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Martin Scorsese Got Acting Advice From Robert DeNiro During His ‘Taxi Driver’ Cameo

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Who better to get acting advice from the great Robert DeNiro, even if it’s only for a small scene you have in a little movie? That you’re directing. And your name is Martin Scorsese. And the little movie is the classic 1976 film Taxi Driver.

When George Memmoli, the actor who was to play a man stalking his wife who hails a ride with Travis, was injured on another movie, Scorsese agreed to play the character, and asked DeNiro on a few pieces of advice.

Here’s the “Sick Passenger” scene featuring Scorcese.

Louis C.K. Plans to Fight Off Scalpers On His Announced International Tour

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Comedy genius Louis CK just emailed his fan list first noitce a new batch of tour dates around the world. What’s more interesting to me is his continuing efforts to battle scalpers. He’s using the power of the internet, the technology available, and kindness towards his fans to create a goodwill relationship that will last.

I’m going to be in many cities around the United States of America and cities in other countries such as London, Paris and Prague. Just to be clear, I will be performing standup comedy shows during this tour. It’s all new material (well, I’ve been working on it for about a year, so if you saw me at a club or something since last May or so, you might be seeing some of the same material, though it has changed drastically over the months) but if you’ve seen me on tour, in a major venue, you won’t have seen these particular words.

That’s right. I am not using any words that I have ever said on stage. It was a very difficult challenge. I had to resort to words like “cotton” and “trunk” and even “Salutation”.

Anyway. It’s new jokes and I think I’m better at comedy right now than I’ve been for a while and I’m going to dedicate the year to just doing great live shows. I’m very ready and excited to come to your town and tell this humor with my mouth in the following cities:

&bull Baltimore, MD (shows added)
&bull Asbury Park, NJ
&bull Mashantucket, CT
&bull Chicago, IL (shows added)
&bull Wilkes-Barre, PA
&bull Reading, PA
&bull Kansas City, MO
&bull Oakland, CA
&bull Inglewood, CA
&bull Houston, TX
&bull Nashville, TN
&bull Greensboro, NC
&bull Forest Hills, NY
&bull Milwaukee, WI
&bull Minneapolis, MN
&bull Omaha, NE
&bull St Louis, MO
&bull Detroit, MI
&bull Springfield, MA
&bull London, ENG
&bull Dublin, IRE
&bull Paris, France
&bull Amsterdam, NLD
&bull Prague, Czech Republic
&bull Jerusalem, Israel
&bull Helsinki, FIN
&bull Copenhagen, DEN
&bull New York, NY

If you don’t see your city or one close to you on this list, please note that this tour will continue through (at least) December. More cities will be announced for later fall and winter, probably in July. If you don’t want to come see me live… well… okay. Don’t. Totally. It’s fine.

See you out there

.

Thank you. Louis CK

ps. A word about TICKETS….

Tickets for this tour, as always, are available through my website louisck.net.

Tickets for every seat at every show (with a few exceptions) are one price. Most tickets are $50 or less. There are no ticket fees for any shows. My agent worked hard to accomplish this by negotiating in every city and finding venues that were willing to help us make the shows affordable. In some cases, the venues and I are splitting the ticket charges between us so you don’t have to pay it. In the end it’s worth it to me because I don’t want coming to see me to be a painful choice for anyone and either way I’m making plenty of money on the tour. I sincerely hope that everyone takes advantage of this by simply buying the affordable tickets and coming to the shows. For those of you who plan to take the opportunity of the simple and cheap ticketing on this tour to make a profit at the expense of my fans, please note that we are working hard to prevent scalping and that if you resell your tickets at an unfair price, you are risking having your tickets invalidated. Also if you purchase tickets to my shows from Stubhub or other scalping sites, that ticket may not be valid.

If you buy tickets to one of my shows and you can’t go, or you somehow get stuck with them, please contact us at Lcktix16@gmail.com and we will try to help you get your money back. If you buy tickets from a reseller and they get cancelled, please contact us here because we probably now have that ticket and are going to throw it back on sale at the original price and you could get it that way. In any case, you can always reach out and we will try to help you.

