HBO’s HUNG Contest, Please vote for my ad, International Remote Viewing Association Conference: The Controversy!, Celebrities Deaths, Movie This Week: Public Enemies, Vampire Wars, and more…

HBO’s Hung Contest.

Vote for my ad! http://www.pimpray.com/  Help me win $10,000 so I can go to Africa and be initiated in a Voodoo cult! I promise video!

All you have to do is vote for Victoria’s “I pimped for Ray” ad! How many times can I vote for myself? I need your help!

After “True Blood” HBO premiered “Hung” starring Thomas Jane. I love it! Thomas Jane finally has a hit though I have liked him ever since “Deep Blue Sea”. But what happened to the great villain Gregg Henry? He’s in the first 2 episodes of “Hung”. After creating evil Val “Hubba, hubba, hubba” Resnick in “Payback”, what happened? Henry has let himself go! He’s fat and bald.

Thomas Jane plays Ray, a struggling middle-age high school basketball coach whose wife leaves him and marries a dermatologist, his house burns down, and he has two fat children. In order to make ends meet, he realizes he has only one asset he can market, his big penis.

Desperate for a solution, Ray signs up for an entrepreneurship seminar. The leader urges everyone to identify their winning tool in order to come up with a million- dollar business. Tanya, who Ray had a previous fling with after her "Poet in the Schools" visit to his history class, shows up to the seminar, and they reunite for a second encounter at her place. Despite Ray's impressive endowment, the chemistry between them is lacking, and when things go south, she insults him: "Go market your dick!"

Intrigued by Tanya's suggestion, Ray ends up placing an ad in the paper for his services as "Big Donnie." When Big Donnie's first client rejects him, Ray's back to square one. Tanya finds Ray in his tent later that night and offers to be his pimp. http://www.hbo.com/hung/

International Remote Viewing Association Conference.

IRVA had their 10th Anniversary Conference at the Green Valley Ranch Resort, Spa and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 19-21. The Conference was well attended, had fascinating speakers, and I met many interesting people.

IRVA had supported a Twitter Remote Viewing Experiment that turned out to be a very controversial indeed!  http://www.irva.org

IRVA was founded in 1999 by prominent former military and civilian members of the remote viewing community to disseminate information about, and responsible investigation into, remote viewing.

IRVA originally applauded Dr. Richard Wiseman’s experiment, conducted in association with New Scientist magazine, but had some serious reservations about the protocols of the experiment.

Wiseman explained the experiment’s protocols and the results on his blog: http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/twitter-experiment-results/.

Most Remote Viewers who teach the skill have books, but one of the first, and most comprehensive, is Jim Schnabel’s “Remote Viewers: The Secret History of America's Psychic Spies” http://jimschnabel.com/. Photo of Jim at our Santa Fe home in 1994.

Celebrity Deaths.

What a week! Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson die on the same day. For celebrities, that is the worst way to go. MJ ruined Farah’s tributes! The ugly tales about MJ have begun to surface, with his sexual affairs (he was said to have a lover in Las Vegas) and the name of his children’s sperm donor. It was posted that the MJ situation was so bad that his family considered forcibly committing him into rehab, which is possible under California law, but requires the recommendation of two different psychiatrists and approval from a judge.

Here is what I would have done: Get the two different psychiatrists and approval from a judge (mentioning the unpaid $100,000 pharmacy bill). Then have MJ placed in a medically-induced coma. Wean MJ off the drugs and feed him intravenously. When MJ wakes up in a few weeks he’ll be drug-free and 40 lbs. heavier. I would then say: “Now get your ass up on stage.” Instead, following in the tradition of the family and handlers of Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes, and Anna-Nicole Smith, killed The Golden Goose. Or did they? Now the handlers can do whatever they want with the estate’s assets without any interference from the drug addict who is responsible for all the fame.

Will Michael Jackson be buried in Muslim attire and facing Mecca?

Michael Jackson fans who purchased tickets for his final concerts will receive a full refund or, if they chose, a commemorative ticket. Fifty sold-out Jackson concerts were scheduled for the O2 Arena in London (the best, most sophisticated lip-synching venue in the world), starting July 13, with admission costing at least $105!

Farrah Fawcett. Fans were disgusted with Alessandra Stanley’s “appraisal" of Farah in the New York Times. "Not all of her performances will stand the test of time, but what is worth remembering is how hard Farrah Fawcett tried," the piece said.

Then, trashing NBC's "overproduced and over-promoted" special, "Farrah's Story," The article also implies that Farrah was in some way to blame for her illness. Stanley wrote about Fawcett’s anal cancer, saying the documentary "never made the public service point that . . . the HPV vaccine is the most promising form of prevention against this type of cancer, which in most cases is sexually acquired." That’s rather a creepy, thought-provoking final comment! You mean anal cancer just doesn’t happen?

Public Enemies Movie Review.

