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Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit.^[1] The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis (m. "nephew"), from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended.

Types of nepotism[link]

Nepotism gained its name after the church practice in the Middle Ages, when some Catholic popes and bishops, who had taken vows of chastity, and therefore usually had no children of their own, gave their nephews such positions of preference as were often accorded by fathers to son.^[2]

Several popes elevated nephews and other relatives to the cardinalate. Often, such appointments were a means of continuing a papal "dynasty."

For instance, Pope Callixtus III, head of the Borgia family, made two of his nephews cardinals; one of them, Rodrigo, later used his position as a cardinal as a stepping stone to the papacy, becoming Pope Alexander VI.^[3] Alexander then elevated Alessandro Farnese, his mistress's brother, to cardinal; Farnese would later go on to become Pope Paul III.^[4]

Paul also engaged in nepotism, appointing, for instance, two nephews, aged 14 and 16, as cardinals. The practice was finally ended when Pope Innocent XII issued the bull Romanum decet Pontificem, in 1692.^[2] The papal bull prohibited popes in all times from bestowing estates, offices, or revenues on any relative, with the exception that one qualified relative (at most) could be made a cardinal.

Coincidentally, the Church of the East from the 16th to the 19th centuries made the Patriarch a hereditary title, being passed down from Patriarch-uncle to nephew; however, this move was initiated in the face of Timur's destruction of Nestorian Monasteries throughout Asia (monks being the key source of priests and patriarchs for the Church), in an attempt to guarantee the existence of a patriarch. This proved to be a catalyst for the schism that exists today between Chaldean Catholics and Assyrian "Nestorians."^{[citation needed]}

Political[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2009)

Nepotism is a common accusation in politics when the relative of a powerful figure ascends to similar power seemingly without appropriate qualifications. The British English expression "Bob's your uncle" is thought to have originated when Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, promoted his nephew, Arthur Balfour, to the esteemed post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in what was widely seen as an act of nepotism.^{[citation needed]}

Australia[link]

• Anna Bligh, who won the 2009 Queensland State election, has been accused of nepotism by giving her husband Greg Withers a position in the bureaucracy.^[5]

Belgium[link]

Over the past decade, criticism has been growing over the creation of political dynasties in Belgium, in which all of the traditional political parties have been involved. This phenomenon has been explained by the fact that prominent party members control the ranking of candidates on party lists for elections and a candidate's place on a list determines whether or not he or she is elected. Another justification for the phenomenon is the importance of name recognition for collecting votes.^[6]

• Jean-Jacques De Gucht, the son of former minister and current European Commissioner for Trade Policy Karel De Gucht, was placed at the top of the electoral list for the Flemish Liberals in the 2007 federal elections for the East Flanders region and subsequently appointed to the Senate at age 27.^[7]
• Freya Van den Bossche, the daughter of former minister Luc Van den Bossche, a member of the Flemish socialists, was, at age 28, appointed the youngest minister in Belgian history.^[8]
• Melchior Wathelet, Jr., the son of Melchior Wathelet, Sr. who was minister in several Belgian and Walloon governments and the mayor of Verviers, is currently the junior minister of budget, asylum and immigration, and family policy, and became, at age 26, the leader of the French-speaking Christian Democract fraction in the Belgian parliament.^[9]
• Bruno Tobback, the son of former minister and mayor of Leuven Louis Tobback, a member of the Flemish socialists, became the Belgian federal government's minister for the environment at 34. In 2011, he succeeded Caroline Gennez as head of the Flemish socialist party, SPA.
• Mathias De Clerq is the grandson of former minister Willy De Clercq.^[10]
• Alexander De Croo, the son of former speaker of the Belgian parliament Herman De Croo, ran for the leadership of his father's party Open VLD at age 33.^[11]
• Finally there is the example of Maya Detiège, the daughter of former mayor of Antwerp Leona Detiège, who herself is the daughter of the former mayor of Antwerp Frans Detiège.^[6]

France[link]

This article is outdated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Please see the talk page for more information. (November 2010)

• In October 2009, Jean Sarkozy was poised to become EPAD's director despite lacking a diploma and professional experience.^[12] To his credit, he broke rank from supporting his father's protégé in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the town for which Sarkozy served as mayor, and joined another party's ticket and was voted regional councillor of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
• Pierre Sarkozy, first son of President Nicolas Sarkozy, asked SCPP for a financial help in September 2009 of around €10000 towards an (€80000) artistic project. Because he was not a SCPP member, the request was automatically rejected. Sarkozy then went to the Élysée which lead to an Élysée counsel contacting the SCPP, and SCPP president Marc Guez assuring the issue would soon be favorably resolved.^[13][14] According to Abeille Music president and SCPP member Yves Riesel, however, this would not happen as SCPP's financial help has been restricted to members only for months.^[15]

Romania[link]

