I've got my eye on you

Preempting any future tell-all scandal tome, guitarist Ray Toro of My Chemical Romance has revealed his criminal past.

Toro has confessed that long before he and his band were on the road to world dominance, he resorted to shoplifting a pack of batteries.

Those batteries were taken for a good cause -- so that song demos could be recorded -- but Toro insists that the moral of his story for MCR's fans is that breaking the law does not pay.

The neophyte thief was caught in the act, cutting short a life of crime, and opening up a richer existence that eventually led to The Black Parade.

Jumping on a craze that is at least a decade beyond cold is no new thing for pop tarts, and popped tart Britney Spears is not about to blaze new territory.  The mother-of-two was video captured recently having a tattoo applied by a rock bassist dude named Dirt.

Britney asked for "somethin purty and classy," but she should have paid a little more attention to Dirt's creative process.

The artist formerly known as the lucky, pot-bellied bastard who was having sex with whenever he wanted to will probably remain celibate this Christmas.  Pam Anderson

Kid Rock has volunteered to deploy in a Middle East war zone and provide entertainment to American soldiers.

That's how tough breaking up is to do.  Flying off to a sand-blasted death pit is preferable to fighting it out at home.

Too bad that Katie Rees was kicked out from under her crown as Miss Nevada 2007 because of these five-year-old photographs capturing her indulging in a bout of recreational binge debauchery.

If the dethroned beauty princess had been given a second chance, animal-trainer Donald Trump could go on the news and proclaim Katie as a role model to young people.

After all, according to her attorney, Katie was only seventeen when these shots were snapped.

If you're weird-hair man Donald Trump, the answer to whether television bully Rosie O'Donnell should be wearing license tags and required to take annual rabies shots or if she should just be taken down to the dog pound and put to sleep is a no brainer.

This particular View is something that unites Donald Trump with the common man, and many typical women as well.

Of course, Rosie could say that it takes a beast who wears a shellacked muskrat on his head to know an animal when he sees one.

For the answer, ask sexiest woman alive Scarlett Johansson and sexiest supermodel alive Gisele Bundchen.

If neither of these women will give you a straight answer, consult Egotastic.

Question: What could be more shameful than being a boyfriend for four months to Paris Hilton?

Answer: Having her love letters to you posted on the Superficial.

Heavy-hitting actress Jennifer Lopez sits on one of the world's most prized sets of chair cheeks.  Ever since she was a toddling teen, almost every man -- and a sizable portion of the woman -- who Jen has walked past has wanted to own a piece of that rock.

The dream of sharing back-porch conversation with Jenny may be about to die for everyone except the chosen membership of a mysterious sci-fi sect.  According to credible reports, Lopez's family is afraid that the callipygian superstar's buttery haunches are about to fall into the clutches of the Church of Scientoloy.

If that conversion takes place, expect a long line of lapsed Catholics, slipped Jews and idolatrous Muslims to be banging on the door at the L. Ron Hubbard sign-up center.

In the mind of Vincent Gallo, anyone who has ever seen the X-rated segment of Vincent Gallo's self-directed starring vehicle The Brown Bunny should know that the world isn't big enough for actor/director/musician/male escort Vincent Gallo and PayPal.

Credible sources report that the online payment service and Gallo have gone separate ways.

The problem?  Vincent Gallo's sexual salesmanship.

Gallo's site offers several relics of Vincent Gallo's life for sale, including the medallion Vincent Gallo wore at his first communion and a bedspread from Vincent Gallo's childhood.

Indications of Vincent Gallo's megalomania on Vincent Gallo's web pages peak with Vincent Gallo's offer to sell his "escort services" to any "natural born female" for the immodest fee of $50 thousand, plus expenses. 

"Heavy set, older, red head and even black chicks can have me if they can pay the bill.  No real female will be refused."

Vincent Gallo is less all-embracing when it comes to selling his sperm, which is offered from his site for a cool fee of $1 million.  One Vincent Gallo caveat reads: "Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions."

And the cool million also fails to purchase the the right of broadcasting any resultant baby's provenance. "To be clear, the purchase of Mr. Gallo's sperm does not include the use of the name Gallo.  The purchaser must find another surname for the child."

Something along the lines of Whoreson?

Now that she effectively believes herself a member of the British royal family, Madonna will not be denied.  Despite supposed objections by her husband, the lapsed film director Guy Ritchie, and cautions from adoption experts worldwide, the regal pop bag is reportedly pushing for a fast-track adoption of a second child from the African nation of Malawi.

Speculation has this insistence on keeping up with the Jolies as a source of major stress in the marriage of Madonna and Guy, eclipsing Guy's increasing distaste for Madonna's salty nuts.

Even more stressful may be the imperial blonde's published intention to step behind the camera and  direct a major motion picture.  The movie's script, called Blade to the Heart, is based on the true-life story of rival boxers, one of whom dies in the ring.

