I’ve known the poet Eileen Myles since the 1990s, when I first moved to New York, and I remember seeing her walking her pitbull Rosie around the East Village. She had these beautiful arms and David Cassidy hair and the sort of swagger so many of the gay boys I knew wished we had. We all had crushes on her.

Looking back, I feel like that sense of her holds up — she’s a little like if David Cassidy had run away and grown up to become a sexy, cool lesbian poet in the East Village. The amazing Mapplethorpe photo of her on the cover of a new edition of her groundbreaking 1994 novel “Chelsea Girls” (Ecco, $16.99 paper) is only one moment of the many she had back then — and in it is a glance at the wild and new kind of beauty that is hers, born of abandoning yourself to being yourself.

The portrait of her on the cover of her new volume of collected poems, “I Must Be Living Twice” (Ecco, $29.99), suggests that cool has evolved into something sublime.

That slipperiness, I think, is where the poetry is— a slipperiness that is her unique quicksilver intelligence and aliveness, something that she brings to her poetry, her prose, her art criticism, and her conversation. Myles has, in her 20 books of poetry, art journalism, fiction and libretti, given so much to us, and if you’re just finding her now, there’s a lot to read.

At her St. Marks Poetry Project launch event for these books two weeks ago, she asked 20 readers to come and choose sections of her two books to read from, and the result was a Myles Extravaganza that she jokingly referred to that night as the sort of funeral for a poet she wanted to have while she was alive. “We always used to do this when someone died,” she said. “Why not do it when they’re alive, so they can hear it?”

I caught up with her on tour and asked her some questions before her Los Angeles event at Skylight Books this Friday at 7:30 p.m.

What is it like having these two books come out together? It seems like it would be strange, having something from a much earlier part of your career arrive alongside something newer, together in the world.

I’m having a retrospective moment. And I think it’s funny they came out during Mercury retrograde. So for astrology people, people would say, you’re now doing really well, because your books from the past are going forward. I’ve gotten attention for a new poetry book and a book from 20 years ago but part of it is something in the stars that meant the past is more now than usual.

I was just reading one of my favorite pieces by you, “Being Female,” which you published on the Awl. Over the years, it keeps coming back to me, that idea of wanting to be the favorite son, not just your family’s, but the country’s favorite son. The ending is so beautiful, the last line of this piece: “But I want to be loved because I am. That’s all.” Do you feel that now? Does anything feel different this time around?

It does. I’m tremendously happy at the warm and thunderous reception my work is getting and yet time is so funny, incremental, it’s like when people act like this big thing is happening, you know, it’s like sex, there’s been lots of little moves over the years, highs and lows, and as the one who has felt it all, in her body, it feels like more of the same but all at once, like Armageddon or something. It’s lots of tiny steps that somehow at this moment are producing this moment — it’s sort of acidy — producing this big splash. But I know all the little ones.

The thing that’s funny about being a poet — or maybe being a woman, or maybe being a queer — is that you have all these small successes, like every time a somewhat rotten or average or OK or a pretty good life yields a really good poem, or one that feels good in the moment, you just have a little ecstasy. There’s lots of success, and the cumulative moment is made up of that... The publication makes a thing out of something that was always true — which is that I like my work, and I know other people did too, but there was no way to prove it before.

It must be wonderful to find the work has its own integrity that way, after all that time. To be like, “That’s what it is.”

Weirdly, the past starts to be about something else. It becomes about style in a way that it wasn’t about, and I don’t mean writing style, but cultural style. I wrote it in my 30s about my 20s, and I published it in my 40s. So there was a passage of time in the production of the book, and now I’m in my 60s. It’s like the poetry book, "I Must Be Living Twice," is as much about "Chelsea Girls" itself.

I think there’s ways in which things that were harsh are left harsh, because, historic poverty, historic kitschy lesbian cultural stuff, historic fashions that in many cases have come back, it’s decades where their surface has a different kind of texture now. ... People back then were like “Aaah, it’s a mess!” But I think we’re much more excited about messiness now. And messiness seems more manageable.

You did just finish a book, yes? Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Sure! It’s a very nice feeling. People will say, are you writing on your tour? And there is a way I just leak verbiage, I’m a poet. But yes, I just finished, in March, a memoir called “Afterglow,” the memoir of a dog. Part of this tour is that it has brought up lots of things from the past, including that I ran for president, and my obvious running mate, which had a lot do with my being a lesbian, was my pitbull, Rosie. Because it was much more acceptable to be running for president with a dog’s face next to yours than another lesbian’s. So she’s who I memorialize in this book.

It’s a fantastic dog memoir. When we have relationships with animals, we often make up who they are. And so there is a lot of thinking about who else she might have been, besides just a pitbull born on a roof in the East Village. And so that’s delivered in fantasy, a little bit.

And yet it’s also [Gertrude] Steinian, too, isn’t it? Like Rosie is your Alice B. Toklas.

Exactly. I get to escape the burden of being Eileen Myles by writing about Rosie Myles. And then I get to write about Eileen from a different vantage point. The dog is suddenly talking me down, telling me what’s wrong with what I’m thinking and doing. If you have a dog, and you’re a person whose moods are constantly changing, there’s a moment when you look at the dog and you feel bad for them because they’re attached to you, and so it’s funny for the dog to vocalize those things in some ways. A new kind of animalized despair.

It sounds like it’s a memoir of your running mate, then. And a little bit about the campaign, too — is that true?

Tiny bit true. Hard thing to know what to do with, the fact of having run for president. But running mate is really true. Dogs are a companion species. It’s about time — you have an animal for about 15, 16 years, a generation. That time holds so much. You might have had five or six relationships with human beings but one dog. It holds things the way only your family might have done previous... When I got Rosie, I remember I thought, Oh my God, I’ll be like 55 when she dies, I couldn’t imagine the person I’d be. And I’m already past being that person. And so now I’m like, Ecch, I’ll be in my 80s when this dog is gone. It’s weird, but they sort of tame the revulsion of time in a way, and make it something you can walk with and live with and watch. Watching Rosie die was a way of managing mortality. I learned so much from it.

You tour a lot. What is it like to be on tour this time, with your retrospective?

I think there’s a very interesting poetry moment going on culturally now. Part of what I’m experiencing with this nice reception of this book is the way being a female poet is a certain version of coming of age — poetry is very diaristic, small pieces, an art form you can realize -- you wrote poems when you were young -- a quick, young, cheap available art form.

I’m getting a sense, because I’m meeting so many young people on this tour and a lot of them are writing poetry and a lot of them are female, and so there’s a way I feel there’ s a revolution going on, like the road saga of the 50s and 60s for boys might be writing poetry for females right now. And I just love how poetry seems to be totally ... the notebook is open — girls, and girlboys, young people and older people and all kinds of people are writing in it. Something special, mortal, cheap and fun, a new way of being smart and fast — it coincides with texting, and social media — it’s a leaky, glittering sort of form. I think it’s really hot right now. I feel like that’s what I’m witnessing right now. And it makes me really happy.

Chee is author of the forthcoming novel “Queen of the Night.”


10/6/2007 9:55 AM PDT by TMZ Staff

Authorities investigating animal cruelty allegations on rapper DMX's Arizona property have issued their gruesome findings.The investigation stems from an Aug. 24 raid of DMX's Phoenix home, where police were probing reports of animal neglect. Police seized 12 live pit bulls, numerous weapons and about a quarter-ounce of marijuana. Now forensic reports from a veterinarian examiner from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office states that the condition of animal remains found on the property were "significantly decomposed, the head and rear quarters and legs had a white trash bag around them; the body was wrapped in a dirt-stained beige fitted sheet and inside a clear plastic bag; all placed inside a white body bag." The forensic report also stated that "severe decomposition prevented further examination." There was determinable evidence of injury to just one set of remains. A detective's summary of the cruelty allegations lists seven different visits to DMX's home, from August 3-22, with several attempts made by the County Sheriff to resolve the issue of alleged neglect of dogs at the residence. The detective actually gave the dogs water. Finally, after no improvement of conditions, a raid took place August 24, seizing 12 pit bulls. No charges have been filed against the 36-year-old rapper. The matter is still under investigation. Click here to view the documents.

Summary: Authorities investigating animal cruelty allegations on rapper DMX's Arizona property have issued their gruesome findings. The investigation stems from…


By JOE MAHONEY DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Friday, October 18th 2002, 1:23AM

ALBANY - The Ronettes lost a big-bucks battle with producer Phil Spector yesterday after the state's highest court ruled that the '60s girl group is not entitled to royalties when its hit songs are used in movies and commercials.

The decision overturned a $3 million lower-court award to the Ronettes, the group behind the chart-topping "Be My Baby."

A unanimous Court of Appeals said it was "sympathetic" to the "plight" of lead singer Ronnie Greenfield - Spector's ex-wife - her sister Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley Ross.

But a contract they signed in 1963 did not expressly give them the right to cash from advertisements and films.

During the 1980s, "Be My Baby" was featured on the mega-hit "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack, and the group's songs have scored ads for Levi's jeans and American Express.

"The best evidence of what parties to a written agreement intend is what they say in their writing," Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote.

Pop impresario Spector - known for his dramatic "Wall of Sound" - handed the group a one-time payment of $14,482 when they signed on with his company Philles Records Inc.

The women recorded 28 songs from 1963 to 1967.

"The court is sending a clear signal that we're a system of law that regards contracts as things that have to be followed," said Spector's attorney Andrew Bart.

But the ruling was not a total loss for the musicians.

The bench sent the 14-year-old case back to the lower court to figure out how much the Ronettes are owed for royalties from compilations and other reissues of their songs.

That number will be a "substantial amount of money" Ronettes attorney Ira Greenberg said.

Still, the group gets a paltry 3% in royalties, compared with the more recent industry standard of 50%.

