The Front
THE INSIDER Who’s getting up to what
I Wow. this really is the stuff of LA Confi‘dential's muckraking gossip rag Hush Hush. The actor Robert Blake has been arrested for his wife Bonny Bakley's murder. Insider is impressed. Bakley was shot to death as she sat in the couple's parked car last May. Blake says he was not at the crime scene. he was a block away retrieving his gun (for their protection. ironically enough) from a local restaurant he'd absent mindedly left it in. At the arraignment. Blake pleaded not guilty. Whatever happens to Blake. the stOry won't end here. As with the trial of O.J. Simpson. there'll be endless speculation surrounding the case. One early example of this. way before Blake was arrested. involved Marlon Brando whose son was alleged to have had an affair with Blake's wife and was being blackmailed by her. You gotta feel sorry for the poor slobs involved in the case (victims and innocent ones. at least). but it sure makes for good reading. More revelations to come.
I Rocking out to Glasgow's Biffy Clyro. Insider wondered how it had come to be that a track on their debut album was called 'Kill The Old. Torture Their Young'. Why? Because that's the name of a play by fellow Glasgow resident David Harrower (except. fact fans. his play doesn't have that tell- tale comma in the middle). We asked Harrower to give us the gen. 'Who the hell are Biffy Clyro?' was his puzzled reply. What's equally puzzling is that at no point in the song are the words 'kill the old. tOrture their young' actually sung. Harrower fans will be pleased to note that Kill The Old Torture Their Young (no comma) is being staged by students at the RSAMD
8 THE LIST 9—23 May 2002
Jllltltll srrurr |
A little publicised European directive states that all books published after May 2002 have to feature shots out of aeroplane windows
(Monday 13——Thursday 16 May). the first Scottish revival since its Traverse debut. Look out for minor grunge pop stars in the audience.
I Hurrah! Lottery money stems the flow of crap Hollywood blockbusters and revives ailing arthouse cinema-going in the Britain. Well, not quite. But SII 7m is being made available to assist the UK's independent cinemas in their fight against the encroaching (actually. by now. well and truly encroachedi competition from multiplexes. The idea is that we're all watching too many popcorn movres when we should be watching French films in which bicycles are lent against the walls of Chateaux while young intellectuals fall madly in and out of love and talk ab0ut it too much. Yeah. thanks a fucking bunch. Blair. Insider really needs your Film Council to decide what I'll watch at the flicks. Like Insider needs a sequel to Planet Of The Apes. Or a bullet in the head. Still. if it'll encourage cinema goers to chose the new Crouching Tiger over Lethal Weapon 8. Insider's all for it.
I Insider can't decide whether one Michael Williams. Alabama's 28-year-
?
old congressional candidate. rs a visionary politician or just a fruitcake. Williams lives in Huntsville. home to NASA‘s Marshall Space Flight Center. and he's proud if it. Unfortunately. for him and NASA. President Bush is more interested in funding bombing of foreign people than space exploration. Thus. plans for a space station have been relieved of federal funding. which has a knock on effect on the local economy Williams' answer is to impose a tax on science fiction to fund space research. Williams has been talking about ‘how much money is spent on all the Star Trek stuff.‘ He wants to impose I 1%, sales tax on sci~fi books. comics. toys and other merchandise. But Williams' detractors have suggested his idea is akin to taxrng murder mysteries to subsidise the Judicial system. And yet back in the 1960:; the American gO‘JOIIIIIIOIIt proposed a tax on gasoline to be used to build highways. Now. that sounds smart. So who's the fruitcake?
I Just how far can our post I I September psychosis go? Just what is our subconscious trying to tell us? Are all our nightmares really about falling aeroplanes? Damned if we
know. but a quick scan around the book shop ‘.'.’li| reveal. if nothing else. a freaky obsession among cover designers. Pictured above are three books published tlr:s month: Nick Walker's Black Box. a novel about trusting yourself to others. .Jenefer‘ Shute's Free Fall. a novel set after a plane crash. and Alan de Botton's The Art Of Travel. about the irritations of iirodern holidaying. They have nothing in common. Or do they?
‘MAC gave me 55 lipsticks to test. These are the gotcaught stealing when I was 15.’ Eddie ///ard muses over the inherent
THE QUOTES same lipsticks I irony of life.
‘I’ve been noticing gravity since I was very young.’ Cameron Dia/ gets deep.
‘In my first four years out of drama school I had to pretend I was English.’ Sharon Small reflects on the days before Fwan McCregor made the Scottish accent a sol/able commodity again.
‘Maybe you think you’re interesting, but that’s hardly the point.’
Marlon Brando turns down an invitation to dine With Leo DiCaprio.
“‘You’re bringing sodomites
to Stormont.”’
i'I/i'o lVlOlrWH/il recalls Ian Paisley's
measured reaction to her drafting lton John into the peace process.
‘It keeps kids off the streets.’
Pops elder statesman Ronan Keating defends manrrft’rctured hands.
‘He’s too old.’
Charlotte Church leaves us in doubt that she won't be making the front pages With Sven.
‘I don’t find excessive sanity a virtue.’
New Jersey man Mike Uris confesses that he has eaten a medium pi//a and four Diet (Jokes almost every day for the last five years.
‘When people wear shoes that don’t fit them, it says something about their soul.’ Bil/v Bonkers' Thornton being .‘)onkers.
‘Celebrity is a disease of the modern age. It’s the single most over-rated attribute in modern society.’ R/(Ikl’ f—i’oss cancels his subscription to heat.
Not in heat