"Libertad"
(RCA)
01. Let It Roll
02. She Mine
03. Get Out The Door
04. She Builds Quick Machines
05. The Last Fight
06. Pills, Demons & Etc.
07. American Man
08. Mary Mary
09. Just Sixteen
10. Can't Get It Out Of My Head
11. For A Brother
12. Spay
13. Gravedancer
14. Re-Evolution
How much more proof do we need that the new wave of "supergroups" — starting with AUDIOSLAVE and VELVET REVOLVER, moving onto ARMY OF ANYONE, and now culminating in the bottom-of-the-barrel likes of CIRCUS DIABLO — is now dead? "Libertad", the second album from VELVET REVOLVER, is a polished, professional-sounding rock record with more than a few hooks and some tasty guitar licks courtesy of undeniably talented axemen Slash and Dave Kushner.
But it's also a bland, curiously laid-back effort, lacking the dangerous intent of GUNS N' ROSES or the psychedelic urgency of STONE TEMPLE PILOTS, the two groups that provided the meat of this band's lineup.
That's not to say that VELVET REVOLVER should necessarily be compared to either of those once-great acts. But the truth is that the Velvets have yet to live up to the hype of its members' legendary histories. The quintet 's 2004 debut, "Contraband", was a heavier effort than the new disc but also never quite gelled together, the group instead trying to meld GN'R-style songs with singer Scott Weiland's psycho-pop delivery. The album had its moments, such as "Slither", but never quite caught fire. There's barely any heat generated by "Libertad", let alone a blaze.
Whereas the first album generated some tension between Weiland's musical leanings and those of the GN'R vets (Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum), the singer's pop inclinations seem to dominate the new record. The more uptempo rockers, like opener "Let It Roll", "She Builds Quick Machines" and "American Man" never quite get off the ground, any instrumental highlights muted and even Weiland's vocal melodies sounding relatively uninspired. The poppier material like "The Last Fight" and "Get Out The Door" is reminiscent of the last — and weakest — STP disc, "Shangri-La-Dee-Da", while the country-flavored bonus cut following closing track "Gravedancer" just comes off like a weird self-indulgence.
It's strange to think that there's simply not much to say about an album made by musicians whose albums once dominated the late Eighties and early Nineties. A few striking tunes aside, such as "For A Brother", this second effort from a band that should know how to create gritty, raw rock leaves very little of an impression after it is finished. It's ironic that a record titled "Libertad" (Spanish for freedom) sounds so timid.
Author: Don Kaye
Posted in: CD Reviews
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Judge sends Bird Rock bandits to prison, tells them ‘You guys blew it’
Three members of a La Jolla party crew, who served time for involuntary manslaughter in the beating death of a professional surfer, were each sentenced Friday to three years in state prison for violating probation.
Eric House, 22, Orlando Osuna Wright, 24, and Matthew Yanke, 23, admitted being in each other’s company and failing drug tests.
“You guys blew it,” Judge John Einhorn told the defendants. “I’m done being your cheerleader. What a sad ending to senseless conduct.’'
Einhorn reminded the trio that they got the “break of a lifetime” when they were allowed to plead guilty in June 2008 to involuntary manslaughter in the death a year earlier of 24-year-old Emery Kauanui of La Jolla.
At the time, the judge told them to “do the right thing” and comply with probation for the sake of their family and friends.
Co-defendant Hank Hendricks also pleaded guilty in June 2008 to pleaded guilty in June 2008 to being an accessory after the fact. He was not involved in any of the probation violation cases.
A fifth man, Seth Cravens, 23, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years to life in state prison.
Yanke, Osuna and House — members of the “Bird Rock Bandits’” — were arrested last month for violating court orders imposed on them at sentencing.
The defendants’ current violations were “significant,” the judge said.
In a tearful apology, Yanke said he took his probation “very seriously” and sought help when he started to feel himself slip.
“I worried about going to prison, at times flat-out scared,” he said.
House admitted testing positive for marijuana and having his photo taken with Yanke at the Viejas Casino.
Osuna admitted testing positive for marijuana nine times since April, and Einhorn found that the defendant also violated probation by attending a function at a bar and being in the presence of Yanke.
Osuna told the judge Friday that he tried, but failed, to comply with probation.
“I’m ashamed,’' Osuna said. “You gave me a good judgment on my sentence. I did not follow my conditions of probation. I’m sorry for the anguish I’ve caused again.’'
Osuna said he should have moved out of town after his original sentence, but stayed because he needed his family’s support.