Spector opposed even those royalties, Greenberg said, citing a release Spector's wife signed when the couple divorced in California in 1974.

"She essentially would have gotten nothing at all," said Greenberg.

Summary: By JOE MAHONEY DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF ALBANY - The Ronettes lost a big-bucks battle with producer Phil Spector yesterday after the state's highest court ruled that the '60s girl group is not entitled to royalties when its hit songs are used in movies and commercials. The decision overturned a $3 million lower-court award to the Ronettes, the group behind the chart-topping "Be My Baby."A unanimous Court of Appeals said it was "sympathetic"to


Tuesday, February 26th 2002, 2:25AM

The publisher Berkley has a biography of Sarah Hughes already in stores because editor Cindy Hwang acted on a hunch months ago.

"When Sarah medaled in the World Champion-ships last March, I thought there was a good likelihood she'd go all the way to the Olympics," Hwang said yesterday.

She signed up Alina Sivorinovsky's unauthorized "Sarah Hughes: Skating to the Stars" in April and had the $9.95 paperback on sale by December.

After a first printing of 10,000 copies, Hughes' gold medal glory last week spurred new orders and reprintings that have raised the number in circulation to 75,000.

Random House Children's Books publisher Beverly Horowitz recalled getting out a book on Tara Lipinski within three weeks of the skater's gold medal win in 1998. This year, she has no Hughes book planned.

"It's not that an audience isn't hungering for material, but so many people now have instant access to updated material, including quality photos, on their computers," Horowitz added.

In addition, teen mags, which have multiplied, are expected to line up for Hughes. "I think she's a gift to teens in general and an exceptional role model," ELLEgirl editor in chief Brandon Holley said.

Hughes has yet to signal if she has book plans of her own.

Wall Street Journal staffers, who fled the World Financial Center on Sept. 11, are expected back in their damaged headquarters no sooner than June.

"We're doing asbestos abatement now," Journal spokesman Steve Goldstein said. "When we get a clean bill of health for air quality, we'll return."

Staffers have been scattered among two sites in New Jersey and two in Manhattan.

The new senior vice president and publishing director of the Elle group is Carol Smith, parent company Hachette Filipacchi said yesterday.

She was founding publisher of Parenting, later bought by Time Inc., where she helped launch Vibe and Martha Stewart Living. She succeeds industry veteran Carl Portale, who announced his retirement.

Meantime, Conde Nast said it will publish Bride's and newly acquired Modern Bride in alternate months. The latter's publisher, Robyn Borok, joined the new bridal unit as executive director of national sales.

The author of "Bloomberg by Bloomberg" isn't the only author working for the city. Ellen Karsh, who's written fund applications as head of the office of grants administration under Rudy Giuliani and now Michael Bloomberg, has sold "The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need" to Carroll & Graf.

Her collaboration with writer Sue Fox will be out in March of next year.

Living Room, a lifestyle mag for young women being developed by Meredith, is far from a full-blown launch, especially in this tight ad market.

After two test issues by Better Homes and Gardens' staff at Meredith headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, execs will decide whether to put out a third this fall. It would bear the stamp of Bonnie Fuller, who's consulted with Meredith in New York and now waits to hear if she'll be Us Weekly's new editor in chief.

Summary: The publisher Berkley has a biography of Sarah Hughes already in stores because editor Cindy Hwang acted on a hunch months ago. "When Sarah medaled in the World Champion-ships last March, I thought there was a good likelihood she'd go all the way to the Olympics,"Hwang said yesterday. She signed up Alina Sivorinovsky's unauthorized "Sarah Hughes: Skating to the Stars"in April and had the


Three in 10 Americans have bought products they saw advertised on television infomercials, but few are frequent customers, and satisfaction is somewhat muted both in terms of the products and buying process, an ABC News 20/20 poll finds.

Nearly three-quarters of infomercial buyers say they've been satisfied with their purchases and with the process of buying the products, generally done by phone or the Internet. But the national survey finds that far fewer, about a quarter, have been "very satisfied."

The survey, produced by Langer Research Associates, also finds relatively little steady, repeat business in infomercial purchasing. Seven in 10 buyers say they've done it rarely or only once; an additional 23 percent, occasionally at most. Just 7 percent of Americans report buying from infomercials very or somewhat often.

But it may be product mix, rather than customer satisfaction, that's driving that sporadic return business. Even among people who are "very satisfied" with infomercial-advertised products they've bought, just 11 percent report making such purchases with any regularity; and among those very satisfied with the buying process, just 13 percent have been back regularly.

For full survey results, click here.

Watch "Infomercial Nation," a joint reporting project with Consumer Reports, on "20/20."

Summary: "20/20" survey finds few Americans are frequent buyers of infomercial products.


Soccer bonds wounded Haitians and U.S. soldiers

The Haitian all-amputee soccer team went to Washington, D.C. to say thank you to those who were there in their hour of need. Byron Pitts reports on how during their visit, the team got in a soccer match in against American service members injured in war.

Summary: CBS News video: A rare look inside Syria's revolution - The revolution in Syria has mainly been chronicled by YouTube videos posted by Syrians. CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward managed to get inside Syria and got a rare look at what the dictator doesn't want anyone to see.


Maryland & regional photo galleries

Post photographers are sharing their favorite area locations.

The Maryland General Assembly convened on Wednesday.

Aaron Thomas is accused of a series of rapes and attacks on more than a dozen women since the late 1990s.

More people in D.C. area, across the country live in areas defined by diversity.

Snow has started in parts of Maryland and Virginia.

The school’s 251 North, opened this semester, was designed to appeal to young foodies and keep up with the competition.

The Ruark, built in 1886, is the oldest remaining skipjack in the Chesapeake Bay.

Monday night jazz at Vicino emerged organically in a churning pocket of Silver Spring.

The strong storms in the area have caused problems for residents.

Washington Post photographers document the damage and repairs.

Summary: The Washington Post is your source for Anne Arundel County news. Find breaking news, political reports, school information and check Anne Arundel County traffic and crime reports.


Hulu‘s first foray into original programming — a reality show called If I Can Dream — premiered today with a 25-minute pilot episode. We’ve embedded it below so you can watch it right here. The premiere was accompanied by a big roll-out of features that set the series apart from what you’ve seen on network television.

Live 24/7 video, social networking profiles and lifestreams all play a part in engaging viewers in the cast members’ lives. It’s an impressive production, but we get the sense that it’s expensive enough that it won’t pay for itself unless it becomes a huge hit.

Given all its innovations and refinements on the past ten years of web show experimentation, though, it might actually pull through — especially since it’s available internationally. Time will tell, but until it does, we can at least dig deeper to find out how the If I Can Dream machine works.

The show’s tagline is “Welcome to the New Hollywood.” That refers to the show’s premise — it’s about a group of young artists seeking to become the next big stars in Los Angeles — but it’s also easy to read as a mission statement for the show’s presentation and model.

The house that the five cast members will live in is equipped with 50 cameras that will live stream to the web for free 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s accessible at ificandream.com, and it’s accompanied by a ticker at the bottom of the site that announces when and where interesting events will be happening along with the current weather and time in L.A. where the house is located.

The cast’s Twitter, Facebook and MySpace accounts are linked and chock full of content. The music they’re (supposedly) listening to will stream on iheart radio. Short clips will be posted on Hulu every day.

In an interview at the Hulu blog, executive producer Michael Herwick summarized the project this way:

“It’s about creating sort of a 21st century platform for legitimate, up-and-coming talent. It’s such a broader form of entertainment, where you have the 24-hour live streams, you have the weekly episodes on Hulu, and you have all this video-on-demand content. It’s very interactive and it’s very much in tune with what young people are doing these days. They digest the internet, they’re socially interactive, and they’re shooting their own videos on YouTube and getting discovered. We’re just saying that’s where it’s at right now, and we’re creating a project around that.”

That web content is all in addition to the full episodes that will be posted to Hulu every Tuesday morning. The first two will focus on introducing the cast members as they travel the world to promote the show. The episodes are actually notable for how different they are from other made-for-web-video; their production values and presentation are similar to what you’d expect from a cable or network TV show.

That’s because the project is the brainchild of Simon Fuller, the reality TV producer who developed Pop Idol and American Idol. If I Can Dream is thematically similar to those shows in that its focus is on aspiring performers trying to make it in L.A. Four of them are unknowns, but one of them — singer-songwriter Justin Gaston — is somewhat famous for having dated pop star Miley Cyrus and worked as an underwear model. He has more than 100,000 followers on Twitter.

As with many other reality shows, though, auditions for future roles are ongoing. If you’re young, talented and beautiful, you can upload MySpace audition videos to try to become the next resident of the If I Can Dream House.

If I Can Dream is not the first reality show to offer live streams of the house; Big Brother did so several years ago. But If I Can Dream is doing it for free thanks to some clever ad deals. There are brief ads you have to watch when you start a stream and there are some sponsorships, too. For example, Justin will perform music at arranged times in a room called the Pepsi Blue Room.

Here’s the premiere episode, “The Journey to Hollywood Special.” Enjoy, and let us know what you think of this (fairly) new approach to web TV in the comments.

Summary: Hulu’s first foray into original programming — a reality show called If I Can Dream — premiered with a 25-minute pilot episode.


The 49ers' season-opening 30-22 win at Green Bay last week was sealed when cornerback Chris Culliver batted away a deep fourth-down pass along the right sideline to Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson.

The game-clincher was fitting: San Francisco had also thwarted Green Bay's deep-throwing Aaron Rodgers during the Packers' first 60 offensive plays.

The reigning NFL MVP completed 30 passes against the 49ers, but only two gained more than 16 yards. Last year, Rodgers completed an average of 4.3 passes per game that gained at least 20 yards.

