Six Degrees of Slick Willy

Move over Kevin Bacon: The hottest party game we can think of is now Six Degrees of Bill Clinton, wherein just about every single person in the world -- even those who've never literally been exposed to the, ahem, Executive Branch -- can be connected to ol' Bubba. |

Case in point: Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew "fame." See, when people actually paid attention to Luke's career (yes, such a time did exist), a fella named Jack Thompson tried every trick in the book to get the rapper and his pals banned all across their shared home state of Florida. When he didn't have any luck convincing Dade County government officials to pitch in, he decided to run for District Attorney -- against none other than Janet Reno, now Clinton's attorney general.

The 2 Live Crew case is actually a pretty interesting story -- one of many told in a fascinating new book titled They Fought the Law: Rock Music Goes to Court. Among the other sagas included in its pages are Judas Priest's battle against so-called "lyrical liability" and Billy Joel's suit against his manager (who happened to also be his brother-in-law).

The nastiest tales, not surprisingly, pit artists against their labels -- most notably, George Michael's lengthy fight against the folks at Sony. Unfortunately, Michael's more recent toilet troubles didn't make the cut here, but they do give us some closure -- after all, could you ask for a more direct connection to our commander-in-chief?

DAVID SPRAGUE(October 16, 1998)