Could John McCain and David Letterman be just about ready to kiss and make up? That's what the New York Post is reporting (albeit in a thinly sourced article that attributes the news of the purportedly imminent reconciliation only to "knowledgeable sources"). The scenario the Post spins out certainly sounds plausible: McCain would make his long-postponed visit to the Late Show around Oct. 15, when he's in the neighborhood for the final presidential debate. If it's true, it sounds like what I predicted here will come to pass. No doubt high-level secret negotiations are taking place even as we speak, with the one thorny diplomatic complication being how to come up with a face-saving way for McCain to apologize to Letterman for lying to him without looking like he's knuckling under to the liberal media. (Any workable suggestions for how to accomplish this? Submit them below.) Once that wrinkle is ironed out, however, I'm sure the feud will end in a must-watch TV spectacle on the Late Show, after which Dave will go back to bashing everybody else in politics except McCain, at least until the election. So breathe easy, America, for at last, our long national nightmare may soon be over.
You'd think the David Letterman-John McCain mini-feud would have blown over after a day, with both sides having better things to do (McCain had an economy to fix, Dave had to interview Paris Hilton), but on Thursday, neither side was shutting up about it. On the candidate's side, his spokesperson Nicolle Wallace went on NBC's Today and claimed the senator had bowed out of the Late Show at the last minute because he "felt this wasn't a night for comedy." Which was not the false excuse McCain had given Letterman. He'd told Dave he needed to fly to Washington right away to help solve the economic crisis, but he actually remained in New York until the next day and had been getting his face made up for an interview with Katie Couric during the Letterman taping he'd skipped, as Dave revealed via live feed. For his part, Letterman continued zinging McCain for weaseling out on him on a way that seemed inconsistent with his straight-talking war hero reputation. (Watch the meat of Letterman's mean but funny diatribe here.) Dave even brought up McCain's snub in passing during his chat with Hilton, who mentioned having been dissed by McCain herself.
Meanwhile, the fallout continued. Reaction was apparently mixed at CBS; Letterman employee Craig Ferguson backed his boss in this Late Late Show monologue, while CBS News staffers were reportedly livid that Letterman had embarrassed McCain (and, by proxy, Couric) by hijacking their feed. More than one pundit has suggested (here and here, for instance) that Dave's continued lampooning of McCain could have a real-world political effect; not that Dave's rants will persuade voters to pull the lever for Obama, but they could make voters see McCain in a less flattering light. A more cynical view suggests that Letterman will keep milking this feud for as long as he can, as he did his one-sided feud with Oprah, culminating in an eventual conciliatory visit from the senator which Letterman and CBS will hype for ratings, after which all will be forgiven, and Dave will go back to making jokes about George W. Bush's stupidity and Bill Clinton's libido (still comedy gold, even all these years later).
What do you think, PW-ers? Will Letterman's continued pounding have an effect on potential McCain voters? Is he just drawing this disagreement out for ratings' sake, or does he have a valid complaint? And if it is valid, has Dave gone from legitimately aggrieved to merely petty and petulant, or is his lampooning of the candidate still funny?
The late night hosts -- even Jon Stewart -- tend to be cordial and sympathetic to politicians when they're present as guests while reserving the right to mock them when they're not around. Which means, if you're a candidate, you cancel your appearance on a late night show at your peril. That's what happened yesterday when John McCain dropped out of his scheduled appearance on the Late Show at the last minute, citing a need to go to Washington immediately to fix the economic crisis. Letterman, who, let's not forget, has provided such a friendly forum to McCain in previous appearances that the senator announced his presidential candidacy on the Late Show (PopWatch was there, live!), made a point last night of praising McCain's past heroism while at the same time calling out his excuse for standing Dave up as fishy. Turns out Dave's suspicions were correct; instead of returning to D.C., McCain was at that very moment just a few blocks away being primped and made up for an interview by fellow CBS-er Katie Couric, as Letterman demonstrated by cutting to the live feed at the CBS Evening News studio.
Now, you can argue that Dave was churlish for spending some nine minutes of the show mocking McCain's flimsy excuse, or for booking outspoken McCain critic Keith Olbermann as a substitute guest. Still, this was can't-look-away television. Check out the highlights below, and tell us whether you thought Dave went too far or not far enough.
Sitting atop the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list this week is a volume that is neither a political tome nor a historical treatise nor even a self-help book. It's Tori Spelling's memoir Stori Telling, which climbed to the top of the list at last after 14 weeks in stores. (H/t to E! Online.) It's the My Big Fat Greek Wedding of celebrity autobiographies! I guess I shouldn't be surprised; interest in all things 90210 was bound to make the book suddenly relevant. My colleague Lindsay Soll says it's a great read, full of backstage dish from Tori's Donna Martin days (according to Spelling, the entire cast agitated to get Shannen Doherty fired) as well as accounts of her bitter battles with her mother.
Anyway, Tori's literary success got me thinking. Today saw the announcement that a forthcoming biopic about Allen Ginsberg will star James Franco as the Beat poet. Now, Franco's a terrific actor, but he's a lot more glam than Ginsberg, who more closely resembled Franco's Freaks and Geeks co-star Samm Levene. But now I'm thinking, why should Hollywood glamour disqualify an actor from playing a nicotine-and-ink-stained literary icon? (Imagine how much better at the box office Capote and Infamous would have done if Truman Capote had been played by George Clooney or Brad Pitt instead of Philip Seymour Hoffman or Toby Jones.) So why shouldn't Tori star in a biopic of, say, Charlotte Brontë or Joyce Carol Oates or Eudora Welty? After all, she's got literary cred now.
Pink still rocks. While (mostly) lacking the painfully funny anti-starlet satire of “Stupid Girls,” the new video for her single “So What” takes another well-deserved jab at Jessica Simpson (a waiter gives Pink’s table to Jess). But she’s not only taking on other celebs: This time she’s making fun of her own split with Motocross legend Carey Hart, or at least the break-up histrionics the tabloids demand. In fits of post-conjugal madness, Pink rides a lawnmower down a freeway, cuts down a tree with “Alecia + Carey” carved into it (Alecia is Pink’s real name), dances nude on a red carpet to Jacko’s Thriller choreography (I can’t believe nobody's done this for real…yet), and finally throws herself into an apocalyptic pillow fight. Hart’s subdued appearance suggests that he and the punk diva are handling their real-life split with more grace than Pink’s video alter ego would suggest. Pink is that most rare of Hollywood gems: a pop star with self-awareness!
What do you think of the single? And are you psyched for Pink's return?
