At Home in Hespeler

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Anne Hathaway has tied the knot, marrying her man of more than four years, Adam Shulman, in a sunset wedding at Big Sur, California last Saturday.

Hathaway wore Valentino and when the minister asked if anybody had any reason to object to the marriage, the FBI did not stand up.

Kings of Leon bassist Jared Followill also stepped across the aisle this weekend, marrying model Martha Patterson. The Leonic King and the bikini beauty hitched up in a rustic ceremony in Charlotte, Tennessee.

No word on whether there was a fireplace.

Returning to our regular programming, Lindsay Lohan was assaulted in her hotel room last weekend.

Lohan invited Christian LaBella back to her room after partying at 1 Oak Saturday night. She then discovered a number of pictures of her on his phone, and confronted him about the pictures. He attacked, and Lindsay pulled the fire alarm to bring in the police. Lohan received minor scratches and turned down medical help and LaBella was charged with 2 counts of assault and 2 counts of harassment.

While Lohan is the victim in this story, I’m reminded of Glenn Hughes response to being punched by a roadie in a hotel elevator in the wee hours:

“Normal people don’t get beaten up in hotels at four in the morning.”

Here’s a quiz. Pretend your a bookie, your job is to give out odds on events. There’s four people in a room, including Mariah Carey. One of those four people has a complete diva-like meltdown. What are the odds the meltdown was someone other than Carey?

Well, get ready to pay Mr. Vegas. TMZ posted video of American Idol tryouts from Charlotte. This year judges, in case you have a modicum of taste and simply don’t know or care, are Randy Jackson, Keith Urban, Nicki Manaj and Carey. In the video, Manaj is going completely off the handle, shouting and swearing at Carey: “I told them, I’m not fuckin’ putting up with her fuckin’ highness over there.”

Carey apparently argued back, with Urban, physically between the two, tried to calm things down.

Nicki Manaj with a superiority complex: now I’ve heard everything.

Fluffernutter Anne Hathaway, Christian LaBella, Glenn Hughes, Jared Followill, Keith Urban, Lindsay Lohan, Mariah Carey, Martha Patterson, Nicki Manaj, Randy Jackson

Saturday Fluffernutter: The Girls, Girls, Lindsay Lohan & Girls Edition

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

This is news that would shock my mom: Mariah Carey is the only person ever to give birth. At least, that’s what Carey seems to believe.

I don’t think I understood the enormity and the magnitude of what it (pregnancy) really does to your body: It’s not just , “Oh, you don’t look pretty and you have a bump”…

It’s difficult to understand what I went through because my pregnancy was very unique in terms of what happened to me.

The jaw drops.

…my sister is a multibazillionaire, and I’m homeless…

Madonna’s brother, 55 year old Anthony Ciccone is homeless in Michigan, after losing his job at his father‘s winery. This, apparently, is all Madonna’s fault.

I’m no fan of Madonna, and I’m usually ready to blame her for almost any of the worlds woes, but if you can’t keep a job at your own father’s winery, if you are a 55 year old man who uses the word multibazillionaire with straight face (he also used the phrase, “a bazillion times”), maybe the problem isn’t other people.

Lets see, Mariah, Madonna… who am I missing? Ah yes, Britney.

Ticket prices for Britney Spears Femme Fatale show in Birmingham are being slashed. Originally prices at $88, they are now going for $48 on the website Groupon.com. Rumour is, over half the seats are unsold.

Says a Live Nation spokesman:

Offering a deal on Groupon is not a reflection of the quality… of the show.

No, having Britney Spears on the stage is a “reflection of the quality of the show.” All the rest is just business.

Demi Moore, trying to save her marriage to perrenial tool and man/child, emphasis on child, Ashton Kutcher, visited him on the set of Two and a Half Men last week.

Lets see, Kutcher’s accused of being a cad who bedded a nubile young woman. To help things along, Moore went to the set of his show, where he plays a cad who beds nubile young women.

I’m missing something, aren’t I?

Parole Violation, Shlamole Volation.

I guess Lindsay Lohan wasn’t just lying around awaiting judgement on her parole violation hearing, possibly heading back into custody.

Instead, she headed over to Playboy inc. to have her picture taken for the magazine. The magazine is allegedly paying Lohan $1-million for the shoot of Lohan in nothing but her… well nothing.