"I think their key thing was to keep us in front," Nelson said.

Bingo, said 49ers safety Donte Whitner: "That was part of the game plan was taking that deep stuff away from them and making them earn each and every thing that they got."

Mission accomplished. Now, for their next assignment, the 49ers will face a similar pass-happy, deep-throwing offense Sunday night when the Lions visit Candlestick Park. Detroit is led by quarterback Matthew Stafford and All-Pro wide receiver Calvin Johnson. Stafford ranked second in the NFL last year with 16 completions of at least 40 yards and Johnson had an NFL-high 10 of those grabs.

Lions coach Jim Schwartz expects the 49ers to follow a similar script, which doesn't mean Stafford can patiently pick apart their defense with underneath throws.

"They defended the deep balls very well, but they also tackled very well and defended the short passes," Schwartz said. "They were physical in coverage and they tackle very well. There was very little run after the catch. It wasn't like they are just laying off and allowing the short stuff to happen. They challenged every part of the field."

Schwartz's assessment touches on another part of the 49ers' defensive game plan: Punish the pass-catchers.

San Francisco had an NFL-low 61 missed tackles last year, according to Pro Football Focus, and they mix ferocity with sound fundamentals. Cornerback Perrish Cox said the defense's catch-it-if-you-dare message is sent by hard-hitting safeties, Whitner and Dashon Goldson.

"That's all they want to do," Cox said. "They talked about it. It gives the rest of us energy to want to do that also. Because that's all they talked about out there. They talk mess - 'I dare you to catch the ball.' Or 'Catch it next time.' Or 'C'mon, man, stay up.' "

The Lions, of course, have studied how the 49ers thwarted Green Bay's offense. And so the chess match begins. Cox and Whitner acknowledged that San Francisco will add different wrinkles to this week's game plan.

But Whitner suggested the 49ers defense is good enough to not worry about out-scheming opponents.

"For the most part, we just play our defense and we do a good job of executing, even sometimes when they know what we're playing," Whitner said. "We still do a good job of executing. That's how you can tell you have a good defense."

5:20 p.m., Channel: 11 Channel: 3 Channel: 8 (680/1050, 107.7)

Spotlight on: LT Joe Staley. Largely lost in the afterglow of last week's road win at Green Bay was Staley's forgettable performance against Packers OLB Clay Matthews, who had 2.5 sacks and drew another holding call against Staley. Now Staley faces another Pro Bowl pass-rusher in Lions DE Kyle Vanden Bosch, who beat him for a fumble-causing sack of Alex Smith in the 49ers' visit to Detroit last year. Smith should be able to pick apart an injury-ravaged secondary Sunday night - if he's given time in the pocket. The Lions have ranked among the NFL's top 10 in sacks the past two years and opened the season with three takedowns of Rams quarterback Sam Bradford last week.

Injury notes: 49ers - RB Brandon Jacobs (knee) and WR Ted Ginn (ankle) are officially listed as questionable, but almost certainly won't play after not practicing during the week. As they did last week, Kyle Williams will return punts and Kendall Hunter will return kickoffs in Ginn's absence. Lions - Detroit is expected to be without three of its top four defensive backs: CB Dwight Bentley (concussion) is out while S Louis Delmas (knee) and CB Chris Houston (ankle) are doubtful. Delmas and Houston didn't play in Week 1 and Bradford completed 17 of 25 passes for 198 yards and a TD.

-- 49ers RB Frank Gore had runs of 55 and 47 yards en route to 141 yards in last year's 25-19 win at Detroit. Gore hasn't had longer runs, or more yardage in a game, since he had a 64-yard run in a 149-yard performance against the Raiders on Oct. 17, 2010.

-- 49ers QB Alex Smith completed 10 of 10 passes for 126 yards last week when the Packers blitzed, according to Pro Football Focus. On three other blitzes, Green Bay sacked Smith. The Lions blitzed Rams QB Sam Bradford on six of his 25 pass attempts last week.

-- The 49ers have committed seven turnovers in their past 13 regular-season games. The Lions have committed seven turnovers in their past two regular-season games. Five of those giveaways were interceptions thrown by Matthew Stafford.

Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch

Summary: The 49ers' season-opening 30-22 win at Green Bay last week was sealed when cornerback Chris Culliver batted away a deep fourth-down pass along the right sideline to Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson.  San Francisco had also thwarted Green Bay's deep-throwing Aaron Rodgers during the Packers' first 60 offensive plays.  The reigning NFL MVP completed 30 passes against the 49ers, but only two gained more than 16 yards.  Stafford ranked second in the NFL last year with 16 completions of at least 40 yards and Johnson had an NFL-high 10 of those grabs.  Because that's all they talked about out there.  The Lions have ranked among the NFL's top 10 in sacks the past two years and opened the season with three takedowns of Rams quarterback Sam Bradford last week.  Injury notes: 49ers - RB Brandon Jacobs (knee) and WR Ted Ginn (ankle) are officially listed as questionable, but almost certainly won't play after not practicing during the week.  Lions - Detroit is expected to be without three of its top four defensive backs: CB Dwight Bentley (concussion) is out while S Louis Delmas (knee) and CB Chris Houston (ankle) are doubtful.  -- 49ers QB Alex Smith completed 10 of 10 passes for 126 yards last week when the Packers blitzed, according to Pro Football Focus.


NEW YORK — The way Richard Greenberg tells it, the idea sounds almost accidental.

Five years ago, in July 2007, the playwright caught the last Broadway performance of “Grey Gardens,” a musical whose composer, Scott Frankel, he had “known a little bit for a hundred years.” After Greenberg, a Tony Award winner for “Take Me Out,” told him he admired the show, Frankel suggested that they work together. But the project Frankel proposed didn’t appeal, so Greenberg countered with another: Why not make the movie “Far From Heaven” into a musical?

“I blurted it out,” Greenberg recalled. “I just said it, possibly before I even thought, but then liked the idea immediately. So I don’t know if that counts as an idea, or just a kind of a spasm.”

MICHAEL FALCO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES (upper left), BOB LAPREE (upper right), SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Clockwise (from top left): composer Scott Frankel; lyricist Michael Korie; director Michael Greif; and playwright Richard Greenberg are collaborating on the musical “Far From Heaven.’’

Todd Haynes’s 2002 art-house film stars Julianne Moore as Cathy Whitaker, an upscale housewife in 1957 Connecticut who has an outwardly enviable life: a handsome executive husband, two young children, closets filled with knockout period styles. But the facade cracks when Cathy discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay, and as their marriage disintegrates, she scandalizes segregated Hartford by spending time with her gardener, a black man named Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). The milieu is Eisenhower-era conformity, rigidity, and repression; the tone tends toward somber melodrama. As material for a musical goes, it doesn’t exactly lend itself to characters bursting exuberantly into song.

But a musical it has become. With a book by Greenberg, a score by Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, the lyricist for “Grey Gardens,” it has just begun a string of 13 performances at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Directed by Michael Greif, who is best known for “Rent” and was Frankel and Korie’s “Grey Gardens” director, it stars Kelli O’Hara, whose Broadway credits include “The Light in the Piazza,” and who is in the midst of a Broadway run opposite Matthew Broderick in “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

“I kind of said to Richard after the first run-through of this, ‘My God, this might be the first all-subtext musical,’” Korie said the other morning before rehearsal at Playwrights Horizons, the off-Broadway theater where “Far From Heaven” is slated to have its world premiere next spring. “And he said, ‘God forbid.’ But I think it is. The language is simple, of the lyrics, but the music is showing roiling emotions underneath, and so there’s a lot unsaid, or people covering for what they can’t say, or being polite, or changing the subject.”

Frankel wrote the music for O’Hara, who has been involved in the project since the day early last year that he went to her house and played it for her. Now O’Hara, pleased to have a role designed for her voice in a musical with substantial narrative stakes, is spending her vacation from “Nice Work” performing in “Far From Heaven” at Williamstown.

“I’m not proud of that,” said the actress, who in the lead-up to Williamstown had been rehearsing the new musical every day, doing eight shows a week on Broadway, and feeling the tug to spend more time with her 3-year-old son. “It’s one of those things where I argue with myself: Should I stop everything and be a mom right now? But then I think, for a woman in this business — well, anybody in this business, but especially a woman — I feel like you strike when the iron’s hot, and then, not by your choice, you back off from things. Things get slower.

“But right now,” she said, “when someone like Scott Frankel and Michael Korie and Richard Greenberg are writing something and it’s basically with you in mind, you put everything aside. Not family, but you put your fatigue aside. You put the stress and maybe the inconvenience of it aside, and you do it. It’s all worth it, artistically. Career-wise.”

O’Hara has never seen the movie “Far From Heaven,” so there’s no danger of her imitating Moore’s performance. But Frankel didn’t have the option of innocence when this project came up: He saw the film twice when it was in theaters, so its lush score — music that, to Greenberg, “always seems on the verge of singing” — was already in his head.

“I’m the number-one fan of that Elmer Bernstein score. It’s spectacular,” said the composer, who watched the movie again with Korie and Greenberg early in the adaptation process but was wary of being too influenced by its music. “Because I am pretty porous; most people are. So we just started looking at the screenplay as text.”

Frankel’s affection for theater music and pop music of the late ’50s is evident in his own score, he said, but so is his regard for the orchestral music that surges through the film.

“I think that part of my work is an homage to the Elmer Bernstein score in the bigness of what I’ve written — unabashedly romantic,” said Frankel, who noted that his music will be played by an ensemble of 12, far fewer than Bernstein had. “That’s what I took with me from him, that these were big emotions: big love, big excitement, big betrayal, big hurts. It’s not chamber-sized feelings.”

