Legendary Film Critic Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer
For a film with a daring director, a talented cast, a captivating plot or, ideally, all three, there could be no better advocate than Roger Ebert, who passionately celebrated and promoted excellence in film while deflating the awful, the derivative, or the merely mediocre with an observant eye, a sharp wit and a depth of knowledge that delighted his millions of readers and viewers.
“No good film is too long,” he once wrote, a sentiment he felt strongly enough about to have engraved on pens. “No bad movie is short enough.”
Ebert, 70, who reviewed movies for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and on TV for 31 years, and who was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic, died Thursday in Chicago. He had been in poor health over the past decade, battling cancers of the thyroid and salivary gland.
He lost part of his lower jaw in 2006, and with it the ability to speak or eat, a calamity that would have driven other men from the public eye. But Ebert refused to hide, instead forging what became a new chapter in his career, an extraordinary chronicle of his devastating illness that won him a new generation of admirers. “No point in denying it,” he wrote, analyzing his medical struggles with characteristic courage, candor and wit, a view that was never tinged with bitterness or self-pity.
On Tuesday, Mr. Ebert blogged that he had suffered a recurrence of cancer following a hip fracture suffered in December, and would be taking “a leave of presence.” In the blog essay, marking his 46th anniversary of becoming the Sun-Times film critic, Ebert wrote “I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers hand-picked and greatly admired by me.”
Always technically savvy — he was an early investor in Google — Ebert let the Internet be his voice. His rogerebert.com had millions of fans, and he received a special achievement award as the 2010 “Person of the Year” from the Webby Awards, which noted that “his online journal has raised the bar for the level of poignancy, thoughtfulness and critique one can achieve on the Web.” His Twitter feeds had 827,000 followers.
Mr. Ebert was both widely popular and professionally respected. He not only won a Pulitzer Prize — the first film critic to do so — but his name was added to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005, among the movie stars he wrote about so well for so long. His reviews were syndicated in hundreds of newspapers worldwide.
The same year Mr. Ebert won the Pulitzer — 1975 — he also launched a new kind of television program: “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You” with Chicago Tribune movie critic Gene Siskel on WTTW-Channel 11. At first it ran monthly.
The combination worked. The trim, balding Siskel, perfectly balanced the bespectacled, portly Ebert. In 1978, the show, retitled “Sneak Previews,” moved to PBS for national distribution, and the duo was on their way to becoming a fixture in American culture.
“Tall and thin, short and fat. Laurel and Hardy,” Ebert once wrote. “We were parodied on ‘SNL’ and by Bob Hope and Danny Thomas and, the ultimate honor, in the pages of Mad magazine.”
His colleagues admired him as a workhorse. Ebert reviewed as many as 285 movies a year, after he grew ill scheduling his cancer surgeries around the release of important pictures. He eagerly contributed to other sections of the papers — interviews with and obituaries of movie stars, even political columns on issues he cared strongly about on the editorial pages.
In 1997, unsatisfied with spending his critical powers “locked in the present,” he began a running feature revisiting classic movies, and eventually published three books on “The Great Movies” (and two books on movies he hated). A second column, his “Movie Answer Man” allowed readers to learn about intriguing little details of cinema that only a Roger Ebert knew or could ferret out.
That, too, became a book. Mr. Ebert wrote more books than any TV personality since Steve Allen — 17 in all. Not only collections of reviews, both good and bad, and critiques of great movies, but humorous film term glossaries and even a novel, “Behind the Phantom’s Mask,” that was serialized in the Sun-Times. He even wrote a book about rice cookers, The Pot and How to Use It, despite the fact that he could no longer eat. In 2011 his autobiography, “Life Itself” won rave reviews. “This is the best thing Mr. Ebert has ever written,” Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times. It is, fittingly enough, being made into a movie, produced by his longtime friend, Martin Scorsese.
Roger Joseph Ebert was born in Urbana on June 18, 1942, the son of Walter and Annabel Ebert. His father was an electrician at the University of Illinois, his mother, a bookkeeper. It was a liberal household — Ebert remembers his parents praying for the success of Harry Truman in the election of 1948. As a child, he published a mimeographed neighborhood newspaper, and a stamp collectors’ newspaper in elementary school.
In high school, he was, as he later wrote, “demented in [his] zeal for school activities,” joining the swim team, acting in plays, founding the Science Fiction Club, co-hosting Urbana High School’s Saturday morning radio program, co-editing the newspaper, being elected senior class president.