• Elena Băsescu, the daughter of President Traian Băsescu, was elected in 2009 to the European Parliament, despite the fact the she had no significant professional or political experience. Although an independent candidate, her candidacy was supported by the staff of the Democrat-Liberal Party (PD-L), her father's party. Elena Udrea, a key member of PD-L, "donated" the campaign headquarters and Monica Iacob Ridzi, the Minister of Sports, openly spent government money to help Elena Băsescu achieve candidacy.^[16]

Northern Ireland[link]

Many Northern Irish politicians employ family members. In 2008, 19 elected politicians of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) directly employed family members and relatives constituted 27 of its 136 staff.^[17]

Spain[link]

There is Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from 1980 to 2001: his son, Juan Antonio Samaranch Salisachs, has been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2001, while his daughter, Maria Teresa Samaranch Salisachs, has been president of the Spanish Federation of Sports on Ice since 2005.^[18] In Spanish Colonial America, the offices were bought with money or due to nepotism or influences more than merit.

Sri Lanka[link]

Mahinda Rajapaksa has been accused of nepotism, appointing three brothers to run important ministries and other political positions for relatives, regardless of their merit. Rajapaksa holding the offices of he ministries of Defence finance, defence, ports and aviation, highways and road development public works. This includes his brother Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who was given the post of Defence Secretary, without holding any elections for the post. He also controls the armed forces, the police and the Coast Guard, he is in charge of immigration and emigration. Rajapaksa appointed his brothers Basil Rajapaksa as minister of Economic Development. His oldest brother Chamal Rajapaksa is also the current Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka, and has held many other posts before. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget.Mahinda Rajapaksa's eldest son Namal Rajapasa also a member of the parliament and hold undisclosed portfolios.he is controling all the ministers except Defence.powerful^[19][20]

Others includes his nephew, Shashindra Rajapaksa, who is the Chief minister of Uva. His cousins the Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United States, Jaliya Wickramasuriya as well as Udayanga Weeratunga, who is the ambassador to Russia. Dozens of nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws have also been appointed as heads of banks, boards and corporations.^[20]nepotism has been taken to new heights by President Rajapaksa.

Venezuela[link]

President Hugo Chávez^{[citation needed]} and Cilia Flores, president of the Venezuela National Assembly, are also known for their hand in getting family members into government positions. Flores managed to place relatives in as many as nine permanent positions at the National Assembly: three siblings, two nephews, a cousin, the mother of that cousin, her mother-in-law, and an aunt.^{[21][citation needed]}

United Kingdom[link]

• In February 2010, Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said that more than 200 MPs used Parliamentary allowances to employ their own relatives in a variety of office roles. He suggested that the practice should be banned.^[22]
• In 2005 Councillor Ann Reid of York arranged for all nine sets of traffic lights on her daughter Hannah's route through York to be switched to green for the five-car convoy. As a result, the wedding party took only 10 minutes to pass through the city.^[23]
• The members of the House of Lords traditionally inherited their seats from their fathers. Following the enactment of the House of Lords Act 1999, all but 92 of the hereditary peers lost their right to sit in the upper chamber. As the remaining 92 hereditary peers die their seat in the House of Lords will not be passed on to their descendants (although they will still inherit the title).
• North Yorkshire Police's Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell was disciplined by the IPCC in 2011, but refused to resign, after admitting that he assisted a relative through the first stages of a recruitment process ^[24]
• Members or the Royal Family and people associated with them, have always enjoyed legal privileges. For example; unlike any other political body, they are exempt from some parts of the Freedom of Information Act. Members of the Royal family, such as Prince Andrew hold senior positions in government simply because they are members of the Royal Family. Merit, and their ability to execute the job to a satisfacory standard are not considered.

United States[link]

• Around 30 family members or relatives of President Ulysses S. Grant prospered financially in some way from either government appointments or employment.^[25]

In entertainment[link]

Outside of national politics, accusations of "nepotism" are made in instances of prima facie favoritism to relatives, in such cases as:

• Peaches Geldof's role as magazine editor in an MTV reality show - produced by a company owned by her father Bob Geldof.^[26] In a sketch of The Kevin Bishop Show, which frequently has less-than-flattering fake perfume adverts for celebrities, there was one for Peaches Geldof: "Nepotism, the smell of Peaches Geldof." Before this, a mock voice said "I'm a fashion model, a TV presenter, and I'm a journalist as well .... Did I mention my dad's Bob Geldof?"^{[citation needed]}
• Hollywood's The Coppola family includes many distinguished filmmakers and actors. The careers of Sofia Coppola, Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman have been attributed to aid by director Francis Ford Coppola who cast his daughter Sofia in The Godfather Part III.^[27][28] Cage changed his last name in order to distance himself from such charges.^[29]

In business[link]

• One-time Guardian contributor Max Gogarty has also been accused of taking advantage of family connections to achieve success disproportionate to his ability; his father Paul Gogarty is a frequent travel writer for the newspaper.^[30]

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• "American Calendar" in American Quarterly 25.4 (Oct. 1973): 493-96.
• "Nepotism: is it back?" New Statesman, Sept. 29, 2003.

