Scooter

With condolences to Our Man Elli In Israel, pride of the Yankees fans.

TMZ goes on the attack after our criticism!

At 6 feet, eight and a half inches tall and with millions of dollars in the bank, veteran actor and comedian Brad Garrett knows how to tread carefully around confrontation-- especially with the paparazzi and other media. So it was a shock to read that he was involved in a tussle with a kid photographer from the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ -- until you realize that TMZ has increased its aggressive tactics in order to gain attention for its upcoming syndicated television offshoot.

And like a petulant, delinquent child, it seems that TMZ is deliberately flexing its "muscle" in obvious defiance of our constructive criticism. We at Tabloid Baby feel especially bad for Brad Garrett because TMZ's provocation of the star outside the Nobu restaurant in Malibu late last night and its use of the incident for publicity, come within hours after our criticism of TMZ's tactics was posted on Luke Ford's widely-read media site, and linked to many sites from there:

"In a town full of legendary, hardworking professional paparazzi, TMZ takes the cheap way out by giving inexpensive PD-150 cameras to kids, and ordering them to hang out in front of nightspots at two in the morning to harass celebrities in hope of a confrontation. We took a stand against this back in the mid-90s, when the people who took over Hard Copy from us, used “stalkerazzi” cameramen to provoke celebs (oddly, the same people now run the tabloid TV series Extra, which spawned TMZ). And when the celebrity is provoked to respond, TMZ lambastes him, as they did with Woody Harrelson and Matt Dillon. In the case of Gary Dourdain from CSI, they actually called him a 'c**ksucker'! In print!"

This provocation and attending celebration follows the site's tasteless mockery of the death of the great Merv Griffin. What's next? As TMZ heads toward a mass audience in syndicated television, those in control of TMZ appear to be out of control at a time that they should be in complete control.

Stay tuned. The worst is yet to come.

Doug Bruckner is a hot dog

We ran into Tabloid Baby pal Doug Bruckner in Santa Monica this afternoon as he was parking his car.

Actually the tabloid television legend, pirate expert and Lost aficionado wasn't driving the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. A young couple from Madison, Wisconsin have that honor. We met them on the sidewalk, fishing into their pockets for parking meter change. They told us that they drive the car for the Oscar Meyer company during the week, and in their off hours, use it as their personal vehicle.

And as we saw, they made it all the way to Santa Monica!

Disney movie & parks personality goes naked

Patrick Warburton, perhaps best known as David Puddy from TV's Seinfeld, is getting great press because of his full-frontal, full Monty nudity in the indie feature, The Civilization of Maxwell Bright.

But with that decision comes consequences.


As the naked photos of the big ox spread across the Internet, Pat is the star of Disney's Underdog feature that's still in theatres, continues his role as the videotaped flight attendant at the Soarin' Over California attraction at Disney's California Adventure, across the way from Disneyland.

(By the way, we were honored to witness the aftermath of what CA staffers called a first at the awesome Soaring Over California ride: someone puking because of the gentle hang-gliding experience. The efficient workers referred to it as a "Code V.")

TMZ screws itself with Merv Griffin insult

To parody a headline from the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ, "TMZ may have screwed itself!" with its flip item on Merv Griffin's death.

As reaction pours in to our recent advice to TMZ and related appearance on the Luke Ford site over the weekend, top New York City gossip site Gawker has taken TMZ to task for its cheap, tasteless, mean and out-of-touch item on the passing of the TV giant and genial figure in a post entitled "TMZ Applauds the Death of Merv Griffin":

"We can't remember who it was now, but a couple years back some notable figure passed away. We were somewhat distressed about it, and extolled the great man: his struggles, his victories, the accomplishments that made up the story of his life. Our friend leaned over, looked at us casually, and said, "And now he's dead." Which, while dismissive and somewhat disrespectful, speaks to the ultimate truth: No matter how much one manages to attain in one's life, be it financial success, family happiness, the creation and retention of enriching, lifelong friendships, it all ends with a trip to the tomb...

