November 21, 2002

    eSLASHculture is proud to present the first installment of our exciting new Premium Members Only feature:

                              The eSNOOPculture Celebrity Corner

    Greetings, eSLASHculture readers!  As your host for this column, I share your fascination with celebrities, those demigods of our media-blinded age.  Whether they are twinkling up in the heavens or winking at us from the gutter, we can't resist them.

    Crazed, spooky pop star MICHAEL JACKSON is back in the news again and not in a good way.  Just days after making headlines by dangling a helpless toddler off the fourth floor balcony of a hotel in Berlin, Jackson - dogged by child welfare authorities - has moved to Zurich, Switzerland where the laws are more lax.

    Yesterday, Jackson was spotted on the roof of his new penthouse suite in the luxurious Kronstadt Hotel.  An excited crowd of fans cheered as Jackson, dressed in a black leather robe with an executioner's hood, beheaded a dozen baby koala bears with a huge fourteenth century Turkish sword reported to worth over five million dollars.  Jackson waved the bloody heads at the crowd and then kicked their lifeless, twitching bodies off the balcony into the throng of fans below.   The bodies were immediately torn to pieces by the blood-thirsty mob.  Jackson's numerous, mysterious masked children looked on in matching black robes and hoods.

    Does this surprise you?  Not  the old eSNOOPster.  My only question is what in the world is a Michael Jackson fan these days?

    Everybody's favorite plus-sized, self-esteem touting talk show host made a big splash in Washington, DC last night.  At a gala reception  celebrating President Bush's daughters' fourth week of sobriety, OPRAH surprised the crowd of world leaders by announcing that she had just bought the country of Iraq.  In a magnanimous gesture, she will rename it "I Care" and donate it to the Chicago Parks and Recreation Authority.  

    Everyone knew the Large-and-in-Charge Ms. O was richer than sin, but who knew she was this patriotic, with a love of country as big as:(Choose One)

                                a) her famous appetite?

                                b) her monstrous ego?

                          or   c) her big, fat ass?

    Your eSNOOPster felt privileged to be invited to the set of the new CHRISTINA AGUILLERA  video.  You would think that after the uproar surrounding her last video, "Dirrty," the sullen, pocket-sized diva would have learned her lesson, but you would be wrong.  "Dirrty," with its sexually charged images of a greased up, scantily-clad Ms. Aguillera humping against an incredibly limber array of men, women, and the occasional piece of lawn furniture, shook our bourgeoisie Middle Class values to their very core.  Yet Christina wants to shock us even more.  Set in a futuristic sewer, the new video "Slimy and Diseased" showcases the diva dressed only in a PVC g-string and a pair of monkey fur nipple clamps gyrating clumsily as torrents of raw waste pour over her and a quartet of Asian hermaphrodites who are massaging her feet.  The video ends with a disturbing coda as the singer wakes up fresh as a daisy in bed and the whole thing was just a dream ... until she takes a shower and finds her body covered with bite marks, boils, venereal warts, and a nasty rash.

    When Ms. Aguillera greeted me on the set after the final take, she hugged me and explained that she has already outlined a whole series of transgressive videos.  Follow up clips include "Stinky," "Uninsurable," and "Toothless."  Ms. Aguillera knows that all it takes to shake the moral foundation of our country is for her to put on a thong and flail away.  After going home and showering thoroughly, I  look forward to another forthcoming Christina Aguillera video.  It is called "Completely Forgotten," and it should be out in just another year or two.

    Multiple Grammy winner CARLOS SANTANA is the busiest man in Los Angeles these days.  With his new album "Spiritual" flying off the shelves, he has already been hard at work recording an even more commercial follow up.  The project, like everything the bald, ageing shaman touches, is said to be a work of genius.  Concerned only with Matters of the Spirit and High Art, Santana wisely lets his management team plan the bigger picture as they shuttle him from studio to studio.  To hedge their bets, Santana's agents  have arranged a series of duets and collaborations with some of today's hottest young artists.   Songs recorded with Willie Nelson, Wayne Newton, and the late Frank Sinatra will thrill  purists, but it is the edgier, new fare which may surprise younger fans.  "Los Ninos" is a duet with Ronald McDonald which features Santana's trademark soaring lead guitar over churning Latin percussion and a pack of soulless burbling synthesizers.  The collaborations with the Michelin Man and that dude from the Dell Computer commercials are said to be stunning, but the power ballad recorded with a fifty pound slab of Spam is revelatory.

    "That Spam," Santana told me.  "It has an old soul and a truly great spirit."

    As for the eSNOOPster, I say, "Right On, Santana!"  Keep playing your same little guitar solo over and over again.  We can't get enough of it!

    Well, that's all the time we have this week, but always remember the old eSNOOPster's motto:  Keep your eyes on the ground and your feet on the stars!