Kanye West, with a crown of thorns atop his head, poses as Jesus Christ on the cover of the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone. He is also pictured posing as Muhammad Ali.
``In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts,'' he says. ``You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?''
West also says his hit song Gold Digger was the best song last year and that it should have been nominated for the Grammy's best rap song category: ``That's a gimme Grammy.''
PHOTOS: AP AND AFP
Nevertheless, the 27-year-old is nominated for eight awards, including album of the year for his sophomore album, Late Registration. The Grammys will be presented Feb. 8.
West has always been forthright in saying what he feels, most famously when he said, ``George Bush doesn't care about black people'' during a telethon for Hurricane Katrina victims.
"If I was more complacent and I let things slide, my life would be easier, but you all wouldn't be as entertained,'' he says. ``My misery is your pleasure.''
The strangest tangent of the Rolling Stone story, however, is when West says he's addicted to pornography. He remembers first seeing his father's Playboy magazine when he was five years old. ``Right then,'' West says, laughing, ``it was like, `Houston, we have a problem.'''
A wealthy Austrian playboy who keeps the Viennese in suspense each winter over his date to the lavish annual Opera Ball says he's taking former Baywatch star Carmen Electra this year.
Vienna businessman Richard Lugner confirmed Tuesday that Electra would be his guest to the exclusive Feb. 23 ball, the most prestigious event on Vienna's society calendar.
Lugner invites a celebrity every year and his past ball dates have included another ex-Baywatch star, Pamela Anderson, as well as actress Andie MacDowell, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, singer-actress-model Grace Jones and the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson.
Tickets to the annual ball cost about US$265 and typically sell out months in advance. With extras such as gowns and tuxedos, flowers, limousines, high-end champagne and lavish dinners, the night typically runs to US$1,225 or more.
Victor Willis, the original policeman in the 1970s disco band the Village People, skipped a court hearing where he was due to be sentenced on drug and gun charges and now faces more than three years in prison, prosecutors said. Willis, 54, had been scheduled to surrender Tuesday after four months on the run but he failed to show up for the hearing in San Mateo County Superior Court, prosecutors said. It was his second no-show.
He was facing a maximum of 16 months in state prison after pleading no contest to charges he had cocaine and a loaded handgun when he was arrested in Daly City in July. Prosecutors said he was on probation for another cocaine conviction at the time.
Hawaiian crooner Don Ho has returned to the stage, less than two months after undergoing a stem-cell procedure in Thailand to strengthen his heart.
The 75-year-old Ho sang for 90 minutes before a sellout crowd last weekend of 300 people at the Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel.
It was his first performance since November.
On Dec. 6, Ho underwent a new treatment that hasn't been approved in the US. It involves multiplying stem cells taken from his blood and injecting them into his heart in hopes of strengthening it.
Wearing white pants, a blue velvet shirt and a white ginger lei, Ho sat behind an organ and kicked off a 10-song show with, Night Life, followed by his signature tune Tiny Bubbles.
Joe Correa, a rancher who went to the show with his wife and some friends, said Ho was ``sharp as a tack ... It was great to see him do what he does,'' Correa said.
The year was 1991. A Toyota Land Cruiser set out on a 67km journey up the Junda Forest Road (郡大林道) toward an old loggers’ camp, at which point the hikers inside would get out and begin their ascent of Jade Mountain (玉山). Little did they know, they would be the last group of hikers to ever enjoy this shortcut into the mountains. An approaching typhoon soon wiped out the road behind them, trapping the vehicle on the mountain and forever changing the approach to Jade Mountain. THE CONTEMPORARY ROUTE Nowadays, the approach to Jade Mountain from the north side takes an
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and