Jackson pal, Rabbi Shmuley, to run for House
ENGLEWOOD, N.J., April 30 (UPI) — A rabbi who was a spiritual adviser to pop star Michael Jackson said he will seek the Republican nomination for the 9th Congressional District in New Jersey.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of “Kosher Jesus” and “Kosher Sex,” acknowledged it was unusual for a rabbi to run for Congress, the New York Post reported Monday.
But he said, “The problems we face as a nation are the erosion of values. We need a spiritual revival.”
The Orthodox rabbi said Jackson’s death in 2009 offered the best example of why he is seeking public office. He told the Post he had tried get Jackson to quit taking drugs.
“Michael is the all-American tragedy. Michael was perceived as one of the most wholesome celebrities until he was perceived as the most damaged celebrity. It’s unbelievable you could have a change of that caliber,” Boteach said. “Michael lost his values. He no longer had the faith-support structure that kept him humble.”
Boteach, who calls himself “America’s Rabbi,” grew up in Los Angeles and Miami and lived in England, Israel and Australia before settling in Englewood, N.J., 10 years ago, the Post said. He often travels to Washington to study Jewish teachings with GOP House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, who is Jewish.
Find Out More About Kathy Griffin’s New Bravo Show! Plus, Watch What Happens Gets The SNL Treatment!
Bravo wasn’t always housewives and bitchy real estate professionals. Once upon a time, the network belonged to comedian Kathy Griffin. And part of it must still belong to her, because the network gave her another show to replace her departed My Life On The D-List reality show. Probably because she’s not so D-list anymore.
Kathy’s new show, plainly titled “Kathy” will be a talk show. But, she doesn’t plan on bringing on big celebrities, probably because her whole act is making fun of the famous. In an interview with the LA Times, Kathy dished more about her new show, and her infamous mother Maggie.
Apparently Maggie has to be on every episode:
“My mom is bigger than all the “Housewives” combined. My mother is, once again, mandated — MANDATED — by the network to be in every episode. They don’t even have the good grace to say things like, “You know, Kathy, you’re one of our stars. We think of you as an iconic cornerstone of the network. And if your mom could help you out, that would be great.” No. They’re like, “Hey, so your mom will be on it every week, you know that right? We’re not … around with that.” I’m like, “Yes, yes. Don’t worry.”
Poor Maggie! She just wants to be left alone to watch the Kardashians in peace! Kathy’s new show will be a more casual talk show, but she wants to keep it real:
“It’s a very loose and chatty show. It’s so loose the network feels like they need to promote it by having photos of me with caution tape around my mouth. The most important thing to me is to keep it as fluid as possible — the whole show.
I want them to feel like they were at lunch with a girlfriend and she was saying all the things I was afraid to say. I like it when people laugh and almost put their hand over their mouth like they weren’t supposed to laugh. I want it to feel like we’re all just hanging out. The set right now is a little bit residential. It’s a little bit talk show. But it’s also none of those things exactly. It’s chatty. One of the things that sort of organically happened was, if I have a question during the run-throughs we do at the office, I’ll turn and ask someone in the office and they’ll pipe in. We’re even thinking of putting microphones on three random people in the audience so if I ask a question and look at that person, they can actually pipe in. It’s not Phil Donahue running into the audience with a microphone, but we don’t know what the … it’s going to be.”
Unlike Watch What Happens, Kathy (sadly) won’t be shooting live. They want to avoid the “incidents” Kathy has gotten into before on live television!
“No — uh, no. No. They won’t do it. I think you know why. They’re trying — let me tell you the real reason: they’re scared … . If you ask them, I’m sure they’d tell you things about fiber feeds — they’d make it technical. They’re not stupid. Which is so great because this is me screaming at Bravo: “Really? Because I’m good enough to go live on CNN with Anderson Cooper for five years in a row.” To which their response was, “Didn’t you say … one year and have to get your check back?”
We’re going to shoot it live to tape. And we’re going to air Thursdays at 10. We’re going to try to truly talk about all the stuff you’re not supposed to talk about. If I get in trouble, at least, hopefully, I won’t go to jail like Juicy from ‘Real Housewives of New Jersey.” By the way, there are several people on several channels that have legitimate trials pending. All the “trouble” that I get into because of my big mouth, I don’t actually have a trial date. I’m really just here to make people laugh. And I’m priding myself in not having celebrities.”
And while Kathy doesn’t want to have celebrities, the network wants her to bring them on:
My idols are Howard Stern, Bill Maher, Joan Rivers — people that get in trouble, people that can be wrong. For me, to have celebrities on, it would just be a different kind of a show. I think it’s great that a woman like Ellen DeGeneres can be a comedian and segue into a show in which everyone adores her and she never offends anybody. That is just not my story, not by a mile. The network is pressuring me pretty heavily to have celebrities.
This has to be a place where nothing is off the table. I’m so evil, I’m making fun of the guy with a speech impediment from “Bachelor Pad” because I’m fascinated that there’s a guy with a speech impediment who just can’t stop going on reality shows.
Kathy will have what she calls a “panel of civilians,” of “weirdos” that she knows, rather than the panel of comedians that Chelsea Handler has on her shows. That doesn’t mean Kathy won’t ever have A-listers on:
“That’s really my theory, that the network wants a big first guest and it’s all, “Call Cher. Call Cher. Call Cher.” I said, “Look, Cher’s in her mansion in Malibu. We can’t even afford her hair and makeup and she and I were texting and she doesn’t even know what Bravo is.” It would just be a different tone. I’m open to, once the show is up and running, if celebrities are really willing to come and play, they’re welcome. But until then, they’re not welcome. Not even you, Barbara Walters! How do you like it? You’re banned!
