Who says foreign policy can’t be fun?!
An intrepid reporter this week asked State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey on the very pressing matter of Boy George’s visa holdup.
Mr. George planned on coming to the States for a tour this summer, but the current investigation into his alleged kidnapping of a Norwegian hooker gave American officials pause.
And the world wants answers!
Like the rapper M.I.A. before him, and like Martha Stewart to Britain, 80s icon and reformed criminal Boy George has been denied entry to the United States. Our very own Customs and Border Protection agency denied him a visa when he applied so he could perform a series of summer concerts. Says The Boy: "I'm pretty devastated because I am so excited about this forthcoming tour and having my visa application denied seems unfair after I swept the streets of New York spotless. There are a number of public figures who are openly using drugs and they have no problem with immigration and I have seriously turned my life around and I feel great right now and this is just another reminder of how bad things were. I committed a crime and I happily paid the consequences and I should be allowed to move on and get on with what I do best and that is performing and making people people dance and cry!" Yes, yes, but Naomi Campbell is a supermodel.
• In order to be a Whitney Houston fan, you must forget her crackhead moments. [Page Six]
• Unlike his brother Julian, Sean Lennon doesn't need to sell out to be famous. He was the loved child. [TONY]
• If there is a voice which can cure diseases, it has to be … David Lee Roth's? Ah, well, at least they didn't choose Ryan Adams. [Y!]
• Sorry kids. The Boy George in a jumpsuit cleaning up trash days are over. [NME]
• Clay Aiken, George Bush, and a Committee for the Disabled. Yeah, we’re just going to leave it at that. We’ve got enough bad karma as it is. [NYDN]
We may be the only people who didn't spend our morning stalking Boy George, but that's OK. He freaks us out, like, a lot. Plus, once everyone and their mom is humping a story, we sort of lose interest. We're intimate like that. And it's a good thing, because we hear things are getting a bit dangerous down there. Like, car crash dangerous.
Today was Boy George's first day as a street sweeper, and we've hear everyone is down there, from Inside Edition to the New York Post. At some point, the 80's star got into a van to go over the Manhattan Bridge (possibly for his 45 minute lunch break?) and the paparazzi/reporter fiasco followed.
He then got into a van and was driven to the Manhattan Bridge with a caravan of cars and trucks carrying at least 50 reporters, TV crews and photographers, plus six paparazzi on bicycles, following through the winding Chinatown streets.
A Reuters photographer making a left turn from Allen Street onto East Broadway smashed his car into the rear of a paparazzo’s vehicle. (It was not clear who was at fault. Maybe it’s George’s fault?)
Poor guy. Everything is totally his fault. 80's glam, Taboo, and now this. Obvioulsy, the only logical solution is to assign him more community service.
Boy George's Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Sweep [Open All Night]
• Maybe if Donald Trump was our daddy, that 102% in Introduction to Spanish at NYU would have gotten us an A+. But, we were told "NYU doesn't give A pluses." [Page Six]
• The best way to prevent yourself from getting famous? Steal Brandon Davis' jokes from four months ago. [TMZ]
• Jessica Beil has resorted to making out with chicks in order to get some attention in the gossip columns. [Gatecrasher]
• Only in Choire Sicha's world does Jessica Coen + Noelle Hancock = Melissa Burkelhammer. (We could, however, see Jessica Joffe coming from that equation.) [NYO]
• It's not really the legs or the hair or the skin that makes Heidi Klum so friggin' lucky. It's that every time she says something really stupid, she can blame her German accent. [WWD]
• Today is Boy George's day. [AP]
• (We know we put this item in this morning's round-up, but Intern Zack made us pee our pants with his commentary, so we're reiterating.) If you're walking down the streets of Lower Manhattan and you see an androgynous pop-star in a Big Bird outfit cleaning litter, don't be frightened. It's only Boy George. [NYDN]
• The great thing about washed-up rockers is that when one falls ill, there's always going to be another one right behind him ready to take the stage. Lindsay Lohan should really get herself a few of these. [NME]
• Willie Nelson is surprised that his comments about President Bush didn't draw more criticism. We think it's because people are surprised he hasn't OD'ed or something yet. [AOL]
• Leave it to Kevin Federline to do something incredibly original for his first music video: feature a fat girl. [Mollygood]
• Like a typical 25 year old on her birthday, MTV will mope around at home lamenting about it's glory days. [Y!]
• "Cracked out", "deluded", and "slightly retarded" are some of the terms that come to mind when thinking of Britney Spears. But "not nice?" Now that's just mean. [MSNBC]
• Finally, we can start drinking at 8 am on Sunday morning. How in the world did New York go so long without this law? [ABC]
• We almost recommended checking out this very interesting New York Times article … until we got down to the part where they call the South Bronx "SoBro." Can we please make it stop before we're calling New York NeYo? [NYT]
• What's so special about August 14? Oh not too much — just that Boy George will be sweeping your street. [NYDN]
• Brooklyn is officially a real place in New York. Even tourists want to see how the outer burroughed live. [Newsday]
• Brooke Astor's son Anthony Marshall reminds NYC heavyweights that it's not nice to around telling the papers how badly he's mistreating him. Some people just have no manners. [NYP]
• When your city's urban monument is a 60 foot beer bottle, well, you know you're in New Jersey. [NYT]
• Who wants to work or play in Coney Island ever? Not to mention year-round? Marty Markowitz is such a crazy ass. [NYO]
• You have a pretty solid chance of seeing Boy George picking up garbage in Madison Square Park sometime in the next few weeks. [Guardian]
• Just a reminder, today is your day to get fired from your assistant job while you're out frolicking in the glorious weather and picking yourself up some coffee.
