Karl 
BUCK OWENS, whose Bakersfield sound wound up being one of the blueprints for modern country, passed away at 76. The Washington Post has a nice piece on Owens' road back from Hee-Haw. Caught Up In The Fable has a nice eulogy, with video of one of his many smash hits, “Tiger By The Tail.”
BE YOUR OWN PET, from Nashville, was one of the most talked-about unsigned bands in America, even before they left school. Their self-titled debut album comes out tomorrow, but you can hear their somewhat abrasive punk sound at MySpace today.
ROCK AND ROLL SCIENTOLOGISTS, past and present, are catalogued in London's Independent.
JINGLE ROCK REDUX: After linking to a bunch of rock jingles Friday, I found that YANP linked to “Clap! Shake! Jump!” by Behavior, which is the song from the current Old Navy commercial.
CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH: Shakespeare once asked, “What's in a name?” In the case of CYHSY, the Tuscon Weekly suggests the answer is ” a lot.”
DURAN DURAN: The band's 1995 release Thank You, which paid tribute to the bands that had inspired them, has been named the worst album of all time by music experts at Q magazine. The Independent lists the rest of the Worst Ten.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Robert Pollard works all of his accidental rock star mobes in the Guided by Voices video for “Bulldog Skin.”
BILLY BRAGG thinks his early material hasn't dated much because he never really fit in the first place. He tells CNN that “I don't mind the label of political singer. But I do mind being dismissed as one.”
RONNIE SPECTOR talks to London's Observer about her upcoming album, which features cameos from Keith Richards, Patti Smith, the Rave-onettes and the Greenhornes, covering songs by the likes of the Ramones and Johnny Thunders. Her husband Jonathan explains why Ronnie can't talk about her ex, producer Phil Spector, who is facing murder charges. The Observer has a separate, positive advance review also.
ARCTIC MONKEYS drummer Matt Helders tells the Washington Post about overnight success: “We don't take it too seriously, but we do talk about it. We've done a lot already, achieved much more than we expected to achieve. It's not the end of the world if it doesn't last forever.” The WaPo piece also notes that Monkeys frontman and songwriter Alex Turner “is blessed with an eye for vivid detail, an instinct for lyric and melodic economy, and empathy for his adolescent peers.” The Independent notes a backlash from US hipsters. At least The Raconteurs are fans. Meanwhile, the band has revealed details of an upcoming EP, which will include new songs.
THE SLITS are reuniting for shows in Dublin and Berlin. But I think Pitchfork shouldn't be telling everyone to “Stop Youtube-ing 'Typical Girls.'”
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The troubled singer's band, Babyshambles, missed a gig on the the day Doherty pleded guilty to drug charges… again. The latest advice for Doherty comes from Johnny Rotten: “Honestly, have a look at Ozzy Osbourne. Is that in your future? Rich and dumb as a doorbell — I'd rather be poor and bright.” Sounds kinda like Dean Wormer to me… Meanwhile, the supposedly sober supermodel, who was rumored to be taking Doherty to France for a romantic weekend, is now also rumored to be having a phone fling with Colin Farrell. London's Mirror reports Moss went on a head banging 21-hour booze bender, including hooking up with divorced couple Sadie Frost and Jude Law — though there was apparently no threesome. From there, Moss apparently spent the night with Doherty at the home of a mutual friend.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Celebrity magazine editors and the paparazzi were on call 24/7 this weekend, on rumors the Tom-Kitten is imminent. Ex Nicole Kidman believed — apparently correctly — that Cruise had someone eavesdropping on her phone conversations and would say things like, “So, Tom, are you listening,” in the midst of calls with her friends.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Spike Lee's Inside Man dominated, pulling in 29 million. V for Vendetta came in second, with 12.3 million. V should be in the black before it reaches the DVD market, but a 52 percent drop suggests it won't have the legs of The Matrix.
