The Ocean is Love, Dead & Co. Perform Live for Oceana, SeaWorld F*cks up again, 54 Stingrays Dead because of Tank Malfunction, Nasty Nets,New Zealand dolphins. Dolphin Outlook, A Whale of A Week, Shamu's Story, AAA, Icelandic Whaling Company Kills Endangered Blue Whale, 55 Maui’s Dolphins Left & Japan Wants to Lift the Global Ban on Commercial Whaling
John Mayer, Dead & Company Play Charity Concert to Benefit Ocean Conservation
Oceana's Rock Under the Stars event raised $1.1 million for marine health.
Dead & Company helped keep the oceans alive with a rare private performance on Sunday night for Hollywood’s biggest Deadheads.
The band — comprised of former Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir, plus Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and John Mayer — performed nine songs for an intimate 200-person charity concert at a private residence in the Hollywood Hills.
Rock Under the Stars benefited Oceana, an international advocacy organization for ocean conservation, by raising $1.1 million through donations and ticket sales that ranged from $2,500 to $50,000. Though not in attendance, Seth MacFarlane donated $250,000.
Just one day after the Dead’s bash at Dodger Stadium, the group performed "Samson & Delilah" and "When I Paint My Masterpiece" for such guests as director Eli Roth, executive Tony Thomopulos, chef Vinny Dotolo, actor Ed Begley Jr., producer Roger Birnbaum, actress Kelly Lynch, actor Jeff Goldblum and actor Dean Norris. Other benefactors include CBS, actor Ted Danson and his actress wife Mary Steenburgen, with patrons Cheryl and Haim Saban.
Industry Entertainment founder Keith Addis hosted the concert at his home with Kari Selig, telling the crowd he was only able to book Dead & Company thanks to their manager Bernie Cahill.
Addis tells The Hollywood Reporter he grew up in Southern California when the Grateful Dead was "in the air." He attended college from 1968 to 1972 and went to concerts in New York every weekend. Now he's honored to have Dead & Company at the third summer Rock Under the Stars event, where previous acts have included Sting in 2016 and Don Henley last year.
Addis says he began his work in ocean conservation "for all the wrong reasons," trying to impress Danson, his client: "I got involved only because I wanted to be closer to an important new client. But I very quickly got excited about the work and the enormous difficulty of this work appealed to me, and we've been doing it together for 25 years."
Addis and Oceana CEO Andrew Sharpless add that current threats to the oceans include plastic pollution, EPA leaders under the Trump administration, Congress working to weaken key environmental legislation like the Endangered Species Act and even the latest heat wave, which is indicative of climate change.
"This may be the most important time ever for us to do this work," Addis tells THR. "Here we are in the trenches, like we were fighting against the war in Vietnam, fighting for civil rights, trying to get rid of Richard Nixon. Here we are again. And all that was happening when I first discovered the Grateful Dead."
Adds Addis, "This is the first fundraiser like this they've ever done, because they care about these issues, and it's an amazing thing they did this."
The backyard, lined with gray carpet and black couches, featured a stage with a tie-dye backdrop tucked between the trees and overlooking the bright lights of Hollywood Boulevard below.
Attendees were served Stillhouse libations as well as tie-dye paper bags with popcorn, brownies and gummy bears as a nod to the Dead’s '70s culture.
Dead & Company performed without speaking to the crowd, opening with the classic “Dark Star” and moving from one song to the next. Mayer’s vocals were featured prominently on “Brown-Eyed Woman” and “Touch of Grey,” mainly joining Weir during choruses. And as with any rock concert, guests left the house party with memorabilia: a Grateful Dead-style black band T-shirt marking the Oceana concert on the hot July evening.
Alex J. Berliner/ABImages
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Here's What Really Happened to Shamu. A lot of us grew up loving Shamu, but here's the story that SeaWorld doesn't want you to know about its most famous orca(s). Click here to help!
AAA Needs to Stop Promoting SeaWorld NOW. Dozens of companies have cut ties with the sinking ship that is SeaWorld since the release of the documentary Blackfish. But despite knowing that the abusement park exploits orcas and other animals, AAA is still promoting it to its members.
Help the animals languishing at SeaWorld’s parks, and urge AAA to end its relationship with the company NOW. Then, take the following actions:
- Share this image on social media. Let your friends and family know that AAA supports animal abuse.
- Reach out to AAA’s customer service departments on Twitter. Ask them why they’re supporting a company that confines orcas to tiny tanks.
- Contact AAA on Facebook. Let the company know that supporting SeaWorld means supporting orca confinement, exploitation, and abuse.
Icelandic Whaling Company Just Illegally Slaughtered an Endangered Blue Whale
The practice of butchering majestic whales is something we often think of as a tragic part of our history, and yet it still happens around the world today. Sea Shepherd volunteers monitoring the Hvalur hf whaling station in Hvalfjordur, Iceland have documented the slaughter of an endangered Blue whale. This is the 22nd endangered whale killed and butchered for export to Japan by Kristján Loftsson’s commercial whaling company since only June 20th.
The previous 21 whales killed by Loftsson were endangered Fin whales. And despite an international moratorium on whaling and the endangered status of these whales, the Icelandic government permitted Loftsson to slaughter them!
Here is this poor animal being prepared to be butchered.
Loftsson’s whaling station crew posed for photos, clearly aware that this was a rare Blue whale they had just killed. Dr. Phillip Clapham of NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Centre said, “From the photos, it has all the characteristics of a blue whale; given that — notably the coloration pattern — there is almost no possibility that an experienced observer would have misidentified it as anything else at sea.”
How can these people just stand around so nonchalantly after butchering a defenseless whale?
Here is the whale once this despicable company butchered it in preparation for transporting. The meat, skin, blubber, and bone will now be mixed in with the Fin whales previously caught, making it virtually impossible to locate during inspections by the authorities.
No legal authority in the world allows the slaughter of endangered blue whales. No other nation in the world, not even Japan and Norway, who are notorious for allowing the slaughter of Fin whales, has permitted the killing of a Blue whale. And in an even more barbaric act, this whaling company is now responsible for the first harpooning of a whale in fifty years.
Loftsson still continues to act as though he is outside of the law. Sea Shepherd Founder Captain Paul Watson is appealing to Icelandic authorities to halt Kristján Loftsson’s practices. He said, “This man must be stopped from ruthlessly violating international conservation law and bringing such disrepute to the nation of Iceland. There can be no legal justification for this crime.”
Sea Shepherd is an international non-profit dedicated to defending wildlife and conserving and protecting the world’s oceans from exploitation like Loftsson’s company still practices. So what can we as individuals do to help? We can raise awareness of what this awful company is doing. We can educate ourselves and others. And we can check out the Sea Shepherd website for further information so we can help do our part in stopping this butchering from happening again. Image Source: Sea Shepherd
| 54 Stingrays Died After Alleged Tank Malfunction and SeaWorld Was Involved. SeaWorld is in hot water again. A zoo has repeatedly denied access to records about a joint-venture exhibition involving SeaWorld that led to the death of 54 stingrays. Learn More and Act on it. |
