Corey Haim - Corey Feldman skips Haim's funeral, issues new statement

Corey Feldman, the best friend and fellow 80s child star with the late Corey Haim did not attend Haim's funeral today, Tuesday, according to TMZ.com, but Corey Feldman did not attend. The funeral was held at Steeles Memorial Chapel in Thornhill, Toronto, Canada. Corey Feldman did issue this new statement on his blog:

A LETTER FOR THE GRAVE… (an open letter to Corey Haim)

Dear Corey.,

This is for you on the day of your funeral. First off I am so sorry I am not there with you today. By that I mean my physical body is not with your physical body. However you know that my heart is right at your side. You also know the only reason I am truly not there is out of respect for your mother and her wishes to minimize the media attention as much as possible. I want your family to have a calm peaceful day. Hopefully we will not see one shot of the funeral on the news. Just know I am at home today projecting positive energy for you and your passing.

I miss you so much already. When I think of something funny I don’t know who to tell it to. I find myself trying to call you but then remember your not there. I think about the new movies we will soon be doing together and then suddenly realise that the dream is over. I always feared this day would come, and often rehearsed how to face it. But once confronted with the reality of it, it’s so much more painful than I could have ever imagined. Nobody will ever understand the brotherhood we shared. Nobody will ever get the inside jokes we told. Nobody will understand the magic of 22/222 . Nobody will ever know how to do the secret Corey handshake. Nobody will ever make me laugh as hard as you did. Nobody will ever make me fight as hard as you did. Nobody will ever challenge me the way you did. Nobody will ever need me the way you did.

My mission in life became saving yours...more at Corey Feldman's blog.

It's a hard note to read. Losing friends is awful and it's compounded by the impact Corye Haim had on the World. As this blogger has been a palbearer too many times to think of, my sympathies go out to Corey Feldman and the family and friends of Corey Haim.

Earthquakes in Los Angeles, Oregon, and Alaska all 4 on Richter

Media attention has been on the Tuesday Los Angeles Earthquake that was 4.4 on the Richter scale, but there were earthquakes in Los Angeles and in Oregon and Alaska and all at or over 4 on the Richter Scale over the last two days.

According to the USGS, the Los Angeles Earthquake was located 18.9 miles below Pico Rivera, CA. But it wasn't the only quake over 4 to hit the West Coast over the past two days.

A larger earthquake, at 4.6, was located at Bandon, Oregon, a town of just over 2,800 people. While that quake hit on March 15th, it went largely unreported.

And Alaska has been the epicenter of eight earthquakes in the past two days and all over 3 on the Richter Scale - this too was largely unreported. The largest quake was today, Tuesday, and just after the LA quake. It was located in Rampart, AK and was 4 on the Richter Scale.

If your curious, check the information yourself here: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/quakes_big.php. It's rather alarming.

The Alaska region has faced 245 earthquakes over the last week alone; see: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/special/Alaska.php. If I'm reading the data correctly, Alaska's the most active area in the World over the last week, as of this writing.

Stay tuned.

Erin Andrews peephole video searched for all over again

In the wake of the news that Michael David Barnett, Erin Andrews' stalker, was sentenced to 30 months in jail, Erin Andrews peephole video is searched for all over again. As of this writing, the term is number five on Google Trends. With that, we have two problems, for every Michael David Barnett who would stalk Erin Andrews to make the videos, it seems there are thousands of people would support the action via search.

Fame is a double-edged sword. As Days of Our Lives star David Leisure said at Ed Lozzi's Night of 100 Stars Party in Beverly Hills on Oscar Sunday, fame can draw some creepy people and episodes...



As David Leisure said, "It took some time for me to get used to that everyone thought they knew who I was, even though I didn't know who they were."

Erin Andrews has seen this first hand.

With all of the revealing photos and videos of women who want to be seen naked running around the Internet on Playboy.com, why search for the video of someone who doesn't want to be seen?

Wild.

Stay tuned.

David Beckham's injury blocks MLS LA Galaxy and World Cup in 2010

When it was announced in 2007, the deal that sent World Super Star Soccer Player David Beckham - The Tiger Woods of Soccer without the scandal - to the LA Galaxy of Major League Soccer seemed like a good one.