Before their marital bond is finally severed, Guy Ritchie will envy that dead boxer.

Anybody who has ever blanched at the sight of the singing rectal orifice from his 1972 sleaze epic Pink Flamingos knows that director John Waters is an artist of rare taste levels. 

In fact, cinema fans who sat squirming through the Pink Flamingos climax of a 240-pound drag queen dining on fecal matter dropped straight from a pooch's butt realize that Waters's level of taste is so rare as to be nonexistent. 

No wonder then, that his list of top ten 2006 movies includes both Jackass and Marie Antoinnette.  Read all ten here.

Just in time for the holidays, giblets-flashing, single mother of two Britney Spears has stepped up to cash in.  Paris Hilton's podunk playmate is seen here shilling suggestively bottled portions of scented liquid.  The branded products in Britney's hands are being euphemistically referred to as "perfumes."

A sane mind might reel at the absurd reality that a girl who thinks "eau de toilet" is always yellow has her own line of colognes, two in fact.  But the mind has already seized in shock that no big, round, fake Spears cleavage is on display here.

The Louisiana popped tart's smelly fluids are called Curious and Fantasy.

The easy part of this post should be guessing what type of bodily fluids Britney's curious fantasy might smell like!

Send your olfactory speculations to the Comment box.

It's unlikely that the newest release of John Lennon material will make any impact in music sales charts, seeing that Lennon's fresh output is a product of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After a quarter century of claiming that revealing their secret files on the dead Beatle might risk "retaliation against the United States," the final pages of FBI surveillance reports on John have been made public.

The most inflammatory revelation in the FBI's files is that peacenik John Lennon refused requests to fund a left-wing bookstore.

John Lennon disseminated personal data during his lifetime that was far more unflattering than anything the FBI dug up, such as the uncensored cover to Two Virgins.

Australian actress Cate Blanchett may be pushing forty, but the 37-year-old redheaded beauty still manages to balance her ethereal pale appeal with a lasting youthful luster.

How does Cate keep her girlish allure despite creeping into middle age?

Simple!  She simulated sex with a 16-year-old on the set of her new movie, Notes on a Scandal.

If New York's Daily News is to be believed:

If Andrew earned those bags under his eyes honestly, you wouldn't expect him to need much coaching in any of the erotic arts.

As if childhood in this modern-age were not fraught with enough menace, sleaze and early disappointment, now school systems on both sides of the Atlantic are persecuting Santa Claus, denying in one case his very existence.

A school-bus driver in Long Island, New York, was told he would be fired if he continued to wear a red Santa hat while transporting kids to their classrooms.

In England, a group of
nine-year-old scholars were instructed that only "small children believe in Father Christmas."

And at home under the North Pole, Santa reacted poorly to these perceived slights.  Now, because of the miserable reality of a few adults, it looks like no child will be getting anything good in the stocking this year.

Now that she is clean-and-sober a week and running, reformed terror Lindsay Lohan is well down the road to recovery behavior modification.

Seen here is Lindsay working her simple two-step program for better press relations.

Step one is to keep a piece of food in the mouth at all times, which assists in resisting those impulses to describe one's friends in crude anatomical terms.

Step two is the sly expression of frustration and contempt.

Psychologists and publicists agree that keeping feelings of irritation and arrogance bottled up inside can lead a young acting phenom to an outbreak of underage boozing.  It is important that any young acting phenom who is on the road to recovery image enhancement learns to express contentious emotions without making herself look like a raging bitch.

Hence, Lohan's step-two solution:  Clutch a small round container with the f-you finger fully extended.

Congratulations, Lindsay, on the new leaf.

According to So More Scene, the cover to Fall Out Boy's upcoming release, Infinity on High, will feature this winged-lamb multimedia collage.

And below is the latest press photo of the band that fans refuse to think of as Pete Wentz and company, and for thoroughly good reason.  Despite the fact that Mr. Wentz generally appears in a place of primacy in the iconographic perspective of Fall Out Boy's group portraits, scholars note that no band members are indicated in the cover composition, which bodes well for a strong group effort on the music inside.

Girls, there is no longer any excuse to put off forming that band with your detention period BFFs!

Think how cute you will look flailing upon your very own Hello Kitty Fender Stratocaster!

This fully rockable electric guitar is available in any color a future shred star wants, as long as she wants pink.

Budding musicians with a darker perspective might want to take a peek at Gizmodo.com and then opt to play the black-bodied bass, minted in tribute to that malevolent penguin of thundercloud moodiness, Badtz-Maru.

Really, what is an esteemed thespian of the world screen (that would be Cate Blanchett, the Australian super emoter who played a bloody mess in this year's Babel) doing filching the hairstyle of a gutsy guttersnipe who traces her fashion heritage back to the suburban sprawl of California's Orange County?

