MTV Classics weekend - VOTE for New Kids/Top Dog City - add a brick for
JK/DW
Vote for New Kids for next weekends "Classic Weekend" (August 7-8) on
MTV
Nordic.. No limit on how many times to vote...
http://www.mtve.com/nordic.asp?url=/shows/classicsweekend/
Got the email below from another mailing list...
***************************************
From: liz@jordanknight-uk.com
Jordan's number 24 on the Music League at Top Dog City. We can do
better
than that!!! Mark Owen from Fake Crap...I mean Take That is at 11 and
that's just not allowed!
Everyone please go to this page
http://www.topdogcity.com/jordanknight1.htm
and at the top you'll see a link called [Brick] just click on that and
fill
in the form. You can add 1 brick per email address every month per
artist
(don't break those rules or you'll end up in their toilet section!).
Chad has a building too (number 26 on the music league), and Donnie's
way
down at number 50 on the Celebrity, Film and TV League.
Top Dog City - Home to the greatest fans in the world! So let's show
them!
***************************************
Oh almost completely forgot... If you have a possibility to watch
Boston
Public on Swedish TV 4, Joe's been on in the episodes a few weeks
back...
;-)
Happy voting!
6/14/04 Info courtesy of People magazine
1/04/04 Info courtesy of Paivi
NKOTB #2 in a boyband vote/mentioned/Mark interview/mentions...
Hello!
Just a few short news from the world of NKOTB and/or Mark W.... Sorry
if th=
is is off topic for some...
First... Happy birthday to Joe a bit late... ;-) The baby boy is
growing o=
lder and we follow... ;-) I'm starting to feel old....
Okay... Now Ylex a radion station in Finland held a vote of which is
the mo=
st wanted boy band song of all times and the results were:
Take That with Babe as number 3
NKOTB with Step By Step number 2
BSB with Everybody (Backstreet's Back) as number 1.
Way to go NKOTB :-)
I can't remember the rest of the top 10 though....
Today's episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer mentioned NKOTB as well...
Buff=
y and Spike were in bed and she said something like
"Your place is nicely decorated.... But those NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK
posters=
are getting old". I can't remember the exact words
but it was something like that... :-) YAY....
Now to Mark... My friend brought a huge pile of mags with her from UK
and t=
here were a few that included Mark stuff as well...
Now (UK magazine) from the premiere of the Italian Job. A picture of
Mark a=
nd he said something like "If it was up to me I'd take the
first flight back to CA today but I'll have to stick here at least
until to=
morrow." Explaining that he missed his daughter Ella Rae so
much. (I don't have the magazine with me here so I can't tell you his
exact=
words.)
The latest issue (1/2004) of Seiska (a Finnish mag) had a very short
mentio=
n of Mark saying that he had broken up the engagement
with his girlfriend Rhea Durham just a few months after their daughter
was =
born. Their relationship had been on the rocks for some
time and the next step marriage seemed too big. (Now don't kill me if
this =
isn't true, it was from their gossip column. I'm just writing
what they have in the mag.)
And the last bit is from Cosmopolitan (issue October 2003). I believe
this =
the UK version as it's got the UK website everywhere... It
also mentions Donnie very briefly...
Why do men...?
...decide to settle down?
Mark Wahlberg tells Cosmo: "so they can wake up every day with the same
wom=
an"
Mark Wahlberg has crammed a lot into his 32 years. Jail, a drug habit,
endl=
ess partying and women. But now the Hollywood star has
turned his life around. Here, he tells Martyn Palmer how father hood
and lo=
ve have helped him leav his wild days behind.
Mark Wahlberg is all grown-up. Whereas, once, he blasted out rap music,
pos=
ed provocatively in his Calvin Kleins and hung out wiht
the wild boys, these days he's listening to Buddhist chants, playing a
roun=
d of golf and fretting about impending fatherhood.
Well, to be fair, it's not impending fatherhood that's troubling him;
more =
living with a woman... When I met Wahlberg, his girlfriend's -
model and former Cosmo cover girl Rhea Durham - hormones were running
riot,=
as she awaited the birth of a baby girl. Pregnancy
may have been a shock to Rhea's system, but it has proved to be quite a
jol=
t to her partner's, too.
"I'm going to enjoy fatherhood - definitely," he says. "But it's the
first =
time I've lived with a woman, never mind a pregnant woman, so
there's a lot to deal with. A lot of emotion, a lot of hormones. Man,
those=
hormones! It's pretty wild."