Prosecutors contended the defendants’ allegiance to the “Bird Rock Bandits” made Kauanui’s death a crime committed by a street gang, but Einhorn previously rejected that allegation.
The deadly fight in front of the home of Kauanui’s mother erupted the night of May 24, 2007, after the victim and House were kicked out of the La Jolla Brew House. The two had gotten into a dispute at the bar when Kauanui spilled a drink on House.
Kauanui was driven home by his girlfriend. Cravens, House, Wright and Yanke followed, and House was egged on to fight the victim, according to testimony.
During the fight, Kauanui confronted Cravens, who responded by throwing what the judge described as a “vicious swing” into the victim’s face. Kauanui fell backward and hit his head, suffering a severely fractured skull. He died four days later at a hospital.


Apple tells US judge 'impossible' to unlock new iPhones
Published Wed, Oct 21 20156:34 AM EDT Updated Wed, Oct 21 20156:34 AM EDT
Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller speaks on stage during a Special Event at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium September 9, 2015 in San Francisco, California.
Apple told a U.S. judge that accessing data stored on a locked iPhone would be "impossible" with devices using its latest operating system, but the company has the "technical ability" to help law enforcement unlock older phones.
Apple's position was laid out in a brief filed late Monday, after a federal magistrate judge in Brooklyn, New York, sought its input as he weighed a U.S. Justice Department request to force the company to help authorities access a seized iPhone during an investigation.
In court papers, Apple said that for the 90 percent of its devices running iOS 8 or higher, granting the Justice Department's request "would be impossible to perform" after it strengthened encryption methods.
Those devices include a feature that prevents anyone without the device's passcode from accessing its data, including Apple itself.
The feature was adopted in 2014 amid heightened privacy concerns following leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about NSA surveillance programs.
Apple told U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein it could access the 10 percent of its devices that continue to use older systems, including the one at issue in the case. But it urged the judge to not require it to comply with the Justice Department's request.
"Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand," Apple's lawyers wrote.
A spokeswoman for Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers, whose office is handling the case, declined comment.
Earlier this month, Orenstein expressed skepticism about whether he could require Apple to disable security on the iPhone, citing Congress' failure to act on the issue of encryption despite the urging of the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
How to trade 'Star Wars,' Apple headlines
Orenstein deferred ruling until Apple had a chance to say if it was "technically feasible and, if so, whether compliance with the proposed order would be unduly burdensome."
Apple in its brief said it limited its views to those questions rather than the broader legal issue at hand, which it called "important." In an order Tuesday, Orenstein invited Apple to address that issue. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday.
The case is In re Order requiring Apple, Inc to assist in the execution of a search warrant issued by the court, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 15-mc-01902.


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Russia maintains rate, any inflation rise seen temporary
Russia's central bank left its key interest rate steady at 6.0 percent despite a plunge in the ruble's exchange rate, saying any rise in inflation will be temporary as slower global and domestic growth will limit price hikes and inflation will return to its target in 2021.
The Bank of Russia, which has cut rates six times since May 2019 by a total of 175 basis points, added the spread of the coronavirus - which had led to restrictions in international trade and travel, and a rapid deterioration of commodity and financial markets - may lead to a downturn in already-moderate economic activity in coming quarters.
And while the growth path will depend on the scale of the fallout from the spread of the virus, Covid-19, and the actions taken to counter it, the central bank said the economy will be supported by measures taken by itself and the government.
So far Russia has reported relatively few infections and only one death from the coronavirus, but on the government on Monday announced a $4 billion package of measures to help businesses that are facing lower demand, and has banned foreigners from entering the country, shut its land borders with neighboring countries, closed schools, and restricted outdoor and indoor gatherings.
In addition, domestic demand is to receive a boost from additional social policy measures announced in January along with national projects that are being implemented.
Russia's ruble plunged 26 percent from Jan. 12 to March 18, hit by the collapse in oil prices from the dispute with Saudi Arabia and the flight to the safe-haven U.S. dollar amid the fallout from the spread of the coronavirus worldwide.
In recent days the ruble has bounced back slightly though it fell in response today to trade at 79.6 to the U.S. dollar, down 23 percent since Jan. 12 and 22 percent this year.
Russia's inflation rate eased to 2.3 percent in February from 2.4 percent in January but the central bank said it may temporarily exceed its 4.0 percent target due to the weaker ruble.
This rise in consumer prices may also trigger a temporary rise in inflation expectations but slowing domestic and external demand will be a "significant disinflationary factor," and inflation should return to 4 percent in 2021.
