PR5 Weekend

Clearly, besides having to go to work tomorrow or spending Sunday struggling with a new chapter, the big event this weekend is the free show at Pasadena Rehearsal Studios for their five year anniversary. That you get not only a bunch of bands playing at no cost is a sweet deal, and with MAGNA headlining, you've hit the bonus. Let's get this out of the way and get to the show!

Best of the week: There's something about Ellen.

Not one but two baffling stories bringing America's top lesbian talk show host cum comedian (and I think the only one for that matter) to the forefront. First, the pander.

American Idol, a show I don't care at all about (because I have taste) but has captured NASCARmerica's heart, continues to do whatever it takes to keep the lowest common denominator suckling at it's crappy teet. And that is by bringing Ellen DeGeneres on as a judge. yes, you read that correctly.

This comes after the audition rounds where musicians Shania Twain, Victoria Beckham, Mary J. Blige, Joe Jonas and Kristin Chenoweth all fill the unnecessary 4th seat at the judges table. With Kara DioGuardi returning filling the third spot, is it really necessary to have a fourth judge that wasn't part of the program for the first seven seasons? I guess Simon has to have at least one incompetent idiot with no reasonable opinion being offered weekly to hack on. I thought the focus of the show was on the wannabes, not the inherent battles between a saucy, effete Brit and a sassy, masculine American? How long is it going to be before it's becomes a huge controversy what's said between the two?

“She is truly one of America’s funniest people and a fantastic performer who understands what it’s like to stand up in front of audiences and entertain them every day,” said Fox exec Mike Darnell. “We feel that her vast entertainment experience – combined with her quick wit and passion for music – will add a fresh new energy to the show.”

Which is what a music competition show needs more of, fresh energy and entertainment experience, not practical songwriting or performance experience. Mike Darnell, you're a fucking idiot. Paula Abdul my have been a drugged up has-been, but at least she had an inkling about music. Ellen's "greatest contribution" to music is dancing to it on her show...and there's our second part, the part where payback is a bitch.

Arista Music, Atlantic Recording Corp., Capitol Records, Motown Record Company, Sony Music Entertainment, Virgin Records America and Warner Bros. Records are suing "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," claiming producers violated their copyrights by playing more than 1,000 songs without permission. Maybe she's on Idol to learn how nationally televised shows have to get clearance for airing songs.

Many of the tunes were played during the "dance over" segment of the show, when DeGeneres dances from the stage to the interview area, often through the audience. According to the suit, when representatives of the recording companies asked defendants why they hadn't obtained licenses to use the songs, defendants said they didn't "roll that way." Are they saying that it's a gay thing, or that they're completely naive to the entertainment industry and how it works?

"As sophisticated consumers of music, Defendants knew full well that, regardless of the way they rolled, under the Copyright Act, and under state law for the pre-1972 recordings, they needed a license to use the sound recordings lawfully," the suit states. A spokesman for the show's Telepictures Productions, wrote that the company has been working with the record labels for months to resolve the issue and remains willing to resolve it on "amicable and reasonable terms." That means they will quietly settle once they see what type of legal and financial raping the record majors plan to bring if they resist.

The suit claims the daytime talk show has used copyrighted music without permission since its inception, including "recordings by virtually every major current artist of popular music." It claims the show routinely used some of the most popular songs of the day, which the record labels don't license for daytime television at any price. Other songs cited in the lawsuit include Michael Jackson's "Thriller"; The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" and Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It." The suit calls the segment and the music played by the show's own disc jockey "signature elements of the show." The only signature coming up is going to be on a check to the record companies. There's no way they are going to win this suit, and Ellen will also fail as a host. It's a two-for-one schadenfreude!

Best links:

• Police free 9 From Fake Big Brother House - fake program, real imprisonment. That totally busts my plan. I wonder, how attractive these nine Turkish women were...

• Hugh Hefner Files For Divorce In LA - after 11 years of separation from your wife where you banged girls in sets of three and seven, maybe you should do the honorable thing and dissolve your marriage.

• Masters Of The Universe Movie Is Canceled... - I'm shocked that Hollywood was able to refrain from making every single toy into a movie. It's no longer about ruining childhoods, it's just about pointless, shitty films coming out.

Worst of the week: South Carolina, fuck you!

Politico rightly asked what the hell is going on with their state government. You've got a cheating, lying governor in Mark Sanford, who despite disappearing from office for almost a week, refuses to step down, even at the request of his state legislature. The state's junior senator Jim DeMint touched off a firestorm of criticism by urging conservatives to "break " the new president by defeating health reform legislation - just because that's the contrarian, Republican thing to do. And now, congressman Joe Wilson has capped off the insanity with his outburst of "you lie" during the president's national address.

It's been covered by all the more eloquent observers - Chez, Keith Olberman, The Huffington Post, Bill Maher..., so I can't add much to the discourse other than support in questioning how in 2009 we have animals in charge in South Carolina. I'm talking untamed beasts. And not just because of their narrow-view of life from the right. It is a slew of behavior being emphasized by their political position that would already be childish and reprehensible. Joe Wilson is the camel-back breaking straw. It's like the thoughtless comments of Sarah Palin, but without the tits and naughty librarian fantasy.

Sure, in light of Vice President John C. Calhoun, who helped pave the way for the Civil War, to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond who was an ardent segregationist (except when banging the colored help), they are not as controversial, but such a turn in misbehavior and rhetoric is what is troubling. South Carolina, while filled with trucker caps, shitty American beer, and tobacco plantations looks even more the inbred, backwoods red state with these morons representing them. Perhaps their proximity to Florida is making them get shittier.

All of a sudden, South Carolina looks more like Lord Of The Flies with their leadership than the House Of Lords. While we can praise the Iraqi who took shoe aim at W, had that happened here they'd have been attacked. And if one year ago it was he and not Obama giving a presidential address getting shouted at by the opposition, it would have been pure chaos. Sadly, the Democrats are too ball-less to take him into the Senate gallery and beat him with rubber hoses the way he'd have been in the opposite situation.

Maybe they're just showing their true colors. 8th ranked among states with teen pregnancies. 3rd in unemployment with 11.5%. 2nd in total crime per capita. 43rd in income per capita. A nearly 60% drop off from high school graduates to bachelor degree grads. This is starting to make sense...

Runner up: Old Vagina 2 - Return To Skank Mountain

Look, you simpletons get Ellen on American Idol, do we really need to make another movie about the whores of New York? From what I can see from on-set pictures, this film is going to have more CGI and computer retouching than Avatar, Transformers, and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy in order to make this haggard trolls look even remotely close to feminine. I wouldn't fuck these two with a wooden dick.