At Home in Hespeler

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Your hitting your 40’s feeling pretty good about life, and it comes at you from nowhere: your much, much younger husband is seen, as in pictures in the paper seen, tooling around town with a gorgeous blonde closer to his own age. Soon the evidence mounts that “around town” is not the only thing he has been tooling. What do you do?

If your Demi Moore, and husband Ashton Kutcher has been caught at a hotel with Sara Leal, you go to a Kabbalah retreat.

Didn’t know there where lawyers at Kabbalah retreats.

I always liked Christina Aguilera, thought she had some talent. But if you haven’t seen the pictures from last weekends Michael Jackson tribute in Whales…

Aguilera, X-Tina to friends, came out in a bodice and fishnets, with hair that looked rather, well, uncombed. Problem is the singer hasn’t maintained her girlish figure, and the outfit is truly dreadful on her.

Remember the TV show Friends, when Courtney Cox’s character would put on the fat suit? That’s the same effect Christina Aguilera has on the eyes, except instead of sweaters, she’s wearing a corset.

She later came out in a suit and looked lovely. But it’s time for some of Christina’s people to explain to her, if you want to look your age, you can’t be dressing like your a teenager.

President Obama’s numbers may be down in the real world, but in Hollywood, he’s still The Big O. Case in point, Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas are hosting an Obama fundraiser on October 24th.

The national Latino gala, co-hosted by Eva Longoria, will be at the actors home. It will target Obama’s latino supporters, raising cash for his candidacy. Tickets for the gala cost between $5,000 and $35,800.

Which leads one to ask, Melanie Griffith is latino?

Whitney Houston fell afoul of the flight crew in Atlanta Wednesday when she refused to buckle her seat belt for take-off. The wording here is, “the singer….became irate when members of the cabin crew insisted she buckle up for take-off.”

From the “doth protest too much,” file, the singers reps said she over-reacted a little bit, but, “she is still 100% sober…”

There’s just something about this story which doesn’t pass the sniff test, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Fluffernutter Antonio Banderas, Ashton Kutcher, Christina Aquilera, Demi Moore, Eva Longoria, Melanie Griffith, President Obama, Whitney Houston

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

The Kings Speech was the big Oscar winner with Best Movie, Best Actor (Colin Firth), Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

Highlights of the telecast include the lovely Melissa Leo, who won best supporting actress for The Fighter, saying on national, prime time television:

When I watched Kate two years ago it looked so fuckin’ easy.

The other highlight was jerk off Christian Bale seeming to forget his wife’s name during the thank you’s.

Lowlight was Gweneth Paltrow singing.

The anti-Oscar’s, also known as The Razzies, went off as usual Saturday night in Los Angeles. The Razzies “celebrate” all that is bad in movies, giving awards to the worst movies and performances of the year.

Worst movie of the year went to The Last Airbender, a movie I hadn’t even heard of, but got a $320million box office received a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Worst Actor was Ashton Kutcher for his role in Killers, and worst actress went to the girls in Sex in the City 2.

Unlike last year when Sandra Bullock attended the Razzies and showed real grace and class by accepting her worst actress award, none of the winners appeared this year.

The week that was: Chuck Sheen

Monday: Sheen fired his long-time publicist, Stan Rosenfeld hours after Rosenfeld quit. Sheen has been going off the publicity reservation a fair bit the past few weeks, and his publicist Rosenfeld seems to have had enough. In an interview, Sheen said Rosenfeld had erred in October when defending Sheen’s action:

I respect Stan, he was doing the best he could at the moment. Had I conformed with him, I probably would have come up with something better

Because his improvisations the last week have turned out so well, presumably.

Sheen later said of Rosenfeld: “He’s not allowed to quit, so you’re fired.”

Tuesday: After a series of bizarre interviews, Sheen joins Twitter, listing as his occupation, unemployed winner. By nights end he had over 400,000 followers, and I‘d make a joke about them being all twits, if only I wasn‘t one of them.

