‘Bachelor’ Parties On

ABC’s first version of “The Bachelor” concluded in April, but like so many contestants on unscripted programs, the show’s first namesake subject won’t go away quietly.

Alex Michel--the 31-year-old Harvard-educated management consultant who had the task of choosing a prospective mate from among 25 women while cameras rolled--will extend his 15 minutes of fame by hosting “The Bachelor: Special Edition,” a repeat of the show on ABC’s sister cable network, ABC Family, from Aug. 11-16.

Michel, who by all accounts is now pursuing a show-business career, will augment the initial episodes (ABC calls this an “enhanced-viewing experience,” a fancy way of saying dressed-up reruns) by “revealing what he was really thinking” during the taping.

ABC has plenty riding on the show, with a sequel planned for fall as well as “The Bachelorette,” featuring Trista Rehn--the runner-up from the original series--sifting through 25 male candidates. Rehn lists her occupations as pediatric physical therapist and dancer for the NBA’s Miami Heat, but as with Michel, leaves the obvious unstated--”aspiring television star.”

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Inside Story

Filmmaker Ernest Dickerson is talking about heroes, namely Lloyd Newman and LeAlan Jones. As teenagers, the two young men became the youngest recipients of the coveted Peabody Award after detailing their lives inside an infamous south Chicago ghetto for a National Public Radio documentary produced by reporter David Isay.

“It lit a spark,” Dickerson said of the boys’ story. “I was totally blown away by it. I just felt it gave a very interesting insight into the hopes and the minds of a lot of people in that neighborhood.”

Dickerson, who began his career 20 years ago shooting Spike Lee’s film-school dramas, chose to make his directorial debut with “Our America,” the docudrama based on the boys’ story. The film, which is based on NPR tapes and the book “Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago,” by Newman and Jones with Isay, premiered Sunday on Showtime.

“Our America” tracks the boys’ experiences from the time they were recruited by Isay in 1993 to record their day-to-day lives in the Ida B. Wells housing project in south Chicago, through the resulting national fame and suspicion from their neighbors, who felt the reports portrayed the community too negatively.

In preparing to shoot the film, Dickerson reviewed some of the unedited tapes the boys made. He recalled one scene in which Jones’ mother speaks dispassionately to her son about the disappearance and probable death of his father.

“She says, ‘I think it was God’s will.... My fate was decided long before I came on this Earth,’ ” Dickerson recalls. “That’s indicative of the attitudes [in this community] .... They feel they don’t have the power to effect change in their lives.”

In another scene, the boys chastise a friend for selling drugs. “Lloyd says, ‘I bet I’ll see you begging for a dime in 10 years.’ The boy says, ‘I’m not going to be alive in 10 years. Nobody’s going to be alive in 10 years,’ ” Dickerson said. “An attitude like that robs you of a future.”

In contrast to their friends and relatives, Newman and Jones managed to leave the ghetto to attend college. Both eventually graduated.

“I’m really fascinated by ... what they were able to do and how they kept at it,” he said. “It gave them a way out of that neighborhood.”

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Gross-Out

Subversive comic Andy Dick was at it again on Thursday night at the Key Club, grossing out a crowd of fans who packed the Hollywood nightspot to see his infamous cabaret show.

The performance featured a naked, tattooed woman; a large man known as “Big Fat Paul” who appears on stage staggering drunk after Dick introduces him as his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor; and onstage antics that cannot be described here. The show also gave Dick a chance to premiere songs from his forthcoming rock debut, a 10-track record on which Dick lampoons his drug problems, his sobriety and stints he spent in drug rehab.

The record, which also features a watercolor portrait of Dick by his friend Marilyn Manson and guitar work by Smash Mouth’s Greg Camp and former Foo Fighter Franz Stahl, debuts Aug. 20.

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Sightings

Irving Blum giving a personal tour of the Andy Warhol show at MOCA to Australian filmmaker Phillip Noyce. Blum told the director about an upcoming show at Gagosian Gallery in New York, an exhibition he organized, celebrating the Ferus Gallery. In the show will be works by Warhol, Ed Moses and Ed Ruscha, among others.

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Quote/Unquote

“I don’t know if I’m an old soul, but I like history. I like old stuff,” says 22-year-old Nick Carter of the the Backstreet Boys in the September issue of Teen People.

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Times staff writer Brian Lowry contributed to this report. City of Angles runs Tuesdays and Fridays. E-mail angles@latimes .com.