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NEWSLETTER

Updated: January 13, 2005

Happy January! Like many others, I’ve been suffering with a cold this past week. Can’t wait until it’s past – get well soon to all those out there also suffering the winter blahs! Please don’t forget that IRIE is still the happening spot to be. Another hot Monday this past week with lots of performances by our local talent – don’t miss out. The Irie vibe seems to make January a little easier to handle. Another hot spot - be sure to check out DeeKaye Ibomeka on one of the nights that he’s at Top of the Senator next weekend – he’s now working with Haydain Neale of Jacksoul! See details below.

The Fifth Annual When Sisters Speak Spoken Word Concert is this Saturday January 15^th. Tickets are on sale now through the St. Lawrence Centre Box office at 416.366.7723 or in person at 27 Front St. East. This is a very hot show so get those tickets today! Also on January 15^th is the Hot Steppers Bump ‘n Hustle at Rivoli, and all proceeds go towards tsunami relief. For those that know Catharine Saxberg, previously of Radio Starmaker, check out the SCOOP below! Great advice under MOTIVATION this week.

Check out the rest of the entertainment news below - MUSIC NEWS, FILM NEWS, TV NEWS, OTHER NEWS, and SPORTS NEWS!  Have a read and a scroll! This newsletter is designed to give you some updated entertainment-related news and provide you with our upcoming event listings.   Welcome to those who are new members.  Want your events listed by date?  Check out EVENTS. 

::HOT EVENTS::

DeeKaye Ibomeka at The Top O’ The Senator – January 20-23, 2005

Source: Wychwood Park Productions

(Jan 3, 2005) DeeKaye Ibomeka, Canada’s hottest rising young jazz singer, is returning to The Top O’ the Senator to play one last series of shows before recording his highly-anticipated debut album. This marks DeeKaye’s third engagement at this revered jazz venue since his headlining debut in February 2004.

The album in development, scheduled for a spring 2005 release, pairs DeeKaye with award-winning musician and producer Haydain Neale of Jacksoul (winner 2004 Songwriter of the Year, Urban Music Association of Canada; Juno Award 2000). The songs they are co-writing mark the beginning of a new direction for DeeKaye. From being recognized as one of the best new pure jazz voices to hit the scene in years his work is now heading into a fusion of jazz and soul with influences such as Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Joe Williams and Lou Rawls.

Backed by a hot quartet featuring Kevin Barrett, Davide Direnzo, George Koller, and Waylen Miki, the Senator performances will give audiences a preview of things to come: a few songs from the new album as well as a taste of DeeKaye's jazz repertoire with a new soul-infused twist. At six-foot-seven, this charismatic 24-year-old son of Nigerian immigrants possesses not only a towering frame, and commanding stage presence but also a larger-than-life three-octave voice.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20 – SUNDAY, JANUARY 23
DEEKAYE IBOMEKA
The Top O’ The Senator
249 Victoria Street
(Thursday through Saturday: shows at 9:30PM, Sunday show at 8:30PM)
Tickets are $15 (+tax) at the door
Dinner reservations can be made at 416.364.7517 8

Irie Mondays

Monday nights at IRIE continue their tradition.  What a great party AGAIN last week!  DJ Carl Allen spins every Monday!  Carl Cassell’s original art and IRIE itself will be featured in the January 2005 issue of Toronto Life (see excerpt below)!  Let Irie awaken your senses.  Irie Mondays continue – food – music – culture. Let Irie awaken your senses. Irie Mondays continue – food – music – culture.

MONDAY, JANUARY 17
IRIE MONDAYS
Irie Food Joint
745 Queen Street W.
10:00 pm

Irie in Toronto Life – January 2005 - Excerpt from Toronto Life - By James Chatto

Perhaps the most interesting place on the strip is Irie Food Joint. I first ate there last September when Greg Couillard was guest chef for a week and slaving merrily over a giant hardwood barbecue off the back patio. The night was hot, his food was as thrilling as ever, and I loved the Afro-Caribbean ambience—flaming torches, tribal masks, charming service and a pervasive mood so laid back it flirted with horizontal. The owner, Carl Cassell-sell, built most of Irie with his own hands, largely, he explained, as a space to exhibit his art. Was he responsible for those brooding charcoal portraits inside the restaurant? "Not charcoal," he said with a smile. "Look more closely." Cassell uses strands of synthetic hair applied to rice paper to build his pictures, then frames and lights them so that shadows are cast by the hair, adding depth. "Aren't they fabulous?" enthused Couillard. "I love this place. In fact, I'm going to extend my stay here indefinitely." Alas, it wasn't to be, A couple of weeks later, Cassell called to say Couillard had moved two doors east, to Habitat, taking Irie's two chefs with him. Cassell was admirably philosophical about the situation and assured me his jerk chicken was still the best in town. I went back to check out the claim and ended up agreeing with him. The breast and thigh were delectably moist, infused with the sweet heat of a rich, complex jerk sauce and the charring scent of the grill, cooled by a mango-pineapple salsa and perfectly textured rice and black-eyed peas. Studying the menu (printed in the round and glued to an old vinyl LP), I felt compelled to order festivals—sturdy, heavyweight cornmeal patties like the corn dogs sold at the Ex. A starter of peppered shrimp was less interesting, a slurry of soft little prawns, onions and cilantro with a perky chili heat.

::SCOOP::

Catharine Saxberg Leaves RadioStarmaker

Catharine Saxberg has moved on to other endeavours! As happy as I am for her, we will dearly miss her input and creativity at RadioStarmaker as she is such a huge artist activist and worked hard to get Canadian artists the funding they needed to have their careers move to that next level. Plus, Catharine went above and beyond and used her knowledge of the music industry to help shape the careers of many. Her advice was always available to anyone that asked. Catharine’s influence has encouraged and uplifted me on many occasions and I’m grateful for that. I’ll keep you posted on Catharine’s activities soon. In the meantime, Catharine can be reached at 416.465.1722 and her email (temporarily) is c_saxberg@hotmail.com.

::THOUGHT::

Motivational Note: Success Is Up To You!

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com - By Willie Jolley

In order to have a great new year... you must commit to becoming a great new you! Happy New Year! Do you want to do more this year than you did last year? Do you want to be more this year than you were last year? Do you want to make more money this year than you did last year? If you answered yes to these questions, then my next statement is that you must make the commitment to change more and become more, before you can achieve more! I have found that if you keep doing what you've been doing you will keep getting what you've been getting! You have to change! And that is why you must go into this new year with a commitment to become a new you. Einstein said that the thinking that brought you this far will not take you to the next level. You must think bigger and think bolder and do some different things and some things differently. Will it be easy? NO! Which is why so many start out with excitement at the first of the year and by February they are back at the same place as they started, except the excitement has disappeared. It won't be easy but it will be possible...and that is really all you need to get going! I encourage you to let go of the old and set out for a new you, and make this new year, a new jump off point for greater achievement! I know you can...so get ready to thrive in 2005!

::MUSIC NEWS::

Mark McLean: The Sound Of A Truly Different Drummer

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Mark Miller

(Jan. 6, 2005) It may seem like a contradiction in terms to suggest that a drummer could have a quietly successful career, indeed that a drummer could do anything quietly. And Mark McLean, the drummer in question, is not by preference a quiet drummer. But there's the 29-year-old Torontonian in New York playing with Andy Bey on the veteran singer's latest CD American Dream, which was recently nominated for a Grammy award. And there he is travelling internationally with Peter Cincotti, the young pianist and singer who has been hailed lately as the new Harry Connick. McLean also appears on most of Cincotti's new release, On the Moon, which was produced by Phil Ramone. And now Ramone's calling the drummer for other sessions. "I haven't been able to make any of them," McLean says, laughing. "But he called!"

And there's McLean standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Jay Leno backstage at The Tonight Show in Los Angeles and with Bill Cosby at the Newport Jazz Festival in photos that he has posted in rotation on the home page of http://www.markmclean.com. His bio on the site makes mention of performances with Oscar Peterson, Jane Bunnett, Dewey Redman and even the Backstreet Boys. In conversation -- over hot chocolate on a cold, wet, January Sunday at a Harbourfront coffee spot -- he adds Wynton Marsalis and Patti Austin to the list. McLean isn't name-dropping here. He seems to be as genuinely pleased and impressed as anyone else by the progress he has made since his first venture to New York in 1999. Five years later, going on six, he has an apartment in Brooklyn and returns to Toronto only for the holidays, for concerts with singer Molly Johnson and -- alongside his brother, Lester, a saxophonist -- club dates with the jazz-funk band Colour of Soul. Back home he's a rarity, one of the few African-Canadians of his generation who have been drawn to jazz, as opposed to reggae, funk or rap. Not that he has given the distinction much thought.

"Jazz was something I liked playing from an early age," he explains, "and I was focused on it. I never really thought about other black Canadians who were doing it, I just wanted to be with people who did it, regardless of their background." In McLean's case, though, the background is significant. His grandfather, Reggie McLean, was a pianist in Sydney, N.S., and Toronto during the 1930s; his great uncle, Cy McLean, also a pianist, had his own band in Toronto as early as 1937 and led Canada's only full-scale black orchestra during the Swing Era in the 1940s. Skip ahead one generation, and McLean, who played both piano and drums in high school, went through the jazz program at the University of Toronto in the late 1990s before heading south. It was in this period that he worked with Oscar Peterson. "It was very short," he remembers of his affiliation with the great Canadian pianist, just two or three concerts locally. No matter, he adds, "I was happy to get one." McLean made his first trip to New York in the hope of studying with the extraordinary drummer Brian Blade who, it transpired, didn't teach, but was willing to take the young Canadian under his wing personally. In time, McLean did have lessons with Kenny Washington, a bebop stylist of the old school, and with Billy Kilson, who -- like Blade -- has been radicalizing the drummer's role in jazz. This, perhaps, is the irony of McLean's quietly successful career. A drummer can't play in the explosive Blade/Kilson manner that's closest to McLean's heart when he, or she, is playing with the kind of performers -- in short, singers -- that have offered McLean such high-profile employment.

"That's a different discipline," he notes, of his work with Bey, Cincotti and Johnson. "There comes a point in the night where I can do my thing, but I can't do it the whole time." Not that he's complaining. Restraint, and the tension that goes with it, is as intrinsic to jazz as excess. Indeed, for McLean, that was the attraction of jazz in the first place. "There's an intensity that I can't really find in any other music. I think of some of the rock bands and funk bands that I like -- I'm zoning in on the drums here -- and you have to hit pretty hard to produce something that makes that music sound good. But there's an intensity about jazz; it can be so quiet -- yet so powerful." Blade and Kilson have proven as much. But they've also relocated "the top" in "over the top," a place that McLean plans to visit more and more often himself in the near future. Even as Cincotti's schedule is beginning to fill out impressively for 2005, McLean talks of projects in Toronto with saxophonist Kelly Jefferson and pianist David Braid; indeed, he's working with Jefferson at The Rex in Toronto on Saturday night. Of course, The Rex, with all due respect, is a long way from The Tonight Show -- a long way from having Leno clap an arm around your shoulders and smile for the camera. A young man's head could be turned by such company, and by the world beyond jazz that it -- together with Cincotti's burgeoning popularity, the Backstreet Boys and Austin -- represents.

McLean's head is not. "It is what it is," he says, almost casually, of his occasional brush with celebrity. "My primary concern is playing the drums, playing them as well as possible, and making the music feel good. Everything after that is secondary. There's a lot to be swept up in, but for me, I know what's real and what's not." Mark McLean plays with Kelly Jefferson at The Rex Hotel Jazz & Blues Bar, 194 Queen St. W., Toronto, on Saturday night (416-598-2475).

Avril To Perform In Relief Concert

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Campbell Clark

(Jan. 6, 2005) OTTAWA — A who's-who roster of Canadian musicians will headline two fundraising concerts to aid tsunami victims in Vancouver and Calgary including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies. The concerts, to be held at the end of January, may be the biggest of a host of benefits and donations being scratched together in the entertainment industry, including a CBC telethon also expected to feature major Canadian music acts. The Vancouver and Calgary benefit concerts, to be announced today, are the brainchild of Terry McBride, the president of Vancouver-based Nettwerk Records, who said he started planning just hours after the tsunami hit on Dec. 26 and had booked Vancouver's GM Place a week later. "People are coming back from their holidays and breaks and they're coming in to do this," Mr. McBride said. He said the reaction from the musicians was, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. It was 'tell me what I have to do.'" The Vancouver show, on Jan. 29 will include headliners Lavigne, McLachlan, Barenaked Ladies, singer Chantal Kreviazuk and her husband Raine Maida, of Our Lady Peace fame.

While Lavigne has not yet signed on for the Calgary concert, singer Bruce Cockburn is scheduled to appear at that show at Calgary's Saddledome on Jan 31. Proceeds from the show will go to Oxfam, Care Canada, Doctors Without Borders, and War Child. Those concerts are likely to follow a concert-telethon being organized by MuchMusic executive Denise Donlon and expected to be televised on the CBC. Author Margaret Atwood was instrumental in putting together that event -- she received a call from a politician in Ottawa she would not name, and contacted singer Molly Johnson to try to start the ball rolling. "I'm just a go-between," Atwood said yesterday, joking that she will not be singing. She said that she and other well-known Canadians have offered to appear as telethon presenter. Other donations from the Canadian entertainment industry have also been announced. CHUM Ltd., CBC, CTV, The Globe and Mail and music celebrities from Anne Murray to Jann Arden and Tom Cochrane are stepping forward to help raise money. The 32 radio and 33 television stations of CHUM partnered with the Canadian Red Cross to designate yesterday as Disaster Relief Day. Viewers and listeners were urged to call a toll-free number (1-800-810-1408) that will remain open for the next week. On-line donations were also welcomed at http://www.redcross.ca/chum.

The radio stations' day-long drive included hourly public-service announcements and interviews with Red Cross staff. There were also radio and TV appearances by Arden, Cochrane, Murray McLauchlan and the Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson, among others. "Over the holidays, a few of us got together and thought it might be a good idea to put the forces of radio and television together and do what we could," said Paul Ski, CHUM's executive vice-president for radio. CTV and The Globe and Mail announced a corporate contribution of $75,000 to the Red Cross on Tuesday. CHUM also announced a corporate donation of $100,000 to the Red Cross to kick off its relief initiative. As of noon yesterday, $750,000 had been raised from public donations. "Our intention [is] really just to let all of our listeners and viewers know this is an easy way to contribute," said CHUM Radio Ottawa vice-president and general manager Chris Gordon, adding that CHUM never thought of setting a financial goal. "We're just hoping people hear the message and respond."

In an interview on CHUM's CablePulse 24 news channel, Cochrane conceded that in the weeks ahead, donor fatigue will set in but that more money will still be needed. "It's not going to be a problem that's going to go away in two or three weeks," the singer said. "It's a natural disaster, but if one person dies because of disease or because of malnutrition because of this, then shame on us." CBC Radio is planning a disaster-relief special for today. The network's morning shows are to provide news from the sites of the tsunami disaster as well as updates on how Canadians can help. In addition, discussions are under way for a special CBC-TV broadcast, possibly on Jan. 13, that may be simulcast on the radio network as well. Meanwhile, singer Anne Murray has made a "generous" donation to Care Canada, which bills itself as the country's leading non-sectarian international humanitarian organization. Spokeswoman Melanie Brooks said from Ottawa that the staff was stunned when Murray called. "She was just saying how touched she was and how impressed she was by Canadians' generosity and how she was happy to do whatever she could to help." Brooks said the Canadian singing icon told them to keep up the great work. "Everybody was just practically jumping, we were so excited," she said, adding that Murray had chosen Care Canada because "she heard we did good work."

A Look At Favourite Albums of 2004

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com - By Janine Coveney

(Jan. 11, 2005) Happy New Year to you all. Now that the hustle and bustle of the holidays is over, Smooth Grooves is attempting to get back on track. First up, I'd like to share the jazzy albums that made me smile in 2004.  And one on the list comes with an apology! Perhaps you enjoyed these albums as well:

1. Al Jarreau, Accentuate The Positive (Verve/GRP).

One of the most distinctive and inventive voices in pop returned to his jazzy roots and delivered one of the most imaginative, satisfying vocal performances of his career.

2. Regina Belle, Lazy Afternoon (Peak/Concord).

A long-time fan of Tony Bennett, Regina undertakes several classic tunes from the Bennett songbook as well as some other soul and pop favourites and makes them glow. With George Duke providing the stellar, live musical underpinnings, Regina sounds more free and clear than she has in years. Awesome.

