THE BEAT FARMERS:  I featured an early live set from them a couple of Fridays ago, but here's a Joey Harris-era studio clip of the wonderful "Hollywood Hills," introduced by Country Dick Montana.

SONIC YOUTH:  Thurston Moore explains why he didn't mind that classmates nicknamed him "Lurch."  But Stereogum offers a different candidate for that handle.

R.E.M.:  Tom Moon calls Up! "the great misunderstood R.E.M. album" and makes it his Shadow Classic, with tracks streaming at NPR.

KEITH RICHARDS, LORD of the UNDEAD, once lobbed a boy's pet canary out of a window, having mistaken it for an alarm clock.

MAN MAN:  Rewriteable Content has posted new songs from the avant-popsters recorded live, which you can jukebox via the ol' HM.

ELLIOTT SMITH:  The late singer-songwriter covers The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" at an unplugged in-store appearance from almost a decade ago.

A REAL FIFTH BEATLE, Neil Aspinall, has left Apple Corps after 40 years of service.  I Heard The News Today rounds up the UK press reax and rumors for his departure.

WILCO: X-Press Online gives the drummer some and interviews Glenn Kotche about the band's upcoming Sky Blue Sky album.  Kotche talks about the band's musical process along the way.

JAY BENNETT, fairly or not most known for being the guy who used to be in Wilco, has an interview and free songs at Daytrotter.  BTW, GvsB relays that Daytrotter is going to be doubly-good for the next four months.

WE WANT THE WORLD, AND WE WANT IT... NOW:  Rock fans hope FL Gov. Charlie Crist will grant a posthumous pardon in Jim Morrison's famed exposure case.

McGOSLING secretly getting hitched? US Weekly quotes a source close Rachel McAdams as saying she and Ryan Gosling will wed this year, but want to avoid the press.  McAdams' rep calls it "completely false."

J-LO and MARC ANTHONY secretly splitting?  OK! magazine declares that the two have "called it quits," while friends of the pair tell the NYDN all is well.

DON IMUS:  MSNBC will drop its simulcast of the "Imus in the Morning" radio program, responding to growing outrage over the radio host's racial slur against the Rutgers women's basketball team.  CBS radio has not announced plans to discontinue the show, as major advertisers began pulling out.

THE McCARTNEYS:  Heather Mills has been bombarded with offers of work on American TV since her success on Dancing With The Stars.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD;  Dancer-singer Willa Ford has signed to play her in an indie biopic that will begin shooting next week.

GIRLS GONE WILD founder Joe Francis was indicted Wednesday on federal tax evasion charges for illegally deducting more than $20 million in phony business expenses from his 2002 and 2003 corporate tax returns.  Allegedly.  This is separate from his arrest Tuesday on a federal warrant for contempt of court.

LANE GARRISON, late of TV's Prison Break, will plead guilty to manslaughter, according to TMZ.  Garrison was charged with vehicular manslaughter in connection with the death of a Beverly Hills high school student last December.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE showed his continuing affection for Cameron Diaz when he was asked about her in GQ magazine.  And he's busy writing songs for Madoona's next album, due in November.

REESE & RYAN BREAK-UPDATE:  Ryan Phillippe was reportedly drinking last week at the Chateau Marmont in L.A. and a source told Page Six "He started screaming at these girls, 'Hey, you're hot! Get over here!' The girls just ignored him."  And somewhere Reese Witherspoon laughed until she wet herself.

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK so far, and I don't see anyone beating it.

BRADGELINA are rumored to be buying a £70 million, 240-foot long, triple-decker mega-yacht.  No doubt they will be using it for emergency rescue missions and to deliver food and meds to the world's disadvantaged.

IRAN, just kidnapped British sailors and marines, and still faces UN Security Council sanctions regarding its expanding nuclear program.  Even London's Guardian admits the sanctions are not working.  Nevertheless, Iran has as been elected Vice-Chairman of the UN Disarmament Commission for the 2007 session.  And thus the first order of business was to blame the US (and Israel, natch) for the world's problems.  Didn't see that coming...

IRAQ:  That fierce fight in the central Baghdad neighborhoods of Fadhil and Sheik Omar in the Rusafa district resulted in 20 insurgents killed and another 30 wounded, according to the US military.  The Sadrist bloc is threatening to pull out of the ruling Shiite Alliance, but it's not the first time they've made that threat.  The largest Sunni bloc in Parliament may intend to withdraw from the political process, due to outstanding arrest warrants for Tawafuq MPs, al-Melaf reports in Arabic. Capt. Eric Coulson, a company commander of an Army engineer unit in Anbar province, reports on Anbar Salvation Council fighters locking down the city of Khalidiya.  The chief US military spokesman in Iraq asserted on Wednesday that Iranian-made arms, manufactured as recently as last year, have reached Sunni insurgents.  Fouad Ajami has an interesting piece on a new, and fourth, phase of the US presence in Iraq.  Tish Durkin, who wrote about the war in Iraq in 2003-04 for publications including the New York Observer, the Atlantic Monthly, the National Journal, and Rolling Stone, writes about Iraq as a place of ambivalence at the Huffington Post.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT:  William Wordsworth's most famous poem has been reworked and rewritten in a hip-hop style -- accompanied by a pop video in which a giant squirrel named MC Nuts raps on the banks of Lake Ullswater.  Video at the link.

