Pubdate: Mon, 29 Jul 2002
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2002 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://www.captimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73
Author: Doug Moe
Note : Relevant info in paragraph 7

COLUMN: VERONA NATIVE UP FOR EMMY

A DECADE ago, when Verona native Jamie King was 20 years old and just 
making an international name for himself as a dancer with Michael Jackson's 
"Dangerous" tour in Europe, Jamie's mother, Barb Watts, and her husband, 
Dave Watts, threw a party in Madison to celebrate HBO's airing of a Jackson 
tour stop in Bucharest, Romania.

What Barb hadn't anticipated was that Jamie himself would make the party - 
he flew home to Madison because illness forced Jackson to cancel the last 
week of his tour.

Now maybe Barb should plan a party for the 54th Annual Primetime Emmy 
Awards, which will be held in September. That's because Jamie, whose star 
keeps ascending, was just nominated for an Emmy for choreography for his 
work on the HBO special "Madonna Live: The Drowned World Tour."

The concert was broadcast live last Aug. 26 from the Palace of Auburn Hills 
near Detroit.

King studied dance at the West Side Performing Arts Studio in Madison and 
eventually earned a scholarship to the Tremaine/Sleight Dance Studio in Los 
Angeles. Now there is hardly a big show business name he hasn't worked 
with, from Madonna and Jackson to Prince and Britney Spears. Yet another 
credit: King choreographed the 1996 Academy Awards presentation.

Proud mom Barb Watts said Sunday that Jamie will work with Madonna again in 
August - this time on a video that will be released in conjunction with the 
new James Bond movie. ...

WHAT'S THIS? Madison medical marijuana advocate Gary Storck getting an 
autograph from longtime Ronald Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger? Yes. It happened 
last week in Washington, D.C. Storck had traveled to the capital in support 
of Barney Frank's bill known as the "States' Right to Medical Marijuana 
Act." At a news conference designed to encourage Congress to pass the bill, 
Storck - who suffers from glaucoma and chronic pain - was one of two 
patients who talked about how marijuana helps ease their suffering. It was 
at the news conference that Storck asked Nofziger to sign his copy of 
Robert Randall's book, "Marijuana Rx: The Patients Fight for Medicinal 
Pot." Storck explained later that Nofziger wrote the book's foreword, 
having undergone a sea change on the medical pot issue after his daughter 
underwent cancer chemotherapy. "I have become an avid supporter of efforts 
to legalize marijuana's use for medicinal purposes," Nofziger said at the 
event. Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Madison is a co-sponsor of Frank's bill. ...

Mustard mavens Barry and Patti Levenson will host their 12th annual 
"National Mustard Day" celebration Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at their 
Mount Horeb Mustard Museum. It will include entertainment, free hot dogs 
and even mustard ice cream - Raspberry Honey Mustard Ripple from UW's 
Babcock Dairy. ... Madison author Lorrie Moore's Christmas tale "The 
Forgotten Helper" will get a new paperback release in September from 
Yearling Books. Written in the 1980s, "Helper" was published in hardcover 
by Delacorte in October 2000 and tells the story of Santa's best but 
crabbiest toymaker, who one Christmas night sneaks down a chimney and gets 
left behind. ...

An aspiring Minneapolis documentary filmmaker, Amy Thompson, has set her 
sights on Alex Jordan, the late creator of the House on the Rock. She's 
trying to set up interviews with people who knew Jordan. ...

MOE KNOWS: The Chicago Tribune is the latest big media outlet to run a 
lengthy story on the shaming of politics in Wisconsin. (As Common Cause 
Director Jay Heck pointed out during the weekend, you know you're in 
trouble when your dirty politics raises eyebrows in Chicago.) Former Govs. 
Tony Earl and Gaylord Nelson were among those quoted in the Tribune piece.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom