STORY:
Matt's Millennium Stew

Today's Millennium Stew --------
Dick Clark, Ricky Martin, Billboard & Y2K Thespians

by Matt Markovich
Everything2000 Stewmaster

Dick Clark gets our vote for steering the "hyper-driven" millennium bandwagon. The ageless one who has led generations in countdown attics in Times Square is pitching a new breakfast cereal celebrating the end of the millennium. Clark will soon introduce Millenios, a sweetened whole grain oat and corn cereal made into 2s and 0s and made by General Mills. Millenios will hit store shelves in September. Now if Dick was smart, he'd make another cereal with 1s and 0s and call it "Y2K Bytes". We'll take 15% for the idea.

Ricky Martin won't "Livin the Vida Loca" in Boston this New Year's Eve. The Latin pop star has rejected a $1.5 million bid to perform one show at the FleetCenter. That's more than triple what he gets for a regular concert. Martin's people told concert organizers he'd do it for $2 million.

Despite all of the big-name talent that has committed or in Martin's case, not committed to performing at New Year's Eve parties, fans are divided about whether or not they will be in the crowd. A poll by Billboard Online asked visitors to their Voting Booth whether they were planning to ring in 2000 at a music-related event. 9.9% of the 2183 respondees said yes, definitely, while another 31.7% claimed that they may, depending on who's playing. Exactly a third -- 33.3% -- were not going to take part in any such event, while 25.1% said they were not even thinking about New Year's Eve yet.

Stage producers want to get in on the Y2K act too. Two-time Tony winner James Naughton and former "Sisters" star Patricia Kalember will headline Arthur Kopit's stage thriller "Y2K," which will open at New York's Lucille Lortel Theatre this fall. The show concerns a stranger who uses the Internet to literally hack his way into the well-ordered lives of an affluent New York couple. The play was hit at Louisville's Humana Festival of New American Plays earlier this year.

DATE: 8/20/99

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