"I'm excited because I'm bringing somebody into the world who's going
to lo=
ve me for me, and I'm going to be able to provide in a way
that my parents couldn't during my childhood - that's a huge
responsibility=
. But I'm ready for that. I'm from a big family and I've always
wanted to be a dad."
At 32, Wahlberg has lived a life of incredible high and some pretty
despera=
te lows, including a 45-day stint in prison when he was 16,
for assaulting a shopkeeper.
After he'd served his time and was back on the drugs-drenched streets
of Do=
rchester, the tough suburb of Boston where he was born -
one of nine kids crammed into a three-bedroom apartment - his
expectations =
weren't very high. "To be honest, there were times when I
didn't think I'd really make it to see 30. It was bad."
Today, he sits in front of me as a "poster boy for redemption", which
is ex=
actly how his friend Gary Gray, who directed Wahlberg in
his new film The Italian Job describes him. Sitting in his five-star
Manhat=
tan hotel suite, in a cool grey suit and white shirt, Wahlberg
looks right at home. And so he should. These days, he is an A-list
star, fr=
iends with George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio, with a
string of box-office hits to his name - Boogie Nights, Three Kings, A
Perfe=
ct Storm, Planet of the Apes.
He has more money in the bank than he ever could have imagined. "I do
have =
a lot of money. Certainly a lot more than I used to, I
grew up with nothing," he notes nonchalantly. In fact he gives a fair
bit o=
f it away - funding youth centers on the very same streets he
grew up, helping to finance a Catholic drop-in center for kids.
Many of his childhood friends are "dead or doing time", and it's
something =
of a mini miracle that Wahlberg himself didn't end up the
same way. "Every day was "wake uo, go out, hustle, make money, steal,
sell =
drugs, rob people, do drugs." By normal standards, I
should have been locked up, and they should have thrown away the key,"
he s=
aid once.
Now he admits prison probably did do him some good. "I did all kinds of
stu=
pid stuff. I'm certainly not proud of my past and my
childhood, but I have learned from my experiences. I think it had a
serious=
effect on how I became a man, the person I am today.
Prison can do wonders for some people, not for everybody, but for
some."
When he came out of prison, his older brother, Donnie, 34, was just
about t=
o hit the big time in boy band, New Kids On The Block.
And it was Donnie who convinced his record company to give his baby
brother=
a chance with some of his own rap songs. Renamed
Marky Mark, and riding on the coat tails of New Kids' success he found
hims=
elf topping the charts with his debut album, Music For
The People.
A fresh start
Good-looking, usually prancing about on a stage stripped down to his
boxers=
- and showing off a very buffed-up body, Marky Mark was
the bit of rough to countre-balance the New Kids' clean-cut image. He
was a=
forerunner for Eminem, And, as the group's star began to
wane, Mark's was on the up. He cashed in with those memorable Calvin
Klein =
ads, which saw his muscled frame on advertising
hoardings all over the world.
And suddenly he found himself on the receiving end of a lot of
attention fr=
om young women who were flocking to see him perform - and
disrobe.
At first it was hard to resist the charms of some very attractive women
wil=
ling to provide one-night stands. "I mean, I was a young kid -
I'd just got out of jail and, at first, women couldn't even talk to me.
I w=
asn't getting too many girls in my neighborhood. And if you did
get them, you didn't want 'em anyway, because everybody else had them.
It w=
as that kind of place - same girls, same bars, same
people.
"And then, suddenly, women - really beautiful women - seemed to be
interest=
ed in me, so I was quite taken by that for a short time.
Then I realized they didn't really want me, they wanted the fame and
the im=
age. That was cool for a while, but I want somebody who
wants me for me."
When his second album, You Gotta Believe, was released, the American
tabloi=
ds dragged up the stories of his jail sentence and
sales suffered.
It looked as though Wahlberg had enjoyed his five minutes of fame and
would=
now retreat back into obscurity, admittedly a lot richer
than when he first came out of it. But he was to prove sceptics wrong.
And =
in some style...
Plenty scoffed when it was time for his film debut, opposite Danny
DeVito, =
in Renaissance Man. He certainly knew it was going to be
hard to be taken seirously.
"I realized it was going to be pretty close to impossible. I went from
bein=
g a musician of little credibility to being a model. So then they
say, "OK, look at me, I want to be a serious actor" - everyone laughed
in m=
y face."
