought his name was being coopted by Viacom and how his fans would be confused. He presented affidavits from the likes of Edward Norton (news) (who starred in Lee's 2002 release The 25th Hour) and former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley (news - web sites), who both stated that they thought Lee was affiliated with the new network when it was first publicized.
The Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning director, who actually has helmed two movies for Viacom-owned studios and was due to begin shooting a TV movie this week for the company's Showtime network, said after the hearing that he doesn't want to burn bridges, but "I don't want to be associated with that Stripperella crap."
For its part, Viacom insisted Lee doesn't have a monopoly on the word. "It is many other things in the English language," attorney Victor Kovner said, adding that several entertainers, including fellow director Spike Jonze (news) and musicians Spike Jones and Spike Milligan (news), use the name and there was even a Spike Lee (news) in the Our Gang serials.
Besides, Kovner argued, Spike Lee's real name is Shelton.
Ultimately, though, Tolub didn't buy that argument. "Contrary to defendants' position, the court is of the opinion that in the age of mass communication, a celebrity can in fact establish a vested right in the use of only their first name or a surname," the judge said. "There are many celebrities that are so recognized, including Cher, Madonna (news - web sites), Sting and Liza."
Viacom says it will appeal the ruling ASAP. "We respectfully disagree with the judge's decidison, which was not supported by the law or evidence," Viacom spokesman Dan Martinsen said
Hard-touring jam bands Widespread Panic and moe. will headline the inaugural Mid-Atlantic Music Experience (MidX), July 11-13 at the State Fair Event Center in Lewisburg, W.Va. Each band will play two nights of the three-day festival, overlapping only on the July 12 bill.
Also slated to perform on the two MidX stages are Medeski Martin & Wood, Rusted Root, the Disco Biscuits, Les Claypool's Frog Brigade, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, Leftover Salmon, Cracker, Steel Pulse, Jerry Joseph & the Jackmormons, the New Deal, All Mighty Senators, the Recipe, the Hackensaw Boys, Clutch, and Indecision.
In addition to the music, the event will also feature the Gonzo Filmfest, which will feature the cult classic "Scrapple," as well as the Widespread Panic documentary "The Earth Will Swallow You." The festival will host voter registration booths and special activities including a "Rhythm & Drumming Workshop" by Rusted Root's Jim Donovan. Worcester, Mass.-based Gamelan Productions is producing the event.
Advance MidX tickets run $130 for a three-day pass and $120 for a two-day pass (including camping); on Friday (June 13), a Sunday-only pass will go on sale for $50 ($60 at the gate). On July 2, prices for the two- and three-day passes increase to $150 and $140, respectively. Accommodations for RVs with hookups and other large vehicles are also available. Tickets can be purchased through the festival's Web site or 877-42FESTS.
Authorities seek `Michael Jackson Bandit' In bank robberies
by NewsRoom/AP
Authorities seek `Michael Jackson Bandit' in series of bank robberies
The Associated Press
Last Updated 6:35 p.m. PDT Tuesday, June 10, 2003
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Police and the FBI are hoping to catch the "Michael Jackson Bandit," preferably before his next performance.
The bandit, so nicknamed because he wore a single glove during at least one heist, is wanted in connection with 16 bank robberies in and around Los Angeles that date to October 2002. The most recent was a May 16 holdup at a Citibank branch in Los Angeles. Two robberies took place in suburban Montebello.
The number of heists he's managed to pull isn't unusual for a Los Angeles bank robber, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley.
"This is a large amount, but we have had several serial bank robbers," Bosley said. "We have some that have 40 or 50 robberies."
The man, described as black, 5-feet-7 to 5-feet-10 inches tall, weighing 140 to 150 pounds, and 22 to 28 years old, favors baggy clothes and a baseball cap or other hat, according to the FBI. He has an earring in his left ear and a light mustache and goatee, authorities said.
He walks into banks with a handgun and presents a teller with a threatening note demanding large bills, then flees on foot. He sometimes becomes agitated during a robbery, authorities said, and has been known to clumsily drop his weapon on the way out of the bank.
LONDON (Reuters) - Former British pop star Adam Ant has been arrested after apparently running amok and stripping off in a London cafe.
Police said on Thursday they had arrested a 49-year-old man on suspicion of criminal damage, while The Sun newspaper showed pictures of the former 1980s heartthrob being held by two burly policemen, a blanket wrapped around his waist.
Newspapers said Ant, real name Stuart Goddard, had "gone berserk" near his north London home on Wednesday before stripping off his trousers in the cafe.
The outburst follows an episode last summer when he threatened customers at his local pub who had laughed at his cowboy attire. He walked free from court in October after judges ruled he was suffering from temporary mental illness.
Ant's career saw him selling 15 million records, including punk-pop hits like "Prince Charming" and "Stand and Deliver." Police said he had been released on bail until mid-July.
In his first interview since his arrest for suspicion of murder, legendary producer Phil Spector says actress Lana Clarkson was drunk and killed herself in his Alhambra, Calif., home in February. "She kissed the gun," Spector tells Scott Rabb in the July issue of Esquire. "I have no idea why -- I never knew her, never even saw her before that night. I have no idea who she was or what her agenda was.
"She was loud -- she was loud and drunk even before we left the House of Blues. She grabbed a bottle of tequila from the bar to take with her. I was not drunk. I wasn't drunk at all. There is no case. She killed herself."
The Los Angeles County Coroners office has not ruled on the cause of Clarkson's death in the Feb. 3 shooting. Spector called police, was arrested, and was later released on $1 million bond. No formal charges have yet been filed.
"We're completing our investigation -- waiting for evidence to be analyzed at our lab," Los Angeles County Sheriff's detective Lieutenant Daniel Rosenberg says in the article. "We're not rushing anything... It's important for me that he gets a fair shake in this."
"It's 'Anatomy of a Frame-Up," Spector asserts. "They have no case. If they had a case, I'd be sitting in jail right now."
The release of a report critical of the DOJ's post-Sept. 11 roundup of terror suspects could mean legal action against some officials
By VIVECA NOVAK
Certain employees of the Justice Department have been advised to hire lawyers to defend them in a spate of lawsuits that could be filed shortly by people who were detained in the wake of 9/11.
On Monday, the department's Inspector General is expected to release a report that will be critical of the government's roundup of nearly 800 individuals on immigration charges after the terrorist bombings in New York and Washington. The report, according to someone who is familiar with it, will criticize officials for not allowing many of the detainees to see an immigration judge, and holding detainees for lengthy periods even when it was increasingly clear they had nothing to do with terrorism.
The Inspector General's office said last July that the report should be ready by October 2002. In January of this year, it said its findings were complete and the report should be out shortly. It's unclear why the report has taken so long to be finalized, but sources say that there were discussions within the administration about the feasibility of delaying its release. Another portion of the report, dealing with conditions of confinement and access to counsel, is expected to be less critical.
Among the officials who are most likely to be named in lawsuits, and thus who may be seeking individual counsel, are Justice Department Criminal Division head Michael Chertoff, former DOJ Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh and former Immigration and Naturalization Service head James Ziglar, all of whom were architects of the roundup policy. Plaintiffs have been waiting for the IG report to be issued, believing — apparently accurately — that it could provide them with more ammunition for their complaints.
In 1973, 21 reporters from three Black-oriented radio stations provided African Americans in
Washington, DC a daily diet of news - hard, factual information vital to the material and
political fortunes of the local community. The three stations - WOL-AM, WOOK-AM and WHUR-FM -
their news staffs as fiercely competitive as their disc jockeys, vied for domination of the
Black Washington market. Community activists and institutions demanded, expected, and
received intense and sustained coverage of the fullest range of their activities.
On the streets and at press conferences, Black radio journalists jostled with white and
African American reporters from "general market" radio stations, to form a local press corps
that competed for the Black public's attention and respect. Movements sprouted, thrived - or
self-destructed - in a marketplace of contentious community and media voices. Black radio
news had been called forth by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the previous
decade. The news staffs at WOL (five reporters), WOOK (four-person news staff) and WHUR (12
reporters and producers) were local radio's answer to Black people's demands.