Gwen Stefani has endured many indignities in her career.  When she first mewled into national prominence at the front of No Doubt, the "sophisticated" press labeled Stefani a skanky skinny chick who butched her way to success on raw attitude alone.

Even now, stodgy style journals tend to limit lady Gwen's influence to skater chicks and punk-rock pop tarts.

Let's hope the world changes its tune.

Gwen is seen here sporting the frontal flip on the December 7 edition of TRL.  Cate's obvious imitation was snapped at some New York City event almost two weeks later, on December 18.

The Hollywood community is abuzz with Oscar whispers for Cate Blanchett's hemorrhaging histrionics in Babel.  If she wins, if she has any class at all, Cate will thank Gwen for heady hair inspiration.

The most alarming aspect of news that wailing widow Yoko Ono's chauffeur had been arrested and charged in connection with trying to shake down the 73-year-old Beatle wrecker for cash was not the horrifying threat to release nude photos of Yoko upon an innocent world.

The real mind-bending information comes toward the end of the story, when Yoko's spokesman rotely mouths off meaningless commentary.

"We will have the opportunity to hear exactly what he said in the appropriate forum," said Ono's publicist, Elliot Mintz.

Elliot Mintz!

The same Elliot Mintz who said, "Did she write that piece?  No, she did not.  I have no idea who did."  This time, Elliot is lipping off as spokesman for Paris Hilton.

I'd like to hear Elliot explain whose legs Yoko is standing on in the picture above.

What does the United States have in common with a Third World combat zone ruled by rogue warlords that is continually on the brink of slipping into total chaos?

For one thing, like Afghanistan, America's biggest cash crop is an illegal plant that contributes to a tax-free, shadow economy!

Anyone who sits back and has a smoke of weed while pondering this imponderable parallel, unless they have mooched their bud, is contributing to the Afghanistanization of the United States!

The fact that the leader of the Free World and one of the globe's most primitive states are united at such an organic, earthy level is no cause for alarm.  Not until stoner girls are forced to give up their bikinis and only smoke while swaddled in a burka.

Multimillionaire "poverty activist" Bono (think Mother Teresa in Hermes) routinely travels the globe with a large retinue of highly-entitled rock profiteers and pursues aggressive tax shelter strategies that deprive the lower-classes of his Irish homeland of much-needed public revenue.

Despite all the comforts massive quantities of money can buy, Bono is "alarmed" that the United States Congress hasn't signed up to spend $1 billion to provide (by Bono's calculations) one million mosquito nets for people in Africa.

At $100 a net, the pricing of mosquito protection in Africa is almost as exploitative as the cost of U2 concert tickets.

Does anyone else suspect that Tara's "morals" issue might possibly be that her sexual ethics are insufficiently elastic to embrace an amorous advance from Donald Trump, no matter how many drinks she has first?

And now that king of moderation in all things Donald Trump has decreed that Tara will enter rehab, but keep her job, can we assume that his hopes are still alive for a personal taste of Tara's immorality?

Thanks to the super consumers at Cool Hunting for highlighting this light-hearted jewelry from Italian company Toy Me.

The designing braintrust at Toy Me obviously believe that flash is meant to be fun.

Their precious-metal adornments hearken back to childhood joy (Lego block bracelet), invoke the hardware of musical glory (amp plug necklace) and commemorate feats of athletic abandon (running shoe pendant with working pink laces).

Don't be fooled by the charm-bracelet asthetic of pieces that include functioning lego blocks for materials.

This collection of rings and pendants is closer to fine jewelry than it is to kitsch-counter gimcracks and is priced accordingly.

Freelance shutterbugs using cell phone cameras to do guerilla surveillance now have the option of zooming in.  The tech-watchers at Gizmodo are reporting that telescopic lenses are now available to snap on to Nokia and Sony Ericsson units. 

The attachment provides a six-fold enlargement of the subject under observation, which means a stalker could peek into his ex-girlfriend's bedroom window from two blocks away and feel like he's right there under the covers with her.

Just be careful not to zoom in further than is good for your mental health.

Vaginally empowered, soon-to-be divorcee and mother of two Britney Spears cannot buy a break.

First, she spent a few yeasrs with the nation at large loudly appalled at her choice of mate. 

Then the whole universe recoiled from the sight of Spears's pantie-free giblets. 

After having her femininity reviled, poor Brit was vigorously booed by the crowd despite being fully dressed while making the celeb scene at an L.A. Lakers basketball game.

Now the final indignity: An online poll of canine enthusiasts has named Britney Spears the worst celebrity dog owner for 2006.

This disdain must have something to do with the way she drove hound dog Kevin Federline fifty miles from home and kicked him out of the car.