Russia's economy has been slowly recovering since a deep recession in 2015 and 2016 and in February the central bank forecast growth this year of 1.5 to 2.5 percent, up from 1.3 percent in 2019, helped by infrastructure projects.
The Bank of Russia issued the following press release:
"On 20 March 2020, the Bank of Russia Board of Directors decided to keep the key rate at 6.00% per annum. In February — March, the situation has been developing with a significant deviation from the Bank of Russia’s forecast under the baseline scenario. This is related to changes in external conditions: the spread of the coronavirus epidemic and a sharp drop in oil prices. The ruble’s depreciation is a temporary proinflationary factor. It might prompt annual inflation to exceed the target level this year. However, the dynamics of domestic and external demand will exert a meaningful constraining influence on inflation on the back of a pronounced slowdown of global economic growth and increased uncertainty. The package of measures adopted by the Government and the Bank of Russia ensures financial stability and will support the economy. All these factors were taken into account when making the key rate decision. Given the current monetary policy stance, annual inflation will return to 4% in 2021.
Moving forward, in its key rate decision-making the Bank of Russia will take into account actual and expected inflation dynamics relative to the target and economic developments over the forecast horizon, as well as risks posed by domestic and external conditions and the reaction of financial markets.
Inflation dynamics. In 2020, inflation may temporarily exceed the target level. It is expected to return to 4% in 2021.
The temporary acceleration of annual inflation in the coming months will be caused by the weakening of the ruble in February — March, which is related to changes in external conditions: a worsening situation in global financial markets in the face of a threat of a global recession on the back of the coronavirus epidemic and a sharp drop in oil prices. The observed weakening of the ruble and the consecutive acceleration of consumer price growth rates may cause a temporary rise in inflation expectations of households and businesses.
However, slowing growth in both domestic and external demand is a significant disinflationary factor. It will have a constraining effect on inflation. In this context, given the current monetary policy stance, annual inflation will return to 4% in 2021.
Monetary conditions have tightened under the influence of negative external factors. The worsening situation in the global economy and a sharp drop in oil prices have prompted growth in risk premiums on a wide range of financial assets, including in emerging market economies. In this context, OFZ and corporate bond yields have increased, certain banks have started to raise their loan and deposit interest rates. The Bank of Russia’s measures taken to curb financial stability risks and regulatory relaxations adopted will support credit expansion, including in the most vulnerable sectors, and will help limit the scale of tightening of monetary conditions.
Economic activity. In February — March, the situation has been developing with a significant deviation from the Bank of Russia’s forecast under the baseline scenario. This is related to worsening global growth prospects amid the spreading coronavirus and restrictions on cross-border cargo and passenger traffic, as well as to a rapid deterioration of dynamics in global commodity and financial markets. These factors may cause the moderate growth of the Russian economy in the beginning of the year to change to a downturn of the economic activity in the coming quarters.
The Russian economy’s growth path will in many ways depend on the scale of the fallout from the further spread of the coronavirus and the action to counter it, alongside with the impact of this action on production, demand and business and consumer sentiment. The Russian economy will gain support from the package of the Government and the Bank of Russia’s economic measures to counter the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and financial market volatility. Domestic demand is set to receive a boost this year from additional social policy measures announced in January, as well as the national projects being implemented as scheduled.
Inflation risks. There has been a rise in short-term proinflationary risks, driven by a potentially more pronounced pass-through of the ruble weakening into prices, coupled with the impact of the temporary increase in current demand for a number of products and services, triggered by consumers’ drive to accumulate stocks. However, a strong weakening of external demand, a potential decline in consumer activity and lag effects of the tightened monetary conditions may emerge as a source of significant disinflationary risks over a medium-term horizon.
In parallel with its key rate decision, the Bank of Russia took a number of measures towards ensuring financial stability, supporting the economy and the financial sector amid the coronavirus pandemic. These measures are intended to, among other things, maintain access of small and medium enterprises to bank lending, shore up mortgage lending and protect the interests of people affected by the spreading pandemic. In a similar vein, there are plans to take action to relax administrative burden for the financial sector, with a view to supporting the sector’s lending capabilities.
The Bank of Russia Board of Directors will hold its next key rate review meeting on 24 April 2020. The press release on the Bank of Russia Board decision and the medium-term forecast are to be published at 13:30 Moscow time."