In scores of large, medium and even small cities across the nation, the early to
mid-Seventies saw a flowering of Black radio news, a response to the voices of an awakened
people. Black ownership had relatively little to do with the phenomenon. According to the
National Association of Black-owned Broadcasters (NABOB), there were only 30 African-American
owned broadcast facilities in the United States in 1976. Today, NABOB boasts 220 member
stations - and local Black radio news is near extinction.
THE GUILTY PARTIES
With some notable exceptions, Black owners are as culpable as white corporations in the
demise of Black radio news. In Washington, DC, the culprit is obvious.
Black-oriented radio journalism in the nation's capitol has plummeted from 21 reporters at
three stations, 30 years ago, to four reporters at two stations, today. WPGC-FM
(Infinity-Viacom) fields one reporter, and Howard University's commercially operated WHUR-FM
employs three. Black Washington's dominant radio influence is Radio One, the 66-station chain
founded by Cathy Liggins Hughes, valued at $2 billion. Hughes employs not a single newsperson
at her four Washington stations - a corporate policy reflected in most of the 22 cities in
which Radio One operates. The chain is the dominant influence in at least 13 of these
markets. (Radio One also programs 5 channels of XM Satellite Radio, and has launched a
Black-oriented television venture with Comcast, the cable giant.)
While 1,200-station Clear Channel deserves every lash of the whip as the Great Homogenizer of
American radio, the chain operates only 49 stations programmed to Blacks, and is dominant in
no large African American market. The Queen of Black broadcasting is Radio One, and her
dictum is, Let Them Eat Talk.
Radio One's operations are roughly as devoid of news as Clear Channel's Black-programmed
stations. That certainly is the case in Detroit, where the two chains dominate the Black
airwaves: Clear Channel owns two stations, WJLB-FM (urban contemporary) and WMXD-FM (urban
adult contemporary), while Radio One operates WDTJ-FM ("mainstream" urban), WDMK-FM (urban
adult contemporary) and WCHB-AM (talk-gospel). At all five stations, it's the same story: no
news.
Executives at both Clear Channel and Radio One used nearly identical language to inform that
morning radio personalities - people we used to call disc jockeys - are responsible for
"doing the news," which consists of items that were once called "public service
announcements" back in the days when reporters did real news. Black Detroit has been turned
into a news wasteland through the combined operations of Clear Channel and Radio One.
In Augusta, Georgia, Clear Channel is a very junior partner to Radio One in the
news-eradication business. The Black chain owns five outlets to Clear Channel's single Black
station. Clear Channel admits to having no local news department at any of its Augusta
properties. Radio One's Augusta promotions person says the chain fulfills its news
obligations by re-broadcasting the audio of a local television station's newscasts.
In 1970, a two-person news operation at James Brown's Augusta radio station played a central
role in bringing the city into the post-Jim Crow era. Under the slogan/logo "Truth and Soul,"
WRDW-AM News provided crucial coverage of the movement to integrate the downtown retail
workforce, a campaign that led to general transformations in local race relations. Today,
Radio One's near-monopoly has created a profitable, one-stop advertising shop for every
merchant with something to sell to Black Augusta. In return, Radio One gives its audience
music, talk, and regurgitated television news. Black Augustans can now choose between six
stations, rather than the two Black formats available three decades ago. But they will get no
local Black news. In that, Black Augusta is in the same boat as their brothers and sisters in
similarly sized Macon, 150 miles to the West, where Clear Channel owns four Black stations
with no local news programming.
African Americans in Augusta and Macon, Georgia can thank Radio One and Clear Channel,
equally, for withholding local news, without which community organizing is just a bunch of
"talk." Black Detroit has access to many more radio signals than 30 years ago, but hears far
less information that is politically useful. The once proud Black radio press corps of
Washington, DC is now shriveled to four people at two stations, while the corporate,
four-station Radio One powerhouse dispenses cheap talk and jive. It is scandalous that
Viacom, with one newsperson, serves Black Washington better than the nation's richest Black
radio chain.
NO NEWS IS BAD NEWS
We have provided these snapshots of the state of Black radio news to illustrate a larger
picture. As the FCC under Colin Powell's totally corrupted son, Michael, conspires to
complete the mega-consolidation of the nation's airwaves - possibly this Monday - Black
America surveys a broadcast landscape in which serious political struggle has already become
problematic, if not impossible. As with all things in America, the Black road to consolidated
media mush has been different from that of white America: Blacks supported the business
ventures of many of the very people who now electronically starve and abuse them.
African Americans were caught between two valid sets of demands - Black community access to
the airwaves, and Black ownership of broadcast properties. With the enthusiastic support of
the entire Black body politic, the entrepreneurs won great victories, increasing their
properties seven-fold in the space of a generation, and their net worths by far more than
that. They were empowered to join the game of consolidation that began in the Eighties and
reached fever pitch after passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Radio One emerged as
the pre-eminent Black market presence, with stations in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston,
Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Dayton, Houston, Indianapolis, Los
Angeles, Louisville, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, Richmond, St. Louis,
as well as Washington, DC, Detroit, and Augusta.
In the process, Black "stand-alone" stations, typically operated by businesspeople with
longstanding roots in the community, have been forced out - or have cashed out. News has most
often been jettisoned in favor of "talk" - the seductive format that ranges from quality
syndications that do have value to a national audience but provide little to sustain local
struggles, to vapid, "barber shop"-type offerings, eclectic blocks of time filled with
chatter, signifying nothing.
DUMBING DOWN BLACK PEOPLE
There need not have been a contradiction between Black ownership and community access,
including the maintenance of quality news operations. In a betrayal that, we believe, has
been a major factor in the relentless decline of Black political power, many Black radio
owners have adopted business plans identical to their white corporate peers.
Such is certainly the case with Radio One. "The company's voraciousness mirrored the
consolidation throughout the radio industry after rules limiting the number of stations one
company could own nationally were lifted in 1996," wrote the Washington Post, in a February
5, 2003 showcase article. Radio One boasts a 60-person research department that "randomly
calls thousands of people and conducts 20-minute surveys of those who tune in to its radio
stations." Do the people want news? The subject isn't broached by either Post reporter
Krissah Williams or her main interlocutor, Radio One Chief Operating Officer Mary Catherine
Sneed. Instead, the conversation is all about the sales value of entertainment programming.
"If you're not [at parties, clubs and grass-roots events], you'll never be a big personality
in the community," Sneed said. "Those are the things that separate stations from one
another."
News isn't even on the radar screen. Indeed, so insidiously have disc jockey patter and the
talk show format been substituted for news that large segments of the Black public may no
longer know the difference.
James E. Clingman is a serious man, an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati's
African-American Studies department, former editor of the Cincinnati Herald Newspaper, and a
founder of the Greater Cincinnati African American Chamber of Commerce. Yet Professor
Clingman, who is also a veteran talk show host, manages to write a lengthy commentary on
Black radio without once mentioning the dearth of local Black news.
"As far as Black talk radio is concerned, we do get a variety of opinions," said Clingman in
a piece posted on BlackPressUSA.com. "But unlike the rallying cries I hear on those other'
[white] stations, calls to action against events or persons that rub the host the wrong way,
or calls for collective political action against an 'enemy,' much of our Black radio talk is
just talk - without action. I don't mean to use a broad brush with that statement; I only
want to sound the alarm." Clingman continues, "Airtime is precious, and the capability of
speaking to thousands of our people via a Black talk radio program should, at every
opportunity, call for and move our people to responsive action."
Professor Clingman seems not to realize that Black talk radio is uninformed radio,
conversations not grounded in a steady stream of information of the kind that can only be
provided by Black news operations. Thirty years ago, Black talk shows were forums to discuss
the news that listeners learned about largely through the efforts of the stations' own
journalists. In many cases, radio reporters hosted these shows, turning them into larger
windows on the political ferment within and beyond the community. Today, much of Black talk
radio operates in an informational vacuum, simulating activism through the ritual flapping of
lips.
