'Jersey Shore' star Paul "DJ Pauly D" DelVecchio has a Valentine ready for your girlfriend, guys.
Yes, he's recording personalized video and audio greetings with Star Greetz, and you can send your lucky lady a DJ Pauly D Valentine by e-mail or even Facebook or Twitter.
I spoke to Pauly about Valentine's Day and his fun cards.
Explain the cool greetings you're doing.
The coolest way to express your love to someone this Valentine's Day is by sending them me: DJ Pauly D!
What celebrity would you most like to get a personalized Valentine's card from?
I would love to get a personalized Valentine's Day card from Eva Longoria. She is super hot and super available now -- ooh yeah.
What's the worst Valentine's Day you ever had?
Worst Valentine's Day I ever had was a few years back. I got a flat tire on the highway with my date in the car, so my date and I had to ride back with the AAA man. Not cool.
Would you rather go on a Valentine's date with Kate Gosselin or Sarah Palin?
Kate Gosselin for sure! She is looking real hot lately. Good for her
If your house was on fire would you save your girlfriend or your hair gel?
This is a very tough question. Hmm. [Laughs] No, I would definitely save my girlfriend. We can always buy more gel. People are irreplaceable.
What's the biggest turn on and turn off in a girl?
Biggest turn on for me is when a girl smells good. I'm a sucker for nice perfume. Biggest turn off for me is if she had bad breath -- nothing worse than a smoking hot chick with some stank breath -- yuck.
Are you a red silk boxer shorts sort of dude for Valentine's Day?
Yes for sure. I'll go the extra mile on Valentine's Day to make the woman happy. It's all about the girl.
If you could give ladies one piece of advice on how to keep her guy happy what would it be?
Best advice I can give to the ladies to keep their man happy is basically just keep it fun. Laughter is the key to keeping the man happy and interested. Don't be so boring, even at night time, you know what I'm sayin'?
Friday, January 21, 2011
Ivanka Trump Expecting First Child
Ivanka Trump is expecting a child with her husband, New York Observer owner Jared Kushner.
The model-turned-entrepreneur announced the good news on her Twitter this morning.
"I have been wanting to share some amazing news with you all for some time... I'm pregnant! Jared and I couldn't be more excited," she wrote.
Trump, 29, married the 30-year-old media mogul in 2009 after dating for two years.
Kushner says of impending parenthood, "We're very excited."
Prior to the ceremony, Trump converted to Judaism for Kushner, the son of Orthodox parents.
This will be the first child for both Trump and Kushner. The baby will be the third grandchild for Ivanka's father, Donald, whose son, Donald Jr. has two children with wife Vanessa.
The 'Apprentice' host tells Gossip Cop, "I am very happy for Ivanka and Jared. They are wonderful young people!"
The model-turned-entrepreneur announced the good news on her Twitter this morning.
"I have been wanting to share some amazing news with you all for some time... I'm pregnant! Jared and I couldn't be more excited," she wrote.
Trump, 29, married the 30-year-old media mogul in 2009 after dating for two years.
Kushner says of impending parenthood, "We're very excited."
Prior to the ceremony, Trump converted to Judaism for Kushner, the son of Orthodox parents.
This will be the first child for both Trump and Kushner. The baby will be the third grandchild for Ivanka's father, Donald, whose son, Donald Jr. has two children with wife Vanessa.
The 'Apprentice' host tells Gossip Cop, "I am very happy for Ivanka and Jared. They are wonderful young people!"
Robert Redford Opens Up About Infant Son's Death
The famously private Robert Redford has never fully recovered from the tragic SIDS death of his baby boy more than 50 years ago, he says in a rare interview.
Redford's son with first wife Lola Van Wagenen died of sudden infant death syndrome when he was only 5 months old, in 1959.
"It was really hard," Redford, 74, tells AARP The Magazine for its March/April cover story. "We were very young. I had my first theater job, which didn't pay much. We didn't know anything about SIDS, so the only thing you think is that you've done something wrong. As a parent, you tend to blame yourself. That creates a scar that probably never completely heals."
Redford and Van Wagenen, whom he divorced in 1985 after almost 30 years of marriage, had three other children together. The actor, director and founder of the Sundance Film Festival remained single until 2009, when he married longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars.
"She's a very special person," he says of his current wife. "She's younger than I am, and European, which I like, so that's a whole new life."
As for how he's been able to stay private, even as he rose to stardom and became one of the greatest and most prolific film actors of his generation, Redford says it has always just been about the work for him. Until recently, that is.
"When I got into the business, I had this naive idea that I'd let my work speak for me. I just was never interested in talking about myself," he tells AARP. "However, we're in such a different time and celebrity is so much in the mainstream. I thought, 'I might as well enter this zone, but go a toe at a time.'"
He also has treated fame very gingerly.
"I dealt with it the way I wanted to," Redford says. "I felt that if you were fortunate enough to have success, you should shadowbox with it but never embrace it, because it has a demon side."
It still sometimes surprises the star of 'The Horse Whisperer,' 'Indecent Proposal,' 'The Sting' and more than 60 other films that he became an actor in the first place, he says.
"I never imagined being an actor. I wanted to get a formal education in art so I could go back to Europe and paint," he says. "Something clicked. It was the beginning of everything coming into focus with me."
At 74, Redford still remembers "going into hiding" when he turned 40 -- while his close friend Jane Fonda threw herself a big bash for the same birthday. Since then, he has learned to accept but not obsess about aging and stay active along the way.
"I ride horses, ski, play pretty hard tennis. I still have energy. When that starts to shut down, I might start to think about age," he says. "When you get older, you learn certain life lessons. You apply that wisdom, and suddenly you say, 'Hey, I've got a new lease on this thing. So let's go.'"
Redford, whose most recent project is as director of 'The Conspirator,' does take issue with being called a "living legend" because it makes him sound close to the end. And he is anything but.
"That really bothers me," he tells the magazine. "Does that mean I'm bronzed? Whoa! It's not over yet, folks!"
Redford's son with first wife Lola Van Wagenen died of sudden infant death syndrome when he was only 5 months old, in 1959.
"It was really hard," Redford, 74, tells AARP The Magazine for its March/April cover story. "We were very young. I had my first theater job, which didn't pay much. We didn't know anything about SIDS, so the only thing you think is that you've done something wrong. As a parent, you tend to blame yourself. That creates a scar that probably never completely heals."
Redford and Van Wagenen, whom he divorced in 1985 after almost 30 years of marriage, had three other children together. The actor, director and founder of the Sundance Film Festival remained single until 2009, when he married longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars.
"She's a very special person," he says of his current wife. "She's younger than I am, and European, which I like, so that's a whole new life."
As for how he's been able to stay private, even as he rose to stardom and became one of the greatest and most prolific film actors of his generation, Redford says it has always just been about the work for him. Until recently, that is.
"When I got into the business, I had this naive idea that I'd let my work speak for me. I just was never interested in talking about myself," he tells AARP. "However, we're in such a different time and celebrity is so much in the mainstream. I thought, 'I might as well enter this zone, but go a toe at a time.'"
He also has treated fame very gingerly.
"I dealt with it the way I wanted to," Redford says. "I felt that if you were fortunate enough to have success, you should shadowbox with it but never embrace it, because it has a demon side."
It still sometimes surprises the star of 'The Horse Whisperer,' 'Indecent Proposal,' 'The Sting' and more than 60 other films that he became an actor in the first place, he says.
"I never imagined being an actor. I wanted to get a formal education in art so I could go back to Europe and paint," he says. "Something clicked. It was the beginning of everything coming into focus with me."
At 74, Redford still remembers "going into hiding" when he turned 40 -- while his close friend Jane Fonda threw herself a big bash for the same birthday. Since then, he has learned to accept but not obsess about aging and stay active along the way.
"I ride horses, ski, play pretty hard tennis. I still have energy. When that starts to shut down, I might start to think about age," he says. "When you get older, you learn certain life lessons. You apply that wisdom, and suddenly you say, 'Hey, I've got a new lease on this thing. So let's go.'"
Redford, whose most recent project is as director of 'The Conspirator,' does take issue with being called a "living legend" because it makes him sound close to the end. And he is anything but.
"That really bothers me," he tells the magazine. "Does that mean I'm bronzed? Whoa! It's not over yet, folks!"
Ricky Gervais on Golden Globes: 'I'm Not Sorry'
Ricky Gervais continues to defend his Golden Globes hosting gig and stopped by CNN's 'Piers Morgan Tonight' to discuss his jokes and jabs -- but not to apologize.
"I'm not sorry for anything I said, because I'm not going to apologize for being true to myself," Gervais said. "I don't care what people think of me. I care if I've done a good job, and I care if I've told the truth."
Gervais has come under fire for crossing the line at the annual awards show, which was broadcast worldwide. The comedian took jabs at actor Charlie Sheen's latest scandal, Robert Downey Jr.'s arrest record, Hugh Hefer's new engagement and the failure of 'The Tourist,' among many others.
Many people, including some celebs in the audience, took offense to some of his jokes, but that doesn't seem to bother Gervais.
"Just because you're offended, it doesn't mean you're in the right," Gervais told Morgan. "A lot of people are offended by mixed marriage. It doesn't mean they're right."
One star who voiced his apparent displeasure at some of Gervais' act was Robert Downey Jr. After the comedian joked about Downey's past addiction problems before introducing him on stage, the unhappy star quipped back.
"Aside from the fact that it's been hugely mean-spirited, with mildly sinister undertones, I'd say the vibe of the show is pretty good so far, wouldn't you?" Downey said to the audience.
Gervais believes Downey was joking and isn't upset about the jokes.
"Why would he be?" Gervais asked Morgan. "He's Robert Downey Jr. He's the coolest man in the world. Why would he care?"
Even though some of his jokes were deemed "too close to the line," Gervais maintains his act wasn't malicious.
"There's nothing you shouldn't joke about," he said. "It depends what the joke is. Comedy comes from a good or a bad place, and I like to think that mine comes from a good place."
"I'm not sorry for anything I said, because I'm not going to apologize for being true to myself," Gervais said. "I don't care what people think of me. I care if I've done a good job, and I care if I've told the truth."
Gervais has come under fire for crossing the line at the annual awards show, which was broadcast worldwide. The comedian took jabs at actor Charlie Sheen's latest scandal, Robert Downey Jr.'s arrest record, Hugh Hefer's new engagement and the failure of 'The Tourist,' among many others.
Many people, including some celebs in the audience, took offense to some of his jokes, but that doesn't seem to bother Gervais.
"Just because you're offended, it doesn't mean you're in the right," Gervais told Morgan. "A lot of people are offended by mixed marriage. It doesn't mean they're right."
One star who voiced his apparent displeasure at some of Gervais' act was Robert Downey Jr. After the comedian joked about Downey's past addiction problems before introducing him on stage, the unhappy star quipped back.
"Aside from the fact that it's been hugely mean-spirited, with mildly sinister undertones, I'd say the vibe of the show is pretty good so far, wouldn't you?" Downey said to the audience.
Gervais believes Downey was joking and isn't upset about the jokes.
"Why would he be?" Gervais asked Morgan. "He's Robert Downey Jr. He's the coolest man in the world. Why would he care?"
Even though some of his jokes were deemed "too close to the line," Gervais maintains his act wasn't malicious.
"There's nothing you shouldn't joke about," he said. "It depends what the joke is. Comedy comes from a good or a bad place, and I like to think that mine comes from a good place."
Source: Jesse James, Kat Von D to Marry Next Month
Just one day after news of their engagement broke, sources are saying Jesse James and Kat Von D plan to marry as soon as next month, according to RadarOnline.
"Jesse and Kat don't see any reason why they should wait to trade vows," a source close to the couple said. "They are madly in love with each other and want to make everything official."
One person who's not so thrilled about the engagement? James' former mistress, Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, and she has a message for his new fiancee.
"Kat, what in the world are you thinking?" McGee told RadarOnline. "I was with Jesse during his marriage -- the guy's not faithful, he doesn't have a faithful bone in his body!"
McGee continued, "If he did it to me, if he did it to Sandra, he's gonna do it to you, too -- once a cheater always a cheater."
It seems like McGee might just be the voice of reason in this situation.
James and Von D made their first public appearance last September, just six months after James' marriage to Sandra Bullock fell apart due to his affair with McGee. They announced their surprise engagement on Jan. 20.
"I have never met anyone so kind and loving and committed to making the world a better place every day," James told PEOPLE about Von D. "My love for her is beyond description. So honored that she said 'yes.' Growing old with her is going to be a f***in' blast!"
Von D also gushed to Us Weekly about James.
"I feel really lucky," she said. "I think in the past I thought I knew what love was. I think I am growing up a lot too and realizing the truth in a lot of things and feel really blessed now," she said.
This will be the fourth marriage for James, and the second for Von D, who divorced tattoo artist Oliver Peck in 2007.
"Jesse and Kat don't see any reason why they should wait to trade vows," a source close to the couple said. "They are madly in love with each other and want to make everything official."
One person who's not so thrilled about the engagement? James' former mistress, Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, and she has a message for his new fiancee.
"Kat, what in the world are you thinking?" McGee told RadarOnline. "I was with Jesse during his marriage -- the guy's not faithful, he doesn't have a faithful bone in his body!"
McGee continued, "If he did it to me, if he did it to Sandra, he's gonna do it to you, too -- once a cheater always a cheater."
It seems like McGee might just be the voice of reason in this situation.
James and Von D made their first public appearance last September, just six months after James' marriage to Sandra Bullock fell apart due to his affair with McGee. They announced their surprise engagement on Jan. 20.
"I have never met anyone so kind and loving and committed to making the world a better place every day," James told PEOPLE about Von D. "My love for her is beyond description. So honored that she said 'yes.' Growing old with her is going to be a f***in' blast!"
Von D also gushed to Us Weekly about James.
"I feel really lucky," she said. "I think in the past I thought I knew what love was. I think I am growing up a lot too and realizing the truth in a lot of things and feel really blessed now," she said.
This will be the fourth marriage for James, and the second for Von D, who divorced tattoo artist Oliver Peck in 2007.
Justin Bieber's Signature Haircut Costs $750
Justin Bieber may have the perfect haircut, but that perfection comes with a hefty price tag.
According to Life & Style magazine, the Bieb's 'do costs upward of $750 per haircut. Vanessa Price is the hairstylist who created the teen crooner's signature look in 2009, and she makes housecalls to Bieber to touch up her work.
"I usually cut his hair every couple of weeks when he's on tour," Price said.
If that's the case, the singer dishes out more than $1,500 a month on his hair.
Price, Bieber and, well, the world, had no idea the haircut would become so popular.
"We both were shocked people cared that much about someone's hair," she said.
Not since Jennifer Aniston's classic haircut, known as "The Rachel," took over salons around the world in the '90s has a haircut garnered such attention.
Aniston recently revealed that she thought "The Rachel" was the "ugliest haircut" she'd ever seen.
We can only wonder what Bieber will say about his look in 20 years. But for now, the style suits him.
According to Life & Style magazine, the Bieb's 'do costs upward of $750 per haircut. Vanessa Price is the hairstylist who created the teen crooner's signature look in 2009, and she makes housecalls to Bieber to touch up her work.
"I usually cut his hair every couple of weeks when he's on tour," Price said.
If that's the case, the singer dishes out more than $1,500 a month on his hair.
Price, Bieber and, well, the world, had no idea the haircut would become so popular.
"We both were shocked people cared that much about someone's hair," she said.
Not since Jennifer Aniston's classic haircut, known as "The Rachel," took over salons around the world in the '90s has a haircut garnered such attention.
Aniston recently revealed that she thought "The Rachel" was the "ugliest haircut" she'd ever seen.
We can only wonder what Bieber will say about his look in 20 years. But for now, the style suits him.
'Bachelor' Brad Womack Admits Mistakes
As reports of Brad Womack's alleged past indiscretions surfaced this week, the star of ABC's 'The Bachelor' admits his youthful mistakes to PEOPLE.
Tabloid rumors recently began to swirl of Womack's brushes with the law, which include fake IDs, public intoxication and forged checks.
"I'm sure I wouldn't be the first to admit that I had a couple of missteps when I was a teenager -- some 20 odd years ago," Womack told the magazine. "Some of the claims have been blown out of proportion, but I took responsibility for my actions and took immediate measures to remedy the situation."
Womack, now 38, continues, "It was just part of my growing pains back when I was still young and naive. You learn from your experiences good and bad -- and you move on. It ultimately builds character."
This isn't the first time around the 'Bachelor' block for Womack. He starred on the reality dating show in 2007, but famously rejected the final two women. ABC brought him back for the 2011 season, currently airing, with a promise to "find love."
Tabloid rumors recently began to swirl of Womack's brushes with the law, which include fake IDs, public intoxication and forged checks.
"I'm sure I wouldn't be the first to admit that I had a couple of missteps when I was a teenager -- some 20 odd years ago," Womack told the magazine. "Some of the claims have been blown out of proportion, but I took responsibility for my actions and took immediate measures to remedy the situation."
Womack, now 38, continues, "It was just part of my growing pains back when I was still young and naive. You learn from your experiences good and bad -- and you move on. It ultimately builds character."
This isn't the first time around the 'Bachelor' block for Womack. He starred on the reality dating show in 2007, but famously rejected the final two women. ABC brought him back for the 2011 season, currently airing, with a promise to "find love."
Kim Kardashian Upset With MTV's "Teen Mom"
TV fans, prepare yourselves — Kim Kardashian is upset!
The reality vixen, who stars in E!'s "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," took to her blog to bemoan the dangers of another reality show, MTV's "Teen Mom."
