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SERENA WANTS ANOTHER GRAND SLAM WIN: Williams sister plans to get one before the year is over.

      *Fresh from a loss against her sister Venus in the Wimbledon ladies finals, Serena Williams says she's now craving either a grand slam title or an Olympic gold medal before 2008 comes to a close.

      "I can't say I'm pleased with my year because I haven't won any grand slams this year," Williams told Reuters Monday from this week's Stanford Classic, where she is the top seed. "That's always been the goal for me."

      "I didn't play well in Australia, the French I shot myself in the foot and at Wimbledon I couldn't get it together in the final," she continued.
"So I have to win something eventually. I feel like I should be able to win for the most part and sometimes I get disgusted because I didn't make the right shots, or made a lot of errors. I don't like to lose. I'm a perfectionist and feel like I should be the best at what I do."

      The 26-year-old, who has won eight grand slam singles titles, said she felt a little better after her Wimbledon loss when she joined forces with her sister to claim the doubles crown.

      "It would have sucked if I lost the doubles, too," Serena said. "I had to get over (the singles). Venus played better than I did, but I didn't play my best."

      Serena, who has been hampered by injuries in recent years, has embarked upon a heavy schedule on the North American hardcourt circuit and is scheduled to play Stanford, Los Angeles and Montreal before heading to Beijing for the Olympics.
She will then travel to the U.S. Open in New York.

"I'm feeling good," the fifth ranked Williams said. "I have goals and have almost no points coming off this summer. I can only move ahead."

VILLAGE PEOPLE SINGER OUT OF HOSPITAL: Victor Willis back home in San Diego following vocal cord surgery.

*Victor Willis, former lead singer of the 70s disco band the Village People, had successful surgery on his vocal cords and has returned home from a San Diego hospital, reports Reuters.

"I feel great and look forward to performing before the end of the year, but I can't say for sure," said Willis, who dressed up as a cop in popular singing group and wrote and sang hits such as "Y.M.C.A" and "Macho Man."

      Upon his release Monday, doctors ordered him not to sing for 90 days, but he has resumed talking, and his speaking voice "sounds almost normal," his spokeswoman Linda Smith, said.

      Willis left the Village People in 1980. He returned only for a short time between 1982 and 1984, and since then has pursued a solo career. The group originally formed in 1977, and has sold more than 80 million albums and singles.

QUINCY CELEBRATES B'DAY AT MONTREUX: Producer/composer takes stage with Hancock, Austin, Jarreau and more.

*Herbie Hancock, Patti Austin, Al Jarreau and Chaka Khan were among the musical talent who helped to celebrate the 75th birthday of Quincy Jones during a six-hour concert at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

The Grammy Award-winning producer and composer was also joined by Mick Hucknall, Nana Mouskouri, Petula Clark, Ledisi, Angelique Kidjo and Paulo Nutini – each taking turns singing Jones' catalog of hits.

      According to Reuters, Jones' goddaughter Austin introduced her coy rendition of "Makin' Whoopee" by telling Jones, a thrice-married father of seven in the front row: "You know a lot about this."

      "Mood for Love" by James Moody, "Let the Good Times Roll" by Rahsaan Patterson, "In the Heat of the Night" by Simply Red singer Hucknall and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" by Mouskouri were among highlights before all joined in a "Ai No Corrida" finale.

      "No words can describe the emotions I feel -- all these talented, loyal, giving people," Jones told a sell-out crowd at Stravinski Auditorium in the Swiss town along Lake Geneva.

      Jones allowed the public to come to his main rehearsal for 60 Swiss francs ($59.35), while concert seats cost up to 380 Swiss francs. Some $50,000 in rehearsal proceeds will go to his Listen Up Foundation, which helps children.

      During an interview with the press, Jones discussed his brief run-in with troubled British singer Amy Winehouse, whom he met at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party in London.

      "She kissed my hand and said she knew all my records. I felt a personal connection to her," he said. "Her father was there, but I still asked her 'Why are you messing up your life?"'

      "I understand this girl," Jones said, comparing Winehouse to his eldest daughter Kidada with actress Peggy Lipton. "She's so sweet, I felt the same conflict between temper and talent as with Naomi Campbell, who also keeps me busy."

JAMES BROWN AUCTION GETS OK FROM JUDGE: Court battle over trustee issue settled.

*A South Carolina judge has cleared a legal path for an auction of James Brown's items to take place as planned this week in New York.

      According to the Associated Press, South Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jasper Cureton on Monday lifted a temporary stay that threatened to halt the sale of the late soul singer's belongings by the auction house Christie's in New York.

