Who2 Editorial Blog

T Minus 13 Days and Counting

2009-07-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

Counting down to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin during training for aircraft ejection at Perrin AFB in May, 1968.

What I like about this shot is how low-tech things seem. Aldrin's helmet looks like an old football helmet (and may have been -- who knows?) and the rest of his rig is pretty much canvas and steel. Here's an even better shot:

NASA describes the scene this way:

Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. paddles to the shore of Lake Texoma during training at the U.S. Air Force Air Defense Command Life Support School, Perrin Air Force Base, Sherman, Texas. He sits in a one-man life raft.

He was dropped into water after making parasail ascent some 400 feet above the lake. Purpose of the training is to prepare pilots for possible ejection from aircraft during flight. 6-7 May 1968.

This is just about 14 months before the flight of Apollo 11, and dude is out floating in a football helmet and a rubber raft.

And that's how they went to the moon.

Meet Cookie Crum

2009-07-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

Here's the fascinating story of Cookie Crum, a 77 year-old lady from southern Oregon who was recently inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

Cookie, now retired, was once known as "Queen of the Hell Drivers," back when she was an 18 year-old stunt rider on the carnival circuit. It's a good tale.

Medgar Evers Born Today in 1925

2009-07-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

Today would have been the 84th birthday of Civil Rights organizer Medgar Evers, had he not been murdered in 1963.

Evers was a black World War II veteran and a college graduate who sold insurance throughout rural Mississippi. He made headlines in 1954 when he tried to get into the University of Mississippi Law School at a time when segregation was strictly enforced.

And he was shot in the back outside his home for his very public work for the legal rights of African Americans.

T Minus 14 Days and Counting

2009-07-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

July 16th, 1969: launch day for Apollo 11, the ship that put the first men on the moon.

Who2 will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 for the next three weeks, right through splashdown on 24 July. We'll have a photo a day, mostly from the marvelous NASA history archives, along with assorted notes and commentary.

And plenty of salutes to Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin, the three stud astronauts who flew to the moon in a cramped command module, drinking Tang, sleeping upside down, and working a flight computer about as powerful as the gadget that now triggers the "fasten seatbelts" chime in your 1998 Corolla wagon.

They were the right guys for the job.

On to photo number one, from way back in 1961:

That's Neil Armstrong during his days as a NASA test pilot, next to X-15 #1 after a research flight. The X-15 was a rocket-powered aircraft 50 feet long, a "missile-shaped vehicle with an unusual wedge-shaped vertical tail."

NASA calls the X-15 "the most remarkable of all the rocket research aircraft." It was typically launched from a B-52 at 45,000 feet and went up from there. The plane set an unofficial world altitude record of 354,200 feet in 1964, and the speed record for winged aircraft -- a modest 4,520 miles per hour -- in 1967. It was retired in 1968.

Only three of the crazy things were built, and Armstrong was one of 12 test pilots. Michael Adams, one of the 12, was killed in the 1967 crash of X-15 #3 after the plane went into a spin at 200,000 feet.

By then, Armstong was already preparing for the ride of his life on Apollo 11.

Here's a wider shot of Armstrong and the X-15.

(Photos courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.)

A "Festering Pile of Garbage"

2009-07-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

Yowch!

Jim Derogatis takes down the new Jonas Brothers album Lines, Vines and Trying Times.

Worst of all -- and finding a nadir amid such a festering pile of garbage is no mean feat -- is the attempt to go gangsta rap via the almost comically awful "Don't Charge Me for the Crime." A collaboration with Common, who amazingly tops even the embarrassing pandering of last year's "Universal Mind Control," this endless dud offers one howler after another.

The reason why posters of these goobers adorn the walls of so many teenage girls is obvious, at least if you think for a moment like a teenage girl. But why anyone of any age would want to listen to them remains as big a mystery as any of the shenanigans of the business world. And all we can do is hope they go away as soon as possible.

Kevin Jonas is Engaged to a Woman from New Jersey

2009-07-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

"She said yes, yes, yes, like 500 times super fast in a row."

He was the first to reach 21, and he'll be the first to lose his purity ring.

Kevin Jonas is engaged. He proposed to 22-year-old Danielle Deleasa on Wednesday, says People.

