Well, we could just whistle past the graveyard and look elsewhere every time another pop culture figure pops his or her clogs and pretend to ignore the 2009 traffic jam on the way out of the celebrity death pool, but we may as stop and pay attention to Sammy Petrillo, who made his name imitating Jerry Lewis, went on the road with a knockoff Martin & Lewis act, costarred in the movie Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla, wound up running a comedy club in Pittsburgh called The Nut House and got his New York Times obituary after dying-- in mortal, not comedic terms-- over the weekend. We hear Jerry did not always appreciate his homage-- and how weird is this, a couple of weeks before the Telethon?
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Money questions haunt the “Michael Jackson’s Untimely Death Was The Best Thing That Could Ever Have Happened To Michael Jackson’s Music Show" in Vegas
With Las Vegas columnist Norm Clarke confirming that Michael Jackson's father Joe Jackson "has committed to attending" the controversial “Michael Jackson’s Untimely Death Was The Best Thing That Could Ever Have Happened To Michael Jackson’s Music Show" at the Palms on Saturday afternoon, new questions are being raised about the "costs" of the concert and what the pre-net money is being spent on.
The show's producer and promoter, Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author and comp queen Steve Friess, promises in a recent press release that "100% of the proceeds after costs benefit music education programming in Clark County Public Schools" --while at the same time "raising funds to help kids across the U.S."
As more local entertainers are joining the afternoon lineup on August 29th-- Jacko's birthday-- it's unclear how much money is being spent on the show and "after party"-- and whether anyone is being paid for appearing. The involvement of Joe Jackson brings the issue to a head, in light of reports that he was paid by the city of Gary, Indiana to appear at a Jacko tribute there.
Friess, who had celebrated Jackson's June 25th death as "the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson's music" and led the media coverup in reporting the prescription painkiller death of local superstar Danny Gans, was among the first in the nation to rush to capitalize on Jackson's death by scheduling the tribute show for a "tribute" show that he has pointedly insisted "will commemorate and celebrate Jackson’s art" and not his life.
Friess has claimed that he hopes to "to raise $100,000 for public schools music programs," but he has not revealed how much he hopes to raise through ticket ales and donations.
On Monday, August 17th, Friess wrote on his blogsite about his meeting with Joe Jackson at the Palms, and while he did not go into specifics about what it took to get Jackson to "promise to get to the Palms for at least the end of our show" and "the after-party," he did admit to blurring his roles as journalist and concert producer by selling to the New York Daily News the personal information Joe Jackson revealed during the negotiations.
The afternoon event at the Palms Hotel & Casino has grown in scope as it is being bunched with other local tributes, including the declaration of "Michael Jackson Day" in Las Vegas and the appearance of Joe Jackson and former manager Frank Dileo a special celebrity star tribute at a theatre at the Palms.
Friess has raised eyebrows as he covers the Las Vegas angle of the Jackson story for The New York Times while doing business with Joe Jackson and other members of the Jackson family. He recently criticized ABC News for stationing a stringer outside the home of Dr. Conrad Murray, who's being investigated in Jackson's death.
We've reached out to Steve Friess for comment, but he has not responded.
The show's producer and promoter, Las Vegas blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author and comp queen Steve Friess, promises in a recent press release that "100% of the proceeds after costs benefit music education programming in Clark County Public Schools" --while at the same time "raising funds to help kids across the U.S."
As more local entertainers are joining the afternoon lineup on August 29th-- Jacko's birthday-- it's unclear how much money is being spent on the show and "after party"-- and whether anyone is being paid for appearing. The involvement of Joe Jackson brings the issue to a head, in light of reports that he was paid by the city of Gary, Indiana to appear at a Jacko tribute there.
Friess, who had celebrated Jackson's June 25th death as "the best thing that could ever have happened to Michael Jackson's music" and led the media coverup in reporting the prescription painkiller death of local superstar Danny Gans, was among the first in the nation to rush to capitalize on Jackson's death by scheduling the tribute show for a "tribute" show that he has pointedly insisted "will commemorate and celebrate Jackson’s art" and not his life.
Friess has claimed that he hopes to "to raise $100,000 for public schools music programs," but he has not revealed how much he hopes to raise through ticket ales and donations.
On Monday, August 17th, Friess wrote on his blogsite about his meeting with Joe Jackson at the Palms, and while he did not go into specifics about what it took to get Jackson to "promise to get to the Palms for at least the end of our show" and "the after-party," he did admit to blurring his roles as journalist and concert producer by selling to the New York Daily News the personal information Joe Jackson revealed during the negotiations.