While Frankel leapt eagerly into the adaptation, flying to Portland, Ore., to talk with Haynes about it, Korie wasn’t convinced until they began writing songs that “Far From Heaven” could even be a musical. He was adamant, even as Greenberg encouraged him and Frankel toward through-composition, that he did not want it to be an opera.

Cathy Whitaker, played by Julianne Moore, talks to her gardener, Raymond Deagan, played by Dennis Haysbert in the 2002 film "Far From Heaven."

“We’re on the line: We’re not a new American opera and we’re not a musical,” said Korie, who has written librettos for operas including “Harvey Milk” and Ricky Ian Gordon’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” “It’s almost, in sections, continuous songs, but it’s not opera because each is a discrete unit that blends into the next song.”

Ultimately, for Korie, the lure of the project came from the three main characters.

“They all seemed so singable,” he said. “There was so much that was unsaid that I felt that it wouldn’t be a matter, at least in my work, of paraphrasing the screenplay: that I could find new levels inside that weren’t explored and cut away some of the excess of the film to make room for that.”

How to get it all across in a stage production is the task facing Greif, who praised the film — a homage to Douglas Sirk replete with references to movies of the period — as “a great triumph of a dance between style and substance.” For the musical, he said, it’s crucial to locate the balance the movie did, never toppling into camp.

“It got you dangerously close to it, so there was that titillation, but it never crossed the line, and I think that is a great challenge for us,” Greif said.

The musical’s design team is heavy with Broadway veterans. Costumes are by five-time Tony winner Catherine Zuber (“The Light in the Piazza”), projections by Peter Nigrini (“Fela!”), and the set by Allen Moyer (“Grey Gardens”). Those are all components that Greif was eager to see in action at Williamstown to find out how they affect a production honed in the spareness of rehearsal rooms. He hoped, too, to learn “what theatrical flourishes this theatrical event craves.”

“In the same way that there’s a clear cinematic veneer of that film, is there a theatrical veneer of this play?” Greif asked. “I mean, do we see the backstage simultaneous with the forestage? What are those elements?”

So, at Williamstown, much of the purpose is discovery, and the creative team expects a significant amount of change between this summer and next spring.

“It’s called a preview production, which is a term I’m not familiar with?” Greenberg said, the rising inflection at the end of his sentence not so much denoting a question as acknowledging peculiarity. “And yet it feels accurate to describe this.”

In the adaptation so far, Greenberg’s book sticks close to the film in Act 1 but opens up the story in Act 2 in ways the movie does not. Though wary of what he called “potentially paralyzing respect” for Haynes’s film, he has also been determined to preserve as much of the screenplay’s text as possible, and to be faithful to the style of its “off-kilter, kind of wonderfully stilted dialogue.” Thus he invented a function for himself in the collaboration with Frankel and Korie: “keeper of the tone.”

“They were going off and having to make up brand-new stuff,” Greenberg said, “and they would come to me [with it] and I would say, ‘No.’ They never wrote a bad song; I have to say that. But every now and then, I’d say, ‘You know what? That’s just not the tone. That’s not in keeping.’ Or ‘That’s a great song for the show, but it’s not right for these characters.’ And I was brutal because I figured, I guess this is my role: to be sort of the first line of dramaturgy. And they were so receptive.”

As for “Far From Heaven” being the first all-subtext musical, Greenberg’s attitude pretty much is “God forbid.” Then again, he said, what’s left unexpressed by these characters in 1957 America would be hard for a contemporary audience to miss.

“If you think about the original,” Greenberg said, “the thing about the subtext is the subtext is sort of glaring. It may be the first all glaringly subtextual musical. Because that’s the point: We know what’s going on a lot better than they do.”

Summary: The way Richard Greenberg tells it, the idea sounds almost accidental: Why not make the movie “Far From Heaven” into a musical? Todd Haynes’s 2002 art-house film doesn’t exactly lend itself to characters bursting exuberantly into song, but a musical it has become. With a book by Greenberg, a score by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie, it has just begun a string of performances at Williamstown Theatre Festival, where it stars Kelli O’Hara, on vacation from Broadway.


By almost every measure, the National Football League is the most popular sports league in the United States. And as the NFL continues to grow at an unprecedented rate both in terms of viewers and profit, the story lines have become endless and the rivalries are enormous.

Not many people have a better handle on the league's status than Fox's Joe Buck. The 43-year-old Buck has been Fox's lead play-by-play man for one decade, and in that span he's called three Super Bowls and countless playoff classics. This week Buck said he can't remember a season with more anticipation than 2012.

"I assume at some point [the league's popularity] will level off," Buck says. "But until it does, for us at Fox, the guys at CBS, the guys at NBC, the guys at ESPN, you just ride that wave and you smile every time the ratings come out because they’re just unbelievable, blow-you-away numbers. The popularity is at an all-time high, and we’re lucky to get to cover it."

Buck, who does NFC games as part of the conference's deal with Fox, says the NFC East might have the best top-to-bottom rivalries. While there's no singular rivalry that stands out above the rest, all together it's difficult for any division to top the depth of the NFC East.

"It’s to our advantage that at Fox we cover the NFC," Buck said. "And if you want to say Cowboys-Giants, you want to say Eagles-Giants or throw the Redskins in there now with RGIII and the game they just had last weekend against New York. There’s a lot to like there."

With the popularity and passion surrounding the league these days, it doesn't take long for new rivalries to develop. In that regard, no team is gaining steam as quickly as the San Francisco 49ers. In additional to a geographical rivalry with the Oakland Raiders, the 49ers appear to be reviving a once-great matchup with the New York Giants.

Plus, having a coach like Jim Harbaugh never hurts.

"Whoever [the 49ers] play," Buck added, "with the intensity of Harbaugh you have the makings for fireworks every time they line up for the opening kickoff."

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Summary: By almost every measure, the National Football League is the most popular sports league in the United States. And as the NFL continues to grow at an u...


I've attended hundreds of trials over the years and drawn hundreds of people, so it was difficult to choose one drawing. My first instinct was to select one that was amusing, but it's quite hard to find a lighthearted moment in the trials I attend. There was Charles Ingram and his "coughing" accomplice Tecwen Whittock in the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? fraud trial. When Chris Tarrant appeared as a witness and said he had been unaware of any coughing, the ranks of the journalists took to mass coughing. We thought it was very funny but the judge wasn't amused.

The picture I've chosen, drawn in November 2011, shows Gary Dobson and David Norris on trial for the murder of Stephen Lawrence they had committed 18 years previously.

In the picture, the defendants are completely overshadowed by Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, who sat just a few feet away. As the evidence unfolded, they relived those terrible events. You can see Neville closing his eyes, trying to shut out the details of the evidence he is hearing. The picture shows the passive faces of the defendants contrasting with the acute distress on the faces of Stephen's parents. When I saw that in court, I knew I had to draw it.

In the long years between Stephen's murder and this trial, there had been a public inquiry, a private prosecution and a change in the law allowing a retrial to take place. For the Lawrence family, this trial was the culmination of 18 years of absolute anguish, waiting for justice.

Looking at the Lawrences, I was very touched – I think we all were. They attended every day and heard every detail. They conducted themselves with great dignity. I didn't ever see them look at the defendants, and neither did I observe the defendants looking at them.

I had drawn the defendants many years before at the Macpherson inquiry, where they were young men, and very bold and cocky. Here, as older people in their mid- to late-30s, they were a little bit more dignified. They were very composed and didn't seem overwhelmed by the packed court, which was full of journalists.

I was sitting about 12ft away from the Lawrences. I brought the picture closer in order to get the detail of the expression. I find I have to do that with most trials – imagine I'm a bit closer. Some courtrooms are vast and the press benches are quite a way away from the defendants, or family.

I don't spend a great deal of time in court because I need to go and draw – you are not allowed to draw in court. I rely on my memory. As I'm looking, I divide the face into three. I take the first third as the shape of the head and the hair. The hair is very important. Then I note what shape the brows are and whether the eyes are deep-set or lined. The next third is what I would call the muzzle – the tip of the nose, the mouth and the chin. That contains a lot of the expression and identifying features. That's all I need, though I will make a note about the clothing. The grief-stricken expression on Neville Lawrence's face was seared into my mind, and that's what I drew.

If there are several defendants, as in the Oxford child grooming case last year or in the phone hacking trial, that's a bit more difficult, so I take more written notes.

There is always pressure because everything has to be got out as quickly as possible. Leaving the court at a convenient moment where the judge won't frown at me, rushing to the press room, getting my pencils and paper out, packing it all up again – those things take time, but the actual drawing can be quick. With the Stephen Lawrence one, I haven't really finished off the colouring to the lefthand side, the lines are rather scribbled, so it's not a very finished drawing, but I think people understand that it's a quick drawing, of the moment.

This has been my job for a long time and I've noticed over the past five to 10 years everything has changed in court. The judges used to laboriously write notes with a fountain pen, now they use a laptop. Journalists are allowed to tweet from court. In a recent trial, there were eight TV monitors showing evidence instead of solicitors having to wheel in boxes of files. I recognise times are changing and I'm sure cameras will be allowed in court very soon, but there will probably always be a case for the court artist.

Some of the cases are historic and compelling, but mainly they are extremely upsetting, because you get to hear all the details. The Lawrence family fought hard battles over those years. They had to cope with the grief of losing their son, and with the fact that nothing seemed to be being done. They had changed. As you can see, Neville Lawrence is white-haired now. Everybody in this picture had changed from the first time I drew them. Here they are after 18 years of waiting for justice.

I attended the hearing of Rose and Fred West, and the most unforgettable thing about that was their first appearance together. He was reaching out to her, trying to get her attention. He didn't have much time because the guards were just pushing him on through. He was having no luck, even to look her in the eye. She wouldn't even look at him, she just turned her head.