The magazine describes Deleasa as a "former hairdresser" and says the pair met in May of 2007 while vacationing with their families in the Bahamas. She's a Jersey girl, just like Jonas. Or rather, Jonas is a Jersey boy. But not a Jersey Boy.

They're both from the state of New Jersey, is what we're trying to say.

"It was Kevin who eagerly pursued her after meeting her and then spotting her walking on the beach with a flower in her hair," says the story.

More Kevin Jonas photos here.

"You Want to Have Him On the Site in Neverland"

2009-07-01T16:35:00.000-07:00

"You want to have him on the site in Neverland. That's where Elvis is at Graceland."

"On the site." Hah!

The MJ story has moved along to tasteful speculation on whether Neverland can become the next big-money Graceland.

The problem is that the county won't let Jackson be buried there, even with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pulling strings.

Perhaps it's time for a few well-placed bribes, with the promise of a small cut of future key-chain and snow globe sales.

So Long, Karl Malden

2009-07-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Malden said he got his celebrated bulbous nose when he broke it a couple of times playing basketball or football, joking that he was "the only actor in Hollywood whose nose qualifies him for handicapped parking."

Actor Karl Malden has died at age 97.

Malden won an Oscar in 1951, as best supporting actor in A Streetcar Named Desire. His heyday was the 1970s, when he starred with Michael Douglas in the hep cop show The Streets of San Francisco and began a lucrative 21-year run as the "Don't leave home without them" pitchman for American Express traveler's checks.

He also did a fine job playing sensible General Omar Bradley (opposite George C. Scott as the not-so-sensible General George Patton) in the Oscar-winning 1972 film Patton.

Here's a taste of Malden's old AmEx routine, followed by a short spoof from late-night host Johnny Carson.

MJ in a Crystal Coffin?

2009-07-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

It could be the biggest SoCal processional since OJ and Al Cowlings.

A mega-motorcade, replete with bizarre touches like a glass coffin traveling via horse and carriage, may be part of Michael Jackson's funeral cortege from Los Angeles to his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California, according to media reports.

'Officials believe the event would be so popular that cars would stretch unbroken for 125 miles between Los Angeles and the Santa Ynez Valley, where Neverland is located,' said the Los Angeles Times.

Hooboy.

Or maybe it won't happen after all. 125 miles in a horse-drawn carriage in a day seems like a stretch, unless Smarty Jones is pulling.

Jackson won't be buried at Neverland, in any case. Even the deceased King of Pop can't overcome regulations engineered by the funeral industry 'way back when.

"It's nobody's fault. Everybody in Santa Barbara feels bad about it," the source said.

[ Update: Now the family says it definitely won't happen. ]

Photo Mystery of the Day

2009-07-01T11:42:00.001-07:00

Can you name this popular singer in disguise?

Hint: It's not one of the Jonas Brothers.

Answer here.

Al Franken Is About to Become a Senator

2009-06-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

Definitely.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously today that the Minnesota Democrat beat Norm Coleman in November and is entitled to be seated in the U.S. Senate.

Coleman finally conceded later in the afternoon, and Govenor Tim Pawlenty said he'd sign the formal election certificate.

Franken is expected to be seated next week, after the Senate returns from its July 4th break.

Where's Bubbles?

2009-06-30T11:46:00.001-07:00

Turns out Michael Jackson's famous chimp companion, Bubbles, now resides at the Center for Great Apes, in Wauchula, Florida.

Here's his profile from the Center.

Keeping Up With Governor Sanford

2009-06-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

Jiminy, what next with South Carolina's Mark Sanford? He's made yet another emotional confession, this time to the Associated Press, to explain that when he said he'd met his mistress four times last year, he meant he'd met her five times.

The new confession included his admission of two trips to New York City. "Multi-night stays" is how it's described in the story.

Here's the story from Talking Points Memo.

It Just Got Weirder

2009-06-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

US Weekly now claims that Michael Jackson is not the biological father of his two oldest children.

The real father is Jackson's dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein, says the mag.

TMZ chimes in with the claim that Debbie Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife who carried the first two kids, is not the biological mother, either. She was (supposedly) a surrogate only, with the eggs coming from elsewhere.

Which sets things up nicely for a complicated custody battle in which none of the participants is actually related in any way to the children. (Unless the dermatologist jumps in.)