There is a sizable group of my colleagues here at EW who regularly send out e-mails about Lauren Conrad (pictured, right), Heidi Montag (left), and the MTV "reality" series The Hills, of which I've seen maybe a total of five minutes. Each time I've tried tuning in, I barely made it through 30 seconds before my brain was dripping out of my ears from boredom, which was even worse than the 60 seconds it took for that to happen when watching The Hills' precursor, Laguna Beach. (This was far more entertaining.) There are, however, plenty of morsels of pop-culture I don'tquiteunderstand, so I've never felt it was really worth complaining about the cult of The Hills.
Er, until now. Off the Perez "report" that Lauren and Heidi are appearing together on the cover of Rolling Stone — somehow Big Huge News since "This is the first time in two years that L.C. and Heidi have been on a photo shoot together" (OMG!!!!) — I've finally reached the limit of my patience with their fame. While they haven't approached Paris Hilton level insanity (yet), I feel the same way about these "reality" stars that I felt about the "hotel heiress" circa 2000, namely, who the bloody hell are these women, and exactly how and why have they become Big Deals?
Seriously, tell me. This specter has invaded my life to the degree that I actually would really appreciating knowing why it's there, taunting me with a vacant stare from the supermarket check-out line about how it's been "betrayed" by "Spencer," "Audrina" and "Brody."
I've decided not to vote for Barack Obama, now that I've learned from this informative interview with presidential pundit Snoop Dogg that the candidate's campaign is actually funded by the KKK. Oh, I know it sounds ludicrous, and I realize that it's curious that Snoop didn't mention it during his recent political chat with Larry King, and I know Obama has categorically denied it, but still, who you gonna believe: a politician, or the Constitutional scholar who penned this treatise on First Amendment free speech rights (specifically, defending the right of rappers to use words like 'bitch" and "ho")? I don't know, by the way, whether it's also true that Hillary Clinton's campaign is secretly funded by a shadowy organization of male chauvinists, or that John McCain's is secretly funded by hippie peaceniks, but I'm sure Snoop will investigate those topics next, and I breathlessly await his report.
1) Two weeks after Jay Leno's cringeworthy interview with Ryan Phillippe, in which he asked the actor to relive his earliest gig (as a gay teen on One Life to Live) by offering the camera his "gayest look" (see clip below), the Tonight host has issued an apology to gay people and whoever else was offended. Which is nice, but Leno's done this before (just a couple years ago) and may well do it again, given the opportunity. Dude's giving up his chair to Conan in a year; what's he got to lose? Kudos to Avenue Q playwright Jeff Whitty, who first confronted Leno this time (and two years ago, as well), but it seems doubtful that anything is going to change, or that any Leno fans who were truly outraged will do anything as drastic as switch allegiance to Letterman.
2) A few days after New York magazine's film critic David Edelstein peed on the fresh grave of director Anthony Minghella, Edelstein is apologizing, sort of. He essentially suggested that, after Minghella's brilliant, personal, small-scale first film Truly Madly Deeply, Minghella devolved into a middlebrow hack who made overrated Oscar-bait movies (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain), for which devolution Edelstein blamed the heavy hand of then-Miramax co-chief Harvey Weinstein. In his apology, Edelstein's not backing down from his opinion of Minghella's work, but he's sorry for blaming Weinstein, though he insists that the famously arm-twisting mogul did not twist his arm to wrest this mea culpa.
Now, reasonable people can disagree on the merits of Minghella's work (if anything, argues EW's Mark Harris, Minghella didn't get enough credit for the careful crafting of his movies), and a lot of folks (a la Seinfeld's Elaine) really didn't get The English Patient and found it long-winded and boring. Of course, that's another argument against Edelstein's earlier thesis that "Harvey Scissorhands" snipped Minghella's work too eagerly in the editing room. So what Edelstein's concession seems to say is: Sorry, Harvey, that I blamed you for your recently deceased friend's hackery; apparently, he became a hack all by himself. That's supposed to sound less rude and insulting?
UPDATE: And now, it's time for my own apology, to David Edelstein, who, in the comments below, writes that I have mischaracterized his initial article and accused him of saying something he explicitly did not say. I apologize for my use of the words "hack" and "hackery," which overstate Edelstein's description of what he sees as the decline in the quality of Minghella's post-Truly work. I should have taken him at his word that he did not mean to go so far as to call Minghella a hack, just as I am willing to take Edelstein's word that no Weinstein arm-twisting prompted his apology. By the way, no arm-twisting prompted mine, either.
If only she's resisted the primal urge to shout, "Again! Again!" But alas, Po did exactly that during Tribal Council on last night's shocking episode of Teletubbies, and when the ballots were recast, Po was voted out of the pod by a 3-2 margin.
The little red Teletubby's downfall began so innocuously — with a few burnt slices of Tubby Toast at breakfast time. Little did Po realize, her careless kitchen antics would shake her alliance with Laa-Laa and the Gurgling Baby Sun, giving clever Tinky Winky an opening to avoid his expected ouster, and head into the final four looking like a potential champ. "Eh-oh, Po!" indeed!
So which of Po's comrades sold her out for a few hours of playtime with Tinky Winky's magic bag? And what prompted Po's metamorphosis from wide-eyed innocent to a cussing harpie vowing sweet revenge in her post-elimination confessional? We break it down, PopWatch-style, after the jump...
It looks to be an all-out skirmish between Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor and Radiohead over who really took the digital plunge first. Trent's argument is that Radiohead offered fans a poor quality stream of their latest release, In Rainbows, before reverting to a standard record-release model, while claiming that he truly broke rank with his new four-volume (!) instrumental work, Ghosts I-IV, available as a $5 stream, a $10 double CD, a $75 set with bonus visual content and, for the superfan, a $300 box set including vinyl and the NIN frontman's John Hancock. (Radiohead has remained characteristically mum about the whole thing.)
And now, "coincidentally," both bands are offering fans the opportunity to create videos for their music. Radiohead is offering $20,000 in prizes (actually a grand prize of $10,000 and $1,000 for 10 semi-finalists to be used towards the creation of their final clips) and Trent is offering, well, exposure on YouTube. (See the above clip for one fan's work — surely one of you can do better than this!)
What do you think, PopWatchers? Are you siding with Trent or Radiohead? Would you participate in either video competition? Or do you not give a whit and just want more new music already?
Hell hath no fury like an R&B diva scorned, especially at the Grammys. First there was Natalie Cole opening fire on Amy WInehouse. Now, in a statement released Tuesday, Aretha Franklin revealed that she, too, was incensed at a young upstart: she didn't appreciate that Beyoncé, in her introduction of Tina Turner at Sunday's awards show, referred to Turner as "the Queen." There's only one Queen of Soul, Franklin implied, and she was not amused. Though she concluded her statement with, "Love to Beyoncé anyway," Beyoncé's father/manager Mathew Knowles called Franklin's remarks "ridiculous... childish... [and] unprofessional." Ouch!
