Yoko Ono: perennially cool

Via Jezebel: Here is 75-year-old hipster Yoko Ono posing today in New York:

I’m an Ono enthusiast. I love her art, her music, and her personality. I’m one of the few, the proud, the people who own Onobox.

The highlights of my music critic career were four interviews with Yoko – and having her send me gifts after each one.

Once and for all, Hitler was NOT a vegetarian

People love teasing me with the idea that history’s worst person and the murderer of 6-million Jews, Adolf Hitler, was a vegetarian.

I don’t know where this rumor started, but it positively not true. Here’s The Guardian’s recent piece about Hitler’s favorite foods – and the last time I checked squab, trout, and liver did not grow on trees.

On the other hand, here’s someone in history who, evidence suggests may have been a vegetarian: Jesus Christ. Wow, just think, if Jesus was a vegetarian, he’s probably heartbroken at how the world treats animals.

Samuel L. Jackson narrates anti Prop 8 ad

Actor Samuel L. Jackson narrated this commercial urging Californians to vote NO on Proposition 8, a bill that aims to end legal gay marriage in the state. It’s a powerful ad that compares the bill with other human rights atrocities in California’s history. Take a look:

Jackson, star of Pulp Fiction and several Star Wars films, is a longtime human rights activist (and vegetarian).

Thanks so much to Samuel for lending his voice to this important cause.

Famous world leaders appearing in ads

Print magazine recently featured a piece about the onslaught of ads using the famous faces of world leaders – and world tyrants. (Naturally, ads featuring George W. Bush making goofy faces are especially popular). These politician pictures are used in advertisements for a variety of organizations (like Amnesty International) and also for regular ol’ corporations.

Like these ads for a brand of tape:

The cutline: “The world needs a tape like this.”

I’ll say!

The ads I found particularly clever were these for Spanish language magazine Veja using words to depict famous visages:

Be sure to examine the faces closely. Each features two words. Neat, huh?

Top 10 songs to play on Halloween!

In honor of this All Hallow’s Eve, let’s list Top 10 songs about Halloween. Ready?

1) Ministry, “Everyday Is Halloween”
2) Siouxsie & The Banshees, “Halloween”
3) Michael Jackson, “Thriller”
4) anything from The Rocky Horror Picture Show – that whole movies is tailor-made for Halloween.
5) Bauhaus, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”
6) Sonic Youth “Halloween”
7) Warren Zevon “Werewolves of London”
Roky Erickson, “Night of the Vampire”
9) Mike Oldfield, “Tubular Bells (the theme from The Exorcist)
10) Donovan, “Season of the Witch”

You and I know there are plenty more songs about vampires, ghosts, witches and other scary stuff, so give me your votes!

Album of the Day: “3 Feet High and Rising”

I have been having a grand time listening to De La Soul’s 1989 masterpiece “3 Feet High And Rising.” It more than holds up after nearly 20 years. It sounds positively groundbreaking. Sit back and enjoy the album’s breakout single “Me, Myself and I” featuring a brief cameo by Prince Paul, one of the album’s producers who went on to forge his own solo carer in the 1990s:

I feel sorry for anyone who didn’t grow up with old school rap. The music was so clever and original that even purple-haired “alternative” kids like me and my friends dug it.

KD Lang is performing tonight

KD Lang is performing tonight in the DC area and, while I’m not attending the show, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her perform twice before and I even got that chance to interview her four years ago. I think KD is a phenomenal talent and a great person and as a member of the queer community (and a vegetarian), I certainly owe her a great debt for living her life authentically.

Here’s a video of KD singing Leonard Cohen’s beautiful “Hallelujah” :

Among the subjects KD and I breezed through were her cooking prowess, her strict no lip-synching policy, her thoughts on the (at the time) controversial “lesbian kiss” between Madonna and Britney Spears at the MTV Music Video Awards, her favorite women in history (Amelia Earhart, Mother Teresa, Mary Magdalene) and her first rock ‘n’ roll crush.

KD was as much a delight to talk to as she is to listen to. If you want to read the whole piece, go here. Please remember that I wrote these Q&A’s clearly, but, unfortunately, they were archived with little to no attention to my bold-type question and answer format. But, you’re not dumb, you’ll figure it out.

And, have fun tonight if you’re seeing KD perform.

Lindsay and Sam ride the subway?

In New York (via Gawker).

No wedding band for Elizabeth Edwards

Has Elizabeth Edwards finally come to her senses and separated from her scoundrel of a husband, Democratic has-been John Edwards? The Washington Post reports that Elizabeth, 59, gave a talk about health care reform yesterday in Washington D.C. and her wedding ring was noticeably absent from her left hand.

The always subtle Gawker posted this pic today of Edwards sans band:

The New York Post’s gossipy Page 6 claims it’s heard whispers that the the couple is, indeed, living apart. Maybe John is shacking up with the bimbo and the baby?

What do you think? Should Elizabeth dump his pretty boy ass? SHE HAD CANCER! I say: leave him.

Justice for Ruth Bader Ginsburg – at last

I saw this on Gawker, but thought you would enjoy. This is a correction the New York Times ran today regarding Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s name:

It takes a bold newspaper to admit its been screwing up someone’s name for two decades. Bold – and crappy.