Standup comic Robert Schimmel passed away Friday after a week-long battle with injuries sustained in an Aug. 26 car accident, his rep confirms to E! News. He was 60.

Known for is his raunchy HBO specials, as well as countless, equally explicit appearances on Howard Stern’s radio show (as was his style), Schimmel was well loved by his peers in the comedy realm.

While traveling in Arizona last Thursday, Schimmel’s 19-year-old daughter Aliyah swerved to avoid an oncoming car, causing the vehicle containing herself and her father to flip multiple times. Aliyah survived the accident and is currently in stable condition.

No stranger to health woes (or tragedy), Schimmel lost his son Derek to cancer at age 11, then won his own a battle with Stage 3 Non-Hodgkin lymphoma back in in 2000. The comic was currently awaiting a liver transplant, after learning in January that he’d contracted cirrhosis from a Hepatitis C-infected blood transfusion. No word on whether the diseased liver played into his untimely death.

The comedy community was rocked by Schimmel’s sudden passing Friday, and took to various social media outlets to say a sad so long to their friend.

“Robert Schimmel was one of the funniest and nicest guys in comedy,” Jimmy Kimmel tweeted Friday night, noting that he hoped he’d be given “bad information” regarding the loss. Added his friend Dane Cook: “Robert Schimmel was one the first people in comedy to call when my folks were fighting cancer. No ego no bs no small talk just inspiration.”

“I’m so sad about Robert Schimmel dying,” wrote fellow funnyman Penn Jillette. “I’ve been checking the news for 3 hours hoping it wasn’t true. He was very funny and wonderful.”

Onetime Fear Factor host Joe Rogan also tweeted his disbelief, saying: “If this has been confirmed, it’s terrible news. He was one of the nicest guys in comedy. F——–k. I loved that dude. He was SUCH a nice guy, and f–king hilarious.”

Schimmel’s brother Jeff Schimmel also took to his Facebook page, confirming the death with an emotional tribute to his sibling:

“ROBERT SCHIMMEL. Son, Brother, Father, Grandfather, Comedian, Generous Man. I have always loved you, admired you, and was proud to be your biggest fan. I will never forget a single moment. R.I.P.”

Schimmel is survived by his six children.

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HOH: Talking about Real World. Britney says Big Brother is network programming, Real World is just cable. Enzo talks about how it has alliances and mafias…. Britney says Big Brother is way bigger than Real World. Lane says he DVR’s all Real World shows. Enzo says I don’t even know what channel RW is on. He talks about Jersey Shore. Britney thinks BB is the number two reality show behind Survivor.

Palm Room: Hayden is sitting on the bed using the dominos to study.

HOH: Enzo and Lane talking about partying and touring. Enzo wants to know if they get paid in buffalo wings. Britney says my hometown is 1097. There are no bars.

Enzo is talking about how Ragan says he wants to just enjoy the house. He feels bad for bitching about all the stuff you know. That’s why I asked him to come up for some dominos but he just wanted to go to bed. Britney says I felt bad for Matt, I put him on the block and he just walked around like a zombie. Enzo says the block does that to you man, you think everyone is talking about you even when you are safe.

Lane says we have a lot of TV times. This is like a series. Britney says and we get a Thursday night! Lane says and if you count Showtime…. Britney says I bet we are over 200 hours of TV time.

Britney is talking about how CBS won’t show the homophobic remarks by Rachel against Ragan, but the live feeders know. Lane is worried he may have said things that people will hold against him. Britney says you won’t get blasted, none of that stuff ever makes it onto the show. Like Ronnie and Kevin in their big fight never made it on the show. Lane is still worrying that things may get on YouTube.

Lane talks about getting twitter when he leaves. Says he has already done his twitter. He says he didn’t have any idea how to do it…. he says I did it so many times, it cut me off thinking I was a scam. He says I’m definitely gonna get it to tell people where I’m gonna be.

Britney is paged to the DR. Lane says tell them I’m going to bed. Britney says I’m going to bed after this too. Lane says dude, there is a shitload of fans. They told me people were crazy about the Brigade.

