Dogs, Murder, and Whatnot

Broadcasts from Babylon

(No Cover Magazine, February 2002)

By Robert Welborn

Who’s your Doggy?

Snoop Dogg has failed to garner a significant nod from the good folks at the Grammy’s, but luckily, he’s well enough endowed with talent to gain recognition as a cross-over artist. Mr. Dogg’s Doggystyle picked up a duet of trophies from this year’s Adult Video News Awards (by the way, what does an Adult Video Newsflash look like?). Doggystyle brought home Best Selling Tape and Best Musical Performance. Snoop failed to climax with a Best Actor award, but I’m sure it was an honor just being nominated.

How to bring this anecdote up when conversing with your chums at the equestrian club: “Speaking of using the back door…”

Anti-Capitalism Rally Tickets, now only $14 US (no Euros, please)

In an obvious thumb at the nose of capitalism, Ultra Red, of International Monetary Fund and World Bank protest acclaim, will release an album. Besides the obvious irony of releasing on a major label, charging $14.95 for the disc, and selling it via Virgin Mega-stores, the album will contain only two songs. Not only will they be supporting capitalism, but also they’ll be ripping off their fans. To their credit the songs are ridiculously long, and much of their content is taken from the spring of 2000 protests. The best part is that the songs will feature crowd chants, communication between the protestors and background crowd noise.

If you’d like to purchase this album: Then I’ve got a CD-R with one REALLY long track of when I left my digital recorder going in my bag while I was going through the body cavity search line at Kuala Lumpur Airport.

Las Vegas will rob you blind, and then start all over again

Vice is not just for the hearing impaired anymore! Ray Charles has teamed up with the accessibility pioneers at Bally’s to create the first slot machines for the blind. The obvious handicap jokes about a visually impaired one armed bandit will not be mentioned in this paragraph, however. The machines will feature Braille buttons, greater than normal audio features, as well as Mr. Charles’ name and his picture blazoned across the front. Why the machines have any decoration whatsoever is not immediately clear.

Since I’m here, I might as well ask: Will Bally’s be training Seeing Eye dogs to maul the unscrupulous cads trying to cop quarters from the blind guy’s bucket?

Please, don’t let the dogs back in!

The Baha Men will release Move It Like This, the follow-up to their multi-platinum breakthrough, Who Let the Dogs Out? on March 26^th. The remainder of the world that retains any modicum of taste will be praying fervently to their respective deities that Baha Men are a one hit wonder like Chumbawumba (“Tubthumping”) and Los Del Rio (“Macarena”).

The good news is: If this goes platinum, perhaps it will contain a single that knocks “Dr. Who” out of rotation at basket ball games.

Raise your hand if “duh”.

Spin magazine goes WAY out on a limb and names the Beatles the Greatest Band of all time. Attila the Hun and Ghengis Khan protested violently with their respective bands of Huns and Mongols. Rounding out the top 5, in order, are The Ramones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Nirvana.

I know what you’re thinking: “Where are Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jew Boys?” I have no response.

Irony, thy name is C-Irony

C-Murder was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and fraud on Friday, January 18. The rapper, whose real name is Corey Miller, is being held on $1 million bail, according to a spokesperson and pointer-out-of-ironic things for the Jefferson Correctional Facility in Gretna, Louisiana. Police are not releasing any further details at this time.

In completely un-related stories: The British band Bush has taken up gardening, Alicia Keys recently passed her locksmithing exam, and The Rolling Stones’ tour bus was hit by several falling boulders right next to a “Watch for Sliding Rocks” sign in Ventura County .

The right to bear and arm ants

Adam Ant, the often eccentric and even more often forgotten new wave singer behind “Goody Two Shoes” and probably some other songs that I can’t think of any right now, has been committed to a London psychiatric hospital after an odd bar fight.

Stuart Goddard, as his mum calls him when she’s really piped off, was taken into custody at the Prince of Wales pub in Northern London , after getting into a fight and brandishing a fake plastic gun. He was charged with possession of an imitation firearm, thus proving that the US second amendment leads to the prevention of passing silly laws about hiding purple squirt guns filled with vodka and chardonnay in one’s underpants. The purple squirt gun was confiscated and will apparently be destroyed, along with several other children's toys, at the monthly imitation firearm bonfire. The contents of the squirt gun, the wine and vodka, will make a nice nightcap for the detective chief inspector assigned to this case.

When Mr. Ant was reached for comment he replied “I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

What Mr. Ant should have said in order to give me a better story: “Wait! I was just re-enacting a scene from my hit 1987 film Cold Steel that stared me and Sharon Stone before she did that crotch scene in Basic Instinct!”

Ted Demme, Director and 'Yo! MTV Raps' Co-Founder, Dies

A white guy founded Yo! MTV Raps. Who knew? Ted Demme, an MTV director back when MTV used play videos and only occasionally showed a feature and wasn’t nearly so politically correct, passed away on January 13^th. Mr. Demme brought us Yo! MTV Raps and Remote Control. His most recent work was the film Blow.

Testosteronal response: Thank you Mr. Demme for casting Kari Wuhrer in Remote Control and further fueling our pubescent fervor.

Coroner: "Eight Vicodins Is Enough"

While this has nothing at all to do with music…Lani O'Grady the former actress best known as Dick Van Patten's eldest daughter on Eight Is Enough--died of a drug overdose, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner. The actress’s body was discovered in her mobile home in Inglewood ,CA by a neighbor. Her death came a week shy of her 47th birthday. Toxicology tests released Wednesday reveal O'Grady died of "multiple drug intoxication," the coroner said. Fatal levels of the prescription painkiller Vicodin and the antidepressant Prozac were found in her bloodstream.

What to remember when Lifetime does movie of the week on this: Dreams CAN come true!