PARTY WORLD

2011-08-30T17:59:00.001-07:00

Victor Davis Hanson

A Vineyard Too Far

People who rail against “fat cats” shouldn’t vacation with them.

By Sunday afternoon, the Gallup tracking poll showed a 17-point spread in the president’s approval rating — 38 percent approval to 55 percent disapproval. Such polls are fickle and can go up and down quickly, often depending on unwarranted and unfair perceptions and media hype, hinging on everything from hurricanes to killing bin Laden. That said, these recent abysmal numbers might suggest that for the first time, a considerable number of Americans are starting to be turned off not just by Barack Obama’s economic policies, but by Barack Obama himself. But why now?

The president’s latest Martha’s Vineyard vacation was a public-relations disaster, wholly unnecessary, and in part responsible for Obama’s most recent slide in the polls. Part of the problem was purely coincidental and no one’s fault: Who could have expected that while the president of the United States was resting on an exclusive private beach on a tony island on a calm August day, millions of Eastern Seaboarders around him would be engaged in a media-driven frenzy of emergency preparation and evacuation?

Yet most of the negative perception was the president’s own doing. For nearly three years, there has been something strange about the First Family’s ritzy getaway tastes. The annual Martha’s Vineyard rentals were bookended by First Family junkets to Vail, Costa del Sol, and Hawaii. The choice of venues spawned at least three problems for the president that have nothing to do with the First Family’s right, and indeed duty, to enjoy a little well-earned vacation time — or with the fact that other presidents have vacationed in nice places.

First, Obama’s fiery rhetoric (“fat-cat bankers,” “corporate jets,” “millionaires and billionaires,” “redistributive change,” “at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” etc.) has demonized the better off. Many successful liberal presidents do that, but they finesse the necessary fundraising and schmoozing with Wall Street zillionaires with tact and discretion. Bill Clinton was a past master at gluing a populist veneer atop his deep fascination with old money and hip celebrity. The Obamas are far clumsier in both their class-warfare boilerplate and their overt elite tastes, whose contradictions they apparently either miss or don’t much care about.

No doubt this August the presidential advisers, without a clue about life in Tulare or Des Moines, gave sycophantic pep talks to the Obamas not to listen to “right-wing talk radio” and just enjoy what they like to enjoy. Obama himself apparently is still confident that the media will always exempt his golfing in a way they never did Bush’s far less frequent putting. Michael Moore, after all, is not going to cut and paste a video clip of Obama on the fairway.

Yet some photos inevitably leaked out of the “redistributive change” statist at his $50,000-a-week rented estate, surrounded by “millionaires and billionaires” who could alone afford such rental prices, many of whom flew in on “corporate jets.” That disconnect appears to the American public as abjectly hypocritical. We all know that for the president to keep pushing his agenda of higher taxes, he will soon inevitably get back to bashing the rich. But we also assume that this time the public has seen the flip side of a one-eyed Jack and wonders, when the president hits up his Vineyard neighbors for campaign cash at his $20 million rented estate, whether he will first make sure that they are not “fat cats” and owners of “corporate jets.”

Even right-wing presidents, even in good times, know enough not to rub in too much the perks of being president. George W. Bush was pilloried for chain-sawing at “the ranch,” as if he were a counterfeit outdoorsman; but he still knew that his media critics suffered far more in his beloved nowheresville of Crawford than did he. The “Reagan Ranch” in the Santa Barbara Mountains was not really a ranch at all, but a rustic hovel, and the videos of Reagan in his early seventies, chopping wood amid burrs and stickers, with sweat spots under his arms, were not faked. In contrast, the elder Bush liked boating off his family estate in Maine — and was flayed for being a bit too happy with his seaside, preppie-sounding Kennebunkport mansion.

1 | 2 | Next >

Marco Rubio's Tide Is Rising
By Cal Thomas

In my high school days before sex and environmental education and the general dumbing down of the population, memorization of some Shakespeare was expected in Miss Kauffman's 12th-grade English class.
A favorite I still recall is this line spoken by Brutus in "Julius Caesar": "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries ..."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., repeatedly says in various ways it is too soon, or he isn't ready, for higher office such as vice president. He's been in the Senate for a little more than seven months and has delivered only two major speeches -- his maiden speech on the Senate floor and one last week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.

In the Reagan Library speech, Rubio laid out his philosophical foundation, something that must be at the heart of any policy.

Defining the proper role of government ought to be the central issue in the coming presidential campaign. Indeed, it should occupy our thoughts between campaigns because those of us who pay income tax are not getting a good return on our investment.

Here's Rubio: "We have the opportunity -- within our lifetimes -- to actually craft a proper role for government in our nation that will allow us to come closer than any Americans have ever come to our collective vision of a nation where both prosperity and compassion exist side by side."

That takes the "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush to a different level. To Rubio, prosperity is not the opposite of compassion. Rather, the two are -- or should be -- joined.

Prosperity provides the means by which people can be compassionate to those truly in need, such as the disabled and elderly. It is also the ticket out of dependency for people who can work but have been robbed of their dignity by addiction to a government check.

Dignity leads to many other character qualities, which advance the true welfare of an individual, benefiting society. Someone with dignity, self-regard and respect for others is unlikely to take part in a flash mob attack.

Rubio points to a path beyond the familiar "either-or" debate; beyond envy of the wealthy and multiple and ineffective programs to liberate the "poor." This repetitive scenario has produced, said Rubio, "a government that not even the richest and most prosperous nation on the face of the Earth can fund or afford to pay for. An extraordinary tragic accomplishment, if you can call it that."

Rubio went further than what might be expected of a Republican, acknowledging his party is partly responsible for the growth of government:

"I know that it is popular in my party to blame the president, the current president. But the truth is the only thing this president has done is accelerate policies that were already in place and were doomed to fail. All he is doing through his policies is making the day of reckoning come faster, but it was coming nonetheless."

And then there is this, which shatters the left's stereotype about the right: "Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools ... that make it possible for them to access all the hope, all the promise, all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that."

If this is not a speech that lays the foundation for a Rubio run for higher office, it is a speech that ought to begin a major transition from costly and ineffective government programs to a renewed empowerment of individuals.

No one, perhaps not even Rubio, can know for certain whether he is "ready" for higher office. President Obama has proven he wasn't ready. Some leaders don't know they can lead until leadership is thrust upon them.

The right philosophy is key and the Reagan Library speech proves that Rubio has the most important ingredient of any leader: vision. Read it, be inspired and then consider whether Rubio's tide is rising.

An Unusual Economy?
By Thomas Sowell

Many in the media are saying how unusual it is for our economy to be so sluggish for so long, after we have officially emerged from a recession. In a sense, they are right. But, in another sense, they are profoundly wrong.

The American economy usually rebounds a lot faster than it is doing today. After a recession passes, consumers usually increase their spending. And when businesses see demand picking up, they usually start hiring workers to produce the additional output required to meet that demand.

Some very sharp downturns in the American economy, such as in the early 1920s, were followed quickly by bouncing back to normal levels or beyond. The government did nothing -- and it worked.

In that sense, this is an unusual recovery in how long it is taking and in how slowly the economy is growing -- while the government is doing virtually everything imaginable.

Government intervention may look good to the media but its actual track record -- both today and in the 1930s -- is far worse than the track record of letting the economy recover on its own.

Americans today are alarmed that unemployment has stayed around 9 percent for so long. But such unemployment rates have been common for years in Western European welfare states that have followed policies similar to policies being followed currently by the Obama administration.

Those European welfare states have not only used the taxpayers' money to hand out "free" benefits to particular groups, they have mandated that employers do the same. Faced with higher labor costs, employers have hired less labor.

The vast uncertainties created by ObamaCare create a special problem. If employers knew that ObamaCare would add $1,000 to their costs of hiring an employee, then they could simply reduce the salaries they offer by $1,000 and start hiring.

But, since it will take years to create all the regulations required to carry out ObamaCare, employers today don't know whether the ObamaCare costs that will hit them down the road will be $500 per employee or $5,000 per employee. Even businesses that have record amounts of cash on hand are reluctant to gamble it by expanding their hiring under these conditions.

Many businesses work their existing employees overtime or hire temporary workers, rather than get stuck with unknown and unknowable costs for expanding their permanent work force.

As unusual as 9 percent unemployment rates may seem to the current generation of Americans, unemployment rates stayed in double digits for months and years on end during the 1930s. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration followed policies very similar to those of the Obama administration today. He also got away with it politically by blaming his predecessor.

White House bluster hides truth

STEVE HUNTLEY

That’s a mighty wind blowing from the east. No, I’m not talking about Hurricane Irene. It’s the blustery gusts stirred up long before Irene by the constant whining from the Obama White House: Everything but the administration’s own policies are responsible for the faltering economy.

Irene is only the latest of the “head winds” White House officials blame for feeble economic growth and persistent high unemployment. There was the earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the fiscal crisis in Greece, the civil war in Libya on top of Arab Spring uprisings in other Arab countries and, of course, Republicans refusing to go along with President Barack Obama’s spending binge, er, “investments.” One adviser even found head winds from the East Coast earthquake, though its most notable damage appeared to be cracks in the foundation of the Washington Monument.

No doubt these events did create drag for the economy. But Democrats never cut that kind of slack for President George W. Bush. They constantly talk about him inheriting a surplus from the Clinton years but ignore that he also inherited a deteriorating economy that produced a recession in March of 2001 just weeks after he was sworn in.

Liberals ignore the economic devastation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York and Washington. Air traffic was grounded for days, commerce came practically to a halt. But none of that was allowed to intrude into the left’s narrative of Bush squandering the surplus.

Hurricane Katrina was a convenient cudgel to pound Bush over the failure of government to respond effectively to the disaster, though it was the Democratic-run governments of New Orleans and Louisiana, the first responders, that were the most guilty. Here again the Democratic narrative leaves out the economic consequences of Katrina.

The point is that any president has to deal with “head winds” to the economy from unexpected and uncontrollable events domestic and foreign. What’s remarkable about this presidency is the never-ending whining about them.

This finger-pointing is just passing the buck to avoid responsibility for policies that have failed to revive the economy and, worse, served to prolong the economic suffering.

There’s the nearly trillion-dollar stimulus that failed its goal of keeping unemployment from breaching 8 percent. ObamaCare and the new financial regulatory law have bureaucrats working overtime writing new regulations. That’s frozen investment by businesses large and small worried about the yet-to-be-determined costs of the new rules.

Obama and his advisers never flinch from anti-business rhetoric, further undermining investment. They rail about millionaires and billionaires but their tax proposals would hit small businesses earning far less than a million dollars.

Democrats sneer at the Texas job growth story by pointing out that a significant part of it is based in the oil and gas industry, revealing left-wing job-killing hostility to developing traditional energy resources. A study by the business analysis firm IHS Global Insight asserts increased offshore energy production could produce nearly 230,000 jobs, add $44 billion to the economy and provide nearly $12 billion in tax and royalty revenues to state and federal governments.

But documents released by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) show that the administration’s campaign against deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico caused 10 oil rigs to leave for better opportunities in waters off Egypt, Congo and other places — including Brazil where, ironically, Obama has promoted the ocean exploration he frustrates at home.

Meanwhile the administration pursues alternative energy jobs, though the New York Times reported this month that “federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed.”

All the finger pointing, whining and passing the buck can’t hide the failure of Obamanomics.

Irene's Broken Windows

By Larry Kudlow

Get ready for a bunch of demand-side economists to tell you that the post-Hurricane Irene rebuilding phase is actually a good thing for future economic growth. But don't believe it.

Who has it right?

Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., delivered my favorite quote on the subject to The New York Times: "If you're in the middle of recession, you just wander around blowing up buildings, and that would be your path to prosperity. And clearly, that's not the case. It's not the case with a natural disaster, either."

Echoing this thought, Ian Shepherdson, the chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, bluntly noted on CNBC's website that "no one is made better off by the destruction of their home or workplace." He acknowledged the benefits of reconstruction work, but he dismissed the idea that somehow this is a net win for the economy.

It sounds to me as if both of these gentlemen are recalling the parable of the broken window, introduced by French free market philosopher Frederic Bastiat, in an 1850 essay called "That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen." Though Bastiat agrees that repairing broken windows is a good thing, encouraging the glazier's trade and income, he argues that it is quite different from the idea that breaking windows is a good thing, in that it would cause money to circulate and encourage industry in general.

Why? Because a shopkeeper who spends money to fix broken windows cannot spend or invest that money on new ventures.

"It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library," Bastiat wrote. "In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented."

In other words, the businesspeople who are spending to fix the damage of Hurricane Irene are not spending or investing that money on brand-new ventures or startups or on ordinary goods and services. Those are the real economics of Hurricane Irene.

There was a lot of damage incurred along 1,100 miles of U.S. coastline. Tragically, 28 deaths have been reported so far. There were toppled trees, power disruptions and flooding on damaged roads. Homes, commercial buildings and factories all stopped for at least a couple of days. In some sense, the human distress has been even greater than the economic distress.

On the other hand, lost sales, forgone consumer spending and temporary stoppages of production and employment all will be recouped in a relatively short period of time. Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics suggests that the economic toll will be in the billions, but not the tens of billions. (Remember that the total U.S. gross domestic product is roughly $15 trillion.) So there's no black-swan event here that will throw our fragile economy into a double-dip recession.

Yes, the economic blow from Irene is noticeable, but it's temporary. In fact, what makes this economic setback even less worrisome is that it occurred over a weekend. You really didn't even lose two days of economic activity.

Restaurants, retailers, baseball games and Broadway shows all shut down, but only for a short bit. And actually, there was a lot of consumer buying in the days leading up to Irene. People went to Home Depot and Lowe's to find stuff with which to board up their windows. They went to Costco for food. And they went to Walmart and Dollar General for all sorts of things.

When the final tally is in, Irene may or may not qualify as a top 10 hurricane. But the history of such disasters is that the national economy rebuilds and snaps back shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, the economic rebuilding essentially gets you back to where you were before the storm. Unfortunately, there is virtually no net new investment from all of this.

That said, if President Barack Obama tries to use Hurricane Irene as an excuse to pour tens of billions of new infrastructure dollars into the economy, he's barking up the wrong tree.

For just as Bastiat's seen-and-unseen analysis holds for the shopkeeper repairing his window, it also holds for the impact of massive government spending on the whole economy. It's a huge mistake -- and a consequence of our fiscal profligacy -- when private money is not spent on new investment because funds are absorbed by big-government borrowing.

If we are to restore strong economic growth and job creation, we require measures such as pro-growth tax reform or regulatory rollback and repeal. In this sense, the new House Republican plan just released by Majority Leader Eric Cantor to repeal job-destroying regulations -- especially on labor and the environment -- makes a lot more sense than throwing money at the Federal Emergency Management Agency for new infrastructure banks.

Breaking fiscal windows is just as ineffective as breaking the shopkeeper's pane of glass.
Lawrence Kudlow is host of CNBC's The Kudlow Report and co-host of The Call. He is also a former Reagan economic advisor and a syndicated columnist. Visit his blog, Kudlow's Money Politics.

Can Obama Pull a Reagan?

Democrats inside and outside the White House are looking for a comeback strategy for President Obama, and their model is Ronald Reagan.

STEPHEN MOORE

Democrats inside and outside the White House are looking for a comeback strategy for President Obama, and their model is Ronald Reagan.

The Gipper's approval ratings were in the tank at the end of his second year in office, but he roared back to win 49 states against Democrat Walter Mondale. And Reagan's polling numbers at this stage of his presidency were not much better than Mr. Obama's are now.

View Full Image

Getty Images

However, a new analysis from Laffer and Associates suggests that it will be very difficult for Team Obama to replicate Reagan. Reagan's numbers bottomed out in January 1983, right after the trough of the 1982 recession, at about 35%. But for the rest of 1983, Reagan's numbers steadily climbed and eventually surpassed 50% by the end of that year. For Mr. Obama, the trend line this year has been in the opposite direction.

"Reagan's numbers really began to soar by late '83," says Arthur Laffer, who was an economic adviser to Reagan. "The numbers really tracked the economic recovery."

That kind of political resurrection could happen for Mr. Obama if the economy heals. But right now unemployment exceeds 9%, and presidents typically don't get re-elected when unemployment is more than 8%. And then there are the "confidence" and "competence" factors, according to the Laffer report. These are measures of whether people feel that things are getting better and the president is doing the right thing, even if the economy isn't so good at that point in time. In 1984, the unemployment rate was still above 7.5 % and Reagan won big.

The Laffer report on the two presidents is aptly entitled "The Odd Couple." In this case Reagan would be Felix, because he cleaned up the mess; and Mr. Obama is more like Oscar, who leaves a bigger mess behind.

Deficit Committee Taps GOP Tax Expert as Leader

CBO's Fiscal Fantasy

President Obama's Competency Crisis

Can Krueger Fix the Economy?

A New Japanese Government?

Larry Summers’s Bad Math Is S&P Informed Opinion

Larry Summers’s Bad Math Is S&P Informed Opinion: Caroline Baum

By Caroline Baum

About Caroline Baum

Caroline Baum, a columnist for Bloomberg News since 1998, is the author of "Just What I Said: Bloomberg Economics Columnist Takes on Bonds, Banks, Budgets and Bubbles."

More about Caroline Baum

When Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S.’s long-term credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Aug. 5, Washington went on the offensive.

President Barack Obama’s advisers blasted S&P. The administration’s friends and allies came out with guns blazing. The Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly scrutinizing S&P’s procedures connected with the downgrade. And the Senate Banking Committee is said to be pondering an investigation -- into what exactly, committee members haven’t said.

None of S&P’s detractors let us forget for one minute that this is the same S&P that slapped a AAA rating on collateralized subprime junk during the housing bubble, and that gave Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. investment-grade ratings shortly before each of them imploded.

What’s more, the U.S. Treasury found a $2 trillion error in S&P’s analysis, prompting Larry Summers, a former Obama economic adviser, to offer a rating of his own.

“S&P’s track record has been terrible and its arithmetic is worse,” Summers told CNN.

A pox on S&P’s house! Death to the messenger! In fact, the messenger was shot so early and often one might have missed the message amid all the gun smoke. Unless the U.S. gets its fiscal house in order and aligns the promises it has made to retirees with tax rates that don’t stunt growth, the nation’s sovereign- debt rating is unlikely to contain the first letter of the alphabet at all.

Ready, Shoot, Aim

As it turns out, the sharpshooters were wide of the target. S&P didn’t make an arithmetical error, as Summers would have us believe. Nor did the sovereign-debt analysts show “a stunning lack of knowledge,” as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner claimed. Rather, they used a different assumption about the growth rate of discretionary spending, something the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office does regularly in its long-term outlook.

CBO’s “alternative fiscal scenario,” which S&P used for its initial analysis, assumes discretionary spending increases at the same rate as nominal gross domestic product, or about 5 percent a year. CBO’s baseline scenario, which is subject to current law, assumes 2.5 percent annual growth in these outlays, which means less new debt over 10 years.

But S&P’s rating horizon is three to five years. The difference between the two assumptions amounts to a gap of about $250 billion in debt estimates for 2015: $14.5 trillion, or 79 percent of GDP, under the baseline scenario, versus $14.7 trillion, or 81 percent of GDP, under the alternative. (S&P includes federal, state and local government debt in its calculations.)

Over 10 years, the difference is, as Treasury says, $2 trillion and eight percentage points as a share of GDP.

Repeated Mistake

In its response to the S&P downgrade, Treasury used the word “mistake” eight times, “error” five times, and other pejorative words three times -- all in a 550-word memo. Just in case anyone missed the point.

To be sure, S&P’s critics have legitimate gripes. Was the credit rating company being too much of an activist in demanding $4 trillion of savings for the U.S. in order to maintain its AAA rating? Why didn’t S&P’s acceptance of a slower rate of spending produce a different outcome? Was the downgrade political? If so, is this a legitimate framework for assessing the creditworthiness of the U.S.?

These are all valid questions. Yet when the discussions between S&P and Treasury didn’t have the desired results, the administration set out to discredit the messenger.

Cognitive Dissonance

Imperfect as that messenger may be, shooting him doesn’t minimize the message. Fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path, largely the result of entitlement spending exacerbated by the retirement of the baby boomers. We have a government that lives beyond its means and a political class that lacks the will to find a solution.

For example, “preserving Medicare as we know it,” as House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is wont to say, isn’t an option. Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted by 2024, according to the 2011 annual report from the program’s trustees. That’s five years earlier than they projected in 2010. Medicare has been running a cash-flow deficit, with expenditures exceeding income, since 2008.

The Social Security Trust Fund, which ran a cash-flow deficit excluding interest last year and is projected to run one this year, will be exhausted in 2036. (No, Virginia, there is no lockbox.)

‘Delicious Irony’

The Republicans’ intransigence on revenue increases, no matter what the source, is another stumbling block. As economist Art Laffer put it, “Who doesn’t want revenue increases” if they result from stronger economic and job growth? Almost everyone agrees the economy would get a boost from a more efficient tax system that eliminates loopholes and lowers corporate and individual income-tax rates.

Looking at the big picture, the American Enterprise Institute’s Alex Pollock finds a “delicious irony” in the S&P downgrade. The only reason it carried so much weight is the federal government gave S&P that power. S&P is one of three nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs), along with Moody’s and Fitch, designated by the SEC in 1975.

The Dodd-Frank financial-reform act includes a provision that would end their monopoly, but progress on implementing it has been slow.

In the meantime, just think if all the energy expended to discredit S&P had been put to better use. Maybe the Obama administration could have offered up its own plan to put the U.S. on a sustainable fiscal path -- perhaps one that passes muster with S&P.

Granny’s Fate Rides With Bernanke in Jackson Hole

Granny’s Fate Rides With Bernanke in Jackson Hole: Caroline Baum

Illustration by Nathaniel Russell

By Caroline Baum

About Caroline Baum

Caroline Baum, a columnist for Bloomberg News since 1998, is the author of "Just What I Said: Bloomberg Economics Columnist Takes on Bonds, Banks, Budgets and Bubbles."

More about Caroline Baum

Investors around the world are waiting to find out whether Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke puts any QE3 in his opening remarks today at the Kansas City Fed’s Jackson Hole conference. It was one year ago at the same event that he outlined the Fed’s policy options for an ailing economy, including a second round of quantitative easing that started in early November.

