A scene from Shmuel Beru’s film “Zrubavel,” which portrays some of the difficulties faced by Ethiopian immigrants. Even as it tells of discrimination and difficulties, Beru pulls no punches when portraying his own community’s faults. His characters often wallow in self-pity, drink and use drugs, steal and beat their wives.
Reporting from Tel Aviv -- Growing up, they called him the "chocolate boy" and worse.
Shmuel Beru arrived in Israel at age 8 with the first wave of Ethiopian immigrants in 1984. Classmates, who'd never seen a black person before, rubbed his skin to see if the color would come off.
"I was like the new animal at a zoo," recalled Beru, now 33.
Today the actor-writer has turned his childhood struggle for acceptance into the first Ethiopian-made feature film exploring what it's like to grow up black in Israel. Drawing inspiration from filmmaker Spike Lee's stories about racial conflict in the United States, Beru examines an Ethiopian family's dreams of building a new life in a white-dominated and sometimes-racist Israeli society.
"I love my country," Beru said of Israel, "but I don't want to lie."
In a nation with so many competing well-documented narratives -- Jewish, Palestinian, Christian -- Beru's "Zrubavel," which opened in cinemas here in June, offers yet another perspective from one of the Holy Land's newer arrivals.
Since the 1980s, more than 80,000 Ethiopians have immigrated to Israel, many escaping famine and poverty in the Horn of Africa nation.
Known as Beta Israel, many of the Ethiopians were considered by some to be a lost tribe of Israel. Though living isolated in northern Ethiopian villages for centuries, they preserved customs remarkably similar to Judaism, which sometimes led them to be ostracized by other Africans.
They became the first large-scale immigration of black Africans to Israel and their adjustment to Israeli society has not been easy. For every success story about an Ethiopian Israeli being elected to parliament or becoming the latest singing sensation on Israel's TV version of "American Idol," there are a dozen more about Ethiopian gangs, domestic violence and the high rates of suicide and joblessness among Ethiopian youths.
Hebrew University expert Steven Kaplan, who has studied the Beta Israel, said that despite the government spending more money and energy trying to assimilate Ethiopians than it has for other immigrant groups, Ethiopians remain among the poorest groups in Israel.
"The most disturbing thing is that even after 30 years, if you ask me if we've turned the corner for the second and third generations of Ethiopians, I can't say we have with any real confidence," he said.
Beru said he hoped his film would counter negative stereotypes about Ethiopian immigrants.
"I wanted to show that no matter what your culture or color is, we all have the same stories," said Beru, interviewed recently at a Tel Aviv cafe. "We cry in the same language. We hurt in the same language."
For him, making the film was a deeply personal journey, enabling him to reconnect with his African roots and ultimately strengthen his appreciation for his adopted country.
"Zrubavel" is a classic immigrant saga, showing a younger generation fighting for acceptance and an older generation striving to keep its children rooted in the traditions of home.
The film follows the hard-working grandfather, a former Ethiopian army colonel reduced to sweeping streets in his new life; the son-in-law whose embrace of ultra-Orthodox Judaism alienates his family; the ponytailed college dropout, trapped between his father's dream that he become Israel's first black fighter pilot and a society pushing him toward more "suitable" work as a restaurant cook.
Beru's is a gritty, largely segregated world. White Israelis are bit players here, mostly one-dimensional authority figures, such as the police officers who taunt, beat and even kill Ethiopians with little remorse.
But Beru pulls no punches when portraying his own community's faults and responsibilities. His characters often wallow in self-pity, drink and use drugs, steal and beat their wives. In one scene, the troubled dropout robs and beats an innocent white senior citizen, before he is caught and beaten by police.
"My commitment was to tell the whole story," Beru said.
The film is based partly on Beru's personal experiences. He still hears the occasional racial epithet or is prevented from entering a Tel Aviv nightclub on the excuse that a "private party" is taking place.
As an actor, Beru often found himself typecast as a bodyguard, bad guy or pauper, despite his small build and easy smile. That was if he found roles at all. "It's hard to be a black actor in Israel because everything on TV is about white people," he said.
