Karl Bade THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
“WHERE'S YOUR MESSIAH NOW?” ABC has its annual showing of The Ten Commandments S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y night, so I cannot let it pass without mention now. Edward G. Robinson's Dathan never actually spoke that line in the movie, but like “Play It Again, Sam” (not spoken in Casablanca), it 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
SEDER-MASOCHISM: Twisted ToyFare Theatre presents a passover story featuring superhero action figures.
GOOD FRIDAY TIMEWASTERS: Fur Ball Pong and Little Donkey, courtesy of The Boy Least Likely To. Did you catch the video for “Be Gentle With Me” when I posted it? If not, don't miss out on a very Spring-y number, with cute and cuddly creatures…
JOHNNY ROTTEN is no more keen about the Sex Pistols getting a Brit Award than he was about entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
THE GO! TEAM: If you haven't heard the band's unique musical mixture, Filter has a documentary for you. The footage of the little kids dancing was shot at last year's Pitchfork Festival, where I saw 'em. As usual, you can check out a few tracks at MySpace.
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS: A Blessing and a Curse comes out next Tuesday, but you can hear the whole thing now, in Flash or Qucktime.
JON LANGFORD: When the Mekons' maestro moved to Chicago from Wales in 1992, Langford decided he’d do what most immigrants do when they step off the boat: reinvent themselves. “I felt liberated,” he says. “I could do whatever I wanted.”
THE SHAZAM: Coolfer Glenn (and Largehearted Boy) turned me on to this power pop band from Nashville The band's MySpace page lists influences like “The Who, Beatles, The Move, ELO, Cheap Trick, Mott The Hoople, Queen… british 60s, arena 70s…,” which is a pretty good indicator of what's streaming there. They also have plenty of samples and a full Rundgren-esque freebie at their website.
THE BEATLES are finally preparing to sell their songs online, pending the digital remastering of the entire Beatles catalog.
MICHAEL NESMITH: The former Monkee, movie producer and video pioneer talks to Wired about the digital revolution.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Here's something to put some spring in your step — “Birdhouse In Your Soul,” as performed by They Might Be Giants, with the fat horns of Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Orchestra!
THE RACONTEURS: Jack White says the band is not a “side project:” “Of course, there's going to be more White Stripes records, more Greenhornes records, more Brendan Benson records, but for right now, it's time for the Raconteurs.”
THE ZUTONS: London's Guardian calls them “the best sci-fi trash-rock band in Britain.” Their new album, Tired of Hangin' Around, comes out next week in the UK, but you can get an adavnce taste from MySpace.
TOM VERLAINE and TELEVISION: Brooklyn Vegan hooks you up with album release and show dates. Pitchfork gives the new Verlaine solo albums middling reviews.
THE NEW YORK DOLLS: Michael Stipe, Iggy Pop and Bo Diddley lend a hand on their first new album in 32 years, due July 25th.
PAUL WELLER comes alive with a double-disc due for Europe in June.
GANG OF FOUR: Stylus has a regular column that forces their regular writers to listen to bands that they’ve never heard — but by all rights should have — and charts the reaction. That's Entertainment! Don't spoil the ending for yourself.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise talks sex in GQ while Holmes falls under his spell. Meanwhile, at test screenings of Mission Impossible 3, audiences are snickering when Cruise tells Michelle Monaghan their relationship is real and applauding when he gets beaten up. And yet no one dares suggest that his plan to traverse NYC on a motorbike, a speedboat, a taxi, a helicopter, sports-car, and the subway for the premiere might play into his mountain of bad PR. REMINDER: Diane Sawyer will be riding the crazy train with Cruise tonight on ABC (9 p.m. ET), but you can get a preview right now.
NOW SHOWING: The holiday weekend's wide releases are Scary Movie 4 (45 percent Rotten on the Tomatometer) and Madagascar-wannabe The Wild (19 percent Rotten on sparse reviews; it's 30 percent Rotten among the “cream of the crop” critics). The Ten Commandments is looking better all the time!
EVANGELINE LILLY: The Lost hottie, like most actresses, would like Scarlett Johansson's career.
HEATHER LOCKLEAR: If you're David Spade, the first rule of dating Heather Locklear is that you do not talk about dating Heather Locklear.
DAKOTA FANNING: Rumors of her death were greatly Photoshopped.
JACKO may avert bankruptcy by agreeing to give Sony an option to buy about 25 percent of his interest in a song catalog that includes scores of hits from The Beatles.
NICOLAS CAGE wants to move into a small castle on the border between Germany and the Czech Republic. Which, on the Cage scale, isn't all that crazy.
