Turn On:
Hard as it may be to believe, hip-hop has been around for three whole decades. Monday night, VH1 honors that with the first of a five-part retrospective "And You Don't Stop: 30 Years of Hip-Hop" (10 p.m. ET). This first installment in a series that continues all week is subtitled "Back in the Day" and traces the movement's birth and the establishment of the culture's four elements: rapping, deejaying, break dancing and graffiti.
Morning Briefing:
Candy from a baby? Harvey Weinstein would like to let the world know why he's been so dyspeptic all these years: It was the M&M's. "You know, for years I used to read about myself. They'd say, 'He has a temper' or 'He's a bully' or something like that, and it always bothered me ... I always felt guilty about it," the Miramax mogul tells New York magazine, explaining that the culprit was sugar. "What happened was, I was never an eater of breakfast or anything ... I used to just have a cup of coffee in the morning, went out to work, and then forget breakfast, sometimes lunch, and then make up for it with an overturned packet of plain M&M's in my suit coat. And I would just eat M&M's all day, sweets, you know, for what I thought was energy ... And what happened was the glucose level would go from 50 to 250 in my case ... And I would hit the adrenaline. So that's what caused these outbursts, you know." So now that he's had his adult-onset diabetes diagnosed, has lost 60 pounds on a low-carb diet, has started to exercise and has cut back on those pesky M&M's, he says, "there have been no outbursts. There's been no anything at all. Zero. There's been nothing. Not a word to anybody." (New York magazine)
Lonesome Larry? Larry McMurtry has reportedly been banned from the set of "Brokeback Mountain," for which he wrote the screenplay based on a story by E. Annie Proulx. According to www.towleroad.com, McMurtry, irritated at script changes made my the film's director, Ang Lee, commented that Lee didn't understand "Western" language, meaning cowboyese, but Lee thought McMurtry meant he didn't understand English, and banished him from the set. Neither the director's not the writer's reps are commenting. (Rush and Molloy)
All fired up: Remember how on "The Apprentice" the other week Donald Trump called his sidekick Carolyn Kepcher "nice," but said that his other sidekick, George Ross, was maybe not so nice? Well, here's evidence: Ross, who apparently hasn't been paid for his appearances on the first two seasons of the popular reality show, is demanding "some compensation." "I think that it's only appropriate with the show being so successful, and him using up so much of my time, that some compensation ought to be granted," Ross told Broadcasting and Cable magazine. "It's the principle of the thing. I never ask for something for nothing, and I never expect to give something for nothing ... In other words, if somebody wants something from me, I expect to be compensated. There has to be quid pro quo." So what does Trump think of the demands of one of his finest sidekicks in the world? "I talked to him about it, and he said, 'You know, you're right.'" Not "you're fired." (New York Post)
Also: Janet Leigh has died at age 77 (Associated Press) ... Dominick Dunne has been questioned under oath in the defamation case brought against him by Gary Condit, and Condit's lawyer says the Vanity Fair writer is "in deep, deep trouble" (Page Six) ... Rod Stewart has reportedly rejected a $35 million offer from MTV to star in his own "Osbournes"-esque reality TV show (Digital Spy via N.Y. Post) ... And Martha Stewart, in a swimsuit (N.Y. Daily News)
Money Quotes:
Bono on how his relationship to fame has changed over the years: "There was a time when we were playing with celebrity -- we tried it on like a party dress, and I enjoyed it actually, but it is not the way people relate to us." (Page Six)
Peter Jennings on stuff he's eaten: "As part of my travels as a journalist, I have had the chance to sample many bizarre menus. For instance, I've eaten sheep's testicles in Jordan, python in the Philippines and, in Mexico, I had a dinner of ants which were quite small and well cooked. But the strange thing about the dozens of exotic foods I've eaten is that they all seem to taste the same -- like plain-old chicken!" (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
-- Amy Reiter
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