Evans Above

Britain’s News of the World paper released photos of Olympic champion Michael Phelps sucking back on a bong at a party. With millions in endorsements at stake, the gold medal pot smoker’s people tried to drag him out of the deep end by having him release the following statement:

“I engaged in behaviour which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I’m 23 years old and despite the successes I’ve had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again.”

What won’t happen again? Getting caught? Letting photos get taken as he gets stoned? Obviously the guy realizes that he needs to make cash quickly while people still care so he has to pretend this was a one-off youthful error and he’s still worthy of being on a Wheaties box.

Who knew his 12,000 calorie training diet was just a massive case of the munchies.

Well, the blog world is burning up talking about Kathy Griffin’s CNN foul-up, so it should be a day or so before the mainstream media turns this into their first entertainment story of the year.

I’m wondering if CNN will have Kathy Griffin back to host next New Year’s with Anderson Cooper? I actually like the pairing of Cooper and the mouthy comedian, but I’m sure some CNN viewers will be calling in after this on-air incident.

Obviously thinking they had gone to commercial, Griffin started yelling at a heckler in Times Square. “Screw you! I’m working! Why don’t you get a job buddy! You know what? I don’t go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth!”

Ring, ring…is that the FCC calling?

Sometimes things seem to happen by chance and other times it appears that destiny has a hand in the opportunities that come our way. As I wrote the other day, I lost a dear friend and fellow celebrity photographer, David Morgan, to a heart condition. His partner Di has asked that instead of flowers, his friends should make donations to the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Australia.

I’m already making a donation, but then I saw a chance to potentially expand upon my donation multiple times. Dot com mogul and blogger John Chow recently blogged about a new tiny url service called xr.com that helps turn long urls into, well, tiny ones.

What does this have to do with the charity? Well, when John Chow wrote about the xr.com service, the site’s owner, Richard Lau sent him a $5,000 thank you. John paid that kindness forward by donating it to the Union Gospel Mission’s Christmas Drive. Richard and John then came up with a new contest where a review of xr.com could earn a blogger $5,000 for the charity of their choice (in my case the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute) and $1000 to use as they please, though I’d just use it for another donation to the heart research. I thought for a while before entering this contest. Would it seem crass to write a review in this situation? But then I thought that a $6000 donation is a $6000 donation and I don’t care if I have to do cartwheels in a Santa suit to earn it. If I win, that’s $6000 going to help heart research and potentially finding the cures and causes of a disease that takes so many people away from their loved ones too early.

What’s the purpose of xr.com’s service? I often find that long urls (especially from newspaper sites) will sometimes break in people’s email software and then they write back and say, “That link you sent me didn’t work!” Rather than going through the effort of cutting and pasting to fix the url, I like to use a tiny url service like xr.com to send a much shorter url. For example, if I want to send a page from my own site, a photo of Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Brad Pitt at the Burn After Reading premiere in Toronto, I can send the real url https://www.digitalhit.com/galleries/31/457/27 or the tiny url, which is https://xr.com/jsn. Suddenly 45 characters of url becomes only 10 characters. That’s great for tossing into an email and I’m sure that xr.com will be a frequent stop for me.

So there you have it. A great new tiny url service called xr.com and a potentially superb way to further assist a charitable cause that’s close to my heart.

David Morgan, a respected, admired, and loved celebrity photographer, died in his sleep Thursday. He was fifty-three.

David, a Welsh-born, Sydney, Australia-based snapper was a larger-than-life figure. Besides being a true artist behind the lens, David was a mentor, a big brother, a kid, a raconteur, and a great friend rolled into an imposing figure of a man. Though David had the stature to take on anyone, his close friends knew the warm person inside.

Christine and I have known Dave Morgan for our entire time covering the Toronto International Film Festival. He was one of the first photographers I met when shooting at the galas at Roy Thompson Hall. When we headed inside to shoot the introductions, I asked who was standing in the prime spot next to him. “You are now, mate!” he said and we were friends from that day forward.

