Celebrities Category
Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.
The Chucky Bath Bomb (the Devil incarnate smells of orange soda)
Chucky smells of orange soda. Well, the Chuckie [sic] Bath Bomb based on the demonic character in the Child’s Play horror film series. Made by California’s Loquita Bath and Body , the company’s founder, Mira Perez, explains:
Well the name came from my husband, he says I am a “loca” [crazy] which I have to admit, I can be a loquita in the best way possible. The brand, however, came because I was throughly mesmerized by these bath and body companies catering to the “goth” style and as much as I love the dark or obscure I didn’t feel like it screamed “ME!’ So, I decided to create bombs that were nostalgic and that I could identify with.
Nancy Down’s lips (from The Craft)
Spotter: Rusty Blazenhoff
Posted: 18th, August 2017 | In: Film, The Consumer | Comment
The apogee of identity politics: Lorde blames all whites for Nazis
Lorde, the singer, wants to school you in history, Nazis and race. She’s surveyed the carnage in Charlottesville, and now seeks to apologise for all whites:
Good Lorde. We hear you.
Sorry about ‘The Few’, the French / Polish / Greek resistance, The International Brigades, Oskar Schindler, Witold Pilecki, Irena Sendler and the millions of others who fought the Nazis. Sorry, says Lorde, the Kiwi singer who knows nothing of what Anzac Day means but is well versed in the arcane politics of identity, when everything about you is based on gender and race.
The Wall Street Journal has more:
The White House nonetheless issued a statement Sunday saying Mr. Trump “includes white supremacists, KKK, Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups” in his condemnation. As so often with Mr. Trump, his original statement missed an opportunity to speak like a unifying political leader.
Yet the focus on Mr. Trump is also a cop-out because it lets everyone duck the deeper and growing problem of identity politics on the right and left. The politics of white supremacy was a poison on the right for many decades, but the civil-rights movement rose to overcome it, and it finally did so in the mid-1960s with Martin Luther King Jr. ’s language of equal opportunity and color-blind justice.
That principle has since been abandoned, however, in favor of a new identity politics that again seeks to divide Americans by race, ethnicity, gender and even religion. “Diversity” is now the all-purpose justification for these divisions, and the irony is that America is more diverse and tolerant than ever.
The problem is that the identity obsessives want to boil down everything in American life to these categories…
A politics fixated on indelible differences will inevitably lead to resentments that extremists can exploit in ugly ways on the right and left. The extremists were on the right in Charlottesville, but there have been examples on the left in Berkeley, Oakland and numerous college campuses. When Democratic politicians can’t even say “all lives matter” without being denounced as bigots, American politics has a problem.
Not all white are brutal, murderous Nazis. No ‘sus laws‘, please.
Posted: 15th, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Politicians | Comment
Lena Dunham and the Twitter narks are coming for you
Anyone hankering for Ostalgie (nostalgia for East German life behind the Berlin Wall) should know that elements of American society are sympathetic to your mood. Ersatz liberals are operating a sinister and tentacular network of volunteer narks who will grass you up for failing to adhere to ‘right’ thinking. Their preferred medium is twitter, over which wrong thinkers will be publicly shamed. If all goes well, the enemy will be interrogated by their employee before dismissal, shunned by their friends and ostracised by decent, tolerant society.
Last week, actress Lena Dunham was on surveillance at a US airport. She picked up two flight attendants engaging in what she termed “transphobic talk”. Swiftly she hopped on Twitter’s spite hotline and grassed: “Not gonna call out the airline who delayed cuz shit happens BUT I did just overhear 2 @AmericanAir attendants having a transphobic talk.”
American Airlines got in touch with Dunham. No, not to condemn her as an insidious voyeur for spying on two working stiffs having a private conversation, but to seek help in fingering the miscreants. Dunham provided details of the conversation and directions as to how the Untermensch could be found.
“I heard two female attendants walking talking about how trans kids are a trend, they’d never accept a trans child and transness is gross,” said Dunham to American Airlines. “I think it reflects badly on uniformed employees of your company to have that kind of dialogue going on. What if a trans teen was walking behind them? Awareness starts at home but jobs can set standards of practice. Thanks for your consideration!”