The upcoming movie Factory Girl, a cinematic adaptation of the drugged days and early demise of Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, has earned the wrath of at least two grand dads of rock. 

Lawyers operating on behalf of the artist known as Bob Dylan have harried the bio-pic's makers with threats of law suits and injunctions.  The depth of Sedgwick's relationship with Dylan during the 1960s is a bone of contention, with Dylan denying that his connection with Edie had ever been a romantic one.  In an early script of the film, Sedgwick commits suicide after being dumped by a composite character who appears to be at least one part Dylan.

Perhaps emboldend by Dylan's protests, and hoping to align himself with a true lyrical master, formerly relevant New York rock mummy Lou Reed has dismissed Factory Girl in harsher terms: "They're all whores," says Reed in bitter summation.

The film stars Sienna Miller prostituting herself as Sedgwick and Guy Pierce selling his bum as Warhol.  Jimmy Fallon and Ileana Douglas also appear, like a couple of streetwalkers in the dusk.

Presumably with an ironic smirk, the film's director, George Hickenlooper, can't help but mention that Reed, whose most famous song, "Walk on the Wild Side," was about a bunch of whores, will be paid a song-licensing fee.

When it comes to whores, Lou knows what he's talking about.

Kids are known for saying the darnedest things.  A British survey of 1,500 brats under ten revealed that the tykes believe being a celebrity is the "best thing in the world."

The three most important things in life, according to the tots are:

1) Celebrity.
2) Good looks.
3) Being rich.

On the list of worst things in the world, being fat was perceived as worse than dying.

So where does that put Anna Nicole Smith?  Though prone to wild weight fluctuations, Anna is actually good-looking, potentially rich and fairly famous.

On a theological note, the upcoming generation ranked God tenth on their list of favorite things, below pop music (5), nice food (8) and watching films (9). 

... and so, judging by these Thursday-night photos of the big Boy primped for a gala night out in London, is over-the-top theatricallity as a way of going about your weekday life.

No one can fault the once-and-always singer of Culture Club's commitment to his personal vision of glamour.

Point and make fun if you like.  But George's unabashed passion for street-lunatic fashion shows far more aplomb than the pantie-free styling of someone like Britney Spears, and the results are far less harmful to innocent observers. 

Punk-funk pioneer Rick James, whose "colorful" partying highlights included a two-year-prison-stint for false imprisonment and aggravated assault of a woman who he burned with crack pipes during an extended 1990s drug binge, is set to be the hero of a Hollywood movie!

The singer's much-abused physical shell crapped out in 2004, but after being famously lampooned by comedian Dave Chappelle, the legend will live on forever as the man who gloated, "I'm Rick James, bitch."

Just in case James's dialogue doesn't write itself, he's left behind 400 pages of memoir manuscript to serve as source material.

Rumors, triggered by Angelina Jolie's recent portrayal of a person of color in A Mighty Heart, have Brad Pitt being eyed for the role.

Nobody reads anymore, but we do look at pictures, which is why it's fitting that trailblazing "gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson's newest, posthumous book is a collection of photography.

Thompson, best loved for the prescient hysteria of his written word, shot the collected photos throughout the stages of his insane and influential career.  His time with the Hells Angels is well-documented, as is the ludicrous neon landscape that became Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Called Gonzo and published by Ammo Books, the deluxe limited-edition volume is the perfect gift for that parent or guardian who is vague and evasive whenever asked a direct question about their recreational high-school drug use.

The book has an introduction by Thompson pal Johnny Depp and is almost as expensive as it is heavy; so try to have the billing go to Dad's credit card.  He'll be happy you did.

Credibility is baffled that after nine years, and effectively 100 percent personnel turnover, there are still people anxiously anticipating the release of a new Guns N' Roses album.

It's a testament to the lasting, classic appeal of Axl Rose's high-volume swagger that dead websites will come back to life on the news that his band's Chinese Democracy collection has a tentative release date of March 6, 2007.

Unfortunately, almost a dozen weeks stretch out between now and March 6.  Chinese New Year will begin on February 18.

Don't start holding your breath until Axl starts holding his.

British actor James Purefoy reached his highest profile as a performer to date by displaying his penis in the role of Marc Antony in HBO's highly sexed-up historical series Rome.

But after speaking out in the current Out magazine, this dimpled dramatist has no doubt been catapaulted to star status in the dreams of gay males worldwide, young and old.

James teases that he would "never say never" to a romantic liaison with another male, and he credits the English pervy public school system with opening his mind.

Says Purefoy: "You bang 500 adolescent boys together .... Don't be surprised if some shenanigans comes out of it."

Anybody holding their breath in hopes that Playboy alumnus Shanna Moakler and human canvas Travis Barker would renew their marital bonds should exhale now.