I was surprised that she was so ordinary looking. You would never notice her; she would blend in with the crowd no problem. She wore great big spectacles and her hair was cut in a really traditional way. You can see now how anyone would think it was safe to get in the car with her and Fred. It was perfect for what they were doing – to get girls and women to trust them.

But you could see a flicker of that anger in her. Brian Leveson, who is now a judge [and who presided over the press-standards inquiry], was prosecuting and he would ask her really tough questions that she didn't like at all. She became aggressive with him, which I think is what he wanted to show – that she did have this other side. When her own barrister was asking her questions, they were sympathetic and drawing her out as a soft person. She would cry.

She got on with her guards very well. You would often see her siting with her female guards, having a chat and smiling. I suppose they develop a rapport after a while.

I was seated behind the witness box, against the wall. They had put in some special chairs, so that when I had to leave to work on the drawing I could pick a moment when the jury wouldn't be distracted. I make notes and catchy things to help memorise what I've seen. With Rose West, I probably wrote something like plump, frumpy, dumpy, lumpy; something that rhymed so it stuck in my mind. Everything about her was round – even her hair looked to me like a ball. When Fred was trying to reach her, that just clicked in my mind like a flash because it was so vivid.

I leave the court and find somewhere to draw. I try to find a room, or at least a table. At the high court and the Old Bailey they have a press room, but in that case I had to find some space on the floor and work there. I try to be out of the way so I don't attract attention and have people asking me questions. There isn't much time and I have to concentrate on the drawing.

With Abu Hamza, I always remember how fat he was. I remember him before he was ever the subject of a legal process. He was a character witness for a preacher who was on trial at the Old Bailey and I did a drawing of him in the witness box. His mobile phone went off. Everybody just sat there and it was ring, ring, ring. He didn't try to answer his phone, and someone went over and took it and dealt with it.

He was huge; a real presence, though later on, when he had been arrested for his activities and was the focus of a trial, he had lost a lot of weight.

I studied fine art and graphic design. I discovered I could do these drawings really quickly for television news. I really like the speed of things and I've been doing this since Jeffrey Archer's libel case with Monica Coghlan. I also had to do work on the floor at the trial of the boys who killed James Bulger. There were masses of journalists and other people. Outside it was chaos; some people were attacking vans. It's nice to have a whole hour to draw, but I remember that first Bulger day, I had about 15 minutes.

Summary: Thanks to hacking and celebrity trials, courtroom artists are more high-profile than ever. The artists who covered the Stephen Lawrence and Rose West cases reveal some trade secrets


You can now read 10 articles each month for free on BostonGlobe.com.

ALBUM REVIEW | INDIE ROCK

| Globe Staff April 08, 2014

When the fireworks gently pop and fizzle out in the last breath of EMA’s new album, it feels like the only way to close such an emotionally visceral set of songs. It’s a moment of release on a record focused so intensely on what it means to live in a culture in the throes of technology and information overload. On “The Future’s Void,” EMA (an acronym for the artist’s full name, Erika M. Anderson) ruminates on something we’ve all felt: digital fatigue and how it can leave you feeling empty. “Feel like I blew my soul out / Across the interwebs and streams,” she sings on “3Jane,” later admitting, “It left a hole so big inside of me / And I get terrified that / I will never get it back to me / I guess it’s just a modern disease.” Skewing heavily toward ’90s alt-rock (Sonic Youth, in particular), the album works almost exclusively in two modes: raw and coarse (“Smoulder,” “Satellites”) and tender and celestial (“When She Comes,” “100 Years”). (Out Tuesday)

EMA performs at Great Scott on May 10.

© 2014 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

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Summary: When the fireworks gently pop and fizzle out in the last breath of EMA’s new album, it feels like the only way to close such an emotionally visceral set of songs. It’s a moment of release on a record focused so intensely on what it means to live in a culture in the throes of technology and information overload. On “The Future’s Void,” EMA (an acronym for the artist’s full name, Erika M. Anderson) ruminates on something we’ve all felt -- digital fatigue and how it can leave you feeling empty. Skewing heavily toward ’90s alt-rock (Sonic Youth, in particular), the album works almost exclusively in two modes: raw and coarse and tender and celestial. EMA performs at Great Scott on May 10.


Kitty Hawk, N.C., and Dayton, Ohio, have long fought over the right to be called the birthplace of aviation. Several towns, including Beverly and Marblehead, jostle over where the Navy was born. And rival pizzerias in New York and New Jersey claim to be the nation’s oldest.

Now, two of the nation’s largest financial institutions are squabbling over which one was founded first.

Bank of America Corp. traces its roots to Massachusetts Bank, chartered in February 1784, through the 2004 acquisition of a successor bank, FleetBoston.

A Bank of America historical exhibit at the institution’s Federal Street headquarters in Boston.

But Bank of New York Mellon, founded by Alexander Hamilton as the Bank of New York a few months after Massachusetts Bank in June 1784, insists it is older because it is a direct descendant of the original bank and does not rely on acquisitions for its proud provenance.

BNY Mellon’s chief executive, Gerald Hassell, made the claim more pointedly when he addressed Boston College’s Chief Executives’ Club luncheon in Boston last month.

‘‘We are the nation’s oldest institution — the oldest bank — although there are some in the audience who might disagree,’’ motioning to former Bank of Boston (and FleetBoston) chief executive Charles K. Gifford, now a director for Bank of America.

‘‘Bank of Boston did have a claim along with the Bank of New York to be the oldest bank in the country, but I don’t think the Bank of Boston is still alive in its current state.’’

But Bank of America says it counts Massachusetts Bank as a legacy institution, noting that it was chartered four month before the Bank of New York. Bank of America even keeps a copy of the charter, signed by John Hancock, on display in its museum in Charlotte, N.C. (The originalcharter is kept in the Massachusetts Archives.)

‘‘The dates speak for themselves,’’ said T.J. Crawford, a Bank of America spokesman.

Admittedly, Bank of America’s claim is more complicated than BNY Mellon’s.

Massachusetts Bank merged with First National Bank of Boston in 1903 and was later renamed Bank of Boston. It was acquired by Fleet in 1999, which in turn was bought by Bank of America in 2004. Excluding acquisitions, Bank of America traces its direct lineage to Commercial National Bank, founded in Charlotte, in 1874.

So which is the oldest national bank?

Neither one, says economic historian Howard Bodenhorn. Instead, it is probably Wells Fargo & Co., of San Francisco.

It turns out that Massachusetts Bank was the second bank chartered in the United States. Wells Fargo, through acquisitions, has ties to the first: Bank of North America in Philadelphia.

Bank of North America was chartered by the Continental Congress on Dec. 31, 1781, more than two years before Massachusetts Bank was founded. The bank also counts Alexander Hamilton as an initial stockholder, along with other founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

‘‘It is safe to say that the Bank of North America [Wells Fargo] beat them both,’’ said Bodenhorn, a Clemson University economics professor and author of two books on the history of American banking.

An early seal on display at Bank of America, which traces its roots to Massachusetts Bank, chartered in February 1784.

Bank of North America merged with other Pennsylvania banks over the years before it was acquired by First Union, of Charlotte, in 1998. It later became Wachovia. Wachovia was taken over by Wells Fargo during the financial crisis three years ago. Wells Fargo itself was founded in 1852.

‘‘It’s very complicated,’’ said one of the bank’s historians, Marianne Babal, but ‘‘we are the successor to Bank of North America.’’

Some historians give more weight to Bank of New York Mellon’s claim, because the original entity has remained independent since 1784. It kept the original name until 2007, when it took over Mellon Financial of Pittsburgh and combined the new two names.

‘‘My personal view is we ought to regard Bank of New York as the oldest bank,’’ said Richard Sylla, an economics professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University. ‘‘The other two banks, North America and Massachusetts, were taken over by others, and so they have less of a claim to ‘oldest US bank.’ ’’

Sylla acknowledges that he may be biased since he lives in New York and chairs the Museum of American Finance, which occupies the former Bank of New York headquarters in Manhattan.

Bank of America, meanwhile, says it does not claim to be the oldest bank in the country — it notes on its website that Massachusetts Bank was the second US bank — but is proud of its historic ties to Massachusetts.

‘‘More important than bragging rights,’’ said Crawford, the bank spokesman, ‘‘is the fact that the industry has an incredibly rich history in Massachusetts.’’

Summary: Two of the nation’s largest financial institutions are squabbling over which one was founded first. Bank of America says it traces its roots to the Massachusetts Bank, which was chartered in February 1784, through its acquisition of FleetBoston in 2004. But Bank of New York Mellon says it is the nation’s oldest bank - founded by Alexander Hamilton as the Bank of New York in June 1784


Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent July 25, 2014

Arthur T. Demoulas, the ousted chief executive of the Demoulas Market Basket chain, made an offer Wednesday to buy out the shareholders of the company aligned with his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas. How the ownership structure of the chain breaks down:

The grocery chain had its origin in a neighborhood food store in Lowell that was opened in 1917 by Greek immigrants Arthur and his wife Efrasine Demoulas.

In 1954, the couple sells the business to two of their six children, George and Telemachus.

George Demoulas died suddenly on June 27, 1971, while vacationing with his family in Greece.

On George's death, Telemachus Demoulas took control.

The family feud over control of the company burst onto the public scene in 1990, when Arthur S. Demoulas, a son of George, filed a complaint that Telemachus Demoulas was diverting assets from the chain into businesses solely owned by his branch of the family. After one of the longest, costliest, and nastiest court battles in the state's legal history, Telemachus Demoulas was eventually forced to pay George's relatives $206 million. The judge awarded 50.5% of the shares, a controlling interest, to George's heirs.

Shareholders on George's side of the family

Shareholders on Telemachus' side of the family

In early 2008, George's daughter-in-law Rafaela votes in favor of Telemachus' son, Arthur T., in a board election. Arthur T. is made president of the business.