Ella Whelan notes:
Dunham’s latest attempt to call out prejudice reveals her own prejudice. She felt comfortable ratting out workers to their boss because left-liberals like her no longer have any interest in expressing solidarity with working people. They also have no interest in free speech. The idea that your employer should punish you for what you say and believe is apparently fine. As a result of the impact of Dunham’s tweet, it wouldn’t be surprising if the two American Airlines attendants soon found themselves out of work.
This is how low the PC brigade will stoop to pose as good and decent. All Dunham’s tweet achieved was to prove that she was a self-righteous eavesdropper. She even tweeted a warning to other employees who might dare to have a political opinion different to hers: ‘Headed back to the airport and I guess my biggest hope is that people will keep it cute. But if they don’t YOU WILL KNOW.’ Beware the PC police – they will try to get you fired if they disagree with you.
Thankfully, no “uniformed” worker was doxxed or sacked. “We always look into complaints from customers, but at this time, we are unable to substantiate these allegations,” American Airlines told Fox News. “From the team members we hire to the customers we serve, inclusion and diversity is a way of life at American Airlines. Every day, our team members work to make American a place where people of all generations, races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, religious affiliations and backgrounds feel welcome and valued.”
Win-win, then. The airline got to showcase its sound moral credentials. The minted celebrity got to look good and teach the lesser beings a lesson. And the somewhere in East Germany a man ran his hand over his pliers and dared to dream of a return to the good old days when everyone agreed on everything.
Posted: 11th, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
The Steve Buscemi Galaxy Collage onesie is divine
Who doesn’t want a onesie covered in visions of Steve Buscemi? The “Steve Buscemi Galaxy Collage” onesie is divine.
Spotter: DM
Posted: 10th, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, Fashion, The Consumer | Comment
Little Richard: ‘a little Jewish black bottomed boy from Georgia’
On August 4 1972, Little Richard, the greatest rock ‘n’ roll star of them all was on British TV. He was the originator, the boy whose song about anal sex became Tutti Frutti, anthem for the American Century – the song that contains the single greatest line in rock ‘n’ roll music and, if Bob Dylan can be a Nobel laureate for his writing, arguably the greatest line in American literature: “A Wop Bop A Loo Bop A Lop Bam Boom!”
Take it away, Little Richard…
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 7th, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment
Who is Neymar’s lover? Tabloids haven’t a clue
Brazilian footballer Neymar Junior has moved from Barcelona to PSG, and the tabloids are looking for a love interest. Unable to find one, they instead rest their gaze upon 22-year-old Brazilian actress Bruna Marquezine, who used to date the player. Bruna has 21 million Instagram followers. Discovering her is akin to finding your own arse with both hands.
But the Sun is excited, declaring: “NEYMAR’S world-record Paris Saint-Germain move is not the only reason for fans to be excited.” PSG’s sex-starved fans will be frothing at the lips because in a city short of women Neymar’s former girlfriend Bruna “could follow her man to the City of Love”. This guesswork is cemented in the headline: “Who is Neymar’s girlfriend?” Indeed, who is she? She’s not Bruna Marquezine. One down. A few million more model /actresses to go and the Sun should find her.
After seeing a mere 17 photos of Bruna reaped from her Instagram page, Sun readers might be able to recognise her should she walk past them, but they won’t know anything about her. Toby Gannon’s dossier doesn’t even include her age! (She turned 22 yesterday.)
The Star invites its readers to “click through the gallery to see photos of Neymar’s gorgeous on-off girlfriend Bruna Marquezine”. The Evening Standard’s Fiona Simpson opts to simply rewrite history. The headline above her story boasts: “With the Brazilian set to join PSG, we take a look at the lady in his life”. She isn’t the lady in his life. They are not dating. Indeed, after illuminating her text with a few photos taken from Bruna’s social media accounts, Simpson quotes Neymar: “Me and Bruna are separated.”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 5th, August 2017 | In: Back pages, Celebrities, News, Sports | Comment
Longbow expert Robert Hardy (29 October 1925 – 3 August 2017)
The actor Robert Hardy (29 October 1925 – 3 August 2017) has died.
Off screen he became something of an authority on the English longbow, his interest having been stimulated when, as a child, he found two of the weapons in the family attic. He wrote two books on the history of the weapon as well as presenting a BBC documentary on the subject.
