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Michael Alig, the New York City club promoter who in the early- to mid-1990s made a name for himself as the leader of the “Club Kids,” and was subsequently convicted of first-degree manslaughter for the 1996 death of Andre “Angel” Melendez — the inspiration for the 2003 film “Party Monster” starring Macauley Culkin — has died of an apparent heroin overdose. He was 54. The New York Daily News reported that Alig was found in his Manhattan apartment on Christmas Day. His death is believed to have occurred on Dec. 24. Alig’s story, from wide-eyed Indiana teenager to notorious downtown...

Brussels said that it is “increasingly likely” that the UK will crash out of the EU without a deal, as it insisted the bloc was ready for a hard Brexit that would require everything from customs checks to quizzing British travellers at the border. EU officials said that European companies were telling Brussels that they would prefer a no-deal outcome soon to prolonged uncertainty about whether there will be a managed exit. “They were telling us ‘we want certainty, and if it has to happen so be it’,” one official said. A no-deal Brexit would involve the immediate imposition of...

Check out this VIDEO of Ali G interviewing C. Everett Koop. Koop seems to have NO sense of humor.

top Kazakh official has an invitation for the British comedian whose depiction of a homophobic, misogynistic, English-mangling Kazakh journalist has outraged the Central Asian nation: Come visit. Deputy Foreign Minister Rakhat Aliyev said in an interview that he understands why Kazakhs are unhappy about Sacha Baron Cohen's character, Borat. "I'd like to invite Cohen here," he said. "He can discover a lot of things. Women drive cars, wine is made of grapes, and Jews are free to go to synagogues." Though to some Cohen's antics are potentially more insulting to Americans, Kazakhs have long seethed at his popularity and his...

"Borat"Sacha Baron Cohen, creator of satirical Ali G character known to many, comes under ADL scrutiny. ADL fears many may not grasp 'farcical' nature of Cohen's anti-Semitic character 'Borat,' claiming it may serve to reinforce bigoted beliefs of some Popular entertainer Sacha Baron Cohen, more widely known as Ali G., has entertained audiences with his bombastic, push-the-envelope humor. However, his upcoming film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan based on one of his characters, Borat, has the Anti-Defamation League worried. Borat is a parody of an outlandish anti-semite in a series of laughably inappropriate...

by Mark Finkelstein September 30, 2006 - 08:31 If torturing analogies were a war crime, Maureen Dowd might soon find herself in the defendant's dock at the Hague. In her subscription-required New York Times column of this morning, Dowd desperately seeks to associate herself with Sacha Baron Cohen, the brilliant British comic who yesterday took DC by storm. First in his HBO series 'Ali G' and now on the big screen, Cohen has brought to life 'Borat,' his racist, anti-Semitic, misoygynistic, sex-mad alter ego from Kazakhstan. Borat's MO is to lure unsuspecting people into his bigotry, as when in an...

Borat, a fictional Kazakh TV reporter whose boorish antics have got under the skin of the Central Asian state's government, seems destined to remain largely unknown in his "homeland." Kazakhstan's largest chain of cinemas confirmed on Friday it had no plans to screen his forthcoming movie with its deliberately ungainly title "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." "We consider this movie offensive, a complete lie and nonsense," Ruslan Sultanov, distribution manager for Otau Cinema, told Reuters. "It's a shame that some Americans will probably believe what they see there." In the movie, Borat Sagdiyev,...

White House gates shut to 'Kazakh reporter' comic Fri Sep 29, 2006 8:46am ET Borat goes to Washington:PLAY VIDEOBy Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Borat, the fictional TV reporter from Kazakhstan, may have gotten under the skin of Kazakh officials but on Thursday he couldn't get past the gates of the White House. Secret Service agents turned away British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the boorish, anti-Semitic journalist, when he tried to invite "Premier George Walter Bush" to a screening of his upcoming movie, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Also invited...

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- There are plenty of odd things about Kazakhstan, but making women ride on the outside of a bus and drinking fermented horse urine are not among them. These are both inventions of Borat Sagdiyev, a racist, sexist, boorish, and, crucially, fictional Kazakh television reporter dreamed up by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as a satirical device to skewer his real-life interviewees. The problem for the real Kazakhstan is that Borat's fake Kazakhstan is threatening to become better known in the West. Now the two nations are meeting. Real-life Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flies to the United States...

