"We wrote a new song the day after the attack and it's about freedom!" Paul McCartney shouted from the stage at the end of his six-hour, star-studded benefit show. With the debut of "Freedom," McCartney brought the "Concert for New York City" to a close, and brought the house down. "The freedom that you enjoy in America, you know, 'Give me your huddled masses,' this is where people came for a new life and for this freedom," McCartney said about the writing of the song. "It's not sort of a war song, in as much as it's a defense of democracy and freedom." The tune generated an emotional response from both the thousands of fans gathered at Madison Square Garden and the millions watching the show live on television October 20. Given the great interest in the anthem, McCartney made the song available as a single, with proceeds benefiting the Robin Hood Relief Fund. He also quickly added it to his new album, "Driving Rain" -- his first collection of new songs in four years. The last-minute decision threw record distribution logistics into a tailspin. The track isn't even listed in the CD liner notes. But "Driving Rain" was an album McCartney said he hadn't wanted to over-plan. In fact, he didn't even meet the members of his new band until the first day of in the recording studio. "I want to try to keep it really spontaneous," said McCartney. "Like, you know, certain periods of the Beatles, when John and I would show up Monday morning and we'd say, 'Okay, it goes like this' and even George and Ringo didn't know what song we were going to do. But it worked, and we were having a lot of kind of fun making up what we're going to do." The Beatles have been in the news quite a bit recently. John Lennon's songs and presence have been remembered at several concerts for the terrorist victims; George Harrison reportedly has been undergoing treatment for brain cancer this year. About Harrison, McCartney told "Showbiz Today Reports" only that he saw him recently. "He's doing just fine," McCartney said. Another single from "Driving Rain," called "From a Lover to a Friend," will be featured in the Tom Cruise movie "Vanilla Sky," coming to theaters in December. In the movie, the song will likely be heard loud and clear. The competition is a little fiercer in the record stores -- when "Driving Rain" is released Tuesday, it will go head-on with new albums from Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears. Competition, though, isn't what drives McCartney. It's the "freedom" he finds in making music, he said. "As far as songwriting is concerned, when I sit down at the piano or the guitar, I'm still excited at the idea of being like allowed to do it," he explained. 
 NEW YORK (AP) -- You would be hard-pressed to name two more different heroes than Marshal Matt Dillon, the Wild West lawman of "Gunsmoke," and Seattle's snooty shrink, Dr. Frasier Crane. Even so, Kelsey Grammer, beginning his ninth year in the "Frasier" title role after nine years as the same character on "Cheers," has his sights set on Marshal Dillon. James Arness played Dillon for a record 20 seasons. That's a record Grammer aims to match playing Frasier. "Who knows? We might do more," he says. "But we're counting on the next three seasons." So is NBC, which counts "Frasier" among its few sitcom hits. Of course, Kelsey Grammer, 46, hasn't stuck with Frasier Crane purely as an endurance contest. Nor, presumably, is he hanging on just for the money (although he's already set a record as the highest-salaried actor in TV history, reportedly pulling down $1.6 million per week). No, as "Frasier" marks its 200th episode Tuesday (9 p.m. EST), the bottom line is this: Grammer says he still has fun being Frasier. "I have never been visited by the fear that he's stale," says Grammer. "Through him, I get to bring to light a lot of things I think about, myself." 'Frasier lives in my subconscious' Frasier and Kelsey: It seems they share an asymptotic journey as fellow travelers whose paths grow ever closer, yet never quite merge. Or is the merger a done deal? "By now, Frasier lives in my subconscious," says Grammer. "We discover life on kind of the same terms. "I guess Frasier and I have always looked for the same thing in life: being happy and making an honest living, trying to do some good in the world and changing a few minds if we can. Or at least lifting somebody's burden for a time." Like Kelsey Grammer the actor making people laugh, Frasier Crane prospers as a phone-in therapist dispensing advice to his radio audience. Not only well-versed in psychobabble, Frasier also is charming, urbane, witty and intelligent -- quite a contrast to the bumbling heroes of most sitcoms. Funny though he is, Frasier becomes laughable not so much from his own failings as from his lofty standards for an imperfect world that regularly fails him. "What's the one thing better than an exquisite meal?" Frasier once posed to his like-minded psychotherapist brother before furnishing the obvious answer: "an exquisite meal with one tiny flaw we can pick at all evening!" Admirable character As a feverishly cultivated man for whom order and self-knowledge are everything -- especially since he has neither -- Frasier insists on the finer things in life, and loves to obsess about everything else. Sure, you laugh at him. But you also admire him. Here's a guy whose taste is unerring, even when exercised in la-di-da ways. On one episode, Frasier was overjoyed that an upcoming soiree would "give me a chance to debut my Limoges coffee set. Six unique cups, each representing a different wife of Henry VIII." Let him enjoy his Limoges coffee set! In the 1994 book "In Defense of Elitism," William A. Henry III lamented that "a brand of anti-intellectual populism is running amok." If that's true, you can't blame Frasier for taking refuge in dutiful refinement. "He's not a complacent character," says Grammer, who applauds Frasier's resolve: What's so wrong with gravitating toward the finer things? But those who don't know any better are always ready to pounce. That's how Grammer interprets what befell him when, 18 months ago, he returned to the stage to do Shakespeare. "They were all over me," he says of the disapproving critics. "How dare I come back to New York and play Macbeth, of all things! One guy said I was fat." Grammer shrugs. "I may have limited my choices by the success I've enjoyed as Frasier," he concedes. "But I have little cause for complaint. I have had an extraordinary career already. I will still insist on playing other roles, and enjoy them -- and probably suffer huge amounts of criticism." Meanwhile, Frasier lives on. As do Frasierlike outbursts about the real world from the man who shares Frasier's psyche and skin. For instance, the erosion of language. Take "culinary," flagrantly mispronounced as "cull-inary" rather than the proper "cyoo-linary." Grammer calls this "one of my pet peeves. But it would be Frasier's as well." Even a certain organization with "culinary" in its name officially pronounces that word "cull-inary," he cringes. "Here is an entire institute devoted to glorifying the art of cooking," huffs Grammer, his indignation escalating like Frasier's, "and yet they would diminish the art of language! "Check any dictionary! It drives me out of my mind!" In fact, dictionaries differ on this issue. But Grammer, in close touch with his inner shrink, has made his diagnosis. 
 As the world's attention is focused on Afghanistan, a feature film about life under the Taliban has become a runaway success in Europe. Based on a real story, "Kandahar" is about an Afghan woman living in Canada making a journey to save her suicidal sister back in Afghanistan. It's shot on locations in Iran near the Afghanistan border, using Afghan refugees as actors. Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf says he wanted to make a film about a forgotten people under what he calls the savage rule of the Taliban, in the midst of a devastating drought, and after 20 years of war. "'Kandahar' is the first feature film made on Afghanistan under the pressure of Taliban," said Makhmalbaf, whose film won UNESCO's coveted Federico Fellini prize Now he says he is using the proceeds to help fund a program of literacy for Afghan children -- something he says is vital if Afghanistan is to become a democracy. Makhmalbaf says that if world and regional powers had rained books instead of bombs over Afghanistan for the last two decades, Afghanistan today would not have been dragged into misery, hunger and terrorism. "Maybe you don't know, 90 per cent of the Afghan women, even before the Taliban, did not go to school; 80 percent of men, even before the Taliban, did not go to school," he said. Makhmalbaf has written to Iran's President Khatami, urging the government to lift the ban that bars nearly a half a million Afghan refugee children in Iran from going to school because of their illegal immigrant status. He's already funding the private tutoring of children here. Makhmalbaf says you cannot get rid of the Taliban just by force. "I think Taliban is not only a government. Taliban is something as a culture. Ninety percent of women have no education. How can they understand what is democracy?" he asked. 
