Greening up

By Carol Beggy & Mark Shanahan  |  April 4, 2008

Celts big men Brian Scalabrine and Glen Davis spent yesterday working with students to spruce up their school as part of Southwest Airlines' ASSISTS Clean-Up Day. Scal and "Big Baby" surprised eighth-graders at McKay School in East Boston, helping them plant flowers, rake leaves, and even do a little painting.

BU honors MLK's legacy

Nikki Giovanni and Yusef Komunyakaa were among several African-American poets who participated in a panel discussion at BU this week commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The conversation continues today, as hip-hop performers Chuck D and Talib Kweli join celebrated playwright, poet, and BU professor Derek Walcott to talk about King's legacy.

Winning smiles, helping hands

First lady Diane Patrick, former Celtic JoJo White, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks were the honored guests at last night's fete for Jumpstart, a Boston-based nonprofit that helps low-income preschoolers.

Talk and run

Contemporary artist Jeff Koons (above) blew in and out of Boston yesterday, staying just long enough to give a lecture at Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. The American artist, who's best known for his large-scale public sculptures, talked to a packed house, but that's not saying much: There are only 217 seats at the Carpenter Center.

In good company

Boston-born actor Ben Foster has been stepping out a lot lately with his new girlfriend Zoe Kravitz, daughter of rocker Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet. The cute couple (above) were at the New York premiere of "My Blueberry Nights," also attended by singer Chan Marshall, Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein, director Ang Lee, and actresses Susan Sarandon and Chloe Sevigny.

Why aren't we surprised that Bobby Brown badmouths ex-wife Whitney Houston in his forthcoming autobiography? The pair weren't exactly the picture of domestic bliss while they were married, so it stands to reason that they'd be at each other's throat now. (Frankly, we're more surprised that Brown has written a book.) In "Bobby Brown: The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But," the Roxbury-bred R&B singer says Houston drove him to drink - and smoke, and snort, and, well, you get the idea. "I never used cocaine until after I met Whitney. Before then, I had experimented with other drugs, but marijuana was my drug of choice," Brown writes in the book, which was excerpted in yesterday's New York Post. "At one point in my life, I used drugs uncontrollably. I was using everything I could get my hands on, from cocaine to heroin, weed and cooked cocaine." Of his marriage, which, remarkably, lasted for 15 long years, Brown said: "[It] was doomed from the very beginning. Within the first year we separated, with several more to follow. . . . I think we got married for all the wrong reasons. Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married. . . . I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children." To her credit, Houston didn't take the bait yesterday. "Miss Houston is sad that Bobby feels he needs to say such things," a spokesperson for the singer told TMZ.com, "but she chooses to take the high road and will not speak badly about the father of her child even if it's to set the record straight."

It's possible, perhaps even likely, that Mike Barnicle is bound for WBUR. Station GM Paul La Camera is a friend and defender of the former Globe columnist, and he's been talking to Barnicle about doing some work for 'BUR. In a recent e-mail to media critic Dan Kennedy, La Camera called Barnicle's past trangressions "blown out of proportion," and said "it's time to move on . . . Mike has a remarkable gift and I continue to believe his voice is missed in Boston." (Barnicle was a scribe at the Globe for more than two decades until he was asked to resign in 1998 after questions arose about sourcing related to his column.) In an e-mail yesterday, La Camera told us the two are still talking about a job for Barnicle at 'BUR.

The Back Bay became a Hollywood backlot last night as "The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" set up shop on Marlborough Street. The cast and crew of the romantic comedy starring Jennifer Garner and Matthew McConaughey had alerted neighbors that they'd be shooting at 285 Marlborough from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. this morning. Earlier this week, gawkers watched while "Ghosts" director Mark Waters shot a wedding scene in Sudbury. . . . Add Tim Roth's name to the list of actors and directors who're coming to Boston to pay tribute to Jeremy Thomas. A producer whose credits include several Bernardo Bertolucci films, Thomas will receive the Coolidge Award April 16. Confirmed guests include Debra Winger, directors Julien Temple and Nicolas Roeg, and Roth.

Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253.