"The President of Kazakhstan is so enraged with the racist view of his country portrayed by the comic character Borat in a new film that his government is to pay for educational advertisements ahead of Nursultan Nazarbayev's trip to America this month. In Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Ali G, brings to the big screen the character who depicts Kazakhs as anti-Semitic, primitive, dirt-poor Communists. "

US President George Bush is to host White House talks on British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen, 35, creator of Ali G, has infuriated the Kazakhstan government with his portrayal of Borat, a bumbling Kazakh TV presenter. And now a movie of Borat's adventures in the US has caused a diplomatic incident. The opening scene, which shows Borat lustily kissing his sister goodbye and setting off for America in a car pulled by a horse, had audiences in stitches when it was first shown last week. But the film, which has just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, has prompted...

THERE’S NOTHING I like more than a Jewish joke. It’s the anti-Jewish ones I’m not so keen on. Wandering through the streets of Edinburgh during the world’s largest arts festival, you never know what sight or sound you will be bombarded with next. Half-naked men on 6ft stilts meander by, half-naked girls rush to sell you their show, troops of Japanese acrobats tumble past. But I wasn’t prepared for the verbal assault I got when I wandered into a comedy gig this week. There have always been anti- Semitic jokes. But you know times are changing when you go along...

JAGSHEMASH, America! Sacha Baron Cohen, the Cambridge-educated comedian who gave the world Ali G, the idiotic, tracksuited rapper from the West Staines Massive, is about to test America’s sense of humour to the limit. Baron Cohen has finished shooting his new film, which centres on a crazed journey across America in an ice-cream van by his moustachioed character Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional Kazakh television reporter with the meaningless catchphrase. While some of the film is scripted, much of it sees Baron Cohen, 34, mercilessly baiting luckless Americans who fail to twig that he and his film crew are actors. Insiders...

Sacha Baron Cohen - star of HBO’s hit comedy “Da Ali G Show,” takes his outrageous Kazakstani reporter character Borat to the big screen. In this hilariously offensive movie, Borat travels from his primitive home in Kazakhstan to the U.S. to make a documentary. On his cross-country road-trip, Borat meets real people in real situations. Trailer (1:33) Comedy Rating: R In Theatres: November 3rd, 2006 Larry Charles (dir.) Sacha Baron Cohen Click here to view trailer

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) Kazakhstan needs to chill out and leave Borat alone, an international media watchdog group says. Reporters Without Borders is criticizing Kazakhstan for going too far in its war over the words of British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, best known in the U.S. as the title character of the satirical "Da Ali G Show." The leaders of the Central Asian ex-Soviet nation, fuming over Cohen's brutally satirical portrayal of an ignorant Kazakh journalist, pulled the plug this week on his Web-site use of a Kazakh Internet domain name. That move led the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders to issue...

The authorities in Kazakhstan, angered by a British comedian's satirical portrayal of a boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter, have pulled the plug on his alter ego's Web site. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat in his "Da Ali G Show" and last month he used the character's Web site www.borat.kz to respond sarcastically to legal threats from the Central Asian state's Foreign Ministry. A government-appointed organization regulating Web sites that end in the .kz domain name for Kazakhstan confirmed on Tuesday it had suspended Cohen's site. "We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the .kz domain name,"...

ALMATY (Reuters) - The authorities in Kazakhstan, angered by a British comedian's satirical portrayal of a boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter, have pulled the plug on his alter ego's Web site. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat in his "Da Ali G Show" and last month he used the character's Web site www.borat.kz to respond sarcastically to legal threats from the Central Asian state's Foreign Ministry. A government-appointed organization regulating Web sites that end in the .kz domain name for Kazakhstan confirmed on Tuesday it had suspended Cohen's site. "We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the...

ALMATY (Reuters) - The authorities in Kazakhstan, angered by a British comedian's satirical portrayal of a boorish, sexist and racist Kazakh television reporter, have pulled the plug on his alter ego's Web site. Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat in his "Da Ali G Show" and last month he used the character's Web site www.borat.kz to respond sarcastically to legal threats from the Central Asian state's Foreign Ministry. A government-appointed organization regulating Web sites that end in the .kz domain name for Kazakhstan confirmed on Tuesday it had suspended Cohen's site. "We've done this so he can't badmouth Kazakhstan under the...

NEW YORK As if responding to the escalating battle with famed TV personality Borat Sagdiyev, a character on HBO's "Da Ali G Show," the Kazakhstan government today published a four-page advertising section in The New York Times. The section, titled, "Kazakhstan in the 21st Century," carried testimonials to its oil production, its democracy, education system, and purported "power and influence" of women. The feud has been simmering for the past year, after Borat and his frank depictions of life in his homeland (where, he claims, gypsies are still hunted for sport and women rank somewhere below farm animals in the...

A Jewish British comedian who plays a boorish Kazakh character on television has satirically welcomed a legal threat from Almaty. Responding as his television personality "Borat Sagdiyev," Sacha Baron Cohen said today that he "fully supports my government's position to sue this Jew."