CHEETA the CHIMP, star of 12 Tarzan films in the 1930s and 40s, celebrated his 75th birthday at a primate center in Palm Springs, California.

A SWAN feeds its fish friends every day to the amazement of visitors to the Safari Park in Shenzhen City, China.  This is not to be confused with the duck that fed the koi featured here recently.

MANATEES may be reclassified as threatened instead of endangered, a move that would indicate the animal has rebounded from the brink of extinction.  The manatee would still remain protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

GERONIMO the COCKATOO (and his goofy owner) had to be rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter from the top of a 60 ft. pine tree near Houston, TX.

BORN TO RUN:  The album was good, but it could have used a little more glockenspiel.  Via WFMU, which can hook you up with even more glockenspiel.

LOW and LONEY, DEAR played DC's 9:30 Club last night, so you can stream both sets, plus interviews from NPR now.

CAUGHT UP IN THE FABLE is a blog by pro guitar tech Tom Spaulding, who is currently headed to Brazil with Aerosmith.

POLKA FLOYD is... well, pretty much exactly what you think it is.

COVER SONGS, in all their varied forms, are defended in the Sydney Morning Herald.  But my fave part of the article may be Gloria Jones e-mailing from Sierra Leone to say she loves, loves, loves the cover of her 1964 hit "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell.

SEEN YOUR VIDEO:  10cc sing about "The Things We Do For Love."

...AND IT BURNS, BURNS, BURNS:  Johnny Cash's longtime lakeside home, a showcase where he wrote much of his famous music and entertained US presidents, music royalty and visiting fans, was destroyed by fire on Tuesday.  The property was purchased by Barry Gibb in January 2006, so be glad I avoided the "Disco Inferno" joke.

THE PONYS get a twofer from the World Cafe you can stream from NPR now. 

ALBERT HAMMOND, JR. of The Strokes, now promoting his solo album talks about how his life was changed by Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison and Guided by Voices.

PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE:  The troubled singer sparked rumours of a Libertines reunion by hanging with Carl Barat over the Easter weekend.  The supposedly sober supermodel was snapped with Beth Ditto, the 15-stone lesbian frontwoman for The Gossip.

ELIZABETH HURLEY and her new husband Arun Nayar, have been accused of breaching Hindu customs with their Indian wedding -- an allegation that could technically put them in jail.  And to make matters worse, it appears that Arun's father Vinod is willing to testify against them.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD, and DNA tests show that Larry Birkhead is the father of her baby daughter, Dannielynn.  So if you had your money on Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, you are out of luck.  Another hearing is set for Friday to discuss the custody issue, which involves Birkhead, Smith's paramour Howard K. Stern, and her mother, Virgie Arthur.

DON IMUS:  The Rutgers women's basketball team blasted radio host Don Imus Tuesday for "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable and abominable," but agreed to meet with the embattled radio host.  Rutgers' players and head coach C. Vivian Stringer said Imus' comments took the luster off an incredible season -- a comment which, imho (along with some of the players' comments) gives way too much weight and import to Don Imus.  These women are winners; acting like victims suggests that Imus is something more than a bitter old crank.

ROSEANNE BARR seems to be making a play for that Imus slot, saying on radio station KCAA, "Never once in my 54 years have I ever once heard a gay or lesbian person who's politically active say one thing about anything that was not about them... It's just, it's screwed. It's no different than the evangelicals, it's the same mindset. They want you to accept Jesus and you guys want us to all believe it's ok to be gay..."

THE GEICO CAVEMEN sitcom project is going to be helmed by the guys who brought you 3rd Rock From the Sun.

GIRLS GONE WILD creator Joe Francis was arrested Tuesday at the Panama City, FL airport on a warrant seeking his arrest for criminal contempt of court.  A judge ordered Francis's arrest last week after Francis reportedly changed the terms of a settlement deal stemming from a 2003 lawsuit in which seven women accused him of victimizing them by filming them in sexual situations while they were on spring break in Panama City.

GRINDHOUSE:  Harvey Weinstein is reportedly so disappointed in the Tarantino-Rodriguez double-feature's $11.6 million opening weekend gross that he's considering re-releasing Death Proof and Planet Terror separately in longer versions, the way they'll play in foreign markets and on DVD.  BONUS:  An Aquarium Drunkard dug the movie(s) and posted Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich's "Hold Tight" from the Death Proof soundtrack.  DOUBLE BONUS:  There are three more tunes streaming at the Death Proof website.

300:  The smash Spartan epic, otoh, has lessons for Hollywood, according to Business Week.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is being remade, and the early news is not going to convince anyone that this is a good idea.

