Tattle: Baby Boom rock pays off at Sandy concert benefit
WHEN THE senior generation of arena rockers (the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney) stops performing, how will we ever raise money in a charity concert?
WHEN THE senior generation of arena rockers (the
Rolling Stones
, the
Who
,
Bruce Springsteen
,
Paul McCartney
) stops performing, how will we ever raise money in a charity concert?
Who's going to perform with Bon Jovi?
Matchbox 20? Maroon 5?
Will any bands from the '80s and '90s still be rocking when their fans hit their disposable-income years?
Billie Joe Armstrong better straighten himself out because the charity concert of 2030 may depend on Green Day.
Well, and the Stones.
Sure, Taylor Swift may be singing about her third ex-husband then but what we've learned since Live Aid (nearly 30 years ago) is that if you want to rock an arena and raise big money, you need bands, you need big, foot-stomping, sing-alongs, you need songs that everybody knows.
Say what you want about the 12.12.12 Concert for Sandy by AARP last week, but it raised more than $50 million and the Robin Hood Foundation says it is now beginning to distribute that money - roughly 40 percent to organizations based in New Jersey, with the rest in New York and Connecticut.
Vickers shock
The Pentagon says
Michael Vickers
, its top intelligence official, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to be the next CIA director, is under investigation in connection with information he provided to the makers of "Zero Dark Thirty," a movie about the raid that killed
Osama bin Laden
.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said Tuesday evening that the investigation of Vickers is being conducted by the Pentagon's inspector general.
Vickers is the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
Little said Vickers only provided unclassified information to movie makers and that the session was arranged in July 2011 by the Pentagon's office of public affairs.
Little said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has full confidence in Vickers.
TATTBITS
*
Ben Affleck
("Argo") says a desperate humanitarian situation in Congo requires a stronger display of U.S. leadership.
Affleck told a House committee in Washington on Wednesday that he has visited the region regularly in recent years, seeing both the effects of violence and the potential of the African country. Affleck founded the East Congo Initiative in 2010, a nonprofit organization that helps direct aid to the war-torn region.
Tattle admires Affleck's concern and commitment, but if we can't stop the cycle of violence in our own cities, how are we going to do it halfway around the world?
* Michael Douglas has been watching from a New York courtroom audience as federal appeals judges consider the validity of his son Cameron's nearly 10-year prison sentence for drug crimes.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals listened to lawyers in Cameron's case Wednesday. The judges didn't immediately say whether they thought the sentence was legally justified.
Cameron initially made a cooperation deal with the government and was sentenced to five years in prison for selling drugs. He was sentenced to another 4 1/2 years after he was caught using drugs in prison.
* Ian Watkins, the lead singer of British rock band Lostprophets, appeared in court Wednesday charged with child sex offenses including conspiring with a woman to rape a 1-year-old girl.
Watkins also is accused of conspiring to engage in sexual touching with two children; possessing, making and distributing indecent images; and possessing "extreme" animal pornography.
Defense lawyer Tom Crowther said Watkins would deny all charges and requested bail, but magistrate Alan Knight ordered the singer detained until his next hearing Dec. 31.
* La Scala has canceled the inaugural ballet of its season because of a one-day strike by the chorus.
The famed Milan opera house announced "with regret" that the Wednesday opening of "Romeo et Juliette" had been called off.
The theater said the chorus was seeking extra pay for being required to participate in a segment of the ballet.
Guess that wasn't a subject of barre-gaining.
The chorus spent longer periods on stage during the recent season-opener of the opera "Lohengrin," but the singers argue that their contract includes provisions for participating on stage in operas, but not ballets.
And you don't want to tick off the sopranos.
The strike comes on the heels of complaints by dancers that the stage, including an additional platform for "Romeo et Juliette," is slightly slanted.
Labor negotiations are always slightly slanted.
- Daily News wire services contributed to this report.