That’s in America. In Europe and Israel I don’t honestly know what we are charging because the ticketing systems there are very different. It’s taken us a few years to build the relationships we have with the venues and ticket companies here in the states so we could pull this off. Over there we are trusting their system to take care of you.

PPS: Just before I sent this out I learned that tickets are already on sale in Israel and Ireland. I heard that the site in Israel crashed and nobody can get tickets. Please be patient as we work on this. Also, FYI, please note that we added new shows in Baltimore and Chicago.

How Prince’s Record Label Got Him To Reduce “Sign O’The Times” From 3 LPs To 2 LPs Is Brilliant

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On Sign o’ the Times, Prince brought in a three-LP record, and everybody wanted to reduce it to one record, because they thought in that way you could get the very best material and have a huge, huge hit. But he rebelled against it and wanted to put it out as it was. Lenny Waronker (President of Warner Bros. Records) talked to management and said, “You know, instead of putting out a three-album set, let’s reduce it to two, which would make it stronger and better and more effective in the marketplace.” Management told Prince what Lenny had said. And so Prince called Lenny, and he said, “I hear you don’t like my record.” And Lenny said, “No, that’s not the case. I only think there should be some editing of the record.” And then he did something very interesting. He talked about Maxwell Perkins, who, you may remember, had a biography written about him by Scott Berg called Editor of Genius, and he told Prince about how he edited Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Tom Wolfe. And he said every one of them permitted him to do it, and in every case, it improved the book. When Prince heard that, he said, “You know what? I’m gonna go back to Minneapolis,” because he was at Sunset Sound at the time they were talking. He went back to Paisley Park, worked all night and cut the record down to two albums.

It was a fantastic analogy, and one that would really have impact, because Prince was smart enough to understand the values of those literary figures.

Via

Universal Creates Verve Label Group, Tony Bennett’s Son To Lead

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Universal Music Group has realigned some of its most prestigious jazz and classical properties under the newly-formed Verve Label Group and appointed industry veteran Danny Bennett as its president and CEO.

Bennett, a Grammy and Emmy Award-winning music, film and television producer, and long-time manager of his father, the celebrated singer Tony Bennett, assumes leadership of Verve Label Group with immediate effect.

With Bennett at the helm, Verve will relocate to New York, where the label was established 60 years ago as the label home to such jazz greats as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Stan Getz and Billie Holiday. In his new role, Bennett will be tasked with expanding the awareness and reach of UMG’s jazz and classical catalog, and develop and promote emerging artists worldwide. Meanwhile, award-winning record producer David Foster has decided to return full-time to producing and will leave the Verve label he has run since 2012.

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Musicians Around The World Perform The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”

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The multimedia project Playing for Change, a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music. Recorded back in 2011, this cover brings together artists from around the world: New Orleans, Barcelona, South Africa, India, Nepal, the Middle East and Ireland, among others. Depression and helplessness is a feeling not immune to your neighbourhood, “Oh, a storm is threat’ning. My very life today. If I don’t get some shelter. Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away,” as the video below shows.

The awesone glee of a woman enjoying her new Chewbacca mask

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“Absolutely wonderful!” writes Peter “Chewbacca” Mayhew over at Reddit.

Door Sounds Like R2-D2 Screaming When It Opens

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Here’s a hotel lobby’s automatic door sounds just like R2-D2 screaming when it opens.

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CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite Introduces America To The Velvet Underground

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The report, which aired on CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite on December 31st, 1965, introduced to mainstream Americans such avant-garde filmmakers as Jonas Mekas, Stan Brakhage, and Andy Warhol — as well as a certain band called the Velvet Underground. And it was all hosted by Dick Van Dyke.

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Video: Pierre Boulez: The Politics of Music Directed by Michael Chanan, made for BBC2, 1972

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Michael Chanan’s portrait of Pierre Boulez, The Politics of Music (1972), documented the composer’s quest to move classical music out of the concert halls and into public spaces.

The Politics of Music from Michael Chanan on Vimeo.