FELIX the CAT is suing the makers and sellers of the kitchy Kit-Cat Klock -- after 60 years of peaceful co-existence -- alleging the clock is a "blatant knockoff" violating 100 copyrights registered in the last century.  Bag of Tricks empty, ol' Cat?

SCARLETT JOHANSSON has topped a poll of women conducted by Glamour magazine naming the "world's sexiest body."  The top ten, with pictures, are at the link.  In no way should this list be confused with Double Viking's list of "Top 10 Celebrity Butterfaces."

I HAVE A GOOD IDEA, according to Amber Taylor.  It had to happen eventually, if only by chance.

IRAQ:  At ITM, Omar reports on yesterday's fierce fighting in Baghdad, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army standing down in Diwaniya, and the Sadrists' "pitiful demonstrations."  IraqSlogger has more on the Baghdad battles and relays a report from Al Jazeera that locally recruited police are securing the city of Hit in Anbar province.

IRAQ in the MEDIA:  The BBC cancelled a 90-minute drama about Britain's youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.  The Atlantic Monthly runs with "The inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's inner circle -- without resorting to torture -- and hunted down al-Qaeda's man in Iraq."  However, if you're a subscriber -- or leaf through the mag on the newsstand -- you will discover that the threat of being sent to the Abu Grahib prison was used to get terrorists to talk.

ISLAMISM in the MEDIA:  The producer of a tax-financed documentary on Islamic extremism claims his film has been dropped for political reasons from a television series that airs next week on more than 300 PBS stations nationwide.

SAVE STERLENA!  Residents of Wauseon, OH have launched a campaign to keep Sterlina, the 14-foot bovine mascot of the locally based Sterling Store convenience chain, which is being sold to a Canadian firm.  The rumor is that the fiber-glass mascot is headed to the Wisconsin headquarters of the Sterling chain's soon-to-be ex-owners.  Pic of Sterlina with Shriners in those tiny cars at the link!

MOOSE and REINDEER at a Stockholm wildlife park have been invited to an unusual taste panel that will help decide which type of salt should be used to de-ice the country's roads in wintertime.

AN OCTOPUS down under has learned to use two of her eight tentacles to open a bottle containing a crab.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT:  Brits are concerned about detainees, but it turns out to be a hoax.

HONG KONG RACEHORSES need to learn to keep it in their pants.

AN 18-FOOT-LONG PYTHON is roadkill... in the North Yorkshire countryside?  Pic at the link.

COCOROSIE, the sister duo that belnds folk, opera, electronics and scratchy hip-hop, play "Promise" from The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn, which comes out today.  London's Telegraph had a dinner with the duo, in which they reveal: (a) they just hired their mom to manage them; (b) their mom got their first contact in the industry -- producer Rick Rubin; and (c) they think Rubin may be "too rock" for them.  I think they will find Rubin has some rap cred as well.

NEW RELEASES:  Bright Eyes, Hold Steady (unplugged), The Comas, Blonde Redhead and (Nick Cave's) Grinderman are all streaming in full this week via Spinner.  Laura Veirs releases Saltbreakers.  Love of Diagrams releases their debut LP of angular punk.

THE B-52s: Kate Pierson after introducing the documentary Before the Music Dies at the Woodstock Film Festival, tells NY's Times Herald-Record it's a "whole new day" for her band, as well as the music business: "We haven't done a record since 1991 and now we're financing it all ourselves and we own the record ... We're coming at this at the very moment when you don't know what's happening."

GOLDEN SMOG:  The alt-side project featuring members of Wilco, the Jayhawks and Soul Asylum, have posted advance tracks from the upcoming Blood on the Slacks EP at TheirSpace.

ST. VINCENT, led by Annie Clark of The Polyphonic Spree (and Sufjan Stevens's touring band) is betting the blog buzz from GvsB and Stereogum, to name just two.  As she'll be opening for John Vanderslice at the M-Shop in beautiful Ames, IA on the 12th, you may want to stream a few via the ol' HM.

TWOFER TUESDAY:  Tommy James & the Shondells bring the bubble-gum psychedelia with "Crimson and Clover" and (yes) "Mony, Mony."

KISS GUITARIST DIES:  That would be Mark St. John, from an apparent brain hemorrhage at 51.  Ace Frehley and Vinnie Vincent fans breathe a vaguely guilty sigh of relief.  St. John is the second former KISS member to die of brain hemorrhage. Eric Carr, who replaced drummer Peter Criss for a stretch, died on Nov. 24, 1991.

CROSBY, STILLS & NASH:  An Aquarium Drunkard completes a trilogy of 1969 demos, including an instrumental vesrion of "Cinnamon Girl."  You can jukebox 'em on the ol' HM.

SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS COVER BAND:  Oasis, The Killers and Razorlight are among those covering songs from the classic album to mark its 40th anniversary.  Geoff Emerick, the engineer in charge of the original 1967 sessions, will use the same equipment to record the new versions for BBC 2.  And somehow I think I'm going to be glad I have 1988's Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father.