A second audience will be listening to Bernanke -- not as closely, perhaps, nor in real time, but with no less a stake in the outcome: retirees living on fixed incomes who have watched their returns dwindle to almost nothing.

Bernanke has already told this group to forget about earning a higher rate of interest anytime soon. At the conclusion of its Aug. 9 meeting, the Fed announced it would keep the benchmark rate near zero “at least through mid-2013.” What’s a small saver to do?

Monetary policy isn’t offering much solace in the short run. That’s because the Fed adjusts interest rates and, in so doing, changes the incentives to spend and to save.

When inflation-adjusted interest rates are high, the public is induced to forego current consumption in favor of future consumption. In plain talk, we’re being paid to save.

Alternatively, when real rates are low or negative, as they are now, the incentive is to spend today and forget about saving for a rainy day. Interest rates act as a guide to our choices.

Risk Management

That’s one explanation of how monetary policy works. There are others. While currently out of favor, monetarism teaches that if the Fed creates more money than the public wants to hold, people will spend it. It’s akin to dropping money from a helicopter, the metaphor adopted by the late Milton Friedman to teach his University of Chicago students how monetary policy works.

Bernanke explains it in a different way. Once short-term rates hit zero, monetary policy works through the portfolio balance channel, a theory he outlined at Jackson Hole last year. Specifically, when the Fed buys risk-free Treasuries, it depresses the yields and forces investors to buy other assets that carry increased credit and interest-rate risk -- long-term corporate bonds or stocks, for example.

In a Nov. 19 speech, he even argued that there was no Q in quantitative easing. The thrust of QE, he said, comes from changing the quantity of bank reserves, a channel he called weak. Securities purchases, on the other hand, work through portfolio substitution.

“The Fed should talk in terms of reserves, not asset prices,” said Marvin Goodfriend, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and a former research director at the Richmond Fed.

Bad Marketing

The reason? To remind the public of the Fed’s unique authority, independent of the political process, “to stabilize the purchasing power of money,” Goodfriend said.

Maybe it’s just a case of bad marketing, although the Fed has been emphasizing the asset side of its balance sheet since December 2008, when it lowered the funds rate to near zero. For an institution that is so concerned with its communication policy, the Fed could do better. The talk about forcing investors to assume more risk sounds as if the Fed is encouraging Gram and Gramps to redeem those six-month Treasury bills, cash out of the money-market fund and let the CDs mature, and go out and buy stocks and high-yield bonds.

Small savers and retirees have reason to be upset. It’s as if monetary policy has been personalized to punish one group that behaved well (savers) and reward another that over-borrowed and over-spent.

Daily 400-point swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average aren’t for everyone. Most octogenarians, I’d venture to say, prefer less volatility.

Bubble Blindness

Goodfriend says the Great Inflation of the 1970s soured many savers on owning long-term bonds. They opted for short-term instruments instead, which left them vulnerable to periodic bouts of ultra-low rates (the periods seem to be getting longer).

Besides, the Fed’s extended policy of zero-percent interest rates is apt to spark a bubble in some unexpected asset class. (Farm land and student loans have been mentioned as possible candidates.) When it comes to bubble identification, the Fed is the last one to know and even slower to admit to a role in its creation.

The Fed tries to be neutral in its conduct of monetary policy, buying Treasuries only and no other asset classes. (The various lending facilities created in 2007 and 2008 to deal with the financial crisis are the exception.) In the same spirit, the central bank needs to communicate that it’s running monetary policy for everyone, not just sophisticated investors.

Don’t Forget Gramps

“A policy that is effective in getting the economy to grow more rapidly will improve the lives of most people,” says former St. Louis Fed President Bill Poole.

Stronger growth means more hiring, more income, bigger profits, higher stock prices and higher real interest rates.

Figuring out what’s “effective” isn’t so easy. I doubt that Bernanke will offer any new solutions today. After all, three members of the Fed’s policy committee dissented from the Aug. 9 decision to commit to near-zero rates through mid-2013.

Inflation readings are much higher than they were a year ago: 3.6 percent versus 1.2 percent for the consumer price index; 1.8 percent versus 0.9 percent for the core CPI, which excludes food and energy and is given more weight by policy makers. The bar for additional Fed action has been raised.

Whatever Bernanke says or doesn’t say is sure to have a market impact. Stocks, for example, will probably be disappointed without the prospect of a Fed fix.

As for Gram and Gramps, who won’t be attending this or any Fed symposium, Bernanke will have nothing to offer. At minimum he could acknowledge their predicament and stop encouraging them to buy junk bonds.

How Steve Jobs Made Business Cool Again, 1981

How Steve Jobs Made Business Cool Again, 1981: Virginia Postrel

Illustration by Leif Parsons

By Virginia Postrel

About Virginia Postrel

Virginia Postrel writes about commerce and culture, innovation, economics and public policy. Shes the author of "The Future and Its Enemies" and "The Substance of Style," and is writing a book on glamour.

Why Alan Krueger's Jobs Analysis Was Spot On

Why Alan Krueger's Jobs Analysis Was Spot On: The Ticker

By Paula Dwyer

In a March 31 Bloomberg News op-ed, Princeton University economist Alan Krueger predicted that the unemployment rate, then at 8.9 percent, would keep falling. He was wrong -- it rose, and five months later it's still higher at 9.1 percent.

President Barack Obama today nominated Krueger to lead the Council of Economic Advisers, replacing Austan Goolsbee. Did the president choose someone who doesn't understand labor markets?

To the contrary. In the same op-ed, Krueger's analysis was spot on when he wrote about the employment-to-population ratio, which may offer a better window on job-market trends. As Krueger explained, the unemployment rate can be illusory because it only counts people who have actively looked for a job in the last month. He wrote:

"Here’s something to think about. At the end of this year, extended unemployment benefits will expire, while other people will exhaust their benefits during the course of the year. Once that happens we might start seeing more people give up looking for work, restoring the pattern where people unemployed the longest leave the labor force at a higher rate than others. After all, the prospect of finding a job after looking for two years is small, and it probably won’t improve much even if the labor market continues to heal.

So we might well see the labor force shrinking more even as the measured unemployment rate falls. Nonetheless, we still will have a serious joblessness problem even as the unemployment rate falls.

Instead of focusing on the unemployment rate, it may be better to look at the employment-to-population ratio, or the share of the population that is employed. This rate isn’t affected by whether someone is counted as in or out of the labor force.

Tellingly, the employment-to-population rate has hardly budged since reaching a low of 58.2 percent in December 2009. Last month it stood at just 58.4 percent. Even in the expansion from 2002 to 2007 the share of the population employed never reached the peak of 64.7 percent it attained before the March-November 2001 recession.

What this indicator tells me is that we weren’t creating enough jobs long before the recession that began in December 2007. If this pattern holds, even in recovery, it points to a much deeper and disturbing problem for the U.S. economy."

He was right: The employment-to-population ratio kept on slipping in subsequent months, reaching 58.2 percent in the June payrolls report and 58.1 percent in July. As my colleague Mark Whitehouse wrote in an Aug. 5 Ticker post, that's the lowest point since the 1983 recession. We'll see if it dips below that, to 58 or even lower, when the August employment figures are released on Friday.

Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy

Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy: George Magnus

Illustration by Jordan Awan

By George Magnus

Policy makers struggling to understand the barrage of financial panics, protests and other ills afflicting the world would do well to study the works of a long-dead economist: Karl Marx. The sooner they recognize we’re facing a once-in-a-lifetime crisis of capitalism, the better equipped they will be to manage a way out of it.

The spirit of Marx, who is buried in a cemetery close to where I live in north London, has risen from the grave amid the financial crisis and subsequent economic slump. The wily philosopher’s analysis of capitalism had a lot of flaws, but today’s global economy bears some uncanny resemblances to the conditions he foresaw.

Consider, for example, Marx’s prediction of how the inherent conflict between capital and labor would manifest itself. As he wrote in “Das Kapital,” companies’ pursuit of profits and productivity would naturally lead them to need fewer and fewer workers, creating an “industrial reserve army” of the poor and unemployed: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery.”

The process he describes is visible throughout the developed world, particularly in the U.S. Companies’ efforts to cut costs and avoid hiring have boosted U.S. corporate profits as a share of total economic output to the highest level in more than six decades, while the unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent and real wages are stagnant.

U.S. income inequality, meanwhile, is by some measures close to its highest level since the 1920s. Before 2008, the income disparity was obscured by factors such as easy credit, which allowed poor households to enjoy a more affluent lifestyle. Now the problem is coming home to roost.

Over-Production Paradox

Marx also pointed out the paradox of over-production and under-consumption: The more people are relegated to poverty, the less they will be able to consume all the goods and services companies produce. When one company cuts costs to boost earnings, it’s smart, but when they all do, they undermine the income formation and effective demand on which they rely for revenues and profits.

This problem, too, is evident in today’s developed world. We have a substantial capacity to produce, but in the middle- and lower-income cohorts, we find widespread financial insecurity and low consumption rates. The result is visible in the U.S., where new housing construction and automobile sales remain about 75% and 30% below their 2006 peaks, respectively.

As Marx put it in Kapital: “The ultimate reason for all real crises always remains the poverty and restricted consumption of the masses.”

Addressing the Crisis

So how do we address this crisis? To put Marx’s spirit back in the box, policy makers have to place jobs at the top of the economic agenda, and consider other unorthodox measures. The crisis isn’t temporary, and it certainly won’t be cured by the ideological passion for government austerity.

Here are five major planks of a strategy whose time, sadly, has not yet come.

First, we have to sustain aggregate demand and income growth, or else we could fall into a debt trap along with serious social consequences. Governments that don’t face an imminent debt crisis -- including the U.S., Germany and the U.K. -- must make employment creation the litmus test of policy. In the U.S., the employment-to-population ratio is now as low as in the 1980s. Measures of underemployment almost everywhere are at record highs. Cutting employer payroll taxes and creating fiscal incentives to encourage companies to hire people and invest would do for a start.

Lighten the Burden

Second, to lighten the household debt burden, new steps should allow eligible households to restructure mortgage debt, or swap some debt forgiveness for future payments to lenders out of any home price appreciation.

Third, to improve the functionality of the credit system, well-capitalized and well-structured banks should be allowed some temporary capital adequacy relief to try to get new credit flowing to small companies, especially. Governments and central banks could engage in direct spending on or indirect financing of national investment or infrastructure programs.

Fourth, to ease the sovereign debt burden in the euro zone, European creditors have to extend the lower interest rates and longer payment terms recently proposed for Greece. If jointly guaranteed euro bonds are a bridge too far, Germany has to champion an urgent recapitalization of banks to help absorb inevitable losses through a vastly enlarged European Financial Stability Facility -- a sine qua non to solve the bond market crisis at least.

Build Defenses

Fifth, to build defenses against the risk of falling into deflation and stagnation, central banks should look beyond bond- buying programs, and instead target a growth rate of nominal economic output. This would allow a temporary period of moderately higher inflation that could push inflation-adjusted interest rates well below zero and facilitate a lowering of debt burdens.

We can’t know how these proposals might work out, or what their unintended consequences might be. But the policy status quo isn’t acceptable, either. It could turn the U.S. into a more unstable version of Japan, and fracture the euro zone with unknowable political consequences. By 2013, the crisis of Western capitalism could easily spill over to China, but that’s another subject.

U.S. Confidence Slumps to Lowest Since 2009

By Timothy R. Homan

Enlarge image

Women carry shopping bags in New York. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Play Video

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Jonathan Spector, chief executive officer of the Conference Board, talks about the group's consumer confidence survey for August and the outlook for the U.S. economy. The Conference Board’s index slumped to 44.5, the weakest since April 2009, from a revised 59.2 reading in July. Spector speaks with Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg)

Play Video

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Shiller, an economics professor at Yale University and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index, talks about the U.S. housing market and economy, and his prescription for government action to boost growth and employment. Property values in 20 cities fell 4.5 percent in the year ended in June, after a 4.6 percent drop in the 12 months ended in May that was the biggest since 2009, according to the Case-Shiller index. Shiller speaks with Tom Keene on Bloomberg Television's "Surveillance Midday." (Source: Bloomberg)

Play Video

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Allan Meltzer, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a historian of the Federal Reserve, Jacob Frenkel, chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, and Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital, offer their views on today's speech by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke at the Kansas City Fed's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This report also contains comments by Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial Holdings Inc., Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics Inc., Richard Dekaser, an economist at the Parthenon Group, and Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. (Source: Bloomberg)

Enlarge image

Shoppers look over merchandise at a Gap Inc. store in San Francisco. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Enlarge image

Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged in August to the lowest in more than two years as Americans’ outlooks for employment, incomes and business conditions soured. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Confidence among U.S. consumers plunged to the lowest level in more than two years as Americans’ outlooks for employment and incomes soured.

The Conference Board’s index slumped to 44.5, the weakest since April 2009, from a revised 59.2 reading in July, figures from the New York-based research group showed today. It was the biggest point drop since October 2008. A separate report showed home prices declined for a ninth month.

Treasury yields dropped on concern consumers will pull back on the spending that makes up about 70 percent of the economy, increasing the risk of a recession. An unemployment rate above 9 percent, partisan bickering over the budget deficit and a volatile stock market weighed on sentiment.

“This paints a picture of underlying demand weakening,” said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York, whose forecast of 45 was most accurate in a Bloomberg News survey. “Consumers are seeing their wealth deteriorate. We’ve seen a huge decline continuing in the housing market. They’ve also been hit on the chin by the equity markets.”

Treasuries climbed, pushing down the yield on the benchmark 10-year note down to 2.17 percent from 2.26 percent late yesterday. After declining as much as 1.2 percent, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.2 percent to 1,212.92 at the 4 p.m. close in New York after minutes of the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed some policy makers wanted to take more action to spur growth.

Global Confidence Slump

American consumers aren’t the only ones feeling more glum. European confidence in the economic outlook plunged in August by the most since December 2008 as a persistent debt crisis roiled markets and clouded growth prospects. An index of executive and consumer sentiment in the single-currency region fell to 98.3 from a revised 103 in July, the European Commission in Brussels said today.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities fell 4.5 percent in June from a year earlier, after a 4.6 percent drop in the 12 months ended in May that was the biggest since 2009.

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans urged easier monetary policy to keep the recovery going after the central bank on Aug. 9 vowed to keep its benchmark interest rate close to zero at least through mid 2013.

“I would favor more accommodation,” Evans, a voting member of the Fed’s policy-making committee, said today in a CNBC television interview. “I am somewhat nervous about the economic recovery and where we stand at this point.”

Survey Results

Economists predicted the Conference Board’s gauge would fall to 52 in August, according to the median forecast in the Bloomberg survey. The index averaged 98 during the economic expansion that ended in December 2007.

The share of consumers who said jobs are currently hard to get increased to 49.1 percent, the highest since November 2009, from 44.8 percent in July. Confidence dropped in all nine U.S. regions.

“If you were advised to lean on one side or the other, I’d say it’s more likely to be slightly more negative from a sentiment perspective in consumers in the United States,” Glenn Murphy, chief executive officer of Gap Inc. (GPS), said in an Aug. 18 conference call with analysts. “Maybe the holiday season could be slightly positive, but we’re not counting on it right now.”

San Francisco-based Gap, the largest U.S. apparel chain, reported a 19 percent decline in second-quarter profit as price increases failed to keep up with higher costs to make clothes.

Other Measures

Today’s confidence report is in line with other figures. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment dropped this month to the lowest level since November 2008. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index has been hovering at levels previously consistent with recessions.

A struggling labor market is weighing on consumer sentiment. Employers added 75,000 jobs in August, compared with 117,000 in July, as the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, according to the median estimates in a Bloomberg survey ahead of a Sept. 2 report from the Labor Department.

“Economic growth has, for the most part, been at rates insufficient to achieve sustained reductions in unemployment,” Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Aug. 26 at the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, central bank symposium.

The Conference Board’s data showed a measure of present conditions declined to 33.3, the second-lowest this year, from 35.7 in July. The measure of expectations for the next six months slid to 51.9, the weakest since April 2009, from 74.9.

Job Concerns

The percent of respondents expecting more jobs to become available in the next six months fell to 11.4, the lowest since March 2009, from 16.9 the previous month. The proportion expecting their incomes to rise over the next six months declined to 14.3 from 15.9. The percent expecting a drop rose to 18.7, the highest since November 2009.

Fewer respondents in the Conference Board’s survey indicated they were planning to buy a house, while more intended to purchase cars or major appliances in the next six months.

The cutoff date for the survey responses in this month’s calculation was Aug. 18, Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center, said in an interview. The group looked at the responses received before and after the downgrade of U.S. debt by Standard & Poor’s and saw very little difference, she said.

“The decline we saw was already in place before the downgrade, and there was really already a significant change in confidence,” said Franco.

Broad-Based Drop

All of the 20 cities in the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index showed a year-over-year decline in June, led by an 11 percent drop in Minneapolis.

Any recovery in home values is probably years away as foreclosures dump more properties onto to the market, while a jobless rate hovering around 9 percent and strict lending rules hurt sales.

“Prices aren’t going to rebound back rapidly,” said Paul Dales, a senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics Ltd. in Toronto.

Rebel Leader Gives Qaddafi Forces Weekend Deadline

By Christopher Stephen

Enlarge image

Libyan rebel leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil pauses during a press conference on in Benghazi. Photographer: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images

Libyan rebel leaders expressed growing confidence that Muammar Qaddafi’s days on the run are numbered.

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council, gave Qaddafi’s forces until Sept. 3 to surrender or face attack and said members of the former leader’s government would receive fair trials.

“We have a good idea where he is,” Ali Tarhouni, a rebel council minister, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying yesterday. “We don’t have any doubt that we will catch him.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that rebel forces have control over most of Tripoli since the Qaddafi family fled, the German press agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.

“We are now looking for a quick conclusion of the conflict and sufferings of the Libyan people,” Ban told the UN Security Council, which met yesterday. The council approved the U.K’s request to release $1.55 billion of frozen Libyan banknotes held there.

Rebel leaders also demanded that Algeria return Qaddafi’s wife, Safia, daughter Aisha and two sons, Hannibal and Mohammed, who crossed the border into Algeria on Aug. 29.

Algeria closed part of the border with Libya after their arrival, according to the privately owned newspaper El Watan. The Algerian Foreign Ministry said yesterday that Aisha had given birth in Algeria.

Holdout Cities

The coastal city of Sirte and the southern town of Sabha are the key remaining bastions of Qaddafi loyalists, Abdel Jalil, the rebel council chairman, said yesterday in a televised press conference broadcast from Benghazi.

“The entry to Sirte and southern towns of Libya should be as peaceful as possible to avoid more bloodshed and destruction,” he said. “If there are no indications for conducting this peacefully, we can act decisively to end this situation in a military manner, but we do not wish to do so.”

Sirte, Qaddafi’s hometown, is the last major coastal city still resisting rebel forces, which are backed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The opposition is seeking to capture Qaddafi and his closest aides, including son Saif al- Islam, to consolidate its gains and announce a new interim government after entering Tripoli, the capital, last week.

“We want the wise people of these cities to cooperate,” Abdel Jalil said. “We have been in contact with the elders and the wise men of these cities.”

NATO Attacks

NATO, which has supported the rebels by bombing pro-Qaddafi targets, will continue operations in the North African country as long as necessary, spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told reporters in Brussels.

“It looks as if we are nearly there, but we’re not there yet,” she said.

One of Qaddafi’s sons, Khamis, a military commander, was killed in a NATO air strike southeast of Tripoli, Sky News reported, citing a man claiming to have been Khamis Qaddafi’s bodyguard. A rebel official, speaking on the condition he not be named, said the deaths of Khamis and Qaddafi’s top security adviser, Abdullah al-Senussi, hadn’t been confirmed.

Balance of Strength

“The Qaddafi regime is collapsing and rapidly losing control on multiple fronts,” Colonel Roland Lavoie, spokesman for NATO’s Operation Unified Protector, told reporters. “The Tripoli region is essentially freed.”

Columns of rebel units in armed pickup trucks, some towing artillery and wheeled anti-aircraft guns, left Tripoli Aug. 29 and headed east to Misrata in preparation for an advance on Sirte.

Pro-Qaddafi forces committed possible war crimes in the battle for Misrata, Physicians for Human Rights said in a report released yesterday.

Those crimes include murder, torture and rape, the Boston- based group said, citing interviews with 54 residents of Misrata and its surrounding villages that it said were conducted in June, shortly after rebel forces captured the western coastal city.

“The rule of law must be the bedrock of a new and free Libya,” the group said. The transitional council “must ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice and held accountable.”

Jalil said the transitional council will try members of Qaddafi’s government in the courts.

“The safety and security of everyone is our responsibility,” he said. “We will provide fair trials for each of them, but we will not deal lightly with anyone who poses a threat to the revolution.”

Rebel officials have said that resuming oil production, halted by the conflict, will be a top priority. Oil prices rose to their highest level in almost four weeks in New York. The price of crude oil for October delivery rose by $1.63, or 1.9 percent, to $88.90 a barrel, the highest settlement since Aug. 3 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

China's military power

Modernisation in sheep's clothing

by J.M. | BEIJING

THE good news, as suggested by the Pentagon's latest annual report on China's military power, is that Chinese leaders are still eager to avoid confrontation with other powers and focus on beefing up the economy. The bad news, it hints, is that this might not last. With its rapidly improving military capability (described by the Pentagon in great detail), China has the wherewithal to challenge the security status quo in the Pacific as well as potential motives to do so.

The report is diplomatically couched—though from China's perspective, not nearly enough. It hints at considerable unease about long-term trends in China's military buildup. The last few months have seen some headline-grabbing aspects of this: an assertion by the Pentagon in December that China was making faster progress than expected on an aircraft-carrier-killing ballistic missile, the DF-21D; a new stealth fighter, the J-20, making its first test flight just as Robert Gates, then defence secretary, was visiting Beijing in January; and then this month the maiden launch of China's first aircraft carrier, a refitted Kuznetsov-class ship (as yet unnamed) from the former Soviet Union.