"While I was at the 'Today' show this morning I saw a story about a Memphis high school where 90 young female students were either pregnant or have given birth this year!" Kim wrote in a blog posted on her personal website on Wednesday. "I just couldn't believe this and I find it so sad and disturbing."
The 30-year-old bombshell, who found her own celebrity thanks largely to a leaked sex tape filmed while she was in her early 20s, doesn't believe pregnant teens should be "celebrities."
"It seems that shows like 'Teen Mom' are all of a sudden making teen pregnancy seem cool in the eyes of young girls," she continued. "The kids from these shows are all over the news, even on the covers of magazines, and have been become almost like celebrities, but girls, these are not people you should idolize!
"…Girls, please, think very carefully before you make these kind of decisions," Kim pleaded. "Talk to your family, friends, teachers, and most of all, be careful."
The reality vixen, who stars in E!'s "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," took to her blog to bemoan the dangers of another reality show, MTV's "Teen Mom."
"While I was at the 'Today' show this morning I saw a story about a Memphis high school where 90 young female students were either pregnant or have given birth this year!" Kim wrote in a blog posted on her personal website on Wednesday. "I just couldn't believe this and I find it so sad and disturbing."
The 30-year-old bombshell, who found her own celebrity thanks largely to a leaked sex tape filmed while she was in her early 20s, doesn't believe pregnant teens should be "celebrities."
"It seems that shows like 'Teen Mom' are all of a sudden making teen pregnancy seem cool in the eyes of young girls," she continued. "The kids from these shows are all over the news, even on the covers of magazines, and have been become almost like celebrities, but girls, these are not people you should idolize!
"…Girls, please, think very carefully before you make these kind of decisions," Kim pleaded. "Talk to your family, friends, teachers, and most of all, be careful."
Heidi Klum Signs a Deal for "Shine" Fragrance
Every celebrity seems to do a fragrance and Heidi Klum is a celebrity who seems to do everything, so news that she'd jump on the celebrity scent bandwagon seems like a given. Indeed, Klum will launch her very own perfume, called "Shine," this September, according to WWD.
The German supermodel, mother of four, TV host, and businesswoman adds the scent to her growing repertoire, while Coty plans to capitalize on the megabrand she's created for herself. Reps for the company pointed to Klum as the whole package -- "she's an entrepreneur; she's a showgirl" -- as well as supermodel and down-to-earth wife and mother all in one.
She's even got experience in the beauty industry, sharing with WWD that for her mandatory internship in Germany (at the tender age of 13!), she worked for the cosmetics company 4711, where her father was the marketing director.
While there are no details yet on the various components of Klum's signature blend, we're betting on a sweet scent for the cheery model.
The German supermodel, mother of four, TV host, and businesswoman adds the scent to her growing repertoire, while Coty plans to capitalize on the megabrand she's created for herself. Reps for the company pointed to Klum as the whole package -- "she's an entrepreneur; she's a showgirl" -- as well as supermodel and down-to-earth wife and mother all in one.
She's even got experience in the beauty industry, sharing with WWD that for her mandatory internship in Germany (at the tender age of 13!), she worked for the cosmetics company 4711, where her father was the marketing director.
While there are no details yet on the various components of Klum's signature blend, we're betting on a sweet scent for the cheery model.
Review: “The Housemaid” Will Clean Your Clock
South Korean writer-director Im Sang-so boldly set out to remake what is widely considered among his nation’s greatest films of all time, "The Housemaid," and to his credit, he makes it work magnificently.
Jeon Do-yeon stars as Eun-yi, a young woman hired to serve as au pair to Hae Ra (Seo Woo), the extremely pregnant--with twins--wife of a fantastically wealthy man, Hoon Goh. What unfolds is something like what you would get if Alfred Hitchcock had directed the best damn episode ever of “Dynasty.”
One weekend Hoon appears at Eun-yi‘s bedside in his underwear, brandishing a bottle of wine. Do-yeon plays the moment to near perfection, her faced flickering between horror, confusion and arousal. She never seems sure what she is supposed to do. And when she finally reaches to disrobe him, she's still not sure if she’s doing the right thing. A similar scene plays out a few days later and soon enough, the housemaid is pregnant, too.
In short order, it seems everyone knows Eun-yi’s pregnant, even before she herself does. And from there it’s not so much a whodunit, as a whose-gonna-do-it-and-how. Because clearly, she needs to be out of the house, one ominous way or another.
Sang-so makes full use of the mansion’s long hallways, high ceilings and labyrinthine layout, inducing vertigo, disorientation or confusion as befits the moment. And he never goes for the cheap scare, there are no bogeyman leaping out from around dark corners. The tension builds slowly, periodically letting off some steam with a nervous laugh.
Great acting, top-notch camera work and not one, but two amazing endings, make “The Housemaid” a great white-knuckle ride.
The Housemaid is in Korean with English subtitles, the film is unrated, but there is nudity, sex and violence.
Jeon Do-yeon stars as Eun-yi, a young woman hired to serve as au pair to Hae Ra (Seo Woo), the extremely pregnant--with twins--wife of a fantastically wealthy man, Hoon Goh. What unfolds is something like what you would get if Alfred Hitchcock had directed the best damn episode ever of “Dynasty.”
One weekend Hoon appears at Eun-yi‘s bedside in his underwear, brandishing a bottle of wine. Do-yeon plays the moment to near perfection, her faced flickering between horror, confusion and arousal. She never seems sure what she is supposed to do. And when she finally reaches to disrobe him, she's still not sure if she’s doing the right thing. A similar scene plays out a few days later and soon enough, the housemaid is pregnant, too.
In short order, it seems everyone knows Eun-yi’s pregnant, even before she herself does. And from there it’s not so much a whodunit, as a whose-gonna-do-it-and-how. Because clearly, she needs to be out of the house, one ominous way or another.
Sang-so makes full use of the mansion’s long hallways, high ceilings and labyrinthine layout, inducing vertigo, disorientation or confusion as befits the moment. And he never goes for the cheap scare, there are no bogeyman leaping out from around dark corners. The tension builds slowly, periodically letting off some steam with a nervous laugh.
Great acting, top-notch camera work and not one, but two amazing endings, make “The Housemaid” a great white-knuckle ride.
The Housemaid is in Korean with English subtitles, the film is unrated, but there is nudity, sex and violence.
Schmidt: This One's for the Fans
Leinster head coach Joe Schmidt was delighted to see his side secure the bonus-point win over Racing Metro which ensures a home Heineken Cup quarter-final.
The Irish province had already secured qualification from Pool Two, but needed a victory in Paris to make sure they would host their last-eight clash at either the RDS or Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Jonathan Sexton finished with two tries and a haul of 21 points, while Isa Nacewa, Sean O'Brien and Brian O'Driscoll also crossed. Speaking after the 36-11 win, Schmidt said the 2009 champions had wanted to give something back to the 1,000 Leinster fans who made the trip to the French capital.
"I think anyone who was at the game today saw the amount of support that travelled to see us," he said. "Our theme was that we owed it to our supporters, with the support they've given us, to give them the opportunity to come and see us at home in a quarter-final. I think the players, the way they played today, demonstrated the value we place on the support that we get."
Schmidt also praised man of the match Sean O'Brien, who continued at number eight in the absence of the injured Jamie Heaslip.
"One of the great advantages with Sean is he can play any of the three loose forward positions equally competently and he is just so dynamic so often," Schmidt added.
Racing, who were already out of the competition before the game, fielded an understrength team ahead of a crunch Top 14 fixture against Clermont Auvergne on Wednesday. Virimi Vakatawa scored a superb solo try, but full-back Dan Scarbrough admitted his side were always up against it.
"We had a team that was a little bit experimental today. We were trying different things and we went well initially, but they broke us down very well," Scarbrough said.
O'Driscoll got the final try of the game on his 32nd birthday and Scarbrough was impressed by the Ireland captain's performance.
"He did as all good players do, he's consistent," he added. "He did the basics very well and one thing that really stood out for me was the try near the end. He went right past me but he cut an awesome line for that. They're looking strong."
The Irish province had already secured qualification from Pool Two, but needed a victory in Paris to make sure they would host their last-eight clash at either the RDS or Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Jonathan Sexton finished with two tries and a haul of 21 points, while Isa Nacewa, Sean O'Brien and Brian O'Driscoll also crossed. Speaking after the 36-11 win, Schmidt said the 2009 champions had wanted to give something back to the 1,000 Leinster fans who made the trip to the French capital.
"I think anyone who was at the game today saw the amount of support that travelled to see us," he said. "Our theme was that we owed it to our supporters, with the support they've given us, to give them the opportunity to come and see us at home in a quarter-final. I think the players, the way they played today, demonstrated the value we place on the support that we get."
Schmidt also praised man of the match Sean O'Brien, who continued at number eight in the absence of the injured Jamie Heaslip.
"One of the great advantages with Sean is he can play any of the three loose forward positions equally competently and he is just so dynamic so often," Schmidt added.
Racing, who were already out of the competition before the game, fielded an understrength team ahead of a crunch Top 14 fixture against Clermont Auvergne on Wednesday. Virimi Vakatawa scored a superb solo try, but full-back Dan Scarbrough admitted his side were always up against it.
"We had a team that was a little bit experimental today. We were trying different things and we went well initially, but they broke us down very well," Scarbrough said.
O'Driscoll got the final try of the game on his 32nd birthday and Scarbrough was impressed by the Ireland captain's performance.
"He did as all good players do, he's consistent," he added. "He did the basics very well and one thing that really stood out for me was the try near the end. He went right past me but he cut an awesome line for that. They're looking strong."
Lance Armstrong Welcomes Probe
Lance Armstrong says he will be vindicated by an expected U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation of claims raised by a report in Sports Illustrated.
Armstrong used Twitter on Friday to suggest that the USADA may probe allegations published by the magazine this week in an article entitled "The Case Against Lance Armstrong."
"Great to hear that USADA is investigating some of SI's claims. I look forward to being vindicated," the seven-time Tour de France winner said.
Armstrong is currently competing in the Tour Down Under in South Australia and has refused to comment on the Sports Illustrated report, other than to say he has nothing to worry about "on any level" from its claims. He would not speak to reporters after the fourth stage on Friday and could not be contacted later in the evening.
"While we can't comment on the specifics of the investigation that UCI and USA Cycling asked us to open last year, we value the confidence all athletes have in the process to ultimately reveal the truth, preserve the integrity of sport, and protect the rights of clean athletes," USADA CEO Travis Tygart wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Sports Illustrated reported that when Italian authorities raided the home of Armstrong teammate Yaroslav Popovych last November in Italy, they found texts and e-mails linking their Radio Shack team with Dr. Michele Ferrari as recently as 2009.
Armstrong publicly severed his connection with Ferrari in 2004, amid accusations the doctor aided another rider in using performance-enhancing drugs. Ferrari was convicted, but later cleared of criminal charges on appeal.
Armstrong spokesman Mark Fabiani called the Sports Illustrated report "old news from the same old, discredited sources."
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has been hearing evidence for months on cheating in professional cycling. The investigation turned toward Armstrong -- and several of his associates have testified -- after former teammate Floyd Landis accused him of systematic doping.
Armstrong won the Tour de France every year from 1999 to 2005. He is currently 85th overall and nearly 4 minutes behind the leader after four stages at the Tour Down Under, which he has said will be his final race outside the United States before he retires.
Armstrong used Twitter on Friday to suggest that the USADA may probe allegations published by the magazine this week in an article entitled "The Case Against Lance Armstrong."
"Great to hear that USADA is investigating some of SI's claims. I look forward to being vindicated," the seven-time Tour de France winner said.
Armstrong is currently competing in the Tour Down Under in South Australia and has refused to comment on the Sports Illustrated report, other than to say he has nothing to worry about "on any level" from its claims. He would not speak to reporters after the fourth stage on Friday and could not be contacted later in the evening.
"While we can't comment on the specifics of the investigation that UCI and USA Cycling asked us to open last year, we value the confidence all athletes have in the process to ultimately reveal the truth, preserve the integrity of sport, and protect the rights of clean athletes," USADA CEO Travis Tygart wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Sports Illustrated reported that when Italian authorities raided the home of Armstrong teammate Yaroslav Popovych last November in Italy, they found texts and e-mails linking their Radio Shack team with Dr. Michele Ferrari as recently as 2009.
Armstrong publicly severed his connection with Ferrari in 2004, amid accusations the doctor aided another rider in using performance-enhancing drugs. Ferrari was convicted, but later cleared of criminal charges on appeal.
Armstrong spokesman Mark Fabiani called the Sports Illustrated report "old news from the same old, discredited sources."
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has been hearing evidence for months on cheating in professional cycling. The investigation turned toward Armstrong -- and several of his associates have testified -- after former teammate Floyd Landis accused him of systematic doping.
Armstrong won the Tour de France every year from 1999 to 2005. He is currently 85th overall and nearly 4 minutes behind the leader after four stages at the Tour Down Under, which he has said will be his final race outside the United States before he retires.
Nets Hear Apology from GM Billy King
The post-Carmelo Anthony era started for the New Jersey Nets with a simple apology.
General manager Billy King addressed the team at practice Thursday and apologized for the way he and the Nets handled things in their efforts to acquire Anthony from the Denver Nuggets.
Although King wasn't around to tell the media exactly what he said, coach Avery Johnson said the GM was upset how negotiations played out publicly and disrupted the lives of the players.
Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov brought the negotiations to an end Wednesday night when he instructed King to break off talks with the Nuggets because the proposed deal was hurting the team and had gotten too expensive.
"Some of it he could have controlled, some of it he can't," Johnson said of King. "It's part of the process. But he's got a job to do as a general manager for the organization, and he's going to continue to do it."
With roughly half the season to be played, the Nets (11-31) seemingly are going to develop their current roster and try to improve via free agency and the draft. New Jersey has a bunch of salary-cap room and it will have five first-round draft picks in the next two years.
The only trade on the horizon is the one to ship veteran power forward Troy Murphy and his expiring $12 million contract. Murphy has asked for a trade and the Nets have told him to stay home until a deal is worked out.
If there is a problem for New Jersey, it might be with some of the players who were dangled as trade bait in the proposed three-team deal that involved as many as 15 players among New Jersey, Denver and Detroit.
The major players on the Nets' side were point guard Devin Harris and rookie power forward Derrick Favors, the third overall pick in the April draft.
Harris smiled as he talked to the media Thursday, but it seemed he was keeping his guard up in case another deal developed.
When asked what King said in his apology, Harris surprisingly said: "You don't want to know."
He then answered:
"He said we were complete professionals and he appreciated the way we carried ourselves throughout this whole process," Harris said. "We're going to move forward and try and win some of these games. He said it's unfortunate some of the things that came out with guys' names and such, it was tough for some of us, but he was glad the way we handled it."
Prokhorov, who took over the team last year, wasn't happy the way things played out. He said the proposed deal took way too long and cost the Nets some wins, especially on a recent four-game road trip where they lost every game.
Harris agreed.
"Yes, it becomes a distraction at some point when it's constantly talked about," Harris said. "For the time being, all we can do is focus and try and improve our record."
Favors looked relaxed Thursday and said he felt great.
"This is a big relief because I don't have family members and friends calling and asking me about it, and reporters asking me about it all the time," Favors said.
During the trade frenzy, Favors said he stopped watching television. He actually played one of his better games Wednesday, collecting 12 points and six rebounds in 30 minutes in a win over Utah that allowed the Nets to snap a six-game losing streak.
"It's been a learning experience," Favors said. "If it comes up again, I'll be prepared."
Veteran forward Kris Humphries believes the players can put the Anthony situation behind them. However, there is still the Feb. 24 trading deadline looming.
"Nothing is ever over and done," Humphries said. "I mean, there are always trades. I don't know about this exact situation. This is the NBA. Who knows? Some sort of trade can happen tomorrow. We don't know."
The Nets will get some help Friday against Detroit, when shooting guard Anthony Morrow returns to the lineup for the first time since being sidelined with a hamstring injury in mid-December.
General manager Billy King addressed the team at practice Thursday and apologized for the way he and the Nets handled things in their efforts to acquire Anthony from the Denver Nuggets.
Although King wasn't around to tell the media exactly what he said, coach Avery Johnson said the GM was upset how negotiations played out publicly and disrupted the lives of the players.
Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov brought the negotiations to an end Wednesday night when he instructed King to break off talks with the Nuggets because the proposed deal was hurting the team and had gotten too expensive.
"Some of it he could have controlled, some of it he can't," Johnson said of King. "It's part of the process. But he's got a job to do as a general manager for the organization, and he's going to continue to do it."
With roughly half the season to be played, the Nets (11-31) seemingly are going to develop their current roster and try to improve via free agency and the draft. New Jersey has a bunch of salary-cap room and it will have five first-round draft picks in the next two years.
The only trade on the horizon is the one to ship veteran power forward Troy Murphy and his expiring $12 million contract. Murphy has asked for a trade and the Nets have told him to stay home until a deal is worked out.
If there is a problem for New Jersey, it might be with some of the players who were dangled as trade bait in the proposed three-team deal that involved as many as 15 players among New Jersey, Denver and Detroit.
The major players on the Nets' side were point guard Devin Harris and rookie power forward Derrick Favors, the third overall pick in the April draft.
Harris smiled as he talked to the media Thursday, but it seemed he was keeping his guard up in case another deal developed.
When asked what King said in his apology, Harris surprisingly said: "You don't want to know."
He then answered:
"He said we were complete professionals and he appreciated the way we carried ourselves throughout this whole process," Harris said. "We're going to move forward and try and win some of these games. He said it's unfortunate some of the things that came out with guys' names and such, it was tough for some of us, but he was glad the way we handled it."