Although Rowe is not the biological mother, it's not a slam dunk that she would lose a custody battle. This type of case has never been litigated in California courts. Since Rowe was married to Jackson when Michael Jr. and Paris were born, there's a presumption that she's the biological parent. That presumption can be rebutted by other evidence.

Brother.

Unknown Dump Truck Men Are Trashing Neverland

2009-06-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

That didn't take long.

The AP says that the trash man has already come to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.

...Pickup trucks and a large dump truck towing a flatbed were seen entering the 2,500-acre Neverland Ranch, a major piece of the singer's debt-strapped financial empire. It was not clear who had requested the fleet or for what purpose.

I just spent some time trying to get a handle on the ranch itself. I've heard the name many times, natch -- mentioned mainly as an exhibit of Jackson's odd and free-spending ways -- but never quite got the whole scene. Now I get it.

One can start with these Neverland photos from our Jackson profile.

Turns out the ranch is about 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles, up through Burbank, Oxnard, and Santa Barbara, and near the town of Solvang. (Google Maps shows the ranch here.)

Solvang is its own sort of Neverland, an "authentic" Danish village that has been on tourist maps for years. (Moreso since the area was featured in the film Sideways. The Thomas Haden Church and Paul Giamatti characters stayed in the kitschy windmill Days Inn in nearby Buellton, 10 short miles from Neverland.)

Neverkand is also about 18 miles north of Ronald Reagan's own getaway, Rancho del Cielo. (Jackson had Reagan in size, 2500 acres to 688.)

Here's a nifty Neverland map, posted by a video tech who worked a charity event there.

It's bigger than I thought. The map lists cages for elephants, giraffes, orangutans, tigers, bears, and a crocodile (yikes!) along with bumper cars, a ferris wheel, swings, a "sea dragon" (?), etc. (No Bubbles, though.) As for the layout, it's zoo animals to the north, rides in the middle, private residence to the south.

Jackson apparently lived in the middle of the amusement park when he was in residence; there wasn't a separate mansion elsewhere, as I had assumed.

Mr. Jackson spent more than 15 years living at the ranch. He wrote songs for 1991's "Dangerous" album while sitting in a treehouse overlooking the estate's four-acre pond. His three children were home-schooled on the third floor of the main house.

As for the free-spending ways:

[Jackson] created a Neverland Valley Fire Department, with a small fleet of working engines and full-time firefighters who were occasionally dispatched to battle brushfires on neighboring properties.

At its peak, Neverland boasted a staff of 150, and cost $10 million a year to maintain, according to people familiar with the matter.

When he wasn't in residence, Jackson let schoolkids and other visitors have the run of the place.

Oh, and Liz Taylor married Larry Fortensky there in 1991.

Now we find out that Neverland wasn't even really Jackson's any more. After much wrangling over debt in years past, he handed it over last November to Sycamore Valley Ranch LLC, a company owned partly by him but mainly by the powerful property company Colony Capital.

Which maybe explains the dump truck.

[ June 30 update: E! Online now says Neverland will host a public viewing of Jackson's body over July 4th weekend. Perhaps, in the Reagan tradition, the workers are just there to clear brush? ]

[ July 1 update: Unknown dump truck men are ~~trashing~~ cleaning up Neverland. "Unconfirmed reports suggest Jackson's body may be placed in a glass coffin and be transported from Los Angeles to Neverland in a 'fairytale carriage.'" ]

[ Still later July 1 update: The Jackson family says there will be no viewing at Neverland after all. ]

Gary Busey, Senior Citizen

2009-06-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

Or "Señor Citizen," as they called him in Barbarosa.

In any case, Gary Busey turns 65 today.

Johnny Depp as Dillinger: Photos

2009-06-29T12:35:00.001-07:00

Johnny Depp puts down the mascara and picks up a tommy gun for Public Enemies, the new action flick coming out this week.

Depp plays John Dillinger, the real-life Public Enemy Number One who robbed bank after bank, had gunfight after gunfight with G-men, twice escaped from jail, picked up a hot French-Canadian girlfriend, and (spoiler!) was finally gunned down outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago -- all in one wild year in 1933-34.

We've got the photos.

Marion Cotillard puts down the Edith Piaf mascara and picks up a Canadian accent to play Billie Frechette, Dillinger's moll. (Love that word "moll.")