3. Anita Baker, My Everything (Blue Note).

I owe this lady--and Smooth Groove readers--an apology. At first my jaded, been-there-heard-that ears could not grasp the significance and sheer charm of this blessed end to her ten-year recording hiatus. I don't know what I was expecting from Ms. Baker, but I had set the bar out near Pluto. With repeated listenings, My Everything has become one of my favourites. The smoke, the fire, the commitment of Anita's voice, her distinctive phrasing, the songs custom-fitted to who she is today -- all of it makes the project a delight.

4. Russ Freeman and David Benoit, Benoit-Freeman Project 2 (Peak/Concord). I've always loved David Benoit's melodic imagination and rich harmonies on piano, and somehow his second pairing in ten years with the more commercial-leaning smooth jazz guitarist Russ Freeman inspired them both to explore new musical horizons that bring out the best in their musicianship. The album is a mellow, sensual, Latin-infused collection that will lull your brain and caress your ears. You won't even blink when country star Vince Gill shows up with a cool big band vocal. All that's needed: A mai tai and a sunset.

5. Wayne Henderson & the Jazz Crusaders, Soul Axess (D.Y.M.E. Ltd.).  If you love the classic recordings by the original Crusaders -- and who doesn't -- the first few tracks on this collection will make you very happy indeed. Henderson's command of the trombone as well as his eclectic musical choices haven't dimmed with time. The album gets bogged down with vocals and some misguided hip-hop tunes toward the end, but his Latinized version of Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed" and his own "Clima Suave" and "Trail Of The Sidewinder" makes this worthwhile indeed. Jean Carne, Philip Ingram, Roy Ayers, Wilton Felder, Ronnie Laws, Everette Harp, Bobby Lyle; and  Nathan East also guest.

6. Lalah Hathaway, Outrun The Sky. Girlfriend could sing the listings in the phonebook and I would be happy. Fortunately she lavishes her vocal gifts on a selection of original tunes about love, life, wishes for the future, and glimpses at the past. She gives a little dancefloor flavour on "Your Favourite Song," gets whimsical on the title song, and testifies to love on "Better And Better" and the dreamy "More." The only cover here is her version of Luther Vandross' "Forever, For Always, For Love," which she sings in the same key as Luther's original. That is a dollop of soul sauce, for real, and a stellar showcase of her top-notch interpretive skills.

7. Chaka Khan, ClassiKhan (Sanctuary Records). This recording with the London Symphony Orchestra is stunning on many levels. First, Khan makes some unusual song choices, bestowing new lyrics on "Hey Big Spender," personalizing Peggy Lee's "Is That All There Is," and putting a feminist spin on "Hazel's Hips." Second, she unleashes That Voice and truly shines on "The Best Is Yet To Come," the Shirley Bassey James Bond themes "Diamonds Are Forever" and "Goldfinger," and shares heartfelt advice on the tender original tune "I Believe." And third, the glorious big band musical arrangements will blow your hair back. Please, ma'am, may we have some more?

8. Bobby Lyle, Straight & Smooth (Three Keys Entertainment). This man is phenomenally talented on piano, and he demonstrates his diversity in the smooth jazz and straight ahead arenas on this daring two-disc set, which became the first recording to be listed on both of Billboard's jazz charts. Truly a class act, Lyle proves that old school expertise and inventive wisdom never go out of style.

9. Teena Marie, La Dona (Cash Money/Universal). I defy you to tell me that Lady Tee isn't jazzy in her own way; we already know she's got soul. Skip the silly Godfather spoken intro and get right to the meat of the matter, including the singles "Still In Love" and her duet with Gerald Levert on "A Rose By Any Other Name." Her tune "Baby I'm Your Fiend" manages to recall vintage Roy Ayers, and her attempts at contemporary hip-hop styles and topics -- including the Tupac ode "Makaveli Never Lied," "The Mackin' Game," and "I Got You" with the late Rick James -- still manage a modicum of smooth sophistication.

10. Calypsociation, The Passage (Heads Up International). American steel pan player Andy Narell, who has recorded with the Caribbean Jazz Project as well as the French-Caribbean jazz quartet Sakesho, learned everything he could about the Caribbean's best-known musical export and has been perfecting and teaching his craft in Paris. On this recording, he gathered his French students to perform original tunes composed for steel pan orchestra. Maybe it's my own Caribbean background responding, but it's thrilling to hear a score of steel pans spinning out intricate melodies that move beyond traditional calypso. Hugh Masekela, Michael Brecker, and Paquito D'Rivera guest.

Honourable Mentions: Various, Hidden Beach Presents Unwrapped, Volume 3; Brenda Russell, Between The Moon & The Sky; Harvey Mason, With All My Heart; Incognito, Adventures In Black Sunshine; Ronny Jordan, After 8; Karrin Allyson, Wild For You; Queen Latifah, The Dana Owens Album; Everette Harp, All For You; Various Artists, Rendezvous Lounge.     Sentimental Favourites: Ray Charles, Genius Loves Company and Various Artists, Forever, For Always, For Luther.   In 2005 I'm looking forward to what the feedback will be for David Sanborn's new Closer, due January 11th,  Jason Miles' new Miles Davis-themed Miles To Miles: In The Spirit Of Miles Davis, and George Duke's forthcoming Trust, set for February. And please let the new A Time 2 Love album from Stevie Wonder be great!

Producers Trakstarz Sign With Blackground

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 7, 2005) *Multi-platinum hit-makers The TrakStarz (Sham and Zo) have entered into a joint-venture label deal with Barry Hankerson's Blackground Records  (JoJo, Toni Braxton, Tank, and the late Aaliyah), distributed by Universal. The deal allows for TrakStarz to sign artists to their own label, TrakStarz Records, as well as put out their own solo disc in 2005. In addition to the new deal with Blackground, the TrakStarz have ongoing song deals with both Interscope and Capitol Records, home of multi-platinum TrakStarz discovery Chingy. “The TrakStarz have shown an incredible ability to recognize fresh talent and to partner with those artists to create a unique sound,” says Blackground Records CEO Barry Hankerson. “Signing them to their own label deal made perfect sense and we are very excited to work with Sham and Zo as artists, producers, and label executives." "Working with Barry and Blackground Records to run our own label is a dream come true for us. For a long time, producers weren't given credit for breaking artists and setting the tone for their careers, so it's exciting for us as producers to officially step in as label executives," Zo of The TrakStarz says. Sham adds, "Blackground Records has given us an incredible opportunity to do what we've always wanted to do - discover and develop acts as well as work on our own solo project." In addition to producing Chingy's debut album “Jackpot,” and a majority of his follow-up “Powerballin,” the dynamic duo has worked with Houston (hit single "I Like That"), Ludacris ("Splash Waterfalls" remix, "Gold Digger" from the “Shark Tale” soundtrack), I-20, and have done remixes for JoJo, Britney Spears ("Me Against The Music" Remix), and more. They have recently worked with Twista, Juvenile, David Banner, Janet Jackson, and more, with much more to come in 2005.

Nas Talks Religion, Rakim And Tupac

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 7, 2005) *Nas recently spoke with Sean Couch of the Associated Press about a number of topics while promoting his latest album, “Street's Disciple.” Here are a few excerpts:

AP: What's the meaning of your album artwork, which shows you playing every part in the Last Supper?

Nas: The concept was developed by (producer) Salaam Remi and myself, it represents all the sides of me as a street warrior.

AP: What was your main religious influence, your denomination growing up?

Nas: I was surrounded by Christians ... my grandmothers, all my family was from the South, Baptist. As I got older I got into the 5 Percent Nation, and then that pushed me toward Islam. But (I'm not any) religion.

AP: Would you consider yourself agnostic?

Nas: I consider myself (pauses) I know there's a higher power.

AP: The sequence of your new double album is almost like the New Testament with 27 chapters. Your album has 27 songs. Coincidence?

Nas: I'm a storyteller and the Bible is a bunch of stories about life and things that took place here on planet earth. It's a great example to use and a great reason to be happy about being a storyteller because the lessons of the land are always in stories. I didn't want to bore people so a lot of the records I party to are more slammin', more knockin'. This album is not an album that knocks, it's really a storytelling knock from beginning to end. Disc one which is one story and the second disc completes the story both imaginative and personal.

AP: One of your lyrics in your first record, "Halftime," reads, "Cause when it's time to go, I wait for God wit' the .44." What do you think about that statement now, in the context of this new album?

Nas: That's one of Tupac's favourite lines, he used to scream that line out to me in a rage back in '93, Pac was feeling that line and that stuck with me.

AP: Talk about your new "Unauthorized Biography" song and your feelings for Rakim.

Nas: He's one of the artists who never got what he deserved for his art, which has made a lot of hip-hop fans angry, because we did not see our heroes of that era become the heroes of today (who have) just a pinky of the talent Rakim had. It's hard for me to deal with that. When I go to the bookstores they have books on artists that are not important to hip-hop. ... I'm a reader, so when I go to bookstores I need (stuff) that's going to help me. There a big emptiness there and I want to help fill that through song.

Caribbean Shining Star Entries Extended, Auditions Announced

Source: Jo-Ann Geffen /  JAG Entertainment / jgeffen@jagpr.com

(St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.) --- Due to the overwhelming interest in the first competition in which Caribbean performers from around the world vie to become the Caribbean Shining Star, entries have been extended and live auditions will take place on each of the nine islands where competitions will take place.  The eligible musical categories are Calypso / Soca, Reggae / Dancehall, Meringue / Salsa / Reggaetone, and Zouke.  The entry can be on audio cassette, DAT, CD or any other widely accepted format, or performed live   at local auditions.  Details for entries and live auditions are found by visiting www.caribbeanshiningstar.com. Eight of the 15-39 year old contestants will compete on each of the 9 Caribbean islands and the winner from each live competition, judged on vocal performance as well as stage presence and presentation, will then compete in the Finals on St. Thomas U.S.V.I. on June 12, 2005. All  ten of the competitions will be televised internationally and will  feature well-known celebrities both as performers and as guest judges. Each competition will be part of a weekend festival on each of the islands, featuring a concert with top name entertainment.  WBLS radio superstar Wendy Williams is set to host the shows. The first competition takes place on January 30, 2005 at the Reichhold Center for the Arts on St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.  That weekend’s festivities will commence with a concert starring Alicia Keys, Wyclef Jean, Gerald Levert, Beenie Man, and more at Lionel Roberts Stadium on Friday, January 28, 2005. This is by far the biggest concert to ever be hosted by the U.S. Virgin Islands. The weekend will be rounded out with a beach party starring Lady Saw. The winner of the Caribbean Shining Star competition will receive a recording contract and will be produced by renowned producers.

Bob Marley Will Make Exodus To Ethiopia

Source: Associated Press, Anthony Mitchell

(Jan. 12, 2005) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The wife of reggae star Bob Marley said today that she plans to exhume his remains in Jamaica and rebury them in his "spiritual resting place," Ethiopia. The reburial is set for February when celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Marley's birth anniversary are planned in Ethiopia. Both the Ethiopian church and government officials have expressed support for the project, Rita Marley told The Associated Press. "We are working on bringing his remains to Ethiopia," said Rita, a former backing singer for Marley's band, The Wailers. "It is part of Bob's own mission." Marley was born in St. Ann, Jamaica, in 1945. He died of cancer in 1981. Rita Marley said her husband would be reburied in Shashemene, 250 kilometres south of Addis Ababa where several hundred Rastafarians have lived since they were given land by Ethiopia's last emperor, Haile Selassie. Hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans embraced Haile as their living god and head of the Rastafarian religious movement. Marley was a devout Rastafarian, a faith whose followers preach a oneness with nature, grow their hair into long matted strands called dreadlocks and smoke marijuana as a sacrament. "Bob's whole life is about Africa, it is not about Jamaica," said Rita, a Cuban-born singer who married Marley in 1966. "How can you give up a continent for an island? He has a right for his remains to be where he would love them to be. This was his mission. Ethiopia is his spiritual resting place," she said. "With the 60th anniversary this year, the impact is there and the time is right." Together with the African Union and the U.N. children's agency, Rita Marley has organized celebrations in Ethiopia, including a concert on Marley's birthday, Feb. 6, to be held in Addis Ababa. The month-long celebration, dubbed Africa Unite after one of Marley's songs, aims to raise funds to help poor families in Ethiopia. The Marley Family, Senegal's Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour, Angelique Kidjo of Benin and other African and reggae artists will perform as part of the $1 million program. The event is expected to be broadcast in Africa and beyond.

Damon Talks To EUR’s Lee Bailey About Life Beyond Roc-A-Fella

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 8, 2005) *Now that the dust has settled surrounding the sale of Roc-A-Fella records to Universal’s Island Def Jam, the company’s CEO Damon Dash is focused on reaching his insatiable tentacles into various enterprises outside of the music biz. As previously reported, in early December, Universal bought the 50 percent of Roc-A-Fella it didn’t already own for a total price of $35 million, not the $10 million published in previous reports. In 1997, Roc-A-Fella sold a 50 percent stake to Universal's Island Def Jam for $1.5 million. Universal had an option to buy the stake, which would have come due last summer. Roc-A-Fella is now folded into Island Def Jam as a small-imprint label. With the drama of the transition behind him, Dash can now focus on his other projects – the Dash-directed film “State Property Pt. 2,” due in May; the Roc Box MP3  player, in stores now; the magazine “America,” in stores now with Usher  on the cover; and of course, the clothing line Roc-A-Wear. There’s also still a label to run, although Dash’s enthusiasm behind the Roc-A-Fella name has fizzled – now that he no longer owns it.  EUR’s Lee Bailey caught up with the hip hop mogul to talk specifics about the status of Roc-A-Fella, plus ODB’s final album, his answer to the iPod, and the drive that keeps all of these projects afloat.

Lee Bailey: SO WHAT EXACTLY IS THE STATUS OF ROC-A-FELLA?

Damon Dash: Roc-A-Fella’s been bought, sorta like when Interscope got bought by Universal, or when Def Jam got bought by Universal as well. It’s a lot of the same thing. We’ll still be on hand to run a lot of the artist’s projects, and starting a new situation within the Universal system. 

LB: WHY SELL THE LABEL IN THE FIRST PLACE?

DD: It’s run its course. We had a certain formula to which we could make a certain amount of money. We captured that formula. We actually sold the label three years ago and we just extended it for a couple of years.  The extension was up and now it’s time to move on and we have the opportunity to make more money. 

LB: WILL YOU STILL WORK WITH ROC-A-FELLA ARTISTS?

DD: Therre’s a select few from Roc-A-Fella that I’ll still be involved with, like Beanie Sigel, Camron, Noreaga, Joe Budden, and then there’s a new situation that we’re working out now where I’ll put out new artists, such as Nicole Wray, M.O.P., and artists like that.  So I still have 10, 12 artists’ projects that I have to supervise. 

LB: SO WHAT’S THE DEAL BETWEEN YOU AND JAY-Z?

DD: Jay and I are fine, it’s just business, you know, I don’t know why within the hip hop industry, it has to be perceived as some kind of beef just because we’ve come to the end of a business relationship.  And that’s really all it is. Jay and I are still cool, it’s just time for us to do new and different things. We’ve all evolved.  I do a lot of things in the music industry, I do a lot of things in the movie industry, the liquor industry, technology, I direct movies, I have magazines – “America” magazine – no one wants to be pigeonholed into doing only one thing. Quite frankly, there’s not enough money in the music business to just only do things in the music business – for me, anyway.

LB: WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ODB’S ESTATE AND THE RELEASE OF HIS NEW ALBUM ON ROC-A-FELLA?

DD: All I know, as far as his estate goes, is that we have the rights for his next album, which is completed. And really, that’s it. 

LB: WHAT ABOUT THE ODB ALBUM THAT HIS MOTHER CHERRY JONES AND MANAGER JARED WEISFELD ARE RELEASING UNDER NEW LABEL JC (JARED CHERRY) RECORDS?

DD: That’s a mixtape that I approved while Ol’ Dirty Bastard was still living, and it’s just a mixtape of freestyles. I like to allow my artists to do other interesting things, so that situation was something that was already negotiated and taken care of long before he had passed away.

LB: WHAT PROMPTED THIS JUMP INTO THE DIGITAL MUSIC FIELD WITH THE ROC BOX, AND HOW WILL YOU COMPETE WITH THE IPOD?

