EPISODE 49

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(Image from Reuters)

Tiger Woods is taking an “indefinite” leave from professional golf and asking for privacy:

http://web.tigerwoods.com/news/article/200912117801012/news/

…

Woods‘ scandals and broken marriage are all over the news recently.

I am no big fan of golf and thus Woods. But his being black and so successful in a so “white” sport definitely make him the name of every household. And now, he’s found cheating on his wife, not just one time but many (and more to be discovered?).

I was kind of surprised, for his wife is so pretty and Woods looks like such a loyal man, a good husband and father. They look so perfect a couple and, with their kids, so perfect a family. Shallow me! Judging from the surface!

Yea, marriage is not about two people being good “match” (appearance, social status, age, height etc)or looking nice together–in terms of these, who can say Tiger and Elin are not perfect match? But there is not such thing as “match”. It is about finding someone you really love. Of course, I don’t mean that Tiger and Elin didn’t love each other–I don’t know.

Maybe love is not the only element for a “successful” marriage.

And on the other hand, a lasting marriage isn’t the equivalent of the existence of love.

Is Elin going to stay? It takes an enormous heart to forgive a man who betrays you so MANY times.

…

While people are still guessing if Woods’ wife will stay, here’s the decision of the wife of another public man involved in infidelity:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/us/12sanford.html?_r=1

Yes, South California Gov. Mark Sanford‘s wife is divorcing him.

While Woods cheated on his wife numerous times, Sanford cheated his wife only once but insisted his relationship with his lover “innocent.” Jenny, ex-Mrs. Sanford, has every right to divorce this innocent man.

ILLUSION…? :

(Images from US Magazine)

P.S. I just realize Tiger Woods’ last name is “WOODS”, not “WOOD”. Just a side note.

Public figures enjoy tremendous fortune and have high visibility.   It’s in their best interest to safeguard their favorable status with the American public.  Then they are rewarded with celebrity endorsements from companies eager to form a partnership with them.  When that happens, companies hope consumers will associate the goodwill they feel for the celebrity with their product.   

Michael Jordan is a much sought after public figure and enjoys lucrative celebrity endorsement deals with Hanes, Ball Park Franks and many others.  These companies pay Jordan very well for his positive image.

Endorsements like these can also be taken away, however.  If a company no longer deems that celebrity worthy of representing its product, the celebrity loses the endorsement.  This is usually clearly spelled out in morality clauses.  There is a choice.  No one is forcing anyone to accept the contract.

Tiger Woods has been the focus of countless news stories this week as a result of an accident and belated apology for personal indiscretions.   Many women have since come forward claiming they participated in his infidelity.  Woods has asked for privacy and that has engaged a lively debate over whether public figures can have private lives.  Does it go both ways?  Can a public figure ask for privacy when it’s convenient? 

If a celebrity wants the endorsement contracts, he or she must meet expectations.  That means celebrities must not only excel in their professions, but behave without reproach in their private lives as well because everyone is watching and millions of dollars are at stake. 

America loves a comeback story.  With hard work, credibility can be rebuilt.  Just look at Kobe Bryant and Tylenol.  Both the basketball star and the product line faced credibility crises and have not only rebuilt their reputations, but have exponentially surpassed their initial level of success.

The past couple of years have been tough for the theory of morality. Business leaders, politicians, and international athletes have had their ethics and personal dealings called into question. According to the “public figure” clause we all learn in media and business law, those actions have every ‘right’ to be called.

Why does society care?

When I ponder this question, several thoughts come to mind, but I’ll take this time to concentrate on the most potent. The movie Scarface comes to mind.

Cut to scene: Tony Montana (Scarface, played by Al Pacino) is at dinner with his coked-out wife and security detail. He’s drunk and dirty. A broken arm in a sling and he’s slumped in a chair at a five-star restaurant like he’s at home in Lay-Z-Boy. Montana sees that he’s grabbing attention and yells (from IMdb):

“What you lookin’ at? You all a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy.” So… what that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There’s a bad guy comin’ through! Better get outta his way!”

I hope you see where I’m going with this. I do not think that this question of morality is blowing up our news channels, papers and radio because the majority of listeners are actually offended. I think it is society’s way of throwing celebrities under the bus so they can show the mass populous “Look at them…you are not that bad.”

The book of odds shows that close to 50 percent of males will cheat or will have cheated in a relationship. Other places show that women have turned to substances and materials to fill voids in their marriages, relationships, and everyday lives.

So you have the nerve to punish these people so YOU feel good about yourself?

Wow.