In June 2013, Rafaela switches her vote, giving Arthur S. control of the board. A year later, at Arthur S.'s urging, board fires Arthur T., replacing him with co-CEOs Felicia Thornton and James Gooch.

On Wednesday, Arthur T. Demoulas offers to buy the 50.5 percent share controlled by opposing relatives to regain control of the fractured company.

BENNIE DiNARDO, JAMES ABUNDIS, Patrick Garvin/Globe Staff

Summary: Arthur T. Demoulas’s bid to buy the Market Basket grocery chain is one of several offers discussed in recent months by supermarket rivals and other investors who have said they would pay between $2.8 billion and $3.3 billion for the company, according to two people briefed on the matter.


Leven Rambin and Jim Parrack

Jim Parrack and Leven Rambin are engaged!

star, who took the stage alongside friend

this summer, has popped the question to the

actress, his rep confirms exclusively to PEOPLE.

The couple began dating in the spring, and Parrack, 33, divorced his wife of six years in June after separating in September.

Leven, 24, has also appeared on

. This will be her first marriage.

Summary: The actors have been dating since the spring


The rumors were true—Apple is indeed releasing a smartwatch. The Apple Watch (sorry, “iWatch” fans) will be the first big new product line Apple has introduced since the iPad in 2010, and the first under the leadership of Tim Cook as CEO.

Like the iPad, iPhone and iWatch before it, the Apple Watch will enter a market where other tech companies have tried and failed to reach a mass audience. As with those earlier products, Apple hopes that a mixture of sleek hardware design and easy-to-use software will convince millions to buy a device they never even knew they needed.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Apple Watch:

You Need an iPhone to Use It

Like many smartwatches, the Apple Watch is meant to be used in conjunction with a smartphone. Think of it as as an easier-to-reach display that can relay information from your phone—when someone sends you a text, for instance, the Apple Watch can display the message on its screen for easier access. Though the watch was unveiled along with the iPhone 6, it will also be compatible with the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.

It’s Expensive and It Won’t Be Out Soon

Shocker—Apple is introducing a gadget at the very high end of the category’s price range. The Apple Watch’s retail price will start at $349 when it launches early next year. Samsung’s Galaxy Gear retailed for $299 last fall, while the Kickstarter-funded Pebble smartwatch costs $150. Apple products typically sell at a premium, which helps the company maintain its huge margins.

Everyone’s favorite yellow emoticons will have more verve on the Apple Watch. Users will be able to customize the facial expressions of emojis by touching different portions of the figure’s face. For instance, users can touch the emoji’s mouth to widen its smile or tap its eyebrows to raise them higher. The 3D figures spring to life before being texted off to a friend also using an Apple Watch. The redesigned emojis are a way to compensate for the fact that the Apple Watch screen is prohibitively small for sending traditional text message to friends. In addition to animated emojis, Apple Watch will analyze incoming texts and present a selection of potential responses that might make sense in context. Users can also use the phone’s microphones to dictate text.

It’s Compatible With Apple Pay

The new device is part of Apple’s broader scheme to replace your physical credit card through Apple Pay, a service that allows people to buy products through the press of a button on their iPhone 6 or Apple Watch. Utilizing Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, the devices will be able to communicate with payment systems at participating retailers using credit card information they already have tied to their iTunes accounts.

So far, McDonald’s, Staples, and Macy’s are among the companies that have agreed to accept Apple Pay.

It’s Using the Watch Dial in a Creative Way

The iPod’s click wheel was an innovation that simplified the chore of navigating through a thousand songs on an MP3 player. Apple hopes it’s hit on similar design magic by turning the traditional watch dial—now the “Digital Crown,” in Apple PR-speak—into a button that can be used to navigate the watch face. Through the dial, users will be able to zoom in and out on the screen, as well as scroll up and down, without obscuring the watch’s small surface. It also serves as the home button and the way to call up Siri, who will return as the Apple Watch’s digital assistant.

It’s Got a Boatload of Fitness Features

Fitness apps are seen as key to gaining a foothold in the wearables market. At the Apple Watch unveiling, Apple heavily promoted the ability of the watch to be a personal trainer as well as a communications device. The Apple Watch will use an accelerometer and GPS technology to constantly track the activities of its wearer, whether he or she is jogging, cycling or on a leisurely walk. The watch will also encourage users to meet basic fitness standards like standing up a bit during each hour and getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day.

It Has Three Different Models in Two Sizes

The Apple Watch will come in three different styles. There’s the basic Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Sport, which will have a sweat-resistant wrist strap and the Apple Watch Edition, which will come in an 18-karat gold watch case. All of them will be available in two different sizes of either 38 mm or 42 mm for the watch face. The watches will all be customisable with easily changeable wrist straps. Expect these colorful straps to become the iPhone cases of the wearables era.

You Can Send Someone Your Heartbeat

Apple spent a lot of time at its press event talking about how the Apple Watch is the most personal device it’s ever created. Case in point: a user can “send” someone else their heartbeat by pressing two fingers to the Apple Watch screen to allow it to measure a pulse. Users can also share sketches, sound recordings and wrist-based love-taps for other forms of 21st-century flirtation.

Apple claims that the technology inside its watch will allow it to both give and receive tactile feedback with quite a bit of subtlety. The vibration system, called Taptic Engine, provides haptic feedback that varies based on the context—for instance, the device would vibrate differently depending on whether you needed to make a right or a left turn while using a navigation app. The Apple Watch’s touch screen will also be able to differentiate between a tap and a press, which would should present more control options on the very small amount of available real estate.

Apple Still Hasn’t Revealed a Bunch of Important Information

With the Apple Watch not slated for release until 2015, Apple still has a lot of questions to answer. How’s the battery life? The fact that the company crowed about the iPhone 6’s improved battery life but was silent on Apple Watch may not be a good sign. We also want to know whether it’s water resistant, whether there will be a version for lefties and which app developers will be on board at launch.

Summary: It's coming out early next year


2Day FM hosts Michael Christian and Mel Greig. (AAP)

Neither of the two radio DJs who made a prank phone call to Kate Middleton's hospital in late 2012 will give evidence at the inquest into the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha.

Westminster Council has confirmed that Australians Mel Greig and Michael Christian won't give evidence at this week's inquest either in person or via video-link.

It is expected that nine witnesses will appear at the Royal Courts of Justice in London but they won't be identified ahead of the inquest.

Michael Christian and Mel Greig talk to Tracy Grimshaw.

It's likely the duty nurse who gave the DJs details of the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition will give evidence anonymously.

Other witnesses could include the colleague and security officer who found Ms Saldanha's body at staff quarters near the hospital.

Former King Edward VII hospital chief executive John Lofthouse may be present alongside the lead police investigator.

The matron in charge at the time could also be called to help examine Ms Saldanha's state of mind after the hoax.

The inquest into Jacintha Saldanha's death will start this week.

Southern Cross Austereo, which in early 2013 won the right to be represented at the inquest, has submitted evidence.

Westminster Coroner Fiona Wilcox will preside over the inquest which will likely be conducted without a jury.

Dr Wilcox could deliver her verdict immediately or she could take weeks to consider the evidence.

The inquest, which was originally scheduled for May 2013, will finally begin on Thursday. If additional time is required it could extend into Friday.

Ms Saldanha, 46, was found dead in her staff accommodation on December 7, 2012, just days after answering a call inquiring about Prince William's pregnant wife who was suffering acute morning sickness.

The mother-of-two was the first nurse to answer the call by Greig and Christian who pretended to be the Queen and Prince Charles.

Ms Saldanha passed them on to a second nurse on the ward who was duped into giving out details of Kate's condition.

Jacinta Saldanha's daughter Lisha, husband Ben Barboza and son Junal.

Ms Greig initially intended to give evidence at the inquest.

But in an interview aired in June she revealed the incident had destroyed her confidence and left her feeling "so much blame and so much guilt".

She said she was depressed and the Saldanha family remained always on her mind.

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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Summary: Nine witnesses will give evidence at the inquest into the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha but DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian won't be among them.


Paul Davis's handwriting was copyrighted for some years by the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, appearing in IBM campaigns, among others. Essentially, everything written in his scrawled block capitals - the typeface of the juvenile or the enraged - was owned by Mammon. The content of Davis's own work, on the other hand, is essentially the opposite of advertising; drawings of purloined images and found phrases are dashed off and held up as incriminating evidence of human frailty or malevolence, rather than something to be coveted.

The Wapping restaurant is garlanded with drawings, hung above the decommissioned industrial machinery like dirty laundry aired in public. Davis's crude cartoons and urgent text relay overheard conversations, oblique imaginings or politicised stances as hit-and-miss as any observational comedy. They pinpoint the ugly and vile-minded or are, at best, simply mischievous: an altercation with a gun is captioned "modern political disagreement"; elsewhere diners are offered alternative re-creation by way of a small dirty-word crossword. Davis is not buffing up the patina of life into art, but letting humanity ooze down through his cynical mind onto the paper.

Davis is better known as a cartoonist and illustrator, but in the main exhibition space he has made his first sculpture. A drawing of a tree has been projected, traced and roughly rendered in wood to loom upright in the power station's huge defunct water tank. Spotlights throw expressionist shadows onto the walls while carrier bags, blown by large fans, frisk about. This is a mute work compared with Davis's demonic lampoons of advertisements. These obnoxiously bad drawings of glamorous models in luxury goods ads and pie charts comparing "wow factors" reveal a deep-seated mistrust of advertising's methods. The question is, though, whether Davis is attempting the subversion of a system from within, or devising amusing diversions for the already damned.

· Until August 14. Details: 020-7680 2080.