DD: I’m always the underdog.  Being that I’m an objective consumer and I’m at the forefront of my culture, which is the hip hop culture, I think I can fix several things that bother me about the iPod – like the way it looks, the life of the battery, the clip, the volume levels of control, how you download content – but at the same time, promote it in a very subtle way. Basically what I’m selling is a lifestyle. We felt like we make the music, we might as well have interesting ways to sell it.  I felt like we should get into the technology field, so when the opportunity presented itself, we capitalized. 

LB: WHERE DID ALL THIS DRIVE COME FROM?

DD: I grew up in a lot of different kinds of dynamics. I’ve been in very extreme circumstances. I grew up in Harlem, but I went to boarding school, I went to private school, so I got to see two very diverse worlds, and I knew I could survive in both.  There are a lot of things that I want, and I just don’t limit myself to one thing. I want everything that I can see. I wanna experience life, and the only way to do that is to work hard. So I guess every time an opportunity presents itself, I just capitalize. 

Latin Legends join the Fujitsu Jazz Festival in a Tribute to Paquito D'Rivera

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com - By Deardra Shuler

(Jan. 6, 2005) The Latin Community and all lovers of Latino music will be delighted to know that Paquito D’Rivera will be celebrating and hosting the show “50 Years and 10 Nights of Show Business” on January 10th at Carnegie Hall, located at 881 Seventh Avenue (57th Street) for the FuJitsu Jazz Festival’s Tribute to Paquito D’Rivera.  The star-studded program which starts at 8:00 p.m., will be packed with Paquito’s musical friends and promises that special Latin flavour that is sure to be a musical extravaganza. "50 Years and 10 Nights of Show Business" - A Tribute to Paquito D’Rivera is presented by Fujitsu and produced by Pat Philips and Ettore Stratta.  Many of the great artists who have taken part in Paquito's musical career will surround him at his Carnegie Hall 'party' including legendary Cuban pianist Bebo Valdes; Superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma; Dominican Jazz pianist Michel Camilo; Brazilian vocal songstress Rosa Passos; Extraordinary vibist Dave Samuels with Andy Narell on Steelpan.  Other legendary musicians include Cuban percussionist, CANDIDO; Vocal ensemble The New York Voices; Top Brazilian trumpeter Claudio Roditi; Brazilian guitar virtuoso Romero Lubambo; Argentine piano master Pablo Ziegler; and renowned Cuban bass player, Cachao. Cuban born native, Paquito D’Rivera, received a musical instrument as a first gift from his Dad, Tito.  It was a beautifully curved soprano saxophone.  Paquito took to the instrument immediately and by the following year, at age 6, debuted at a party celebrating the end of his academic school year.  He performed the ‘Habanera Tu,’ a beautiful piece written by Cuban composer Eduardo Sanchez.  The rest is history!

Although D’Rivera’s father, Tito, was also a musician, he made his livelihood in the heart of Havana, Cuba, selling instruments, books, and musical accessories.  Tito made many friends, including musical ones.  It was not unusual for young Paquito to see musicians such as Cachao, Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill, Bebo Valdes, Chocolate Armenteros, Ernesto Lecuona and many others visiting his father.  These artists impacted Paquito greatly.  The RCA phonograph sitting in his father’s tiny office and textbooks from the conservatory of Paris helped initiate Paquito's musical style via elements of the French school method created by Marcel Mule. But it was a 1938 recording of Benny Goodman performing at Carnegie Hall with Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa, Harry James, Teddy Wilson, etc., that made the young Paquito long to come to New York.  Impressed by his son’s talent, Tito exposed his son to many composers and various styles which eventually led to Paquito securing work on radio and TV, in theatres and in nightclubs.  At the time, Paquito was probably the "smallest saxophonist in the world." Also adding spice to the party will be dancers Manuel Amargo and las Hemanas Marques; Columbian Virtuoso Harpist Edmar Castaneda; Soprano Brenda Feliciano; The Youth Orchestra of the Americas; and Conductors Pablo Zinger and Tania Leon. D’Rivera’s band comprised of Alon Yavni on piano; Bassists Oscar Stagnaro and Sergio Brandao; Mark Walker and Portinho on drums; Pernell Saturnino on percussion and Ralph Irizarry on Timbales are sure to rock the house. Mr. D’Rivera is also being honoured with the NEA Jazz Master Award (one of the most prestigious honours in the Jazz world) at the IAJE Conference in January.  Ironically, it’s being held the same week as the Tribute Concert. What a week for Paquito D’Rivera…and one well deserved! Paquito, in his endearing and humorous way, will host the event -- telling stories and performing with most of the above mentioned talent.  The vivacious performer will treat audiences to a variety of music including Jazz, Latin Jazz, Brazilian music, Tango, Classical, and Pop (Gershwin) showing the depth of his improvisational skills.  He will regale the audience with a night’s entertainment imbued with fabulous music, humour, stories, rhythms of Latin America and Jazz, and just plain fun. Paquito D’Rivera is one of the most beloved artists in the business of music.  Paquito’s rise out of Cuban isolation as a young man enabled him to forge a profession in America as a saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, arranger and conductor and led to musical stardom.  He has performed the world over as a who's who in music and continues to do so.  His admiration of Astor Piazzolla, Paco de Lucia, the lyricist Jose Antonio Mendez, and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim is reflected in his style and taste as well as his rhythmic abilities and improvisational skills.  There is no doubt Paquinto is a musical genius. 

Those fans interested in learning more about the Latin artist can purchase Paquito D’Rivera’s autobiography, "My Sax Life" which will be coming out this spring published by Northwestern University Press.  However, in the meantime, fans can join Paquito and friends for a wonderful evening of Latin music and tribute on January 10th at Carnegie Hall. Sponsors of the event include: Fujitsu Limited, Continental Airlines, Chivas Regal Scotch Whisky, Jacob’s Creek Wines from Australia, Chesky Records, The Buckingham Hotel at 57th Street and 6th Avenue, The Village Voice and WBGO 88.3 fm. Tickets can be purchased at the Carnegie Hall Box office and/or Carnegie Charge at (212) 247-7800.

Rock Star Reality Show To Hold Auditions In T.O.

Source: Canadian Press

(Jan. 6, 2005) The hunt to replace INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence is coming to Toronto. Auditions will take place Feb. 4 at the Mod Club as part of a worldwide search courtesy of reality TV honcho Mark Burnett of Survivor fame. Those that make it past the talent scouts will live together in Hollywood and compete live each week for viewer votes. Wannabe rock stars must be 21 or older to audition. The competition is open to men and women. Candidates will be asked to sing up to three songs, according to rules posted on the band's website, http://www.inxs.com. Titled Rock Star, the CBS show is expected to air this summer. Hutchence hanged himself with a belt in a Sydney hotel room in 1997. He was 37. The band has tried several times to move on without their well-known front man. In past years Jimmy Barnes and Terence Trent D'Arby have stepped in as guest singers. INXS gained worldwide fame with their 1987 album Kick, which featured the chart-topping Need You Tonight.

Q-Tip Signs With Motown

Excerpt from www.billboard.com - Jonathan Cohen and Carolyn Horwitz, N..Y.

(Jan. 11, 2005) Q-Tip has signed a worldwide deal with Universal/Motown as a solo artist. The hip-hop star, who rose to prominence as a member of A Tribe Called Quest, is working on a new album. Q-Tip was most recently signed to DreamWorks but never released an album for the label. Previously, he was aligned with Arista, which released his solo debut, "Amplified," in 1999, a year after A Tribe Called Quest disbanded. The artist recorded another album for Arista, the jazz/soul influenced "Kamaal the Abstract," but the intended spring 2002 release was shelved. Of late, Q-Tip has played a handful of shows with A Tribe Called Quest, but plans for a new studio album have not moved beyond the discussion phase. The rapper can be heard on "Galvanize," the first single from the Chemical Brothers' upcoming Astralwerks album, "Push the Button," as well as the track "The Outsiders" from R.E.M.'s latest Warner Bros. album, "Around the Sun."

Alicia Keys Launches ‘Diary Tour’

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 11, 2005) *Alicia Keys will expose her “Diary” across 34 cities in a new tour promoting her Grammy-nominated sophomore CD “The Diary of Alicia Keys.”  The singer will rock “intimate venues” across the country, beginning Feb. 25 in Miami and wrapping April 23 in New Jersey. "This tour is going to be completely different — completely classy, edgy and fun," Keys told The Associated Press Monday. "Having a setting of maybe 4,000 makes it so much more special and intimate." Among other “surprises” planned for the tour is a performance of her verse from “My Boo,” which she will incorporate into another song.  "It's going to be like a minimovie when it's all done," she said. Next on Keys’ performance calendar is a Feb. 6 stop at the Super Bowl pre-game show in Jacksonville, and the Grammy Awards show in Los Angeles on Feb. 13. Stops on her tour will include Los Angeles (March 16-17), Atlanta (April 6-7) and Radio City Music Hall in New York (April 22-23).

Motown Favourites Eyed For Remixes

Excerpt from www.billboard.com - Michael Paoletta, N.Y.

(Jan. 6, 2005) Remix pioneer Tom Moulton has been busy revisiting nuggets from the Motown vaults. One or two of these may find their way onto "Motown Remixed," a collection the label is releasing March 29. Thus far, Moulton has remixed the Commodores' "Three Times a Lady," the Miracles' "Do It Baby" (post-Smokey Robinson) and the Supremes' "Stoned Love." "Too often, the instruments on these older songs were recorded without much care," Moulton tells Billboard. "You listen to the master tapes and it is not uncommon to hear things recorded in a sloppy manner or to hear lots of noise in the mix. So, I do what I think needs to be done." While Harry Weinger, VP of A&R at Universal Music Enterprises and producer of "Motown Remixed" would not confirm which, if any, of Moulton's remixes will make the final track list, he does confirm the following selections: Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" (remixed by Paul Simpson & Miles Dalto), the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" (Z-Trip) and Eddie Kendricks' "Keep on Truckin' " (DJ Spinna). Also tipped for inclusion are the Supremes' "My World Is Empty Without You" (Tranzition) and Smokey Robinson's "Quiet Storm" (Rafe Gomez & David Baron), which features the legendary vibes man Roy Ayers.

Baby Cham Makes Turns On Billboard

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com - By Kevin Jackson

(Jan. 7, 2005) Dancehall deejay Baby Cham is back on the Billboard R&B/Hip Hop Singles & Tracks chart.  His collaboration Turnin Me On featuring Nina Sky and which is featured on the Black Chiney label’s Kopa rhythm, debuted at number 74 on the most recent Billboard tally.   For Nina Sky, it’s the duo’s third entry on that chart. Their biggest hit to date on that listing has been Move Ya Body which peaked at number 14 last year. Baby Cham’s Vitamin S released through Atlantic Records a year ago stalled at number 56 on Billboard’s R&B Singles & Tracks chart.

Billboard Bits: BET's "Celebration of Gospel"

Excerpt from www.billboard.com - Carla Hay, N.Y.

(Jan. 12, 2005) Yolanda Adams, Ruben Studdard, Kirk Franklin, BeBe Winans and Fantasia are among the performers set for BET's "Celebration of Gospel" concert special, which the network will air Feb. 24 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The show will take place Jan. 22 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. Other performers at the event will include Donnie McClurkin, Smokie Norful, Mary Mary, Fred Hammond, Shirley Caesar, BET host Dr. Bobby Jones, the Clark Sisters and Kiki Sheard. BET, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is also planning an all-star anniversary special to be held sometime in November and air as a two-hour special.

Jay-Z Signs Foxy To Def Jam

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 12, 2005) *Def Jam’s new president Jay-Z has made his first executive decision. Foxy Brown, once rumoured to have been Jigga’s first artist on a planned S. Carter imprint, is now the first rapper signed to Def Jam in the label’s new Hova era. In 2001, Def Jam released her album “Broken Silence,” followed by a project called “Ill Nana 2: The Fever,” which was never released. Since leaving Def Jam shortly after “Fever,” she’s been recording material for an LP tentatively titled “Black Roses,” featuring guest spots from Barrington Levy, Dido and Luther Vandross, according to MTV. Other projects to be released under Jay-Z include records from 112, Mariah Carey and Memphis Bleek.

::CD RELEASES::

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Diane Warren, Presents Love Songs, WEA International
Sarah McLachlan, Touch/Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, BMG International
Sarah McLachlan, Surfacing/Solace, BMG International
The Doobie Brothers, Minute By Minute, Audio Fidelity
The Mamas & The Papas, Gold, Geffen
Destiny's Child, Destiny Fulfilled [Bonus Tracks], Sony International
Dionne Warwick, Love Songs [Arista], Arista
Donna Summer, Gold, Hip-O
Gladys Knight & The Pips, Love Songs [Buddha], Buddha
Johnny Gill, Love Songs, Motown
Marvin Gaye, Gold [Motown], Motown
Percy Sledge/Eddie Floyd/Clarence Carter, Soul Troubadours, Fuel 2000
Ray Charles, Brother Ray's Blues, Synergy
Ray Charles, Live at the Olympia 2000, Mk2 Music France
Smokey Robinson, For Lovers, Motown
The Neville Brothers, Very Best Of, Snapper Music Group
The Temptations, Gold, Motown
Various Artists, R&B Years 1948, Boulevard UK
Various Artists, R&B Years 1949, Boulevard UK

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Hall & Oates, Our Kind of Soul [Bonus Track], JVC Japan
Nellie McKay, Get Away from Me, Sony Japan
Satellites, Hashish, Dionysus
The O'Jays, Message in Our Music: The Best of the O'Jays, Music Club International
The Platters, Great Platters, Rajon
The Velvelettes, Motown Anthology, Universal International

::FILM NEWS::

B.C. Film Industry Seeks Tax Credit Boost

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Peter Kennedy

(Jan. 11, 2005) VANCOUVER -- British Columbia's billion-dollar film industry is looking to the provincial government to counter improved tax credits in Ontario and Quebec that are already luring productions eastward. Brightlight Pictures Inc., one of B.C.'s most active film production companies, said it plans to switch new film projects to Ontario to take advantage of the more favourable tax climate there. Other companies are expected to follow unless the B.C. government moves quickly to match Quebec and Ontario by raising tax credits on foreign film productions, industry players say. "The thing about this industry is that money is portable," said Stephen Hegyes, co-owner of Brightlight Pictures, producer of White Noise, a new horror film starring Michael Keaton. Mr. Hegyes said he was talking to a production team in New Zealand last week that already knew about changes to the tax rules in Central Canada. "I was two minutes into the phone call before they said, 'Well, is it possible to shoot the film in Ontario instead of B.C. so that we get the extra percentages?' " B.C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen said he is aware of the industry's concerns about Ontario's decision in December to raise its tax credit on foreign productions to 18 per cent from 11 per cent, and is studying the situation. Quebec followed Ontario's lead by raising its labour tax credit on foreign productions to 20 per cent from 11 per cent last month.

The B.C. film industry is now waiting to see whether Mr. Hansen will agree to raise the province's existing labour tax credit on foreign productions from the existing 11 per cent. But in an interview yesterday, Mr. Hansen said he wanted to avoid what he called a "knee-jerk reaction" to what other provinces have done. "We want to analyze it and decide how we can most effectively support the industry." Mr. Hegyes said the province needs to move quickly. "While we wait, we are going to have to [switch] movies to better conditions until we know what is going on with the B.C. tax credit," he said. Blessed with its diverse geography, mild climate and proximity to Los Angeles, British Columbia remains North America's third-largest production centre behind Los Angeles and New York. But increased competition from other provinces comes as the B.C. industry is being hit hard by the rising stronger dollar and the growth in popularity of reality television shows. Film sector payroll spending in the province is expected to be down by about 30 per cent in 2004 compared with the previous year, B.C. Film Commissioner Susan Croome said. Industry production spending is also expected to be down considerably from the record $1.4-billion set in 2003, according to B.C. Film, an agency set up to administer the province's tax program.

It means the tax credits in the eastern provinces have become a huge issue for film makers in B.C., sector officials say. "We need to be on a par with the other provinces, otherwise we will lose business to jurisdictions that offer more attractive tax rates," said Rick Michel, chief executive officer of Mainframe Entertainment, a Vancouver producer of animation for the direct to video and television market.