Before you go out and spend hours watching people’s lives unravel on ABC, how about you dedicate time building up your own? I am no different, there is always room for improvement in the moral category.

Let’s focus on those people and figures doing great things. Shift this unhealthy obsession with lust, adultery, and violence and showcase people living seemingly upright lives.

Believe me, the media will stop showing this crap if YOU stop watching it.

Fact.

Log on to Facebook and you probably also simultaneously heard of Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, in addition to scrolling through your tagged pictures from Friday night.

Forgot your class assignment? Just send a friend request to the girl who sits two rows ahead of you, and she’ll likely give you the answer in a few minutes’ time.

Clearly, exploding social network sites provide an advantage to almost anyone who uses them.

But these same sites have negative implications, too. Twitter and Facebook are now used to incriminate public figures like never before. Just ask Andre Agassi, tennis legend. In a recent tweet that has now been removed from his Twitter page, a Sports Illustrated employee released a tidbit from Agassi’s new novel, “Open”. The tweet read: “@richarddeitsch: Book excerpt from Andre Agassi in the forthcoming SI: He admits to taking crystal meth during his career.”

This was the first public recognition of crystal meth addiction for Agassi. Other publications latched on to this tweet even after it was deleted, and hours later, an Australian Web site released an exclusive series of material, also from the book. He also admitted to his meth use in an interview with People magazine shortly after the SI tweet.

The increasing popularity of Twitter posts isn’t a new phenomenon. The Telegraph, a UK newspaper, recently reported that traffic to Twitter has increased “27-fold”. Other experts suggest that the Web site gains more than 10,000 users daily. But that doesn’t mean Twitter is free from scandal. 

Because of the compromise of professionalism and lifestyle Twitter poses for individuals like Agassi, experts have created a list of Twitter etiquette tips.

But are guidelines imposing on a (free) social media forum? Should celebrities, public officials, and journalists be allowed to tweet their personal life without it reflecting negatively on their careers? What do you think? Should status updates even be considered real news?

Whether the image, voice, likeness or identity of deceased celebrities or lesser-known individuals may be exploited in commercial endeavors turns on the analysis of the individual’s “right of publicity” or the ability of the individual’s heirs to control that right. Generally speaking, analysis of right of publicity law presents significant challenges since there is no unified federal statute on the subject and one must look to states’ laws for guidance. Even at the state level there are significant differences because the scope the rights varies from state to state and some states do not have any statutes on the subject at all.

Fortunately, Illinois is one of the states with a statute. The Illinois Right of Publicity Act grants an individual the “right to control and to choose whether and how to use an individual’s identity for commercial purposes.” Moreover, the Illinois Act provides that “[a] person may not use an individual’s identity for commercial purposes during the individual’s lifetime without having obtained previous written consent from the appropriate person.” The rights under this Illinois Act are property rights that are freely transferable in whole or in part to any person either by written transfer, including but not limited to wills and trusts, or by intestate succession only to an individual’s spouse, parents, children, and grandchildren. As will become clear from this article, the key issue is whether the proposed use of a person’s identity is for “commercial purposes.”

Nature of the Rights at Issue.

As noted above, under Illinois law a person’s “identity” is protected by the Illinois Act. Identity is defined as “any attribute of an individual that serves to identify that individual to an ordinary, reasonable viewer or listener, including but not limited to: (i) name, (ii) signature, (iii) photograph, (iv) image, (v) likeness, or (vi) voice.” Simply put, the right to publicity “is not merely “a particular picture or photograph” of an individual but “the very identity or persona of the plaintiff as a human being.”” “[T]here may be dozens or hundreds of photographs which fix certain moments” of a person’s life and each of these photographs might be separately owned by dozens or hundreds of photographers. In Contrast, “there is only one underlying ‘persona’ of a person protected by the right of publicity.”

It is important to note that that the purpose of the Illinois Act is to allow a person to control the commercial value of his or her identity. A “commercial purpose” is an element required by the Illinois Act. The phrase is defined to mean “the public use or holding out of an individual’s identity (i) on or in connection with the offering for sale or sale of a product, merchandise, goods, or services; (ii) for purposes of advertising or promoting products, merchandise, goods, or services; or (iii) for the purpose of fundraising.”

The Act also sets forth specific uses that are excluded from the definition of “commercial purpose.” Section 35 of the Illinois Act specifically excludes the following: “(1) use of an individual’s identity in an attempt to portray, describe, or impersonate that individual in a live performance, a single and original work of fine art, play, book, article, musical work, film, radio, television, or other audio, visual, or audio-visual work, provided that the performance, work, play, book, article, or film does not constitute in and of itself a commercial advertisement for a product, merchandise, goods, or services (emphasis added); (2) use of an individual’s identity for non-commercial purposes, including any news, public affairs, or sports broadcast or account, or any political campaign; and (3) use of an individual’s name in truthfully identifying the person as the author of a particular work or program or the performer in a particular performance.”