External links[link]

Look up nepotism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Nepotism

• Hollywoodnepotism.net
• Booknotes interview with Adam Bellow on In Praise of Nepotism: A Natural History, August 24, 2003.

The Residents are an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. The first official release under the name of The Residents was in 1972, and the group has since released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs. They have undertaken seven major world tours and scored multiple films. Pioneers in exploring the potential of CD-ROM and similar technologies, The Residents have won several awards for their multimedia projects. Ralph Records, a record label focusing on avant-garde music, was started by The Residents.

Throughout the group's existence, the individual members have ostensibly attempted to operate under anonymity, preferring instead to have attention focused on their art output. Much outside speculation and rumor has focused on this aspect of the group. In public, the group appears silent and costumed, often wearing eyeball helmets, top hats and tuxedos - a long-lasting costume now recognized as their signature iconography. Their albums generally fall into two categories: deconstructions of Western popular music, or complex conceptual pieces, composed around a theme, theory or plot. They are noted for surrealistic lyrics and sound, disregard for conventional music composition, and the over the top, theatrical spectacle of their live performances.

History[link]

Origins[link]

The Residents hail from Shreveport, Louisiana, where they met in high school in the 1960s. In 1966 the members headed west for San Francisco, but after their truck broke down in San Mateo, California, they decided to remain there.

While attempting to make a living, they began to experiment with tape machines, photography, and anything remotely to do with art that they could get their hands on. Word of their experimentation spread and in 1969, a British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist named Phil Lithman^[1] and the mysterious N. Senada (whom Lithman had picked up in Bavaria where the aged avant-gardist was recording birds singing) paid them a visit, and decided to remain.

The two Europeans would become great influences on the band. Lithman's guitar playing technique earned him the nickname Snakefinger, after his frantic playing on the violin during the performance with the Residents at The Boarding House in San Francisco 1971, where his fingers' speed made them look like snakes in the eyes of the less-musically proficient, but imaginative Residents.

The group purchased crude recording equipment, instruments and began to make tapes, refusing to let an almost complete lack of musical proficiency stand in the way. Like all information pertaining to the early days of the band, this is provided by The Cryptic Corporation and may or may not be invented.

1969–1972: Residents Unincorporated[link]

In 1969 the group began to make the first of their unreleased tapes. Rumors have surfaced of two (of perhaps hundreds) unreleased reel-to-reel items titled Rusty Coathangers for the Doctor and The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger. The actual titles are in question (as is the notion that these were album-length recordings), but the first title has been confirmed by a former head of the now defunct Smelly Tongues fan club. Further evidence of pre-1970 recordings surfaced with the release of the song I Heard You Got Religion, supposedly recorded in 1969, and released originally as a downloadable track from Ralph America in 1999. Cryptic says there are lots of tapes dating back decades, but they were all recorded before the group had officially become The Residents so the band does not consider them to be part of their discography.

The album The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger has never been released in any form.^[2] "Uncle Willie", former Residents fan club president, wrote in his book Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide to The Residents that, while searching through the band's archives, he came across "a suite named The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger," but not a complete album.

In 1971 the group sent a reel-to-reel tape to Hal Halverstadt at Warner Brothers, since he had worked with Captain Beefheart (one of the group's musical heroes). Halverstadt was not overly impressed with the Warner Bros. Album (He describes it as "okay at best" in Uncle Willie's Cryptic Guide to the Residents), but awarded the tape an "A for Ariginality". Because the band had not included any name in the return address, the rejection slip was simply addressed to "The Residents". The members of the group then decided that this would be the name they would use, first becoming "Residents Unincorporated", then shortening it to the current name.

The first performance of the band using the name "The Residents" was at The Boarding House in San Francisco in 1971. That same year another tape was completed called Baby Sex. The original cover art for the tape box was a silk-screened copy of an old photo depicting a woman fellating a small child. (Considered artistically rude at that time, it would be viewed as child pornography today).

In 1972 they moved to San Francisco and formed Ralph Records.^[3] By this time, The Cryptic Corporation was operating as a partnership and incorporated to take over the running of Ralph Records.

1972–1980: Album era[link]

Before the Santa Dog single and while recording Meet the Residents, The Residents undertook one of their first major projects: the ambitious Vileness Fats film project. Intended to be the first-ever long form music video, The Residents saw this project as the opportunity to create the ultimate cult film. After four years of filming (from 1972 to 1976) the project was reluctantly canceled because of time, space and monetary constraints. Fifteen hours of footage were shot for the project yet only about three-quarters of an hour of that footage has ever been released.