DR: Britney says what (inaudible) got called to the DR it’s freaking 2:30. Door opens and she says what… (whining). BB: I want to ask you a question, do you guys still have the sock puppets in the house? Lane says yes… Britney says who is that? Lane continues why do you want to know? (Sounds like the DR had speakers on in the house and Lane was responding – weird!) (Flashback 2:08 am)

long bubbles

All feed Palm room: Britney tells Hayden that Enzo thinks he is a huge celebrity. Hayden says he probably is. She talks about how much TV time they have had. We have TV time of 3 hours an week… really crazy.

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James Hynes, 80, was speaking to cousin Ellen when she revealed that she had a typed journal of her father George Hynes’s experiences with the enigmatic British Army officer Lt Col T E Lawrence during the First World War.

The diary features stories of espionage and air bombing campaigns known as “X Flights” which were led by Lawrence across the Turkish Ottoman empire.

In his sorties in 1918 against the Turks, Lawrence was accompanied by a hand-picked team of colleagues including the sixth Earl of Winterton, then a sitting MP.

One excerpt tells how Lawrence’s aristocratic team burnt breakfast for the squadron after being ordered to cook a full English fry-up in the desert. The secret missions helped Lawrence to capture Damascus, where he became instrumental in setting up an Arab government.

But the flights were so sensitive that the RAF was said to have known nothing of them – and they remained a secret. They were not even known by researchers for the 1962 David Lean film starring Peter O’Toole as Lawrence.

The diaries reveal their author, who died in 1973 aged 78, as one of Lawrence’s closest aides during the Arab revolts and will be a must-read for experts.

In one entry, Hynes, a flight sergeant, wrote: “All who took part in the Desert Operations had a great respect for Lawrence the amateur soldier.”

Yesterday James Hynes, a retired English lecturer in Mold, North Wales, who has written a book based on his uncle’s diaries, said: “Ellen had 220 pages from Uncle George. He had typed them in the 1930s from his original notes.

“It was amazing to see details of the X Flights. The only people that knew were the people conducting the war in the desert. It was so secret in fact that after George had been demobbed in 1919 he tried unsuccessfully for two years to get back-pay for taking part in the flights. But they didn’t get it because the RAF knew nothing about it.”

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Little has stopped fretting over the notion that being the only great player on a very bad team was being held against him, even though he produced numbers comparable to other great players who entered the Hall of Fame with much stronger supporting casts. He is focused on the possibility that other forces could have been at work all these years.

“Maybe it was in God’s plan for me to be in at this moment,” Little said. “I come in on the 44th Super Bowl, I come in with the 44th president, I come in with my son being 44, (and there were) 44 voters (on the selection committee).” [NFL.com]

Bowlegged Floyd Little Gets to Canton

The Unexpected Hero [Sports Illustrated]

****
Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. And thank you for everything that you do. Unless everything that you do involves juggling cats. If that’s the case, I thank you for everything that you do except juggling cats. That’s just sick.

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Each year Discovery Channel provides us a great chance to watch something new and different and amaze us. They use new techniques to capture the hidden facts and present them. This year you can also remind your friends by sending them an e-card “Happy Shark Week” so that they could enjoy it. While watching the amazing programs on channel you can watch the world’s most beautiful ocean locations. So make sure that you are well aware of channel daily TV schedules.

Most of the people like to watch Discovery Channel and its one of the most popular and viewed channels in the world. If you want to enjoy the week fully then you should visit official Shark Week page. You can play games there and enjoy additional videos on the page.

You can watch the shocking shark attacks videos ever recorded on tape. The 30 minutes video is amazing and if you watch it carefully then it also guide you how to prevent from shark attacks. So don’t miss the chance and watch the horrifying and heart touching moments on Discovery Channel during shark week.

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The worry is very great about the impact of the destruction on the masses living nearby and that is why a voting process would resolve how to go on with this process further. According to a few sources in the Santa Monica College there’s no evident necessary of destroying the arena at any rate as the reconstruction of the arena is nothing more than an upgrade to the building. It’s for this reason that a lot of opposing opinions rose in the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees and finally voting had to take place.

There’s also the issue of environmental health as the destruction of such an tremendous concrete structure causes a lot of air borne effluents that cause health problems in the people nearby. Apart from that there are mature trees in front of the arena in a lawn that perhaps destroyed along with the destruction and they’ve to be saved somehow.