Professor Clingman clings to the notion that Black ownership will provide salvation, and
worries that "The next round of deregulation could mean an even further decline in Black
ownership of radio outlets and, more importantly, a decline in Black talk radio." His
priorities are misplaced. As we have learned to our despair and horror, Black ownership
guarantees nothing and, in the case of Radio One, ensures that entertainment, disc jockey
chatter and syndication become standard fare. Most importantly, the absence of news
operations at Black radio stations results in atrophy of existing Black political groupings
and the stillbirth of new organizations. Talk shows do not empower communities, vibrant
grassroots organizations do. And these organizations can only flourish when their activities
are given proper coverage in the media that their constituencies listen to - Black radio.
MISPLACED LOYALTIES
African Americans applauded the media acquisitions of "our" entrepreneurs, trusting that the
community at large would benefit. Instead, many owners moved quickly to become corporate
citizens, first, last and always - or until the next crisis threatens their holdings.
It is impossible to measure what Black America has lost through misplaced loyalty to owners
who themselves feel no such sentiment. Many of the gains made by African Americans during the
heyday of Black radio cannot be duplicated today, due to the duplicity of those entrepreneurs
who cashed in the people's collective chips for their own benefit.
A Chicagoan who was part of the small group of activists that laid the groundwork for Harold
Washington's successful 1983 mayoral campaign remembers how critical Black radio was to the
process. "Back in those days, the first thing we would do was print out the leaflets. The
next was to call Black radio to get coverage," he says. "If we were going to mount a campaign
to elect a Harold Washington Mayor of Chicago, today, I don't know if we could pull it off,"
given the current state of Black radio.
In our May 1 commentary, "Treat Corporate Media Like the Enemy," we wrote:
The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements were mass activities whose fortunes were closely
tied to the behavior of mass media. The frenzy of Black newsroom hiring three decades ago
occurred in response to Black activism. African Americans demanded that media provide
coverage of Black struggles, or be considered "part of the problem." The FCC and corporate
media temporarily accommodated these demands, allowing a brief expansion of the social space
in which the Black political drama was acted out. That door is now virtually closed, and will
remain so, no matter how the FCC rules in June, unless Black organizations retool their
strategies to force a media response.
African American radio audiences are the most loyal demographic in the nation, far more
likely to listen to Black radio than Hispanics are to patronize Spanish-language outlets, and
much less segmented than the white population. Consequently, Black radio is extremely
profitable. For much the same reason, the near-extinction of local Black radio news has
crippled Black community organizing. One can only imagine the kind of city Washington, DC
might have become had Black radio news kept pace with the doubling of Black-formatted
outlets. Rather than dwindling to four radio reporters from 21 in 1973, 30 or more electronic
journalists might be covering community concerns for Black-oriented stations, cultivating an
organized and aware population in the process.
A healthy, three- or four-person local newsroom can be staffed for considerably less than
$200,000 per year. Radio One dominates the Washington market, and must bear a large measure
of responsibility for the disempowerment of the Black people of the city and region. It is
the job of serious activists to make the price of a no-news radio regime higher than the cost
of a newsroom, through direct action against the offending outlets and their advertisers.
Terence Trent Darby, aka Sananda Maitreya, combines soul, rock, and funk.
It appeared that nothing could stop Terence Trent D'Arby after the release of his 1987 debut album, "Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby."
D'Arby appeared to have it all - enormous talent, a versatile voice, and a commanding stage presence.
And then there were the songs. "Wishing Well," his initial hit, had an infectious keyboard riff and a dynamic vocal, which drew Prince comparisons. "Sign Your Name,"' a sexy, clever ballad, also made the charts. The disc was filled with R&B, rock, and pop, and 3,000-seat venues were filled with fans during his supporting tour.
WHO: Terence Trent D'Arby.
WHAT: Eclectic rock-pop.
WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday.
WHERE: B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 W. 42nd St., Manhattan. (212) 997-4144.
HOW MUCH: $30 in advance, $35 day of show.
While receiving mixed reviews, D'Arby's follow-up "Neither Fish Nor Flesh" was an even more ambitious and accomplished effort. It was his attempt to deliver a "Sgt. Pepper"-esque album and it genre-jumped with abandon - from R&B to gospel to pop to funk to rock. "Billy Don't Fall," the infectious initial single, a touching gay-straight bonding tale, appeared poised to climb the charts.
When the album flopped, D'Arby claimed Columbia had mishandled it. In a phone call from Helsinki, Finland, he said that when Columbia CEO Walter Yetnikoff, who had championed D'Arby, was replaced by Tommy Mottola in 1987, "Everything was different."
D'Arby said that Michael Jackson, a Columbia label mate, "was upset since I was getting so much attention. He wanted me to take a fall, so some political games were played. The people who were handling me at the time weren't savvy enough to deal with what was happening. So I was, in effect, de-promoted.
"'Neither Fish Nor Flesh,' which is my favorite album I ever made, got the shaft. It was tough getting smacked around by your childhood idol. It was my awakening to the business. As Keith Richards said, 'That's the price of an education.'"
Unlike some of his peers, D'Arby, who will perform Thursday at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in Manhattan, is a human encyclopedia of rock. He wasn't allowed to listen to secular music until he was 15 - his father was a Pentecostal preacher - "but I just ate it up, particularly the Beatles." A New York City native, he moved to London after singing with a band while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany; his early hits there helped jump-start his career in America.
He still loves the Beatles. "What they did was picture perfect," said D'Arby. "They affect my life on a daily basis. The other night, John Lennon came to me in a dream. I believe he came to me to make me feel better. Over the past few years, I've needed to feel better."
To echo one of Lennon's last singles, D'Arby, 41, is starting over. After releasing two solid but ignored albums, 1993's "Symphony or Damn" and 1995's "Vibrator," he won a six-year legal battle to drop Sony. Recently, he changed his name to Sananda Maitreya - after, he said, he heard angels address him that way in a dream. D'Arby, who still answers to his given name, signed with Universal in 1996 and found himself writing with Glen Ballard (who co-wrote and produced "Jagged Little Pill" for Alanis Morissette).
"I was told that it would be a great situation since he's a songwriter as well," D'Arby said. "It didn't work out, and that's nothing against him. We didn't really collaborate. It's just one of those things. I have to follow my own vision."
Now D'Arby, who lives in Milan, Italy, is putting out his first album on his own label, Sananda Records, and is embarking on his first U.S. tour since 1996 in support of it. "Wildcard!" will be released June 3.
On it, D'Arby continues to combine soul, rock, and funk in a reassuring and familiar manner. The initial single, "O Divina," is already a hit in D'Arby's new homeland.
"In Milan, I'm treated with the respect that doctors receive in America," he said. "It's wonderful living where artists are revered.
"But I'm ready to head back to America as an artist to see how it goes."
Weiland's Arrest Follows Tumultuous Addiction Spiral, Friends Say
"I think it's possible for anyone to get clean, I just hope he does it before he overdoses and dies, because that's where he's going." — Buddy Arnold, Scott Weiland's former drug counselor
Scott Weiland's arrest on drug charges Sunday came as no surprise to those who know the singer. Instead it was the latest sad movement in the symphony of misery and addiction that the Stone Temple Pilots frontman has lived for most of the past decade.
"I was a junkie for 31 years, but I was never crazy enough to do the things he does and the amounts [of drugs] he does," said Buddy Arnold, co-founder of the Musicians' Assistance Program, which helps provide treatment for musicians addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Arnold, who has worked closely with Weiland in the past, said he's disturbed by the singer's recent backslide and that he fears for Weiland's life. He said MAP helped place Weiland in a rehab facility within the past two weeks but that Weiland left early after failing a drug test.
"The thing I'm worried about is waking up one day and hearing a news report that he's dead," Arnold said. "I think it's possible for anyone to get clean, I just hope he does it before he overdoses and dies, because that's where he's going."