The afternoon event at the Palms Hotel & Casino has grown in scope as it is being bunched with other local tributes, including the declaration of "Michael Jackson Day" in Las Vegas and the appearance of Joe Jackson and former manager Frank Dileo a special celebrity star tribute at a theatre at the Palms.
Friess has raised eyebrows as he covers the Las Vegas angle of the Jackson story for The New York Times while doing business with Joe Jackson and other members of the Jackson family. He recently criticized ABC News for stationing a stringer outside the home of Dr. Conrad Murray, who's being investigated in Jackson's death.
We've reached out to Steve Friess for comment, but he has not responded.
Inglourious Tablet trashes Jerry Lewis movie (without even seeing it)
With Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds #1 at the box office and the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon around the corner (September 6th-7th), Our Man Elli in Israel (who's been very busy as a television correspondent for the Israel Broadcasting Authority) turns us on to Tablet Magazine website ("a new Jew news site, a few months old, actually very good," he says), which, amid its coverage of Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge fantasy about American Jewish soldiers slaughtering and scalping Nazis, informs a new Jewish generation about the great Academy Award®-winning director (Jerry Lewis) and his Holocaust fantasy, The Day The Clown Cried. "Don't Forget Jerry Lewis' Holocaust Movie (It's so much worse than 'Basterds')" reads in part:
"...Lewis plays a German-Jewish clown named Helmut Doork—suffice to say that we’re making absolutely none of this up— who is sent to Auschwitz, where his job is to entertain the children as they are marched to the gas chambers. So picture Jerry, complete with slicked-back hair but dressed as a clown, doing his schtick, while Jewish children—who all look suspiciously Scandinavian; the film was made in Sweden—are joyfully, laughingly walking unwittingly to their brutal slaughter. Life is Completely, Totally Tasteless. At the end, the clown, having led yet another group of kids to the 'showers,' decides to enter with them. Fin.
"According to The New Yorker, Lewis— who was battling a Percodan addiction during the film’s production— insists the film will never see the light of day (even as he also insists it is a masterpiece). So we have to rely on those unlucky few who have borne witness. 'This was a perfect object,' comedian Harry Shearer told Spy. 'This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is.' 'I was appalled,' concurs journalist Lynn Hirschberg. 'I couldn’t understand it. It’s beyond normal computation.' No word on how the French felt about it..."
Of course, the writer has never seen the unreleased Jerry Lewis film, and in an effort to create an aura of hipster journo cool, has fallen into the "make fun of Jerry Lewis" scene that was so hip twenty years ago. In fact, the Tablet post cites the trendy, elitist Eighties-era Spy magazine as its source for its Jerry-bashing. We, for one would like to find a hip young Jewish website that's proud that one of its own is perhaps the greatest comedic figure of the Twentieth Century, and as his Oscar® this year attests, among most important innovators in cinematic comedy and cinema itself, and make headlines with a frank reappraisal of a maligned work of art.
As a matter of fact, it's high time we all get a chance to judge The Day The Clown Cried for ourselves.
Meanwhile, read the script here.
"...Lewis plays a German-Jewish clown named Helmut Doork—suffice to say that we’re making absolutely none of this up— who is sent to Auschwitz, where his job is to entertain the children as they are marched to the gas chambers. So picture Jerry, complete with slicked-back hair but dressed as a clown, doing his schtick, while Jewish children—who all look suspiciously Scandinavian; the film was made in Sweden—are joyfully, laughingly walking unwittingly to their brutal slaughter. Life is Completely, Totally Tasteless. At the end, the clown, having led yet another group of kids to the 'showers,' decides to enter with them. Fin.
"According to The New Yorker, Lewis— who was battling a Percodan addiction during the film’s production— insists the film will never see the light of day (even as he also insists it is a masterpiece). So we have to rely on those unlucky few who have borne witness. 'This was a perfect object,' comedian Harry Shearer told Spy. 'This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is.' 'I was appalled,' concurs journalist Lynn Hirschberg. 'I couldn’t understand it. It’s beyond normal computation.' No word on how the French felt about it..."
Of course, the writer has never seen the unreleased Jerry Lewis film, and in an effort to create an aura of hipster journo cool, has fallen into the "make fun of Jerry Lewis" scene that was so hip twenty years ago. In fact, the Tablet post cites the trendy, elitist Eighties-era Spy magazine as its source for its Jerry-bashing. We, for one would like to find a hip young Jewish website that's proud that one of its own is perhaps the greatest comedic figure of the Twentieth Century, and as his Oscar® this year attests, among most important innovators in cinematic comedy and cinema itself, and make headlines with a frank reappraisal of a maligned work of art.