Meanwhile, over at FleshLight inc., makers of sex toys, they want in on the action. They are offering Lohan $1-million to launch her own line of sex toys. Included in the offer is a request to make a mold of Lohan’s – ahem – VIP room, to make an “authentic,” Lohan sex toy.

Fluffernutter, Magazine Anthony Ciccone, Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Playboy

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

James Bond and the Tied Knot:

Daniel Craig and his gal pal Rachel Weisz got married last weekend in New York. The quiet ceremony was attended by one attendant each, and the couples two children from previous relationships.

No word on whether the least likeable Bond rolled the wedding car on route to the honeymoon.

Big winner of 2011, Charlie Sheen will start the fall TV season… dead.

His character on the hit “sitcom” Two and a Half Men, Charlie Harper, will be killed off in the season opener. According to TMZ.com, the show will begin with dark screen for “just a minute or two,” as characters Alan and Jake find out he is dead.

Winning…

Mr. Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon said this week that he and the boss are done having kids.

I (Cannon) do (want more children), Mariah doesn’t. She was like, “That’s it, I’m done! Two at once!

Translation, it turns out having kids was not all about Mariah, and it won’t happen again.

When Nasa sent a spacecraft into the far reaches of space full of artefacts from earth in order to communicate with any aliens who may intercept the craft, among the artefacts where Chuck Berry records. According to Father Guido Sarducci, the craft returned with a note inside: “Send more Chuck Berry.”

The city of St. Louis understands the sentiment, and this week voted to erect an 8-foot statue of the rock and roll legend. The statue will be built on a new public bikeway near Blueberry Hill, the club where Berry has played a regular gig over the past 15 years.

The statue has it’s detractors, notably 86-year old Elsie Glickbert, who notes that 84-year old Berry is a convicted felon. Berry was convicted in 1962 of “transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.”

Hard to understand why, 15 years after Bill Clinton, people aren’t more concerned about those 60’s era “immoral purposes” convictions.

Time to shave, trim the unwanted hairlettes and suck in the gut: Téa Leoni is back on the market. Leoni and her husband of 14 years, Californication’s David Duchovny, have separated for the second time in three years.

The couple separated for a year in 2008 after Duchovny “underwent treatment for sex issues,” i.e. was found to be a serial philanderer. They reunited a year later

No word on what caused this years split, but one can’t help but wildly speculate that the words “pecker,” and “pants” where used during the decisive argument.

Free at last, free at last… Lindsay Lohan is free at last.

Lindsay Lohan, felonious actress, was released from home detention after serving 35 days in house arrest for stealing a $2,500 necklace.

Her monitoring equipment was removed Wednesday morning, freeing Lohan from her days spent painting. No word on what she did after being released, we just hope it had nothing to do with either her probationary restriction against drugs and alcohol or David Duchovny.

Fluffernutter Californication, Charlie Sheen, Chuck Berry, Daniel Craig, David Duchovny, James Bond, Lindsay Lohan, Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon, Rachel Weisz, St. Louis, Téa Leoni, Two and a Half Men

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

It’s open warfare on the Two and a Half Men set.
Sheen went on a flat out rant against executive producer Chuck Lorre Thursday, causing producers to shut down production of the show, and put it‘s future in doubt. Calling Lorre a “contaminated little maggot,” Sheen proved once again that his recent negative drug tests are tainted:

Clearly I have defeated this earthworm with my words – imagine what I could have done with my fire breathing fists.

His fists breath? Fire??

Review in Brief: Anna Nicole, the Opera: John Paul Jones on bass and a big blowsy blond singing, what could possibly be wrong with that?

(ed’s note: the above opera was not actually seen by the reviewer)

Speaking of Charlie Sheen and floozy blonds, one of Sheen’s hooker friends from his infamous, briefcase full of blow party is back in the news. After the party, and the fame, Kacey Jordan discovered she was pregnant.

The pregnancy is no more, as Jordan told TMZ.com “I don’t have a baby anymore.”

And was Charlie Sheen the father?

“I really don’t know.”

Singing’s a nice gig. Ask Mariah Carey, Usher or Beyonce. On New Years Eve 2009 Carey was jetted to the Caribbean island of St. Barts and paid $1M to sing 4 songs, four – $250,000/song. Nice! Usher and Beyonce both had similar gigs in the year that followed, although actual money amounts have not been disclosed.

