Boy George, with a sunburn and blistered fingers, ended his court-ordered community service -- sweeping the streets for New York City's Department of Sanitation.
Though the experience got off to a bumpy start -- he yelled at the media hounding him on his first day on the job last Monday -- the former Culture Club frontman had only good things to say about his bosses when he finished his five-day stint Friday.
"They treated us with kindness, and they treated us with respect," he said, adding that he was considering a concert to benefit the city's street cleaners.
The 45-year-old singer, born George O'Dowd, was ordered to work for the department after pleading guilty in March to falsely reporting a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment. Responding officers found cocaine instead.
After five days pushing a broom, Boy George said it was time for a taste of the good life.
"I'm going to go off and have a glass of champagne," he said.
Justin Timberlake also talked trash last week, although he later backtracked from criticism of American Idol winner Taylor Hicks after telling Fashion Rocks magazine that the 29-year-old soul singer "can't carry a tune in a bucket."
"I have a strange relationship with that show," Timberlake tells the magazine in an interview. "I despise it, and yet I'm completely fascinated."
"The guy who won -- people think he looks so normal, and he's so sweet, and he's so earnest, but he can't carry a tune in a bucket. Do you realize how much pressure it is to put on somebody all of a sudden?"
Timberlake, a member of boy band 'N Sync who is now pursuing a solo career, also said: "If he has any skeletons whatsoever; if, God forbid, he's gay, and all these people in Mississippi who voted for him are like, `Oh, my God, I voted for a queer!' It's just too much pressure."
A representative for Hicks' record label, RCA, declined to comment. Ken Sunshine, Timberlake's representative, said the 25-year-old singer's comments "were taken completely out of context."
"He has tremendous affection for Taylor Hicks' success," Sunshine said. "He would never say anything that personal about somebody he's never met. He only wishes him the best."
Timberlake's second solo album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, is set for release Sept. 12.
Sexyback, his first single from the CD, began playing on US radio outlets last month.
"I wanted (the album) to look to like a time when everything was really sexy," he says. "Maybe everybody was coked up, but who cares? It was hot. It was all about sex."
Meanwhile, singer and songwriter Barry Manilow has canceled three Las Vegas shows due to a worsening hip injury and will undergo surgery soon after a scheduled television performance later this month.
"My intent was to continue to do the show that I love at the Las Vegas Hilton right up until the surgery. Unfortunately, my body has decided otherwise," Manilow said in a statement released last week.
Manilow, 63, announced about two weeks ago that he would undergo arthroscopic surgery for torn cartilage in both hips following his run of Manilow: Music and Passion at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel and his performance on Aug. 27 at the Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, which are US television's top honors.
However, at his Las Vegas show last week, he told the audience his pain had worsened, and he was foregoing three remaining shows on the advice of friends and doctors. He will perform at the Emmys, then have outpatient surgery and a undergo an eight-week recovery and rehabilitation.
Since rising to stardom in the 1970s with hits like Mandy and I Write the Songs, Manilow's records have sold more 65 million copies worldwide. He has written hundreds of songs and won many awards.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
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