7 Questions With Don Cheadle

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Bob Strauss, Special to The Globe and Mail

(Jan. 7, 2005) Los Angeles — Born in Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 29, 1964. Graduate of CalArts. Two daughters with actress Bridgid Coulter. Don Cheadle has done it for the money (The Family Man, After the Sunset, Ocean's Eleven and Twelve), for the art (Devil in a Blue Dress, the upcoming Crash and The Assassination of Richard Nixon) and, often, for both (Out of Sight, Boogie Nights and Traffic). But Hotel Rwanda transcends all notions of what a good, working actor does for a living: He plays Paul Rusesabagina, the Kigali, Rwanda, hotel manager who, during a paroxysm of ethnic violence 10 years ago, protected the lives of about 1,250, mostly Tutsis, from his fellow Hutus' rampaging death squads. Directed by Northern Ireland's Terry George (Some Mother's Son) and shot in South Africa, Rwanda marks Cheadle's most memorable work to date.

Did you want to be an actor since childhood, or was it a later-in-life decision?

I probably made the decision when I graduated high school. I was also heavily involved in music: vocal jazz, instrument jazz. I had a couple of scholarships to pursue music and a couple of scholarships to pursue acting. I think I made a weather decision, coming from Denver, Colo., and I picked California.

Hotel Rwanda is obviously a movie with a mission. Are there specific messages you hope it imparts?

I don't like message movies, movies that preach and try to tell you how to feel. I don't think that this one does. It simply chronicles certain events that happened during this time, and you take from that what you will. But it's very hard to see this movie and not come out with a point of view. The horrific aspects of genocide are downplayed. Still, are you worried that the subject matter will keep audiences away? It's not overwhelming. It's an uplifting story, it's a thriller, but it's really a love story at its core, about a man who perseveres. But I'm an artist, so I'm already predisposed to be sensitized to stuff like that for my own selfish reasons of wanting to feel it and understand it. I understand somebody who works eight hours a day at a job they may not like saying something like, a) [Rwanda] is way over there; b) it's too overwhelming for me to know what to do; and c) what can I do, anyway? I understand how that sort of apathy can happen. But that's what allows [atrocities] like this to continue to happen.

How is Paul Rusesabagina today?

Paul is great. He's a person whose comportment is specific so he's always well put-together, always has a tie on and a jacket. You go out to dinner with him and he loves to eat, loves to drink, loves to crack jokes. What I got from him was this real sense of joy that he has of just being alive. It makes so much sense, but I didn't expect it.

What was it like for you to have Rwandan refugees appear in the movie?

One day, one of the extras was having a really hard time. Her friend asked me to just come over and talk to her for a second. She just started telling me her story, about what she had gone through. I said, "You know, you don't have to be here; you don't have to go through this." And she said, "No, I have to be here." It was very important to [the refugees] that the story get out, because they felt ignored by the world.

You've been admired in this business for nearly 20 years, yet you've had few leading roles. Any idea why?

That's a studio question. There just haven't been a lot that I have been very attracted to or was able to get. It hasn't been for lack of trying, I assure you that. Most scripts are terrible. That's just the way it is.

I suppose there are consolations, though, like staying at George Clooney's Italian mansion.

Right after Ocean's Twelve was over, I went to George's spot in Lake Como, which is ridiculous, and just hung out there. We were even there after he left. George was like, "Here's the car keys, here's the motorcycle keys, here's the boat keys; just have a ball, lock up when you leave, stay as long as you want." I'm still there [laughs]; great schools!

Playing Coach Carter – Samuel L. Jackson Stars As A Real Legend

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 6, 2005) Known as one of the hardest working actors in Hollywood, Samuel L. Jackson always has a new attitude for each role he plays. For the most part, most of his roles has him playing some of type of leader, whether it be on the good side like in “S.W.A.T” or on the bad side when he played the murderous “Julius Winfield” in Pulp Fiction. Each role is played with a certain type of intensity that’s rare in Hollywood. You will hardly see Jackson play the role of a weak character. Even when he was a crack addict in “Jungle Fever”, you can say that his character, “Gator”, was feared, even by his parents. For his next role, Jackson will play a high school basketball coach who instills education to his players when they don’t want to hear it. In “Coach Carter, which is based on the life on Ken Carter, Jackson brings a no-holds barred attitude and it’s electrifying. A few years ago, Jackson played a similar role in some ways, a teacher who wouldn’t let the students get the best of him in “187”. With “Coach Carter”, Jackson’s Ken Carter clearly wants to work with students and won’t let the administration tell him otherwise. In speaking with Mr. Jackson in regards to “Coach Carter”, he stated his reasons why this film was important to him. “I believe in education and it’s not often that I do something that has social significance and I think that this is an interesting message to put out there to kids. That playing basketball, football, soccer or whatever you do in school is an extracurricular activity. Getting an education is the one thing that can’t be taken away from you. In doing the research for this project, it was interesting to find out that out of the thousands of kids that play basketball on the college level, there only about 300 something NBA jobs. So, are you good enough to get one of those jobs? If not, then you better get your education and then you look at the bigger picture, last year at the NCAA basketball tournament, out of the 72 teams that are there and some are supposed to be the best basketball players in the country, only two of those schools had positive graduation rates. There were a couple of schools in the tournament that never graduated a basketball player from their programs. So, you have to look at who you are handing your kids over to and what are they doing when they go to those schools and what are those people doing for them.

Jackson is known for going to many of the Lakers games at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, so I wondered if he wanted to fulfill some childhood fantasy. “I played recreationally. I was never good enough to be on my high school team. They were good and it was just a game we could get together and play. It was something I did from when I was a small child up until I was out of college. I played in the streets of New York when I was here acting. So it’s a game that I have always loved and enjoyed, played, watched, & cheered for. Basketball players are heroic for us” Playing a real-life character is something new for Jackson, so it was almost fate that he and Ken Carter would have basketball as a common interest. “: I actually met Ken at a high school basketball game. We hooked up at a high school basketball tournament in LA. With all these schools from around the country here, we hooked up and I was like, “You’re him?” So we hung out, talked about basketball, watched the kids play, we commented on the games, and he had a Kangol hat on backwards, and I had a baseball hat on, and he was like, “So, you’re really going to play me?” I said, “I got no choice now. I’m going to do it.” I find out more or less that he was essentially the same kind of guy I was. He believes in education and he believes people should be accountable for things they say they are going to do. In this case, it was the kids signing the contract. It’s not difficult to stand in that situation and look at the obstacles that you face and portray them honestly in a real sort of way. He was around a lot so if I felt he was questioning something, I would go over and ask him, “How do you feel about this?” or “How did you feel how the scene played out?” Hopefully he would honestly say, “Oh no, I thought it was fine. I was just looking and I’m still amazed that you are doing my life.” I would say, “Ok, get over it and let’s go to lunch.” At the end of the day and having done so many interviews, you would think Jackson is ready for a vacation. In this coming year, he will be featured in small films like “The Man” with Anthony Mackie, and “In My Country” with Juliet Binoche and then come the potential blockbusters like “XXX: State of the Union” with Ice Cube and then the last installment of the Star Wars franchise, “Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith”. When asked he would like the time off, he simply laughed. “I’m taking time off now. Everybody talks about this job like it’s a 9 to 5 ditch digging killer. It’s 12 to 15 hours days but 14 ½ hours of it is spent watching Judge Judy, Joe Brown, or People’s Court, eating sandwiches, reading books, and all kinds of stuff. So it’s kind of an easy job to go to. A lot of times you’re in places that you will never get to or think of to go vacation or you are just there like when I was in South Africa in Capetown. You don’t work everyday. Sometimes you get to explore the place that you are in and hang out and see what’s it like. It’s a vacation. A paid vacation.” 

The Pan African Film and Arts Festival (PAFF)  will be held Thursday, February 10 through Monday, February 21 at the Magic Johnson Theatres, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza and throughout Los Angeles, California. Under the direction of the PAFF executive director Ayuko Babu, the 2005 PAFF program will showcase a diverse selection of Black films inclusive of features, shorts, documentaries as well as studio/network releases.  For information on sponsorship opportunities, submissions and schedule of events for the PAFF, visit www.paff.org or call (323) 295-1706. John Salley will present the nation’s top African American scholar-athlete with the Franklin D. Watkins Memorial Award on Saturday, February 19 during the National Alliance of African American Athletes annual gala being held this year at the historic Adams Mark Hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since 1992, the Watkins Award has been presented to African American scholar-athletes. The award was named after Franklin D. Watkins, the coach of championship football and basketball teams in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to empower African American males through athletics, education and public programs

Special thanks to Wilson Morales who contributed to this edition.

Sneering Villain Changes His Stripes

Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Rita Zekas

(Jan. 7, 2005) Bruce Greenwood has no vanity. He is willing to be upstaged by a chair, even volunteering to pose behind one for the photo op. He doesn't even want to look at the photo. How often does that happen? Try never. "Just pick something whimsical and quirky, just like the movie," Greenwood says, referring to Racing Stripes, a charming family film opening next Friday. When a baby zebra is abandoned in rural Kentucky during a rainstorm, it is adopted by horse farmer Nolan Walsh (Greenwood) and his 16-year-old daughter Channing (Hayden Panettiere), who names him Stripes. Stripes grows up with aspirations of being a racehorse, which fits in with Channing's plans, who yearns to be a jockey. Dad disapproves. Ten years ago, when last we interviewed the expat Canadian (Greenwood was born in Noranda, Que., raised in Vancouver and has been in L.A. for 20 years), he was a Best Actor Genie nominee for Exotica. We were at Lakes' eatery and he was being ogled by femme diners. He is still ogle-worthy at 48. He had lost a tooth playing hockey and playfully flipped out the temp. When he did Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, he performed without the tooth. Greenwood usually plays sneering villains, like his breakthrough role as scummy Dr. Seth in St. Elsewhere. "I'm an established bad guy," he concedes. "I'm some nefarious creep who will steal your money and try for world domination." He also played John F. Kennedy in the highly acclaimed Thirteen Days and co-starred in I Robot, in which he played "master of the universe." He played Madonna's husband in her real-life husband Guy Ritchie's disastrous 2002 remake of Swept Away, but that's another whole interview.

Ergo, Greenwood is not your go-to guy for family fare. "I approached them," he explains. "I found this movie before they found me. It appealed to me because it was entertaining and had a heartfelt message. I'd never been in a movie so uplifting, humorous and enthusiastic." When he read the script, he laughed out loud. "I was very touched," he says. "It's about believing in who you are. And I was surrounded by goofy, crazy animals with real personalities." There are talking barnyard animals à la Babe including a Shetland pony, a goat and a pelican. "My granny actually inherited a pelican," he recalls. "I just remembered this. This is an exclusive. A pelican escaped from the Vancouver Zoo she named Percy. She lived on the water in Horseshoe Bay and she had him for a while. So I have a history with pelicans, however remote." Greenwood has three movies coming out including Capote, in which he plays Truman Capote's significant other with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead. He co-stars with Anthony Hopkins in The World's Fastest Indian and he did the CBS TV-movie Saving Milly. So, how does working with a zebra compare with working with Will Smith in I Robot? "There is no funny answer," he hedges. "Will is such a fantastic guy. He's a great, great, guy. "Working with zebras, you can never tell when they will wander off. You are doing some important work and they think you are so boring they yawn or wet your shoe or lose interest and fall asleep." And Will Smith never did that.

'Sideways' Leads Nominees For Screen Actors Awards

Source: Associated Press

(Jan. 11, 2005) Los Angeles — The road-trip comedy Sideways led contenders Tuesday for the Screen Actors Guild Awards with four nominations, including honours for lead performer Paul Giamatti and the ensemble cast. Four other films followed with three nominations: The Howard Hughes film biography The Aviator; Finding Neverland, tracing the creative roots of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan; Hotel Rwanda, the real-life tale of an innkeeper sheltering refugees from genocide; and the boxing saga Million Dollar Baby. All five of those films earned nominations for their overall casts, the equivalent of a best-picture prize for the guild, which represents Hollywood actors. Because of a tie in voting, the guild nominated a sixth film for best cast, the Ray Charles film biography Ray. Besides a nomination among the Ray cast, star Jamie Foxx earned three other honours, selected as a lead-actor nominee for the title role in Ray, supporting actor for the hit-man thriller Collateral and best actor in a TV movie or miniseries for the prison drama Redemption. Foxx, considered a front-runner to win the best-actor Academy Award, also has three nominations for Ray, Collateral and Redemption at this Sunday's Golden Globes. Besides Foxx and Giamatti, the guild's best-actor film nominees were Don Cheadle as hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda; Johnny Depp as Barrie in Finding Neverland; and Leonardo DiCaprio as Hughes in The Aviator.

Nominated for best actress were Annette Bening as a 1930s London stage diva in Being Julia; Catalina Sandino Moreno as a Colombian woman who takes on a perilous job as a drug mule in Maria Full of Grace; Imelda Staunton as a housekeeper who moonlights as an abortion practitioner in 1950s Britain in Vera Drake; Hilary Swank as a boxer whose life turns tragic in Million Dollar Baby; and Kate Winslet as a woman who has erased memories of her ex-boyfriend in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Moreno was a surprise nominee, overlooked in most earlier Hollywood honours. The supporting categories also produced some surprise picks, including Cloris Leachman as a boozy grandma in Spanglish; Sophie Okonedo as Rusesabagina's wife in Hotel Rwanda; and Freddie Highmore as a boy who inspires Barrie in Finding Neverland. Joining Leachman and Okonedo in the supporting-actress category were Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator; Laura Linney as the wife of sexuality researcher Alfred Kinsey in Kinsey; and Virginia Madsen as a waitress romanced by Giamatti in Sideways. Along with Foxx and Highmore, supporting-actor nominees were Thomas Haden Church as Giamatti's randy buddy in Sideways; Morgan Freeman as a former boxer in Million Dollar Baby; and James Garner as a man trying to jog his ailing wife's memories in The Notebook.

SAG contenders could get a last-minute boost for Oscar nominations, whose balloting ends Saturday. In TV categories, Patricia Heaton earned three nominations, for best actress in a comedy series for Everybody Loves Raymond, “as a member of that show's overall cast, and for actress in a movie or miniseries for Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl. The Sopranos led TV shows with four nominations, for its cast, actor James Gandolfini and actresses Drea de Matteo and Edie Falco. Awards will be presented Feb. 5 in a ceremony televised on TNT. SAG nominations are chosen by 4,200 randomly chosen members of the union. The guild's full membership of 98,000 is eligible to vote for winners.

A Confederacy Of Klansmen

Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Geoff Pevere, Artefacts

(Jan. 8, 2005) Among the many places in America where the Ku Klux Klan rode to the rescue 90 years ago, perhaps the most conspicuous was the White House. In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson insisted on it. He'd been hearing about this "photoplay," directed by the already-famous David Wark Griffith, that people across the country were lining up to pay the unprecedented sum of $2 a head to see. The year also marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the War Between the States, and popular interest in the still-vivid event was high. The photoplay was called The Birth of a Nation. It was about how the post-Civil War American South had been saved from rapacious carpetbaggers and marauding former slaves by the Ku Klux Klan. It was the first nationwide sensation in the history of moving pictures and it made something new of its actors — Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish and Henry B. Walthall — something that would soon come to be called "stars." It conquered a new frontier of filmed storytelling, a frontier comprised of rhythmic editing; the calculated alteration of camera positions, from the intimate close-up to the panoramic battle sequence; visual compositions in depth and the manipulation of primal emotional response. This movie juxtaposed the historical with the personal, letting a story of lovers torn apart by war unfold against a backdrop that included dramatic recreations of real events, such as General Lee's surrender at Appomattox and John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Said actor Walter Huston years after first seeing it, "It made the blood tingle." The Birth of a Nation created an appetite for cinematic spectacle that still enthralls us.

In the wake of its success, which alerted people like the young mogul-to-be Louis B. Mayer to the potential of producing features like Birth on an assembly line, the nickelodeon era was over and the day of the movies as a mass attraction was established. President Wilson joined millions of Americans in being impressed. After emerging from the sweeping, three-hour epic (based on two novels by the bestselling white supremacist Thomas Dixon), the president offered what may rank as the first blockbuster blurb: "This is history written with lightning," he is alleged to have said. To the extent that it scorched wherever it struck, Griffith's pioneering long-form feature (previously, the longest American movie, also from Griffith, had run four reels, or 40 minutes) was like American history disgorged by a flamethrower. The story of two families, one Northern and one Southern, whose fates would be fused together then ripped apart by the Civil War and its aftermath, Griffith's silent movie was the most significant event in American popular culture of its day. This film consolidated just about every narrative and stylistic development in the barely two-decade-old medium into a powerful and propulsive experience. It also single-handedly redefined the business and established movies as the century's most influential form of mass communication. All we know of movie culture today began with The Birth of a Nation. But Wilson's legendary assessment was also a masterstroke of political doublespeak, because lightning can dazzle but also destroy. Almost immediately after Birth began a commercial run that would continue in one fashion or another into the early years of the sound era — the most popular silent film ever made, it eventually reaped an astounding $60 million (in pre-Depression U.S. dollars) on a $110,000 investment — Griffith's vision of the South ravaged by Reconstruction generated a massive backlash. Led primarily by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the anti-Birth movement decried the film's sensational depiction of freed black slaves as lazy, lecherous, ignorant and vindictive. In one sequence, the virtuous "Little Sister" (Mae Marsh) of the once-genteel, Southern aristocratic Cameron family is driven to suicide by a lust-crazed black soldier (a white actor in blackface). Another features the spectacle of a state assembly dominated by blacks guzzling booze, gnawing fried chicken and plopping dirty bare feet onto desks (images Griffith drew from racist editorial cartoons of the Reconstruction period).