About these particular weapons, the Pentagon avoids sounding alarmed. Of the DF-21D missile, it says that it is still being developed. It does not repeat the claim made by Admiral Robert Willard of America’s Pacific Command in December that the missile has reached “initial operational capability”. The J-20, it says, is not expected to reach “effective operational capability” before 2018 (China, it says, has yet to master high-performance jet-engine production). China is likely to build “multiple” aircraft-carriers with support craft over the next decade. But it will take “several additional years” for China to achieve a “minimal level of combat capability” with them, says the report.

The Pentagon does say, however, that China is steadily closing its technological gap with modern armed forces. The country’s lack of transparency about this, it says, is fuelling concern in the region about China’s intentions, with some of its neighbours fearing that China’s growing military and economic weight is “beginning to produce a more assertive posture, particularly in the maritime domain”. A senior Pentagon official, Michael Schiffer, told reporters that China’s capabilities could “contribute to regional tensions and anxieties”.

Like previous such reports, this one lists forces which could cause China’s self-proclaimed “peaceful development” to become less so. One of these, which was not listed last year, is a growing expectation at home and abroad that China will become more involved in addressing global problems and pursuing its own international interests. This is causing some of the Chinese leaders in responsible positions to worry about taking on more than they can handle, says the Pentagon. Nationalists at home, however, are pushing for a “more muscular” posture.

China is outraged that anyone could doubt its commitment to a peaceful ascent. The Pentagon’s assertions, said China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, were “utterly cock-and-bull” and based on “a wild guess and illogical reasoning”. Thumping furiously on the table, China apparently believes, is a good way of convincing the world of its pacific intent.

Doing Business in Brazil

Rio or São Paulo?

by H.J | RIO DE JANEIRO AND SÃO PAULO

LAST year Paulo Rezende, a Brazilian private-equity investor, and two partners decided to set up a fund investing in suppliers to oil and gas companies. Although this industry is centred on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city, with its huge offshore oilfields—and fabulous beaches, dramatic scenery and outdoor lifestyle—they instead established the Brasil Oil and Gas Fund 430km (270 miles) away, in São Paulo’s concrete sprawl. Even though it means flying to Rio once or twice a week, Mr Rezende, like many other businesspeople, decided that São Paulo’s economic heft outweighed Rio’s charms. But the choice is harder than it used to be.

For many years, São Paulo has been the place for multinationals to open a Brazil office. It may be less glamorous than Rio, as the two cities’ nicknames suggest: Rio is Cidade Maravilhosa (the Marvellous City); São Paulo is Cidade da Garoa (the City of Drizzle). But as Mr Rezende sadly concluded: “São Paulo is the financial centre, and that’s where the money is.”

Edilson Camara of Egon Zehnder International, an executive-search firm with offices in both cities, does 12 searches in São Paulo for each one in Rio. The biggest mistake, he reckons, is for firms to let future expatriates visit Rio at all. “They are seduced by the scenery and lifestyle, and it’s a move they can sell to their families. But many have ended up moving their office to São Paulo a couple of years later, with all the upheaval that entails.”

From a hamlet founded by Jesuit missionaries in 1554, São Paulo grew on coffee in the 19th century, industry in the first half of the 20th—and then on the misfortunes of Rio, once Brazil’s capital and its richest, biggest city. The federal government abandoned Rio for the newly built Brasília in 1960, starting a half-century of decline. Misgoverned by politicians and fought over by drug gangs and corrupt police, Rio became dangerous, even by Brazilian standards. The exodus gained pace as businesses and the rich fled, mostly for São Paulo.

Now, though, there are signs that the cost-benefit calculation is shifting. São Paulo’s economy has done well in Brazil’s recent boom years and it is still much bigger, but Rio’s is growing faster, boosted by oil discoveries and winning its bid to host the 2016 Olympics (see table below). Last year Rio received $7.3 billion in foreign direct investment—seven times more than the year before, and more than twice as much as São Paulo. Prime office rents in Rio are now higher than anywhere else in the Americas, north or south, according to Cushman and Wakefield, a property consultancy.
Community-policing projects are taming its infamous favelas, or shanty towns: its murder rate, though still very high at 26 per 100,000 people per year (two-and-a-half times São Paulo’s), is at last falling. Brazil’s soaring real is pricing expats paid in foreign currencies out of São Paulo’s classy restaurants and shopping malls; Rio’s recipe of sun, sea and samba is still free. Even Hollywood seems to be on Rio’s side: an eponymous animation, with its lush depictions of rainforest and carnival, is one of the year’s highest-grossing films.

Red-carpet treatment
Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, has big plans for capitalising on the city’s magic moment. The sharp-suited, English-speaking lawyer has set up a business-development agency, Rio Negócios, to market the city, help businesspeople find investment opportunities, and advise on paperwork and tax breaks. Though all investors are welcome, it concentrates on those in sectors where it reckons Rio has an edge: tourism, energy, infrastructure and creative industries such as fashion and film. “A couple of years ago, foreign businessmen would come to Rio and ask what we had to offer,” says Mr Paes. “We had no answer. Now we roll out the red carpet.”

The political balance between the two cities has changed too. In the 1990s São Paulo was more influential and better run: it is the stronghold of the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB), the national party of government from 1995 to 2002. Now the PSDB is in its third term of opposition in Brasília, and though it still governs São Paulo state, it is weakened by internal feuds. In Rio, by contrast, the political stars are aligned. The state governor, Sérgio Cabral, campaigned tirelessly for the current president, Dilma Rousseff—and received his reward when police actions in an unruly favela late last year were backed up by federal forces. Mr Paes and Mr Cabral are from the same party, and their pre-Olympic plans for security, housing and transport mesh well.

São Paulo’s socioeconomic segregation, long part of its appeal to expats, is starting to look like less of an advantage. Most of its nicer bits are clustered together, allowing rich paulistanos to ignore the vast favelas on the periphery. In Rio, selective blindness is harder with favelas perched on hilltops overlooking all the best neighbourhoods. But proximity seems to be teaching well-off cariocas that abandonment is no solution for poverty and violence. Community policing and urban-renewal schemes are bringing safety and public services. Chapéu Mangueira and Babilônia, twin favelas a 20-minute uphill scramble from Copacabana beach, are being rebuilt, with a health clinic, nursery and a 24-hour police presence. The price of nearby apartments has already soared. Several other slums are also getting similar make-overs.

Central do Brasil
Rio’s Olympic preparations include extending its metro and building lots of dedicated bus lanes, including one linking the international airport to the city centre. By 2016, predicts City Hall, half of all journeys in the city will be by high-quality public transport, up from 16% today. São Paulo’s metro extensions are years behind schedule, and the city is grinding towards gridlock. Its plans to link the city centre to its main international airport (recently voted Latin America’s most-hated by business travellers) rely on a grandiose federal high-speed train project, bidding for which was recently postponed for the third time.

Rio is still unpredictably dangerous, and decades of poor infrastructure maintenance have left their mark. Its mobile-phone and electricity networks are outage-prone; the língua negra (“black tongue”, a sudden overflow of water and sewage from inadequate hillside culverts) is a staple of the rainy season; exploding manholes, caused by subterranean gas leaks meeting sparks from electricity lines, are a hazard all year round. All in all, still not an easy choice for a multinational business—but it is no longer foolish to let prospective expats fly down to Rio to take a look.

Audio guide:

Scarlett Johansson And Sean Penn Spotted

2011-03-27T12:10:00.001-07:00

Scarlett Johansson And Sean Penn Spotted Having A Very PDA Filled Lunch

And they say they're not together..

Photo: Splash News

If Scarlett Johansson and Sean Penn are trying to dispel the rumours that they're not an item, they might want to try harder after the pair were spotted getting very cosy over dinner.

According to ShowbizSpy, the couple were reportedly seen smooching and canoodling whilst they dined with friends at Madeo in Los Angeles.

A source revealed: "They were at the best table in the house, but it's smack in the centre, and Sean was annoyed by looky-loo diners sneaking peeks.

"There wasn’t an empty table to be had – but Sean sent a hostess to tell three girls in a corner booth that if they’d switch tables, he’d pay for dinner. Sean and Scarlett kissed and petted like their pals weren’t even there.

“When the evening ended and the love birds exited, a waiter handed the three girls a check holder – but there was no bill inside; just a note from Sean that read: ‘Thank you!’”

The couple were first rumoured to be romantically involved last month.

Check Scarlett out...

Miley Cyrus' Stalker Arrested!

2011-03-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Miley Cyrus' Stalker Arrested!

After he tried to break into her house..

Photo: Splash News

A man who was reportedly stalking Miley Cyrus has been arrested after he tried and failed to break into her house.

According to reports, the arrest was made after LAPD officers caught Musa Danasabe Ibrahim on the lawn of one of Miley's neighbours' property.

Talking to X17online, an LAPD spokesperson said: "Ibrahim was trying to make entry into Miley Cyrus's house, but he got the houses mixed up. When we arrived on scene, we found him in her neighbour's yard. He was arrested for trespassing."

It is thought that Ibrahim claimed he had a date scheduled with the pop-star.

Scary stuff!

Arrestan al ex marido de Rocío Banquells

2011-03-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Arrestan al ex marido de Rocío Banquells

Jorge Berlanga fue detenido por la Interpol en Madrid, acusado de fraude en México.

Rocío Banquells se divorció de Jorge Berlanga en 2005. Foto: TVNotas

En cumplimiento a una orden de aprehensión que había en su contra, Jorge Berlanga, ex esposo de la cantante y actriz Rocío Banquells, fue detenido en Madrid, España.

Berlanga cometió un fraude cercano a los 6 millones de pesos en contra de Ixe Banco, cantidad que fue solicitada por el mismo Berlanga y por Héctor Mario Palacios Velázquez, para llevar a escena la obra de teatro 'Evita' en el 2002; préstamo que fue solicitado a nombre de Producciones Rocío S.A. de C.V.

Como garantía dejaron la hipoteca de un terreno ubicado en Tlalpan y cuando un pago del préstamo no se realizó, fue solicitado por el banco la entrega del terreno; el problema sucedió cuando descubrieron que el terreno estaba a nombre de otra persona, con lo que incurrieron en el delito de suplantación de identidad.

La denuncia por parte del banco se dio el 16 de diciembre del 2002, en contra de Berlanga, Palacios, por fraude equiparado y de la misma Rocío Banquells, divorciada de Berlanga desde el 2005, como obligada solidaria y aval.

La orden de aprehensión fue girada en el juzgado 43 del Reclusorio Norte, orden que le fue cancelada en el 2006 a la cantante, pero que continuó en contra de su ex esposo y de Palacios.

Berlanga estuvo prófugo de la justicia durante todo este tiempo, viajando de un país a otro, lo que provocó que la Procuraduría capitalina pidiera el apoyo de INTERPOL (la mayor organización de policía internacional) México.

Finalmente, Berlanga fue ubicado por la INTERPOL Madrid gracias a una licencia de manejo, se encuentra en prisión preventiva y está en espera de que la solicitud de extradición por parte de las autoridades mexicanas se lleve a cabo, traslado que podría darse en 25 días, aproximadamente.

'La Tetanic' es discriminada en 'Perfume de Gardenia'

2011-03-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

'La Tetanic' es discriminada en 'Perfume de Gardenia'

Roxana Martínez aseguró que ha sido víctima de exclusión en la obra que protagoniza Aracely Arámbula.

La obra de teatro 'Perfume de Gardenia' sigue dando de qué hablar, y no precisamente por sus presentaciones.

La vedette argentina Roxana Martínez (de 38 años), mejor conocida como 'La Tetanic', confesó que está pasando por muy malos momentos durante la gira de la puesta en escena, y denunció que ha sido víctima de discriminación, según el portal Tvyespectáculos.com.

La exhuberante rubia dijo que ha recibido actitudes negativas por parte de algunos de sus compañeros de elenco, en especial de un varón.

Aunque Roxana no quiso dar el nombre del actor, aseguró que, debido a su larga trayectoria, él no cree que sea lógico que compartan los agradecimientos tomados de la mano al final de sus presentaciones.

La actriz comentó que esta situación la ha llevado hasta las lágrimas y que nunca imaginó que esto le pudiera pasar en México, pues es un país al que ama y al que agradece su trabajo.

¿Crees que 'La Tetanic' merece recibir los aplausos del público junto a otros actores con larga trayectoria?

La Reina Del Sur Capitulo 1 1/4 Telemundo

2011-03-27T09:24:00.001-07:00

La Reina del Sur TELEMUNDO 2011

2011-03-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

[La Reina del Sur] Trailer - Telemundo 2010

2011-03-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

2009-09-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ex-NFL Star Plaxico Burress Gets 2 Years in Prison in NYC Nightclub Gun Incident

March 31: Plaxico Burress, center, leaves the criminal courts building with his wife, Tiffany, second from right, and his lawyer Benjamin Brafman, right. A gun possession case against Burress has been adjourned until June 15. Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg with an unlicensed gun at a n

NEW YORK — Ex-NFL star Plaxico Burress was sentenced to two years in prison Tuesday as part of a plea deal struck after accidentally shooting himself in the leg with a gun he carried into a New York City nightclub.

The former New York Giants wide receiver was sentenced Tuesday morning in Manhattan's state Supreme Court as part of a plea deal on weapons charges reached last month.

Burress tearfully told his family goodbye as he surrendered to begin his prison stint for attempted criminal possession of a weapon.

Burress was indicted on two counts of weapon possession and one count of reckless endangerment and pleaded guilty Aug. 20. He had faced a minimum sentence of 3 1/2 years on those charges if convicted at trial. He pleaded to the lesser charge and agreed to the two-year term.

Click here for photos.

More coverage from MyFOXNY.com.

With time off for good behavior, Burress likely will serve 20 months. He will be monitored an additional two years after he is freed from prison, which could come as early as the spring of 2011.

The Giants released Burress in April, but the 32-year-old told ESPN he hopes to resume his NFL career when he completes his sentence.

Before the hearing began, Burress played with his preschool-age son, Elijah. Then he hugged and kissed his wife, child, father, grandmother and stepmother.

Burress was so soft-spoken during his apologetic courtroom address that onlookers could not understand him.

Defense lawyer Benjamin Brafton said, "This is a very real tragic case in many, many ways." He called Burress "a fundamentally decent man."

Burress, who caught the winning touchdown for the Giants over the previously undefeated New England Patriots in the final minute of the 2008 Super Bowl, and former teammate Antonio Pierce were at the Latin Quarter nightclub in Manhattan last November when a gun tucked into Burress' waistband slipped down his leg and fired, wounding him.

The gun was not licensed in New York or in New Jersey, where Burress lived. His license to carry a concealed weapon in the Florida had expired in May 2008.

Pierce, who drove Burress to a hospital after the shooting, was not indicted.

Brafman previously said Burress was thinking of his family in taking the plea, but the attorney questioned the recommended prison sentence.

"This was not an intentional criminal act," Brafman said the day of the plea. "In my judgment, a two-year prison sentence is a very severe punishment."

Gil Brandt, an analyst on NFL Sirius Radio and the former head of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, said Burress won't be too old for a comeback when he's released from prison.

"First of all, Plaxico is a guy who keeps himself in pretty good shape," Brandt said. "Lots of times guys get heavy in the off-season. He is not a guy who has done that."

But Brandt intimated it could be difficult for Burress to reacquire his football skills after so much time on the sidelines.

"It's like a person who has gone to college or high school and drops out of school for two years," he said. "It is hard to reacquire your study habits. I think it is hard to reacquire the work habits you need to be successful when you have been away from the game for two years or so."

2009-09-22T11:40:00.001-07:00

Real Housewife' Kim Zolciak Has a Secret Stripper Past?

Bravo

Kim Zolciak wnet byt the name "Barbi" in the early 2000s, an insider tells Pop Tarts.

'Real Housewife' Kim Zolciak Has a Secret Stripper Past?

"Real Housewives of Atlanta" starlet Nene Leakes recently came forward and admitted to having been a stripper, but could it be that her co-star Kim Zolciak profited from the same profession?

According to sources close to the Bravo babe, in 2003 she spent around three months "making a lot of money" as a stripper at Atlanta’s premiere gentleman’s establishment The Cheetah Club under the stage name "Barbi."

PHOTOS: Click for hot shots of Kim through the years.

"She didn’t do it for long, but was very popular among the crowd," said our insider.

The Cheetah Club declined to comment, but according to a rep for Zolciak, she did indeed work at Cheetah, but "as a cocktail waitress."

However Zolciak herself has now come forward to say she never worked the stage.

"I've never stripped," she tells Tarts. "[My former rep] is a loose cannon spreading lies. I am not affiliated with him whatsoever."

The controversy comes as the reality starlet recently took her career to new heights by releasing a surprisingly successful dance single "Tardy for the Party" and even earned herself a role presenting on VH1 "Divas in New York" last week. We’re also told that "everyone is coming after her" to release a full-length pop album, so while things are looking up professionally, the single starlet is taking time out to improve her personal life too.

Zolciak met with "The Millionaire Matchmaker" Patti Stanger this past Wednesday and apparently Stanger is going to her hook her up with a nice, wealthy fellow, our source says (but, again, Zolciak denies).

Just like in fairy tales. Sigh...

Linda Bollea Withdraws Motion to Sue Hulk Hogan

Just a few weeks ago Linda Bollea was up in arms that ex hubby Hulk Hogan hadn’t given her the money and Harley Davidson she said he agreed too in their divorce settlement, so she filed a motion for enforcement and/or contempt against him in the Pinellas Superior Court.

Now it looks as though she got her bike and her bank.

Bollea withdrew the motion on Friday, asserting that the former pro wrestler finally honored his word.

"Hulk Hogan resolved our demands and complied with the Confidential Marital Settlement Agreement and Final Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage," Bollea’s attorney told Tarts. "We are pleased that Hulk Hogan abided with the parties’ agreement and hope we will not need to file a similar motion against him in the future."

Charlize Theron Takes Swipe at Anna Wintour in Her Own Territory

Charlize Theron looks simply stunning as she graces the cover of the new issue of Vogue magazine, but did the actress take a deliberate swipe at Anna Wintour and her fur-lovin' ways?

Theron turned up to the interview donning a red PETA "Fight Breedism" shirt, which would not have gone down well with Miss Wintour, who makes no secret of the fact that animal skins are a must in her fashion bible.

"Anna would have been livid, I've know models that have met with her and the second they mention a passion for animals, they are completely blacklisted," snitched an inside source.

Rush Limbaugh Guest Stars on 'Family Guy', Sasha Baron Cohen Does 'Simpsons'

Seth McFarlane has made no secret of the fact he’s political views skew prominently to the left, but he was beyond honored to have recently welcomed Rush Limbaugh into the studio to record a guest role in his animated series "Family Guy."

"I don’t agree with his political views, infact I’m very much the opposite but I loved having him on the show," McFarlane told Tarts at his pre-Emmy party in Hollywood on Friday night. "But Rush is a great guy."

The premise of Limbaugh’s guest role involves the family dog Brian being weaned off his liberal ways and turning into Limbaugh’s greatest fan, following him around town, moving into his home and even attempting to take over his radio show.

On the topic of guest stars, "The Simpsons" recently shot an episode (set to air in March 2010) featuring Sacha Baron Cohen as a crazy tour guide who takes the dysfunctional family around Israel on their travels. We’re told Cohen’s character fights with Marge while Homer becomes convinced he is the messiah.

2009-09-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Real Reason Women Have Sex

FNC

“Why Women Have Sex.”

Given the stereotype that women are never in the mood, it’s not surprising that this book title is grabbing people’s attention. Written by researchers Cindy Meston and David Buss, the work flushes out the results of a survey of 1,006 women.

And their findings are all over the board; the authors highlight 200 reasons.

So why do women have sex? The vast majority (84 percent) have sex to guarantee a quiet life or to persuade their men to do some housework. Some of the other reasons given in interviews include...

1. She’s alleviating boredom – it gives her something to do.

2. She wants to relieve a stress headache or migraine.

3. She’s trying to put an end to an argument.

4. She wants a better complexion.

5. She’s thanking her date for a nice dinner, a present, or spending a lot of money on her early on in the relationship.

6. She’s after a spiritual experience since sex is seen as “the closest thing to God.”

7. She’s refining her sexual skills.

8. She feels sorry for the fellow.

9. She likes that he has an extravagant lifestyle.

10. She’s in a long-distance relationship and wants action now versus later.

Ironically, romance and passion ranked low on females’ reasons for having sex. Instead, sex was viewed as being all about fun, with 60 percent of survey respondents admitting to regularly sleeping with a male friend who was not their boyfriend.

Attraction, too, apparently ranks low on a lady’s list. What’s interesting to note about this factor is that while most men find most women sexually attractive, researchers said that the gals don’t see the guys in quite the same way.

Women reported being attracted to men who were described as tall, having a deep voice, and smelling good. A male having a symmetrical body was also liked, indicating that he could give her strong children. Still, those men not living up to such visions can take comfort in her preference of men with lower levels of testosterone, since this suggests that he’s less likely to pursue others.

It’s important to take these findings with a grain of salt. The way that they’ve been presented largely reinforces the idea that women aren’t sexual by nature as much as capable of using sex as a bargaining tool. Writings cast women as using sex manipulatively or to put up with a partner and her relationship.

Then, muddling matters in terms of how to interpret results is the issue of women having sex versus wanting sex. These are two different factors in one’s sexual activity that aren’t being dealt with independently. Which reasons are ones where women desired sex or skin-on-skin contact? Which reasons felt instinctual?

The University of Texas study has also been criticized for focusing solely on university students at the UT Austin campus who were mostly young and white. We have to remember that these are the results of one group of women — they’re not representative of all women. Still, the book’s press release claims that the work is the “richest and deepest psychological understanding of female sexuality.”

Really?

Collectively, the reasons presented in this survey make all women look conniving, selfish, narcissistic, and shallow when it comes to sex. It paints us as using sex for bartering purposes or approaching it as a hobby or sport. And while that may be the case for these women to some degree, the original research and book actually misrepresent all women by claiming that these findings apply to all of us.

There are a lot more reasons why women are having sex — and they aren’t being captured in this book.

If you ask me, and lot of other women of all ages and backgrounds out there, the reason women have sex, they’ll tell you... They’re having sex to express affection, to get in tune with their sexual core and feel sexy, to make love, to feel close to another, to maintain a long-term relationship by keeping the passion alive, to relish a shared, special moment... and because they like sex when it feels good.

Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright is a sex educator, relationship expert, columnist and founder of Sexuality Source Inc. She is the author of several books including, "Touch Me There! A Hands-On Guide to Your Orgasmic Hot Spots."

2009-06-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

Tape of 911 Call Released as Michael Jackson Autopsy Under Way

Reuters

May 5: Michael Jackson gestures during a news conference at the O2 Arena in London.

The recording of a 911 call made shortly before Michael Jackson was rushed to the hospital Thursday that reports a 50-year-old man is "not breathing" was released Friday as authorities conducted an autopsy on the pop music icon.

The autopsy began Friday morning in an attempt to clear up the mystery surrounding Jackson's untimely demise, including whether prescription drugs played a role.

"We have a personal doctor here sir, but he's not responding to anything," a man's voice can be heard telling the dispatch during the call."He's not responding to CPR or anything."

Meanwhile Friday, law enforcement officials were looking to speak with Jackson's personal live-in physician, who was briefly interviewed by detectives at the scene Thursday.

LAPD Spokeswoman Karen Rayner told FOX News that police hope the physician — whose identity police have not confirmed — can help with the investigation.

Rayner stressed that he was not under criminal investigation, but coroner's investigators wanted to contact him for more information. His car was impounded last night by police.

But other reports about the mystery doctor were far more disturbing — according to TMZ, he may have given Jackson a possibly fatal narcotic injection.

A local Houston report claims the doctor's name is Conrad Robert Murray, a cardiologist based out of Texas. The LAPD did not confirm that information.

The male on the 911 call told the emergency dispatch that the doctor was the only person at the scene when Jackson lost consciousness.

Jackson, whose fame spanned from his childhood with the legendary Jackson 5 to a superstar solo career that earned him the nickname 'King of Pop,' died Thursday afternoon at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 50.

The autopsy began at 11 a.m. EDT, though results were not likely to be final until toxicology tests could be completed.

The process could take up to six to eight weeks, Ed Winter, L.A. County Assistant Chief Coroner told reporters Friday morning.

Video

However, if a cause can be determined by the autopsy, they will announce the results, said Los Angeles County Coroner Investigator Jerry McKibben.

There has been speculation that drugs may have played a role in the death of the icon, with TMZ citing sources who claim he was given a "heavy dose of morphine" before his death. Other reports claim that Jackson received a shot of Demerol — a similar narcotic— shortly before his death.

Brian Oxman, a former attorney of Jackson's and a family friend, said he was concerned about Jackson's use of painkillers and he warned the singer's family about possible abuse.

PHOTOS: Click here for photos of Michael Jackson.

"I said one day, we're going to have this experience. And when Anna Nicole Smith passed away, I said we cannot have this kind of thing with Michael Jackson," Oxman said. "The result was, I warned everyone, and lo and behold, here we are. I don't know what caused his death. But I feared this day, and here we are."

Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital, where doctors continued to work on him.

Click here to see Jermaine Jackson's statement.

"It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known," his brother Jermaine Jackson said at a press conference Thursday.

Jackson said his brother's physician was with him at his home at the time of his suspected cardiac arrest, and both the physician and the paramedics who transported to the UCLA Medical Center attempted to resuscitate him.

"Upon arriving at the hospital at approximately 1:14 p.m. a team of doctors, including emergency physicians and cardiologists, attempted to resuscitate him for a period of more than one hour, but they were unsuccessful," he said.

Jackson was pronounced dead at at 2:26 p.m. PDT, his brother said.

"My family request that the media please respect our privacy during this time, and may all love be with you Michael, always. We love you."

Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems.

Jackson's death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.

Jackson was born in Indiana in 1958. He rose to fame as part of the successful pop group The Jackson 5, formed with his brothers in 1967. The group went on to earn four number one hits in 1970 alone, and the 12-year-old Jackson became the undeniable breakout star of the group.

In 1972, Jackson enjoyed his first solo hit with the song “Ben.” Six years later, he made his film debut in “The Wiz,” in which he renewed his friendship with producer Quincy Jones.

Collaborating with Jones, Jackson went on to become remarkably successful with his solo efforts “Off The Wall” in 1979 and “Thriller” in 1982.

From there, Jackson went on to become the undeniable “King of Pop,” winning eight Grammy awards for “Thriller” alone.

TOPIC: Click here for the latest on Michael Jackson.

During the 1980s, he became an icon with a distinct style of fashion and performing, as well, wearing one sparkling glove, bejeweled military clothing and short pants with socks.

It was around this time that Jackson began experimenting with excessive cosmetic surgery, including lightening of his skin.

In 1992, Jackson founded the "Heal the World Foundation," a charity that brought underprivileged children to his Neverland Ranch, where Jackson would spend time with them and allow them to stay the night.

This practice raised many eyebrows, especially when Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy who had become a regular Neverland guest. Jackson maintained his innocence. In 1994, he settled the case out of court for an undisclosed amount.

Jackson briefly was married to Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis. The union drew intense public scrutiny, there was speculation as to whether the marriage was simply an attempt to improve Jackson’s image, though he maintained that they lived genuinely as husband and wife; however, the marriage broke up after less than two years.

From there, his career never quite recovered, but he remained in the news, making headline after headline for strange and unusual behavior, including dangling his child over a balcony in Germany in 2002.

In 2004, police raided the Neverland Ranch, issuing an arrest warrant for charges of child molestation based on allegations of a boy who had appeared in Martin Bashir's infamous documentary about Jackson. Later that year, a man filed a lawsuit against him, alleging he had been molested 20 years earlier, explaining that he had repressed the memory until 2003. However, a judge eventually dismissed the lawsuit.

In 2005, he was cleared of charges he molested the 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused of playing the boy with alcohol and groping him. The case took a fearsome toll on his career and image, and he fell into serious financial trouble.

Jackson was preparing for what was to be his greatest comeback: He was scheduled for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena, with the first set for July 13. He was in rehearsals in Los Angeles for the concert, an extravaganza that was to capture the classic Jackson magic: showstopping dance moves, elaborate staging and throbbing dance beats.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital as word of his death spread. The emergency entrance at the UCLA Medical Center, which is near Jackson's rented home, was roped off with police tape.

In New York's Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.

"No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow," Michael Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message a friend sent to his telephone. "It's like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died."

2009-06-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Police Release 911 Call, Seek Clues in Jackson's Death

Life of Fame and Scandal Ends at 50 on Eve of Comeback Concerts

ETHAN SMITH

Associated Press

Michael Jackson performs at the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show, on January 31, 1993.

The Los Angeles Fire Department released the 911 emergency call from Michael Jackson's home, a day after the pop icon died from suffering cardiac arrest.

A caller reported that Mr. Jackson was on a bed, he wasn't breathing and wasn't responding to CPR. The unidentified caller said Mr. Jackson only was with his personal doctor at the time.

An autopsy was planned for Friday afternoon, though results weren't likely to be final until toxicology tests are completed, a process that takes several days and sometimes weeks.

View Slideshow

Associated Press

Fans stage an impromptu celebration of the life of Mr. Jackson outside UCLA Medical Center.

Police investigating Mr. Jackson's death looked into his medical treatment, seeking to interview one of the pop king's doctors and seizing a car that they said may contain drugs or other evidence. Authorities towed a BMW from Mr. Jackson's rented home "because it may contain medications or other evidence that may assist the coroner in determining the cause of death,'' police spokeswoman Karen Rayner said.

Mr. Jackson, age 50, was one of the most successful, visible and influential pop singers in history. His albums sold hundreds of millions of copies and his music videos helped define the medium.

Sales of his music and videos soared after his death was reported. Amazon.com Inc. sold out of its stock of CDs by Mr. Jackson and the Jackson 5. Barnes & Noble Inc. said its stores were currently sold out of most Jackson CDs, DVDs and books.

Mr. Jackson gained equal attention for his personal life. He was known for his flashy, theatrical dressing style, his repeated recourse to plastic surgery, which significantly altered his look over his career, and, in later years, two accusations of child molestation.

His 1980s habit of wearing a single white glove inspired a short-lived fashion trend, while his signature moonwalk dance became nearly as iconic as his music and look.

Mr. Jackson spent many years at his 2,600-acre ranch, Neverland, in Los Olivos, Calif., which was outfitted as a kind of playground for a child with an unlimited allowance, with carnival rides, a movie theater and two working railroad lines.

His death fell on the eve of what was to be an ambitious and potentially lucrative rehabilitation of his career after several years of controversy during which he stopped performing or releasing new music. Mr. Jackson's last major moment in the spotlight had occurred in 2005, when he was acquitted of criminal child-molestation charges. But even before then, his career had been stuck in a holding pattern.

A profligate lifestyle and his massive legal fees had also left the singer with $500 million in debt, and he defaulted on a $24.5 million loan backed by Neverland. However, Mr. Jackson had made a few key business decisions early on that kept him afloat through the tabloid-fodder madness that eventually engulfed him. By acquiring and holding lucrative music-publishing he assets, including the rights to many Beatles songs, he was able to maintain a modicum of financial stability.

Nevertheless, by early 2009, Mr. Jackson was so overextended financially that he was in a panic about money, people close to him said.

In March, concert promoter AEG Live announced that Mr. Jackson would perform a series of shows at its O2 arena in London. Demand for tickets proved to be enormous, and the run was eventually extended to 50 concerts, with hundreds of thousands of tickets sold. The dates were spread over several months, starting in early July and stretching well into 2010.

Audio

Michael Jackson's business decisions, and reaction to his death on social media in a segment from the Wall Street Journal This Morning podcast.

Journal Community

Discuss: How did Jackson influence music and the music industry?

Speakeasy

Jackson in the Journal

Digits: Beware the Michael Jackson Spam
Wealth Report: What Is Jackson's Estate Worth?
Economic Reality Prompts a Makeover at 'Neverland' (06/13/09)
The King of Pop Returns to Stage (03/06/09)
Michael Jackson: The Next Elvis? (06/13/08)
Beatles Songs May Help Pay Pop Star's Debts (04/13/06)
It Won't Be a Song For Jackson to Keep Assets, Save Career (6/14/05)
Michael Jackson's Other Battle: Staving Off Financial Disaster (6/8/05)
In This Michael Jackson Video, He Sings South Korea's Praises (12/16/97)
Did Michael Speak? Yes! Yes! He Said, 'Thank You' (Sigh) (04/01/92)
Pop and Rock Tours Like Michael Jackson's Grow More Complex (07/09/84)
PepsiCo Gambles Big on an Ad Campaign With Michael Jackson (02/21/84)

Mr. Jackson's agreement with AEG Live, owned by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz, included an option to extend the concert series even further into a world-wide tour over three years or more. All told the tour could have earned him $400 million.

In preparation for the London performances, Mr. Jackson had undergone a five-hour physical examination. AEG Live Chief Executive Randy Phillips said in March that Mr. Jackson had "passed with flying colors."

But signs of trouble arose even as the singer was preparing for the initial concerts. The first four dates were postponed, ostensibly because the singer needed more time for dress rehearsals in the venue. Some people close to the singer expressed doubt whether he would be able to pull off so many concerts.

Born in 1958 in Gary, Ind., Mr. Jackson was quickly pushed into the limelight. Even at a very young age he was the star of the Jackson Five, the singing group his father, Joseph Jackson, assembled with five of the Jackson sons.

The Jacksons quickly graduated from local talent shows to the national stage. They signed to Berry Gordy's Motown Records and enjoyed a string of hits that included "ABC" and "I Want You Back." But life under their hard-charging father and manager took its toll, and Mr. Jackson had anything but a normal childhood.

After striking out on his own, Mr. Jackson's fame grew. His 1982 "Thriller" is one of the best-selling albums in history.

Thursday afternoon, the sidewalks outside UCLA Medical Center were overflowing with people. Some onlookers burst into tears even before an official announcement of his death had been made. Other impromptu Michael Jackson memorials popped up around the country, including one outside Harlem's famed Apollo Theater.

View Slideshow

Associated Press

Mr. Jackson performed before a sold-out crowd at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in November 1988.

In 1993, he faced a child-abuse investigation after a 13-year-old named Jordan Chandler accused the pop star of inappropriate behavior. The child's family sued Mr. Jackson for $22 million. The singer later paid a multi-million-dollar settlement while maintaining his innocence.

A brief marriage to Elvis Presley's daughter, Lisa Maria Presley, ended in divorce. Another marriage, to Debbie Rowe, produced two children but also ended in divorce. He had a third child, Prince Michael II, whose mother he never identified publicly.

In 2003, new problems began to surface for Mr. Jackson after he said during the filming of a British documentary that he shared his bed with boys. The next year, Jackson faced an arraignment in California after a teenage cancer survivor said that the pop star had gotten him drunk and molested him.

In 2005, a trial began in Santa Maria, Calif., where Jackson defended himself against charges of child molestation and providing alcohol to minors, and faced a possible 20-year prison sentence. Though he was acquitted on all counts, the three-month trial exposed many details of Mr. Jackson's personal life.

2009-06-25T21:56:00.001-07:00

2009-06-25T16:13:00.000-07:00

Pop Legend Michael Jackson Dead at 50

Music icon Michael Jackson died Thursday afternoon at a Los Angeles hospital, a source close to the family told FOX News.

Music icon Michael Jackson died Thursday afternoon at a Los Angeles hospital, a source close to the family told FOX News.

Debra Opri, a former Jackson family attorney, confirmed that the legendary singer, 50, was rushed to the hospital Thursday afternoon, where he later died at 3:15 p.m. EDT after falling into a deep coma.

Multiple reports claimed that shortly after noon Thursday, Jackson went into cardiac arrest and had to receive CPR in the ambulance. As the news broke, Joe Jackson, his father, told multiple news sources that his son was "not doing well."

Paramedics responded to a 911 call at around 12:26 p.m. PDT, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was reportedly not breathing at the time of their arrival.

A Jackson spokesman was unavailable for comment.

His death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.

PHOTOS: Click here for photos of Michael Jackson.

Jackson was born in Indiana in 1958. He rose to fame as part of the successful pop group The Jackson Five, formed with his brothers in 1967. The group went on to earn four number one hits in 1970 alone, and the 12-year-old Jackson became the undeniable breakout star of the group.

In 1972, Jackson enjoyed his first solo hit with the song “Ben.” Six years later, he made his film debut in “The Wiz,” where he renewed his friendship with producer Quincy Jones.

Collaborating with Jones, Jackson went on to become remarkably successful with his solo efforts “Off The Wall” in 1979 and “Thriller” in 1982.

From there, Jackson went on to become the undeniable “King of Pop,” winning seven Grammy awards for “Thriller” alone.

During the 1980s, he became an icon with a distinct style of fashion and performing as well, wearing one sparkling glove, bejeweled military clothing and short pants with socks.

It was around this time that Jackson began experimenting with excessive cosmetic surgery, including lightening of his skin.

In 1992, Michael founded the "Heal the World Foundation," a charity that brought underprivileged children to Neverland Ranch where Michael would spend time with them and allow them to spend the night.

This practice raised many eyebrows, especially when Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy who had become a regular Neverland guest. Jackson responded to the allegations publicly, maintaining his innocence. In 1994, he settled the case out of court for an undisclosed amount.

Jackson was briefly married the daughter of Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie. The union was publicly scrutinized and speculations arose as to whether the marriage was simply an attempt to improve Jackson’s image, though he maintained that they lived genuinely as man and wife; however, the marriage broke up after less than two years.

From there, his career never recovered, but he remained in the news making headline after headline for strange and unusual behavior, including dangling his child over a balcony in Germany in .

While Jackson was on the set, the police raided Neverland Ranch issuing an arrest warrant for charges of child molestation by the same boy who appeared in Martin Bashir's documentary about Jackson.

A trial took place in 2005, and Jackson was acquitted of all charges. After his acquittal, he relocated to the Gulf Island of Bahrain, where he has reportedly been spending his time writing new music.

In 2004, a man filed a lawsuit against him, alleging he had been molested 20 years earlier but had repressed the memory until 2003. However, a judge eventually dismissed the lawsuit.

Jackson was set to go on European tour of 50 concert dates this year, but he had not booked any dates. There were multiple reports that he was too sick to perform, but Jackson never confirmed the rumors.

2009-06-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

Sanford's Mistress Identified as Professional, Passionate and Beautiful Brunette

Details are emerging about South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's mistress, whom he visited in Argentina last week after his wife told him to leave.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford talks to reporters about his affair Wednesday in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo)

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's mistress is a 43-year-old employee of an international agriculture company who speaks several languages and lives in an upscale apartment building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, local media there are reporting.

Though details are sparse, Terra Noticias reported Thursday that the woman's name is Maria Belen Shapur and she works for the international agribusiness firm Bunge y Born.

The newspaper, along with Buenos Aires Continental Radio, reported that she lives next to the Buenos Aires Zoo in a 14-story building. A witness who works in the building described her as a beautiful brunette with big eyes who plays tennis on a nearby lawn and runs every morning in her neighborhood.

The witness told the radio station that Sanford arrived at the complex, alone, with a small sports bag last week and asked to go inside the building.

Sanford admitted Wednesday to having an affair over the last year and covering up a secret trip to visit his mistress last week. The admission rocked the South Carolina political scene and has also captured the attention of the Buenos Aires media, as the governor provided few details about his lover.

Terra Noticias reported that Belen speaks English, Portuguese and Chinese, and that the company she supposedly works for is massive, with 25,000 employees in more than 30 countries, including 1,000 in Argentina, according to a profile on the Bunge Limited Web site.

Click here for a Liveshots blog on Sanford's struggles as governor.

Click here for a Liveshots blog on Sanford's criticism of former President Bill Clinton's affair.

In personal e-mails published Thursday by South Carolina's The State newspaper, the mistress reveals little about her professional life. But the intimate tone of the apparent exchanges between her and Sanford suggests the affair was far more just a south-of-the-equator fling.

Like star-crossed lovers, the two wrote of their "impossible love," and while the mistress's English was at times imperfect, the two expressed deep feelings for each other using language that was more poetic than lurid.

The e-mails were steamy, as one might expect of any forbidden love.

"My heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul," Sanford wrote in one of the e-mails, dated last summer, even as Sanford discussed taking a tour through Asia with his family.

In the e-mail, dated July 10, 2008, at 12:24 a.m., he wrote, "You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night's light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ..."

Sanford's e-mails, which the newspaper said it acquired in December 2008 but couldn't authenticate until Sanford's confession, became more intimate as the month progressed, while the mistress's were deep and personal from the start.

"I would (have) stayed ... kissing you forever," the woman identified by The State only as "Maria" wrote in a July 4, 2008, e-mail, calling Sanford "my beloved."

In another, she explained that she is not in love with another man, whose identity is not revealed.

"You are my love ... something hard to believe even for myself as it's also a kind of impossible love, not only because of distance but situation," she wrote. "I'll dream with you."

On July 10, 2008, she wrote about how hard it was to "figure all this out" and concluded, "I am not interested in knowing."

"I prefer to think we'll see each other again somewhere sometime in this life and in next. Will be missing you till then," she wrote.

Her "P.S." was the most suggestive of the published e-mails.

"P.S.: I don't want to put the genius (sic) back in the bottle because I truly believe in freedom. I never gave you sexual details but now you don't need to imagine you can close your eyes and just remember. I'll do the same," she wrote, according to The State.

2009-06-25T10:49:00.001-07:00

Jessica Simpson Topless Uncensored footage

2009-06-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

Nana Gouvea - Playboy 2009

2009-06-25T10:30:00.001-07:00

2009-06-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

Court Documents Show 'Real Housewives' Star Was Involved in Kidnapping Plot, Drug Deals and Prostitution

Bravo

'Real Housewives' star Danielle Staub is NO stranger to scandal.

"Real Housewives of New Jersey" lightning rod Danielle Staub has a much more sordid past than she's copped to on Bravo's hit reality show.

Staub, 46, has only admitted to an arrest and to changing her name — after she was exposed in "Cop Without a Badge," a 1995 book about her ex-husband that featured prominently on the show

But according to explosive federal court records posted yesterday on thesmokinggun.com, she was far more deeply involved in a kidnapping plot, a $24,000 drug deal gone bad and an "escort service" than she admitted to on the show.

Danielle has always said her criminal record — which dates back to 1986 — were the mistakes of youth. But the details of the charges against her outlined on official papers are substantial.

Staub, then known as Beverly Ann Merrill — but using the alias Angela Minelli — was arrested along with Daniel Aguilar, whom she met while working for an escort service, according to the reports.

Staub was a courier for Aguilar, who distributed narcotics for a Colombian drug family, the papers say, including delivering a kilo of coke to a young customer when she was ripped off by masked gunmen.

Danielle was eventually sentenced to five years' probation (Aguilar got 15 years in the slammer) and was ordered into a drug treatment program, according to papers filed in US District Court in Miami.

2009-06-25T10:25:00.001-07:00

Angelina vs. Megan: War Heats Up Between Hollywood's Hottest Ladies

Reuters/AP

Sources say Angelina doesn't think Megan has the acting chops to play her role onscreen

There's tension brewing between two of the world's most stunning women.

Angelina Jolie is said to be furious that "Transformers" starlet Megan Fox has been tipped to nab her leading role in the next "Tomb Raider" film.

The prequel will focus on Lara Croft's younger years — and Oscar-winner Angie looks set to be given the boot in favor of the fresher-faced Meg.

PHOTOS: Click here to see photos of Megan Fox.

A source said: "Angie was intent on reprising her role. She feels it's something she helped define and feels robbed that it looks likely to be handed to someone who she considers less capable than her."

PHOTOS: Click here to see photos of Angelina Jolie.

But the new movie's executive producer, Dan Lin, told about.com: "It is an origin story so it is a younger Lara Croft. It will have character-driven action."

However, age difference isn't a good enough reason for "Changeling" beauty Angelina — because she simply doesn't rate Megan's acting talent.

A source added: "Angie isn't a fan of the 'Transformers' films and believes Megan won't do the Lara Croft character justice. She's also annoyed because she thinks Megan copies everything from her, from her tattoos to her style."

2009-06-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

New Book Claims Jacqueline Kennedy Seduced Actor Marlon Brando

New book quotes Brando as saying Kennedy seduced him in 1964.