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Posted on January 24, 2016 by TCR
Bloomberg considers presidential run due to frustration with Trump, Sanders
By Steven Viera || Senior Editor
Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City who served for an unprecedented three terms, is considering a run for President of the United States. According to this article, Bloomberg is expected to make a final decision sometime in March.
Furthermore, this article in the New York Times reported that Bloomberg—the founder, president, and CEO of the financial software, data and media company, Bloomberg L.P.—is willing to spend up to $1 billion of personal funds in his campaign.
Sources close to Bloomberg say that he is frustrated with the heightened polarization within both the Republican and Democratic races and that his views do not necessarily align with those of either party. He commissioned a poll to explore how he would perform as a third-party candidate against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the frontrunners for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively.
“He’s the opposite of me in many ways,” Trump said of Bloomberg in the New York Times article.
Aside from Trump’s rise, sources also report that Bloomberg is concerned by Bernie Sanders’ momentum within the Democratic race in the face of stumbles by the Clinton campaign.
Internal polling, according to the CNN article, revealed that Bloomberg would take more
votes from Republicans, although this may change as the campaign proceeds.
Bloomberg’s announcement, if he is to run, will likely come in late March so that he can still make it on the ballot in all 50 states in time for the election.
Bloomberg, who reportedly had meetings with New York Democrats to gauge his interest in a run, considered a presidential bid in both 2008 and 2012.
Senior Steven Viera is the Senior Editor. His email is sviera@fandm.edu.
Tagged news, Steven Viera


By: Aaron Fischman
The Popular Pairing of Music and Fitness
Most active people listen to music while performing their workouts, and you probably do it too. If you don’t, mostly everyone around you does, as you see it every day.
The actress Jane Fonda actually played a significant role in popularizing the use of music in athletic training, according to Brunel University’s Costas Karageorghis, Ph.D., who has become a leading expert on the topic thanks to more than 20 years of intense research. “She [Fonda] realized that there was a bit of a niche in the market and that if you could ally music with physical activity, you had more of a chance of getting people physically active.” Fonda released her first exercise video, titled “Jane Fonda’s Workout,” in 1982. Since, she followed up with 23 additional videos in the series, which, including the original went on to sell more than 17 million total copies.
Karageorghis noted that the advent of various technologies – products that allowed people to easily bring their music with them – helped fuel this trend. The Walkman was introduced by Sony in 1979. Just three years later, Sony was also the first to release a portable CD player, which they called the “Discman.” Portable MP3 players began to appear in 1999, and by 2004, Nike and Philips partnered to launch the Portable Sport audio player, which they claimed was designed specifically for the active consumer. Around the same time, iPod sales started to pick up serious stream even though the product was released in 2001.
As a result of these developments, “Music has become prevalent, I would say almost ubiquitous, in the sports and exercise field over the last 20 years,” said Karageorghis.
The Three Benefits
According to Karageorghis’ more than two decades of research, music allows for greater athletic performance in three ways: 1) It reduces perceived exertion, 2) lifts the participant’s mood and 3) encourages the listener to coordinate his/her movements to stay on beat.
The research shows that if you listen to music while performing an activity of low-to-moderate intensity (light jogging or cycling, for instance), it will reduce your perceived exertion by 8 to 12 percent. In other words, the music’s presence will make you feel like you’re not working quite as hard. The reduction in perceived exertion is enjoyed even if the music is selected arbitrarily, and doing so takes into account the person’s musical tastes and the type and intensity of the workout.
According to Karageorghis, it’s been known for years that music can lift one’s mood when performing low-to-moderate intensity exercises. He and his team, however, found that music’s positive affective qualities are not limited to low-to-moderate intensity workouts. “We’ve shown in a recent string of studies that well-selected music also has the propensity to enhance affect at very high intensities of exercise…in fact, right up until the point of voluntary exhaustion.”
This finding is significant, because one big reason why people give up on their regular workouts is that they feel bad when they’re exerting themselves so much. “Although music can’t influence what you feel at these high intensities, it can influence how you feel it,” Karageorghis said. “In other words, it seems to color our interpretation of fatigue, and I think therein lies the real power of music for Joe and Josephine Public.”
The research’s mention of “synchronous music” refers to music that’s coordinated with a participant’s physical movements. By contrast, when participants listen to music asynchronously, their movements are not matched to the beat.
Conventional wisdom has long posited that music, whether synchronous or not, should progressively increase performance as the beats per minute increase. Karageorghis’ research has found, however, that with asynchronous music, athletic performance improves between 120 and 140 beats per minute, but that no additional benefit is derived from moving beyond that level. He calls it a “ceiling effect.”