"It's important to keep a certain detachment when it comes to the passing of a celebrity; are they are more worthy of grief than someone less celebrated? All that being said, even we think this TMZ 'obituary' for Merv Griffin, pictured here, is more than a little tacky. (Even the majority of TMZ's commenters agree, and they're not exactly paragons of good taste— or good typing, for that matter.) For Christ's sake, show a little class."

The Merv item is a far throw from the dismissive posting of a photo of the purple TeleTubby to mark the passings of Jerry Falwell and Charles Nelson Reilly, and comes at a particularly inopportune moment for TMZ, as its nears the premiere of the TMZ TV offshoot in the syndication television market, in which Merv was revered.

Catch up with our TMZ criticisms and concerns here.

How Our Man Elli got those numbers...

I just saw this, thought you'd like it, says Our Man Elli In Israel:

Jack Cole, a businessman who used early computer technology to sort the world-- or at least millions of the people in it-- by street address, creating a series of reverse directories that remain invaluable to detectives, debt collectors, telemarketers and anyone who needs to find someone, died on July 29 at his home in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota.

He was 87...

If you ever worked in a newsroom, as we did in more than one with Elli, long before the Internet in the what we never realized were the last good old days of news, the Cole Directories were invaluable resources. The big books would match street addresses with names and phone numbers, which allowed reporters and producers to phone, let's say, the next door neighbor of a murder victim-- or, in Elli's case, phone the site of a hostage standoff and speak directly to the hostage taker.

But Elli puts it best in an email just minutes ago:

A reporter on the trail of an ax murderer could phone the family next door to be told, “He was always such a quiet boy.”

Things you probably didn't know about Merv

"Merv was said to favor Vanna White as the letter-turner for Wheel of Fortune not because she was particularly good with the alphabet but because she had "a big head," and big heads are thought to read better on TV."

-- From "10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Merv Griffin"

Merv Griffin's passing signals as great a cultural shift as Karl Rove's decision to pull out of George Bush's ear canal, and while the praise has come from all directions, the best insider's impressions have been unspooling over at Past Deadline, home of our pal, Hollywood Reporter entertainment columnist Ray Richmond.

Ray was a talent coordinator and segment producer on The Merv Griffin Show toward the very end of the show's run in the 1980s and, as he says, "got to see up-close the kind of guy Merv was-- namely, warm, charming, energetic, gregarious and only moderately Hollywood-phony."

In the hours since Merv's death was announced yesterday, Ray has been spilling out lots of memories, trivia, funny stories and secrets that only can come from someone who knew him. And the fact that Ray is the most perceptive and insightful columnist in the industry doesn't hurt, either.

#9 on the list of 10 Things You Probably Didn't Know:

"It was said that Johnny Carson was insanely jealous of Merv's wealth even though Carson was hardly a pauper. Johnny was perhaps a better stage personality than was Merv, but Merv was 10 times the businessman. And Merv got a great chuckle out of Johnny's purported money envy."

Ray's writings are the makings of the first posthumous Merv Griffin bio.

Check out the Mervyana here at Ray's Past Deadline site.

(FUN (if eerie) FACT: Merv died one year and one day after the death of fellow TV talk show host Mike Douglas-- with whom he was often confused.)

"Why are you always beating up on TMZ?"

Blogger Luke Ford sent us an email, asking:

"Why are you always beating up on TMZ?

"Isn’t it similar to the tabloid TV you pioneered?"

Good questions. Luke posted the Q&A here.

Our reply is below:

Hey Luke,

Thanks for the email. You ask, “Why are you always beating up on TMZ? Isn't it similar to the tabloid TV you pioneered?”

I’d start by saying that we’re not “beating up on” TMZ. Tabloid Baby keeps tabs on, offers advice to, and holds TMZ accountable because it’s a well-funded arm of the powerful AOL-Time Warner monolith and a launching pad for a syndicated tabloid TV series, disguised as a scrappy website.

We like good tabloid. TMZ is giving tabloid a bad name.

Good tabloid has a sense of humour. It has a sense of fairness and a sense of morality. Tabloid sticks up for the little guy. It doesn’t make heroes out of villains. It’s a form of journalism that speaks to the Average Joe. Tabloid is a TV show that you can watch with the whole family; it’s a newspaper you can read in a subway car with people peeking over your shoulder. Tabloid is the ability to tell any story— no matter how sordid or shocking— to any audience, to the Queen of England, as we used to say, as long as you tell the story the right way.

