What happens when a televised public service announcement also carries a possible jail sentence? Gabriele Paolini is about to find out. Dubbed the "world's most prolific television hijacker," the Italian prankster (and the Guinness Book of Records) claims he's to have disrupted some 20,000 live broadcasts, among them: crashing a fashion program broadcast to promote condom use. Calling himself the "prophylactic prophet," Paolini face is well known to Italian TV audiences, especially since his antics, which he claims are only to promote AIDS awareness, often have reporters fighting back, like the time one correspondent kicked him in the shins during a live broadcast.
It was all fun and televised games, but now Italy's Supreme Court is holding him accountable, upholding a 3-month suspended sentence against him, which was brought when he interrupted a June 2001 report on the state broadcaster RAI. So if he pulls another stunt, he's headed to jail.
But the court's ruling won't just affect Paolini world record setting — it'll also crack down on anyone who purposely puts herself in front of a TV camera in a public place. Just imagine what a law like that would entail … CONTINUED »
Now that the press releases from mtvU and the Kaiser Family Foundation have finally stopped flooding the inbox, we can take a look at their joint project PosOrNot.com, the HIV-awareness site where visitors can vote on who they think has HIV. Um, OK? It's like Hot or Not, that brilliant Web 0.9 site that somehow still churns out a few bucks for its founders, except this time you're clicking your mouse not because you find the person attractive or not, but because you spotted a sore on her upper lip or lesions on his mid-thigh. Sure, we're all for encouraging young people to get tested, but what kind of operation solicits people to submit their photos and HIV status for all the world to judge? Oh, and then there's the argument that visitors won't actually invest any emotional attachment to the site, at least not in the way they snapped up Rent CDs.
So on Friday night we decided to see The Witnesses, a movie about gays and straights in France at the beginning of the AIDS crisis.
Stephen Holden said:
The Witnesses sidesteps most of its opportunities for high drama, political sermonizing and the jerking of tears. …
The Witnesses may frustrate those who prefer movies that tell clear-cut stories in which hard lessons are learned. But in the director’s farsighted vision of life, the ground under our feet is always shifting. As time pulls us forward, the shocks of the past are absorbed and the pain recedes. In its light-handed way, The Witnesses is profound.
Not true. The Witnesses was heavy-handed and vaguely retarded. And because we don’t believe in suspense as a plot device, guess what? The straight people in the movie aren’t affected by AIDS crisis. Just like in real life. (We kid!)
Anyway, at the theater we saw former mayor Ed Koch.
A friend of ours once postulated: “Everyone you think is gay is, and some people you don’t think are gay are gay, too.”
Just saying.
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adjuvant \AJ-uh-vunt\ adjective 1 : serving to aid or contribute : auxiliary 2 : assisting in the prevention, amelioration, or cure of disease
When the AIDS epidemic first broke, Madonna participated in adjuvant fundraisers to draw attention to the disease.
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