The Week in Gossip: Mickey Rourke’s Parisian Trip

Friday, February 6th, 2009

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Puff! The Magic Olympian … An old pic of Mike Phelps getting a gold medal high surfaced and had everyone in a hissy this week. As of yesterday, USA Swimming suspended Phelps from partaking in any competitions and cut off all funding for the next three months. The cereal chumps over at Kellogg announced that they will not renew their sponsorship deal when Phelps’ contract expires at the end of February. If that ain’t enough, some punk sheriff is trying to charge the swim douche for breaking the law in his county. As for Phelps, well, he says he’s sorry, but what he really means is—he didn’t inhale. No sirree. The only “high” he knows is swimmer’s high. So get off his back.

All my Beyoncé haters—now put your hands UP! If y’all don’t remember, Beyoncé sang “At Last” for our new fuzzy wuzzy prezzy and his First Lady on the night of the inauguration. Well, the original sanger of the song—the venerable Etta James—has stepped forward to announce that she ain’t too happy with her tune getting hijacked by the newbie songstress. In fact, she’s p*ssed and says Beyoncé is “going to get her ass whooped.” Whoopee!

F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! Christian Bale has a one-f*cking-word vocabulary and I’m f*cking feelin’ it. Anyone want to f*cking dance? I f*cking thought so. F*ck!

Mickey Rourke must be a fan of Blue’s Clues. (No surprise there.) And who’s a fan of Mickey Rourke? This woman. …And it’s a sad, sad day in France.

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Poor Miley Cyrus. If people aren’t calling her an underage skank, then they’re calling her a racist. Skanky? She can live with that. But why would anyone think she’s racist? I mean, she was just saying “cheese” and making a funny face. It’s not like she was photographed sucking on a bong or anything—I mean, that would be totally offensive.

Guess whose opportunistic booty might pose nude for Playboy. Don’t think too hard. Here’s a hint: She recently showed up for an important (nationally televised) audition wearing her highest stripper heels and some version of a bathing suit. And she smacked a big, wet one on in-the-closet Seacrest—and thought he actually liked it. So, who we got?

And 14 cheers (or jeers?) for the mom who gave birth to octuplets and already had six youngins under the age of 8 crawling around at home. Nadya Suleman is an insta-celeb because all eight of her babes made it through the delivery (rare!) and, despite being born nine weeks premature, are growing stronger every day. She also made headlines because she’s a single momma and lives at home with her parents—who filed for bankruptcy about a year and half ago. The media demand for Suleman is out of control (uh, TV show offers?), so she hired a PR agency to represent. The hot momma decided to give her first interview to “The Today Show”—of course—and portion of the interview aired today.

The Green Report: Palin vs. Judd

Friday, February 6th, 2009

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The fight over the environment continues. Round 1: Palin vs. Judd. In one corner we have the beautiful actress Ashley Judd, and in the other corner, there’s Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. These ladies are not sparring off on presidential politics. No, this time it’s all about wolves and bears—or rather, killing them from airplanes. Judd is the new spokesperson for Defenders of Wildlife. She’s in a video where she goes off on Palin and Alaska’s predator control program.

Obama is making more moves on the energy front. This week, President Obama ordered the Energy Department to revise the energy standards of nine appliances: ovens (including microwave ones), lamps, beverage vending machines, residential dishwashers, commercial boilers and commercial air conditioners. These changes will make the appliances more energy efficient and reduce global warming emissions for the planet. And the Prez is thinking about consumers’ pockets too.

“This will save consumers money, this will spur innovation and this will conserve tremendous amounts of energy,” Obama said in remarks at the Energy Department, where he briefed staff on his plan for a new energy economy.

Way to go President O on the energy front.

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Extinct. Resurrected. Extinct Again. That’s the story of the Spanish Ibex, a member of the mountain goat species. The Ibex was declared extinct back in 2000 after the last one was found dead in Spain. However, before it’s death, scientist preserved some of its DNA (yes..a bit weird). The scientists then used domestic goat genes in eggs to clone a female Pyrenean ibex (or bucardo). Tah dah! Dead extinct animal cloned..well not quite. Sadly, the baby ibex kid died shortly after birth. A little spooky but this experiment gives hope to scientists that want to clone animals on the brink of extinction.

In the News: To Stimulus or Not To Stimulus?

Friday, February 6th, 2009

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…That ain’t the question.

Obama is a man with a mission. He’s gonna pass this damn stimulus package, and he’ll pass it whether the Republicans like it or not.

“The time for talk is over, the time for action is now,” Obama said in a speech at the Energy Department yesterday.

An $800 billion version of the bill swept through the House without a single GOP nod of approval last week. It’s now in the Senate (with a new price tag of nearly $900 billion) and Obama’s been doing his darndest to woo some Republicans—but it’s going to take more than a bipartisan Super Bowl party and a few one-on-one parent-teacher conferences to get those conservative penny-pinchers on board.

A bipartisan group of senators is currently working to cheapen the package by cutting social initiatives that won’t immediately stimulate the economy. Blah, blah, blah. As time drags on, Obama’s getting more and more antsy to throw around some money, create a few jobs, and pop a few economic anti-depressants.

And so the Dems are gearing up to take a vote and pass the bill, with or without Republican support.

“Not … so … fast … !” some say—and around we go again …

Music News You Can Use: Ticket Broker Woes

Friday, February 6th, 2009

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Big Bruce and big broker mending … Ticketmaster issued a apology to Bruce Springsteen Wednesday after a ticket distribution fiasco for the singer’s Working on a Dream tour was followed by an onslaught of disappointed fans who couldn’t purchase tickets and, well, an unhappy post-Superbowl Springsteen. In an open apology letter sent to Bruce and his tour team, Ticketmaster Entertainment CEO Irving Azoff says that they were trying to “do the right thing for the fans by providing more choices” but “clearly missed the mark.”

Ticketmaster ain’t the only one … Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s potential partner in ticket sales, has issued a pledge of improvements after Phish fans encountered problems while purchasing the long-awaited reunion tour tickets on Live Nation’s new system. In response to the numerous complaints, a less sympathetic CEO, Nathan Hubbard of Live Nation Ticketing said, “When you have 10 million requests from your ticketing system and only 20,000 seats, there’s going to be a line.” Tsk tsk.

Speaking of Phish and Springsteen … They are both headlining this year’s Bonnaroo Music Festival, alongside the E Street Band. The Manchester, Tennessee festival will be held June 11-14, and will also feature appearances from the Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Dogg, MGMT and, gasp, guitar phenoms Rodrigo y Gabriela. Tickets go on sale February 7, and will offer a pretty sweet payment plan of five $50 payments.

Not all festivals may be faring well … Miami’s Langerado Music Festival, which features artists Death Cab For Cutie, Snoop Dogg, Dashboard Confessional, and Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, has been cancelled due to “sluggish ticket sales,” according to the festival’s organizers. Though the three day pass costs a relatively decent $150, promoters say that it is the economy that has slowed sales to a meager 30 tickets per day. Tickets will be refunded within the next seven days, they say.