Hollywood Interrupted

Hollywood, Interrupted is a sometimes frightening, occasionally sad, and frequently hysterical odyssey into the darkest realms of showbiz pathology, the endless stream of meltdowns and flameouts, and the inexplicable behavior on the part of show business personalities. Charting celebrities from rehab to retox, to jails, cults, institutions, near-death experiences and the Democratic Party, Hollywood, Interrupted takes readers on a surreal field trip into the amoral belly of the entertainment industry. Each chapter — covering topics including warped Hollywood child-rearing, bad medicine, hypocritical political maneuvering and the complicit media — delivers a meticulously researched, interview-infused, attitude heavy dispatch which analyzes and deconstructs the myths created by the celebrities themselves. Celebrities somehow believe that it's their god-given right to inflict their pathology on the rest of us. Hollywood, Interrupted illustrates how these dysfunctional dilettantes are mad as hell... And we're not going to take it any more.

These are some of the reasons why Hollywood's misbehaving stars do what they do, but over the past few years, their stories have become so outrageous that it's hard to tell what they're actually thinking -- if they're thinking at all! In this entertainment industry expose, Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner pull back the curtain to reveal the twisted culture of Hollywood and the preposterous penchants of today's high-profile celebrities. From John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and Anne Heche to Eddie Murphy, Oliver Stone, and Courtney Love, Hollywood, Interrupted presents the mind-altered behavior of the most reality-challenged celebrities from all walks of life and every genre. Hollywood, Interrupted explores how the pathological behavior of celebrities has destroyed comedy, snuffed relationships, and demeaned family values. Each chapter delivers a meticulously researched, interview-infused, attitude-heavy dispathch -- which analyzes and deconstructs the myths created by celebrities and their way-too-protective handlers. You'll enter a world where: Celebrities and Hollywood power players engage in "cyber," "off-line" sex and subterfuge with a young America Online customer service agent; "Young Hollywood" swing clubs and "porno-tainment" become mainstream diversions; Statutory rapist Roman Polanski can win a Best Director Oscar, but can't collect it because of the criminal conviction against him in the United States; Some of the most famous stars send their children to an elite high school with a curriculum that includes extracurricular cross-dressing and a mandatory pseudo-therapeutic program called "Mysteries"; Celebrity nannies get so stressed they've formed a Beverly Hills support group; Matthew Perry, Robert Downey Jr., and Ben Affleck, among others, vacation at "five star" rehab resort centers; Hollywood Madame Heidi Fleiss can emerge from prison a born-again celebrity, ready to cash in. Frequently hysterical and occasionally frightening, Hollywood, Interrupted digs deep to uncover how in Hollywood cults rule, Dr. Feelgood stands ready to fill your prescription, celebrity kids shoot speedballs, and your neighbor runs a brothel. Both entertaining and engaging, Hollywood, Interrupted reveals the real Hollywood and mocks the movie mavens, sitcom screwballs, and musical misfits who view being on medication, under house arrest, in rehab, or on deathwatch as just part of the job.

"Brash, funny, fiery, and irreverent." -- Rush Limbaugh Known for his network of conservative websites that draws millions of readers everyday, Andrew Breitbart has one main goal: to make sure the "liberally biased" major news outlets in this country cover all aspects of a story fairly. Breitbart is convinced that too many national stories are slanted by the news media in an unfair way. In Righteous Indignations, Breitbart talks about how one needs to deal with the liberal news world head on. Along the way, he details his early years, working with Matt Drudge, the Huffington Post, and how Breitbart developed his unique style of launching key websites to help get the word out to conservatives all over. A rollicking and controversial read, Breitbart will certainly raise your blood pressure, one way or another.

Since the first edition of Fracking was published, hydraulic fracturing has continued to be hotly debated. Credited with bringing the US and other countries closer to "energy independence," and blamed for tainted drinking water and earthquakes, hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") continues to be one of the hottest topics and fiercely debated issues in the energy industry and in politics. Covering all of the latest advances in fracking since the first edition was published, this expanded and updated revision still contains all of the valuable original content for the engineer or layperson to understand the technology and its ramifications. Useful not only as a tool for the practicing engineer solve day-to-day problems that come with working in hydraulic fracturing, it is also a wealth of information covering the possible downsides of what many consider to be a very valuable practice. Many others consider it dangerous, and it is important to see both sides of the argument, from an apolitical, logical standpoint. While induced hydraulic fracturing utilizes many different engineering disciplines, this book explains these concepts in an easy to understand format. The primary use of this book shall be to increase the awareness of a new and emerging technology and what the various ramifications can be. The reader shall be exposed to many engineering concepts and terms. All of these ideas and practices shall be explained within the body. A science or engineering background is not required.

Critical Essays on William Faulkner compiles scholarship by noted Faulkner studies scholar Robert W. Hamblin. Ranging from 1980 to 2020, the twenty-one essays present a variety of approaches to Faulkner’s work. While acknowledging Faulkner as the quintessential southern writer—particularly in his treatment of race—the essays examine his work in relation to American and even international contexts. The volume includes discussions of Faulkner’s techniques and the psychological underpinnings of both the origin and the form of his art; explores how his writing is a means of “saying 'no' to death"; examines the intertextual linkages of his fiction with that of other writers like Shakespeare, Twain, Steinbeck, Warren, and Salinger; treats Faulkner’s use of myth and his fondness for the initiation motif; and argues that Faulkner’s film work in Hollywood is much better and of far greater value than most scholars have acknowledged. Taken as a whole, Hamblin’s essays suggest that Faulkner’s overarching themes relate to time and consequent change. The history of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha stretches from the arrival of the white settlers on the Mississippi frontier in the early 1800s to the beginnings of the civil rights movement in the 1940s. Caught in this world of continual change that produces a great degree of uncertainty and ambivalence, the Faulkner character (and reader) must weigh the traditions of the past with the demands of the present and the future. As Faulkner acknowledges, this process of discovery and growth is a difficult and sometimes painful one; yet, as Hamblin attests, to engage in that quest is to realize the very essence of what it means to be human.

