POP/ROCKMore Rap Troubles: A Monday night album-release...

POP/ROCK

More Rap Troubles: A Monday night album-release boat party in Marina del Rey for controversial rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, who was indicted for murder earlier this month, ended in a disturbance that resulted in three arrests. Although the rapper was present for the party, deputies did not have any contact with him, sheriff’s spokeswoman Benita Hinojos said. Hinojos said the ruckus started when the captain of the 165-foot Lord Hornblower called police to report a “riot” on board the yacht and “approximately 150 people fighting on the dock.” Seventy sheriff’s deputies responded about 9 p.m. to disperse the crowd. “The captain was concerned for the safety of his 42 crew members because many of the 500 guests on the yacht were hostile--several skirmishes erupted--and additional people were trying to board,” Hinojos said. A Nation of Islam member working security at the event was pepper-sprayed and arrested on suspicion of interfering with a law enforcement officer after he allegedly started a fight with deputies. Two women at the event were arrested on suspicion of interfering/resisting a police officer when they failed to comply with instructions. Snoop, whose debut album was released Tuesday, is free on bail pending a trial on murder charges in connection with an Aug. 25 shooting in which he allegedly was driving the vehicle from which his bodyguard allegedly shot and killed a man.

A Call to Arms: Liza Minnelli will mark next Wednesday’s observance of the annual World AIDS Day by performing a new AIDS anthem, “The Day After That,” at the United Nations in New York. Minnelli recorded the song, from the Broadway musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” as part of a campaign to raise public awareness and funds for AIDS research. Says Minnelli: “It’s about the war against despair, the war against the devastating plague that we’re going through, and about hope. . . . This song is our call to arms. Every war has its anthem . . . (but) we have no song for the War Against AIDS.” Minnelli worked with 70 musicians and 120 singers, including members of the New York Gay Men’s Chorus, the Women of the St. Cecilia Chorus and the Newark Boy’s Choir, to record the anthem in English, Spanish and French.

STAGE

Simon Gets Upbeat Reviews: Neil Simon’s new comedy, “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” inspired by his own 1950s experiences on the Sid Caesar TV show, opened on Broadway Monday to mixed but mostly upbeat reviews. The New York Times’ departing critic Frank Rich, in one of his final notices, found “an amiable, noisy, frenetically staged show with a scattering of big laughs and likable performances,” but also discerned a higher gag “strikeout rate” than usual for Simon--and “the haphazardly constructed play has little else to fall back on.” Newsday’s Linda Winer wrote “there’s a lot to love in this mostly foolish and even touching show”--but no “bold new heights of comic inspiration.” The Daily News called the play “sensational” as a vehicle for comedy acting, but noted that Simon hasn’t much to say in it. Variety called it “the funniest comedy on Broadway in years,” and the Associated Press found Simon “at the peak of his comedic form.”

TELEVISION

Madonna Brings in the Viewers: HBO’s much-ballyhooed “one-time-only” showing Saturday of “Madonna--Live Down Under: ‘The Girlie Show’ ” lived up to the pay-cable station’s expectations, drawing its highest ratings of the year for a non-sports program. The program drew viewers in 27% of homes with HBO, topping ABC, CBS and NBC in those homes during its first hour.

‘Geraldo’ Has ‘Seen Everything’: The “Geraldo” show will be the format for the presentation of a television first--the broadcast of an actual sex change operation. On Monday’s program, talk-show host Geraldo Rivera takes his cameras into a Colorado hospital where patient Devon Hall is transformed into Lisa. Inside the operating room, Dr. Stanley Biber, a surgeon who has performed some 3,000 sex change operations, describes the 2 1/2-hour surgery. After the surgery, Rivera says: “I had no idea witnessing a sex change operation would prove so unsettling, yet so fascinating. Now I think I can accurately say, ‘I’ve seen everything.’ ”

Coming Fare: Cable’s TNT on Friday airs an all-night tribute to actor-director Bill Bixby, who died of cancer Sunday. Beginning at 9:30 p.m., the tribute features 13 alternating episodes from two of Bixby’s most popular TV series, “My Favorite Martian” and “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” beginning with the pilot episodes of both shows. . . . Robin Quivers, sidekick to famed “shock jock” Howard Stern, makes her prime-time acting debut on NBC’s “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Monday night. Quivers plays one of the “spirits” encountered by series star Will (Will Smith) when a fraternity stunt lands him in a graveyard after a drinking binge. . . . Robert Halmi Sr., producer of the much-talked-about upcoming CBS miniseries “Scarlett,” told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he’s wrapping up contract talks with 49-year-old Timothy Dalton to portray the coveted role of Rhett Butler. The supporting cast for the TV sequel to “Gone With the Wind,” which will star British actress Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, includes Sir John Gielgud and former “Good Times” star Esther Rolle.