Weiland was arrested early Sunday morning when police found cocaine and heroin in the BMW he was in (see "Stone Temple Pilots Singer Weiland Arrested For Drugs").
According to a spokesperson for "The Project," a supergroup with whom Weiland has been collaborating, the drugs did not belong to the singer, but to a female he was with. The Project includes ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum, and the band has recorded two songs with Weiland (see "Slash/ Duff/ Matt Coming Soon, Axl Nowhere In Sight").
Regardless of whether the drugs were Weiland's, the singer is in need of serious help, Arnold said. "She may have bought the drugs, but what was he? Her chauffeur," Arnold said. "He spends more time detoxing than he does doing drugs. He comes out of one detox center and two days later he's in another. He's been in at least six different detoxes in the last 45 days."
Stone Temple Pilots manager Peter Katsis recently confirmed that the 35-year-old singer had been enrolled in several drug rehab programs.
"The last time I saw him," Arnold added, "I couldn't get him to sit down or look at anything, he's so wired all the time. He needs to be somewhere for quite some time so they can address what's wrong with him psychologically."
In addition to his struggle with addiction, Weiland suffers from bipolar disorder, a serious mental illness (also known as manic depressive disorder) for which he said he refuses to take medication due to its dulling effects on his personality.
Weiland is due to be arraigned June 2 and faces up to a year in county jail if convicted. A spokesperson for the district attorney's office said his prior convictions on drug charges in California could "more or less preclude him from being diverted" into a drug program to avoid jail time.
The STP frontman has been arrested three times in the past for possession, twice in California. Weiland was arrested in 1995 for possession of heroin and cocaine and was spared jail time on the condition that he undergo drug counseling. He received court-ordered hospitalization related to those charges in 1996 (see "Weiland Back In Rehab").
Following his 1999 incarceration on heroin charges, Weiland remained sober for a full year, sources said, including six months of touring behind STP's No. 4 album. After years of frustration with Weiland's struggles, the period of sobriety marked a high point for the band's personal relationships and opened new possibilities artistically, which the group sought to capitalize on by immediately beginning work on its fifth album. It also marked a high point for Weiland, who married model Mary Forsberg in May of 2000 and welcomed their first child, Noah, later that year.
STP rented a Malibu mansion to record Shangri-La Dee Da, but the sessions were plagued with band strife. By early 2001, Weiland had relapsed and was taking prescription painkillers, and sources said he has consistently struggled since then.
It was an attempt to get his hands on prescription medication, Mary has said, that sparked a November 2001 argument that ended with Weiland being arrested on battery/domestic violence charges (see "STP's Weiland Ordered To Attend Counseling After Guilty Plea"). The couple filed for divorce last September.
Sources close to the Project said Weiland's drug issues are a source of frustration for the rest of the bandmembers, several of whom have also previously struggled with addiction. Should Weiland be selected as their singer, plans are being made to help lessen the risk of a relapse, including methadone treatment and 24-hour supervision.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A task force has found no evidence that some nightclubs in a north-side neighborhood discriminate against blacks by agreeing to limit when rap music can be played.
However, "it is clear that there is a perception that minorities are not welcome in Broad Ripple," said Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee member Mike Carter.
Carter spoke at a community forum that about 40 people attended last week. Several said they believed they'd experienced discrimination in the neighborhood, The Indianapolis Star reported Friday.
Mayor Bart Peterson had asked the Progress Committee in March to investigate claims some bar owners in the well-known nightclub district made a pact to avoid hip-hop parties on weekends.
Peterson asked the committee, a civic group formed in the 1960s to promote unity and community growth, to determine if there was a ban and whether it promoted racial segregation.
The same group examined police-community relations at Peterson's request following complaints at Indiana Black Expo last July.
Carter said the group still was examining racial issues in Broad Ripple.
Deputy Police Chief William Reardon has said that bar owners agreed in late 2001 to avoid playing so-called "gangsta rap" as a way to prevent crime, the newspaper reported.
Drugs Quip Backfires for Jackass Star in Sweden
Fri May 23,12:32 PM ET
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A quip by MTV show "Jackass" co-star Steve-O to Swedish newspaper that a drugs-packed condom was lodged in his intestines did not amuse local police.
They arrested Stephen Glover after he told a paper that prior to arriving in Sweden -- one of Europe's fiercest opponents of drugs -- he had swallowed a condom filled with marijuana. He said he was afraid it had got stuck.
"He is now sitting in a cell on a special toilet with an alien object in his stomach. We are waiting for it to come out so we can analyze the contents," prosecutor Gunnar Fjaestad told Reuters on Friday.
Glover was touring Sweden with his own show, and will probably have to stay at least two weeks for the investigation.
The MTV show "Jackass," which ran in 2000 and 2001, featured outrageous stunts and practical jokes and was followed by "Jackass: the Movie" in 2002.
James Brown had plenty of reasons to feel good yesterday (May 20) as South Carolina officials pardoned the soul legend for his past crimes in that state. Brown, who served a two-and-a-half-year prison term after a 1988 arrest on drug and assault charges, and was convicted of a drug-related offense in 1998, was granted a pardon by the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services.
Brown, who appeared before the board, sang "God Bless America" after the decision, according to his publicist. "God bless America on this beautiful day. I hope my pardon shows the youth that America is a beautiful country," the 70-year-old singer said in a statement. "I feel good!" Brown had friends, family and state lawmakers speak on his behalf at the hearing.
Brown unsuccessfully tried to get a pardon for his crimes in 2001. Yesterday's decision means he is fully forgiven from all the legal consequences of his crime and his conviction.
State Rep. Ken Kennedy, who spoke on Brown's behalf, said the pardon will allow the singer to share his experiences and help others. "I've been a fan of James Brown all my life. I've listened to his music all my life," Kennedy said. "I think this is something that he deserves. He has been one of our great entertainers in this country. He's done so much for the country and for me as a young person growing up here."
In September 1988, Brown, high on PCP and carrying a shotgun, entered an insurance seminar next to his Augusta, Ga., office and asked seminar participants if they were using his private restroom, according to authorities.
Police chased Brown for a half-hour from Augusta into South Carolina and back to Georgia. The chase ended when police shot out the tires of his truck.
Brown received a six-year prison sentence after he was convicted on charges of assault, failure to stop for a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest, carrying a pistol, and drug possession. He spent 15 months in a prison near Columbia, S.C., and 10 months in a work-release program in Aiken before being paroled on Feb. 27, 1991.
In 1998, police found marijuana and guns at Brown's home when sheriff's deputies took him into custody on a probate judge's order as a "mental transport." Brown spent a week in a private Columbia hospital, recovering from what his agent said was dependency on painkillers the singer took after hurting his back during a show.
He was convicted of use of a weapon while under the influence, but completed a 90-day drug program, O'Boyle said.
To receive a pardon in South Carolina, a person must apply to the Pardon and Parole department. The board hears about 200 or 300 pardon cases annually and about 60-65% of those pardons are granted.
By Bernhard Warner, European Internet Correspondent
LONDON (Reuters) - A new music download service, launched on Tuesday in Madrid, tests a legal loophole in Spanish copyright law that appears to give Web sites permission to sell songs online without consent from record companies.
Running under a banner on its homepage that reads "No Rules. No limits," the new service, Puretunes.com, is sure to raise the ire of the music industry.
Major recording labels Sony Music, Warner Music, Universal Music, BMG, and EMI have fiercely tried to crack down on unauthorized businesses that distribute songs online.
The music industry has been scrambling to derail online file-sharing services that enable consumers to trade tracks for free. Such services have contributed to the industry's steep sales decline, highlighted on Tuesday by news EMI's sales of recorded music fell 12.6 percent in the last financial year.
According to Javier Siguenza, a Madrid-based lawyer representing Puretunes, the new company abides by Spanish copyright law even though it does not have direct authorization from the music labels themselves.
