Month: September 2017

Beginning this weekend, “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA,” presents a wide variety of Latin American art exhibitions, music events and film screenings to Southern California audiences through January 2018. Arturo Martinez has the story from Los Angeles.
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After leaving the majesty of the Grand Canyon in the American Southwest, national parks traveler Mikah Meyer headed north to the cooler climes of the Pacific Northwest. Along the way, he stopped by some of the region’s most picturesque and historic national parks.

“I kind of fit along the way these random parks that were out in the middle of nowhere that I could string together to make a route to Washington [State],” he said.

Natural highs … and lows

He was soon standing in the shadow of the tallest freestanding mountain in the state of Nevada — Wheeler Peak, in Great Basin National Park. The mountain stands 3,982 meters (13,065 feet) high and is named for George Wheeler, who led a survey of the Western U.S. in the 1870s.

“It’s really in the middle of nowhere and there’s no other National Park Service site anywhere near it, and so I asked one of the rangers ‘Why is this a National Park Service site?’ And she told me that Nevada has more complete mountain ranges than any other state in the United States, including Alaska,” he said.

That fact, along with the snow-capped peaks amid lush surroundings, surprised Mikah. “I feel like if you ask most people what Nevada looks like, this is not the answer they would give you!”

People usually associate Nevada with a desert landscape. But beyond the barren land and the lights and glitter of the state’s most famous city, Las Vegas, travelers like Mikah can find many natural wonders.

“I went to a place called Stella Lake, a mountain lake which gives you a gorgeous view of Wheeler Peak,” he said. To get there, he walked through a forest of aspen trees. “They were all just budding their spring light green colors. The wind was blowing so strong and these new-growth aspen trees were waving in the wind. It was a really ethereal experience.”

Great Basin National Park is also known for Lehman Cave, one of the best places in the world to see hundreds of limestone shield formations.

On its website, the National Park Service describes the cave as an excellent example of a limestone solution cavern.

“Its beginning can be traced back 550 to 600 million years ago when a warm shallow sea covered most of what is now Nevada and Utah. Over the next 400 million years, sea creatures lived and died, piling layers of calcium carbonate-rich sediment on the ocean floor. These sediments gradually solidified into limestone rock.”

“It was definitely pretty … very fascinating shapes of all sizes and forms,” Mikah said. “So all within this park you can go underground and see this amazing cave and you can hike to the highest point in Nevada,” he said.

Fascinating science and surreal scenery

As Mikah headed north to Oregon, he came across another surreal landscape — Painted Hills, one of three units of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

“It’s these really cool, dried-out looking mountains that have red stripes that cut across the rocks horizontally,” he explained. “Rocks of orange and yellow and red, juxtaposed with super blue lakes, was completely another planet.”

Noted American paleobotanist Ralph W. Chaney once said, “No region in the world shows a more complete sequence of tertiary land populations, both plant and animal, than the John Day Basin.”

Historic duo

Also in Oregon, Mikah visited the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park. The site commemorates an expedition led by explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from 1804 to 1806, to cross what is now the western part of the U.S.

President Thomas Jefferson directed the men and their “Corps of Discovery” to map the territory, find a practical route across it to the Pacific Ocean and establish an American presence before European powers tried to claim it. Lewis and Clark were also to study the geography, plant and animal life along the way, and establish trade with Native American tribes.

“It’s funny for me to look at this large historic expedition and realize these were men in their early 30 as they were doing this, and now here I am in my early 30 doing something similar,” Mikah said. “And so it’s a parallel, age-wise.”

Visitors to the park can step into the Fort Clatsop replica for a sense of what the Corps of Discovery experienced more than 200 years ago.

But it was the natural beauty that impressed Mikah the most … especially the Pacific coastline.

“It’s hard to describe the feeling of looking over one of these jagged cliffs and seeing the sun beating on these rocks, and the waves crashing up against the jagged rock cliffs, and boy, I was just blown away by the beauty.”

Journeying through the Pacific Northwest, Mikah had a chance to steep himself in history and some of the most stunning landscapes in the country — always a winning combination for a national parks traveler.

Mikah invites you to follow him on his epic journey by visiting him on his website TCBMikah.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
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For more than 60 years, Harry Dean Stanton played crooks and codgers, eccentrics and losers.

He endowed them with pathos and compassion and animated them with his gaunt, unforgettable presence, making would-be fringe figures feel central to the films appeared in.

The late critic Roger Ebert once said no movie can be altogether bad if it includes Stanton in a supporting role, and the wide cult of fans that included directors and his fellow actors felt the same.

“I think all actors will agree, no one gives a more honest, natural, truer performance than Harry Dean Stanton,” director David Lynch said in presenting Stanton with the Inaugural “Harry Dean Stanton Award” in Los Angeles last year.