Nice gig! Nice people, not so much.

The host of Carey’s million dollar new years eve “shityesapalooza” was the sons of Libyan protest-straffer Mu’amar Gaddafi (or Kaddafi Duck, as I recall it in a famous 80’s era cartoon).

The big billed Bedouin has recently declared war on Libya. This is bad because

a)war is bad and

b) he’s Libyan.

A leader at war with, and murdering his own people is bad company. Now, some music industry types are asking, why were the stars performing for this nutcase and his family. Case in point, Grammy winning band Arcade Fire’s manager David T. Viecelli:

People put a big paycheck on the table, and people don’t consider where the money is coming from, or what they’re at least passively endorsing. I don’t want to specifically say Beyonce or Mariah Carey behaved unethically, because I don’t know all the details. But if it’s true that Mu’amar Gaddafi’s son says, “I’ve got $50 million, come and play for my buddies,” I really think you have to say no to that.

Added former president of Reprise Records Howie Klein:

When I saw Beyonce and Usher and whoever else out there partying with these Libyan criminals… these are people who have stolen tens of millions of dollars from their nation…

Actually what they have in common is they are shooting at their own people, but lets not split hairs.

I can’t speak for Beyonce or Usher, but in fairness to Mariah Carey, she’s really not that smart.

Friday Charlie Sheen Update:

About his bosses at CBS, including Jewish creator and producer of his *ahem* sit-“com” Two and a Half Men:

These people are a bunch of AA Nazis.

As one observer put it, Sheen has an awful expensive lifestyle to afford on residuals.

Catherine Zeta-Jones was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire this week, at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. The British actress, along with husband Michael Douglas and their children, Dylan and Carys to the ceremony. Zeta-Jones (CBE), was honoured for her charity work and services to the film industry.

Also honoured was American actor Henry (The Fonz) Winkler, who received an Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his work with children’s charities.

Fluffernutter Anna Nicole, Arcade Fire, Beyonce, Catherine Zeta Jones, Charlie Sheen, Chuck Lorre, David T. Viecelli, Henry Winkler, Howie Klein, John Paul Jones, Kacey Jordan, Kaddafi Duck, Mariah Carey, Michael Douglas, Mu’amar Gaddafi, Opera, St. Barts, The Fonz, Two and a Half Men, Usher

Ashton Kutcher has told Men’s Health that he keeps himself in tip top shape to “prepare for end days.” Kutcher apparently believes, rather ardently, that a technological Armageddon is coming, and if you don’t practice Krav Maga and yoga (the latter in blazing hot temperatures), you will not survive the apocalypse.

In honor of the New Year, we here at Fluffernutter World Headquarters, situated in a bus buried under 10 feet of solid clay somewhere south and west of Guelph, offer this years best fluffernutters or, as we prefer to call them, signs of the Apolalypse:

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

From the “perhaps we can just forgo the whole horseman drama and go straight to separating the sinners and the faithful,” department:

If Mariah Carey is pregnant is a sign of the apocalypse, what is Mariah Carey is expecting twins a sign of? Surely not just that the IQ of the Carey/Cannon household will soon approach triple digits?
And hey, who’s that guy with the beard and sandals?

Justin Beiber: Minute 16.
A couple of weeks ago Justin Beiber lashed out at a fan looking for an autograph. Famous for about a year, Beiber is already tired of all these kids, children really, throwing their money at him. If only they would go away, he could enjoy his fame in peace.

Last weekend Beiber was accused of assaulting a 12 year old boy at Planet Lazer in Vancouver. While playing he hit/ran over the lad, who complained to management, and then police.

The boy says he hit him, Beiber says it was an accident. I say Justin Beiber’s fifteen minutes are up.

Madonna is rumoured to have dumped her 24 year old Latin lover, Jesus Luz for Brazillian dancer Brahim Rachiki.
For the record, Madonna lists herself as a “children’s author” amongst other things on her CV. Here’s a tip: if you are buying your children books by Madonna, you’re a bad parent!

If you are using Madonna as a role model for your kids, pre-teen, teen, young adults, you are a bad parent.

Want to know why society is a mess? Popular TV show Glee! Had a Madonna episode, where they raved about what a wonderful role model she was for young women. Any society, anywhere, who thinks filthy, skanky, slutty Madonna can possibly be a role model, is a mess. Full stop.