As a matter of fact, it's high time we all get a chance to judge The Day The Clown Cried for ourselves.
Meanwhile, read the script here.
Holy Land Hardball: Watch the movie about the Israel Baseball League for free online
One of the many highlights of our solid year covering the foibles of the fledgling, floundering and flummoxed Israel Baseball League was the release of the film Holy Land Hardball. The entertaining and exciting doco about the league's startup was called "socko!" by Variety and, Our Man Elli in Israel has emerged to inform us, is available for viewing online through Thursday on the SnagFilms website.
Click here to watch Holy Land Hardball.
And click here to see our complete Pulitzer Prize nominated coverage (oy, Sig Gissler, you putz!) of the Israel Baseball League.
Click here to watch Holy Land Hardball.
And click here to see our complete Pulitzer Prize nominated coverage (oy, Sig Gissler, you putz!) of the Israel Baseball League.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Exclusive video! Bruce Springsteen makes the girls' dreams come true!
"Last night was one of the best night's of my life. I have been a Bruce fan for over 30 years, have seen him on every tour since 1976 and have always dreamed of getting on stage with him. At age 51, I knew my chances of that happening were very slim. So, when I had the opportunity to do so last night, I did. What made it even more special was that I shared the experience with my 25 year old daughter. What other Rock Star would allow 11 woman (OF ALL AGES) to experience such a memorable moment? Not many, if any at all! I dont care what I looked like or what others thought of me. I made my dream come true last night. I will remember it always! Thank you Bruce!!!!!"
Las Vegas media buzzes about Danny Gans' book, ignores revelation that he had ownership in a pharmacy supply house
Three days after the bombshell revelation that drug victim Danny Gans had ownership in a pharmacy supply house, no one in the Las Vegas news media, mainstream or otherwise, has seen fit to follow up on-- or even report-- the story.
There is great buzz, however, over the upcoming publication of Gans' autobiography in October.
Co-author RG Ryan, whose negotiations with Gans' family delayed the promised June rush-release of the book that he claims was completed the day before Gans died, posts a "tweet" that he expects "we'll have (The Voices In My Head) out in late October, with the special collector's edition a bit later."
Publisher Carolyn Hayes Uber of Stephens Press, whose parent Stephens Media also publishes the Las Vegas Review-Journal, tweets that she and her team are out "to do Danny proud.
"Fans will love the book. Lots of photos."
Gans was only 52 and three months into a new, longterm contract at Steve Wynn's Encore Hotel & Casino, when he died unexpectedly May 1st of an overdose of hydromorphone, a tightly-controlled, powerful opiate sold under the name Dilaudid and known as "drugstore heroin." One of his doctors claimed that Gans apparently did not have a prescription for the drug. The local news media have kept a suspiciously respectful distance from the story, even after the coroner refused to say what other drugs, if any, were in Gans' system.
The revelation that Gans was part-owner of Green Valley Med in his hometown of Henderson comes amid local coverage of an illegal prescription bust and interest in local doctor Conrad Murray, who's the target of the Michael Jackson death probers. Within hours after the pharmacy news broke, the Review-Journal ran a story announcing the publication of the book and plans to release a Danny Gans CD and DVD.The Winnick Ticket: Vanity Fair's starlet of the month is Olga from Cloud 9!
The latest issue of Vanity Fair is notable and collectable because of the dual Farrah/Jacko cover and the sad article on Ryan O'Neal, but there's an even more noteworthy feature on page 257. The Vanities section opens, as it does, with a glam portrait of the Hollywood starlet of the moment, and this moment belongs to Katheryn Winnick.
Katheryn in Cold Souls:
Katheryn in Cloud 9:
Canadian Katheryn's feature is billed as The Winnick Ticket because of her breakthrough role in the new Paul Giamatti movie, Cold Souls, in which she plays a Russian actress.
A Russian actress?
We know where she got her practice! You might recognize Katheryn from her role as Ivana Trump in the TV movie or her outstanding roles on the Law & Order franchises, but her real breakthrough Russian-accent role was in Cloud 9, the classic 2006 sports comedy written and produced by Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns, our Golden Ace Award-winning (The Seventh Python) pals at Frozen Pictures, along with their, pal two-time Academy Award®-winning producer (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) Albert S. Ruddy, and starring Burt Reynolds.