Prokhorov, who took over the team last year, wasn't happy the way things played out. He said the proposed deal took way too long and cost the Nets some wins, especially on a recent four-game road trip where they lost every game.
Harris agreed.
"Yes, it becomes a distraction at some point when it's constantly talked about," Harris said. "For the time being, all we can do is focus and try and improve our record."
Favors looked relaxed Thursday and said he felt great.
"This is a big relief because I don't have family members and friends calling and asking me about it, and reporters asking me about it all the time," Favors said.
During the trade frenzy, Favors said he stopped watching television. He actually played one of his better games Wednesday, collecting 12 points and six rebounds in 30 minutes in a win over Utah that allowed the Nets to snap a six-game losing streak.
"It's been a learning experience," Favors said. "If it comes up again, I'll be prepared."
Veteran forward Kris Humphries believes the players can put the Anthony situation behind them. However, there is still the Feb. 24 trading deadline looming.
"Nothing is ever over and done," Humphries said. "I mean, there are always trades. I don't know about this exact situation. This is the NBA. Who knows? Some sort of trade can happen tomorrow. We don't know."
The Nets will get some help Friday against Detroit, when shooting guard Anthony Morrow returns to the lineup for the first time since being sidelined with a hamstring injury in mid-December.
Padraig Harrington DQ'd Before Round 2
Three-time major winner Padraig Harrington was disqualified before the second round of the Abu Dhabi Championship after the Irishman was judged to have illegally moved his ball during Thursday's first round.
European Tour senior referee Andy McFee said Friday that a viewer e-mailed to say Harrington replaced his ball on the green and, as he took the coin away, his hand moved the ball. Since the ball was not replaced, Harrington incurred a two-stroke penalty not reflected on his scorecard.
"The problem is that Padraig's card for the seventh shows a three, and the fact that Padraig was totally unaware that this ball has moved doesn't unfortunately help him," McFee said. "The disqualification is for signing for the wrong score, lower than actually taken."
He finished with a 7-under 65 and was one shot behind leader Charl Schwartzel.
"You know what? A lot worse things could happen. You could be five ahead going into the last round," Harrington said jokingly. "It's an awkward situation. Every time something like this happens, you want to try and gain something from it, learn something from it."
In May 2000 at the Benson and Hedges International, Harrington led by five shots after three rounds but had failed to sign his first-round card and was disqualified on Sunday morning.
Harrington acknowledged that he touched the ball but felt it hadn't moved.
"I'm well aware of the ruling on that situation, and it's happened many times over the years," he said. "You know, I'm quite comfortable, if you touch a ball and it doesn't move and you feel it hasn't moved, it hasn't moved, and you don't need to -- there is no replacing.
"If you called the referee at that moment in time," he added, "in all good conscience, I couldn't have put the ball anywhere else but where it was."
Harrington's disqualification is only the most recent to be initiated by a viewer.
Earlier this month, Camilo Villegas was disqualified for a rules violation that a television viewer called in after the opening round of a PGA Tour event in Hawaii.
Villegas was chipping up the slope to the 15th green when the ball twice rolled back toward him. The second time, Villegas walked over and casually swatted away some loose pieces of grass in front of the divot as the ball was still moving down the slope.
That is a violation of Rule 23-1 that says, "When a ball is in motion, a loose impediment that might influence the movement of the ball must not be removed." The penalty is two shots. Villegas opened with a 72, and he also was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.
"The rules are good, we abide very well, the players love the fact that we apply them," Harrington said. "We love the standard that we play by. When we have to stick to that, that's the best thing about our game."
Harrington did acknowledge that the European Tour might consider modifying the penalty so a player was not disqualified after he "has signed his card and something has come forward that the player could not have been aware about."
"I'm comfortable with the whole idea that there's people there watching, and I believe when I'm on the golf course I'm not going to do anything untoward," Harrington said. "I hope that this many people watch The European Tour. I hope there's 100 million people watching me play and checking me out. It's good for the game."
European Tour senior referee Andy McFee said Friday that a viewer e-mailed to say Harrington replaced his ball on the green and, as he took the coin away, his hand moved the ball. Since the ball was not replaced, Harrington incurred a two-stroke penalty not reflected on his scorecard.
"The problem is that Padraig's card for the seventh shows a three, and the fact that Padraig was totally unaware that this ball has moved doesn't unfortunately help him," McFee said. "The disqualification is for signing for the wrong score, lower than actually taken."
He finished with a 7-under 65 and was one shot behind leader Charl Schwartzel.
"You know what? A lot worse things could happen. You could be five ahead going into the last round," Harrington said jokingly. "It's an awkward situation. Every time something like this happens, you want to try and gain something from it, learn something from it."
In May 2000 at the Benson and Hedges International, Harrington led by five shots after three rounds but had failed to sign his first-round card and was disqualified on Sunday morning.
Harrington acknowledged that he touched the ball but felt it hadn't moved.
"I'm well aware of the ruling on that situation, and it's happened many times over the years," he said. "You know, I'm quite comfortable, if you touch a ball and it doesn't move and you feel it hasn't moved, it hasn't moved, and you don't need to -- there is no replacing.
"If you called the referee at that moment in time," he added, "in all good conscience, I couldn't have put the ball anywhere else but where it was."
Harrington's disqualification is only the most recent to be initiated by a viewer.
Earlier this month, Camilo Villegas was disqualified for a rules violation that a television viewer called in after the opening round of a PGA Tour event in Hawaii.
Villegas was chipping up the slope to the 15th green when the ball twice rolled back toward him. The second time, Villegas walked over and casually swatted away some loose pieces of grass in front of the divot as the ball was still moving down the slope.
That is a violation of Rule 23-1 that says, "When a ball is in motion, a loose impediment that might influence the movement of the ball must not be removed." The penalty is two shots. Villegas opened with a 72, and he also was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.
"The rules are good, we abide very well, the players love the fact that we apply them," Harrington said. "We love the standard that we play by. When we have to stick to that, that's the best thing about our game."
Harrington did acknowledge that the European Tour might consider modifying the penalty so a player was not disqualified after he "has signed his card and something has come forward that the player could not have been aware about."
"I'm comfortable with the whole idea that there's people there watching, and I believe when I'm on the golf course I'm not going to do anything untoward," Harrington said. "I hope that this many people watch The European Tour. I hope there's 100 million people watching me play and checking me out. It's good for the game."
Mike Leach Plans to Appeal
A Texas appeals court threw out former coach Mike Leach's breach of contract claim against Texas Tech on Friday, though it said he could still pursue non-monetary claims against the school over his controversial 2009 firing.
Leach did not immediately respond to a text message and couldn't be reached by phone.
"We won," Texas Tech attorney Dicky Grigg said. "The court has held that he has no monetary claims against the school."
University attorneys had argued that Leach could not sue the school because Texas Tech is a state entity with sovereign immunity, meaning it can only be sued with permission from the state Legislature or a waiver based on a defendant's conduct.
A trial court ruling went against the school, but the latest decision from the 7th Court of Appeals upheld Texas Tech's assertion of immunity.
Leach's attorney, Paul Dobrowski, said he plans to appeal the issue to the Texas Supreme Court. He said the ruling noted that the state's highest court "is unclear regarding waiver of sovereign immunity" through conduct.
"In essence, the doctrine permits state institutions such as Texas Tech to deny a man's written contractual rights and steal his hard-earned labor while paying nothing," Dobrowski said. "That is not fair and not what Texas and its citizens stand for."
The school fired Leach on Dec. 30, 2009, two days after suspending him amid allegations he mistreated a player with a concussion. Leach has denied mistreating Adam James, the son of former NFL player and current ESPN analyst Craig James, and has said he suspects an $800,000 bonus he was due Dec. 31 was the reason he was fired.
The appeals court ruling allows Leach to try to show Texas Tech's reasons for firing him were wrong, but without monetary relief.
The appeals court also reinstated one of Leach's claims. The two sides will return to court to determine whether Texas Tech's allegations were "proper" against Leach in the Adam James situation, Dobrowski said.
"We're asking them to declare that they were not" proper, he said. "Mike's going to be thrilled that he has a chance to clear his name."
The ruling gives state District Judge William C. Sowder, the trial court judge in the case, jurisdiction to determine if Leach received his due process, Grigg said.
"We're confident he did receive due process," he said. "And no matter what he's not entitled to any monetary claims."
Attorneys on both sides have swapped accusations for months over the firing, with the highly successful coach claiming among other things that school leaders were persuaded in part by Craig James to fire him. Leache's attorney has said he can't get a job because of the firing and at one point accused Texas Tech of smearing Leach by releasing video footage of the coach in the locker room using profane language.
In Friday's ruling, the three-judge panel wrote that Leach needed "good faith belief" that his lawsuit constituted making a report to an appropriate law enforcement authority, a requirement of the Texas Whistleblower Act.
Leach, who has a law degree, claimed that the university violated the whistleblower act by firing him after he filed his lawsuit.
The appeals court disagreed and suggested the argument shouldn't have been made.
Leach, the judges wrote, had the "savvy and intelligence" to field a Division I football team and keep current with NCAA rules along with several attorneys so he wasn't "left alone to sojourn" through a legal maze.
"Given this, we arrive at but one conclusion," the panel said. "In short, no evidence exists enabling us to conclude that Leach satisfied the objective prong of a good faith belief."
In a separate case, Leach has also sued ESPN Inc. and a public relations firm, accusing them of libel and slander after he was fired. The lawsuit seeks undisclosed damages and retractions from ESPN and the PR firm.
Leach, who is living in Key West, Fla., spent this season working as a game analyst for CBS College Sports. He also hosts a sports talk radio show on Sirius.
Leach did not immediately respond to a text message and couldn't be reached by phone.
"We won," Texas Tech attorney Dicky Grigg said. "The court has held that he has no monetary claims against the school."
University attorneys had argued that Leach could not sue the school because Texas Tech is a state entity with sovereign immunity, meaning it can only be sued with permission from the state Legislature or a waiver based on a defendant's conduct.
A trial court ruling went against the school, but the latest decision from the 7th Court of Appeals upheld Texas Tech's assertion of immunity.
Leach's attorney, Paul Dobrowski, said he plans to appeal the issue to the Texas Supreme Court. He said the ruling noted that the state's highest court "is unclear regarding waiver of sovereign immunity" through conduct.
"In essence, the doctrine permits state institutions such as Texas Tech to deny a man's written contractual rights and steal his hard-earned labor while paying nothing," Dobrowski said. "That is not fair and not what Texas and its citizens stand for."
The school fired Leach on Dec. 30, 2009, two days after suspending him amid allegations he mistreated a player with a concussion. Leach has denied mistreating Adam James, the son of former NFL player and current ESPN analyst Craig James, and has said he suspects an $800,000 bonus he was due Dec. 31 was the reason he was fired.
The appeals court ruling allows Leach to try to show Texas Tech's reasons for firing him were wrong, but without monetary relief.
The appeals court also reinstated one of Leach's claims. The two sides will return to court to determine whether Texas Tech's allegations were "proper" against Leach in the Adam James situation, Dobrowski said.
"We're asking them to declare that they were not" proper, he said. "Mike's going to be thrilled that he has a chance to clear his name."
The ruling gives state District Judge William C. Sowder, the trial court judge in the case, jurisdiction to determine if Leach received his due process, Grigg said.
"We're confident he did receive due process," he said. "And no matter what he's not entitled to any monetary claims."
Attorneys on both sides have swapped accusations for months over the firing, with the highly successful coach claiming among other things that school leaders were persuaded in part by Craig James to fire him. Leache's attorney has said he can't get a job because of the firing and at one point accused Texas Tech of smearing Leach by releasing video footage of the coach in the locker room using profane language.
In Friday's ruling, the three-judge panel wrote that Leach needed "good faith belief" that his lawsuit constituted making a report to an appropriate law enforcement authority, a requirement of the Texas Whistleblower Act.
Leach, who has a law degree, claimed that the university violated the whistleblower act by firing him after he filed his lawsuit.
The appeals court disagreed and suggested the argument shouldn't have been made.
Leach, the judges wrote, had the "savvy and intelligence" to field a Division I football team and keep current with NCAA rules along with several attorneys so he wasn't "left alone to sojourn" through a legal maze.
"Given this, we arrive at but one conclusion," the panel said. "In short, no evidence exists enabling us to conclude that Leach satisfied the objective prong of a good faith belief."
In a separate case, Leach has also sued ESPN Inc. and a public relations firm, accusing them of libel and slander after he was fired. The lawsuit seeks undisclosed damages and retractions from ESPN and the PR firm.
Leach, who is living in Key West, Fla., spent this season working as a game analyst for CBS College Sports. He also hosts a sports talk radio show on Sirius.
Judge Sets Chris Simms Trial Date
Tennessee Titans backup quarterback Chris Simms rejected a plea deal Friday after being charged with driving while under the influence of marijuana, putting the case on track for a trial as soon as March.
Simms would have been spared jail and a criminal record if he took what prosecutors said was a last-chance offer to plead guilty to driving while his ability was impaired, a traffic infraction. His punishment would have included a $500 fine, five days of community service and a 90-day driver's license suspension.
Defense lawyer Kim Richman told a judge Simms "will respectfully decline that offer."
That leaves the 30-year-old son of former New York Giants QB Phil Simms facing a trial on charges that could net him up to a year in jail if he's convicted. The judge set a March 1 trial date.
Simms and his lawyer declined to comment on the case afterward.
"See you March 1," Simms, dressed in a crisp gray suit, told reporters cordially.
Simms was pulled over around 1 a.m. on July 1 after making an erratic turn near a police sobriety checkpoint in a nightlife-oriented part of Manhattan, police said. His passengers included his then-pregnant wife, Danielle.
With the smell of marijuana oozing from his Mercedes-Benz, a "zombie"-like Simms told an officer he had been smoking the drug in the car earlier, according to court documents and the officer's testimony at a hearing in October.
Simms, however, told The Tennessean newspaper in August he "definitely didn't say" he had been smoking marijuana. He wasn't tested for drugs, and alcohol tests came back negative.
His lawyers challenged the legality of the checkpoint and the basis for his arrest, among other arguments. A judge rejected all of them earlier this month, saying police were justified in stopping and arresting him and that his statements were obtained legally.
The top charge against Simms is a misdemeanor, driving while impaired by drugs.
Besides the legal consequences, a conviction or any guilty plea that entailed admitting to smoking marijuana could get Simms in career trouble. Under the league's substance-abuse policy, he could be subject to a suspension. The league also has a personal-conduct policy that could result in a suspension.
Simms has a 7-9 record in 16 NFL career starts. A third-round draft pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003, he ruptured his spleen in a 2006 game against the Carolina Panthers and had to undergo emergency surgery.
After Tampa Bay released him, he went to Tennessee in 2008, played for the Denver Broncos in 2009 as an unrestricted free agent and then returned to the Titans. The Titans released him in September but then re-signed him in November. He didn't play in any games this season.
Simms' father played 14 seasons with the Giants, leading them to two Super Bowls. He is now a CBS Sports announcer and analyst.
Simms would have been spared jail and a criminal record if he took what prosecutors said was a last-chance offer to plead guilty to driving while his ability was impaired, a traffic infraction. His punishment would have included a $500 fine, five days of community service and a 90-day driver's license suspension.
Defense lawyer Kim Richman told a judge Simms "will respectfully decline that offer."
That leaves the 30-year-old son of former New York Giants QB Phil Simms facing a trial on charges that could net him up to a year in jail if he's convicted. The judge set a March 1 trial date.
Simms and his lawyer declined to comment on the case afterward.
"See you March 1," Simms, dressed in a crisp gray suit, told reporters cordially.
Simms was pulled over around 1 a.m. on July 1 after making an erratic turn near a police sobriety checkpoint in a nightlife-oriented part of Manhattan, police said. His passengers included his then-pregnant wife, Danielle.
With the smell of marijuana oozing from his Mercedes-Benz, a "zombie"-like Simms told an officer he had been smoking the drug in the car earlier, according to court documents and the officer's testimony at a hearing in October.
Simms, however, told The Tennessean newspaper in August he "definitely didn't say" he had been smoking marijuana. He wasn't tested for drugs, and alcohol tests came back negative.
His lawyers challenged the legality of the checkpoint and the basis for his arrest, among other arguments. A judge rejected all of them earlier this month, saying police were justified in stopping and arresting him and that his statements were obtained legally.
The top charge against Simms is a misdemeanor, driving while impaired by drugs.
Besides the legal consequences, a conviction or any guilty plea that entailed admitting to smoking marijuana could get Simms in career trouble. Under the league's substance-abuse policy, he could be subject to a suspension. The league also has a personal-conduct policy that could result in a suspension.
Simms has a 7-9 record in 16 NFL career starts. A third-round draft pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003, he ruptured his spleen in a 2006 game against the Carolina Panthers and had to undergo emergency surgery.
After Tampa Bay released him, he went to Tennessee in 2008, played for the Denver Broncos in 2009 as an unrestricted free agent and then returned to the Titans. The Titans released him in September but then re-signed him in November. He didn't play in any games this season.
Simms' father played 14 seasons with the Giants, leading them to two Super Bowls. He is now a CBS Sports announcer and analyst.
Matthew Stafford Undergoes Surgery
Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford had surgery on his throwing shoulder Friday, and the Lions say they expect the former No. 1 draft pick to be back in time for training camp after playing only three games last season.