He began his professional writing career at 15, as a sportswriter covering the high school beat for the News-Gazette in Champaign-Urbana.
Ebert went on to the University of Illinois, where he published a weekly journal of politics and opinion as a freshman and served as editor of the Daily Illini his senior year. He graduated in 1964, and studied in South Africa on a Rotary Scholarship.
While still in Urbana, he began free-lancing for the Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News.
He was accepted at the University of Chicago, where he planned to earn his doctorate in English (an avid reader, Ebert later used literary authors to help explain films — for example, quoting e.e. cummings several times in his review of Stanley Kubrick’s groundbreaking “2001: A Space Odyssey.”)
But Mr. Ebert had also written to Herman Kogan, for whom he freelanced at the Daily News, asking for a job, and ended up at the Sun-Times in September of 1966, working part-time. The following April, he was asked to become the newspaper’s film critic when the previous critic, Eleanor Keen, retired.
“I didn’t know the job was open until the day I was given it,” Mr. Ebert later said. “I had no idea. Bob Zonka, the features editor, called me into the conference room and said, ‘We’re gonna make you the movie critic.’ It fell out of the sky.”
Mr. Ebert’s goal up to that point had been to be “a columnist like Royko,” but he accepted this new stroke of luck, which came at exactly the right time. Movie criticism had been a backwater of journalism, barely more than recounting the plots and stars of movies — the Tribune ran its reviews under a jokey generic byline, “Mae Tinee.” But American cinema was about to enter a period of unprecedented creativity, and criticism would follow along. Restrictive film standards were finally easing up, in part thanks to his efforts. When Ebert began reviewing movies, Chicago still had an official film board that often banned daring movies here -- Lynn Redgrave’s “Georgy Girl” was kept off Chicago screens in 1966 — and Ebert immediately began lobbying for elimination of the censorship board.
He had a good eye. His Sept. 25, 1967 review of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in “Bonnie and Clyde” called it “a milestone” and “a landmark.”
“Years from now it is quite possible that ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ will be seen as the definitive film of the 1960s,” he wrote, “showing with sadness, humor and unforgiving detail what one society had come to.”
It was. Though of course Ebert was not infallible -- while giving Mike Nichols’ “The Graduate” four stars in the same year, he added that the movie’s “only flaw, I believe, is the introduction of limp, wordy Simon and Garfunkel songs.’’
Ebert plunged into what turned out to be a mini-golden age of Chicago journalism. He found himself befriended by Mike Royko — with whom he wrote a unproduced screenplay. He drank with Royko, and with Nelson Algren and Studs Terkel. He wrote a trashy Hollywood movie — “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’’ for Russ Meyer, having met the king of the buxom B-movie after writing an appreciation of his work.
In later years, Ebert was alternatively sheepish and proud of the movie. It was the first “sexploitation” film by a major studio — 20th Century Fox, though Time magazine’s Richard Corliss did call it one of the 10 best films of the 1970s.
Nor was not Ebert’s only foray into film writing -- he was also hired to write a movie for the Sex Pistols, the seminal British punk band in the late 1970s.
Eventually, Sun-Times editor James Hoge demanded that Ebert -- who took a leave of absence and went to Hollywood to write “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” -- decide between making films and reviewing them. He chose newspapering, which increasingly became known because of his TV fame, which grew around his complex partnership with Gene Siskel.
“At first the relationship on TV was edgy and uncomfortable,” he wrote in 1999, after Siskel’s untimely death, at 53. “Our newspaper rivalry was always in the air between us. Gene liked to tell about the time he was taking a nap under a conference table at the television station, overheard a telephone conversation I was having with an editor, and scooped me on the story.”
In 1981, the program was renamed “At the Movies” and moved to Tribune Broadcasting. In 1986, it became “Siskel & Ebert & The Movies” and moved to Buena Vista Television, and the duo began the signature “thumbs up, thumbs down” rating system that Ebert came up with.
“When we left to go with Disney . . . we had to change some things because we were afraid of [violating] intellectual property rights,’’ he said. “And I came up with the idea of giving thumbs up and thumbs down. And the reason that Siskel and I were able to trademark that is that the phrase ‘two thumbs up’ in connection with movies had never been used. And in fact, the phrase ‘two thumbs up’ was not in the vernacular. And now, of course, it’s part of the language.”
“Two thumbs up” became their registered trademark and a highly coveted endorsement that inevitably ran at the top of movie advertisements.
