Happy 40th Anniversary Of Martin Luther King's Assassination Day! We hope you're celebrating appropriately: nodding somberly at your African-American coworkers, baking black-and-white cookies, talking out of your ass about the state of race relations in America, and maybe even trying to awkwardly drag the good doctor into current events by declaring that "King would have supported John McCain because they would have been about the same age," as J.C. Watts did on MSNBC this morning. Whatever your party plans are for this weekend, we hope that you'll take a moment to reflect on the ideals of peace and equality that MLK stood for before a Buzzkill rings out in the Memphis sky.
– Of course, there are some folks–including the man himself–who never bought the idea that James Earl Ray was solely behind King's assassination, but was rather used as a front for a government conspiracy. Similarly, former agent Ted Gunderson believes that the FBI made a patsy out of an innocent tree in the death of crooner-turned-congressman Sonny Bono, who was, in actuality, clubbed to death by hired hitmen. Bono was apparently close to exposing an international drug and weapons ring, so "ruthless assassins" ambushed him on the slopes and beat him to death, then staged the tree collision that fooled America and gave Eminem one of his favorite stock references. Gunderson is backed up by forensics experts who disagreed with the initial autopsy and investigator Bob Fletcher, who claims he sent evidence of the collusion between top government officials and weapons dealers to Bono a month before his "accident" silenced him. Let this be a lesson to all celebrities who pursue political careers: You can't play a game of Texas Hold 'Em when you're the joker in the deck. (Thank God Fred "Gopher" Grandy didn't have much ambition.)
– Speaking of being silenced, film critic Roger Ebert is still unable to speak after undergoing more surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland, and although he plans to resume writing for the Chicago Sun-Times later this month, he still can't participate in his syndicated TV show. (Probably a good thing, as the heartbreaking sight of Ebert mutely offering a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" would reduce the already faltering state of film criticism to a new low.) As much as our stomachs may roil over some of Ebert's critiques in the past, the man deserves respect not only for the visibility and inspiration he gave to film critics everywhere, but for his unflappability in the face of five years of cancer treatment. (That's why we're complete assholes for suggesting that lately Ebert resembles a cross between Liza Minelli and Darth Vader in the last 10 minutes of Return Of The Jedi. No, we're not very proud of us either.)
– Perhaps in a karmically aligned existence, Ebert would be rewarded for his tenacity with the digitally restored pipes of Cary Grant, but all evidence that things are fair and just in this world points to the contrary: Take Kevin Federline, who not only still has a voice with which to routinely punish us all, he's living like a king in Las Vegas despite having nothing resembling talent or purpose. According to documents released by the Superior Court handling the Spears-Federline custody standoff, Federline spent over $43,000 on hotels, dining, and shopping between May 2007 and January of this year (suck on that, "recession"!), including dropping $1,445 at Versace and $2,000 at a Scores strip club on a $365 meal (those must have been some pretty "popozao" chicken wings). Meanwhile, his "music company" Gooseneck Productions spent $74,102 on "production expenses" while earning only $9,849 in "music income"; most of K-Fed's deposits came from that Super Bowl commercial that everybody loved and, most distressingly, a series of appearances at Vegas clubs that were apparently willing to pay him just for showing up. (Not released: Federline's bills for "wifebeaters and stupid fucking hats.")
– But then, you already knew that Kevin Federline was the luckiest scumbag on the planet. Similarly, it came as a surprise to absolutely no one to hear that "supermodel" Naomi Campbell is still a psychotic bitch who relishes using her remaining splinter of fame to gouge out the eyes of lowly blue-collar folk. Reportedly it took four London police officers to subdue Campbell at Heathrow Airport on Thursday, where Campbell–incensed when a piece of luggage turned up missing–started spitting and swearing at everyone in sight until she was finally handcuffed and dragged from the plane. Gawker has put together a stroll down Assault And Battery Lane recapping Campbell's five prior tantrums; her latest may land her in prison for up to six months. Before you celebrate, here's a little taste of what we'd be losing:
– And speaking of things that make absolutely no sense–not to mention people who are still "famous" long beyond their cultural relevance, or the collective will of the people–this week's Real World Awards Bash reintroduced a kicking and screaming viewing public to a graying Puck, who is by all accounts still "rocking" and indubitably still a giant douche. Poor comedian Jeffrey Ross (who should really learn how to turn down a gig every now and then) showed up to do his "roasting" thing, obviously forgetting that a combination of testosterone, alcohol, and the skewed sense of self-entitlement that comes from being on reality TV does not a receptive audience make. After throwing out a few standard issue slams on the crowd's tenuous claims to fame, Ross' act was interrupted by an unscripted dip in the pool forced upon him by four vodka-infused dickwads–or, as Puck calls them, "My people." By the way, Puck also claims to be "The Godfather Of Reality TV;" hopefully that means any day now Sollozzo will gun him down in the streets. (Thanks to Defamer for the video.)