Marlon Brando enjoyed two nights of passionate sex with Jacqueline Kennedy and wanted to bare the intimate details to the world, a new book reveals.

In "Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story," which details a purported post-JFK assassination affair between Jackie and Robert F. Kennedy, C. David Heymann has obtained passages from Brando's account of how he hooked up with Jackie in 1964. They were in the first draft of the Oscar winner's 1994 memoir, "Songs My Mother Taught Me," until an editor friend of Jackie (by then also the widow of Aristotle Onassis) at Random House insisted they be cut, Heymann writes.

The first time, "according to Brando, [their] three-hour meal included a good deal of drinking ... Jackie and the actor danced and drank. During their dance, Jackie, deeply attracted to Brando, 'pressed her thighs' suggestively into his. They danced again, then sat down and began to 'make out,' " according to Heymann.

He relates: "In Brando's words, 'From all I'd read and heard about her, Jacqueline Kennedy seemed coquettish and sensual but not particularly sexual. If anything, I pictured her as more voyeur than player. But that wasn't the case. She kept waiting for me to try to get her into bed. When I failed to make a move, she took matters into her own hands and popped the magic question. 'Would you like to spend the night?' And I said, 'I thought you'd never ask.' "

A week later, Jackie again hooked up with Brando at a Sutton Place apartment he borrowed from a friend. Commenting on Jackie's "boyish hips" and "muscular frame," Brando said, "I'm not sure she knew what she was doing sexually, but she did it well."

2009-06-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Actress Farrah Fawcett Dead at 62

Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Fawcett, the multiple Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated American actress best known for her role as the vivacious Jill Munroe in the 1970s television series “Charlie’s Angels,” died in a Santa Monica hospital. She was 62.

Her spokesman, Paul Bloch, confirmed that the iconic actress died Thursday morning. Her 2 1/2-year battle with cancer was depicted in a recent TV documentary, "Farrah's Story."

Fawcett was diagnosed with anal cancer in September 2006 and, despite going into remission and enduring extensive chemotherapy and surgery both in the U.S. and Germany, it was revealed earlier this year that the cancer had spread to her liver. She stopped receiving treatment in May.

Fawcett documented the trials and tribulations of her battle with cancer in the NBC documentary "Farrah’s Story."

Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, to a homemaker and an oil field contractor, Fawcett was encouraged to pursue a career in Hollywood while attending the University of Texas at Austin after her photo as one of the “Ten Most Beautiful Coeds” landed on the lap of a Los Angeles publicist. After scoring a string of commercials for consumer products and a few small television roles she finally hit the big-time with “Charlie’s Angels.” But Fawcett, eager to pursue greater acting challenges, left the show after just one season.

PHOTOS: Click for pictures of Farrah Fawcett.

The blond beauty soon became the all-American face of her generation when she posed in a red one-piece bathing suit for a poster that became an item of pop culture history and has reportedly sold over 12 million copies. Blessed with a flawless figure and stunning smile, Farrah’s full head of thick blond wavy hair took star-status of its own; the “Farrah Do” became the most requested style by women across the world.

She was married to actor Lee Majors from 1973-1982, and was known during the time as Farrah Fawcett-Majors. The couple separated in 1979, when she changed her name back to Fawcett.

Photo Essays

Farrah Fawcett

"In the beginning her hair certainly captured the world and just about every man. She took that position and reinforced it with talent and did some really chancy rolls and became a good actress, and I think a lot of people were surprised," actress Jacqueline Bissett told FOXNews.com.

"But just seeing her moving around at parties and seeing her sitting on a barstool with a kind of pizzazz and just her charm and her light was what I’ll always remember. She always just had this fresh quality and a very clean quality."

Post-"Angels," Fawcett went on to tackle an abundance of dramatic screen and stage roles and caused a major stir by appearing nude in Playboy’s December 1995 issue, which became the highest-selling issue of the 1990s.

“Farrah is just very special, inside and outside she was beautiful, smart, funny and a fighter,” her best friend and film producer, Alana Stewart, said. “She was quite an amazing woman. She's been my friend for 30 years and I've been very proud to have been involved with her.”

Fawcett is survived by her partner, actor Ryan O’Neal, and 24-year-old son Redmond O’Neal, who is currently serving a sentence for possession of illegal drugs in Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, Calif.

2009-06-24T17:33:00.001-07:00

2009-06-24T17:30:00.001-07:00

2009-06-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

MORE SI PHOTOS | LICENSE PHOTOS AT SIPICTURES.COM

Lady First: The 2009 Preakness Stakes

2009-06-24T17:23:00.001-07:00

Seth Davis Previews The 2009 Final Four

2009-06-24T17:21:00.001-07:00

2009-06-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

Gossip Girl Leighton Meester Sex Tape Leaked, Oops!

Category: Leighton Meester, gossip girl, sex tape, leaked
June 20, 2009, 1:00 am

Gossip Girl's own, Leighton Meester is about to face a huge problem. A leaked sex tape filmed nearly five years ago has just leaked itself onto the Internet. Leighton was over 18-years-old at the time, Internet perverts rejoice! Her naughty parts are finally exposed in the leaked tape. Everyone will be gossiping about this sex scandal for the next few months, I guarantee it. The sex tape is floating around the web somewhere and we're eagerly looking for a download link! Hopefully she kept her glasses on during her sexcapades.

Hot beef ingestion

2009-06-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hot beef ingestion
Following in the footsteps of Paris Hilton and Padma Lakshmi, Hills bikini-stuffer Audrina Partridge is starring in a sexy advertisement for Carl's Jr. The lucky lunch in Audrina's mouth is a teriyaki burger.

2009-06-24T16:10:00.000-07:00

Perez Hilton Sues Black Eyed Peas Manager for Battery and Emotional Distress

Reuters

Perez Hilton and Brody Jenner hug it out at the Much Music Awards red carpet on June 21, 2009, just hours before the alleged assault took place.

A new front has opened in the battle between Perez Hilton and the Black Eyed Peas manager accused of hitting him: a civil lawsuit.

The celebrity blogger, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, sued the Peas' manager in Los Angeles on Wednesday for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He is seeking unspecified damages of more than $25,000.

The suit states Hilton is seeking to protect his rights to free speech and claims Polo Molina attacked him because he made critical comments about the Black Eyed Peas' new album.

PHOTOS: Perez and the Black Eyed Peas at the Much Music Awards.

Molina was arrested in Toronto early Monday after he allegedly punched Hilton following a heated argument between the blogger and Black Eyed Peas leader will.i.am. He is due to appear in court on Aug. 5.

An e-mail sent to the group's publicist was not immediately returned Wednesday.

"Perez Hilton was assaulted by the band's road manager because he would not agree to stop writing about the Black Eyed Peas on his Web site Perezhiton.com," Bryan Freedman, Hilton's lawyer, said in a statement. "Whether you love Perez or hate him, he is entitled to his freedom of speech without fear of physical violence. This lawsuit will make the statement that violence is never the answer."

The lawsuit details the events leading up to Molina's alleged attack on the blogger.

The complaint states Black Eyed Peas vocalist Fergie approached Hilton on Saturday and asked why he was writing "mean" things about her and the group. Hilton replied that he was "simply being honest and truthful about his opinions of them," according to the lawsuit.

On Sunday, Hilton claims he was pushed by an unidentified member of the Black Eyed Peas' entourage, who "slammed his shoulder into Hilton's shoulder and thereafter pushed him."

The lawsuit claims Fergie again approached him at an afterparty for the MuchMusic Video Awards on Sunday night and that his argument with will.i.am happened at another party.

Sanford Says He Had Extramarital Affair

South Carolina Governor Cites Relationship With Woman in Argentina

ALEX ROTH VALERIE BAUERLEIN

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said Wednesday he had had an affair, ending days of speculation about his whereabouts.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admits he had an extramarital affair with a woman from Argentina. The governor held the press conference after questions were raised about his disappearance for several days. Video courtesy of Fox News.

"The bottom line is this -- I've been unfaithful to my wife," the governor said during a news conference at the State House in which he paused several times to compose himself. He admitted lying to his staff about his whereabouts and said he had been in Argentina with a woman whom he didn't name.

He said he has known the woman for eight years and that the relationship turned romantic within the past year. He profusely apologized -- to his wife and four sons, his staff, the people of his state and "people of faith" around the country. "There are moral absolutes," he said, adding that he is remaining with his wife, whom he said has known about the affair for several months.

Where Is Sanford?

A timeline of reported information about Gov. Mark Sanford's whereabouts during his absence from South Carolina. (All times approximate).

Thursday, June 18

Sanford leaves in a sport-utility vehicle normally driven by his bodyguards.

Monday, June 22

Reggie Lloyd, head of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, raises concerns with elected officials about Sanford's whereabouts.
3 p.m.: The governor's wife, Jenny Sanford, tells the Associated Press that she does not know the location of her husband.
4:20 p.m.: A spokesperson releases a statement saying the governor was "taking some time away from the office this week to recharge after the stimulus battle." The spokesperson declines to discuss Sanford's location but says in a second statement that the governor's staff knew where he was.
10:25 p.m.: A spokesman reports that Sanford has been hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Tuesday, June 23
10:05 a.m.: A spokesman says Sanford has checked in with his chief of staff and was surprised by the attention given to his vacation.
12:00 p.m.: Sanford's office reports that the governor will return to work on Wednesday.

Wednesday, June 24

8:05 a.m.: Sanford, in an interview at Atlanta's airport, tells the State newspaper that he has been in Argentina during his absence, not hiking along the Appalachian Trail.
2:30 p.m.: At a news conference, Sanford says he had an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina.

Live Blog: Gov. Sanford's news conference
Read Gov. Mark Sanford's interview with the State newspaper in South Carolina on his return from Argentina.
Law Blog: Does Sanford Face Legal Trouble?

"I'm committed to getting my heart right," he said, adding that he would step down as head of the Republican Governors Association. Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi, will succeed Mr. Sanford in that role.

Mr. Sanford, 49 years old, didn't say anything about whether he would resign as the state's governor. He didn't answer a question about that as the news conference was coming to a close.

Mr. Sanford arrived in Argentina Friday and left Tuesday on Delta Air Lines flights, according to a person in Argentina familiar with the details of the governor's schedule.

The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires said the governor didn't contact them about his trip. "Gov. Sanford did not contact our intergovernment affairs office or the embassy in Buenos Aires to register official travel," an embassy spokeswoman said. "If he decided to travel as a private citizen the Department of State would not have to be informed."

Mr. Sanford's disappearance for several days was first widely reported Monday afternoon, and late Monday evening his office said the governor was hiking along the Appalachian Trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine. Mr. Sanford's office reiterated that Tuesday.

In a statement released after Wednesday's news conference, Mr. Sanford reiterated that neither he nor his staff intentionally misled the public about his

"I want to make absolutely clear that over the past two days at no time did anyone on my staff intentionally relay false information to other state officials or the public at large," he said. "What they've said over the past two days they believed to be true, and I'm sorry to them for putting them in this position."

Mr. Sanford has been viewed as a likely contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He recently battled with Obama administration officials and with his own opponents in South Carolina over $700 million in federal stimulus funds he refused to accept, despite rising unemployment and steep funding shortages in South Carolina. Mr. Sanford argued that taking the money would be bad fiscal policy, and said he would refuse to apply for the cash unless the state used an equal amount to pay down its debt.

Mr. Barbour vowed not to let the controversy affect the Republican Governors Association's efforts to organize for the next election cycle.

"The news revealed today hurts all of us who have gotten to know Gov. Sanford over the years," Mr. Barbour said. "The RGA has an important task over the next two years. I am committed to seeing it through and confident we will succeed."

Mr. Barbour is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Getty Images

During a news conference in which he paused several times to compose himself, the governor said he'd been unfaithful to his wife.

The nearly weeklong incident started Thursday, when Mr. Sanford took off in a sport-utility vehicle armed with blue lights and a radio and normally driven by a bodyguard, and turned off his mobile phone. Mr. Sanford has regularly ditched his bodyguards when taking a run or dashing out to Taco Bell or other favorite spots in the past.

People familiar with the situation say it was one of Mr. Sanford's appointees, Reggie Lloyd, head of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, whose concerns prompted elected officials on Monday to investigate whether a temporary handoff of control was needed. Elected officials decided against doing so after being told by aides to the governor that they knew Mr. Sanford's location.

2009-06-24T10:10:00.001-07:00

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Dismisses Plagiarism Claim

By Stephen M. Silverman and Anne Driscoll

No worries, says Elisabeth Hasselbeck – who took a brief moment during Wednesday's The View to comment on the copyright infringement charge against her by a Massachusetts author.

"I just want to assure you the allegations are without merit and are being handled appropriately," said Hasselbeck, 32, who has spoken openly about her self-diagnosed celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder linked to gluten proteins in wheat, barley and rye.

Hasselbeck's book, The G Free Diet-A Gluten-Free Survival Guide, was published in May 2009 by Center Street Hachette Book Group. Crying foul, and seeking $3 million, is Susan Hassett, who claims that in 2008 she had sent Hasselbeck a copy of her own book – the self-published Living with Celiac Disease – along with a homemade cooking video, a newspaper story about celiac disease, her business card and a personal note.

The message expressed Hassett's hope that Hasselbeck was well and noted that the TV personality was lucky to catch her celiac disease early. Hassett also offered to discuss her book with Hasselbeck in order to spread the word about celiac disease to her viewers. In return, she never received so much as a thank you, says Hassett.

Instead, Hassett claims Hasselbeck infringed on Hassett's copyright by stealing her material "word for word" and copying the format of her book. In her lawsuit, filed Monday in Boston federal court, Hassett says she will donate a portion of whatever proceeds she receives from the suit to create a camp designed for children with celiac disease.

On Tuesday, a statement released on behalf of Center Street and Hasselbeck, said, in part, "There is no basis for the allegations in the Complaint as published in the press. Ms. Hasselbeck worked diligently and tirelessly on her book and is disappointed in this attempt to discredit her work and her ability to bring this important message to the public."

2009-06-24T10:06:00.000-07:00

Kate Gosselin says she feels like she failed at her marriage.

In an exclusive interview posted on People.com, the mother of eight explains that she is torn over the decision to split from her husband.

"On a good day, I feel relief," Kate says. "On a bad day, I feel failure."

More of her interview will be featured in the new issue of People magazine, on stands July 6.

Posted June 24, 2009 7:04:00 AM

2009-06-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

"American Idol" judge Paul Abdul talks to Hollywood.tv about "Tonight Show" announcer Ed McMahon, who passed away on Tuesday.

Paula calls McMahon a "lovely man" and says it was "very sad" to hear of his death.

2009-06-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen' Cheat Sheet: Everything You Need To Know

These are the secrets you need to know about before seeing 'Revenge of the Fallen.'

By Larry Carroll

Views	12,965

It could be the biggest blockbuster of the year, and millions of words have been written in anticipation of its opening. But that doesn't mean that "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" doesn't still have a few secrets.

With that in mind, we went straight to the folks behind the flick, getting the scoop on top-secret cameos, things to look for and fun winks at classic sci-fi characters from other franchises. Before you see the film, be sure to know what to look for — with some help from our MTV Cheat Sheet for "Revenge of the Fallen."

The Force Is With Him
"There's an R2-D2 flying around in there somewhere," revealed Scott Farrar, the film's visual-effects supervisor, who also worked on the "Star Wars" episodes "Return of the Jedi" and "The Phantom Menace." "There's a little bit of space junk thrown in there; see if you can find it. It's a scene in the desert." Interestingly enough, George Lucas' charismatic droid also had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo in "Star Trek," which shares the same writing team as "Transformers." Is it a coincidence? "Perhaps," screenwriter Alex Kurtzman grinned mischievously. "Perhaps not."

Playing Footsy
Look carefully and you'll see some continuity errors involving Megan Fox's footwear. "There's a few scenes — if you look for it — my shoes always change," the actress laughed, revealing an error they discovered after shooting the film that has her character's shoes switching during various takes. "I go from wearing high heels to ballet flats. It's crazy!"

Rapper's Delight
It's no secret that Shia LaBeouf is good friends with Chris "Cage" Palko, a New York rapper the actor hopes to someday portray onscreen. Cage hung out on the "Revenge of the Fallen" set with his actor friend, and LaBeouf even talked the "Hell's Winter" rapper into filming a cameo. Look closely during one of the college scenes that has Shia's Sam Witwicky on the quad, and you'll see Cage's acting debut.

A Hair-Raising Moment
"We made history in this movie, doing an action scene that included the biggest amount of practical explosions ever in a [scene] that included actors," beamed a proud Tyrese, telling fans to watch out for the action scene that had him endangering life, limb — and many follicles. "[The scene has] all four of us in the cast — me, Shia, Megan and Josh [Duhamel] — we're all runnin', and it's [behind us] in big, beautiful slow motion. Still, to this day, I went to four different dermatologists — the hair that grew in the back of my neck has not grown back in because of this explosion. I'm a little concerned."

Hasta la Vista, Bumblebee
"I hope Michael doesn't get mad at me, but there's a T-1000 imprint on one of the Decepticons," revealed Farrar, risking the wrath of director Michael Bay while explaining a wink to the "Terminator" franchise — and one of the main summer '09 competitors to Bay's blockbuster. "[You can see] the letters T-1000 [on a robot]. We do it because we like to give a nod to the competition. It's OK; we're all friends."

That Sneaky 'Butt Cam'
Bay has spoken previously about Megan Fox's sexiness in her first "Revenge" scene, but according to the beauty, she didn't even know that the sneaky director was using a camera to shoot her from behind. "I'm bent over the bike, airbrushing the bike, and I'm wearing these really short shorts," Fox said of the scene. "I thought I was performing the scene with the camera on my face! I was playing to a camera [in front of me], but he had a multiple camera going that was on a dolly — sliding in and out from behind me. My dialogue isn't even on camera!" Grinning, she said she forgave her director's sneakiness: "I don't find it sexy. He's trying to get people in the theater. I guess he thinks it's sexy."

2009-06-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

Bridget Marquardt Spills Raunchy Details From Kendra's Bachelorette Party

By Hollie McKay

AFP

Bridget Marquardt and Nick Carpenter

Bridget Marquardt Spills Raunchy Sex Game Details From Kendra’s Bachelorette Party, Feels 'Free' Away From the Mansion | WWE Raw to Trump: You're Fired | Exclusive: Queen Latifah Shows Off Her Sexy Side | Quote of the Day: Larry David

Bridget Marquardt Spills Raunchy Sex Game Details From Kendra’s Bachelorette Party, Feels "free" Away From The Mansion

It sounds as though Bridget Marquardt hasn’t shed too many tears since leaving the iconic stomping grounds of the Playboy Mansion last year. The TV host is looking thinner than ever and is grateful that she actually gets to enjoy a little nightlife.

"The best bit about being away is just the freedom to do whatever I want now," she told Tarts at the recent grand opening of Beach Bunny Swimwear’s flagship store in Newport Beach on Thursday evening. "There’s no curfew, I can date now. My curfew was at 9 so I wouldn’t have even been able to be here tonight …"

But despite baring all for the pages of Playboy multiple times, Marquardt only recently experienced her first visit to a semi-nude beach.

"I’ve only been topless on one beach in Ibiza. I knew there was one more thing I had to do," she added. "I took my top off and just walked up and down the beach and drew a heart in the sand for this one (points to producer boyfriend Nick Carpenter)."

Speaking of revealing all, we caught up with Marquardt again last week at the JetBlue Airways launch for the twice daily service from L.A. to Boston and NY with a benefit bash for VH1 Save the Music Foundation at Hollywood hotspot MyHouse - and she had a lot to say about the good times going on at bride-to-be Kendra Wilkinson’s Bachelorette party which was held on Thursday evening in Hollywood.

"There are two games that are kind of raunchy," she said, explaining that a certain sex toy will be passed between the legs and if you are caught when the music stops you’re out.

"The other one is just a story-telling game! When you give Kendra her present you have to tell about how old you were when it was your first time, who it was with and where you were …" Marquardt added.

WWE Raw to Trump: You're Fired

Donald Trump is pretty used to uttering those infamous words "you're fired" to contestants on "The Apprentice," but the millionaire mogul got a taste of his own medicine on Monday night.

Trump held a press conference on Monday in Green Bay at Austin Straubel Airport and as the new "owner" of　WWE's Monday Night RAW®, announcing that all ticketholders to the RAW　event at the Resch Center will receive a ticket refund. However that didn't go down too well with RAW chairman Vince McMahon seeing as though the total value of all ticket refunds is approximately $235,000 coupled with the fact that RAW was presented commercial freefor the first time ever on USA.

"Trump ran RAW his way," said our source who also confirmed that McMahon promptly "fired" Trump later that evening and bought back Monday Night RAW (for double the amount he paid for it).

Exclusive: Queen Latifah Shows Off Her Sexy Side

She’s royalty in the stage and screen world and now Queen Latifah has moved on to smells. FOXNews.com got an exclusive peak of the Queen’s first fragrance line simply titled "Queen."

"Beauty really does start on the inside. It’s like a state of mind, a state of love if you will," Queen Latifah said in an exclusive statement. "So I see fragrance as just a natural expression of this state of love: scent expresses a woman’s confidence and sensuality, it’s how she embraces her body, her mind and her strength."

Queen Latifah shot the aristocratic-themed campaign in a private Mansion in Miami, but it turns out that it did take the 39-year-old quite some time to really accept her fuller figure and individuality.

"Especially as teenager, I felt like an outcast and misfit," Latifah recently told Tarts. "I have felt that a lot in my life. But now I embrace it, I'd really rather be an outcast and see things from an outsider point of view. Then be welcomed into the club. I don't want to be part of any club that wants me as a member …"

Quote Of The Day: Larry David

Larry David is the star of Woody Allen’s new dark comedy "Whatever Works", but as we discovered that really doesn’t work for him …

"’Whatever Works’ doesn't work for me at all, no. I think it means do what makes you happy as long as you don't hurt anybody but I don't do that. I never do what makes me happy, I do what makes me unhappy," he told Tarts. "I don't hate people, but I hate individuals I suppose."

2009-06-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Celebrity Blogger Gets Earful Following Gay Slur

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Reuters

Perez Hilton and Brody Jenner hug it out at the Much Music Awards red carpet on June 21, 2009, just hours before the alleged assault took place.