One of the girls, yesterday, was like, “What if we could get Oprah?” I was like, “Really? Really?” Because that would be a really short interview. It would just be her leaving.”
She hilariously notes that she doesn’t understand why the network is so scared of her big mouth, when she hasn’t even gone to jail, like another Bravo-lebrity. “If I get in trouble, at least, hopefully, I won’t go to jail like Juicy from ‘Real Housewives of New Jersey.” Kathy’s show will air once a week, and she swears she won’t go to daily like Watch What Happens because she wants to continue touring.
CLICK THE CONTINUE READING BUTTON FOR MORE!
Does anyone out there watch WWHL all 5 nights a week? Are you alive to tell us about it? While Andy Cohen‘s little show has gotten a lot better since its premiere, it still feels a bit like watching public access. SNL did an awesome parody of it last week, and described the show in the best possible way. “As a reminder, the show is live, so anything can happen—but don’t worry, nothing will.” The whole thing is spot-on, from the 16 different ways to ask questions, the weird combination of “F-list” guests and incredibly famous people, Andy’s narcissism, and the casual way they handle serious events (in the video’s case, Brianna being cancer free segues into a question of how cute Andy is). It’s perfect, watch it below:
Finally, if you’ve been watching the endless repeats of Housewives on the weekends (don’t worry, I won’t tell!), you might notice they’re a little different. Bravo has decided to use the endless livetweeting and commentary its fans provide on shows while they’re airing and feature them on airings of the show, calling it “Social Edition.” So, if you don’t think Bravo executives are watching when you tweet about how stupid Alexis Bellino is, they are!
EVP Jerry Leo said, “We initiated Social Editions because it seemed like an obvious extension of our brand for our highly engaged audience. Viewers’ intense passion for Bravo shows is widely known and evident in their countless tweets and Facebook posts. This gives them a new reason for watching their favorite shows a second time around.”
WILL YOU WATCH KATHY’S NEW SHOW? WILL YOU WATCH SOCIAL EDITION? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF SNL’S TAKE?
Desperate D-List Phone Calls
X17 Online
Michael Lohan and Kate Major. The former couple has been a fixture in the headlines for domestic issues and brushes with the law.
Would you pay $18 a minute to talk to Lindsay Lohan’s dad?
How about $25 a minute to talk to her mom?
No? Well apparently there are people out there who will.
D-lister Michael Lohan raked in $3,500 last week through dial-a-star.com, a service that allows fans to pay by the minute to speak to a stable of tabloid celebrities like the Lohans, Real Housewife Danielle Staub, former “Jersey Shore” cast member Angelina Pivarnick and a handful of celebrity mistresses.
“It’s been really great. I have gotten a lot of calls,” Lohan told Fox411. “There has been a wide variety. One woman’s best friend has a son with an addiction problem, so I talked to Dr. Drew about that and told her what he said, and then of course you have TMZ calling me just to harass me.” (Lohan added that a portion of his proceeds will go to charity.)
The most popular star in the network is Danielle Staub, who has made approximately $7,000 since the site launched six days ago.
Dial-a-Star is the brainchild of Gina Rodriguez who manages a crew of D-list celebrities and celebrity mistresses under her company DD Entertainment. Rodriguez believes she is filling a need in the marketplace — the demand for one on one contact with famous people. It is a service that people are apparently willing to pay good money for.
“I get emails all the time from fans and people who want to tell my clients something but because we don’t use mail anymore they can’t contact them,” Rodriguez told Fox411.com “I thought it would be great to set up phone calls and then the celebrities could get paid for people to talk to them.”
According to Rodriguez, Staub has been getting calls that last as long as 60 minutes, and her fans aren’t shy about shelling out $1,500 for a single call.
The prices vary and are determined by the celebrities themselves. Dina Lohan chose $25 a minute, while her ex Michael charges $18. (Michael originally charged $10/min, but apparently he’s feeling in demand, as his rate rose to $18 per 60 seconds on Thursday.) “Octomom” Nadya Suleman costs $12 a minute to chat with, and Tila Tequila costs $20.
There is a $50 minimum and the celebrity number is kept confidential. Customers dial into a central hub and are connected through an operator after they provide their credit card information. Rodriguez takes a 50 percent cut.
Since launching last week, Rodriguez says her own phone has been ringing off the hook with other celebrities who want to sign up to make cash just for chatting on the phone. The latest addition to the site is Tiger Woods’ mistress Rachel Uchitel, whose rate is $20 a minute.
Rodriguez has simplified the system so that a celebrity can set their own hours and their own days to talk. They can log in immediately after a call to see how much money they have made.
“The money is available to them immediately,” Rodriguez said. “They don’t have to wait. So they can be like, ‘Oh I’m broke, I need money for lunch. I’ll take some calls.’”
Rodriguez says she plans to launch similar sites where people can dial an athlete or a recording artist.
Because the calls are not screened (there are no publicists or managers on the line) things can and do get a little out of control.
“I’ve been getting sex calls,” Angelina Pivarnick, who estimates she has made $3,000 from the service so far, told us. “Guys try to have phone sex with me. I actually talk back to them. It’s funny. I just make it a joke I go back at them and say, ‘wow you have to keep paying to talk to me.’”
Chris Brown’s Mommy Is Mad Her Wittle Boy
Immediately after he performed and actually won something at the 2012 Grammy Awards, many celebrities took to Twitter to rightfully bash Chris Brown because when you beat a woman unconscious then…
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]
View full post on IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com
Ashton Kutcher Is Mad At The Media
Ashton Kutcher thinks that blocking individual journalists’ Twitter accounts will keep them out of his business. Radar Online says:Ashton Kutcher is one of the most followed celebrities on Twitter,…
[[ This is a content summary only. Visit IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]
View full post on IDontLikeYouInThatWay.com