 Jay Farrar's "Sebastopol" is his artiest, most pretentious record and one of his strongest. It's a florid, ornate effort that sounds less like the self conscious alt-country that Farrar practically invented, as leader of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, than the lush overproduced Hollywood-cowboy productions of the mid-1970s Eagles ("Take It to the Limit," "The Last Resort"). Yet Farrar sounds more at home in this gorgeous corn than he did chasing after the "purity" of country and folk. It's as if he's coming to terms with his own callowness. Which isn't to say he likes it. "Outside the Door" is a litany of long-passed cultural reference points (Hoovervilles, stevedores, Prohibition) that sums up with "Wasn't There to Hear 'Come On In My Kitchen' " and the regret -- the sense of having missed out -- is palpable. This strain of nostalgia has run all through Farrar's music, but the elaborate production on "Sebastopol" shows how myth-oriented this wistfulness is. Farrar isn't so much nostalgic for the actual past than for a Hollywood representation. The album's sound evokes Fredric Remington paintings and John Ford movies; it's the aural equivalent of Monument Valley. Farrar's lyrics, however, just evoke old R.E.M. albums. His writing has always tended toward the elliptical, but on the new record even the best lines function as non-sequiturs. A lyric like "Save the jokes and save your soul/You're gonna need them later" should come across as hard-won wisdom, but when preceded by the likes of "Parabolic limber lighting, really got to get you some," it just dissolves into the ether. And while Michael Stipe's singing can give even the most confused lyrics an emotional core, Farrar's nasal whine conveys only a free-floating moroseness.' In other words, if you're looking for a meaningful statement by a major artist, keep looking. But if you're open to the seductive melodies of a talented hack, well, here's your audio wallpaper. Rot in the present The Handsome Family's music is more like the peeling wallpaper of Barton Fink's hotel room. Their version of the past is an endless rot that permeates the present. When songwriter Rennie Sparks laments the extinction of the passenger pigeons, it's as a metaphor for the death of a love affair, for the death of love itself. If her lyrics connect extensively with a history of droughts, depressions and epidemics (if there's ever a musical version of "Wisconsin Death Trip" ... ) they also sound completely contemporary. Certainly after September 11, lyrics like "the quiet sound that's left behind/when airplanes fall from the sky" are especially chilling, but that chill is built into the band's vision of mordant stoicism in the face of eternal catastrophe. The band's five albums are all of a piece, but their latest, "Twilight," features a new level of assurance. Rennie's husband Bret does most of the band's singing and his voice has deepened slightly; more than ever, he sounds like he's not just singing, but inhabiting the songs. "Twilight" also offers a slight melodic shift from folk and bluegrass fatalism to more stately parlor music. "I Know You Are There" brings to mind Stephen Foster - that is, if Foster had written lines like "When the rope of death strangles/and dark waters roar and foam/when fear and trembling hod me/and the slimy pit pulls down." And there's a strain of dark humor in "So Long," an elegy for a lifetime's worth of dead animals ("So long to my dog Snickers who ate Christmas tinsel ..."), as well as in "Peace in the Valley Once Again," in which the wilderness reclaims an abandoned shopping mall. (It's like an answer song to the Talking Heads "Nothing But Flowers.") The Sparks' relationship to Americana is not unlike David Lynch's to film noir. They are all artists who try to explode their genre, make it give up more terrible secrets than it ever has before. At the same time there's a level of ironic distance that makes their dark vision easer to look at. It's almost enough to give self-conscious artiness a good name. 
 Rock star Peter Buck faces a possible retrial after the jury trying him on an alleged air rage incident were discharged. The judge dismissed the nine women and three men jury during the second day of the trial of the REM guitarist at a west London court on Tuesday, without giving a reason. Judge John Crocker said: "Matters have arisen which necessitate that this trial cannot proceed at the moment." He added: "I can tell you no more I am afraid. It happens sometimes in court. All I can do is thank you for your patience. I am discharging you from bringing in verdicts in this case." On Monday the jury heard in opening arguments by the prosecution that Buck, 44, allegedly becume drunk and disruptive after consuming 15 glasses of wine on a British Airways flight from Seattle to London last April. But the jury was dismissed before any of the evidence could be heard. Buck, who appeared in court in a pin-striped navy blue suit, white shirt and dark blue tie, denies one charge of being drunk on the Boeing 747, two counts of common assault involving cabin services manager Mario Agius and stewardess Holly Ward, and one charge of damaging British Airways crockery. No date has been fixed for a retrial. 
 Ed Kowalcyzk, frontman for the band "Live," has let his hair down these days. A collar-length growth of brown curly locks has replaced his shaved head. As Live tours the country in support of its fifth major label record, appropriately titled "V," it seems the band has lightened up. "We're having so much more fun," explained Kowalcyzk. "We're so much more comfortable in the spotlight now than we were when it first started to happen -- when we were like 'ooh, what's happening.' I think we've totally transformed the live show. I'm a hell of a dancer. I really am in my sort of York, Pennsylvania, type of Bluegrass, shake-your-ass way." Live busted out of Pennsylvania with the record "Mental Jewelry" in 1992 and followed up with "Throwing Copper," "Secret Samadhi" and "Distance to Here." Kowalcyzk developed a reputation as a cerebral rocker, an image that doesn't thrill him. "That's a hard one to keep going for like 10 years," the singer/songwriter professes. "The whole serious, uber ... profound rock band thinking man. Yech." "There's a couple songs on this record -- 'Like a Soldier,' 'People Like You,' 'Transmit Your Love' -- which still have a heavy lyric. But they're done in a spirit of fun and a party atmosphere-type vibe." "Like a Soldier" is apparently getting a positive reaction from U.S. servicemen and women. "I just heard from a friend of mine who said there were some (Army) Rangers who called him up and said 'we used "Like a Soldier" to train with, man.' This is cool." Kowalcyzk basically supports America's war on terrorism, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. "I think it's righteous -- eradicating that evil that has done so much harm to us is right," Kowalcyzk said. "But I think it's too early for me to make a general judgment on the whole foreign policy approach." "Live" takes its act out on the road this week with a stop in Atlanta and three shows in Florida. 
