tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2008-09-19:/articles//3 March 2008 Movable Type Pro 4.21-en tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2008:/articles//3.78 March 2008 March 2008

To visit the San Francisco offices of LucasArts, the video-game arm of George Lucas's entertainment empire, is to glimpse first-hand the dividends that his six-episode Star Wars saga has generated over the last 30 years. The $350 million state-of-the-technological-art Presidio...

Vanity Fair http://www.frankdigiacomo.com To visit the San Francisco offices of LucasArts, the video-game arm of George Lucas's entertainment empire, is to glimpse first-hand the dividends that his six-episode Star Wars saga has generated over the last 30 years. The $350 million state-of-the-technological-art Presidio campus that the company shares with its moviemaking brethren, Lucasfilm and visual-effects house Industrial Light & Magic, boasts a commissary with panoramic views of the city (including, on a clear day, the Golden Gate Bridge); an employee gift shop stocked with Skywalker Ranch olive oil, Star Wars merchandise, and other Lucasfilm swag; and a plush 350-seat theater where employees can tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2008:/articles//3.79 February 2007 February 2007

Running a hand through his rooster comb of a pompadour, John Mellencamp lets out a raspy laugh. "I have always been at the wrong place at the wrong time," he says in a Hoosier twang. We are sitting in the...

Vanity Fair http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Running a hand through his rooster comb of a pompadour, John Mellencamp lets out a raspy laugh. "I have always been at the wrong place at the wrong time," he says in a Hoosier twang. We are sitting in the rehearsal space at his Belmont Mall recording studio, near Bloomington, Indiana, and the singer-songwriter has just rewound the master tape of his life back to the mid-70s, when he recorded under the whiz-bang name of Johnny Cougar, given to him by his first manager, Tony DeFries. With his smoldering Brando stare, Mellencamp may have looked like star material, but at tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2007:/articles//3.77 January 2007 January 2007

Along with the heat, the summer of 1963 brought a palpable tension to the so-called United States. The May images of black demonstrators terrorized by fire hoses and police dogs in Birmingham still resonated on June 11, when President John...

Vanity Fair http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Along with the heat, the summer of 1963 brought a palpable tension to the so-called United States. The May images of black demonstrators terrorized by fire hoses and police dogs in Birmingham still resonated on June 11, when President John F. Kennedy sent the National Guard to Tuscaloosa to thwart segregationist governor George Wallace's attempt to block two black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama. That night, Kennedy appeared on national television to announce that he would introduce a civil-rights bill in Congress the following week, but the hope that his speech promised was undercut the very next tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2006:/articles//3.61 December 3, 2006 December 3, 2006

Sean (Puffy) Combs was on the phone from a yacht in the Bahamas, and he was laughing. "When Penny Marshall comes to my joints, she gets buck wild!" Mr. Combs said with admiration in his polite voice. "Every time she...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Sean (Puffy) Combs was on the phone from a yacht in the Bahamas, and he was laughing. "When Penny Marshall comes to my joints, she gets buck wild!" Mr. Combs said with admiration in his polite voice. "Every time she comes to one of my parties, she gets … " he paused, then continued excitedly, "Penny Marshall stopped the music and sang 'Happy Birthday.' She spent the night at the house in the Hamptons the night before. I love her, man. I love her energy. You know, when I'm old, when I'm 60, I'm gonna remember that." Lord knows if, tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2004:/articles//3.76 December 2004 December 2004

When pictures of Britney Spears wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words PAGE SIX SIX SIX were published all over the world last year, they confirmed that a transformation had taken place in the gossip business. "Page Six," the column...

