Move over, Glenn Danzig, and make room for Satan's new crooner of choice, Robbie Williams . The bizarro-world Brit popster has been officially banned in the Dominican Republic, where cutting-edge officials caught on to the Beelzebubbian messages hidden in the video for his new single "Rock DJ." You may be familiar with the clip, in which Williams strips off his flashy threads and then offers pieces of his flesh as a taste treat for slathering fans, an image the staunchly Catholic nation's Commission of Broadcasting and Radio declared to be "against the moral and religious customs of the Dominican people." Neither Williams nor Satan offered a response to the ban, although the guy with the pitchfork is reportedly ticked about this second obstacle to Williams' evil mission, the first of which got derailed last month when his duet with Kylie Minogue was censored by BBC producers who demanded he cut a lyrical reference to sodomy . . .

Sure, we've talked about wanting to knock off a member or two of 'N Sync, but only after a few too many Rheingolds and way too many impure thoughts about how we'd be much better for Britney than that fancy-dancin' Timberlake kid. But since we've been bad on follow-through ever since our paper route days, we never actually get around to hatching a plan. Apparently, some guys aren't quite so easily distracted. A seventeen-year-old Tennessee boy, whose name was not released due to his age, hatched an intricate plot to rob a local gun store, hightail it to Atlanta, for the group's Oct. 21 show, and blow away the members. Although he had a detailed contingency plan mapped out as well, the one thing he didn't count on was mom finding out and, thankfully, giving the murder plot the thumbs down before remanding him for psychiatric evaluation . . .

As if those annoying car horns that play the theme from The Godfather every time the vehicle's low-foreheaded owner needs the attention of a member of the opposite sex weren't bad enough, we get word from Limeyland that self-satisfied hipsters will soon be able to have their cell-phones ring in similarly questionable "taste." The culprits? No, it's not techno-geeks Radiohead. Instead, you can blame Blur, who've decided to make their new "Music Is My Radar" single available in an umpteenth format -- that of the downloadable telephone tone. If you simply can't live without the band's beats jostling your nether regions when mom calls, you can download the file, programmed by drummer Dave Rowntree, for free at www.iobox.com . . .

All those years of accidentally getting hairspray and other assorted toxins in his eyes must have had some effect on Poison's Rikki Rockett, who is going public with his animal-rights crusade. Rockett was one of the featured speakers at Worldfest, a vegan-themed event held over the Oct. 22 in San Diego. We're assuming Rikki will be handing out cruelty-free beauty tips and explaining how spandex was his fabric of choice for all those years for purely humanitarian reasons . . .

DAVID SPRAGUE
(October 21, 2000)