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Formula 1 is back on familiar turf this weekend at the Monaco Grand Prix, a glamour-wrapped race that has been a fixture since 1929. While many of the track contours and Côte d’Azur vistas are little changed, the auto racing circuit itself has a decidedly revamped look. Earlier this month, it made a splashy debut in Miami, the latest stop in its U.S. expansion, which will take it to Las Vegas next year. That bow followed the arrival of the latest season of Netflix docu hit Drive to Survive , with the show adding pop-culture luster to negotiations for a potentially lucrative new U.S. media deal. “The American market is ready for F1,” Formula One Group CEO Stefano Domenicali told Deadline in an interview ahead of today’s race. “Being ready means that we need to keep working on the fact that we need to stay connected with our fans in the U.S. We need to speak the same language, we need to give context.” The Miami event provided the latest template, as celebrity … [Read more...] about As Monaco Grand Prix Revs Up, Formula One CEO Stefano Domenicali Talks U.S. Expansion And TV Future

George Shapiro , the deeply respected talent manager, producer and co-founder of Shapiro/West & Associates, died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 91. Along with his partner and childhood friend Howard West, Shapiro was personal manager to comedy greats Jerry Seinfeld , Andy Kaufman and Carl Reiner , among others. He and West would go on to executive produce Seinfeld , one of the top comedy series of all time. Born in New York, Shapiro spent summers during his teenage years as a lifeguard at the Tamiment Resort in the Poconos, where he met performers like Dick Shawn, Pat Carroll and Carol Burnett, singer Barbara Cook, and choreographer Herb Ross. That’s when he also got to know talent agents. “These guys came up … I didn’t even know what an agent was, but they came to see the show, to talk to the girls, talk to the comedians,” said Shapiro in a past Television Academy Foundation interview. “I said, ‘This is your job? To … [Read more...] about George Shapiro Dies: Legendary Talent Manager & ‘Seinfeld’ Producer Was 91

‘Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever,’ by Rolling Stone contributor Will Hermes and available today, chronicles the period between 1973-1978 during which punk, hip-hop, salsa and other revolutionary forms of popular music were born or reinvented. In this exclusive excerpt, Hermes tells the stories of three era-defining musical beginnings: the collaboration of punk pioneers Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, the early days of the New York Dolls and the legacy of jazz legend Sonny Rollins. Tom Miller was tripping his balls off on LSD in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. The next thing he knew, a week later, he was in New York City, crashing in a crappy East Village apartment with his old friend Richard Meyers. They were both 19 years old. They’d met at Sanford, a boarding school for ne’er-do-wells and other types near Wilmington. Meyers was raised in Lexington, Kentucky, a town shadowed by the Lexington Narcotics Farm rehab facility, … [Read more...] about Exclusive Book Excerpt: ‘Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years in New York that Changed Music Forever’

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan was given a clean chit by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the drugs-on-cruise case on Friday (May 27). Reportedly, the investigating agency didn't find any evidence against the star kid. After this news came out, actress Pooja Bhatt took to her Twitter handle to take a sly dig at Sameer Wankhede, the ex-zonal officer who had led the NCB team. She wrote, "Sameer who? Er sorry,where? Ah! Probably very busy being a righteous, publicity shy officer elsewhere? So much of a mess to clean up after all. And who better than the least corrupt of them all to cure society of all evil & rot. Except this time, no selfies allowed. #truthprevails." Besides her, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma also reacted to this development and tweeted, "The only good thing which came about in #AryanKhan case is him being a celebrity @iamsrk's son. It helped in vastly exposing the inefficiency and recklessness of various agencies … [Read more...] about Pooja Bhatt Takes A Dig At Sameer Wankhede After Aryan Khan Gets A Clean Chit In Drugs Case

For the past couple of years, a 23-year-old producer from the suburbs of Buenos Aires has been challenging the mainstream of Latin music, one viral YouTube video at a time. Known to the world as Bizarrap , Gonzalo Julián Conde is one of the most streamed Latin American artists in the world thanks to his BZRAP sessions and their exhilarating fusion of hip-hop, trap, and EDM. Every month a new session pops up, featuring some of the most intriguing MCs in Latin rap – from Argentina ’s L-Gante and Paulo Londra to Spain’s Ptazeta to San Jose, California-born Snow Tha Product to Puerto Rico’s Residente, whose Bizarrap freestyle made headlines this spring with its ruthless bars aimed at J Balvin. You only need to watch a couple of sessions to understand the rules of the game. There are 49 videos so far, numbered and posted in chronological order, each with a different rapper. Biza comes up with a backing track, then the guest MCs record vocals at the producer’s minimalist home … [Read more...] about Bizarrap: Meet the Mysterious Argentinean Producer Whose Viral Freestyle Videos Have the Whole World Talking