Vanity Fair http://www.frankdigiacomo.com When pictures of Britney Spears wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words PAGE SIX SIX SIX were published all over the world last year, they confirmed that a transformation had taken place in the gossip business. "Page Six," the column that oxygenates the wise-guy blood and Republican guts of Rupert Murdoch's New York Post with its amusing and occasionally incendiary coverage of the famous, the powerful, and the nakedly ambitious, has, over the course of its 28-year history, evolved into something more than just the heart-and spleen-of the paper. "The Page," as it is often called by those who work tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2004:/articles//3.52 February 8, 2004 February 8, 2004

In one of the backstage hospitality rooms of the Theater at Madison Square Garden, Chris Rock sat on an ass-battered couch, arms folded tightly, and talked about the ambition in his "Black Ambition" tour."I want to have it so tight...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com In one of the backstage hospitality rooms of the Theater at Madison Square Garden, Chris Rock sat on an ass-battered couch, arms folded tightly, and talked about the ambition in his "Black Ambition" tour."I want to have it so tight that it works in front of every audience: rich, poor, a strip club and the Senate. Literally like that," he said. "If only smart people like your shit, it ain't that smart." He let out a laugh, a heh-heh-heh that was a cross between Eddie Murphy and Phyllis Diller. Heh-heh-heh . "The greatest artists of our time were pop. Beethoven tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2003:/articles//3.46 November 30, 2003 November 30, 2003

Somewhere around Los Angeles, Alec Baldwin was taking a hike and panting. "I don't want to go all over the map here, but where is the protest against this war when almost on a daily basis, someone is dying over...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Somewhere around Los Angeles, Alec Baldwin was taking a hike and panting. "I don't want to go all over the map here, but where is the protest against this war when almost on a daily basis, someone is dying over there?" he said between labored breaths. "Right when you would want to question the motives of an administration, the country has gone and taken a nap. They're hiding in their houses. They're afraid of bin Laden. They're afraid of Hussein. They're afraid of not being able to make their mortgage payment. They're just afraid in general. And while they're afraid, tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2003:/articles//3.50 October 19, 2003 October 19, 2003

There is a song on the upcoming Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's album, Come Poop with Me , called "No Rules in the Animal Kingdom." It's got a punchy New Wave-style sound. Here's what it says: "You can steal and...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com There is a song on the upcoming Triumph the Insult Comic Dog's album, Come Poop with Me , called "No Rules in the Animal Kingdom." It's got a punchy New Wave-style sound. Here's what it says: "You can steal and you're no sinner / You can stick your arm up a kangaroo/ And make the father-of- the-year dinner." "It does sum up a lot," said Robert Smigel, a self-conscious smile blooming in his beard, as he took a taxi from Greenwich Village to the Beacon Theater to rehearse the 10th-anniversary show of Late Night with Conan O'Brien . Mr. Smigel tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2003:/articles//3.69 October 12, 2003 October 12, 2003

Eighty-year-old Jack Carter stood at the wooden lectern in the New York Hilton's Grand Ballroom. His hair looked like a mousse of candied yams. "I did waste a lot of energy writing jokes about jams and jellies and preserves," he...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Eighty-year-old Jack Carter stood at the wooden lectern in the New York Hilton's Grand Ballroom. His hair looked like a mousse of candied yams. "I did waste a lot of energy writing jokes about jams and jellies and preserves," he said. "I thought we were doing the Schmucker Brothers." Mr. Carter looked down at the targets of his punchline, Tom and Dick Smothers, and smiled a carnivorous smile. "I love that word, 'schmuck,'" he said. "That is the best word in the whole world." That led to a joke-actually a joke that, like one of those Russian matrioshka dolls, contained tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2003:/articles//3.60 September 14, 2003 September 14, 2003

"This is Shakespearean," said Ted Kavanau, one of the founders of Channel 5's 10 o'clock news, as he surveyed the sea of taut, ruddy faces, piercing eyes and accessible smiles. "It certainly isn't Freudian," replied agent Richard Liebner. Actually, the...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com "This is Shakespearean," said Ted Kavanau, one of the founders of Channel 5's 10 o'clock news, as he surveyed the sea of taut, ruddy faces, piercing eyes and accessible smiles. "It certainly isn't Freudian," replied agent Richard Liebner. Actually, the term "Serlingesque"-as in Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling-came to mind. Gathered in the back room of Elaine's on Sept. 3 was a collection of local on-air talent that, seen in a single setting, boggled the mind. These were men-and with one exception, they were all men-meant to be viewed at a safe distance through the cool medium of television. But tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2003:/articles//3.47 August 17, 2003 August 17, 2003