Ebert’s cancer forced him off the air in 2006. After auditioning a number of temporary co-hosts, Ebert settled on Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper in 2000. At its height, “Ebert & Roeper,” was seen on 200 stations,
All that need be mentioned of Ebert’s social life was that in the early 1980s he briefly went out with the hostess of a modest local TV show called “AM Chicago.” Taking her to the Hamburger Hamlet for dinner, Ebert suggested that she syndicate her show, using his success with Siskel as an example of the kind of riches that awaited. While she didn’t return his romantic interest, Oprah Winfrey did follow his business advice.
In his memoirs, Ebert writes of a controlling, alcoholic, faith-obsessed mother whom he was frightened of displeasing. “I would never marry before my mother died,” he wrote. She passed away in 1987, and in 1992 he married, for the first time, at age 50, to attorney Chaz Hammel-Smith (later Chaz Hammelsmith), who was the great romance of his life and his rock in sickness, instrumental in helping Ebert continue his workload as his health declined.
“She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she is the love of my life, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone,” he wrote.
In addition to his TV and newspaper work, Ebert was a fixture at film festivals around the world – Toronto, Cannes, Telluride — and even created a festival of his own, The Overlooked Film Festival, or just “EbertFest,” which he began in Champaign in 1999 and dedicated to highlighting neglected classics.
Between 1970 and 2010, Ebert made yearly visits to the University of Colorado’s springtime Conference on World Affairs, where he has presented frame-by-frame critiques of classic movies to enraptured audiences.
He has also used the conference to speak on a variety of subjects, from his romantic life to his recovery from alcoholism — he stopped drinking in 1979 — to the problem of Spam e-mail. In 1996 Ebert coined the “Boulder Pledge,” considered a cornerstone in the battle against spam.
“Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message,” Ebert wrote. “Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.”
R.I.P!
Yep, it’s about that time! TV One is returning w/ popular reality show, ‘R&B Divas’, taking place in the ATL.
TV One Unveils Season 2 of ‘R&B Divas ATL’ Promo With new members Angie Stone & Latocha Scott
And contrary to popular belief AND rumors (we absolutely stand corrected), the ENTIRE cast is back–including Faith Evans, Nicci Gilbert, Syleena Johnson, Monifah and KeKe Wyatt. What’s more? Two more ‘divas’ have been added, Angie Stone and LaTocha Scott (formerly of XSCAPE). Instead of spoiling the teaser, that you can see w/ your very own two eyes, we’ll let you watch for yourself.
Check it out:
EXCITED? I am!
Say Whatttt……Pilar Is Dating “Slim” From Cash Money???
Well look at what we have here, I guess money can buy love. Deion Sanders’ estranged wife Pilar has a new boo in her life, according to Sandrarose, Slim reportedly is taking very good care of Pilar and her children, even tho she lost custody of them all.
Check out Pilar, and her kids rocking some YMCMB gear below:
All I can say is do you PILAR, because we see Deion is doing him, by dating Tracy Edmonds. But what a HORRIBLE choice…still do you!
Jay-Z Launches Sports Agency; Signs NY Yankee Robinson Cano
*Jay-Z has extended his empire into sports management.
The rap mogul’s entertainment company Roc Nation today announced the launch of Roc Nation Sports, a full-service sports management company led by Jay-Z (a.k.a. Shawn Carter) and partnering with Creative Artists Agency.
The group also announced the signing of Roc Nation Sports’ first client, New York Yankees All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano.
“Because of my love of sports, it was a natural progression to form a company where we can help top athletes in various sports the same way we have been helping artists in the music industry for years,” Hov said in a statement.
The formation of the agency creates an array of branding opportunities for Roc Nation athletes, who could take advantage of the global cachet in the entertainment world that association with Jay-Z would bring, reports USA Today.
“At this point in my career, I am ready to take a more active role in my endeavors both on and off the field,” Cano, who is leaving agent Scott Boras to sign with Roc Nation, said in a statement.
“I am confident that the pairing of Roc Nation Sports & CAA Sports will be essential in helping me accomplish my short- & long-term goals.”
Roc Nation’s next move could be a jump into the NFL with New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz. The two have been friends for a while, with Cruz showing up at a few Jay-Z concerts last year.
Plus, Cruz added a twist to his touchdown celebrations last year. After his signature salsa, he flashed Jay-Z’s “Illuminati” symbol toward TV cameras.
Asked after a game in October if he and Jay-Z were working toward a business partnership, Cruz dodged the question.
