JERRY WEXLER, who coined the term "rhythm and blues," and who as co-founder of and producer for Atlantic Records helped lead the genre to mainstream popularity, died Friday at age 91.  The NYT obit is quite good, as is the one at Rolling Stone.  Rolling Stone is still streaming Wexler's playlist of the songs he was the most proud of from his half-century career in music.  Selections for Tubers include: Professor Longhair's "Tipitina" (1953); Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" (1954); Ray Charles smashes "I Got a Woman" (1954) and "What I'd Say" (1959); Booker T. & the MG's with "Green Onions" (1962); Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" (1965); Aretha Franklin's cover of "Respect" and "Chain of Fools" (both 1967); Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man" (1969); and Dr. John's take on "Iko Iko" (1972).  And though he was never as big a fan of rock as R&B, Wexler did sign Led Zeppelin, so there's that.

SCOTT McCAUGHEY hits for the cycle in an online chat session with readers at ESPN.com.

BENJI HUGHES, who has drawn comparisons to Beck and The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt, got a feature on All Things Considered.

BARACK OBAMA & JOHN McCAIN: Their Top Tens are analyzed by Randy Newman and Girl Talk.  Not sure what planet Newman is living on to think McCain would pick Streisand, though.

TYLER RAMSEY does the five free songs thing for Daytrotter.

CALEXICO has put the video for "Two Siver Trees" up on PitchforkTV.

THE OCTOPUS PROJECT does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

DUFFY doesn't mind the hype for the album she took three years to make.

GARY GLITTER: The convicted child molester will be met by police on his return to the UK from Vietnam next week and required to sign the sex offenders' register.

LYKKE LI discusses three songs from her debut album with... The Wall Street Journal. Say what you will about Rupert Murdoch; the paper's indie rock coverage is much improved since he bought it.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Tropic Thunder topples The Dark Knight, topping the box office with 26 million. TT has made 37 million since opening Wednesday, which makes it a risk to make back a 92 million budget, as comedies like this often do not rake it in overseas.  Batman places with 16.8 million; it has made 471 million in the US and 734 million in total to date. Star Wars: The Clone Wars shows with 15.5 million.  The horror flick Mirrors debuted in fourth with 11.1 million.  Pineapple Express rounds out the Top Five with ten million, though it cratered 57 percent in the face of Tropic Thunder.  Nevertheless, the stoner action comedy has made 62 million in the US on a 27 million budget.  Below the fold, The Mummy 3 came in sixth; its 86.6 million in US receipts looks bad against a 145 million budget, but much less bad with global receipts of 228.8 million.  Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona debuted in tenth -- his best debut since 2000's Small Time Crooks.  Hot women kissing = success.

TROPIC THUNDER was entertaining, and probably deserved to be making more than it did.  Not a gutbuster, but with some nice satire on Hollywood itself (which may explain first sentence).  Indeed, as good as Robert Downey Jr. is as Kirk Lazarus, an Oscar-winning Aussie who has his skin dyed black for the movie within the movie, the picture is largely stolen by someone named in many reviews, but whom I will leave unnamed here, just in case.  He plays a crazed amalgam of Viacom head Sumner Redstone and producer Scott Rudin and it is this actor's finest performance in years -- and I say that as someone who regularly mocks him.  It is an odd thing to write that he and Downey are funnier than Jack Black and Ben Stiller.  Or Jack Black, anyway... but that's a good thing.  As for the controversy about "retarded" jokes, Stiller was right -- the jokes in question are on Hollywood, not the mentally challenged.

VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA does not rank with Woody Allen's best work, but was charming enough to at least get into the same ballpark as Match Point, if a notch or two below Hannah and Her Sisters. Allen relies a bit too much on narration, though that may have been a decision meant to boost the film in Europe (a new narrator is less obtrusive than overdubs).  As I suspected after reading the Allen interview linked here last week, the movie is mostly carried by the performances of its main stars.  Although most of the attention has been on te lovely Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz, the movie would not work without the charisma of Xavier Bardem and the overlooked Rebecca Hall, who represents Allen's neurotic streak.  But this is hardly the first movie whose success depends mostly on casting, so I give Allen credit for matching the cast and script so well to the location that provided the financing.

ELLEN DeGENERES & PORTIA de ROSSI wed in an intimate ceremony at their home in Beverly Hills, California, Saturday night.  Portia wore a dress; Ellen wore the pants.

JEN & JOHN: Mayer denies reports of lying or cheating on Aniston: "I ended a relationship to be alone, because I don't want to waste somebody's time if something's not right."

LINDSAY LOHAN is either converting to Judaism for Samantha Ronson or may leave her for a may-yun.

POP ICONS at 50: Madonna turned 50 over the weekend, but she's only 36 in Kabbalah years )and is reportedly miffed at Britney Spears). The Times of London surveys the careers of Madge and Michael Jackson, who turns 50 later this month.  USA Today adds Prince, who turned 50 in June.

BILL MURRAY kicked off the 50th Chicago Air and Water Show by skydiving with the US Army Golden Knights to support the Illinois United Service Organizations.  Let's go to the video.

AMY WINEHOUSE does not want to be asked about her health, okay?

MIKE MYERS has been cast by Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds as British Gen. Ed Fenech, a military mastermind who takes part in hatching a plot to wipe out Nazi leaders.  QT knows when someone's carrer needs rehab.

HAWAII fought off a coup attempt over the weekend.

GEORGIA, GEORGIA: Russian leaders failed to follow through on a new agreement to withdraw troops from Georgia. Maybe today will be the day. But with US officials saying the Russian military had been moving launchers for short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia, maybe not.  Russia is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the Cold War. Europe has been feckless as usual, even though the threat to Europe is bigger.

PAKISTAN: Women who say their husbands threw acid at them or burned them find help in becoming self-reliant through salon work.

IRAN continues to finance, train, arm, and support Shia terror groups in Iraq. The Qods Force, via its Ramazan Corps command operating in eastern Iran, remains active in subverting the Iraqi government and attacking US and Coalition forces.

IRAQ: Moktada al-Sadr called on his followers to sign in a blood oath of loyalty; only a few hundred people turned up. There was a series of bombings targeting Shiites heading to Karbala for a major religious festival over the weekend.  The L.A. Times covers further progress in Anbar, with video.

NILS OLAV, a 3-foot tall King penguin, was awarded a knighthood by Norway on Friday. It's a tradition. Let's go to the video.

SHEEP & GOAT OLYMPICS: There's no Michael Phelps -- but it has sheep and goats!

BIGFOOT remains as mythical as Spiny Norman, as one of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum. Chewbacca was very disappointed.

PET HOARDING: A Central Florida school teacher known as the "cat lady" who was fighting to keep nearly 150 cats at her home will get to keep her pets on property. Pics at the link.