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Corning has announced that starting next year Gorilla Glass will find a new market. The glass will be used to protect HDTVs from scratches and breakage. This is great news for Wii players who won’t have to worry as much about killing the TV.

The glass reportedly won’t add too much to the cost of the sets. Corning claims Gorilla Glass is about two to three times stronger than normal glass.

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What I’m not doing, however, is claiming I’d ever wear these personally (relax, good readers!): it’s no secret that I like my shoes high, and I like them not to look like what the elderly contingent of my town like to wear with their flesh-coloured tights, but apparently these shoes ARE the hot new fashion trend. They’re Worishofer orthopaedic sandals (originally designed for people with bunions) and, having been spotted on the likes of Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams, they’re now being described as the hottest celebrity must-have.

It’s at times like this I’m glad I don’t follow fashion.

What do you think of these? Obviously wearing them because of foot issues is totally understandable, but do you think they can make the leap to fashion-item?

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In the show, which premieres Tuesday, the two are intertwined, and viewers only can hope that the permanent breakthrough Robbins promises throughout the show actually will occur.

Robbins, among the best known of motivational speakers, has filled arenas and made a fortune parceling out such platitudes as “Confront your real issues” and “Exceed your expectations.” In this six-episode series, he tries to apply this advice to people facing big obstacles.

In the premiere, Robbins takes on the desperate case of Frank and Kristen Alioto. Their dream of a destination wedding in December 2008 in lovely Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, turned into a nightmare that same evening. Just hours after the ceremony, Frank jumped into the pool, broke his neck and became a quadriplegic. In moments, Kristen’s role changed from wife to caretaker, her duties performed between bouts of crying. For Frank, life became a series of pills taken with meals.

Can Robbins turn things around for this unlucky but loving couple? He promises them “greater joy and freedom than you ever knew before.” In return, Frank provides a commercial/testimonial for Robbins, one of the show’s executive producers. “I know Tony’s met with world leaders, and I know he’s met with important people, but now he’s taking time to talk with me.”

Magnanimous as that might seem, it is the raison d’etre for the show. Although Robbins delivers on his promise in one feel-good scene after another, there’s little here to indicate that the joy and freedom will remain after the production crew packs up. What’s more, there’s even less to indicate that the help he gives the Aliotos would be available to anyone else in a similar situation who lacked a seven-figure bank account.

Robbins flies the couple to his home island of Fiji for skydiving. Stateside again, he sends Kristen to a spa and outfits Frank for the wheelchair sport of murderball, a sort of rugby on wheels. (The show repeatedly refers to him as a quadriplegic, but he has some limited use of his arms.) And with lots of help from friends, Frank converts an old truck into a hand-controlled desert racer.

It’s heartwarming to watch Frank do things he never thought he could. And he and Kristen learn he isn’t as fragile as they thought. At the same time, other issues — from having children to changing catheters — never are adequately addressed.

So was this a life-altering breakthrough or a one-time Dream Factory-type experience? Could other paraplegics without the resources for trips to spas and Fiji even hope for their own breakthroughs? If not, the biggest breakthrough here might be the way in which an infomercial gets transformed into a network primetime TV series.

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But they even went as far as creating a story for their characters. And also claimed they were Americans that went to live to London, this made all the difference for the couple of friends:

“These lyrics were just the same when we did them again in American accents, There was nothing different, and all of a sudden, people were saying, ‘Oh, wow. They’re just as good as Eminem.’ But in the Scottish accent, they’re saying, ‘Oh, no. They don’t have any talent.’ ”

The rappers went on to sign a deal with Sony and publish three albums.

Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd were two college friends from Dundee, Scotland, trying to make a name for themselves in rap music. But despite a talent for spinning rhymes, they couldn’t make it past the local scene. They even traveled to London for open auditions to become the next Eminem, but were told that they sounded more like a rapping version of the thick-accented pop group The Proclaimers.

Bain and Boyd returned disappointed that no one would take them seriously. So they adopted new identities, Bain as Brains McLoud and Boyd as Silibil, and invented an elaborate back story: They were from a small town in California, got kicked out of school and ran out of money in the U.K., where they were currently working to make it as the rap group Silibil ‘N Brains. They based their personas on their favorite comedians — Jim Carrey, who is actually Canadian, and Chris Tucker — and rapped with American accents. That made all the difference, Bain tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz.