No word on what Turner thought of all this, or whether Franklin is angry at her, too, but surely even Turner would admit that Franklin, who's all but trademarked her regal title, deserves to keep it exclusively. At the same time, if there were anyone else who deserved such a title, it would be Turner.
What say you, PopWatchers? Do you think Beyoncé meant to diss Aretha? Do you think Franklin overreacted? And who really deserves to be called "the Queen"?
If your computer shudders at the thought of you yet again watching that awesome Conan/Stewart/Colbert brawl from last week, wait til it gets a load of this: Late Night Underground has posted an excellent "behind the brawl" peek showing how it all really went down.
So, Natalie Cole told People at a Grammy afterparty on Sunday night that the Recording Academy shouldn't have given Amy Winehouse five Grammys because it sends the wrong message, rewarding the British singer's "bad behavior." I'm not sure who out there thinks Winehouse is a role model in her personal life (as an artist, sure), but c'mon, there have been plenty of non-saintly artists who've won Grammys. And judging strictly by Winehouse's music, she certainly belongs among Grammy company, just as Cole, who's acknowledged her own battles with drug abuse, has deserved to be among the Grammy elite since her own Best New Artist win 33 years before Winehouse's. (According to the New York Daily News, Ringo Starr overheard Cole's complaint about Winehouse and said, "Man, those are some grapes.") It's the Grammys' job to recognize excellence based strictly on what's on the disc, not to send any kind of moral, social, or political message. Now, being rewarded for capitalizing on the fame of your more-renowned father by recording duets with his unwitting corpse, that's a better message to send, apparently.
Whether or not you've been following the deliberately tedious creationist/transitive property scandal between Conan O'Brien and off-and-on teammates Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, I think we can all agree that anything that brings these three together for an extended brawl scene — complete with stunt stair tumbles, slo-mo face smushes, and recycling bin torture — is a beautiful thing. (Scan to about 4 minutes in for the action.)
The three late-nighters all appeared on each other's shows last night. You can see the Daily Show and Colbert Report's segments here, but it's fair to say both were weaker-willed leadups to Conan's main event. So who won the actual brawl? Based on a strict formula of facial expressions + reverse pivots x general inanity, I must award last night's MVP medal to Stephen Colbert during the came-out-of-nowhere dance party. Those were some sick moves for a Frenchman. Also, to my dear seedy warehouse buddy Conan, this is what you get for prematurely shaving that hot, hot beard.
In a photographic play-by-play, rendered into comic-book form by those clever folks at Defamer (props to Slezak for the link), Paris Hilton gets booted off the stage at her own Super Bowl party by 50 Cent, who happened to be performing at the time. I mention this only because I met 50 a couple of years ago, and not only was he super-duper nice, he gave me a goodbye hug. Paris must've really done something to piss him off.
Both celebs have taken a thrashing in the press of late, but if I had to pick one of 'em, Celebrity Deathmatch-style, I'd pick 50, just because I think that, underneath all the bullet scars and the posturing, he is a fairly decent guy.
Ringo Starr is 67, but he still has plenty of rock 'n' roll attitude, as he proved yesterday when he walked off a scheduled appearance on Live With Regis and Kelly rather than perform a version of "Liverpool 8," the title track to his new album, that would've been pared to under three minutes. (Regis' people say Starr had been informed months ago about the length requirement; Starr's camp says he'd offered to cut the four-minute song to 3:30, as he had on Letterman a couple days ago, but...oh, really, the details are too tedious, but you can read them all in the Associated Press account.) Funniest part: the statement from Ringo cohort Dave Stewart: "Four minutes (3 minutes and 40 seconds, actually) seemed like an appropriate amount of time for a former Beatle. [Live exec producer Michael] Gelman apparently felt Ringo's musical legacy should take a back seat to additional banter about the size of Ms. Ripa's derriere."
Silly as this all is, I gotta go with Dave and Ringo on this one. Do the Live folks really think their audience would fidget over a few more seconds of music, that they would rather hear more chitchat instead? Okay, the song's kinda maudlin for 9 a.m. (see the official video below), and it's not like it would suffer much from trimming the extended shout-along coda, but still, as Stewart notes, dude's a Beatle. That should earn him a lifetime of slack, even if the track is wack.
Anyway, Reege and Kelly, Ringo doesn't need you that much to help promote his record, since he's spending this week appearing on Dave, Rachael Ray (who let him perform the whole song), and every other show in America with a desk or a frying pan. Starr and his 8,969 MySpace friends can just take their business elsewhere. I bet he's gotten more publicity out of not performing than he would have had he performed. Well played, Mr. Starkey, well played.
I love it that the Associated Press' obituary for Maila "Vampira" Nurmi suggests that she was the first Goth chick. Which is probably true; certainly, the campy/vampy persona and undead-chic style she pioneered and embodied lives on among black-nail-polished gals everywhere. Nurmi, who died Thursday at the age of 85, first made an impression in the 1950s when she invented the Vampira character to host a Los Angeles-area horror-movie TV show. Her sexy succubus seemed an apparent inspiration for later horror/camp sirens like Carolyn Jones' Morticia Addams and especially Cassandra Peterson's Elvira, though Nurmi filed an unsuccessful $10 million lawsuit against Peterson for allegedly stealing her character.
Even if you never saw Vampira's TV show -- and few did -- fans everywhere can enjoy her work in a variety of Z-grade movies, most famously, Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), in which she gives an aptly robotic performance as a zombie. Sure, the movie is terrible (it's the ultimate so-bad-it's-good flick), but like so much else in it, Vampira's performance has a weird energy that's absolutely riveting. Who knows whether she had talent as an actress; she had presence, a screen charisma that earned her generations of cult fans, and that will surely continue to astonish, delight, and haunt fans of the bizarre and macabre.
Which of the late-night shows did you watch last night? Me, I watched all of 'em. And when I offered to PopWatch-blog them, I do believe this was the first assignment about which an editor said to me, "Oh, I think that's too much work!" (You're a kind one, Mr. Slezak — the very opposite of a grinch.) But, hell, I had planned to DVR and watch them all anyway, so why not toss out some opinions and then see what you thought? As once-regular David Letterman guest Marv Albert used to say, let's go to the videotape. (Speaking of, there's a video compiling highlights of all five of last night's shows over at Huffington Post.)
Late Show With David Letterman: Yes, Dave (pictured, left) and his Worldwide Pants production-company employee Craig Ferguson are the guys who struck agreements with the Writers Guild to use their writing staffs, thus supposedly giving them an advantage over the competition. But when it comes to live-on-tape TV and public opinion, is that really an advantage? I fully expect a little backlashing along the lines of, "Oh, sure, Dave was funny, but he had all his writers doing the work. Poor Leno!" Well, phooey on that theory. Letterman commenced Letterman-less: instead, a taped bit popped up starring Hillary Clinton who intro'd the host (with Clinton's camp undoubtedly collaborating with Letterman's writers) by saying, "All good things must come to an end."
• Monologue: Dave strode out sporting the unemployed-guy beard he'd grown — he said quite accurately that he looked like "a missing hiker" and "a cattle-drive cook." And he instantly made me feel the way my parents used to say Johnny Carson made them feel — relaxed and in a state of anticipatory good humor, knowing you're in the hands of a pro.
• Spontaneous banter: When he went to his desk, he told a nice little story about feeling overwhelmed by the holidays just past and feeling most comfortable hiding under a blanket with his four-year-old son, Harry. Non-spontaneous highlights included staff writer Bill Scheff "interrupting" Dave to excoriate "producers' greed" and urging them to stop spending their money on "cufflinks, cocktails, and whores" and start earnest bargaining with the Writers Guild. Speaking of labor leaders, my favorite joke of the evening was one few in the audience laughed at: At the start of the show, leggy female chorus dancers came out carrying picket signs, and Dave asked for applause for "the Eugene V. Debs." Loved that. The Top 10 List was read by ten striking writers, including comic essayist-director Nora Ephron, and Jon Stewart's Daily Show writer and former EW staffer Tim Carvell — hi, Tim!
• Guests: Robin Williams was his usual self, which is to say, alternately funny — rapid impersonations of everyone from a rabbi to character-actor Walter Brennan — and rapid-fire unfunny. He's still doing Brokeback Mountain jokes??
• Bottom line: Letterman was rock-solid, with a deep bench of pros to turn to, including veteran Letterman show director Hal Gurnee, who introduced a silly novelty act straight out of the circus for a segment of the revived "Hal Gurnee's Network Time-Killers."
Tonight Show With Jay Leno:
• Monologue: There was the usual glad-handing and audience-goosing going on here, with Leno's band punctuating nearly every joke with some vehement noise, and the studio audience members sounded as though the applause-sign was being beamed into their cortexes. How else to explain the raucous reaction to Leno's mild jabs at his boss Jeff Zucker regarding the power-players in the writers strike? Leno also played a groaningly unfunny video from the JibJab Internet folks reviewing the previous year in news and pop culture. Sanjaya jokes, anyone?
• Spontaneous banter: Leno took questions from the audience, and while his interrogators looked like real people, not plants, it also looked as though Jay more or less knew what they were going to ask. I could be wrong — his responses were feeble and interrupted by a mildly charming but not funny reminiscence of wooing a girl when he was young, prompted by a mention of Dan Fogelberg's death.
• Guests: Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was permitted to give out probably a bit more of his stump speech than he might have been allowed had Leno been doing a tightly-written show with more sketch material. Jay did a decent job of getting him to explain his recent pulling of an attack ad Huckabee had made regarding rival Mitt Romney. The "Bam!" cook Emeril came on for a cooking segment during which he and Jay slathered nice looking pieces of steak with hideous amounts of mustard before frying them. Yuck. Emeril explained why he first started shouting, "Bam!" Too boring to repeat here.
• Bottom line: As tedious as the commercial "button" on the lower left corner of the screen plugging NBC's Sunday premiere of American Gladiators for what seemed like most of the hour. Welcome back, Jay.
"Californication" is kind of a lame pun, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers want to take credit for it anyway. So they're suing Showtime over the title of the recent drama series that revolved around David Duchovny and Evan Handler and many squirm-inducing sex scenes (yep, for those of you who didn't watch, there was one such scene that involved both Duchovny and Handler, in a threesome with a woman who... well, you really don't want me to go there, trust me). Referring to the Peppers' 1999 album and single, singer Anthony Kiedis issued a statement, explaining, "Californication is the signature CD, video, and song of the band's
career, and for some TV show to come along and steal our identity is
not right." (BTW, I loved the coinage by the headline writers at E! Online: "Californilitigation." Beats the Mary Poppins rip I used for my headline, above.)
Anyhow, in related news, Quaker Oats is suing NBC over its new series Life (lest anyone confuse the Mikey-approved cereal with the quirky cop serial), and God is suing CBS over Numb3rs. (In the network's defense, a CBS lawyer notes that, when God wrote the fourth book of the Bible, He didn't bother to replace the "e" in the title with a "3," so the difference should be obvious to anyone who compares the ancient tale of Jewish refugees in an arid wasteland to the show about Jewish sleuths in Los Angeles.)
Title aside, I'm not sure why Kiedis and Co. are worried that people would confuse an album with a pay-cable series. After all, one is a portrait of a formerly edgy and risqué southern California dude who's gone soft and sentimental in middle age, while the other...
Never mind, Anthony, I see your point.
What do you think? Do the Chili Peppers have a legitimate beef with Showtime, or should they take the Californication title and give it away, give it away, give it away now?
Have you been following the brouhaha over New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones' essay "A Paler Shade of White"? The music blogosphere has been atwitter in response to the article, which uses Arcade Fire (pictured) as an example of how indie rock has become awfully white — not just in the racial makeup of many bands, but in the music's supposed abandonment of black musical influences (jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, worldbeat, etc.).
Now, the band itself has responded to Frere-Jones, insisting, We are, too, funky! The response takes the form of an MP3 juxtaposing snippets of Arcade Fire's music with the black music tracks that supposedly inspired them. It's not the best argument in AF's favor; it's often hard to hear a resemblance between the Canadian combo's tracks and their supposed inspirations; plus, if you're trying to prove your debt to black musicians, you probably aren't helping yourself by citing the Beatles and the Beastie Boys. Still, this miscegenation mashup may be my favorite AF track of the year, and that includes the entirety of Neon Bible.
At the Kelly Clarkson concert I attended earlier this week at New York's Beacon Theater, the rumor was that Clive Davis was also in attendance. Well, judging from this post-show photo, it looks like it wasn't just a rumor. The reunion marks a happier chapter for the pop star and her label chairman, who battled over the content of Clarkson's latest record, My December. Clarkson wanted to release an album full of self-penned material, while Davis didn't feel there were enough hits among her new compositions. (Unfortunately, it seems like Davis was right, as December has sold fewer than 700,000 copies, compared to almost 6 million for Clarkson's last CD, Breakaway.) But if Kelly's at all upset about the low numbers, you wouldn't have known it from her performance, which was confident, vulnerable, and even moving. At one point, Clarkson had to wipe a few tears from her eyes after the crowd's ultra-enthusiastic response to her smash hit "Because of You." The fans even loved the tracks she sang from December, particularly the Sarah McLachlan-esque "Sober." And although the Beacon's roughly 3,000-person capacity is way less than the stadiums Kelly was originally going to play on this tour, I think her more personal songs played better in a more intimate venue. Though Kelly's not breaking any CD sales records these days, anyone lucky enough to see her on this tour will not be disappointed.
I swear to God that I have never seen an episode of The
Hills, and yet, every bone in my body says this headline, and the accompanying
story, is based on bald-faced lies. I mean, if this fameosexual left The Hills,
wouldn't she spontaneously go "POOF!" and disappear? Or is that just
wishful thinking? (Yes, it's a slow news day, sue me!)
I'm no fan of Elisabeth Hasselbeck (pictured, left), but this time, it's really not her fault. Barry Manilow (right), who's promoting his new album of '70s covers, won't be appearing as scheduled on The View today because he refuses to let the Hasselbot interview him. There's some question as to whether Manilow dropped out, citing the chirpy panelist's "dangerous and offensive" political views, or whether the show's producers dropped him because he demanded veto power over which of the View co-hosts may interview him. There's also some question as to whether Rosie O'Donnell is exercising some karmic payback on her former frenemies; she's a Manilow pal who recorded a duet with him of "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" (which he thankfully left off the new album).
But no matter what happened, Manilow comes off as a whiny diva — especially since he's appeared on the show before, with Elisabeth and without incident. For one thing, it's a bad idea for stars to start boycotting talk show hosts over politics. (Why even bring politics into it, Barry? You're there to sing and to promote a CD; did you really expect to have time to argue the finer points of foreign and domestic policy?) Second, if you're going to go on The View, Hasselbeck is part of the package. You know the drill; you've been there before. Third, Barry, didn't you used to be all about unity? Weren't you the "One Voice" guy? Did you change the lyrics of your other hit to "I write the songs that make the whole world sing/Except for Hasselbeck and all the right-wing"?
Now we want to hear from you, P-Dubs: What did we forget to include? Maybe it's too recent to go down in the annals of "xx"-dom, but seems like Denise Richards' nasty split from Charlie Sheen (who's already on this list, natch) and her subsequent involvement with friend Heather Locklear's ex, Richie Sambora, is tawdry enough to deserve a spot here. What say you?
Rock 'n' roll's most celebrated muse would have to be Pattie Boyd — after all, this is the woman who legendarily inspired George Harrison (her first husband) to write "Something" and Eric Clapton (her second) to pen "Layla." But what must those heady experiences have been like from Boyd's perspective? We'll find out when her tell-all memoir, Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, hits shelves Aug. 28. Until then, the book's text is being kept under wraps by her publishers, who have strictly prevented publications like EW from seeing copies in advance. Good thing the audiobook version of Wonderful Tonight happened to recently arrive on our doorstep! We listened to the whole (abridged) 2-hour, 2-CD thing — read by Boyd herself — and picked out a few highlights, presented, after the jump, for your perusal.
New developments today in the hip-hop showdown of the century, currently scheduled for September 11, when both 50 Cent and Kanye West release their new albums. In an interview with SOHH.com, Fiddy says he’s ready to bet his whole career that his new album, Curtis, outsells the Louis Vuitton Don’s Graduation.
“Put it like this,” 50 said, gearing up to refer to himself in the third person. “Let’s raise the stakes. If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I’ll no longer write music. I’ll write music and work with my other artists, but I won’t put out any more solo albums.”
Let’s see: 50 sold 1.14 million copies of The Massacre in its first four days of release back in 2005. Later that year, Kanye’s Late Registration moved 860,000 units in its opening week. According to historical precedent, 50’s solo career looks safe. But two years later, is 50 at the height of his powers? This could get interesting (assuming, of course, that 50 Cent really would quit if he got shamed on 9/11/07). And what if Kenny Chesney’s new album, also opening on September 11, outsells both 50 and Kanye? Will you buy 50's album just to keep him in the game, or Kanye's album instead, just to get him out?
James Frey's publisher, Nan Talese, made some provocative noise this weekend in Dallas, where she spoke out against Oprah Winfrey for flaying Frey on national television last year after parts of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, turned out to be bogus. "I'm afraid I'm unapologetic of the whole thing," said Talese at a writers' conference, according to the Dallas Morning News. "And the only person who should be apologetic is Oprah Winfrey." Winfrey, Talese reportedly said, displayed "fiercely bad manners — you don't stone someone in public, which is just what she did."
Hmm. What do you think? I say, "Wow, it takes some guts to take on Oprah." And "Man, I guess we won't be seeing any more Nan Talese books picked for the Oprah Book Club anytime soon." And, finally, I say Talese is totally right. As a big fan who read Pieces and its even-better sequel My Friend Leonard long before Oprah got around to her endorsement, I actually stood up for James Frey back during his public execution. What he did was inexcusable, and I'm sad that future readers won't be able to come blindly to both books like I did, but nobody deserves the kind of public beat-the-dog-with-a-newspaper treatment he got on that one awful episode of Oprah. Right? And if you're interested (i.e., not totally still fatigued by this whole thing even a year and a half later like I am), read the full Dallas Morning News piece: it contains Talese's juicy version of what went down in the studio behind the scenes. My favorite is the Mafia talk: "It's just business!"
Lindsay Lohan's recent DUI arrest has sparked the usual spike in anxious headlines and snarky jokes. That's how Hollywood works, right? You screw up in public and you're in for an unstoppable barrage of not-so-nice publicity. But this time, one thing's different: Barbara Walters isn't playing along anymore. She used her bully pulpit on The View this morning to lash out at those who make light of Lohan's troubles. Her breaking point was a Tonight Show appearance by that noted arbiter of sensitivity, Rob Schneider; it seems that since Lohan was unable to make her scheduled visit to Tuesday night's show, Schneider dressed up in drag, donned a blonde wig, and played the absent starlet's role on Leno's couch. According to Walters, this bit of humor "just seems so mean." So does she have a point, or what? (Check out the gag for yourself below.)
Of course she does! Like virtually everything else the guy does these days, Schneider's routine was not only in fairly poor taste, but painfully unfunny to boot. Leno: "What happened last night?" Schneider/Lohan: "Well, I'm Irish, Jay. For the Irish, St. Paddy's Day is like the whole summer." Studio audience: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!" Oof. This drivel went on for 10 interminable minutes, long enough for Schneider to cross all sorts of lines, not just the ones surrounding Lohan's dignity.
But here's the thing: Schneider's antics may be out of line, but what about all the people who are invading Lohan's privacy in real life — the mainstream media outlets that broadcast this 21-year-old's unflattering mugshot far and wide, speculate about her partying habits, and do interviews with her troubled, way-too-talkative parents? The professional vultures who are out there flooding the zone on this story are being far more exploitative toward Lohan than any lame jokester. So, sure, Walters was right to tell Schneider and Leno to knock it off. But if she's really concerned about getting people to treat Lohan with a little human respect, she should aim a little higher than Deuce Bigalow. Shouldn't she?
Shaq vs. Kobe… 50 Cent vs. Ja Rule… Kelly vs. Clive. Who knew that the alleged Clarkson/Davis feud of ’07 would go down in the history of classic beefs? It wasn’t that many weeks ago that some cynics were still insisting that the whole thing was a publicity gimmick cooked up somewhere in a SonyBMG boardroom, to ratchet up anticipation for Clarkson’s My December album — as if letting word get out that he’s releasing an album he doesn't really care for would ever be the way Clive rolls. But by now it’s clear to everyone that there was no great PR strategy behind taking the artist/label contretemps public, and that the album’s fortunes have been affected in the collateral damage.
Today she released a statement about what she calls the "supposed feud," insisting that she and her team remain a "tightly knit family" and saying, "A lot has been made in the press about my relationship with Clive. Much of this has been blown way out of proportion and taken out of context. Contrary to recent characterizations in the press, I’m well aware that Clive is one of the great record men of all time. He has been a key advisor and has been an important force in my success to date. He has also given me respect by releasing my new album when he was not obligated to do so. I really regret how this has turned out and I apologize to those whom I have done disservice. I would never intentionally hurt anyone. I love music, and I love the people I am blessed to work with. I am happy that my team is behind me and I look forward to the future."
Why make that statement now? Because of some particularly bad timing. Shortly before the album was released, she fired her manager, Hollywood powerhouse Jeff Kwatinetz; her new one, Nashville-based Narvel Blackstock, apparently advised her to stop giving interviews. Kwatinetz had gone on the record in a couple of articles himself, talking about how Clarkson was getting a raw deal from Davis, echoing her own comments about the need for artistic freedom — but maybe he defended her so vociferously in print, and took on Davis so brazenly, that it suddenly occurred to the singer that "divide and conquer" wasn't such a great album-launch strategy. Anyhow, Clarkson has been inside the cone of silence since My December hit the streets a month ago. Except you’d never know it because interviews she did prior to that are still coming out, making it sound like she’s still trying to stir up a good scrap.
A little bird told us that, during first half hour of tonight's BET Awards, Dreamgirls past and present Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Holliday (pictured, left and right) will appear together. Doing what, you ask? Trying to out-Effie each other in a duet of "And I Am Telling You..."? Tossing darts at likenesses of Beyoncé and Diana Ross? Merely co-presenting an award? We don't know, but sounds like the show will be worth DVR-ing just for that cosmically awkward confrontation.
The suits over at VH1 must be mind readers, because there is nothing that I need more than another reality TV show promising to rescue the stars of yesteryear from celebrity purgatory. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: The Salt-N-Pepa Show. Can I get a shoop? (Other new shows on VH1's slate include: Danny Bonaduce's Child Star, in which the ex-Partridge tries to find — you guessed it — the next child star; a photography-reality(?) series called Click!; and the self-explanatory America's Most Smartest Model.)
VH1 has reportedly ordered 10 episodes of the Salt-N-Pepa Show, in which the former rap duo (pictured, with DJ Spinderalla, far left) will get to hash out the reasons behind their split, which became official in 2001. Count me out. Recent events have shown me that sometimes it’s better not to look back. How about you, PopWatchers: Will you be watching?
You may have heard by now that the title of Christina Applegate's new ABC sitcom has been changed from Sam I Am to Samantha Be Good — and the estate of Dr. Seuss is behind the old switcheroo! Apparently, Team Seuss didn't want one of the all-time great lines from children's fiction to become synonymous with a modern-day sitcom about a cranky lady suffering from amnesia. (Fair enough.) Anyhow, the whole back-and-forth between a powerful TV network and a mighty publishing dynasty inspired me to get my Seuss on — and tell the tale, Sam I Am–style. With much respect to the good Doctor, here goes nothin'… (after the jump)
I know I should not be blogging about this Access Hollywood clip titled "Kristy Swanson Shows Off Alleged Assault Bruises." After all, it's one of those depressing actress-meets -married-skater, skater- leaves-pregnant-wife-and-has-baby-with-actress, actress-and-now-ex-wife-get-into-alleged-physical- tussle stories that don't really belong on EW.com. But the whole video is so crazy-heinous, I cannot ignore it. Hear Lloyd Eisler (pictured, a/k/a the "skater") utter the sentence, "it's a good black eye." Listen to the odd background noises (screaming baby, random cellphone, loud thuds). Marvel at Swanson's dramatic pronunciation of "arm…pit." And remember the moral of the story: "When you hit somebody with a ring, you're getting cut!"
Still, none of that would be PopWatch worthy if it were not for the most dramatic bit of chin foliage in the history of ever. Won't you watch for yourself (click here!), then take the corresponding pop quiz?
The thing on Lloyd Eisler's chin:
(A) is the world's most robust soul patch. (B) required the use of Miracle-Gro ™. (C) makes me feel funny. (D) is actually responsible for all the alleged bruises and scrapes discussed in the video, but everyone's too scared of it to make the accusation. (E) Did Kristy Swanson say "lollygagging"? (F) All of the above.
In the wake of Barbara Walters' recent comments about Rosie O'Donnell on Ryan Seacrest's radio program, and O'Donnell's response on her blog, we wondered what it might sound like if the former co-hosts of The View bumped into each other on the street for a final tête-à-tête (Hasselbeck not included).
Barbara: Well, if it isn't my close personal friend, Wosie O'Donnell! Rosie: Oh cut the crap, Babs! Barbara: Wosie, you know I hate it when you use the 'C' word! Rosie: Well, you know I hate it when you talk trash about me on the airwaves. Barbara: Oh, heavens. Is The Donald recounting my "two lesbians walk into a bar" joke in public? Rosie: Um, WHA—? I'm talking about your interview last week with Ryan Seacrest. Barbara: Who's that? Rosie: The American Idol host? The one with a morning radio show in L.A.? Barbara: Not ringing any bells, I'm afraid. Rosie: You went on his show last week and blabbed how you couldn't discuss heterosexual sex during "Hot Topics" while I was on The View.
PopWatchers: Britney Spears needs help. No, not that kind of help. I mean she needs help picking the title of her next album. Got the dirt from People.com this morning. And sure enough, the plea to her ''most die-hard fans" is on her website. The first of her possible album monikers? OMG is Lindsay Lohan Like Okay Like.
You get it, y'all? You know, 'cuz Lindsay Lohan is in rehab just like Britney went to rehab. But you know Brit was just in there for ADD-like symptoms. Oh and also because everybody talks about Lindsay just like everybody talks about Britney! Isn't that funny, PopWatchers?
It gets better! Other prospective titles include: What if the Joke is on You (it's not, B — trust us!), Down Boy, Integrity, and the Hilary Duff-recycledDignity. Somehow, I don't think any of those titles will do the album justice. Here are my suggestions:
Sheared: In this album, Spears takes a cue from fellow Mickey Mouse Club alumna Christina Aguilera. Like Xtina's Stripped, the title is simple, catchy, ironic even! The songs on this album would put the "track" in track list.
Oops, I Did It Again... Again: A shadow of her former self, this album title is for an introspective Britney. Her hairstyle on the album cover? Au natural. Come as you are, Brit.
The Blue Album: Because Black, Grey, and Brown are already taken. And I hear it's her favorite color. She can even throw a Jay-Z style tantrum a la Hov's "What More Can I Say?" And she didn’t solicit lyric suggestions, but I went ahead and paraphrased the last lines of Jay’s musical retirement announcement for her. (My revised lyrics are after the jump; click here to sing along with Jay-Z's more NSFW version.)
Remember how Donald Trump announced last month that he was ditching the (severely ratings-challenged) The Apprentice in favor of a "major new TV venture"? Looks like that exciting project is, er, another gimmicky reality series. Now, I hesitate to give a professional windbag like Trump any more attention than he's already getting. But Lady or a Tramp, which he's developing with Fox as a possible mid-season replacement, sounds too offensively bad to ignore.
According to Variety, the show follows a group of "girls in love with the party life" as they "receive a stern course on debutante manners." Trump is currently on board as an exec producer, and there's a possibility that he'll be one of the pillars of society who administers said stern course. How, exactly, is that supposed to make an entertaining half-hour of TV? Tramp sounds like a mean-spirited, unfunny version of VH1's Charm School — and let me tell you, the Donald is no Mo'Nique.
I've been blogging about Isaiah-gate since last October, and I've got to admit it: last night's announcement that Isaiah Washington won't be returning to Grey's Anatomy next season has me feeling, well, not much of anything. Mostly, I'm exhausted from reading, thinking, and talking about the whole behind-the-scenes mess. Sure, on some level, this kerfuffle and its fallout raise important and interesting questions: What kind of language and behavior in the workplace crosses the line from unacceptable to fire-able? (I've tried to imagine how uncomfortable I'd feel working along someone who dropped an enraged 'f*****' bomb in my direction during a physical altercation with a third party.) For us consumers of pop culture, at what point does a celebrity's off-camera behavior get in the way of our ability to enjoy and appreciate his or her work? (Being completely honest, I've not only remained a faithful Grey's viewer for the past season, but one who's been fully invested in Washington's Burke-Cristina storyline.) Where does Washington's alleged bad act fall on the scale of Mel Gibson's sexist, anti-Semitic rant and Paris Hilton's DUI arrest — and in that context, does his subsequent punishment seem fitting?
Washington certainly hasn't helped his own case, given the sluggishness of his public apology, his second use of 'f*****' at the Golden Globe awards, his lackluster PSA, and especially the statement his publicist issued last night (a quote from the 1976 film Network): "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." Seriously? I mean, why didn't someone on Washington's team dissuade him from releasing such a loopy parting shot? And does he really think that now is the time to choose defiance over contrition? Anyhow, I've blogged my last about this brouhaha, so I pass the podium to you, PopWatchers, to have the final word.
I was really hoping this mess would be resolved with some class, and that Rosie would finish out her last three weeks on The View and get a proper send-off, borne aloft by a platoon of Broadway chorus boys. But no.
Rosie's sudden announcement of her early departure was marked by carefully worded spin from nearly everyone involved (except for Elisabeth, who impressed me for the first time ever by saying nothing). Rosie's statement said she was "grateful" for her "amazing" year on the show, "and I love all three women." (Translation: I don't hate Elisabeth, really, I don't!) For her part, Barbara Walters said she was "most appreciative" of O'Donnell's contribution to the show and that "our close and affectionate relationship will not change." (Translation: Don't expect me to invite you and Kelli to one of my dinner parties anytime soon.) And ABC's president of daytime TV said, "We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now," (because the ratings will plummet as soon as she's gone) "but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave." (And we were only too happy to get this PR nightmare behind us as quickly as possible.) "Therefore, we part ways," (Please clean up those defaced portraits of Hasselbeck before security escorts you from the building) "thank her for her tremendous contribution to The View" (those cat-fights sure made for great TV, didn't they?) "and wish her well." (If you decide to launch your own morning show, may we bid for it? We won't tell Barbara if you don't.)
The one on yesterday's The View I really feel bad for is guest panelist Sherri Shepherd. These Rosie-vs.-Elisabeth sandbox fights are kept under control when Barbara Walters is there to play kindergarten teacher, but when the substitute's there, the kids get rowdy. The usually game Shepherd kept mostly quiet, outshouted by the others, while producers milked this wrestling match for all it was worth by airing it in split-screen (pictured) and refusing to cut to a commercial despite repeated pleas from Sherri and Joy Behar. Again, this wouldn't have happened if Barbara had been around; I predict heads will roll, and they won't be Rosie's or Elisabeth's.
I don't want to go into the particulars of Wednesday's face-off (which appeared different from previous O'Donnell/Hasselbeck arguments only in the producers' willingness to let it drag on), except to say this: Joy started it. It began as a shoutfest between Elisabeth and Joy, who had kicked off the segment by reading a laundry list of criticisms of President Bush. At first, Rosie admirably refused to get involved, noting that when pundits discuss these skirmishes later, they distort them so that they seem to be about the personality clashes between Rosie and Elisabeth and not about the merits of their stated positions. (O'Donnell seems to be marking time until her tenure on The View ends in three weeks, hoping her last few shows will be trouble-free.) But finally, she couldn't help herself and jumped in. Soon, this dispute really was about the personal, with Rosie accusing Elisabeth of being insufficiently supportive of her in public after the pair's last dust-up. (It's the same complaint she supposedly had about Barbara after Walters remained mum for too long about the O'Donnell-vs.-Trump war of words last winter.) You can watch a brief sample of yesterday's fracas here; believe me, it's plenty.