CAUGHT OFF GUARD
The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the global trade organization that represents the music industry, was caught off guard by the launch. An IFPI spokesman said they were reviewing the site, but had not decided if they would be taking action against it.
Puretunes will sell subscriptions allowing consumers to download songs by virtue of licensing agreements it has struck with various Spanish trade associations that represent performers and recording artists.
Puretunes will compensate the artists and labels from subscription proceeds, Siguenza said.
The site carries thousands of songs from Madonna (news - web sites) to the Beatles. Consumers can download songs in hourly blocks.
Eight hours of downloads cost $3.99 while unlimited downloads for a month cost $24.99, a steep discount from industry-sanctioned services such as Pressplay and those operated by Britain's OD2.
Siguenza said the new service does not need individual authorization from the major music labels, a point the industry is likely to contest as they have insisted Web sites wanting to sell downloads secure the appropriate licensing contracts.
In fact, a number of labels have sued another Spanish firm, Weblisten.com, that has been selling music online.
Adding to the intrigue, Puretunes has signed Grokster, the free file-swapping network that won a recent U.S. legal decision against the music labels, as a marketing partner. Grokster will get a cut of sales leads it brings to Puretunes.
"We've been doing everything we can to sell authorized music and basically this has been our only option," said Wayne Rosso, president of Grokster. "We're out to prove a point: we can sell the music."
Derogatory racial remarks made by veteran rocker Ted Nugent have cost him a gig at the Muskegon (Mich.) Summer Celebration. Festival officials canceled his concert following an interview last week with two Denver disc jockeys in which the DJs say he used slurs for Asians and blacks.
Rick Lewis and Michael Floorwax, morning talk-show hosts on radio station KRFX-FM Denver, said they stopped the May 5 live interview with Nugent after he made the remarks.
Following discussions with community leaders, Summer Celebration's board decided "it was in the best interest of the community" to drop Nugent from the festival lineup, Summer Celebration President Joe Austin told The Muskegon Chronicle. The festival runs June 26-July 6.
The festival is now scrambling to find another act to fill Nugent's spot on the June 30 bill. "If we can [replace Nugent] with something in the classic rock genre, that'd be great, but right now we want to get the best possible acts we can find," Austin.
A Nugent spokesperson would not comment on the festival's decision. Described on its Web site as "Michigan's most complete festival" and "#1 for family fun," the Muskegon Summer Celebration will also host shows by LL Cool J, the Allman Brothers, Michelle Branch, Aaron Tippin, Pinmonkey, 3 Doors Down, Our Lady Peace, Huey Lewis & the News, the Commodores, Joe Cocker, and others.
Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland has been released on $10,000 bail, following an arrest yesterday (May 18) in Burbank, Calif., for investigation of drug possession.
Police officers stopped Weiland just after midnight on a routine traffic stop, said Burbank Police Sgt. Tracy Sanchez. "It was for driving without his lights on," Sanchez said.
It was then that the officers allegedly noticed that Weiland had narcotics in the vehicle and arrested him. Authorities did not say what kind of drug Weiland reportedly had with him. He was released around 5:30 a.m. yesterday.
Weiland has had several run-ins with the law. He was previously arrested for investigation of cocaine and heroin possession. He served jail time in 1999 after repeatedly violating his probation and failing to complete drug rehabilitation programs.
In 2001, he pleaded guilty to domestic battery following a fight with his wife at the Hard Rock hotel in Las Vegas. The judge agreed to dismiss the charges as long as Weiland underwent counseling.
His wife Mary filed for divorce last fall, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple has two young children.
With STP on hiatus, Weiland has been said to be the lead singer of Reloaded, a band consisting largely of former Guns N'Roses members. The band has an original song slated to appear in the upcoming film "The Hulk" and a cover Pink Floyd's "Money" in the film "The Italian Job."
NEW YORK - When the Dixie Cups learned that they would be receiving a Pioneer Award and a fat check from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, they planned to return some of the money to help soul singers who have fallen on hard times.
They never got the chance.
After the Dixie Cups, The Supremes, Koko Taylor, George Clinton and others were honored at the foundation's annual dinner in February, they went home empty-handed. The foundation didn't have enough money to write any checks, traditionally $20,000 for groups and $15,000 for individuals.
"We just assumed since we didn't receive the check onstage that they were going to mail the check," said Rosa Hawkins of The Dixie Cups, best known for their 1964 hit "Chapel of Love." "It's just disturbing when you expect one thing and something else (happens)."
The foundation is finally making amends.
Shortly after the February debacle, it mailed the honorees $2,500 checks and an apology. On May 28, organization founders Bonnie Raitt (news) and Ruth Brown (news), along with Ray Benson, Jimmie Vaughan and others, will headline a benefit concert in Austin, Texas. Bruce Springsteen (news) has already made an undisclosed donation, which Raitt termed "generous."
Tickets for the concert, which cost $35 to $250, have sold well. Cecilia Carter, the foundation's executive director, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the organization was in the process of sending honorees their full payments.
"Initially when this occurred, you had a couple of the honorees who were rightfully upset, and we respect those feelings," Carter said. "(But they) recognize the fact that we are working very hard to maintain our mission."
Raitt and others formed the foundation in 1987 to preserve the legacy of the soul music and make a sort of reparations to artists who had been robbed of their royalties by a crooked industry. The foundation has "taken care of hospital bills and funerals and keep paying people's rent," said Brown.
Ironically, the foundation's financial troubles are largely due to waning support from the record industry.
"For several years, the foundation's support within the industry has been lessening, even before the recession and the music industry cuts," Raitt said. "I was hoping that the industry donations would increase, or at least stay at the same level as they were in the last five or six years."
But the record business, hurt by the economy and Internet file-sharing, has cut back on everything, said Hilary Rosen, chairwoman of the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites). "There are a lot of organizations doing great work who are getting less money from record companies because there is significantly less money coming in," she said.
Thirteen years ago, the foundation began honoring classic soul acts with annual Pioneer Awards, which also served as a fund-raiser for the foundation.
But Raitt said the event hasn't gotten the same industry funds or A-list celebrity support as other charitable dinners, such as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame dinners.
"In light of how serious an issue (it is) of these artists not having gotten paid in the first place, I feel that all of the industry, including my fellow artists, could definitely up their contributions," Raitt said.
The Supremes' Mary Wilson (news), who accepted the honor in February for the legendary group, said she knew the foundation was having financial difficulties.
"But that didn't really bother me too much, because I didn't really do it for the money. I was there for the award, it was a great privilege to be honored like that," she said. "We all could use money, but I was not bitter."
Hawkins and the other Dixie Cups are not broke, since they still perform. But Hawkins was counting on the money to repair her home. More frustrating was learning about the financial problems after the ceremony.
"When they, the board, discovered that they were not going to be able to live up to the monetary standards (news - web sites) this year as they had in previous years, I think everything would have gone a lot smoother if they had taken the time to (tell people)," she said.
However, Hawkins said she had no hard feelings. She still may still make a donation when the group receives its check.
"As far as the honor itself," she said, "we were ecstatic at receiving it, and we are still grateful and thankful"
(Albany, NY, May 14, 2003 -AP) - - A man accused of sending more than 825 million junk e-mail messages and thwarting attempts to stop him by using stolen identities was arrested, New York's attorney general said Wednesday.
Howard Carmack, 36, was arrested at his Buffalo home Tuesday and remained jailed after failing to post $20,000 bail, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said. Carmack was arraigned before Buffalo City Court Judge Diane Devlin and pleaded innocent to the charges. He is due back in court on Monday.
Carmack is accused of stealing the identity of two Buffalo-area residents to open accounts with Internet service provider EarthLink. He was charged with forgery, criminal possession of a forgery device, falsifying business records and identity theft and faces up to seven years in prison for the forgery charge.
"This is one of the most difficult and problematic evolutions of e-mail," Spitzer said. "Much `spam' is bothersome but not illegal. When it involves forged identity and identity theft, then it is clearly illegal."
Investigators had been trying to nab Carmack for more than a year. His is the first person charged under New York's identity theft statute, enacted in October, officials said.