But since then, Milan's annual "borrowing" of David Beckham and his other flirtations have arguably reduced his value both as a player and a marketing draw in America.

This time, a injury to Becks left Achilles' tendon on Sunday, and while playing for AC Milan in its 1-0 victory over Chievo Verona was the culprit.

The Milan injury will keep Beckham out for six months, and will not return to action until September at best.

Why the LA Galaxy and the MLS allowed David Beckham, their biggest draw and 'six million dollar man', to be essentially a Worldwide soccer tool is beyond comprehension. But what's done is done; Becks is out for much of 2010.

That includes The World Cup, sort of. The Telegraph UK reports that Fabio Capello, manager of the English National Soccer Team, has made an offer for Beckham to be part of his World Cup backroom staff.

Erin Andrews - ESPN Reporter's stalker Barrett gets 30 months in jail

Michael David Barrett, who thought it was OK to stalk ESPN Reporter and Dancing With The Stars contestant Erin Andrews and secretly make videos of her as she changed clothes in her hotel room and then posted them on the Internet, was sentenced to 30 months in jail Monday, according to the LA Times.

Michael David Barrett pled guilty to having the intent to "harass or to cause substantial emotional distress" to Andrews. Barrett tried to sell his photos to the website TMZ.com and to other online publications. And when the Erin Andrews videos hit the Internet, CBS News and Bill O'Reilly had either actual or still frame photos from the videos as part of their telecasts!



Barrett shot video of Erin Andrews in hotel rooms in three states as she traveled for ESPN. Barrett would book a room next to Andrews and do his work from there. Why the hotels would give a room to a person who asked to be next to Erin Andrews is one for the books.

Andrews thinks her stalker's 30-month sentence is "not enough" and said she's at "the angry stage." I really don't blame her. Stalking of celebrities either online via email or in the way Erin Andrews was is just plain evil. The trouble is law enforcement doesn't do enough to make hard examples of the criminals who engage in such practices.

Even if a person doesn't like Erin Andrews or me, it doesn't give them the right to bother us. Frankly, this is where I do admire Rush Limbaugh (Did I say that?). Rush certainly gets a lot of the same kind of treatment (Well, OK. Except for the video camera thing) that celebrities get. But Limbaugh manages to roll on; Rush's $400 million Clear Channel contract buys him a lot of security and legal projection, too.

Stay tuned.

FBI should arrest cyberstalker with email address topprofster@gmail.com

The one thing that this blogger can't stand are cyberstalkers. There's one person in particular who's really not taking the fact that his actions are against the law seriously.

Whoever the person is and wherever they are, they reportedly have the time waste. They've informed me they're at some office. They think it's funny.

What I did was file a cyberstalking complaint with the FBI today. But even with my emails asking the person to stop, they persist. Simply because they think nothing's going to happen to them.

Really not a smart person, or a good person for that matter.

Hopefully the FBI sees this and takes action. The only information I have is the person's email:

topprofster@gmail.com

I just want the person to go away; preferably to jail.

Rielle Hunter hates GQ photos of Rielle Hunter

After agreeing to be interviewed by and pose for GQ Magazine, Rielle Hunter, John Edwards' mistress and mother to his new daughter, is letting the World know she hates her photos. According to Cristina Everett in the New York Daily News, Rielle Hunter "cried for two hours" when she saw what she says are repulsive photos in the GQ spread.

Wow, what's going on with Rielle Hunter? She agreed, obviously, to dress a certain way for the photo shoot. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the photos are going to turn out in a way that's sexually suggestive. What Rielle Hunter's doing is playing the old publicists trick of doing something outlandish, or racist, or in this case just plain awful, then saying 'I didn't know,' or 'It was misunderstood.' It's a ploy borne of celebs reacting to rapid Internet exposure and public comment. If they don't like the action, they say what Rielle Hunter's saying.

Don't believe it.

While this may work for other celebrities in helping their image - Rielle Hunter's just that now, a celebrity - it's not going to help with her public image, which is already in the tank. Again, Rielle Hunter's known for taking up with a married John Edwards, while his wife is battling cancer, then having a kid with her.