“These lyrics were just the same when we did them again in American accents,” he says. “There was nothing different, and all of a sudden, people were saying, ‘Oh, wow. They’re just as good as Eminem.’ But in the Scottish accent, they’re saying, ‘Oh, no. They don’t have any talent.’ ”

The group eventually signed a $350,000 record deal with Sony U.K. and recorded three albums. They dropped small clues to their true identities in their lyrics, as in “Losers,” which subtly mocks the people who bought their story.

“We kind of liked to put little hints about what we were actually doing,” Bain says, “because we knew as soon as the record came out, we were going to come clean and that would make sense. It was a very naive plan.”

One lie in particular took on a life of its own. Bain and Boyd claimed to be close friends of Eminem and D-12, but when their manager told them that Silibil ‘N Brains would be joining the rappers on their U.K. tour, they didn’t know what to do. Bain says they couldn’t avoid them on the whole tour, so they decided to go for it.

“We walked over and we started throwing high-fives and cuddling them and acting like we were the best of friends. And they just went along with it,” he says. “To everyone else, it just really looked real.”

When Lies Become Life

Bain and Boyd dodged that bullet, but there were numerous other close calls — some of which appear in Bain’s book California Schemin’. When the group appeared on MTV’s TRL, fans and friends starting flooding message boards about their Scottish origins. Bain says he and Boyd worked to shut down the sites and keep their secret under wraps.

“It just got carried away,” Bain says. “There was so much money involved. The plan was originally to come out, but… when it got big enough… we stood to be sued [by the record company].”

The stress of the lies had Bain and Boyd at each other’s throats, Bain says. They even stopped talking to their friends and parents.

“We were so in love with these characters,” he says. “We couldn’t get out of the character. It was complete insanity.”

Eventually, the pressure became too much. Bain says they had a violent fight about keeping up the facade. Boyd wanted to leave the group and marry his girlfriend back in Scotland, but Bain didn’t want to jeopardize the group. The next day, Boyd was gone, leaving just one half of Silibil ‘N Brains.

Although his music deal fell apart, Bain continued to live in character as Brains McLoud for the next two years. He lived on welfare and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse. Soon, he had overdosed.

“I always said when I was younger, if I hadn’t been happy with music by the time I was 25, then I would kill myself,” he says. “And that date had really crept up.”

Bain lived through his near-death experience and found several odd jobs. He worked as an escort agent and even conned his way into a job as a shoe salesman for an American company, using his American accent.

“For me, I still thought this American character I was playing — it was more beneficial to be him,” Bain says.

Finally, in 2007, Bain came out with the truth in a debut performance with his new band, Hopeless Heroic. He says it was the first time he’d been on stage sober. The reaction was mixed, but Bain says it was an inspirational story for some.

“That was the aim of it,” he says. “That was the message, to get people off their asses and doing what they want to do and never give up.”

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The Fox News host told the crowd: “A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can’t focus my eyes…he did all kinds of tests and he said, ‘you have macular dystrophy …you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not.’ “

He joked “I said, did you just charge me a thousand dollars for knowing what I knew my whole life?”

Beck used the moment to slam Obama’s health care plans.”I went to the best doctor I could find, while I could still go to the best doctor I can find.”

He joked further “I thought to myself in that time, ‘I’m too darn lazy to learn Braille.’” “What is macular dystrophy? Is that that Jerry Lewis thing telethon that he does? Because I should have given more.”

Beck got choked up when he said how much he loved to read. “I truly came to a place that is the greatest blessing. Lord, if you need my eyes, they’re yours. They were yours the whole time anyway. Thank you for letting me see as long as I have. That’s a blessing.”

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It is part of the South Carolina Technical College System. Enrollment for each semester is approximately 12,000 students working their way toward college transfer associate degrees and technical associate degrees, diplomas and certificates.

Lately Trident Technical College offering of week-long courses continues to expand – Trident Technical College offers summer class like culinary -the class is one of more than 100 week-long courses being offered this summer through Trident’s Kids’ College.

Youths from 7 to 16 can take half-day classes in many subjects, including the culinary arts, sciences and computers, Kids’ College director Michele Shinn said. Most classes are for 8- to 11-year-olds or for 12- to 16-year-olds.