Santa Dog is considered by The Residents themselves and their fans to be the "official" start of the band's recorded output. This is so because it was the first to be released to the public. Shortly after this release, the band left San Mateo and relocated to San Francisco. They sent copies of Santa Dog to west coast radio stations with no response until Bill Reinhardt, program director of KBOO-FM in Portland, Oregon received a copy. Santa Dog had the strange kind of sonic weirdness he was looking for and it was played heavily on his popular (Radio Lab) show. Bill met The Residents at their Sycamore St. studio in the summer of 1973 with the news of his broadcasts. They were overjoyed that they had finally got media acceptance and he was celebrated with the news that KBOO was the first station to play a Residents record on the air. Inviting him in and treating him like family, The Residents gave Reinhardt exclusive access to all their eclectic recordings, including copies of the original masters of Stuffed Trigger, Baby Sex and the Warner Bros. Album. He promoted these along with Meet the Residents regularly on his radio program. There was considerable resistance to the commercial viability of Residents material. To aid in their promotion, Bill was given 50 of the first 1,000 copies of Meet the Residents. Some were sent to friends, listeners and critics and two dozen were left for sale on consignment at Music Millennium Records where they sat unsold for months. KBOO DJ, Barry Schwam (Schwump, who also recorded with The Residents) promoted them on his program as well. Eventually KBOO airplay attracted many loyal fans and Portland became the epicenter of a worldwide cult phenomenon.

The Residents, at this time, were at a rough point in their career. According to official Residents lore, there was internal turmoil which resulted in a large, "embarrassing" food fight; they decided to resolve this tension in 1974 by recording what would later become Not Available —representative of N. Senada's Theory of Obscurity taken to its logical conclusion. The album was recorded and then placed in storage in order to be issued only when everyone had forgotten about it. However, contractual obligations related to the much-delayed release of Eskimo forced its release in 1978 after the band had almost forgotten about it. The Residents were not bothered by this deviation from their plan since the 1978 decision to release the album would not affect the philosophical conditions under which it was originally recorded.

The Third Reich 'n Roll came next, a pastiche on 1960s rock and roll with an overarching Nazi theme, represented visually on the album cover, which featured Dick Clark in an SS uniform holding a carrot, with a number of Hitlers dancing on clouds behind him. On each side of the record was a single composition, approximately 17½ minutes long, using recordings of classic rock and roll songs that were spliced, overdubbed and edited with new vocals, instrumentation and tape noises.^[3] The original songs were finally removed leaving entirely new and bizarre performances. The music video for this album was shot on the sets that were built for Vileness Fats.

Following The Third Reich 'n' Roll came Fingerprince, a particularly ambitious project not unlike the earlier Not Available recordings. The band's original intention with Fingerprince was to release it as the very first "three-sided" album – they had found a way to simulate a third side by arranging the grooves on one side of the vinyl album to play a completely different program of tracks depending on which series of grooves the needle was dropped on. However, this idea was dropped when the band discovered that the Monty Python comedy troupe had executed the very same idea three years earlier with their Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. The "third side" was later released as an EP titled Babyfingers, and the Babyfingers tracks have since been re-integrated into the Fingerprince album on the CD reissues.

The Residents followed Fingerprince with their Duck Stab/Buster & Glen album – their most easily comprehensible album up to that point. This album got the band some attention from the press (namely NME, Sounds and Melody Maker), and dropped most of their reliance upon the Theory of Obscurity.

Eskimo (1979) contained music consisting of non-musical sounds, percussion, and wordless voices. Rather than being songs in the orthodox sense, the compositions sounded like "live-action stories" without dialogue. The Residents remixed the "songs" in disco style, the results of which appeared on the EP Diskomo. Eskimo was reissued in surround sound on DVD in 2003. Eskimo's cover presents the first instance of the group wearing their signature eyeball masks and tuxedos, which would be featured in many subsequent releases, films, live appearances, and promotional materials.

Commercial Album (1980) consisted of 40 songs, each consisting of a verse and a chorus and lasting one minute.^[3] The songs pastiched the advertising jingle although the songs were not endorsements of known products or services. The liner notes state that songs should be repeated three times in a row to form a "pop song". The Residents purchased 40 one-minute advertising slots on San Francisco's most popular Top-40 radio station at the time, KFRC, such that the station played each track of their album over three days. This prompted an editorial in Billboard magazine questioning whether the act was art or advertising.

When MTV was in its infancy, The Residents' videos were in heavy rotation since they were among the few music videos available to broadcasters. The Residents' earliest videos are in the New York Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection and were eventually released together in 2001 on the Icky Flix DVD, which includes an optional audio track of remixes.

1981-1990: Performance art and concept albums[link]

The Mole Trilogy and The Mole Show (1981-83)[link]

In 1981, a trilogy of albums, starting with Mark of the Mole, was to be released.^[3] A tour ensued, and was narrated nightly by Penn Jillette. The Mole Trilogy is made up of parts I, II and IV. The performance featured The Residents performing behind a burlap screen, occasionally wearing disguises (such as their iconic eyeball masks), while dancers and actors appeared in front of painted backdrops used to help illustrate the story. Penn Jillette would come out between songs telling long intentionally pointless stories. The show was designed to appear to fall apart as it progressed: Penn pretended to grow angrier with the crowd, and lighting effects and music would become increasingly chaotic, all building up to the point where Penn was dragged off stage and returned, handcuffed to a wheelchair, to deliver his last monologue. During one performance, an audience member assaulted Penn while he was handcuffed to the wheelchair.

