Welcome back to The Saturday Swindle Sheet.
Last weekend I went to Mérida, Yucatán, and stopped over at nearby Chichén Itzá. It was one of the best trips I’ve ever been on. It’s up there with Amsterdam. The only major drawback is that Mexico has no White Castle, and if not for that and a few other items, I would seriously consider renouncing my American citizenship and moving there. Until then, I will continue to grow more and more irate with Chicago winters until I can’t take it anymore and my head explodes.
BLURBS OF THE WEEK
Snoop Dogg was arrested on Thursday afternoon at Bob Hope Airport, in Burbank, Calif., on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a gun and transporting marijuana. The rapper (né Calvin Broadus) was parked alone in the passenger pickup/drop-off area at the exterior of the airport when local police approached him for an unspecified vehicle code violation, and after a subsequent search of the car, they discovered a gun and a significant amount of marijuana. Snoop was booked at the Burbank Police Department and released about four hours later after posting a $35,000 bond. Although he is scheduled to be arraigned on Dec. 12, his lawyer told reporters, “There was no basis for this arrest. … We believe that once this is cleared up, all charges will be dismissed.”
Black Sabbath members Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, and Terence “Geezer” Butler have reunited with former singer Ronnie James Dio, however, in an attempt not to upset Ozzy Osbourne, they’re calling the band Heaven and Hell, which is the title of the first album the foursome released in 1980, after Ozzy was kicked out and replaced by Dio. “Tony Iommi and Ronnie Dio are working on a project together which has nothing to do with Black Sabbath. There is only one Black Sabbath,” Osbourne told reporters in a statement on Wednesday, adding that he would be touring with the other three late next year as Black Sabbath, and that he was going to kill Kelly and Jack Osbourne by defenestration. The translation on that last part was a little dicey, although I would not be one to complain if it were accurate. It would make up for Ozzy having sired them in the first place.
Producer/rapper/deformed midget Jermaine Dupri told reporters on Wednesday that he would be resigning immediately from his position as CEO of Virgin Music, a post that he has held for the past year. “I was not forced out of the company, I made a decision that it was in my best interest to leave,” Dupri told The Associated Press, squashing rumors that he had been fired due to his latest project, girlfriend Janet Jackson‘s 20 Y.O., being a flop. That album has sold only 443,000 copies since its Sept. 26 release, and was Dupri’s latest album produced since spearheading Mariah Carey‘s comeback album, The Emancipation of Mimi. Face it Jermaine Dupri, you’re no Pharrell Williams, and Janet Jackson is no Mariah Carey, although I would really like to see Mariah Carey’s boobs during a Super Bowl halftime show.
A copyright infringement lawsuit against 50 Cent was thrown out by a district court judge on Friday. Prosecutors cited the rapper for stealing the phrase “it’s your birthday” (used in his 2003 breakout hit, “In Da Club”) from Luther “Luke” Campbell’s song, “It’s Your Birthday”. The judge ruled that the phrase was too common to warrant any sort of copyright lawsuit. I agree with and will see your “it’s your birthday” decision, and will raise you one John Cage lawsuit.
After admitting himself into rehab for alcoholism, country singer Keith Urban announced earlier in the week that he would not be attending the 40th Annual CMA Awards, which is scheduled for Nov. 6. Wait a minute… aren’t country music singers supposed to be alcoholics? What the f*ck is the deal with Keith Urban entering rehab? This just shows that country music has become so homogenized that a guy without a cowboy hat (from Australia, mind you) can not only succeed in country music, but he can then proceed to marry Nicole Kidman, not beat her, and then stop being a boozer. That, folks, is why I hate modern country music. That and Rascal Flatts.
Sandy West, drummer for the mid/late-’70s all-girl proto-punk band The Runaways, died last Saturday at a hospice in San Dimas, Ca., after battling lung cancer for over a year.
Guitarist Andy Taylor has quit Duran Duran because he thinks it’s reprehensible that they collaborated recently with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. I may have made up that second part, but it sort of makes sense. The original members of the band had reunited in 2001, but the group released a statement saying that “[w]e have reached a point in our relationship with [Andy] where there is an unworkable gulf between us and we can no longer effectively function together.”
The Who guitarist/vocalist Pete Townsend reportedly stormed out of a London radio studio this week while waiting to go on the air (along with singer Roger Daltrey) with Howard Stern, after Stern made some comments pertaining to Townsend’s 2003 child porn arrest. Citing that Townsend had been exonerated in a British court on all charges, Daltrey shouted at Stern, “How often to you want to keep on sniffing dirty underpants? … The guy was found not guilty of anything, but you keep bringing this shit up.” Daltrey was quickly ejected from the studio and replaced with two “really hot” lesbians that proceeded to make out with and fondle each other for three hours.
Mariah Carey‘s scheduled concert for this weekend in Hong Kong was canceled earlier in the week after the local promoter, Concerts Asia, claimed that the singer had made “specific last-minute demands which we find wholly unreasonable and not with the best interests of Hong Kong, us, and also the fans.” The promoter also claimed that only 4,000 tickets had been sold for the event, which was much less than expected. In response to that statement, Carey’s manager told reporters that the real reasoning behind the cancellation was that the promoter had failed to pay Carey a previous agreed upon amount of money for the event. Furthermore, despite Concerts Asia’s claim that only 4,000 tickets had been sold, in fact 8,000 had been sold, even though that wasn’t an issue. “If there were only 10 people in this venue, and this particular promoter … had fulfilled his contractual obligations, we would be there. In other Mariah Carey-related news, Jermaine Dupri is a miserable failure.
THE MOST RIDICULOUS ITEM OF THE WEEK
Barbra Streisand is apparently afraid that government officials disguised as fans will try and blow her ass up for making too many liberal comments, as a section in the contract from her current tour requires that before she enters the venue, a police dog must search for suspicious items, and that security guards with metal detectors be required at all entrances. For many Streisand fans, being frisked by a security guard of the same sex will be worth the cost of the ticket alone.
Cheers
-JF2k6!