Not surprisingly, the NAACP and its supporters sought to block the film's release. As aesthetically and technically groundbreaking as it was, The Birth of a Nation is virulent and unequivocal in its depiction of the former Confederacy (for which Griffith's father fought as a colonel) as a fallen Eden beset by black devils and sneering Yankee exploiters. In the movie's climactic moment — which must have had audiences cheering, crying and howling — the humiliated Cameron patriarch holds a pistol over his only living daughter's head as black soldiers attempt to pound their way into the cabin where a small group of white people have barricaded themselves against the dark hordes. This man is ready to sacrifice his own child if the brutes get in, but then a sound is heard — or, to be precise, is suggested by Griffith's evocative editing. It's horses. It's a rescue. It's the arrival of the Ku Klux Klan. In the nick of time. For the rest of his life, Griffith claimed not to understand what upset so many people about the movie. As far as he was concerned, he was simply chronicling his personal experience listening to his parents describe the deprivations that had befallen his childhood home of Kentucky during Reconstruction. In 1930, at the time he was making his penultimate movie — a historical biopic of Lincoln — the 55-year-old Griffith filmed an interview defending The Birth of a Nation. Clearly well-rehearsed, conducted over cigarettes by Abraham Lincoln star Walter Huston in a plush sitting room, the interview ran prior to the film in a fresh commercial release. In this interview, Griffith — who had not had a successful film in nearly a decade — defends the movie's heroic portrayal of the KKK. Wistfully, he claims the Klan had "a purpose" in those days, that it "saved the South." The great contradiction of Birth, between the monumental nature of its expressive achievement and the reprehensible message it expressed, has always tempered its historical status. Over the years, many have attempted to either defend Griffith or mitigate his prejudice by insisting he be granted consideration in context — that is, as a 19th-century sentimentalist and southerner for whom the post-Civil War south really seemed a ravaged place saved by the KKK.

But it's simply impossible today to watch the film and not be appalled. In his Griffith entry in the most recent edition of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson calls the movie's racial politics "embarrassing." In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan, which had originally formed as a secret society dedicated to exacting vigilante justice against what it saw as the enemies of the defeated South, was a moribund, depleted and antiquated organization. That changed with the movie's release. In Georgia alone that year, KKK ranks ballooned to 8 million, and 22 Klan-related lynchings took place. This is historical fact. But it is also something else: The birth of history as something shaped by the movies. While Griffith's film proved an effective recruitment campaign for a reborn Klan in throughout the 1920s, the popular image of the organization itself tarnished immediately. It would seem that the backlash, combined with the growing civil rights consciousness of the 20th century, prevailed.

Few, if any, heroic portrayals of the hooded, white vigilantes followed. If anything, the image that stuck was one of irredeemable ugliness. The Klan became the symbol of white Southern race hatred, and the figure of the hooded Klansman was invariably associated with burning crosses, redneck ignorance and gruesome lynchings. By 1939, the year that Gone With the Wind was released, the most popular and eagerly anticipated American movie since The Birth of a Nation conspicuously omitted the KKK subplot in Edna Ferber's original novel. Birth of a Nation's "history written with lightning" struck the KKK only once. The fire burned bright but left only ashes.

Sources: The Film Encyclopedia, by Ephraim Katz.; Griffith Masterworks, Kino on Video (DVD); The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, by David Thomson; The Silent Cinema, by Liam O'Leary; The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood, by David Thomson.

Actress Goes Beyond The Dee

Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Peter Howell

(Jan. 6, 2005) As Kevin Spacey tells it, he had a musical epiphany when he first laid eyes upon Kate Bosworth. While auditioning her to play Sandra Dee for his Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Sea, the orchestra in Spacey's mind immediately struck up the theme to Dee's 1959 hit movie A Summer Place. Bosworth looks that much like Dee, the doe-eyed starlet who was married to pop star Darin for seven tumultuous years. Spacey is a tough man to impress. He plays Darin in the movie, which he also directed and championed, and he wasn't going to settle for just any gorgeous young blonde to complete his vision of the doomed 1960s Hollywood couple. Bosworth's uncanny resemblance to the reclusive Dee is more than skin deep. The two both began acting while barely teenagers: Bosworth at 14 in Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer; Dee at 13 in Robert Wise's Until They Sail. The two also won early career attention playing surfers: Bosworth as the fearless Anne Marie in 2002's Blue Crush; Dee as the flirty title star of 1959's Gidget. The similarities largely end there, as Bosworth is quick to point out. She hasn't had the troubles with alcohol and anorexia that plagued Dee, nor did she become both a teen bride and mom. Bosworth turned 22 last week, and she's still at the not-yet-serious stage with her current boyfriend, actor Orlando Bloom. There's no doubt, though, that heads used to turn for Dee when she entered a room, just as they do now for Bosworth, who arrives for a hotel lounge interview during the Toronto International Film Festival wearing a frilly and feminine peach dress that wouldn't have looked out of place on Dee. And yet Bosworth admits she had never heard of Dee prior to being chosen for the role. She had to do a research job from scratch. "I first rented a few of her films, including A Summer Place, and I got a really surface idea of her," she says, settling into a banquette.

"I got a lot from just watching her. It was just the way she spoke and moved; it seemed very proper and '50s style. But the biggest help for me was the book called Dream Lover that her son Dodd wrote. I think she felt safe to speak to him about a lot of issues that she hadn't discussed before." Bosworth never got to speak to Dee, now 60, who has lived out of the public eye since her little-seen last movie Lost in 1983. Dee didn't object to the making of Beyond the Sea, titled for a Darin pop hit, but she also didn't want anything to do with it. "She's taken a step back from it," Bosworth says. "She okayed the film and then sort of left us to it." Bosworth sympathizes with Dee's unhappiness, even though her own life has been far less dramatic. She enjoyed an idyllic childhood, born in Los Angeles on Jan. 2, 1983 as the only child of housewife Patti and department store employee Hal. An early love of horses led her to equestrian training; she was in a stable when she overheard girls talking about auditions happening for The Horse Whisperer. Unsure how to approach Redford, she handed him a Christmas card with a family photo. Redford was confused by this at first, but he was quickly impressed by Bosworth and chose her for the fateful role of Judith, playing opposite another new talent, Scarlett Johansson. Sandra Dee, in contrast, seemed destined for trouble from an early age. She married Darin in 1960 when she was just 16 and he was 24. Both had been teen idols, but their many differences quickly manifested themselves: Dee yearned to settle down and become a mother; Darin dreamed of even greater showbiz success. As Beyond The Sea shows, when the one-time dream lovers divorced in acrimony in 1967, their career peaks behind them. Darin died in 1973, but Dee was struggling with her addictions and other demons long before that. "I think it's really sad," Bosworth says, reflecting for a moment.

"I think they loved each other so much, they really did. But they led such different lives and had such different priorities. He wanted to get as much done as fast as possible, because he felt his time was running out. And she was like, `I just want to take it slow and have a family and live in L.A. and just have a life.' "She hasn't been with anybody else since then ... she's still in love with him. She still views him as the love of her life." Eyebrows were raised at how the eight-year age gap between Dee and Darin became a 23-year span between Bosworth and Spacey, who is now 45. Her boyfriend Bloom turns 28 next week. Could she imagine herself with a man much older? "I'd done Wonderland and I'd worked with Val Kilmer already (also 45). To me, it's whatever is in the relationship that's interesting, you know what I mean? It could be someone really older, it could be the same age, and it could be someone younger." She takes it all in stride, just as she does the varied personalities she is called on to play. She was sweet and virginal in Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, sexy and vacant in Wonderland and in The Rules of Attraction and stoic and victorious in Blue Crush. "I like things being different and I've been really lucky to be able to get different roles. I like the darker roles, to be totally honest. They allow me to explore emotions and situations that I wouldn't be in otherwise. "I always believe that whatever I've meant to work on at a particular time just comes along. With Blue Crush, I really needed to be that strong woman at that point. And with Wonderland I needed to be darker and grittier. With Beyond the Sea, it was something different again. "There's such a pressure to peak. There are all these young girls making albums and TV shows and da, da, da! I feel I have the rest of my life to do all those things. I want to take my time and just do what I feel is right at that moment."

Sam Jackson Says No To 50 Cent Film

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 10, 2005) Samuel L. Jackson has already made his disdain for working with rappers known. This was underscored even more so recently when the actor turned down the chance to work with one of his movie icons, Jim Sheridan,  because the film, "Locked And Loaded," directed by Sheridan, also stars rapper 50 Cent. Jackson says he's always wanted to work with Irish moviemaker and was thrilled when he heard he was being targeted for a new film by the director — until he realized he would be starring opposite 50 Cent in his movie debut. "Hollywood people tend to think that because one is successful in one aspect of entertainment they can bring them into this particular world and make a success out of them," Jackson said in a statement. Jackson suggested that the studio merely wanted to exploit his name to give the hip-hop star's first film legitimacy. (It reportedly is "loosely based" on his life.) In his statement, Jackson asks, "What is it about 50 Cent that makes Jim Sheridan say: 'I'd really like to make a movie with him?'" In the meantime, Jackson apparently had no problem working with hip hop singer Ashanti in "Coach Carter," opening Friday. Ashanti, more than holds her own in the film, by the way. She's definitely got acting chops. Jackson hasn't closed the door on working with Fiddy entirely, however. "Maybe if he does five movies and he shows some talent," Jackson is quoted as saying about the rapper.

Andre 3000, Tyrese Feeling Brotherly

Excerpt from www.billboard.com - Liza Foreman, The Hollywood Reporter

[Note from Dawn: Canadian actors joining this cast include Awaovieyi Agie, Richard Chevolleau, Wes "Maestro" Williams, Lyriq Bent] (Jan. 6, 2005) OutKast's Andre 3000 and fellow artist Tyrese have signed on to star in Mark Wahlberg's next film, which was formerly known as "Four Brothers" but is currently untitled. The Paramount Pictures film will be the first major studio project for Andre 3000. Tyrese and Garrett Hedlund ("Friday Night Lights") will play Andre 3000's siblings along with Wahlberg, who was previously announced as one of the brothers. Principal photography is scheduled to begin Monday (Jan. 10) in Toronto. John Singleton will direct the drama from a script by David Elliot and Paul Lovett about four brothers who seek to avenge their mother's death. Andre 3000's previous forays into cinema include the upcoming MGM feature "Be Cool" and Guy Ritchie's current project, "Revolver." As previously reported, he also stars with Big Boi in HBO's untitled OutKast movie, due later this year. Tyrese can currently be seen in the 20th Century Fox remake "The Flight of the Phoenix" and will next appear in the Naval Academy drama "Annapolis" for Walt Disney Studios.

The Big Apple Offers Plum Film And TV Tax Credit

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail

(Jan. 6, 2005) New York -- Film and television production companies that work in Manhattan will get a 5-per-cent tax credit of up to $12.5-million (U.S.) a year under a new law signed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "This film tax credit will make New York City more competitive and provide more jobs to professionals in this key economic sector," said Bloomberg, who signed the legislation Monday. A law signed by New York Governor George Pataki on Aug. 20 provided a 10-per-cent tax credit for film production companies that work in the state and included a provision for the city to offer additional tax breaks. Film production companies working in the Big Apple will now be able to claim both the city and state tax credit. AP

Director Nominees

Source: Associated Press

(Jan. 7, 2005) Martin Scorsese, shut out five times previously for the top prize from his filmmaking peers, earned another shot yesterday at the Directors Guild of America Awards for his sprawling epic The Aviator. Also nominated were Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby, Marc Forster for Finding Neverland, Taylor Hackford for Ray and Alexander Payne for Sideways. The winner will be announced at the guild's 57th annual dinner on Jan. 29, one of Hollywood's warm-ups for the Academy Awards on Feb. 27. The guild honours are good at predicting who will win the best-director Oscar. Only six times since 1949 has the guild recipient failed to win the Oscar.

The Incredibles Gets Producers Guild Nod

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail

(Jan. 6, 2005) Los Angeles -- The Incredibles, an animated film about a family of superheroes, was a surprise nominee yesterday when the Producers Guild of America announced the nominations for its best movie of the year award. Also nominated were Sideways, which has been a critics' favourite, the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator, about eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and Finding Neverland, about the man who created Peter Pan. The Producers Guild awards will be given out on Jan. 22. The Incredibles was a surprise because animated movies seldom are given the same respect as live-action films and are typically considered separately. Reuters

Award Show Announcements

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 6, 2005) *Two Jamie Foxx films join five other motion pictures that will be considered for achievement in sound editing at the upcoming 77th Academy Awards. The Ray Charles biopic “Ray,” and the hitman thriller “Collateral,” both starring the acclaimed actor, will be considered along with the film "The Incredibles," "The Polar Express," "The Aviator," "Spider-Man 2" and "The Day After Tomorrow."

*Director Thomas Carter (“Coach Carter”) has been nominated for a 2005 Honors Award from the Caucus for Television Producers, Writers and Directors, which made the announcement Tuesday. The awards will be presented Jan. 13 at the Caucus' 22nd annual Dinner and Awards Ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Directors James Burrows, Mimi Leder and Gene Reynolds were also nominated.

*Samuel L. Jackson has been announced as a presenter for the 62nd Annual Golden Globe Awards, to be telecast live on NBC Jan. 16 (8-11:00 p.m. EST) from the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Will Ferrell, Tim Robbins, Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts and Renee Zellweger have also been set as presenters. Robin Williams will receive this year's Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for his "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field."

Actors And Producers Break Off Contract Talks; Resumption Date Not Set

Source: Canadian Press

(Jan. 10, 2005) LOS ANGELES (AP) - Unions for television and film actors and representatives for producers broke off contract negotiations Sunday, according to a joint statement. The Screen Actors Guild (news - web sites) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have been immersed in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over a new three-year contract since Dec. 6. The current contract expires June 30. "The parties have concluded they cannot reach an agreement at this time. There are no scheduled dates for the resumption of talks," the statement said. Both sides have maintained a news blackout since the negotiations began. According to statements issued before talks began, the unions are seeking an increase in employer contributions to their health and pension plans, a greater share of residuals and greater protections for stunt actors and extras. The unions are also seeking to further unify television contracts under one set of rules.

::TV NEWS::

Colin Mochrie, Deb McGrath Star In CBC Pilot

Source: Canadian Press

(Jan. 6, 2005) Toronto — For most comics, improv humour is the real high-wire act, a death-defying feat with no script backup or second chances. But for Colin Mochrie, known to so many TV viewers for the lightning on-the-spot wit he's displayed on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the high wire just might be a scripted TV series produced by friends and co-starring his wife of 16 years, Deb McGrath. "For me, improv will always be the easiest thing in my life," Mochrie says, adding he's not as comfortable working with written material, even if he is also the writer. Still, Mochrie and McGrath have shot an hour-long pilot for a potential half-hour CBC-TV sitcom called Getting Along Famously and it airs Monday night as part of the public broadcaster's latest exercise in viewer democracy. Along with last Monday's Peter Keleghan pilot, Walter Ego, and next Monday's Mary Walsh effort, Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, viewers are invited to cast ballots either online (www.cbc.ca/television) or via voice mail (1-888-303-5172). No one, least of all the lead actors, is sure just how influential the voting will be to CBC programming executives, although they assume ratings will be a big factor, too. "They said 'You'll find out probably immediately whether it's no or maybe.' So, that leaves one option," Mochrie explains drolly.

