Night Before ups its score - Oscar eve party wraps up $6 million

By NICOLE LAPORTE - Variety.com, March 3, 2006

The annual Night Before party, held on Oscar eve at the Beverly Hills Hotel, continues its ascent as the hottest pre-Academy Awards ticket. This year's event has raised more than $6 million, up from $4 million last year.
Proceeds from the party benefit the Motion Picture & Television Fund. The Night Before accounts for more than a third of the $15 million the MPTF has raised over the last year.

"The numbers are staggering, given the fact that (the Night Before) didn't exist four years ago," said MPTF chief exec Ken Scherer.

Because of fire marshal-enforced safety requirements, guest list is limited to about 800. Among those who will be attending are Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, George Clooney, Jamie Foxx, Hilary Swank and Night Before host Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Producers, directors, studio executives and lawyers also will be part of the crowd. The only non-invitees are press agents and members of the press -- an attempt to keep things more personal and low-key.

"What we set out to do four years ago was provide an environment where people could talk and have conversations," Scherer said. "We wanted to make it a real community effort."

The Night Before was started by Katzenberg and Variety in 2002 as a charitable solution to what was always a fairly dull evening in Hollywood -- the night before the Oscars, when industryites are typically recovering from Friday night events, such as Ed Limato's pre-Oscar party, and preparing for post-Oscar fetes, such as the Vanity Fair party and the Governors Ball, held on Sunday.

Another tradition is the Night Before the Night Before, on Friday, when there'll be a dinner at Spago for sponsors. Border Grill chef-owners Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger will be on hand to teach guests how to make tamales; Mariah Carey will perform after dinner.

The number of Night Before corporate sponsors has grown by two and includes Variety, McDonald's, L'Oreal, Lexus, Hewlett-Packard, Target and AOL.

Scherer said the surge in raised funds resulted from the increase in sponsors, which each contribute $350,000, and from a greater number of contributors who made a five-year commitment of $10,000 a year to the MPTF (in exchange for getting their names placed on retirement cottages on the fund's Woodland Hills campus).

Tickets to the Night Before start at $25,000 for a group of four.

Katzenberg also has rallied to raise money.

"He's the man," Scherer said of the DreamWorks Animation head. "Jeffrey and (wife) Marilyn both step up and give the same amount that sponsors give. More importantly, his passion for this charity is so strong -- he just spends hours calling people and making sure people support the organization, which is so critical to our success."

Besides charity, of course, there's swag, and the Night Before ranked high on the free goodies list last year, with guests taking away expensive sneakers and computers. This year Lexus is giving away a car, Hewlett-Packard has donated 58-inch plasma TVs and color printers and AOL is giving away a Fender guitar.

The nonprofit MPTF, headquartered in Woodland Hills, was founded in 1921 to offer charitable relief for those in the film industry who had fallen on hard times. Today, the fund provides the industry with a full-scale residential retirement community and child-care center, as well as health care, human services and financial assistance.

Fomer FEMA Director Michael Brown on CNN - Now

The person who turned out to be a scapegoat for the failure of the President of The United States to respond to the Katrina Disaster, Michael Brown, is on CNN now telling his side of the story to Wolf Blizer and a CNN correspondent I who's name I don't know.

I got in this at the tail end, but it seemed that he's had a hard time but did respond to all of his questions. He also explained that he started a new consulting firm on Homeland Security and has clients. Why? He's seen it all from the best of times to the worst of times and knows what to do.

I just wonder how all of this is going to impact President Bush.

Collins and Other NFL Players Safe for Three More Days

The NFL extended the start of the Free Agency period by three days to give teams like the Oakland Raiders time to work out contract problems.

Rumor: Raiders To Release QB Kerry Collins Today

Quarterback Kerry Collins, whose cap value for '06 is $12.898 million, remains with the Raiders but he's expected to be among the cuts later today -- mostly for economic reasons.

The Raiders have until midnight to remove their current $14.8 million excess over the salary cap.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue Press Conference - Special League Meeting

This is from NFL Media.com. The big news to me is that 56 percent was never a number. Where did it come from?
New York Grand Hyatt Regency Hotel
March 2, 2006

Good morning. Obviously we concluded a short but important meeting with our owners. As I think you all know, we came here to explain to them why we're deadlocked with the Players Association. The Players Association has on the table a demand which doesn't recognize the reality of our league's economics today. It's a very excessive and unrealistic demand. So we went through that. The membership endorsed the conclusion that our labor committee -- the eight owners on our Management Council Executive Committee -- had reached when we met with them late yesterday afternoon and last evening. We are indeed deadlocked because of the excessive elements of the Players Association's economic demand and that demand did not provide a basis for any further negotiations. That conclusion of the Management Council Executive Committee was unanimously endorsed by the entire membership. Any questions?