Poor Perez.

After Perez Hilton's slur-laden reaction to an alleged assault by the manager of the Black Eyed Peas, even former allies of the celebrity blogger have turned against him.

Officials at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have called on Hilton to apologize for the "vulgar anti-gay slurs" he made in a video following a confrontation with manager Liborio Molina.

But Hilton — who became a de facto spokesman for gay rights following his marriage equality question to former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean — is insisting he's the one due an apology, not GLAAD.

"I am saddened GLAAD chose to victimize me further by criticizing me for how I non-violently dealt with a very scary situation that, unfortunately, turned violent," Hilton said in a statement to FOXNews.com. "While I doubt I will get an apology from GLAAD, nor do I expect one, I would just hope people know how difficult it is to intellectualize a situation and think rationally when a thug disguised as a musician is screaming at your face and intimidating you."

Hilton, a former GLAAD employee himself, posted a Twitter message on Sunday after he claimed he was assaulted by a member of the Black Eyed Peas' entourage outside a party following the MuchMusic Video Awards in Canada. Hilton later admitted in another post to calling Will.i.am a "f**got," saying it was the worse thing he could think of to call the singer at the time. He also called the singer "a f***ing coward," and added that he would have had more respect if Will.i.am had punched him in the face himself. Molina, meanwhile, has reportedly turned himself into Toronto police in connection to the assault

"I am just very fortunate and grateful that nothing more serious happened to me," Hilton's statement to FOXNews.com continued.

Rashad Robinson, senior director of media programs at GLAAD, denounced Hilton's usage of the "vulgar anti-gay slurs that a feed a climate" of hatred and intolerance toward homosexuals.

"For someone in our own community to use it to attack another person by saying that it is, quote, ‘The worst possible thing that thug would ever want to hear,’ is incredibly dangerous," Robinson said in a statement issued Monday. "It legitimizes use of a slur that is often linked to violence against our community. And it sends a message that it is OK to attempt to dehumanize people by exploiting anti-gay attitudes.”

GLAAD spokesman Richard Ferraro declined to respond to Hilton's statement on Tuesday.

"Right now, we don't have any reaction to that statement," Ferraro told FOXNews.com.

Robinson, who called on Hilton's comments to be condemned in the "strongest possible terms," said the group has called on Hilton to apologize.

Leonard Jacobs, editor of The Clyde Fitch Report, an arts and politics blog, said any racial or sexual slur is offensive, but questioned Hilton's standing within the gay and lesbian community.

"Not only is he not helping the gay cause in any way, more pertinent is he's not helping his own cause any either," Jacobs told FOXNews.com. "By doing it, he essentially dissipates whatever credibility he might have had not only as a media figure, but as an openly gay man."

Jacobs, who is also openly gay, said he never considered Hilton a spokesman for gay rights. If given the chance, Jacobs would suggest that Hilton stick to "doing gossip," he said.

"Did it offend me? I don't really care what Perez Hilton says or thinks," Jacobs said. "He's the celebrity version of a heroin addict."

Other gay rights activists contacted by FOXNews.com — including the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force — declined to comment for this story.

Hilton's account of the incident garnered roughly 5,000 comments on his Web site, some of which criticized the blogger's behavior.

"Verbal abuse is just as bad as physical Perez," ickkyperez wrote. "How do you not know that! You are a mean spirited person. Violence is never the answer and neither are violent words."

Another post suggested that Hilton "hire more security," while another accused the blogger of hurting people "WAY more" than injuries he suffered.

"You're right. Violence is never the answer," lucy17 wrote. "BUT words can cause more damage then being punched. Get over it."

Meanwhile, Will.i.am posted his own online video response early Monday, indicating that fellow Black Eyed Peas member Fergie had approached Hilton at an after party at the club Ultra and asked what the blogger had against their group. Fergie then relayed the back-and-forth to Will.i.am, who described the blogger as being "rude."

At a subsequent afterparty at the club Cobra, Will.i.am said he and Hilton exchanged words. "So I go up to him and say, 'Hey, can you do me a favor, Perez? ... Can you not be so blatantly rude to our group on your Web site? That's just wrong — you don't have to be disrespectful,'" Will.i.am said in his video statement. "He said, 'I don't respect you.' I was like, 'What? OK, if you don't respect me that's cool.'"

Will.i.am said Perez called him "a f**got," at which point, "the fans get all crazy and start on Perez Hilton. I'm just sitting there minding my own business waiting for a car."

2009-06-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Reese Witherspoon Swears Off Raunchy Roles

By Hollie McKay

Reese Witherspoon

LOS ANGELES — Reese Witherspoon Swears Off Raunchy Roles | Sexting Snaff: Caridee English Invited Her Father to ‘Come to Bed’ | Kelly Clarkson 'Flattered' to Be a Rumored Lesbian | Pop Tarts Scene & Herd

Reese Witherspoon Swears Off Raunchy Roles

She’s an Oscar-winning actress and one of Hollywood’s hottest stars — but even Reese Witherspoon’s children, 9-year-old daughter Ava & 6-year-old-son Deacon, are surprisingly "embarrassed" of their uber-famous mom.

"My children are embarrassed at me all the time. They're like ‘mom you're being really stupid’,"Witherspoon told us in a recent interview. "When ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ came out Ava told me I'm the coolest mom in the third grade. I said ‘can you put it on a piece of paper and sign it for me please’. I was cool once."

And as cool and yet hot as the majority of men (and women) think Witherspoon is, she won’t be baring too much for the lights and camera.

"I had my first baby when I was 23, so for me, no. I've always been choosing roles knowing that I have a daughter and I have a responsibility to her and to the world to be representing women of strength," the 33-year-old added. "These are the women I know in life. I think it's a natural extension of parenthood for you to feel like you’re responsible for the worlds you create, whether they be silly or serious. I think you are responsible for the art you put in the world."

While these are certainly inspiring words of wisdom, don’t be fooled — this mama was more than happy to embrace her childhood habits while lending her voice to "Monsters vs. Aliens".

"It's definitely not hard. It's like you go in and it's about how imaginative you can be. For me, that's just a fantastic opportunity to be free and act like a 5-year-old," Witherspoon added. "We just go in the sound booth and be silly and eat candy and drink caffeine and bounce off the walls. The older I get the more I regress. I really have just become very silly."

Sexting Snaff: Caridee English Invited Her Father to ‘Come to Bed’

Here is a lesson for everyone to learn: don’t list your lover with anything other than his real name in your phone, or you might just make an embarrassing Carridee English-style slip.

"I used to have my boyfriend listed as "daddy" in my phone because that was just his nickname and my real dad was "dad" and I accidentally sent my father the text ‘hurry up and get home … I’m waiting for you on the bed …’" the "America’s Next Top Model" alum told Tarts at the recent Palm Pre launch party in Los Angeles.

"My dad said, "I don't think you meant to send this to me" and I tried to cover it up by saying, 'Dad, my friends thought it would be funny if they went and texted you and mom like all these crazy things!' Could you imagine my dad sitting on the couch or at work and getting that? From then on I changed the names in my phone."

And as for the current controversy surrounding minors sexting naughty pics, English thinks its only cute if the age is legal.

"I'm all for it if you're the correct age and doing it with the right person, if you're involved with somebody it's fun to send them a cute little sexy message throughout the day," the 24-year-old explained. "But there is a big epidemic with children and teenagers doing it which isn't safe, you've got to be safe about it. But if you're in a relationship and you're a grown up and you can handle it, there's no issue."

Kelly Clarkson 'Flattered' to Be Hit On By Girls

Speculation has been surrounding Kelly Clarkson’s sexuality for quite some time now — but while she thinks "its hot" to be hit on by girls, this songstress ain’t fallin’ for the same sex.

"Those (lesbian rumors) are not helping me on the dating front! I prefer the boys. I’m extremely flattered when I do get hit on by girls and I think it’s hot but I’m not into it. I like boys," Clarkson told Sydney station 2Day FM’s Kyle and Jackie O Show last week.

"I’m only 27, not 40 and still single! I enjoy being single, I love work and I think people are so passive with relationships and I’m not that person. I’m an extremist, I’m either in a relationship or I’m not. I’m honest about it and I’ll tell people, it’s just there’s nothing to tell. I have a very good life."

And even though the "Idol" alum has also hit the headlines because of her curves, she has no desire to drop pounds.

"For seven years it’s been happening. It’s like, ‘Okay cool, the fat joke.’ I love my body, I’m very much okay with it," Clarkson added. "I don’t think artists are ever the ones who have the problem with their weight, I think it’s the media who have a problem with it."

Pop Tarts Scene & Herd

Jury member Cuba Gooding Jr. and honoree and director Terry Gilliam sharing a laugh at the Ibiza Film Festival, held last weekend in Ibiza, Spain. Cuba came by the five-day festival after wrapping production of the George Lucas helmed Red Tails.

A reserved Adrian Grenier checking out Madonna and Gwenyth Paltrow's handbags at the Salvatore Ferragamo store in Beverly Hills on Tuesday at an intimate benefit for victims of l’aquila earthquake.

After shooting a Revlon campaign in the W Los Angeles on Wednesday, Halle Berry was spotted drinking an apple martini at the downstairs bar Whiskey Blue. Earlier in the day Berry was spotted hanging with daughter Nahla in between takes.

Holly Madison (going unnoticed) with her goddaughter in the audience of Terry Fator’s all-new show, Terry Fator & His Cast of Thousands, at The Mirage on Wednesday night. The next night Madison played auctioneer for the Share Our Strength’s Taste of the Nation® culinary benefit at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas where she personally helped increase the bid for a package with Master Chef Carlos cooking dinner in the winners home for 25 of their closest friends. The bidding was holding around $3,000 and then Holly, impromptu, decided to add herself to the dinner package and it soared to over $5,000!

Jason Alexander, Shannon Elizabeth, Peter Fonda, Kat Von D, Robert Buckley, Jordan Farmar, Maggie Grace and Spencer Grammer enjoying an interactive California farmers market and cocktail reception at Sprint's Palm® Pre™ launch event, benefiting the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.

Jessica Biel (donning sneakers and ripped jeans) with a gal pal happily browsing the racks of Theory in downtown Manhattan on Thursday.

A very wacky-looking Bobby Brown watching the Lakers game and chowing down food at the Stone Rose bar inside the Sofitel Los Angeles on Thursday night.

Joel Madden refusing car service (he drove himself) and politely turning down an offer for free jewelry at the Soffer Ari Flagship Store Opening in West Hollywood on Thursday night.

Sharon Osbourne and Owen Wilson at the Morgane Le Fay store opening at Malibu's County Mart on Thursday evening to benefit "Return to Freedom Wild Horse Sanctuary." However Wilson fled the scene immediately upon seeing an event photographer.

Adam Lambert at Culver City's Royal-T Cafe to view the Japanese art collection from the new "I Cant Feel My Face" exhibit and take a meeting with music executives on Friday. Lambert enjoyed the café’s signature Spicy Tuna Tartare and a bottle of water.

Dolly Parton, Allison Janney and the cast of "9 to 5, The Musical" dining on New York Prime Strip at The Palm West on Friday night while Dolly entertained the crowd with her razor sharp whit and southern charm.

Joe Satriani, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Van Halen front man Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony going nuts and talking nonsense backstage before their in-store appearance as the new band "Chicken Foot" at Best Buy in West Los Angeles on Friday night.

Gwen Stefani's hubby Gavin Rossdale jamming out at the Friday Night Live concert series at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

Adult film stars Tori Lane and Puma Swede getting it on girl-on-girl style at Wasted Space inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on Friday.

Shwayze and Cisco Adler watching a bikini contest by the WET REPUBLIC pool party in Sin City on Saturday.

Eddie Murphy, Thomas Haden Church, Yara Shahidi, Nicole Ari Parker, Ronny Cox, DeRay Davis and Vanessa Williams at Hollywood's Paramount Studios for the premiere of "Imagine That" on Saturday morning. Murphy assured us he'd buy Davis an Escalade of his own, so we'll see if he delivers ...

A super tiny Audrina Patridge celebrating her brother's 21st in a private cabana at TAO Beach in Sin City on Saturday afternoon.

Annette Bening, Chace Crawford and Angie Harmon (with husband Jason Sehorn) having a serious chat over dinner at the 8th Annual Chrysalis Butterfly Ball in Los Angeles on Saturday night. Mark Wahlberg also showed up to the super-swanky black tie affair in jeans and a shirt and to top off the night, Seth McFarlane pledged $15,000 to Chrysalis and when a guest matched his donation he jumped in the pool — fully clothed.

Queen Latifah chilling out with Ray Romano at the Ritz Carlton, Marina Del Ray on Sunday in between interviews for their new flick "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs."

2009-06-24T09:21:00.001-07:00

BOOZY JUSTIN DISSES LINDSAY LOHAN

June 24, 2009 --

A NIGHT out with the boys may get Justin Timberlake in hot water with girlfriend Jessica Biel.

According to an eyewitness, the singer was in party mode at Chelsea hot spot Avenue one recent night. "Usually Justin is pretty in control, but he was acting pretty crazy," our spy tells Page Six. "He was drinking tequila all night. At one point, he cleared out a little space and started break dancing. He was bumping into people and spilling drinks. It was hilarious."

Our source also says that at one point, Lindsay Lohan, currently off with on-again, off-again girlfriend Samantha Ronson, tried to dance with Timberlake, but "he shooed her away."

But that didn't stop Timberlake from later cozying up to an unidentified brunette partygoer. "It definitely wasn't Jessica," laughs our source. "He was pretty drunk."

Later that night, Lohan ended up posting a thinly veiled message on her Twitter account, "where's jb cheater" -- seemingly referring to Timberlake's girlfriend, Biel. The next day, she added, "Why do people cheat?" But she eventually backtracked, claiming that both messages had been sent by someone who'd hacked into her Twitter account.

Life In Photos: Justin Timberlake

Life In Photos: Lindsay Lohan

Avenue owner Noah Tepperberg tells Page Six, "My partner, Danny A, was with Justin and a few of his guy friends the entire night, and I was within 15 feet of him the whole time he was there, and we know for sure he was not doing anything with other girls. He was having a good time with the guys, and came and left with them. I have surveillance cameras that show this to be the case and anything you are hearing is simply not true."

A rep for Timberlake said, "I have no comment on my client's personal life."

Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese

2009-05-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese

Film critic Roger Ebert and director Martin Scorsese attend the Roger Ebert Conference Center Announcement held at the American Pavilion during the 62nd International Cannes Film Festival on May 15 in France. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

2009-05-15T23:06:00.001-07:00

Hugh Laurie

2009-05-15T11:49:00.001-07:00

Hugh Laurie: Playboy Interview

By David Hochman

Not often does someone become a star by playing an unlikable curmudgeon week after miserable week. But that’s what happened to Hugh Laurie with House, the phenomenally popular medical drama on which he has turned the limping, pill-popping misanthrope Dr. Gregory House into one of the most memorable and oddly appealing characters on TV.

With shades of Sherlock Holmes by way of Hawkeye Pierce on a crabby day, House isn’t out to heal the world or make patients happy. He doesn’t have a soft spot for kids and old ladies, and he would rather watch monster-truck jams than read a stupid CT scan. No matter how antisocial he is, no matter how bitter (his favorite diagnosis is “The patient is lying”), House inevitably saves the day—even when it kills him to.

But those are mere character tics. What really separates House is Laurie’s star quality. Unlike almost every other hit drama series now—Lost, E.R., Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Heroes, the CSI trilogy—this one isn’t about the ensemble cast. House is about House the way Kojak was about Kojak and All in the Family was about Archie. Okay, yes, there’s Kiefer Sutherland on 24 but nobody holds together a top drama quite the way Laurie does.

Watching him rattle off American medical speak week after week, it’s easy to forget Laurie is British. Born in Oxford, England in 1959, he is the youngest of four children. His mother died following a lengthy illness shortly before Laurie turned 30, and his father, a physician who won an Olympic gold medal for rowing, died just before Laurie landed House.

A national youth rowing champion himself, Laurie contemplated an athletic career but let those dreams go after being sidelined by a nasty case of mononucleosis while at Cambridge University. He took up acting instead and was soon part of a talented circle that included Emma Thompson, whom he briefly dated, and Stephen Fry, who became his comedy partner. No highlight reel of U.K. comedy from the 1980s or 1990s would be complete without a clip of Fry and Laurie in twit or fop mode on sketch programs like Blackadder or their own A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

Those antics made Laurie a household name among BBC viewers, but he never quite broke through in the States. There were one-off guest roles on Friends and Family Guy, and he played the dad in Stuart Little. But the audition tape he recorded in a hotel bathroom in Namibia, where he was filming Flight of the Phoenix, was what got Laurie the role of his career. Since 2004 House has earned him a pair of Golden Globes, three Emmy nominations and the distinction of being one of the most-watched scripted TV programs, even though the actor has never quite let go of England. His wife of 20 years, Jo Green, and their three children still live in north London. It’s anyone’s guess how the California house Laurie bought last summer will change things.

Playboy dispatched Contributing Editor David Hochman to meet with Laurie over the course of several weeks as House’s fifth season got under way. They met at various hotels and on the show’s set at 20th Century Fox Studios in Los Angeles. Hochman’s report: “For all House’s crankiness and sarcasm, you would expect him to be played by an actor with at least a trace of mean-spiritedness. But Laurie is as gentle and self-effacing as House is a grouch. Each time the issue of his success came up, he looked as if he wanted to hide under a pillow. It embarrasses him to celebrate his achievements, even though he has done so much. It’s almost as though he’s afraid if he believes in his success, he’ll lose the jones for all the long hours House demands. Every actor should take a cue from the way Laurie handles his fame.”

PLAYBOY: You recently bought a house—a big one—in Los Angeles after years of commuting back and forth to London. Has Hugh Laurie gone Hollywood at last?
LAURIE: I’ve put down, not quite roots but more like a flowerpot. My family still lives in London, but I finally had to accept that House has some sort of permanence. I was so convinced in the first few years that it was never going to last—because nothing does. Simply statistically, the odds are very much against it in television. But here we are.

PLAYBOY: In fact, you’re coming up on the 100th episode. That makes Dr. House one of the crankiest success stories on TV since Archie Bunker, right?
LAURIE: Oh dear God. Don’t say that. Success on a cosmic level like that completely eludes me. I’m deeply suspicious of things being too good. It’s part of my superstition, I think, to generate pain in order to give the illusion of gain. That’s my MO. I’m not saying I reject success, but honestly, I don’t quite know how to deal with it. It’s an old feeling: As soon as you have the thing you’ve been going after all your life, that reasonable degree of security, you start kicking against it, doubting it. That’s why I get uneasy whenever journalists assemble lists. The best! The crankiest! I don’t feel worthy of any list. Lists are for bright and shiny people. Lists are for people on big and shiny shows like Lost, Desperate Housewives, Heroes. I’m more stubbly and grumpy than bright and shiny.

PLAYBOY: That sounds a little like House talking. How much of you is in him, and vice versa?
LAURIE: I guess we have certain similarities. We both look at the world with one eyebrow arched. We’re both quite serious but also have a childishness. He and I are eternal adolescents but with this morbid gravity. The other thing is, we both have issues with joy, in so much as we think it’s beyond us. I often picture that scene in the Woody Allen movie when he’s on the train and looks into another car that’s full of people laughing. They’re drinking champagne; somebody has a trombone. And Woody is very much on the outside of that, looking in. I’d say that sums up my view of the world, as well as House’s.

PLAYBOY: Hasn’t the show’s continued success improved your mood?
LAURIE: Not really. I think being moody is part of my nature, though looking back, I am much less moody and depressed now than when I was 25. Gradually I’ve mellowed. I was probably depressed all the time back then. Now it’s more occasional.

PLAYBOY: What changed?
LAURIE: It’s tiresome to be so wound up in yourself and dark, and it’s hard on others. My moodiness probably has a greater effect on other people—the people I live and work with—than it does on me. Nobody likes being around someone who’s bemoaning his fate all the time, and I didn’t want to be that person. I also understand now what gets me out of my head when I get depressed: physical exercise, doing a chore. I’ll hang a picture, let’s say. Or perhaps I’ll take a toothbrush and clean the spokes on my motorcycle.

PLAYBOY: What about antidepressants?
LAURIE: They have been an answer, yes. They’re something I’ve tried that has helped. They’re probably good for my work because they help with confidence, and confidence is the prerequisite of all successful endeavors. But then again, as I said, I get suspicious if things start to feel too easy or comfortable, so that’s not a perfect solution either.

PLAYBOY: Do you worry that being under the spell of medication will overthrow your powers as an actor, particularly when you’re playing a curmudgeon like House?
LAURIE: It’s a tricky question, isn’t it? Pharmaceuticals do raise the question of who we are as human beings. What are moods and feelings if we can change or even do away with them? Does that reduce the essence of who we are? Then again, I tend to overthink these things. I overthink everything, I think. But if your eyesight fails, it’s okay to wear glasses or contact lenses, is it not? If you feel cold, you put on a sweater. Is that changing the nature of who you are? No.

I worry sometimes that I’ve said too much on this subject. It gives the idea that I’m some sort of near basket case who has to be coaxed out of his cave on weekends. I’m okay. Really, I am.

PLAYBOY: Speaking of pharmaceuticals, House sure does love his Vicodin. He doesn’t have any close friends or family. He has that famous limp, and he’s nasty to just about everyone. Remind us again: What’s his appeal?
LAURIE: It’s a combination of things. His being a skilled healer is an attractive quality. We’d all like to feel there is somebody out there who can save us when we’re up against it, when our life or our loved ones are in peril. God knows it would be nice if someone out there right now had the answer, and House almost always has the answer.

Also he’s free from the social gravity that holds us all down and prevents us from saying what we think and doing what we want. That gravity keeps us down. But because he doesn’t seem to obey those laws, because he doesn’t care if people like him or approve of him, he’s a character who flies. Dreams of flight or weightlessness are very common to us. We all dream of being able to rise and sort of float above the world, and I think that’s what House is doing socially.

PLAYBOY: He’s also funny.
LAURIE: Right. There’s that, too. I find him a very funny character, but it’s not just that he’s funny. There was a line, a moment of absolute encapsulation for me, from a scene in which House has to interrupt an operation. His colleague Wilson is in the operating theater, and House has to take a patient in to introduce him to Wilson. The first line, to one of the other surgeons, is “Mind if we play through?”