Stanton died Friday of natural causes at a Los Angeles hospital at age 91, his agent John S. Kelley said.

Lynch, a frequent collaborator with the actor in projects like “Wild at Heart” and the recent reboot of “Twin Peaks,” said in a statement after Stanton’s death that “Everyone loved him. And with good reason. He was a great actor (actually beyond great) — and a great human being.”

When given a rare turn as a leading man, Stanton more than made the most of it. In Wim Wenders’ 1984 rural drama “Paris, Texas,” Stanton’s near-wordless performance is laced with moments of humor and poignancy. His heartbreakingly stoic delivery of a monologue of repentance to his wife, played by Nastassja Kinski, through a one-way mirror has become the defining moment in his career, in a role he said was his favorite.

“‘Paris, Texas’ gave me a chance to play compassion,” Stanton told an interviewer, “and I’m spelling that with a capital C.”

The film won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival and provided the actor with his first star billing, at age 58.

“Repo Man,” released that same year, became another signature film: Stanton starred as the world-weary boss of an auto repossession firm who instructs Estevez in the tricks of the hazardous trade.

He was widely loved around Hollywood, a drinker and smoker and straight talker with a million stories who palled around with Jack Nicholson and Kris Kristofferson among others and was a hero to such younger stars and brothers-in-partying as Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez.

He appeared in more than 200 movies and TV shows in a career dating to the mid-1950s. A cult-favorite since the ’70s with roles in “Cockfighter,” ″Two-Lane Blacktop” and “Cisco Pike,” his more famous credits ranged from the Oscar-winning epic “The Godfather Part II” to the sci-fi classic “Alien” to the teen flick “Pretty in Pink,” in which he played Molly Ringwald’s father.

While fringe roles and films were a specialty, he also ended up in the work of many of the 20th century’s master auteurs, even Alfred Hitchcock in the director’s serial TV show.

“I worked with the best directors,” Stanton told the AP in a 2013 interview, given while chain-smoking in pajamas and a robe. “Martin Scorsese, John Huston, David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was great.”

He said he could have been a director himself but “it was too much work.”

By his mid-80s, the Lexington Film League in his native Kentucky had founded the Harry Dean Stanton Fest and filmmaker Sophie Huber had made the documentary “Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction,” which included commentary from Wenders, Sam Shepard and Kristofferson.

More recently he reunited with Lynch on Showtime’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” where he reprised his role as the cranky trailer park owner Carl from “Fire Walk With Me.” He also stars with Lynch in the upcoming film “Lucky,” the directorial debut of actor John Carroll Lynch, which has been described as a love letter to Stanton’s life and career.

Stanton, who early in his career used the name Dean Stanton to avoid confusion with another actor, grew up in West Irvine, Kentucky and said he began singing when he was a year old.

Later, he used music as an escape from his parents’ quarreling and the sometimes brutal treatment he was subjected to by his father. As an adult, he fronted his own band for years, playing western, Mexican, rock and pop standards in small venues around Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. He also sang and played guitar and harmonica in impromptu sessions with friends, performed a song in “Paris, Texas” and once recorded a duet with Bob Dylan.

Stanton, who never lost his Kentucky accent, said his interest in movies was piqued as a child when he would walk out of every theater “thinking I was Humphrey Bogart.”

After Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, he spent three years at the University of Kentucky and appeared in several plays. Determined to make it in Hollywood, he picked tobacco to earn his fare west.

Three years at the Pasadena Playhouse prepared him for television and movies.

For decades Stanton lived in a small, disheveled house overlooking the San Fernando Valley, and was a fixture at the West Hollywood landmark Dan Tana’s.

Stanton never married, although he had a long relationship with actress Rebecca De Mornay, 35 years his junior. “She left me for Tom Cruise,” Stanton said often.

In listing Stanton’s survivors, the statement announcing his death said only:

“Harry Dean is survived by family and friends who loved him.”
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An American dentist’s killing of Cecil the lion, a collared 13-year-old lion monitored by the University of Oxford in Zimbabwe, sparked widespread outrage and condemnation of big-game hunting.  But Trophy, a new documentary by filmmakers Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau, offers a more complex perspective on trophy hunting as an industry that blurs the lines between big-game hunting and wildlife conservation.

Every year, Safari Club International holds the largest big-game hunt convention in the world in Las Vegas. Conservationist and adventurist Joe Hosmer describes the process: “You can just pick whatever animal you want from the menu that they offer, you see the price and book the kill.”