The 13th anniversary show (1985-86)[link]

After their Japanese distributor approached them for a two-week run in Japan, The Residents created the 13th Anniversary tour. While the musical performance was more mainstream, the stage show was another over-the-top spectacle, featuring inflatable giraffes, dancers in eye ball masks illuminating the darkened stage with work lights, and a lead vocalist who seemed to change costumes throughout the show from wearing his eyeball mask to wearing a Richard Nixon mask, and at one point wearing only a wig and fake ears. After the two-week run in Japan, the Residents took the show through the US. During the US leg of the tour the band encountered a few problems, including having the tour manager having to fan a member's keyboard because of overheating, being booked in a pool hall and having someone run on stage only to be thrown back into the audience.

Backstage at the Hollywood Palace show on December 26, 1985, one member's eyeball mask (Mr. Red Eye) was stolen, so it was replaced with a giant skull mask.^{[citation needed]} The eye was returned by a devoted fan who discovered where the thief lived and stole it back, although Homer Flynn said the person who returned the mask was most probably the thief. It was put into retirement because they said it was "unclean" and in a bad condition—a superfluous shell. After this, the lead Resident was known as Mr. Skull.^{[citation needed]}

The last show of this tour was in January 1987 at The Warfield in San Francisco, with a special appearance by Penn & Teller.^{[citation needed]}

Cube E (1989-1990)[link]

"Cube E" was a three-act performance covering the history of American music. It was a step up from previous shows, featuring more elaborate dance numbers and sets. It was also the first show composed exclusively of music written for the show. The show was almost entirely backlit, with blacklights highlighting fluorescent pieces of costumes and set.

They introduced the first part, which covered cowboy music, on German television as "Buckaroo Blues". It featured the singer and two dancers wearing giant cowboy hats around a glowing campfire. Part two was called "Black Barry" and focused on slave music and the blues. The act ended when a giant cube head rose from the back of the stage. Part three, "The Baby King," featured Elvis songs performed by an elderly Elvis impersonator for his grandchildren. The show ended with an inflated Elvis dying as a result of the British Invasion.

Other works[link]

In the late 1980s, they created the epic recording God in Three Persons, a story about the exploitation of two Siamese twins with healing powers by a male dominant force and The King & Eye, a surreal biography of Elvis Presley and the birth of rock and roll.

1991-97: Multimedia projects[link]

In the 1990s, they created Freak Show. This marked the beginning of The Residents' obsession with emerging computer technology in the 1990s.^[3] Much of the music was made with MIDI devices. Freak Show also served as the name for a CD-ROM released by the Voyager Company on January 1994^[4], shortly after Laurie Anderson's first multimedia CD-ROM experiment, Puppet Motel. Freak Show was also a stage performance by a theater company at the Archa Theater in Prague that premiered on November 1, 1995, and a comic book. Several of the songs were also performed live during the 1997 25th anniversary concerts at the Fillmore in San Francisco. After the CD-ROM's success, the album was re-released as The Freak Show Soundtrack with a different cover. A limited edition, The Freak Show Special Edition, was released in 2002 to mark their 30th anniversary.

Other multimedia projects by The Residents included The Gingerbread Man and Bad Day on the Midway.

1998-2008: Tours and storytelling projects[link]

Wormwood (1998-99)[link]

Based on Bible stories, Wormwood featured the Residents departing from pre-programmed music and again using a live band. The band wore ecclesiastical robes and performed in a brightly lit fluorescent cave. The male and female lead singers switched leads, depending on what characters they needed. Act one consisted of one-off stories about individual Bible characters. Act 2 focused on suites of songs about Bible figures such as Abraham, Moses, and King David. During a performance in Athens, Greece, Nolan Cook, their guitarist, had to leave the stage after taking a rock to the head from an audience member.

Demons Dance Alone and Animal Lover (2002-05)[link]

The Residents recorded the dramatic album Demons Dance Alone (also a tour and DVD in 2002) and Animal Lover in 2005. Singer Molly Harvey began as a Ralph employee but by the mid-90s contributed to virtually all of The Residents' many projects. The Residents' increased reliance on Harvey, essentially handing her half of the vocal duties since at least Demons Dance Alone, parallels their artistic revitalization. Nolan Cook, Carla Fabrizio, Toby Dammit, Eric Drew Feldman, and many other artists continuously worked with the band over the last five years, recording and performing live. The new artists helped to counter what Allmusic derided as a "sonic palette [confined to] factory presets from their new Macintosh audio" of the CD-ROM era.^[5]

In February 2005, The Residents toured Australia as part of the What is Music? festival, performing a two hour retrospective set titled the 33rd Anniversary Tour: The Way We Were. These shows saw a fairly minimal band; three eyeball-headed Residents (one on guitar and two laptop/sample operators), a "stage hand" performer, and a male and female vocalist in costumes reminiscent of the Wormwood Tour. Video projections and unusual flexible screens were added to the stage set, creating an unsettling ambiance. The performances on the Way We Were tour were recorded and were released on CD and DVD in 2005.

Storytelling projects (2006-09)[link]

Summer of 2006 brought the internet download project, River of Crime (Episodes 1–5). River of Crime was their first project with Warner Music Group's Cordless Label. Following the success of River of Crime, The Residents launched their weekly Timmy video project on YouTube. In 2007 they did the music for the documentary Strange Culture and also released a double instrumental album, Night of the Hunters. On the Fourth of July, 2007, the planned October release of their latest project with Mute Records, The Voice of Midnight (a music theater adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story "Der Sandmann"), was announced on their website.

On the May 21 they announced on their website that their first North America tour since Demons Dance Alone for a project titled The Bunny Boy was set to begin on October 9 in New York – later an earlier date was added for Santa Cruz. Soon, it was announced that the tour would also include Europe, starting November 13. On June 3, the Residents.com website boasted the planned release of The Bunny Boy which was released on September 1. The website had posted information in which Foxboro claimed this would be a Farewell Tour; it was later revealed that this was nothing more than a mistake by Foxboro.

November 3, 2009 saw three new releases. The Ughs! is a mostly instrumental album made up of music composed earlier in their career, which had been completely reworked for the Voice of Midnight album. Ten Little Piggies is a futurist compilation, ten songs from projects that may or may not be released in the future. Finally Is Anybody Out There is a DVD collecting all the Bunny Boy videos from the series posted on YouTube. The episodes are streamlined and not exactly the same as the originals.

2010-present: Talking Light and beyond[link]

In January 2010 the Residents began a series of tours titled Talking Light, touring North America and Europe. During the tours, which lasted until April 2011, The Residents appeared as a trio (with the explanation that the fourth member "Carlos" had grown tired of the music business and "gone home" to Mexico to care for his mother) and adapted new identities and costumes. The singer, Randy, wore an old man mask, and the other two, keyboardist Chuck and guitarist Bob, wore dread lock wigs and some kind of illuminated optical gear over their faces. The songs were stories about various characters' obsessions with ghosts, imaginary people and supernatural phenomena. One of these performances was featured as part of the edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival curated by Matt Groening in May 2010 in Minehead, England. The band released several albums related to the Talking Light concept, including the instrumental albums Dollar General and Chuck's Ghost Music, live album Bimbo's Talking Light, and studio album Lonely Teenager.

In October and November 2011, the Residents presented an early version ofSam's Enchanted Evening at The Marsh performance center in Berkeley, with the lead singer appearing as Randy Rose.^[6]. A new version of "Sam's Enchanted Evening" was subsequently performed in March 2012 at Henry Street Settlement in New York City in a production directed by Travis Chamberlain, co-starring Joshua Raoul Brody and Jibz Cameron (aka, Dynasty Handbag).

On January 10, 2012, The Residents released "Coochie Brake"; it focused on an ambient, slightly ethnic sound, with lyrics in Spanish spoken by, apparently, a new singer.

Identity[link]

Much of the speculation about the members' true identities swirls around their management team, known as "The Cryptic Corporation."^[7] Cryptic was formed as a corporation in California by Jay Clem (born 1947), Homer Flynn (born April 1945), Hardy W. Fox (born 1945), and John Kennedy in 1976, all of whom denied having been band members. (Clem and Kennedy left the Corporation in 1982, much to the chagrin of some fans.^[8]) The Residents themselves do not grant interviews, though Flynn and Fox have conducted interviews with the media.

Nolan Cook, a prominent collaborator with the group in both their live and studio work (as well as being a live member of I Am Spoonbender), denied in an interview that Fox and Flynn are the Residents, saying that he has come across such rumors, and they are completely false. However, Cook himself is considered a member of the band by some, as he is known to wear the same head coverings as the rest of the group during live shows, even wearing the trademark eyeball mask during the Wormwood tour.

William Poundstone, author of the Big Secrets books, compared voiceprints of a Flynn lecture with those of spoken word segments from the Residents discography in his book Biggest Secrets. After noting similar patterns in both, he concluded "the similarities in the spectograms second the convincing subjective impression that the voices are identical." He posited that "It is possible that the creative core of the Residents is the duo of Flynn and Fox." A subset of that belief is that Flynn is the lyricist and that Fox writes the music. In addition BMI's online database of the performance rights organization (of which the Residents and their publishing company, Pale Pachyderm Publishing (Warner-Chappell), have been members for their entire careers), lists Flynn and Fox as the composers of all original Residents songs. This includes those songs written pre-1974 (the "Residents Unincorporated" years), the year Cryptic formed.^[9]

Simon Reynolds wrote in his book Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 that "The Residents and their 'representatives' were one and the same",^[10] elaborating on one of his blogs that "this was something that anybody who had any direct dealings with Ralph figured out sooner rather than later." Reynolds quotes Helios Creed, who identifies The Residents as a keyboardist named "H", a singer named Homer, and "this other guy called John"; and Peter Principle of Tuxedomoon, who claims that "we eventually figured out that the guy doing the graphics and the engineer in the studio were in fact the Residents."^[11]