SPANDAU BALLET is threatening to reunite.  Strange, but true.

BRITNEY SPEARS rebound guy and music producer J.R. Rotem tells Complex magazine the two "were dating, before the crotch-shot thing... Now it's kind of rocky between us."  The pop tart reportedly would like to move on to LA Lakers star Luke Walton.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD, but the DNA test results for of baby Dannielynn are due to be revealed in a Bahamas court room today.  Multiple media outlets are reporting that former Smith companion Howard K. Stern will not challenge custody if Larry Birkhead is confirmed to be the biological father.  But Stern has hired legal eagle Lin Wood to threaten suit against the media Stern believes are implicating him in the overdose deaths of Smith and her son.

THE FRENCH HOTEL: Speaking of lawsuits, the celebutard's lawyer went after Michael K of Dlisted.com, after K posted a parody of "The Simple Life" poster on his site (originally from the Gallery of the Absurd) making fun of the airhead heiress and her pal Nicole Richie.  Page Six notes the factual bases for the allegedly false inferences in the artwork.

DON IMUS:  Beginning Monday, April 16 (after the publicity dies down), MSNBC will suspend simulcasting the syndicated ‘Imus in the Morning' radio program for two weeks, after the aged shock jock referred to members of the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos."  CBS Radio released a statement promising to monitor the show's content in the future.

SCARLETT JOHANSSON and RYAN REYNOLDS were caught canoodling all over NYC last weekend.

TOM-KAT UPDATE:  FWIW, the Glitterati Gossip blog quotes sources close to Holmes as saying the actress is "furious" about Hollywood Car Wash, a book on the rise of a young actress on a TV series who is forced to lose weight, takes drugs, is hounded by paparazzi, and gets into a contracted relationship.  Where is the Carly Simon of today?

KIRSTEN DUNST has reportedly been dumped by Razorlight frontman Johnny Borrell, in favor of his ex-girlfriend, singer Fabiola Gotti.  Separately, Kiki says is a fan of marijuana and believes the world would be a better place if "everyone smoked weed."

SIENNA MILLER and JUDE LAW , who split over six months ago, are still trading insults between mutual friends.

DIANE KEATON will be honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center this week; the pseudononymous "Alexandra Zacharios-Haight" argues that it is a scandal that Keaton -- and other actresses over 50 -- are just getting their props now.

GRINDHOUSE may have underperformed in its box office debut last weekend, but the behind-the-scenes video with Rose McGowan at the Rolling Stone cover shoot is fun, as is the scarring story of Kurt Russell's first kiss.

BRADGELINA:  Jolie's weird brother James Haven says that he and his sis now consider themselves "orphans" following the death of their mother Marcheline Bertrand this past January -- even though their estranged father, actor Jon Voight, is still kicking.

IRAN:  Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.  As hinted here a week ago, Tehran claimed today that it is enriching uranium "on an industrial scale" and that was uranium gas into 3,000 centrifuges, theoretically enough to have a nuclear bomb in a year or so.  FOX News doubts it, as does nuke expert Jeffrey Lewis.  Unfortunately, less exaggerated figures only put off that date for another year or two.  Hypothetically, if the US had found even 1000 centrifuges in Iraq, would people have a different opinion of the mission there now?  I'm not advocating military action here, just asking.  People in 18 European countries were asked, though... and 52% think action -- including military action -- must be taken in order to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons... as long as someone else does it and pays for it.  Russia is already ignoring the UN sanctions against Iran.

IRAQ:  Coalition Forces captured a senior al-Qaeda leader and two others during raid Sunday morning in Baghdad.  There have been no major mass casualty attacks inside Baghdad since the suicide bombing in the Shia market on March 29th; Bill Roggio has a national overview. There were anti-US protests in Najaf, as called for by Moqtada al-Sadr; Reuters had the crowd in the thousands, the NYT had it in the tens of thousands, calling it "huge."  This in a country where millions of Shia will make pilgrimages more than once a year for various holy days.  Meanwhile, the Coalition op against al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Diwaniyah is already 70% successful in four days.  On Monday, an agreement was reached on the formation of an Iraqi Army brigade made up of 4,000 soldiers recruited from Anbar, who will provide security in the province.

MACAVITY the CAT gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings, then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop.  More pics at the link.

WHEN FISH ATTACK:  A 57-pound fish jumps into a boat and attacks a man. Let's go to the video.

A FUGITIVE MOUSE delayed the departure of a Hanoi-to-Japan flight for more than four hours Sunday as technicians hunted down the potential threat.

FINLEY, a Rhodesian Ridgeback mixed-breed from Annapolis MD, could be the next world champion pier-jumper.

WORSE THAN PET HOARDING?  Police in East Greenbush, NY are trying to figure out why someone unloaded a collection of lawn and garden ornaments -- including a 3-foot-tall deer, a dog, several bunnies and something that looks like a possum -- on an unsuspecting homeowner's lawn and who owns the ceramic animals.