In a previous sitcom-voting contest, An American in Canada and Rideau Hall were both picked up by the network, although neither comedy series lasted very long. And when This is Wonderland and Snakes & Ladders debuted almost simultaneously last season, only the former emerged as a hit. And Air Farce veteran Don Ferguson's pilot, XPM — about a retired prime minister adjusting to civilian life — was DOA. So it's a dicey business, this pilot thing, even in Canada where broadcasters can ill afford to throw away completed product. Mochrie says both Keleghan and Walsh are friends and he doesn't want to be in a competition with either for airtime, especially since he considers both to be brilliant. McGrath agrees and hopes it doesn't come down to an either-or situation. "What a novel idea that they should go with all three and that we should — dare I say? — have a bit of a burgeoning industry!" But while McGrath is encouraged by the Ontario government's recent funding boost to the industry, she concedes that on the other hand the CBC has lost considerable revenue this season because of the NHL lockout.

"Only in Canada would an actor have to depend on hockey, but that's the reality," she says, confident that without the strike there might have been budget room for all the pilots to go to series. Mochrie and McGrath play Ruby & Kip, a husband-and-wife song and dance team who are stars of their own CBC variety show circa 1964. They are, as McGrath explains, the Dick and Liz of Canada in an age when celebrities were still larger than life, but when the Judy Garland/Rat Pack era was giving way to the Beatles and rock and roll. Despite their showbiz chemistry, Ruby and Kip are constantly bickering off-camera and yet, God bless 'em, they still have the hots for each other and are always on the lookout between shouting matches for a quiet time and place that would afford them a quickie. How close to their real marriage is this, they are asked. "Pretty close," both echo quickly, with McGrath adding that they had to invent the bickering part. "Wouldn't you say that's true, dear?" Mochrie says the worst part of their marriage is that they aren't very good at fighting. "We would get upset with each other and Deb would go window-shopping and I'd play Solitaire on the computer. That's really not the stuff that sitcoms are made of."

So far, so good in the star ego department, too, confirms Mochrie. "It certainly helps when you're playing a married couple onscreen to have some sort of history with the person," he explains. "So we really do have a great time working together, a lot of fun and we respect each other. My God, it's really sounding sucky now but we do have a good time." But if Getting Along Famously doesn't make the cut, the couple insists it was great fun anyway. "We can't control these things, all we can control is our show," says McGrath. "We did it, we're happy with it and now whatever's going to happen is going to happen. "Not that we won't be plenty bitter, but they can never take that away from us."

BET Unveils Spring Programming

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 12, 2005) *A most-welcome break in the rain was perhaps prophetic for BET, as the network rolled out a promising new slate of programming to kick off the Television Critics Association’s 2005 Winter Press Tour Tuesday in Los Angeles. After revealing a new logo and tagline “BET: It’s My Thing,” the network’s president and CEO Debra L. Lee and Senior Vice President of Music Programming and Talent Stephen Hill told the hundred or so assembled reporters about several new programs debuting in the coming months, the brightest being the hot button program, “The Cousin Jeff Chronicles.” Debuting in March, Cousin Jeff (Jeffrey Johnson), will put his experience as an AME minister, public speaker and leadership trainer to optimal use as the host of a five-part series addressing issues within the black and Latino community. Shows include “The Bridge is Over: The Gap Between the Civil Rights and Hip Hop,” “It’s a BIG Deal: Black Youth and Obesity,” “Locked Out: I’m Out of Jail but Still Behind Bars,” and “The Silent Millionaires: The Story of Self-Made Millionaires Under 30.” “I was a pissed off college student,” says Jeff of his socially conscious beginnings.  “There were real issues that made me angry when I was on campus, and made me just not want to go to class, but made me want to be involved in making a difference with issues and not just complain about them.” The handsome 31-year-old is already known to BET viewers as a political correspondent for “Rap City” and “106 & Park,” but now broadens his fired-up passion for social issues into the series of documentaries on issues ranging from violence to voting. “Young people are dealing with a myriad of issues from drug abuse and obesity, to just misdirection,” said Jeff. “I think one of the real powerful pieces about what we’ve done over the last 18 months by infusing into “Rap City” and “106 & Park” some social and political commentary is being able to bring substantive issues to young people that they care about, and they’re affected by in a vehicle that’s palatable for them.  So it’s not the news, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s just as substantive and hopefully is a way to engage young people in issues that otherwise they may not be engaged by.”

“The Cousin Jeff Chronicles” is part of BET’s fresh attempt to shed the stuffiness from its news and public affairs programming, which Lee says is the least popular fare among viewers. “That’s why we’re trying to shift it around with “Cousin Jeff” this year, make it a little younger targeted,” she says.  “We have a commitment to news and public affairs, so we’ll continue to do that in some form on BET, but we’re open to new, original programming ideas.”  What proved extremely popular last season was “College Hill,” the world’s first all-black reality show chronicling the lives of students on an HBCU campus. The new season, beginning Jan. 27 at 9 p.m., has cameras trailing eight students at Langston University in Oklahoma. There’s also “Rip the Runway,” BET’s answer to MTV’s “Fashionably Loud.” Premiering March 24 at 9 p.m., “Runway” features an hour of runway fashions from Sean John, Baby Phat, Rocawear and Apostrophe, set to live performances.  Viewers will also get an insider’s perspective on the process of developing a major fashion line.  And then, there’s BET’s original movie, “Book of Love: The Definitive Reason Why Men are Dogs.”  This battle of the sexes mockumentary, starring Salli Richardson Whitfield, Robin Givens, Treach and Richard T. Jones, follows the lives of three L.A. bachelors as they recover from a series of unhealthy relationships.  “The film, ironically, isn’t about why men are dogs,” explains co-screenwriter Eric K. George, who also stars in the film as one of the bachelors. “It’s really a provocative look at just men go through relationships.  And it’s cool because it’s being seen from an African American perspective.  We very rarely see how men - in general, but especially how black men - love their women.  That was the main thing that came out of this movie.” “Book of Love” premieres on Valentine’s Day.

Box Office Surprises Fahrenheit 9/11, Passion Win At People's Choice Awards

Source: Canadian Press

(Jan. 10, 2005) PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Two controversial films that defied the odds to earn millions at the box office joined a familiar green ogre to take top honours at the 31st Annual People's Choice Awards on Sunday. The Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11, which took a critical look at U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s actions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, won the favourite movie award, while Mel Gibson (news)'s explicit The Passion of the Christ won in the favourite drama category. Moore dedicated his win to the U.S. troops fighting overseas and said he was "amazed" that people voted his film their favourite. "I love making movies and I'll take this as an invitation to make more Fahrenheit 9/11s," Moore said. A few minutes later, Moore was followed at the podium by a jubilant and grateful Gibson. "Heck, I was just hoping to break even," said Gibson, as he thanked those who helped him make the movie and those who went to see it.

"If it wasn't for you guys we would have been dead in the water." The animated Shrek 2 swept a number of categories, being named favourite comedy, favourite sequel and favourite animated movie. The character of Donkey in Shrek 2, voiced by Eddie Murphy, was named favourite animated movie star, while the Fairy Godmother, voiced by Jennifer Saunders, won in the favourite movie villain category. "I'm very, very honoured to be part of something where people care so much that it be good," said Mike Myers as he picked up a couple of the Shrek 2 awards. Two other Canadians were among the winners: Jim Carrey (news) for funny male star and Shania Twain for country female singer. Perennial favourites took many of the top awards, including many of this year's new categories. Julia Roberts and Johnny Depp (news) won for favourite female and male movie star. Matt LeBlanc and Marg Helgenberger (news) won for favourite male and female TV stars. Will & Grace, won for favourite TV comedy. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was named favourite TV drama. After votes cast via the Internet during the first hour of the live telecast were counted, Joey was named favourite new TV comedy, while Desperate Housewives won for favourite new TV drama.

The People's Choice Awards, hosted by Jason Alexander (news) and Malcolm-Jamal Warner, were presented at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and broadcast on CBS. The awards covered 38 film, television and music categories, including a number of new ones. The nominations were determined by editors at Entertainment Weekly, the People's Choice production team and a panel of pop culture fans. Winners were determined by Internet voting. The complete list of winners:

-Motion picture: Fahrenheit 9/11
-Drama motion picture: The Passion of thhe Christ
-Comedy motion picture: Shrek 2
-Animated motion picture: Shrek 2
-Favorite sequel: Shrek 2
-Animated movie star: Donkey in Shrek 2 (voiced by Eddie Murphy)
-Movie villain: The Fairy Godmother in SShrek 2 (voiced by Jennifer Saunders)
-Favourite on-screen chemistry: Drew Barrrymore (news) and Adam Sandler in 50 First Dates
-Female movie star: Julia Roberts
-Male movie star: Johnny Depp
-Female action movie star: Angelina Joliie
-Male action movie star: Will Smith
> -Leading lady: Renee Zellweger
-Leading man: Brad Pitt
-Funny female star: Ellen DeGeneres (news)
-Funny male star: Jim Carrey
-Television drama series: CSI: Crime Sceene Investigation
-Television comedy series: Will & Grrace
-New television comedy series: Joey
> -New television drama series: Desperate Housewives
-Female television star: Marg Helgenbergger
-Male television star: Matt LeBlanc
> -Late night talk show host: David Letterrman
-Daytime talk show host: Ellen DeGeneress
-Reality show - competition: American Iddol
-Reality show - makeover: Extreme Makeovver Home Edition
-Reality show - 24/7: Newlyweds: Nick &aamp; Jessica
-Crest fans favorite smile: Julia Robertts
-Pantene fans favorite hair: Jennifer Gaarner
-Cover Girl fans favorite look: Kate Huddson
-Favorite group: U2
-Female singer: Alicia Keys
-Male singer: Usher
-Favorite remake: The First Cut is the DDeepest by Sheryl Crow (news)
-Favorite combined forces: Yeah by Usherr/Lil Jon/Ludacris
-Country group: Brooks & Dunn
-Country female singer: Shania Twain -Country male singer: Tim McGraw<

Brat Defends ‘Surreal’ Decision

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 6, 2005) *Da Brat might be the only one on the planet who believes that a move into the “Surreal Life” house does not signal the downward turn of one’s career.  The Atlanta rapper stars in the fourth season of the show, which debuts on VH1 Jan. 9.  “I think it's gonna be a good thing,” Da Brat told MTV. "It's gonna be funny fo' sho. I can't really wonder what people think, as long as I do my thing. I enjoyed it. I think people are going to love it.”   Da Brat shacked up with "America's Next Top Model" winner Adrianne Curry, actor Verne Troyer (Mini-Me from "Austin Powers"), the Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin, Joanie Laurer (a.k.a. former WWE diva Chyna), male model Marcus Schenkenberg and actor Christopher Knight (Peter Brady of "The Brady Bunch").    "With 'The Surreal Life,' it was a real hard decision for her to do that," said Jermaine Dupri, CEO of So So Def, the label for which Da Brat records. "As her superior, I felt she shouldn't do it. But at the same time, she talked to me like, 'If I went on there, [other current rappers] would want to do it. They would think it's something new to do.' She felt that as long as her life was current, it empowered her."

::THEATRE NEWS::

‘Da Kink In My Hair - The Princess Of Wales Theatre

Source: Mirvish Productions

David & Ed Mirvish are pleased to present the smash hit play ‘Da Kink In My Hair, written by Trey Anthony with direction, music and lyrics by Weyni Mengesha. ‘Da Kink in My Hair will be performed at the Princess of Wales Theatre, with preview performances beginning January 11, 2005.  Media night is January 13, 2005.  The limited run continues until February 27, 2005. Tickets go on sale Monday December 13, 2004.

Originally staged at the Toronto Fringe Festival, ‘DA KINK was invited to the New York Fringe Festival and Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille.  The acclaimed ‘DA KINK has attracted diverse audiences and broken all box office records everywhere it has played. 'Da Kink in My Hairwill be the first Canadian play to be staged at the Princess of Wales Theatre, which was built by the Mirvish family in 1993 as a 2,000-seat venue for large-scale musicals. The theatre has been home to MISS SAIGON, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, THE LION KING and HAIRSPRAY, among many other productions. Staging 'DA KINK in this comfortable, state-of-the-art venue is a major departure. However, producer David Mirvish, in consultation with the 'DA KINK creative team, has reconfigured the seating of the auditorium to hold 1,000 audience members on the ground-floor orchestra level. The stage has also been extended into the auditorium to create a more intimate environment conducive to the presentation of a play.

"We are excited and proud to produce this wonderful new play at the Princess of Wales Theatre," said David Mirvish. "I think it will fit very well in the auditorium because the presentation of the play is very musical and involves an ensemble of drummers, singers and dancers in the telling of the characters' stories." Set in a West Indian hair salon in Toronto, ‘Da Kink in My Hairgives voice to six women who tell us their unforgettable stories. Mixing laughter and tears, and told in words, music and dance, the stories explore the hardship, struggles and joys of black women’s lives.

‘Da Kink in My Hairstars Amina Alfred, Trey Anthony, Jully Black, Zena Brown, Guiomar Campbell, Lisa Codrington, Raven Dauda, Miranda Edwards, Quancetia Hamilton, Abena Malika, Weyni Mengesha, Alejandra Nunez, Ngozi Paul, Rachel Rickards, Satori Shakoor, Ordena Stephens and d’bi young. ‘Da Kink in My Hair features a book by Trey Anthony, direction, music and lyrics by Weyni Mengesha, choreography by Fleurette S. Fernando, assistant choreography by Ma’at Zachary musical direction and arrangements by Alejandra Nunez, set & costume design by Julia Tribe and lighting design by Rebecca Picherack.

‘Da Kink in My Hairpremiered in June 2003, produced by Trey Anthony Productions Inc., in association with Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto.


JANUARY 11 – FEBRUARY 27, 2005
‘DA KINK IN MY HAIR
The Princess Of Wales Theatre
300 King Street West, Toronto
416-872-1212 or 1-800-461-3333
www.mirvish.com
Group Orders: 416-593-4142 or 1-800-724-6420
Tuesday – Saturday 8:00PM
Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday 2:00PM
Ticket Prices $25-$65

Opening: 'Da Kink in My Hair

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Kamal Al-Solaylee

(Jan. 7, 2005) Trey Anthony has written and co-stars in this poignant series of monologues by an all-female, all-black cast set in a Toronto hair salon. Their stories are harrowing, uplifting and, above all, highly theatrical. It's the first Canadian play to be staged at the Princess of Wales Theatre since it was opened in 1993 for a string of big-budget Broadway shows, the most recent of which was, coincidentally, the more manageable and kink-free Hairspray. Previews Jan. 11; opens Jan. 13 and runs to Feb. 27. Tues. to Sat., 8 p.m.; Wed., Sat. and Sun., 2 p.m. $25 to $65. Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W., 416-872-1212.

'Da Kink In My Hair Gets A New 'Do

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail

(Jan. 11, 2005) During rehearsals the other day for 'Da Kink in My Hair, the cast members were thinking how far they've come with their small, labour-of-love play. When invited to perform at the New York Fringe Festival after debuting to strong acclaim at the Toronto Fringe in 2001, they packed up the few props they had and drove to New York from Toronto, arriving with little money. Then there was the drive to Nova Scotia to perform at a fringe festival there. Now, 'Da Kink and its look at the lives of women in a West Indian beauty salon is getting the big-budget treatment with a remount by Mirvish Productions. It's the first Canadian play ever to be staged at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre, where performances start today for a limited run until Feb. 27. Yet talking with Trey Anthony, 'Da Kink's creator and lead actor, a few days ago in a concrete bunker of a dressing room behind the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, she gave no sign of having entered a new life of stage-diva excesses. The grey, ultra-drab rehearsal space where the cast was rehearsing could as easily have been in the kind of fringe-theatre spaces where the show originated. But for Anthony and the others who have nurtured 'Da Kink, the difference between fringe and Mirvish is huge. The play's young director, Weyni Mengesha, used to have to do the lights, and Anthony used to do the costumes and the wigs. "Our drummer used to do the makeup, and I would be at the Dollar Store getting props for the sets, that kind of thing." Anthony explained.

"What I get from the Mirvish camp is: 'Trey!' “Here, she broke into mock seriousness.” 'You do not have to do this! Don't worry, it's being done!' And I think that's been the hardest thing for me, really." Anthony, 31, had originally conceived of the play as a serious, one-woman show, partly as a way to tell the semi-autobiographical stories about women in her family, herself and those she met while working at a Toronto women's shelter. The power of those stories, Anthony said, still comes through in the characters' monologues. But the original impetus for the work also came from Anthony's desire to branch out of standup comedy. Trained at George Brown College in Toronto and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, she had found a niche in comedy and worked on HBO's The Chris Rock Show. But she was adamant about returning to theatre and moving more into writing and dramatic acting, she said. By the time 'Da Kink was staged at the Toronto Fringe, actors who had read through the parts that Anthony was developing wound up joining the cast, and Anthony, as it turned out, played the more comedic, main character Novelette. After successes in the Toronto and New York fringes, and before staging the play at Toronto's Theatre Passe Muraille in 2003, the cast was invited back by NBC television to perform for entertainment-industry insiders at the network's small PSNBC theatre space in New York.