If the New York Post's "Page Six" is to be believed, Shanna has announced that she is "dating" her Dancing With the Stars partner, Jesse DeSoto.

No word has yet been received on plans by Dancing With the Stars to add a "horizontal mambo" category to the competition.

Within weeks of his limoncello meltdown on The View, diminutive dramatist Danny DeVito appears to have been restored to sobriety.  His daughters, unfortunately, still wake up every day looking just like him.

Despite being a part of the defining edge of reality television with her Breaking Up With Shannen Doherty show, Shannen Doherty is beneath it all an old-fashioned girl.

The actress known to millions of adolescents who are now approaching middle age as Brenda Walsh shows off her traditional values in the sheer sheath dress pictured here. 

The garment clearly reveals that the former 90210 wild child has the same relationshishap with underpants that her grandparents had.  That means she wears them.

Oh, and as an afterthought, Ms. Doherty's outfit also reveals that she left her bra at home, which clearly marks her as a celebrity from a bygone generation.

A quarter million humans were expected to descend upon New York City's Times Square this December 31 to observe the arrival of 2007.  If the presence of Pete Wentz and company mean anything, that figure needs a dramatic revision upward.

Organizers of the world's biggest New Year's party have announced that Fall Out Boy have agreed to perform at the event, which already includes stellar acts such as Gwen Stefani and Lady Sovereign.

Luckily for that minor portion of the world that does not reside on the island of Manhattan, the entire production will be broadcast as MTV Goes Gold: New Year's Eve 2007.

Marketing miracles do happen!  Captured here at the Hollywood premiere of Rocky Balboa are three of the world's best-known geriatric stud symbols -- habitually groping California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, one-time porn star Sylvester Stallone and one-time porn-star-jockey Bruce Willis.  A convergence of this scope occurs about as often as George Bush the First pumps up a chub for Barbara.  It's only natural and inevitable that viral marketers have taken advantage and used the coincidence to promote their wares.

Serial rehab candidate Courtney Love has good reason to look clean and happy.  Reputedly drug- and alcohol-free Courtney is shown here at Wednesday night's British Comedy Awards in London, England. 

Two days earlier, Love had been crying in a Los Angeles court as Judge Rand Rubin terminated her slap-on-the-wrist probation earned for various narcotics cases and an assault-and-battery beef.  (According to testimony, Courtney had doused another women with alcohol and attempted to set her on fire.)  The judge also cleared Courtney of all pending drug charges.

"I'm happy helping people and helping myself," remarked Courtney, who has taken her helping hands to England, threatening to take up residence in that quaint nation of refined manners.

Love's take on her legal squabbles?  "It's all so last year."

London's bookies, who will wager on anything, have yet to give odds on Love being hauled in on another infraction before year's end, which is only two weeks away.

The stoned hippies who began Rolling Stone magazine could not in their wildest STP hallucinations have imagined that their brand would still be around seventy-five years later, stronger than ever, and moving onto MTV with their very own reality show.

I'm From Rolling Stone is set to launch January 7, 2007.  Six wanna-be music scribes will compete for a single job at the prestigious publication.  Drama and scummy behavior are certain to ensue.

The magazine has set up a blog promoting the show and its contestants; so go here and get a headstart on hating them.

Although she will not tolerate a perceived slight toward a presumed gay Clay Aiken without taking Kelly Ripa to task, View bully Rosie O'Donnell feels fully justified in making a mockery of Asian linguistics.

Rather than respond with sensitivity or contrition when informed that her "Ching chong" characterization of Chinese oral communication (see it here) had offended large segments of a minority population, diplomatic O'Donnell suggested that her victims should "lighten up" and  go "f-urself."

O'Donnell is just lucky that mentally impaired Americans don't have any lobbying presence in the entertainment industry, or Rosie would have been blackballed and never worked again for her appalling, insensitive, stereotyping, crass and self-serving portrayal of a woman with Down syndrome in 2005's atrocious piece of exploitative feces Riding the Bus with My Sister.

Maybe because his own dome is covered by a rug that would be right at home in front of the fireplace on Christmas Eve, festooned with a plate of cookies for Santa, talk-show host David Letterman is a little lax about tonsorial standards among guests on his Late Night with David Letterman program.

One night alone this week (that would be last night, December 12, 2006), Dave welcomed both Gwen Stefani and Howard Stern into the studio.

Gwen and Howard are prime personalities, highly and justifiably successful in their fields, and each is capable of giving Letterman the celebrity electricity necessary to beat Jay Leno in the ratings game.

But hairstyles are not currently Stern or Stefani's strong points.

Anybody who can picture Gwen or Howard wearing their hair in a more unflattering arrangement, send your visions here.

Anything particularly eye-opening will be posted.