Clearly, a proposed use that involves making a feature film telling the life story of a deceased celebrity, is exactly the type of use that is permitted under the Illinois Act without consent of the individual or heirs. Unfortunately there is a dearth of Illinois and federal case law construing the statute. There is not a single case that construes the breadth or applicability of Section 35. There is, however, one federal case, Toney v. L’Oreal which examines whether the Copyright Act preempts claims under the Illinois Act. Since the Toney case is the only case to examine applicability of the Illinois Act, a brief look at the case is helpful.

In Toney v. L’Oreal, June Toney, a model, authorized Defendant to use her image on packages of a hair-care product for five years pursuant to a written agreement. Johnson Products sold the product line to L’Oreal USA, Inc. which, about one month after the expiration of Toney’s original five-year agreement with Johnson Products, sold the product line to Wella Personal Care of North America, Inc. Wella continued to market and distribute the hair-care product adorned with Toney’s likeness.

The lawsuit alleged that Johnson Products, L’Oreal and Wella violated Toney’s publicity rights by continuing to use her image after the expiration of the agreement and using her image in ways not permitted under the agreement. In response, the defendants moved to dismiss Toney’s right of publicity action arguing, among other things, that the statue of limitations had expired and that defendants’ rights as the owners of the copyright for the product packaging pre- empted Toney’s publicity rights claim. Put another way, defendants argued that the right to print and distribute the copyrighted hair-care product package (granted under the Copyright Act) pre-empted Toney’s publicity rights and prevented her from suing defendants for violation of the Illinois Act.

Although the District Court Judge agreed with the defendants, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. First, the Court concluded that although the photograph at issue was copyrightable (fixed in a tangible medium of expression), Toney’s persona was not. Since the Illinois Act seeks to protect the persona, the Copyright Act does not pre-empt the Illinois Act. As the Court stated, “[t]here is no “work of authorship” at issue in Toney’s right of publicity claim. A person’s likeness—her persona—is not authored and it is not fixed.” “Identity…is an amorphous concept that is not protected by copyright law.”

The Court then examined whether defendants continued use of the photograph to market the hair-care products violated the Illinois Act. The Court took note that the purpose of the Illinois Act is to allow a person to control the commercial value of his or her identity, defined to mean the public use of an individual’s identity either on or in connection with the offering for sale or sale of a product, etc., or for purposes of advertising or promoting products, etc. The Court declared that defendants clearly used Toney’s likeness for their commercial advantage. “The basis of a right of publicity claim concerns the message—whether the plaintiff endorses, or appears to endorse the product in question.”

The Court concluded that since the defendants did not have Toney’s consent to continue using the photograph beyond the five year period in the agreement, they effectively prevented her from exercising control over the commercial value of her identity.

However, making a feature film telling the life story of a deceased celebrity is clearly distinguishable. First, although the Film is itself copyrightable, the issue is not whether a specific image or photograph of a celebrity may be used. The issue is whether and how the story of the persona may be told. Second, unlike the situation in Toney, the persona of a dead celebrity is not being used for a “commercial purpose” as defined by the Illinois Act. The celebrity’s persona is not being used to advertise or promote any product, or in any manner that appears he is endorsing a product. Furthermore, the Illinois Act explicitly permits the use of an individual’s identity in an attempt to portray, describe, or impersonate that individual in a film as excluded from the definition of “commercial purpose.”

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I remember as a kid often defending myself from accusations by proclaiming that someone else was lying. I had learned that it was a quick way to shift the blame, deserving or not. Usually the parent/teacher/authority figure mediating the accusation became distracted. It lessened the punishment for me (if one was granted), defamed the other party involved and better yet, was a charge so rudimentary it was hard to defend by the accuser.

I’m sure there are many times that my simple defense was true. But for the times that it wasn’t I was a coward, a liar myself, and worse yet my defense was deluding. The problem was, many times I believed my lie and even thought it was justified. I would rush to the defense of others who corroborated with me; our voices would get louder and seem to have more credibility. The result: sometimes someone else would get chastised or my “crime” would go unpunished.

