Karl THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
NANCY SINATRA put on her boots to walk down for her star on Hollywood Boulevard. So how could I help but point you to the videos for “These Boots Are Made For Walking,” “Bang Bang” and her fab duet with Lee Hazlewood (the modern Francis Scott Key), “Some Velvet Morning.”
FRIDAY TIMEWASTER: Hoff Invaders. Like Space Invaders, but with David Hasselhoff.
KEITH RICHARDS, Lord of the Undead, thanked the staff at the New Zealand hospital who treated his head injury, including “the beautiful ladies who make painful nights less painful and shorter.” He hoped he wasn't “too much of a pain in the arse.” Not at all Keef — I'm sure the professional nursing staff loved that description, too. Although discharged from the hospital, Keef must rest in the soil of his native land and avoid sunlight for the next few weeks.
WIRE has reissued back-to-the-basics CD versions of its first three albums and bundled them with a pair of live discs as a special edition box set available through the group's official website. The three albums will be available in U.S. stores individually as remastered Digipak versions via Wire's own Pink Flag label. Very DIY of them!
TOM PETTY is fighting scalpers by voiding hundreds of tickets purchased at the tompetty.com pre-sale for Pearl Jam/Petty gigs that were to be resold.
PEARL JAM: Speaking of which, bassist Jeff Ament talks about his fitness for touring regimen with the Toronto Sun.
TALKING HEADS 76: Marathon Packs is killing music with a couple from an early gig at CBGB. More law-abiding folk can stream the band's covers of ? and the Mysterians' “96 Tears” and the 1910 Fruitgum Company's “1-2-3 Red Light” from the Hype Machine.
OUTKAST are channeling Cab Calloway on the first single from their upcoming Idlewild album. You can stream “The Mighty-O” via the Hype Machine.
VAN HUNT recently brought his old skool brand of funky R&B to KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, which can be watched or heard in various formats. If you haven't heard him, think Sly and Prince influences.
TWO GALLANTS grew up in San Francisco's hardcore scene, but then discovered Lightnin’ Hopkins, Skip James and Charley Patton. The result is somewhere in-between… with a little peak Soul Asylum vibe, maybe. You can stream a few (and download a couple) via MySpace. I had to use the standalone player to get some of them to play, BTW.
EMMYLOU HARRIS: Kwaya Na Kisser is killing music with outtakes and alternate versions of tracks from her seminal Wrecking Ball. You can stream 'em from the Hype Machine. I would particularly recommend her version of Richard Thompson's “How Will I Ever Be Simple Again.”
YOU TUBE and THE HYPE MACHINE: The Phoenix wonders how long this magic moment can last. Plenty of cool music and non-music YouTube links in the article, too.
PETE DOHERTY UPDATE: The troubled singer was just voted one of the greatest rock heroes of all time by readers of the NME — but the magazine itself dismisses him as “just a worn-out drug addict.” And he managed to miss the flight to the Babyshambles Wednesday gig in Cologne, Germany.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise will be showing photos of Princess Tom-Kitten today on the Ellen show. That info is also in the video promo at Ellen's site, which adds: “Ellen celebrates Mother's Day with Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise. Tom chats about the newest edition (sic) to his family, how his fiancée Kate Holmes plans to spend her first Mother's Day and the release of his blockbuster hit Mission: Impossible 3.” Translation: Celebrate Mother's Day without Mom! I'll bet Ellen doesn't ask whether Cruise has ordered Holmes to keep the baby away from sugar, bright lights and pop music.
NOW SHOWING: This weekends wide releases include Lindsay Lohan's Freaky Friday-meets-The Cooler comedy, Just My Luck (17 percent Rotten on the Tomatometer) and the apparently formulaic soccer drama Goal! (47 percent Rotten) But the biggest rollout is for Poseidon (36 percent Rotten), the remake of 1972's The Poseidon Adventure, which I watched last night on AMC. I had forgotten that Leslie Nielsen was the captain and had a scene with a young boy that was lampooned with Captain Oveur and Joey in Airplane! I was reminded again of the character in Free Enterprise who claims that Irwin Allen is a better director than Jim Cameron because anyone can tip a boat over two hours into a movie…
DENISE & HEATHER & RICHIE & CHARLIE & DAVID: In Touch Weekly claims Richie Sambora has dumped Denise Richards. Sambora denied cheating on Heather Locklear to Us Weekly, which also claims Sambora and Richards are still an item.
ASHLEE SIMPSON doesn't know whether she had a nose job. Normally, I would dismiss this as a ridiculous lie. But Ashlee may well be in the pool of people who might not know whether she got a nose job.
