Through the Wire
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 10/3/2004 8:00:00 PM
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Items:
How to Fluster a Snake Master 'Ivan’ Interferes With 'Gilligan’ Stories of a Lifetime Of Cancer Survival Abernathy’s Limbo: One Day at a Time |
Contributors: Mike Reynolds, Ted Hearn.
How to Fluster a Snake Master
Sipping tea in the lounge of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on New York’s Central Park South, Austin Stevens asks a visitor about the weather. Told it looks like rain with temperatures in the 70s, Stevens winces, saying that’s cold — and it is for a man whose home country of Namibia gets as hot as 50 degrees Celsius (that’s 122 degrees Fahrenheit).
On his second visit to New York (the first was for Discovery Networks U.S. upfront presentation in the spring), Stevens sounds like a snake out of his burrow when he tells of the vehicular trials and tribulations of negotiating a few Manhattan blocks to tape Late Show With David Letterman on Sept. 28. But it’s part of the job to promote his 13-episode Snake Master series, which premieres Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. on Animal Planet.
Herpetologist, writer, photographer and filmmaker Stevens says upcoming episodes feature trips to Borneo (in search of the planet’s largest snake, the reticulated python) and expeditions to Florida and New Mexico and Arizona in pursuit of Eastern (bigger) and Western (more common and deadly) Diamondbacks.
His favorite crawler: an Asian Mangrove snake, which he describes as “beautiful, pitch black with a yellow band. They can grow to eight feet and raise up.”
His most feared foe: the King Cobra (featured in an episode this fall) because “he’s too big and intelligent. He stands so high and looks you right in the eyes. You can’t stay away from his length when he strikes.” The king rises to 18 feet tall, according to Stevens.
Stevens bears a bite above the wrist, courtesy of a python whose den he unearthed in Namibia, for a show focusing on his favorite animal, the desert elephant. He sloughs off the raised skin — which might actually contain a fang — as among “dozens of lesser bites” received over the years. But he’s not as dismissive of the three times he’s been administered serum to combat truly toxic bites.
Asked if he’s encountered any potentially venomous creatures in Manhattan, Stevens doesn’t flinch: “I was told to be on the lookout for snakes on 42nd Street, so I brought my tongs.”
'Ivan’ Interferes With 'Gilligan’
Apparently real reality was too much for the fake reality of an upcoming series being filmed for TBS.
Crews are currently working on The Real Gilligan’s Island for the network at a secret location somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. The series — produced by Michael Fleiss, the man behind The Bachelor and The Bachelorette — places a real-life skipper, first mate, millionaire couple, movie star, professor and farm girl on an island to see how they’d really do as shipwreck survivors.
But, as the title ditty says, when the “weather started getting rough” and there was the potential for their tiny set being tossed by Hurricane Ivan, the cast and crew … bugged out.
Guess no one was interested in seeing if the professor could craft a Category-4 hurricane-resistant shelter out of a couple of coconuts and some bamboo.
“They were only off a couple of days,” said TBS senior vice president of communications Karen Cassell. The series is on schedule for its debut in November, she added.
Stories of a Lifetime Of Cancer Survival
Lifetime Television marked the 10th anniversary of its breast cancer awareness public-affairs initiative with an emotional luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills last week. In attendance were breast-cancer advocates and celebrities, honoring their mothers for fighting off the disease.
Guests were treated to out-of-the-ordinary banquet fare. One honoree — Tami Agassi, an executive with an ovarian cancer research center in Seattle and sister of tennis star Andre — has compiled a cookbook filled with recipes submitted by celebrities. That book, Star Palate, was turned over to the kitchen that recreated several of the dishes for the luncheon buffet.
Guest Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) was tweaked for his lack of participation in the tome.
“I wanted to be in the book,” he responded. “But apparently toast isn’t considered a recipe.”
He was there to celebrate his mother’s survival, as was MTV/NBC’s Carson Daly, who described feeling destroyed when, moments before he was to go on TRLone day, he got the call his mother, Patti Caruso, a TV host in Palm Springs, Calif., had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
His heartfelt tale brought tears to eyes of the assemblage, so he lightened the mood. Daly and his sister are quite competitive to see who can write a message in their yearly Christmas card that can make Mom cry the most, he said.
“By the look on her face, clearly I have a commanding lead,” he said, based on her response to his introduction at the luncheon.
In addition to the celebrities and their parents, Lifetime honored affiliate employees who have survived cancer and volunteers of breast cancer advocacy groups at the event.
Abernathy’s Limbo: One Day at a Time
You sound like my husband.” That was the response from Federal Communications Commission member Kathleen Abernathy to a nosy reporter who asked whether she was leaving the agency.
Abernathy, a Republican Bush appointee who took office in 2001, faces an unpredictable future. Her term expired in June 2004, and she has not been renominated.
“What I’ve decided is that until the election happens, I don’t have enough information to know exactly what my next options are. I love this job. I love doing this job. But I feel I have to keep all my options open until the election,” she said.
Abernathy can remain at the FCC until the end of next year if someone is not confirmed to replace her.
“I am confident that President Bush will be re-elected. Until the numbers come and then I see what my choices are, I have to kind of sit back and wait and gather more information,” she said.
The conversation then turned to the Media Bureau’s controversial plan to shut down analog broadcasting on Dec. 31, 2008. “My husband does not ask me about that,” Abernathy said.
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