February 10, 2005

eSNOOPculture Rock Edition

    Greetings from L.A.!  Your humble eSNOOPster is pleased that with the Grammy Awards coming up this weekend the Big Tostada is filling up with all the tippitty-toppitty-most talented rock royalty, and they are as usual up to their adorable shenanigans.

    Why just last night I was at Morton's at my usual table when I saw the self-declared Greatest Rock Band in the World  - U2 - nibbling on the fabulous marinated crab claws and huddled with their agent Morty Waxman.  Seems the band is in quite a fix.  With their multi-billion dollar tour just weeks away, lead singer/insufferable serious artiste Bono is out sick.  Just last Tuesday night after hosting a reading of his unpublished poetry, the bespectacled self-loving showman was rushed to St. Stephens Medical Center for emergency treatment of a dangerously inflamed ego.  Tests revealed that Bono's ego was swollen to thirty times its normal hefty size, and a stat ego biopsy was performed. The pathology reports indicated an acute ego malignancy.  Bono has been hospitalized.  Surgeons say that Bono's ego is too horribly swollen and distended to be removed so they have prescribed intensive humility therapy.  While confined to bed, Bono is being forced to watch an endless reel of the band's Zooropa  and Pop tour videos and has been also been obliged to listen to flop album "Wide Awake In America" and the unspeakably bad U2 theme from "Batman Forever" over and over.  The band has taken the news in stride.  Guitarist The Edge noted that the smug, self-satisfied singer had recently developed troubling symptoms of acute ego enlargement.  Bono had personally designed the new tour t-shirts that read simply "BONO LIVE!!! featuring u2."  He also noticed that the lead singer had recently troublingly taken to referring to band mates Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen as "the help." 

    In the meantime, the band has been hustling to find a lead singer to fill in for their ailing frontman.  Attempts to sign an artist of a similar talent level and style have been fruitless as former Kaja Googoo front man Limahl sadly is in the midst of a three month detox program.  Second choice American tunesmith Richard Marx has prior commitments throughout the spring performing on Carnival Cruise Lines 80's Nostalgia Cruises and thus is not available.  Fortunately, The Edge tells me they may have hit upon a suitable replacement.  They have found a man with all the humility, warmth, and restraint of Bono.  Yes, music lovers, I am proud to report that former Guns and Roses frontman Axl Rose is now the new lead singer for U2 until Bono recovers from his crippling ego inflammation.  The eSNOOPster says, "Welcome to the Joshua Tree," Mr. Rose.

    On a sad note while visiting Bono at St Stephens, I ran into my old running buddy Marv Kleinmann.  Marv - the tops PR man in the rap music game - was walking through the lobby carrying a massive floral arrangement in the shape of a Glock nine millimeter automatic pistol.  Seems that the cat is finally out of the bag.  His number one client amoral street hoodlum/multi-platinum rapper 50 Cent is in the ICU recovering from yet another gunshot wound.  "Fifty," as you may recall, has made a career out of being shot up.  Something about a fresh bullet wound adds that delicious frisson of street cred that powers the repellant thug's massive albums sales.  I thought the new wound might be a publicity stunt, but over danish at the hospital coffee shop, Marv spilled the beans.  Though a musical genius on a level rivaled only by Beethoven, Mozart, and the Wu Tang Clan, it seems that Mr. Cent is - in fact - a man of relatively modest intellectual accomplishments.  It seems Fifty and his posse were chillin' at new L.A. hotspot dance club and burger stand Drive By's last Wednesday night.  Apparently, the Kristal had been flowing, and things had gotten a little too wild.  Fifty excused himself and staggered off to the men's room.  There - in a tragic case of mistaken identity - while staring out across the crowded lavatory Fifty saw another playa trying to stare him down.  Things quickly escalated to shouted insults and a scuffle broke out.  In an embarrassing turn of events, 50 Cent didn't realize he was looking into a full length mirror at the time.  Mr. Cent - as the police report reads - subsequently got into an altercation with himself.  His posse charged in, guns were drawn, and shots were fired.  Fifty was lucky to escape with his life as he took a 45 slug in his left buttock.  The mirror was critically injured.  "It's the damnedest thing," Marv Kleinmann, the seasoned rap PR flack told me.  "Still it just shows you how damn tough 50 Cent really is.  He won't take no mess from anybody ... not even himself."  The eSNOOPster wishes the convalescing Mr. Cent  a speedy recovering and says "Get Well Soon or Die Trying, Dawg!"