His interviews, meanwhile, continue to be some of the most colourful ever:

It (the AA principles) was written for normal people, people that aren’t special. People that don’t have tiger blood, you know, Adonis DNA…
I’m tired of pretending like I’m not a bitching, a total freaking rock star from Mars… You can’t process me with a normal brain…
They picked a fight with a warlock.

He also demanded a raise to return to his hit – ahem – “sitcom“ Two and a Half Men: “I’ll even do season 10, but… it’s 3 mil an episode (he was making $2 million an episode).

The day goes so bad for Sheen, that one media outlet dubbed it, “Charlie Sheen’s Scorched Earth Tour,” and former Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre called it a “…Sprint from from Grace.”

Wednesday: Late Tuesday night a judge removed custody of his kids from Sheen. His ex-wife, Brooke Mueller, complained Sheen threatened her. Not, however, an I’ll kill you, you f%$#in’ bi%$&, kind of threat, but the kind of threat a guy with “fire breathing fists” would level:

I will cut your head off, put it in a box and send it to your mom.

He later tweeted: @Charlie sheen “My sons are fine… My path is clear… Defeat is not an option!”

Is it just me, or should the briefcase full of blow, the bevy of hookers, the outrageous statements in the media and the absolute appearance that Sheen may be having a very public breakdown of some kind not seem reason enough to remove the kids from the home. It takes a direct threat of the jihaddi kind to make a judge step up and protect those kids?

Friday: Sheen set a record with 1M twitter followers in 24 hours. It is now expected Sheen can make $1M on a yearly basis selling ads on his twitter feed. Because what Charlie Sheen needs is greater access to easy money.

Wonder how many twitter followers stop following Sheen once he’s running twitterads? One, I know of for sure.

Christina Aquilera was passenger in a car Tuesday when it got pulled over. She was, according to police, “not capable of taking care of herself. She was incapacitated… She was just intoxicated.”

A few hours in the holding cell to sleep it off, and Christina was on her way without charge.

Not so lucky was her boyfriend, Matthew Rutler, who was driving the car. He was arrested for suspicion of drunken driving.

After a big day being feted by Prince Charles, Catherine Zeta-Jones CBE was punched by a photographer in London. Returning from Buckingham Palace last week, Jones and husband, Michael Douglas, exited their car and entered their hotel in a flurry of photographers.

“How dare you punch me,” Jones suddenly yelled. “I want a police officer right now. He punched me. The guy coming in here, he punched me.”

Douglas, who is recovering from throat cancer treatments, turned to accost the photog.

Good on Douglas, who looks weakened but well these days, for standing up for his wife.

Last week I reported a story in which some in the music industry were criticizing artists who played well paying, private parties for the Gaddafi’s in Libya.

This week, Nelly Furtatdo has announced she will repay what she was given to perform for the murderous dictator. Problem is, Ms. Furtado, payment is only part of the problem. Mu’amar Gaddafi was a murderous thug long before anyone thought of tweeting about it. You had to know, and that says far more about you than paying back the money after the fact does.

Fluffernutter Ashton Kutcher, Brooke Mueller, Catherine Zeta Jones, Charlie Sheen, Christian Bale, Christina Aquilera, Chuck Lorre, Colin Firth, Gweneth Paltrow, Kaddafi Duck, Matthew Rutler, Melissa Leo, Michael Douglas, Mu'amar Gaddafi, Nelly Furtado, Prince Charles, razzies, Sandra Bullock, Sex in the City 2, Stan Rosenfeld, The Kings Speech, The Last Airbender, Two and a Half Men

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Between Friends hotties Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox, Aniston was always the tabloid fodder. Cox married David Arquette while Friends was at it’s peak, had the baby she wanted and settled in to her family and successful TV career.
No more. After eleven years of marriage Cox and Arquette have split:

After our eleventh anniversary she gave me a motorcycle and said “I don’t want to be your mother anymore,”

Arquette told the Howard Stern show this week.