“Plus One is a smart and funny novel about Hollywood, but where it truly shines is in Noxon's stunning and painfully accurate depiction of the complex rhythms and growing pains of a marriage.” — Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You and One Last Thing Before I Go "Well observed, honest, and laugh-out-loud funny, Plus One tells a story from the inside of show business about being on the outside."— Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men Christopher Noxon's debut novel Plus One is a comedic take on bread-winning women and caretaking men in contemporary Los Angeles. Alex Sherman-Zicklin is a mid-level marketing executive whose wife's fourteenth attempt at a TV pilot is produced, ordered to series, and awarded an Emmy. Overnight, she's sucked into a mad show-business vortex and he's tasked with managing their new high-profile Hollywood lifestyle. He falls in with a posse of Plus Ones, men who are married to women whose success, income, and public recognition far surpasses their own. What will it take for him to regain the foreground in his own life? Christopher Noxon is an accomplished journalist who has written for such publications as the New Yorker, Details, Los Angeles Magazine, Salon, and the New York Times Magazine; his first book, Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up (Crown), earned him interviews on such shows as the Colbert Report and Good Morning America and generated features in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and Talk of the Nation; Ira Glass of This American Life called the book "an eye-opener." Noxon happens to be married to a top TV writer/producer and does the school chauffeuring for their three children, so he knows whereof he speaks regarding Plus Ones. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

"Fearing for her life, Faye D. Resnick, as confidante of O.J. whenever he and his ex-wife fought - went into hiding to write Nicole's story. Her phones were tapped, private journals and photographs were stolen from her home, veiled threats were made by "private investigators" - and O.J.'s defense team, desperate to find another suspect, spread slanderous "theories" that purportedly tied Faye to the murders." "Now the truth about Nicole is revealed by the only person - except O.J. himself - who knew the real story: How O.J. raged out of control just two days before he bought the now-infamous "stiletto knife" - and told Faye over and over: "I'm going to kill her... I'm going to kill her if I find her with another man!" That same day, Nicole told Faye, "O.J. loves me so much he's going to kill me... and get away with it." Six days before the murders, a furious O.J. panicked Nicole by threatening to inform the IRS about a tax problem that could force her and their two children out of the home they loved. Five days before her death, a frightened Nicole told Faye that O.J. had stolen the spare set of keys to her condo. How Nicole committed the one sexual "taboo" O.J. had forbidden." "It's more than sensational! It's the touching, intimate portrait of a devoted wife and mother, molded from age 17 by a charismatic American hero who always showed the world the happy, smiling face he drew on his so-called suicide note... but beat her savagely behind closed doors." "New unrevealed secrets... How O.J. left her beaten and near-naked in a Las Vegas hotel corridor... O.J.'s boast of his "sexual revenge" against the man he raged against in the headline-making "911 tape"... How Nicole's "frog phobia" doomed the reconciliation when O.J. became "Frog Man"... The bizarre story of the thumb ring found next to Nicole's body - identical to the one worn by Faye, and..." "It's the heartbreak of a woman who tried desperately to return what she thought was her husband's total love - and her final realization that it wasn't love, but a hellish obsession!" "Details of the final 35-minute phone call Nicole had with Faye during the final moments of her life." "It's an unexpected love story about two women who formed a bond so strong even death can't break it - and how they teamed up in a futile, last-ditch effort to save the life of Nicole Brown Simpson." "It's an angry cry for help... help for women trapped in the brutal prison of abuse from men who claim to love them. Nicole Brown Simpson was known as a "strong woman" by her friends and family - but Faye D. Resnick, who was an abused child, has learned one powerful lesson from writing this book: Strength should never be equated with keeping silent about abuse. Sadly, it's a lesson Nicole never learned. That's why she'd want you to read her story..."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This multidisciplinary study of Scientology examines the organization and the controversies around it through the lens of popular culture, referencing movies, television, print, and the Internet—an unusual perspective that will engage a wide range of readers and researchers. For more than 60 years, Scientology has claimed alternative religious status with a significant number of followers, despite its portrayals in popular culture domains as being bizarre. What are the reasons for the vital connections between Scientology and popular culture that help to maintain or challenge it as an influential belief system? This book is the first academic treatment of Scientology that examines the movement in a popular-culture context from the perspective of several Western countries. It documents how the attention paid to Scientology by high-profile celebrities and its mention in movies, television, and print as well as on the Internet results in millions of people being aware of the organization—to the religious organization's benefit and detriment. The book leads with a background on Scientology and a discussion of science fiction concepts, pulps, and movies. The next section examines Scientology's ongoing relationship with the Hollywood elite, including the group's use of celebrities in its drug rehabilitation program, and explores movies and television shows that contain Scientology themes or comedic references. Readers will learn about how the Internet and the mainstream media of the United States as well as of Australia, Germany, and the UK have regarded Scientology. The final section investigates the music and art of Scientology.