SIENNA MILLER got her toes sucked and made out with Tamara Summers after the Oscars. Apparently, Hollywood execs weren't amused.
JESSICA SIMPSON and LINDSAY LOHAN: Perez Hilton claims that their catfight was brief and instigated by a hairdresser.
JESSICA SIMPSON and KATE BECKINSALE could ensure that the Dallas movie is every bit as bad as I imagine it will be.
GOSSIPOLA: L.A. billionaire Ron Burkle instigated the FBI investigation of an alleged extortion plot by former Page Six staffer Jared Paul Stern, but it got people looking at his personal and political life, and Burkle is not enjoying the spotlight one little bit.
COLIN FARRELL'S last movie, The New World, will be shown with Smell-o-vision when it opens in Japan later this month.
KATIE COURIC and MEREDITH VIERA: The latter is replacing the former on the Today show, but only the most observant viewers will notice the change.
SOUTH PARK was banned by Comedy Central from showing an image of the prophet Muhammad. A person close to the show said the network's decision was made over concerns for public safety. So the most recent episode, at the point where Muhammad was to be seen, the screen was filled with the message: “Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network,” followed by an image of Jesus Christ defecating on Pres. Bush and the American flag. I guess the network won't be rerunning the episode where Mohammed appears as a flamethrowing superhero, either. I would like to hear the explanation of why the network won't run the shows about Muhammed and Scientology, but was just fine with the whole Jesus defecating thing the week before Easter.
IRAQ: Bill Roggio notes another senior al-Qaeda middle-manager has assumed room temperature. Strategy Page suggests the threat of civil war is causing the neighbors to curb extremist support. A recently translated document seized from Saddam's intell HQ refers to destroying documentation of WMD programs that may have been ongoing in 1998 (later than the current conventional wisdom). Wade Zirkle, who did two tours in Iraq before being wounded, is miffed with Reps. Moran and Murtha. The Washington Post rounds up retired Generals rebuking Rumsfeld. DefenseTech notes that Gen. Batiste had a different attitude last year. I would note that another critic, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, oversaw the training of Iraqi army troops in 2003-2004. IIRC, the training during that period didn't turn out too well, which makes it a case of the pot and kettle at best. There's certainly a legit debate to have about whether the US should have invaded with overwhelming force (which is the trad doctrine) and been “ruthless,” as retired Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack suggests. But we'll never know whether that wouldn't have made the US appear to be an occupier in the Iraqi mind faster and further fueled the insurgency against a bigger, fatter target.
IRAQ IN THE MEDIA: Bilal Hussein, a stringer who has staged photos of insurgents and is mentioned in the National Journal article on phony photos discussed here this week, may have been taken into custody by the US military in Ramadi (from where, coincidentally, Bill Roggio noted possibly fishy video emerged this week when compared to a photo from guess who?). The CBS News blog frames this as an issue of whether Hussein has allegiance to insurgents, but that is only part of the issue. The other part comes up in a Winds of Change post on Michael Ware, Time’s Baghdad bureau chief, and his relationship with insurgents. The issue is that terrorists know how to use the media, including the ever-implicit threat of violence against journalists, to shape coverage to their favor.
PEEPS protest the removal of the Easter Bunny from St. Paul's City Hall. Shockingly, the bunnies moved ahead of the chicks this year in the marshmallow treat pantheon. These days, you can get your own peep-making machine or even go totally homemade. But let's face it, while some like to eat 100 in an hour, or ten in two minutes with a beer chaser, the dirty secret of the peeps' appeal is that we like to experiment on them. Subject them to liquid nitrogen, or a vacuum. Take a blowtorch and get medieval on them. Or stick with the traditional microwave oven treatment. Not that violence is the only seemy underbelly to the peep subculture, as people make peep porn and post it on the Internet…
THE EASTER BUNNY, a/k/a the Osterhase, and his eggs date back to the time of the Pagans. He has managed to survive in the Christian era, but a German performance artist filed charges of grievous bodily harm against the world-famous fluffy-tailed offender in Dresden this week, alleging that the massive amounts of pastel-colored chocolate and marzipan eggs the bunny peddles have caused untold strokes, heart attacks and cases of obesity and diabetes. UPDATE: How could I forget? The Easter Bunny Hates You!
THE DIAMOND STELLA EGG: Speaking of which, Faberge has nothing on this egg, covered in 100 half-carat diamonds worth £50 000 pounds. That's not counting the peach and apricot chocolate and pralines contained inside.