In Cloud 9, Katheryn played a Russian stripper turned beach volleyball star named Olga. Here's a Hollywood fun fact: The role was originally written as Inga, a Swede, but Katheryn's take was so strong she beat out the Amazonian stunner Victoria Silvstedt and made the role her own (she even inspired a drinking game). After the filming, the producers predicted she'd be the new Sharon Stone. Who'd expect she'd turn out to be the next Meryl Streep? But it's evident that Emmys® and Oscars® await Katheryn Winnick!
This is just another amazing one-degree of separation for Cloud 9, which has proven to be one of the most influential and memorable sexy comedies in years!
Katheryn in Cold Souls:
Katheryn in Cloud 9:
Canadian Katheryn's feature is billed as The Winnick Ticket because of her breakthrough role in the new Paul Giamatti movie, Cold Souls, in which she plays a Russian actress.
A Russian actress?
We know where she got her practice! You might recognize Katheryn from her role as Ivana Trump in the TV movie or her outstanding roles on the Law & Order franchises, but her real breakthrough Russian-accent role was in Cloud 9, the classic 2006 sports comedy written and produced by Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns, our Golden Ace Award-winning (The Seventh Python) pals at Frozen Pictures, along with their, pal two-time Academy Award®-winning producer (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) Albert S. Ruddy, and starring Burt Reynolds.
In Cloud 9, Katheryn played a Russian stripper turned beach volleyball star named Olga. Here's a Hollywood fun fact: The role was originally written as Inga, a Swede, but Katheryn's take was so strong she beat out the Amazonian stunner Victoria Silvstedt and made the role her own (she even inspired a drinking game). After the filming, the producers predicted she'd be the new Sharon Stone. Who'd expect she'd turn out to be the next Meryl Streep? But it's evident that Emmys® and Oscars® await Katheryn Winnick!
This is just another amazing one-degree of separation for Cloud 9, which has proven to be one of the most influential and memorable sexy comedies in years!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Mike Darnell is the new Sheila Nevins
By the way, Fox's Octomom special was chilling, frightening, unflinching, compelling, eminently watchable television. Crafted in true verite form without narration, editorializing, bells or whistles, it was a chancy two hours of prime time that allowed viewers to judge for themselves while demonstrating clearly there were no network newsmagazine-style deals in place to make Nadya Suleman "look good." And she didn't. Neither did the TMZ-infected "paparazzi" with their cellphone cameras nor the unseen doctor who allowed it all to happen in the first place. The only ones who looked good were the producers-- including Tabloid Baby pal Doug Bruckner-- and Fox reality chief Mike Darnell. Had Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage run on HBO, it would surely be up for an Emmy. Had HBO given it a theatrical run, it would be nominated for an Oscar®.
Frank Caliendo may be the new Danny Gans
Frank Caliendo is the latest talent to be hired as a resident headliner on the Las Vegas Strip. The impressionist will debut at the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino on October 10th. He'll share a theatre with Lance Burton and supposedly signed a 10-year contract.
You might know Frank from the NFL Sunday show on Fox where he impersonates John Madden. We know him as the fat guy from MADtv who does Al Pacino, Jay Leno and Bill Clinton and who unfortunately always looks like a fat guy doing Al Pacino, Jay Leno and Bill Clinton. But we're certain he has a fast-paced, entertaining show, and if he adds some musical impressions, he could be the new... well, who knows?
(Coincidentally, Caliendo insists he'd been negotiating a Vegas show even before Danny Gans died on May 1st. His chances got better when Gans moved from the Mirage to the Wynn in February, because, like the Mirage, the Monte Carlo is owned by MGM, and Gans' contract with the MGM Mirage contained a clause that prohibited MGM from hiring another impressionist for any of its nine Las Vegas properties.)
A fall encore for Danny Gans
Hours after the disturbing news that drug victim Danny Gans owned his own pharmacy comes word that the Danny Gans industry plans to carry on with the release of several new products.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal, which has given scant coverage to the details of Danny Gans untimely and unexpected death on May 1st, announces today that Gans' autobiography, The Voices In My Head, will be published in October "through Stephens Press, which is owned by the same parent company as the Review-Journal."
Gans' former manager Chip Lightman and the Gans estate also plan a fall release for a Danny Gans music CD and a "full-length video" of one of Gans' shows. The publicity claims that Gans finished recording the CD "months before he died," although his last musical CD was released in 2000.
The three posthumous products will be sold individually and also bundled in a single package.
Through their company, GansLight Entertainment, Gans and Lightman also produced the Donny and Marie Osmond show at the Flamingo on the Las Vegas Strip. Lightman has ended the partnership with the Gans estate and is now producing the Osmonds solo as Chip Lightman Entertainment. The Review-Journal notes that Gans's name will remain on the giant "building wrap" poster on the Strip because it "is cost-prohibitive to change."
