Karl 
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: The Eagles of Death Metal video, “I Want You So Hard,” with appearances from Jack Black, Dave Grohl and Elisha Cuthbert, in Real, Windows, or in Quicktime. (credit Golden Fiddle)
SXSW XX: The Saturday of my virtual visit to the South by Southwest fest would have been jam-packed. The Town Lake Stage at Auditorium Shores had a whole Nawlins thing starting at 1 p.m. with the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra, BeauSoleil with Michael Doucet, Buckwheat Zydeco, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, The New Orleans Social Club, closing with two sets by legends Allen Toussaint and Sam Moore. From there it would be tempting to to head over to the Central Presbyterian Church for the gospel of Ollabelle and the hootenanny with Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Billy Bragg, Jolie Holland, Tim Fite, Joe Henry and more. However, indie rock would beckon with the new-wavish Dressy Bessy or an acoustic Richard Hawley (if I missed him earlier). Rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson played the Continental Club at 9, competing with Old 97s frontman Rhett Miller and Jose Gonzalez (if I missed him earlier). And if I was shut out of those gigs, I would head over to Karma Lounge to rock with Rainer Maria at 9:30. Most likely I would be using the 10 p.m. slot to set up the rest of the evening, though I could shoot to see Sid 'n' Susie (a/k/a Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs) serve up classic covers, or Broken Social Scenester Jason Collett do his solo thing at Momo's, or Pink Mountaintops, an offshoot of the late 60s-early 70's sounds of Black Mountain. If I went Pink, I would probably have stuck around Emo's Annex for I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness and the dark folk-rock of Okkervil River. Plan B would be to stake out Antone's for the Superchunk–Camera Obscura-Robert Pollard combo platter. If I was shut out of those gigs, the smokin' indie bluegrass of Meat Purveyors or the goofy Britpop Mystery Jets (who just got some good pub in London's Independent) would make excellent alternate closers at midnight. Still hungry? Minnesota Public Radio has streams from Jose Gonzalez, Tim Fite, Portastatic, Editors, Magnet, Diamond Nights, Mystery Jets, We Are Scientists and more… *Sixeyes has downloads of the Tapes 'N' Tapes gig.
JENNY LEWIS tells the Toronto Star about the female singers that have inspired her, from Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette to Lucinda Williams. She tells the Washington Post about an inspiration she got from LaBelle. You can download 11/12ths of Rabbit Fur Coat from Team Love and stream the remaining track — an indie-star cover of Traveling Wilburys' “Handle with Care” — from NPR. The Boston Herald has a rave for her newest material debuting on the road.
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS announce US tour dates. Frontman Patterson Hood talks to the Irish press about moving to Athens after REM found success and gives a shout out to Let's Active.
THE SMITHS turned down a five million dollar offer to reunite at the upcoming Coachella Valley Arts & Music Festival in southern California. Morrissey complains that Arctic Monkeys haven't earned their success.
DESTROYER: Dan Bejar's non-New Pornographers band gets a rave review in the Village Voice and an audio profile on NPR. You can stream the Rubies album from Merge Records.
BOB MARLEY: Aston Barrett — The Wailers former bass player — is suing the late reggae legend's family and record label, claiming he and his drummer brother were the “bedrock” of Marley's music. Island Records and the Marley family say Barrett surrendered his right to further royalties in a 1994 agreement, giving up all claims in return for a payment of several hundred thousand US dollars. Which may not have been enough to support Aston's 52 children.
PRINCE — who became a Jehovah's Witness six years ago — has vowed never to sing 50 of his own songs again, because of their explicit content.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: London's Mirror claims the troubled singer and the supposedly sober supermodel are heating up again, with Moss planning a romantic getaway in southern France for Doherty's birthday.
NATALIE PORTMAN gets monkey love at ShoWest, the annual movie-industry convention where she was named Female Star of the Year. And she realizes that it's “dangerous” to not know where the hair shaved of for V for Vendetta is. Meanwhile, I'll be checking around for pics of Portman table-dancing her way through NYC.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: V for Vendetta took the box office easily, making about 26 million with a $7,766 per screen average. Failure to Launch and The Shaggy Dog placed and showed, with the weekend's other new picture, She's the Man, debuting in fourth place. The Vendetta opening was less than a blockbuster, especially adjusted for inflation. However, with a mere 50 million budget, it should be a big win for the WB.
SUPERMAN RETURNS needs to be better than “watchable” with a budget soaring above the 300 million mark.
DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: Teri Hatcher's Vanity Fair cover story may have miffed her co-stars for allowing a journo on set for a piece that was not about all the actresses, with Hatcher retorting that she has been supportive of all of Eva Longoria's mag covers. Speaking of which, I'm sure Eva Longoria's beau (and NBA star) Tony Parker is thrilled the Desperate Housewife is telling Allure magazine that Parker has “only been with one other person in his life.” Of course, she will now be getting the phone calls from basketball Annies claiming to contradict that claim. True or not, she's asked for it.