PLAYBOY: That’s funny.
LAURIE: I remember thinking at the time that the line was somehow superfluous to the scene, which was actually about Wilson’s appraisal of the patient. All it called for was a line to the effect of “Hey, Wilson, meet this guy.” But [head writer and show creator] David Shore found exactly the right phrase to characterize House in that moment. Yes, House is dark and tortured and lonely and gruff and all those things, but there’s something terrifically connected and exuberant about him. He takes pleasure in language, pleasure in a good joke. He is a believer, as I am, in the power of humor. In a world of death and misery where people are dropping all around him, where fate is often cruel rather than kind, humor is his only meaningful response to existence.

PLAYBOY: Not to make this a “list” question, but what are some of your all-time favorite House episodes?
LAURIE: There are good things in lots of them, but as a complete episode, I think “Three Stories” is the best—very ambitious and by and large very successful as these things go. It’s the one in which House gives three lectures, and each one tells a different story about human suffering—in particular, leg pain, which is his malady. It’s the story of what happened to House’s leg, and it’s told with great compassion and ingenuity. The show’s brilliant writers found a way to tie all three stories together, involve the entire cast and create a fantasy sequence featuring Carmen Electra playing golf. You can’t ask for more than that in a single episode.

The other one that comes to mind is also one of the very first we did, called “Autopsy,” written by Larry Kaplow. Absolutely exquisite. It’s about a little girl suffering from a brain tumor, and everybody in the hospital constantly sings her praises as a brave little angel. But House commits this absolute blasphemy of doubting her bravery. You’re not allowed to do that, especially on TV and especially with children. People who suffer from cancer are sanctified. But House being House, he makes the shocking but nonetheless inarguable point that not everybody can be as brave as everybody else. If everyone’s a hero, the word has no meaning. I love House for being able to say things like that. It’s quite liberating to go against the grain, even as an actor reciting lines. House then goes further and actually starts to doubt the bravery is hers but is rather a symptom, a tumor, perhaps, that’s affecting her personality. But the most brilliant element of it is that he’s wrong!

PLAYBOY: But House is never wrong.
LAURIE: Precisely. But he is wrong. And it forces him to admit there are eternal qualities and inarguable virtues like bravery. It’s moments like those—or like the ones this season when House reveals just how vulnerable and alone he is, to the point where he sends a private investigator to keep an eye on Wilson, his only real friend—that bring this character alive. Honestly, though, I’ve seen only about 10 of the 100 episodes we’ve made, so I’m probably not the best judge.

PLAYBOY: You don’t watch the show?
LAURIE: I would if I weren’t on it. The attitude and the wit are very much in keeping with my sensibilities, but it’s simply too hard to watch myself acting.

PLAYBOY: Does your American accent bother you?
LAURIE: Well, that’s certainly difficult to get my head around. I’m still an Englishman to my core. And being British, I’m quite dubious anytime I hear any of my countrymen playing American. I think that’s why House doesn’t do so well in England. The show has done stupendously well in other European countries. It may even be the number one program in Spain and Germany. But the British are wise to me. Any sort of linguistic affectation drives the English absolutely mad. I mean, we are a nation of Professor Higginses, and we’re all out to detect falsehood and artifice in the way English speakers speak.

PLAYBOY: Are there certain words that especially trip you up?
LAURIE: Well, the r words are the biggest problem. Coronary artery—that’s a bad day when that comes up. Court order—also bad. New York, oddly, is a nightmare. The most difficult is any speech in which I have to repeat a word. It’s impossible to maintain the same inflection. So if you watch the show and I’m going on about cancer, listen to the way the word cancer changes each time I say it. You’ll understand why I can’t watch the show.

PLAYBOY: Several shows this season have non-Americans playing Yank parts: Aussie Simon Baker and Englishman Rufus Sewell, to name two. On the big screen Russell Crowe, Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett frequently speak American English. Are there not enough American actors to fill those roles?
LAURIE: I think it’s because people know too much about actors in their home territory. One of the reasons I got the role of House is, coming from England, I was largely unknown to Americans. There were no preconceived notions or expectations about how I was supposed to look or sound. I was new, and that was attractive. It’s also a sign of the End of Days, I believe. Once you start having foreigners do your TV shows, it’s pretty much over. The Romans found that to be the case. They had a lot of Australians coming into the Colosseum right before the whole thing started to implode.

PLAYBOY: Very funny. When did you realize House would be a hit?
LAURIE: Well, it was very gradual. In the first year we went unnoticed. I mean, nobody watched. It wasn’t until we followed American Idol in season two that it started to pick up.

PLAYBOY: Did people start saying, “Hey, did I go to high school with you?”
LAURIE: By the second season, people began staring at me, definitely. Or squinting in vague recognition. You suddenly realize the cell phone and the digital camera have changed the nature of what it means to be in public. It’s not paparazzi you have worry about anymore as a celebrity. It’s everyone.

Then we had some very big episodes, like our Super Bowl episode last year, when 30 million people were watching, and that’s when things got really strange. People want to know everything about you. They believe your life has changed. But the truth is, success changes nothing. I think it was General MacArthur who said no piece of news is either as good or as bad as it first appears. That’s a wise way to regard fame as well. It’s neither as good nor as bad as you expect it to be. Thirty million people watch you on television, but the next day things aren’t a different color. They don’t taste different. If your back hurt yesterday, your back will hurt today. It may hurt even more.

PLAYBOY: How much have you learned from the show? Do you know the treatment for osteochondritis?
LAURIE: Absolutely not.

PLAYBOY: The cure for fibromyalgia?
LAURIE: I’m not even certain I know what that is.

PLAYBOY: You are a very good actor, indeed.
LAURIE: I might have known those answers a week or two months ago. Or in 2002. But I retain absolutely nothing in the way of medical information. It’s frightening, really. The demands on my short-term memory are so great for this show. It’s an astonishingly good exercise in keeping my brain fresh and active, but it all goes out of my head 20 minutes after the scene is done.

PLAYBOY: With all those weird diseases on the show, have you become a hypochondriac?
LAURIE: It gives you pause to realize just how close we all are to so many nasty, ravaging ailments. But, touch wood, I’ve been extremely lucky in that department. We don’t deal with too many run-of-the-mill problems on our show, so it often feels like fantasy more than stark reality. We are a drama, after all. Also, if you look at what we do medically, it doesn’t really add up. We make a million mistakes. We fix illnesses in 42 minutes that would take eight months to cure in reality, and doctors could never carry out as many procedures as ours do. There would be an MRI technician, a radiologist to interpret the MRI and another doctor to present those findings to the patient. But we can’t have a cast of 85 people. It’s more satisfying to have these characters do everything rather than show patients waiting around in an office for results. That would be slightly less exciting to watch.

PLAYBOY: About as exciting as watching people try to meet their insurance deductibles.
LAURIE: That’s something I do think about, by the way. Coming from England, where we have a very different health care system, I do think about America’s in the context of this show. Insurance in many ways is the elephant in the room on House. It’s something we rarely address, but the question remains: Who’s paying for all this treatment? Do all these people really have the insurance to cover these procedures?

PLAYBOY: Right. Because it can’t be inexpensive to see Dr. House.
LAURIE: Not at all. I mean, just look at our set—corridors that would be a ward in Britain, the sort of sumptuous and endless well of resources people who come into the hospital seem to have on the show. But of course, they wouldn’t really have that. Only on TV do they have that. We have MRI machines coming out of our ears and every luxury to try experimental treatments and every test in the world. The reality is, for millions of Americans, the situation is quite different. It’s not our role to change a system like that, obviously, but I do think about it.

PLAYBOY: Have you had any lasting effects from limping for five seasons?
LAURIE: Yes, I get some shoulder pain or, as I like to call it, the makings of a massive civil suit against Fox. Then again, the rewards of doing my job make up for any physical distress the show may be causing.

PLAYBOY: Since you bring it up, is it ironic that you are paid far more than most real doctors are?
LAURIE: It’s a peculiar aspect of what I do, yes. I often think about my father, who was a physician, and how strange it is that I am better rewarded for faking this job than he ever was for doing the real thing. Go figure. It doesn’t seem right. He certainly treated more patients in an average week than I do.

PLAYBOY: Did you ever go on rounds with him?
LAURIE: I went on house calls with him. Usually I would sit in the car while he was inside lancing a boil or whatever. I mostly remember being at home answering the phone for him. This was in the days before answering machines. Being my father’s son, I sounded like him, and before I could say, “This isn’t the doctor,” they would jump in and say, “Doctor, thank God! It’s all exploded. I can’t stop it.” And with no obvious juncture for me to step out of the way, I would, you know.…

PLAYBOY: Make a diagnosis?
LAURIE: Let’s just say I’d reassure them. You’re an adolescent. You’re craving stimulation. “Well, it sounds like you’re doing the right thing there,” I’d say. Or “Oh yes, it will probably be all right. Call back if the swelling worsens.” As far as I remember, I never lost any patients.

PLAYBOY: Were you a rebellious teenager or just bored?
LAURIE: I think I suffered from the arrogance of youth. When I was 15, I and a group of school friends took a sort of pledge that we wouldn’t live beyond 40. We decided we’d kill ourselves. In fact, there were some hard-core members of the group—I wasn’t one of them—who wanted to make it 30. “I hope I die before I get old” sort of thing. Talk about arrogance. The arrogance of youth, it trumps all. We felt we knew absolutely everything there was to be known and the future held only decay and compromise and defeat. We vowed to get out of here before that happened. It’s an interesting problem, isn’t it? Because it’s hard to know whether your 15-year-old self is the true expression of who you are and everything that follows is a sort of diluted, watered-down, compromised version of that, of all those ideas and dreams you’ve had and that sort of fiery essence you had at 15. Or whether actually you’re just a sort of pencil sketch at 15. Which is the true you?

PLAYBOY: Your father didn’t live to see you on House. What would he have made of a doctor like that?
LAURIE: He would have been appalled. My father was a very polite man, a very gentle, soft-spoken fellow. He did not like arrogance, and he would have been appalled by the way House occasionally conducts himself. Very English, my dad. Reserved in that way. I remember when I wrote my novel, The Gun Seller, I dedicated it to him, which I thought he’d be rather pleased by. But suddenly it dawned on me that actually he was, if anything, slightly embarrassed by the fact that he had received a dedication in a book that contained profanity, not to mention sex and violence. He didn’t quite know how to cope with that. But I don’t know. I refuse to believe he wouldn’t have been pleased to see me on House. I think he would have been proud. He would have enjoyed seeing all the medical equipment, if nothing else.

PLAYBOY: I take it your father didn’t wear his Olympic medal around the house when you were growing up.
LAURIE: No. He did not wear it around the house. In fact, it was quite odd, but he hid it in a sock drawer. I didn’t even know about it until I was around 12. I remember I went fishing with my mother on a lake, or the loch, as they call it in Scotland. We got into this boat and my dad took the oars, and—I remember this moment—I rather anxiously said to Mother, “Does he know how to row?” But then I found this medal. Hey! What the hell is this? Very odd. Although it wasn’t actually gold. Because this was the first postwar Olympics, gold, like a lot of things, was in very short supply. It was gold leaf over tin.

PLAYBOY: But still.
LAURIE: Absolutely! And later at university he ended up coaching me in rowing. I rowed with him; we’d sometimes go out on a boat together. He was ferociously strong, a very powerful force to behold.

PLAYBOY: That was at Cambridge, where you also got your first taste of performing.
LAURIE: My first taste came when I was around 13. That’s when I realized I quite liked being onstage. I knew especially I liked making people laugh—and girls, most especially. I was scared to death of girls at that age, but onstage—as a king in a school play, for example—I would actually be seen by them, which is to say I wouldn’t be completely invisible, as was my normal condition. When I started performing for a living, I always thought of my audience as female. The audience was to be charmed and flirted with, seduced. But in reality my audiences very quickly became male. I’d go onstage, and it would be a group of very sullen-looking blokes with arms folded as if to say, “Okay, then. Whaddya got?” The audience was something that had to be beaten.

PLAYBOY: Your Cambridge cohort and former girlfriend Emma Thompson once described you as “lugubriously sexy, like a well-hung eel.” What exactly did she mean?
LAURIE: It’s quite a confounding image, isn’t it? I mean, are eels even hung at all? Those were blissful days, I must say. We couldn’t even imagine a life in Hollywood back then. Hollywood was as distant and impossible as El Dorado. It was all about fun. Watching Emma was like watching the sun or wind or some other elemental force. Her talent even then was inescapable. I remember she once did a monologue as a sort of gushy actress winning an award. I still remember the first line: “This award doesn’t really belong to me.” We thought, This woman is so gifted, she will win an award like that one day, maybe even an Oscar. That was also around the time I met Stephen Fry.

PLAYBOY: A Bit of Fry and Laurie was a huge comedy hit in the U.K., but you two haven’t worked together in a while. Any plans for a reunion?
LAURIE: I certainly hope so. It’s something we talk about a lot. Neither of us is a very good planner, though, and I think we’re both spoken for until, like, 2012, but we have some ideas for the stage, television and movies we think could work really well. Right now he’s putting the finishing touches on a documentary about the U.S. He has traveled to all 50 states. I suspect the people who commissioned the series were half hoping he would do some sort of sardonic satire on the foibles of Americans, but that isn’t Stephen’s way. I mean, he’s capable of being pretty savage, but he’s also a very generous and good-hearted soul. He looks to see the good in everything.

PLAYBOY: For those Americans who are unaware, can you please tell us who Ted Cunterblast is?
LAURIE: My God, I haven’t thought about that character in a very long time. He was a fictional author we created for a Fry and Laurie sketch, and the name got us into a lot of trouble with the controller of BBC Two. He called the producer the next day and said, “They used the word c-u-n-t!” And our producer said, “Well, actually, they used a name, C-u-n-t-erblast.” I wouldn’t dream of asserting there was anything clever or witty about that, but for some reason it amused our childish selves at the time.

PLAYBOY: Where do you fall on the famous rift between English and American comedy?
LAURIE: There is an old chestnut English people use to comfort themselves: the notion that, first of all, Americans have no sense of irony. Absolute nonsense. I don’t know who came up with that. Demonstrably, manifestly untrue. British comedy is simply more idiosyncratic and a bit less polished, but that’s because it’s usually done by one or two people rather than a committee of dozens of sitcom writers. When John Cleese did Fawlty Towers he and Connie Booth wrote all 12 of them. Almost all the great landmarks of British television are the product of one or two minds. Basil Fawlty is a magnificent creation because he’s a singular creation. As is Captain Mainwaring, from Dad’s Army, which you probably wouldn’t know.

By and large, British people align themselves with the underdog more than Americans do. Americans rather like the idea of being able to top the joke. I remember someone pointing that out in Animal House, in the scene when John Belushi is walking up the stairs at a frat party and someone is playing “Kumbaya” or something on the guitar and he smashes the guitar. If that had been an English film, the guitarist would have been the hero. That would have been Norman Wisdom. Belushi would have come off as a brutish, thuggish lout.

PLAYBOY: How important was it for you to make it in the States?
LAURIE: It wasn’t at all. No disrespect, but in England there’s an element of treachery in going abroad to ply one’s trade. It’s rather frowned upon. There were two beacons on that front: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Both were fantastically talented, but Peter stayed in London and Dudley left. Because he left and because he lived in glorious California, Moore was widely assumed to have made a deal with the devil that involved beautiful blonde women and beaches and sunshine and Ferraris. Peter maintained the slightly drizzly temperament we revere in England. Moore was perceived as a traitor.

PLAYBOY: Do you worry people in England say that about you now?
LAURIE: Not really, but it’s because my life is still in England, even though I have a house in Los Angeles. It would have been different if I had relocated my entire family here, but my kids go to school and university there, and my wife still lives there. I suppose I have too much of a Presbyterian streak from my parents ever to rejoice in the fruits of my labors and give over completely to whatever it was Dudley Moore succumbed to. I’ve actually always rather enjoyed Los Angeles. It’s partly to do with what people tell you to expect. People said, “Los Angeles is the most terrible place of all. You’ll go crazy. You won’t last a month. You’ll be going out of your mind, it’s so superficial.” Well, I am superficial, so it suits me down to the ground. For instance, I like fast cars and motorcycles, and there’s no better place to be for that.

PLAYBOY: It must drive Fox crazy that you risk life and limb. Have they tried to add a no-adrenaline clause to your contract?
LAURIE: Fortunately, I signed the contract before anybody was watching the show, so they couldn’t be bothered whether I wiped out or not. I hope it doesn’t bother them too much that I drive my motorcycle to work, for instance, and generally enjoy speeding around the hills of L.A. But I maintain that no one has a greater interest in my not falling off than I do. I claim supremacy in that area.

PLAYBOY: By the way, are you the guy on the 405 freeway zipping by at 80 miles an hour while we sit in traffic?
LAURIE: I may be that guy. Are you the guy in the four-ton SUV who’s texting? I mean, I have had moments when I actually wondered about the way I’m going to die. To see some bleached blonde putting on eyeliner at 60 miles an hour in her Humvee without any concept of the forces involved in controlling that vehicle or its capabilities or limitations! None whatsoever. It’s absolutely amazing to me. I pass an accident in Los Angeles at least twice a week. In London—and I’m not saying we do things better over there; I don’t believe in that—but I’d say it’s about twice a year. Here people just cannon into one another almost as a sport. It’s just a gigantic pinball machine. Dry sunny days, no traffic, and some car’s on its roof. I don’t think it’s America. I think it’s limited to Los Angeles, but it makes the ride to work interesting.

PLAYBOY: Has it been a strain on your marriage to be so far away from home? What kind of husband are you?
LAURIE: Wow. I have no idea, having no idea what to compare it with. I do my best, though I suspect it’s not great a lot of the time. I don’t know. I’ve probably created a fair amount of disruption and frustration for the family, but my wife is very grounded, and things could be worse. I once met a guy who worked on a nuclear submarine. He had to check a box on a piece of paper, saying whether he wanted to be informed in the event that something horrible happened back home, because if something horrible did happen, he wasn’t getting off that sub. Something did happen to a friend of his, and he didn’t hear about it until they returned to land. At least I don’t have to make that choice. I know if something happens, I can always fly home.

PLAYBOY: Does it surprise you that people view House—and you—as a sex symbol?
LAURIE: Completely. It’s utterly absurd. Weird. Deranged. I can’t explain it.

PLAYBOY: How do you explain it?
LAURIE: House is a sexy character in his own way. You know, he’s that sort of wounded genius. There’s a Beauty and the Beast element and a bit of the Phantom of the Opera thrown in. House is a scarred figure hiding in the upper reaches of the opera house. I can see there’s something attractive about that. Women want to fix him. For some reason women find that terribly sexy.

PLAYBOY: But he doesn’t get a ton of action. Why doesn’t House have more sex?
LAURIE: I think he does want that, and I think he’s getting it somewhere, somehow. I hesitate to speculate on the liaisons he has when he’s not at Princeton--Plainsboro. But he’s primarily a loner, a character driven by torment. It’s hard to get close to someone like that. But that’s the case with a lot of men.

PLAYBOY: Men are loners by nature?
LAURIE: I was having a chat on the set recently; we were discussing what the bathroom stands for besides the obvious function of what the bathroom stands for. Most of the men agreed the bathroom was sort of a refuge, a place of “Oh, world, please go away,” whatever that may mean—either the conversation or the worry or the phone call you don’t want to take. It’s a sanctuary where you can retreat and silence the world. By contrast, most of the women were thinking, I go to the bathroom because I want to chat with other women, then they rush to get back to the table because they fear they’re missing something. Men and women are very different in how they relate to other human beings. Except on Facebook, of course.

PLAYBOY: What do you mean?
LAURIE: Well, I was with a group of people the other night who were comparing—I don’t have a Facebook page—their own Facebooks or however you put it. “Oh, I’ve got 450,” one said. “Oh, I’ve got 600,” said another. It turned out they were talking about friends—Facebook friends. Now, I don’t think I’ve met 450 people in my life. I certainly can’t keep track of them, and I certainly don’t want to stay in touch with that many people. I don’t know how on earth you do that. I realized very quickly I am too old for this level of social engagement.

PLAYBOY: You’re about to turn 50——
LAURIE: It sounds so ominous when you put it like that.

PLAYBOY: What are some things you wish you knew earlier in life?
LAURIE: To tell you the truth, the older I get, the less I know. I keep meeting people, both older and younger, who seem to have accrued so much more knowledge or expertise or certainty about who they are and the jobs they do. I just marvel at it. I don’t know how they get that certain about what they’re doing. I certainly don’t have that. I look back on what we’ve done on House and think, Wow, it’s like we’ve come through a minefield. One wrong move, one bad casting decision, one story line that didn’t work and the air would have gone out of the thing. People would have started to whisper, “Oh, that show? It’s not very good.” And suddenly we’d be canceled. I don’t know how anything works, frankly. I’m quite conscious of the fact that no secrets are being revealed to me with age.

Which is not to say I don’t have things I want to learn and do as I look ahead. For example, I had my first earthquake the other day. We were shooting, the camera was rolling, and everything started to sway. The lamps started to move. I loved it. I loved it. It passed quickly, and we were back to work. But let’s say that had been, you know, the big one, if that were the end. I can’t tell you how many things I would regret not having done. The list would have a billion things on it, a billion things. I do feel it’s something about, I suppose, my infantile nature. I don’t really feel as if I’ve got going yet. Like so many eternally adolescent males, I still feel I’m going to live another thousand years and there’s plenty of time.

PLAYBOY: But then the earth starts rocking and——
LAURIE: Exactly. You’re shaken out of your dream. I’m deluded, obviously, because, as you say, I am approaching 50. But part of me still fears, for instance, that I haven’t chosen my profession yet. I certainly haven’t worked out who I am. I haven’t worked out what to do with my life. I haven’t made half the choices and decisions I want to make. It’s insane, I know, but that’s sort of how I felt. I think that’s what I like about boxing: You’re forced to live intensely.