Cryptic openly admits the group's artwork is done by Flynn (among others), under various names that, put together, become Pornographics, but the pseudonym is rarely spelled the same way twice (examples: Porno Graphics, Pore No Graphix, Pore-Know Graphics); and that Fox is the "sound engineer" — meaning that he is the main producer, engineer, master, and editor of all their recordings. (Since 1976, the Residents' recordings have all listed their producer as "The Cryptic Corporation," presumably meaning Fox in particular.) Many other rumors have come and gone over the years, one being that 60s experimental band Cromagnon shared members with the band.

Most recently, the group's Facebook presence lists the members of the Residents as "Randy, Chuck and Bob." Furthermore, a synopsis for their 2012 stage production Sam's Enchanted Evening provides the name Randy Rose as that of "the Residents' lead singer." While it is clear that the Cryptic Corporation has chosen to share this information publicly, no further confirmation--nor any context as to the roles of "Chuck" and "Bob" in the group, or if these names are, indeed, the names of the group's members--appears to have been issued to date.

Discography[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Meet the Residents – America's most eccentric band!, Ian Shirley, SAF Publishing, Wembley, UK, 1998 ISBN 0-946719-12-8
• Richard Gehr (April 1986). Take a good hard look at America's preeminent underground avant-pop ensemble — you might like what you see. Spin Magazine. p. 59. http://books.google.com/books?id=xdLsQBjl0-IC&pg=PA59&dq=spin+magazine+1986+take+a+good+hard+look&hl=en&ei=9PWLTObxDo30swO-nbymBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 2010-09-11. 

External links[link]

• The Residents Official Historical Site
• Official MySpace page
• Official YouTube page
• Residents Lovers Forum
• The Moles present The Residents

James Caan
Caan in Cannes, 2000
Born	James E. Caan[1][2] (1940-03-26) March 26, 1940 (age 72) The Bronx, New York City, U.S.
Nationality	American
Other names	Jimmy Caan Jimmy Cahn
Education	Rhodes Preparatory School
Alma mater	Michigan State University Hofstra University
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1961–present
Spouse	Dee Jay Mattis (1960–1966; divorced; 1 child) Sheila Ryan (1976–1977; divorced; 1 child) (Scott Caan) Ingrid Hajek (1990–1995; divorced; 1 child) Linda Stokes (1995–2009; 2 children; filed for divorce)

James E. Caan (born March 26, 1940) is an American actor. He is best known for his starring roles in The Godfather, Thief, Misery, A Bridge Too Far, Brian's Song, Rollerball, Kiss Me Goodbye, Elf, and El Dorado. He also starred as "Big Ed" Deline in the television series Las Vegas.

Early life[link]

Caan was born in The Bronx, New York City, the son of Sophie (née Falkenstein) and Arthur Caan, Jewish immigrants from Germany.^[3] His father was a meat dealer and butcher.^[4][5] Caan had a sister, Barbara, and has a brother, Ronald.^[6][7] He grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, New York City.^[3] He was educated at P.S. 150 40-01 43rd Avenue School in Queens, at the private Rhodes Preparatory School, also in New York City, and then attended Michigan State University. He later transferred to Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, but did not graduate. While studying at Hofstra University, however, he became intrigued by acting and was interviewed for, accepted to, and graduated from, New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. There, one of his instructors was Sanford Meisner.^[5]

Acting career[link]

Early credits[link]

Caan began his acting career in television on such series as The Untouchables, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Kraft Suspense Theatre, Combat!, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Wide Country, Alcoa Premiere, Route 66, and Naked City. In 1964, he starred as Jewish athlete Jeff Brubaker in the episode "My Son, the All-American" of Channing, a drama about college life.

His first substantial film role was as a punk hoodlum in the 1964 thriller Lady in a Cage, which starred Olivia de Havilland.^[5] In 1965, he landed his first starring role, in Howard Hawks' auto-racing drama Red Line 7000. In 1966, Caan appeared as Alan Badillion Trahern, aka Mississippi, in El Dorado, with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. He had a starring role in Robert Altman's second feature film, Countdown, in 1968. In 1969, his appearance on the spy sitcom Get Smart was uncredited, billed as "Rupert of Rathskeller as Himself"; in that same year he won praise for his role as a brain-damaged football player in The Rain People (1969) directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

1970 to 1982[link]

In 1971, Caan won more acclaim, as dying football player Brian Piccolo, opposite Billy Dee Williams, in the television movie Brian's Song,^[5] which was later released theatrically.