Although using music in both ways has been found to improve athletic performance, synchronous music produces the best results. “If I put this into numbers,” said Karageorghis, “asynchronous music can generally lift performance – depending on what the performance is and a whole load of other factors – between say 2 and 10 percent. Synchronous music can lift performance between about 8 and 20 percent.” In fact, when compared with a control group who didn’t listen to any music, people who worked out synchronously on all intensities up to exhaustion saw ”performance benefits in the order of 15 percent.” It’s also worth noting that the people studied were recreationally active people as opposed to elite athletes.
Synchronizing one’s movements to the music can take some work. If you want to synchronize your movements extremely closely to music, you’ll need to film yourself at different intensities. Karageorghis even sits in the back of a quad bike and films runners to determine their stride rates. He then selects songs so that their rhythm will coordinate with the runner’s strides. Occasionally, he’ll manipulate the songs by a beat or two in order to make the match even tighter.
Fortunately for the everyday person, many exercise machines now show the revolutions per minute a person is creating. There’s also an iTunes plug-in, for instance, that allows users to create playlists based on songs’ beats per minute. Even easier, Karageorghis says that many people will work out to the beat using trial and error. It certainly helps that most pop music falls into the range of 115 to 135 beats per minute. Another easier way to maximize the benefits of synchronous music is to take part in a group class, such as Zumba, aqua aerobics or step aerobics, because movements in those classes are designed to go along with the beat.
Not Everyone Listens to Music
There are high-performing athletes, as well as everyday people, who prefer to train without music. Nearly 25 years ago when Karageorghis was beginning his research career, he interviewed decorated British Olympic decathlete Daley Thompson. Karageorghis asked about his use of music during training and competition and was told, “Music is an anathema to me. I always listen to my body. I never have a need for music.” Streak runner Jon Sutherland doesn’t listen to music during his runs, either.
“It’s not necessarily for everyone,” said Karageorghis, “but generally speaking, people who struggle to get to the gym and are looking for a mild stimulant might benefit from integrating well-selected music into their routine.”
For Karageorghis, the next step over the coming years will be to isolate the effects of music on long-term workout adherence. In other words, he strives to determine which factors of music and other contingencies make people more or less likely to stick with their workout routine. He understands that it will be a challenge, because people quit working out for countless reasons, but he’s prepared to dive in regardless. If anything useful can be gleaned, people who are active, as well as those who are looking to start working out again, will have more information at their disposal.
music running	2020-12-18
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Common Sports Injuries: Hamstring Pull


Congregation Beth Shalom was born in the spring of 1990 at an open meeting of 10-15 families from Brandon and the surrounding areas who were seeking to form a temple of their own. Like nomads in the desert, every meeting and every decision was made in various people’s homes. We had no real home of our own. Through much trial and error, hundreds of phone calls and tireless work, Beth Shalom was chartered, incorporated and became an integral part of the Greater Brandon community.
During those early times, we had to knock on doors and ask perfect strangers for the use of their buildings so we could pray and teach our children. We forever remain grateful to all of those who assisted us. After much fundraising and planning, Congregation Beth Shalom moved into our new home in September of 2000, just in time for the High Holy Days. It was a proud and glorious moment as we stood in our own building at 706 Bryan Road asking for forgiveness and expressing thanks for our good fortune. We stood in awe, facing our ark which houses our oldest congregant, our first Torah, inscribed in Poland over 200 years ago. It represents the lifeline of our religion and symbolizes our strong connection to the Jewish people. Our building houses our sanctuary, offices and classrooms for our religious school. It is both exciting and fulfilling to be an integral part of a warm, vibrant and inclusive congregation. Join us and share the experience.


April 18, 2019 LSummer Leave a comment
This story transpired from severaI eye opening conversations that transpired on Stage 32, a global networking and education platform for screenwriters, fiImmakers and teIevision foIk.
Recent aIIegations made by women against severaI maIe, Australian actors reminded me of my TV promotion days in the 1990s, when a likeable head honcho of Channel 9 in Sydney instructed me to include a specific boob shot in a movie promo. (Lest we forget that sex sells.) He even wrote down the exact timecode in-point to make sure I chose the right boobs.
In this #MeToo age, an incident like that would probably spark outrage. Legal threats. Back in the day, I just laughed it off and interpreted the boob incident as a clear sign that the time was nigh to find a meaningful job.
