Access Holiday by MADONNA

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Oprah Winfrey kicked off one of her last-ever national talk shows on Tuesday with hugs from Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise and Madonna in a packed Chicago arena.

"She's a self-made woman who's been at the top of her game for over 25 years -- and she's still kicking a**," Madonna told a delighted audience of about 13,000 as a stunned-looking Winfrey stood beside her onstage.

The show, being taped on Tuesday for airing on May 23 and 24, is billed as "Oprah's Surprise Spectacular" because not even the talk show queen was said to have known who would be appearing.

Winfrey's final original "Oprah Winfrey Show", whose contents are still under wraps, will air on May 25, bringing to a close 25 years of the most-watched daytime talk show on U.S. television.

"Your show has turned surprise into an art form," Hanks told Winfrey on Tuesday. "Oprah Winfrey, today you are surrounded by nothing but love. Your studio was not big enough to hold it all, so here we are," Hanks said, gesturing around the glittering basketball arena and concert venue.

Shortly after, Madonna walked onstage and praised Winfrey for her courage. "It's no secret that millions of people are inspired by Oprah," she said. "I am one of those people ... She fights for things she believes in, even if it makes her unpopular ... I have learned so much from her."

A beaming Cruise told Winfrey it was an honor to have been on her show 12 times since 1988. Referring to his first appearance on the show 23 years ago, Winfrey quipped, "You looked like you were 10."

R&B singer Beyonce prefaced a song and dance performance by declaring, "Oprah Winfrey, because of you, women everywhere have graduated to a new level of understanding of what we are, who we are, and who we can be ... We can run the world!"

The show also featured Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry and singer-actress Queen Latifah. Josh Groban and Patti LaBelle sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and comedy stars Tina Fey and Steve Carell sent in video-taped tributes.

Winfrey, regarded as the most influential woman on U.S. television, is wrapping the final season of her syndicated Chicago-based show to devote more energy to her fledgling OWN cable network, which launched in January.

Winfrey announced in November 2009 that she would end her talk show, which airs five days a week on Walt Disney Co's ABC and in some 140 countries.

(Reporting by Matthew Lewis, editing by Jill Serjeant)

Access Lucky Star by MADONNA

Madonna adopts a black baby. Brad Pitt, Angela Jolie adopt a black baby, Sandra Bullock adopts a black baby. At face value this looks great but my conspiracy side is skeptical.

My first thought is to thank you for helping pull these kids out of foster care and adoptions services. There are so many African Americans babies and children in the system that need new parents and the fact that there are studies that show African Americans in the system are often overlooked makes these adoptions special. (Click to read article.) After all, you could have gotten a Russian or Chinese kid.

My conspiracy side however thinks, "Oh God. White folks have found a new fashion statement." Forget Jimmy Choo. Everyone has a pair. Mercedes, that's passé. No longer is the Hermès bag de rigueur. "WOW!!! Look at me. I have a black baby. You don't. Nah, Nah Na Nah Nah".

Remember the movie "Get Shorty" where John Travolta plays the character Chili Palmer. He reluctantly agrees to drive an Oldsmobile Silhouette after his rental car service mistakenly delivers it to him instead of the Cadillac he ordered. He convinces Martin Weir (Danny Devito) that it's the best sh!t since sliced bread.

"Martin Weir: "Hey Chili, is this your ride?" Chili Palmer: "Yeh Yeh, I like to sit up high, check everything out. I mean it is the Cadillac of minivans." The next day every actor on the set has an Oldsmobile Silhouette. Every time I see an actor or actress adopt an African American baby I immediately flash to this scene and hear "Yeh Yeh. I like their full lips and shiny brown skin. I mean they are the Cadillac of little babies". Are we looking at the latest fad to hit Hollywood? It's not hard to fathom.

I wonder if they get these kids because it's the only way they can legally own a black person. Remember slavery wasn't about manipulation of the adults only. Mind control starts with the BABY. What better way to own your own plantation than to do it legally by adopting black babies.

But then my rational thought process returns and I think that maybe these kids could be better off. They have new parents that love them. The parents have tons of money which means they can have the best education, health care, shelter. The odds of them going into a poverty stricken lifestyle have all but been eliminated. In theory, the new life means that the adopted children will have children that have a better life as well, and the poverty cycle for them is broken, but I am still skeptical of the adopter's motives.

I remember the TV show Diff'rent Strokes and I remember the premise of this show was a black woman who cleaned a rich white man's house dies. Her two poor orphaned black kids are then adopted by the same rich white man.

There was another show called Webster. The show

ENGLEWOOD, N.J. - Pop superstar Michael Jackson feared the ravages of old age, sought the company of sycophants and appeared to be abusing prescription drugs and cosmetic surgery nearly a decade before his death, according to a new book by a former adviser.

"The Michael Jackson Tapes" breaks little in the way of new ground but the book by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, based on 30 hours of taped interviews, provides firsthand detail about the performer's excesses and obsessions.

"I don't want to be seen now," Jackson confessed. "Because I am like a lizard. It is horrible."

Jackson died June 25 at age 50. His death is being treated as a homicide.

The self-described "King of Pop" seemed to sense during the interviews in 2000 and 2001 that his life was winding down.

