We have four amazing performers at the second of our two annual jath live benefit shows. There’s Piper Moretti, Jason Rogel and the duo of Matt Patterson and Rini Starkey. Here’s all the info you need for the show, at The Lounge, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., in Hollywood. Tickets are $10 and all proceeds go to the Downtown Women’s Center.
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We have four amazing performers at the first of our two annual jath live benefit shows. There’s writer Jane Park-Dolan, cabaret star Meghan Kirk with Wesley Stiller and KROQ personality Lisa May. Here’s all the info you need for the show, at The Lounge, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., in Hollywood. Tickets are $10 and all proceeds go to the Downtown Women’s Center.
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We at jath like all forms of media on the World Wide Interweb, so we have teamed with composer/entertainment biz pro Michael Patterson for a new weekly podcast. Check out the latest episode of “The TradesCast” where we discuss which TV shows are not long for this season, and about the premiere of “Where the Wild Things Are.”

The car parked next to mine has a car alarm that goes off if I even look at it too hard. I’m not saying I would take the opportunity of it going off to steal something, but I kind of think I should.

The strangest thing about the movie industry is how some A-lister can be in a movie and it either goes straight to video or it is in 10 theaters for a week. How does that happen? Here are three recent examples.

Michael Douglas stars in “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.” Yes, the critics trashed it, but they have trashed his movies before, so why was this one mostly abandoned?

“The Great Buck Howard” has several major stars, including Tom Hanks, and no one knows it.

And the craziest one is “Crossing Over,” which stars Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta. It was filmed in 2007 but didn’t come out until this year, and I’ve never met anyone who has seen it.

Strange.

I invented a term about a decade ago called “Affluent Poor,” which describes a broke journalist who frequents fancy events filled with rich people and who is treated like royalty. The best place for this is at the Getty Museum VIP openings, which press can attend. Of course, no one else but the Affluent Poor tries to have sex on the tram. Here is the tram sex instruction video.

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Can’t we all agree that if any homeopathic remedy worked that it would be sold by some big company? I like the idea of them, but I buy them knowing they won’t work, and they never do.

I am obsessed with the American Life Network. And not just because it’s owned by the Moonies. It’s actually the closest thing to the WFLD TV channel I recall as a kid, before we had cable and there were only five or six choices of what to watch. I mean it’s got the color episodes of The Honeymooners for crying out loud!

It was nice to see and hear Brooke Shields speak at the memorial for Michael Jackson. We all pretend to understand fame, as in, “Oh, yeah, I could be famous. It’s not that hard.” But even those people who think, wrongly, that fame is a picnic, have to admit that child fame is redonkulous. How can a child handle the pressures of fame and be normal. So it was nice to see another child star speak, because if you are old enough you know they were the bizarre little couple at one point. Brooke seems to have made it through to the other side. Michael did not.

Three celebrities died this week. First went Ed McMahon, whom I spent the day with in 1994 on his Star Search bus. Next was Farrah, who I never met but who was my first celebrity crush when I was 10. I had three of her posters hanging over my bed and I stared at them every night before going to bed. And then Michael Jackson, who I saw in concert in Indiana in 1988. It’s an odd thing when celebrities die because we don’t know them, so acting like a family member died doesn’t really make sense. But that’s what we do. I guess once someone moves you through art, it seems like they are your friend.