A Report From Sick Bay

Guitar god Eddie Van Halen finally is confirming that he has been fighting cancer. “I was examined by three oncologists and three head-and-neck surgeons at Cedars-Sinai just before spring break, and I was told that I’m healthier than ever and beating cancer,” Van Halen says on his band’s official Web site. He does not elaborate on the type of cancer or treatment, but is upbeat: “Although it’s hard to say when, there’s a good chance I will be cancer-free in the near future.”

Rumors that Van Halen has tongue cancer have been swirling for a year, but the band previously had denied them. Van Halen, along with his brother Alex, founded the band of the same name in 1974. Their 1978 debut album sold more than 10 million copies; other hits were “5150” and “OU812.”

Van Halen, 44, once a heavy smoker and hard drinker, is married to actress Valerie Bertinelli and the couple have a 10-year-old son, Wolfgang. We are happy to report that Eddie seemed in fine fettle last month as he performed a long solo then accompanied Wolfie, who played drums, at a talent show fund-raiser for the Oakwood School in North Hollywood.

No Mas Bombas

The latest hot cause in Celebrityland is halting the bombing at a Navy test range on the island of Vieques, east of Puerto Rico. Last week, Benicio del Toro, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Jose Feliciano, Chi Chi Rodriguez and others lent their names to a full-page protest ad in the New York Times. And, over the weekend, actor Edward James Olmos and environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were among the 129 protesters detained by military police at the site.

The Puerto Rican government has been urging the U.S. Navy to end its training maneuvers on the island, and on Thursday a federal judge refused to grant an injunction. Demonstrators claim the island’s 9,000 residents are being exposed to carcinogens and dangerous levels of noise. The Navy says it isn’t harming anyone. Now, Puerto Rico’s Gov. Sila Calderon is appealing to a higher authority. He has asked Pope John Paul II to intervene. More than 600 protesters have been arrested at the island range since October 1999, when a stray bomb killed a civilian.

Big Break

This is a true story, the Pete Jones story. We love stories like this.

Jones, 31, recently bested 10,000 other amateur screenwriters in a contest called Project Greenlight, which is backed by Miramax and HBO. He used to be an out-of-work switchboard operator from Roseanne’s canceled talk show. Now, he gets to hang around with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and spend $1 million of somebody else’s money to direct his movie.

Before his head could swell up, though, Jones was thrust into rewrite hell. “You write a script, and it wins the contest and you think ‘Wow! I wrote a really great script!’ ” he said. “Then, the next day they’re saying, ‘You’ve got to change this and you’ve got to change that.’ ”

Welcome to Hollywood, Pete.

Affleck, 28, and Damon, 30, are among the executive producers of Jones’ film, “Stolen Summer.” The pair said they don’t want to “corrupt” the first-time filmmaking process, so they won’t be involved in the details. “We want to have them struggle and do it on their own so they can be proud of it,” Affleck said.

Jones’ script tells the story of a Catholic boy trying to get his Jewish friend, who is dying of leukemia, into heaven. HBO is planning a documentary on Jones’ adventures in filmmaking for next year.

Every Vote Counts

Speaking of Ben Affleck, those mischief-makers at the Smoking Gun Web site seem to have caught the “Pearl Harbor” star failing to practice what he preaches. Affleck, who has mentioned running for office some day, stumped for Al Gore and Hillary Clinton last fall.

But did Affleck overlook one crucial vote--his own? The Smoking Gun scoured voter registration records at the actor’s known haunts in Cambridge, Mass., New York and Los Angeles and learned he hadn’t cast a ballot in any of those places.

“Despite Ben’s attempt to vote on Election Day 2000, a bureaucratic snafu at the polls prevented him from doing so,” said mouthpiece David Pollick. What kind of snafu? Was he turned away at the polls? Did his chads hang? No elaboration was forthcoming. But, what a relief, the election results were unAffleckted. “Fortunately,” Pollick said, “the candidates he supported carried New York without his vote.”

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Times staff writers Louise Roug and Gina Piccalo contributed to this report. City of Angles appears Tuesday through Friday. E-mail: angles@latimes.com.