Christian Bale plays the soon-to-be-famous-for-bagging-Dillinger federal agent Melvin Purvis. Billy Crudup plays G-for-gay G-man J. Edgar Hoover. Direction is by Michael "I Like Anti-Heroes" Mann.

The trailer makes me want to see the movie.

Bernie Madoff's Prison Earning Power

2009-06-29T11:42:00.001-07:00

Master fraudster Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in jail from a New York judge today.

Madoff will be 221 years old when he gets out in 2159.

Assuming that Madoff managed to hide $10 million or so from federal agents in Swiss or offshore accounts: At a modest interest rate of 4%, compounded annually, he can expect to have over three billion dollars -- $3,589,226,741, to be exact -- waiting for him when he gets out.

At standard New York prison wages of between two and 20 cents per hour, Madoff can sock away an extra $40 to $400 per year, or up to $60,000, during his sentence.

That's assuming he works the typical 40 hours per week.

Mark Sanford: Now Three Women?

2009-06-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

In explaining his absence, two critical questions were left unanswered: Why would Sanford have been near Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport Thursday, as his cell phone had indicated? It is 80 miles from the Appalachian Trail...

The next day, staff and Sanford allies said the governor's still-mysterious trip was a harmless excursion. Then, late Tuesday night, Sanford's SUV was discovered at Columbia's airport, completely unraveling the story.

The State ran a fine new story on Sunday titled "How Mark Sanford's affair blew up."

The State is the South Carolina paper that broke the Sanford story after their reporter, Gina Smith, caught him at Atlanta airport getting off a plane from Argentina. The story outlines how the paper chased the story and includes good notes on why its editors sat on juicy Sanford emails for nearly six months.

But it also includes this intriguing section:

A reporter called a Sanford staffer, saying the paper had e-mails that outlined an affair between the governor and Maria. Unless Sanford would address the issue privately, The State would have no choice but to ask him -- with TV crews filming -- if he knew Maria at his press conference that afternoon.
The names of two other women tumbled into the newsroom.
Fearful Sanford's staffers did not get it -- that the paper would ask publicly what Sanford's relationship was with Maria -- a State editor called [Tom] Davis, Sanford's former chief of staff...
The editor told Davis why he thought the e-mails were genuine. They mentioned Coosaw, the Sanford plantation, and Sanford's love of digging holes; they quoted Bible verses and contained details about Sanford's known schedule.
And more names of women were coming in over the transom. The total was at three and counting.

Oddly, that's the last mention the article makes of the three women. Is The State saying that three different names were offered for Sanford's single Argentinian lover? Or that Sanford was alleged to have had affairs with three separate women? It's not clear.

The paper hints at the same topic in another piece today ("Spiritual advisor: 'Darkness' gripped Sanford'") about Sanford counselor Warren Culbertson.

In an interview with The Associated Press this weekend... Culbertson said he believed his friend when he said that this was his only marital transgression. He thinks Sanford was simply caught off guard by "the power of darkness."

But then:

Janine Driver, a Washington, D.C.-based body language and deception detection expert, said Sanford showed more emotion when apologizing to Culbertson and longtime political aide Tom Davis than he did when speaking of his wife and four sons. She also believes he lied when a reporter asked if this was the first time he had been unfaithful.

"He answers the question before it's been asked," said Driver, who spent 15 years with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "Then what does he do? He drops both his eyes and turns his head AWAY? ... That's what's called the cold shoulder.

Which makes it sound to us like The State thinks it knows something, doesn't quite have the goods to say so, and is hoping to flush out other details by dangling hints in its stories.

[Update: South Carolina political blogger Will Folks, a former Sanford spokesman, identifies the two women and says both deny having had affairs with Sanford.

Hat tip: The Digitel.]

The Eclipsed Celebrity Death Club

2009-06-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

Groucho is included.

Michael Jackson's "Woo-hoo" Secret -- Revealed!

2009-06-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

(Street art seen in Chicago -- 27 June 2009)

I will now reveal a secret I've been keeping for the last 20 years about Michael Jackson.

Michael is dead now, alas, so I assume I won't be creating any gross legal or ethical difficulties in revealing my little tale.

Back in 1989 I was working as a production manager for Will Vinton Productions, the Claymation people. At the time Will had a very hot shop, thanks to his California Raisins commercials. So hot, in fact, that Michael Jackson called up and asked to be made into a dancing raisin himself.