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.

Dear Lindsay:

The rules are simple. Here’s how it works. You do your treatment program, you pass two drug tests a week, you stay out of jail.

Two drug tests a week Lindsay Lohan is mandated to take. Two. You know they’re coming. So how does she do? She fails both of them. On two separate, mandatory samples she tests positive for two separate drugs: cocaine on one test, amphetamine on the second. Two tests, two fails, two different drugs.

It’s hard to muster much sympathy for the bail revoked/4 weeks in jail she got for her transgression.

Sigh! Another week, another sex scandal on Sesame Street… wait… what did I just write?

Singer, fashionista and all round ingénue Katy Perry was to appear on Sesame Street this week, performing a song with Elmo (who’s nose feels so good &tc.). Perry, famous for the song I Kissed a Girl was set to perform her single Hot and Cold on the pre-school MTV. The producers of Sesame Street released the clip on YouTube and then pulled it from the show “based on feedback.”

This blog has never, ever been an advocate for the sexualizing of children, and abhors the practice. But frankly, other than some really bad lip synching, there’s nothing wrong with the segment. An argument can be made that Perry is not the kind of role model we want for pre-schoolers (an argument can be made she’s not the type of role model we want for pre-teens, her target audience, but I digress), but this particular clip is tame.

Brad Pitt is a good leftie. He doesn’t believe in the death penalty for, say, someone who kidnaps a child and spends three days molesting them before killing them. Paul Bernardo, as an example, should be spared the death penalty.

But run a company that has an environmental accident?

I was never for the death penalty before, but I am willing to look at it again (for BP executives)

I love the headline in this weeks In Touch. Angelina Jolie, it claims, calls Brad stupid behind his back.
Talk about belabouring the obvious.

Mr. Zeta Jones, Actor Michael Douglas, announced this week he was diagnosed with throat cancer. Mr. Jones will undergo chemotherapy and is “very optimistic,” of a full recovery.

Back in June his son Cameron, from a previous marriage, was sentenced to five years in prison for dealing methamphetamine and possessing heroin. Which just goes to show, even Kirk Douglas’s son, who’s married to Catherine Zeta Jones can have a shitty go of things.

You can, in fact, have it all and legitimately wonder, “why me?”

I saw the Jennifer Aniston ugly duckling photo shoot last week: the one where she makes herself up to look just like Barbara Streisand. A fine example of how to turn beauty butt ugly in one make-up session.

Want to know what my reaction was: “glad I never laminated that list.”

But this Thursday she was on Regis and Kelly, when she said about the photo shoot:

I play dress up. I do it for a living – like a retard.

Cue the professionally aggrieved, specifically Pete Burns, CEO of Arc:

I was extraordinarily offensive and inappropriate. Frankly, someone in her position ought to know better.

Someone in her position? What, an actress? A fairly average actress who if it wasn’t for the fact she has a very cute, girl next door thing going on you would never have heard of? She should know better than who? The President?

You know who should know better than to say really stupid, intellectually challenged, things: people with CEO on the business card.

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.

Sean Penn pleaded no contest to charges of vandalism this week after he was videotaped kicking a photographer. He was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and three years of informal probation.

How does an assault, on video, become vandalism? What’s the charge for spray painting walls? A speeding ticket?

Russell Crowe, somewhat known for being quick to rile, got upset and stormed out of an interview in England this week. When the interviewer suggested Crowe had a bit of an Irish accent in his new movie, Robin Hood, Crowe became angered and yelled:

What would you be talkin’ about, ya fekin gobsheit! Ya stupid wee man, ya wouldn’t know an Irish accent if it dropped it’s pot of gold on your toes.

He then finished his Guiness and stormed off.

Top signs that Russell Crowe is angry:

• Puts a petrol bomb under your bonnet
• Stands and drops his pants, all the while yelling Pogue Mahone
• Knee-caps you with a hurl.
• Dons an Aaron sweater and says, “I like it too.”
• Drops his pot of gold on your toes.
• Guest edit’s the Globe and Mail
• Bops you on the head with his shillelagh.

Joni Mitchell gave a rare interview last week with the LA Times:

We (Bob Dylan) and I are like night and day, he and I. Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is deception.