 R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck staggered around a plane, got stuck between seats and covered himself in yogurt after downing 15 glasses of red wine on a flight to Britain, a London court was told Monday. Prosecutor Edward Lewis told the first day of Buck's trial that the 44-year-old musician "became the transmogrification of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde" during the 8 1/2-hour Seattle to London flight. Buck is charged with being drunk on an aircraft, assaulting two cabin crew members, interfering with the performance of a crew member's duties and damaging British Airways' dishes during the April flight. Buck, who appeared in court, denies the charges. "The steward was to replenish Mr. Buck's glass 15 times during the first three hours or so," Lewis said. Lewis said Buck became stuck between two seats, mistook a hostess trolley for a CD player and covered himself and the cabin services manager with the contents of a yogurt tub. The prosecutor accused Buck and tour manager Robert Whittaker of behaving like "naughty children." "It was getting beyond a joke," he said. The alleged incident occurred as the Georgia band traveled to Britain to promote their album "Reveal" and perform at a Nelson Mandela tribute concert in London's Trafalgar Square. Buck's trial at Isleworth Crown Court in west London is expected to last a week. 
 Iman's picture has been taken thousands of times by the fashion industry's top photographers. But, she says, the best are those taken by her husband, British rocker David Bowie. "He captures the real me," Iman told The Associated Press. Among her favorites: a nude photo when she was pregnant with their daughter, Alexandria, who is now 15 months old. Somalian-born Iman, an African diplomat's daughter, was one of the fashion world's top models in the 1970s and '80s. Iman, 46, and Bowie, 54, have been married since 1992. "I believe he is my soul mate," she said. "I always knew it, which has made us protective of our relationship." Although it may seem that the couple have little in common, there are similarities, she said. In the forward of her new book, "I Am Iman" (Universe Publishing), Bowie shares one of those connections. He writes about his much older half-sister, Annette, who left England for Egypt and never contacted the family again. Once Bowie was a star, a newspaper reported the story -- and located the sister. Her new Islamic name? Iman. 
 The relaunch of "Battlestar Galactica" has been grounded, at least temporarily. The sci-fi series, being worked up for a comeback by "X-Men" director Bryan Singer for the Fox Network, had its countdown canceled because Singer couldn't direct the pilot. Singer has been the driving force behind a recent deal to resurrect "Battlestar Galactica," which originally premiered on ABC in 1978 with Lorne Greene playing the commander of the title vessel. Singer loved the series as a kid, and after gaining clout in sci-fi circles by turning the Marvel Comics franchise "X-Men" into a profitable feature he was able to persuade producer Studios USA to revive the concept. USA brought in the Fox Network to air the series, with a plan to put subsequent airings on the Sci Fi Channel. Singer's enthusiasm seems to have caused some intramural sparring at Fox. Network brass loved the idea of Singer directing, but the feature film division wasn't nearly as supportive. The studio wanted Singer's full concentration on its "X-Men" sequel, which is one of the studio's most important projects in development, on course for a fall 2002 release. Preparations were made for the pilot to be shot in Vancouver in early 2002 so that the network could have it ready in time to screen for advertisers in May. While all parties knew from the onset that Singer would only direct if his "X-Men" schedule allowed it, his absence dampened the network's enthusiasm. The pilot is costly, and speculation is that Fox might have grown conservative after its pricey and heavily hyped series "24" didn't get smash numbers in its initial episode last Tuesday, even though it rallied when the episode was rebroadcast the following Friday. Regardless of the reason, the network confirmed it beamed off "Battlestar Galactica" when it became clear Singer wouldn't be its director. Whether Singer or USA will try to revive the pilot after Singer completes "X-Men 2" is is being hashed out behind the scenes this week. Studios USA declined comment and Singer's reps didn't return calls. 
