The Last Days of Dead Celebrities - Despite his book’s coarse title, journalist Fink (Never Forget: An Oral History of September 11, 2001) treats his subjects with considerable grace in this intriguing collection accounting for a handful of celebrities’ final days. Fink covers his subjects chronologically-beginning with the 1980 death of John Lennon-and occasionally references how the death of one personality affected another (as in the case of a mournful Yoko Ono). A veteran journalist for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, People magazine and the New York Daily News, Fink avoids the tabloid treatment and goes out of his way to attribute his quotes and gather background information from those who were there. The diversity of his choices gives weight to the book as well; larger-than-life personalities such as John Lennon and John Belushi commingle with football player Lyle Alzado, news correspondent David Bloom and musician Warren Zevon. Some, like legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg, had premonitions of their deaths, while others, like Belushi, were taken by surprise and all too soon. The result is a thoughtful and sobering account of how our culture views and treats celebrities, as well as a poignant look at some very public people’s most private moments.

Morbid. But fantastic.

Tom Hanks spoke out about the boycott of the movie The Da Vinci Code:

But Oscar-winner Hanks said objectors to The Da Vinci Code are taking the film too seriously, telling the Evening Standard: “We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown.

“But the story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense.

“If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you’d be making a very big mistake.

“It’s a damn good story and a lot of fun… all it is is dialogue. That never hurts.”

It’s a fictional story - - not like it’s been hawked around as a factual documentary, or anything. Dan Brown (the author of the book) is no Michael Moore in that regard. But the book, and now the movie, has Chrisitans all up in arms about how it’s ‘attacking the Catholic Church’ and filled with lies and untruths.

Untruths?? How dare they say that about a FICTIONAL piece of work! Pfft.

The call for the boycott is being led by Archbishop Angelo Amato and describeds the book/movie as “stridently anti-Christian” and called for believers to “reject the lies and gratuitous defamation” in the book. He added: “If such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran and Holocaust they would have justly provoked a world uprising. Instead, if they are directed against the church and Christians, they remain unpunished. I hope you will boycott the film.”

A more reasonable Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, head of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales, told the Jonathan Dimbleby programme on ITV1 on Sunday: “I think it’s a harmless thriller. If people want to read it they can and people who read it should realise it is fiction.”

That’s more like it.

In a fictional book - I can say that the sun is purple, the moon is made of cheese, the oceans are filled with chocolate and George Clooney kissed me on my doorstep before I turned to walk into my gingerbread house.

Realize it is fiction