THE HOLD STEADY, oft compared to the E Street Band, got to join The Boss onstage at the end of a Springsteen tribute concert.  There's some bootleg video of Craig Finn helping out on "Rosalita."  There's more video links from the concert at Stereogum.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS are splitting with Jason Isbell, but Jason's wife (Shonna Tucker) is still in the band... so far.

LILY ALLEN, who popped up here a couple of times last week, popped up in DC last night, so you can stream her gig from NPR now.

BRIGHT EYES has a live segment with special guest M Ward up at AOL Sessions.  Plus, Conor Oberst talks politics, colonics and music with the Omaha Weekly Reader.

JOE BOYD is the guest DJ for NPR's All Songs Considered, where he talks about and spins early Clapton and Pink Floyd, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band and more.

PHIL SPECTOR:  With a jury selected for the hit producer's murder trial, Spinner has a piece about how he nastily screwed an early business partner.  Karma may not be instant, but it's getting to Phil now.

THE STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK plays "Tomorrow" live for a venerable TV show.  This song was on the satellite radio on the way to my family's Easter buffet.

THE LONG WINTERS frontman John Roderick talks to the Riverfront Times and the Salt Lake Tribune about the band's songs and albums being "growers."  There are plenty to stream over the ol' HM at the moment.

INDIE SELLS OUT:  New Pornographer A.C. Newman explains how "Bleeding Heart Show" became the theme of the University Of Phoenix (he thought it was a local thing).  Embedded video at the link.

PATTI SMITH explains on video at Spinner how she came to put "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on her upcoming covers album.  And she talks to The Scotsman about being an icon and an iconographer.

PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE:  The troubled singer plans to surprise his supermodel lover by getting his penis pierced.  With the largest size piercing, if Britain's Daily Star newspaper is to be believed.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE:   Blades of Glory and Meet the Robinsons repeated as the one-two punch of the weekend, taking in $23 million and $17 million, respectively.  The Ice Cube-led family comedy Are We Done Yet? showed at $15 million.  Grindhouse opened in fourth place with $11.6 million, but it will be the talk of Tinseltown today.  Box Office Prophets offers a number of theories for the diasppointing debut, but I think the answers are pretty simple.  First, as BOP notes (but not as to Grindhouse specifically), Easter has never been a great long weekend to open a movie.  Second, it was probably ill-advised to open this project on Easter weekend -- more family-oriented fare prevailed.  Third, Grindhouse runs over three hours long;  BOP argues this argument doesn't hold after Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, ignoring that it was the final film of an enormously popular franchise.  Peter Jackson had a tougher sell with King Kong, which was still better known to the public than the grindhouse genre, was released in December and was not a hard "R"-rated film.  Grindhouse may play much better to the regular weekend teen market next weekend.  The Reaping, which also would have played to that market, opened in fifth with $10.1 million.  Finishing sixth is 300, which did surprisingly well in its fifth weekend, especially given the mismatch with Easter (it might also be argued that its huge box office these past weeks satisfied some of the demand that would have gone to Grindhouse.).  Wild Hogs also hung in for another $6.8 million.  Shooter drops to eighth and looks to be a loss for the studio.  TMNT drops from fourth to ninth, but has already made $46 million on a $34 million budget.  Firehouse Dog debuted in the tenth slot with $4 million.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD, but two diaries she kept in the early 1990s paint a portrait of a woman apparently deeply in love with her then-octagenarian-billionaire husband, but often worried about her weight and disdainful of sex.  Yet Playboy magazine has put her on its cover again.  And Las Vegas magician Steve Wyrick is quoted extensively in this week's Star magazine, claiming that Smith liked rough sex.

BRITNEY SPEARS reportedly "hates" her once-and current manager Larry Rudolph, but it may be that no one is calling the shots for the beleaguered pop tart.  London's sun claims Spears nipped to see a liposuction specialist in Las Vegas.  And her reported new boyfriend, musician Howie Day, was arrested in Wisconsin in 2004 for locking a woman in the bathroom of a tour bus after she refused his sexual advances.

KATE BECKINSALE wishes she had "gigantic real breasts, like Queen Latifah," adding that "If I had them, I'd run up and down a flight of stairs!"  Yet she deplores the phony beautification that goes on in her business, telling Glamour magazine that "Everybody is retouched, stretched, lengthened, slimmed and trimmed. I could look at a picture of myself from the past and think, ‘Why don't I look like that now?' It's because I never have!"

SCARLETT JOHANSSON talks to Seventeen magazine about her current single status: "When I'm single, I don't focus. I focus on a guy if he's a boyfriend, but I don't focus on finding a boyfriend." With a laugh, she adds, "They're never around when you want them." 

TOM-KAT UPDATE:  Cruise is coming to NYC to promote his controversial Scientology-inspired treatments for 9/11 workers, and will host a mega-fund-raising gala for it.  The program -- which had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in city funds -- hasn't been endorsed by the Fire or Police departments and has been described by some experts as nothing more than medical mumbo-jumbo.

