THE MAGIC NUMBERS sound a bit laid back on "Undecided," the title track from an EP due this September. BOB DYLAN at NEWPORT: Heather Browne is streaming another memorble moment in rock history, as Bob plugs in with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. THE 20 BEST LIVE BANDS RIGHT NOW, according to the Rolling Stone blog. CHRIS STAMEY: Flowering Toilet has posted three tracks from his "unjustly overlooked classic," It's Alright. You can (and should) jukebox 'em via the ol' HM, especially the gorgeous "Cara Lee." DAYTROTTER creator Sean Moeller gives a pretty passionate interview to CBC Radio 3, including his "want list" of artists he's like to record for the site. (Thanks, Chromewaves.) PAUL STANLEY of KISS had to bow out of a Southern California concert because of heart problems before the show. PREFAB SPROUT perform one of may fave songs of theirs -- "Faron Young" -- in Munich, circa 1985. THE PHIL SPECTOR TRIAL is shaping up as a L.A. Noir classic, according to local prosecutor and blogger Patterico. WES ANDERSON: The release of the trailer of The Darjeeling Limited inspired The Yellow Stereo (jukebox Jul 26) and An Aquarium Drunkard (jukebox) to dip into past Anderson soundtracks. CAPTAIN'S DEAD is streaming boots of R.E.M in NC circa September 1984 and Van Morrison in Sacramento circa September 1971. The title to the Van post is yet another Wes Anderson reference. KEITH RICHARDS, LORD of the UNDEAD: Bids for Keef's' autobiography reached a whopping 7.3 million bucks at an auction in NYC last week. Fears that Richards may "do a Jagger" and renege on the deal because he can't recall enough of his infamously debauched past have been dismissed by his agent. PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The supposedly sober supermodel is reportedly trying to get over her split from the troubled singer by... spending "quiet time" with Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood? WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Woo-Hoo! The Simpsons Movie raked in almost 72 million -- much more D-oh than even the optimists projected last week, in a masterpiece of media synergy. Homer & Co. set an opening weekend record for a movie based on a TV series, edging out Transformers in the category. It should do well worldwide, but whether it has legs remains to be seen. The Adam Sandler comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry fell 44 percent from its debut -- about typical for a Sandler comedy -- to make about 19 million. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was third with 17.1 million. Hairspray was fourth with 15.5 million. The Top Five was rounded out by the Catherine Zeta-Jones comedy No Reservations, which debuted with 11.8 million. Transformers dropped a not-bad 44 percent to sixth place with 11.5 million. Ratatouille dropped 34 percent, making another 7.2 million. Live Free or Die Hard dropped 24 percent and made 5.3 million. Lindsay Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me debuted in ninth place with 3.2 million, while Who's Your Caddy? opened in tenth with 2.9 million. NICOLE RICHIE follows her ex-BFF French Hotel to the Greybar Hotel for a few days by the end of September. MADONNA is considering leaving Warner Music Group in favor of an all-encompassing music deal with touring giant Live Nation that could be worth more than 100 million dollars. STEVE MARTIN married girlfriend Anne Stringfield in a ceremony presided over by fmr. Sen. Bob Kerrey at Martin's L.A. home over the weekend. Most of the roughly 75 guests - who included Tom Hanks, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Carl Reiner and Ricky Jay - were not told that he and Stringfield would wed when they were invited to his home for a "party." EDDIE MURPHY and his girlfriend of 10 months, Tracey Edmonds got engaged on July 25. JESSICA SIMPSON: Creepy dad-manager found his (current limit), turning down a role as a pr0n starlet. BRITNEY SPEARS, looking dead-eyed and disoriented, lost it during a shambolic video shoot and ended up "sobbing hysterically," according to the uber-reliable News of the World (backup link). Estranged hubby Fed-Ex is demanding that the pop tart return with the kids from Las Vegas, where son Sean Preston was struck during an altercation between Spears' bodyguard and a photographer. LINDSAY LOHAN may be sued by Dante Nigro, Jakon Sutter and Ronnie Blake -- the three men who say they were passengers riding with her on the morning of her arrest. Meanwhile, a judge chided Michael Lohan on Friday for his failure to make child support payments to Li-Lo's younger brother and sister since his release from prison earlier this year. JOHNNY DEPP is developing a feature based on the '60s daytime supernatural sudser Dark Shadows. Depp has said that he has always been obsessed with the show and had, as a child, wanted to be vampire patriarch Barnabas Collins. BRADGELINA: Jolie has tallied up like a kinky scorecard in a new book that sizes her up as having more talent as a publicity machine than an actress. ISLA FISHER is finally talking about her pregnancy by her fiancé, Borat funnyman Sacha Baron Cohen. But it's SNL