"I would like some way to disappear where people don't see me anymore at some point," Jackson said. "I don't want to grow old. I never want to look in the mirror and see that."

"He lost the will to live," Boteach said Friday on NBC's "Today" show. "I think he was just going through the motions of life toward the end."

Boteach is an orthodox Jewish rabbi who has written self-help books with names like "Kosher Sex" and "Shalom in the Home." He was introduced to Jackson in 1999 through Uri Geller, a British entertainer, and acted as his confidant for many years. At times, the transcribed tapes sound like counseling sessions.

Boteach said he and Jackson recorded the tapes with the idea of giving the public a more accurate image of the reclusive entertainer. Boteach said he soured on the book - originally slated for release in 2003 - after Jackson failed to adhere to the recovery programs they had worked out for his public image and private self. Those improvements included waking up at a decent hour and not being alone with children other than Jackson's own three kids.

The friendship ended with Jackson's second arrest on charges of sexually abusing a child. Boteach said he resurrected the project after Jackson died because attitudes toward him had softened.

In conversations, Jackson is quick to see himself as a victim and quick to criticize relatives - especially his father, who, Jackson said, beat him with an electric cord.

"He was rough," Jackson says of his father. "The way he would beat you hard, you know, was hard."

Ken Sunshine, a spokesman for the Jackson family, said Friday: "We will not dignify this with a comment."

The book makes it clear Jackson was interested in women sexually but very shy. He tells Boteach he had never asked a woman out on a date, although he acknowledged having sexually charged phone conversations with Madonna.

In recounting one conversation, he said: "Madonna laid down the law to me before we went out," saying, "'I am not going to Disneyland, okay? That's out.'"

Jackson said Madonna was jealous of him because his female fans screamed and swooned while her male fans were less demonstrative. He recalled her crying in admiration at one of his concerts.

When contacted Friday, Madonna's spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said, "Madonna has very fond feelings for Michael Jackson, and I don't think anything in the book is going to change that."

The glittery glove that Michael Jackson wore when he unveiled his moonwalk on TV in 1983 is hitting the auction block. This one isn't like his other glittery gloves, which were made for the right hand and adorned with hand-sewn crystals. This left-handed glove, which accompanied Jackson's fedora and dance moves on Motown's 25th-anniversary TV special, is a modified, store-bought glove covered with a mesh of rhinestones.

The glove, which Darren Julien of Julien's Auctions called "the Holy Grail of Michael Jackson memorabilia," will be featured alongside other one-of-a-kind items â€" such as an early Madonna demo tape and unreleased Jimi Hendrix lyrics â€" at the Nov. 21 "Music Icons" auction at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City's Times Square.

Walter "Clyde" Orange, a founding member of the Commodores, has been holding onto the glove since Jackson gave it to him in 1983.

Orange said he got to know Jackson when the Commodores toured with the Jackson 5 in the 1970s. Orange would always ask the young entertainer for an autograph, but Jackson refused, saying Orange was the more famous of the two. The autograph request became a private joke.

They met again in March 1983 when the Motown special was taped. Jackson sang with his brothers, then took the stage alone to wow the world with his moonwalk during his solo performance of "Billie Jean."

Orange found his friend backstage and again requested an autograph. Jackson gave him the glove instead.

After Jackson's June 25 death at age 50, Orange decided the glove was too significant to keep.

"There's a hundred other gloves out there, but this is the one you want. He blew up after that (performance) with 'Billie Jean,'" Orange, 62, said in an interview. "The world should see this. This is the first. That's the song that made him shoot through the roof as a superstar."

Orange said he hopes the glove will find a permanent home at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or a similar institution. And he's happy that proceeds from the sale will benefit MusiCares, an organization that helps musicians struggling with substance abuse.

"Just for the world to see it, that means the world to me," Orange said.

___

On the Net:

JuliensAuctions.com

They both ruled the '80s, redefined themselves in the '90s and, as this decade draws to a close, they remained the two biggest pop stars of this generation. But now there is only one.

Madonna honored the late King of Pop Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, the very same venue where Michael Jackson was scheduled to perform a 50-show run beginning later this month. Jackson's series of concerts were being billed as his farewell tour. Instead, MJ suddenly passed June 25 after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Halfway through Madonna's set â€" which kicked off the second leg of her Sticky & Sweet tour â€" the Material Girl halted the regularly scheduled show. One of her dancers, whom she later identified as Kento, made his way across the stage, wearing MJ's trademark fedora, fitted slacks, white socks, white glove and penny loafers and mimicking Jackson's spinning, gyrating and moonwalking.

A medley of Jackson's hits then played, from "Billie Jean" to "Wanna Be Startin' Something." From the stage, Madonna lead the cheers for one of the only other '80s icons who could eclipse her. She clapped her hands, swayed from side to side and jumped up and down while images of Jackson over the years flashed on a big screen.

"Let's give it up for one of the greatest artists the world has ever known," Madonna urged the crowd. "Michael Jackson!"

Toward the end of her show, according to a report on Hollywood.com, Madge honored Jackson by wearing a black armband and a white glove while the lyrics to one of MJ's most touching hits, "Man in the Mirror," flashed on the screen behind her.

In addition to their...click to continue reading

I'm not gonna act like I'm the biggest Madonna fan in the world but this track ain't half-bad! Check it out. Let me know what you think about it!