Barkley: Weight loss is about health
NEW YORK, May 12 (UPI) -- Former basketball star Charles Barkley said he was inspired to join and campaign for Weight Watchers when he realized he'd gained 100 pounds since retirement.
Currently weighing in at 292, Barkley has lost nearly 60 pounds since joining the weight-loss program. He told Parade Magazine he'd like to drop another 20 pounds from his 6-foot-5-inch frame.
"I'd gained, like, 100 pounds since I retired, and that wasn't good," Barkley said.
Barkley admitted it was his idea to dress up as a woman for the Weight Watchers ad about "man food."
"I thought their commercials were a little intense and I wanted to have more fun. I've dressed like a woman on Saturday Night Live, so it doesn't bother me at all. My message is about health," he said.
In January Barkley was caught on air during a Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks game calling his Weight Watchers gig a scam. He believed his microphone was turned off at the time.
"I thought this was the greatest scam going -- getting paid to watch sports. This Weight Watchers thing is a bigger scam," The New York Times quoted him as saying.
Weight Watchers released a statement from Barkley, in which he said: "I meant what I said. The fact that I'm dropping pounds, getting healthier and getting paid at the same time is my definition of a great scam."
CBS sues ABC for copying 'Big Brother'
LOS ANGELES, May 12 (UPI) -- CBS has filed a lawsuit against ABC for infringement of copyright law, saying the network's upcoming "Life in a Glass House" is similar to CBS' "Big Brother."
The complaint, filed by CBS Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, alleges the ABC show "replicates every key aspect of 'Big Brother,' including, among other things, its plot, themes, mood, setting, pace, characters [and] sequence of events."
ABC had previously not responded to a cease-and-desist request filed by CBS last week, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
"The differences between 'Glass House' and 'Big Brother' are both fundamental and obvious, ranging from Glass House's interactive elements and audience participation to its deployment of cutting-edge technologies," ABC said.
Both reality shows film strangers living together in a competition in which one contestant emerges as the winner.
Lance Lieberman, an intellectual-property attorney, said it is CBS' responsibility to prove in court ABC was directly copying ideas unique to "Big Brother."
"Any time a new show comes out that's basically the same idea, there are always these kinds of charges," Lieberman said.
"Life in a Glass House" is scheduled to premiere June 18, the Journal said.
Damon, Affleck to host Warren fundraiser
SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 12 (UPI) -- New Englanders Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will be hosts of a Hollywood fundraiser for Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, her campaign said.
John Krasinski of NBC's "The Office," a fellow son of the commonwealth, will also welcome donors to the May 21 event at the Santa Monica, Calif., production company owned by "Star Trek" producer J.J. Abrams.
It won't be all celebrities at the party, The Hill noted. Two tickets will be issued in a raffle among donors who chipped in $5 or more. The campaign will pick up the travel costs to get the luck winners out to Los Angeles.
Warren has been on a financial roll in her campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., The Hill said. She pumped nearly $7 million into her war chest in the first quarter of 2012.
Jazz savant Matt Savage graduates college
BOSTON, May 12 (UPI) -- Autistic jazz music savant Matt Savage celebrated his birthday and graduated from Boston's Berklee College of Music Saturday with a 3.99 grade point average.
Savage, who was diagnosed with autism at 3 years old and couldn't stand the sound of music, cut his first album at age 7, has won several ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards, has performed in numerous festivals and competitions around the world and has even played with the likes of Chaka Khan and Chick Corea.
"Music is a soundtrack to my life," he told The Boston Globe. "It transports people into what life could be. When you play music, it feels like you're making the world that much more exciting."
Savage, 20, still has one semester left at Berklee -- he's graduating now because the school only has one ceremony per year -- but plans to perform at the Heineken Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian, Spain, in July and has a gig lined up in Japan in September.
Despite Savage's early success -- he's composed some 100 to 200 songs -- he's "basically a typical college kid," said John Funkhouser, Berklee professor and member of the Matt Savage Trio.
"He's gotten good grades, met tons of people, and played with a wide variety of people and in various musical styles," Funkhouser added.
