Ruh-Roh, Rikki Rockett

Continuing what is apparently Awesome 80s Music Week here on Metroville is some decidedly un-awesome news (involving a member of a band that it is, admittedly, significantly less awesome than the one featured in the previous post): Former Poison drummer Rikki Rockett has been arrested on rape charges.

With no disrespect intended to the alleged victim (in an incident that apparently took place in Mississippi), my question to Rikki Rockett is this:

Were you compelled to rape simply because the word starts with the letter 'R'? I understand you have a whole alliteration thing going on, but so many other activities would have fulfilled the requirement--rowboating, reading, rollerblading...the list goes on and on. And I'm betting that the vast majority of your 'R'-related options, if done properly, wouldn't have gotten you run up the river.

Moreover, I wouldn't have had to find out that your real name is "Richard Ream", which--particularly in light of this latest development--is really rather revolting.

Zero Hour Thrust Upon 'Chinese Democracy' by Fizzy Deliciousness

Just as my interest in when--if ever--Axl Rose's latest incarnation of Guns N' Roses was going to release their ten-years-in-the- works Chinese Democracy was threatening to dissipate into nothingness, I suddenly find myself caring about little else. Why?

Because I love Dr. Pepper, and I will get a free can of it if the album is released by the end of 2008.

Axl, please disregard the stunning lameness of Dr. Pepper's director of marketing's related quote--"We know once [Chinese Democracy is] released, people will refer to it as 'Dr Pepper for the ears' because it will be such a refreshing blend of rich, bold sounds"--focusing instead on the coolness of her name--Jaxie Alt (!)--spare us the coy responses and put out that goddamn record before January 1.

I promise I'll buy it within a decade after I finish my free soda.

[Photoshop fun courtesy of Exclaim.]

Presidential Candidates: They're Just Like Stars!

Either in an effort to make politics appealing to the Us Weekly crowd or because Tuesday was the slowest news day ever, the AP is reporting that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are distant relatives of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, respectively.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society (who apparently chose not to comment on the revelation that Obama appears even ruder, now, for declining Pitt's offer to stump for him back in October) found ways to link all three current presidential candidates, including John McCain, to a number of celebrities--from Celine Dion to the Bush family to Jack Kerouac (whom we can all stop mourning for dying young, in that he would have killed himself upon learning of his tangentially shared heritage with Hillary Clinton). One might find that if one traces the candidates' lineages back to the dawn of time, they're pretty much related to everyone.

It's almost as if all human beings are of the same species. Far out.

Skin Cancer No Match for Confirmed Bachelorhood

Time and again, in the face of some pretty serious implications that he might have a friend or two named Dorothy, Anderson Cooper has persevered with nothing more than his own handsomeness and his feigned oblivion. If that little cancerous mole honestly thought it was going to take down the silver fox of CNN, it was out of its suspiciously well-groomed coconut.

Paging Joe E. Tata

Time to hit up CoinStar so you can reconnect your phone line, Joe. But before you call the CW, make sure you've perfected your pitch about how "there can't be a new 'Beverly Hills 90210' without the old Nat." You'll probably only get one shot at this.

UPDATE (7/9): Way to go, Joe! You gotta spend money to make money! [Courtesy Usmagazine.com via Defamer (third item)]

Billy Crystal in Exhibition = Alex Rodriguez in Postseason

Which is to say, he failed.

On the bright side, perhaps A-Rod has some ideas as to how to get the City Slickers franchise back on track.

Racism NOW!

Were one to assume that Texas--pretend home of George W. Bush and actual home of the state-sanctioned murder of retarded people--was by and large populated by close-minded bigots, wouldn't that make one a bigot oneself?

Technically, yes. But that does nothing to dissuade my strong suspicion (previously alluded to following other Democratic state primaries) that if Barack Obama were of just a slightly paler skin tone, the "fact" that Hillary Clinton is one a'dem uppity bitches who don't know her place is in the kitchen would have sealed up the nomination for him by now.

Alas, it hasn't. And any way you slice it, prejudice wins.

Perhaps America's next president, wealthy white male John McCain, will finally bridge those longstanding cultural divides.

Marvin Berry's Cousin Is Not Impressed

John McCain locked up the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday night, which surprised no one.

What did surprise me, after struggling to stay awake through McCain's thoroughly unimpressive and uninspiring victory speech, was learning that his campaign's theme song is Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode". Further news to yours truly was that such has been the case since 2000.

I'm deeply offended that a Republican--even one who used to pretend to be an open-minded, progressive Republican before repositioning himself, for all intents and purposes, as a goose-stepping Bush supporter--has been sullying the reputation of Back to the Future, a.k.a. the Greatest Film Ever Made, for the better part of a decade.

The way I see it, Barack Obama's only got one choice if he's going to set things right: He needs to steal back the sports almanac.