Karl 
HAPPY MORNINGS! Sure, most of you don't visit first thing in the morning — especially on a Monday. But in my head, you do… and you need coffee.
BOB DYLAN: With Modern Times coming out tomorrow, Google Video is hosting a career-spanning collection of clips, including previously unreleased footage from the D.A. Pennebaker's Don’t Look Back. Plus, it looks like Bob will be having some good opening acts on tour, including Kings of Leon, the Foo Fighters (acoustic, iirc) and the Raconteurs.
THE WHITE STRIPES are on the back burner while Jack tours with the Raconteurs, but here's a sneak peek of how they will look on The Simpsons next month.
BRIAN WILSON, TOM WAITS, JERRY LEE LEWIS and FRANK BLACK are all part of an all-star panel of artists and execs judging the 2006 International Songwriting Competition, which is giving away over 150K in cash and prizes.
PET SOUNDS: The L.A. Times reviews the 40th Anniversary reissue of the classic album, specifically liking the previously unreleased BBC-TV interview of Brian Wilson by Beatles producer George Martin. Meanwhile, one of my favorite music blogs, Largeheartedboy, is hosting a contest including a special edition on glorious colored vinyl (yellow for the original mono mix, green for the remastered stereo version); the deadline is noon today. Let's get a head start by brushing up on “Wouldn't It Be Nice,” “Sloop John B.” (a folk cover suggested by Al Jardine), “Hang on to Your Ego” (the original version of “I Know There's An Answer,” deemed too arty by Mike Love), the transcendent “God Only Knows” and an instrumental outtake, “Trombone Dixie.”
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE: London's Guardian has a sobering look at the state of the Toronto-based musical collective and its offshoot bands. Main man Kevin Drew thinks BSS may be losing a little something: “None of us has any time any more in this band. There's lots of families and personal stuff, other bands going on, so Social Scene has become … it's lost a bit of its love outside of when we're together, but when we're together it's there.” You can stream the recent BSS unpluggety appearance on MPR's The Current from Captain's Dead.
RONNIE WOOD, one of the less dead members of the Rolling Stones, opines that the political activism of Bono and Bob Geldof is pointless.
THE STOOGES, joined by bassist Mike Watt — will begin recording a new studio album in Chicago on October 7th with Steve Albini behind the boards. (Thanks, Ken!)
DON'T YOU FORGET ABOUT ME: The Pure Boredom blog is killing music with a raft of MP3s from the the 80s teen comedies of John Hughes. So I took up the task of providing a video version, starting with the Simple Minds clip (the drumming on this song is impeccable), the Ramones playing “Blitzkrieg Bop” (from National Lampoon's Vacation), David Bowie's “Young Americans” and The Vapors one-hit wonder, “Turning Japanese” and Billy Idol's “Rebel Yell” (all from Sixteen Candles, which opens to a clip of veteran WLS DJs Larry Lujack and Tommy Edwards), Van Halen's cover of “(Oh) Pretty Woman” and General Public's “Tenderness” (both from Weird Science), the Psychedelic Furs re-recorded title track from Pretty In Pink, which also featured Jon Cryer lip-synching to Otis Redding's “Try A Little Tenderness” (that last clip is a blistering live take from the 1967 Stax tour — and excellent, btw), The Smiths' “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” (a Hughes perennial), and OMD's “If You Leave,” plus two Pure Boredom missed from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, “Twist and Shout” (which was shot on Dearborn and Randolph Streets in Chicago, with International Polka Queen Vlasta atop the float), and Yello's unforgettable-no-matter-how-you-try “Oh, Yeah.” Pure Boredom didn't get to Some Kind of Wonderful, but I found Flesh for Lulu's “I Go Crazy” Sadly, the great cover of “I Can't Help Falling In Love” by Lick the Tins does not have video, but I think John Hughes probably likes UB40's cover, too.
NO GIRLS ALLOWED? An article in the Washington Post wonders why there is “a stunning gender-related imbalance” regarding female rock guitarists. Given the generally PC outlook of the WaPo, I'm surprised that there's little discussion of the often sexist nature of the genre, as well as the general sexism of the Blues and Country music that spawned it. SEMI-RELATED: Suede's Bernard Butler talks to the Guardian about the resurgence of the guitar.