LUCY LIU and CARLA GUGINO apparently have a lesbian vampire sex scene in the upcoming movie, Rise: The Blood Hunter.  Egotastic has video.  NSFW?  Close enough to issue a "better safe than sorry."

JOSH HARTNETT and PENELOPE CRUZ were caught canoodling in the Caribbean, as were Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, who were staying at the same posh resort.

OCEAN'S THIRTEEN is premiering at my local cineplex, followed by a star-studded after-party at the soon-to-open Room 21 restaurant and nightclub.  The event will raise money for the International Rescue Committee, so perhaps Angelina Jolie will turn up with Brad Pitt.

NAOMI WATTS and LIEV SCHREIBER reportedly want to tie the knot before she gives birth in late summer.   It's almost old-fashioned.

JESSICA ALBA is in her underwear in the trailer for the upcoming Good Luck Chuck.  Following on the heels of Jessica Biel in the trailer for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (which got a huge respose at the Grindhouse premiere, btw), this Spring has been a good one for Jessicas in their underwear in trailers.

CULT of the iPod:  Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats in Michigan Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child.  It sight be easier to sell the gadget as protection for US troops in Iraq, though one won't really slow down a bullet all that much.

AUSTRALIA'S TOP MUSLIM CLERIC, who complained about long sentences for gang rape and to compare immodestly dressed women to uncovered meat, suggesting they invited sexual assault, and who was creating "The Australian Peace Party," has been sacked by the peak Islamic body and the role of mufti has been abolished as the Australian Federal Police widens its probe into allegations that the sheik gave charity funds to supporters of the al-Qaeda and Hezbollah terrorist groups.  UPDATE:  The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils has denied reports it has sacked the mufti; it just isn't paying him, and plans to have minders "translate" his outrageous comments into English.

IRAQ:  Fresh troops arrived in Baghdad over the weekend.  The Iraqi government imposed a ban on all vehicles in the Iraqi capital from 5:00 am Monday until Tuesday dawn on the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall to US forces.  Moqtada al-Sadr urged Iraqi forces to stop cooperating with the US and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate their attacks on US troops rather than Iraqis.  That may be intended to stop the previously-noted splintering of the Mahdi Army, but is likely to be a disaster for that militia, if history is any guide.  US troops swept into Diwaniyah before dawn on Friday, targeting the Mahdi Army; three fighters were killed and 27 were captured on the first day of the assault.  On Saturday, 39 more were detained, and a US air strike took out Mahdi fighters carrying RPGs, based on intell from the locals.  Coalition forces also kicked off an operation in Anbar province.  The Anbar Awakening Council captured what appears to be an intell treasure, according to ITM's Omar Fadhil.  And there are further signs of a rift between Al Qaeda in Iraq and their former Sunni allies.

KNUT UPDATE:  It's good to be a celebrity -- zoos from around the world have reportedly expressed interest in having little polar bear girls get to know Berlin's little polar bear boy.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT:  Now they are infiltrating Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

THE BOVINE THREAT:  Gate-crashing cows have created a bovine terror for some homeowners in New Tampa, FL.

COYOTES, BUNNIES and PANDAS:  The Public Eye blog at CBS News defends the proliferation of animal stories on the Evening News, complete with a link to the legendary water skiing squirrel from the '80s and '90s.

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with WARREN ZEVON!  I was remiss in failing to mention that some of Zevon's best known albums were re-issued last week, along with the fine live LP, Stand In The Fire.  So I'm making up for it with live video, starting with an excitable rendition of "Excitable Boy," followed by "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," "Jeannie Needs A Shooter" and his signature "Werewolves of London" (some of which you may need to preload for a few minutes, but worth it)-- all from Passaic, NJ, circa 1982.  BONUS:  An uncensored live take on "Lawyers, Guns & Money" from the ol' Nightmusic series, and "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" from the Late Show in 2002.  TRIPLE-BONUS:  Jackson Browne joins Zevon for "Mohammed's Radio" on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976.

JOY DIVISION has a tribute sneaker from New Balance?  The story date is April 2nd, so maybe.  Sure looks cool!

NINE INCH NAILS is not one of my favorites, but I note that Trent Reznor's upcoming effort is already streaming from the Year Zero website.

DEAN & BRITTA talk about songwriting, working with producer Tony Visconti and more with Stylus.  They have a short set at the World Cafe streaming from NPR. (Thanks, Chromewaves.)

THE 25 BEST ROCK RUMORS EVER, according to Rolling Stone's blog.  Keith Richards makes the list, but I think he would have scored higher after the thing about snorting his father's ashes.  BTW, I don't think all of these are false; Roger Daltrey recently insisted that Keith Moon did indeed drive a car into the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn in Flint, MI.