Watch: Killing to Conserve? ‘Trophy’ Raises Difficult Questions

Prices range from $8,000 for a buffalo to $45,000 for an elephant and $350,000 for a rhino. This big-money industry helps the local communities where the hunts take place and discourages poaching, says Chris Moore, an anti-poaching campaign manager from Zimbabwe.

Moore says while poachers destroy 30,000 African elephants a year just for their tusks, trophy hunters kills 1,100 elephants annually, providing local communities with their meat and revenue. “Half of that trophy fee goes back into building a clinic or school or whatever the community decides. They have committees and a trust, which organizes where that goes.”

An adventure for the rich

Filmmaker Christina Clusiau says big-game hunting caters to the rich, most of them Americans. “I couldn’t believe that it was so vast that you could buy hunts, and you can buy your insurance, and you can buy your clothing and gear, everything for the safari.”

Filmmaker Shaul Schwarz says he made Trophy because he wanted to understand the hunters and why they do what they do.

“The fact that you had to pay so much money is kind of more angering to some degree because you are saying, ‘Oh, look at these rich white people and they are going to go and take from Africa in an almost colonial way.’ You could just get angry about that and I see why, but the funny flipside is that this money hopefully will trickle down to what actually enables conservation. So,” he concludes, “to some degree, if there wasn’t a lot of money in the industry then it wouldn’t make sense.”

Trophy shows how this billion-dollar big-game industry is financing the breeding of endangered species by exploiting a small percentage of these animals for the thrill of the kill, while conserving the rest and restoring their numbers in ranches.

“That’s kind of the idea of utilizing animals in this ‘if it pays, it stays’ way.  Now, is that the answer?” Schwarz asks. “I don’t know. I’m here to raise questions, but I think what we should do in this subject is be less quick to judge and scream.” He knows that he is tackling a polarizing subject, and asks audiences to keep an open mind.

PETA doesn’t agree

But the animal rights organization PETA does not see both sides. The group’s Associate Director of Campaigns, Ashley Byrne, condemns the big-game industry.

“Selling an endangered animal’s life to raise money for conservation is like selling a child on the black market to raise money for an anti-trafficking organization. The logic is absurd! The best way to promote conservation is to protect animals’ natural habitat and to invest in eco-tourism, in non-invasive forms of tourism that do make these animals commodities but alive, not dead!” she insists.

Anti-poaching activist Chris Moore agrees that in an ideal world, the wealthy would pay just as much to go and see the animals, but he adds we don’t live in an ideal world, and the film shows that these hunters who want a trophy want their money’s worth.

Moore suggests that if trophy hunting were banned, the animals would no longer be seen as commodities to preserve, and poaching would increase.

“When you are struggling to feed your child, you look for alternative means. I think if society maintained certain levels of prosperity, I don’t think we would really see poaching.”

Tough to film

The film offers a vivid cinematic experience of wildlife in Africa, but filming was tough, says Clusiau.

“When you look at these majestic creatures from afar they are majestic. They are beautiful. You want to go up and touch them and pet them and what you don’t realize is how dangerous they actually are. So, when you are in that environment, you do feel very vulnerable. So, we were lucky to have guides and trackers to kind of act as a shield to these environments.”
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Imagine having a butler to keep you home in perfect order. Well, you don’t have to be a blueblood anymore to get that kind of service. As VOA’s Olga Loginova shows us, a British butler with royal references is available for hire.
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Fans of the American hip hop group the Insane Clown Posse will march on Washington Saturday in protest of their designation as a street gang by the federal government.

On Saturday, the Insane Clown Posse (ICP), along with thousands of their diehard fans — who refer to themselves as “Juggalos” — will gather near the Lincoln Memorial to make a “collective statement from the Juggalo family to the world about what we are and what we are not.”

“At this point, it’s time for everyone to put up or shut up. You say you’re a recording artist who supports the Juggalo Family’s fight against discrimination? Then be there. Live. In person,” the rap duo said in a message to fans promoting the event.

The march is just the latest step taken by ICP and its fans to fight their designation by U.S. authorities as a “loosely organized hybrid gang.” The issue stems from a 2011 report produced by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in which Juggalos are said to “exhibit ganglike behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence.”

​Horror rap

The ICP is known for its unique brand of horror rap that often includes lyrics referencing drug use and violence. It has attracted a fan base made up largely of poor, white people who’ve built an identity around the music produced by the rap duo and their trademark clown makeup.

“We represent people who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth but instead with a rusty fork,” one member of the group, Violent J, said during an interview in 1995.

Some fans of the rap group say the gang designation has had a severe negative impact on their lives, with some reporting they’ve been fired from jobs, lost custody of their children or been denied housing because of their support of ICP.

“Being labeled a gang member can be a permanent stain on an individual’s life, since it will come up in a simple background check every single time,” the group said on their website promoting the event.

