Sly Stone living on welfare, claims documentary | Music | guardian.co.uk

Sly Stone living on welfare, claims documentary

The funk legend's financial woes have been revealed in a new film that claims he is dependent on social security and living in cheap hotels

Sly Stone ... film claims the funk pioneer has suffered a major financial crisis. Photograph: Zak Hussein/PA

Funk legend Sly Stone is living on the dole, according to a new film, staying in cheap hotels and campervans. A forthcoming documentary by Willem Alkema alleges that Stone was betrayed by manager Jerry Goldstein, cutting off access to his royalties.

Representatives for Sly or the Family Stone have not yet commented on Alkema's claims, which appeared in a YouTube trailer for Coming Back for More. Alkema is a Dutch filmmaker known for a previous documentary about Stone, Dance to the Music. His new film, due out this autumn, claims to include Sly Stone's first interview in 20 years.

This claim, however, isn't true – Stone spoke to the Los Angeles Times in 2007, and again with journalist Jeff Kaliss for a book published last year. He also appeared on KCRW radio in May. But certainly Stone has been reclusive, offering few points of access since his induction into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

According to Alkema, Stone's financial security depended on a contract signed with Jerry Goldstein in the late 80s. As part of that agreement, Goldstein acquired rights to Stone's music while paying the singer "fixed expenses" and a regular allowance. Due to a "debt agreement", the film claims, Goldstein "turned off the tap" of payments – forcing Stone to rely on social security. He has since been staying in cheap hotels and campervans.

"Although legally the father of funk has a solid contestable case," the trailer states, "he lacks the funds to engage a lawyer to proceed his case."

The trailer also claims that Stone had been working with Michael Jackson, and that the King of Pop had commissioned the 66-year-old to write songs for his new album. Stone apparently hoped that this would solve his financial woes.

Though Stone has performed only a handful of concerts in the last five years, this is the first word of the star experiencing a major fiscal crisis. At the time of his 2007 interview with the LA Times, he was reportedly living in a "large country home" in California's Napa Valley.

Sly Stone living on welfare, claims documentary | Music | guardian.co.uk

Company Town

The business behind the show

VH1 wants less love, more redemption

August 26, 2009 |  3:56 pm

Can you have too much love?

That's what VH1 is starting to wonder. The Viacom-owned cable network, whose top five shows this year all have the word "love" in the title, is reassessing its heavy reliance on dating and relationship shows. Although the network says it was already in the process of plotting a new direction, the shift has taken on greater urgency since one of its reality show participants, Ryan Jenkins, apparently killed himself after becoming the lead suspect in the murder of his ex-wife.

VH1 has canceled both "Megan Wants a Millionaire" and "I Love Money 3," which Jenkins had appeared on. It is also reevaluating its reliance on 51 Minds Entertainment, the production company behind the two programs, as well as several other reality hits on the network over the last several years.

"This is not what I signed up for," said VH1 President Tom Calderone in his first interview since Jenkins' body was discovered Sunday in a British Columbia motel room. Calderone added that VH1 was "trying to get together" with 51 Minds to figure out where the vetting system went wrong and "fix this problem and never ever let this happen again."

Calderone also wants to bring some new producers into the mix. "We always want 51 Minds to be part of our arsenal and stable of creativity, but the only way VH1 will survive and be healthy is to have several different voices and production partners," he said.  

Many of VH1's reality shows were sired from "The Surreal Life," a program in which B-list and C-list celebrities (think Tawny Kitaen and Verne Troyer) shared living quarters. Out of that came "Flavor of Love," "Rock of Love" and "I Love Money" and then those shows spawned "Charm School," "I Love New York" and "Daisy of Love." Brian Graden, who recently left VH1 parent MTV Networks, was the architect of much of the content on the network during this time.

Although Calderone wants to tweak the tone of VH1's reality shows, the risk is that he'll alienate VH1's audience if the shows lose some of their, uh, tawdry appeal. "I Love Money 2," for example, averaged 2.3 million viewers while "Real Chance of Love" has been averaging 2.7 million viewers, according to Nielsen. Overall, VH1's prime-time average audience this year is 760,000, up 26% from five years ago.

At the same time, a change in tone might make the shows easier to swallow on Madison Avenue. Many blue-chip advertisers are wary of some of the shows on VH1 because they often feature drunken antics, fighting and lots of sexual innuendo. According to industry consulting firm SNL Kagan, VH1 will have advertising revenue of $424.4 million in 2009, down 12% from two years ago. Although some of that can be attributed to the troubled economy, people close to VH1 say several of the network's programs are a hard sell.

Calderone points to "The T.O. Show," its new program with NFL star Terrell Owens, as indicative of the direction he'd like to take the network. The show follows Owens as he transitions from being a star on America's team (The Dallas Cowboys) to trying to rehabilitate his image and career on the Buffalo Bills. Calderone said he wants to bring a more "redemptive" feel to the network's reality programming.

"We don't want our viewers tuning in and feeling like it's the same network all the time, that is not something we want to be famous for," Calderone said.

Of course, that's not the only thing he doesn't want to be famous for.

-- Joe Flint

Photos: Top Left: "Megan Wants a Millionaire" star Megan Hauserman. Credit: VH1/51 Minds. Bottom Right: VH1 President Tom Calderone. Credit: VH1

Company Town

Two women may have helped Ryan Jenkins hide after model was killed, sources say [Updated]

August 27, 2009 |  7:15 am

Authorities believe that two women may have helped the reality TV contestant accused of killing model Jasmine Fiore escape into Canada, sources told The Times.