THE LEMONHEADS: Sadly, Frank at Chromewaves may be right in writing that “you can tell a person's age by how excited they are about the return of The Lemonheads.” He has most of the links I posted last week, but will also hook you up with another new track from the album due next month, with J Mascis providing the guitar solo.
PROJECT MERSH: London's Independent discovers what indie musicians (and a lot of non-indies, too) have long known — their money really comes from touring and merchandising.
KILLING MUSIC: Two men pleaded guilty to violating copyright laws by posting an album by Ryan Adams on a Web site before its public release, federal officials said Thursday.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: After advocating revolution, the troubled singer hits a new low, getting busted giving cocaine to a troubled teenager at The Priory rehab center, which is currently hosting the frontmen from Keane and The Darkness also. Indeed, the celeb contingent at the Priory has generated a joke MySpace page. (Thanks, Miss Valerie!) Even so, it's rumored that the supposedly sober supermodel still wants to marry him.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Now that his company has lost its deal with Paramount Cruise is having folks say he regrets bashing Brooke Shields. The episode has earned Cruise an Assuie award given to public figures who make derogatory and sexist public statements. More importantly, Page Six claims that Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone's decision to dump Cruise was motivated in part by Redstone's wife's reaction to the Shields incident. The decision blindsided Steven Spielberg, who directed Cruise in War of the Worlds and heads the now Paramount-owned DreamWorks. Best Week Ever has a funny faux memo from Redstone to Cruise. The Gallery of the Absurd has “The Prison Art of Katie Holmes,” based on the editorial cartoon Lindsay Lohan's convict father sent the NYDN. And Just Jared has an unsourced report that Cruise may may a secret deal with Yahoo!
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Mark Wahlberg was Invincible to the tune of 17 million, followed by Talladega Nights and the indie-movie-that-could, Little Miss Sunshine, which moved into third place (making 23 million so far on an 8 million budget and a 10.5 million sale to Fox Searchlight). Beerfest came in fourth with 6.5 million. Outkast's Idlewild came in eighth with 5.9 million, but that's over 6K per screen — the highest of the weekend. Snakes on a Plane crashed into ninth place on its second weekend. How To Eat Fried Worms entered at twelfth, so you hope it was low budget.
THE McCARTNEYS: Heather Mills did another nude photo shoot at the lodge on Sir Paul's estate. This was for PETA's “I Would Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign, not a sleazy german sex manual.
KATE HUDSON-CHRIS ROBINSON BREAK-UPDATE: The rumor that Hudson may be seeing Owen Wilson (which he is treatening to sue over) reportedly did not go down well with the Butterscotch Stallion's then-galpal. A source told Page Six: “She's pretty upset, but everyone knows he's a dog.”
MEAT LOAF swears like Samuel L. Jackson in an effort to energize the Kerrang! Awards in London. Or it could be that he's still cranky over the theft of his record collection, which he's trying to replace via eBay.
CINDY CRAWFORD admits she has been using a cosmetic surgeon for the past 11 years. And one good enough that people are surprised by the disclosure.
JENNIFER LOPEZ pregnancy rumors were reignited by tween idol Jesse McCartney, who blurted out in a radio interview that J-Lo was not doing the Dallas movie because she was pregnant. J-Lo's rep vehemently denies it: “She is 100 percent not pregnant.” Which, afaik, is the only way to be not pregnant.
GWYNETH PALTROW'S widely-mocked “I Am African” PSA is a focus of an AP story on how the latest flood of stars searching for a good cause has prompted a collective groan in the press and among bloggers, as people question their methods and motives. Imho, Paltrow's ad was mocked for the same reason she was chosen to do it — the obvious inconguity of claiming Paltrow was African, which is only slightly less bizzare than seeing pictures of her surfing in England.
