Around the Arts

Eminem won't allow 'Weird Al' parody video\nNEW YORK -- Eminem might poke fun at himself in videos, but he doesn't want "Weird Al" Yankovic doing it. Eminem won't give Yankovic permission to shoot a video for his new song, "Couch Potato," a parody of Eminem's Oscar-winning tune "Lose Yourself," Yankovic said.\n"The only reason I could glean was that making a Weird Al music video would detract from his legacy as a serious hip-hop artist," Yankovic said Thursday. "It's very disappointing. This could have been my best video ever."\nEminem parodies himself and other celebrities in some of his most famous videos, including "Without Me," where he depicts himself as a fat Elvis Presley.\nBut an Eminem spokesman said "Lose Yourself" was special to the rapper, who didn't want the song's serious tone undermined by Yankovic's humor.\n"It's an important personal piece of music for him, a piece of art," spokesman Dennis Dennehy said Friday. "He doesn't mind him doing the song, (but) he didn't want to change kids' visual perception on what that image was. He wanted to make sure the image would remain intact."\nArtists who have allowed Yankovic to parody their songs and videos over the years include Michael Jackson -- whose hits "Beat It," and "I'm Bad," became "Eat It," and "I'm Fat" -- and Madonna, whose "Like a Virgin," which became "Like A Surgeon."\nYankovic said the rapper allowed Yankovic to redo the theme song from the hit movie "8 Mile," but said he would need to hear the final mix before granting the video rights. After receiving the final version of the parody -- which pokes fun at television addicts -- the rapper's representatives said he would not allow a video.\n"We started preproduction on (the video) already, because we just assumed that there wouldn't a problem," Yankovic said.\nYankovic said Eminem also refused to allow him to release the song as a commercial single. It's the first cut on his 11th album, "Poodle Hat," which also parodies songs by Avril Lavigne and rapper Nelly. It's due out May 20 on Way Moby/Volcano Records.\nAlthough Yankovic says he's grateful to Eminem for allowing him to parody his song, he's still lamenting what would have been his "most ambitious" video ever -- heady words, coming from a man who dressed up like Jackson in a fat suit for the video "I'm Fat."\nFlorida Philharmonic suspends operations\nBOCA RATON, Fla. -- The Florida Philharmonic suspended operations Saturday after officials failed to come up with $500,000 to pay their musicians for the next month.\nThe orchestra's 80 musicians were told not to come to rehearsal Saturday or to work Monday, but the financially strapped organization has not yet filed for bankruptcy, spokesman Bill Underwood said.\n"I guess they're hesitant to put the final nails on things," Underwood said.\nA skeleton crew made up largely of the orchestra's top directors is working to raise enough money to restart the philharmonic for the fall. "Hope is not completely lost, but it's a dim light in the future down there," Underwood said.\nSluggish ticket sales and a steep drop-off in donations contributed to the money problems. Board director Daniel Lewis has personally pledged $16 million, but that alone could not get the orchestra on firm financial footing.\n"Naturally, I'm just deeply saddened for the lives of the 80 musicians and their families," said general manager Neil Birnbaum, one of the workers laid off Saturday. "Those are the only ones that have done their jobs faithfully, and they're the ones that are feeling the greatest pain over this."\nThe 19-year-old orchestra's collapse follows the failures of several others nationally, most recently in Colorado Springs, Colo., Savannah, Ga., and San Antonio.\nMagicians sue Brazil TV network for airing secrets\nSAO PAULO, Brazil -- Magicians claiming they nearly went broke after a television program aired the secrets of their trade have won a legal fight against Brazil's largest television network.\nTV Globo must pay damages to 21 magicians in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul because of a program that revealed how magicians perform such tricks as pulling rabbits out of hats and sawing women in half, Judge Eduardo Kothe Werlang ruled recently.\nThe show featured Leonard Montano, an American magician known as "Mister M" who always hid his identity with a scary black mask and was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.\n"Mister M took all the magic out of magic," Paulo Roberto Brito Martins, one of the magicians who sued, said Friday. "It was like depriving a child of happiness and the right to fantasize when you tell him Santa Claus does not exist."\nMartins, who has performed as "Uncle Tony the Magician" for three decades, estimated he lost 1.5 million reals ($518,000) since 1999 because many people lost interest in magic after learning how the tricks were performed.\nHis show on a local television station was dropped, many clients stopped contracting him for shows at parties and theaters and business slumped at his magic store in Porto Alegre, a city about 540 miles south of Sao Paulo.\nGlobo TV was ordered to pay an amount equal to the income each magician lost since early 1999, when it first aired Mister M segments on its weekly "Fantastico" show, said Sergio dos Santos, a court official.\nOsbournes ending 2-decade deal with Sony\nLOS ANGELES -- Ozzy Osbourne and Sony Records will be ending a two-decade relationship as the heavy metal rocker goes in search of what his manager-wife called "fresh ideas."\nSharon Osbourne is in the process of negotiating his exit from Sony, as well as that of their daughter, Kelly, publicist Lisa Vega said Friday. They were not ready to discuss which record label they will sign with, Vega said.\n"We've had 23 great years together," Sharon Osbourne said in a statement. "We've shared many great successes, but sometimes you have to search out fresh blood to get fresh ideas, which is a philosophy that every record company, especially Sony, understands."\nSharon Osbourne and Sony agreed that Kelly Osbourne would leave the label after chief executive officer Tommy Mottola resigned in January, Vega said. Mottola signed Kelly Osbourne with Sony in 2002.\nOzzy Osbourne and his family have enjoyed a higher profile since they opened up their home life for the hit MTV reality series "The Osbournes." The series' third season begins June 10.