The Week in Weird

Eminem might be willing to bleach his hair and slap on eye makeup when the mood strikes, but he's apparently not secure enough in his masculinity to be seen wearing a pink shirt. The rapper -- who quickly became mighty close to Elton John after they performed together at the Grammys a year ago -- was reportedly furious that publishers of British culture mag The Face photo-shopped his cover photo so that his red threads were turned a paler shade of pink. Em didn't lead any mass beat downs over at the mag's offices, nor did he even try to make a move on the editor's mom; instead, he coughed up about $250,000 to buy up the entire first press run before it could be distributed, forcing the ink-stained wretches to let their readers see red as Mister Mathers intended. Good thing no one told him about the fishnet stockings they drew on under his slacks . . .

If Eric Clapton is "God," a goodly number of guitar players have suddenly decided to convert to atheism, judging by a new poll that names ol' Slowhand the most overrated guitarist in history. The poll, conducted by Ibanez guitars -- not, incidentally, one of the brands Mister Clapton has been known to favor in concert -- gave Clapton a healthy victory in the booby prize category, with only slight competition coming from Mark Knopfler, Pete Townshend and the Edge. For those of you wondering what these supposed string-slinging connoisseurs place in the "does not suck" category, well, Jimi Hendrix tops the list as Best Guitarist of all time, closely followed by Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. Madonna, who got some love from the folks at Gibson's awards last month, was strangely absent from this compendium . . .

Since he's already collaborated with Phillip Glass, one of the most important classical composers of the past century, it's only fitting that David Bowie would seek to set himself up on the vanguard of modern opera by recording a duet with well, Adam Sandler. Yep, the Thin White Duke and "Operaman" hit the studio together to record a remake of Bowie's "Space Oddity," which will appear in Sandler's update of the classic Frank Capra film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Fortunately for Dave, he postponed that embrace of Sandler long enough to convince the folks at the Museum of Television and Radio that he was still a serious enough artiste to merit a summer-long retrospective of his film outings, including a swell appearance on Dinah Shore's long-forgotten talk show . . .

Striking a note that makes us think we've suddenly entered Superman's bizarro-world -- you know, the land where everything is the opposite of what it should be -- a group of Detroit area officials have filed a lawsuit against Dr. Dre, claiming the hip-hop kingpin illegally used hidden cameras to tape them at one of his performances. The five men, including three police officers, are said to be seeking three million dollars for the pain and suffering they've incurred as a result of their appearance on Dre's Up In Smoke tour DVD. While we were hoping the cameras might've caught the bigwigs improvising a take on "Fuck Wit Dre Day," they were merely captured discussing their intent to stop the rapper from using a sexually explicit clip during his show . . .

DAVID SPRAGUE
(April 26, 2002)