We have not had sex in quite a while… it’s been like four months. We’re not having sex and I completely understand.

Classy guy.

In retrospect, it was bound to fail: Arquette has the maturity of a teenage boy and Cox has a last name that makes teenage boys giggle.

If you are the kind of guy who’s pretty confident in himself, and thinks your in the Courtney Cox league, but alas, you would prefer somebody a little more dame-like, the news is good: Christina Aguilera is also exiled from guy-ville after her split with husband of five years Jordan Bratman.

The great dame and her leechite have separated and have been living apart the last six months and will “see how that goes.”

The betting here at Saturday Fluffernutter world headquarters is better for her than him.

Kim Cattrall is one of life’s lucky ones. A good career, success, money. So how does she feel about it?

Recently I was enjoying a quiet lunch in Liverpoo… this guy approaches… He says, “C’mon, stand up – I want a photo with you.” My response was, “I won’t do it. I’m not working right now…”

Quick reminder for Cattrall: this guy you so sneeringly dismiss, he’s the reason you can afford to lunch at Liverpoo.

Boy George was exiled from guy-ville this week, although authorities prefer it be called released from prison.  He served 27 days of an eight week sentence and got early release after the other prisoners complained they needed the rest.

Fluffernutter Boy George, Christina Aquilera, courtney cox, David Arquette, Howard Stern, Jordan Bratman, Kim Cattrall, Liverpoo

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

What’s going to save the music industry from itself? You know what I mean, that whole CDs, golden goose, dead thing. To hear the rockstars and industry execs tell it, sharing files – they call it pirating for Gods sake – will ruin the industry. Who’s going to make music if you can’t make obscene amounts of money doing so?

“Make a few bob and then open a hairdressing salon,” Ringo Starr answered when asked what he hoped to get out of The Beatles. It was The Beatles first trip to the United States, and the press was already asking “what next?” I’ll make enough money to start a little shop, thought Ringo. By the time I get around to writing Octopuses Garden, I’ll have no one to sing it to except my customers. They probably all thought that: A bookstore for John; a music store for George; a hat store for Nigel (Tufnel, the oft forgotten sixth Beatle).

Who indeed?

During a television interview aired worldwide before The Who’s live simulcast farewell concert from Toronto in 1982, Roger Daltry talked about the band’s habit of breaking their equipment at the end of their shows: ‘we would run into a store, grab a guitar off the wall and run out again saying over our shoulder, I’ll pay you later,’ he said. ‘We didn’t make any money until the mid-70’s.’ Yet they managed to come out with Tommy and Who’s Next, alternatively known as the greatest rock opera and the CSI soundtrack album.

Kiss would work their way to the west coast, and have to book gigs, any gig, to eat and travel their way back to New York. Ever seen those early Kiss shows? Phenomenal. They were hungry, they had attitude and they were good. They started making money around the time of the Destroyer album. They stopped making listenable music exactly around the Destroyer album. “They prostituted themselves,” a high school buddy said one day about Beth. I rather think not, think Beth was in retrospect, a reasonably heartfelt song. It was immediately after Beth that the Kiss act became red-light. “This is a great Rod Stewart song,” Paul Stanley told the band about Hard Luck Woman, hoping to sell the song to Stewart. That, my friend, is prostituting yourself.

Nobody got into the music business for the business potential until sometime in the late 70’s or early 80‘s. Before that, even the big stars figured by the time they were 30, then 40, they wouldn’t be acting like rock stars. Mick Jagger said once that he couldn’t imagine running around a stage when he’s 60. He knew then what he refuses to acknowledge now: that he’s become somewhat absurd. But somewhere late in the 70’s, early in the 80’s guys started choosing rock star as a career option. It is considered a remarkable coincidence that people stopped making rock music that was transcendental at the same time.