Investigators said they are looking at whether one unidentified woman aided Ryan Jenkins when he was hiding in Washington state and a second woman helped him in British Columbia, including checking him into a motel where he was found hanged Sunday night.

The sources, who spoke on condition that they not be named because it was an ongoing investigation, said it remained unclear if the women would be charged with aiding and abetting Jenkins. 

Jenkins was the subject of an international manhunt after police found Fiore's mutilated body Aug. 15 in a trash bin in Buena Park.

The sources said they believe Jenkins got help when he managed to evade the U.S. Coast Guard during a boat chase around Blaine, Wash.  Authorities tracked Jenkins to a marina there and came upon his car and an empty boat trailer.

The engine of the car was still warm and the Coast Guard was alerted. A Coast Guard cutter came upon a speedboat several miles off the coast that was believed be Jenkins'. Coast Guard officials aimed their lights at the speedboat and began approaching.

The boat then fled into Canadian waters, sources said. Authorities there were notified and chased it with a helicopter and a boat, but the speedboat crossed back into U.S. waters.

Officials said Jenkins took the boat to another marina in the area, then walked into Canada.

The next day, officials said a woman checked Jenkins into the British Columbia motel. 

Police allege that Fiore was killed by Jenkins, her former husband and a contestant on the reality TV shows "Megan Wants a Millionaire" and the third season of "I Love Money."

Fiore, 28, was last seen Aug. 13 when she and Jenkins went to an upscale Del Mar hotel together. Jenkins checked out of the hotel the next morning, apparently alone, according to Orange County prosecutors.

The next day, the Canadian national called authorities to report Fiore missing, and within hours the body of a woman was found stuffed in a suitcase in a trash bin behind an apartment building.

Authorities said Fiore's teeth had been pulled out and her fingers cut off. Fiore was identified through a serial number on her breast implants, the Orange County district attorney's office said.

On Wednesday, Fiore's missing Mercedes-Benz was found in the parking lot adjacent to a West Hollywood Trader Joe's.

[Updated at 11:55 a.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the car was found in the Trader Joe's parking lot.]

--Andrew Blankstein

Photos: The Thunderbird Motel, top, where police believe Ryan Jenkins, middle, got help checking in from one of the two women being sought by authorities.  Jenkins was found hanged in the motel Sunday night.  Credits: Darryl Dyck /Canadian Press (motel); Associated Press (Jenkins)

Two women may have helped Ryan Jenkins hide after model was killed, sources say [Updated]

Yes, VH1, This Is What You Signed Up For - Monkey See Blog : NPR

Daisy Of Love is just one of the many, many dating-oriented shows VH1 has been running over the last several years. Suddenly, they seem embarrassed. (VH1)

by Linda Holmes

Let us start with this: It is not VH1's fault that Ryan Jenkins, a participant on its Megan Wants A Millionaire show, killed himself after becoming a suspect in his ex-wife's murder. They didn't cause that to happen.

But let us continue with this: For Tom Calderone, the president of VH1, to suggest to the Los Angeles Times that something inexplicably went awry, and that "this is not what [he] signed up for" in working with 51 Minds — the company that made the show, as well as The Surreal Life and Rock Of Love and others — is absurd and disingenuous, and will hold no water with anyone who actually watches his network.

There is nobody who doesn't know that they cast people on Rock Of Love (to pick just one instance) with the clear expectation that those people will engage in bizarre, exhibitionist, self-destructive behavior, probably while liquored up to within an inch of their lives. Suggesting that you figured it was just fine to populate your network with moderately crazy booze-hounds because you did everything possible to nullify the risk that this would associate you with violently crazy booze-hounds is, not to put too fine a point on it, rank hypocrisy.

The vetting process and the problem of overreacting, after the jump...

Calderone apparently is displeased with some perceived defect in the vetting process, and it's indeed been reported that Jenkins had an assault conviction that didn't surface during his background check.

But honestly: Who cares? Everyone who has violent outbursts has a first one. Any genuine effort to avoid casting potentially dangerous people would do a lot more than screen for previous convictions. The problem is that it would screen out almost everyone who makes a good Rock Of Love contestant in the first place.

It's simple logic. It's the simplest logic, in fact: If you're casting people because you believe their personalities are volatile — and any claim that these particular shows aren't cast that way is patently, blatantly, laughably false — then you have no way of knowing what form that volatility will take. That's what makes it volatility.

If VH1 wants to change the direction of its programming to include fewer shows in which people without a modicum of self-respect pound shots of tequila and take their clothes off, that's a lovely idea. They should do it. The world does not need any more [Blank] Of Love variations. But it is far too late for any claim that Calderon — or anyone else at VH1 — didn't understand what was involved in making Megan Wants A Millionaire.

I've resisted writing about this particular story, because it's so easy to overreact to it. There are now hundreds of people a year who appear on various unscripted shows, and the fact that one of them turns out, after the fact, to be a dangerous criminal doesn't mean a whole lot when it comes to the broader battle over "reality" shows. This one story, in particular, doesn't even mean a whole lot with regard to whether VH1 should change its lineup. Nobody learned anything about Megan Wants A Millionaire from this incident that they couldn't have learned just from watching it.

That's precisely why it makes no sense for VH1 — VH1, of all places! — to adopt an attitude of wounded bafflement at being let down by its production company. Of course the crime itself is not what anyone "signed up for." But the nature of this entire subgenre of "entertainment" was not a mystery to the network that was airing it. The production company did what was required — it delivered people who would behave as horrifying attention-seekers.

If the network now finds itself embarrassed, then the cause of that embarrassment is the decision to place the order, not some kind of rude surprise upon delivery.

Yes, VH1, This Is What You Signed Up For - Monkey See Blog : NPR