Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman

Rafael Palmeiro, a finger-wagging symbol of baseball’s steroids era, wants to be left alone.

But after Mississippi State announced this summer that Palmeiro was going to be inducted into its Hall of Fame, I thought he might want to discuss what he’s learned about himself and how the steroids scandal that ended his 20-year career three years ago has affected his life.

So I decided to find him. Palmeiro, though, doesn’t want to talk.

"Rafael knows you’re looking for him,” his wife Lynne said the other day. "I’ll tell him I spoke to you. I don’t know if he’ll call you.”

He didn’t.

For the record, Palmeiro, 44, never officially retired; he just

PLANO, Texas — Nastia Liukin was recently dining in Los Angeles. The producers of the CW drama Gossip Girl happened to be at the same restaurant. They’d heard, maybe during her radio interview with Ryan Seacrest, that she loves their show.

They passed her a note that night. Soon after, they contacted her management about making an appearance.

This stuff happens to Liukin now. You get perks when you’re the Olympic gymnastics all-around champion and an Olympic medalist five times over. She belongs in this realm.

"It’s very, very, very cool,” said Valeri Liukin, her father and coach. "To see Nastia become a superstar and watch her, I cannot believe this is real. She’s just riding the

EDMOND — University of Central Oklahoma graduate Marcy Priest will perform songs from her debut CD at the UCO Jazz Lab.

The concert will begin at 8 p.m. Oct. 21. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $7. The Jazz Lab seats about 200 people.

Priest, 29, graduated from UCO with a degree in business promotions management and a minor in music. She will perform songs from her CD, "Awake,” and cover songs.

"I hope that they take away a lot of honesty and openness and a connection with the words and the music,” Priest said. "I want it to be a reflection of the gift that I have been given.”

"Awake” consists of seven tracks with a rock-pop theme. The CD kicks off with "Never

Ratings are by Gene Triplett, Brandy McDonnell, George Lang and Matthew Price. Ratings are based on a four-star system: 1 star (poor), 2 stars (fair), 3 stars (should see), 4 stars (must see).

New releases "Billy: The Early Years” PG

1:29

—

Not screened for press.

"Body of Lies” R

2:08

See review

"City of Ember” PG

1:35

See review

"The Duchess” PG-13

1:45

See review

"The Express” PG

2:09

See review

"Quarantine” R

1:29

—

Not screened for press.

NEW YORK - It seems like the inevitable comedic summit of this fall's presidential campaign: the real Sarah Palin coming on "Saturday Night Live" to meet her look-alike impersonator, Tina Fey. "All in good time," said a cagey Lorne Michaels, longtime executive producer of NBC's "Saturday Night Live," which has been rejuvenated this fall by Fey's three skits as the Republican vice presidential candidate. Michaels said on Wednesday he wasn't actively seeking Palin, but that the McCain campaign called after the first skit, when Fey's Palin appeared with Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton on the show's Sept. 13 season premiere, to say they enjoyed it. "Saturday Night Live" has a long history of political walk-ons.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Robby Benson knows how it sounds. But his reason for making a movie about the life of a young Billy Graham, the director said, is simple: "I wanted to make a movie about goodness.”

"Billy: The Early Years” focuses on Graham’s life as a teenager growing up on a dairy farm in Charlotte through his years as a young man, when he became a super-evangelist, drawing hundreds of thousands of people to his preaching tour "crusades.”

"It’s just a love story to Billy,” Benson said. "And it’s also a love story to trying to do the right thing, just trying your best to be decent and not hurt others and add to the planet.

Oklahoma is getting its own school of rock. The University of Central Oklahoma will open the first authorized U.S. version of Britain’s prestigious Academy of Contemporary Music on the fourth floor of Bricktown’s Oklahoma Hardware Building in the fall of 2009.

Scott Booker, manager of the internationally known Oklahoma City-based alternative rock band the Flaming Lips, will serve as the school’s executive director.

"This is perhaps as creative and exciting a venture as I’ve ever been involved with in my experience in higher ed,” said UCO President W. Roger Webb.

Area libraries are celebrating Teen Read Week.

Events and their locations include:

Moore Public Library, 225 S Howard

• 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 16 — Video games.

• 6:30 p.m. Oct. 31 — Teen movie night.

Noble Public Library, 204 N Fifth

• 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. today and Oct. 23 — Afternoon movies for teens.

• 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday — Video game playing.

• 4 to 7 p.m. Oct. 29 — Dungeons and Dragons.

• 4 to 6 p.m. Oct. 31 — Halloween zombie makeover.

Newcastle Public Library, 705 NW 10th St.

• 3 to 5 p.m. Wednesday and Oct. 22 and 29 — Video games.

NEW YORK (AP) - Yet another band is complaining about John McCain's use of their song to promote his campaign. This time, it's the Foo Fighters.

The rockers sent out a missive telling the Republican presidential candidate to stop using "My Hero." They said they learned it was being use through news reports.

"The saddest thing about this is that 'My Hero' was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential," the band said in a statement. "To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song."

The band noted it's not the first time McCain has been told to stop using a song.

TRAVEL

From Travel+Leisure online:

1. American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore.

2. Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Va.

3. Disneyland, Anaheim, Calif.

4. Ellis Island, New York.

5. Grand Canyon, Arizona.

6. Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles.

7. Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, Calif.

8. Muir Woods, Marin County, Calif.

9. Niagara Falls, New York and Ontario.

10. Sears Tower, Chicago.

As I wrote in my Sunday column, record labels are adding to the list of album releases for the holiday shopping season.

The latest country music star added: Ada native and Tishomingo resident Blake Shelton. Warner Bros. Records has announced Shelton will release his fifth album, "Startin’ Fires,” on Nov. 18.

"I’d like for this album to start some musical fires in some new fans and maybe fan the flames for loyal fans who have been with me for a while,” Shelton said in a news release.

The album was set to come out in early 2009, but the label decided to move up the release because of enthusiastic response to the first single, "She Wouldn’t Be Gone,” an ode to lost love

Jada Pinkett Smith has signed on to star in a pilot for TNT called "Time Heals.” She’ll also be an executive producer of the project.

The drama centers on Nancy Hawthorne (Pinkett Smith), the director of nursing at a hospital in Charlotte, N.C., and a single mother who puts the needs of others before her own.

Six shows a day for two weeks — that was Kyle Dillingham’s life during the Oklahoma State Fair, when he led Horseshoe Road through a punishing series of three sets a day and alternated those gigs with solo fiddle gigs just across the midway.

A rendition of the Russian gypsy song "Ochi Chyornye” notwithstanding, fairgoers could be forgiven for thinking that Dillingham is strictly a Western swing and bluegrass player. But this Thursday, people who have followed Dillingham for years or those who just discovered him at the fair can see and hear a new facet of his eclectic ability.

Dillingham will serve as host of "A Night of Gypsy Jazz” on Thursday with guitarists Stephane Wrembel and Ila Cantor.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Between starring in the stranded-on-an-island TV drama "Lost” and the divergent assassination films "Smokin’ Aces” and "Vantage Point,” Matthew Fox relished the idea of making a family movie.

But bringing Larry and Andy Wachowski’s take on the 1960s anime series "Speed Racer” to the big screen turned out to be an intense ride.

Fox’s character, the mysterious Racer X, must pilot a heavily armed race car along loopy, roller coaster-style tracks and take on ninjas in fierce martial arts fights with equal aplomb. All while wearing a black leather suit, complete with hood and goggles.

Yidumduma Bill Harney, elder and senior Custodian of the Wardaman people of the North Territory of Australia, will join Australian storyteller and musician Paul Taylor in a performance at Edmond Library.

Aboriginal Australia — Stories, Music, & Images will be 7 to 8 p.m. at the library, 10 S Boulevard.

"I’ll die with a brush in my hand,” Oklahoma City artist Bert Seabourn said. The 77-year-old painter has been a full-time artist since he quit his job at Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. 30 years ago.

He calls his style American expressionism, and to him, painting is as natural as eating or breathing. This week, one of Seabourn’s most iconic creations, not a painting but a 23-foot-tall sculpture that has stood in Oklahoma City since 1986, will formally be dedicated outside the state attorney general’s office, 313 NE 21.

"Wind Walker” is a bronze-cast statue that depicts a red-tailed hawk and the face of a medicine man.

State Fair Park site of RV show The Central Oklahoma RV Dealers Association’s annual Free Fall RV Show and Closeout Sale is set Thursday through Sunday at State Fair Park, NW 10 and May. Hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Hundreds of recreational vehicles will be displayed in the Travel & Transportation Building, Centennial Building and Cox Pavilion. Admission is free. For more information, go online to www.rvshowokc.com.