    Speaking of messes, I am sad to say that is an apt description of the career or erstwhile hyper-sensitive singer/songwriter Jackson Browne.  I ran into Jackson the other day the the Target Superstore on Sepulveda in the frozen food section.  Though putting on a brave face, Mr. Browne is still stung by the abysmal failure of his latest comeback attempt.  In a bid to appeal to a younger audience, he recorded an album of collaborations with crunky rap kingpin Lil' John.  They waxed radical new versions of his classic hits like "Pretender," "Late for the Sky," and "Fountain of Sorrow" backed by big, thumping, Dirty South club beats with raps and taunts from Lil' John interspersed with Browne's patented overly precious confessional lyrics.  The resulting album, "Saturate Before Using, Bitch!" was pilloried by the critics and was a total flop with fans , selling less than ten thousand copies.  Though shaken by criticism and the grim reality that the market for sensitive singer/songwriters may have finally dried up, Jackson remains upbeat.  Browne has decided to return to his roots as a man of the people and activist working for important causes.  In the past, his work in the No Nukes movement and his participation in the anti-apartheid crusade have struck a chord with aging baby boomers.  Jackson tells me his latest cause is the plight of Native Americans.  He told me as we stood in the Target checkout line that his summer tour will be designed to call attention to the sad state of affairs of America's indigenous peoples.  Sadly, the truth that I discovered when I went online back home at Chateau eSNOOP was quite different.  In fact, the "Jackson Browne Free, Brave, Live Tour 2005" is a rambling two month run of gigs at over forty Indian Casinos scattered across the entertainment starved Midwest with Browne often serving as the opening act for Neil Sedaka or Seals and Crofts.  Still there's nothing wrong with a man making a buck flogging his hits to boozed up compulsive gamblers.  I need to check my schedule, but I just might take in his Nevada tour stop in June at the Great Tribe of the Sackaweenies Casino in Reno.  Perhaps as I gobble up comped hot wings and play the nickel slots your humble eSNOOPster will say a prayer for the Pretender.

    Finally, the eSNOOPster is saddened to see another Generation X idol learn a bitter lesson about the slippery slope of over-commercialism in music.  Balding, blonde, shirtless, pseudo-poet, post-Boomer heart throb Sting may have gone too far in his efforts to maximize profits at the expense of his already painfully tenuous artistic integrity.  Selling out for a Lite Beer ad in the Eighties seemed harmless enough.  Licensing his song "Desert Rose" to Cadillac for a loathsome yuppie commercial at least rewarded the aging sex symbol with a desperately needed hit.  However, even the pseudo-intellectual poetaster's most loyal fans are aghast at his latest sell out.  Well known for his advocacy of Tantric sex, the sultry singer has just released the new "Better Sex With Sting" video series.  The instructional self-help sex videos are now for sale, advertised in the back of countless magazines as well as being featured on a recent episode of "Oprah!"  "Better Sex With Sting" has also been combined as a DVD bonus in the deluxe edition of Sting's new album "The Cosseted Odalisques of Sans Argent."  The result has been disastrous.  According to Billboard, the sex videos are tanking, and they are dragging the album of soggy pomp-pop down with them.  Sources in the Sting camp tell me that attempts to dissuade the Great Man from releasing the 9 volume DVD set were met with anger and resentment.  Seems the Stingster sees the massive, explicit instructional series which features over twenty hours of the former Police-man naked and personally demonstrating his preferred techniques as a public service and an important contribution to society as a whole.  A provocative thought no doubt, but exactly who out there will be watching Volumes 2 through 8 which are dedicated solely to Sting exhaustively demonstrating his patented Tantric masturbation techniques.  It is definitely time for that desperate Police reunion tour, but in the meantime, the eSNOOPster says, Mr. Sting, the next time you see me at Mortons for goodness sake "Don't Stand So Close To Me."

    Well, that's all for now, music fans.  Until next time, the eSNOOPster reminds you to always keep your eyes on the ground and your feet on the stars!