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KLMNO THE RELIABLE SOURCE Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger


Shining a light on stalking


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ost celebvocates, for all their sincerity and star power, come to Washington with a fleeting connection to their cause. Erin Andrews, who


came to the Hill Tuesday to plead for tougher stalking laws, has raw, firsthand experience. Last year naked pictures of the ESPN sportscaster, 32, were posted on the Internet after she was videotaped through a peephole to her hotel rooms. Michael David Barrett, who rented rooms adjacent to Andrews, pleaded guilty to stalking charges and was sentenced to 21


⁄2 years in prison. Two weeks ago,


she filed a lawsuit against Barrett and the hotels for emotional distress and invasion of privacy. “The public needs to learn about stalking,”


Andrews (blond hair pulled in a ponytail, black dress and high heels) told reporters Tuesday. “I had no idea just how serious this crime was until it affected my life. . . . That video on the Internet will be there for the rest of my life.” Flanked by Rep. Loretta Sanchez and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the reporter called for passage of H.R. 5662, which adds tougher provisions and new technology to anti-stalking laws. The bill has one of those tortured acronyms to underscore the point: The “Simplifying the Ambiguous Law, Keeping Everyone Reliably Safe” a.k.a. STALKERS Act of 2010. “The problem here is that the predators are more technologically sophisticated than the laws that can be used to enforce the statutes against them,” Klobuchar said. The lawmakers took great pains to remind


everyone that the vast majority of stalking victims are not glamorous TV stars (like Andrews, Playboy’s “Sexiest Sportscaster” two years in a row), but average citizens. The sportsbabe — who got tons of airtime and the hottest guy when she appeared on “Dancing With the Stars” — said she initially resisted competing on the spangly reality show for fear that it would look like she was exploiting all the publicity. But then she decided she could be a role model. “If I didn’t do the show because I was worried about what people thought about me, then what kind of message does that send to other targets of stalking? . . . I could give a face to stalking and they could say, ‘Wow, this is big time. We have to support it.’ ”


On Wednesday, Erin Andrews urged passage of an anti-stalking bill in the House.


MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES A bit of blush for some Hill hotties What’s the


matter, Scott Brown? We sure didn’t take you for the blushing type. The junior


senator from Massachusetts and (maybe you’ve heard?)


Cosmopolitan’s 1982 “Sexiest Man” centerfold has been named one of the “50 Most Beautiful People on Capitol Hill” in the Hill newspaper’s annual survey, set for release Wednesday morning. But we’re told that unlike most of the


honorees, Brown declined to give an interview or pose for a picture. His press office did not return our calls to explain his bout of shyness. The senator mostly laughed off the Cosmo spread when it resurfaced during his campaign last year — he said that he paid his way through law school by modeling — but maybe a guy


Clockwise from top left: Scott Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand, Anna Eshoo, Ben Dunham, Duncan Hunter and Jesse Jackson Jr.


gets tired of being objectified after a while. Nothing to be ashamed of, though; he’s in good company. Five other lawmakers made the list: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.). (Hunter also declined to pose for the Hill.) Most of the list is made up of staffers, though, and the Hill does a great service by finally showcasing the alpha-male aide of the year: Ben Dunham, 31, best known as the staffer who (briefly) won the heart of “Mad Men” star January Jones. They met during her enviro-lobbying visit last fall and dated for about four months.


He’s discreet about his brush with celebrity. “I got a lot of weird e-mails,” he told the Hill, “and the whole experience convinced me that I never want to be famous.”


WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2010


THIS JUST IN  Director Oliver


Oliver Stone says he’s sorry.


Stone is apologiz- ing for remarks he made in an inter- view with the Sun- day Times of Lon- don regarding the Holocaust, Russian deaths during WWII and the “Jew- ish domination of the media.” In a statement released


Monday, Stone said: “In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans com- mitted against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holo-


Tommy Boggs is recuperating.


caust, for which I am sorry and I re- gret. Jews obviously do not control me- dia or any other in- dustry.”  Tommy Boggs, one of Washington’s most powerful lob- byists, cut short an Alaskan vacation last week after he


experienced shortness of breath — and hightailed it back to D.C., where he had surgery to repair a heart valve on July 22 at Suburban Hospital. Spokesman said he’s recovering at home and ex- pected back at the office next week.