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A two-year investigation by the newspaper uncovered what it termed a “Top Secret America” that’s mostly hidden from public view and largely lacking in oversight.

In its first installment of a series of reports, the Post said there are now more than 1,200 government organizations and more than 1,900 private companies working on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in some 10,000 locations across the U.S.

Some 854,000 people – or nearly 1 1/2 times the number of people who live in Washington – have top-secret security clearance, the paper said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Post that he doesn’t believe the massive bureaucracy of government and private intelligence has grown too large to manage, but it is sometimes hard to get precise information.

“Nine years after 9/11, it makes sense to sort of take a look at this and say, ‘OK, we’ve built tremendous capability, but do we have more than we need?” he said.

The head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, said he knows that with the growing budget deficits the level of spending on intelligence will likely be reduced and he’s at work on a five-year plan for the agency.

The White House had been anticipating the Post report and said before it was published that the Obama administration came into office aware of the problems and is trying to fix them.

The administration also released a memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence listing what it called eight “myths” and intended as a point-by-point answer to the charges the Post series was expected to raise.

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Flyers first emerged in early June advertising Katt Williams with a $45 ticket price; no opening acts were listed. Harlingen’s director of arts and entertainment Joel Humphries confirmed the comedian would be doing a show in the city.

Complications with the event arose Thursday, July 8, when promoters announced Williams had canceled his appearance because of medical reasons, leaving ticket-buyers without the option of receiving a full refund.

Last week, when Festiva contacted David Brown of Marjai Entertainment, the show’s promoter, he revealed the Still Blingin Tour was actually an R&B and hip hop show featuring A’niyah, Jamaica Dennis and Durty Kash, with Katt Williams only appearing as a special guest host. He said the Still Blingin Tour would still go on but that funnyman Paul Rodriguez would step in as host.

Four days before the show, Rodriguez’s booking agency, ICM Talent Agency, which also represents Katt Williams, confirmed the event was postponed. ICM Talent representative Chris Smith said Marjai Entertainment backed out of booking Rodriguez and Williams and made no mention of Williams’ medical problems.

Phone calls to Marjai Entertainment on Monday were met with a voicemail prompt instructing ticket-buyers on how to receive a full refund; it also discouraged callers from leaving messages.

“We are working swiftly and as promptly as possible to get these refunds returned,” the voice on the answering machine said. The message also informed ticket holders it would take up to 21 days before purchasers would receive their refund money.

But City Commissioner Jerry Prepejchal told Action 4 News a different story Friday, July 9. Prepejchal said he was outraged when he learned promoters had never spoken with Williams’ people, and Williams had never signed up to perform in Harlingen.

Prepejchal said no legal action could be taken against Marjai Entertainment because they had not broken the city contract and had already paid for the venue.

“They had made arrangements to use the building and had cleared the criteria to use the building,” said Humphries.

Prepejchal said he would be taking action to prevent this from happening again. He said the city would begin implementing background checks and become involved with the promoters and talent for each event.

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First of all, credit where credit’s due–Tom Gorzelanny pitched quite well, and the Cubs managed to rough up one of the premier starters in the NL to the tune of six runs in as many innings. But that’s not the whole story.

Even after that second inning, the Cubs had trouble breaking it open until the later innings. The Phightins came back to drop two runs on Gorzelanny in the fifth, but a ballistic missile from Alfonso Soriano stretched the lead back to 6-2. Then they got another run on a Ryan Howard sacrifice fly in the top of the 7th, but in the bottom half of that inning, the wheels came off. J.C. Romero gave up two runs without retiring a batter, and David Herndon, in relief of Romero, surrendered another three runs to stretch the Cubs’ lead to eight.

It’s not like the Phillies weren’t hitting–it’s just that everything that got hit hard was right at someone, and, once again, that bugbear of hitting with runners in scoring position came back to haunt Philly. Jayson Werth struck out with a runner on second to kill a rally in the fifth, and Ben Francisco, after Werth worked a walk to put runners at the corners with two outs in the seventh, Ben Francisco showed a profound disdain for reaching base, chopping to third to end the inning. All told, Philly left 17 men on base. Late solo homers by Greg Dobbs, Ben Francisco, and Ryan Howard made the score, if not the game, a little less ugly.