"It was worthwhile, in the sense that we made a lot of connections. But I think, for me, at that point, I really wanted to develop the piece at home [in Toronto], and we knew we were coming back to do the Theatre Passe Muraille production. I couldn't at that point get my head around it as a television show or anything like that. And I was very much, like, 'I'm a theatre artist!' “The Passe Muraille production produced a record box-office take for that theatre and attracted a wide audience of non-theatregoers. That's when the Mirvish camp began talking to her. Not being too experienced in the big-time theatre business, Anthony said, she treated these more as casual conversations. "I didn't realize I was supposed to be pitching!" Anthony said, bursting into laughter. "It was one of those meetings where they were, like, 'Well, tell us, where do you want to go with this work? What's your vision for the play?' It was very much this informal dialogue which happened for a long time. "They said that the reason they were taking the play was that they really wanted to keep the integrity of the piece, that it spoke to a wide range of audiences," Anthony said. "As a writer, I didn't want to be censored, and that was something we really discussed before any deal was put on the table. I had to make sure that the integrity of the piece still remained, because that is what had gotten it this far." Both Anthony and Mirvish said none of the plays harder-hitting monologues has been toned down. But in expanding it into a two-hour production, from its original 90 minutes, the play has added more stories, more comedy, more characters and much more music. Still, the new production is trying to maintain the play's original intimacy. The stage of the Princess of Wales Theatre will be extended into the audience by a few rows and only the 1,000 seats on the ground floor will be sold for each performance. "Trey wants to reach people. For Trey, probably the ideal thing might have been to go into a 300- or 400-seat, maybe even a 250-seat theatre and run for a year. And you can sometimes build that sort of momentum," said David Mirvish. "We looked at that at one point and considered it. But we just don't have that sort of space." He emphasized that "this is an interesting experiment for us." Partly because of the limited seating, it likely won't be a big money-making production, he indicated. "If we sell all the seats, we'll pay the rent."

Instead, "you are opening up new doors," Mirvish added. This new production could be licensed to other theatre companies or, at the least, it could help entice new theatregoers and maintain the links between Mirvish and Toronto's smaller-budget theatres. So how big is the Mirvish budget for 'Da Kink? “I’m not allowed to say! I know it's big! They won't even tell me, but I know it's a BIG budget. I know it's a million-kind-of ballpark," Anthony said. "It's much more than we had in our lives." The budget for the Passe Muraille production was $96,000. The first Toronto Fringe production cost $500. But the production's size isn't as important to Anthony as attracting a wide audience. Mirvish will help promote the play to high-school and college students and a block of 20 rush seats at $20 each will be set aside to attract those who might not normally come to the theatre. "That was something that was written into my contract. It was very important to me that the community that I wrote the play for essentially got to see it," Anthony said. "I didn't want people to feel that now she's in the big house, she's forgotten where she came from, or that kind of thing. Or that this [community] work isn't important to me. "It has to start very grassroots. That's where I came from, and that's what I believe in, that everyone should have accessibility to this type of work and this type of experience. It shouldn't just be a selected group of people."


'Da Kink in my Hair runs until Feb. 27 at the Princess of Wales Theatre, 300 King St. W., Toronto (416-872-1212).

Tony Winners Arriving In Bulk

Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Richard Ouzounian

(Jan. 12, 2005) Maybe Marty Bragg should change his name to Tony. The artistic producer of CanStage is not only about to open the 2003 Tony Award winner for Best Play, Take Me Out, at the Bluma Appel Theatre on Jan. 20, but we have it on reliable authority that two other recent Tony Award champs will be part of the Toronto company's next season. I Am My Own Wife not only won the 2004 Tony as Best Play for its author Doug Wright, but the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It tells the story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite who survived both the Nazi regime and the Communist rule that followed with a combination of intelligence and guile. The play opened on Broadway on Dec. 3, 2003, after two sold-out runs off-Broadway and lasted for 361 shows before closing to begin a national tour. It's now in Chicago's Goodman Theatre and will next move to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Jefferson Mays also won a Tony Award in the title role and his performance is credited as being one of the reasons for the show's success. However, we hear Bragg is planning a Canadian production and bets are already being taken as to who will snag the plum part in this one-man (woman?) show. The first name to come to mind is Brent Carver, so brilliant recently in Vigil for CanStage. Other possibilities might include Stratford's Stephen Ouimette and Tom Rooney, recently a knockout in Hairspray. And the other Tony Award winner bruited for CanStage? You can probably count on seeing Edward Albee's The Goat, which won the prize for Best Play in 2002. This story of a man who rips apart his placid conventional existence by embarking on a physical affair with a farmyard beast is one of its author's most shocking works. Animal activists, you've been warned.

NO HOLDS BARD: If you'd like a sign that winter isn't here forever, then cling with hope to this first news about the summer Shakespeare season. Last year, ShakespeareWorks inaugurated its wonderful new outdoor theatre with a less-than-dazzling production of Romeo and Juliet. This summer, we hear there are two productions in store, and with considerably more favourable omens. David Ferry, who did such a cheeky and pleasing production of Much Ado About Nothing in Newmarket last summer, will direct The Taming of the Shrew on the shores of Ashbridges Bay. And Christopher Newton, the highly respected artistic director emeritus of the Shaw Festival, is reported to be staging the season's second entry, Othello. Newton is currently in Calgary directing a production of Macbeth, which stars Shaw Festival stalwart Jim Mezon and Dora Award winner Caroline Cave. The latter will return to CanStage later this spring to appear in Trying, the critically acclaimed play by Joanna Glass.

Don't Call Them Scoundrels: Michael Speyer and Bernard Abrams are learning right off that Broadway can be a dirty, rotten business. The Canadian duo's company, StageVentures2, has been putting together a consortium of investors willing to put money in likely Broadway shows. Their first show (complete with above-the-title producer credit) will be the musical version of the popular 1988 movie, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz playing the roles onstage originally taken by Michael Caine and Steve Martin. Reaction to last summer's tryout in San Diego was highly positive, so everyone is pumped for the Broadway opening March 3. Let's hope it's good and rotten.

King Of The Hill: David S. Craig's marvellous play, Danny, King of the Basement, is getting the national recognition it deserves. This Friday the show (which I called "everything you want a piece of children's theatre to be" when it played here 18 months ago) starts a 22-week, 11-city tour of Canada. A highlight will be a Jan. 30 performance on Parliament Hill in Ottawa as part of the opening of the next parliamentary session. Next year, there will also be numerous productions touring Europe as well as a 15-week tour of the United States.

Start Spreadin' The News: Michael Healey's The Drawer Boy was the most produced play in the United States last year (over 200 productions to date), but it's on the threshold of its biggest chance yet. On Feb. 23, it starts performances at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J. just across the river from New York City. Paper Mill has served as the jumping-off point for numerous Broadway transfers, most notably Herb Gardner's wildly successful I'm Not Rappaport in 1985. Starring in the Paper Mill production of Healey's play is John Mahoney, best known for his years on TV as Kelsey Grammer's father on Frasier. Mahoney appeared in the show in its American premiere in Chicago at the Steppenwolf Theatre in 2001 and he obviously thinks highly enough of the piece to do it again. Maybe if The Drawer Boy moves to Broadway and wins a Tony Award, then CanStage will have to bring it back home again.

Waiting For Da Kink: The Mirvish Productions remounting of Da Kink in my Hair, with new musical numbers, has proved to be more technically complicated than originally thought. Consequently opening night has been bumped from Thursday to next Tuesday (Jan. 18). Not really that much of a hair-raising delay.

Vintners Pouring $1 Million Into Shaw

Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Robert Crew, Arts Writer

(Jan. 7, 2005) Raise a sparkling glass of Jackson-Triggs Méthode Classique to the Shaw Festival. Thanks in part to a $1 million donation from Niagara vintners Donald and Elaine Triggs, the festival has reached its $30 million fundraising target for the renovation and expansion of the Festival Theatre. The 36,000 square foot addition, with offices, rehearsal halls and production facilities, officially opened in June last year. It will be known as the Donald and Elaine Triggs Production Centre, the festival announced yesterday. The $1-million donation is the largest single gift ever made to the Shaw. The Shaw Festival board of governors should take a bow. Some 20 per cent of the $30 million came from board members, past and present; Elaine Triggs is the incoming board chair. The $30 million is part one of the most significant capital campaigns in the festival's 43-year history. Phase II aims to raise another $20 million between 2005 and 2007. That money will build production and endowment funds, and boost play development, education and new technology. The Shaw's endowment fund is now $13 million, thanks to private donors whose gifts were matched dollar-for-dollar by government grants. The Shaw Festival season runs from April 1 to Nov. 27 at Niagara-on-the-Lake.

::SPORTS NEWS::

ArtsNow Gears Up For 2010 Olympics

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Alexandra Gill

(Jan. 6, 2005) Vancouver — Depending on which way the arts community chooses to look at it, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games offer either a bonanza of riches or a bureaucratic nightmare. ArtsNow, an independent, non-profit society initiated by the British Columbia government, is now accepting applications for its $12-million cultural development fund, which must be dispersed by 2006. And this round of grants is just the first phase for one of many different funding pools that continue to pop up all over the country. The goal, of course, is to leverage the Olympics into meaningful artistic legacies that will continue to flourish long after the event is over. But according to a new report commissioned by the Whistler Arts Council, the success of these initiatives will hinge heavily on how well various arts groups, communities and planning committees take advantage of the hard lessons learned from previous host cities. The Olympic Games are, first and foremost, a sporting event. Nevertheless, the cultural component has always played a key role, Anne Popma writes in a new report titled Potential Impact of the 2010 Olympic Games on Local Arts and Culture in the Sea-to-Sky Corridor.

Ten years after he founded the modern Olympic movement in 1869, Baron Pierre de Coubertin convened a Consultative Conference on Arts, Letters and Sport in Paris, with the aim of adding fine arts competitions to the Games. The first competitions were held in 1912 during the Stockholm Games, with medals awarded in the five areas of architecture, sculpture, music, painting and literature. This celebration of the "Pentathlon of Muses" lasted until the London Games in 1948, when the difficulties of assembling large orchestras, transporting exhibits and attracting first-class artists proved too cumbersome. An amendment to the Olympic Charter replaced the arts competitions with festivals that were to be arranged by the organizing committees of the host country. New rules specified that the arts program must focus on the cultural traditions of the host country, involve international artists, and "be on an equal standard . . . as the sports events." Anyone who has ever watched the games on TV knows full well that, other than opening and closing ceremonies, coverage of the arts program pales in comparison to the main sporting events. But as the Whistler report points out, the arts festivals have become a very important factor in the bidding process. They offer sponsorship opportunities, provide the best opportunities for bringing tourists back, and are often the only way local residents can experience the Games. "The cultural component adds joie de vivre to the event," says Dolly Hopkins, director of Vancouver's Public Dreams Society. The group's fire-spinning stilt walkers were so popular at the summer games, the group was featured several times on TV, splashed across the front page of a local paper, and launched a flood of calls to the Canadian embassy.

In Canada, the roughly nine-week Olympic Arts Festival will begin on Jan. 15, 2010. There will also be opening and closing ceremonies, which must adhere to strict protocol and are carefully supervised by the International Olympics Committee. And for the first time at a winter Olympics, Vancouver-Whistler will stage a four-year Cultural Olympiad, starting in 2006. The Olympiad concept is relatively new. It was introduced by Barcelona in 1992, and has been held at every Summer Games since, as the various host countries have attempted to replicate Spain's shining success at remarketing the city as an international cultural capital. Given past experiences, the Whistler report warns that the benefits reaped in Canada will largely depend on how well the management of the arts component is positioned in the larger organizing committee and the support given to the various levels of government and other main stakeholders. So far, the signs look positive. The new vice-president of culture is to be appointed to the Vancouver Organizing Committee later this month, two months ahead of schedule, and the culture office will be part of the senior planning committee, headed by senior vice-president Terry Wright, an accountant involved with Expo 86 and the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games.

::OTHER NEWS::

Mandela Says AIDS Killed Son

Excerpt from The Globe and Mail - By Stephanie Nolen

(Jan. 7, 2005) Johannesburg — Nelson Mandela broke South Africa's greatest taboo Thursday when he announced that his son Makgatho had died of AIDS. The younger Mr. Mandela, a lawyer, was 54. He had been hospitalized for the past month, but his family had refused to divulge the nature of his illness until now. “I announce that my son has died of AIDS,” Mr. Mandela told reporters at his Johannesburg home. “Let us give publicity to HIV-AIDS and not hide it, because the only way to make it appear to be like a normal illness, just like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of HIV-AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary.” About 700 people die of AIDS every week in South Africa, yet there is still enormous stigma associated with the disease; most families attribute a death to pneumonia or tuberculosis or malaria, but never to AIDS. Mr. Mandela's very public gesture stands in marked contrast to the attitude of his successor, President Thabo Mbeki. He has denied that he knows anybody who has died of AIDS here in the world's most-infected country. The denial is symbolic of the hands-off attitude to AIDS that so many African leaders have had until recently. The announcement Thursday is intriguing, though, because while Mr. Mandela is today one of the foremost international campaigners on the issue of AIDS in Africa, where more than 28 million people are living with the disease, it was not always so.

One of the few criticisms of the beloved former president in South Africa concerns his handling of the AIDS issue while he was in office, from the first democratic election in 1994 through to 1998. Then, he almost never publicly spoke the word AIDS, and retreated behind the explanation that as a Xhosa elder, he would not discuss issues of sexuality in a public forum. Since leaving office, though, he has embraced the issue. He launched a campaign last year called “46664,” his prison number on Robben Island, that has enlisted dozens of Hollywood and music industry stars to campaign for AIDS awareness. His personal charitable foundation works on AIDS education and on services for orphaned children. It is speculated here that Mr. Mandela took up his advocacy of the AIDS issue because of the HIV diagnosis of his son, and possibly of daughter-in-law Zondi, who died at the age of 46 in 2003, of what was listed as pneumonia. But Mr. Mandela said he had been unaware of his son's illness when he began lobbying for more openness about the pandemic about three years ago. “I have been saying this for the past years, even before I...suspected a member of my family has AIDS,” he said.

Mr. Mandela said that speaking openly about AIDS would bring dignity to those dying of the disease. “Doctors, the nurses and other medical staff in hospital are going to talk about it: ‘Did you know that Mandela's son or grandson has died of AIDS?'” he said, mimicking the gossip that is common here. “And it gives a very bad reflection indeed to the members of the family that they themselves could not come out and say bravely that a member of the family has died of AIDS.” Makgatho Mandela was Mr. Mandela's only surviving son; another son died in an auto accident in 1969, shortly after Mr. Mandela began 27 years of imprisonment as punishment for his fight against apartheid. He was one of three children of Mr. Mandela's first marriage, to Evelyn Mase, who died in May at 82. Makgatho leaves three children of his own. Mr. Mandela spoke about Makgatho's death Thursday, surrounded by his family, including his wife Graca Machel, his daughter Makaziwe, and his grandchildren. His announcement may not sit well with Mr. Mbeki's government, with whom he is increasingly at odds, as they continue to stall on a national AIDS-response plan. Opposition politicians here rushed to express both their condolences to Mr. Mandela and their admiration for his public statement. “His courage shows his dire commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS in this country, and willingness to save many more lives currently affected by this pandemic,” said Patricia De Lille, head of the Independent Democrats. Last year, veteran politician Mangosuthu Buthelezi disclosed that two of his children had died of AIDS, an announcement that grabbed headlines. Makgatho Mandela was a prominent member of South Africa's business community; he was legal counsel for a major bank and an executive of a health-care company. While HIV cuts across racial and class lines in South Africa, prominent black South Africans are even less likely than people in townships to disclose it publicly when they are infected.

