Karl 
DANNY FLORES, who played the saxophone and shouted the title of the 1950s hit song “Tequila!”, has died of complications from pneumonia at 77. The song became popular with a new generation after it was used in the 1985 movie Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
THE LEMONHEADS: Evan Dando's return gets a 4/5 star review in London's Independent, and music bloggers who got the advance CD also seem to like it. The funny part is that the label seemingly didn't tell the bloggers in advance to limit the MP3 posting to “No Backbone,” so some blogs were asked to pull other tracks, like “Pittsburgh” and “Black Gown.” Yet those tracks don't get dropped out of the Hype Machine quite so fast, do they? And all three are purty darn good.
GEORGE CLINTON delivers three commandments of funk.
THE DECEMBERISTS: Stereogum can hook you up to the stream for “Yankee Bayonet,” from the upcoming The Crane Wife album.
TOM WAITS: His triple-disc set of Orphans doesn't come out until November, but Waits talks about it (as only he can) at the Anti- label site, which has posted “Bottom of the World” as a legal teaser download. So it should be no surprise that you can stream it via the Hype Machine, too. It's from the disc titled “Brawlers,” but musically, it's a bit like “Downtown Train.”
FINAL FANTASY: Owen Pallett is “confused and disgusted” that he won the prestigious Polaris Music Prize. He has pledged most of his 20K in prize money to an artist-owned co-operative he co-founded with long-time friend Steve Kado, after he pays a student loan for his partner Patrick Borjal, who is with him on tour.
ELVIS COSTELLO: The clip of his infamous performance of “Radio Radio” has resurfaced, you-know where.
SUFJAN STEVENS gets a rave for his Atlanta gig from CNN, while Relevant magazine provides background and historical perspective on some of his strangest songs, including “Decatur, or, Round of Applesauce for Your Stepmother!” and “Saul Bellow.” But I'm giving the video link for part of “Casmir Pulaski Day” so you can see the band's new “winged creature” motif. BTW, I used to get Casmir Pulaski Day as a holiday, but no more. I may have to see if Sufjan can get that fixed.
FREE: Thirty years after drugs killed Free's guitarist, the band are back in vogue. They just won't talk to each other. But they do talk to London's Independent.
KEITH RICHARDS filmed his cameo as Johnny Depp’s swashbuckling dad in Pirates of the Caribbean 3, though he was — brace yourself — “not terribly sober.” And though he may be the Lord of the Undead, Sigourney Weaver finds that hot.
COVER ME: MKOB has posted more than two dozen versions of “Dark End of the Street.” You can jukebox 'em, too. Filles Sourires has posted over a dozen versions of “Bonnie and Clyde.” You can jukebox those also. VIDEO BONUS: As Sunday's The New York Times ran a piece on the enduring popularity of the late Fred Neil's “Everybody’s Talkin',” here are video versions of the song by Harry Nilsson, The Beautiful South, and My Morning Jacket.
KATE MOSS does blackface for a special edition of The Independent, guest designed by Giorgio Armani, focusing on Afican issues. Take that, Gwyneth!
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Jacka**: Number Two won the weekend with about 28 million. It's surely a big money-maker for Paramount on an 11.5 million budget, but it's probably not enough to lift Hollywood's spirits generally. Jet Li's Fearless did okay at 10.5 million, with the top per-screen average. Gridiron Gang came in third, with 9.7 million — a mere 33 percent drop that should make The Rock happy. Flyboys was fourth with 4 million on a 60 million budget, while the weekend's remaining wide release, All the King's Men made a mere 3.8 million on a 55 million budget. Ouch. The Illusionist only dropped 9.6 percent, having racked up 27.5 million to date on a 16.5 million budget. And Little Miss Sunshine stuck in the top ten, passing the 50 million mark on FOX Searclight's 10 million distribution deal.
BARBRA STREISAND attended the Clinton Global Initiative in New York braless in a translucent black dress. The only way you should click on that link is facing away from your monitor, filtering the light through a piece of cardboard punched with a pinhole. NSFA, really.
WHITNEY HOUSTON and BOBBY BROWN BREAK-UPDATE: People dishes some details of the split, which was months in the making.
JESSICA SIMPSON is still sleeping in Nick Lachey's old t-shirts.
MAD MEL UPDATE: Actor-director Mel Gibson visited two Oklahoma towns last week for screenings of his new movie, Apocalypto. But he avoided the press, wearing a mask and wig when he arrived in Cameron, OK last Thursday. What? No beard?
MADONNA knows What Jesus Would Do: He would hang himself from a big, lighted cross on stage.
KATE HUDSON and CHRIS ROBINSON BREAK-UPDATE: US Weekly reports that Owen Wilson was seen kissing Hudson on the cheek at L.A.’s Chateau Marmont.
LINDSAY LOHAN seems to be hitting some bumps in the road with boyfriend Harry Morton.
ELMO DUMPED! Weary of his increasingly erratic behavior — including his public embrace of Scientology — Sesame Street producers will not extend the contract of the program's most popular muppet. Not really, but it's a pretty funny column prompted by the mania of — and over — TMX Elmo.
ARE TERRORISTS DORITOS? Will they just “make more?” For the last week or so, I've been one of many guest-bloggers at Protein Wisdom, where I took a look at the question at a length I really can't do in this format. Over the weekend, news stories about the latest classified National Intelligence Estimate caused me to write a “Part 2… Hey!” that looks more specifically at the question of whether Iraq has become a breeding ground for future jihadis against the US.
IRAQ: The Iraqi government announced it has arrested Muntasir Hamoud Ileiwi al-Jubouri, who sat on the military coucnil of Ansar al-Sunnah, a major terror group in Iraq. The group dnies his arrest “at the time.” The Iraqi government also announced the arrest of a leader of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, one of the more “moderate” insurgent groups. on a worse note, only a quarter of the Iraqi Army forces that had been designated more than a month ago to go to Baghdad have actually arrived.
IRAQ in the MEDIA: Pajamas Media learned that on Sept. 19 — a typical day in Iraq — there were only nine embedded reporters in Iraq. And of those nine, three were from the Armed Forces' Stars & Stripes and one was from Armed Forces Network. The rest of the press corps is hunkered down in the Green Zone, relying on local stringers about whom we know little or nothing.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: A chicken with four legs.
THE RARE RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER sends a North Carolina town into a clear-cutting frenzy. Yeah, you know what I'm thinking.
A KITTEN was seized by British police after pet charity workers were tipped off that the kitty missed a routine flea treatment.
TAKING YOUR DOG TO WORK is working for some companies. Video at the link.
STONED COW UPDATE: A Polish woman who grew marijuana to mellow out her cow has been charged with cultivating a narcotic by police in the western town of Lobez.
