FCC launches probe of network profanity slip

New York (ap) — When Motley Crue’s Vince Neil wished bandmate Tommy Lee a happy New Year live on NBC, he couldn’t resist inserting a profanity — and now the FCC is involved.

The Federal Communications Commission has received complaints about the New Year’s Eve “Tonight Show” and is beginning a preliminary probe, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. But it’s likely little will come of it.

Motley Crue was performing shortly after midnight when Neil turned to Lee and said, “Happy —-ing New Year, Tommy!”

It was an off-the-cuff remark and not done intentionally to test broadcast rules, said a spokeswoman for the band who asked not to be identified. Neither Motley Crue nor NBC had any other comment Tuesday.

Jay Leno normally tapes the “Tonight Show,” but did a live version for the East Coast on New Year’s Eve. Neil’s remark was excised when the show was seen in other time slots.

U2 lead singer Bono used the same expletive at last year’s Golden Globe Awards, which were also broadcast live by NBC. The network has said it will put this year’s broadcast on a 10-second delay.

The FCC, in a March ruling issued after receiving hundreds of complaints about Bono, said the word should not be used on over-the-air radio or television programs when it’s likely children will be listening. But the Bono ruling did not apply to the hours between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., generally considered a “safe harbor” for rougher language. The commission said in its ruling that it would take complaints about language in those hours on a case by case basis.

DiCaprio joins relief effort

Rome — Leonardo DiCaprio has made a donation to UNICEF for tsunami relief efforts in Thailand, where he spent four months shooting the 2000 movie “The Beach.”

On Thailand’s Phi Phi island, where “The Beach” was filmed, 200 bungalows at two resorts were swept out to sea, and resort officials said many foreign tourists were among the missing.

DiCaprio, 30, didn’t say how much he’d donated.

He recalled Phi Phi as “one of the most pristine, beautiful places I have ever been in my life.”

DiCaprio has also set up a link on his Web site, www.leonardodicaprio.com, so that visitors can make a donation to UNICEF.

Nelson headlines benefit

Austin, Texas — Country singer Willie Nelson will headline a benefit concert to help the relief effort for victims of the tsunamis in southern Asia and eastern Africa.

The “Tsunami Relief Austin to South Asia” concert will be Sunday night at the Austin Music Hall. Patty Griffin, Spoon, Joe Ely, Alejandro Escovedo, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis and the Geezinslaws also are among those scheduled to perform.

All the acts are donating their talents. Proceeds of ticket sales for the concert at the 3,000-capacity Music Hall will go to the American Red Cross, UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders.

Asian stars lend hand

Hong Kong — The 1985 African famine relief benefit song, “We Are the World,” is being revived for tsunami relief efforts in a new Chinese version featuring Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung and other top Hong Kong stars.

The new rendition, titled “Love,” will be the featured song in the Crossing Borders charity performance Friday organized by the Hong Kong Performing Artistes Guild.

Organizers felt “We Are the World” captured their belief that disaster relief shouldn’t discriminate by ethnicity or national boundary, guild official Patricia Ho said Tuesday.

“Love” retains the English chorus of the original song, but otherwise contains entirely new Chinese lyrics. Hong Kong’s version will be sung in the Chinese dialects of Cantonese and Mandarin.

Harrison biography added to Oxford compilation

London — Beatles guitarist George Harrison, actor Nigel Hawthorne and Harry Secombe, one of the stars of “The Goon Show,” have been added to the “Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,” Britain’s definitive record of the great and the good.

In total, 195 biographies were added to the dictionary in the update published Tuesday. The group included 44 women.

“The dictionary is a record of people who were once our contemporaries and who shaped the society in which we now live,” said the dictionary’s editor, Lawrence Goldman. The revised 60-volume dictionary was published in September.

American-born harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler is among the 31 new entrants from outside Britain.

Other new biographies include Douglas Adams, author of “The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”