Stafford's operation was performed by renowned sports Dr. James Andrews in Pensacola, Fla., after consultations this week. Stafford played only one game start to finish last season. He hurt his right shoulder in the season opener, came back for a victory over Washington on Halloween, then injured the same shoulder again the following game.
Stafford wasn't able to play again. He went on injured reserve on Dec. 24.
"After Matt hurt his shoulder in the [Nov. 7] game he was examined by both our medical staff and Dr. Andrews. There was a consensus at the time to proceed with a rehabilitation program and not to have surgery," coach Jim Schwartz said. "After Matt's most recent visit to Dr. Andrews, it was determined by Dr. Andrews that Matt's healing process could be enhanced by undergoing surgery at this time. ... We have full confidence that Matt will be 100 percent before the start of training camp."
Stafford, the top pick in the 2009 draft, has played in only 13 games in two seasons.
Despite Stafford's injury woes, the Lions managed to win six games last season, including four in a row at the end. Backup Shaun Hill performed capably, and Drew Stanton also contributed.
There's no telling what Detroit could accomplish if Stafford could stay healthy. When he did play last season, he threw for six touchdowns and one interception in 96 attempts.
Andrews called Friday's procedure a success.
"It went very well," he said. "We now have plenty of time for a full recovery in order for him to get ready for next season. The procedure is the same one that we have successfully performed on a number of NFL quarterbacks. Matthew has one of the strongest arms in the league and I am confident that he will be as strong as ever."
Stafford's operation was performed by renowned sports Dr. James Andrews in Pensacola, Fla., after consultations this week. Stafford played only one game start to finish last season. He hurt his right shoulder in the season opener, came back for a victory over Washington on Halloween, then injured the same shoulder again the following game.
Stafford wasn't able to play again. He went on injured reserve on Dec. 24.
"After Matt hurt his shoulder in the [Nov. 7] game he was examined by both our medical staff and Dr. Andrews. There was a consensus at the time to proceed with a rehabilitation program and not to have surgery," coach Jim Schwartz said. "After Matt's most recent visit to Dr. Andrews, it was determined by Dr. Andrews that Matt's healing process could be enhanced by undergoing surgery at this time. ... We have full confidence that Matt will be 100 percent before the start of training camp."
Stafford, the top pick in the 2009 draft, has played in only 13 games in two seasons.
Despite Stafford's injury woes, the Lions managed to win six games last season, including four in a row at the end. Backup Shaun Hill performed capably, and Drew Stanton also contributed.
There's no telling what Detroit could accomplish if Stafford could stay healthy. When he did play last season, he threw for six touchdowns and one interception in 96 attempts.
Andrews called Friday's procedure a success.
"It went very well," he said. "We now have plenty of time for a full recovery in order for him to get ready for next season. The procedure is the same one that we have successfully performed on a number of NFL quarterbacks. Matthew has one of the strongest arms in the league and I am confident that he will be as strong as ever."
Mike Helton Waxes on Competition
NASCAR president Mike Helton strongly indicated the points system used since 1975 will be scrapped for a simpler scoring method.
"The goal for some time has been to create a points system that is easy to understand, easy to explain, easy to be talked about, but also be credible at the end of the season," Helton said Friday during a competition update at Daytona International Speedway.
The current system is a complicated formula that NASCAR says was drawn up on a napkin over drinks at a Daytona Beach bar in 1974. The Associated Press reported this week that NASCAR is informing teams it wants a system that would award points based on finishing position, from 43 points to the winner to one for last place.
"We're in the middle of the conversations, actually telling the competitors where our mind is," Helton said. "The main goal is to get one that's just easier to understand and simpler. And we're close. We're getting a lot of great input from the drivers about the tweaks that would go along with something like that."
NASCAR chairman Brian France is expected to announce any changes, including potential tweaks to the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship format, next Wednesday night in Charlotte, N.C.
It appears that's the only unfinished business as NASCAR prepares for next month's season-opening Daytona 500. The brief offseason -- last year's finale was Nov. 20 -- ended this week when teams reported to the newly paved Daytona International Speedway for three days of testing.
But Helton defended NASCAR's credibility, which many fans are questioning because the changes are so close to the start of the season and how the championship will be won hasn't been formally announced. Because NASCAR officials want feedback from competitors, Helton said the rule-changing process takes time.
In the end, though, the approach legitimizes the changes, Helton said.
"I think the credibility of our final decision is actually better because of the collaborative effort that we put into it today," he said. "Our appetite and our desire is to do it correctly and have one that makes sense and not one just for the sake of changing things."
Even if fans, already weary of so many changes to NASCAR, have roughly three weeks to digest a massive points shake up?
"I think that our fans -- as long as we maintain the core elements of the sport, tweaking the points, tweaking the Chase, tweaking different components in the sport -- they're quick studies," Helton said.
With the scoring system undecided -- bonus points for wins appears to be one of the oscillating issues -- the competition group spent a good deal of time Friday discussing the new rule that will prevent drivers from racing for championships in more than one series.
The official license applications sent to drivers forced them to check the box next to the series in which they wished to race for the championship, a move NASCAR hopes will bolster the identity of its second-tier Nationwide Series.
The series is dominated by Cup stars, who have won the last five Nationwide titles. Only defending champion Brad Keselowski and 2007 champion Carl Edwards planned to race for the Nationwide title this year, but both drivers checked the Cup series as their championship choice.
Edwards said he'll still attempt to run the full 35-race Nationwide schedule, while Keselowski could drop a handful of races because of the new rule.
"The driving force behind this is to force more exposure and attention to drivers that are developing in that series," Helton said.
In other items, NASCAR is unlikely to use fuel injection in any points races this year, and Darby said the yearlong search for a new Cup Series director is still ongoing. NASCAR said last January it wanted to move Darby into an oversight role at its research and development center.
"[We] repeatedly said that the timeline wasn't as important as finding the right person and making that transition smoothly," Darby said. "I'm still happy doing what I'm doing, and I'll be happy to do the next step."
"The goal for some time has been to create a points system that is easy to understand, easy to explain, easy to be talked about, but also be credible at the end of the season," Helton said Friday during a competition update at Daytona International Speedway.
The current system is a complicated formula that NASCAR says was drawn up on a napkin over drinks at a Daytona Beach bar in 1974. The Associated Press reported this week that NASCAR is informing teams it wants a system that would award points based on finishing position, from 43 points to the winner to one for last place.
"We're in the middle of the conversations, actually telling the competitors where our mind is," Helton said. "The main goal is to get one that's just easier to understand and simpler. And we're close. We're getting a lot of great input from the drivers about the tweaks that would go along with something like that."
NASCAR chairman Brian France is expected to announce any changes, including potential tweaks to the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship format, next Wednesday night in Charlotte, N.C.
It appears that's the only unfinished business as NASCAR prepares for next month's season-opening Daytona 500. The brief offseason -- last year's finale was Nov. 20 -- ended this week when teams reported to the newly paved Daytona International Speedway for three days of testing.
But Helton defended NASCAR's credibility, which many fans are questioning because the changes are so close to the start of the season and how the championship will be won hasn't been formally announced. Because NASCAR officials want feedback from competitors, Helton said the rule-changing process takes time.
In the end, though, the approach legitimizes the changes, Helton said.
"I think the credibility of our final decision is actually better because of the collaborative effort that we put into it today," he said. "Our appetite and our desire is to do it correctly and have one that makes sense and not one just for the sake of changing things."
Even if fans, already weary of so many changes to NASCAR, have roughly three weeks to digest a massive points shake up?
"I think that our fans -- as long as we maintain the core elements of the sport, tweaking the points, tweaking the Chase, tweaking different components in the sport -- they're quick studies," Helton said.
With the scoring system undecided -- bonus points for wins appears to be one of the oscillating issues -- the competition group spent a good deal of time Friday discussing the new rule that will prevent drivers from racing for championships in more than one series.
The official license applications sent to drivers forced them to check the box next to the series in which they wished to race for the championship, a move NASCAR hopes will bolster the identity of its second-tier Nationwide Series.
The series is dominated by Cup stars, who have won the last five Nationwide titles. Only defending champion Brad Keselowski and 2007 champion Carl Edwards planned to race for the Nationwide title this year, but both drivers checked the Cup series as their championship choice.
Edwards said he'll still attempt to run the full 35-race Nationwide schedule, while Keselowski could drop a handful of races because of the new rule.
"The driving force behind this is to force more exposure and attention to drivers that are developing in that series," Helton said.
In other items, NASCAR is unlikely to use fuel injection in any points races this year, and Darby said the yearlong search for a new Cup Series director is still ongoing. NASCAR said last January it wanted to move Darby into an oversight role at its research and development center.
"[We] repeatedly said that the timeline wasn't as important as finding the right person and making that transition smoothly," Darby said. "I'm still happy doing what I'm doing, and I'll be happy to do the next step."
Bills Hire Dave Wannstedt to Aid Defense
Dave Wannstedt is back in the NFL after being hired to be the Buffalo Bills' assistant head coach in a job that reunites him with good friend and colleague Chan Gailey.
The Bills announced the hiring on Friday after the two sides met for most of the day to negotiate the contract. The team did not divulge terms of the deal, though a person familiar with talks said the contract runs for more than one season.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Bills do not release contract information.
Wannstedt returns to the NFL after spending the past six years coaching the University of Pittsburgh, where he was forced to resign last month.
He spent four-plus seasons as the Miami Dolphins head coach before being fired midway through the 2004 season. He also spent six seasons -- from 1993-98 -- as the Chicago Bears head coach.
Wannstedt is a defensive specialist and will help oversee a defense that struggled last season. The Bills' defense was last in the NFL against the run, allowing 2,714 yards rushing -- the second-highest total in franchise history. Buffalo allowed 200 yards eight times last season.
In Buffalo, he'll be working under Gailey, who went 4-12 in completing his first season as the team's head coach.
It's a role reversal for the two. Wannstedt had taken over coach of the Dolphins in 2000, when he hired Gailey to be his offensive coordinator. The two spent two seasons together before Gailey left to become the head coach at Georgia Tech.
"Chan's had success everywhere he's been," Wannstedt said in a statement released by the team. "Knowing what he's about as a football coach, knowing what he believes in and having worked with him in Miami, I know he has the winning formula."
Wannstedt was hired a day after he interviewed with the Cleveland Browns for their vacant defensive coordinator's position. And the deal came a week after he first visited the Bills and met with Gailey and his staff about the prospect of a job.
Aside from his title as assistant head coach, Wannstedt will also serve as the team's inside linebackers coach, filling the spot left open after the Bills dismissed DeMontie Cross two weeks ago.
"We are extremely pleased to have Dave Wannstedt join our staff," Gailey said. "I look forward to him being able to help our team in many ways. With his amount of experience, he certainly should be able to do that."
Wannstedt has 16 years NFL coaching experience, and was the Dallas Cowboys' defensive coordinator when they beat Buffalo to win the Super Bowl in 1993.
He was also the defensive coordinator under Jimmy Johnson in helping the Miami Hurricanes win the national championship in 1987.
Wannstedt has held Gailey in high regard since working with him in Miami, where he essentially handed over the running of the offense to his coordinator.
"It was really important for me, particularly in my first year or two in Miami, to have someone like Chan," Wannstedt told the AP in July. "It was like having two head coaches on the staff. We were able to talk about personnel things, offense and defense."
Wannstedt was particularly impressed with Gailey's football philosophy and how he devised game plans to suit a team's strengths.
"Chan always had the ability to understand the big picture," Wannstedt said. "He understands both sides of the ball. He's not just a quarterback coach. He understands what's going on on defense. And I think that's what gives him the ability to dial up plays."
The Bills announced the hiring on Friday after the two sides met for most of the day to negotiate the contract. The team did not divulge terms of the deal, though a person familiar with talks said the contract runs for more than one season.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Bills do not release contract information.
Wannstedt returns to the NFL after spending the past six years coaching the University of Pittsburgh, where he was forced to resign last month.
He spent four-plus seasons as the Miami Dolphins head coach before being fired midway through the 2004 season. He also spent six seasons -- from 1993-98 -- as the Chicago Bears head coach.
Wannstedt is a defensive specialist and will help oversee a defense that struggled last season. The Bills' defense was last in the NFL against the run, allowing 2,714 yards rushing -- the second-highest total in franchise history. Buffalo allowed 200 yards eight times last season.
In Buffalo, he'll be working under Gailey, who went 4-12 in completing his first season as the team's head coach.
It's a role reversal for the two. Wannstedt had taken over coach of the Dolphins in 2000, when he hired Gailey to be his offensive coordinator. The two spent two seasons together before Gailey left to become the head coach at Georgia Tech.
"Chan's had success everywhere he's been," Wannstedt said in a statement released by the team. "Knowing what he's about as a football coach, knowing what he believes in and having worked with him in Miami, I know he has the winning formula."
Wannstedt was hired a day after he interviewed with the Cleveland Browns for their vacant defensive coordinator's position. And the deal came a week after he first visited the Bills and met with Gailey and his staff about the prospect of a job.
Aside from his title as assistant head coach, Wannstedt will also serve as the team's inside linebackers coach, filling the spot left open after the Bills dismissed DeMontie Cross two weeks ago.
"We are extremely pleased to have Dave Wannstedt join our staff," Gailey said. "I look forward to him being able to help our team in many ways. With his amount of experience, he certainly should be able to do that."
Wannstedt has 16 years NFL coaching experience, and was the Dallas Cowboys' defensive coordinator when they beat Buffalo to win the Super Bowl in 1993.
He was also the defensive coordinator under Jimmy Johnson in helping the Miami Hurricanes win the national championship in 1987.
Wannstedt has held Gailey in high regard since working with him in Miami, where he essentially handed over the running of the offense to his coordinator.
"It was really important for me, particularly in my first year or two in Miami, to have someone like Chan," Wannstedt told the AP in July. "It was like having two head coaches on the staff. We were able to talk about personnel things, offense and defense."
Wannstedt was particularly impressed with Gailey's football philosophy and how he devised game plans to suit a team's strengths.
"Chan always had the ability to understand the big picture," Wannstedt said. "He understands both sides of the ball. He's not just a quarterback coach. He understands what's going on on defense. And I think that's what gives him the ability to dial up plays."
Judge: Former Players Must Testify
Some of Barry Bonds' former teammates, along with other retired Major League Baseball players and perhaps current player Jason Giambi, will have to testify at the slugger's upcoming perjury trial, a federal judge said Friday.
Lawyers for Bonds argued at a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston that the players should be excluded because of their ties to Bonds' former trainer Greg Anderson, who is refusing to testify against the slugger.
Illston previously barred much of the evidence relating to Anderson because of his willingness to go to prison on contempt charges rather than testify at the trial set to start March 21.
Without his testimony, it could be impossible to prove that urine samples that purportedly tested positive for steroids had been collected from Bonds by Anderson.
Dressed in a dark suit and slimmed down from his San Francisco Giants playing days, Bonds sat attentively at his lawyers' table in front of the judge during the hearing.
Illston also said she would consider on a case-by-case basis whether to exclude other evidence seized from Anderson's home and elsewhere that prosecutors want to show the jury.
That includes a trove of documents created by Anderson that prosecutors say connect Bonds to blood and urine tests conducted at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which was at the center of a sports doping ring broken up by federal investigators.
The judge said prosecutors could call the athletes to testify about their relationships with Anderson, who supplied many of them with steroids and whom the government claims supplied Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds, 46, has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of perjury and an obstruction charge after telling a grand jury in December 2003 that he never knowingly took steroids. Bonds testified that Anderson supplied him with all kinds of substances, but he assumed they were all legal supplements.
Some players were expected to testify that Anderson supplied them with drugs and informed clients the substances were illegal steroids. Prosecutors hope the testimony will persuade jurors that Bonds had to have known that Anderson was giving him illicit performance enhancers.
"Anderson provided them with detailed instructions and explained to them these were steroids," federal prosecutor Matt Parrella told the judge.
One of Bonds' six attorneys, Dennis Riordan, sought to bar the athletes' testimony. He argued unsuccessfully that the government was attempting to win the case with "guilt by association."
On the prosecution witness list are Giambi and retired players Marvin Benard, Jeremy Giambi (Jason's brother), Armando Rios, Benito Santiago, Bobby Estallela, Randy Velarde and retired football player Larry Izzo.
The judge said she may stop the parade of players from taking the witness stand if their testimony begins to sound the same.
The players' dealings with Anderson date back a decade or more, which legal experts said could further hobble prosecutors already set back by the exclusion of the tests tied to Anderson.
"We all struggle with recalling what happened a week ago," said Vermont Law School professor Michael McCann, a sports law expert. "It happened so long ago, and these witnesses are probably going to have a difficult time recalling everything."
The judge ordered Anderson to appear in court sometime before the trial starts to reiterate his refusal to testify. Anderson will be jailed for the length of the trial, which could last a month.
Anderson already served a little more than a year on contempt charges after he refused to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds for perjury.
Anderson pleaded guilty to steroids distribution and money laundering in 2005 and served three months in prison.
"He remains resolute in his position," said Mark Geragos, Anderson's lawyer.
Both sides will return to court Feb. 11 to wrangle over whether a secretly recorded conversation between Anderson and Bonds' former business partner Steve Hoskins should be played for the jury.
Hoskins made the recording in front of the slugger's locker in San Francisco in March 2003.
In that conversation, Anderson discusses how he is helping Bonds avoid infections by injecting him in different parts of his buttocks rather than in one spot.
Bonds testified before the grand jury that no one but his doctor ever injected him.
Lawyers for Bonds argued at a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston that the players should be excluded because of their ties to Bonds' former trainer Greg Anderson, who is refusing to testify against the slugger.
Illston previously barred much of the evidence relating to Anderson because of his willingness to go to prison on contempt charges rather than testify at the trial set to start March 21.
Without his testimony, it could be impossible to prove that urine samples that purportedly tested positive for steroids had been collected from Bonds by Anderson.
Dressed in a dark suit and slimmed down from his San Francisco Giants playing days, Bonds sat attentively at his lawyers' table in front of the judge during the hearing.
Illston also said she would consider on a case-by-case basis whether to exclude other evidence seized from Anderson's home and elsewhere that prosecutors want to show the jury.
That includes a trove of documents created by Anderson that prosecutors say connect Bonds to blood and urine tests conducted at the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which was at the center of a sports doping ring broken up by federal investigators.
The judge said prosecutors could call the athletes to testify about their relationships with Anderson, who supplied many of them with steroids and whom the government claims supplied Bonds with performance-enhancing drugs.
Bonds, 46, has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of perjury and an obstruction charge after telling a grand jury in December 2003 that he never knowingly took steroids. Bonds testified that Anderson supplied him with all kinds of substances, but he assumed they were all legal supplements.
Some players were expected to testify that Anderson supplied them with drugs and informed clients the substances were illegal steroids. Prosecutors hope the testimony will persuade jurors that Bonds had to have known that Anderson was giving him illicit performance enhancers.
"Anderson provided them with detailed instructions and explained to them these were steroids," federal prosecutor Matt Parrella told the judge.
One of Bonds' six attorneys, Dennis Riordan, sought to bar the athletes' testimony. He argued unsuccessfully that the government was attempting to win the case with "guilt by association."
On the prosecution witness list are Giambi and retired players Marvin Benard, Jeremy Giambi (Jason's brother), Armando Rios, Benito Santiago, Bobby Estallela, Randy Velarde and retired football player Larry Izzo.
The judge said she may stop the parade of players from taking the witness stand if their testimony begins to sound the same.
The players' dealings with Anderson date back a decade or more, which legal experts said could further hobble prosecutors already set back by the exclusion of the tests tied to Anderson.
"We all struggle with recalling what happened a week ago," said Vermont Law School professor Michael McCann, a sports law expert. "It happened so long ago, and these witnesses are probably going to have a difficult time recalling everything."
The judge ordered Anderson to appear in court sometime before the trial starts to reiterate his refusal to testify. Anderson will be jailed for the length of the trial, which could last a month.
Anderson already served a little more than a year on contempt charges after he refused to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds for perjury.
Anderson pleaded guilty to steroids distribution and money laundering in 2005 and served three months in prison.
"He remains resolute in his position," said Mark Geragos, Anderson's lawyer.
Both sides will return to court Feb. 11 to wrangle over whether a secretly recorded conversation between Anderson and Bonds' former business partner Steve Hoskins should be played for the jury.
Hoskins made the recording in front of the slugger's locker in San Francisco in March 2003.
In that conversation, Anderson discusses how he is helping Bonds avoid infections by injecting him in different parts of his buttocks rather than in one spot.
Bonds testified before the grand jury that no one but his doctor ever injected him.
Prime Time's Female Lawyers Challenge the Old-Boy Network
Does a woman bring more than just female viewers to a TV legal drama?
It’s a question that networks and producers are thinking about as they keep tinkering with that most shopworn of genres.
What’s notable about the two newest entries — “Harry’s Law” on NBC and “Fairly Legal” on USA — is that both revolve around a female attorney. This you don’t see every day, not even on “The Good Wife,” which, despite the protean talent of Julianna Margulies, has settled into an ensemble, with camera time duly balanced between male and female leads.
In other words, status quo.
In real life and TV, men have traditionally been the ones solving crimes, giving the news conferences on TV, defending the high-profile suspects. In prime-time dramas, they still are.
But while the real world is changing — 45 percent of associates in law firms are female, and that percentage is growing fast — TV has been slow to react.
“Damages” on FX was the first legal drama that put a woman in charge of a high-powered law firm and gave her a distinctly feminine voice. (I say “was,” but if you have DirecTV it’s heading there for a fourth season this summer.) Of course, if you’ve seen Glenn Close’s portrayal of Patty Hewes, watched her grind adversaries under her heel, use up people like notepads and all but shoot deadly rays out of her eyes, the word “feminine” may not come immediately to mind.
Her cruelty, though, was part of her appeal to women. The way she humiliated men — like the outlaw billionaire Arthur Frobisher — was pure feminist revenge fantasy. But Patty’s willingness to use illegal methods and mind games on her staff was all in service of her crusades to bring down evil men. These were men who ruined thousands of lives yet, thanks to their high-priced legal teams, were able to avoid prosecution.
They were men, just like the men who gamed the system in the first place to favor corporate interests and smother individual rights, all the while sneering at justice — who, after all, is often depicted as a blind woman.
In a fascinating piece in the journal Flow, Lucas Hilderbrand contends that “Damages” is a show “about justice outside the rule of law.” Most contemporary Westerns explore this idea as well, but Patty is not a lone gunman. She is a woman who has nurtured a large web of relationships inside the legal system, yet will circumvent the system as she pleases because she has no faith in it.
This is just what the other side does, but Patty is heroic because she’s challenging the old-boy network, if not plotting its destruction. It’s a conceit of “Damages,” writes Hilderbrand, that “a strong woman can make the powers-that-be — straight white men — pay for their misdeeds.”
Take out the revenge factor and the cynicism and “Damages” becomes “Fairly Legal,” the new drama that premiered Thursday on USA . The show is neither as dark nor as demanding on the viewer as “Damages.” Yet the two shows share the same message: The legal system can’t always deliver justice, so it’s up to a resourceful woman to save the day.
In this case that would be Kate Reed (Sarah Shahi), a smart, high-powered attorney who has grown disenchanted with the legal system. Her recourse, however, is to quit the family law firm and become a mediator. Now she exists at the edges of the system, taking the cases that get kicked over to her by exasperated judges, diplomats and fellow attorneys.
Whether it’s a family business with succession issues, a wedding gone awry or a petty criminal looking at three strikes, Kate is always looking to avoid the harsher justice that the system has been programmed to mete out. She talks fast, charms easily and has a killer room-silencing dog whistle — anything to get the squabbling parties to arrive at yes.
“Facts change,” she says. “Positions should, too. Everything’s not so black and white.”
It’s a bright, fun little show, adhering to the formula that has worked for so many other light dramas on USA: tight writing, a little romance, whirly movement. Between scenes there’s a lovely stop-motion effect I’ve never seen before; it makes San Francisco look like a 3-D model with Matchbox cars.
I’d like to see Kate acting a little less girly-girl, but otherwise “Fairly Legal” is engaging and distinct, which, considering the genre, is saying something.
“Harry’s Law,” which premiered Monday, stars a best-actress Oscar winner, Kathy Bates, and it was created by David E. Kelley, whose bookcase of Emmys includes a 1999 best comedy win for “Ally McBeal.”
Now that I’ve built it up, where do I begin tearing it down?
Bates plays a burned-out patent lawyer named Harriet who, after getting tossed from her old firm, decides to start a general practice in a storefront in a “bad” part of Cincinnati. We know it’s bad because a few hours after opening, Harry is visited by a local thug who tries to shake her down for protection money. He looks like the kind of thug Valerie Bertinelli would try to help in a Hallmark movie.
Merchants who decline his services, the hoodlum says, “tend to be burglarized, vandalized and plagiarized at an alarming rate.” Harry responds that she already has protection and — wait for it — pulls out her trusty Smith & Wesson.
Already losing you? Good.
This role had some potential for Bates. She livened up what has been an otherwise dreadful season of “The Office.” But here, as a retail lawyer with a corporate pedigree, Harry could be an advocate for all kinds of people getting a bum steer. This could be “The Practice” with a bigger, “Boston Legal”-size conscience, minus the cigars and testosterone.
Unfortunately, neither Bates nor Kelley seems to have any heart in this show. Picking up pretty much where he left off with “Boston Legal,” Kelley turns the courtroom into Air America. In the first episode, we hear the case of Harry v. The War on Drugs, which I think I heard James Spader argue once or twice.
Harry’s first client literally drops from the sky. She breaks his six-story suicide plunge, yet miraculously escapes with minor injuries.
“I know it sounds crazy,” he says later, “but I really think I fell on you for a reason.”
That doesn’t sound crazy — it sounds like something right out of “Ally McBeal,” Kelley’s most notorious show and one that offered, alas, his best-formed portrait of a woman at law.
It’s a question that networks and producers are thinking about as they keep tinkering with that most shopworn of genres.
What’s notable about the two newest entries — “Harry’s Law” on NBC and “Fairly Legal” on USA — is that both revolve around a female attorney. This you don’t see every day, not even on “The Good Wife,” which, despite the protean talent of Julianna Margulies, has settled into an ensemble, with camera time duly balanced between male and female leads.
In other words, status quo.
In real life and TV, men have traditionally been the ones solving crimes, giving the news conferences on TV, defending the high-profile suspects. In prime-time dramas, they still are.
But while the real world is changing — 45 percent of associates in law firms are female, and that percentage is growing fast — TV has been slow to react.
“Damages” on FX was the first legal drama that put a woman in charge of a high-powered law firm and gave her a distinctly feminine voice. (I say “was,” but if you have DirecTV it’s heading there for a fourth season this summer.) Of course, if you’ve seen Glenn Close’s portrayal of Patty Hewes, watched her grind adversaries under her heel, use up people like notepads and all but shoot deadly rays out of her eyes, the word “feminine” may not come immediately to mind.
Her cruelty, though, was part of her appeal to women. The way she humiliated men — like the outlaw billionaire Arthur Frobisher — was pure feminist revenge fantasy. But Patty’s willingness to use illegal methods and mind games on her staff was all in service of her crusades to bring down evil men. These were men who ruined thousands of lives yet, thanks to their high-priced legal teams, were able to avoid prosecution.
They were men, just like the men who gamed the system in the first place to favor corporate interests and smother individual rights, all the while sneering at justice — who, after all, is often depicted as a blind woman.
In a fascinating piece in the journal Flow, Lucas Hilderbrand contends that “Damages” is a show “about justice outside the rule of law.” Most contemporary Westerns explore this idea as well, but Patty is not a lone gunman. She is a woman who has nurtured a large web of relationships inside the legal system, yet will circumvent the system as she pleases because she has no faith in it.
This is just what the other side does, but Patty is heroic because she’s challenging the old-boy network, if not plotting its destruction. It’s a conceit of “Damages,” writes Hilderbrand, that “a strong woman can make the powers-that-be — straight white men — pay for their misdeeds.”
Take out the revenge factor and the cynicism and “Damages” becomes “Fairly Legal,” the new drama that premiered Thursday on USA . The show is neither as dark nor as demanding on the viewer as “Damages.” Yet the two shows share the same message: The legal system can’t always deliver justice, so it’s up to a resourceful woman to save the day.
In this case that would be Kate Reed (Sarah Shahi), a smart, high-powered attorney who has grown disenchanted with the legal system. Her recourse, however, is to quit the family law firm and become a mediator. Now she exists at the edges of the system, taking the cases that get kicked over to her by exasperated judges, diplomats and fellow attorneys.
Whether it’s a family business with succession issues, a wedding gone awry or a petty criminal looking at three strikes, Kate is always looking to avoid the harsher justice that the system has been programmed to mete out. She talks fast, charms easily and has a killer room-silencing dog whistle — anything to get the squabbling parties to arrive at yes.
“Facts change,” she says. “Positions should, too. Everything’s not so black and white.”
It’s a bright, fun little show, adhering to the formula that has worked for so many other light dramas on USA: tight writing, a little romance, whirly movement. Between scenes there’s a lovely stop-motion effect I’ve never seen before; it makes San Francisco look like a 3-D model with Matchbox cars.
I’d like to see Kate acting a little less girly-girl, but otherwise “Fairly Legal” is engaging and distinct, which, considering the genre, is saying something.
“Harry’s Law,” which premiered Monday, stars a best-actress Oscar winner, Kathy Bates, and it was created by David E. Kelley, whose bookcase of Emmys includes a 1999 best comedy win for “Ally McBeal.”
Now that I’ve built it up, where do I begin tearing it down?
Bates plays a burned-out patent lawyer named Harriet who, after getting tossed from her old firm, decides to start a general practice in a storefront in a “bad” part of Cincinnati. We know it’s bad because a few hours after opening, Harry is visited by a local thug who tries to shake her down for protection money. He looks like the kind of thug Valerie Bertinelli would try to help in a Hallmark movie.
Merchants who decline his services, the hoodlum says, “tend to be burglarized, vandalized and plagiarized at an alarming rate.” Harry responds that she already has protection and — wait for it — pulls out her trusty Smith & Wesson.
Already losing you? Good.
This role had some potential for Bates. She livened up what has been an otherwise dreadful season of “The Office.” But here, as a retail lawyer with a corporate pedigree, Harry could be an advocate for all kinds of people getting a bum steer. This could be “The Practice” with a bigger, “Boston Legal”-size conscience, minus the cigars and testosterone.
Unfortunately, neither Bates nor Kelley seems to have any heart in this show. Picking up pretty much where he left off with “Boston Legal,” Kelley turns the courtroom into Air America. In the first episode, we hear the case of Harry v. The War on Drugs, which I think I heard James Spader argue once or twice.
Harry’s first client literally drops from the sky. She breaks his six-story suicide plunge, yet miraculously escapes with minor injuries.
“I know it sounds crazy,” he says later, “but I really think I fell on you for a reason.”
That doesn’t sound crazy — it sounds like something right out of “Ally McBeal,” Kelley’s most notorious show and one that offered, alas, his best-formed portrait of a woman at law.
That Sunday Night Show Season 1 Episode 3
Preview of 'That Sunday Night Show
Adrian Chiles is joined by award-winning actress, writer and comic Catherine Tate, former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott, comedian Kevin Bridges, Piers Morgan and Max Clifford to discuss the biggest events of the week and uncover the more bizarre news stories of the last seven days.
Airing Details: 10:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: ITV1 Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 3
Episode Name: EPISODE: 3
Adrian Chiles is joined by award-winning actress, writer and comic Catherine Tate, former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott, comedian Kevin Bridges, Piers Morgan and Max Clifford to discuss the biggest events of the week and uncover the more bizarre news stories of the last seven days.
Airing Details: 10:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: ITV1 Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 3
Episode Name: EPISODE: 3
'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena,' Premiering Friday on Starz
“Spartacus: Gods of the Arena” is a prequel born of adversity.
That’s the way Lucy Lawless describes the six-episode series that begins Friday night on Starz. In it, Lawless will reprise her role as the scheming Lucretia with John Hannah returning as her husband, Batiatus, providing a back story to last year’s surprise hit, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand.”
The prequel was dreamed up at the last minute as a way to bide time after Spartacus himself — actor Andy Whitfield — was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A story line that paused to focus on the house of Batiatus and its gladiator school before Spartacus arrived would give Whitfield time to undergo treatment and recovery before returning to the series and its demanding fight scenes.
But then there was more bad news. Whitfield’s cancer returned, and he decided to bow out of the series to focus on his health.
“It was disheartening, not only because we had a lot of expectations and were gearing up for Season 2 but because of how hard Andy was working,” said Carmi Zlotnik, who oversees programming for Starz Entertainment and production of Starz’s original series.
Steven S. DeKnight, the series’ creator and executive producer, said he wasn’t sure that the series could go on without Whitfield. A retelling of the 1960 historical movie starring Kirk Douglas, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” shocked audiences with its explicit sex and nudity, highly stylized fight scenes and over-the-top blood and gore.
But Whitfield elevated the series with his moving performance as a man who is kidnapped by Roman soldiers and made to fight, driven by the promise that if he succeeds, he will be reunited with his wife, who was also taken into captivity.
And it was Whitfield who insisted that the production move forward.
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Whitfield said, “I had feared that the story would not be completed, and I am awed by Starz’s commitment and courage to seeing this story through to its conclusion in spite of some extraordinary circumstances.”
This week, Starz announced that a new actor will step into the role of Spartacus when Season 2 is expected to begin in January 2012: Australian Liam McIntyre.
DeKnight said that the writers brainstormed all sorts of ways to account for the change in Spartacus between the end of Season 1 — when Spartacus leads the bloody revolt — and the beginning of Season 2. Could Spartacus suffer a fatal injury in the revolt and a new Spartacus carry on his name? What if Spartacus had suffered some sort of facial injury, and the new actor carried that scar?
“But there’s just no way to disfigure Spartacus that much,” DeKnight said.
In the end, he said, the team decided that audiences were savvy enough to appreciate the gravity of what happened to Whitfield and the desire to move on with the story line without resorting to trickery. McIntyre will simply assume the role when shooting begins in a few months.
The prequel grew out of a flashback sequence that was originally going to occur early on in Season 2 to flesh out some of the characters, exploring Batiatus’ gladiatorial school. It also sees the rise of a new gladiator, the cocky Gannicus.
And there will be much more of Lucretia, who has two sex scenes — only one with her husband — before the first episode is over.
“It’s true, you’re going to see a lot more of Lucretia, but not just nakedness,” Lawless said. “People are going to be surprised by the relationship between Lucretia and Batiatus. ... Every decision she makes is out of her love and duty to Batiatus.”
She said that while the prequel may have been born out of a need to kill time, no time is wasted.
“There is no foot-dragging in this prequel, we really go at it full-tilt,” she said. “There’s no dragging unless it’s dragging a slave across the floor by her hair.”
That’s the way Lucy Lawless describes the six-episode series that begins Friday night on Starz. In it, Lawless will reprise her role as the scheming Lucretia with John Hannah returning as her husband, Batiatus, providing a back story to last year’s surprise hit, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand.”
The prequel was dreamed up at the last minute as a way to bide time after Spartacus himself — actor Andy Whitfield — was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A story line that paused to focus on the house of Batiatus and its gladiator school before Spartacus arrived would give Whitfield time to undergo treatment and recovery before returning to the series and its demanding fight scenes.
But then there was more bad news. Whitfield’s cancer returned, and he decided to bow out of the series to focus on his health.
“It was disheartening, not only because we had a lot of expectations and were gearing up for Season 2 but because of how hard Andy was working,” said Carmi Zlotnik, who oversees programming for Starz Entertainment and production of Starz’s original series.
Steven S. DeKnight, the series’ creator and executive producer, said he wasn’t sure that the series could go on without Whitfield. A retelling of the 1960 historical movie starring Kirk Douglas, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” shocked audiences with its explicit sex and nudity, highly stylized fight scenes and over-the-top blood and gore.
But Whitfield elevated the series with his moving performance as a man who is kidnapped by Roman soldiers and made to fight, driven by the promise that if he succeeds, he will be reunited with his wife, who was also taken into captivity.
And it was Whitfield who insisted that the production move forward.
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Whitfield said, “I had feared that the story would not be completed, and I am awed by Starz’s commitment and courage to seeing this story through to its conclusion in spite of some extraordinary circumstances.”
This week, Starz announced that a new actor will step into the role of Spartacus when Season 2 is expected to begin in January 2012: Australian Liam McIntyre.
DeKnight said that the writers brainstormed all sorts of ways to account for the change in Spartacus between the end of Season 1 — when Spartacus leads the bloody revolt — and the beginning of Season 2. Could Spartacus suffer a fatal injury in the revolt and a new Spartacus carry on his name? What if Spartacus had suffered some sort of facial injury, and the new actor carried that scar?
“But there’s just no way to disfigure Spartacus that much,” DeKnight said.
In the end, he said, the team decided that audiences were savvy enough to appreciate the gravity of what happened to Whitfield and the desire to move on with the story line without resorting to trickery. McIntyre will simply assume the role when shooting begins in a few months.
The prequel grew out of a flashback sequence that was originally going to occur early on in Season 2 to flesh out some of the characters, exploring Batiatus’ gladiatorial school. It also sees the rise of a new gladiator, the cocky Gannicus.
And there will be much more of Lucretia, who has two sex scenes — only one with her husband — before the first episode is over.
“It’s true, you’re going to see a lot more of Lucretia, but not just nakedness,” Lawless said. “People are going to be surprised by the relationship between Lucretia and Batiatus. ... Every decision she makes is out of her love and duty to Batiatus.”
She said that while the prequel may have been born out of a need to kill time, no time is wasted.
“There is no foot-dragging in this prequel, we really go at it full-tilt,” she said. “There’s no dragging unless it’s dragging a slave across the floor by her hair.”
Folk-Rock Meets Classical, with Surprising Results
To even the playing field between a folk guitarist and a classical pianist, ask the guitarist to read music and the pianist to improvise. That’s what happened last month when singer-songwriter Tift Merritt and concert pianist Simone Dinnerstein began preparing for two concerts they will present this weekend at Duke University.
You could say that they fell back on the common language they know: music.
But that would be sentimentalizing and over simplifying a rehearsal process that both artists describe as a challenge unlike any they have encountered in their separately successful careers.
That’s because Merritt, a North Carolina native, learned to sing and play guitar by ear, while Dinnerstein, a classical musician, has been sight-reading notes on a page since the age of 7. Together after much compromise and a little consternation they have prepared an 80-minute set list called “Night,” which includes variations on a Leonard Cohen classic, a Schubert art song with a harmonica interlude and more.
“It’s been a huge learning process for both of us,” Dinnerstein said.
“It was very scary. At first,” Merritt said.
The guitarist claims she came into the project unable to read scores, especially rhythms. Dinnerstein says she protests too much.
Merritt “can read music, she’s just not used to learning to sing a song from reading the notes,” the pianist said. “It’s not how she processes music. It was actually really interesting, because we spent a very intense week rehearsing over the Christmas holidays ... at the end of the week, we had both really grown as musicians. We put on a run-through at my parents’ house for our friends, and it went really well.”
They met about two years ago when Gramophone, the British magazine, was looking for someone outside of classical music to interview Dinnerstein before the release of her second album. (Her third, “Bach: A Strange Beauty,” debuted last week at No. 6 on Amazon.com.)
Merritt and Dinnerstein hit it off so quickly they closed the Gramophone Q&A by saying they hoped to collaborate. A few months later, Dinnerstein gave a recital in Durham and noticed that Aaron Greenwald, the director of Duke Performances, booked genre-defying artists. She told him she and Merritt had an idea.
“He made it happen,” Dinnerstein said.
Word of the collaboration got out, and three venues in Florida and California have booked the duo to perform this month.
In Durham, Merritt will try out a few new songs; Dinnerstein will play new arrangements of classical works and premiere variations on the Cohen song “Suzanne.” Then there are the duets, commissioned songs by Patty Griffin, Philip Lasser and Brad Mehldau, plus four complete re-imaginings of opera arias and classical art songs.
Their re-imagining of Schubert’s “Nacht und Traume” began with Dinnerstein translating the 1825 German text into English.
Then Merritt “changed the words into something contemporary, like a song she would sing, and then I changed the rhythm to support what she was singing,” Dinnerstein said. During one verse, the piano picks up the melody and Merritt picks up the harmonica.
“The song is like country blues meets Schubert, and it’s totally gorgeous,” Dinnerstein said.
To commit the music to memory — and compensate for her difficulty reading scores — Merritt would record and take copious notes during their rehearsals in Brooklyn, where both women live.
“The next day she’d come in and have totally absorbed everything from the day before,” Dinnerstein said.
Learning folk-rock and reworking classics didn’t come easily to the pianist. “I’ve been reading a chord chart and trying to improvise, and that’s something that I’ve never done before,” she said.
Merritt would ask, “How do you feel this should go?” and Dinnerstein would riff on a theme she had been playing for years. “It was really exciting to see her say, ‘I don’t like how that goes’ and cross something out, or even throw the music out,” Merritt said, laughing.
The guitarist recalled one particularly stressful moment when Dinnerstein was struggling to improvise and playing more notes than necessary.
“Finally, I told her, ‘Don’t think about anything except the two and the four and maybe a little bit about sex, and you’ll have it,’” Merritt said.
Not exactly the dialogue you’d expect to hear.
Both musicians say preparing for the Duke concert has profoundly changed how they approach performing. The week after their rehearsals, Merritt was in the recording studio and Dinnerstein was in Ottawa, playing a Bach concerto with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra.
“I thought about Tift when I was up there (onstage). She’s so passionate, and working with her, I felt free, like I didn’t have to worry about the details involved with being a classical musician,” Dinnerstein said. “I felt that creep into my playing this week when I was playing Bach. There’s so much more freedom in expressing music than I dare to do, usually.”
Merritt was alone in the studio recording demos, but finding freedom through her newfound knowledge of music theory.
“I’m preparing in a different way then I ever had before,” Merritt said. “I’ve never rehearsed quite like I have with Simone. I’ve always relied on my guts and the time that I’ve spent with a guitar in my hands. But normal music theory is such a specific language. It gives me this new way of looking at my own songs and realizing that, ‘Wow, there are so many more choices.’”
Does she intend to start practicing “like, eight hours a day” as Dinnerstein does? No. But she does hope that this time next year, they’ll be rehearsing together again, preparing for another tour, or even a recording.
“When you start a band, you don’t want to quit it,” Merritt said.
You could say that they fell back on the common language they know: music.
But that would be sentimentalizing and over simplifying a rehearsal process that both artists describe as a challenge unlike any they have encountered in their separately successful careers.
That’s because Merritt, a North Carolina native, learned to sing and play guitar by ear, while Dinnerstein, a classical musician, has been sight-reading notes on a page since the age of 7. Together after much compromise and a little consternation they have prepared an 80-minute set list called “Night,” which includes variations on a Leonard Cohen classic, a Schubert art song with a harmonica interlude and more.
“It’s been a huge learning process for both of us,” Dinnerstein said.
“It was very scary. At first,” Merritt said.
The guitarist claims she came into the project unable to read scores, especially rhythms. Dinnerstein says she protests too much.
Merritt “can read music, she’s just not used to learning to sing a song from reading the notes,” the pianist said. “It’s not how she processes music. It was actually really interesting, because we spent a very intense week rehearsing over the Christmas holidays ... at the end of the week, we had both really grown as musicians. We put on a run-through at my parents’ house for our friends, and it went really well.”
They met about two years ago when Gramophone, the British magazine, was looking for someone outside of classical music to interview Dinnerstein before the release of her second album. (Her third, “Bach: A Strange Beauty,” debuted last week at No. 6 on Amazon.com.)
Merritt and Dinnerstein hit it off so quickly they closed the Gramophone Q&A by saying they hoped to collaborate. A few months later, Dinnerstein gave a recital in Durham and noticed that Aaron Greenwald, the director of Duke Performances, booked genre-defying artists. She told him she and Merritt had an idea.
“He made it happen,” Dinnerstein said.
Word of the collaboration got out, and three venues in Florida and California have booked the duo to perform this month.
In Durham, Merritt will try out a few new songs; Dinnerstein will play new arrangements of classical works and premiere variations on the Cohen song “Suzanne.” Then there are the duets, commissioned songs by Patty Griffin, Philip Lasser and Brad Mehldau, plus four complete re-imaginings of opera arias and classical art songs.
Their re-imagining of Schubert’s “Nacht und Traume” began with Dinnerstein translating the 1825 German text into English.
Then Merritt “changed the words into something contemporary, like a song she would sing, and then I changed the rhythm to support what she was singing,” Dinnerstein said. During one verse, the piano picks up the melody and Merritt picks up the harmonica.
“The song is like country blues meets Schubert, and it’s totally gorgeous,” Dinnerstein said.
To commit the music to memory — and compensate for her difficulty reading scores — Merritt would record and take copious notes during their rehearsals in Brooklyn, where both women live.
“The next day she’d come in and have totally absorbed everything from the day before,” Dinnerstein said.
Learning folk-rock and reworking classics didn’t come easily to the pianist. “I’ve been reading a chord chart and trying to improvise, and that’s something that I’ve never done before,” she said.
Merritt would ask, “How do you feel this should go?” and Dinnerstein would riff on a theme she had been playing for years. “It was really exciting to see her say, ‘I don’t like how that goes’ and cross something out, or even throw the music out,” Merritt said, laughing.
The guitarist recalled one particularly stressful moment when Dinnerstein was struggling to improvise and playing more notes than necessary.
“Finally, I told her, ‘Don’t think about anything except the two and the four and maybe a little bit about sex, and you’ll have it,’” Merritt said.
Not exactly the dialogue you’d expect to hear.
Both musicians say preparing for the Duke concert has profoundly changed how they approach performing. The week after their rehearsals, Merritt was in the recording studio and Dinnerstein was in Ottawa, playing a Bach concerto with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra.
“I thought about Tift when I was up there (onstage). She’s so passionate, and working with her, I felt free, like I didn’t have to worry about the details involved with being a classical musician,” Dinnerstein said. “I felt that creep into my playing this week when I was playing Bach. There’s so much more freedom in expressing music than I dare to do, usually.”
Merritt was alone in the studio recording demos, but finding freedom through her newfound knowledge of music theory.
“I’m preparing in a different way then I ever had before,” Merritt said. “I’ve never rehearsed quite like I have with Simone. I’ve always relied on my guts and the time that I’ve spent with a guitar in my hands. But normal music theory is such a specific language. It gives me this new way of looking at my own songs and realizing that, ‘Wow, there are so many more choices.’”
Does she intend to start practicing “like, eight hours a day” as Dinnerstein does? No. But she does hope that this time next year, they’ll be rehearsing together again, preparing for another tour, or even a recording.
“When you start a band, you don’t want to quit it,” Merritt said.
Dancing on Ice Season 6 Episode 6
Preview of 'Dancing on Ice':
Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby reveal the results of the public vote. 16 celebrities have been training since October but only 12 can make it through to the main competition. The three skating stars with the fewest votes must compete again to earn their place on the show.
Airing Details: 9:30 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: ITV1 Channel
Episode Details: Season 6 Episode 6
Episode Name: EPISODE: 6
Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby reveal the results of the public vote. 16 celebrities have been training since October but only 12 can make it through to the main competition. The three skating stars with the fewest votes must compete again to earn their place on the show.
Airing Details: 9:30 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: ITV1 Channel
Episode Details: Season 6 Episode 6
Episode Name: EPISODE: 6
Top Gear Season 16 Episode 2
Preview of 'Top Gear':
Jeremy Clarkson subjects the Skoda Yeti to a remarkably thorough road test, while James May makes a rare visit to the test track in the insane Aerial Atom V8. Meanwhile, Richard Hammond celebrates the incredible evolution of the Porsche 911 by racing a modern Turbo Cabriolet against its oldest relative and the power of gravity.
Plus there's more heated studio debate with the return of the Cool Wall and another celebrity guest takes their turn in the Reasonably Priced Car.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 16 Episode 2
Episode Name: EPISODE: 12
Jeremy Clarkson subjects the Skoda Yeti to a remarkably thorough road test, while James May makes a rare visit to the test track in the insane Aerial Atom V8. Meanwhile, Richard Hammond celebrates the incredible evolution of the Porsche 911 by racing a modern Turbo Cabriolet against its oldest relative and the power of gravity.
Plus there's more heated studio debate with the return of the Cool Wall and another celebrity guest takes their turn in the Reasonably Priced Car.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 16 Episode 2
Episode Name: EPISODE: 12
Reviewing the reviewers: 'Ebert Presents At The Movies,' with Roger Ebert and a New Crew of Young Critics
Roger Ebert continues to write about movies, and has relaunched the televised review show that made him a household name: The debut edition of Ebert Presents At The Movies premiered on Friday on PBS stations, and it’s an energetic pleasure with a few surprises.
The two principal critics sitting in the show’s trademark movie balcony are Christy Lemire (from The Associated Press) and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (who writes for mubi.com). They make for an engaging duo, quick and articulate.
Lemire and Vishnevetsky reviewed current fare such as The Green Hornet and No Strings Attached. Vishnevetsky’s opinions were particularly interesting — he’s a young critic trying enthusiastically to articulate where even the slightest popcorn movie might fit into cinema history, of which he clearly knows a great deal. If it was unfortunate that he happened to give a thumbs-up to every movie the pair reviewed, and Lemire a thumbs-down, well, there’s always next week to see how the two of them can differ in different moods.
The show also has a cadre of contributors; the one showcased this week was Kim Morgan, the first-rate movie-mind and blogger who gave her audience a quick, deft, vivid primer on Carol Reed’s 1949 film The Third Man. Any time a black-and-white movie is given a fresh squint on TV, it’s cause for happiness, and Morgan adds a stylishness and acerbic edge to her evaluations that made her segment all the more involving.
Finally, there was a segment called “Roger’s Office” featuring a review by Ebert himself. Because Ebert can no longer speak after a series of operations for cancer, he has used a variety of methods to reproduce speech. This night, in reviewing the animated film My Dog Tulip, Ebert prevailed upon a guest voice: none other than director Werner Herzog, who recited Ebert’s prose with crisp clarity.
Overall, Ebert Presents At The Movies was well-done, at once welcomingly familiar and inventively fresh.
Did you watch? Will you watch? Let me know what you think.
The two principal critics sitting in the show’s trademark movie balcony are Christy Lemire (from The Associated Press) and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (who writes for mubi.com). They make for an engaging duo, quick and articulate.
Lemire and Vishnevetsky reviewed current fare such as The Green Hornet and No Strings Attached. Vishnevetsky’s opinions were particularly interesting — he’s a young critic trying enthusiastically to articulate where even the slightest popcorn movie might fit into cinema history, of which he clearly knows a great deal. If it was unfortunate that he happened to give a thumbs-up to every movie the pair reviewed, and Lemire a thumbs-down, well, there’s always next week to see how the two of them can differ in different moods.
The show also has a cadre of contributors; the one showcased this week was Kim Morgan, the first-rate movie-mind and blogger who gave her audience a quick, deft, vivid primer on Carol Reed’s 1949 film The Third Man. Any time a black-and-white movie is given a fresh squint on TV, it’s cause for happiness, and Morgan adds a stylishness and acerbic edge to her evaluations that made her segment all the more involving.
Finally, there was a segment called “Roger’s Office” featuring a review by Ebert himself. Because Ebert can no longer speak after a series of operations for cancer, he has used a variety of methods to reproduce speech. This night, in reviewing the animated film My Dog Tulip, Ebert prevailed upon a guest voice: none other than director Werner Herzog, who recited Ebert’s prose with crisp clarity.
Overall, Ebert Presents At The Movies was well-done, at once welcomingly familiar and inventively fresh.
Did you watch? Will you watch? Let me know what you think.
Being Human Season 3 Episode 1 Lia
Preview of 'Being Human':
If Mitchell is to rescue Annie from purgatory, then first he must face up to his haunting past. Meanwhile, George is arrested moments before the full moon.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC THREE Channel
Episode Details: Season 3 Episode 1
Episode Name: Lia
If Mitchell is to rescue Annie from purgatory, then first he must face up to his haunting past. Meanwhile, George is arrested moments before the full moon.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC THREE Channel
Episode Details: Season 3 Episode 1
Episode Name: Lia
There are three WikiLeaks projects in the works. When did this become the hottest story in Hollywood?