1 TMZ is embarrassing to read.

Its stories and headlines have been lewdly-written, lacking the style and grace that tabloid requires. It’s pervy and porny and crass and dirty and nasty and ugly. And though they have taken our advice and cleaned up their act (insiders tell us so, and recent headlines reflect it), TMZ still offers tasteless banners like yesterday’s “A Little Animated Bush for the Kiddies” and the embarrassing Billy Ray Cyrus “Achy Breaky Fart” report.

2 TMZ markets pornography.

I’m not even considering the plug they gave to Mantra Films and its “Guys Gone Wild” gay porn videos (“pole sliding not allowed,” they wrote) on Thursday, but the major marketing campaigns they conducted for porn DVDs including the kinky, coprophiliac “Screech” sex tape (which TMZ in a nauseatingly disgusting turn, named “Saved By The Smell”) and one featuring non-celeb Kim Kardashian (hyped with the promise of a urination scene). In both cases, the site that’s owned by AOL and Time Warner began by posting a series of titillating, teasing clips, leading up over days to the announcement that the DVDs were available, with links to the purchase points. It seems obvious that TMZ or someone in editorial control, is getting a cut of the proceeds.

3 TMZ takes cheap shots.

4 TMZ is nasty.

In a town full of legendary, hardworking professional paparazzi, TMZ takes the cheap way out by giving inexpensive PD-150 cameras to kids, and ordering them to hang out in front of nightspots at two in the morning to harass celebrities in hope of a confrontation. We took a stand against this back in the mid-90s, when the people who took over Hard Copy from us, used “stalkerazzi” cameramen to provoke celebs (oddly, the same people now run the tabloid TV series Extra, which spawned TMZ). And when the celebrity is provoked to respond, TMZ lambastes him, as they did with Woody Harrelson and Matt Dillon. In the case of Gary Dourdain from CSI, they actually called him a “c**ksucker”! In print!

5 TMZ celebrates celebutards.

There are great Hollywood, entertainment, political, and high society stories to cover. Who cares about these young do-nothing girls? TMZ has done more to destroy celebrity journalism— and these young women— than any other Internet outlet.

6 TMZ is out of touch with America.

Again, it gets back to morality. TMZ is, at the least, amoral. Its worldview is that of the Hollywood types who live and play within the exclusive “thirty mile zone.” While it purports to want to be a Confidential magazine or Walter Winchell, exposing the secrets, it actually basks and promulgates that twisted Hollywood morality, and celebrates, rather than criticize, it. Like the most powerful in Hollywood, TMZ wants to be feared.

7 TMZ is bad tabloid.

“Tabloid” is a great journalistic, communication and art form, concise and plain, funny and democratic. Page Six does great tabloid. Nikki Finke does great tabloid investigative reporting. Perez Hilton does great tabloid satire. X-17 does great tabloid photo spreads. Luke Ford does great tabloid morality. Pop on The Pop does great tabloid citizen reporting. TVgasm’s Newsgasm does great tabloid television reporting. Defamer does great tabloid Hollywood. Anorak does great international tabloid. Gallery of the Absurd does great tabloid editorial cartooning. There’s a lot of great stuff out there.

TMZ is supported by corporate millions and wants to be feared. It spreads a kinky worldview. It has no sense of fair play. It’s poorly written. All of my complaints about TMZ have been stated in the past about other misguided tabloid ventures. My book Tabloid Baby, from 1999, shows how these mistakes killed the genre in the 90s. And now that TMZ is headed to TV, they’re making many of the same mistakes.

It’s our job as a media website to call them on it.

Catch up on all our TMZ reportage and commentary here.

Will Harvey Levin really host TMZ TV?

Insiders tell us the boys at TMZ have been taking our advice and cleaning up their act as they near the debut of a syndicated television series based on the corporate porn- pushing gossip site.