A federal judge in Atlanta awarded EarthLink, the nation's third-largest Internet service provider, damages of $16.4 million and a permanent injunction against Carmack last week. EarthLink said Carmack used 343 stolen identities to sign up for e-mail accounts.
Carmack was banned by the judge from sending spam (unsolicited e-mails) or helping others send it. His e-mails included offers for herbal Viagra, weight-loss products and get-rich schemes, including bulk e-mail programs.
"This shows spamming has both civil and criminal consequences," said Dave Baker, EarthLink's vice president of law and public policy. "He was a prolific spammer who was costing us, our customers and Internet users everywhere. It's not just an inconvenience and annoyance, it's fraudulent."
Investigators said they were unsure just how much Carmack made from his e-mail business, but didn't think it was much, perhaps a few thousand dollars.
"We don't believe that his commercial operations were an enormous success," Spitzer said.
Carmack is scheduled to appear in court again Monday. It was unknown if Carmack had hired an attorney yet. His telephone number was not listed.
In January, state Supreme Court Justice Lottie E. Wilkins permanently barred MonsterHut.com of Niagara Falls from sending commercial e-mails to Internet subscribers without their permission.
State officials accused the company of sending about 500 million unsolicited commercial e-mails and then telling complaining recipients that they had requested it.
Spitzer sued MonsterHut after some 750,000 computer users complained that since March 2001 they had received the unwanted messages and tried to have them stopped but were told they had "opted in" to receive them.
By MARK JOHNSON (Associated Press Writer)
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Tongue splitting latest piercing rage
May 14, 2003
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Ears with two, three, even five piercings are ancient history. Studs in tongues and navels are, for many, no big deal. And who doesn't have a tattoo? These days, the attention-grabbing look is tongue-splitting: cutting the tongue to make it forked.
Some say the practice, still relatively uncommon but edging up in popularity, is nothing short of mutilation. Lawmakers in Illinois are considering regulations that would all but outlaw it.
And earlier this year, several branches of the armed services banned tongue-splitting. Officials at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina say one airman had the tissue in his split tongue reopened and sewn back together in February to avoid being kicked out of the service.
Those who've had their tongues split call it a body modification, and see it as an enhancement.
A few do it for shock value. Others describe the experience as spiritual. And many say they simply like how it looks and feels.
"When I first saw it, I thought tongue-splitting was the most beautiful thing I've seen in my life," says James Keen, a 19-year-old from Scottsville, Kentucky, who got his tongue cut by a local body piercer in December after a surgeon declined to do it.
Keen, who now speaks with a slight lisp, says most people don't know he's had it done unless he shows them.
When he does, he demonstrates how both forks of his tongue can move independently. And it's a plus, he says, when it comes to kissing.
"People are very curious about how it feels," says Keen, whose parents gave him their blessing -- and the $500 it took to do it.
He says the cutting was done in three sessions with a scalpel heated by a blow torch and no anesthetic.
Keen's story is exactly what Illinois state Rep. David Miller, who's also a dentist, had in mind when he authored a bill requiring that tongue-splitting be done by a doctor or dentist, and only for medical reasons.
The bill passed nearly unanimously in the Illinois House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate.
Last summer, state lawmakers in Michigan narrowly defeated a similar bill. "Ultimately, it came down to an individual rights issue," says Tom Kochheiser, a spokesman for the Michigan Dental Association, which supported but did not introduce that state's unsuccessful measure. He says the association has no plans to pursue the issue further. Miller, a Democrat from Chicago's south suburbs, says he understands the notion of personal freedom. "But I'm not sure the people getting this done understand the risks," he says. "We're choosing safety over cosmetics."
One of the main worries, Miller says, is risk of infection from bacteria in the mouth. He also says a person's speech could be affected by scar tissue and the splitting itself.
Essie Hakim, a 30-year-old New Yorker who had her tongue split by a surgeon in 1998, says she did have to learn how to speak again. But she enjoyed the process, and says she knew what she was getting into.
"I'm an adult making a decision that's not harming anybody. And I'm not harming me," says Hakim, who believes piercing and tongue-splitting are no different than plastic surgery.
Beauty, she says, is simply in the eye of the beholder.
"People get breast implants. People do body building," Hakim says. "People do so many things that are never questioned."
She and others believe the Illinois bill, if it passes, will actually do more harm by making it difficult for the most qualified people -- doctors -- to do the procedure.
Shannon Larratt, a 29-year-old Canadian who had his tongue split by a surgeon, worries that many people will simply go to "underground" parlors to have it done in unsafe conditions.
"It means only the hacks will be left doing it," says Larratt, editor of the Body Modification E-zine, a Web site he publishes from a farm in rural Ontario.
While Larratt estimates that only about 2,000 people in the Western world have split tongues, that's "almost commonplace, as heavy 'mods' go," he says, using the abbreviated term for body modification.
And curiosity about having it done is growing, says Scott Jania, a senior piercer at Progressive Piercing in Chicago.
Jania says he now gets seven to 10 inquiries a week from customers who want to know if he'll split their tongues. But, afraid he'll hurt someone or get in trouble with city regulators, he turns them down flat.
Says Jania: "My career is far too important to risk it."
Hendrix Bassist Noel Redding Dies
Mon May 12, 7:15 PM ET
By Marcus Errico
Noel Redding (news), the man who held down the bottom line for Jimi Hendrix, has died.
The bassist passed away Sunday at his home in County Cork, Ireland, according to his manager, Ian Grant. Grant made the announcement on a message board for Track Records, Redding's label.
"I can't yet take it in that, once more, I am sitting at my desk bringing sad news. Noel passed away," Grant wrote.
The cause of death was not immediately known. Redding was 57.
His death reportedly comes just a week after his mother's.
Originally a guitarist, Redding converted to bass when he joined with Hendrix and drummer Mitch Mitchell to form the Jimi Hendrix (news) Experience in 1966. Redding played bass on all three of the group's landmark albums, Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland. The power trio split in 1969, a year before Hendrix died.
Redding was enshrined with Hendrix and Mitchell in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
Known for his only-in-the-'60s look (towering 'fro that rivaled Jimi's, granny glasses, dashiki), Redding was later embittered by his Experience days. He signed away his royalty rights in 1974, allegedly to pay an outstanding legal bill, for a one-off payment of $100,000. Redding claimed he agreed to the sum after being promised there would be no more reissues of the Experience material. Of course, that was before CDs and DVDs and the endless repackaging of the band's songs by Hendrix's estate.
"I should have been a plumber. That's a joke. But the thing is, plumbers get paid," he told Billboard.com last year. "But there again, I'm still playing, thank God. That's the main thing." Redding said he was even forced to sell the bass he used to record with the Experience to get by.
In February, Grant vowed to file a lawsuit on Redding's behalf demanding some $5 million from the Hendrix estate. It's not immediately clear whether that legal action will go forward.
There was no immediate comment Monday on Redding's death from Experience Hendrix, the company that controls the Hendrix empire.
After his Experience experience, Redding played guitar with Fat Mattress and later with Road and the Noel Redding Band.
In 1996, he outlined his rock 'n' roll woes in his autobiography, Are You Experienced?. A compilation CD of two Noel Redding Band albums, Clonakilty Cowboys and Blowin', was reissued in 2000 on One Way Records. His most recent release, a concert set titled Live from Bunkr--Prague, was released by Grant's Track Records last year.
Redding is survived by his longtime companion, Deborah McNaughton. She released a brief statement to Billboard.com calling Redding an "extremely gentle and gracious soul. He had a kind of chivalry and nobility about him and he was kind to everyone bar none, people and animals alike."
The sixth annual Hiphop Appreciation Week is scheduled for May 18-25 in New York. The event is sponsored by the nonprofit Temple of Hiphop, whose manifesto states its purpose is to "continue decriminalizing Hiphop's public image and promote the unity of the Hiphop Kulture."