CUTOUT BIN, Pt. 1:  This Friday's first batch of fortuitous finds from the ol' HM include: Harry Caray - Take Me Out to the Ballgame; Easybeats -  Friday on My Mind; Hoodoo Gurus - Death Ship; The Lemonheads - Different Drum; Calexico - Alone Again Or; Apollo Sunshine - I Was on the Moon; Black Lips - Not A Problem; Big Black - He's A Whore; T.Rex - 20th Century Boy; Sniff 'n the Tears - Driver's Seat; We Are Scientists - It's A Hit; Yo La Tengo - Dreaming (Blondie cover live); Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945; The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn!; Jefferson Airplane -Today; Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth; 13th Floor Elevators - You're Gonna Miss Me; and Tommy Shaw & James Blades - Time of the Season.

TEMPLE of the DOG:  The grunge supergroup plays "Hunger Strike," just because Winter is clinging to April.

KEITH RICHARDS, LORD of the UNDEAD, reportedly will not promote Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End after saying he snorted his dead dad's ashes.  Concerned Disney studio bosses have decided the Rolling Stones guitarist is too unpredictable.  Or, as the kids like to say, "D-uh!"

REUNIONS:  Given the current rash, Jim Farber of the NYDN writes about the real reasons why bickering bands reunite.

THE NEW PORNGRAPHERS' frontman A.C. Newman spills all sorts of details about their upcoming album to Pitchfork, starting with the likely title, Challengers.  He also talks about the odd feeling he gets from the current nolstalgia for the period in which he grew up -- something to which original Pate fans probably relate.  Other good stuff in there, too.

CROSBY, STILLS & NASH:  An Aquarium Drunkard has posted a two-parter of CSN demos from 1969.  And you can jukebox 'em via the ol' HM.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS say they plan to take it easy in 2007 -- which by DBT standards includes recording a new album, releasing long-awaited solo releases from Jefferson Hood and Jason Isbell, and a short "semi-acoustic, kind of turned-down tour" that Hood says will emphasize the storytelling that gets lost behind the "wall of guitars."

CUTOUT BIN, Pt. 2:  This Friday's second batch of fortuitous finds from the ol' HM include: Harry Caray - White Sox Color Commentary; Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - I Fought the Law; Rockpile -  Teacher, Teacher; Buddy Holly - That'll Be the Day; The Raveonettes - Red Tan; Sam Cooke - Chain Gang; Jonathan Richman - Velvet Underground; The Drifters - There Goes My Baby; U2 - Everlasting Love; Dobie Gray - The "In" Crowd; Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools; Wilson Pickett - 634-5789; R.E.M. - Tighten-Up; Dionne Warwick - I'll Never Fall In Love Again; Billy Bragg - Saturday Boy; Graham Parker & The Rumour - Local Girls; They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in Your Soul; Mark Mothersbaugh - Margaret Yang's Theme; Yonder Mountain String Band - Ooh La La; and Mott The Hopple - All The Young Dudes.

GRINDHOUSE:  So I went to the Thursday night opening, purely as a service to you, the Pate visitor.  And as I have about seven minutes to deadline, this will necessarily be about first impressions.  To sum up:  Oh. My! ICYDK, the concept here is a Robert Rodriguez - Quentin Tarantino "double feature," complete with trailers (directed by folks like Rob Zombie and Eli Roth, and featuring at least one totally wacky cameo).  This effort is definitely more of an homage to the fromage of exploitation flicks than a reinvention of the genre -- closer to From Dusk 'Till Dawn than Pulp Fiction, though certainly kicked up several notches in the gore department.  Folks will differ as to which half they prefer.  Most advance reviews seem to think less of Rodriguez's Planet Terror, but zombies and a go-go dancer with a machine gun leg is at the very least not a bad opening act.  And I did hear a few people liking it better than Tarantino's Death Proof -- which is a mix of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Duel and (of course) Vanishing Point. The usual excellent soundtrack throughout, too.  A good time was had by all, laughing and grimacing simultaneously, with absolutlely no redeeming social value.

ROSE McGOWAN and ROSARIO DAWSON, btw, are wearing nothing but ammo on the cover of the latest Rolling Stone to promote the "double feature."  US Weekly has excerpts from their chat with RS.  McGowan is asked about some of her past relationships (including Marilyn Manson), but apparently was not asked about her reported relationship with long-married-with-five-kids Grindhouse director Robert Rodriguez. Maybe the mag saved that part for itself.

NOW SHOWING:  In addition to Grindhouse, which is currently scoring 88 percent on the ol' Tomatometer, three flicks went wide on Wed and Thurs ahead of the holiday weekend, including: the family comedy Are We Done Yet?, which is scoring 10 percent; Hilary Swank with the quasi-Biblical horror of The Reaping (06 percent); and another family comedy, Firehouse Dog (37 percent).

BRADGELINA:  The New York Post has noticed (as Gawker and I already did) that US Weekly, Star and other celebrity weeklies are so fed up with Jolie's cozy relationship with People magazine that they've turned on Jolie and Pitt with a vengeance.  Page Six relays some of the digs, including this one: "When Jolie is in L.A., even though she has four full-time nannies, she leaves her three eldest kids at the $931-per-month preschool/day-care center on the Warner Bros. lot, Star reports, where other parents are upset with the special treatment Jolie gets. One flashpoint is a ban on cellphones because Jolie fears parents will take pictures of her kids."