Spotter: here
Posted: 4th, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, The Consumer | Comment
Here’s how you make Siri sing Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
Sing “I see a little silhouetto of a man” into your iPhone and Siri will sing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody:
Posted: 3rd, August 2017 | In: Music, Technology | Comment
Jade Goody returns for one more Big Brother
Good news for TV types looking to create telly on a low-budget: when you hire to-deadline psychic Derek Acorah, you also get Jade Goody and David Gest. It’s a three-for-one deal. Sure, two of the trio are dead, but if it’s good enough for God, it’s more than works for Celebrity Big Brother.
In the Daily Star, we read: “Derek claims to be in touch with dead housemates Jade Goody and David Gest.” The rest of us can catch them on Big Brother highlights reels, which haven’t needed to be updated for years.
Now, who fancies a Popadom?
Posted: 3rd, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, TV & Radio | Comment
Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks clocks and watches
You can buy clocks and watches themed on Monty Python
s’s Ministry of Silly Walks. John Cleese’s legs and brolly form the hands.
In Kim “Howard” Johnson’s The First 20 Years of Monty Python
, we hear Graham Chapman recall how the ketch came about:
John Cleese and I were writing together one day, and John had been thinking of doing something about anger. He’s very good at it, and he likes that emotion very much indeed. I’d been noticing that there were all sorts of ministries for strange things that were likely to distract people from the main issues of the day, and make it look like the government was doing something. A lot of attention would either go to a drought or a flood that probably didn’t exist anyway, and there seemed to be lots of useless ministries. I thought, why not a Ministry of Anger?
It’s difficult to remember whether it was John’s or my idea, but I do know that the next stage was Silly Walks, which was more ludicrous and petty than an emotion like anger. My house was on a very steep hill, and we saw a man walk past, uphill, stooped very sharply backward, defying the laws of gravity! Well, we thought Silly Walks was a good idea, but we couldn’t quite think how to develop it.
As usual, we were supposed to be writing something else when this idea occurred—anything to prevent us from getting to that work! But we thought we’d better get on to writing what we were supposed to be writing. So we rang up Mike (Palin) and Terry (Jones)—to interrupt them from whatever they were supposed to be doing—and made them write the sketch.
Make your own Silly Walk clock here – or buy one here. The Silly Walk watch is here.
Posted: 1st, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment
Angelia Jolie’s celebrity colonialism comes a cropper
Angelina Jolie has been casting for her film set in Cambodia. The film, First They Killed My Father, features children living under Pol Pot’s murderous regime. According to Evgenia Peretz writing for Vanity Fair, the auditions involved a novel form of mental torture and exploitation. Jolie, a woman with the purchasing power to pluck orphans from slums, slap an ‘X’ on the names and transport them to an American mansion to appreciate the kind of lifestyle a Russian oligarch might find gauche, was looking for the right kind of desperate child:
To cast the children in the film, Jolie looked at orphanages, circuses, and slum schools, specifically seeking children who had experienced hardship. In order to find their lead, to play young Loung Ung, the casting directors set up a game, rather disturbing in its realism: they put money on the table and asked the child to think of something she needed the money for, and then to snatch it away. The director would pretend to catch the child, and the child would have to come up with a lie. “Srey Moch [the girl ultimately chosen for the part] was the only child that stared at the money for a very, very long time,” Jolie says. “When she was forced to give it back, she became overwhelmed with emotion. All these different things came flooding back.” Jolie then tears up. “When she was asked later what the money was for, she said her grandfather had died, and they didn’t have enough money for a nice funeral.”
Presumably all the losers in this ugly contest got an all-expenses paid trip back to the slums from whence they’d came. And what of the local stage school kids who’ve trained to act – because it’s all about pretending, right? Would Jolie pull a similar stunt in the US? Would poor children in Jolie’s native LA be used to make the stinking rich, self-aggrandising narrator’s moralising resonate with purpose and meaning?
Angelina Jolie says she’s been misrepresented. She responds:
Every measure was taken to ensure the safety, comfort and well-being of the children on the film starting from the auditions through production to the present. Parents, guardians, partner NGOs whose job it is to care for children, and medical doctors were always on hand everyday, to ensure everyone had all they needed. And above all to make sure that no one was in any way hurt by participating in the recreation of such a painful part of their country’s history.