The organization's founder is a pioneer of both hardcore and socially conscious rap, KRS-One. His latest album, "Kris Styles," is due June 24 via Koch Entertainment. The former Reprise/Warner Bros. VP of A&R also has a new book, "Ruminations." It is due in July from Welcome Rain Publishers.
What is the current state of hip-hop?
I presented the idea of hip-hop being a culture 10 years ago in pieces for Fresh, Source, XXL ... even when I was ethics editor at Blaze. Now the mainstream has accepted hip-hop as a culture. Harvard University is now doing a hip-hop archive. For the next five years, it will collect all of the hip-hop artifacts and knowledge it can to begin teaching a legitimate cultural studies course.
What we're moving toward is self-government. That's very scary to the entertainment industry, which just wants to use us as slaves: "Give me your talent, and I can fling you whatever bone I think you're worth."
So this is the struggle. Are we product to be bought and sold? Or are we a free self-governing people who happen to have this resource that includes breakin', MCing, graffiti art, DJing, beatboxing, fashion, and language as our intellectual property?
What is your take on Eminem?
I praise Eminem's efforts, actually. I'm quite sure he gets a lot of criticism being white -- "the new Elvis," as he's called. But he is the sum of the hip-hop equation: Hip plus hop equals Eminem.
Today, white youth feel they have not struggled enough to get what they got. White kids who come from what we perceive as a good home -- balanced family, wealth, influence -- would rather hang out in the projects to get that sense of struggle. Eminem points this out in "8 Mile" as he's getting his ass kicked by blacks. It signifies that "I earned what I got. I'm not just here because I'm white."
This is going to do wonders for white youths' self-esteem and blacks' understanding of the white struggle. More hip-hop movies have to come out now that Hollywood sees it can make money on hip-hop without people getting shot in theaters.
Why is a rapper's career only three to five years long?
Between chart visibility, record-company support, and radio and video exposure, three to five years is a successful career. After that, the ones who aren't killed or incarcerated are thrown away. The rapper is different from the MC or DJ. The rapper is a creation of corporate interests, [and his] career usually ends in scandal like R. Kelly or death like Jam Master Jay.
The general relationship between the recording industry and the artist keeps the rapper in debt and poverty -- the average rap royalty is 50 cents per album. The rapper eventually has to resort to illegal, unhealthy lifestyles.
The minimum royalty should be $2, with 50 cents going to a hip-hop guild for health insurance, legal aid, psychological [counseling], family planning. The other $1.50 would be yours.
What is ahead for hip-hop?
Our day is coming. It's inevitable that the president in another five years will be a hip-hopper. The mayor of Chicago will be somebody who has grown up on N.W.A., Chuck D, even Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown. All of it will make sense then.
NEW YORK - A surgeon who treated 50 Cent for bullet wounds three years ago has sued the rapper for more than $32,000 in unpaid medical bills.
Dr. Nader Paksima says in papers filed in Manhattan's State Supreme Court that he operated on 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, at a hospital in May 2000 for several gunshot wounds. The papers don't say how many wounds 50 Cent had.
Paksima says the bill for 50 Cent's medical care, including follow-up treatment in June, was $32,511.87. Court papers say the 26-year-old rapper hasn't paid any of it.
"He had significant surgery," Paksima's lawyer, Christopher D. Galiardo, said Tuesday. "Fortunately for him, he's doing nicely. My client provided very good medical care and he (50 Cent) is in a position to pay for a very valuable service."
The rapper's lawyer, Mark Gann, didn't immediately return calls for comment.
In interviews, 50 Cent has said he peddled crack while growing up in Queens, and that he's been shot nine times. No one was arrested for the May 2000 shooting.
Once the protege of slain rap icon Jam Master Jay, 50 Cent has a top-selling CD and was the musical act last weekend on NBC's "Saturday Night Live (news - Y! TV)."
First Nude Flight Leaves Miami Bound For Cancun
Organizers Say Trip Is First Of Its Kind
MIAMI -- When the flight reached cruising altitude, 87 passengers took off more than their seat belts -- they removed their clothes.
The nude flight, billed by organizers as the first one of its kind, took off Saturday afternoon from Miami International Airport, headed for Cancun.
If somebody paid for your trip, would you travel on a nude flight?
A Houston travel agency specializing in clothing-optional getaways organized the trip on a chartered Boeing 727. Passengers paid $499 for the trip, with many heading to Cancun's El Dorado Resort & Spa for Nude Week.
"These are professionals who lead very stressful lives and are ready to let it all go," said Donna Daniels, co-owner of the Castaways travel agency and an in-the-buff traveler on the inaugural flight. "They are adventurers and risk takers. They don't even want clothes as a constraint. "
There were limits, though. The captain and crew kept their clothes on. No hot coffee or tea was served for fear of spills. And no hanky-panky.
"This is not the Mile High Club," Daniels said.
Newlyweds Claudia Kellersch and Blair Brumley from San Diego met on a nude beach and recently wed in a naked ceremony. The flight was Kellersch's 50th birthday present to Brumley.
"Can you think of a more perfect, unique gift?" she asked.
Naked travel is the fastest-growing segment of Castaways' business, Daniels said.
"After 9/11, I didn't have any cancellations," she said. "Even after war broke out, we didn't have any cancellations on this trip. People feel safe on a flight like this."
Copyright 2003 by NBC5.com. All rights reserved.
WEST WARWICK, R.I., May 2 A chain-link fence, two wooden crosses and a plywood heart with angel's wings are all that remain. That and a rectangle of red concrete from the crucible that ended 99 lives and charred many more. The truckload of mementos left by the mourning hordes soggy wedding pictures, tangled prayer beads, fading plastic pansies has been carted away.
The long line of craned-neck drivers on Cowesett Road is gone, too. The sign at a nearby restaurant that urged passers-by to remember the dead now urges them not to forget Mother's Day.
The funerals are over. The dead are buried. The fund-raising parties and memorial concerts have dwindled to one every other week or so.
"It is time to get on with life," said Missy Minor, cradling her 4-month-old daughter, Mara-Jade, in her red, mottled arms. "You just have to get up and move on."
The fire at the Station nightclub on Feb. 20 let loose an unimaginable torrent of misery, leaving behind a ragged tribe of amputees, orphans, childless parents, widowers. Nearly 200 survivors went to hospitals, some with burns on 80 percent of their bodies. Fifty-six children lost a mother or father, and a few lost both. About half of those injured do not have health insurance, state officials say, and many have crippling injuries. Even those unscathed physically bear deep psychic wounds.
Yet more than two months after a pyrotechnic display during a hard rock concert sparked the inferno, the tight embrace of public mourning has loosened. Those who live in this wounded place now mourn in a sort of patchwork grief in living rooms, in church pews, on bar stools, in graveyards. But the sorrow bleeds over town and county lines, into other states, as far as California and Florida. Across these lines, hundreds of people muddle through their misery.
"Because the victims are so widespread, it is difficult to find support," said Dawn Moquin, who set up a Web site for John Van Deusen III of Carver, Mass., the only remaining burn victim at Rhode Island Hospital. Mr. Van Deusen, 39, is the father of her son Dylan, and remains a close friend. "I think a lot of people are alone in their sadness," she said.
It has been more than a month since Mrs. Minor, 29, came home from Rhode Island Hospital to her husband and two children after 14 days of agony, her arms covered with the second- and third-degree burns that curdled her skin, leaving angry lumps of scar tissue. She is a hairdresser, but cannot go back to work with her rigid, reddened hands. She is not sure she will ever wield scissors again.
"Most people don't really like to talk about the fire," she said, wresting a finger from her baby daughter's painful grip as her son, Anakin, who is almost 3, circled the living room, squealing. "I try to talk about it because I think it helps. But only those who were there know what it smelled like. What the heat felt like. That feeling that you are going to die. So you don't talk about it much."
Enduring Optimism
In her bed at Massachusetts General Hospital, Pam Gruttadauria, 33, cannot speak to her mother, Anna, because of the ventilator that keeps oxygen flowing to her lungs. She cannot see her mother because her eyes are sewn shut. With no lids to protect her eyes from infection, it is safer to keep them closed. She cannot touch her mother because her burned hands were amputated.