The FBI, in a statement provided to NBC News, said its report was based on information provided by states and the report specifically notes “the Juggalos had been recognized as a gang in only four states.”

“The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. We investigate activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security. The FBI cannot initiate an investigation based on an individual’s exercise of their First Amendment rights,” it said.

In 2012, The ICP, with the help of the Michigan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sued the FBI claiming the designation unfairly profiles their fans and violates their First Amendment rights.

The lawsuit was initially dismissed by a judge in 2014, but the ICP won an appeal in 2015 ordering a Michigan court to take up the case. The case currently remains under appeal.

ICP members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, whose real names are Joseph Bruce and Joseph Ulster, are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, along with four of their fans.

One of the plaintiffs, Scott Gandy, said he had to cover up an ICP tattoo in order to apply to join the military. Another plaintiff, Brandon Bradley, claims to have been repeatedly stopped, questioned and photographed by police in California for wearing Juggalo clothing and having a Juggalo tattoo.

Label argued

Government lawyers have argued that the FBI report did not label all ICP fans as gang members and did not force the actions taken by any independent police agency, and thus could not be held liable for the actions taken by those police officers.

Unsatisfied with the legal process, the Juggalos are set to march on Washington in the hope of gaining attention for their cause.

“I didn’t have a problem with this country. Then all of a sudden they technically made it illegal to be a Juggalo. It’s like they took that one thing away that made me not have a problem with the government,” Violent J said in a recent interview with Reason.

Jason Webber, a publicist for ICP and an organizer for the event, told NBC he expects about 3,000 people to attend the rally.

The Juggalos won’t be the only group marching Saturday on Washington. Another group, supporters of President Donald Trump, is planning the “Mother of All Rallies” (MOAR) to take place near the Washington Monument, and predicts a crowd of about 5,000 attendees.

The “Mother of All Rallies” moniker appears to be a reference to the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (more commonly known as the Mother of All Bombs), which was dropped earlier this year on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan.

According to its website, the rally is meant to “send a message to the world that the voices of mainstream Americans must be heard.” Organizers say they’ll only allow American flags to be flown and the event is meant to be apolitical.

“No Confederate flags, communist flags, or foreign flags allowed. This is not a Democrat or Republican rally. It’s not a left or right rally,” the group’s website says. “We condemn racists of all colors and supremacy of all colors. Our patriots are of all colors and we are uniting under our constitutional rights.”
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About 1,000 fans of the American hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse marched Saturday in Washington to protest their designation as a street gang by the federal government.

ICP and its die-hard fans, who refer to themselves as “Juggalos,”  gathered near the Lincoln Memorial, where they spoke about the troubles they’ve dealt with because of the designation and chanted anti-government slogans.

Marchers held signs that read “Music is not a crime” and “I’m a Juggalo, not a gang member.”

The march marked the latest step taken by ICP and its fans to fight their designation by U.S. authorities as a “loosely organized hybrid gang.”

The issue stems from a 2011 FBI report in which Juggalos are said to “exhibit ganglike behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence.”

​Horror rap

The ICP is known for its unique brand of horror rap that often includes lyrics referencing drug use and violence. It has attracted a fan base made up largely of poor white people who have built an identity around the music produced by the rap duo and their trademark clown makeup.

“We represent people who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth but instead with a rusty fork,” one member of the group, Violent J, said during an interview in 1995.

Some fans of the rap group say the gang designation has had a severely negative impact on their lives, with some reporting they’ve been fired from jobs, lost custody of their children or been denied housing because of their support of ICP.

“Being labeled a gang member can be a permanent stain on an individual’s life, since it will come up in a simple background check every single time,” the group said on its website promoting the event.

The FBI, in a statement provided to NBC News, said its report was based on information provided by states. The report specifically notes “the Juggalos had been recognized as a gang in only four states.”

“The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. We investigate activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security. The FBI cannot initiate an investigation based on an individual’s exercise of their First Amendment rights,” it said.

In 2012, ICP, with the help of the Michigan branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the FBI, claiming the designation unfairly profiles the group’s fans and violates their First Amendment rights.

A judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2014, but ICP won an appeal in 2015 ordering a Michigan court to take up the case. The case currently remains under appeal.

ICP members Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, whose real names are Joseph Bruce and Joseph Ulster, are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, along with four of their fans.

One of the plaintiffs, Scott Gandy, said he had to cover up an ICP tattoo in order to apply to join the military. Another plaintiff, Brandon Bradley, claims to have been repeatedly stopped, questioned and photographed by police in California for wearing Juggalo clothing and having a Juggalo tattoo.

Label argued

Government lawyers have argued that the FBI report did not label all ICP fans as gang members and did not force the actions taken by any independent police agency, and thus could not be held liable for the actions taken by those police officers.

Unsatisfied with the legal process, the Juggalos marched in Washington in the hope of gaining attention for their cause.

“I didn’t have a problem with this country. Then all of a sudden they technically made it illegal to be a Juggalo. It’s like they took that one thing away that made me not have a problem with the government,” Violent J said in a recent interview with Reason.
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Harry Dean Stanton, the shambling, craggy-face character actor with the deadpan voice who became a cult favorite through his memorable turns in Paris, Texas and Repo Man, as well as many other films and TV shows, died Friday at age 91.

Stanton died of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his agent, John S. Kelly, told The Associated Press. Kelly gave no further details on the cause. 

Never mistaken for a leading man, Stanton was an unforgettable presence to moviegoers, fellow actors and directors, who recognized that his quirky characterizations could lift even the most ordinary script. Roger Ebert once observed that “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”

He was widely loved around Hollywood, a drinker and smoker and straight talker with a million stories who palled around with Jack Nicholson and Kris Kristofferson among others and was a hero to such younger stars and brothers-in-partying as Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez. “I don’t act like their father, I act like their friend,” he once told New York magazine.

Nicholson so liked Stanton’s name that he would find a way to work his initials, HDS, into a camera shot.

Almost always cast as a crook, a codger, an eccentric or a loser, he appeared in more than 200 movies and TV shows in a career dating to the mid-1950s. A cult-favorite since the ’70s with roles in Cockfighter, Two-Lane Blacktop and Cisco Pike, his more famous credits ranged from the Oscar-winning epic The Godfather Part II to the sci-fi classic Alien to the teen flick Pretty in Pink, in which he played Molly Ringwald’s father. He also guest starred on such TV shows as Laverne & Shirley, Adam-12 and Gunsmoke. He had a cameo on Two and a Half Men, which featured Pretty in Pink star Jon Cryer, and appeared in such movies as The Avengers and The Last Stand.

Fitting for a character actor, he only became famous in late middle age. In Wim Wenders’ 1984 rural drama Paris, Texas, he earned acclaim for his subtle and affecting portrayal of a man so deeply haunted by something in his past that he abandons his young son and society to wander silently in the desert.

Wiry and sad, Stanton’s near-wordless performance is laced with moments of humor and poignancy. His heartbreakingly stoic delivery of a monologue of repentance to his wife, played by Nastassja Kinski, through a one-way mirror has become the defining moment in his career.

“Paris, Texas gave me a chance to play compassion,” Stanton told an interviewer, “and I’m spelling that with a capital C.”

The film won the grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival and provided the actor with his first star billing, at age 58.

Repo Man, released that same year, became another signature film: Stanton starred as the world-weary boss of an auto repossession firm who instructs Estevez in the tricks of the hazardous trade.

His legend would only grow. By his mid-80s, the Lexington Film League in his native Kentucky had founded the Harry Dean Stanton Fest and filmmaker Sophie Huber had made the documentary Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction, which included commentary from Wenders, Sam Shepard and Kristofferson.

More recently he reunited with director David Lynch on Showtime’s Twin Peaks: The Return where he reprised his role as the cranky trailer park owner Carl from Fire Walk With Me. He also stars with Lynch in the upcoming film Lucky, the directorial debut of actor John Carroll Lynch, which has been described as a love letter to Stanton’s life and career.

Last year, Lynch presented Stanton with the Harry Dean Stanton Award — the inaugural award from the Los Angeles video store Vidiots presented first to its namesake.

“As a person, Harry Dean is just so beautiful. He’s got this easygoing nature. It’s so great just to sit beside Harry Dean and observe,” Lynch said at the show.  “He’s got a great inner peace. As a musician, he can sing so beautifully tears just flow out of your eyes. And as an actor, I think all actors will agree, no one gives a more honest, natural, truer performance than Harry Dean Stanton.”

Lynch also directed Stanton in Wild at Heart and The Straight Story.

Stanton, who early in his career used the name Dean Stanton to avoid confusion with another actor, grew up in West Irvine, Kentucky and said he began singing when he was a year old.

Later, he used music as an escape from his parents’ quarreling and the sometimes brutal treatment he was subjected to by his father. As an adult, he fronted his own band for years, playing western, Mexican, rock and pop standards in small venues around Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. He also sang and played guitar and harmonica in impromptu sessions with friends, performed a song in Paris, Texas and once recorded a duet with Bob Dylan.

Stanton, who never lost his Kentucky accent, said his interest in movies was piqued as a child when he would walk out of every theater “thinking I was Humphrey Bogart.”

After Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, he spent three years at the University of Kentucky and appeared in several plays. Determined to make it in Hollywood, he picked tobacco to earn his fare west.

Three years at the Pasadena Playhouse prepared him for television and movies.

For decades Stanton lived in a small, disheveled house overlooking the San Fernando Valley, and was a fixture at the West Hollywood landmark Dan Tana’s. He was attacked in his home in 1996 by two robbers who forced their way in, tied him up at gunpoint, beat him, ransacked the house and fled in his Lexus. He was not seriously hurt, and the two, who were captured, were sentenced to prison.

Stanton never married, although he had a long relationship with actress Rebecca De Mornay, 35 years his junior. “She left me for Tom Cruise,” Stanton said often.

“I might have had two or three [kids] out of marriage,” he once recalled. “But that’s another story.”
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After an exhilarating time exploring the land and whitewater rapids of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, national parks traveler Mikah Meyer headed north, to experience other scenic, historic and geological wonders within the national park system. He shared his highlights with VOA’s Julie Taboh.
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We’re setting sail with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending Sept. 16, 2017.

We have one new song this week and it isn’t just a newcomer … it’s a game changer.

Number 5: Charlie Puth “Attention”

Let’s open in fifth place, where Charlie Puth holds with “Attention.” It’s a mid-tempo track and Charlie says that’s where he’s at now: no more love ballads.

The young singer-songwriter says his debut album “Nine Track Mind,” while filled with love songs, didn’t truly represent him — it was a case of others nudging him in a certain direction. Charlie’s sophomore album “Voice Notes” should arrive by the end of the year.

Number 4: DJ Khaled Featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller “Wild Thoughts”

DJ Khaled slips two slots with “Wild Thoughts” featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller. 

Rihanna was at New York Fashion Week, showing her latest Fenty x Puma designs. It all happened September 10, with the models upstaged by a team of motocross bikers racing across the stage… and, for the grand finale, Rihanna herself exited on the back of a motorbike.

Number 3: Cardi B “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”

Cardi B holds in third place with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).” Cardi tells Billboard that she’s confident we’ll love her debut album, arriving in October. All that confidence left her, however, when she met Beyonce. The Bronx rapper says she was speechless and couldn’t breathe.

Number 2: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”

Here’s something to leave you speechless: “Despacito” is no longer the number one single on the Hot 100.

Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber drop to second place, but Luis continues to enjoy the ride. He is currently on a world tour, and the Puerto Rican star says he’s been lucky enough to hit several countries for the first time. The list includes Italy, Turkey, and Egypt … where he says fans mobbed him on the street.

So, if “Despacito” isn’t No. 1, what is?

Number 1: Taylor Swift “Look What You Made Me Do”

Ladies and gentlemen, may we present Taylor Swift, who notches her fifth career Hot 100 win, as “Look What You Made Me Do” skyrockets from 77th to first place.

Taylor’s seventh album, “Reputation,” drops on November 10, and if history is any indication, it’s a shoo-in to become her fifth consecutive chart-topping album.

That’s yet to come … but one thing’s for sure: Ee’ll have a new singles lineup for you next week.
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Las Vegas never needs an excuse to party, and as an entertainment oasis a short trip from Mexico, the city will roll out the red, white and green carpet starting Friday to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.

A premier boxing match, a bell-ringing ceremony and more than a dozen performances by Latin megastars, including Ricky Martin and Alejandro Fernandez, were expected to attract tens of thousands of visitors, making the weekend once again one of Sin City’s busiest.

The holiday, often mistaken in the U.S. for Cinco de Mayo, over time has become a star-studded celebration of Hispanic culture.

“It has developed over two decades or more to become a staple. Las Vegas has the ‘ambiente’ — the fun, the excitement — all year long, and then you bring in Alejandro Fernandez, Pepe Aguilar and the ones who have the residencies like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez,” said Rafael Villanueva, senior director of international business sales for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Celebration goes beyond Mexico

The celebration is so much wider it includes those superstars who aren’t Mexican, including Martin and Lopez, who both have Puerto Rican roots.

“If you talk to many people in Mexico, they’ll say if we are not going to the Ciudad de Mexico, we are coming to Las Vegas because of all the fun and all the entertainment,” he said.

The Sept. 16 holiday marks Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s call to arms that sparked the Mexican uprising against Spanish rulers in 1810. The rebel priest was killed the next year, but his words, known as the “Cry of Dolores” or “Grito de Dolores,” eventually led to independence from Spain in 1821.

What started as private entertainment shows for high rollers from Latin America has evolved into one of the city’s busiest weekends, with companies booking performers a year in advance and airlines adding direct flights from Mexico.