That's not something to be proud of.

Rielle Hunter interview in GQ about John Edwards affair is smarmy

The title above, Rielle Hunter interviewed in GQ about John Edwards affair , plays the story straight, but the real non-Internet title should be "Rielle Hunter makes it to the top of public fame on John Edwards back". Which, if you think of Rielle Hunter as being with "Johnny", as she calls him in the GQ interview, while he's on his back, has some ring of possible truth to it.

It's impossible to clearly view Rielle Hunter as a sympathetic character. Rielle has damaged the lives of four people - John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, and Andrew Young and his wife - and not to mention high-roller political donors and Edwards campaign staffers, just by getting sexually involved with John Edwards, not refusing to do so with a married man who has a cancer-stricken wife, and then having his love-child.

Yikes!

Somewhere along the way, America forgot about that, it seems, that she took up with a a married man who has a cancer-stricken wife. For Rielle Hunter to even want to bear her soul to any publication, pay or not, is shameful. For Rielle Hunter to then take a photo that shows her with bare abs and untied sweatpants is also shameful, but it tells the story of what Rielle will use to achieve fame.

It does not matter that John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, and Andrew Young and his wife have had their say. She's the hub in the wheel of controversy that was created. No Rielle Hunter, and no John Edwards affair. Regardless of Edwards' character, Hunter just plain could have said "no, Johnny"; instead she followed that famous song and said "Opps, Johnny."

What's weird about all of this is John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, and Andrew Young and his wife have all suffered, while Rielle Hunter rises to a such a level that she's earned a "Q rating."

As Don King would say, only in America!

Variety Mag picked apart by online media's fragmentation process

In the story of trade magazine Variety's release of Film Critic Todd McCarthy and Theater Critic David Rooney, the real issue is that the mag is being picked apart by online media's fragmentation process. And within that is a terrible misunderstanding of how media works in the 21st Century.

As blogs like TMZ.com and Variety's real competitor Nikke Finke's Deadline.com become more popular and abundant in number, Variety loses, or has lost, its exclusivity. That has not been replaced by a good technical understanding of how to get its news seen online over its competitors.

Variety is dying as its downsizing. Variety's laid off eight staff members including McCarthy and Rooney, and is stuck within an old media model. It's using the new standard for any old media company that wants to make sure it's seen as "getting" new media: a Facebook and YouTube accounts, and a @Variety Twitter account. But it lacks the full, interconnected and monetized social network platform and its obvious the newspaper's managers don't spend time growing their online system.

Variety's YouTube channel does not help its website. And some of the videos have been blocked by studios like Fox because the videos featured Fox content. Moreover, the Variety YouTube channel lacks ads of its own, and its obvious that Variety has done nothing to take advantage of the revenue-generating possibilities of becoming a YouTube Partner. And that's just for starters.

If Variety understood the idea of making sure its brand was on every platform imaginable, it would have avoided sacking its key employees. But what's happening is Variety, to be frank, obviously does not know what it's doing in the New Media space. A pay space, or velvet rope, will not work because Variety's content is not unique enough to demand such a pay system. It will not work.

Stay tuned.

John Landgraf, President FX Network - Skyline High '80

John Landgraf, President FX Network - Skyline High '80, originally uploaded by zennie62.

Skyline High Class of 1980 grads may remember this face but with a beard. Remember John Landgraf from Skyline High, Oakland, California, class of '80? He's now President of FX Networks and has been since 2005.

John Landgraf's produced many of FX Networks' most popular shows, like Karen Sisko, Reno 911, and 30 Days.

NCAA March Madness: NY Times' Pete Thamel thinks Cal's an easy upset

In the NCAA March Madness that is the NCAA Tournament, we have our own March Madness in the form of The New York Times' Pete Thamel, who wrote...

No. 8 California vs. No. 9 Louisville This is an easy “upset” as Louisville has more talent and depth.

What? Easy upset? Not only did Thamel show his own brand of East Coast March Madness (he may not even live in New York, by the way), he wrote a statement that openly invites one to think Cal has no business in the same building as Louisville.