The masterminds at Ultra Records have a futuristic musical vision and are determined that the world at large will see things their way.  Link here to three high-energy music videos from America's most switched-on music purveryors.  Check out clips of the Audio Club, Fredde Le Grand and David Guetta vs. The Egg.  Ultra's passion is electronic music, ranging from progressive trance to house to commercial crossover to downtempo.

Their aim is to keep one step ahead in the dance-music parade and become the leading independent electronic label in the United States.

Step up and move.

The Ray-Ban Wayfarer has gone in and out of style more often than the Cramps have been requested to sing "Sunglasses After Dark."

The iconic, black-on-black Wayfarer frames have added a tint of panache to the facial attitude of iconic oldsters ranging from Madonna to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.

Sensing the time is ripe for syphoning off the lunch money of a whole new younger generation, Ray-Ban's parent company, Luxottica Group, is giving their venerable style a fresh push.

Showcasing the camera skills of classic rock photographer Mick Rock, (he shot the gender-bender cover for Lou Reed's Transformer album) Luxottica's ad and influence campaign has included youth-appealing names such as Franz Ferdinand and the Killers.

If you can figure out who is who in this photographic grouping, then your eyes are sharp enough that you can keep your Ray-Bans on no matter how dimly lit the nightclub is.

Old punk rockers never die.  Actually, old punk rockers die all the time -- it's part of their charm.  But before punk geezers do pass away, they live for the day when a new album from Iggy and the Stooges will be unearthed.

That day, apparently, will be March 20, 2007, the scheduled drop for The Weirdness.  The Stooges band, which continues to inspire punk rock new believers to this very day, will play a live set at the SXSW music festival three days before The Weirdness hits.

Iggy Pop and brothers Scott and Ron Ashton (on drums and guitar respectively) knocked the established (read "hippie") musical community on its tie-dyed ass in 1969 with the release of their self-titled album The Stooges, which included the often-covered songs "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "No Fun."

The Ashtons and the Ig have been playing various music festivals over the past few years, augmented by Minuteman bassist Mike Watt.  The chemistry of these shows has been widely hailed as nothing short of nuclear, which lead to an album, The Weirdness, being recorded.

The record will be the first Stooges release since 1973's seminal Raw Power.  Several Iggy Pop albums have, of course, been heard in the meantime, and a few -- such as The Idiot and Lust for Life -- have even been enjoyed by most Stooges fans.

Some of Pop's solo efforts are better left unmentioned.

The hardcore Stooges faithful are hoping for a record that, first of all, doesn't suck. 

If The Weirdness turns out to be an improbable, stupendous, underdog success, then all the better for Iggy, the Ashtons and everyone else who believes that three power chords in the same song is one power chord too many.

The Internet was buzzing yesterday with congratulations to the town of Odessa, Texas.  This celebratory commotion was due to a YouTube video that appeared to show a cowboy hat-wearing citizen of Odessa doing the nation a tremendous public service by joining so-called comedian Pauly Shore on stage at a Texas comedy club and punching the anti-funny man in the face.

On the tape, Pauly plummets to the floorboards.  Disappointingly, he rises apparently not gravely injured, and makes a humiliated exit.

The good feeling engendered by this bit of happy violence has been leeched away this morning with news from the Odessa police department that the long overdue assault on Shore was a fake.

Apparently, the chronically bombing comedian arranged the stunt beforehand; so the joke's on us.

Except that none of us wake up in the morning being Pauly Shore; so the joke's on him again.

Anyone with a well-used Netflix membership can lament the fact that the movies just aren't what they used to be.

Back in the heyday of American film as an art form -- by most critical accounts, that would be the 1970s -- commercialism was fueled by creativity.

Movies were stamped with a director's vision.  Iconoclasts called the shots behind the cameras and in the boardrooms.  Tough realities were turned into gripping entertainments that enriched the mind and the soul while simultaneously whetting the appetite for popcorn.

And the most highly regarded actresses of the day made no bones about taking off their clothes onscreen.

Today's big-screen divas, with notable exceptions (think Maria Bello, Nicole Kidman and Helen Mirren), take it as a point of misplaced pride that they have enough clout to insist upon "nudity" clauses in their contracts.  The nudity clause would more accurately be called a "no-nudity" clause.

So it is something close to a miracle that Salma Hayek, winner of Mr. Skin.com's best nude scene of 2006 for her tantalizing appearance in the celluloid adaptation of John Fante's novel Ask the Dust, ever shucked out of her slip in the first place.

For the full list of Mr. Skin's top ten revealing moments in the past year's cinema, click here.

Fresh on reports that the Clinton White House spied on Diana, Princess of Wales, in the months leading up to her vehicular demise on the streets of Paris comes news that the people's princess will be commemorated by a concert put on by her two sons, the princes William and Harry, in London's Wembley Stadium.

The event is scheduled for July 1, the day that would have been Diana's 46th birthday.