When he complained of the scarcity of good parts, he said, producers told him that white Israelis wouldn't "relate" to black characters.
But Beru said it's the artist's duty to provoke audiences and explore new territory. That's why he decided to write his own movie and hire Ethiopian actors for most of the roles.
The project provided him with the chance for a brief homecoming when he visited Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, for a screening this year, his first trip there since his family made the two-month trek to a Sudanese refugee camp 26 years ago.
"It was a shock to see a country of so many black people like me."
He said he was heartened by the public support he received in Ethiopia, but was troubled by the poverty from which he narrowly escaped.
Though his movie won an award at the Haifa International Film Festival last year and he visited Los Angeles this spring for a screening, Israeli moviegoers have given the film a lukewarm response.
At a recent screening in Tel Aviv, one white viewer attributed the low turnout to Israelis' preoccupation with the country's political strife.
"I guess we are people with so many of our own problems that we don't want to hear about other people's," said Ronit Avronin, a Tel Aviv office worker.
Some anonymous Israeli critics have attacked Beru and the film on the Internet, calling him a "monkey" and accusing him of being ungrateful for being rescued from a life "living in the trees."
Beru said he remains unfazed. Because so many Israelis have endured their own struggle, persecution and trauma, he said, they sometimes come across as less sympathetic to others facing a similar ordeal.
Overcoming the struggle and surviving on your own, he said, is part of the Jewish experience.
"Israelis appreciate strength. If you're nice, they'll think you're weak. But if you fight [for yourself], that's when they respect you."
Source : LATimesRead more…
Adult entertainment actress Savannah Stern, whose income has dropped because of the rapid decline in job opportunities in the porn business, is replacing her Mercedes-Benz with a used car from her parents.
LA Times Reports
On a recent Saturday night, Savannah Stern earned $300 to hang out for seven hours at a party in Santa Monica wearing nothing but a feather boa.
The veteran of more than 350 hard-core pornography productions took the job to earn extra cash and to network. But the word at the 35th anniversary party for Hustler magazine was not heartening, especially among the roughly 75 other women working there.
"At least five girls I haven't seen in a while came up to me and said, 'Savannah, are you working?' " said Stern, who started in the industry four years ago and, like most adult performers, uses a stage name. "I had to say, 'No, not really,' and they all said, 'Yeah, I'm not either.' "
The adult entertainment business, centered in the San Fernando Valley, has weathered several recessions since it took off with the advent of home video in the 1980s. But this time the industry is not dealing with just a weakened economy. A growing abundance of free content on the Internet is undercutting consumers' willingness to pay for porn, and with it the ability of many workers to earn a living in the business.
For Stern, 23, the rapid decline of job opportunities in the porn business over the last year has been dramatic. She has gone from working four or five days a week to one and now has employers pressuring her to do male-female sex scenes for $700, a 30% discount from the $1,000 fee that used to be the industry standard.
Less than two years ago, Stern earned close to $150,000 annually, sometimes turned down work and drove a Mercedes-Benz CLK 350. Now she's aggressively reaching out for jobs and making closer to $50,000 a year.
As for that Mercedes? She's replacing it with a used Chevy Trailblazer -- from her parents.
"The opportunities in this industry really are disappearing," Stern said. "It's extremely stressful."
Industry insiders estimate that since 2007, revenue for most adult production and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50% and the number of new films made has fallen sharply.
"We've gone through recessions before, but we've never been hit from every side like this," said Mark Spiegler, head of the Spiegler Girls talent agency, who has worked in porn since 1995.
"It's the free stuff that's killing us, and that's not going away," said Dion Jurasso, owner of porn production company Combat Zone, which has seen its business fall about 50% in the last three years.
Porn is hardly the only segment of the media industry struggling with these issues. But its problems appear to be more severe. Whereas online piracy has forced big changes in the music industry and is starting to affect movies and television, it has upended adult entertainment.