In jilted ex-girflriend news, All-Star hero Marlon Byrd was hit by two more pitches, making it six HBP in as many games for the Cub center fielder. The man Ed Wade once traded for Endy Chavez scored thrice without recording a hit.

11-6 is your final. The loss drops the Phillies back into third place in the division and leaves them two games out of the wild card. At least the Cubs don’t play “Chelsea Dagger” by the Fratellis after every run.

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“I might be the most successful drug dealer in the history of the United States,” said Atkinson, who estimates that during the 1970s his drug operation smuggled nearly a ton of heroin into places like New York City, New Jersey and Baltimore, Md. He is the subject of a new biography out this week.

However, Lucas, who released a memoir called “Original Gangster” earlier this month, says Atkinson’s claim to be the bigger crime figure is bogus.

“He’s full of crap,” said Lucas. “He’s just using my name to try and get publicity for his book. I was major. Check with DEA. They’ll tell you about what I did.”

Former Special Agent in Charge Lewis Rice, who worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York division from 1974 to 2001, says he prepared Lucas to testify against Harlem drug dealers and that Atkinson was a major dealer.

“He wasn’t as well known and as flashy as Frank Lucas, but he was the boss no question,” according to Rice, who also said that Lucas never went on the record saying that he smuggled drugs from Thailand.

A retired master sergeant in the U.S. Army, Atkinson, 84, was recently released from federal prison after serving 32 years in prison for his drug offenses.

In his biography “Sergeant Smack: The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, and His Band of Brothers,” released yesterday, crime author Ron Chepesiuk details how Atkinson smuggled heroin from Southeast Asia into the United States and became a leader in the international drug trade.

Atkinson, who currently lives in Raleigh, N.C., talked to the Wall Street Journal about his drug enterprise, incarceration and “American Gangster.”

© Universal/courtesy Everett Collection
Actor Denzel Washington in the movie “American Gangster.”

The Wall Street Journal: Why did you agree to let Ron Chepesiuk tell your story?

Ike Atkinson: At first, I thought about the embarrassment. I wasn’t interested in reviving things that happened thirty something years ago. When Ron told me about Frank Lucas taking credit for things I had done that weren’t true, I became interested.

Frank Lucas has said he’s responsible for smuggling heroin using the coffins of dead American servicemen. Is that not true?

He’s a damn lie. None of that is true. He had no part in any smuggling of no drugs from Thailand. This guy got his drugs from me and he and his lawyers made up this story.

How much money did you make while operating your drug business?

I never sat down to count my money. I was worth maybe 30, 40 million dollars. But it’s all drifted away. Now I have a pension from the army and I have my social security.

How did you get through 32 years in prison?

I had celebrity status. People would say, ‘We have never seen a black guy smuggle drugs like you have.’

When did you decide to stop smuggling drugs? Was it the incident in prison when you were busted for trying to revive your drug network and given an even longer sentence?

I caught two importation cases while I was down. I was going backwards so I said ‘I’m finished with drugs.’ After that, I didn’t get into any drugs.

What did you do while you were incarcerated?

Every time the doors opened, I was on the yard walking and occasionally I worked in the chapel. I didn’t do anything constructive. I just did my time, read a lot and called my friends that I had before I went to jail.

Ron Chepesiuk
Ike Atkinson, 84, was recently released from federal prison after serving 32 years.

Do you think your book glamorizes the drug trade?

I don’t think it does. I think what it really does is challenge Frank Lucas and the “American Gangster” movie. I paint myself as no angel. I just don’t want Frank Lucas taking credit for what I did. I hope that’s the main thing that our book clears up.

Do you ever think about the impact that the drugs you dealt have had on society, especially within the Black community?

I have a reverend friend and his wife and son come to see me. Every time I see them, I see the son they’re raising and I think about the drugs I’ve sold and how it could end up in his hands. I don’t feel good about it at all.

Do you have any regrets?

I wish I had never got in the drug business. I was too successful. If I had to do it again, I would do a lot of things different. I have asked the Lord to forgive me and I think he’s heard me. I live with my [conscience].

What do you do with your time now?

