NEWS LITE : HENDRIX HAZE TO DRAPE N.Y.

New Yorkers, watch out for the cross-town traffic: The family of Jimi Hendrix is planning a 10-day festival in his honor, featuring an all-star concert.

The Jimi Hendrix Festival will take place Oct. 11 to 20, with the show at Madison Square Garden topping the events, the Hendrix family announced Thursday.

The lineup for the Oct. 19 show is to be announced in July, but the family promised collaborations between Hendrix contemporaries and current artists.

Hendrix died at age 27 on Sept. 18, 1970. The guitarist's best-known songs include ``Crosstown Traffic,'' ``Purple Haze'' and ``All Along the Watchtower.''

The festival will also feature the finals of a national competition for guitar players. The winner will perform at the all-star show.

Illness grounds former 1st lady

A bout with pneumonia caused Nancy Reagan to cancel a long-planned trip to Washington next week. The former first lady was to join Betty Ford on Capitol Hill at a luncheon to discuss the increase of tobacco, alcohol and drug addiction among women. Her spokeswoman said Friday that Reagan, 73 next month, has had viral pneumonia for several weeks but ``is getting over it.'' She added that the illness wasn't life-threatening and that Reagan wasn't hospitalized but is resting at her Bel-Air home. ``The doctor did not want her to travel at this time,'' said the spokeswoman.

What's in a name,

you ask?

Some of them need no last name: Oprah, Roseanne, Madonna. Some need no first name: Spielberg, Jordan, Belushi.

Life magazine ranks the 50 most influential baby boomers in a special issue out Monday, with Steven Spielberg topping the list.

``He's our Homer and our Hans Christian Anderson,'' the magazine says of the director of ``E.T.,'' ``Jurassic Park'' and ``Schindler's List.''

Apple computer founder Steve Jobs was second, followed by first boomer Bill Clinton, Michael Milken, Oprah Winfrey, theoretical physicist Edward Witten, Bill Gates, MTV founder Bob Pittman, Michael Jordan and Roseanne.

The second 10: Rush Limbaugh, John Belushi, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wanner, Madonna, Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, superagent Mike Ovitz, Bruce Springsteen, Magic Johnson and ``Doonesbury'' cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

Before you complain: Bob Dylan, Newt Gingrich and Gloria Steinem were born before the cutoff year of 1946. The cutoff at the other end was 1964.

``An eclectic assortment of geniuses, nerds, performers and activists,'' the magazine says. ``One common thread: They've all had a major impact on life in America.''

Grisham tale hints of ESP You could be excused for thinking The Amazing Kreskin wrote ``The Runaway Jury.'' But John Grisham says no extrasensory perception was involved.

The top-selling author of legal thrillers says it's just coincidence that his latest book deals with issues now facing the tobacco industry in real courtrooms across the country.

``There was no agenda,'' Grisham said Thursday as he signed books for about 400 bookstore customers in Hattiesburg, Miss. ``I just wanted to tell a story.''

``The Runaway Jury,'' set on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, tells of a lawsuit against a mercenary tobacco company.

``The Runaway Jury'' is Grisham's seventh book. The previous six were all best-sellers, and five were made into movies.

OFFBEAT Cargo sinks `Good Ship Lollipop' The smugglers were so proud of their operation, authorities said, that they not only put their official logo, ``Good Ship Lollipop,'' on their hashish, but on their T-shirts as well.

Seventeen tons of that hashish was seized Thursday in Jacksonville, Fla., and five people were arrested. Four others were indicted, and the government said it would pursue extradition proceedings against them in Canada and Holland.

``They had shirts made up with the logo and the words the `Good Ship Lollipop,' '' said U.S. Attorney Charles Wilson. ``Some of the defendants when they were arrested were wearing those shirts.''

The lollipop logo featuring a ship's wheel also appeared on the hashish, which was headed to Canada from Pakistan when it was intercepted in the Jacksonville area, Wilson said.

Authorities said they had tracked the smugglers across the globe, photographing a recent meeting between their mothership and a small boat off the west coast of Africa. The five arrested were lured to a Jacksonville meeting by drug agents.

They were identified as: Johannes Van Den Elzen, 41, of Luxembourg; Jacob Weemhoff, 52, of the Netherlands; Wladyslaw George Ambroziak, 45, of Montreal; Thomas P. Santoro, 46, of New York City; and Kirstin Janelle Becker, 24, of New York City.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1-2) Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey top Life 's list of American VIPs.

(3) John Grisham: Offers no excuses