Thus was born the "Michael Raisin" TV ad, produced in 1989.

Due to some kind of nutty legal angle -- something about Michael being under contract to Pepsi, I think -- Jackson's image could be used, but not his voice. So a Michael Jackson impersonator was brought in to do the actual singing for the ad.

Now for the little secret, which Will told me about in his office a few months later. Will directed the animation for the spot and went down to Los Angeles for the postproduction sessions with Michael. Jackson was a perfectionist, so was Will, and as they were going through the final sound mix, one thing really bugged them: the impersonator just hadn't caught the esprit of Michael's trademark "woo-hoo".

They fiddled with the sound, trying to tweak it, without much luck. Finally Will turned to Michael, raised an eyebrow, and said "Well, Michael, do you...?" Leaving the question hanging open just a little, as it were.

Michael got it and grinned. They had the sound tech set up a mic right there... and Michael did an illicit one-shot "woo-hoo!" They dropped it in on the spot, telling no one, naturally, since it was technically less than fully legal or contractual or whatever.

And it went out the door that way. A 60-second version of "Michael Raisin" was released in 5700 theaters before going on TV, mostly in a shorter (woo-hooless) 30-second version.

So Now It Can Be Revealed: That's Michael himself singing a secret "woo-hoo!" in "Michael Raisin." You can hear it at just about the 28-second mark:

The Best "Charlie's Angels" Photo Ever

2009-06-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Among the Farrah Fawcett photos supplied to us by our friends at WENN is this memorable Charlie's Angels promo shot from 1976:

We have other shots of the trio (the Angels stroll! And play chess!) but this one catches the mood of the show best -- or at least, the mood of the show as it wanted to be seen.

Something about the dainty way Jaclyn Smith tilts her front leg makes the whole shot work.

Smith's bikini (those hips!) reminds us that Fawcett wasn't necessarily even supposed to be the prime cheesecake in the show. Smith was supposed to be the smooth-hot model, after all, and Kate Jackson was the smart one. (She even looks fairly believable in that riding outfit.)

Farrah looks confused about something. Possibly she's wondering if her outfit is a hand-me-down from The Love Boat, another Aaron Spelling production that had its pilot the same year. Or perhaps she's puzzling things out: "If Kate is the smart one, does that make me...?"

It didn't take long to sort out Fawcett's role once the show hit the air: she was The Blonde. She took off as first among equals -- a la Michael Jackson in the Jackson 5, you might say.

More Fawcett fotos here.

Jeff Goldblum Is Not Dead

2009-06-25T19:03:00.001-07:00

Farrah Fawcett, yes. Michael Jackson, yes. Jeff Goldblum, no.

Reports of Goldblum's death are not true. His publicist says the actor is alive and well in Los Angeles.

Apparently the rumor, that Goldblum had fallen off a cliff in New Zealand, first began in 1999 and somehow cropped up again today.

It's just as well. With all the air being sucked out of the room by the deaths of Fawcett and (especially) Jackson, it's possible nobody would know if another celebrity died in the next 24 hours.

Michael Jackson Dead at Age 50

2009-06-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

The L.A. Times reports that Michael Jackson died after a cardiac arrest today.

[Update: Jackson has indeed died. He passed away at 1:07 pm Pacific time, according to the LA County Coroner.]

For a look back:

Here's Jackson's YouTube page, where you can see some of his great videos from years past.

Entertainment Weekly has a very helpful photo feature titled "Michael Jackson: 18 Key Moments."

And here is a video interview from 1972, with Michael talking to Dick Clark.

The Ongoing Saga of South Carolina's Governor, Mark Sanford

2009-06-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

Oh, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford -- way to knock Jon and Kate off the front pages!

First reports had Sanford as "missing." Next came word he was "hiking the Appalachian Trail," followed by a wave of "the media is making too big a deal of this!"

Then it turned out he wasn't hiking the Appalachian Trail, he was in Argentina. Because he likes to walk around by himself.

Except he wasn't by himself, he was with a "dear, dear friend" (a lady) with whom he has been having an extra-marital affair.

What next?

Here's the latest (we hope) from South Carolina's The State news.

Here's his wife's public response to the situation.