Gans' close friend, beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, revealed this week that Gans' widow and children have left Las Vegas "for good" and moved back to Los Angeles.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal, which has given scant coverage to the details of Danny Gans untimely and unexpected death on May 1st, announces today that Gans' autobiography, The Voices In My Head, will be published in October "through Stephens Press, which is owned by the same parent company as the Review-Journal."
Gans' former manager Chip Lightman and the Gans estate also plan a fall release for a Danny Gans music CD and a "full-length video" of one of Gans' shows. The publicity claims that Gans finished recording the CD "months before he died," although his last musical CD was released in 2000.
The three posthumous products will be sold individually and also bundled in a single package.
Through their company, GansLight Entertainment, Gans and Lightman also produced the Donny and Marie Osmond show at the Flamingo on the Las Vegas Strip. Lightman has ended the partnership with the Gans estate and is now producing the Osmonds solo as Chip Lightman Entertainment. The Review-Journal notes that Gans's name will remain on the giant "building wrap" poster on the Strip because it "is cost-prohibitive to change."
Gans' close friend, beauty queen-turned-TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, revealed this week that Gans' widow and children have left Las Vegas "for good" and moved back to Los Angeles.
Fox News caught lying about Barney Frank
Even those of us who are fed up with Washington D.C. had to smile the other day when Barney Frank gave an eloquent verbal smackdown to a protester at one of those Town Hall meetings who compared health reform efforts to Nazi policy and and waved a photo of Barack Obama with a Hitler mustache. Frank's response to the Lyndon Larouche activist was all the more inspiring because Larouche is an antisemite and Frank is a Jew.
So Fox News did itself a real disservice yesterday morning when it spun the story against Frank by re-editing the video to make it appear that Frank was dressing down a nice lady in a funny hat, not showing the statement that led to his reaction, taking Frank out of context so it looked as if he was yelling at ordinary folks trying to have their say-- and using former DC weatherman and funny features reporter Steve Doocy to lie and claim that Frank was responding to two different people instead of the single Obama-Nazi protester. Doocy said Frank was "downright rude" and suggested that he might spend "a little too much time in Washington, D.C., away from real people."
So Fox News did itself a real disservice yesterday morning when it spun the story against Frank by re-editing the video to make it appear that Frank was dressing down a nice lady in a funny hat, not showing the statement that led to his reaction, taking Frank out of context so it looked as if he was yelling at ordinary folks trying to have their say-- and using former DC weatherman and funny features reporter Steve Doocy to lie and claim that Frank was responding to two different people instead of the single Obama-Nazi protester. Doocy said Frank was "downright rude" and suggested that he might spend "a little too much time in Washington, D.C., away from real people."
Bad stuff. And way too obvious. Doocy probably never saw the original footage and was made into a fool by his producrs who were probably working off of Roger Ailes' talking points of the day. Doocy ought to apologize. And Fox News should save its lying for the O'Reilly and Hannity shows.
****
Transcript From the August 18th Town Hall meeting in Dartmouth, Mass:
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy?
FRANK: Well, let me --
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Why are you supporting it?
FRANK: Let me -- wait, I will --
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: A real solution.
FRANK: When you asked me that question, I am going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time?
[...]
FRANK: Do you want me to answer the question?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes.
FRANK: Yes. As you stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.
Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Octomom special shows the kids being born
If you're going to watch the Octomom special on Fox tonight, stick around til the very end.
We've learned exclusively that the two-hour Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage special about Nadya Suleman, her octuplets and six other kids closes some really incredible footage: more than four minutes of video showing the octuplets' birth.
The footage is shot inside the delivery room by one of Nadya's friends. Nurses hassle her and try to cover her lens but she gets the video of the babies coming out.
We told you a couple of weeks back that the special features the birth tape. For some reason, Fox has not been giving a lot of publicity to that very teaseable part of the program.
We've learned exclusively that the two-hour Octomom: The Incredible Unseen Footage special about Nadya Suleman, her octuplets and six other kids closes some really incredible footage: more than four minutes of video showing the octuplets' birth.
The footage is shot inside the delivery room by one of Nadya's friends. Nurses hassle her and try to cover her lens but she gets the video of the babies coming out.
We told you a couple of weeks back that the special features the birth tape. For some reason, Fox has not been giving a lot of publicity to that very teaseable part of the program.