GOT A TIP ? E-MAIL U S A T RELIABLESOURCE@WASHP OST . COM. FOR THE LA TEST SCOOPS, VISIT WA SHINGTONP OST . COM/RELIABLESOUR CE


MUSIC REVIEWS


Neil Finn & Crowded House: Intriguing mix of past, present


by Chris Klimek


There exists somewhere an alternate universe where Neil Finn is merely a frustrated elementary school music teacher and not the frontman for Crowded House. At Wolf Trap on Mon- day night, the affable singer-songwriter kept trying to get the audience to sing in sections. As fundamental a text in melody and harmony as his songbook is, he couldn’t get the crowd to do any- thing more sophisticated than repeat- after-him on “Weather With You” or “Better Be Home Soon.” Fortunately, he was in strong voice.


KYLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST\ IN THE GROOVE: Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach’s show ranged from blues to funk to gospel to techno. Black Keys blur genres in lightning DAR set by Mark Jenkins


“Let’s keep it moving,’’ Black Keys sing- er-guitarist Dan Auerbach implored DAR Constitution Hall’s audience more than once Monday night. Of course, the sold- out crowd didn’t set the concert’s pace. The bluesy Ohio duo’s show was designed to involve the fans, in part by regularly bathing them in white light. But it was Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney who governed the 90-minute set’s speed, thumping through two dozen fierce, choppy songs that were short enough to


have been written for 78 RPM release. The Keys aren’t blues purists, though.


They’re modern-rock minimalists, with a riff-driven repertoire, a taste for the occa- sional funk beat or reggae bridge and a guitar sound so electric it verges on sci-fi. The evening’s songs were far from di- verse, and their lost-love sentiments nearly interchangeable: “Girl Is on My Mind,’’ “She’s Long Gone’’ and “Next Girl’’ barely qualified as variations on a theme. The real message was Auerbach’s playing, which combined ’60s blues swagger with ’70s punk succinctness. After a half-hour of older stuff, the Keys


DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau


were joined by a bassist and a keyboardist to help reproduce the denser sound of the group’s new album, “Brothers.’’ The change was not dramatic and reflected the songs more than the added instru- ments. Characteristically, the newer ma- terial pulled in two directions, drawing on gospel as much as techno. The band absorbed such influences almost too easi- ly. But if the Keys’ sense of style seemed a bit confining, they compensated well just by keeping it moving.


style@washpost.com Jenkins is a freelance writer.


Touring in support of “Intriguer,” the second Crowded House album since the 52-year-old Finn reconvened the band in 2007 after a decade-long hia- tus, he and his bespoke-suited associ- ates devoted nearly a third of their 115- minute, 23-song set to tunes not old enough to drive, weaving them in among a baker’s dozen corralled on the group’s 1996 best-of collection. The newer material contributed some highlights: “Isolation” started off ethereal and trippy but turned bloody before its time-shifting finale. (The old- er “Private Universe” had introduced a welcome strain of psychedelia to Finn’s elegant, disciplined minor-key pop.) Finn invited his son Liam (several al- bums into his own career) to sing and play on “Say That Again,” with a chorus that begins: “You’ve got to be your own man.”


Finn indulged two requests for rar- CUL DE SAC by Richard Thompson JOSH SISK


DREAM ISN’T OVER: Neil Finn crooned some Crowded House oldies.


ities, with one — “There Goes God” — submitted via stage-bound paper air- plane. He dedicated the other, “Italian Plastic,” to its author, original Crowded House drummer Paul Hester, who com- mitted suicide in 2005. With its internally illuminated lawn ornaments of geese, mushrooms and what looked to be short guys in mus- taches, the stage set evoked the video game “Super Mario Bros.,” a reference point as musty as, well, Crowded House. But the performance felt very much a thing of the present. style@washpost.com


Klimek is a freelance writer.


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