You Just Never Know Who You’re Gonna Meet
My comments led to a compelling response from American film director David Trotti and a refreshingly frank discussion about the bright and not-so-bright sides of Hollywood. I asked him for permission to share his recollections about the razzle-dazzle trade and he kindly agreed. Bearing in mind that the following stories hail largely from the ’90s, echoes clearly still remain.
“Yeah. It’s always been a rough trade. I’ve heard stories of aspiring actresses in the early days performing favours for studio guards just to get on the lot to have a chance to get hired as an extra for a day. Casting offices would stop putting out mint-candy in bowls because the starving actors would clean them out.
It was bad enough that the wives of the studio executives raised money to build low-to-no-rent all-female apartment buildings to keep young women who’d flocked to Hollywood from sleeping in library basements.
In that sort of desperate power imbalance, a lot of people got taken advantage of.
I have been on shows where a producer cast an actress just to have a shot at her. I have been at a party where I had to keep my director from successfully seducing a prop girl who was too drunk to even say yes or no. Which should be an automatic no.
On the other side, I have witnessed actresses stalking directors, producers and actors with the intent of seducing them for jobs, love, hero-worship or just another notch.”
Stars In Their Eyes, Dreams In Their Hearts
“One of my darkest days in the business was when a buddy of mine was hired to direct a Roger Corman film called “Furious Angel IV” and he asked me to sit in on the casting. I don’t know if that was the final title. It has Catya Sassoon in it. It was a nude kickboxing movie they were going to shoot in the Philippines. Needless to say, there wasn’t a lot of ambiguity about what was required to be in it. 1) Nudity. 2) Kickboxing. I will also say my buddy was a stand-up guy, the casting director was a pro and I was a guest in the room. So the casting session starts and I have to say that of the fifty so women who came and went that day, all of them could be broken down into three categories.
These girls were fresh off the bus from Iowa, Calgary, small-town beauty queens and high school musical Dorothys. They had no idea what they’d gotten themselves into, but they had stars in their eyes and dreams in their hearts. This was a job! In Hollywood! A SAG job that meant a Union Contract. Okay, maybe it might require some nudity, but it was going to lead to bigger and better things.
Unfortunately, most of these girls had been met at the bus stop by unscrupulous “agent” assholes who were really just camouflaged pimps.
They’d drag these girls around to all sorts of cattle calls before us as well as stops at Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler.
One poor girl – and I’ll always remember this – when the casting director asked for her “headshot” turned bright red and then reached into her backpack and produced a Polaroid beaver shot that she’d had taken at her first stop of the day. We quickly gave it back to her and said that’s not what we meant.
These were the gals who had been in town for a while and knew the score. But this was the job that was going to get them the next one that was going to get them a TV guest slot, that was going to turn recurring and pay the rent. They were jaded versions of the Category One girls, but they still had hope and dreams. And they weren’t going to go back to East Texas until they could show up, head held high and say they’d made it.
Then there was Category Three. And the decline from level two to three was so sharp and severe it was striking. These girls had been in town too long and they would do anything, and I mean anything, for enough scratch to score their drug of choice just to get them by.
You could see that these were Category one girls who’d had the dreams burned out of them by one of those asshole pimps who put cigarettes out on their skin nightly. They would walk in the door and flash breasts or drop dresses with the singular goal of selling the merchandise. They had no room for morals. I don’t even know if they considered themselves human beings anymore or if they, like their asshole pimps, found their only value as commodities of flesh and lip gloss.
Just Another Hollywood Story
“I think the Director and I were shell shocked by the end. The Casting Director was a good guy, but I think working at Corman’s he’d seen it so often he was numb to it. None of us did anything unprofessional, we certainly didn’t take advantage of the situation. But also, we didn’t hand out bus money. Heartless? Maybe, but we knew none of them would use the cash for bus fare. They’d use it to get by one more day in Hollywood. Because tomorrow, it was going to happen. Fame, Fortune and Stardom. Because no one believes they’ll hit Category Three. Till they do.
Anyway, that’s just another Hollywood story. Now go make magic!”
Pimps, Hitmen & Heroin
After reading that, I felt far from magical. If anything, I worried about our Australian starlets and studlets with ‘stars in their eyes and dreams in their hearts.’ And old memories resurfaced about losing my childhood best friend to pimps, hitmen and heroin in the 1980s. She could have been a Vogue magazine cover girl but her pimp boyfriend brutally killed that possibility. Instead, she swiftly spiralled to Category 3. Then Category 4 – drug mule.