“I’d rather keep that under wraps. I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag just yet.” Asked if he’d provide any clarity soon, Cruz said, “We’ll see in the upcoming weeks what happens.”
Cruz recently fired his agent and signed with CAA’s Tom Condon, which would seemingly set the stage for his aligning with Jay-Z in some capacity.
EMI Gospel And Motown Form A New Label
Motown Records and EMI Gospel have entered into a 50-50 joint venture partnership to create Motown Gospel. The new label launches officially tonight (APR02) with a press reception and showcase at Los Angeles’ Arc Theater featuring performances by roster artists Smokie Norful, Tasha Cobbs, Tye Tribbett and Kierra Sheard. Under terms of the joint venture, the team behind the former EMI Gospel — headed by president Ken Pennell — will still handle day-to-day operations Plans are also in place to staff up on the A&R front at the new joint venture. The first such appointment is Grammy Award-winning songwriter/producer Aaron Lindsey as VP of A&R. His production credits include the Marvin Sapp No. 1 gospel crossover hit Never Would Have Made It.
The first new signing to Motown Gospel is fellow Grammy winner CeCe Winans, with a new album slated for early 2014. Rounding out the label’s 2013 release slate are new albums by Tye Tribbett, Kierra Sheard and Smokie Norful. The Motown Gospel roster also includes VaShawn Mitchell and Anita Wilson.
Forest Whitaker To Produce Richard Pryor Biopic
Actor Forest Whitaker is said to be producing a biopic about the life of comedian Richard Pryor. There have been several attempts to make a film but none have yet to come to life. Find out more details on this project inside.
Forest Whitaker is said to be working with the late comedian’s widow, Jennifer Pryor, on the new project. Several other comedians have had an opportunity to take the film to the big screen such as Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Damon Wayans, and Eddie Griffin. However, the film has yet to be produced.
It’s crazy that this film hasn’t already been produced because Richard Pryor has an interesting life story. He was born in a brothel and became one of the most famous forerunners in the comedy business. It’s also no secret about Richard almost catching himself on fire while freebasing with cocaine. With all of this drama and action, we’re surprised that hasn’t already been a film made yet.
Do you think Forest Whitaker will live up to the task? Would you go see a biopic about Richard Pryor?
CONGRATS: Tina Turner Engaged To Longtime Boyfriend ‘Erwin Bach’
Wow, after 18 years of living together Tina Turner and her boyfriend, Erwin Bach, are engaged. Turner is said to be planning a lavish ceremony at Lake Zurich close to their home in Switzerland.
According to Swiss newspaper Blick chefs Rico Zandonella and Horst Petermann from Turner’s favourite restaurant, Rico’s Kunststuben, have been called in to cater the reception.
This will be the icon’s second marriage after her tumultuous relationship with soul singer Ike Turner ended in divorce after 1976 after 14-years together.
Turner renounced her U.S. citizenship to become Swiss in January this year.
Spotted Out: Brandy Takes her daughter to ‘Disneyland’
Brandy Norwood was the center of all attention at Disney California Adventure Park hours ago, snapped by fans and paparazzi alike as she hit the fun filled venue with her daughter Sy’rai.
Caught enjoying the day together, the mother-daughter duo arrived days after Brandy returned from the Japanese promo leg of her new album, ‘Two Eleven’ and as she continues to grace screens across the US via BET’s ratings winner ‘The Game‘.
More from the ‘Put It Down‘ singer below!
Your thoughts?
Kelly Rowland Hangs Out and PARTIES IT UP In ATL
Kelly Rowland flew down to the ATL to wrap up her upcoming album and host a party at The Compound. While in town, she chatted it up with Big Tigger on his V103 radio show.
Kelly, who was born and raised in Atlanta until she was 7, revealed a few deets about her Talk A Good Game disc which will include a duet with Pharrell Williams.
"I'm actually in the process of wrapping it up. This is actually the last recording session I've got for this album, but I'm so excited. I've been in the studio with Dream. I've been in the studio with Harmony. I've been in the studio with Pharrell. I've been in the studio with Kevin Cossom, who is incredible. When I tell you, he is so incredible and I'm so happy I got the opportunity to work with him."
She also defended Beyonce's "Bow Down" record saying,
"I've heard pieces of what she's done. She's heard things that I've recorded and I just think it scratches the surface to everything else. I think it's a great record ("Bow Down"). It's her expression. I think, as an artist, you can express yourself however you want to and I just can't wait for everybody to hear the rest of the record. It is insane."