The following year, Caan's career evolved to superstardom^{[citation needed]} when Coppola cast him as the short-tempered Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. Originally, Caan was cast as Michael Corleone (Sonny's youngest brother); both Coppola and Caan demanded that this role be played by Al Pacino, so Caan could play Sonny instead. Although another actor was already signed to play Sonny,^{[citation needed]} the studio insisted on having Caan, so he remained in the production. Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film, competing with co-stars Pacino and Robert Duvall.^[5] It can be said^{[citation needed]} that out of The Godfather cast, Caan was the most identified with his role, often mistaken for Italian despite his Jewish heritage, and he remarked “They called me a wiseguy. I won Italian of the Year twice in New York, and I’m not Italian.... I was denied in a country club once. Oh yeah, the guy sat in front of the board, and he says, ‘No, no, he’s a wiseguy, been downtown. He’s a made guy.’ I thought, What? Are you out of your mind?”^[8]

From 1971 to 1982, Caan appeared in many films, playing a wide variety of roles. His films included T.R. Baskin, Cinderella Liberty, Freebie and the Bean, The Godfather Part II, Rollerball, a musical turn in Funny Lady, Harry And Walter Go To New York, A Bridge Too Far, Comes A Horseman, and Neil Simon's autobiographical Chapter Two. In 1980, Caan directed Hide in Plain Sight, a film about a father searching for his children, who were lost in the Witness Protection Program.^[5] Despite critical praise, the film was not a hit with the public. The following year, Caan appeared in the neo-noir movie Thief, directed by Michael Mann, in which he played a professional safe cracker.^[5] Caan has often said it is the role of which he is proudest next to The Godfather.^{[citation needed]}

Caan rejected a series of starring roles which proved to be successes for other actors, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Kramer vs. Kramer, Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner, and Superman.^[9]

1982 to the present[link]

From 1982 to 1987, Caan suffered from depression over his sister's death, a growing problem with cocaine, and what he described as "Hollywood burnout,"^{[citation needed]} and did not act in any films.^[5] He returned to acting in 1987, when Coppola cast him as an army platoon sergeant for the "Old Guard" in Gardens of Stone, a film that dealt with the effect of the Vietnam War on the United States homefront. In 1988 and 1990, Caan starred in the films Alien Nation, Dick Tracy, and Misery, a hit film that marked a comeback for Caan.^[5] Since the script for Misery called for Caan's character, Paul Sheldon, to spend most of his time lying in bed, the role was turned down by many of Hollywood's leading actors before Caan accepted.

In 1992, Caan appeared in Honeymoon in Vegas, and in 1993, he played Coach Winters in The Program, alongside Halle Berry. In 1996, he appeared in Bottle Rocket, and with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser, and later starred as kingpin Frank Colton in Bulletproof with Adam Sandler and Damon Wayans. In 1998, Caan portrayed Philip Marlowe in the HBO film Poodle Springs. Some of his more recent appearances have been in Mickey Blue Eyes (1999), The Way of the Gun (2000), The Yards (2000),^[5] City of Ghosts (2002), Night at the Golden Eagle (2002), Dogville (2003), and Elf (2003).

In 2003, Caan auditioned for and won the role of Montecito Hotel/Casino president "Big Ed" Deline in Las Vegas. On February 27, 2007, Caan announced that he would not return to the show for its fifth season in order to return to film work; he was replaced by Tom Selleck.

Caan played the President of the United States in the 2008 film Get Smart, and had a part in the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs as the voice of the father of the lead character, Flint. In 2012, Caan was a guest-star on the re-imagined Hawaii Five-0, playing opposite his son, Scott Caan. As of 2010 Caan is Chairman of an Internet company, Openfilm, intended to help upcoming filmmakers.^[10]

Other work[link]

Caan at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival

Caan is a practicing martial artist. He has trained with Takayuki Kubota for nearly thirty years, earning various ranks.^[11] He is a Master (Rank = 6 Dan) of Gosoku Ryu Karate and was granted the title of Soke Dai by the International Karate Association. Caan trained the Culver City Police Department in martial arts use.^[3]

Caan is an avid golfer with an 8 handicap. He is acting assistant golf coach to PGA professional and good friend Greg Osbourne at Glendale Community College in Southern California. He played in the LPGA pro-am event in Aventura, Florida on April 23–25, 2008.

Caan also rode in the professional rodeo circuit for nine years.

Personal life[link]

Caan has been married four times. In 1960 he married Dee Jay Mathis; they divorced in 1966. They had a daughter, Tara A. Caan, born on November 5, 1964. Caan's second marriage to Sheila Ryan (a former girlfriend of Elvis Presley) in 1976 was short-lived; they divorced the following year. Their son, Scott Caan, who also is an actor, was born August 23, 1976.

Caan was married to Ingrid Hajek from September 1990 to March 1995; they had a son, Alexander James Caan, born on April 10, 1991. He married the widow of alleged murdered Aspen Drug kingpin Steven Grabow^[12], Linda Stokes in October 1996; they have two sons, James Arthur Caan (born November 6, 1995) and Jacob Nicholas Caan (born September 24, 1998). Caan filed for divorce on November 20, 2009, citing irreconcilable differences.

Filmography[link]