      The singer's former business managers, Buddy Dallas and Alfred Bradley, had argued the auction should not move forward. They claimed the court should not have been able to appoint new trustees to handle Brown's estate.

      Christie's has scheduled the bidding for Thursday. Among the 320 items for sale are a red jumpsuit and blue satin cape.

      Brown died of heart failure on Dec. 25, 2006. He was 73.

BANNER, AKON, T-PAIN TACKLE QUINCY MATERIAL: Rappers chosen to remix songs from producer's catalog for new album.

      *David Banner spoke with Billboard.com about his involvement in a new project that features rap acts putting their spin on vintage hits from super producer Quincy Jones.

      "Quincy Jones got me, Akon, Pharrell Williams and T-Pain and allowed us to choose and remake our favorite songs," says Banner of the project, a date for which has yet to be set. "I chose 'Give Me the Night' by George Benson with Jamie Foxx singing it."

      The Mississippi-based rapper, meanwhile, just released his fourth album, "The Greatest Story Ever Told," this week via SRC/Universal. His goal was to make the project as diverse as possible.

      "If you're into political and spiritual stuff like 'Cadillac on 22's,'
that's on there for you," says Banner. "If you like street stuff, that's on there. I tell my story of coming up to New York alone from Mississippi and being homeless in the garment district. No one's heard that before."

MORGAN FREEMAN'S EXPENSIVE TEE TIME: Auction of golf round with actor nets $49,000 for charity.

*An online auction benefiting hurricane relief victims featured a round of golf with actor Morgan Freeman that sold for $49,000. It topped the $10,300 that went for the black leather jacket worn by his "Wanted" co-star Angelina Jolie.

Both lots also went for about 10 times their estimated value, according to E! Online. Freeman's $2,722 per hole also came with a rainproof golf outfit and a set of spanking-new clubs.

The auction by CharityFolks.com was held to benefit the nonprofit Plan!t Now, which provides aid for those in hurricane-damaged and storm-prone areas across North America.

Other items up for bid included a meeting with the Jonas Brothers, tickets to the "So You Think You Can Dance" finale and backstage passes to a Bruce Springsteen concert.

TERRENCE HOWARD WAS BLACKLISTED BY COSBY?: 'Crash' star says veteran entertainer nearly derailed his career before it got started.

*Terrence Howard said he was so angry over being cut from a part in "The Cosby Show" that he confronted the program's famous star to vent his frustration – only to find himself briefly blacklisted in the entertainment business.

      "I was 19 and had just moved to New York from Cleveland, I got on 'The Cosby Show' on my second audition ever," Howard said, according to WENN.

      He explains: "I told him, 'I'm a man just like you.' He didn't like it, and the casting agent never took my calls again."

      Howard says he didn't work for four years, but eventually bounced back to launch a successful acting career - landing an Academy Award nomination in 2006 for his role in "Hustle & Flow."

50 CENT PIECES: Shaniqua tries to get his lawyer booted in house fire case; rapper planning collabo with actor Val Kilmer.

*TMZ.com is reporting that a lawyer for 50 Cent's ex-girlfriend Shaniqiua Tompkins was to try and get the rapper's attorney Brett Kimmel removed in the court case surrounding his burned-down Long Island mansion.

      Tompkins, the mother of 50's son Marquise, reportedly says she's taken legal advice from Kimmel, and therefore, he should be booted from the legal proceedings.

      The rapper's ex will also try and block the artist from getting insurance money from the house that she accuses him of burning down.

Meanwhile, 50 is apparently ready to hit the studio with his new BFF, actor Val Kilmer. According to WENN, the pair became buddies on the set of their new prison movie "Felon," with the rapper rumored to have given Kilmer a $100,000 car as a gift.

Kilmer says: "I don't think he's going to produce a song, but he really likes one of my songs. I told him my idea for it and he wants to help. He's officially my new friend."

WAS RACISM AT ROOT OF WRIGHT BAR BRAWL: Source tells newspaper racial epithet was thrown during melee in Shreveport.

      *The bar brawl that sent actors Jeffrey Wright, Josh Brolin and several others to jail briefly over the weekend apparently involved a racial epithet.

      The New York Daily News is quoting a source who said someone uttered a racially-offensive remark to Wright during a dust-up at the Stray Cat bar in Shreveport, La., where the two are filming the Oliver Stone movie "W," about George W. Bush.

