THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with SHINDIG SOUL! This compilation is Tubed into three parts. Part One includes James Brown with "Please Please Please," Tina Turner with "A Fool In Love" and Booker T. & The MG's with "Green Onions." Part Two includes Major Lance with "Monkey Time," Joe Tex with "Hold What You've Got," Tina Turner with "Money" and Marvin Gaye with "I'll Be Doggone." Part Three serves up James Brown with "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," Aretha Franklin with "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody" and Marvin Gaye with "Hitch Hike."

THE WHITE ALBUM gets a 40th Anniversary special at PopMatters.

THE SOUNDTRACK TO OUR LIVES' new album "Communion" is currently streaming in its entirety.

HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW? Jason Kottke lays out timelines for classic rock and movies: "Listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller today is equivalent to listening to Elvis Presley's first album (1956) at the time of Thriller's release in 1982."

THE UGLYSUIT does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.  The band is from Oklahoma City, but two of these tracks were inspired by the Windy City.

ELVIS COSTELLO now has a promo site for his new TV show, Spectacle, which will air on the Sundance Channel in the US.  Clips of El C talking and playing with Elton John are posted now.

THE DECEMBERISTS: Colin Meloy says everyone will be calling the band's next album a rock opera.

SHEARWATER: Jonathan Meiburg gives Drowned In Sound his rundown of his band's latest album, Rook.

THE GREAT MOUSTACHES OF ROCK, courtesy of Yahoo's Get Back blog.

CUTOUT BIN:  Covers aplenty this week from Counting Crows, My Brightest Diamond, Michael Barone, Nico, Mary Lou Lord, Bob Dylan, M Ward, David Ruffin and X -- this Friday's fortuitous finds can be jukeboxed or streamed separately via the Pate page at the ol' HM.

NOW PLAYING: This weekend's wide releases are the animated animal adventure Bolt, which is currently scoring 86 percent on the ol' Tomatometer, and teen vampire sensation Twilight, currently scoring 47 percent.

MADONNA & GUY RITCHIE have reached agreement on their divorce - with the British film director reportedly refusing to take a penny of the Madge's cash.

JENNIFER GARNER has obtained a temporary restraining order against a 36-year-old fan she claims has been stalking her since at least 2002.

BRITNEY SPEARS unleashes some more wacky comments in documentary clips posted by People magazine.

HEATHER MILLS has made several complaints to the UK's press watchdog about inaccurate reporting and invasion of privacy in three national newspapers.

ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. gets Salon's award for the Sexiest Man Living 2008.

WINONA RYDER: Wonder why she was briefly hospitalized after a flight to London?  The Daily Mail suggests it was an accidental overdose of tranquillizers.

THE FRENCH HOTEL and Benji Madden called it quits Tuesday after nine months of dating.  Is Prince William to blame? 

JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME totally hits on a 22-year-old Newsweek reporter in a Q&A for JCVD.

PARTICK SWAYZE talks to the Chicago Tribune about the Windy City, his career and his health.

MEGAN FOX, contrary to some reports, is still engaged to Brian Austin Green and planning a small wedding. Which is just enough news to link some outtakes from her recent GQ photo shoot.  Call it Gratuitous Friday.

STAR TREK: This week's new trailer inspired Trekker backlash, and this mash-up with Beverly Hills 90210.

THE END OF THE WORLD is coming to a theater near you many times before the end of the year.

MONTY PYTHON have started their own YouTube channel. There goes your weekend.

IRAN has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to experts analyzing the latest report from UN nuke inspectors.

IRAQ: Members of Parliament clashed over the US security pact; supporters of the agreement rallied in Sunni and Shia cities. The Iraqi Army is equiping seven to eight light divisions, including commando, air assault, and mountain units.

CAT vs. RABBIT: Let's go to the video, for the patented rabbit hold.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A kitten with two faces.

DEAD PREGNANT ANACONDA: Not something you see every day.  WARNING: Some of the pics are pretty graphic.

AND THERE WAS WHALE all over the highway. A scooter owner's day is ruined.

LIVE WORM discovered during brain surgery. Video at the link.

ROGUE FLAMINGO recaptured in Des Moines, IA.

EMMY THE GREAT compiles a mixtape for Drowned in Sound. They return the favor by linking the video to her current single, "We Almost Had a Baby."

THE BROKEN WEST does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

GUNS N' ROSES: Chinese Democracy is streaming now.

ART BRUT: Eddie Argos is set to get festive this season by way of a brand new Christmas single, one that he'll soon be giving away for free courtesy of his Glam Chops project.

MARIANNE FAITHFULL has a posse of celeb collaborators on her upcoming covers album, Easy Come, Easy Go. It won't drop in the US until next year, but you can stream various tracks online now.

KISS: Gene Simmons opens the New York Stock Exchange -- is that a buy signal? Video at the link.

PAUL SIMON is interviewed by Stephen Colbert, then plays "American Tune."

OKKERVIL RIVER: Drowned in Sound has Part One of an interview with frontman Will Scheff about the band's five-year slog, cover songs and more...

THE GUTTER TWINS are going on hiatus, while Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan focus on their other projects.

GIANT SAND: Howie Gelb asks The Sun how he got to be known as "the Godfather of alt-country."

GUNS N' ROSES: Chuck Klosterman reviews Chinese Democracy for The A.V. Club: "Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom?"

BRADGELINA: Jolie talks about the twins, by which I mean breastfeeding. Pitt tells Oprah his brood has made him "impervious to poo, snot, urine, vomit."

HUGH JACKMAN is People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive for 2008. I do know women who saw Van helsing just to see him, so I suppose there's something to it.

WINONA RYDER was taken to a hospital on Wednesday after falling ill on a flight from L.A. to London, but her rep called it a "precautionary measure" and she was quickly discharged.

GWYNETH PALTROW raised eyebrows last weekend when she went to the Victoria's Secret fashion show at the reopened Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach instead of flying to see her rocker husband, Chris Martin, on tour with Coldplay.

ANNE HATHAWAY: Addicted to losers?

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: Spike Jonze gives a lengthy, wide-ranging interview on the long-awaited and mysterious adaptation of the Maurice Sendak classic to Moriarty at Ain't It Cool News.  Exclusive images, too!

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Those who have seen Valkyrie say not only is the film nowhere near as exciting as a thriller, but Cruise's performance elicits uncomfortable and inappropriate laughs. RELATED: The Tom-Kitten bests the Bradgelina babies in the Forbes list of Hollywood's 10 Hottest Tots.

CAPTAIN AMERICA is closing in on a screenwriting team.  Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely worked on the Narnia films, as well as HBO's "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers."

STAN LEE, who helped create hundreds of comic book superheroes, including Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and Iron Man, was awarded the National Medal of Arts at the White House on Monday: "I wonder what took so long," said Lee, 85, in an interview Sunday. "Say 'He said it with a laugh' or I'll shoot you."

SYRIA: A complex bombed by Israel bore features resembling those of an undeclared nuclear reactor and Syria must cooperate more with UN inspectors, a watchdog report said on Wednesday. Good luck with that.

PAKISTAN: A senior Al Qaeda commander was among six militants killed overnight in a suspected US missile strike in northwest Pakistan.  A big enough fish that the airstrike occurred outside the tribal areas.

IRAQ: I would think they have to work on the water and sewer services first, but the fact that the Mayor of Baghdad has announced plans for a subway that would cut across the city's sectarian lines seems like a barometer of the mood there.

CAT ON A ROOMBA: Let's go to the video.

PYGMY TARSIERS: Mouse-sized primates not seen alive in 85 years have come out of hiding from a mountaintop in a cloud forest in Indonesia. And yes, they do look like Gremlins.

PET FIT CLUB is back on in Britain.

THE SWARM is making folks in Invercargill, New Zealand, justifiably nervous.

CRUCIFIED SQUIRREL: Overreaction to the threat.

MARNIE STERN decided to pay off a speeding ticket on tour by opening a kissing booth. Pics and review at the link. Then watch her hammer her axe a bit in this video for "Transformer."

SILVER JEW -- the documentary about David Berman & Co. -- is streaming this week at PitchforkTV.

ROD STEWART: The "definitive" collection is streaming this week at AOL, but is it really definitive without "Ooh La La"?

FILM SCHOOL does the four free songs thing for Daytrotter.

FLEET FOXES: Robin Pecknold and Josh Tillman talk to Pitchfork about their year of ascent and going to to fmr Beach Boy Al Jardine's house in Big Sur.

SHEARWATER palys a Tiny Desk Concert at the workspace of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen.

KATHLEEN EDWARDS talks to Seattlest about her latest album and touring/ perfoming with John Doe: "We're Sonny and Cher. Dolly and Porter. John is Dolly."

FEUFOLLET: Some spicy cajun rock for a cold day, streaming on demand via NPR.

THE CLASS OF '93: Jim DeRogatis looks back at bands from Guyville and more.

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE: Brendan Canning talks to the Tennesseean about writing his solo LP in-studio, the current state of the BSS collective, etc.

BRITNEY SPEARS has compared her new life to a jail sentence in an astonishingly candid interview.

PRINCE talked religion and politics over a bowl of carrot soup with The New Yorker.  The Purple One's camp now claims he was misquoted, but the mag stands by its story.

JACKO might be too sick to travel to London to testify in a suit claiming he owes an Arab sheik seven million bucks, according to his attorney. The sick one wants to give his testimony by video link from the US.

NICOLE KIDMAN claims she may quit acting to have more kids. Of course, Jessica Alba recently said she's having a tough time as a working mom.  So maybe this has now become the thing to say, now that Angelina Jolie has said it.

JENNIFER ANISTON & JOHN MAYER were "positively glowing in the candlelight" at the Sunset Tower Hotel on Monday night.

