R.E.M. played 30 Rock on the Today Show.  Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin of the Venus 3 join Stipe, Buck and Mills.  Scott & Peter get caught bouncing during "Supernatural Superserious."

THE SPECIALS are reuniting with dignity.

MORE NEW RELEASES:  The new Apples In Stereo is streaming in full via Yep Roc.  Paste magazine is streaming the album from Color Revolt.  (Thx, LHB.)

PITCHFORK TV has revealed its first week's programming schedule, including The Pixies, Liars, Man Man, Jay Reatard, The Thermals, Robyn, and more...

SHE & HIM:  Fresh Air features an interview with Zooey Deschanel plus tracks from her album with M Ward, steaming via NPR.

THE BREEDERS:  The Deal sisters talk to MTV about their rural roots and songwriting.

THE PROCLAIMERS are turning to reality TV to find a third member.  Although the third member won't have to be Scottish, he will have to look like the near-identical twins, and must be able to pull off a passable Fife accent.  No word on whether contestants will have to walk 500 miles.

U2 inked a 12-year deal with Live Nation Artists that includes worldwide touring, merchandising, and the band's U2.com Web site. The deal, however, is not a true 360-degree pact, as there is no publishing component and the band retains its relationship with Universal Music to release music.

BASEBALL SEASON has brought much press about the Chicago Cubs' 100-year drought and a feature of the late Steve Goodman performing "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" from the Bryant Park Project.  I am still more partial to the Mountain Goats' "Cubs In Five."

LIZ PHAIR has signed a new record deal with ATO, the first fruit of which will be a reissue of her classic 1993 debut, "Exile in Guyville," with four previously unreleased audio tracks and a DVD documentary about the album's genesis.

HARP MAGAZINE gets an obituary of sorts at Idolator.

TOM-KAT UPDATE:  Roger Friedman writes that Cruise's public grovel to Paramount mogul Sumner Redstone would indicate that the actor knows just how bad Cruise's "Valkyrie" is and that he's trying to shore up his future before the eye patch hits the fan this fall.

JOHN CUSACK:  A woman who showed up Sunday outside the actor's Malibu home -- despite a restraining order barring her from approaching the actor -- was arrested on suspicion of stalking, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said Monday.  However, a year ago, the same woman was arrested outside the Beverly Hills home of Tom Cruise, also on suspicion of violating a restraining order.  Nothing screams "B-List" like getting a hand-me-down stalker from Tom Cruise.

BEYONCE KNOWLES & JAY-Z have taken out a marriage license in Scarsdale, NY, according to People magazine.

JAY LENO has apologized for teasing Ryan Phillippe for landing his first role as a gay teen on the soap One Life to Live. He also asked Phillippe to give the camera his "gayest look."

MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY says JENNIFER GARNER is like Mary Poppins, with a magic bag that carries everything but duct tape.

KATE HUDSON & OWEN WILSON are reportedly apartment hunting in NYC and looking to move in together as soon as Owen is done filming "Marley and Me" with Jennifer Aniston.

BRITNEY SPEARS has turned to a familiar face for help -- on-again, off-again manager Larry Rudolph, at the behest of her dad-conservator Jamie, according to OK! magazine.

THE DEPARTED is being made into a TV series for HBO.  Will the mob boss be played by James Gandolfini?

JACK NICHOLSON was snapped frolicking in the surf on the Caribbean island of St Bart's, showing that the paparazzi are willing to embarrass anyone, not just young starlets with a few extra pounds.

MIKE MYERS' upcoming movie, The Love Guru, is under fire from some in the Hindu community.  Based on what I have heard, it will face much greater fire from those who pay to see it.

DITA VON TEESE, burlesque queen and ex-wife to marilyn Manson, was interviewed in Sunday's New York Times Magazine.  But it took London's Sun to reveal her hardcore past, including some corporal punishment and girl-on-girl action.  Of course, The Sun is not always accurate, but the censored (but still NSFW) and uncensored (and very, very NSFW) movie stills do seem to support the claims in the tabloid.  Call it Extremely Gratuitous Wednesday.

CARTOON JIHAD:  Dr. Wafa Sultan has been forced to go into hiding with her family following a fatwa from an Islamic scholar, according to Omedia. Sultan faces the fatwa following a recent debate on Al-Jazeera in which she challenged Egyptian Islamist Talat Rheim over Dutch cartoons of Mohammed, who Muslims revere as a prophet. Sultan argued that Denmark had the right to print the cartoons.

TERROR IN THE US:  A South Jersey man swept up in the alleged plot to attack Fort Dix was sentenced to 20 months in prison on weapons charges.  Agron Abdullahu of Buena Vista Township was the only one of the six men arrested last year not charged with conspiring to kill US soldiers.  But US District Judge Robert Kugler acknowledged that this was more than a garden-variety gun case and deserved a sentence to match. The term he imposed was twice as long as the sentence Abdullahu sought and four months longer than the maximum term recommended by federal probation officials.

OUR FRIENDS, THE SAUDIS:  A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook, it has emerged.

AFGHANISTAN:  The house of Parliament passed a resolution Monday seeking to bar TV programs from showing dancing and other practices deemed un-Islamic.  The resolution, which is not now legally binding and cannot be enforced, will go before the upper house of Parliament for consideration. It would also have to be approved by the president before becoming law.

IRAQ:  Michael J. Totten has a two-parter on the liberation of Karmah -- a small city between Fallujah and Baghdad: "So many Stateside Americans still wonder aloud why mainstream Muslims refuse to stand up to terrorists, so apparently the story in Karmah - which is hardly unique to Karmah - isn't familiar enough..."  Wired's Danger Room hypothesizes that Moqtada al-Sadr was in league with Prime Minister al-Maliki to target the "rogue" Mahdi units who are operating as renegades in Basra and elsewhere, but that does not really square with reports that Iran pressured al-Sadr into declaring a ceasefire, because that would further expose the Iranian-backed splinter groups.

A 9-FT CROCODILE was chased and collared on US 441 in Florida.  Video at the link, but my favorite part is John Law's arrival on the scene: ''This is the Broward's Sheriff's Office,'' a deputy said into a bullhorn. ``Get back into the canal!''

THE DWARF CROCODILE that was stolen from a Norwegian aquarium has been returned and is recovering from its ordeal, which included having its mouth taped shut, the aquarium director said Tuesday.

ALCOHOLIC RATS cheer scientific breakthrough.

MALE DOLPHINS flash bling to pull the chicks.

POLAR BEAR SIGHTINGS are up around Newfoundland and Labrador coastal communities in Canada.  Even stranger, the reporter managed to avoid blaming global warming.

THE FLYING PENGUINS of the BBC, from April Fool's Day, icymi.