V FOR VENDETTA was granted unparalleled access to film in Westminster last June; actor Stephen Fry has suggested tht may have been due to Euan Blair, the 22-year old son of the British prime minister, who was employed as a runner on the film.
BRADGELINA: Celebrity Living has an extraordinarily silly story about Jolie forbidding Pitt from doing sex scenes in movies. More plausible is Jolie joining in Maddox's judo class.
BRUCE WILLIS is dismissing reports of dating supermodel Petra Nemcova: “I wish. I’m just an old actor.”
PENELOPE CRUZ had to wear a false butt for an upcoming movie after movie bosses decided her own posterior wasn't curvy enough. No wonder George Clooney is proud of Hollywood's progressive reputation.
GWYNETH PALTROW wants to name her second child Mortimer, after her godfather Steven Spielberg, according to some website.
DAVID HASSELHOFF allegedly broke his estranged wife's nose according to documents filed in his divorce case. Pamela Hasselhoff also claims that he once pushed her hard into a car. No word on whether the car will testify.
JESSICA SIMPSON is probably smiling over tabloid reports that Laguna Beach's Kristin Cavallari was caught canoodling with someone other than Nick Lachey.
THETANLAND!? Mike Walker of the National Enquirer reports that the Church of Scientology is looking at purchasing Jacko's Neverland Ranch and making it a retreat for Scientologists.
PINK reportedly wants to open a chain of strip clubs, in which she will dance herself. It seems like just a few months ago that Pink was satirizing porno paparazzi girls… oh, wait it was just a couple of months ago.
JAKE GYLLENHALL and KIRSTEN DUNST: Reconciling for the sake of their dogs? That would be mighty Swank of them.
HEATHER LOCKLEAR was probably not smiling on learning that Richie Sambora is seeking joint physical custody of their eight-year-old daughter, Ava. Perhaps more intriguing is that Sambora's legal response seeks enforcement of the couple's prenup.
NANOTECH: Golden drug “nanoshuttles” target “zip codes” in the human body. Someday they may attack troublesome tissue, carry drugs, or reflect signals back to imaging systems.
IRAQ: Former Dem Sen. and 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey says a recently declassified Iraqi account of a 1995 meeting between Osama bin Laden and a senior Iraqi envoy presents a “significant set of facts,” and believes our understanding of Saddam's relationship with Al Qaeda would become much deeper as more captured Iraqi documents and audiotapes are disclosed. Some of those docs seem to show that Saddam's regime hid Russian and Turkish scientists from UN weapons inspectors and that US war plans were disclosed to the regime by the Russian ambassador. Bill Roggio covers Operations Iron Strike, Northern Lights, Scales of Justice and Swarmer.
THE MEDIA AND IRAQ: The Washington Post runs a five-page analysis of the paper's coverage. Though I could point out a number of errors the paper has made, overall, the WaPo coverage is among the more defensible in the media, so I don't expect similar pieces from other outlets. I will note that Post reporter Thomas Ricks admits that coverage within Iraq is seen through the lens of politics, not military ops or reconstruction. I would suggest that the topics are inter-related and that a media failure to recognize this is probably a source of many of the complaints they receive. Elsewhere, Bill Roggio — who is mentioned in the article –comments on how the WaPo covered him and the paper's attitude generally.
BELARUS: Publius Pundit rounded up coverage of the Lukashenko regime's brutal crackdown on opposition protesters after an earlier protest ended peacefully. Alexander Kozulin, a key opposition leader, has been arrested.
THE BIRDS: Life imitates High Anxiety in downtown Orlando, FL.
KNOCK, KNOCK: Who's there? An eight-foot long alligator, if you live in Bonita Springs, FL.
SQUIRRELS: British politicians were urged to eat grey squirrels as part of a radical plan to prevent the indigenous red variety of the species from disappearing. And here I thought squirrel was a delicacy primarily in Tennessee…
PANDAS: Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian told China Thursday to drop the idea of giving the island a goodwill gift of a pair of pandas, saying pandas brought up in cages or given as gifts will not be happy.