And the proof is in the pudding! In recent days the crass and often obscene headlines have been toned down considerably. In fact, in the last day or so, the only one that stands out as a groaner is yesterday’s

Is K-Fed Feeding It to Grandma?

And the only porn tape they've promoted recently is the gay version of Girls Gone Wild that promises wild "guys" who are "undressed, uncut" and "uninhibited." (We realize, old habits die hard.)

But the real question and controversy inside TMZ is who will host what will obviously be a watered-down, breeder vanilla TV version of the slobber-stained shrine to Mathew McConaughey.

Insiders tell us that the role of elder, untelegenic TMZ frontman Harvey Levin in the host search is being likened to Dick Cheney’s position as head of the Bush vice presidential search committee in 2000. (For those of you who don’t keep up on current events, Cheney got the gig himself).

Now don’t get upset, TMZ boys. We know you’re already surrounded by expensive, bullshitting corporate TV consultants and suits who are already picking away at your show the way they did to A Current Affair and Geraldo, and they’ll keep it up until TMZ TV looks like Celebrity Justice. But consider this some free advice from real pros who’ve been there and done that: if Harvey Levin hosts the TMZ TV show, failure is guaranteed in the first 13 weeks. Remember Mike Walker and that stupid, short-lived National Enquirer TV series. Wrong people behind the scenes. Wrong face in front of the camera.

(Free suggestion: Adrianna Costa and Brian Dunkleman.)

Meanwhile, the TMZ TV tips keep coming in. We’ll unspool a few more in the coming days about other high-profile hirings—and what the new Sunset Strip location of the TMZ offices means to Hyde, the celebrity haunt that’s already haunted by Harvey’s celeb-taunting kiddie cameramen (a fixed surveillance camera?).

Stay tuned.

Exclusive! Fab Forever come back strong

Top Beatles tribute show Fab Forever prove to be better than ever as they hit the road with a new line-up that includes internationally-famous John Lennon impersonator Gary Gibson.

It was a year ago that the Fabs took the title of Best Beatles Tribute Band in America after a rousing stand in Culver City.

We'd say: They sound fine!

Update: 4.5

The rolling rumbler lasted several seconds, shook the house and rattled the windows.

KNX Radio says it was a 4.5 magnitude quake, centered 4 miles northwest of Chatsworth.

Earthquake in L.A.!

Nice rumble at about 12:59 a.m.

Curse of The Simpsons Movie

Hal Fishman, longtime LA TV anchorman, and one of the models for Simpsons TV newsman Kent Brockman, died this morning, a few days after a sudden diagnosis of colon and liver cancer, and ten days after the opening of The Simpsons Movie. The other longtime LA TV news anchorman who helped inspire the Brockman character was Jerry Dunphy. He died five years ago!

Another open letter to Barry Bonds

Dear Barry,

We see that you didn't take our advice to do the right thing and walk away from your steroid-tainted, rule-bending chase to break Hank Aaron's home run record.

Now you're on your own. Fucking cheater.

Giant rats run rampant at Disneyland!

As we watched the credits for Disney-Pixar's Ratatouille, we realized that the film is not only one Disney's best animated features, but may be one of the greatest movies of all time. Still, it was a little unsettling to see the five-foot-tall rat stars scurrying around Adventureland. It's a long way from Mickey Mouse.


Meanwhile, a prototype model of next summer's cute Disney-Pixar animated star, Wall-E, is on display across the way in California Misadventure.

An open letter to Barry Bonds

Dear Barry,

At a time when the nation should be rallying behind you, baseball fans the world over resent the fact that your climb through the home run record books has been fueled by steroids, while your career and all its legitimate achievements have been overshadowed by the assumption that you're a cheater.

Face it: Everybody hates you.

But here's a way to turn it around:

Stop now.

Walk away. Retire. Give up the chase one home run away from tying the monumental accomplishment by the great Hank Aaron.

Think of the impact of such a selfless act. It would turn the tide of negativity, inspire others to make similar sacrifices and make you a beloved, respected figure-- a bigger man than you could otherwise hope to be. You would be a hero.

Think about it.

Think about doing it for the kids.