• The next "drug crises?" A deadly mix of heroin heading for New York. Finally, Pete Dohertey will have his chance to save the city. [NYP]
• More interim presidents scare off their staff members … a strange trend particular to gay media. [Ad Age]
• We always like to be fair to our fave non-celeb, Steve-O. The red carpet really does look a toilet to the untrained eye. [The Superficial]
• Vivica A. Fox is having a little silicone issue. See what happens when you let 50 Cent pick out your boobs? [A Socialite's Life]
• What happens when EIC fashion goes terribly awry? Editors shake their asses on 5th Avenue. Sort of. [NYO]
• Now you can sail away with New York Times editor Nick Kristof. Remember when they just used to offer scholarships? Now you have to hang out with nerds to get ahead? [Romenesko]
• Boy oh boy, Boy George. Hey, maybe while he's picking up trash in Prospect Park he can find some more decorations for his face? [MSNBC]
• You can run to the internet, but you can't hide from smoking taxes. What, you think Bloomberg's got the cash to front all those breathing machines? [NYDN]
• Forgive us, but wtf is Tamara Mellon doing with Kid Rock? Not helping your "I'm way too good for this gig" campaign, honey. [Page Six]
• Madonna and The Gorillaz are set to open for this year's Grammy Awards. Yay, we love playing "guess which one is a cartoon." [Billboard]
• An Indie Rock cookbook, full of recipes for fat-free pot brownies and a recommended breakfast of diet coke and cigarettes, coming soon to a bookstore near you. [Stereogum]
• Is it just us, or are potheads kind of ruling the world this week? The Bonnaroo vs.Coachella debate is likely to spark dude, yah, hella, bong filled conversations from Vermont to Colorado. [Bonnaroo, ProductshopNYC]
• Even the New York Times is starting to get annoyed with Pete Doherty's all-too-frequent drug arrests. No one really cares if he keeps doing drugs, just as long as those drugs inspire decent music. [NYT]
• Boy George appeared in court briefly to plead innocent to drug charges. This is gearing up to be almost as frightening as the Michael Jackson trial. [AP]
• Paris Hilton may have broke up with Paris Latsis on the phone with new beau Stavros Niarchos listening in, but it's the new Greek shipping heir that's laughing last: he's "just having fun" with the heiress. [Page Six]
• We're really not sure what's going on with Michael Jackson's legal woes (something about missing a deadline to file a multi-million dollar counter claim), but we do know he's still hot for young boys with smooth bodies. [Fox 411 & R&M]
• After an 18-month search for the new James Bond after Pierce Brosnan's $20-plus million dollar salary demands, producers went with 37-year-old Daniel Craig rather than Colin Farrell or Ewan McGregor. [This Is London]
• Boy George didn't exactly make an effort to prematurely defend himself from his recent cocaine charges, neglecting to set the record straight on his sobriety. Not that the Howard Stern show is the best place to do that. [R&M]
• There will be no diamond-encrusted bra to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, as Britney Spears decided to pull the item from her eBay charity auction so nobody is "misled" into thinking it's something that it's not. That is, she wore it during her HBO special, not her … Baby One More Time video. [AP]
• Heath Ledger enjoyed kissing Jake Gyllenhaal about as much as Al Reynolds enjoys kissing Star Jones. [NYP]
• Boy George has returned to his roots: drug use. The sometimes Broadway star called police to report a burglary at his Little Italy pad but when the fuzz arrived, they only found five grams of coke. And Boy found himself in the clink, but that was before he fled to Britain. [Independent & NYDN]
• Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher told the press they were donating OK!'s $3 million check for their wedding pics to Habitat For Humanity, but the charity's bank account hasn't yet been filled up. [Lowdown]
• While Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are getting all the press for their gay cowboy hooking up, Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth are steaming up the same-sex screen just the same. So much so that Kevin got bumped from the Today show after producers learned his Where The Truth Lies got slapped with an NC-17 rating for their raunchy on-screen scenes. [Page Six]
• It might not be all Jude Law's fault, after all. Sienna Miller has some 'splainin' to do about her own affair with Layer Cake co-star Daniel Craig — and until she does, she's dead to Jude. [News of the World]
• Brad Pitt is going all Cameron Diaz on the paparazzi, ordering his security team to start snapping pics of overeager photogs should he need evidence when he takes them to court. [Page Six]
• Dennis Rodman's (third?) autobiography reveals Carmen Electra loved screaming the n-word during sex. But more importantly, that means Dennis actually had sex with a woman. [Lowdown]
• With Kate Moss off their roster indefinitely, Burberry is looking to Rachel Weisz to sizzle in their spring ad campaign. [R&M]