Oh, my! Tell us what you really think Joni.

She had more to say regarding Grace Slick and Janis Joplin being drunken tramps – they were “sleeping with their whole bands and falling down drunk” – and Madonna:

Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point.

Madonna as anti-Christ. There’s an argument I can get behind.

Other revelations in the Joni Mitchell interview:

• The Red Hot Chilli Peppers are neither red, hot nor chilli peppers.
• Jakob Dylan plagiarised his fathers last name.
• The Led Zeppelin song Going to California, heretofore thought to be written about Joni Mitchel, was really written about “That Girl” Marlo Thomas.
• The reason the Toronto Maple Leafs have not won a Stanley Cup in 40 years is that Joni Mitchell cursed them by writing about them in her song Raised on Robbery.
• Jose Feliciano is the judge for the People Magazine’s most beautiful people.
• Bob Dylan mumbles

Sixteen year old singing sensation/tweener heartthrob Justin Beiber commented to People magazine this week about President Barack Obama mis-pronouncing his name at Beiber’s first visit to the White House last year:

He messed up my name, but I give it to him. He’s not (the) age category I sing to. He’s not “one less lonely girl”.

I would have preferred if he had said, “Dude. You can pronounce Netanyahu, but you can’t get Bee-ber? Put it on the teleprompter and get it right next time.” However, the “it’s more than I expect from some old, square guy,” routine that he went with was good too.

Life and Style magazine has gone undercover to find out, which Hollywood big shots have big shooters. The big men about town, in no particular order, we hope, are: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx, David Arquette, David Spade, Jamie Kennedy, Brian Austen Green, Jaret Leto and Andy Dick.

Noticeably absent from the list is any of those Hollywood loudmouth types (DiCaprio excepted) like Sean Penn or Matt Damon, proving once again, guys with big dicks don’t have to go around acting like they have big dicks.

In an interview with Parade magazine, Elton John angered Christians by stating that Jesus Christ was:

…a compassionate super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems.

US Christians are particularly angry, claiming labelling Jesus a “sexual deviant” is akin to labelling Elton John “fashionable.”

Other little know Elton John religious facts:

• Elton played Candle in the Wind at Jesus’ crucifixion, changing the words to Goodbye, Jesus. Dude
• A recently discovered first draft of an English translation of the bible refers to the holy trinity as The Father, The Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy.
• John the Baptist also wore powder blue track pants.
• On Halloween 1517, Martin Luther posted a scathing review of the previous nights Elton John concert in Wittenberg on the church door. Pope Leo X, an Elton John fan, declared the review a hearsay and ex-communicated Luther.
• Benny and the Jets is about a Super Bowl III party in the Hampton’s with Pope Benedict, who then went by the sobriquet Benny the Bishop.
• A Priest’s vestments were originally modelled after Elton John’s early stage clothes.
• Elton John was due to appear at Jeuruselum-a-palooza in 1095 when he got a bout of food sickness. Fans rioted, causing the Imams of the Caliphate to issue a crowd control fatwa. The ensuing battle was the First Crusade.John was only able to escape with his life when the Knights Templar snuck him out of the holy city. They would be his bodyguards for the next 1,000 years for which he signed over royalty rights to his Greatest Hits album.
• Jesus’ sandals were made by Gianni Versace.

The Late Shift II: Conan the Leftoutinthecoldian – There really is one story in entertainment this week: Leno vs. O’Brien.

In a redux of 1991’s decision to replace Johnny Carson with Jay Leno instead of heir apparent David Letterman, NBC announced is shaking up The Late Show, once again anointing Leno and leaving hair apparent O’Brien out in the cold.

Leno’s new 10PM show has bombed, and NBC announced they were moving Leno back to 11:30 with a new half-hour show. O’Brien balked at being moved to midnight, telling NBC to go letter their man. Leno will return to the Late Night fold, with Jimmy Kimmel retaining O’Briens old 12:30 slot. And O’Brien? It appears he will take heed of Leno’s advice to NBC when the story started to break last week and travel: Fox, he said, is beautiful this time of year.

Who the long term winner will be is anybody’s guess, but it seem likely there will be one long term loser: Leno’s reputation as a nice guy.