I am upset that a pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film, has been written about as if it was a real scenario. The suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting. I would be outraged myself if this had happened.
The point of this film is to bring attention to the horrors children face in war, and to help fight to protect them.
Is grandstanding and ‘raising awareness’ better than coming up with solutions and handing over cash? Jolie’s work is a movie, something she hopes people in her homeland will spend their leisure time and money watching. Celebrity colonialism might well make viewers and fans in rich countries take notice of stuff in poorer places but is there a shred of evidence it changes lives other than those lucky enough to make it on the plane to the land of make believe?
Posted: 30th, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Film, Key Posts, News | Comment
O. J. Simpson finds God and his way out of prison
O.J. Simpson, 70, has been was granted parole. Having served nine years prison for armed robbery, the former all-American hero could be out in October. The man (in)famously cleared of stabbing Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman to death – he was found guilt in a civil court – is back in the news.
Simpson said in his nine years behind bars, he’s been “a good guy.”
“I was always a good guy, but could have been a better Christian, and my commitment to change is to be a better Christian.” He said he took an “alternative to violence” course in prison, and called it “the most important course anybody in this prison can take because it teaches you how to deal with conflict through conversation.”
“I had some problems with fidelity in my life, but I’ve always been a guy that pretty much got along with everybody,” he said.
The OJ story timeline:
July 9, 1947 OJ Simpson, born
1968 Wins the Heisman Trophy, the highest accolade in collegiate American football
1967 Marries Marguerite Whitley
1969-1979 Running back, known as “The Juice”, for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers
1977 Simpson meets Nicole Brown, a waitress
1979 Simpson and Marguerite divorce
1986 Brown and Simpson marry
1989 Simpson pleads no contest to a charge of spousal abuse
1992 Brown files for divorce
June 12, 1994 Brown and Ron Goldman found stabbed to death outside her Los Angeles home. OJ Simpson is named as a person of interest
June 17 American networks interrupt NBA finals to broadcast two-hour police pursuit of Simpson
November 9, 1994 Jury sworn in for Simpson’s trial
October 3, 1995 More than 100 million people tune in to hear not guilty verdict
February 5, 1997 Simpson found liable for the wrongful death of and battery against Goldman, and battery against Brown following civil lawsuit. Simpson ordered to pay $33.5 million damages
September 2007A group of armed men led by Simpson storm into a hotel room in Las Vegas. He is arrested and charged with robbery and kidnapping
October 3, 2008 Convicted on all charges
December 5, 2008 Sentenced to 33 years
July 20, 2017, OJ Simpson, now 70, is granted parole
The OJ Simpson industry is getting ready to kick back into life.
Posted: 21st, July 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Star Wars but all of the light saber sounds are Owen Wilson saying “wow”
Star Wars, but all of the light saber sounds are Owen Wilson saying “wow”:
WOW!
Posted: 21st, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Film | Comment
Radiohead and Slash sticks it to BDS bigots: Jewish Devils get the best tunes
When Thom Yorke’s gave BDS the finger, we cheered. You should cheer too. The monocular Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) mob demanded Radiohead cancel their show in Tel Aviv, Israel – a country vast in the Bible and Leftish dogma but in reality small and dusty. “Their ill-advised concert in Tel Aviv suggests to me that they only want to hear one side – the one that supports apartheid,” said Jeremy Corbyn’s mate Ken Loach in the Independent. “Every international artist who plays in Israel serves as a propaganda tool for the Israeli government.”
Anyone who saw and enjoyed the Corbyn set at Glastonbury will hope the Jewish state finally sees sense and Tel Aviv gets twinned with Somerset and Islington. Politics is music and music is politics, hymns the popular song of the correct, compassionate and knowing.
Many more have added their voices to the chorus seeking to impose a cultural blockade on Israel, its peoples and anyone who agrees with them in the spirit of – get this – inclusivity, equality and diversity. Desmond Tutu, Roger Waters, Thurston Moore and Dave Randall were all aghast at Radiohead’s concert in the Israeli beach-side city. “Music helps drown out the cries of the oppressed,” opined Randall without irony. Music does more harm than good. It’s the kind of message sure to get a sympathetic ear among the Taliban.
