Karl 
ROBERT POLLARD talks about his solo career, side projects (including one with touring guitarist Tommy Keene), and supporting himself on eBay. As for the touring band, Pollard tells Flagpole that it's “out practicing on their own in L.A. because I’m lazy. I’m not quite sure how these guys are as far as consumption of alcohol is concerned, but I’ll probably carry on pretty much the same way as I always do.” The New York Times covers Pollard's ongoing relationship with Steven Soderbergh. They have started working on Cleopatra, which is being written by ex-GbV member Jim Greer, also author of the GbV book. The film is described by Soderbergh as “Tommy meets Viva Las Vegas.“
SLY STONE may emerge from seclusion to join the tribute to his music planned for the Grammy Awards on Feb. 8th.
THE PASSION OF MANCHESTER: The BBC plans to mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ this Easter with an hour-long live procession through the streets of Manchester featuring pop stars from The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays and songs by The Smiths and New Order. Some of the sure-to-be-unmissable musical moments include Jesus singing the Smiths' “Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now” as he is being lashed by Roman soldiers, and Mary Magdalene, accompanied by a string quartet, asking the Buzzcocks' immortal question, “Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Fallen In Love With)?” And where's your Messiah now?
NADA SURF is touring with Rogue Wave. That's pretty funny. Glide interviews the Rogues — and they're feisty! You can stream Rogue Wave from two MySpace pages.
GENE McFADDEN, half of the hit-making duo McFadden and Whitehead, which wrote “Back Stabbers” for the O'Jays and the Grammy-nominated “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now,” died Friday of lung and liver cancer. He was 56 years old.
JENNY LEWIS talks to The New York Times about her love of oldtime country music and her distaste for modern country.
JOE STRUMMER will be the subject of a documentary from Julian Temple.
SOUTHERN CULTURE on THE SKIDS bought their mix of garage, country, blues, rockabilly… and now surf to the World Cafe. You can stream the feature, two studio tracks and a bonus live cut at NPR.
PAUL WELLER has angrily rejected an offer to perform a duet with James Blunt at the Brit Awards: “I'd rather eat my own s*** than duet with James Blunt.”
ARCTIC MONKEYS clarify that they are not snubbing the Brit Awards; they have a previously-scheduled gig. However, the lads did accidentally snub David Bowie in NYC.
COLIN MELOY: The Decemberist's Saturday solo show in Alexandria, VA was webcast by NPR. Both Meloy's and opener Laura Veirs' sets are available in the archive. Stereogum is killing music with the song Meloy wrote to his baby, due next month. The compilation from Meloy's first band, Tarkio gets a mere 5.7 on the Pitchfork.
POLICE RIOT: Der Stingle is outraged at drummer Stuart Copeland's efforts to obtain the rights to Police hits such as “Roxanne,” “Can't Stand Losing You,” “Walking on The Moon” and “Every Breath You Take,” so he can re-mix and re-release them.
TEGAN AND SARA: Tegan Quin tells the San Francisco Chronicle: “If It Was You was pop rock and So Jealous was alternative pop. This next record will be even more alternative.” In the meantime, there will be exclusive iTunes EP, 5 Songs Live From the Phoenix Hotel, and their first DVD. And you can stream some from So Jealous now at MySpace.
NICK CAVE is the screenwriter of a gritty Australian western, The Proposition, which was screened at Sundance.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The troubled singer was arrested twice in one day. No, wait… make that three times for allegedly carrying class A drugs. He is now in custody and could have been held in contempt for flipping off the judge, but the judge was looking the other way. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard is fuming as the supposed sober surpermodel jetted off to the French Alps instead of returning to the UK for questioning.
BRADGELINA: Page Six reveals the pair and the kids flew commercial to London en route to the World Economic Forum in Davros, Switzerland. Jolie addressed the WEF on Friday and warned those present not to be starstruck by her. I'm pretty sure that this photo from Davros has been photoshopped. (Oh, that Golden Fiddle!) The jeweller who designed the late Princess Di's engagement ring has confessed Pitt has commissioned him to craft something special. And Pitt is morphing into Benicio Del Toro.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Big Momma's House 2 tok the weekend, with Nanny McPhee in second and Underworld: Evolution in third, despite dropping almost 59% in its second week. Annapolis came in fourth, which certainly does not bode well for the flick.
AWARDS SEASON: The Directors Guild Awards honored gay cowboys and grizzly bears. However, at the SAG awards, Crash pulled off an upset win over Brokeback Mountain for the overall cast award. Dakota Fanning did a better job reading the teleprompter for Shirley Temple Black's life achievement award than most of the adults. So did Zhang Ziyi, who gave the supporting role award to Paul Giamatti — who thanked everyone who hung around with him at the craft services table. Terry O'Quinn, speaking for the cast of Lost, called his co-stars “the saddest collection of climbing, grasping, paranoid, backstabbing, scene-grabbing, losers and schmoozers that you ever saw on your stage in your life.” Felicity Huffman also gave a nice speech in which she declared, “I love actors… I married one… okay, a fantastic one.” That husband, William H. Macy, wasn't up for an award, but gave a speech for Paul Newman when he won. S. Epatha Merkerson thanked her divorce lawyers. SAG has more excerpts posted on the SAG Awards site. Oscar noms Tuesday, iirc…
JOAQUIN PHOENIX lost control of his car, which flipped over and collided with another vehicle headed in the same direction, but managed to walk away from the crash. Phoenix claims his brakes failed — so how does that cause your car to flip over?
