Sunday, April 5, 2009

Farrah Fawcett Hospitalized

We wish Farrah and her family all the best...

Report: Farrah Fawcett hospitalized in cancer battle

Sunday, April 5th 2009, 10:26 AM

Actress and former "Charlie's Angel" Farrah Fawcett has reportedly been in the hospital since Thursday.

The 62-year-old sex symbol has been battling cancer for the last three years. Although she went into remission, it returned in the spring of 2007.

A jubilant Fawcett erroneously announced in early 2007 that she was cancer free.

"In the face of excruciating pain and uncertainly, I never lost hope and it never occurred to me to stop fighting – not ever," she said in a statement to fans.

Fawcett told "Extra" after her last hospital stint that she "never can say for sure" how she is doing in her cancer battle, adding "it's ongoing."

The actress previously sought alternative medicine treatments in Germany, which she later said were "tiring."

People.com confirmed Fawcett had been hospitalized. Earlier in the evening, Radaronline.com first indicated she was unconscious and long-time boyfriend Ryan O'Neal was with her.

nydailynews.com

Saturday, April 4, 2009

This is gonna be sweet....look at all the confirmed artists!

Fuse TV to televise Bonnaroo Music Festival in June


The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is a four day multi stage camping festival in Manchester, Tennessee on June 11 -14. The festival brings in top artists with musical styles including rock and roll, jazz, hip-hop, electronic, Americana and any other contemporary music. If you cannot get to Tennessee, Fuse TV will be television portions of the festival, which features Bruce Springsteen and the E. Street Band, Phish, The Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, TV on the Radio, Wilco, Al Green, David Byrne, Snoop Dogg, Merle haggard, Erykah Badu, Mgmt, Bon Iver, The Decemberists, Lucinda Williams and more.

Bonnaroo is the largest and most revered music and camping festival in the country, elevating the American rock festival to an unfrequented level. As the only round-the-clock major music festival, Bonnaroo packs an unparalleled amount of entertainment options into four days. The event is famous for the incredible energy that emerges from its crowds, who pilgrimage to Bonnaroo to immerse themselves in the unique camping community and to witness four days of historical music moments.
As part of Fuse’s three-year deal with Bonnaroo, the network will be the exclusive television partner of the festival. It will continue to be the only place to watch Bonnaroo on national television and will include live on-air coverage as well as On Demand and online content. On-air, Fuse will bring viewers live hits, backstage interviews, “Best of Bonnaroo” concert specials and a highlight show of this year’s greatest performances. The network will once again have their headquarters set up in its landmark barn in the middle of Centeroo, enabling them to bring the Fuse experience directly to fans onsite.

In addition, ATT Music will be hosting a live webcast of the event. After the festival is over, you’ll also be able to relive your experience with exclusive featured content only online at ATT Music.

Official festival website is www.bonnaroo.com

Confirmed Artists

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Beastie Boys
Al Green
Phish (2 Shows)
Nine Inch Nails
David Byrne
Wilco
Al Green
Snoop Dogg
Elvis Costello Solo
Erykah Badu
Paul Oakenfold
Ben Harper and Relentless7
The Mars Volta
TV on the Radio
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Gov’t Mule
Andrew Bird
Merle Haggard
MGMT
moe.
The Decemberists
Girl Talk
Bon Iver
Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabate
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Galactic
The Del McCoury Band
of Montreal
Allen Toussaint
Coheed and Cambria
Booker T & the DBTs
David Grisman Quintet
Lucinda Williams
Animal Collective
Gomez
Neko Case
Down
Jenny Lewis
Santogold
Robert Earl Keen
Citizen Cope
Femi Kuti and the Positive Force
The Ting Tings
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
Kaki King
Grizzly Bear
King Sunny Adé
Okkervil River
St. Vincent
Zac Brown Band
Raphael Saadiq
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Crystal Castles
Tift Merritt
Brett Dennen
Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue
Toubab Krewe
People Under the Stairs
Alejandro Escovedo
Vieux Farka Touré
Elvis Perkins In Dearland
Cherryholmes
Yeasayer
Todd Snider
Chairlift
Portugal. The Man.
The SteelDrivers
Midnite
The Knux
The Low Anthem
Delta Spirit
A.A. Bondy
The Lovell Sisters

examiner.com

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Lost Premier

I'm chomping on the bit for this one....