“Anybody who’s tempted to do that, like our friends in Radiohead, if only they would actually educate themselves,” advises knowing Waters, who addresses Yorke in an open letter on a BDS live chat: “I look forward to – if you feel like it, when you finish your trip to Israel, because you probably still will go – write me a letter and tell me how much good you did and how much change you managed to affect by chatting with musicians.”
In the face of the scholarly and superior Waters, Yorke is defiant. “We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others,” he said. “As we have in America. We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America. Music, art and academia is about crossing borders, not building them, about open minds not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression.”
He goes on. “Imagine how offensive that is for Jonny.. [Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood is married to an Arab-Jew]. Just to assume that we know nothing about this. Just to throw the word ‘apartheid’ around and think that’s enough. It’s fucking weird. It’s such an extraordinary waste of energy.”
Although it’s not weird to make the world’s one Jewish state a special case for censorship. Israel’s unique status among the enlightened too-often smells of something horribly familiar and nasty. Throughout history the people of God’s dad are often a special case.
But never fear, Jews and your apologists. The Devil always has the best tunes. Pink Floyd’s Waters – a fair-minded and reasoned man who compares modern-day Israel to Germany under the Nazis – can’t make it. But Guns ‘n Rose can. Take it away, Slash:
Posted: 19th, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Jodie Whittaker: the naked Dr Who photos too racy for tea-time telly
That the latest incarnation of Dr Who is a woman and not a child or a fridge freezer has not escaped the Sun and the Daily Mail. The papers reviewed Jodie Whittaker’s pre-postgrad career in time travel and noticed that she’s appeared starkers.
Both tabloids have shown their readers pictures of Whittaker naked or topless in previous acting work. To which you might wonder, ‘So what?’ She’s a grown woman who took the roles that required disrobing in the best possible taste under free will. But something called the Equal Representation for Actresses (ERA), is upset. “We are delighted by the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor,” says the camping group without humour, mistaking the BBC’s Verne-fed gurn-fest for an actual character. “However, we are surprised and disappointed by the Daily Mail and the Sun’s reductive and irresponsible decision to run a story featuring pictures of Jodie in various nude scenes.”
The show’s Daleks were naked, moreover the Cyberman and K-9, Dr Who’s robot dog. All nude. Why is it different for Whittaker? Is it because women are so weak that she needs special protection?
Doctor of Morals
Everything about the BBC’s cash-cow is contrived to milk viewers. What began as a bit of fun is now a marketing campaign so message-laden Dr Who should be recast as a Royal Mail van driver. The last Dr Who looked like your grandfather, or at least the head of English at an inner-city Academy. He was tooled-up with a magic screwdriver in place of plot. When that MacGuffin flagged, he scored a gay female sidekick, who for added twitter-appeal was also black. “It shouldn’t be a big deal in the 21st Century. It’s about time isn’t it?” Pearl Mackie, who played the sidekick told the BBC. “That representation is important, especially on a mainstream show.”
Good for her. But the suspicion is that her identity-first role was led less by desire for change than it was it to suppress desire of a more base sort in the Beeb’s post-Savile era. There was no chance of the Aunty who tuned a blind eye to depravity letting old man Peter Capaldi anywhere near someone young and female who could be perceived as some kind of love interest.
So now you get Dr Who who looks most like a primary school teacher, albeit one with a racier past. She’s safe around children, and on parents’ evening, there’s something for dad to contemplate.
Posted: 18th, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
George Harrison: why everyone should play a ukelele
“You can pick up a ukulele and anybody can learn to play a couple of tunes in a day or even a few hours.,” said Joe Brown, mainstay of the UK’s skiffle sound in 1962 the man NME readers thought the ‘Top UK Vocal Personality’. “And if you want to get good at it, there’s no end to what you can do.” George Harrison, famously of the Beatles loved the instrument. “[George] He loved music, not just rock and roll…. He’d go crackers, he’d phone me up and say ‘I’ve got this great record!’ and it would be Hoagy Charmichael and all this Hawaiian stuff he used to like. George was not a musical snob.”
In 1999, Harrison wrote a small tribute to the ukelele. “Everyone I know who is into the ukulele is ‘crackers,’” said George, “you can’t play it and not laugh!”