"Did Danny get any of his prescriptions from this company?" Alicia Jacobs asks the tough question about Danny Gans' drugstore
Did Danny Gans get his fatal dose of prescription drugs from the pharmaceutical supply company he partly owned? His longtime close personal friend, the beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs asked the question on Las Vegas television, and the answer was, “I don’t know.”
Jacobs took control of the story last night after it was reported earlier on her KVBC-TV News that Gans, who'd overdosed on a powerful opiate May 1st, was a minority owner of Green Valley Med, a "healthcare and specialty pharmacy" in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, where Gans had lived. She expanded the story to report that in the first week of June, the Nevada Board of Pharmacies had raided the place and seized “all of Danny’s records.
“They have yet to return them.”
Jacobs said that the company’s owner, Scot Silber, told her off-camera (because he “was not comfortable speaking on camera”) that “there are five investors in the company and that Danny is the second largest owner.”
Referring to Gans as “Danny” and in the present tense throughout, Alicia Jacobs said, “It began back in 2003. Silber owned Green Valley Drug, which Danny frequented. Silber was expanding his business and approached Danny about investment opportunity, which included selling medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.”
And though Jacobs pointed out that Green Valley Med “is not a place to fill prescriptions,” she asked Silber’s attorney, Bob Massi, on camera:
“It begs the question. Danny died of a drug toxicity. Now we find out he has ownership in a pharmaceutical company. Do we know? Did Danny get any of his prescriptions from this company?”
Massi replied:
“Well, I have no personal knowledge if he did. But the fact that any pharmacy would dispense medication doesn’t mean that they did anything wrong. I’m sure through the pharmaceutical board, you could find out whatever information that you want. Certainly.”
Besides letting slip that Gans had multiple prescriptions (something the coroner did not address when he said that Gans, a former athlete who’d had his share of injuries, had died from taking hydromorphone, which is sold as Dilaudid and known as “drugstore heroin") Jacobs also concluded that there is indeed a connection between Gans' case and the Michael Jackson death investigation.
Alleges link to Jacko death probe
Silber, Jacobs said, had considered buying Applied Pharmacy Services, the operation that federal agents had raised in their investigation of Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray.
Martin Singer, attorney for the Gans estate and other related interests, informed Tabloid Baby that Danny Gans had never been treated by or prescribed medication by Dr. Murray, and we issued a retraction to our story suggested that a possible connection be investigated by the Las Vegas news media.
As KVBC’s newscast tease of a “Michael Jackson connection” was far more misleading than the questions we raised, we wonder if KVBC will also be asked to issue a clarification.
As for Alicia Jacobs, it appears she may be attempting to salvage the credibility she squandered in trying in the weeks after Danny Gans’ death to help spin it into something other than the tragedy it was. Some say that fellow Born Again Christians and those, who, like Alicia Jacobs, saw Danny Gans as a religious leader, should have been the first to shout that the fact that he was a human being who’d suffered to the point where he needed medication takes nothing away from the philanthropy and honest values he espoused, or from the brilliant, unique, family-friendly talent he displayed onstage.
Gans family leaves Las Vegas
As Massi added somehwat superfluously in Jacob's report: “I don’t think you could classify Michael Jackson’s way of life with the Danny Gans way of life. That would be a real tragedy. That would be Shakespearean tragedy. Danny Gans was the antithesis of a Michael Jackson. From start to finish.”
Alicia Jacobs revealed that Gans’ ownership in the company has shifted to the Gans family trust, where it remains, and added a footnote that any local reporter and McCloud-imitating editor would find newsworthy: Gans’ wife Julie and her three children have moved out of their estate in Henderson, and “left Las Vegas for good.
“They’ve moved back to Los Angeles.”
Alas, the rest of the Las Vegas news media has yet to pick up on this latest twist in the Gans saga. While the story of the swimsuit-model-in-the-suitcase leads the mainstream agenda, one respected reporter told us that there is more concern about Time magazine’s cover story in which Joel Stein paints Las Vegas as a burnt-out shell “in the deepest crater of the recession.”We’d hoped that there would be one strong truth-seeking reporter amid the beholden pack in Sin City. We did not expect her to be Alicia Jacobs. We’ll watch what happens next.
Otis Redding with a rifle
We noticed this photo on the wall at the Hard Rock Cafe in Chicago over the weekend, tucked away behind the bar, in a corner near the men's room.
Cool photos from The Fest for Beatles Fans
The Fest for Beatles Fans that roared into Chicago over the weekend was not only a great prelude to the 09.09.09 release of the remastered Beatles CD collection (and for the youngsters, the Beatles RockBand game). It also showcased the first preview of the new Chris Montez biopic (from our pals at Frozen Pictures), introduced Montez and his Beatles connections to the Beatlephile crowd and was witness to great rock 'n' roll performers like Ronnie Spector, Mark & Brett Hudson, Earl Slick and the ukulele-toting former Carsman Greg Hawkes.