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD, and we now officially learn that Smith's friend and psychiatrist, Dr. Khristine Eroshevich prescribed all 11 medications found in the former Playmate's hotel room at the time of her death.  Entertainment Tonight, who frequently used Dr. Eroshevich as a source (and reportedly paid her for interviews as part of a complex deal cooked up by Howard K. Stern), reports that the shrink is being investigated by the medical board of California.

TOM-KAT UPDATE:  On March 23, after Cruise told Holmes she hadn't been cheerful enough in public, Katie "ran out of the house," says an insider close to the couple in the uber-reliable In Touch Weekly.

REESE & RYAN BREAK-UPDATE:  People picks up on the persistent rumor that Reese Witherspoon has waded back into the dating pool with Jake Gyllenhaal, her costar in the upcoming CIA thriller Rendition.  A newer, and less reliable rumor is that Ryan Phillipe is dating Scarlett Johansson.

WHITNEY & BOBBY BREAK-UPDATE:  Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown's divorce has been approved in court and will become final on April 24th.

JENNIFER LOPEZ:  The massive attempts to save her singing career -- and even her acting pursuits -- aren't going too well; Roger Friedman picks through the wreckage for you.  TMZ has what looks like the spin from the J-Lo camp, but Shakira's Spanish-language LP sold more than three times as many copies in its first week.  The last J-Lo album sold more than five times as many copies.  And J-Lo sales have been declining since 2001.

SIENNA MILLER was among those evacuated from London's fashionable Cuckoo Club early Thursday after reports that an air gun had been fired by one of its revellers.

WHY IS THIS SATURDAY DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER DAYS?  Because ABC has its annual showing of The Ten Commandments, a grand spectacle featuring acting from Edward G. Robinson and Anne Baxter that is so over-the-top that Yul Brenner starts to look good by comparison.  And while Robinson's Dathan never actually spoke the line "Where's your Messiah now?" in the movie, it  -- like "Play It Again, Sam" (not spoken in Casablanca) -- has become part of a part of our culture. The line actually comes from Billy Crystal (sample), originally a bit from the Oscars, iirc. It later turned up o­n The Simpsons, with Chief Wiggum playing Dathan to Ned Flanders' Moses.

IRAN:  Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted no deal was done to free 15 Royal Navy crew members, as they arrived in the UK after being held in Iran for 13 days.  The New York Sun claims that a White House decision to release an Iranian diplomat on Tuesday may have been part of a deal.  London's Guardian cites a source close to Iran's Revolutionary Guards as saying the detention of five Quds force members in Iraq was not a motive for the capture of the Brits, but became a negotiating point afterward.  The Christian Science Monitor reports that the hostage release probably does not mean that Tehran now will be more flexible in its ongoing standoff with the West over its nuclear program.  In the Washington Post, Robin Wright reports that experts think Tehran is likely to pay a long-term price for the detention drama, again appearing to undertake rogue actions in violation of international law and coming under pressure even from allies like Syria and other Islamic countries.  Much of the rest of Wright's piece, however, is as Mullah-friendly as her track record would have predicted.

IRAQ:  Iraqi paper Al-Mada is reporting on a possible parliamentary reform plan that would create a "troika" whereby the president, prime minister and speaker of the parliament would equally share the governing of the country, perhaps with a sectarian formula in mind, whereby a Kurd, a Shia Arab and a Sunni Arab would respectively occupy the top three spots.  Bill Roggio looks at US and Iraqi forces preparing the battlefield in Diyala province, with an eye toward kicking into full gear in late May or early June.  It looks like the Anbar tribes fighting Al Qaeda are meeting in Baghdad this month as a step toward greater political and security cooperation.  Bing and Owen West have background and a current dispatch from Anbar.  Blogger Michael J. Totten is in Northern Iraq, where he filed a picture filled dispatch detailing his meeting with the Kurdish Peshmerga.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:  Stumpy, the four-legged duck, who was not expected to live for very long after his birth on February 2nd.

SUICIDE SQUIRREL disrupts an election in Eau Claire, WI.  In Gwinett County, GA, the Daily Post has awakened to the squirrel threat.

SUICIDE SNAKE takes down the power grid in North Queensland, Australia.  Are we seeing the beginning on a Squirrel-Snake Axis?

MICKEY the BOSTON TERRIER, who disappeared four years ago from his suburban Kansas City backyard was found in Montana and reunited with his owners this week.

THE OBLIGATORY PEEPS ITEM:  I coud not let the season pass by without pointing to this rich roundup of  Marshmallow Peep links, including games and Peeps suffering the ten plagues in Egypt.  The Arizona Republic has the scoop on the new Splenda-based, sugar-free Peeps.  The Charleston Daily Mail has a recipe for Gourmet Peeps.  And manufacturer Just Born, Inc. has the results of the annual Peeps survey, showing (among other things) that the third favorite way to enjoy Peeps is by microwaving them.