Icons of 80s fey pop Duran Duran and Bryan Ferry have signed on for the undercard, with Dame Sir Elton John set to fill the role of Queen Mum.

Elton, let him be the first to say so, "was a personal friend" and a great admirer of Diana's "tireless and enthusiastic work for charity."

Londoners who have had their fill of that "Candle in the Wind" song are advised to save their hundred bucks, stay home and live their life with one less wadded-up, tear-soaked clutch of tissues.

 


























It probably won't make Jennifer Aniston feel any better about her inability to hang on to a man (especially now that Vince Vaughn has drifted off to a new set of loving arms), but Angelina Jolie is bragging in the new issue of Vogue magazine that she stole Brad Pitt away without putting in any effort whatsoever.

Jolie reveals -- big surprise -- that a "strange friendship and partnership" flared up between her and Pitt on the 2003 set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a film in which Brad and Angelina played a couple.

"I think we were the last two people who were looking for a relationship," insists Jolie.  "I certainly wasn't.  We just became kind of a pair."

Does Angelina really believe that someone could look into her big, shapely pair of eyes and not be looking for a relationship?

Probably every man on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith was looking for a relationship after experiencing the gaze of Jolie, especially Vince Vaughn, who played a goofy supporting role in the film.

Of course, Vince knew that he would never be in Angelina's league, but he seems to have used insider's information to get the fast track to Jenifer Aniston on the rebound.

Now Vince has left Jen rebounding again, a state that will be forever alien to effortless seductress Angelina Jolie.

If you've guessed that this eye-liner-etched follower of fashion is actor/crooner Jared Leto, then give yourself ten points for emo-sensory perception.

The 30 Seconds to Mars frontman is seen here being mysterious and dangerous backstage at Los Angeles radio station KROQ's legendary and annual Almost Acoustic Christmas show.

Aside from passing as a killer rock star onstage, Jared stars as a rock-star killer in the upcoming film, Chapter 27, in which he portrays loner gunman Mark David Chapman.

Mark David Chapman, who has spent most of his time locked up in a mental hospital for the criminally insane since he became famous, is known worldwide as the scary loser who murdered Beatle songwriter John Lennon on December 8, 1980.

Jared reportedly gained 72 pounds to add versimilitude to his depiction of portly sadsack Chapman, but the wily and wiry actor has obviously left all that lard behind.

This loss qualifies Jared as one of the most accomplished dieters in Hollywood.  To put Leto's weight-loss achievement in perspective, if Nicole Richie were to lose 72 pounds, she would have only 13 pounds left.

Guitarist Patrick Stump is high on Fall Out Boy's new album, Infinity on High.  The record, Fall Out Boy's second from a major label, features guest appearances from likely collaborators Ryan Ross (Panic! At the Disco) and Chad Gilbert (New Found Glory), as well as a counterintuitive contribution from rap idol Jay-Z.

Whatever artists have contributed to the Infinity on High mix, Patrick assures Fall Out Boy's core fans that the music continues to be generated by four guys who play drum, bass and a pair of guitars.  At times the result, according to Stump, achieves "borderline classic rock."

This collection of "different voices and perspectives and styles" will be available on February 2, on the Island label.

Wonder waif Nicole Richie added an early morning arrest to her living legend this morning.

According to a Time/Warner news outlet, a pair of motorists dialed 9-1-1 after spotting Nicole piloting her SUV the wrong way on one of California's notoriously confusing freeways.

When the Highway Patrol reached the scene, they found Richie alone in the car and safely parked, albeit in the carpool lane.

Although no alcohol was found in Nicole's bloodstream (alcohol has calories, after all), police insist the professional partygirl admitted to having mixed the painkiller Vicodin with the common garden herb marijuana.

The arrest report listed thin Richie at 85 pounds; so every story has its silver lining.  The good news here?  At least Nicole is having success putting on weight.

If a devotee of tabloid culture lives in the vicinity of Studio City, California, or has arranged a trip beforehand, then this is a weekend of grand opportunity.  Tori Spelling is having a yard sale!

Tori's non-charity event will go on rain or shine, taking place under the roof of Tori's home.  Rummagers with a hundred bucks can slink away with signed Beverly Hills 90210 scripts or autographed cast photos. 

The silver services, cutlery, out-of-vogue shabby furniture and used clothing offered for sale might not qualify as either tremendous bargains or personal artifacts.

Fame vultures still have plenty of bones to pick over, most happily from the carcass of Tori's short-lived marriage to some guy named Charlie Shanian.  Personalized napkins and other souvenirs of the wedding were available to anyone possessing both a reasonable quantity of cash and an unreasonable surplus of morbid curiosity.

Estate-sale insiders speculate that Tori's most prized treasures were pulled aside and will be coming up on eBay.

Watch out for the auction of Tori's first implants, the trainer set, in the coming weeks.