I’m saying this in response to an adult, representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina , who, after hearing the President of the United States declare that no illegal immigrants would be covered under the current health care bill, shouted to the dismay of many, “You lie!” Rightly, he quickly apologized to both the president and congress for his disrespectful and “regrettable” remarks. News outlets have had a field day with the representative’s bad behavior. For them, it was a good “Jerry Springer Moment” in an arena that is otherwise supposed to be filled with courteous, educated and honorable Americans. The real problem though? The president didn’t lie. The worse problem? Rep. Wilson’s lie has validated others’ untruths.

Rep. Joe Wilson R-S.C.

Like a little kid who doesn’t like what they hear, Rep. Wilson responded to President Obama by uttering two words that really have no place in civilized discourse. If Obama’s remarks were indeed lies (they weren’t), the responsible thing to do is to correct them with facts, not sound bites. Now the droves of uninformed have come to his defense. Supporters on Facebook wrote, “Never apologize for telling the truth. Thank you Joe Wilson for being my voice last night. I was yelling liar [throughout] the whole speech,” and “No need to apologise (sic) Joe, This president lies period. thank you for being honest.” His lie has deluded others further and validated their beliefs. He made the voices bigger and louder.

This is a far reaching problem in United States politics. Far too often citizens are making up their minds on complex issues by listening to mind-numbing pundits, name calling politicians and entertainment starved news networks. When one Democrat calls a Republican a liar, other Democrats believe it out of pure loyalty. When a Republican accuses a Democrat, the same is true. This is the case with Joe the Liar (Get it!?! Joe the Plumber, Joe the Liar??? Whatever….). He has made an absolute mockery of civilized debate. He was afraid, and instead of defending himself with facts, or even simply admitting that he may have been wrong or mistaken, he accused others of lying. And that’s just childish.

We have talked before about the way Brad Pitt has jumped in and helped with rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina but this is worth another mention.  This house he has had built now is very cool.  Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation showed off the first “permitted” floating house in the United States on Tuesday.  Known as the  FLOAT House , the structure is built to float as much as 12 feet.  It has two masts embedded into the foundation and so the chaise is able to float or rise up and down on those two masts in the event of a flood.  The idea is not to make people stay in the threat of another hurricane but to protect their home and belongings so they have something to come back to when it is over.

–Ray Reggie–

Abe Wagner is another fighter on the Ultimate Fighter show, and he was a lot in today’s episode, so he claims.

So I don’t know if he fights in UFC or what, but I’d bet that he does. He also says he needs to work on his wrestling. That is nice.

This is a link about how is dad was abusive.

And here’s a picture of him. Looks like a decent enough guy.

‘I bust the windows out your car,’ are some lyrics from a song called “Bust Your Windows” by a singer named Jazmine Sullivan.

I listened to it and it’s kind of catchy, and it’s also kind of stupid, lyrically speaking. It’s a serious dramatization of some hood rat shit, and I haven’t been able to take this shit seriously since I was about 15.

Here’s the link to the video:

Video

And here’s a picture of this bitch:

Pretty run of the mill

Roger Huerta is in the UFC. Seems he just lost a fight on decision to Gray Maynard.

Ooh, looks like that whore is pwned! big time

Apparently this homo want to start an acting career.

Whatever.

]]> http://bleakexistence.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/henry-gibson-is-dead-no-21-henry-gibson/ Thu, 17 Sep 2009 05:51:21 +0000 Ted http://bleakexistence.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/henry-gibson-is-dead-no-21-henry-gibson/

Henry Gibson, who made a name for himself on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, died of cancer on September 14.

I didn’t know know this guy was on Laugh-In, because I’ve never seen Laugh-In, and it’s one of those things like the Ed Hardy Show which seems to me to be from a bygone era which I can not relate to. But I totally recognize him, primarily from two places.

1) As the irascible, stupid and easily manipulated Judge Clark Brown on Boston Legal,

and

2) as the brutal fag in Magnolia who snarkily mocks W. H. Macy’s down on his luck child prodigy, while hitting on the dumb, hunky bartender with braces. I’m sure you remember.

He was a memorable character actor. RIP.

That's Gibson with the white hair looking at Macy, with the bartender in back.

Here he Gibson on the bench in 'Boston Legal'

I’m sure that if you’ve found this, you’re not wondering who the hell Olga Breeskin is. Which is unlike me, a man who didn’t know who the fuck she was until five minutes ago.

But now I know better. Olga Breeskin is a prostitute, and a violinist. For example, look at this picture:

The clothes say Las Vegas hooker; the violin says violinist. And is that a sombrero on top of a harp? This speaks to the fact that she has a Mexican fan base, as well as a musical fan base. I’m just spelling out the facts for you.

Anyway, she’s very caliente as evidenced by this old school foto:

I’m going to make it a mission in life to fuck the GILFing shit out of her.