There have been rumors that, after yesterday's fiasco, Rosie will leave the show before her final three weeks are up, but I guess we won't know for sure until Monday. (Today, she's scheduled to have a day off — it's Kelli's 40th birthday! — and Friday's show is pre-taped.) If she does leave early, I'm going to stop watching now instead of next month. Unless Barbara moves quickly to announce a compelling new replacement for Rosie. Which brings me to my actual point: who should take Rosie's place?
Home
Could John McCain and David Letterman be just about ready to kiss and make up? That's what the New York Post is reporting (albeit in a thinly sourced article that attributes the news of the purportedly imminent reconciliation only to "knowledgeable sources"). The scenario the Post spins out certainly sounds plausible: McCain would make his long-postponed visit to the Late Show around Oct. 15, when he's in the neighborhood for the final presidential debate. If it's true, it sounds like what I predicted here will come to pass. No doubt high-level secret negotiations are taking place even as we speak, with the one thorny diplomatic complication being how to come up with a face-saving way for McCain to apologize to Letterman for lying to him without looking like he's knuckling under to the liberal media. (Any workable suggestions for how to accomplish this? Submit them below.) Once that wrinkle is ironed out, however, I'm sure the feud will end in a must-watch TV spectacle on the Late Show, after which Dave will go back to bashing everybody else in politics except McCain, at least until the election. So breathe easy, America, for at last, our long national nightmare may soon be over.
You'd think 
Sitting atop the 
Pink still rocks. While (mostly) lacking the painfully funny anti-starlet satire of “Stupid Girls,” 
There is a sizable group of my colleagues here at EW who regularly send out e-mails about Lauren Conrad (pictured, right), Heidi Montag (left), and the MTV "reality" series The Hills, of which I've seen maybe a total of five minutes. Each time I've tried tuning in, I barely made it through 30 seconds before my brain was dripping out of my ears from boredom, which was even worse than the 60 seconds it took for that to happen when watching The Hills' precursor, Laguna Beach. (
I've decided not to vote for Barack Obama, now that I've learned from 
If only she's resisted the primal urge to shout, "Again! Again!" But alas, 
Hell hath no fury like an R&B diva scorned, especially at the Grammys. First there was 
If your computer shudders at the thought of you yet again watching that awesome 
So, Natalie Cole told 
In a photographic play-by-play, rendered into 
I love it that the 
Which of the late-night shows did you watch last night? Me, I watched all of 'em. And when I offered to PopWatch-blog them, I do believe this was the first assignment about which an editor said to me, "Oh, I think that's too much work!" (You're a kind one, Mr. Slezak — the very opposite of a grinch.) But, hell, I had planned to DVR and watch them all anyway, so why not toss out some opinions and then see what you thought? As once-regular David Letterman guest Marv Albert used to say, let's go to the videotape. (Speaking of, there's a video compiling highlights of all five of last night's shows over at 
"Californication" is kind of a lame pun, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers want to take credit for it anyway. So they're 
Have you been following the brouhaha over New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones' essay 
At the Kelly Clarkson concert I attended earlier this week at New York's Beacon Theater, the rumor was that Clive Davis was also in attendance. Well, judging from this post-show photo, it looks like it wasn't just a rumor. The reunion marks a happier chapter for the pop star and her label chairman, who 
I swear to God that I have never seen an episode of The
Hills, and yet, every bone in my body says this headline, and 
I'm no fan of Elisabeth Hasselbeck (pictured, left), but this time, it's really not her fault. Barry Manilow (right), who's promoting his new album of '70s covers, won't be appearing as scheduled on The View today because he refuses to let the Hasselbot interview him. There's some question as to whether Manilow dropped out, citing the chirpy panelist's 
Rock 'n' roll's most celebrated muse would have to be Pattie Boyd — after all, this is the woman who legendarily inspired George Harrison (her first husband) to write "Something" and Eric Clapton (her second) to pen "Layla." But what must those heady experiences have been like from Boyd's perspective? We'll find out when her tell-all memoir, Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, hits shelves Aug. 28. Until then, the book's text is being kept under wraps by her publishers, who have strictly prevented publications like EW from seeing copies in advance. Good thing the audiobook version of Wonderful Tonight happened to recently arrive on our doorstep! We listened to the whole (abridged) 2-hour, 2-CD thing — read by Boyd herself — and picked out a few highlights, presented, after the jump, for your perusal.
New developments today in the hip-hop showdown of the century, currently scheduled for September 11, when both 50 Cent and Kanye West release their new albums. In 
James Frey's publisher, Nan Talese, made some provocative noise this weekend in Dallas, where she spoke out against Oprah Winfrey for flaying Frey on national television last year after parts of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, turned out to be bogus. "I'm afraid I'm unapologetic of the whole thing," said Talese at a writers' conference, 
Shaq vs. Kobe… 50 Cent vs. Ja Rule… Kelly vs. Clive. Who knew that the alleged Clarkson/Davis feud of ’07 would go down in the history of classic beefs? It wasn’t that many weeks ago that some cynics were still insisting that the whole thing was a publicity gimmick cooked up somewhere in a SonyBMG boardroom, to ratchet up anticipation for Clarkson’s My December album — as if letting word get out that he’s releasing an album he doesn't really care for would ever be the way Clive rolls. But by now it’s clear to everyone that there was no great PR strategy behind taking the artist/label contretemps public, and that the album’s fortunes have been affected in the collateral damage. 
A little bird told us that, during first half hour of tonight's 
The suits over at VH1 must be mind readers, because there is nothing that I need more than another reality TV show promising to rescue the stars of yesteryear from celebrity purgatory. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: 
You may have heard by now that 
I know I should not be blogging about this Access Hollywood clip titled "Kristy Swanson Shows Off Alleged Assault Bruises." After all, it's one of those depressing actress-meets -married-skater, skater- leaves-pregnant-wife-and-has-baby-with-actress, actress-and-now-ex-wife-get-into-alleged-physical- tussle stories that don't really belong on EW.com. But the whole video is so crazy-heinous, I cannot ignore it. Hear Lloyd Eisler (pictured, a/k/a the "skater") utter the sentence, "it's a good black eye." Listen to the odd background noises (screaming baby, random cellphone, loud thuds). Marvel at Swanson's dramatic pronunciation of "arm…pit." And remember the moral of the story: "When you hit somebody with a ring, you're getting cut!" 
In the wake of 
PopWatchers: Britney Spears needs help. No, not that kind of help. I mean she needs help picking the title of her next album. Got the 
The one on yesterday's The View I really feel bad for is guest panelist 