She eventually ‘confessed’ to her secret life of drugs, prostitution and mafia bosses in the mid-80s after stupidly thinking I would believe her innocent ‘I’ve just had a 5-star holiday in Bangkok’ story. When I jokingly suggested she hire a hitman to get rid of him, she said: “I can’t do that. They’re all his friends.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. From memory, we laughed.
“He hates your guts, Linda. He’s scared you’ll go to the cops.”
I assured her I would never do that because I knew that crooked cops peddled heroin on the streets of Adelaide and threatened her with gaol if she refused to buy it from them. Even during her desperate attempts to kick the insidious habit.
And I will always remember her telling me this:
“I ended up being taken to heaps of Sydney’s exclusive A-lister parties. You’d be really shocked at how many celebrities and even sports stars are recreational heroin users. Trouble is, heroin is a disease. The first high is so mind-blowing that you keep going back for more. But you never get to that place again. You just fuck yourself up.”
Turns out Australia and Hollywood ain’t so different after all. Her sordid story would probably make an eye-opening Australian gangster movie one day.
My conversation with David then moved on to the brighter side of Hollywood where he provided further insights and useful tips for aspiring stars.
One In A Hundred Thousand Shot
“I would never wholly dissuade someone who has the means and desire from making the pilgrimage and trying to make a go of it if that is their life’s dream. I also have examples of people who did make it and did not go down that dark path.
I’ve worked with Yvonne Strahovski on Chuck and Katherine Langford on 13 Reasons Why. They both took the chance and came from Australia and are doing very well. But they are both talented actresses with families who love, support and encourage them. They also were fortunate enough to fall on the legitimate side of the business with professionals who do take their responsibilities as agents, producers and executives seriously.
The real problem lies in that shaky ground in between the extremes not just where physical and emotional exploitation can take place but also where lives and potential are wasted pursuing what is statistically a one-in-a-hundred thousand shot.
Even making it in Hollywood does not mean an actor can count on a sustainable career or a comfortable retirement.
And talent does mean a great deal. The problem is it gets lost in the sheer numbers. There are so many actors and actresses and so few paying gigs. And sometimes you can be the best performer but just not have the right look that the director had in mind. It can all seem very random and heartless and cruel. But it can also be a hell of a fun ride.”
Sage Advice For Fledgling Dream Weavers
“If someone is young and attractive (male or female) with enough money to live for six months and wants to party in LA while making a go at acting, God bless them. Use a condom, don’t do anything that requires needles, travel with a posse you trust not to leave you behind in a gutter, don’t drink anything you didn’t see poured out of a sealed bottle, have enough money saved for airfare home and if you’re an actor, for God’s sake don’t get a tattoo.
The rest you’ll figure out.”
With Compliments
Linda Summer, Scribe @ Lost For Words


David Letterman: Late-Night TV Needs More Women
Why the Message of ‘Me Before You’ Is So Dangerous
Former Late Show host David Letterman says that late-night TV needs more diversity.
The now-bearded retiree recently sat down with NBC News’ Tom Brokaw for an extended Dateline interview, and implied that he thinks his former show should have been handed off to a female comedian instead of Stephen Colbert.
I don’t know why they didn’t give my show to a woman. That would have been fine. You know, I’m happy for their success. And they’re doing things I couldn’t do. So that’s great.
But, aside from advocating for women on the landscape, Letterman didn’t really seem all that interested in talking about late-night TV (“The first day of Stephen’s show when he went on the air—an energy left me.”)
He told Brokaw,
Would God Make Aliens?
I couldn’t care less about late-night television. I’m happy for the guys—men and women—there should be more women … They didn’t ask me about anything. They were just—they were just happy I was going.
Letterman’s not the first one to call for more women to host late-night shows. Samantha Bee, the host of TBS’ Full Frontal, made headlines earlier this year when she Photoshopped herself (as a laser-eyed centaur) into a Vanity Fair spread that featured 10 men who hosted late-night shows. The image she sent out on Twitter soon went viral. She explained to The Daily Beast, “I just felt so tired of it. It really just came from a place of exhaustion and feeling ignored.”
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By Next Year, Will Doctors Finally Have The Technology To Fully Personalize Treatments For Lung Cancer Patients?
Carrie RubinsteinContributor
Today, with the new risks posed by Covid, how do we provide the best care for people with non-Covid- related disease? For diagnosed cancer patients, these risks may warrant a re-evaluation of the common standards of treatment.