In 1931, George Orwell published "A Hanging," his eyewitness account of an execution at a prison in Burma. Reading the story is like getting a series of stiff jabs to the head, and the first one comes as the guards...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com In 1931, George Orwell published "A Hanging," his eyewitness account of an execution at a prison in Burma. Reading the story is like getting a series of stiff jabs to the head, and the first one comes as the guards lead the doomed man from his cell to the gallows. The author noticed that "in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder," the prisoner "stepped lightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path."Seeing this, Orwell wrote: "I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2003:/articles//3.57 June 8, 2003 June 8, 2003

Vincent Gallo posed a question. "Would you want to go see your movie with 3,500 people?" the shaggy-haired, fierce-eyed filmmaker asked, his sinewy voice piercing the Art Deco stillness of Petrossian. "Just think about it. Would you want to go...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Vincent Gallo posed a question. "Would you want to go see your movie with 3,500 people?" the shaggy-haired, fierce-eyed filmmaker asked, his sinewy voice piercing the Art Deco stillness of Petrossian. "Just think about it. Would you want to go see your movie with 3,500 opinions?" Mr. Gallo clanked his fork against his untouched plate of grilled octopus. "It's not a good thing to do," he said. "It's better to stay in your own delusion. It's better not have a mirror in your house and to invent your own idea of your silhouette and not confront things in basic ways. tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2003:/articles//3.53 March 30, 2003 March 30, 2003

Near midnight, Pacific time, on March 23, actor Ryan O'Neal pulled Dr. Ruth Westheimer close to him at the Vanity Fair Oscar party and began to dance. Disheveled in an earth-toned suit, Mr. O'Neal hunched over the petite sex therapist...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Near midnight, Pacific time, on March 23, actor Ryan O'Neal pulled Dr. Ruth Westheimer close to him at the Vanity Fair Oscar party and began to dance. Disheveled in an earth-toned suit, Mr. O'Neal hunched over the petite sex therapist as he swept around a small dance floor of his own making that was bordered by the D.J. booth and a couch where his intermittent girlfriend, actress Farrah Fawcett, the novelist Jackie Collins and bon vivant actor George Hamilton, in a walnut-hued tan and modified military brushcut, watched with mild amusement. But the look on Ms. Westheimer's face as she tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2002:/articles//3.70 October 6, 2002 October 6, 2002

Comedian Marc Maron stood behind the glowing glass podium wearing a tuxedo and a befuddled look. "Am I bombing already?" he asked the black-tie crowd at the Sept. 28 New York Friars Club roast of Chevy Chase, after telling a...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Comedian Marc Maron stood behind the glowing glass podium wearing a tuxedo and a befuddled look. "Am I bombing already?" he asked the black-tie crowd at the Sept. 28 New York Friars Club roast of Chevy Chase, after telling a couple of stinkers. Tepid laughter rose up from the Hilton's Grand Ballroom. He had his answer. "Terrific. Great," Mr. Maron said. "I'm the first nobody to get up here and tank." By the end of the evening, Mr. Maron could find some solace in the realization that though he was the first nobody to tank at the Friar's annual exhibition tag:www.frankdigiacomo.com,2002:/articles//3.51 September 22, 2002 September 22, 2002

Conan O'Brien, the 39-year-old talk-show host with a giant orange coxcomb of hair, was citing Master of the Senate , the latest hefty volume of Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson biography, to make a point. "The really sad lesson of the...

The New York Observer http://www.frankdigiacomo.com Conan O'Brien, the 39-year-old talk-show host with a giant orange coxcomb of hair, was citing Master of the Senate , the latest hefty volume of Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson biography, to make a point. "The really sad lesson of the whole thing," he said, holding a Sam Adams at his cluttered desk in his cluttered office in Rockefeller Center, "is that he was just this guy burning with ambition, and he gets to the Senate, and the whole time everything he does is this Machiavellian drive to become President. And he's brilliant in the Senate. He's the greatest Senator of