SEINFELD STILL MASTER OF HIS DOMAIN? In Touch Weekly magazine claims that Jerry’s wife recently told a friend she’s sick and tired of Jerry going on tour.
CARMEN ELECTRA and DAVE NAVARRO have hit a rough patch in their marriage, as Dave tells Life & Style magazine.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise allegedly got Comedy Central to cancel Wednesday night's rerun of the South Park episode that poked fun at Cruise and Scientology by threatening parent company Viacom with a refusal to promote Mission Impossible 3 — to be released by Viacom's Paramount studio. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn't directly comment, but issued a statement to Variety: “So, Scientology, you may have won this battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will not stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!” The Movie Blog calls Cruise a “Celebrity Terrorist.” on another front, after reports that Cruise and Holmes were bickering at his adopted daughter's basketball game comes another public make-out session, just as the moon follows the sun.
NICOLE KIDMAN: Country singer Keith Urban admits they are living together in Nashville.
SALMA HAYEK has defended her full-frontal nude scene in her latest film Ask The Dust, insisting the sexy sequence is a vital part of the story. Who's complaining? Indeed, who cares if it's vital?
LINDSAY LOHAN and the French Hotel are dissed by Josh Hartnett. Which in some ways is much worse than being dissed by a good actor.
THE FRENCH HOTEL has grown bored of her on-and- off squeeze, Greek billion-heir Stavros Niarchos and and returned to the arms of ex-fiance (and Greek billion-heir) Paris Latsis.
HOWARD STERN doing pretty well for himself even before he moved to Sirius satellite radio.
BRADGELINA: Angelina Jolie is the woman most lesbians want to have sex with, according to a poll by readers of a gay magazine, Diva. The rest of the list is interesting, as my hypothesis is that there is a calculation of looks and probability being made. Life & Style magazine is working up a story that Pitt's family is pushing for a wedding now. And Star magazine claims Jolie will consider cosmetic surgery if she has trouble getting her body back to her old shape after giving birth.
IRAQ: Documents captured in Iraq indicate that: the Iraqi Intelligence Service funded Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law; sought cooperation with Osama bin Lafen as far back as the late 90s; and that preparations for a regime-directed wave of “martyrdom” operations against targets in the West were well under way at the time of the coalition invasion. At ITM Omar translates an IIS memo stating — among other things — that the US had evidence of that Iraq and bin Laden cooperated to strike targets inside America (ABC News hastens to add that an AQ-Saddam link is “an ongoing matter of intense debate”) but interesting for the seeming lack of skepticism or surprise by he IIS agent who wrote it. Similarly, the Iraqi notations on a web page copied from the Federation of American Scientists suggest that FAS was correct in reporting that Saddam’s regime produced poisons for use in “covert offensive operations,” and trained terrorists for “clandestine operations abroad.” Coincidentally, we learn that the branch of Saddam’s Secret Service responsible for the attempted assassination of former Pres. Bush was based out of Salman Pak, a base that housed a commercial airliner supposedly used for “counter-terrorism” training. Apparently, Iraqi aircraft were always getting hijacked by terrorists… who knew?
IRAQ IN THE MEDIA: The Washington Post conducted in-depth interviews with 100 veterans of Iraq and found general agreement on two points: (1) Iraq was bad; and (2) it was not bad in the ways they see covered in the media, which seemed to have a predetermined, negative script. The WaPo story goes on to say almost nothing about one of them. So I guess it falls to me to note, for example, that this weekend The New York Times was forced to admit it published exaggerated and false claims from a detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison, but immediately followed up with a story about detainee abuses at a military base near Baghdad that was reported by the WaPo more than a year ago. In fact, the NYT buries in the middle of its own story the fact that the soldiers involved were punished last year.
IRAN held secret talks with Iraqi firebrand cleric Moqtadr al-Sadr and the chief of Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to a report in London's Telegraph.
COW! Life imitates Twister under the headline, “Flying Cow Leaves Two Police Cars in Flames.”
DOGNAPPED PUGGLE has been returned to its owners, exactly one week after he was stolen. Sarah Lynn Baldwin, 24, brought the 10-month-old pup back and was charged with possession of stolen property. The suspected thief, however, remains at large.
KATRINA, a Labrador retriever who saved a man from drowning in New Orleans after the hurricane, received a standing ovation on Saturday night at the 20th annual Genesis Awards, given by the Humane Society of the United States to those who help advance the cause of animal rights.
WAYWARD WHIPPET UPDATE: Scent-tracking hounds are hot on the trail of Vivi — the prize show dog who bolted from her carrier at JFK airport last month after the Westminster Kennel Club show — following a call that Vivi was spotted in a park in northern Queens — one of several recent sightings in the area.