ImagesEverybody’s hungry for a piece of the WikiLeaks pie, apparently.
At the moment, there’s a biopic about the controversial site’s founder Julian Assange in the works, an HBO film in development, and Universal Pictures is funding a documentary. My question for you, PopWatchers, is: Are you really that interested in this story?
Hollywood execs certainly seem to think you are, and I have to admit there are several points of interest to this story — not the least of which is Assange himself, one of the most wanted men in the world. One producer of the biopic (quoted in Variety), Barry Josephson (who works on Bones), even compared an upcoming biography on Assange to All the President’s Men, saying it was “this generation’s suspenseful drama with global impact.”
I would hesitantly agree with that, keeping in mind that the story of Watergate had been rolling toward a conclusion when the book based on the event was released in 1974, the same year President Richard Nixon resigned. And the movie (still one of my all-time favorites) wasn’t released until 1976. Note that history was allowed to unravel before Hollywood stepped in. I like that.
My guess, based on the ever-changing twists of this WikiLeaks story, is that filmmakers won’t have the luxury of a neatly wrapped conclusion. And that’s okay. My annoyance lies in the fact that the real-life story is pretty intriguing on its own, and before we have a chance to watch a rather historical story unravel in the news, it is being regurgitated. I’d like a grace period — but that’s just me.
Maybe we do need three takes on the life and works of Julian Assange right away. Personally, I’ll probably wait until he and the name “WikiLeaks” stops appearing in the papers every week before checking any of them out — unless someone casts Robert Redford.
What about you, PopWatchers? Too much WikiLeaks too fast? Or more, please?
At the moment, there’s a biopic about the controversial site’s founder Julian Assange in the works, an HBO film in development, and Universal Pictures is funding a documentary. My question for you, PopWatchers, is: Are you really that interested in this story?
Hollywood execs certainly seem to think you are, and I have to admit there are several points of interest to this story — not the least of which is Assange himself, one of the most wanted men in the world. One producer of the biopic (quoted in Variety), Barry Josephson (who works on Bones), even compared an upcoming biography on Assange to All the President’s Men, saying it was “this generation’s suspenseful drama with global impact.”
I would hesitantly agree with that, keeping in mind that the story of Watergate had been rolling toward a conclusion when the book based on the event was released in 1974, the same year President Richard Nixon resigned. And the movie (still one of my all-time favorites) wasn’t released until 1976. Note that history was allowed to unravel before Hollywood stepped in. I like that.
My guess, based on the ever-changing twists of this WikiLeaks story, is that filmmakers won’t have the luxury of a neatly wrapped conclusion. And that’s okay. My annoyance lies in the fact that the real-life story is pretty intriguing on its own, and before we have a chance to watch a rather historical story unravel in the news, it is being regurgitated. I’d like a grace period — but that’s just me.
Maybe we do need three takes on the life and works of Julian Assange right away. Personally, I’ll probably wait until he and the name “WikiLeaks” stops appearing in the papers every week before checking any of them out — unless someone casts Robert Redford.
What about you, PopWatchers? Too much WikiLeaks too fast? Or more, please?
Arctic With Bruce Parry Season 1 Episode 3 Alaska
Preview of 'Arctic With Bruce Parry':
Bruce travels to Alaska, America's last great wilderness, where modern-day pioneers are harvesting the vast natural wealth of the seas.
Bruce learns the ropes onboard a salmon-fishing boat, and dives to the bottom of the Bering Sea to look for gold.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 3
Episode Name: Alaska
Bruce travels to Alaska, America's last great wilderness, where modern-day pioneers are harvesting the vast natural wealth of the seas.
Bruce learns the ropes onboard a salmon-fishing boat, and dives to the bottom of the Bering Sea to look for gold.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 3
Episode Name: Alaska
Terry Wogan's Ireland Season 1 Episode 1
Preview of 'Terry Wogan's Ireland':
It is 40 years since Sir Terry Wogan decided to leave Ireland and to seek his fortune across the water in England. In that time, Ireland has changed beyond all recognition - and so has Terry. Now, in the wake of his retirement from BBC Radio 2, Terry's going 'home'.
In the autobiographical journey of a lifetime he travels back to Dublin, the city he left behind as a teenager, and all the way back to Limerick, where he was born, taking in the length and breadth of the heart-stoppingly beautiful Irish Coast en route.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 1
Episode Name: EPISODE: 1
It is 40 years since Sir Terry Wogan decided to leave Ireland and to seek his fortune across the water in England. In that time, Ireland has changed beyond all recognition - and so has Terry. Now, in the wake of his retirement from BBC Radio 2, Terry's going 'home'.
In the autobiographical journey of a lifetime he travels back to Dublin, the city he left behind as a teenager, and all the way back to Limerick, where he was born, taking in the length and breadth of the heart-stoppingly beautiful Irish Coast en route.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 1
Episode Name: EPISODE: 1
Baker Boys Season 1 Episode 1
Preview of 'Baker Boys':
Valley Bara bakery lies at the heart of a small South Wales town. Generations have worked, skived, flirted, fought and earned an honest living there. But then the recession bites, and the bakery workers find themselves unemployed overnight.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC Wales Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 1
Episode Name: EPISODE: 1
Valley Bara bakery lies at the heart of a small South Wales town. Generations have worked, skived, flirted, fought and earned an honest living there. But then the recession bites, and the bakery workers find themselves unemployed overnight.
Airing Details: 9:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC Wales Channel
Episode Details: Season 1 Episode 1
Episode Name: EPISODE: 1
Wild at Heart Season 6 Episode 3
Preview of 'Wild at Heart':
Danny faces a tough choice when his investigation into an animal smuggling ring leads him closer to home than he thought. Meanwhile, Du Plessis tries to help Thabo, but his allegiance is tested when he finds himself on the wrong side of the law. With Stephen Tompkinson, Dawn Steele, Deon Stewardson, Hayley Mills, and Atandwa Kani.
Airing Details: 8:30 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: ITV1 Channel
Episode Details: Season 6 Episode 3
Episode Name: EPISODE: 3
Danny faces a tough choice when his investigation into an animal smuggling ring leads him closer to home than he thought. Meanwhile, Du Plessis tries to help Thabo, but his allegiance is tested when he finds himself on the wrong side of the law. With Stephen Tompkinson, Dawn Steele, Deon Stewardson, Hayley Mills, and Atandwa Kani.
Airing Details: 8:30 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: ITV1 Channel
Episode Details: Season 6 Episode 3
Episode Name: EPISODE: 3
Lark Rise To Candleford Season 4 Episode 3
Preview of 'Lark Rise To Candleford':
Thomas is euphoric when he lands the job of organising the church bazaar. But his joy soon evaporates when the vicar falls ill, and the controversial and free-thinking curate Reverend Marley takes charge.
Thomas is convinced that Marley is evil incarnate, and when he comes across a snake on his postal rounds, he sees it as a sign that the devil is indeed amongst them.
Airing Details: 8:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 4 Episode 3
Episode Name: EPISODE: 3
Thomas is euphoric when he lands the job of organising the church bazaar. But his joy soon evaporates when the vicar falls ill, and the controversial and free-thinking curate Reverend Marley takes charge.
Thomas is convinced that Marley is evil incarnate, and when he comes across a snake on his postal rounds, he sees it as a sign that the devil is indeed amongst them.
Airing Details: 8:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 4 Episode 3
Episode Name: EPISODE: 3
Come Dine With Me Season 15 Episode 6
Preview of 'Come Dine With Me':
This brand new episode in East Lancashire features a mayoress and a spiritualist, quite a lot of kissing, much belching, and an unannounced twin.
Airing Details: 8:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: Channel 4
Episode Details: Season 15 Episode 6
Episode Name: EPISODE: 6
This brand new episode in East Lancashire features a mayoress and a spiritualist, quite a lot of kissing, much belching, and an unannounced twin.
Airing Details: 8:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: Channel 4
Episode Details: Season 15 Episode 6
Episode Name: EPISODE: 6
Got to Dance Season 2 Episode 9
Preview of 'Got to Dance':
Difficult decisions are made as the judging panel select their semi-finalists. Host Davina McCall is on hand to congratulate those whose Got to Dance dream lives on
Airing Details: 8:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: Sky One Channel
Episode Details: Season 2 Episode 9
Episode Name: EPISODE: 9
Difficult decisions are made as the judging panel select their semi-finalists. Host Davina McCall is on hand to congratulate those whose Got to Dance dream lives on
Airing Details: 8:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: Sky One Channel
Episode Details: Season 2 Episode 9
Episode Name: EPISODE: 9
The Return of 'Fringe' Recap: 'The Firefly' Glowed With Love, Loss, and Christopher Lloyd
Fringe returned in its new time period on Friday night with “The Firefly,” an exemplary episode designed to bring joy, deep satisfaction, and uneasy fears to the hearts of its fans. I’ll deal with the joys and satisfactions first.
The hour began not with a previously-standard pre-credits, scare-case-of-the-week introduction, but rather a beautiful scene between Walter and Peter that had those elements of comedy and poignance that Fringe combines like no other current television. Peter came upon Walter in the lab, the latter preparing to inject himself in his leg with something concocted to “make myself smarter,” the better to replace the missing parts of his brain (I know I’ve just lost every non-regular-Fringe viewer reading this with that phrase; sorry) and to approximate the intelligence of Walternate. Peter gently warned his father to recall that Walter had asked William Bell to snip out those brain-parts “because you were afraid of what you were becoming.”
Then, cut to a nursing home in Boston, where a patient who would prove to be guest star Christopher Lloyd was seen on security cameras conversing with an unknown hospital visitor. The patient was Roscoe Joyce, the former keyboardist for Walter’s favorite rock band, Violet Sedan Chair, and the stranger was Joyce’s dead son, Bobby, come to deliver a message. Bobby, who’d died in 1985, joined up with our most familiar Observer (Michael Cerveris), who told Bobby that, with his brief mission accomplished, “I’ll take you home now.”
Once Fringe Division is called into this scenario because the cameras also picked up the presence of the Observer, it was bliss to see Walter’s reaction when he realized that the drawn, haggard ex-rocker before him was Roscoe Joyce. Lloyd’s hopeless demeanor was as perfect as his wardrobe — the no-shirt vest plus jewelry get-up of a man who indeed looked like a refugee from a decades-old, now-defunct (art-? prog-? psychedelic-?) rock band. Walter’s elation at meeting one of his heroes, even in this fallen, sedated state, was tempered by the Observer sighting: “Every time the Observer appears, it has something to do with you,” he said to Peter, worry creasing his face. “Something bad.”
But soon after, we saw two Observers discussing Walter, not Peter. Our Observer says to his colleague, “I think he has changed.” The other one disagrees. Most of the Observer scenes in “The Firefly” were mysterious, confusing, until the end of the hour. Shortly before this our Observer foiled a jewlry store robbery and saved a woman tied up during the burglary by locating her asthma inhaler, from which she desperately needed a dose. He pocketed the inhaler. It was very cool to see an Observer in an action scene — catching the robber’s bullets, disabling the thief with a series of sharp elbows and in-close punches. But… to what end?
With Roscoe brought to Walter’s lab, the scientist tried to draw out the musician’s memories, and in the process, Walter explained that he’s made a “liquid base to aid in the process of bran-mapping.” Roscoe Joyce observed wryly that Brain Mapping would make a great name for an album. Walter had mixed the liquid with milk “as a bonding agent,” and put it in his fridge in an ordinary milk bottle. Uh-oh…
The Observer appeared to Walter and asked to talk. What followed was the crux of the episode. The Observer and Walter discuss “various possible futures” and how “every action causes ripples.” He told Walter a story that gave the hour its title and was, we thought as we watched, a metaphor: It was about Peter as a boy catching a firefly, which caused another child to not catch one and go wandering off. Her father went looking for her in his car, skidded and hit and killed a boy. The Observer broke off from his story to ask Walter for his help: “When the time comes, give him the keys and save the girl.” Walter was baffled by this apparent non sequitur.
But then Walter went back to the lab and Roscoe had remembered something: Bobby called him years ago to tell him about a dream which involved a bald man and a nursing home; Roscoe said it was their last conversation, because shortly after, Bobby was fatally hit by a man driving a car. Walter realized that, in a roundabout way, he was responsible for this death (because of his Peter catching the firefly) and Roscoe comments that the grief over Bobby’s death is the real reason Violet Sedan Chair broke up. So Walter is also responsible for the break-up of his favorite band! I’d have cheered at this cleverness in the script by producers J. H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner had I not been so moved by the multiple unhappinesses that were caused in what the Observer called actions-causing-ripples. “That man lost a son because I was unwilling to lose mine,” is how Walter will boil it down a few minutes later to Astrid. Walter also realized that the Observer “wants me to help him un-do all the damage… But in doing that I would lose [Peter] all over again.”
The Observer’s non sequitur to Walter made sense when the Observer caused an auto accident and the woman with asthma was again placed in jeopardy. At the scene of this accident, Olivia chased after the Observer; Peter told Walter he wanted to go help Olivia but that Walter should stay with the young woman and that he needs their car.
“Give me the keys and save the girl,” Peter says to Walter. Thunderstruck, Walter realizes this had been the Observer’s plan all along. “They’re going to take you from me!” he cried out in anguish. Yet Walter cannot allow the asthmatic girl to die. He handed over the keys and improvised a cure for the woman. This delayed him from getting back to the lab, where Peter, thirsty, reached in for the milk and went into a seizure — a reaction to Walter’s brain-mapping elixer. A frantic Olivia called Walter, who guided her through an anti-coagulant injection.
Later the Observers spoke about all this. “You were right, he’s changed. He was willing to let his son die,” is what they conclude. “Yes, and now we know: When the time comes, he will be willing to do it again.” Fade to black.
But wait! There was the night’s other plot: Olivia received a book in the mail, If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (This is an actual book, published in 1972 by Sheldon B. Kopp, that carries the subtitle, “The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients.”) At first, Olivia was put off by this, handing it off to Peter as being intended for “her” — i.e., Altivia. But then Peter explained, with a lovely sincerity and earnestness, “The book wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for the Olivia Dunham that I’ve spent the past couple of years of my life with… You’re the person I wanted to share it with.” It was meant to help explain why he can be so distant and disengaged. If The Buddha is about finding one’s own path, altering the narrative of one’s past, and commences with a section that’s very apt for this music-minded episode of Fringe: “Take From No Man His Song.” With its chapters about “spoiled identity” and “a search for belonging,” this book is something I’m going to have to dip into further. I’ll keep you posted on what I find; let me know if you’ve read it yourself.
“The Firefly” stands among the finest Fringe episodes. The pull of family; the knotty complexity of romance; the way sci-fi can provide fresh metaphors for the most frequently explored ideas and emotions; the way we encounter humor and surprise even in the midst of anguish and regret — this is the stuff of which Fringe is made. Hallelujah.
Oh yes, those uneasy fears I mentioned at the top of this piece. I do fear — with great delight — for the future implications of the Observers’ ominous exchange and what it means for Walter later in the season. Walter undergoing another traumatic challenge about the possibility of losing a son seems almost too much for the man to bear. It will also make for great drama.
Fringe benefits:
• The episode title was also, of course, a nod to Fringe‘s new Friday night Fox death-trap time period, once the quicksand-grave for Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
• It’s rumored that the Violet Sedan Chair’s album Seven Suns exists, and can be found in various independent record stories throughout the country. From what I’ve heard, Chair music is less psychedelic than I’d thought the band would be — more influenced by American British-invasion-influenced bands ranging from the Beau Brummels to The Three O’Clock. In other words: Fab.
• How many of you initially thought, as I did, that Bobby wasn’t a transported-from-1985 Bobby, but the alterna-Bobby, from the Other Side?
• The Observer shooting Peter with his “magic air gun” — wish I had one of those.
What did you think about the return of Fringe and “The Firefly”?
The hour began not with a previously-standard pre-credits, scare-case-of-the-week introduction, but rather a beautiful scene between Walter and Peter that had those elements of comedy and poignance that Fringe combines like no other current television. Peter came upon Walter in the lab, the latter preparing to inject himself in his leg with something concocted to “make myself smarter,” the better to replace the missing parts of his brain (I know I’ve just lost every non-regular-Fringe viewer reading this with that phrase; sorry) and to approximate the intelligence of Walternate. Peter gently warned his father to recall that Walter had asked William Bell to snip out those brain-parts “because you were afraid of what you were becoming.”
Then, cut to a nursing home in Boston, where a patient who would prove to be guest star Christopher Lloyd was seen on security cameras conversing with an unknown hospital visitor. The patient was Roscoe Joyce, the former keyboardist for Walter’s favorite rock band, Violet Sedan Chair, and the stranger was Joyce’s dead son, Bobby, come to deliver a message. Bobby, who’d died in 1985, joined up with our most familiar Observer (Michael Cerveris), who told Bobby that, with his brief mission accomplished, “I’ll take you home now.”
Once Fringe Division is called into this scenario because the cameras also picked up the presence of the Observer, it was bliss to see Walter’s reaction when he realized that the drawn, haggard ex-rocker before him was Roscoe Joyce. Lloyd’s hopeless demeanor was as perfect as his wardrobe — the no-shirt vest plus jewelry get-up of a man who indeed looked like a refugee from a decades-old, now-defunct (art-? prog-? psychedelic-?) rock band. Walter’s elation at meeting one of his heroes, even in this fallen, sedated state, was tempered by the Observer sighting: “Every time the Observer appears, it has something to do with you,” he said to Peter, worry creasing his face. “Something bad.”
