HAPPY B-DAY, WENDY!

It's my girlfriend Wendy's birthday, so we have a couple favorites in her honor. First up, Madonna Louise Ciccone performs her first hit, a song that empowered young girls everywhere to leave pink bedrooms en masse and cross the borderline. Fortune favors the brave.

Second up, a rare rehearsal clip from The Concert for Bangla Desh with old friends George Harrison and Bob Dylan singing "If Not For You." And you know it's true.

Happy birthday, Wendy!

CELEBRITY CRAP NEWS

It's obvious, we spend too much time thinking about celebrities. Turn on the TV, pick up a magazine, and you're buried in a wave of celebrity sludge. It's the fast food of the news, the greasy, salty, heart attack special, and we're drawn to it like Newton's apple was drawn to the earth.
There is a gravitational pull to Brad Pitt and what's-her-name. Beyonce and Jay-Z. Whatever. A little less superficial crap would be a good thing, sure, but people aren't about to skip celebrity gossip and start reading Kierkegaard or anything. Gossip makes us feel better about ourselves, maybe a little superior. Kierkegaard, on the other hand, fills us with dread, absurdity, and the great harrowing abyss. Definitely no fun. And, hey...Know what I heard?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

Soren Kierkegaard

I heard Amy Winehouse got thrown in jail! Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed got married. Madonna is planning to adopt again. Guillermo del Toro, director of "Pan's Labyrinth," will direct the "Hobbit" for Peter Jackson. Soren Kierkegaard was voted off "Dancing with the Stars." Alicia Keys has a spiffy new album. Actor Wesley Snipes got three years in prison for tax evasion.

And you thought you had problems, home skillet!