At least five of the 100 top websites in the U.S. are portals for free pornography, referred to in the industry as "tube sites," according to Internet traffic ranking service Alexa .com. Some of their content is amateur work uploaded by users and some is acquired from cheap back catalogs, but much of it is pirated.
Sites like Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube attract more users than TMZ and the Huffington Post. The porn sites are even bigger than Pirate Bay, the top portal for illegal downloads of movies, TV shows and music.
Frustratingly for porn producers and distributors in the Valley, none of these sites appears to be making much money. Suzann Knudsen, a marketing director for PornoTube, said the site's parent, Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network, uses it to attract customers for paid video on demand.
"PornoTube isn't a piggy bank," she said. "Its true value is in traffic."
The adult entertainment business, which was previously in the vanguard of home video, satellite and cable television and digital distribution, now finds itself leading the rest of the entertainment industry in losses from them.
"The death of the DVD business has been more accelerated in the adult business than mainstream," said Bill Asher, co-chairman of adult industry giant Vivid Entertainment, who estimates that his company's revenue is down more than 20% this year.
"We always said that once the Internet took off, we'd be OK," he added. "It never crossed our minds that we'd be competing with people who just give it away for free."
There are plenty of other signs of the porn industry's pain. Attendance at the Adult Entertainment Expo, an annual trade show in Las Vegas that's open some days to the public, was down 20% this year. Pay-per-view programming, a key revenue source for the industry, has fallen about 50% from its peak three or four years ago, according to a person familiar with the cable and satellite TV business.
Reliable revenue and employment figures for the adult industry don't exist, since no analysts or economists track it. Adult Video News estimated in 2006 that it was worth $13 billion, but Paul Fishbein, editor of the trade publication, said the number was "an educated guess."
"Almost all of the companies in our industry are privately held, and they keep the cards close to their chests," said Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, an industry trade group.
The effects of the downturn have been felt most severely by the thousands of people who work in the adult entertainment business.
Kelly Labanco doesn't need industry estimates to know what's happening. The makeup artist, who has worked in porn for five years, is landing half as many jobs as she did a year ago and has seen her pay drop from a high of $250 an hour to less than $100.
"A lot of companies say they don't even need makeup artists now and the girls can do it themselves," said Labanco, who has returned to her previous job doing freelance music publicity to pay the bills.
Even the industry's biggest events aren't worth what they used to be for working people like Labanco. Last year, she and a friend did makeup for a week at the Adult Entertainment Expo and earned $8,000. This year: $1,200.
Caroline Pierce, an adult film performer who lives in Las Vegas but flies to Los Angeles for work, said many companies have pressured her to do more scenes for less money.
"Instead of paying you $800 to do one, they'll pay you $1,200 for both," she explained.
As economic pressures increase, many performers have also changed their minds about what they are willing do on-screen. Previously, women earned hefty bonuses for unusual sex scenes. That's often no longer the case.
"A few years ago the girls we got were OK, but not stellar models, and we were sometimes paying $2,500," said porn director Matt Morningwood, referring to a website he shoots for that features one woman and multiple male partners.
"Nowadays some of the top-tier models will do that scene for us and you're looking at maybe $1,800. I'm happy for the production, but I feel bad for exploiting the girls' situation."
The only growth market most executives see is mobile devices, since they let consumers watch porn anywhere and in relative privacy.
Major companies that serve as a gateway to content on cellphones in the U.S. such as Verizon don't allow explicit adult content. But like cable and satellite companies in the 1990s, they may change their minds when they see the potential profit.
"Anyone betting against porn being a meaningful driver of traffic and revenue on mobile networks would be making a bad choice based on history," said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research.
Adult performers with big followings probably will continue to prosper, since they often work under a guaranteed contract and have loyal fans who buy all their work. Business managers for Belladonna and Tera Patrick, two of the industry's biggest stars, said their clients were using their celebrity to make money in other ways, like dancing in exotic clubs and licensing their name to sex toys and lingerie.
"The economy has forced us to look in other directions such as tangible goods," said Evan Seinfeld, who co-manages Patrick, his wife, and runs her production company, Teravision.
