Pop Culture News and Notes

The murder trial of rock 'n' roll producer Phil Spector (and, presumably, his hair-see above) will be televised, a judge ordered on February 16th, saying it is time for the justice system to get beyond the O.J. Simpson trial. “We have to get by that case,” said Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler. “There's going to come a time that it will be commonplace to televise trials. If it had not been for Simpson, we'd be there now.”

Spector, the legendary producer of such immortal rock & roll hits as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers and “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes, is on trial for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson four years ago. Jury selection, which begins March 19^th, is the only part of the trial that will not be televised…we presume that Court TV will be there for everything else.

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Matt Buckstein, an American Idol aspirant who made it to Hollywood (but no further) for the past two years (including his memorable performance as one of the “Brokenote Cowboys”...see below...during the Hollywood round and at the AI finale last year), has decided to run his own shadow competition on his MySpace page. As the “Lost Idol”, Buckstein will tape himself performing a song based on the weekly themes of American Idol at karaoke bar in his hometown of Denver and post the video on his MySpace page and on YouTube…he will use feedback to the performances as a gauge of if he should move on to the next week. If the reaction is sufficiently positive, he will continue…if not, he’ll stop just as if he had been voted off on the show.

Buckstein’s MySpace has some of his music…including “We’ll See”, a charming, heartfelt love song that he wrote…available for listening.

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Anna Nicole Smith has been embalmed but not buried. She joins James Brown in dead celebrity limbo…both of them unburied while their would-be heirs and keepers of their flames sue and counter-sue and make an avaricious mockery of their lives (of course, both of them could have avoided a lot of the lunacy by having their affairs in better order but like a lot of people I guess they both thought they had plenty of time to do that…turns out they didn’t.)

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More MKW Blogstuff: Bread and Roses