This probably motivated him even more, because time and time again he
prove=
d them wrong. He was chaming as an army recruit in
Renaissance Man, seriously scary as the boyfriend from hell in Fear,
and qu=
ite wonderful as the naive, but seriously well-endowed
young man who drifts into porn, in the excellent Boogie Nights.
Wahlberg, a devout Catholic, agonised before taking that particular
role, p=
laying porn star Dirk Diggler. "I almost didn't do Boogie
Nights because I thought, "The guys from the "hood are going to freak,
and =
that's not good". But then I thought, "Why do I care about
what these guys are to think?"".
"And because of my religion, I did think about it. But I knew it was
much m=
ore than pornography and sex and drugs. It was a very
moving story about people who were very human - and there's no telling
why =
they made the decisions they did. I am very religious so I
hope God is either a movie fan or has a good sense of humor."
He still finds it hard to live down Dirk Diggler's briefly glimpsed,
but on=
ce-seen-never-forgotten, manhood; although confesses that the
make-up department had helped make it, er, larger than life.
"It was a prosthetic. Although no one seemed to believe that. I still
get f=
ollowed to the bathroom a lot. Actually, I have it in my safe at
home. It's my prized possession - you never know when it's going to
come in=
handy. If things don't work out, I could always auction it
to the highest bidder..."
Moving on up
Relocated to Hollywood - home is now a five-bedroom house in Beverly
Hills,=
Wahlberg built on the reputation earned in Boogie Nights
with Three Kings, a crime caper set to the backdrop of the first Gulf
War.
Now, in The Italian Job, with actress Charlize Theron, the heist movie
is i=
nspired by, rather than a remake of, the 1960s cult British
movie starring Michael Caine. Apart from the fact that the gang of
expert t=
hieves, led by Charlie Croker (Wahlberg), pull off a gold
robbery in Italy, and use some souped up Minis in a fabulous car chase
- ju=
st like the 1969 original, there are not a lot of similarities.
This is popcorn entertainment - not very challenging - but a lot of
fun, an=
d Wahlberg and Theron are highly watchable.
"It was an amazing group of people, and we all got along really well.
Movie=
s are supposed to be hard work, especially if you want
them to come out good. You are supposed to suffer for your craft and
all of=
that bullshit, but it was just fun."
"Working with Charlize was a delight - she fits right in. And she had
more =
testosterone than all of the guys. I mean, behind the wheel
of one of those Minis, she's crazy. I got car-sick being in the
passenger s=
eat with her. Really. I have a weak stomach and she was
throwing it around all over the place. She was definitely the most
aggressi=
ve behind the wheel. She's a guy's girl."
Two years ago, Wahlberg begain dating Rhea Durham, 24, who moved into
his h=
ome earlier this year.
Partying, he says, is now in the past. "I don't go out anymore. I gave
that=
up a while ago. I gave up the nightclubs for the country
clubs," he laughs. "I'd rather play golf. I want to wake up in the
morning =
and feel good. I want to wake up every morning with the same
woman. There's nothing worse than waking up with a strange woman. It's
fun =
for a while, but it's not good."
"I thank God I'm healthy and that I made it through alive. I've had
some fu=
n, don't get me wrong, but I had to make sure I changed my
lifestyle before we decided to have a baby."
"Being a father is a huge responsibility. But I didn't just jump into
it. I=
was slowly working towards it and thrying to grow up, because I
don't want to get into anything until I'm ready. And believe me, I'm
ready.=
I make sure I'm prepared for everything I do in life, and that I
know as much as possible."
Times have changed, obviously. Even the soundtrack to his life is no
longer=
head-banging, pulsating beat of rap - it just winds him up
too much. These days, it's all much calmer.
"I don't sing anymore, except in the shower," he says. "And if I listen
to =
rap, I want to kick somebody's ass. So I listen to a lot of
mellow stuff - a lot of reggate, soft rock. And, right now, I'm
preparing f=
or a role and I'm listening to Bob Thurman, actress Uma
Thurman's dad - he's a professor at Columbia University and has all
these t=
apes about Tibetan Buddhism. I've been listening to that."
"And I get the same sort of therapy from playing golf. I do. I have so
much=
patience - you learn etiquette, and it's a good thing. I'm a lot
more patient, more calm. A lot more focused, and a lot more..."
He stops and begins to laugh. "What am I saying?" Perhaps, I suggest,
his w=
ild days are over? "Yeah, I guess that must be it."
The Italian Job is currently on general release
And that's all from me... Sorry for clogging up your mailboxes...
I hope you enjoyed reading the article...
Love,
Päivi
11/13/03 Info courtesy of Mika
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