But for the "middle class" of the industry, those opportunities don't exist.
"It seems at this point that if you haven't established a well-known name, it's really hard to keep working," performer Alexa Jordan said.
Savannah Stern is adjusting to that reality. She's shooting scenes for her own subscription website and planning a tour of exotic dance clubs to earn money from her name while she can. After that, she hopes to go to college for an interior design degree and work in her family's real estate development and contracting business.
"I wish I would have never gotten into it," Stern said of her career in porn. "When you get used to a certain lifestyle, it's really hard to cut back and realize this may not be forever."
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Action figure-turned-movie star G.I. Joe stormed his way to the top of the box office this week, crushing rivals on the first weekend in his big screen debut.
"G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra" raked in $56.2 million in North America and $100.3 million worldwide.
The globetrotting adventure starring Dennis Quaid, Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller and Marlon Wayans enjoyed wide appeal in surprising places.
"One of the best markets on the movie was Russia," said Rob Moore of Paramount Pictures. "How far G.I. Joe has come. He was incredibly popular in Russia."
"Julie & Julia," featuring Meryl Streep as iconic female chef Julia Child, opened a solid No. 2 as an alternative for adult crowds with $20.1 million.
"G-Force," the guinea pig animated action movie and former box-office winner, earned $9.8 million and third place at the box office, and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" dropped to No. 4 with $8.9 million.
Last week's top movie, Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen's "Funny People," tumbled to No. 5 with $7.9 million, while the newest slasher thriller, "A Perfect Getaway," opened at No. 7 with $5.8 million.
"G.I. Joe" pulled Hollywood out of a month-long box-office swoon.
The downturn was particularly noticeable compared with last summer, when Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight" remained No. 1 for four weeks and sent ticket sales soaring, box-office watchers said.
"'Joe' kind of saved the day," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "We needed a box-office hero to turn things around, and we certainly got it."
Source : NY Daily NewsRead more…
AllHipHop Reports
Opa-Locka, Florida rapper Brisco released a track titled “Revenge” which addresses an incident last Wednesday (July 29), when the rapper was robbed at the Player’s Choice Barbershop in Miami.
Sources close to Brisco revealed he is releasing a new mixtape titled Revenge next Saturday (August 15).
The mixtape comes on the heels of the robbery, which occurred after Brisco, born British Mitchell, stopped into Player’s Choice to get a haircut.
Four men with guns drawn stormed the barbershop and coordinated the brazen robbery, relieving Brisco of $35,000 worth of jewelry as well as his Range Rover, which police later recovered.
The rapper, who has recorded with artists like Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Flo Rida and Bryan “Baby” Williams, released a 4:13 track also titled “Revenge” addressing the incident and promising retaliation to the perpetrators of the robbery.
The track starts with samples of a news report and overdubs in Haitian. Brisco fades in, stating “retaliation is a must.”
He speaks directly to the criminals who relieved him of his possessions, including his Range Rover truck, which was recovered a few blocks away from the barbershop.
“F**k a diamond you can have the gold/don’t want it back young n***a rather have your soul” and later “I can’t help that I’m the golden child/They set me up to lay me down/I want revenge now/
The second half of the verse is directed at the unarmed suspect who was in the barbershop prior to the robbery.
Police want to question the man, because he placed a call just before the robbery and was the only one the bandits allowed to leave.
Towards the end of his last verse, Brisco threatens to put a $20,000 bounty on each one of the men’s heads.
“Guess what? Them n***as was Haitian. So I had to find another way to talk to them,” Brisco said before a rapper directs a threatening verse in French.
Police are still seeking the four suspects who committed the crime and the fifth man, who may have helped coordinate the robbery.
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Ok here's the deal. Joe Budden was streaming live backstage at the 'Rock The Bells' concert. All of a sudden Raekwon bursts in with a few goons to confront Joe about something that was said in his apology video. The stream cuts off for a few minutes. When it comes back on Joe Budden is holding a cold compress to his eye after being punched by one of Raekwon's goons. The whole thing was caught on film by Rae's crew so the footage should be out real soon...Damn
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A man who committed a robbery and was involved in a police chase with Eastpointe police was dragged by his own car and injured while trying to ditch his getaway vehicle, said police.