TOM-KAT UPDATE: Putting the latest trailer for Valkyrie in front of the new James Bond movie presented its own cliffhanger for both Cruise and MGM, who bizarrely chose to have a lot riding on a movie about a Nazi assassination plot.

ASHLEE SIMPSON is so eager to finally give birth that she may induce labor, according to her pneumatic blonde sister.

PAKISTAN: The government reopened the Torkham border crossing in Khyber; paramilitary forces are escorting NATO convoys.

IRAQ: Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, long an Iraq skeptic, has written in a new report that the Iraq war has entered its "end game," enabling the US to bring home most of its 140000 G.I.s within three years. Iran's parliament speaker urged Iraqi lawmakers to keep resisting a security pact with the US, official media said Tuesday. The head of the Anbar Awakening Council says that it is now the time for Iraq to become a strategic ally of the US.

PENGUIN vs. KILLER WHALES: Head for the lifeboat!

A SERVAL KITTEN rejected by her mother from a local zoo near Munich, Germany, has been adopted by a family of Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs. Aww..some pics at the link.

A TEN-POINT WHITE BUCK was bagged in Waukesha County, Wisconsin.

DEBBY, the world's oldest polar bear, has died at a Canadian zoo.

A BABY GAZELLE was born Nov. 2 at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in DC.  Awww...some pics at the link.

JONESTOWN: The mass cult suicide occurred 30 years ago today, as recalled by Tim Reiterman, who was shot while escaping the People's Temple compound in Guyana. So it seems like the moment for the Vapors' "Jimmie Jones."

NEW RELEASES: Belle & Sebastian, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Tom Jones, The Doors and more have albums streaming in full this week via Spinner.

BRITISH SEA POWER puts Guitar Hero and Wii Music through their paces for the Times of London.

THE DECEMBERISTS: A new song, "Record Year," and a video interview with Colin Meloy are posted at SPIN.

THE PERMANENT REVOLUTION: More than 30 years after punk took the stage, its DIY influence is felt everywhere from indie rock to the blogosphere to Christie's auction house.

HE HIT ME (and it felt like a kiss): Maine Today posts the Crystals original and the Grizzly bear cover of the shoulda-been- a-big-red-flag-about Phil Spector number for a creepy Twofer Tuesday.

THE KILLERS get a fairly meaty profile in the Times of London.

BRIAN WILSON gives a sad and painful interview to the Washington Post. Obviously not one of his good days.

THE ACORN: lead singer Rolf Klausener gives WRAL interesting descriptions of the band's sound and influence.

BLUEGRASS APOCOLYPSE: Bluegrass has been transformed from a mostly played-out festival circuit relic into a viable commercial force. But at what cost?

SCARLETT JOHANSSON tells December's Allure she doesn't know why Lindsay Lohan doesn't like her, and  is flattered that she inspired Katy Perry to pen her hit "I Kissed A Girl."  Sorry gals, she's married!  BONUS: Some behind-the-scenes from her Allure photo shoot.

HEATHER LOCKLEAR has been formally charged with misdemeanor DUI in connection with her September arrest.

ANGELINA JOLIE tears up while talking about her mother who died after a 7 1/2-year battle with cancer.

BRITNEY SPEARS will be taking part in lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

JOHNNY DEPP: First look at Tim Burton's Mad Hatter?

CHRISTOPHER LLOYD -- of "Taxi" and the "Back to the Future" trilogy -- lost an 11 million dollar home in the current Montecito, California wildfires.  Too early for a flux capacitor joke?

STAR TREK: That new trailer is now online in glorious Quicktime.

CLORIS LEACHMAN: The actress and former "Dancing with the Stars" competitor was hospitalized briefly last week with pneumonia, but was treated and released at a Los Angeles-area hospital.

MARK CUBAN: The mogul and former "Dancing with the Stars" competitor has been charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims that Cuban dumped his stake in an Internet company just after he heard confidentially that the company was about to issue low-priced shares. The Smoking Gun has the complaint. Cuban blogs that the "government's claims are false and they will be proven to be so." At the moment, I'm thinkin' that Major League Baseball won't let him buy the Chicago Cubs.

HELEN MIRREN was accused by the UK's Solicitor General of making ignorant, absurd and dangerous comments yesterday after speaking out again about rape prosecutions. Her comments may be wrong viz the British system, but she would sorta have a point in the US, at least in states where the prosecution and defense help select juries (though there are studies to the contrary). Overall, it's probably fair to say that prospective juror attitudes about rape matter more than gender. And that is probably equally true in Britain.

IRAQ: Parliament began debating the security pact that would allow US troops to remain for three more years, while an Iranian official close to that country's leadership praised the Iraqi Cabinet for approving the deal.

WHALE SHARK poops -- and it's like gold to scientists.  Let's go to the video.

COW!  Biplane edition. Video at the link.

COCKROACHES: How they go serpentine.

A PUPPY hit by a car going 70 mph lives -- precisely because it was hit at 70 mph.

A PYGMY HIPPO which started turning up his snout at food has started eating again, with help from a hand puppet.