Telling Tales For South Africans

Excerpt from The Toronto Star - Rhonda Shafner, Associated Press

(Jan. 7, 2005) NEW YORK—She is a woman who is used to being in control and is not afraid of expressing her opinions. She has a dignity about her, the aura of the grand dame who has seen a lot of history and has helped make some of it. South African writer Nadine Gordimer, 81, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, is noted for her novels and short stories about the inhumanity of apartheid. Several were once banned in her own country. Gordimer was in New York recently to talk about her latest project, Telling Tales. It is a compilation of 21 short stories "that capture the range of emotions and situations of our human universe," she writes in the book's introduction. The stories are by world-renowned authors — five Nobel prize winners including Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Günter Grass, along with others who will likely be on the shortlist for future Nobel literature prizes. The story collection, published by Picador Press, was put together to raise money to battle AIDS. Only a year ago, Gordimer wrote to writer friends and others whom she didn't know but whose stories she admired with the idea of putting together an anthology of short fiction. "I thought if (musicians) could get up and sing" to raise money to battle AIDS, "we (writers) could sit down and write." Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie tells a quietly horrifying tale in "The Firebird's Nest" about the men in India who marry for dowries, burn their young brides, and remarry to acquire yet another dowry. John Updike writes in "Journey to the Dead" about a middle-aged man's preoccupation with, and terror of, an acquaintance's impending death from cancer.

Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, in the humorous story "Sugar Baby," portrays a group of friends looking back at their years surviving the Biafran war and how one of them managed to make it bearable. There are other memorable reports on the human condition from Margaret Atwood, Woody Allen, South African writer Njabulo S. Ndebele and Gordimer herself. Along with the anthology's writers, 13 publishers releasing the book in other countries have also agreed to contribute their proceeds to fighting AIDS. Literary agents and at least one translator say they will waive their fees, and the bookstore chain Borders has agreed to make a donation. Almost 40 million people throughout the world now have the HIV virus. Over 20 million have died since the virus was first diagnosed in 1981. "The risk of a pandemic which makes those numbers modest is real," said Rushdie, author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses. "The sad thing is we actually now have in our power the tools to arrest the spread of the disease," Rushdie said. "The worst thing we can do is pretend it's not there," said Updike, winner of two Pulitzer prizes for his fiction. "It's very easy to be a well-off American and feel very aloof from it. In the '50s, we didn't think about atomic warfare being possible. In this century, we try not to think about AIDS." A petite woman with an erect carriage, her silver hair combed back meticulously into bun at the nape of her neck, Gordimer has a businesslike demeanour on this overcast December morning. Gordimer's books include A Sport of Nature, a rich chronicle of post-colonialism; My Son's Story, about a married black man who falls in love with a white activist; and Burger's Daughter, banned for three months in South Africa when it was released in 1979, which details the struggles of the daughter of the late South African Communist party leader. South Africa leads the world with the number of HIV/AIDS victims — over 5 million, according to the United Nations Development Program. Gordimer is particularly aware of the babies. The Salvation Army runs a hospice in Johannesburg for about 30 infants born with HIV and abandoned by their mothers. "They live there and they die there," Gordimer says. "They are found by the police in public toilets, in the streets in bins." She has designated that all the money raised by Telling Tales be given to the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa, an HIV/AIDS activist organization. She is especially impressed with Zackie Achmat, 41, TAC chairman and co-founder, who has AIDS. Achmat applauded Gordimer and the other writers included in Telling Tales for their effort. "There's a holocaust happening to poor people particularly in our country, based on a combination of drug company profiteering, bureaucratic neglect and also — locally and globally — personal and social complacency," Achmat said in an interview from his office in Cape Town, South Africa.

Are there plans to promote the book further? Gordimer is "a bully," Rushdie said, half-joking. "We all do what she says. We're waiting for her to give us her orders."

Suspect Arrested In Famous Civil-Rights Killings

Source: Associated Press

(Jan. 7, 2005) Philadelphia, Miss. — A black U.S. congressman who knew the three civil-rights workers slain in Mississippi more than 40 years ago hailed on Friday the arrest of a suspect as “a tremendous step down a very long road.” Rep. John Lewis told NBC's Today that the arrest on Thursday, and the similar reopening of other civil-rights-era cases in recent years, would “have a redeeming effect on the very soul of this region of our country.” A reported member of the Ku Klux Klan, Edgar Ray Killen, was arrested Thursday in the 1964 shooting deaths James Chaney, a 21-year-old black Mississippian, and two white New Yorkers – Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24. It was the first time the state has sought criminal charges in the case that enraged the United States. In 1967, the Justice Department tried Mr. Killen and 18 other men – many of them also Klan members – on federal civil-rights violations. Seven were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years. Mr. Killen, now 79, was freed after his trial ended in a hung jury. On Friday, he was to be arraigned in Neshoba County Court on three counts of murder. Sheriff Larry Myers said there would be more arrests in connection with the killings. Eight of the 18 men who were tried on federal conspiracy charges are still alive. “We went ahead and got him (Mr. Killen) because he was high profile and we knew where he was,” Mr. Myers said. From her home in New York, Mr. Goodman's mother, Carolyn, said she “knew that in the end the right thing was going to happen.” She added: “I'm not looking for revenge. I'm looking for justice.”

Mr. Lewis, elected to Congress from Georgia in 1986, was chairman of a leading civil right group, the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee, from 1963 to 1966. “It is never, ever too late to bring about justice and send the strongest possible message that bigotry and hate will not be tolerated in our society,” he said Friday. Mr. Killen's arrest followed a grand-jury session Thursday that apparently included testimony from individuals believed to have knowledge of the slayings. “After 40 years to come back and do something like this is ridiculous ... like a nightmare,” Billy Wayne Posey said while waiting to testify before the grand jury. One of the men convicted in federal court, Mr. Posey refused to say what he expected to be asked. Calls to Mr. Killen's home late Thursday were answered by a recording. Mr. Chaney, Mr. Goodman and Mr. Schwerner were killed on a lonely dirt road as they drove to a church to investigate a fire. The trio allegedly was stopped by Klansmen, beaten and shot to death. They were participating in Freedom Summer 1964, when hundreds of young, mostly white, college students came to the South to register blacks to vote and start educational programs. Several weeks later, their bodies were found buried in a dam a few miles from the church. The case was dramatized in the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning. Mr. Killen has always denied a role in the slayings.

Jerry G. Killen, who identified himself as the suspect's brother, said he was not aware of the arrest but said he thought it was “pitiful.” He said his brother never mentioned the 1964 slayings: “He won't talk about it. I don't know if he did it or not.” Mississippi has had some success reopening old civil rights murder cases, including a 1994 conviction of Byron de la Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers. Until recently, there has been little progress in building murder cases against anyone involved in the slayings – though the case has remained very much in the public eye. Attorney-General Jim Hood reopened an investigation of the slayings and just last month, an anonymous donor posted a $100,000 reward for information leading to murder charges. Not everyone was happy with the grand jury's efforts. “It appears to be a sad day for the state of Mississippi,” said lawyer James D. McIntyre, who said he was on the defence team during the 1967 trial. “The investigation that has been brought forth – the prosecutors, news media – I just hate to see it happen.” Ben Chaney, the younger brother of James Chaney, called the latest investigation a sham that may target one or two unrepentant Klansmen – but spare the wealthy and influential whites he claims had a hand in the slayings. Stan Dearman, the former editor and publisher of the weekly newspaper, the Neshoba Democrat, cheered the decision as he stood in the halls of the courthouse when the grand jury met. Mr. Dearman covered the killings for the newspaper, and in 1989 wrote an editorial calling for the reopening of the case. “I never thought I would live to see this day,” Mr. Dearman said. “It's a good feeling.”

Joseph C. Phillips: Technology Jones

Excerpt from www.eurweb.com

(Jan. 6, 2005)    Immediately before Christmas I had an emergency root canal.  Something went wrong and my Christmas weekend was spent popping vicodin and Motrin like M& M’s.  The entertaining of my children was left to my wife.  I stayed in bed, emerging every couple hours to get something to drink and TO CHECK MY EMAIL!  Clearly, I have a problem and I need help!  My head was ready to explode and still I had to sign on to the Internet.  Hello. My name is Joseph and I am a tech-aholic. I marvel at how intertwined all the Gizmos I have around the house have become with my life.  How did I ever live without email, a cell phone and the handheld computer?  All of my music – hundreds of compact discs, cassette tapes and albums (yes I still have vinyl) – can now fit into a device the size of a shoebox.  Forget indoor plumbing.  I can pause live T.V.!  And yet for all the promise of convenience, the fact is: I have become a slave to Technology.   I am now accessible at anytime, all the time.  With Blackberry’s, cell phones and wi fi, the excuse that “I didn’t get the message” no longer flies.  In a move that will signal the end of the last bastion of solitude, the FAA is now considering allowing in-flight cell phone usage on passenger jets.  Please, Lord!  No!  I will go mad sitting through a transcontinental flight listening to choruses of “Can you hear me now?  How about now?” Like most addicts, my habit is fuelled more by a devotion to the drugs’ promise of liberation rather than the reality of servitude it delivers.  I begged my wife for Tivo and now I watch more television than ever before.  The Internet has put mountains of information at my virtual fingertips and yet my desk is overflowing with paper.  And it doesn’t stop.  We continue to march headlong into technological bondage.  My wife and I are planning to network our entire house so now we can surf the web while sitting in our beds.  If that is the only thing we can think of to do while in our bedroom we have definitely been married too long.  I have one of the new fangled wireless, voice activated phones that is supposed to save time and make driving safer.  I say a name in the phone followed by a location -- Home, work or mobile -- and the phone dials that number.  Of course since all of that information is pre-recorded, I have to say the name into the phone with the exact voice inflection I used when I recorded it.  This means actually connecting a call often takes oh- anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half as the phone continually rejects my request because I am not speaking loud enough, my inflection is wrong, or the tone is a little off. And if I have a cold just forget it. It is much easier to simply dial the number direct while weaving all over the road like all the other folks who are trying to talk on the phone while they drive. My palm pilot has recently taken to resetting itself because, well, it has a mind of its own.  This can be a problem when I am away from my home computer and need an address or phone number but my palm has decided to reset its memory.  I have been a devoted palm pilot user for years but now I am seriously considering a return to paper and pencil.  It isn’t that I have suddenly decided to swim against the tide of forward progress-it is just that this weekend has me thinking: I have got to get this monkey off my back! 

Andrea Levy Novel Garners Whitbread

Source: Associated Press

(Jan. 7, 2005) LONDON—Small Island, Andrea Levy's saga of Jamaican immigrants in postwar Britain, was named novel of the year in the Whitbread book awards. The book emerged triumphant from a shortlist that included Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings and Alan Hollinghurst's Booker prizewinner, The Line of Beauty. "What could have been a didactic or preachy prospect turns out to be hilarious, moving, humane and eye-popping. It's hard to think of anybody not enjoying it," the judges said of Levy's book, which has already won the Orange prize for fiction by women. Winners were announced Wednesday in each of the Whitbread five categories — novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children's book. Each receives $9,500 (U.S.). One of the five, chosen by a judging panel that includes actor Hugh Grant, will win the $71,600 (Canadian) book of the year prize on Jan. 25. Bookmakers made Levy the odds-on favourite to take the over-all prize. The other finalists are Susan Fletcher's Eve Green, which won the first novel prize; John Guy's biography My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots; Geraldine McCaughrean's children's story Not the End of the World; and Michael Symmons Roberts' poetry volume Corpus. The Whitbread awards were established in 1971 and are Britain's longest-running literary competition. They are open to residents of Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

::FITNESS NEWS::

Got Cellulite?

By Joyce Vedral, Special for eFitness

(Jan. 10, 2005) A year from now you will be celebrating another New Year. But if you do something different from what you did last year, you'll be celebrating it with the joy of knowing you have gotten rid of most, if not all, of your cellulite. And it won't take a year either. You can see major changes in as little as six weeks... with the right workout. You may have heard the old wives tale, "It's impossible to get rid of cellulite." This is true only if you're talking about using silly creams, steams, pills or other non-workout methods. But you you CAN get rid of your cellulite by doing the right exercises. Before I tell you how to get rid of cellulite, let me explain what it is.

Cellulite is enlarged fat cells that cling to the fibrous tissue below your skin. It looks like the surface of an orange peel. In other words, it's "bunched up fat." Everyone has it. But the thinner your skin, the more of it shows through. So blame it on your gene pool. You can have cellulite whether you're thin or overweight. I had it, but no more! If you want to get rid of yours you can do what I did -- build a layer of sleek muscle under your skin to smooth it out. Instead of a rubbery feel and a crater-like look, you get a firm-to-the-touch toned body part. The favorite three places for cellulite are the front and back thigh, and fortunately are quick to respond to the right workout. You can either use a barbell, (actually you could start with a simple broomstick) or replace the barbell with two dumbbells.

Front Thigh Cellulite Zapping Barbell Squat.

Stand in with your feet a natural width apart and with a barbell resting on your chest, your arms crossed, supporting the barbell with your crossed arms. Lower yourself to a comfortable position, feeling the stretch in your front thighs. Flexing your front thighs as hard as possible return to start and repeat the movement until you have done 12 repetitions. Without resting, move to the next exercise.


Back Thigh Cellulite Zapping Hack Squat

Holding a barbell (or two dumbbells) behind you, and with your feet a natural width apart, sink to a comfortable level and feel the stretch in your back thighs. Flexing your back thighs as hard as possible as you rise, return to start position and give your back thighs an extra flex. Repeat the movement until you have done 12 repetitions. Without resting do the above routine two more times. What weights should you use? You can start with no weights, using a broomstick and then advance to a 10 pound barbell. As you get stronger you can go to 20 and 30 pounds or more. If you are using dumbbells five pounds each, then eight pounds, later 10 pounds, and so on.

For more exercise combinations for and timely information on building a better looking body for the new year, visit Joyce at her website at www.joycevedral.com.

Ageless Joyce Vedral, a grandmother with the bone density and shape of a woman half her age, has penned the #1 New York Times best-seller Bottoms Up!, as well as Gut Busters, The Fat-Burning Workout, Definition, Weight Training Made Easy and Bone-Building Body-Shaping Workout. Joyce has been a frequent guest on Oprah, Montel Williams and the Today show. For more information, or to order her workouts or books, visit www.joycevedral.com.

EVENTS –JANUARY 13 - 23, 2005

SUNDAY, JANUARY 16
SOULAR
College Street Bar
574 College Street (at Manning)
10:30 pm
$5.00

EVENT PROFILE: Featuring Dione Taylor, Sandy Mamane, Davide Direnzo, Justin Abedin, Dafydd Hughes and David French.

MONDAY, JANUARY 17
IRIE MONDAY NIGIHT SESSIONS
Irie Food Joint
745 Queen Street W.
10:00 pm

EVENT PROFILE: Monday nights at IRIE continue their tradition. Carl Cassell’s original art and IRIE itself will be featured in the January 2005 issue of Toronto Life! It’s no surprise to me that Toronto Life has chosen Carl Cassell, in their quest to reveal those restaurants that also offer the unique addition of original art. Let Irie awaken your senses. Irie Mondays continue – food – music – culture.

MONDAY, JANUARY 17
VIP JAM WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
Revival Bar
783 College Street (at Shaw)
10:00 pm
NO COVER

EVENT PROFILE: Featuring Rich Brown, Joel Joseph and Shamakah Ali with various local artists.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20 – SUNDAY, JANUARY 23
DEEKAYE IBOMEKA
The Top O’ The Senator
249 Victoria Street
(Thursday through Saturday: shows at 9:30PM, Sunday show at 8:30PM)
Tickets are $15 (+tax) at the door
Dinner reservations can be made at 416.364.7517 8

EVENT PROFILE: DeeKaye Ibomeka, Canada’s hottest rising young jazz singer, is returning to The Top O’ the Senator to play one last series of shows before recording his highly-anticipated debut album. This marks DeeKaye’s third engagement at this revered jazz venue since his headlining debut in February 2004. The album in development, scheduled for a spring 2005 release, pairs DeeKaye with award-winning musician and producer Haydain Neale of Jacksoul (winner 2004 Songwriter of the Year, Urban Music Association of Canada; Juno Award 2000).

SATURDAY, JANUARY 22
THE A-TEAM
The Orbit Room
College Street
10:30 pm
$8.00

EVENT PROFILE: Featuring Wade O. Brown, Shamakah Ali, Rich Brown, Adrian Eccleston, David Williams.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 23
SOULAR
College Street Bar
574 College Street (at Manning)
10:30 pm
$5.00

EVENT PROFILE: Featuring Dione Taylor, Sandy Mamane, Davide Direnzo, Justin Abedin, Dafydd Hughes and David French

Have a great week!


Dawn Langfield
Langfield Entertainment
www.langfieldentertainment.com