YouTube and Facebook are full of videos and photos from the Fest. As we got back to business, we found an excellent set of pix from Fest star Sharon Paige, who was gracious enough to allow us to post them.
YouTube and Facebook are full of videos and photos from the Fest. As we got back to business, we found an excellent set of pix from Fest star Sharon Paige, who was gracious enough to allow us to post them.
Don Hewitt and tabloid television
Don Hewitt created 60 Minutes. He was, justifiably, a television news legend whose influence and vision extended far beyond the walls of CBS News. He also had a close relationship to tabloid television, and not only because the revolutionary 60 Minutes set a tabloid template for personalizing stories by creating heroes of its crusading correspondents. In the heyday of tabloid television, his daughter Lisa was a producer for A Current Affair. Lisa married equally-legendary news ameraman Billy Cassera, who helped shape and create the look and mise en scène of the tabloid television image. When Hard Copy geared up, one of the top reporter-producers was Eames Yates, stepson of 60 Minutes man Mike Wallace. Mike and Eames discussed stpries all the time, and throughout there was a cross-pollination between the premier mainstream news program and the top tabloid television shows. In 1999, Mike Wallace would contribute a quote to the dust jacket of the book Tabloid Baby: "Sad, funny, undeniably authentic, Tabloid Baby tells the tale of what befell too much of mainstream television news over the past couple of decades as the bad drove out the good.” While the full connections between 60 Minutes and tabloid television can be found in the book Tabloid Baby, we meanwhile offer our condolences to the Hewitt family on the passing of a great man.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Report: "Drugstore heroin" victim Danny Gans owned his own drugstore!
The extent of the lax coverage of the death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans by the Las Vegas news media is beginning to be revealed tonight as a local television news station reports that the headliner who dropped dead in his prime of an overdose of the powerful opiate Dilaudid (aka "drugstore heroin") was part owner of a pharmaceutical supply company.
KVBC-TV News reports that Gans was a "minority owner" in Green Valley Med, a pharmaceutical company in Henderson, the Las Vegas suburb where he lived.
Green Valley Med describes itself as the "largest medical supplier in Southern Nevada," "your one-stop resource" that "caters specifically to the needs of physicians and other medical professionals who want one place they can count on for all their pharmaceutical, specialty compounding, nutriceutical, medical supply, and equipment essentials."
There has never been an explanation if what other drugs Gans may have had in his system when he died at age 52, nor to how Gans got his hands on the Dilaudid (one of his doctors told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that a computer check showed that Gans apparently did not have a prescription for the drug that killed him). There has been no suggestion, as the news report made that clear, that Gans didn't need to "doctor shop" because he had his very own shop.
KVBC is the home of Gans' close friend, the beauty queen-turned-television entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs and executive producer Miles Smith, unofficial husband of local blogger, New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, Michael Jackson "tribute" producer and comp queen Steve Friess (who led a crusade to stop and mislead investigation into what killed the supposedly clean-living showman). Already, Jacobs, who'd taken it upon herself after Gans' death to gild and mythologize her close friend, is on the case, twittering:
"Interviewed Danny (Gans') partner
in 'Green Valley Med' today.
Danny was the 2nd lrgst
owner. State Board of Pharm
seized his records in June"
in 'Green Valley Med' today.
Danny was the 2nd lrgst
owner. State Board of Pharm
seized his records in June"
Now we get to the real scandal: Why did the Las Vegas news media withhold this information?
Connected investigative reporters must have gotten the tip, amid all the rumours of steroid and painkiller use, that Gans was part-owner of a giant pharmacological candy store. If there was indeed a raid on the pharmacy in the weeks after Gans' death, the journos would have gotten word.The websites for Green Valley Med and Danny Gans both mention support of the Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation-- good enough place to start.
But as we have documented in the months since Danny Gans died so tragically on May 1st, the Las Vegas news media-- newspapers, television, and with one noticeable exception, bloggers, stayed away from this monumental story.
With Alicia Jacobs telling her 2,131 followers on Twitter tonight that she's on the case, we can be sure she'll be putting the best possible face on unpleasant news. It will be interesting to see if anyone in the Las Vegas news media will stand up to the powerful interests that have kept a lid on this story.
For some reason, we don't expect it to happen.
Developing...