But soon after, we saw two Observers discussing Walter, not Peter. Our Observer says to his colleague, “I think he has changed.” The other one disagrees. Most of the Observer scenes in “The Firefly” were mysterious, confusing, until the end of the hour. Shortly before this our Observer foiled a jewlry store robbery and saved a woman tied up during the burglary by locating her asthma inhaler, from which she desperately needed a dose. He pocketed the inhaler. It was very cool to see an Observer in an action scene — catching the robber’s bullets, disabling the thief with a series of sharp elbows and in-close punches. But… to what end?
With Roscoe brought to Walter’s lab, the scientist tried to draw out the musician’s memories, and in the process, Walter explained that he’s made a “liquid base to aid in the process of bran-mapping.” Roscoe Joyce observed wryly that Brain Mapping would make a great name for an album. Walter had mixed the liquid with milk “as a bonding agent,” and put it in his fridge in an ordinary milk bottle. Uh-oh…
The Observer appeared to Walter and asked to talk. What followed was the crux of the episode. The Observer and Walter discuss “various possible futures” and how “every action causes ripples.” He told Walter a story that gave the hour its title and was, we thought as we watched, a metaphor: It was about Peter as a boy catching a firefly, which caused another child to not catch one and go wandering off. Her father went looking for her in his car, skidded and hit and killed a boy. The Observer broke off from his story to ask Walter for his help: “When the time comes, give him the keys and save the girl.” Walter was baffled by this apparent non sequitur.
But then Walter went back to the lab and Roscoe had remembered something: Bobby called him years ago to tell him about a dream which involved a bald man and a nursing home; Roscoe said it was their last conversation, because shortly after, Bobby was fatally hit by a man driving a car. Walter realized that, in a roundabout way, he was responsible for this death (because of his Peter catching the firefly) and Roscoe comments that the grief over Bobby’s death is the real reason Violet Sedan Chair broke up. So Walter is also responsible for the break-up of his favorite band! I’d have cheered at this cleverness in the script by producers J. H. Wyman and Jeff Pinkner had I not been so moved by the multiple unhappinesses that were caused in what the Observer called actions-causing-ripples. “That man lost a son because I was unwilling to lose mine,” is how Walter will boil it down a few minutes later to Astrid. Walter also realized that the Observer “wants me to help him un-do all the damage… But in doing that I would lose [Peter] all over again.”
The Observer’s non sequitur to Walter made sense when the Observer caused an auto accident and the woman with asthma was again placed in jeopardy. At the scene of this accident, Olivia chased after the Observer; Peter told Walter he wanted to go help Olivia but that Walter should stay with the young woman and that he needs their car.
“Give me the keys and save the girl,” Peter says to Walter. Thunderstruck, Walter realizes this had been the Observer’s plan all along. “They’re going to take you from me!” he cried out in anguish. Yet Walter cannot allow the asthmatic girl to die. He handed over the keys and improvised a cure for the woman. This delayed him from getting back to the lab, where Peter, thirsty, reached in for the milk and went into a seizure — a reaction to Walter’s brain-mapping elixer. A frantic Olivia called Walter, who guided her through an anti-coagulant injection.
Later the Observers spoke about all this. “You were right, he’s changed. He was willing to let his son die,” is what they conclude. “Yes, and now we know: When the time comes, he will be willing to do it again.” Fade to black.
But wait! There was the night’s other plot: Olivia received a book in the mail, If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (This is an actual book, published in 1972 by Sheldon B. Kopp, that carries the subtitle, “The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients.”) At first, Olivia was put off by this, handing it off to Peter as being intended for “her” — i.e., Altivia. But then Peter explained, with a lovely sincerity and earnestness, “The book wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for the Olivia Dunham that I’ve spent the past couple of years of my life with… You’re the person I wanted to share it with.” It was meant to help explain why he can be so distant and disengaged. If The Buddha is about finding one’s own path, altering the narrative of one’s past, and commences with a section that’s very apt for this music-minded episode of Fringe: “Take From No Man His Song.” With its chapters about “spoiled identity” and “a search for belonging,” this book is something I’m going to have to dip into further. I’ll keep you posted on what I find; let me know if you’ve read it yourself.
“The Firefly” stands among the finest Fringe episodes. The pull of family; the knotty complexity of romance; the way sci-fi can provide fresh metaphors for the most frequently explored ideas and emotions; the way we encounter humor and surprise even in the midst of anguish and regret — this is the stuff of which Fringe is made. Hallelujah.
Oh yes, those uneasy fears I mentioned at the top of this piece. I do fear — with great delight — for the future implications of the Observers’ ominous exchange and what it means for Walter later in the season. Walter undergoing another traumatic challenge about the possibility of losing a son seems almost too much for the man to bear. It will also make for great drama.
Fringe benefits:
• The episode title was also, of course, a nod to Fringe‘s new Friday night Fox death-trap time period, once the quicksand-grave for Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
• It’s rumored that the Violet Sedan Chair’s album Seven Suns exists, and can be found in various independent record stories throughout the country. From what I’ve heard, Chair music is less psychedelic than I’d thought the band would be — more influenced by American British-invasion-influenced bands ranging from the Beau Brummels to The Three O’Clock. In other words: Fab.
• How many of you initially thought, as I did, that Bobby wasn’t a transported-from-1985 Bobby, but the alterna-Bobby, from the Other Side?
• The Observer shooting Peter with his “magic air gun” — wish I had one of those.
What did you think about the return of Fringe and “The Firefly”?
Countryfile Season 23 Episode 21
Preview of 'Countryfile':
Julia Bradbury and Adam Henson head to Somerset to find out why the Quantock Hills were the first place in England to be declared an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Adam also lends a hand with the ponies that run wild on the hills while Julia witnesses one of winter's greatest wildlife spectacles - roosting starlings.
Airing Details: 7:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 23 Episode 21
Episode Name: EPISODE: 21
Julia Bradbury and Adam Henson head to Somerset to find out why the Quantock Hills were the first place in England to be declared an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Adam also lends a hand with the ponies that run wild on the hills while Julia witnesses one of winter's greatest wildlife spectacles - roosting starlings.
Airing Details: 7:00 PM on January 23rd, 2011 - Sunday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 23 Episode 21
Episode Name: EPISODE: 21
CSI: NY Season 7 Episode 3 Damned If You Do
Preview of 'CSI: NY':
When a married couple are attacked at home in their bed, Mac is one of the first at the scene. The male victim has died of his injuries, but his wife, Grace Travers, is hanging on by a thread. Thinking on his feet, Mac asks her to use hand gestures to indicate whether she knew the attacker. The woman initially identifies her son as the culprit, but recants her claim upon recovery – and another man confesses to the crime.
Airing Details: 9:10 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: Five Channel
Episode Details: Season 7 Episode 3
Episode Name: Damned If You Do
When a married couple are attacked at home in their bed, Mac is one of the first at the scene. The male victim has died of his injuries, but his wife, Grace Travers, is hanging on by a thread. Thinking on his feet, Mac asks her to use hand gestures to indicate whether she knew the attacker. The woman initially identifies her son as the culprit, but recants her claim upon recovery – and another man confesses to the crime.
Airing Details: 9:10 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: Five Channel
Episode Details: Season 7 Episode 3
Episode Name: Damned If You Do
'Wonder Woman' Project Finds a Home at NBC
ComicsThe ol’ girl will fly this fall after all: NBC has picked up the Wonder Woman pilot from David E. Kelley. Ironically, NBC was the final network to pass on bringing back the superhero over a week ago, but that was before the new regime was officially in place in light of the impending Comcast takeover. Robert Greenblatt is now spearheading primetime as chairman. (On Thursday, head of programming Angela Bromstad announced she was leaving).
The pilot’s cost may not be a concern to Greenblatt, the wunderkind who revitalized Showtime with critical faves like Dexter and Weeds. One factor that seemed to have sunk the Wonder Woman project the first time around was the price of rebooting the series, with the studio requiring a rich license fee to bring the iconic character back to life. But then, NBC has been down this road before: It rebooted Bionic Woman. Kelley’s take incorporated the superhero’s signature lasso, cuffs, and plane in the script, and insiders said it was a serious, non-campy take on the DC Comics character. For years, various writers and producers (including Joss Whedon) have tried to bring back Wonder Woman, but the character has proved difficult to resurrect.
Kelley is already executive producing Harry’s Law for NBC, the new drama starring Kathy Bates.
In other business Friday, NBC also ordered a drama pilot from Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City), dubbed Mann’s World. It chronicles a celebrity hair stylist in Los Angeles.
The pilot’s cost may not be a concern to Greenblatt, the wunderkind who revitalized Showtime with critical faves like Dexter and Weeds. One factor that seemed to have sunk the Wonder Woman project the first time around was the price of rebooting the series, with the studio requiring a rich license fee to bring the iconic character back to life. But then, NBC has been down this road before: It rebooted Bionic Woman. Kelley’s take incorporated the superhero’s signature lasso, cuffs, and plane in the script, and insiders said it was a serious, non-campy take on the DC Comics character. For years, various writers and producers (including Joss Whedon) have tried to bring back Wonder Woman, but the character has proved difficult to resurrect.
Kelley is already executive producing Harry’s Law for NBC, the new drama starring Kathy Bates.
In other business Friday, NBC also ordered a drama pilot from Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City), dubbed Mann’s World. It chronicles a celebrity hair stylist in Los Angeles.
Lyle Lovett is Back on the Road with Fellow Troubadour John Hiatt
Since his self-titled debut album in 1986, Lyle Lovett has established himself as a distinctive voice in American music — a lanky Texan with a mischievous grin who follows in the Lone Star tradition of stubbornly individualistic talents, from Bob Wills to Willie Nelson, Delbert McClinton to Guy Clark. With a style that ranges from stark folk narratives to robust swing and R&B delivered with his Large Band — and sly humor — Lovett has had a richly rewarding musical career spiced by the occasional acting gig.
Busy as he is, however, Lovett still makes time to hit the road regularly with his old pal John Hiatt. The 53-year-old Texan and the 58-year-old Indiana native may have different personalities and different musical approaches, but they have developed quite a rapport since first performing together in 1989, and that’s evident in their loose and spontaneous acoustic performances.
“It’s a really great chance for me to ask him about his songs and his process,” Lovett says from Austin, Texas, where he was recording a song for a Guy Clark tribute album. “For me, that’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of doing this. I get to sit on stage and interview him, basically. ... And he surprises me every night.”
“There’s nothing more inspiring to me than to be in the company of someone who’s fully engaged in what he’s doing, and who’s really talented. ... Sometimes, it makes you want to put your guitar down and stop. But ultimately it makes you want to take it back out and try to do something.”
Lovett is too modest to say it, but other artists no doubt look at the four-time Grammy winner the same way. His most recent album, 2009’s “Natural Forces,” once again displays his range. It presents topflight original songs while also showcasing his skills as an interpreter by spotlighting numbers from Texas tunesmiths who influenced him, including Eric Taylor, Robert Earl Keen and Townes Van Zandt.
“These are all songs that have been a part of my musical life since I was 18 or 20,” Lovett says. The songwriters are artists he got to see and in some cases know. “Behind their musical impact, they had a personal impact on me as well.”
In December, Lovett appeared with Helen Hunt in the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles’ production of “Much Ado About Nothing.” He had a musical as well as an acting role that allowed him to perform some of his own songs.
It was his first formal stage role after several appearances in movies and on TV. He’s open to more acting, but Lovett, who is in the early stages of making his next album, says any roles have to fit around his music schedule.
“It’s great fun, and I’ve enjoyed it every time I’ve gotten to do it. But playing and singing and making up songs is my real job.”
Busy as he is, however, Lovett still makes time to hit the road regularly with his old pal John Hiatt. The 53-year-old Texan and the 58-year-old Indiana native may have different personalities and different musical approaches, but they have developed quite a rapport since first performing together in 1989, and that’s evident in their loose and spontaneous acoustic performances.
“It’s a really great chance for me to ask him about his songs and his process,” Lovett says from Austin, Texas, where he was recording a song for a Guy Clark tribute album. “For me, that’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of doing this. I get to sit on stage and interview him, basically. ... And he surprises me every night.”
“There’s nothing more inspiring to me than to be in the company of someone who’s fully engaged in what he’s doing, and who’s really talented. ... Sometimes, it makes you want to put your guitar down and stop. But ultimately it makes you want to take it back out and try to do something.”
Lovett is too modest to say it, but other artists no doubt look at the four-time Grammy winner the same way. His most recent album, 2009’s “Natural Forces,” once again displays his range. It presents topflight original songs while also showcasing his skills as an interpreter by spotlighting numbers from Texas tunesmiths who influenced him, including Eric Taylor, Robert Earl Keen and Townes Van Zandt.
“These are all songs that have been a part of my musical life since I was 18 or 20,” Lovett says. The songwriters are artists he got to see and in some cases know. “Behind their musical impact, they had a personal impact on me as well.”
In December, Lovett appeared with Helen Hunt in the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles’ production of “Much Ado About Nothing.” He had a musical as well as an acting role that allowed him to perform some of his own songs.
It was his first formal stage role after several appearances in movies and on TV. He’s open to more acting, but Lovett, who is in the early stages of making his next album, says any roles have to fit around his music schedule.
“It’s great fun, and I’ve enjoyed it every time I’ve gotten to do it. But playing and singing and making up songs is my real job.”
The Football League Show Season 2 Episode 25
Preview of 'The Football League Show':
There's never any love lost between Derby County and Nottingham Forest, so expect a terrific atmosphere when these two meet in the npower Championship at Pride Park. Forest thumped Derby 5-2 at the end of December to put their promotion push firmly on track so the Rams will be extra keen to get their revenge. With QPR not playing until Sunday, there's a good chance for the teams in and around the top of the Championship to make up ground. In League One, Bournemouth take on Brighton. The Cherries have had a wonderful season since promotion from League Two and will be looking to get one over their south coast rivals. Presented by Manish Bhasin.
Airing Details: 11:50 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 2 Episode 25
Episode Name: EPISODE: 25
There's never any love lost between Derby County and Nottingham Forest, so expect a terrific atmosphere when these two meet in the npower Championship at Pride Park. Forest thumped Derby 5-2 at the end of December to put their promotion push firmly on track so the Rams will be extra keen to get their revenge. With QPR not playing until Sunday, there's a good chance for the teams in and around the top of the Championship to make up ground. In League One, Bournemouth take on Brighton. The Cherries have had a wonderful season since promotion from League Two and will be looking to get one over their south coast rivals. Presented by Manish Bhasin.
Airing Details: 11:50 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 2 Episode 25
Episode Name: EPISODE: 25
Nurse Jackie Season 2 Episode 1 Comfort Food
Preview of 'Nurse Jackie':
Drama series about Jackie Peyton, a no-nonsense emergency room nurse based in New York who has to balance her frenzied job with a complicated home life. After breaking up with Eddie, Jackie tries to reconnect with her family, but she is soon on the verge of losing it when Eddie overdoses and she runs out of drugs.
Airing Details: 10:40 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 2 Episode 1
Episode Name: Comfort Food
Drama series about Jackie Peyton, a no-nonsense emergency room nurse based in New York who has to balance her frenzied job with a complicated home life. After breaking up with Eddie, Jackie tries to reconnect with her family, but she is soon on the verge of losing it when Eddie overdoses and she runs out of drugs.
Airing Details: 10:40 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 2 Episode 1
Episode Name: Comfort Food
Match of The Day Season 46 Episode 31
Preview of 'Match of The Day':
Gary Lineker introduces highlights of the day's eight matches in the Barclays Premier League.
Title-chasing Manchester United host a Birmingham side who have lost their last nine visits to Old Trafford without scoring a goal, while Arsenal's match against visiting Wigan has also traditionally been a home banker - the Gunners had won all eight previous meetings in north London.
Airing Details: 10:15 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 46 Episode 31
Episode Name: EPISODE: 31
Gary Lineker introduces highlights of the day's eight matches in the Barclays Premier League.
Title-chasing Manchester United host a Birmingham side who have lost their last nine visits to Old Trafford without scoring a goal, while Arsenal's match against visiting Wigan has also traditionally been a home banker - the Gunners had won all eight previous meetings in north London.
Airing Details: 10:15 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 46 Episode 31
Episode Name: EPISODE: 31
The Tudors Season 4 Episode 1 Moment Of Nastalgia
Preview of 'The Tudors':
Historical drama series. August, 1540. A heatwave heightens the hidden passions of Henry's court as he reveals his marriage to Katherine Howard, a giddy girl who excites interest in others.
Airing Details: 9:45 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 4 Episode 1
Episode Name: Moment Of Nastalgia
Historical drama series. August, 1540. A heatwave heightens the hidden passions of Henry's court as he reveals his marriage to Katherine Howard, a giddy girl who excites interest in others.
Airing Details: 9:45 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC TWO Channel
Episode Details: Season 4 Episode 1
Episode Name: Moment Of Nastalgia
Casualty Season 25 Episode 21 Choose Your Illusion
Preview of 'Casualty':
Ruth's recent manic behaviour is exacerbated by the arrival of Katy, a mentally-ill patient. Will the gang be able to stop Ruth from taking drastic measures to cure her?
Airing Details: 8:50 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 25 Episode 21
Episode Name: Choose Your Illusion
Ruth's recent manic behaviour is exacerbated by the arrival of Katy, a mentally-ill patient. Will the gang be able to stop Ruth from taking drastic measures to cure her?
Airing Details: 8:50 PM on January 22nd, 2011 - Saturday
Channel: BBC One Channel
Episode Details: Season 25 Episode 21
Episode Name: Choose Your Illusion
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)