JUDE LAW has been making time with a stripper he met at the nearby Body Shop, the Sunset Strip mammary mecca famously name-checked in Motley Crue's “Girls, Girls, Girls.” He's looking more like Hugh Grant every day.
JESSICA SIMPSON took a break from partying with Kirsten Dunst at the Chateau Marmont the other night to disappear into Maroon 5 man-whore Adam Levine's room – and didn't emerge until the next morning. Popsugar's photos are looking very much like the walk of shame now. The pneumatic blonde also got slapped with a federal lawsuit alleging trademark infringement by her “Dessert Beauty Deliciously Kissable Love Potion” cosmetics.
JANET RENO tried to sing “Respect” at a Miami fundraiser. Worse yet, there's video. Not a big crowd, though perhaps they all got while the getting was good.
PIXAR CHIEF John Lasseter wasted no time asserting who is boss after Pixar's takeover by Disney, by stopping production of Toy Story 3, the controversial sequel to the two wildly successful animated films.
SALMA HAYEK slams Hollywood's obsession with extreme dieting. Good for her. And us.
PORN STAR TRAGEDIES come in threes. Sure, there's a punchline to be had, but people are dead, okay?
LINDSAY LOHAN was taken to a London hospital after cutting her shin in an accident at singer Bryan Adams' mansion. Wasn't the accident being at Bryan Adams' mansion?
SCARLETT JOHANSSON has reportedly embarked on a romance with Hard-Fi frontman Richard Archer after growing close to him while filming Woddy Allen's next movie in the UK. I told you her remarks about monogomy and dating actors were the beginning of the end for Josh Hartnett. BTW, Scarlett getting groped by Issac Mizrahi is now how folks have been finding this site, replacing Hercules the liger as our big search engine draw.
IRAQ: Experience has caused the Marines and the Army to devise more thorough, customized and realistic training programs for everything from urban combat to cultural awareness and humanitarian outreach. Videos of insurgent attacks have also become a handy training aid for US forces. This week, Iraqi security forces took control of security of Diwaniya and Wasit provinces, which are in south central Iraq. At Iraq the Model, Omar translates a local story that “The Anbar tribes’ campaign to rid the province of Zarqawi’s terror organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq is in its 2nd day and so far, 270 Arab and foreign intruders have been arrested.” Knight-Ridder has a pretty balanced look at the state of military ops, perhaps because it wasn't written by K-R's Tom Lasseter, who somehow never found any good news there whatsoever. Embedded milblogger Michael Yon is profiled by the AP. And while it's sad that World News Tonight co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were injured when their convoy was hit by an IED, it might be asked why they get so much more media coverage than troops performing acts of heroism in Iraq.
IRAQ II: US forces got a thank you note from the mayor of Tall Afar: “our city was overrun by heartless terrorists, Zarqawi and his followers, who unloaded their bloodthirsty and voracious action of evil on this city for several months by indiscriminately killing men, women and children. Tall Afar was a human slaughterhouse. Simple services were not possible, causing the people to suffer, till the day you dispatched your troops, who were our lion-hearted saviors. Your troops came to rescue Tall Afar led by our heroes, whom Tall Afar will never forget. After the major operation, your wonderful soldiers started nursing the wounds of this city by rebuilding the damaged lives and buildings with great compassion and speed. These soldiers have done more than their original mission required of them. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.” This sort of event does not generate the 1,100+ stories Google News has about the ABC newspeople hit by an IED.
INFOWAR: The BBC looks at a 2003 Pentagon report on information operations,” which “include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.” The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. “Specific boundaries should be established,” they write. But they don't seem to explain how to do this in a global information age.
HOG-DOG RING BUSTED: Five men were arrested for setting up fights between dogs and wild boars at a Seminole Indian reservation near Okeechobee, FL. Undercover agents videotaped the fights. Twenty-one dogs, their owners and at least 14 wild boars participated. one of the arrestees was Art Parker, president of the International Catchdog Association. Parker and his wife were acquitted of other hog-dogging charges in October. A 2004 hog-dogging bust in Alabama yielded video of the bloodsport.
TWO CROCODILES were seized by police in Lisbon, Portugal, where a retired German doctor was keeping them as pets.
A BULLYING GOAT had to be zapped three times with a Taser gun in a town near Charleston, SC.
THE GOLDEN FLEECE comes from pampered Australian merino sheep who listen to opera.
COWS are lounging on their waterbeds in Fresno, CA.