Police said Lawrence Neal, 45, stumbled while trying to get his seat belt off so that he could jump from his moving vehicle. Neal jumped anyway and was entangled in the seatbelt and was dragged by his car for several hundred feet, bumping his head on trees along the way, said police.
Neal was charged Friday with fleeing and alluding police, hindering and obstructing police and unarmed robbery.
He is being held on a $200,000 bond.
Police said the incident began Thursday evening and was all captured on police dashcam video.
Police said they were watching Neal as he crossed back and forth from a liquor market and a car wash because he was acting suspicious.
In front of police, Neal stole a woman's purse at Joe's Keg and Wine liquor store in Eastpointe and then jumped into a 1995 Eagle Vision, said police.
Police chased Neal for about 3 miles to Detroit.
Police said the chase was not at high speeds and Neal kept going in and out of subdivisions looking for a good spot to flee from his vehicle.
"He was doing maybe 10 miles an hour, but still he went off the curb and into the front yard while being dragged," said Eastpointe Police Sgt. Leo Borowsky.
After he tried to jump out of his car and the chase came to an end, he was arrested and transported to an area hospital.
Neal broke his leg and was released from the hospital Friday for arraignment.
Police said Neal is a repeat offender and has a laundry list of convictions ranging from auto theft to home invasions dating back from 1986.
SourceRead more…
Times Online Reports
The world’s big four record companies are to go head-to-head with Apple with the launch of a new form of album download that will include a digitised version of a record sleeve.
Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are putting the finishing touches to an album format that will give music fans a computerised version of the sleeve notes that come as standard with a CD, including lyrics and artwork, and videos.
The format, due to be available in November, is aimed at boosting the sales of album downloads, which online buyers have failed to warm to despite a huge surge away from CD sales towards their digital counterparts. Although more than nine out of ten of all singles sales are made in digital form, for albums that figure is reversed.
It is understood that the record labels approached Apple, maker of the iPod, about 18 months ago with the plan to revitalise album downloads by bundling together extra features in a single download.
Industry insiders say that their project, with the working title CMX, was rebuffed by Apple. The technology giant is now understood to be working on its own format, codenamed Cocktail, which it hopes to launch within two months.
One senior record label insider said: “Apple at first told us that they were not interested, but now they have decided to do their own, in case ours catches on.
“Ours will be a file that you click on, it opens and it would have a totally brand-new look, with a launch page and all the different options. When you click on it you’re not just going to get the ten tracks, you’re going to get the artwork, the video and mobile products.”
The new technology will initially be “soft-launched” to accompany only a few releases, possibly including the next album by U2.
“We are not going out in force,” the label source said. “What you are going to see is a couple of releases thrown out there to see what people like. We are working with the retailers now.”
Despite the success of singles downloads, the industry has found it harder to persuade consumers to buy digital albums. The 2009 Entertainment Retailers Association handbook shows that only 10.3 million of the 139.8 million albums sold last year were downloads.
A spokesman for the association said: “It is the great conundrum of the age: what would an album look like online? At the moment a download in no sense replicates that satisfying quality of a physical album.
“Think about the importance of the gift market for albums. Online it’s stripped down to the bare music, and there’s a lot more to an album than that.”
Another part of the problem is the small difference in price, with retailers offering heavy discounts on CD albums, the average price of which fell to £8.10 last year, compared with £7.41 for the digital equivalent.
Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV, said: “The price of a CD has come down massively in recent years, and there are year-round promotional catalogue campaigns that represent incredible value, such as two CDs for a tenner. This means that tracks on physical albums can often work out quite a bit cheaper than their digital counterparts.”
A spokesman for the BPI, which represents the British record industry, said: “Digital downloads have resurrected the single, and the competitive pricing and widespread availability of individual digital songs appeal to teenagers. While the CD remains the bedrock of music sales overall, a key challenge for the industry now is to upscale demand to the digital album.”