"Covid has had a very negative impact, as cancer screening is down by about 50%," says Oncologist Dr. Adam Dicker, Director at the Jefferson Center for Digital Health. “Most predictions suggest that a larger number of patients will present with a more advanced stage of disease because of the decrease in screening and fear of Covid. It seems like the end result will be more patients with advanced disease and lower cure rates because their cancers were diagnosed at a much later stage.”
Even more worrisome, and while targeted cancer therapies are now more tumor-specific, less toxic, and offer new possibilities for tailoring cancer treatment, there are still so many missing pieces: often as not, oncologists are shooting in the dark, trying to tailor the right treatment for their patient with very limited data. With the shadow of Covid, and the multiple risks cancer patients now face, clinicians are increasingly concerned.
"There are very few good biomarkers that enable personalized treatment regimens and therefore, in ... [+] most cases, we have a ‘one size fits all approach’."
“Today, we use protocols to treat our patients with lung or other kinds of cancers,” says Dr. Ofer Sharon, a longtime physician and entrepreneur. “There are very few good biomarkers that enable personalized treatment regimens and therefore, in most cases, we have a ‘one size fits all approach’. Treatment starts following diagnosis and staging and we start to follow up on patients using clinical capabilities.”
What he describes is rather disturbing. Doctors are left to speculate as to which degree patients are responding to treatment. "Oncology is at the beginning of the journey in terms of precision medicine," Dr. Dicker explains. "We currently have a few classes of drugs that care for patients with specific mutations in their tumor DNA or a percentage of immune cells that stain for a particular protein. We currently do not have a comprehensive approach that integrates all the available information to enhance clinical decisions."
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Dr. Sharon adds: “Usually, response assessment happens after three and six months. During this period, there are a lot of uncertainties, and sometimes there are adverse events and associated costs. If the patient is not responding the way we had hoped, we lose valuable time. There is a consensus among clinicians,” he notes, “that not all patients are the same and there’s a dire need for effective tools to differentiate between patients and personalize treatment according to their needs. There’s a dire need for effective tools to differentiate between patients and personalize treatment according to their needs. Will technology make a difference?
OncoHost, an Israeli precision oncology company is now in the final steps of finalizing a host response profiling platform for predicting patient response to cancer therapeutics.
With over 20 years of experience in clinical and commercial product development for startups in the health tech, biotech, and medical device industries, Dr. Sharon decided to join OncoHost, as its CEO, following a personal tragedy. “Seven years ago my father-in-law was diagnosed with advanced-stage melanoma. At the time, I was the medical director for Merck (MSD) and involved in the phase 3 trials of Keytruda, a drug that treats melanoma. Unfortunately, my father-in-law didn’t meet the inclusion criteria for the trial and passed away three months before we launched the new drug. The frustration, which arises from the fact that in most cases we just don’t know in time which patients will benefit from treatment and which will not, kept me awake for many nights.”
When he came across Oncohost, he realized there might be hope for others. ”I was fascinated by the concept and science. The opportunity to make such a crucial difference in the way we treat cancer was something I just couldn’t pass up, and I decided to take on this huge challenge.
The company’s technology is based on high-throughput protein analysis, machine-learning algorithms, and bioinformatics tools. Its product, PROphetTM, is currently under study in a multi-center international clinical trial to predict patient response to immune-checkpoint inhibitors for non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma.
"Potential combination strategies and alternative treatments that may mitigate treatment ... [+] resistance." Dr. Ofer Sharon
Oncohost
So far, it has successfully identified a 10-protein signature that distinguishes between responders and non-responders to anti-PD-1 monotherapy or anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 combination therapy for melanoma. The technology should elucidate protein patterns associated with resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors and will fulfill the need for differentiating responders from non-responders while monitoring the immune checkpoint inhibitor specific protein expression scores such as tumor proportion score.
Dr. Dicker views this innovation as the future of precision medicine. " From a holistic perspective, precision medicine should take into account the patient’s germline DNA, the tumor DNA and the host ecosystem (immune system, microbiome, etc.), imaging, social determinants of health and goals. The outcome of precision medicine should be an evidence-based, tailored approach to each patient that maximizes clinical outcomes and minimizes toxicity. "
The system, now in the clinical trial stage, analyzes the patient’s response and provides the patient and physician with a response prediction. In cases where no response is predicted, it suggests potential combination strategies and alternative treatments that may mitigate treatment resistance. "We hope this platform will — like a CT or MRI — add much-needed clinical information to support the complex and in many cases, life-and-death decision-making process".
The technology for assessing response to lung cancer therapy is expected to become available in the U.S. by next year.
Carrie Rubinstein