At Home in Hespeler

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Fluffernuttery

Big weekend last if you are Venice. Not the inhabitants of that once proud Principality, but Venice itself: the Palazzo’s, the Grand Canal, the little wooden boats not seen since Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The Clooneys and his wife, formerly Amal Alamuddin, tied the knot at the Aman Hotel on the Grand Canal.

Clooney was very pretty in black tux, while Alamuddin was tall and ruggedly handsome in red. The guest list was full on A-list, assuming you consider Anna Wintour and Cindy Crawford A-list, two people every media outlet I saw couldn’t help but splash across their pages.

And while George and Alamuddin went for the big show style wedding the real star of the show was the gorgeous city of Venice, which is currently holding for George Clooney’s agent, who is none to pleased with it.

More trouble for former very cute teen star Amanda Bynes. Now a 28-year old for teen star, trouble has managed to find her. Saturday night, at somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3AM, Bynes was stopped by the CHiPs guys (no not Erik Estrada, the real ones) and arrested for driving under the influence of a controlled subsistence. She was then booked and remained in custody until noon Sunday, when she was released on $15,000 bond.

Question: Where was Frankie Muntz to keep Bynes out of trouble, I always that was his job.

Cat Stevens, aka Yusaf Islam, is tired of self imposed obscurity, has booked a concert tour of six cities. The man who once agreed that a Fatwa against Salmon Rushdie for daring to write The Satanic Verses was proper and correct. Now he has the gall to call his little tour the Peace Train Tour, so you can be sure there be lots of hectoring the don’t agree with cold blooded murder types in the audience on their evilness.

Anyway, he has cancelled his New York show because the tickets are paper tickets, not pdf files that people print themselves or something. Remarkably, this doesn’t seem to be an environmental complaint, but something about scalpers being able to resell paper tickets, but not printed PDF tickets, or something.

Look, bottom line here: if you go see this fuck-wad who dislikes free speech and thinks murdering authors whose works disagree with his world view is OK, shame on you.

Sad news out of the AC/DC camp. With a new album ready to come down the pipe, and tour plans being made, the band has announced that rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young is suffering from Dementia. Reports are that the 62-year old Young, brother of lead guitarist/perennial school boy Angus, is already in long term care.

Oh dear! Charlie Sheen is back in the news, and it ain’t good.

Sheen is being investigated by LAPD for battery against a dental technician and assault with a deadly weapon against his dentist. The story is Sheen went to the dentist for an abscess while high on crack. When the technician put the gas mask on him, he freaked, flailing his arms and hitting the technician. When the dentist finally came in, Sheen allegedly pulled a knife on him.

Nobody was hurt, but it’s reported the LAPD plans to send the case on to the D.A. to decide if charges will be laid.

Fluffernutter, Saturday Morning Coffee AC/DC, Amal Alamuddin, Amanda Bynes, Angus Young, Anna Wintour, Cat Stevens, Charlie Sheen, Cindy Crawford, Frankie Muntz, George Clooney, Malcolm Young, Venice, Yusaf Islamz

In support of Gibson guitars on their battle with big government this week, it is Gibson Guitar day:

Nobody defines the Gibson Les Paul like Jimmy Page, and one was rarely played better than Page played it in 1973.

Gibson isn’t just about Les Pauls, although it may seem it sometimes. Not my favourite band, but AC/DC’s Angus Young simply rocks the Gibson SG, while brother Malcolm is rock steady on his Firebird:

As a kid I would read the album covers like they had the secret to the world in them. This was always on the back of the Kiss albums, “Kiss uses Gibson guitars and Pearl drums.”

Cool For Cats, Guitar Greats AC/DC, Angus Young, Gibson, Guitar, Jimmy Page, Kiss

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Mr. Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, this week joined the “shut up and sing,” club. Costello cancelled two upcoming concerts in Israel, stating “…merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act…” This in contrast to cancelling already scheduled concerts, which is an apolitical act.

Last word to Israeli Sport and Culture Minister Limor Livant:

An artist who boycotts his fans in Israel is not worthy of performing in front of them.

I know, I know, you’re anxious to know. You can’t sleep at night wondering, worried. That one question that nags at you and won’t go away: how was Lindsay Lohan’s week?

Funny you should ask, actually. She lost her passport. Stolen, along with her other personal papers. Of course, losing your passport in France, better yet Cannes isn’t so bad. So you stick around, maybe visit Paris, until the embassy gets it looked after. Lets face it, it’s not like she has work to go to.

Alas, karma isn’t just a bitch, she’s a mean girl. While the consul was explaining to LiLo that it was going to take a few days, perhaps a week to get her a passport, the judge at a probation hearing in California was explaining to her lawyer why she was issuing a warrant forLohan’s arrest.

Ronnie James Dio (1942-2010)

When Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath the reasonable assumption would be that the legendary heavy metal band was done. They could get a new singer, but it would just be death throes. Surely Black Sabbath without it’s unique voice out front, could no longer reasonably be Black Sabbath. Who did they think they were, AC/DC?

A funny thing happened on the way to the requiem. Sabbath replaced Osbourne with former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio and produced what many metal and Black Sabbath fans consider the finest metal album, never mind Black Sabbath album, Heaven and Hell.

In 2007 Dio rejoined with his Black Sabbath bandmates, calling the band Heaven & Hell. They remained a viable touring act until last August. They were scheduled to perform some shows this summer, but early this month those shows were cancelled due to Dio’s health.

He died this week of stomach cancer at the age of 67.

Fluffernutter AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, Heaven and Hell, Limor Livant, Lindsay Lohan, Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio