Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has demanded an apology from Swedish newspapers for their scathing reviews of the group’s performance in the country earlier this month. Tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet gave thumbs down to the Aug. 3 concert in Goteborg, with Expressen suggesting Richards was “superdrunk” on stage.
“Never before have I risen to the bait of a bad review,” the 63-year-old rock star wrote in a letter published by Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter. “But this time … I have to stand up. … It was a good show.”
Aftonbladet’s music writer Markus Larsson told the paper’s website: “It is Keith who should apologize. After all it costs around $145 to see a rock star who can hardly handle the (guitar) riff to ‘Brown Sugar’ any more.”
Trendy handbag designer Hogan just launched a groovy line named after rock chicks. They called a pony-skin version the Chrissie, after Chrissie Hynde – who is a prominent anti-leather campaigner. Oops. “I never thought I’d be moved to consider filing a lawsuit, but as soon as I heard my name was being used to promote bags made of dead-animal skin, I started exploring my legal options with my friends at PETA,” Hynde told the New York Daily News. “At first, I thought this must be a joke, it’s so outrageous and thoughtless.”
Roberto Benigni was reciting a page from Dante’s poem on the afterlife when he thought hell had come to Earth. Shots rang out Tuesday night as a man shot a security guard who stopped him from getting in without a ticket at a show by the Oscar-winning actor and director in the southern Italian city of Cosenza, police said. After he was stopped, the man pulled out a gun and fired six shots, five of which hit the security guard in the legs, local police spokesman Angelo Cosentino told The Associated Press by telephone today.
The guard’s life wasn’t in danger, Cosentino said. The alleged shooter, a 45-year-old man with a police record for minor crimes, was arrested for attempted murder.
Jim Carrey has made a straight-to-YouTube video. And it’s not funny at all. The 45-year-old actor-comedian appears in a new public service announcement on behalf of the Human Rights Action Center and the U.S. Campaign for Burma. The goal: To free Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been confined by the Burmese government for 11 of the last 17 years.
“Even though she’s compared to a modern-day Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, most people in America still don’t know about Aung San,” Carrey says in the filmed message, posted Tuesday on YouTube.
Online: Hear Carrey’s plea