JESSICA SIMPSON supposedly had a sexy makeover as a way of lashing out at future ex Nick Lachey, as someone told Life & Style Weekly: “She’s saying to Nick, 'Here’s a whole new me — and don’t I look good!'” Not if you look like a Creamsicle, Jess. But don't fret too much — Nick was reportedly too tired to respond to suggestive voice-mail and text messages from former Miss Kentucky Lizzie Arnold, either.
LOST corpse Michelle Rodriguez had an “amazing experience” in prison on her DUI conviction. Caged Heat, anyone?
LINDSAY LOHAN, following a late night on the town with friends, dodged questions about substance abuse on the Today show, wearing the same clothes from the day before (eye-rolling, sniffling video at the link).
MATT DAMON has returned from a 6-day trip to Africa with a renewed passion for fighting AIDS and praise for President Bush's relief program: “You walk into these clinics; you're surrounded by people who are alive and well because of the president's plan and because of this money.”
GWYNETH PALTROW is giving a fan a yoga lesson for 55K: “Someone's spent a great deal of money on it so I'm going to have to really come up with an excellent plan. Unfortunately I can't do it in the nude or anything to make it really exceptional…” Can't? Who's the boss of her?
VAUGHNISTON: Vaughn finally broke down and admitted he is dating Jennifer Aniston, telling Oprah that Aniston is “one of his favourite people.” I would hope so, if he's dating her. As for the rumor that Oprah was going to throw them an eight million dollar wedding, Vaughn said, “I'm expecting a pretty good band for eight million.”
BRADGELINA: Apparently tiring of reporting a rumored Pitt-Jolie wedding every weekend, Britain's Grazia magazine claims that Jolie has turned down Pitt's marriage proposal.
THE FRENCH HOTEL: Cardinals QB Matt Leinart was snapped doing the walk of shame Wednesday morning with his jeans and shirt rolled up in his hand from the night before.
KIEFER SUTHERLAND: When he's not saving the world as Jack Bauer on TV's 24, he's pulling down his pants and singing kareoke in bars with Christian Slater. BONUS: The Top 100 Jack Bauer Facts from the Random Jack Bauer Fact Generator.
IRAQ: The newly-forming government is moving to curb sectarian violence by bringing its Baghdad security forces under a unified command, requiring clerics to official sanction to lead congregations in Baghdad and stating that Iraqi forces will only be allowed to raid mosques in the presence of US troops, to defeat impostors. Indeed, U.S. and Iraqi forces Thursday rescued seven Sunnis seized by gunmen wearing military uniforms near Baghdad. Bill Roggio takes a closer look at al-Qaeda's assessment of the state of affairs in Baghdad.
IRAN: I couldn't make this stuff up. The AP published the following photo caption: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shows peace signs as he addresses Indonesian students in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, May 11, 2006. Ahmadinejad on Thursday called Israel a tyrannical regime that will one day will be destroyed, and vowed to continue defending his country's right to develop nuclear technology.” Cognitive dissonance, anyone? Also, Pres. Ahmadinejad said that his letter to Pres. Bush was an invitation to Islam and the prophets culture. This is known as a da'wa, the first step in declaring a Jihad to forcibly convert non-Muslims to the Muslim faith.
NSA SURVEILLANCE: Pols and the press were all abuzz Thursday over the USA Today story on the NSA collecting phone records from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. Which is little odd, as The New York Times reported this almost six months ago. The National Journal had a good piece on it in March, identifying the likely key issue in the final grafs. Other good discussion of the legal aspects of the program, with varying viewpoints, include Prof. Orin Kerr and former intell officer and JAG lawyer Jon Holdaway. As with the other NSA program, much turns on facts we don't know, but the fact that the records were apparently provided voluntarily (Qwest declined to provide them) may be significant, as would the method of collection (real-time collection as opposed to the equivalent of billing records).
MONKEY WITH A MOHICAN: The kipunji, recently discovered in Tanzania, is different enough from others to rate its own genus.
THE PUG could become the state dog of Delaware.
DRAGONFLIES are bugged, though not by the NSA.
PET HOARDING: Normally, the discovery of over 60 dead cats in a Westbrook, CT home would be your big story on this beat, but in Hesperia, CA, the animal control department removed 98 guinea pigs, 84 cats, 27 dogs, 14 rabbits, 3 potbellied pigs and 1 bird from a home that — oddly enough — reeked of urine.
CROCK SHOCKS: In Sunrise, FL, an autopsy confirmed that a 28-year-old woman woman found floating in a canal was stalked and killed by an alligator, then dragged into the water. The first fatal alligator attack ever recorded in Broward County shows that the recent drought, coupled with the gator mating season and more construction in the area, has made human contact with alligators more common. Down Under, an airborne four-meter crocodile made scientists' hearts skip a beat during research on the Ord River. Of course, the gator's heart probably skipped a beat when the scientists ran the electrical current through the river, too.