'Lost': Time For A Little Premiere-Day Heresy

by Linda Holmes

Tonight is the two-hour premiere of the fifth season of Lost, as you know if you ever watch ABC or have much of a collection of Facebook friends. (There are nearly 263,000 people signed up on Facebook as officially booked viewers of tonight's premiere.)

When I read one of the recent interviews with the show's creators, I was struck by this passage:

There's been a steady attrition over the years, because the show demands that you watch every episode. And Lord knows, I wish there was a way we could do the show where the casual viewer could come along, but once you start writing for those people, the long-term fans will (bleeping) kill you, as well they should. We always thought it would be a cult show, and that's the show we've been writing.

I don't mean to doubt a creator's view of his own story, but I'm here to tell you that you do not have to watch every episode, and you can be a casual viewer. I know, because I've been one, and I still very much enjoyed the two hours you're going to see tonight.

How is this possible? HOW? After the jump...

Here's the thing: I didn't get into Lost when it started. I got into it a while later, watched some episodes, and lost interest. And then I became interested in it again. And lost interest again, and came back again. They say you can't do it, but you can. It requires a little reading and cheating, but you can.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm absolutely confident that, because my knowledge is incomplete, I miss things. I miss nuances and I miss moments that resonate more deeply with other people because they've seen things I haven't. From time to time, it's confusing, to say the least. And no, I don't recommend jumping in with the Season 5 premiere with no background knowledge at all.

But the good news is that the premiere is terrific, whether you've watched every single episode or not. In truth, once the creators got a final end date for the series (which is next year, after the sixth season) and the story began to progress, the show became more linear in one sense, even as it became more logistically convoluted. Compare this to a show like The X-Files, which ultimately alienated a lot of people who gradually came to believe that there was no plan. There was no end game; no way that all the pieces logically fit together in the minds of the people making the show. When you don't know whether you're filling one more season or six more, that's what happens.

But with Lost, once they set the schedule, it became clearer that they had a story to complete by a date certain, and things began to happen. Yes, it's all very mystifying with the bending of time and space, but they are going somewhere with all of it, and that's perfectly evident as you watch. The path you're on as a viewer is foggy and sometimes seems to double back or abruptly change direction, but you can tell it's been laid down for miles in front of you and is not being improvised. What doesn't work with tricky sci-fi shows is the feeling you get that up ahead and just out of sight, there are two guys with shovels and cheap paving stones who are desperately trying to get the path laid down before you get there. Lost has really righted the ship in that regard.

The show also does a good job of feeling fair, even when some traditionally unfair storytelling devices are being used. There are certain tropes -- time travel, cloning, a dead guy coming out of the shower because his death was only a dream -- that present a grave risk of breaking faith with the audience. That's not because they're inherently flawed as much as it's because having the pieces of a puzzle fall into place is only satisfying if those pieces follow rules you already know or are learning. A story like this can't reveal the answers and the rules at the same time, or it seems self-serving.

Even though it contains shades of similar story devices, what Lost has learned to do so well is reveal the underlying mechanics of its universe in a way that makes the answers seem more, not less, interesting. Over four seasons, it's explained the basics -- here's who lives on the island; here's what's behind this closed door; here's why this seemingly incomprehensible thing happened -- without bleeding the life out of its own narrative.

It's easy to forget how this show started: plane crash, survivors marooned. Yes, there were hints of the mysterious, but it was nothing like this. A little counterintuitively, as more disquieting complexities have come to light, it's gotten easier to follow. The two-hour premiere, if you essentially understand the show up to this point, isn't all that confusing, which is more than I can say for some of the past pivotal episodes.

Perhaps the show is aimed only at its own cult; perhaps you're meant to need to watch every episode. But you don't; not really. At least not to enjoy this particular two-hour kickoff, which sucked me right in despite the gaping holes in my Lost background. I'm sure I'll go back someday and pick it all up on Netflix, but it makes an awfully satisfying drama in the meantime.