Joe Brown closed the Harrison tribute concert at Royal Albert Hall with a uke version of “I’ll See You In My Dreams,” and Paul McCartney remembered his friend in 2009 by playing Something on a ukulele at New York’s Citi Field. He told the audience: “Whenever you went round George’s house, after dinner the ukuleles would come out and you’d inevitably find yourself singing all these old numbers.”
Spotter: Open Culture
Posted: 17th, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment
‘Drummer Needed’ flyer is very specific
This flyer for a drummer is very specific:
Posted: 11th, July 2017 | In: Music, Strange But True | Comment
Manchester United sign Stormzy and Lukaku plays Dublin’s Longitude festival
Manchester United didn’t sign Romelu Lukaku from Everton. As Ireland’s Evening Herald newspaper reports, those fools at Old Trafford signed Stormzy in error.
Says the paper’s editor Herald Alan Steenson of its scoop:
Hands up, we got it badly wrong. Earlier, we made an error with a picture of Romelu Lukaku that wasn’t him. It was Stormzy.To be honest, we are totally embarrassed and want to say sorry to all involved and our readers for the error. We will keep our eye on the ball in future.
Lukaku is playing the Longitude festival in Dublin on Friday.
Posted: 10th, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, manchester united, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Arnold Schwarzenegger being played by dummies in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies
Duncan Skiles has made this neat video of dummies and other actors pretending to be Arnold Schwarzenegger in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
Posted: 10th, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Film | Comment
Sesame Street do the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage
The Sesame Street puppets do the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage. It’s stupid-fun.
Spotter: Adam Schleichkorn on Facebook and Twitter. Nerdcore
RIP Grotbags
Grotbags, alter ego of Carol Lee Scott, has died at the age of 74. She first caught the eyes with an appearance on Rod Hull’s Emu’s World.
Her character Grotbags was a dastardly pantomime witch, with a bright green wig and face to match. She famously hated “brats” and did her best to spoil the fun of children, using her “Bazazzer” – a pointy stick with a gold hand on the end of it.
Fans of the show flooded Twitter with comments, with Gary Dewar writing: “Daleks. Zelda. Skeletor. Nothing – NOTHING – terrified me quite like Grotbags. Bravo!”
Noob added: “Rest in peace Grotbags. You made my early years awesome. I was so scared of you!” … The show, set in the Gloomy Fortress, also starred puppeteer Richard Coombs.
If you never saw her, this is what you missed:
Posted: 6th, July 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Barry Norman’s letter to two drunks who asked him to be their ‘honorary uncle’
“Drunk one Saturday night my friend I wrote to WONDERFUL Barry Norman asking him to become our honorary uncle,” tweets @PeterGraystone. “I treasure his letter.”
Drunk one Saturday night my friend & I wrote to WONDERFUL Barry Norman asking him to become our honorary uncle. I treasure his letter. pic.twitter.com/8GrXyHKtuR
— Peter Graystone (@PeterGraystone) July 1, 2017
Barry Norman: Barry Norman (21 August 1933 – 30 June 2017)
Posted: 3rd, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Hunter S. Thompson’s Top 10 albums of the 1960s
Hunter S. Thompson was into music. “I resent your assumption that Music is Not My Bag,” he told Rolling Stone editor John Lombardo in 1970, “because I’ve been arguing for the past few years that music is the New Literature, that Dylan is the 1960s’ answer to Hemingway, and that the main voice of the ’70s will be on records & videotape instead of books.”
Bob Dylan is every inch Hemingway’s equal, at least in the eyes of the Nobel Prize winning committee he is. Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954); Dylan took the same prize in 2016. Dylan never considered his songs literature.
You kind of wonder why the Nobel panel did? Is there a dearth of candidates? Was it a sop of populism? Is Paul Anker next in line? Carly Simon? Dr Dre? Was it just a chance for the Nobel doyens to meet their hero in a private show? If it was the latter, hard cheese: Dylan delivered his Nobel lecture via videotape.
But, yeah, Thompson was prescient.
And these are his Top 10 albums of the 1960s (according to Raoul Duke,” the hard-living alter-ego witnessed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:
Spotter: Open Culture
Posted: 1st, July 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Music | Comment
