CREAM REUNION SET FOR MAY at the Royal Albert Hall, according to Jack Bruce.
RYAN ADAMS will be releasing three albums in 2005. Some samples from one of the records can be heard on his website. ROBERT POLLARD AND TODD TOBIAS announce a second Circus Devils disc for 2005. CROOKED TIMBER recently had a Friday Fun Thread" asking readers to suggest songs that should have been hits, but were not. Ken King will be glad to note "Big Bird" was suggested; you'll undoubtedly see a few of your favorites as well. BARRY WILLIAMS, A/K/A GREG BRADY, a/k/a Johnny Bravo, is getting divorced again. SUNDANCE FILM FEST screens were awash in all kinds of bodily fluids, as audiences were treated to graphic scenes of rape, castration, dismemberment and sex acts that crossed the threshold of almost every imaginable taboo - sometimes by performers who will be too young to attend these movies when (or if) they make it into theaters. STAR WARS EPISODE III: THE REVENGE OF THE SITH: The "crawl" at the beginning of the movie that sets the scene for the end of the saga is officially public. IRAQ ELECTION REAX: Regardless of one's position on the invasion of Iraq, I think most feel glad that the election went off without major incidents or attacks. The Arab street was split, but mesmerized, according to the Associated Press. Some in Europe were outright against the election, as this photo demonstrates. Jeralyn Merritt rounds up blogger reactions to the election, both here and in Iraq. Andrew Sullivan printed an e-mail from a war critic that raised some interesting points. Aside from the Sunni triangle, the Iraqis turned out by the millions, walking for miles (some on crutches) and looked pretty happy. Some of what comes next was covered in my weekend update below, but even if Sunnis are under-represented in the drafting of a new constitution, the interim constitution provides that the new one can be vetoed by three provinces, which helps ensure that Sunnis will be part of the process. IRAQIS BITTERLY DIVIDED OVER OSCAR NOMINATIONS: Sunnis May Sit Out Awards Night, U.S. Fears. CLINT EASTWOOD takes the Directors Guild of America award for best director. Marty Scorsese sweats. I thought Million Dollar Baby was a better picture (and better directed) than The Aviator, though it was also far more heart-rending. SPACE-AGE ROBOT GUIDE DOGS for the blind. Which would also be a good band name. I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE MOVIE about the man who urinated his way out of avalanche. BEN FOLDS LEAVES SHATNER BEHIND, starts making real music again. Actually, that's not my headline. I would note that Shatner's disc got generally good reviews. Besides, no one leaves Shatner behind. JIM CAPALDI, a founding member of Traffic, is dead of stomach cancer at the age of 60. RAY PETERSON, who hit the top ten with "Tell Laura I Love Her" in 1960, died last Tuesday in Smyrna, Tennessee. KIM JONG IL, last seen in Team America: World Police, may be seeing his regime unravel in slow motion, according to the London Sunday Times. A DOWNSIDE OF LEGALIZED PROSTITUTION: A 25-year-old woman who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year, according to the London Telegraph WISCONSIN ELECTION FOLLOW-UP: According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, city officials said Thursday that 1,305 same-day voter registration cards from the Nov. 2 election could not be processed, including more than 500 cases where voters listed no address and dozens more where no name was written on the card. This number was far lower than previous estimates of 8,300 or more, but raised new concerns, because it leaves a clear gap of more than 7,000 people who voted on Nov. 2 and cannot be accounted for in city records. CELEBRITY CATFIGHT AT DAVOS? Sharon Stone raised $1 million in five minutes on Friday for mosquito nets in Tanzania, turning a panel on African poverty into an impromptu fund-raiser. In the audience was Angelina Jolie, who has been a U.N. goodwill ambassador for refugee issues for four years. Jolie later said she thought it was "wonderful" what Stone had done." Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is leading U.N. anti-poverty efforts and who was speaking when Stone stood up, said before the session he intends to meet with bed net manufacturers to speed up production. "There's actually donor money coming in, but there's a bottleneck in production because there are only two or three companies right now that really have this technology to make these high-quality nets," he told The Associated Press. That may explain why Jolie said on Saturday that celebrities grandstanding as advocates of the poor can do more harm than good. "I think you can do damage," Jolie said. "Celebrities have a responsibility to know absolutely what they're talking about, and to be in it for the long run." RELATED STORY? Angelina Jolie gave Brad Pitt a vial of dried bat. OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL: Kojo Annan, son of the U.N. Secretary-General has admitted he was involved in negotiations to sell millions of barrels of Iraqi oil under the auspices of Saddam Hussein. He is understood to be co-operating with UN investigators probing the discredited oil for food programme. RAY CHARLES WAS GREAT, but what about Esref Armagan? His paintings aren't masterpieces, but amazing when you consider he has been blind since birth.
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