 Andie MacDowell married high-school classmate Rhett DeCamp Hartzog in a private ceremony attended by family and friends. The hour-long, evening wedding took place Saturday at Central United Methodist Church, followed by a reception at Biltmore Forest Country Club. More than 200 people attended. "It was just real sweet and simple," said MacDowell's sister, Babs Rogers Richard, who lives in Waxhaw. MacDowell's 15-year-old son, Justin, who had torn a ligament in his leg the night before while playing basketball, gave her away. He walked down the aisle on crutches. "Both her daughters (Sarah Margaret and Rainey), the nieces and nephews were involved in the wedding," Richard said. MacDowell, 43, wore a strapless, satiny oyster-white Vera Wang gown. Her hair was accented with shiny antique hair clips. MacDowell graduated from Gaffney High School in South Carolina in 1976; Hartzog graduated in 1977. Their romance began more than a year ago. The couple are expected to make their home in Biltmore Forest. MacDowell's films include "Four Weddings and a Funeral." 
 With less than a week until Harry Potter bewitches moviegoers, the Disney cartoon "Monsters, Inc." enjoyed its second -- and likely last -- weekend as the No. 1 movie at the North American box office. According to studio estimates issued Sunday, "Monsters," Inc." earned $46.2 million in ticket sales for the three days beginning Friday, taking its 10-day total to $122.8 million. The cartoon passed the century mark in nine days, setting a new record for an animated feature. Disney's "Toy Story 2" held the record -- 11 days -- with help from a Thanksgiving holiday release in 1998. Both films played in a similar number of theaters. Three movies entered the top 10 -- two new releases, "Shallow Hal" at No. 2 with $23.3 million and "Heist" at No. 5 with $8 million; while "Life as a House" jumped 12 places to No. 8 with $3.7 million in its first weekend of wide release. Receipts for the top 12 films totaled $116.5 million, down 12 percent from last weekend, but up 20 percent from the year-ago period, when "Charlie's Angels" was tops for a second round. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" opens next Friday in both the United States and Britain -- where it is called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" -- and the family movie is expected to shatter box office records. "They're going to be huge," said Chuck Viane, president of distribution at Walt Disney Co., which released "Monsters, Inc." via its Walt Disney Pictures banner. "I think we'll be hit. No question." "Harry Potter" -- one of the most anticipated films of the year -- will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. (CNN is also part of AOL Time Warner.) The media giant's New Line Cinema unit will distribute the only other wide new release next weekend, "The Wash," an urban comedy starring rap singers Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. 'Hal' weighs in In addition to retaining pole position, "Monsters, Inc." also suffered the least erosion among top 10 holdovers, losing just 26 percent of its audience from last weekend. By contrast, "The One" (Columbia) and "Domestic Disturbance" (Paramount), two thrillers that also opened last weekend, fell 52 percent and 39 percent, respectively. "Monsters, Inc," a production with Pixar Animation Studios Inc., revolves around a civilization of colorful critters whose power supply is fueled by the screams of human children visited in the night by a "Top Gun"-like squadron of scaremeisters who bottle the squeals. The voice cast includes John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi and Jennifer Tilly. The romantic comedy "Shallow Hal" (Fox) stars Jack Black in the title role as a superficial guy hypnotized by self-help guru Tony Robbins into thinking that a morbidly obese woman (Gwyneth Paltrow in a fat suit) is a slender beauty. In a country where studies show that half the population is overweight, the film apparently did not touch any raw nerves. The film's directors, Peter and Bobby Farrelly ("There's Something About Mary"), played down their usual gross-out humor in order to win a PG-13 rating. "It plays kinda sweet," said Bruce Snyder, president of distribution at Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. The film skewed towards young women, he added. "Heist" (Warner Bros.) stars Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito and Delroy Lindo as professional thieves looking to score one last job amid general intrigue. David Mamet directed. Warner Bros. distributed the film for a fee on behalf of producer Franchise Pictures, the company behind "Battlefield Earth." "The One" and "Domestic Disturbance" rounded out the top five, at Nos. 3 and 4, respectively, both down one position from last weekend. "The One," starring Chinese action hero Jet Li, grossed $9.1 million, taking its 10-day total to $31.9 million. Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp., said the film opened this weekend at No. 1 in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. "Domestic Disturbance," starring John Travolta, earned $8.5 million, for a 10-day haul of $26 million. Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom Inc. "Life as a House," a family drama starring Kevin Kline, earned $3.7 million, falling a little short of expectations, said a New Line spokeswoman. Its total, which includes two weekends in limited release, is $4.9 million. In the limited release arena, French romantic comedy "Amelie" (Miramax) expanded to 48 theaters in the top 40 markets after bowing last weekend in three theaters in Los Angeles and New York. Its three-day haul of $730,000 took the total to $962,000. In contrast to most arthouse films, which tend to attract an older, upscale audience, "Amelie" is playing to a slightly younger audience, which augurs well for its expansion, said a spokesman at Disney-owned Miramax. France has submitted the film as its contender for a foreign-language Oscar nomination.