Summary: Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, London


Fenway Park has seen a lot of non-baseball events over the years. The iconic ballpark has played host to college and pro hockey, Bruce Springsteen, and a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But not Shakespeare. Yet.

The Bard and baseball make for strange bedfellows, to borrow a coinage from “The Tempest.” Commonwealth Shakespeare Company looks to change this with an unprecedented event Friday: an evening of Shakespeare, staged just above the Red Sox dugout.

As far as the troupe can reckon, it’ll be the first professional Shakespeare performance in a major league ballpark. But the setting, where the shouts of fans and the cries of vendors typically fill the air, could be just right for the world’s best-loved — and perhaps most-feared, among the unconverted — playwright.

“Shakespeare was a populist writer. He wasn’t just an elite, white, upper-class writer. He wrote for the masses,” says CSC founding artistic director Steven Maler. “There were brawls in barrooms about interpretations of Shakespeare.”

As Maler makes his case, he sits in an otherwise deserted row of seats on the first-base side of the field, just a few rows behind the Sox dugout. The weekday morning is overcast, but the impeccably manicured grass on the field still seems to sparkle from this vantage point. The Green Monster looms as a vivid backdrop. Maler has just enjoyed an unusual view for a fan, standing on the field briefly and peering right inside the empty dugout, which his actors will pass through when entering or exiting the stage. (The phone to the bullpen, though, will offer no relief if someone forgets a line.)

“Shakespeare at Fenway” features a lineup of The Bard’s heavy hitters — scenes from such well-loved plays as “Hamlet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” There will also be a handful of songs, including some that were inspired by Shakespeare (including selections from “Kiss Me, Kate” and “West Side Story”) and others adapted from song lyrics found in plays like “Twelfth Night.”

Maler will direct a cast of 20 actors, most with resumes including work on Broadway and in film. Many have appeared in CSC’s free performances on Boston Common, but there are some company newcomers as well. Christian Coulson (“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”), Max von Essen (“Evita” on Broadway), and Mike O’Malley (“Glee”) are among the performers.

The roster of scenes was still coming together about a week before the performance, and rehearsal time was limited. The tech crew wasn’t due to get into the space (and attend to such details as building a stage and hanging the lighting rig) until the day before the show. Maler says the event originated about three years ago with a remark by then-Mayor Thomas M. Menino to Red Sox principal owner John Henry that he needed some Shakespeare at the park. (Henry also owns the Globe.)

Veteran Broadway actress Kerry O’Malley, a New Hampshire native (and sister of Mike), will sing a song and reprise a scene from CSC’s production this summer of “Twelfth Night.” It won’t be her first time on the field: She sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a Sox game last year and just recently took a swing at “O Canada” when the Toronto Blue Jays were in town.

“These plays can play anywhere. You don’t need to be on a stage in the dark,” she says in a telephone interview. “And Fenway is such a magical, beautiful setting that I think there’s going to be some tremendous alchemy that happens by being there.”

O’Malley likens Fenway to the “wooden O” Shakespeare cited in the prologue to “Henry V,” in reference to the Globe Theatre, where many of his plays were performed.

Much as that famous speech exhorts audiences to use their imagination and create “the vasty fields of France” onstage, the actors on Friday will rely on Shakespeare’s rich language to set the scene. The stage, to be built about a foot above the dugout, will be mostly bare, and uncovered. Lighting will be basic. Costumes will be subtle.

Though the performance is an expensive production (Maler says it will be “very good” if CSC breaks even on the night), the company says the spare approach is a design decision meant to take best advantage of the unique venue.

“With most concerts that come in, they take over the space and redefine it for their event. We’re really trying to incorporate the ballpark into our event,” production manager Jo Williams says. “We have this gorgeous, huge backdrop of the ballpark. How do we preserve that feeling of being at Fenway Park — which is something we really wanted to do — but still create a theater space?”

“Shakespeare at Fenway” comes on the heels of CSC’s 19th summer of performing in Boston. The company is billing this event as the kickoff to its 20th season. Though some complimentary tickets were offered (and gobbled up within hours of becoming available), most are priced at $35 — far less than it would cost to sit in the same seats for a Red Sox game, but a break from CSC’s practice of offering up free Shakespeare for the people at Boston Common.

Maler quips that his troupe will only mount a show at Fenway every 20 years. But he would like to see this event start a trend.

“My hope is that it’s something that sweeps the country,” he says, “and we have great evenings of Shakespeare at ballparks across the country.”

Summary: Classical poetry and baseball make for strange bedfellows, to borrow a coinage from “The Tempest.” Commonwealth Shakespeare Company looks to change this with an unprecedented event Friday: an evening of Shakespeare, staged just above the Red Sox dugout.


Bleak comic dramas about screwed-up families in the suburbs of New York starring ex-cast members of “Saturday Night Live”? That’s apparently this week’s micro-genre for movies opening in the Boston area. At the multiplexes is the glossy, shallow “This is Where I Leave You,” with Tina Fey stretching (a little) as a disaffected middle sister somewhere in Westchester. “The Skeleton Twins,” lower of budget and less plastic of script, arrives at local art-houses starring Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader as disaffected siblings coming to terms with long-buried traumas across the river, in Nyack.

Of the two, “Twins” is the better bet, even as it sticks to certain clichés of Sundance-level cinema and reminds you that “indie film” can be a limiting formula of its own. But the problems of the Dean twins, Maggie (Wiig) and Milo (Hader), aren’t as easily boxed and labeled as in the more commercial movie, and the sense of real emotional wreckage runs deeper. Maybe it’s just the lighting.

“The Skeleton Twins” begins with a coincidence that’s gruesome and a little too cute: Milo slashing his wrists in Los Angeles while Maggie contemplates swallowing a fistful of pills back in New York. Or perhaps it’s less than a coincidence, since we learn that the twins’ father committed suicide when they were adolescents and that they’ve been (barely) coping ever since.

Rescued, Milo returns East and resumes a decade-stalled relationship with his sister, a prickly prospect from the get-go. Maggie has buried her despair under the surface of an apparently happy marriage to the sweet, unironic Lance (Luke Wilson), but the darkness keeps surfacing elsewhere, in compartmentalized hidden corners of her life. Milo, gay and unattached, a failed actor in LA, still broods over the forbidden high school affair he had with closeted English teacher Rich (Ty Burrell of “Modern Family,” very tightly wound).

If this sounds melodramatic, it’s less so in the playing, and the bitter, funny dialogue by director Craig Johnson and co-writer Mark Heyman gives the two stars room to work both comic and dramatic sides of their gifts. In “Bridesmaids” and lesser films like “Girl Most Likely,” Wiig has shown she can ground her characters in shared reality (as opposed to Gilly), and Hader is one of the best things in the current “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” — whichever version you see — as the hero’s slacker chef friend. Along with Will Forte in last year’s “Nebraska,” they’re proof that the recent graduating class of “SNL” has unexpected range and ambition.

Would that “The Skeleton Twins” were fully worthy of them. Low-fi and engaging, sometimes mordantly hilarious and at other moments genuinely touching, the movie suffers both from the Flat Hipster Affect that can stunt independent films and from more calculated mainstream touches. The sequence where one character lifts another out of a funk by getting them to lip-synch to a cheesy oldie (in this case, Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”)? It’s done. It’s over. We need to move on.

Yet an earlier scene in which the twins deal with their mother, a neglectful New Age narcissist played by Joanna Gleason, goes a long way toward explaining why these two clutch their cynicism like a security blanket. At such times, the film feels like a cautious rethink of sibling dramas like “You Can Count on Me” and “The Savages” — the hurt is there and the filmmakers understand the emotions, often impossible to put into words, that keep families forever bound and forever chafing. But they’re wary of making anyone really look bad, and that keeps “The Skeleton Twins” from being very good.

Summary: Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader star as brother and sister in the comedy-drama “The Skeleton Twins.”


FORTUNE — Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, has attacked the notion that President Obama and his policies are creating jobs. On Friday, Welch in a message sent through Twitter accused the administration, referring to it as “these Chicago guys,” of changing the number in the monthly jobs report, which showed that the unemployment rate had fallen to the lowest level since Obama took office. In the past, Welch has said that Mitt Romney’s business experience makes him more qualified to be able to create jobs from the Oval office than Obama.

“Romney oughta’ wipe [the election] out,” Welch told CNN’s Piers Morgan in May. “When you look at [Romney's] qualifications, compare it to someone who was handing out leaflets as a community organizer.”

Welch, like Romney, has had a storied business career. Nonetheless, when it comes to job creation, Obama’s record appears to far better than the GE executive, who spent two decades on top of the one of the world’s largest companies.

MORE: Among financial professionals, Romney trounces Obama

GE lost nearly 100,000 jobs while Welch was at the helm of the company — a tenure that spanned two of the most robust periods of economic growth in American business history. Welch, who along with his wife Suzy has written articles for FORTUNE, took over as CEO of GE in 1981. At the time, the industrial giant had 411,000 employees. When Welch left the company 20 years later, it had just 313,000 employees.

(Update: Welch quits as a columnist for Fortune)

“The effect of Welch’s massive restructuring was to put thousands of GE employees out of work,” wrote Robert Slater in Jack Welch and the GE Way.

President Obama, on the other hand, since taking office during a financial crisis appears to have been either a modest job creator, or a slight job loser depending on the data you are looking at. In January 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s survey of individuals, there were just over 142 million people employed in the country. On Friday, the BLS reported that number had risen to nearly 143 million in September, for a gain of about 800,000 jobs, or less than 1%, since Obama became president.

But even if go with the BLS’s other survey, the one that polls employers, which some economists say is more narrow because it misses, for example, people who are self-employed, the economy has only lost 61,000 jobs under Obama, which still beats Welch’s record at GE.