Q: What is the difference between 56 (percent of revenues) and 60 (percent)?

PT: It's not the difference between 56 and 60. I don't know where those numbers come from. It's the fact that, in the last half dozen years, we've created a structure that has enabled us to build an unprecedented number of new stadiums, great stadiums, many of them with very large investments by owners and the league of private resources. Those stadiums, coupled with our TV revenues, have been the engine that has provided prosperity for the players. And the proposal that the Players Association has on the table basically is kind of a "have your cake and eat it, too" proposal. They want to have all the revenues that come out of these facilities and that come out of our growing media rights, but they do not in any way, shape or form recognize the cost to the owners of building those stadiums and investing in all of the things that it takes to generate the revenues. So it's just an untenable economic proposition from the owners' standpoint.

Q: Have you come to terms on what the revenue pool should be and now it's a matter of determining a percentage?

PT: Until you have an agreement, you haven't agreed to anything. We've got sort of tentative understandings that the revenue pool that would go into the salary cap would be certainly much broader than the old DGR concept, but the key thing is that they don't recognize either in the definition of the revenue pool or in their economic proposal the cost structure that goes into generating the revenue.

Q: Is there a fundamental difference in opinion among the owners on revenue sharing?

PT: Nothing could be further away than that (assessment). The revenue sharing issue has never been an impediment in the past to getting an agreement with the Players Association. We've had this agreement in place now with a salary cap and free agency for 13 seasons. I think '06 is the thirteenth season. The revenue sharing issue has never been an impediment, and it's not an impediment now to an agreement with the Players Association. The difference between now and the past is the fundamental change in the way they are defining their expectations as to the percentages that should go to the players and the unwillingness in this proposal, or inability, to recognize the very real costs that are associated with doing all the things the league has done to build new stadiums, generate revenues, invest in a whole range of enterprises that produces the revenue.

Q: What concerns you most about the current situation?

PT: We don't have an agreement and there is a deadline at midnight tonight.

Q: What is the next step from here?

PT: We're going to go back and talk about next steps, but I think at this point, it's not about making phone calls. It's about the Players Association fundamentally changing the character of their proposal and the character of their demands.

Q: How dire a situation is it?

PT: It's about as dire as dire can be. We feel that one of the very positive things about the National Football League since the early '90s has been our Collective Bargaining Agreement, one that works for both sides. We've put a proposal on the table that would extend that through 2011. We recognize that the last year of the current agreement is certainly not ideal in terms of operational realities. Without an extension, it's certainly not a good situation for anybody.

Q: What kind of new rules for free agency will be in place during the uncapped year in 2007?

PT: We don't have any new rules. I think I've basically covered everything that is important today. There has to be a fundamental change in their proposal for anything further of a constructive nature to begin to take place.

US Military Using Navy People for Army and Marine Troops Jobs as They're "Tired" According to this guy

It's a rather controversial post that must be shared. What it reads is that we're reassigning troops in one division to make up for losses and health problems in other. All this and a vast majority of troops say it's time to come home from Iraq.

Vince Young and The Wonderlic - Is Profootballtalk.com Making Fun of His Race? Sure Seems So

Hey, I like the information that Profootballtalk.com -- an NFL news website -- issues. Granted, much of it is from the newspapers online, but they do dig and ask questions.

But their cartoons, which appear fresh everyday, seem to take on a racist tone.

At first, I wondered if I was being too sensitive to the matter of race with respect to this cartoon:


As I walk around the site, the Profootballtalk.com Message Boards ask people not to be racist. So, I give them a pass.

But to test my view, I clicked around the Profootballtalk.com site and found this Al Davis cartoon within seconds:




I think what's up here is a simple case of cultural insentivity. What's the deal with showing a picture -- doctored -- of Al Davis shaking hands with Chef from South Park? Well, they're obviously making fun of the hiring of Art Shell as Raiders Head Coach. But it also seems like a kind of reach back into the past where blacks were made fun of by using cartoons of us with large eyes and super dark skin.

Look, the photo was doctored to depict this image.

I never see Profootballtalk.com lampooning Italians in the mafia, or Irish drunks, so why the focus on blacks?

Just a question -- a good one.