Concerts, boxing match

The concert lineup aims to appeal to a range of musical tastes and generations and includes Marc Anthony, Ricardo Arjona, Emmanuel, Enrique Iglesias, Carlos Santana, Mana, Marco Antonio Solis, Jesse and Joy, Gloria Trevi and Alejandra Guzman.

“Probably over the past 15-20 years, we have really embraced the holiday, bringing top-level, A-level acts and fights,” said Sid Greenfeig, vice president of entertainment and booking for MGM Resorts International, which is hosting seven shows and a megaboxing match across its properties. “We look definitely at diversity within the artists, and having arenas and large venues, we also look at acts that can fill these rooms.”

The city’s signature offering is a boxing match. So much so, Floyd Mayweather Jr., before he retired, made Mexican Independence Day his own holiday, fighting multiple times over the years. Promoters have traditionally offered fights featuring Mexican boxers on the El Grito and Cinco de Mayo weekends.

Mexico’s popular Saul “Canelo” Alvarez squares off Saturday against Gennady Golovkin in a long-anticipated middleweight bout at the sold-out T-Mobile Arena.

For the past three years, the tourist bureau’s occupancy rate records show hotels reached above 96 percent capacity during the three-day period associated with the holiday. In 2016, 98.4 percent of the city’s 149,000 hotel and motel rooms were booked, making it the year’s fourth busiest weekend.

On Friday, San Diego resident Esthela Pedrin will see Fernandez’ yearly Mexican Independence Day concert in Las Vegas for the tenth time. With so many options to choose from, she said she’s having a difficult time picking a Saturday concert to attend.

“I love celebrating it in Las Vegas, especially because so many people from all over our country of Mexico gather there,” Pedrin, a dual citizen of Mexico and the U.S., said. “(Fernandez) brings out the flag. We all sing.”

The festivities begin Friday night with a celebratory ringing of a bell by Mexican Consul Alejandro Madrigal Becerra at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. Hidalgo, the rebel priest, rang a bell when he gave his famous speech, and Mexico’s president does it in Mexico City every year.
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CIA Director Mike Pompeo scrapped his appearance Thursday at Harvard University over the school’s decision to make Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of leaking classified information, a visiting fellow.

Pompeo called Manning an “American traitor.” He said he agreed with military and intelligence officials who believe Manning’s leak endangered the lives of CIA personnel.

Pompeo was scheduled to appear at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to discuss allegations of Russian involvement in last year’s presidential election, the nuclear standoff with North Korea and other global security concerns.

Pompeo letter released

Minutes after the event was to begin, Douglas Elmendorf, dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, took the stage and told the audience Pompeo was not there and would not speak.

“We will try to reschedule it as soon as we can, but the CIA director, is obviously, in charge of his schedule,” Elmendorf said. “We are not in charge of his schedule and he gets to decide when and where he speaks, of course.”

Several hours later, the CIA released a letter that Pompeo wrote to a Harvard official.

Pompeo, who has a law degree from Harvard, said he didn’t make the decision lightly. He wrote that he would betray the trust of CIA employees if he appeared.

Manning was released from a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on May 17 after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence, which was commuted by former President Barack Obama in his final days in office. Obama said in January he felt justice had been served.

Manning, a 29-year-old transgender woman, formerly known as Bradley Manning, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in a recent interview that she was prompted to give the 700,000 military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks because of the human toll of the “death, destruction and mayhem” she saw as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq.

Morell resigns position

In his letter, Pompeo reiterated his earlier claim that WikiLeaks is a U.S. adversary “akin to a hostile foreign intelligence service.” He stressed that his decision had nothing to do with Manning’s transgender identity.

“It has everything to do with her identity as a traitor to the United States of America and my loyalty to the officers of the CIA,” Pompeo said.

“Harvard’s actions implicitly tell its students that you too can be a fellow at Harvard and a felon under United States law,” he wrote.

Earlier in the day, Mike Morell, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, sent a resignation letter to Elmendorf. Morell told Elmendorf he was resigning immediately over the school’s decision to invite Manning to be a visiting fellow at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.

Morell said he could not be part of an organization that “honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information.” Pompeo said Morell’s exit was “Harvard’s loss.”

Harvard also has invited former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. Harvard says Manning will be among fellows who will visit the campus for a “limited” number of events meant to spark campus discussion.

 
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Darren Aronofsky does not just want audiences to watch his new film mother! He wants to shake them up and leave them thinking about his genre-defying, surreal apocalyptic thriller.

“It’s very much a scary film. It’s very much a film that we want to shake audiences,” Aronofsky told Reuters.

“This is definitely a film that we want people to be talking about and giggling about and analyzing and thinking about for times to come,” he added.

An allegorical tale

Aronofsky, 48, mined the depths and descent of the human psyche in films such as Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan.