Alicia Jacobs claims that "certain powers" tried-- and failed-- to stop her interview with Danny Gans' ghostwriter
The controversy surrounding the May 1st death of Las Vegas superstar Danny Gans continues to expand as his close friend, beauty queen turned TV entertainment reporter Alicia Jacobs, claims that "certain 'powers'" tried to stop her from taping a TV interview with the co-author of Gans' upcoming autobiography.
Jacobs, who transmits her hourly activities on Twitter, kept a running tab of her journey to visit RG Ryan at the Starbucks where he and Gans met to write the book, "The Voices In My Head," which Ryan claims was completed the day before Gans' died.
She posted yesterday:
Just arrived @ the Starbucks where Danny Gans met weekly w/ the writer of up-coming book, "Voices in my Head." About 2 interview @rgryan.
She followed with:
"Just interviewed co-writer of Danny Gans' book. Very emotional 4 both of us. Many tears.Certain "powers" did not want the int.2 happen."
and
"So sad that certain people didn't want @rgryan 2 do interview..he is lovely & has so many touching stories 2 share re: time w/ Danny Gans"
Gans' book became the topic of journalistic controversy when, days after Gans' death from an overdose of Dilaudid, the Las Vegas Review-Journal made a deal with Gans' family to publish it. The Review-Journal's publisher had planned to rush-release the book in June, but publication was delayed unexpectedly by negotiations between Ryan and Gans' family. Ryan gave a hint of the sticking point when he told Tabloid Baby, "The book will be published, I am still credited as co-author."
Alicia Jacobs has been the target of much criticism ever since, by her own account, Gans' manager Chip Lightman phoned her within minutes of Gans' death to tell her firstof the tragedy and she went on the air waving a Bible she said her dear friend of 13 years had given her. In the weeks to follow, before the official cause of Gans' death was announced, she, Lightman and New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, Michael Jackson "tribute" concert producer and comp queen Steve Friess waged a campaign to spin coverage of Gans' life and legacy away from the inevitable verdict that he'd died from taking too much of the powerful opiate hydromorphone, also known as Dilaudid or "drugstore heroin."
Even the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which maintained a hands-off approach to the Gans story even before it becmae partners with Gans' family, accused her of "bias-in-reverse" in covering the story and insinuated she had lost all credibility in her Gans reports. (The controversy deepened when it was revealed that her executive producer at KVBC-TV News, Miles Smith, is Friess' unofficial husband.
The identity of the "powers"... the reasons for their objections... and why they were unsuccessful in stopping Alicia Jacobs? We have sent those questions to Alicia Jacobs and RG Ryan, and will let you know the responses.
She posted yesterday:
Just arrived @ the Starbucks where Danny Gans met weekly w/ the writer of up-coming book, "Voices in my Head." About 2 interview @rgryan.
She followed with:
"Just interviewed co-writer of Danny Gans' book. Very emotional 4 both of us. Many tears.Certain "powers" did not want the int.2 happen."
and
"So sad that certain people didn't want @rgryan 2 do interview..he is lovely & has so many touching stories 2 share re: time w/ Danny Gans"
Gans' book became the topic of journalistic controversy when, days after Gans' death from an overdose of Dilaudid, the Las Vegas Review-Journal made a deal with Gans' family to publish it. The Review-Journal's publisher had planned to rush-release the book in June, but publication was delayed unexpectedly by negotiations between Ryan and Gans' family. Ryan gave a hint of the sticking point when he told Tabloid Baby, "The book will be published, I am still credited as co-author."
Alicia Jacobs has been the target of much criticism ever since, by her own account, Gans' manager Chip Lightman phoned her within minutes of Gans' death to tell her firstof the tragedy and she went on the air waving a Bible she said her dear friend of 13 years had given her. In the weeks to follow, before the official cause of Gans' death was announced, she, Lightman and New York Times stringer, Gay Vegas author, Michael Jackson "tribute" concert producer and comp queen Steve Friess waged a campaign to spin coverage of Gans' life and legacy away from the inevitable verdict that he'd died from taking too much of the powerful opiate hydromorphone, also known as Dilaudid or "drugstore heroin."
Even the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which maintained a hands-off approach to the Gans story even before it becmae partners with Gans' family, accused her of "bias-in-reverse" in covering the story and insinuated she had lost all credibility in her Gans reports. (The controversy deepened when it was revealed that her executive producer at KVBC-TV News, Miles Smith, is Friess' unofficial husband.
The identity of the "powers"... the reasons for their objections... and why they were unsuccessful in stopping Alicia Jacobs? We have sent those questions to Alicia Jacobs and RG Ryan, and will let you know the responses.
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