Geez, even Louisville fans are quick to point to their weaknesses. Here's a post found on the Louisville Forum that looks as if it was written for The New York Times:

I think that you're a little off base here. Cal was a pre-season Top 10 team and played Kansas well on the road early in the season. Sure they played in a weak conference, but their resume isn't much worse than ours. Sure our RPI and SOS are solid, but the only tournament teams that we beat were Syracuse and ND. I would be shocked if Cal doesn't give us all that we can handle on Friday. I don't think we have alot of room to be questioning other teams resume's...there were alot of nervous Cards fans at 6:15pm today.

Read up, Pete Thamel. The bet here is egg on your face. How about this evaluation:

To the Cal fan: you will be glad to know that it's been quick guards, not big front lines, that have beat us this year. We try to press as much as possible, especially since we play 10-12 players every game. I dont think we've played a team all year that has played more players than us. We press full court when we make a basket and sometimes like to apply pressure in the half court. Our best D is zone but we switch a lot.

The bigger problem with our team is that we still don't have an identity. We have no go-to player Samuels will get 25 unstoppable points one game and will take two shots the next. Our two wins over Syracuse were led by two players who could go 4 games without playi g a minute and only diehard fans would notice. And if we start a game slowly, we are amazingly bad at getting going. We were absolutely blown out by Marquette and St. John's late in the year due to early droughts. If I were your coach, I would just emulate the Marquette game. Aggressively double-team Samardo when he gets a pass and it will lead to an abundance of turnovers. Get out in transition as much as possible because our transition D is clueless, then work the ball with passes on offense and you will eventually get am open perimeter shot.

One other unique deficiency of our team is an uncanny ability to lose loose balls and rebounds that were right in front of us. We lose at least 4 balls a game when it was right on someone's figertips. I can guarantee this will happen on Friday because it happens literally every game

Something else, the game starts late for Louisville, dinner time for Cal. Here's Pete Thamel's Twitter page so you can give him a hard time on Friday night not to mention all this week: @PeteThamelNYT

Friday night at 7 p.m. PST. Be there. Aloha!

Go Bears!

NCAA March Madness: Washington and Cal Pac-10 Champions?

March Madness, the 2010 version of NCAA's College Basketball Playoff season, is upon us. The Washington Huskies and the California Golden Bears, both Pac-10 champions, have landed bids in the NCAA Tournament. Now, the Bracketology experts comes out.

Washington and Cal join Duke, Vanderbilt, Kansas, Georgetown, Notre Dame, UTEP, BYU, Xavier, Oakland, Florida, Kansas St., North Texas, Villanova, Robert Norris, Morgan St., Texas, Wisconsin, Lehigh, N. Iowa, New Mexico St., Michigan St., Tennessee, San Diego St., Ohio, Oklahoma St., Georgia Tech, Temple, Cornell, Wofford, Clemson, Missouri, Texas A&M, Sam Houston, Baylor, St. Mary's, Richmond, Purdue, Sienna, and Louisville East Tenn. St., and Kentucky on the "Road to Indy" for the NCAA Final Four.

But what's confusing is two Pac-10 Champions? (Ok, this blogger's a Cal graduate, there's the bias disclaimer.) It's down right weird to have two Pac-10 Champions and makes a mockery of all of the battles waged through the season to be the Pac-10 Champion that Cal is. But on the other hand, with the dramatic Pac-10 Championship game that Cal came up on the wrong end of 79 to 75, the format did manage to produce two NCAA Tournament teams, whereas a standard season-only system would have gained just one. So the whining about that stops here - for now - as it's good for the Pac-10 Conference.

Cal's favored to beat Louisville in the Golden Bears' game at Jacksonville, and Washington's an 11-th seed against the 6th-seed Marquette Golden Eagles. Washington's not even considered as a possibility to beat Marquette by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and the New York Times' thinks Cal's an easy upset for Louisville.

The Pac-10, as usual, gets no respect, but Cal being "an easy upset" is an outrage. The NY Times Peter Themel, who seems to think he's a Bracketology expert, doesn't even give a detailed reason for his statement using the term "easy."

Grrrr. GO BEARS and... Go Huskies!