So your Tiger Woods. Your nice guy image is in tatters, your reputation need rebuilding. Your wife is leaving, and taking with her the kids and $300M. Pat Burns is on Montreal radio telling the world your gorgeous Swedish wife took a nine iron to your face before you got in the Cadillac, which she then took the nine iron to the windows of. What do you need to revive your image? How about a magazine cover with you looking like it was taken in the prison yard:

The world is upside down when I feel sorry for Tiger Woods.

Fluffernutter Andy Dick., Angelina Jolie, Ashton Kutcher, Barack Obama, Barbara Streisand, Bob Dylan, Boy George, Brad Pitt, Brahim Rachiki, Brian Austen Green, Cameron Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones, Conan O'Brien, David Arquette, David Letterman, David Spade, Diana Krall, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Glee!, Grace Slick, Guelph, Jamie Foxx, Jamie Kennedy, Janis Joplin, Jaret Leto, Jay Leno, Jennifer Aniston, Jesus Luz, Johnny Carson, Joni Mitchell, Jose Feliciano, Justin Beiber, katy perry, Kim Cattrall, Kirk Douglas, Krav Maga, Led Zeppelin, Leonardo DiCaprio, Limor Livant, Lindsay Lohan, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Pat Burns, Paul Bernardo, Pete Burn, Regis and Kelly, Robin Hood, Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, Sesame Street, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Tiger Woods, yoga

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Hottie Scarlett Johannson has split from hunky Ryan Reynolds after two years of wedded bliss:

After long and careful consideration on both our parts, we’ve decided to end our marriage.

Wouldn’t it have been better if they had given “long and careful consideration,” before they got married? And wouldn’t it have been more honest if the announcement had said, “We’ve both decided we can’t continue to live with someone prettier than me.” ?

Brother and Sister in TV life, ex-husband and wife off TV. In a marriage that was so creepy for no good reason, Dexter siblings Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter have split.

They have been, reports indicate, “separated for some time.”

Having missed the last few weeks, here is some stories worth noting:

• Miley Cyrus caught on video smoking from a bong: Hammered Montana: Non-Stop Dank Party
• Wesley Snipes surrenders to authorities to begin his three year prison term for income tax evasion: how the world is better after this Federal Snipe hunt I‘m still not sure.
• Willie Nelson pot bust in Texas: who ever imagined if you cross Hannah Montana with Wesley Snipes, you’d get Willie Nelson?

We used to have a saying in our youthful, less delicate days of yore: wouldn’t f#@& her with your …

From the “perhaps we can just forgo the whole horseman drama and go straight to separating the sinners and the faithful,” department:

If Mariah Carey is pregnant is a sign of the apocalypse, what is Mariah Carey is expecting twins a sign of? Surely not just that the IQ of the Carey/Cannon household will soon approach triple digits?

And hey, who’s that guy with the beard and sandals?

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced it’s 2011 inductees…

Ladies and Gentlemen, the cream of rock and roll music, class of 2011:

• Neil Diamond
• Tom Waits
• Alice Cooper
• Darlene Love
• Dr. John

Leon Russell will also be given the award formerly known as the sideman (now called, boringly, the award for musical excellence).

Alice Cooper is a definite, Dr. John and Tom Waits OK, but in the most liberal definitions of rock and roll, how does Neil Diamond get inducted? And who is Darlene Love? If a music geek like me has never heard of her, should she really be in a hall of fame?

Blake Edwards (1922-2010) – Highlights’ of a life well lived:

Blake Edwards was married to Julie Andrews and was played by John Lithgow on film. He script wrote on Orson Welles infamous The War of the Worlds and created the Peter Gunn series. He had his hand in Victor Victoria, The Party and The Day of Wine and Roses. He is responsible for The Pink Panther series of movies.

For all the above, and so much more that Blake Edwards accomplished, there is still one achievement that, to my mind, is the feather in Edwards career cap. Edwards directed Breakfast at Tiffany’s, one of the best movies ever.

Edwards died this week, with his wife and children by his side, of complications of pneumonia in Santa Monica. He was 88.