New horror flick has Sopranos twist

Our pals at Frozen Pictures told us about Keith Walker, an Atlanta-based producer they worked with on the Michael Lohan nonfiction television project over the weekend. You'll be hearing alot more from Keith. His latest project is a film that should be heading to theatres soon: Lynch Mob, "a Mob movie with a horror twist." Or vice versa.

The movie stars Tony Darrow, who you'll remember as Larry Boy Barese from The Sopranos.

See the trailer above. Read more about Keith Walker (right, with Michael Lohan) here. Stay tuned here for more.

Raise a glass to Tommy Makem!

Kate Coe gets jump on artist suicide mystery

The mysterious suicides of artsy couple Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake have spawned Internet rumours and conspiracy theories since her body was found in her NYC apartment last month and he apparently walked into the sea.

Now, the day after police identified Blake's washed-up corpse, our pal Kate Coe from Fishbowl LA has already gotten to the bottom of the mystery and cut through a lot of the the myths about the writer-game designer and her video artist boyfriend in paragraphs like this:

In a written exchange in 2006, Duncan and I discussed how people create personal façades. She wrote, “I said I had the last credits of my B.A. on résumés when I did not. I shave a couple years off my age sometimes, which is the only thing I regret.” In the same exchange, she explained that having arrived in Hollywood, “I tell the truth about all these things all the time. The fantasy is handled in my day job. Plus, my profile is raised and I don’t want any fodder for making me look unreliable when I have to handle large crews and budgets.”

Paranoia. Lies. Dark pasts. Strange rants. The article paints a very personal, surprising picture of the couple (Kate knew Duncan) and could very well be the outline for a book.

Read the story here.

Tabloid Prodigy babe exposed as an uptight fraud

Urblogger, performance artist, genius savant and Air Supply fan Luke Ford does his latest, pointed, autistically focused and totally characteristic interview with writer Marlise Kast, who’s getting lots of ink for her book Tabloid Prodigy, and only recently getting a few kicks in the butt because of the hypocricy between the covers.

And Luke’s attempt to get to the soul of the woman whose book carries the subtitle Dishing the Dirt, Getting the Gossip, and Selling My Soul in the Cutthroat World of Hollywood Reporting reveals her to be something of a prig.

Writes Luke:

Marlise does write a lot in the book about preserving the treasure of her virginity… I had to find out if her virginity was still intact, and if so, did I have a chance to take it...

His mission was to find out the passage in her book in which Marlise descrives offering up her treasured virginity at the age of 23.

Marlise, a self-described “proud Christian” who dedicates her book of scumbaggery and unethical shenanigans to “my heavenly Father, in whom I put my trust” while bragging within and in radio interviews about her greatest scoop— catching Don Johnson dipping solo into a hotel for a few hours with a bag full of sex toys, responds to Luke's deflowering query:

Luke,

I just read your blog and was somewhat saddened by your introduction to the interview. Although I considered your questions extremely insightful, I’m not sure I quite understand your ultimate purpose in including me on lukeford.net. The fact that you "wanted a chance at my virginity" is not only insulting but extremely rude and unprofessional. Perhaps you can understand why I have no intention of answering any more of your questions.

Marlise has been pimping herself as a tabloid vet, adrenaline junkette and outdoorsy sexpot. But though she's hoping to cash in on dishing it out, she can't take it when it's dished back. Looks like Marlise is no tabloid babe or prodigy, after all; only a confused young woman whose publisher packaged her wacky memoir as a tabloid keeper so readers might think it's a followup to Burt Kearns' classic Tabloid Baby.

Luke finds the passage anyway. And with that and his life's work, he carries on where Howard Stern left off when he dropped from the public eye. Luke is the real tabloid prodigy. Read his Marlise story here. This is a guy who deserves his own reality show.

Saving Lindsay: Make that ten easy steps

Earlier this week, our pal the licensed psychotherapist sent along some free advice on how Lindsay Lohan might finally deal with her addiction issues in a manner that could actually work! As promised, we turned it all over to Lindsay's dad Michael, who himself works with a faith-based treatment program. But whether Lindsay or those around her are ready to get serious has yet to be seen.