PLAYBOY: Boxing? Are you any good?
LAURIE: I’m hopeless, but I love it. I absolutely love it. Well, I sort of love it. But it’s love mixed with fear. Not fear of physical harm, because unless you do it repeatedly and get hit in the head a lot, you’ll survive. It’s more the fear of being humiliated, which sort of messes with your perceptions of, I suppose, maleness. To question your maleness is a very intense experience. But there’s something else. When I’m making a television show, eight months go by just like that. It’s a wonderful thing to have a completely opposite experience, which is to get into the ring for three minutes and have time essentially stop. You cannot believe how long three minutes is until you’ve spent time in a boxing ring. If we could live our lives as intensely as one does in those three minutes, it would be like living for 10,000 years. I love that feeling.

PLAYBOY: Do you ever wonder where you would be if House hadn’t come along?
LAURIE: Yes, I do. I mean, I was aware of the fact that this was my shot. Not a shot at just anything but a shot at doing an American network television show—to play the lead on one, anyway. Because I was already too old for that. I think if their dreams had come true, Fox would have found some chiseled fellow of 28 who could have kept going for 20 years, for one thing. That would have suited their demographics. So this was my shot. I thought, If it doesn’t work, fine. I’ll be playing the neighbor or the kindly uncle or Mr. Smithers, the geography teacher, but I won’t be the main guy. Fortunately, things worked out differently.

PLAYBOY: How would you like to see things end up for House? What do you imagine he’ll be like in the final episode?
LAURIE: Happy. In a relationship with a kindred spirit. Understood. But if it doesn’t happen, it’s probably just as well. See, I have these practical theories about television, which is that characters don’t grow and change. They can’t, or you wouldn’t have a series. Columbo didn’t grow and change; he just solved more stuff. My theory with House is he’ll continue to be separated from joy right to the end. That’s just who he is.

PLAYBOY: And what about you?
LAURIE: No, no. Joy is absolutely the essential thing for me. It has become my obsession to find it, to hold on to it. One of the biggest things I fear is happiness. Fear is probably my only obstacle to it right now. I have a very good life. I am fortunate in so many ways. Now the secret is simply to delight in every breath and every step. Oh my God, that was a Sting song! I can’t believe I’m ending this on a Sting song.

Fit in your Jeans by Friday Trailer

2009-05-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

Funny People

2009-05-15T11:27:00.000-07:00

Funny People: Death Comes for the Sausage King

Funny People has all the makings of your typical Judd Apatow movie: juvenile hijinks, riffs on marijuana and masturbation, Seth Rogen. But it's also about death, and for the king of blockbuster comedy, it could be the beginning of something very serious indeed.

By Stephen Marche

GUYCO

Judd Apatow is not a boy anymore. He's not a man-boy, either. The walls of his Los Angeles production offices are lined with photos of friends and family; his collection of autographs has grown extensive (latest addition: Truffaut). At forty-one, gray-stubbled and begutted, he is fully, unmistakably, irretrievably a grown-up now, and he has a long, semen-stained résumé to prove it. For the past decade, all the difficult moments of change in men's lives have been Apatowed one by one: surviving high school (Freaks and Geeks), starting college (Undeclared), losing your virginity (40-Year-Old Virgin), moving out and having kids (Knocked Up). Weren't those fun? Yeah, they were. Now he's moved on to growing old and dying with Funny People, a long, risky, dark departure from anything he's done before.

But what darkness, what profundities, can we possibly expect from a man whose most successful movie to date had a bunch of guys giving one another pinkeye by pillow farting? Apatow showed me an hour of his half-edited film this winter, and it's full of the juvenile obsessions that you've come to expect from the Judd Apatow Experience: masturbation and its accoutrements, the color and consistency of feces, the effect of marijuana on speech and mannerism, penis size and girth, the whole shadowy borderland between male camaraderie and homosexual panic. If you find any of that funny, and I do, Funny People will make you laugh. (I did, a lot.) But it is also the story of a comedian who confronts death and becomes a more selfish person from the experience. The lord and master of fart jokes wants to make you cry, and what's more, he wants to make you cry about fart jokes. Fart jokes, it turns out, can be unbelievably sad.

All the characters in Funny People are, in key respects, just like Apatow. Adam Sandler plays George Simmons, the successful comedian at the film's center, who's achieved superstardom in movies but with mixed feelings. (Apatow is now as big as it gets in Hollywood, but he has, in the past, been crippled by anxiety attacks.) When he's diagnosed with a fatal disease, George hires an assistant, struggling stand-up Ira Wright, played by Seth Rogen, to help him through dying and to write jokes. (Apatow dropped out of USC film school in 1987 to live with the real Adam Sandler and pursue stand-up and joke-writing full-time.) Together, George and Ira journey to confront the lost love of George's life, Laura, played by Leslie Mann, who has two kids with a handsome, athletic husband played by Eric Bana. (Mann, famously, is Apatow's wife, and her two kids in the film are played by their daughters, Iris and Maude Apatow. That the world's sexiest Bana in no way resembles Apatow is a joke fraught with implication.)

Autobiographical is the wrong word for what's going on here; though Apatow insists that "nothing [in the film] is accurate, but it's all true," Funny People is practically documentary. In the rough cut, which may or may not change drastically by the time the movie hits theaters, Apatow uses clips from Adam Sandler's early stand-up as stand-ins for George's early stand-up; scenes from Birdland, the medical drama in which Mann briefly starred in the nineties, become scenes from her character's previous life as an actress; and the opening shot is a young Sandler (as George Simmons, of course) in bed with underwear on his head, making a prank phone call to a deli to complain about indigestion caused by its pickles. That scene was shot by Apatow when he was living with Sandler after dropping out of USC, before anyone had heard of Apatow or Sandler. The youthful innocence and explosive untapped talent isn't acted — it's captured. To try and retain that energy, the stand-up scenes in the movie were taken from real shows done in Los Angeles, and they are genuinely unpolished. When the audience half-laughs at a failed joke, it's because the joke doesn't work, not because they worked on making it sound like a failed joke.

A key scene in the movie, and the best scene in the movie that I saw, is when Laura shows George a clip of one of her daughters singing the song "Memory" from the musical Cats, and it's a real clip of eleven-year-old Maude singing at a real school recital. A chicken-pox outbreak at her school has Maude hanging out in the offices on the day I visit, and she wanders in and out of our interview with utterly unself-conscious charm. But the self-reference soon becomes vertiginous: She leaves the room when she sees the scene coming, and then, onscreen, Maude's character leaves the room when she sees the clip coming. I understand why she leaves. The scene is uncomfortably personal. Watching it with Apatow in the room makes me squirm a little. His confidence in his daughter is incredible; he doesn't feel she needs protection from the camera, or from an interviewer, for that matter. Is it selflessness and candor, or is it the deepest possible neediness, a hunger to share everything with the world, even his daughter?

Nathan Fox

Seth Rogan channeling Apatow, sitting next to Adam Sandler channeling Apatow.

Apatow may seem like the quiet one, the reserved one, the one who avoids the spotlight, but ultimately his comedy derives from the same inexhaustible fountainhead that drives more obvious head cases like Sandler or Jim Carrey. He willed himself into being funny. In grade five, he started writing jokes. As a teenager he traveled from his Long Island home to interview comedians passing through New York for his high school radio show. During his twenties he tried stand-up. He knew that career wasn't going to be after HBO's Fifteenth Annual Young Comedians Special in 1992, in which he performed beside Dana Carvey, Ray Romano, and Janeane Garofalo. "I knew I was the weak link," he says now, "and I just didn't find myself all that interesting." Which is, of course, bullshit. He finds himself plenty interesting, and even after he became the most successful producer of juvenile masculine comedy in Hollywood, Apatow's neediness may be even deeper for being sublimated. Adam Sandler is happy so long as we're laughing at one of his silly little personas, but for Apatow, at this point in his career, a laugh isn't enough. He wants us to know who he really is. He wants us to see his real family, his real daughters. Funny People is like a family home video, except it's been shot by Janusz Kaminski (responsible for both the searing Saving Private Ryan and the luscious Jerry Maguire) and the family includes virtually every comic of note in America. The pictures on the walls of Apatow's office are of the same people who fill up his movies. Sandler making silly faces with Apatow's younger daughter, Iris: Is that her fooling around with her dad's friend or a still from Funny People?

Maybe it doesn't matter. No one is better at making the interests of work and family coincide than Apatow, and the key to his brand of comedy is the easy intimacy of it. It projects so casually the sense of being in a replacement family, of overwhelming loyalty that nurtures and sustains you no matter how gross you are. He has worked with the same people over and over again, no matter whether they're fresh or funny or beautiful or fat. Seth Rogen has been in everything he has directed; Paul Rudd in almost everything; Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill. Not since Preston Sturges has a director and producer drawn so much out of such likable but indifferent actors. Not that Apatow sees them that way. He believes that he has stumbled upon comic geniuses and doesn't seem to notice that most of them do their best work — sometimes their only good work — for him. Apatow's early experience with Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, routinely included on lists of the best television shows ever canceled after a single season, were as traumatic as divorces — "Dad is the network. Mom is the head of programming," Apatow says. "They would fight and break up, and they would cancel you" — and the tumult has obviously given him a craving for stability: "All I'm doing in my career is proving that I was right about Freaks and Geeks to two people who were fired ten years ago."

The camaraderie between his actors is not feigned; he's earned their trust, and he's made them a part of his family. "I love them all as people," he says. "Many of these guys I've known before and after they lost their virginity." And who really wants professional comedy when you can hang out with some guys you've known forever while they goof off? That is fun. That is probably the most fun you ever had in your life. It's way more fun than listening to a bunch of jokes. Better actors would ruin the delicate web of fine roots that nurtures his movies. His gift is the ability to conjure spontaneous intimacy. It is one of the rarest, and most valuable, abilities in the world, and the craving for intimacy, and not death, is the real problem for the funny people in Funny People. George is the most successful comic on the planet not because of any trauma he's suffered but because he's stumbled into quicksand narcissism. Death makes him momentarily conscious of his self-involvement, but in the end it only makes him more selfish. Once he has recovered from his illness — and spare me the spoiler tantrum: it's written into the trailer — he decides to pursue Laura; he's quite willing to destroy her family for what he admits is only a chance at happiness. Why is he so selfish? No one knows, least of all him, but we learn the secret to his professional success. George is funny because he doesn't care about other people, and his audiences thank him for it. Is there a more bleak vision of what makes people laugh?

Apatow denies that comedians are inherently screwed up — he mentions Steve Carell as someone who is both funny and solid. My favorite scene from any of his movies is from 40-Year-Old Virgin, when Carell, playing Andy, is uncomfortably watching a woman masturbate with a showerhead and says, "Wow. This is graphic." Which is, of course, a great Freudian joke. In Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, one of the least funny books ever written, Freud wrote that comedy is a way of releasing pleasure that social inhibitions deny us without violating the inhibition. That double requirement — to violate without violating — means that the joke, and the joke teller, are always at least in part hiding their intentions. "Strictly speaking, we do not know what we are laughing at," Freud wrote. With Funny People and its meditations on falling, flailing, dying, and, yes, farting, Apatow shows us: Laughter usually comes at the cost of spiritual disintegration, because comedy, as Apatow puts it, "is a way to point out that nothing makes sense." (I told you fart jokes could be unbelievably sad.)

What happens to Judd Apatow after this grand reveal, and, more important, what happens to the Judd Apatow Experience now that it's expanded, or perhaps simply deepened, into the terrible anxiety that underlies all laughter? "There's a part of me that thinks, If this movie goes well, I'll take a long break," he says. He mentions something his therapist told him, that success is the ultimate crutch. "Some people have cigarettes and some people have arenas. People wonder, Why did that musician stop recording? Why did that comedian stop performing? The truth is they probably became sane." Funny People is the opposite of your typical midlife-crisis movie, the opposite of American Beauty: It's a film about how deeply Apatow loves his wife and kids, how much old friends matter and how little nice houses and fancy cars do. "As I get less nutty, I do better work," he says before leaving the editing suite to take Maude to lunch. And that very well may be true, but it contradicts everything George Simmons, and Judd Apatow, just taught me.

How to Take Dirty Pictures

2009-05-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

How to Take Dirty Pictures of Your Girlfriend

I finally convinced my girlfriend to let me take pictures of her naked, but in every one she looks awkward. Is there some kind of pose or trick to make them look sexier?

By Stacey Grenrock Woods

John Cuneo

What took you so long? Was it the perpetuity clause in the release? That always trips them up. I hope you explained that it's for her protection as well.

Shooting a nude portrait is more complicated than it seems — not much more complicated, but more complicated than, say, not doing it at all. I spoke to some nude photographers, as well as some people who photograph nudes, and they had lots of advice for the home pornographer. Dim the lights, they said, and keep the room warm. Use an unfussy, unstained background, put on some classy music (Sade is good), and allow your subject to get suitably, but not prohibitively, wasted. Poses that create long lines — stretched and gracefully twisted limbs and torsos, for example — are more flattering than timid crouching, which tends to cause ugly rolls. Your subject should feel as relaxed and safe as possible, so any lies or mind tricks you can use will help a lot. "It's almost like nudity becomes a kind of clothing, so think of it that way," says Kathleen Rooney, nude model and author of Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object. "You're not naked, which is vulnerable and accidental. You're nude, which is purposeful and empowered." Yeah, tell her that. Also, be sure to coax the session along with lots of what thoughtful people call "positive affirmations." Photographer Andrew Brucker advises, "Be positive in your speech and sort of encouraging in your exclamations... much like you would to a child." Indeed, shouts of "Nice tits!" and "Wider, wider" can really bolster her confidence and keep that look you describe (resentment, I think it's called) from marring an otherwise perfectly wankable shot.

Rosie O'Donnell Laughs Off Report That She and Kelli Splitting

2009-05-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

Rosie O'Donnell Laughs Off Report That She and Kelli Splitting, Calls Columnist a Lesbian

Rosie O'Donnell

Rosie O'Donnell laughed off a report that she and girlfriend Kelli Carpenter may be calling it quits, saying she thinks gossip columnist Cindy Adams "is a lesbian but she doesn’t know it yet."

Adams reported on Monday that "Rosie O'Donnell and Kelli Carpenter, the handsome blond gal Rosie calls her wife, may not be so together anymore."

She went on to say that "whatever other difficulties such a breakup might cause, there is also a houseful of adopted kids they're raising."

Click to read Adams' column.

A rep for the former "View" co-host told USmagazine.com that "Rosie thinks that Cindy Adams is a lesbian but she doesn’t know it yet. She's going to leave Kelli for Cindy Adams."

O'Donnell, 46, and Carpenter, 41, wed in 2004, but the marriage was nullified by California's highest court.

They have adopted children Parker, 13; Chelsea, 11; and Blake, 8, and biological daughter Vivienne Rose, 5.

O'Donnell has said the couple will not remarry until gay marriage is "legal everywhere."

2009-05-15T10:42:00.001-07:00

Olivia Wilde

2009-05-15T10:34:00.000-07:00

Olivia Wilde Is Named Maxim's Hottest Woman of 2009

Olivia Wilde is Maxim's Hottest Woman of 2009.

Maxim is celebrating the 10th anniversary of what has come to be known as the "it list" of Hollywood heat.

Models, athletes, hard-working moms, reality show stars and a First Lady are all included in Maxim’s 2009 Hot 100.

And after sifting through thousands and thousands of photographs (tough work, but someone's gotta do it) the editors of Maxim have chosen "House" star Olivia Wilde as this year's big winner.

PHOTOS: Maxim's Top 5 Hotties of 2009.

“Olivia Wilde has been the sexiest woman on television since she heated up 'The OC' five years ago," said Maxim editor Joe Levy. "She's smart, she's beautiful, and she has dual citizenship in the US and Ireland — what more can a man ask for?"

'American Idol' : It's Adam vs. Kris in Next Week's Finale, as Danny Gokey Goes

2009-05-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

'American Idol' : It's Adam vs. Kris in Next Week's Finale, as Danny Gokey Goes

May 12: Danny Gokey performs in front of the judges on American Idol.

Tonight on “American Idol,” Danny Gokey, the 28-year-old church music director from Milwaukee, was eliminated. Danny’s departure leaves Kris Allen and Adam Lambert competing in the season finale next week.

Danny’s elimination was somewhat surprising, since, as host Ryan Seacrest pointed out, Danny had never been in the bottom three all season. But on Tuesday night’s performance show, Adam Lambert had clearly been the judges’ favorite. They extravagantly praised his performances of U2’s “One” and Aerosmith’s “Crying.” Both Danny and Kris had received some unfavorable critiques for their first performances, Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Dance Little Sister” and One Republic’s “Apologize,” respectively.

Danny and Kris had gained ground with their second songs, Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful” and Kanye West’s “Heartless.” Kris’ performance of the latter song, accompanied only by his own acoustic guitar playing, was likely the deciding factor in keeping him in the running.

In non-competition-related news, this was the week that the three “Idol” finalists customarily return to be feted in their hometowns. In Milwaukee, Danny reunited with his friend Jamar Rogers, with whom he had auditioned but who was eliminated during Hollywood week. He also reminded viewers of his “tragedy to triumph” story (his wife died just weeks before his “Idol” audition).

Kris had a moving moment with his family in Conway, Ark., when his dad hugged him, said, “I ain’t kissing you, man,” and then teared up. Chris also mentioned that a local restaurant has promised him cheese dip for life.

Adam, visiting San Diego, seemed to take all the hoopla as if it were his due, even when a shirtless female fan rushed the stage. His performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Marine air base reminded us that he’ll always be able to hit that high note on “the land of the free” when he performs at ball games.

Kicking off the show with an admitted plug, the cast of “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” spoke in mock-solemn tones about the judges’ desk, which has in fact been donated to the national museum’s collection. (“This very desk,” said Bill Hader, “where Paula has inspired so many Americans with words like ‘I love you,’ ‘You’re amazing,’ ‘I love what you’re wearing,’ and ‘Where am I?’ ”)

Alici a Keys made a non-singing appearance to ask viewers to text in donations to the Keep a Child Alive charity, which gives medical care to African children affected by HIV and AIDS. She introduced a Rwandan kid named Noah, who gave a spirited performance of “The World’s Greatest.”

Katy Perry performed her new single, “Waking Up in Vegas,” dressed in a low-cut Elvis-inspired outfit. Apparently trying to let her fans how she thinks they should vote, she wore a cape bearing the name “Adam Lambert.”

And Jordin Sparks, the winner of season 6 of “Idol,” performed her new song, “Battlefield.” She looked and sounded great, but the final close-up of her face in scary blue-green horror-movie lighting wouldn’t have won her any votes back when she was competing.

Small things like that can make a difference, and Adam and Kris are evidently very close in the voting. Early in the show, Ryan Seacrest said that more than 88 million votes had been cast and “there was just over 1 million votes separating the top two tonight.” At the end of the show, when Ryan asked Simon Cowell to “tee up” the finale, Simon said that Kris had turned it into a very close contest, adding, “This could be what we call a big ding-dong coming up for next week.”

“I didn’t know that’s what we call it,” said Ryan.

“It means good,” said Simon.

PARTY WORLD

Can Obama Pull a Reagan?

Democrats inside and outside the White House are looking for a comeback strategy for President Obama, and their model is Ronald Reagan.

Larry Summers’s Bad Math Is S&P Informed Opinion: Caroline Baum

About Caroline Baum

Ready, Shoot, Aim

Repeated Mistake

Cognitive Dissonance

‘Delicious Irony’

Granny’s Fate Rides With Bernanke in Jackson Hole: Caroline Baum

About Caroline Baum

Risk Management

Bad Marketing

Bubble Blindness

Don’t Forget Gramps

How Steve Jobs Made Business Cool Again, 1981: Virginia Postrel

About Virginia Postrel

Why Alan Krueger's Jobs Analysis Was Spot On: The Ticker

Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy: George Magnus

Over-Production Paradox

Addressing the Crisis

Lighten the Burden

Build Defenses

U.S. Confidence Slumps to Lowest Since 2009

Global Confidence Slump

Survey Results

Other Measures

Job Concerns

Broad-Based Drop

Rebel Leader Gives Qaddafi Forces Weekend Deadline

Holdout Cities

NATO Attacks

Balance of Strength

China's military power

Modernisation in sheep's clothing

Doing Business in Brazil

Rio or São Paulo?

Scarlett Johansson And Sean Penn Spotted

Scarlett Johansson And Sean Penn Spotted Having A Very PDA Filled Lunch

Miley Cyrus' Stalker Arrested!

Miley Cyrus' Stalker Arrested!

Arrestan al ex marido de Rocío Banquells

Arrestan al ex marido de Rocío Banquells

'La Tetanic' es discriminada en 'Perfume de Gardenia'

'La Tetanic' es discriminada en 'Perfume de Gardenia'

La Reina Del Sur Capitulo 1 1/4 Telemundo

La Reina del Sur TELEMUNDO 2011

[La Reina del Sur] Trailer - Telemundo 2010

Ex-NFL Star Plaxico Burress Gets 2 Years in Prison in NYC Nightclub Gun Incident

Real Housewife' Kim Zolciak Has a Secret Stripper Past?

The Real Reason Women Have Sex

Tape of 911 Call Released as Michael Jackson Autopsy Under Way

Related Stories

Video

Police Release 911 Call, Seek Clues in Jackson's Death

Life of Fame and Scandal Ends at 50 on Eve of Comeback Concerts

More Video

Audio

Speakeasy

Jackson in the Journal

Pop Legend Michael Jackson Dead at 50

Sanford's Mistress Identified as Professional, Passionate and Beautiful Brunette

Details are emerging about South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's mistress, whom he visited in Argentina last week after his wife told him to leave.

Related Stories

Jessica Simpson Topless Uncensored footage

Nana Gouvea - Playboy 2009

Court Documents Show 'Real Housewives' Star Was Involved in Kidnapping Plot, Drug Deals and Prostitution

Angelina vs. Megan: War Heats Up Between Hollywood's Hottest Ladies

New Book Claims Jacqueline Kennedy Seduced Actor Marlon Brando

Actress Farrah Fawcett Dead at 62

Related Stories

Photo Essays

Harmon Killebrew

1955

HILARY RHODA

2009

Lady First: The 2009 Preakness Stakes

Seth Davis Previews The 2009 Final Four

Gossip Girl Leighton Meester Sex Tape Leaked, Oops!

Hot beef ingestion