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Houston Chronicle Reports
A felony suspect who tipped the scale at more than 500 pounds carried an unloaded 9mm pistol into city and county jails beneath flabs of his skin even though law enforcement officers repeatedly searched him, authorities said Thursday.
George Vera, 25, was released on $10,000 bail after being charged with possessing or selling unlabeled recordings and possession of a firearm in a correctional facility. Harris County District Attorney's spokeswoman Donna Hawkins said both charges are third-degree felonies, punishable by two to 10 years in prison upon conviction.
Police arrested Vera on Sunday after he was spotted selling apparently bootlegged compact discs out of the back of a sport utility vehicle parked at Hollister and Pitner, Hawkins said.
Police spokesman Victor Senties said Vera was searched three times by police personnel: once at the scene, again, more thoroughly, when he arrived at the city jail, and a final time before he was transferred to the Harris County Jail.
Vera was subjected to an additional search at the county lockup.
City and county law enforcement spokespeople said inmates at both the city and county jails are not required to pass through a metal detector or undergo wand searches.
Vera's possession of the firearm came to light Monday when he approached a county guard during a shower break and admitted having smuggled the weapon, authorities said.
The incident came just days after the county lockup at 1200 Baker passed a surprise inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. The review found that deficiencies cited after an April inspection — malfunctioning intercoms, broken toilets and crowded holding cells — had been successfully addressed.
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It's alleged that Stuart Feltham took down his trousers and started acting obscenely
Telegraph.Co.UK Reports
A 26-year old Greek woman has become an overnight national hero after setting fire to the genitals of a 23-year old drunken Briton who allegedly tried to sexually assault her in a crowded bar.
The unidentified woman from the fiercely proud island of Crete won herself even more praise by doing the right legal thing – turning herself over to police and the courts to be put on trial for what she claimed was her "right to self-defence".
She will face a magistrate on Friday to see if the case will go to court.
She is currently facing an investigating magistrate on charges of causing bodily injuries to the Briton and of endangering private property.
The Briton himself, whose name is expected to be released later, is currently in a private clinic in Heraklion, the capital of Crete island, being treated for second degree burns to his testicles and penis.
According to a police statement issued last night the incident occurred at a club in the notorious coastal resort of Malia, which is dominated by young Britons seeking all-night revelry.
It alleged the Briton took down his trousers and started waving his genitals at a number of girls. He then specifically "forcefully fondled" the 26-year old Greek woman, asking her to take hold of his genitals.
After asking him to stop harassing her, the police said, she poured the alcoholic drink Sabucco on his genitals (an Italian brand type of Greek ouzo or French Pernod drink).
This again allegedly failed to stop his advances, so the woman seized a lighter and set fire to the alcohol-drenched genitals, local press reports said.
The charges were levelled after reports claimed that the assailant's genitals suffered considerable damage, requiring that he remain in a private clinic in Malia. Travel operator sources at Malia said his treatment is being covered by his travel insurance. The name of the clinic is not being disclosed and is under discreet police guard, police sources said.
However, the magistrate and prosecutor also unanimously agreed to set the woman free pending trial, an indication that they accepted her argument that she "acted in justified self-defence".
A small crowd of bystanders outside the Heraklion hospital applauded and shouted "bravo, bravo", as she was rushed away under police escort.
Legal counsel for the woman said that at Friday's hearing the court may either issue an immediate verdict or else might postpone for a future date. This will depend on reported plans by the woman's lawyers to also take legal action against the Briton, as soon as he recovers.
Authorities on the island still refuse to release the names of the Briton and the now nationally famous but still unidentified Greek woman, on the grounds that they are bound by the Personal Data Protection law and the particular sensitivity of the case.
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There is a strong chane this report is true since T.I. went to federal prinson with a "snitch jacket", T.I. testified in open court and made a public service announcement that encouraged snitching. listen to Trash Man.I hope the story is not true. Rape is a bad scene for anybody
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