THE EMMYS: 24 and The Office took the top awards last night. The official site has your full list of winners and a photo gallery. There was also a tribute to — and cameo by — Dick Clark, who said: “Music is the soundtrack of our lives. Thank you for being a part of my life.”
MAD MEL UPDATE: Rob Reiner says that Gibson must not just apologize for the anti-Semitic rant he mad during his recent DUI arrest, but also acknowledge that “his work reflects anti-Semitism.” Though I agree that Gibson will have to do more, I wonder whether Reiner will ever come completely clean about the alleged misuse of public funds that spurred his resignation as head of a California commission.
JESSICA SIMPSON: It appears that MTV is working to keep the pneumatic blonde separate from ex Nick Lachey and his new gf Vanessa Minillo at the VMA Awards, to be held on the 31st.
BRADGELINA: Pitt may have to change the name of his production company, now that “Plan B” has been approved by the FDA as an emergency contraceptive. Meanwhile, London's Daily Mail makes the unlikey claim that Jolie and Jennifer Ansiton are burying the hatchet, and not in each other.
SURVIVOR is coming under fire from members of the New York City Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus for its planned racial segregation of teams for the new season. I would have thought dividing the tribes into Christians, Jews and Muslims would be more topical.
LINDSAY LOHAN gets another verbal spanking for showing up late to work, this time from Bobby co-star William H. Macy: “I think what an actor has to realize (is that) when you show up an hour late, 150 people have been scrambling to cover for you. There is not an apology big enough in the world to have to make 150 people scramble. It's nothing but disrespect. And Lindsay Lohan is not the only one. A lot of actors show up late as if they're God's gift to the film. It's inexcusable, and they should have their a**es kicked.”
JIM CARREY and JENNY McCARTHY were spotted snapping up a host of adult items at The Pleasure Chest in West Hollywood, according to the ever-reliable National Enquirer. If true, I can't say I'm shocked. Nauseated, maybe, but not shocked.
THE CULT OF THE iPod has even assimilated Osama bin Laden, according to his former sex slave (who also revealed his obsession with Whitney Houston). In a way, I'm not surprised to discover that OBL dances his mess around the cave to the strains of “Rock Lobster.” After all, Kate and Cindy do sorta ululate to make those fish sounds.
IRAQ: Hundreds of Iraqi tribal chiefs have signed a “pact of honor” in support of Prime Minister al-Maliki's national reconciliation plan. The Washington Post has a piece on the brutality of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, as well as an interesting — though not totally persuasive — article by a professor of demography looking at the risk of death to US troops, not unlike a piece from May on the risk to British troops.
IRAN: President Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new phase of a heavy water reactor, which will create a plutonium by-product that could be used to make atomic warheads, test-fired a submarine-to-surface missile during war games Sunday, stormed a Romanian oil rig to settle a commercial dispute, and the deputy speaker of Iran’s Parliaments says Tehran may develop nuclear weapons as a “preventative measure” against threats posed by the West. In reality, the UN is unlikely to impose sanctions, though there may be sanctions by a coalition of the willing.
MIDEAST CONFLICT in the MEDIA: Regarding the BBC's staged photo essay noted here earlier, the copy editor at USA Today notes that the same photo essay breathlessly identified a device as an anti-personnel mine that was actually a lithium battery. It seems like Hezbollah gets better PR coverage in the western media that it is getting in the Arabic press. At least, that would explain the apologetic tone of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's latest interview.
DOES A BEAR GET STUCK IN THE WOODS? No, but it may get stuck in the suburbs, where a whole family may climb a tree in someone's front yard. Let's go to the videos.
SNAKES on a MY SPACE PAGE: Animal Control confiscated a 90 pound python living in a home near Freedom Park, NC, after locals saw it on their neighbor’s Myspace.com page.
PUG ADOPTS HUSKY PUPS: Awww… Let's go to the video.
A MANATEE that has ventured as far north as Cape Cod seems to be doing quite well. Researchers think this may not have been his first trip to the Northeast.
A SECOND GROUP OF APES is discovered using tools, this time nutcrackers in the central African nation of Cameroon. They are just waiting for us maniacs to blow it up.
