Goodbye yellow brick road, hello hip hop.
Elton John tells Rolling Stone magazine that he wants to record a hip-hop album with Grammy-winning producer Dr. Dre.
"I want to work with Pharrell, Timbaland, Snoop, Kanye, Eminem and just see what happens," the Rocket Man says in the Sept. 7 issue. "It may be a disaster, it could be fantastic, but you don't know until you try."
The 59-year-old says he is a fan of Blackstreet's No Diggity and Tupac Shakur's California Love.
"I want to bring my songs and melodies to hip-hop beats," John says. "I love these beats, but I have no idea how to get them."
Sir John performed Eminem's song Stan with the rapper during the 2001 Grammy awards.
His new album, The Captain and the Kid, is due in September.
Another star who seems to have lost touch with reality, Tom Cruise, has a new award from Australia to add to his collection -- for being the most sexist celebrity.
About 400 of Australia's most powerful women gathered in the New South Wales state parliament late Thursday to decide on the winners of the 14th annual Ernie Awards which are handed out for the worst derogatory public statements.
The awards were named after a trade union leader called Ernie whose union members included sheep shearers. He once famously said: "Women aren't welcome in the shearing sheds. They're only after the sex."
The Ernies have an international flavor -- and Cruise was awarded the 2006 Celebrity Ernie.
Dumped by Paramount Pictures for his erratic behavior, the kooky star won for a comment he made about his pregnant partner Katie Holmes: "I've got Katie tucked away so no one will get to us until my child is born."
The political award went to Bill Heffernan, a member of Prime Minister John Howard's conservative government in a hotly contested field.
Heffernan chastised opposition Labor MP Julia Gillard for being single and childless. "Anyone who chooses to deliberately remain barren ... they've got no idea what life's about," Heffernan said.
But the Golden Ernie for 2006 went to cruise liner company P&O for an advertising campaign that included postcards featuring bikini-clad women and the caption: "Seamen wanted."
The company has subsequently apologized for the campaign.
Another celebrity diaster in the making is Kevin Federline, who has been trying his hand at signing and acting.
The 28-year-old dancer who married singer Britney Spears will be shuffling over to the small screen where he will appear in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation this fall, People magazine reported.
Although Federline and Spears ventured into TV with their reality show Chaotic, which aired on UPN last year, this will be his first venture into acting.
Britney's boy started filming this week in Los Angeles. He will play a menacing, arrogant teen who harasses investigators Nick Stokes (George Eads) and Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) on a job.
The episode is tentatively scheduled to air in October.
Mr. Britney Spears recently performed at the Teen Choice Awards where he rapped one of the songs on his upcoming album Playing with Fire.
Introduced by his wife, who was dressed in a cleavage-baring mini-dress despite her late pregnancy, K-Fed stalked about the stage with attitude.
"Don't hate because I'm a superstar! And I'm married to a superstar! Nothin' come between us no matter who you are!" he declared, as dancers pop-locked as his side.
It was the most anticipated performance of the night -- and the most ridiculed. The next morning, videos of it were splashed on Web sites like YouTube.com and various blogs, accompanied by catty comments mocking both Federline and his wife.
If the Web world isn't exactly accepting of Federline's rap-star ambitions, the hip-hopsters are even less so.
Elliot Wilson, editor in chief of XXL magazine, called it a "YouTube disaster" -- something to be laughed off in hip-hop circles.
"I just think we ignore him," Wilson said. "He's a joke, basically."
Cheng Ching-hsiang (鄭青祥) turned a small triangle of concrete jammed between two old shops into a cool little bar called 9dimension. In front of the shop, a steampunk-like structure was welded by himself to serve as a booth where he prepares cocktails. “Yancheng used to be just old people,” he says, “but now young people are coming and creating the New Yancheng.” Around the corner, Yu Hsiu-jao (饒毓琇), opened Tiny Cafe. True to its name, it is the size of a cupboard and serves cold-brewed coffee. “Small shops are so special and have personality,” she says, “people come to Yancheng to find such treasures.” She
In July of 1995, a group of local DJs began posting an event flyer around Taipei. It was cheaply photocopied and nearly all in English, with a hand-drawn map on the back and, on the front, a big red hand print alongside one prominent line of text, “Finally… THE PARTY.” The map led to a remote floodplain in Taipei County (now New Taipei City) just across the Tamsui River from Taipei. The organizers got permission from no one. They just drove up in a blue Taiwanese pickup truck, set up a generator, two speakers, two turntables and a mixer. They
Late last month Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro told the Philippine Senate that the nation has sufficient funds to evacuate the nearly 170,000 Filipino residents in Taiwan, 84 percent of whom are migrant workers, in the event of war. Agencies have been exploring evacuation scenarios since early this year, she said. She also observed that since the Philippines has only limited ships, the government is consulting security agencies for alternatives. Filipinos are a distant third in overall migrant worker population. Indonesia has over 248,000 workers, followed by roughly 240,000 Vietnamese. It should be noted that there are another 170,000
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) attendance at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPP) “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War” parade in Beijing is infuriating, embarrassing and insulting to nearly everyone in Taiwan, and Taiwan’s friends and allies. She is also ripping off bandages and pouring salt into old wounds. In the process she managed to tie both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into uncomfortable knots. The KMT continues to honor their heroic fighters, who defended China against the invading Japanese Empire, which inflicted unimaginable horrors on the
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