Before the world of sensationalistic news blurbs was turned upside down by the lower extremities of extreme flashers Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, a shocking headline would be one announcing that a gorgeous starlet had been photographed with her sexual organs fully exposed.

Now, the spectacle of an attention-hungry celebrity showing off her wax job has become commonplace.  The challenge to an Internet visitor is to avoid photos of famous coochies rather than locate them.

Mischa Barton reverses this trend by walking the streets of New York while offering up evidence that a secondary layer of clothing is being worn between her outer garments and her tender flesh.

Somehow, this candid capture of Mischa with her zipper down is teasingly close to being sexy.  As opposed to the queerly revolting effect produced by less-modest camera taunters in the tabloid universe.

There is no explaining fashion, especially as it applies to older ladies.

What are the odds that more than one matronly woman would shell out $8,500 to clad herself in stiff red panels that make her look like a Humvee plated with Christmas-themed armor?

And who would ever bet that four women would show up at the same party outfitted in this same crimson Oscar de la Renta aberration?


Imagine the red faces when a quartet of old dames showed up at Sunday's White House reception for the Kennedy Honors, all adorned in the identical blush-inducing ensemble.

The awkwardness was especially embarrassing since one of those ladies was Laura Bush, wife of the President of the United States.

The Bush family can't even coordinate a simple appearance at a Holiday gala without creating a fashion miasma. 

Whatever made them think they were capable of delicate foreign policy planning, such as unilaterally invading a sovereign nation without provocation?

Other than paint-by-numbers, rock 'n' roll is the most derivative art form known to man.

The fact that the indelible stomp of Eddie Cochran, Link Wray, Gene Vincent and dozens of other big beat pioneers from the 1950s and before continues to thump in the rocking releases of today is a testament that the spirit of youthful exuberance that has always propeled this music is still alive and well.

On the other hand, empty aping of rock-star schtick is what makes anti-authoritarian anthems and the millionaires who sing them so appealing to mass-market image consultants.  The embracing of surface over substance is why retriement bank accounts are now sold to a soundtrack that originally accompanied exhortations to revolution and anarchy.

For better or worse, connoisseurs of music's most rebellious genre are hard-pressed to name five innovations from the past decade that weren't already old hat back when the CD first threatened the supremacy of vinyl.

Thus, it should be no surprise that the corporate mulchers over at Time/AOL have compiled a list of The 89 Most Redundant, Repetitive Cliches in Music.

The guilty part to the pleasure of AOL's list?  It will be the rare reader who hasn't indulged in at least a few of these trite, stereotyped behaviors.

Being the lead singer and creative force behind eighties hit machine the Cure should preserve gloomy glam Robert Smith from certain indignities, such as being defined in the music press by an arbitrary and confining label.

"It is pitiful," observes Smith, "when Goth is still tagged onto the name the Cure."

Perhaps the raven-haired, middle-aged eyeliner devotee would prefer an updated designation.

In today's nomenclature, the sublime Mr. Smith should be complaining that just because he is chunky, pasty, downcast and in need of shampoo and a hairbrush, unimaginative journalists have stereotyped him as emo.

The three seasons of Bravo TV's fashion battle-royal Project Runway have been rich in villains, martyrs and rag-trade attitude.

The one consistently positive note has been the chipper, civilized and nonpartisan tone of designers' helper Tim Gunn exhorting harried contestents to, "Make it work."

The urbane, gray and slender Gunn, whose day job finds him functioning as the chair of fashion design at New York's pricey Parsons school, is the only one of Project Runway's recurring characters who has not yet signed on for the Survivor-with-scissors show's fourth season.

If not for Tim, who will offset Heidi Klum's smirking sadism, the smug eye-rolling of Nina Garcia and Michael Kors's squirming, evil one-liner putdowns?

Suggested replacements for Gunn, should an agreement with Bravo's producers not be reached, have ranged from P Diddy to Paris Hilton's pet kinkajou.

Unless someone has a better idea....

Horse-toothed do-nothing Prince Andrew of England apparently lost his ability to know what makes for an attractive woman during his ten-year marriage to Fergie (not the one from Black Eyed Peas).

According to mannish trainwreck Courtney Love, the Duke of York showed up on her doorstep in the middle of the night six years ago "to look for chicks."

Andrew's spokesperson confirms that the royal twit did in fact spend the portion of an early morning six years ago drinking tea at Chez Love.

Courtney, like anyone who has taken a look at her mug during the past decade, is unable to fathom what royal Andrew hoped to find in the manner of attractive "chicks" at her place.

Perhaps, rather than scouting out potential sexual partners, the Duke was on a humanitarian fact-finding mission designed to cut down on the global tragedy of  plastic-surgery exploitation.

Or he might have simply been drunk out of his mind.