Direrctor Michael Mann delivers as does Depp and Bale. Once again a small character role, Billy Crudup’s J. Edgar Hoover, mesmerizes. As usual, Mann shortchanges female roles. Marion Cotillard is a dull temptress.

Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger is an American icon and Johnny Depp is always fascinating to watch, especially when he is playing real people (“Secret Window”, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico”, “Blow” and the best, “Donnie Brasco”). With a strong, masculine director, Depp plays Dillinger with an easy, ruthless charm.

But Dillinger’s sudden obsession with Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) stops the movie cold. Obviously, Cotillard needs personal nurturing and director Michael Mann is not known for his deft handling of female roles. (“Heat” did have Ashley Judd, but she never plays the wilted flower. She would play Mother Teresa as a bitch.) Since Dillinger’s fall is based on his obsession for Billie (and prostitutes), you want to understand why he risked his hard-fought escapes and freedom by going back to Chicago to see her.

Craftsman Mann’s canvas is large and opulent. When we meet up with Dillinger he has been arrested after being free for a few weeks after a nine-year prison term. So he’s been institutionalized and can’t handle the outside world. Not the rumored ladies man (or possessed with the larger-than-life penis), he has many devoted friends who help him escape over and over again. He makes a mockery of the Indiana State Penitentiary.

Below is the photo that started the big penis rumor.

Its 1933 and the fact that Dillinger and his gang never take people’s money, only the bank’s money, make him a working-class hero.

The movie fires up when the FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup), becomes a laughingstock for the failure of his agents to apprehend Dillinger. Hoover elevates agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to head the John Dillinger team. Purvis has gained Hoover’s attention by killing Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum).

Since Dillinger is pulling bank jobs with aplomb with Baby Face Nelson (Stephen Graham), Purvis has no choice but to follow Hoover’s directive to haul in and harass every friend and family member of Dillinger and his key men.

The FBI’s pursuit of Dillinger affects his protected status inside Chicago’s criminal underworld. The mob’s Frank Nitti (Bill Camp) is feeling the pressure from the FBI. His gambling operation is far more profitable than laundering money from Dillinger’s bank robberies. Nitti doesn’t want Dillinger’s business.

While Dillinger looks for the last big score, he is lovesick and mopey over Billie. So, after heroic escapes and hideouts, he goes back to Chicago to see Billie. He knows she is being watched but he doesn’t care. So, while hiding out with prostitutes, he finds himself set up and surrounded by G-Men while leaving a movie theater.

Mann generously gives Giovanni Ribisi the opportunity to leave silly roles behind and he delivers. Mann has given Ribisi a career. Other standouts are Branka Katic

(from “Big Love”) and Lili Taylor. Christian Bale is always good.

But it is Billy Crudup who steals “Public Enemies” with his tempered, barely able to contain his fury, personification of Hoover. And I loved seeing Hoover’s constant companion finally given his due.

After his death, it was reported that Dillinger had deliberately taunted J. Edgar Hoover by making collect phone calls to the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., as well as sending him Christmas cards. The acts caused Hoover to become irrationally obsessed with apprehending Dillinger to the exclusion of all other duties. At one time, Hoover had redirected a third of the entire budget of the FBI in 1934 was devoted to hunting down Dillinger. After Dillinger was gunned down, Hoover maintained a macabre private museum of Dillinger artifacts including the gun, hat, pocket change and eyeglasses that were found on the body that night in Chicago.

When Dillinger was killed on July 22, 1934 the circus began. People came out of the woodwork. 10,000 stood in long lines in the smothering Chicago heat to get a glimpse of the infamous outlaw. Men dipped handkerchiefs in his blood, while women ripped off pieces of their skirts and dipped the material in his blood. Dillinger was dead at age 31. He was the most celebrated criminal of his time.

Vampire Wars.

HBO’s “True Blood’s” vampire Bill Compton vs. Twilight’s teenager Edward Cullen. Sexy Stephen Moyer, who plays “True Blood’s” 173-year-old Southern vampire Bill Compton, called Robert Pattinson’s character, Twilight’s Edward Cullen, a “pussy” in next month’s Marie Claire. Moyer says: “He’s a pussy! He’s the slim-Fast, Diet Coke of vampires.”

Meyer should have channeled the wisdom of Daniel Plainview and said: “Robert Pattinson can drink my bloody milkshake.”

This season, Bill has been forced to “make” a vampire because he killed one of his own and now the teenager, Jessica, is his “vampire ward”. He is responsible for her behavior and teaching her how to live among humans as a vampire.

Season 2 introduced a new supernatural creature, a maenad (pictured). A maenad is a creature that requires offerings (or tributes) from other supernatural creatures who serve alcohol. If they’re not properly honored they tend to get angry and cause madness in people (supernatural and human) or even kill them.

According to the books The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, that True Blood is based on, Bacchus was the god of the grape so bars are very interesting to maenads. Maenads believe that the violence sparked by the consumption of alcohol belongs to them. It is what they feed off. The new character of Maryann Forrester may be a maenad.