filmmaker and co-star Andy Samberg that gets the punchlines. THE DARK KNIGHT has been shooting along my route home from work; there's prop helicopter wreckage behind the Federal Reserve Bank at the moment. The teaser trailer for the flick debuted in front of The Simpsons Movie, which reminds me to post this little bootleg clip of the Batmobile and the Batpod on lower Wacker Drive. PRINCE currently known as William opened the 21st World Scout Jamboree, marking the 100th anniversary of the movement's founding. Around 40,000 young people from around the world are at the 12-day event at Hylands Park near Chelmsford, Essex. Pate site member Ken King is there too, so I could have headlined it "King Marks Scouting Centenary." Indeed, he dropped me line that there have been no electrocutions so far. GIT OUT of GITMO? At least 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release. An analysis of 516 Guantanamo detainees found that while there was no evidence linking six of them to terrorist activities, 95 percent were a potential threat to US interests. THE FOUNDER of EGYPTIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD is putting the finishing touches to a remarkable recantation that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad and is set to generate furious controversy among former comrades still fighting with al-Qaeda. PAKISTAN: Pakistan's military leader, General Pervez Musharraf, has held secret talks with his rival Benazir Bhutto in the Middle East to discuss a power-sharing arrangement that could extend his presidency. IRAQ: Fighting has erupted between Shiite political factions in the southern cities of Basra, Diwaniya, Karbala, Nasiriya and Samawa in recent months. Bill Roggio rounds up coverage of Coalition and Iraq security forces fighting the Iranian-backed "rogue" elements of the Mahdi Army and the Special Groups in Karbala, Baghdad and in Diyala province. The Iraqi government strongly criticized the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front on Friday, accusing it of using threatening, pressures and blackmailing ways to cripple the work of the government and the parliament. The IAF has said that it will withdraw from the Iraqi government if its 11-point demands are not met. The government-funded al-Sabah newspaper quoted MP Haidar al-Abbadi from the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition as saying that a tripartite meeting was held on Saturday between the UIC, the Kurdistan Alliance and the IAF to tackle thorny issues. The Small Wars Journal suggests that the story that Prime Minister al-Maliki sought the removal of Gen. Petraeus is greatly exaggerated. Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack -- two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush Admin's "miserable handling of Iraq" -- are back from Iraq and were "surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily 'victory' but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with." IRAQ and the MEDIA: I would have dropped The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist" controversy, but for the Columbia Journalism Review publishing a piece claiming that the criticism of poor Pvt. Beauchamp was "mostly led by the know-nothing Michelle Malkin's (sic) of the world," and that joining the Army is "something most of the brave souls who inhabit the milblog community prefers to leave to others." In reality, Michael Goldfarb first raised the issue based on comments from "several people with experience in Iraq." And McLeary clearly does not know what the milblog community is, as Beachamp's critics were mostly soldiers at the Mudville Gazette, Blackfive, Badgers Forward, Vox Veterana, Dadmanly, Eighty Duece on the Loose, and OpFor, to name just a few -- almost all of whom are Iraq vets. This sort of grotesque distortion is unworthy of a journal supposedly dedicated to encouraging and stimulating excellence in journalism in the service of a free society. IRAQ and the MEDIA II: The New York Times was so baffled by its own poll showing increased support for the invasion and a a drop in the number of people who said the war was going badly that they wrote an entire story about their bafflement. That the latter finding might be related to the former finding has not occurred to the paper. Perhaps folks there should start reading the recent stories filed by their own reporters John Burns and Michael Gordon. A CROW hooked on lager sticks his beak in his favourite tipple - defying a furious landlady who has barred him from her pub. A DOG is found 2000 miles from his Australian home after going missing for two months. Credit those implantable microchips. FLUFFY, a 5-foot-long black-and-tan boa constrictor, is on the loose near a golf course in Memphis. Owner Dana Shields said she named him that so people would be less fearful of him. I'm not clear on how some hapless golfer will know the snake's name. A GREAT WHITE SHARK was spotted off the coast of Cornwall in the UK. Always the worst thing during tourist season. BUTTHEAD the PYGMY GOAT mysteriously returns to Lincolnsfield's Farmyard Funworld.
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