Michael Stipe

Despair, optimism and disinterest. Bring a group of creative people together to talk about the millennium, and a healthy dose of each emerges. Audiences, they say, are broadening and are receptive to a mix of media and information, yet it's still hard to get significant quality work made.

STIPE may be best known as the lead singer for the Athens, Ga.-based band R.E.M., but since 1994 he's been working in Hollywood, producing films through his company, Single Cell Productions. His hits include "Velvet Goldmine," "American Movie: The Making of Northwestern" and "Being John Malkovich." His latest production, "Saved!" is a comedy about the students of a Baptist high school, starring Mandy Moore, Jena Malone and Macaulay Culkin.

The Oscar nominating committees huddle behind closed doors. There is much wringing of hands, pounding of foreheads. "Do we have a category for least likely screenplay to see the light of day?" "How about best performance by an actor playing some cockamamie notion of himself?" "Can we do a special Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor prize for most de-glamorized use of Cameron Diaz?"

"We're R.E.M. and we approve of this concert," was the playful line that R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe used on the recent anti-President Bush Vote for Change concert swing, and again Wednesday as the veteran rock trio kicked off its formal U.S. tour at the Greek Theatre. Which proves you can take the rock band out of a political tour, but you can't take the politics out of a rock band.

Last July, R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe turned on a personal computer and chatted with 900,000 of his closest friends. Taking occasional breaks from recording "Monster" at Ocean Way Studio in Hollywood, Stipe used an America Online account-- stipey@aol.com --to post e-mail comments to an R.E.M. newsgroup. AOL subscribers could join in or merely watch as Stipe spent a week clearing up debates over song lyrics and entertaining system users with anecdotes from past tours. When one R.E.M.

Vin Diesel has embraced his baldness. And it's doubtful Michael Stipe spends much time browsing for toupees. But not all of the 40 million American men with follicularly challenged scalps are going quietly into that bald night. They're raging -- with Rogaine, among other things. Men who want to hang on to their hair have many options, including medications and surgical transplants, says Dr. Marc Avram, hair transplant surgeon and clinical professor of dermatology at Weill-Cornell Medical College in New York City.