As a couple of Welshmen, David and I shared a lot of the same tastes in movies and comedy. Every year when I saw him, we’d compare notes on some films or performers and he’d always recommend older films that I should see. I saw the press screening of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia yesterday. I emailed David about it and said I looked forward to his thoughts on the film. I’ll never know now.

He really respected the art of the photographer and hated the new business models that were stripping shooters of a living wage and copyright ownership. I’d frequently send him emails about one of the Big Bad Companies and he told me this year that he’d forward them on to his photographer pals in Sydney. He also had a dislike for the new breed of “stalkerazzi” who swarmed and hassled the celebrities.

He was a funny guy, who loved a good laugh and a pint. Everyone has a David story. Or a few. Or a book’s worth. Christine has a funny Hugo Weaving story with David that just doesn’t work well in print, but we still chuckle about it every time we see Hugo’s name.

This year, David and I shot a red carpet that featured fellow Aussie Bryan Brown. He told me a story where he was shooting an event in Australia a few years back and Brown asked him, “What are you doing here?” David responded, “I’m a celebrity photographer, so what exactly are you doing here?” It wasn’t mean-spirited at all, just two acquaintances jabbing each other as evidenced by Bryan’s smile, laugh and handshake when they saw each other this year.

Even though we only saw David for ten days each year, those crazy hectic days forged a lifetime of memories and a bond of friendship. David was one of those loyal friends that would defend his circle. In a movie, he’d be the friend who’d tower behind you as the bad guys tried to start a bar fight. If he was in The Untouchables, he’d be the Sean Connery character, except of course Connery’s famous speech would be changed to “If they bring a wide angle, you show up with a telephoto.”

David will be sorely missed by everyone who knows him. I still can’t believe that I won’t see him at the Toronto festival next September. Christine and I send our love and thoughts to his friends and family around the world.

Goodbye, my friend.

Well, it’s been so long since the whole Britney Spears crotch shot photos scandal hit the web, that people were chomping at the, er, bit for something else to happen.

This time it’s British royalty to the rescue as Prince William, the future king, appears to have been photographed while relieving himself outdoors.

Unsurprisingly, some of the biggest searches on Google today have been for prince william penis, prince william peeing, prince william naked and a variety of variations I’m not about to get into.

If not for Prince Willy, perhaps Haley Joel Osment’s debut on Broadway in American Buffalo would have been a bigger search.

Just a question: When you have to constantly repeat that you’re the “most provocative entertainment news program on television”, are you? Talk about trying to force a branding.

Checked the mailbag and found a copy of Long Way Down, a follow up to 2005’s Long Way Round. While that series followed Ewan McGregor and pal Charley Boorman on a motorcycle trek ‘round the world, Long Way Round follows the two-wheeled duo as they make the journey north to south — from John O’Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.

This time the usual damaged shocks and minor accidents occur amongst the stunning scenery of Africa, with Boorman and McGregor facing the obstacles of hazardous conditions and intricately choreographed border crossings.

The 3-disc set features the entire BBC 10-part series with two additional hours of episode footage. Two hours of extras include The Missing Face documentary, unseen footage, a photo gallery and interactive route maps.

The added pressure of completing this massive trip in just three months — Ewan had film commitments — adds to the excitement as the pair head out on their trek. As Xmas is on its way, this DVD would make the perfect gift for the armchair traveller.

Just watched my recording of John McCain’s appearance on David Letterman.

Man oh man, Letterman owned McCain during the interview. Hammered him on Palin and caught him off guard about G. Gordon Liddy.

Once again, as we witnessed four years ago, delegates at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions spend an inordinate amount of time standing behind the CNN anchors. Talking on their cell phones, they wave their arms, because apparently the friend or loved one they’re speaking to is too dumb to recognize them just by their face.

There must be an official name for these people. Oh wait, there is: tools.