I have a soap opera I like, ‘The Young and the Restless.’ I watch that and the news with Katie Couric.

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Cobb is assigned his most difficult mission ever by sinister businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe): To implant an idea in the brain of billionaire heir Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy). With the help of his right-hand man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Cobb starts recruiting the best in the dream-extracting field to help him with his mission.

Inception features a notable cast, with Gordon-Levitt (Stop-Loss, (500) Days of Summer) threatening to overshadow DiCaprio (who is excellent in the film) at times and Watanabe (The Last Samurai) being a powerful yet subtle character that keeps you wondering if he’s a good guy or bad guy. It was also refreshing to see Murphy playing a nice guy in a completely credible way; his role as the Scarecrow in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight still haunts me.

However, the discrepancy between the two main female characters is particularly evident. Marion Cotillard (Nine), who plays Cobb’s deceased wife Mal, is brilliant in her sad yet creepy performance. But Ellen Page (Juno) is just… blah. She is usually a decent actress, but she doesn’t really have any teacher-student chemistry with DiCaprio, and her character gets lost and ends up being forgettable.

The script is incredibly complex, and if you blink once, you might miss the whole plot and find yourself completely lost. This is a dialogue-heavy film, and the audience is constantly provided with new details to analyze. There were times when I felt like throwing something at the screen and yelling: “Stop it! I’m still trying to understand what happened in the last scene!”

Yes, it is a long movie (148 minutes) but the duration is necessary in order to understand the plot without having to see the movie 500 times. Inception is the rare blockbuster that will make you think while insane action sequences are going on in the background.

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Jay Shafer is a social activist who contributes to the improvement of the world of architecture, housing, art, esthetics, and low-impact community living through his Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. Jay draws inspiration from his experiences and extensive knowledge related to music, video, photography, art, politics, public speaking, teaching, religion, history, architecture, and literature. His impact on society is both multifaceted and multidimensional.

Jay built his first tiny house for himself in the early 90’s. He has been living small ever since. He built his tiny house company in the mid-90’s because a lot of people have expressed genuine interest in his small house. He realized there are other people who wanted to live simpler, smaller, and cheaper – the Tumbleweed way.

Customers can buy house plans from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and build the houses themselves. They can also buy a ready-made house and have it delivered. Many of these houses are mobile homes with integrated wheels. Jay’s tiny houses have a designer feel – interior wood paneling, Jay and his company have set a new benchmark on small house living.

According to the San Francisco chronicle, Jay is dreaming of a small house community – shared land, connected by walking paths, on a small piece of land. An environment-friendly small house development definitely sounds better than a trailer park.

Tiny houses officially hit the big time when Jay appeared on Oprah. Jay has also made appearances in the San Francisco Chronicle, Parade Magazine, on CBS, on NPR, and on countless blog posts and more.

Numerous environmentalists are thrilled about the idea of tiny house living because it implies that people will leave a smaller imprint on the earth. For some people, the reason for buying these homes is the capability to be mobile. As many people have argued, “Bigger is not necessarily better”.

People who have encountered and embraced Jay’s philosophies have had life-transforming experiences that have resulted in improved health, greater creativity, better relationships, reduced materialism and consumerism, increased wealth, and general transcendence.

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The Hollywood Reporter scoops that Sandra has joined the cast of DreamWorks’ upcoming teen-horror remake Fright Night, which is currently filming in New Mexico under the direction of Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl). Already cast are Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Toni Collette and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Vergara will play the girlfriend and assistant to a magician, played by Tennant, who is reluctantly recruited by Yelchin’s Charley Brewster to fight off a vampire.

Of all of the horror remakes that are in production or development, I am looking forward to this one the most. Not because it’s necessarily the most original, but because Fright Night hasn’t been worn out by scores of sequel’s and spin-off’s like the Halloween’s and Friday the 13th’s of the world. Fans of Tom Holland’s 1985 cult classic will likely flock to the multiplex based on the nostalgia factor and/or the wonderfully eclectic cast that the studio has put together, while youngsters who continue to spend their allowance on the cheap thrills that horror remakes provide will be unfamiliar with the story, making for an intriguing and unpredictable reaction to the material.

Fright Night is scheduled to scare up an audience on October 7th 2011.

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