      Detective Rod Demery said that he hadn't heard of any slurs being used and that police were called "because we got a report of an unruly patron.
Once police got there, they escorted Mr. Wright and [lighting technician] Eric Felland out of the bar. Mr. Brolin and other members of the party came out and interfered with that arrest."

      Felland was charged with resisting arrest and public intoxication.
Wright, Brolin and four other people were charged with interfering with police. All posted bond the same night. They're due back in court on Dec. 2.

MSNBC ACCUSED OF BEING IN OBAMA'S CORNER: Charge comes from 'Fox News Sunday' anchor Chris Wallace.

      *"Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace told a room full of TV critics that rival network MSNBC is "in the tank" for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

      "I think MSNBC's coverage went so far over the line that it lost all credibility," Wallace said during a session at the Television Critics Assn. press tour.

      Wallace said MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann was particularly guilty of inappropriately mixing anchor and opinion-making duties, and said Fox News drew a distinction between its reporters and opinion hosts.

      "There's a reason why Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity won't be anchoring the election night or the conventions," he said during the panel at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

NEW YORKER COMPARES ITSELF TO 'DAILY SHOW': Editor says Obama cover was no different than satire seen nightly by Jon Stewart.

*New Yorker editor David Remnick talked to CNN's Wolf Blitzer Monday about the controversy over its current cover depicting Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as Osama bin-Laden-loving terrorists.

Remnick said the artist rendering was no different than what the "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" do every weeknight on Comedy Central. He said the point of the cover was to satirize the many right-wing rumors that have spread virally about the Democratic candidate.

Blitzer said the cover looked like the type of drawing that would cover a "neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan" publication. Remnick bristled: "Oh, come on, Wolf. It's on the New Yorker, and context means a lot." Remnick said that people "know the New Yorker," that it's a liberal publication that often uses provocative humor to make its points.

      "If it weren't possible to have satire," Remnick continued, "if you always have to look for the joke that everyone will get, then you don't have Jon Stewart, you don't have Stephen Colbert. Colbert goes on TV and mocks right-wing commentary by pretending to be a right-wing commentator. In a way, this is Colbert in print."

      In an interview with the New York Times about the magazine cover, Colbert said that a running joke on his show has been that Obama is a "secret Muslim"; the New Yorker cover, he said, was consistent with that. "It's a completely valid satirical point to make — and it's perfectly valid for Obama not to like it," he said.

      Colbert said he has had more leeway to joke about Obama than other late-night hosts because "my character on the show doesn't like him. I'm expected to be hostile to him."

      "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart, who is also an executive producer of "The Colbert Report," said the Obama campaign's reaction to the New Yorker cover seemed part of what is now almost a pro forma cycle in political campaigns. "Nothing can occur without the candidate responding," he said.

      Bill Maher, who is host of a politically oriented late-night show on HBO, said, "If you can't do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?"

NAOMI CAMPBELL DEFENDS HER CHARACTER: Supermodel says media portrayal of her violent behavior is misleading.

      *Naomi Campbell spoke with British newspaper Daily Mirror to try and downplay her image of a hot-tempered diva in the wake of several arrests and convictions for her acts of violence.

      "I'm not a bad person. When people say all these negative things about me, I ignore them," said the 38-year-old supermodel. "Let them be negative - but do that away from me. It hurts but I know there is much more good in the world.

      "I'm blessed to be able to do charitable work and good things but no one focuses on that because I don't throw it in people's faces."

      Campbell is in Nigeria this week to help promote a new green initiative. She teamed with British designer Oswald Boateng over the weekend to plant a tree in the African republic's capital city of Abuja. Their goal is to plant a tree for each child born in the area to help turn the city "green" and combat climate change.

      "I am very, very happy to be in Nigeria," she said. "Africa is a very rich country … we should show the world Africa is rising in a positive way."

COMEDIANS CAN'T FIND THE FUNNY WITH OBAMA: NY Times article exposes unease with poking fun with candidate.

      *People are talking about a New York Times article published Tuesday that points out how difficult it is for comedians to make jokes about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

      "Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and others have delivered a nightly stream of jokes about the Republican running for president — each one a variant on the same theme: John McCain is old," the article states.

      "But there has been little humor about Obama: about his age, his speaking ability, his intelligence, his family, his physique. And within a late-night landscape dominated by white hosts, white writers, and overwhelmingly white audiences, there has been almost none about his race."