With mother!, released in U.S. theaters Friday, Aronofsky channels his fury with the state of the world into an allegorical story that reflects mankind’s selfish relationship with nature, gender, politics and religion.

The film centers on Jennifer Lawrence, a beautiful, naive young woman newly married to an older writer (Javier Bardem) suffering from writer’s block, and the two settle down into the writer’s secluded home.

As Lawrence’s character, an embodiment of Mother Nature, slowly renovates the property, two strangers, played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris, turn up at their doorstep and kick off a series of events that blur the lines of reality and escalate into chaos.

“I was interested in the home invasion genre — the kind of feeling of people coming into your home that won’t leave,” the director said.

“Turning that into a nightmare was the journey we wanted to take audiences on, and then we had this other big idea of like trying to capture what it feels like to be in 21st century America, which is a crazy time right now,” he added.

Reviews mixed

The film sharply split critics as it made the rounds at festivals in Venice and Toronto earlier this month, receiving both boos and cheers at screenings.

Aronofsky said he welcomed the mixed reaction because it meant the film had caught people’s attention.

“We wanted to make something big and loud and also something that’s immediate,” he said.

“I want everyone to know, ‘hey man, you only come if you want to go on the roller coaster and hold your arms up and scream into the abyss.’ That’s why it’s (the film title) got an exclamation point,” he added.
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A transgender Chilean actress has turned in one of the most buzzed-about performances of the year and some are hoping she could be the first trans actor to land an Oscar nomination.

Daniela Vega, 28, stars in Sebastian Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman. She plays Marina, a transgender woman whose partner (Francisco Reyes) dies, after which Marina is subjected to harsh treatment by the family of her deceased lover and by police investing the death.

Chile has selected the film as its Academy Awards submission this year. But the bigger spotlight may be on whether Vega’s breakout performance — one of stirring strength and compassion — could make Oscar history. Reviewing the movie at its Berlin Film Festival premiere, Variety called her performance “a multi-layered, emotionally polymorphous feat of acting,” that deserves “so much more than political praise.”

While several transgender musicians have been Oscar-nominated, no trans performer has ever earned an acting nod.

“It’s too early to talk about that, to think about it. I have lots of festivals to attend, lots of dresses to wear,” Vega said with a grin in an interview. “The Oscars are a little bit beyond the timeline I’m thinking about right now. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Vega and A Fantastic Woman will not have an easy road to the Oscars. Performances in foreign-language films rarely break into the acting categories, and this year, like most, the field of potential contenders boasts plenty of heavyweight, bigger-name performers like Meryl Streep (The Post) and Jessica Chastain (Molly’s Game).

But Vega has two things going for her: the depth of her performance and the possibility of a long-awaited Oscar landmark. Such a result could have great meaning for a trans community that President Donald Trump recently banned from entering the military.

“If we broaden our gaze, it will be more interesting, more beautiful. If we can make more diverse colors, people, stories, it will be interesting,” Vega said. “Uniforms are for the military and the police, not for our thinking.”

Hollywood has far from shied away from telling transgender stories, but the industry has come under increasing criticism for not casting them in high-profile parts. Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry) and Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) have taken home awards, and movies like 2015’s The Danish Girl, with Eddie Redmayne, and 2005’s Transamerica, with Felicity Huffman, have garnered nominations.

While those films and the Amazon series Transparent have been widely applauded, pressure has mounted urging producers to cast trans actors for trans parts. Progress has instead come in smaller, offbeat productions like Sean Baker’s Tangerine, the much-lauded 2015 film Baker shot with iPhones. It starred a pair of transgender performers, Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. Taylor last year won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance.

“There is very beautiful transgender talent,” Taylor said, accepting the supporting actress award. “You better get out there and put it in your movie.”

Transgender people have been nominated in other Oscar categories. The composer Angela Morley received two nods, for 1974’s The Little Prince and 1976’s The Slipper and the Rose.

Most recently, singer Anohni, formerly known as Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, became the first transgendered performer ever nominated. She collaborated with J. Ralph on the nominated song Manta Ray for the documentary Racing Extinction. But when the category’s other nominees — Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, the Weeknd — were given performing slots during the 2016 broadcast, Anohni was not, and she opted to boycott the ceremony.

In a fiery essay announcing her refusal to attend, Anohni declared: “They are going to try to convince us that they have our best interests at heart by waving flags for identity politics and fake moral issues.” 

Whether Vega — and Oscar voters — can change history won’t be decided for months. Sony Picture Classics, which has guided performers to dozens of Academy Award nominations, will release the film on Nov. 17. For now, Vega is soaking up her moment.

“It’s like living a dream,” said Vega. “It’s like a film in a film.”
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