Fluffernutter Alice Cooper, Blake Edwards, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Darlene Love, Dexter, Dr. John, Hannah Montana, Jennifer Carpenter, Julie Andrews, Leon Russell, Mariah Carey, Michael C. Hall, Miley Cyrus, Neil Diamond, Nick Canon, Orson Welles, Pamela Anderson, Peter Gunn, Playboy, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johannson, The Day of Wine and Roses, The Party, The War of the Worlds, Tom Waits, Victor Victoria, Wesley Snipes, Willie Nelson

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

Pictures from my youth. The family is gathered around the Christmas tree. It’s Christmas morning and wrapping paper is flying. A flat square, wrapped in red paper, gets passed across. There can be no mistaking what it is: a record. Twelve inches of vinyl that when rotated 33 1/3 times a minute with a needle stuck in it’s grooves, produced music. The question isn’t what is it? – although it is often asked with humour – but which record is it? The Christmas in question peeling back the wrapping paper produces a familiar red cover, with what looks like an impatient vulture, staring into the distance with it’s arms folded.

It must be twenty years between receiving an LP for Christmas, but the musical landscape is changing and this Christmas brought Them Crooked Vultures in all it’s double LP, gatefold cover glory. I reviewed the album via you tube download, when it first came out. If your interested in what I have to say about the music, that review still stands.

The bigger question is, why am I getting it on LP? How did it come to pass that 2009’s super group, Them Crooked Vultures, are releasing their inaugaural disc on vinyl? The answer, in my opinion, is two fold. LP records are back, and they came back because they make more sense as a keepsake in the era of MP3s, and because humbled record companies are, finally, giving their customers what they want.

To the latter point first. Records, or fans of the record, have never gone away. Always a substantial minority, CDs began to overcome records only after the record companies started restricting records. Up went the price, down went the supply and that’s a bingo, we live in a CD universe where the record companies profits double per unit sold and Yuppy morons were trading in their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack LPs and buying Phil Collin’s and Sting CDs. Soon the rest of us had no choice and, in the name of quality, we are buying our second copy of Born to Run, this time on CD sourced from the same LP we still have. Who voted for this business model?

Actually, no one voted for it because there never was a choice. Not for ten years or so anyway. But soon enough choice reared it’s ugly head in the name of Napster and in the form of MP3s. Suddenly there was another way to listen to music, and people voted for “not the CD.”

To be sure, CDs had their advantages, convenience being the main one. You could throw it in the CD player, play song 2,4,7 and 9 without having to hear the rest and without scratching your record or having to turn it over. It didn’t take long before you could program your CD player to play those songs, and soon after you could buy a CD player that holds 5 CDs, push on random and not have to hear the same song twice between dinner and the Tonight show. I was at many parties between 1988 and 1995 when the home stereo was turned into a muzak player, with a constant rotation of Sting, Phil Collins, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and The Eagles (if the hosts put as much thought into the selection of beer as they did music, I never made it to Sting song #2).

Eventually CD’s became portable. It took a while, but the hardware makers developed the Discman, and you could stick a CD player in your pocket and listen while in the line at the bank. You couldn’t move and listen to it without it skipping, but you could still take it with you. Eventually they solved for walking, even if running was still a problem. By the time portable CD players became obsolete, they had solved the running problem too.

They put CD players in cars too. In a list of life’s great mystery’s, one has to include the following: how do they get the Caramilk in the Caramilk bar? Who put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong? How come they had CD players that didn’t skip in cars by 1990 but you couldn’t do the Terry Fox run without your CD skipping until 2005? But they did it, they had CD players in cars. You could plunk it in and go. Buy that Spin Doctors CD and sadly discover that while you could listen to Two Princes from Milton to Niagara Falls, you would gladly stick knotting needles in your ear before you listened to any of the other songs on the CD again? No problem, just keep hitting the back button and you could repeat the same song over and over. Because it was CDs, and if the music they were putting on them was, on the whole, crap, the CDs themselves were a great convenience.

But the advantage of CDs ends with their convenience. The quality argument never really held water and even if CDs had superior quality, what MP3s prove is that people don’t care that much about the quality. It was good enough on record, and it’s still good enough on the far inferior MP3s.

And if we can stand the sound of MP3s, they’re extremely portable, can be got or purchased without leaving your bedroom, are available for free, although often not legally, and work regardless of whether you put them away properly. Soon came the MP3 player, and suddenly it’s never mind Terry Fox, you could do Jump Rope for Heart and not have your music skipping. You can program them, carry around hundreds of albums and literally thousands of songs. Five CDs playing a random selection of songs? Now you can DJ a wedding with nothing but a good amplifier, 2 good speakers and an I-pod – and never play the same artist twice. DJs used to show up in vans, now if the hall has a good in-house PA they show up on a Vespa and still have room for an assistant.

