Easter 2007

Being John Malkovich

In Character: John Malkovich

Left: You’re an ingénue actress, new to Hollywood. Your agent has just called to say you’ve been chosen for a role in a big movie … as George Clooney’s love interest.

Center: You’re a construction worker having lunch with your buddies on the street in front of the job, calling out to a sexy woman passing by, “Hey, hon, wanna see what’s in my lunchbox?”

Right: You’re a mid-level drug dealer with a big payment due to a Mob boss, getting the news from one of your street runners that he lost the big coke stash in, “like, a weird gust of wind.”

Satanic Reprive

Judge rules that Procter and Gamble not Satanic

Winning a 12-year, $19-million dollar lawsuit linked to competitors may put to rest popular rumor among Evangelicals that the company is run by Satanists

Pringles appear to be safe from demonic association after a US court ruled that the devil is not in league with global consumer brand Procter & Gamble (P&G).

The ruling brought an end to a 12-year lawsuit purused by P&G against four distributors of rival Amway, over rumors tying P&G to Satanism.

P&G won the $19m lawsuit when the court concluded that the four had spread a false accusation that P&G subsidized Satanic cults.

The rumor had proved popular with evangelicals in the US.

During the 1960s, a story began circulating that the corporation was controlled by Satan worshipers. A moon-star symbol was used by the company on many of its products from 1882 to 1985, which was considered suspect.

The stars in fact stand for the thirteen original American colonies. But the arrangement of stars in the symbol was said to secretly spell out the Revelation 13:18 “number of the beast”: 666. The logo, though, is still used and remains a recognized brand outside of the United States.

Without examining the facts, many people, most notably evangelicals, signed petitions against Procter & Gamble and boycotted their products in the 1980s and 1990s.

This latest case is one of several unfair competition suits P&G has brought refuting the Satanism slurs.

According to P&G, the four distributors had passed on to customers the notion that its logo was a symbol of Satan by reviving the rumors in 1995, using a voice mail system to tell thousands of customers that part of Procter & Gamble profits went to satanic cults.

“This is about protecting our reputation,” said Jim Johnson, P&G’s chief legal officer.

Amway pointed out that it had successfully defended itself in an earlier case brought by P&G that had been connected with the rumors.

It had also, it said, done everything it could to get the rumour stamped out.

Bada Bing!

‘Sopranos’ ready for its final whacks

They’re all gone now.

Big Pussy: Gone. Richie Aprile: Gone. Ralph Cifaretto: Gone.

Gloria, Adriana, Vito, Tony Blundetto: Gone, gone, brutally gone.

But not, in the mixed-up mob-family world of “The Sopranos,” forgotten. Like Shakespearean ghosts, the departed haunt the living, a reminder of the thin line between their desperate, shifty lives and a place six feet under — or 60 feet under water, or buried in the woods, or decapitated and inserted in a bowling bag.

So the survivors smile over the anger and violence that lurks just beneath the surface, and cover it up with pretty suburban estates and snappy clothes and money — always wads of money — and try to stay one step ahead of the ghosts.

But death awaits us all, and for “The Sopranos,” the moment of reckoning has arrived. The HBO series about a mob boss, his family, his crew and his therapist — widely hailed as one of the finest shows in television history — begins its final season of nine episodes tonight.

‘It really pushed the envelope’

The show pushed the limits of television — and HBO’s patience. It was expensive from the outset, it was full of unknown performers (probably the best known at its debut was Lorraine Bracco, who plays Dr. Jennifer Melfi, Tony’s therapist) and HBO didn’t like the name, believing people would think it was about opera.

And nobody was safe in Chase’s underworld. Characters died — and they died suddenly, with the risk of alienating viewers. The actors who played them also walked a tightrope of emotion, knowing they could be whacked at any time.

“I was really, really sad,” said Steve Buscemi (Tony Blundetto) at a gathering of performers who played killed-off characters. “That’s really just about missing the greatest job I’ve ever had.”

But the show also had many moments of humor — often directly contrasted with the violence — and was willing to be as brutally honest in dissecting family relationships as it was in showing a mobster’s corrupt world. Some of the show’s most dramatic moments have come between Tony and Carmela, arguing in their kitchen.

“It really pushed the envelope. I think people were expecting it to be just a mob show, but it’s really not,” Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who plays Soprano daughter Meadow, told CNN. “David uses it as a vehicle to express a lot of his opinions on social issues and family issues and political issues. … I think people were afraid to do that for awhile. ‘Sopranos’ sort of broke the mold with that.”

Naturally, the show’s performers — adhering to the mob code of omerta — have been tight-lipped as to what’s in store for the final run.

“Everything you were waiting for, you’re gonna see. Everything you’ve been waiting to feel, you’re gonna feel. Trust me. Trust me,” was all Sirico would tell.

Jesus Rocks

Bad Album Covers

See them all HERE

REO… ‘Roll with the Changes’

Classic rockers wow Wal-Mart crowd, sell records

The internet was only a dream when REO Speedwagon was in their heyday. Their early recordings were done on vinyl, and most of the band’s sales came from record stores.

Fast forward to 2007. Internet purchases have gone through the roof, and downloads are gutting in-store record sales, leaving artists and retailers scrambling for solutions. REO Speedwagon may have one.

This afternoon, singer Kevin Cronin and Bassist Bruce Hall climbed on a tiny stage in the men’s department of Wal-Mart in Eagan. Armed with acoustic guitars and a new album, they played for hundreds of fans who packed the store aisles, anxious for a musical blast from the past.

“We’re going to have them sign our vest, and, the 8 track I used to listen to them on,” gushed Jamie Paulson, who had her teenaged daughter in tow. “We’re out here, hitting the road old school, that’s what brings us to Wal-Mart,” said Cronin.

REO signed an early release exclusive with Wal-Mart, similar to a deal Garth Brooks did with the retail giant.

“Find your own way home” is the band’s first release of all new songs in ten years. The new recording is being packaged with two live discs, and sold for less than $15.

The crowd that came to see Cronin and Hall snapped up all kinds of them, a win-win situation for the band and Wal-Mart.

“We’ve done it all, we’ve played coliseums, we’ve played baseball stadiums, started out playing clubs, and we figured the logical next step for us was department stores,” the lead singer quipped.

Rejoice!

Livin’ it up at the Hotel Campari

Join Salma’s orgy…eh em…party HERE

Nancy Pelosi Nearly Becomes President of the United States of America

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President…Dumbass

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford’s hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

“I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness!’ So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front,” Mulally said. “I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?”