Turn On:
On Tuesday, PBS re-airs its controversial docudrama about the execution of an adulterous Saudi royal, "Death of a Princess" (check local listings), which caused a major stir when it was originally broadcast in 1980.
Morning Briefing:
Wanted: There's a warrant out for the arrest of Natasha Lyonne after she failed to appear in court on Monday to face harassment charges, stemming from an incident in December in which the "American Pie" star allegedly stormed into an East Village neighbor's apartment, threw the woman's stuff on the floor, ripped a mirror off her wall and threatened her pet pooch with bodily harm, saying "in substance, 'I'm going to sexually molest your dog.'" Nice. (N.Y. Daily News, Reuters)
Warring Coulter: Attention, Time magazine. Ann Coulter is displeased with that weird-angled cover image of her on this week's cover of your magazine. "Kim Jong Il was treated better," Coulter told N.Y. Daily News gossip Lloyd Grove. "A curved-lens photo on the cover? Just amazing. My feet are the size of the Atlantic Ocean and my head the size of a pea." Coulter has chalked the offending photo up to a liberal conspiracy against conservatives, natch. And despite the fact that John Cloud's cover profile of her is fairly favorable, she says she has no intention of reading it. "If they can't show a picture of me without distorting it, they're not going to quote me without distorting me." (Lloyd Grove's Lowdown)
Jackson trial update: The testimony of the mother of Michael Jackson's young accuser just gets weirder and weirder. On Monday, she told the court that she feared that Jackson's people would kidnap her kids in a hot air balloon. She also testified that instead of calling 911 to complain that she and her children were being held hostage, she called comedian Louise Palanker in hopes that Palanker would call the police. And she said that she'd struggled with mental illness because she was "sad about being a nobody." The mother also treated the court to a few of her trademark outbursts, immediately stricken from the record by the judge: "This was a man who didn't really care about children," she spat out, pointing at Jackson. "He just cared about what he was doing with children." Later, she said, "He's managed to fool the world. What he puts out to the world is not what he really is. Now, because of this criminal case, people know what he really is." (AFP, Associated Press, N.Y. Post, N.Y. Daily News)
Martha and Howard, strange bedfellows: Get ready for all Martha, all the time. Sirius Satellite Radio, the future home of Howard Stern, has just signed Martha Stewart to a deal in which she will dispense advice on decorating, child rearing, weddings, pets, cooking and gardening on her own 24-hour radio channel. The new channel, which will net Martha Stewart Omnimedia upwards of $30 million over four years, is set to launch in July. (N.Y. Daily News)
From breakdown to breakout? Thanks to a flurry of promotional appearances on TV and -- who knows? -- maybe some mysterious pent-up appetite for belted-out ditties, Mariah Carey's new album, "The Emancipation of Mimi," looks poised to capture the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200. Based on first-day sales of the album, sales may reach 350,000, making it the biggest opening week ever for a Carey album and the singer's first No. 1 album since 1997. (Reuters/Billboard)
Also: The wedding of "Survivor" and "Amazing Race 7" veterans Rob Mariano and Amber Brkich, which reportedly took place in the Bahamas over the weekend, will air in a two-hour special on CBS on May 24 at 9 p.m. EDT. (N.Y. Daily News) . The former Long Island homeowner depicted as an ax-wielding maniac in "The Amityville Horror" has accused the makers of the film as defaming him. (MovieWeb.com via Page Six) Ashton Kutcher says he and an unnamed female cohort (Demi, is that you?) once tried to join the mile-high club but, alas, were unsuccessful. (DarkHorizons.com via The Scoop) Russell Crowe apparently didn't bother to tell his 30 Odd Foot of Grunts bandmates that he planned to dissolve the band before telling the press, so they got the news by reading the papers. (Sydney Sunday Telegraph via The Scoop) Paul McCartney has announced plans for a 28-date U.S. tour, Sept. 16 through Nov. 29, 2005. (BBC News) Photos from the christening of David Arquette and Courteney Cox Arquette's baby daughter, Coco, are making their way to email in-boxes far and wide. Though they're purported to have been sent originally by Coco's godmother, Jennifer Aniston, no one knows for sure where they're coming from. (Defamer. Com)
Money Quote:
James Wolcott on Rush Limbaugh's recent on-air tirade about kids these days only being interested in "blow jobs": "He sounded bitter. I've seen this rancor inflict so many middle-aged men. Reading about all the oral sex young people are presumably having, they feel envious and resentful. No classmates were treating them to afterschool blowjobs in high school! Nor were hot teachers like that one in Florida seducing them in parked cars. It doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem just. We're living in the Golden Age of BJs, and men in Rush's recumbent position feel barred from Eden, forced to imagine the action from their recliners as they stare sullenly at their plasma screens." (JamesWolcott.com)
-- Amy Reiter
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