Still, Mrs. Gruttadauria believes that her daughter knows she is there. On Easter Sunday she touched her daughter's foot, one of the few places she was not burned.
"The nurse asked, `Did you feel your mom touch your foot?' " Mrs. Gruttadauria said. "She nodded. That felt really, really good."
Sitting at a reading table at the library in Johnston, where she works at the circulation desk, Mrs. Gruttadauria smiled as proudly as a mother whose child has just said "Mama" for the first time.
In Mrs. Gruttadauria's new world, a nod is progress.
On Feb. 20, the night of the fire, Pam, who lives with her parents, asked her mother if she thought she should go to the Great White concert.
"She is the breakfast hostess at the Holiday Inn, so she is in bed by 8:30 most nights," Mrs. Gruttadauria said. She is a two-time employee of the month, not the type to show up to work on not enough sleep. And her musical tastes are more easy listening than heavy metal. "She loves Barbra Streisand," Mrs. Gruttadauria said. Still, a friend and co-worker, Donna Mitchell, really wanted her to go. So she agreed.
At 2 a.m. Friday, Mrs. Gruttadauria heard her phone ring, then the answering machine. It was a colleague of Pam's, checking to see if she was all right. Mrs. Gruttadauria and her husband, Joseph, turned on the television. Their daughter had not come home. They went to a local hotel where officials were gathering and dispensing information about victims. No one knew anything about Pam.
By dawn Mrs. Gruttadauria was fearing the worst. She called Jim Petrone, the general manager of the hotel where Pam worked, to ask if she could use the grand dining room Pam had loved for a funeral breakfast.
"There were two Jane Does at the hospital, but both were too tall to be my daughter," she said. "Pam is five-foot, and these women were both five-four."
By Saturday, Mrs. Gruttadauria had found her daughter's dentist, who rushed dental records to them. A doctor from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston called shortly after that. A chip in a tooth matched a badly burned victim. Could they come to identify her?
Her tiny frame was swollen and charred, her face unrecognizable. Mrs. Gruttadauria identified her daughter from the red acne scars on her chest and the way one of her toes folded over the others. Third-degree burns covered Pam's back, arms and hands. Her lungs were badly injured. Doctors were pessimistic about her chances.
"They told us she was a very sick girl," Mrs. Gruttadauria said. Ms. Mitchell, Pam's friend, died in the fire. She was 29.
The Gruttadaurias' lives now revolve around Pam. Mr. Gruttadauria, a pipe fitter, stopped working. Mrs. Gruttadauria works only in the mornings. At 1:30 every weekday afternoon, they set off to Massachusetts General, about an hour away.
Pam is still in critical condition. She lies in a special bed for burn victims, sedated and hooked up to a jumble of machines.
It has been an uncertain journey. After a month of improvements and 15 operations, she developed a fungal infection that nearly killed her.
"I said my novenas to Saint Jude and Saint Therese," Mrs. Gruttadauria said. "They say if St. Therese hears you, you see roses. The next morning I saw gorgeous yellow roses in the waiting room."
One by one, most of the other patients who arrived with Pam have gone home. Mrs. Gruttadauria sometimes misses the company.
"It was good to have the support, the other people who knew what you are going through," Mrs. Gruttadauria said. "But I am happy for them that they are home, that they are healing."
Antibiotics beat back Pam's infection, but the drugs weakened her kidneys. Now she is on dialysis. Doctors cannot say whether she will see again. Her hair will never grow back. The frame of her nose remains, but the rest will have to be rebuilt. She will have to use prosthetic hands.
Still, Mrs. Gruttadauria says she is grateful, optimistic, upbeat.
"I still have my daughter," she said. "This is between Pam and God. She could have died in the fire but she didn't. She could have died of infection but she didn't. I have to believe God is saving her for something. Pam is in God's hands."
Lingering Resentment
The anger creeps up on Janet Van Deusen. One minute she is talking about her son's miraculous recovery from near death to walking, talking and eating. The next minute her eyes darken and her voice quivers.
"I think there is a lot of blame to go around," Mrs. Van Deusen said, sitting at a table in the cafeteria at Rhode Island Hospital, where her son John is the last remaining patient from the fire. "Sure, I am angry. I am angry at a lot of people who didn't do what they needed to do to make sure that fire did not happen."
Like many people whose lives were shattered by the fire at the Station, Mr. Van Deusen's family and friends wonder how it could have happened in the first place. They harbor a deep resentment for Great White, whose tour manager set off the fireworks in the tiny club.
"Any fool would know better than that," Mrs. Van Deusen said.
Mrs. Van Deusen was particularly incensed that members of Great White performed at a concert last Tuesday to raise money for the family of the band's guitarist, Ty Longley, who died in the fire.
"After all my son has been through, they have a fund-raiser just for one guy," Mrs. Van Deusen said. On Tuesday, the band announced plans for a summer fund-raising to benefit all the victims. But that only made Mrs. Van Deusen angrier.
"Then they have the unmitigated gall to say after the fact they are going to have a tour to raise money for the rest of the victims," she said.
Mr. Van Deusen's family reserves some anger for the club owners, Michael and Jeffrey Derderian. People point to the cheap soundproofing foam on the walls as an explanation for the fire's ferocity. Last month the state fined the brothers more than $1 million for failing to carry workers' compensation insurance, which would have paid death and injury benefits to employees.
Then there are the town and state officials, those who signed off on the Station's most recent inspections, and those who created a loophole that allowed the club and buildings like it to operate without sprinklers.
"Justice will be served, I am confident," Mrs. Van Deusen said. "I hope that something will be done to make sure this never happens again."
Delayed Grief
A book called "Awakening From Grief" sits on Melinda Darby's coffee table. Its pages are unruffled.
"Someone sent it to me, but I haven't read it," Mrs. Darby said.
When the medical examiner confirmed that her husband, Matthew Darby, was dead, she hardened her heart. She would not grieve. Her belly bulged with a baby that would join the world in a month. Grief, she said, would have to wait.
"It was a mother's instinct, I guess," Mrs. Darby said, sitting in a pine rocking chair in the two-story house on a rocky three-quarter-acre lot in West Warwick that Mr. Darby bought for them as a surprise a year ago. "I shut myself down. I didn't grieve. I was protecting our baby."
Now that Sarah has been born, Mrs. Darby, 32, occasionally gives herself to the grief of losing the man she has loved since she was 15. But only at night, after Sarah and her 10-year-old sister, Jessica, fall asleep.
"I'll pace the floors, and I'll cry," Mrs. Darby said. During the day there is no time for tears. Her husband's business, Cousins Painting, was their livelihood. She had always helped; now she must run it. Mr. Darby did not have life insurance. He was only 36. What could happen?
"I had bugged him about getting it since the baby was coming," Mrs. Darby said. Not long after her husband died, a salesman called, returning Mr. Darby's inquiry about a life insurance policy. The Darbys plowed their profits back into the business, so they had not much in the way of savings, Mrs. Darby said.
It was a fluke that Mr. Darby had gone to the concert. One of his painters had an extra ticket, and Mr. Darby, who preferred classic rock the Rolling Stones most of all thought Great White might be fun. He kissed Jessica, then pressed his lips to his wife's belly, and walked out the door. Just before the show started, he called to say he planned to stay for a couple of songs and would come home soon.
Mrs. Darby does not know anyone else who died or was hurt in the fire. She has not joined a support group, and has not had any contact with other victims or their families. She would just as soon keep it that way.
"I have a business to run, a family to take care of," Mrs. Darby said.
She has received hundreds of letters and cards from people around the country. Folded in a neat square on her rocking chair is a pink-and-lavender baby blanket that a police officer in Louisiana crocheted and sent for Sarah.
"It is nice to get support from people all over," Mrs. Darby said. "It feels really good. But in the end it is just me and my girls. We are on our own now."