MP3s, however, don’t make for a good collectable. If you can have far better variety of music on hand at all times without causing a bulge in your pocket, CDs lose their convenience. But if you want to collect music, LPs have always been a better choice. Bigger covers mean that you can print who played keyboards on song #3, or the songs lyrics in a font bigger than that found on an Asprin bottle. And the new LPs are being made of more, and better quality vinyl, creating a quality of sound inarguably as good as anything you can get on a CD. They stack nice against a wall, and look good doing so, while the smaller yet bulkier CD take up more floor space. LPs also allow for cooler covers. Now you don’t have to have a close up shot of the singer, you can do some actual art.

LPs are back, made useful again because the advantages they always had over CDs still exist, the advantages CDs had over LPs are made redundant by MP3s. And the record companies, losing customers, power and money had no choice but to listen to what their customers demanded: 20 years too late perhaps, but finally they listen.

And finally, a new record under the Christmas tree. Yes Virginia, you can go home again.

The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Born to Run, CD, Celine Dion, LP, Mariah Carey, MP3, Phil Collins, Saturday Night Fever, Spin Doctors, Sting, The Eagles, Them Crooked Vultures, Two Princes

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Jennifer Lopez is reported to be “upset with the academy” because she was not given an oscar nod for 2006’s El Cantante. Lopez starred in the movie alongside her husband Marc Anthony about the life of Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe. According to the New York Daily News, Lopez is frustrated that the members of the academy never saw El Cantante, therefore couldn’t properly judge her superiority.

No fear, Lopez fans. Lopez herself says “I have the utmost faith and no doubt that it will [happen] one day.”

As if they’re giving an Oscar to Jennifer Lopez before Madonna gets one.

In other Diva news, Mariah Carey gave a seven minute acceptance speech after winning some award or another at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Some called it rambling; some suggested she was jet lagged; some have said she was “tipsy on champagne.”  However, I know too much party, not enough brains when I see it, and this girl has had too much party:

So your Tiger Woods. Your nice guy image is in tatters, your reputation need rebuilding. Your wife is leaving, and taking with her the kids and $300M. Pat Burns is on Montreal radio telling the world your gorgeous Swedish wife took a nine iron to your face before you got in the Cadillac, which she then took the nine iron to the windows of. What do you need to revive your image? How about a magazine cover with you looking like it was taken in the prison yard:

The world is upside down when I feel sorry for Tiger Woods.

The death of Johnson and Johnson heiress Casey Johnson may be one of the saddest spectacles you’ll ever witness. The 30 year old was found dead in her home and the death was announced by her “fiance”, reality star Tila Tequila. Tequila has been in a piddling match with blogger Perez Hilton and, in the illiterate twitterings of access hollywoods Billy Bush:

Gross… claims 2 b mourning fiancée but seems 2 b pumping her new gossip blog.   (How come he can’t spell “to be” but can get the accented é in fiancée?)

Now Johnson’s longtime girlfriend Courtenay Semel, daughter of Terry Semel, the former chairman of both Yahoo! Inc. and Warner Bros., has lashed out at Teguila:

The thing I find the most sickening is that the media is giving [her] the one thing she craves: attention. Tila, you knew her for a week.

I understand her sentiment but, frankly,  this whole thing is pretty sickening. If you take no other lesson from At Home in Hespeler kids, take this: if you seek fame regardless of price, don’t be surprised when the bill comes due and the cost is your dignity – in life and in death.

The above aside, this the sad death of a 30 year old woman. Her life was uneasy, with drugs, debt, estrangement from her family, a recent burglary charge. A woman who appeared to never got comfortable with life. Her family is apparently devastated, her father, Jets owner Woody Johnson, lost a brother to drug abuse in 1975, has now lost a daughter. It’s a sad story, and condolences to the people who loved Casey Johnson.

Fluffernutter Billy Bush, Casey Johnson, El Cantante, Jay Lo, jennifer lopez, Madonna, Mariah Carey, NEw York Jets, Palm Springs International Film Festiva, Perez Hilton, Tiger Woods, Tila Tequila, Vanity Fair, Woody Johnson