As her "Kisses Down Low" single climbs the charts, fans can expect to hear the completed project on June 4.
And later at the club. That night!
"Ice" singer Kelly Rowland was seen walking into The Compound on Saturday evening.
The sultry singer rocked a quilted black leather jacket over a long fitted dress with Christian Louboutin booties.
Once inside, Kelly, who just wrapped up her Talk A Good Game disc, danced all night and greeted tons of fans.
Ludacris' manager Chaka Zulu was among her many guests.
And hit maker Sean Garrett was also spotted throwing his hands in the air at Kelly's celebration.
Producer Jazze Pha partied at Compound too.
Kelly hung out with Lala Anthony's cousin Dice.
Kelly was seen dancing with her boyfriend Tim Weatherspoon.
Later, the couple partied with“I Like It” singer Sevyn Streeter, who co-wrote Chris Brown's "Fine China" single.
Uh Oh? Professor Michael Fauntroy on Roland Martin: ‘A Marginally Knowledgeable Loudmouth’
'More sizzle than steak ... He is lucky to have had his turn (at CNN).'
In street parlance he’d be called a hater, but we’ll just say that Professor Michael Fauntroy (George Mason University) intellectually disagrees with Roland Martin.
He thinks Martin is basically full of himself and well, wasn’t really qualified to be at CNN in the first place. In short, he thinks we should “resist the urge to make Roland Martin out to be some wrongly aggrieved talking head.”
And that was just for starters. In fact, you may be wondering why the hate, er, should we say why is the Professor not on the same page with Roland Martin?
Here’s Prof. Fauntroy in his own words:
I got into a back-and-forth on Twitter this past weekend with someone who is a fan of soon-to-be former CNN political analyst Roland Martin. The writer took umbrage with some of my tweets regarding Martin’s departure from the network. My position? Let’s resist the urge to make Roland Martin out to be some wrongly aggrieved talking head. He is a marginally knowledgeable loudmouth who was more sizzle than steak. No academic training politics and government. No significant campaign experience. No experience as a political reporter at a major media outlet (He wrote opinion pieces at CNN). He is lucky to have had his turn. So to those who are shedding tears following the announcement of his departure from CNN: Your time would be better spent applying pressure to the cable networks to put minorities on who actually know something about politics and government.
America’s public discourse on politics and government is infested by too many people with thin or nonexistent credentials. They are on television and radio because there are either well connected, telegenic, or otherwise project the image the network wants you to see; expertise is not at the top of the list of traits. Their exposure gives them a level of popularity that legitimizes their analysis while, concurrently, inoculates them from criticism of their inanity (“they’re on X network, so they must know what they’re talking about”). While Roland Martin is the subject here, he is not the only person I’m thinking about. There are many experts on television, but in political media, those who know are almost outnumbered by those who don’t.
I wonder why we accept this. We wouldn’t listen to a science and technology analyst with no academic or employment history in the fields in which he or she is commenting. We wouldn’t listen to a Wall Street analyst with no academic training in corporate finance or employment as a stock and bond trader. We wouldn’t listen to a medical analyst with no academic medical training or employment. So why should we listen to a political analyst with a similarly thin background? We deserve better from our media. We deserve a political discourse that includes real experts, not just well practiced-talking heads.
Roland Martin is an overrated political analyst. But because there are so few political analysts of color getting serious run on cable news networks, we accepted his inane, somewhat self-promotional pundit routine (And were happy to see a brother on CNN). I hope as we continue to debate where CNN is going after reducing the role of talented people like Soledad O’Brien or not renewing Roland Martin’s contract that we also include discussions about the kinds of backgrounds we want in our political analysts. I also hope the conclusion results in our demanding more of an emphasis on expertise. We can have expertise and personality. We will all be better for it.
And if you’re interested, there is a long list of Black political scientist professors who actually know politics and government. Let me recommend a few (although I could easily give you 50 more names): Michael Leo Owens, Khalilah Brown Dean, Pearl Ford Dowe, Sekou Franklin, Wilmer Leon, Keesha Middlemass, Audra Gillespie, Mark Sawyer, Lester Spence, James Lance Taylor, and David Wilson.
OK, you no doubt want to see where/how this winds up.
Erykah Badu Calls Out Papoose for Unauthorized Use of Vocals
Erykah Badu has a message for rapper Papoose. The Neo-soul priestess and mother of two took to Twitter to call out the rapper’s unauthorized use of her vocals in his song, “The Cure”.