MORE: 5 best conspiracy theories debunking the jobs report

Welch says revenue increased fivefold and income tenfold while he headed GE. The company’s market cap soared by 30 times. A $100 invested in GE when Welch became CEO of the company in April 1981 would have been worth $5,112 when he left.

What’s more, Welch says a good portion of the headcount reduction when he was at GE was not the result of layoffs, but sales. For instance, when GE sold its aerospace division in 1992 to Martin Marietta it transferred 37,000 jobs in the deal. At the time, though, Norman Augustine, then CEO of Martin Marietta, told the New York Times that the deal would almost certainly result in layoffs.

But even if you discount the jobs Welch claims were not eliminated but transferred to other employers, GE still appears to have cut about 30,000 positions during Welch’s tenure.

“We changed the mix,” says Welch. “We sold a lot of labor intensive manufacturing businesses in favor of technology businesses.”

Interestingly, it appears that Welch’s jobs record roughly follows Obama’s. In the first four years Welch was CEO of GE, the company lost 112,000 positions. GE’s headcount finally bottomed in 1994 at 216,000 employees, or nearly 200,000 less than when Welch took over as CEO.

MORE: Romney and the 47%: Part of the same tax problem

Welch added jobs over the next seven years before giving up the title of CEO in 2001, but, unlike Obama, not nearly enough to make up for those that were lost in his earlier years. What’s more, only 12,000 of the 97,000 jobs Welch added at GE during that time were in the U.S. The rest were overseas.

Of course, comparing Welch’s job record as CEO of one public company and Obama’s in the Oval Office is really not fair. As President of the United States, Obama does not get to count the jobs that the recovery of the U.S. economy surely created overseas in the past two years toward his total. Nor does Obama get to exclude the jobs that were shipped overseas.

But what’s clear from looking at the tenure of Welch and business leaders like him is that the notion that being successful in business translates into knowing how to, or have even have much experience, creating jobs is misleading at best.

“I’ve never passed myself off as an employment agency,” says Welch.

Summary: Jack Welch's hiring history isn't much to tweet about.


Shocked that Liberty Mutual paid its former chief executive roughly $50 million a year, three Massachusetts senators have proposed budget amendments to discourage other mutual companies from awarding outsized pay packages in the future.

State Senator Brian A. Joyce, Democrat of Milton, would require mutual companies, both insurers and banks, to publicly disclose compensation for top executives, just as publicly traded companies are required to do. Senator Mark C. Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat, would give policyholders at mutual insurers a chance to vote on executive compensation, similar to the “say on pay” votes by stockholders of public companies, which was mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul bill.

Senator Patricia D. Jehlen, a Democrat from Somerville, would bar directors at mutual companies from serving on compensation committees — which set CEO pay — if they have a conflict of interest, such as working for the chief executive. The measure would also require most directors on the board of directors to be independent — meaning they do not work for the CEO or have other conflicts.

“I hope we can do something to protect policyholders, the supposed owners of mutual companies,” said Jehlen.

The proposals are expected to be voted on as early as Wednesday.

Try as I might to leave the Liberty Mutual lunacy behind, someone keeps drawing me back, and that someone is Governor Deval Patrick.

Mutual insurance companies and banks are collectively owned for the benefit of their policyholders and depositors. While the Securities and Exchange Commission is explicitly charged with protecting shareholders in publicly traded companies, there is no similar agency to protect the ownership interests of policyholders or depositors.

Concerns about oversight of mutual companies were spurred earlier this year when the Globe reported that former Liberty Mutual Holding Co. chief executive Edmund F. “Ted” Kelly collected roughly $200 million in his last four years as chief executive. Kelly stepped down as CEO in June 2011, but still serves as chairman of the board of directors.

The Boston mutual insurance giant said the pay was inflated because Kelly cashed in performance incentives that he collected over nearly two decades with the company.

“I was simply stunned by the pay received by Liberty Mutual’s chief executive,” said Joyce, the Milton Democrat. “By any objective measure it was obscene.”

Some mutuals are required by state insurance regulators to file basic information about executive compensation, but Joyce’s proposal would affect more companies, include more details, and require them to disclose the information directly to customers, in addition to regulators. Joyce said mutual companies exist for the benefit of their members and therefore, members have the right to know how profits are being distributed.

Liberty Mutual spokesman John Cusolito said the company was aware of the amendments and thought “there are some provisions that make sense.” The company has also said it plans to start publicly reporting executive pay in a format similar to that used by public companies starting early next year.

MassMutual Financial Group, a major mutual insurance company based in Springfield, said it “expects to work with the Legislature to better understand its perspective on this matter.”

It’s not clear whether the legislation will be adopted. Most budget amendments fail, though some later become law either as standalone bills or part of broader legislation. Governor Deval Patrick’s administration and Senate President Therese Murray declined to comment.

Summary: Shocked that Liberty Mutual paid its former chief executive roughly $50 million a year, three Massachusetts senators proposed budget amendments to discourage other mutual companies from awarding outsized pay packages. Senator Brian A. Joyce would require mutual companies to publicly disclose compensation for top executives. Senator Mark C. Montigny would givepolicyholders a chance to vote on executive compensation. Senator Patricia D. Jehlen would bar directors at mutual holding companies from serving on compensation committees if they have a conflict of interest.


Rapper and entrepreneur Shawn “Jay Z” Carter has acquired a stake in a champagne brand that sells for $300 a pop, becoming the latest celebrity to enter the profitable and trendy business of alcoholic beverages.

Jay Z has bought a stake in the Armand de Brignac brand, an interest that was sold by New York-based wine and spirits company Sovereign Brands. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The rapper’s relationship with Armand de Brignac has existed since at least 2009, when a bottle of the champagne was featured in the “Show Me What You Got” music video. In that video, Jay Z is seen dismissing a bottle of Cristal in a casino, and instead approving of a golden bottle of Armand de Brignac. That endorsement ultimately led the then obscure family-owned champagne label, which was first unveiled in 2006, to nearly sell out its entire production run in 2009.

“We have had a wonderful relationship with Jay Z throughout the years since he first discovered Armand de Brignac,” said Yvonne Lardner, a spokeswoman for Sovereign Brands. “He became interested in owning the brand and made us an offer we simply couldn’t refuse.”

Jay Z’s interest in the high-end Armand de Brignac label had a chance to thrive after the rapper had a falling out with the owners of Cristal, another pricy champagne that has been featured in my rap songs. The makers of Cristal weren’t too keen on the business that rappers and their fans brought to the Cristal brand, comments that led Jay Z to pull Cristal off the shelves of his line of nightclubs. The rapper also generated headlines for his endorsement of D’USSE Cognac.

Linking celebrities to alcoholic brands, either through endorsements or investments, has been a fairly popular practice in the booze business. Retired soccer star David Beckham earlier this year teamed up with Diageo to launch a new Scotch whisky, while Justin Timberlake, George Clooney and Sean “Diddy” Combs have all recently jumped on the tequila bandwagon. And as Fortune reported earlier this year, even 1990s teen musical act Hanson is getting into the business with the launch of Mmmhops beer.

Pricer alcoholic beverages have generally outsold less expensive offerings in recent years, especially within the spirits industry where high-end Scotches, bourbons and tequilas have sold well. But the champagne category overall hast struggled lately, with the industry’s sales falling by 4.4% in 2013 according to Shanken News Daily, which quoted data from the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) trade group. Most of that decline was due to weakness in France and other European markets.

Summary: The rapper has purchased a stake in the Armand de Brignac brand.


Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer has performed in Milan, Berlin, London, and 31 other cities on two tours with the band this year.

His next stop? North Attleborough.

Kramer, a self-proclaimed java connoisseur, launched a coffee brand last year as a second career. Now the 64-year-old rocker intends to open his first coffee shop, Joey Kramer’s Rockin’ & Roastin’ Café, at the intersection of Routes 1 and 1A in early spring. Kramer says the cafe will serve as the flagship location of a business he hopes to eventually grow into a national franchise.

“It’s going to be a coffee house with a rock-star edge,” he said, “pretty much like nothing anyone has ever seen.”

The 1,500-square-foot shop seems better suited for Las Vegas than Massachusetts. It was designed around a “rock royalty” theme with plush furniture, dark crimson tones, and ornate moldings and fixtures. Rock memorabilia will line the ceilings, and screens flash legendary concerts.

Kramer’s drum set from a recent world tour will be lit up and visible from the road. The coffee brand’s dragon logo with illuminated eyes will be on a large sign outside near a 1,500-square-foot seasonal patio.

Signs play off the band’s hit singles, such as one reading “Walk This Way” to the bathroom and “Drive This Way” to the drive-through. Then there’s a baked good called “Janie’s Got a Bun.”

The drummer said his longtime friend Ernie Boch Jr., the car dealer, found the store’s location. Kramer partnered with Ron Mann, his brother-in-law and the current chief executive of Rockin’ & Roastin’, and Frank Cimler, his lawyer and the brand’s president, on the flagship shop.

Meanwhile, Kramer’s coffee brand is now in nearly 2,000 stores since it debuted a year and a half ago and he said sales are on track to hit $2 million this year. Kramer said he’s in talks with retailers overseas to offer his coffee in about 25 cities.

“The fact remains that I’ll put my coffee up against anything that is out there,” Kramer said. “From Starbucks to Peet’s to Dunkin’. That’s why I put my name on it and why I’m working so hard.”

The decor in the cafe will be rock-star lush, with plush furniture and walls decorated in black and crimson.

Summary: Joey Kramer, a self-proclaimed java connoisseur, launched a coffee brand last year as a second career. Now the 64-year-old rocker intends to open his first coffee shop, Joey Kramer’s Rockin’ & Roastin’ Café, in North Attleboro next spring. Kramer says the cafe will serve as the flagship location of a business he hopes to eventually grow into a national franchise