– Then again, maybe being famous for nothing is better than being famous for taking the world's most respected female singer and turning her into an ashy-lipped crackwhore whose name is synonymous with "doody bubbles"–although to hear Bobby Brown tell it in his new autobiography, it was Whitney who drove him to drug addiction and not the other, much more logical way around. In his forthcoming Bobby Brown: The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But, Brown alleges, "I never used cocaine until after I met Whitney." Ironically, Brown also claims that after Houston was accused of having a bisexual relationship with her assistant, Robin Crawford, she married him to "clean up her image." Um…oops?
– And really, who are we to deny Bobby Brown when he says he's a victim of love and circumstance, despite everything we know about the man? Everybody's talking all this stuff about him, but why don't they just let him live? After all, it's not like he's taking his nasty little fameberries and forcing them down our throats like Lil Jon (remember him?), whose new Little Jonathan Winery is set to do for merlot and chardonnay what The Eastside Boyz did for hip-hop: namely, turn it into a big fucking joke. The Atlanta-based rapper promises to take his new venture more seriously than his Crunk!!! Energy Drink from a few years ago, and hey, he's already got the sommelier speak down: In a phone interview with the AP, Lil Jon declared, "This is not no ghetto Boone's Farm; this is some real wine." We were lucky enough to sample some here at the Friday Buzzkills desk and we have to admit we were impressed. It's rich, expressive, and it has a surprisingly flowery nose. Plus we detected several notes of "Oh my God, I can't believe it's fucking 2008 and people are still talking about Lil Jon" before retching in our cuspidor.
– Give Lil Jon credit for one thing: The man seems to know the limits of his talents. Unfortunately the same can't be said for his peers like Akon, who–not content to make shitty rap music–claims to have written a country hit under a secret alias. The man best known for tossing his prepubescent fans around like ragdolls when he isn't busy humping them told BBC radio station 1 Extra that he's "about to break into a genre that no black artist, producer, or writer ever broke into ever…and the funniest part is I'm going in with an alias and I already got my first hit record." Never mind that everyone involved in country music has no fucking clue what you're talking about, Akon, aren't you forgetting a couple of people who did just that–namely Charley Pride and Ray Charles? "I'm trying to break in, I'm not just trying to go in," he explains. Oh. Well that clears that up?
– Doubtful as it may be, Akon's country music makeover is at least in keeping with these originality-starved times, where even ideas that weren't that great the first time around are being slapped up with a fresh coat of paint and set out by the curb. Case in point: The recently announced plans to remake 1986's Short Circuit, the funny little sci-fi film that briefly convinced Hollywood that Steve Guttenberg was a box office draw while telling the heartwarming story of an impish robot's quest to fuck Ally Sheedy. Original writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock have been hired to script their own remake, which will be "similar in theme to the original, but will factor in advances in technology." (We also bet it won't feature a white guy pretending to be Indian; Kal Penn, keep your phone on!) Reached for comment, El Debarge had this to say:
– "Nice software!" is not something you'll hear coming out of the mouth of ex-Jesus And Mary Chain drummer John Moore, who recently told the Guardian he's psychopissed about Dr. Joshua Reiss' new device that automatically tweaks master volumes if a signal reaches a troublesome frequency and which "promises to make feedback a thing of the past." Although Reiss claims "cleaning up music is not the idea," Moore argues that sound engineers shouldn't even be given the option, saying:
Some musicians actually intend to create feedback, either as a beautiful, unpredictable counterpoint to their more structured melodies or as a brutal weapon to pulverize the senses. Disarming them would be like Toto pulling back the curtain to reveal the Wizard of Oz as a snake oil salesman from Kansas. Hovering around the threshold of pain is where rock should be, and anybody that tells you different is an old duffer.
– Hear hear: Without feedback, for example, there wouldn't be the awesome coda of "Negativland" on the first Neu! record, and thus perhaps no Sonic Youth, Mogwai, or Radiohead (and definitely no Negativland). And without drummer Klaus Dinger's amazing Motorik drumming, there would have been no Neu! at all; sadly, Dinger–who also played in an early version of Kraftwerk–died on March 21, and we missed out on posting an obituary until today (though we definitely mourned privately). Yesterday another pioneering servant of the rhythm passed away: Wayne "Frosty Freeze" Frost, a member of the Rock Steady Crew whose performance in Flashdance is credited with sparking the B-boy trend and giving it global exposure. (Frost also appeared in the old-school classics Beat Street, Wild Style, and Style Wars.) Thanks for the beats, boys.