Meanwhile, our licensed psychotherapist friend has been heartened by the response from our readers-- and adds a brief addendum, lest anyone get the wrong idea:

Thanks for getting the word out. However, I just realized something that's really quite important: many L.A rehabs, such as Promises do not believe in the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step model of recovery, and therefore the most important thing one can gain at a rehab doesn't even exist for them. Some even believe that you can still drink occasionally!

Unfortunately, addictions are tough to kick.

And while the AA 12-step model has the best results, even they are far from perfect. I can't recall the exact stats, but I believe AA offers about a 50% chance of recovery.

Sorry, but that's about the best we have now (although my NYC supervisor says they are working on a pill called Prometa, that has not yet been approved by the FDA but hopefully will allow people to become sober—they just don't know the side effects as yet). There are no guarantees, but what the AA model does provide is a way to change one's life and the ability to provide sponsors and members who will be there. Should the alcoholic should relapse, the door is still open. One just starts over doing 90 and 90. It's kind of like having diabetes.

I often tell my NYC patients that a diabetic isn't supposed to have sugary cake, but if they go to a wedding and eat a piece of cake, do they just keep eating cake forever? No! They call the doctor and say that they did something they shouldn't have and ask the doctor to help them get their sugar levels under control.

Similarly, in sobriety, if one relapses, they need to call their therapist and their sponsor immediately, say that they relapsed and ask for help getting sober again. That help is always there. They just need to pick up the phone, put down the bottle and get to a meeting and start counting again.

It's the shame and denial that often keep a person from doing so. But if anyone is listening out there in cyberspace, pick up the phone immediately! Alcoholism is a genetic disease and nothing to be ashamed of. It's the behavior caused by the alcohol that might be shaming. Once you get sober, you make amends.

One more thing:

Many addicts also suffer some form of depression (sometimes bipolar or unipolar) and often need to be medicated for the depression before they can become sober. That’s why a rehab center with a great psych facility is important. Mu NYC supervisor (herself an alcoholic in very good recovery) recommends the following rehabs:

Silver Hill in Connecticut;
Talbot Recovery in Atlanta;
Hazeltine in Minnesota & Florida;
and The Betty Ford Center's New Advanced Program.

On the other hand, sometimes it's difficult to tease out the depression from the booze since alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, cocaine and speed are uppers, and pot and heroin, like alcohol, are depressants. Sometimes one can't tell what the underlying psych condition is until the person is sober for at least one year. If they seem bipolar, are they on uppers that make one crash into depression?

So you can see how complicated and difficult the business of geting sober is.

ABC News dedicates two nights to Nicole Richie

The next time you hear one of those pompous network news-types complain about tabloid journalism, remember that it's ABC News this morning that's rushed out word of Diana Sawyer's exclusive interview with Nicole Richie so they can beat the celebrity tabloid rag OK! magazine to the punch before they come out with the very same exclusive later this week.

And remember that just as OK! magazine paid Nicole and her live-in pop star lover Joel Madden for their time, so did ABC News find a way to slip money to the couple, despite all the bloviating about not paying for stories.

The big scoop is that Nicole confirms to Diane that she's pregnant. But we reported that over at TVgasm four weeks ago. But while more soldiers die in Iraq, this non-story story is a big story for ABC News-- big enough to run the Nicole interview over two nights (another clue that they're stretching it out to cover the cost).

Sometime Thursday or Friday, Nicole tells Diane that she's execting to deliver in the winter, and that, despite speculation otherwise, the musician from the band Good Charlotte is indeed the baby daddy.

"Yes, I am. We are. I'm almost four months."

It's a bit of happy news for the tiny celubutard. Earlier this week, her comedy series The Simple Life was cancelled, and last Friday, Nicole sentenced to four days in jail after pleading guilty to driving under the influence of drugs, down the wrong way of an L.A. freeway.

"I have a responsibility and it's something that I did wrong, and if I could personally apologize to every single person that has lost a loved one from drunk driving I would. And unfortunately I can't, but this is my way of paying my dues and taking responsibility and being an adult."

OK! Magazine will come out with the same story, with nice photos, on Friday.