Walked away from the tube for a few minutes Sunday afternoon … came back, saw Janet Jackson, and thought I was watching “the Golden Globes.” … Well, as surfer Matt Regan says, "what do you expect from something called the 'boob tube'?" All this huffing from TV execs afterwards that the High Exposure was disgraceful and impromptu seems to come from the very bosom of corporate hypocrisy, a true burlesque. "Tit for Tat" nips the NY Post on Page One about the im-bra-glio. If the peep show had been impromptu, if it were accidental, the camerawork wouldn’t have been nearly so good. … Actually, I thought it was, er, on a high plane compared to the advertising. All flatulence and toilet tissue jokes. And yet, CBS thought an ad mocking the Draft-Dodger-in-Chief was inappropriate? … As it happened Shrub slept through much of the game. He wouldn’t have seen it. … Cheers to San Mateo’s Tom Brady. And to the fact that not all New England teams choke. Though they all seem heartily to try. … Anyway, what was so shocking about the half-time show? Hip Hop is 25 years old, after all - “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang made the debut in 1979. …
Good line from Letterman Monday night: ``The game is interrupted when this naked guy runs onto the field; he's got like a web site address all over his body, printed on the back side of him. I'm thinking; wow, that Howard Dean is really desperate.'' …
Here’s how Howard Dean, according to the NYTimes, spent that $31 million people contributed to his campaign – much of it raised via the Net: $9.2 million on broadcast advertising … $7.5 million on staff and consultants… $5.1 million on mailings … $2.2 million on travel. …
Nearly $900,000 went to rent venues and set up stages … Food cost $455,000 … Parking cars cost $15,000 … Another $612,000 went for signs and buttons … $37,000 for periodicals, cable TV and media tracking…. What floors me is the $113,000 spent on overnight shipping. The Net campaign couldn’t have e-mailed the stuff? …
Phil Kaufman’s “Twisted” with Ashley Judd and Samuel L. Jackson, filmed in The City and making it look sexxxy, opens Feb 27. … Kaufman is still trying to get the money together to do a Liberace biopic, starring Robin Williams. … Right now, though, it looks his next project will be an adaptation to Saul Bellow’s “Henderson the Rain King.” … How’s the real estate market? Sotheby’s Janet Schindler’s list of S.F. property sales sums up so: In 2003, there 92 sales in the $3 million range. In 2002, there were 71. … Sales in the $5 million range dropped from 26 in ’02 to 24 last year. … There were four sales in thee $10 million range last year, compared to three in ’02. …
Memo to that TV news crew from China in town shooting a documentary on the Fang Family: Ask the Fangs when they’ll pay the many canned ex-Exers (including me) the money owed them. I don’t know where that $66 million subsidy the Fangs received from the Hearst Corp. went, but it sure didn’t go to paying ex-employees the money they were contractually promised and are contractually owed. … They’re still chopping over there. Warren Hinckle and other columnists have been told to cut their columns to 500 words. … Rumors of the Ex’s sale abound. Latest word is that the Fangs are trying to raise moola for a new consortium to buy the paper. Local moneybags aren’t buying the pitch, which is that they should ante up to save the paper the way they did to save the Giants from leaving town. … Someone could still make a go of the Ex, though, which is what I tell the local moneybags who call me up to discuss the situooashun. … Memo to The Gav: If you make the press pay for special parking around City Hall, the honeymoon is canceled. …
Betcha didn’t know this: When screenwriter and former Marinsta Joe Eszterhas (he made Sharon Stone famous in “Basic Instinct” with another piece of seemingly incidental, but carefully choreographed camerawork) was a reporter on the Cleveland Plain Dealer, eons ago before Hip Hop was happening, Dennis Kucinich was his copy boy. …
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