Up in It

Not only does Snoop Dogg know how to coach football -- his youth football team will square off in the inaugural Snooper Bowl, February 5th in Jacksonville, Florida -- but the man can pick 'em too. At a recent L.A. party, when we asked the dapper rapper who was going to that other Bowl, he smiled and pointed to a Pittsburgh Steelers medallion hanging around his neck. The Iron City crew then proceeded to roll into Indianapolis and wax the mighty Colts. Can you say underdoggs?

Friday the Thirteenth . . . a star-studded party . . . in a Hollywood cemetery. Even Korn, our hosts for the evening, said it sounded like the opening of a slasher flick. "If I see anybody in a hockey mask, I'm getting out of there," joked drummer David Silveria. No hockey masks, but the ghost of hard-rock past was represented when Axl Rose stunned the Hollywood-laden crowd -- which included Jessica Alba, Rachel Bilson, Michelle Branch and members of Linkin Park -- by making a surprise entrance with some friends around 1 a.m. A gracious Rose, who posed for pictures with everyone who approached, said he didn't set out to make a scene. "We were just out having dinner," he said, "looking for something to do" . . .

Hanukah's come and gone, but that's not going to slow down the hilarious hip-hop supergroup Chutzpah, whose first single is "Chanukah's da Bomb." "We're making a push for Passover," quipped MC Meshugenah during the Jew crew's album release party at the Spider Club. Following a recent East Coast swing that saw them play to a capacity crowd at New York's Mercury Lounge, Chutzpah were riding high. "There's a white-hot Jewish heat all over this city now," said Master Tav. "We set the shit off." Feeling the heat was Def Leppard axeman Vivian Campbell: "Meshugenah is the unsung musical genius of Chutzpah: He's heavily medicated, but he comes up with these moments of lucidity that the rhymes come from." However, Campbell admitted that he didn't come without some coercing. "Tav knocks on your door and guilts you into it, makes you feel like a schmuck if you don't support them." And the fact that the Belfast-born rocker used the word "schmuck" satisfies one of Chutzpah's primary goals: to make everyone learn at least two more words of Yiddish. Oy vey! . . .

Shinedown have the Number One rock song in the country with "Save Me," but the Jacksonville rockers don't seem impressed. Rather than rest on their laurels, they'll hit the road this Friday as part of the Winterfresh SnoCore tour, and they don't plan on coming home. "We're gonna keep on touring until we die," vocalist Brent Smith told us at the Video Game Awards, held at the Gibson Amphitheatre. "We're gonna tour the second album for about two years and then do it all over again. It's what we did on the first one." Still, while at the VGAs, the quartet did take a minute to appreciate what success has brought them. "This is our first time on the red carpet, and we like it," said guitarist Jasin Todd, surrounded by the likes of Carmen Electra and Jamie Pressly. "I'm down" . . .

Finally, a belated toast to our favorite Finnish rockers, H.I.M.. Backstage, after their sold-out two-night stand, frontman Ville Valo smiled and lifted his beer when we asked how the tour in support of the majestic Dark Light was going. "You know me," he said. "I'm just drinking it up." Cheers . . .