“This Papoose song Cure. I sang those vocals 10 years ago. That’s 2 babies ago. Sh—-t. So mcs just throwing out old material- no paperwork..”
The above-mentioned song was slated to appear on Papoose’s long-delayed album, “The Nacimera Dream”, during his stint with Jive Records. After leaving and releasing several mixtapes, the rapper finally saw a release on indie label Honorable Records.
Of course, with Erykah Badu calling out “The Cure”, there’s no telling what will happen to this particular project.
Denzel And Mark Wahlberg Star In “2 Guns”
Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg —now here’s a pairing! The trailer for their new film 2 Guns debuts, offering insight into a gripping thriller that pins the two juggernauts against each other as the world of operatives collide with betrayal and deceit. The actors star as Marcus “Stig” Stigman and Bobby Trench respectively, the story sees the two operatives working together only to find that the other is an undercover agent. The two then realize they’ve been setup by the mob – the organization they previously assumed to be stealing from for their respective agencies.
Check out the trailer:
Nice!
NeNe Leakes Set for Her Own Bravo Spinoff Show?
"Real Housewives of Atlanta" star NeNe Leakes looks like she's getting her own spinoff. And it was all accidentally leaked last night by Kandi Burruss.
While Kandi was answering a caller's question about the status of NeNe & former co-star Kim Zolciak's love-hate relationship, Kandi explained that they're good for now, seeing that NeNe has invited Kim to the wedding.
But then Kandi (wearing a Karen Millen zip zag dress and yellow Ruthie Davis pumps) revealed that Kim may even appear on NeNe's show. Oh really? Seeing that no one has confirmed a show was even in the works--it seems Kandi knew way more than the public.
Host Andy Cohen tried to quickly change the subject, but it looks like the obvious is happening. NeNe seems to be getting either a wedding special a la "Tardy For The Wedding,"or another type of spinoff show.
It won't be a shocker if NeNe gets her own wedding special for her re-nuptials with Gregg, even though she says in recent interviews that it's unknown if she will have some type of show around her wedding. We're pretty sure the "Glee" actress was simply waiting on the right price. Not mad at that.
Serena Williams Wins Her SIXTH Sony Open, Ranked #1 In The World!
Recently Serena Williams celebrated beating out her Russian opponent Maria Sharapova to win the Sony Open at Crandon Park Tennis Center in Key Biscayne, Florida.
With her sixth win, Serena now holds the record for the most Sony Open victories by a female. She gushed to the crowd, 'I felt good today. It's so good to be No. 6 now - I mean, the six-time - oh, gosh. Thank you.''
Despite coming out on top, Serena admitted it wasn't her best performance. ''I'm happy to be holding the championship. It's definitely not my best tournament. I think everyone here can agree. But those are the moments that count - when you can still come out on top.''
And then, Serena headed over to Crandon Park beach where she took a few post-victory photos and celebrated her #1 world ranking:
So what does a champion do to celebrate an international victory? Serena revealed what went on at her post-victory celebration to her Twitter followers tweeting, "Big day. Celebrate?? Chicken and karaoke. #family"
Prince May Be Lawyering Up For Twitter War, Hits Site With Copyright Complaint
Prince is not playing with one of y’all’s favorite social media sites. The legendary singer may be lawyering up for a potential war with social media site, Twitter. The Next Web reports that Prince’s NPG Records has issued Twitter’s Vine video app with a copyright complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The site reports:
The takedown request was sent on March 22nd by an unnamed label representative, who pointed to eight clips that contained “unauthorized recordings” and “unauthorized synchronizations.” The offending videos seem to have been removed as the links listed at the end of the letter – which you can read at ChillingEffects.org, where Twitter posts every such copyright claim it receives – all lead to dead pages. Twitter’s copyright and DMCA policy, which is the same for Vine, allows the site to remove or restrict access to videos that contain copyrighted material. The site also attempts to contact account holders to explain the take down and how they might file a counter-notice.
No official response has been shared from Twitter, however, Rolling Stone reports that a Twitter says that this incident was not the first takedown requests issued for content on Vine, though The Next Web found no other such complaints listed on Chilling Effects.
AND FINALLY FROM “THE CRAZY PEOPLE SHOPPING AT WALMART” FILES
‘Crack Is Whack?’
Remember kids, crack is always bad….always.
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!
EFREM
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