Karl THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
FRIDAY TIME-WASTER: Whizzball, from the Discovery Channel for Kids.
KATHLEEN EDWARDS makes the cover of Now magazine in Toronto, which must feel nice to an artist not given much support in her home country. The article also has a funny sidebar about artists and their producers (Edwards married hers).
BRENDAN BENSON also gets blurbed in the new Now magazine.
WILCO: Jason Kottke blogged the “Who owns culture?” panel at the New York Public Library, which featured Jeff Tweedy and cyberlaw guru Larry Lessig. Sounds interesting and Jason throws in a lo-fi download of Wilco covering “Don’t Fear The Reaper” for good measure. He even remembers to make the cowbell reference.
TORR Leonard has a U.S. radio and chart roundup, with streams of bands like Fischerspooner, Shout Out Louds, Spoon and Ryan Adams and The Cardinals. He also has a couple of comments about the new discs from Stars and The Bravery.
SLINT: Sasha Frere-Jones essays the impact of the band which “was like that grilled-cheese sandwich bearing the face of the Virgin Mary: an unlikely and irreproducible marvel.”
JENNA BUSH gone wild (again), videotaped on all fours doing “the butt dance” at a NYC nightclub.
MADONNA: Her kids speak French all the time, so that Madge and hubby Guy Ritchie cannot understand what they are saying. Hey, wouldn't you do the same?
BRITNEY SPEARS must be pregnant. How else to explain the blog of fetus Spears?
LINDSAY LOHAN donated a bunch of her old clothes to a charity for homeless women in Los Angeles, which ought to help get them started in the world's oldest profession. And she's keeping her distance from Christian Slater.
THE DUMBER SIMPSONS: You can play tabloid journo at home with the Nick and Jessica Breakup Mad Libs!
PUBLICIST LOIS WHITMAN claims some publication houses are making more money from their online versions than from their print editions.
ANNE APPLEBAUM explains “How the Pope 'Defeated Communism.'”
BILL CLINTON: En route to the Pope's funeral, the former President tells reporters that he had met “two great popes” in his lifetime, John Paul II and John XXIII. John XXIII was Pope from from 1958 until his death in 1963. If Bill Clinton had met John XXIII, don't you think we would have heard about it when he ran for President? Or read it in his autobiography? Or is he confusing John XXIII with JFK?
NEW MEXICO state employees get half a day off with pay for the Pope’s funeral. The ACLU is nowhere to be found.
BE THE POPE: If you're interested in the job, make sure you fill out your application for the papacy before the College of Cardinals' conclave.
CANADA: “Adscam,” which involves alleged money laundering and kickbacks of government payments of up to $85 million, may topple the Canadian government. But there has been a court-ordered publication ban on key testimony in the ongoing investigation by Justice John Gomery. U.S. blogger Ed Morrisey is almost single-handedly getting the scandal and the issue of the publication ban into the U.S. media and may even cause the ban to be lifted… if Canadian officials don't try to prosecute him instead.
PENELOPE CRUZ: The Manolo, he thinks she is happier with a camel than with Tom Cruise.
WAR ON TERROR: In Slate, Fred Kaplan asks, “How Many Government Agencies Does It Take To Teach Soldiers Arabic?” It's a joke, but not a funny one.
DESPERATE DIVAS III: So what was behind the catfighting at that Vanity Fair photo shoot? As I speculated the other day, the answer is, “Follow the money.”
ROBERT POLLARD has teaser tracks from his upcoming projects with The Moping Swans and Circus Devils.
DOUG GILLARD expresses some mixed feelings while giving folks a look behind Guided by Voices and discussing his solo work.
MTV's KURT LODER was punk'd by Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan.
IRAQ: A Shiite is named interim Prime Minister. Like the interim President, he was once targeted by Saddam Hussein for assassination. Watching television in his cell, Saddam is out of the denial stage and into anger. The U.S. has accelerated the hand off of counter-insurgency operations to Iraqi security forces much more rapidly than U.S. commanders have previously acknowledged. And that has led to stricter enforcement of the dress code.
JACKO JUSTICE: So now the jury is hearing claims that Jacko showered with an eight-year-old boy and had oral sex with a ten-year-old boy. No wonder Jackson wanted a day off to try to raise Johnnie Cochran from the dead, Thriller-style.
RETOUCHED CELEBS: The New York Daily News as much as admits it's not news, but finds an excuse to run pics of celebs before and after the airbrush.
HARVARD PROFESSOR charged with stealing a load of manure. Maybe this guy is in that minority of the Harvard faculty that does not generate their own loads of manure?
THE NAME IS BOND… James Bond, but the name of the actor portraying him in the next movie remains unknown. In the next videogame, however, he will be played by Sean Connery.
BRAD AND ANGELINA UPDATE: An eyewitness tells Us magazine about Pitt and Jolie's four-day Easter weekend at a secluded villa at the posh Parker Palm Springs hotel: “They were kissing and holding each other. He was rubbing her back. It looked romantic.” But how is that different from how Jolie acts with her brother?
ANOTHER DAY, another teacher arrested after being accused of having sex with her students. She’s not even the first teacher at her school to be arrested on such charges.
ELEPHANTS ON PARADE: Don’t you dare enjoy it!
CHINESE FOOD DELIVERYMAN UPDATE: The deliveryman who was trapped for over three days in an elevator has gone on the lam — fearing his newfound fame may get him in trouble with immigration officials. And the headline is another New York Post classic.