      The following are excerpts from the Times article:

• When Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" recently tried to joke about Obama changing his position on campaign financing, for instance, he met with such obvious resistance from the audience, he said, "You know, you're allowed to laugh at him." Stewart said in a telephone interview on Monday, "People have a tendency to react as far as their ideology allows them." Despite audience resistance, Stewart contended, his show had been able to develop a distinctive angle on Obama. Noting that the senator seems to emphasize the historic nature of his quest, Stewart said, "So far, our take is that he's positioning himself to be on a coin."
• "We're doing jokes about people in his orbit, not really about him," said Mike Sweeney, the head writer for O'Brien on "Late Night." The jokes will come, representatives of the late-night shows said, when Obama does or says something that defines him — in comedy terms.
• "Anything that has even a whiff of being racist, no one is going to laugh," said Rob Burnett, an executive producer for Letterman. "The audience is not going to allow anyone to do that."
• Black comics are not having any trouble joking about Obama, said David Alan Grier, a comedian who, starting in October, will have a satirical news magazine show on Comedy Central, "Chocolate News." "I tell jokes on stage about him," Grier said, reciting a few that would not ever get onto a network late-night show (nor into this newspaper). But he said of the late-night hosts, "Those guys really can't go there. It's just like the gay comic can do gay material. It comes with the territory." Still, he said, he has no sympathy for the hosts. "No way. They've had 200 years of presidential jokes. It's our time."

      Click here to read the entire New York Times article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/15/america/15humor.php

JOSEPHINE BAKER ON U.S. STAMP: Postal Service issues commemorative series honoring vintage black cinema.

*Beginning today, the US Postal Service (USPS) will feature the late African American entertainer Josephine Baker on a stamp that reproduces a poster from her 1935 French film "Princess Tam-Tam."

The image is part of a commemorative series of US postage stamps honoring vintage black cinema that will be unveiled at a ceremony in Newark, New Jersey on Wednesday.

They serve as "invaluable pieces of history, preserving memories of cultural phenomena that otherwise might have been forgotten," said USPS vice president Delores Killette in a statement Tuesday.

"My adoptive mother, whose theme song was Two loves Have I, my Country and Paris,' would be delighted, thrilled and deeply moved by this wonderful tribute to African-American culture," Baker's adopted son Jean-Claude Baker said in the statement.

After a free-speech battle supported by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Jean-Claude Baker was allowed in May 2007 to mail 15,000 postcards to patrons of "Chez Josephine," his New York restaurant opened 22 years ago in honor of his adopted mother.

The USPS had refused to accept and mail the cards, which featured a 1926 watercolor by Henry Fournier depicting Baker as a topless Follies-Bergere dancer, on the basis that they were "pornographic", according to the NYCLU. But the Baker son held firm and eventually prevailed in his case, earning his right to send the cards and an apology from the USPS.

AL REYNOLDS STILL IN LOVE WITH STAR JONES: He reveals news while promoting his new YouTube channel.

*In an interview with the Associated Press, Al Reynolds admitted that he still has feelings for Star Jones, despite their forthcoming divorce.

"I still very much love her," Reynolds told The AP on Monday. "I do. I can't lie to you."

Reynolds spoke about his soon-to-be ex-wife in an interview posted yesterday on YouTube. [View clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-j4D5YsIls.]

"I was approached by a number of media outlets to do interviews, and most of them wanted me to trash my wife," Reynolds told the AP during a telephone interview Monday. "I wasn't interested in participating in the sensationalism."

Instead, he filmed his own interview last month at the home of his publicist, Howard Bragman. He tells the YouTube audience that his marriage began to fall apart last year when Jones was beginning her truTV talk show and he began teaching at Florida Memorial University in Miami.

He said the pair separated in February, and he was served divorce papers in March. Reynolds also said he was surprised when Jones issued a public statement about the dissolution of their marriage in April.

"I don't know if I can point to a specific thing that happened," said Reynolds. "I felt like we started to grow apart. I took a position down in Florida. I started working aggressively on my book. She was trying to get her show off the ground. We were also trying to deal with all the negative stuff after we allowed the media into our marriage."

Reynolds, 37, also said he's not gay, and that the rumors about his sexuality — several bloggers refer to him as "Big Gay Al" — has damaged his professional reputation.

The former banker said he has not gone on a date with anyone since his relationship with Jones ended, nor has he spoken to the former prosecutor.

"I feel like I've still got a little bit of healing to do," said Reynolds. "I'm not sure I could open that emotional side of myself up to anyone else right now. After the divorce is final, I'll probably be a little bit more interested in that. Right now, I'm focusing on teaching and finishing my doctorate degree."