Who am I kidding? The moment musicians stopped thinking I’ll give it all I got until I’m 28 or so, then get a real job is the moment music changed. If you imagine music as a career, what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, then you’re not about to go out on a limb because you believe from the depths of your soul that the 3rd bar in the 2nd verse should be a C#m instead of an E. If the record company guy, the one in the charcoal suit, says it should be an E, then who are you to withhold the master tapes and risk your future until he concedes your point? And while one C#m may not matter in the grand scheme, once you concede the 3rd bar in the 2nd verse, then why not cut the solo because nobody does solos anymore? And why not rewrite the last verse to make it more radio friendly? Never mind that you talked to God on that solo, or the third verse was absolute poetry, this is about selling records. So why not let the art director from the design department design your album covers, why worry your pretty little head over artistic direction? After all, it’s not art, it’s business.

While the artists were busy working for the man, the people who buy the product, the important line in the supply and demand curve, stopped buying. Instead they, ahem, stole it. Not stole as in left the store with a product, stole as in they took a bunch of 0’s and 1’s that one person voluntarily put on their computer, and moved them to your computer without removing or in any way changing them. Want to talk about the law? Here’s a basic law of economics: price = scarcity. Without scarcity, there’s no need for price. Computer files are technically an unlimited resource. They can be duplicated an infinite number of times without experiencing any degradation of the original file. And if you can duplicate something ad-infinitum, you can’t impose a price on it in the long run. Notice I said can’t, not won’t or shouldn’t, but can’t. You cannot impose a price on something that has no scarcity. And if you can’t impose a price on a music file, the business model of the career recording artist falls apart.

My favourite theory is that recording will become the incidental effort, to promote the live experience that the musician offers. Sooner or later musicians will give away files, sell records and CDs to those (say, me) who must have them, but will make their money for what they do today, or rather tonight, not what they did back in 1982. For this to happen, some things within the industry will have to change, not the least of which is the expectation that musicians should be paid in perpetuity: musicians will have to be first, and always, musicians. Brittany Spears need not apply, we need people who can step on a stage, and sing, or play their instrument; the idea that a concert should be a spectacle will have to end. If you need a ten piece band and dancers – especially if you need dancers – then you can’t be expected to turn a profit on tour. No profit, no performance, it needs to be that simple. A five man band giving it their all, ala the Stones 1972 can be profitable work. An eleven man band playing Jumping Jack Flash while Mick, Keith and Ronny prance and preen ala the Stones now, no Dice, Tumblin’ or otherwise; prices need to come down. Sure Roger Waters or Madonna can carry a circus act, tractor trailer loads full of bricks and flying pigs, then charge $150, but nobody else can. Fourty dollars to hear some band on the margins is too much, they need to be able to play, profitably, for less, maybe a lot less. The trick is get enough people in the seats for $20, and sell them shirts, ring-tones, iPhone cases and downloads of the show.

I mention this because it is, I think, the future, and it is coming sooner than most believe. Here’s an item from this weeks paper:

Christina Aquilera has announced a 20-date North American tour… in support of her upcoming album Bionic. Fans will receive a digital copy of the album with every ticket purchased before June 4.

Give away the music, sell the concert. It’s a new idea, and will take some working out, but it’s economically viable. To put it simply, performance is a scarce commodity, one that can be charged for. As it gets harder and harder to collect on the bits and bites sitting on your hard drive, it will become more viable to look to the performance of music to make a living.

What’s going to save the music industry from itself? That’s easy: musicians. And when they do, music consumers will be better off for it.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Beatles, Beth, Bionic, Brittany Spears, Christina Aquilera, CSI, Destroyer, George HArrison, Hard Luck Woman, John Lennon, Jumping Jack Flash, Keith Richards, Kiss, Madonna, Mick Jagger, Nigel Tufnel, Octopuses Garden, paul stanley, Ringo Starr, Roger Daltry, Roger Waters, Rolling Stones, Ron Wood, The Who, Tommy, Toronto, Who’s Next