Howard's claims that he influenced the voting are based on the fact that Sanjaya bounced out of the bottom three on March 19--but that was the day after his extraordinary, mind-blowing, crying girl performance of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" (which has already made it onto Tabloid Baby's list of the Top 50 TV Moments of All Time).
"But the fans also include older women and Indian-Americans, and Mr. Malakar's progress is being tracked voraciously by Indian newspapers in both the United States and India..."
The death this week of popular Cuban singer and humorist Faustino Oramas has brought renewed attention to the Buena Vista Social Club, the landmark, Grammy-winning album of classic Cuban music performed by Ry Cooder and a group of musicians who'd played at the legendary Havana dance club in the 1940s. 
Manuel "Puntillita" Licea
Ibrahim Ferrer
The Buena Vista bad luck is an eerie parallel to another popular "club" album of the Nineties: Sheryl Crow's debut, Tuesday Night Music Club. The album is named for the group of musicians, including Crow, who came together on Tuesdays to work on the album. After the album's success, Crow's relationship with the musicians became acrimonious over songwriting credits. One would commit suicide (as would the author of the book that gave title to the song, Leaving Las Vegas), another lost his son in an accident and Crow would be stricken with cancer.
Though he cites Jesus (along with Adam Duritz) among his heroes on the Idol website, Chris never played up his Christian background. He's the son of Christian missionaries, spent much of his childhood overseas, attended the conservative fundamentalist Bob Jones University, and was a favorite of the influential Gospel Music Association.
And let it be a lesson to future Idol contestants: Keep away from that satanic yogic lute-playing (and Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip guest star), Sting. Both Chris and Phil Bat Boy" Stacy sang boring Sting songs. Both wound up in the bottom three. 
Even the greatest gossip column in the world can get it wrong once in awhile. That’s what makes it gossip. And today’s item on Michael Lohan in the New York Post’s legendary Page Six is wrong wrong wrong… 
Michael Lohan was released from prison earlier this month, after serving nearly two years on drunk driving and probation violation charges. While in prison, Lohan took Bible study courses and is now working with the Teen Challenge ministry on Long Island. And Hudson and his team at Frozen Pictures are shooting a reality television series about his life and work. 
2 Place the ball of your foot over this imaginary cigarette and twist it to and fro as if putting it out. 
Forget Heather Mills doing backflips on Dancing with The Stars with a bionic leg. There's real outrage this afternoon over Sanjaya Malakar's performance on American Idol last night (see his performance here). 
Ah... and what of the Desi factor... and suspicions that he's remained on the show thanks to automated call centers in India? 
E!'s bought up the rights to the UK series Katie and Peter, which follows the romance of a pair who fell in love while competing on I'm A Celebrity! Get Me Out of Here!, and then, like Peter Brady and that messed-up Top Model winner who met on The Surreal Life, turned their romance into a reality series. The only difference is that Katie and Peter allowed full access into their empty lives, including their engagement, wedding and birth of their first child.
E! plans to air at least 22 episodes beginning April 21st. The show will be paired with The Girls Next Door (good tie-in-- Katie, as Jordan, was a Hefner fave and, at his invitation, lived in the mansion for a few weeks-- probably getting it on with the geezer-- back in 2002). And, perhaps as a warning, E! exec Cyndi McClellan says British celebrity couples are literally lining up to tape reality shows that will introduce them to US audiences.
Cathy Seipp, a columnist and blogger who became widely known for poking fun at the liberal leanings popularly associated with her hometown, Los Angeles, died there on Wednesday. She was 49 and lived in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.
Another chapter in the JFK conspiracy closes with today’s report that Woody Harrelson’s father has died in of “natural causes.” Charles Voyde Harrelson was a hired assassin, convicted of killing a federal judge. But he’s most notorious for declaring that he was involved in John F. Kennedy's assassination. That avowal came years after he was pegged as one of the three tramps photographed after being arrested on November 22, 1963, in a boxcar in the railyard near Dealey Plaza (the arresting officer claims that the three were released after a few hours of questioning).
The photographs that allegedly prove it are still being debated. Hunt is said to be the second man in line (at left). Ahead of him, Watergate figure Frank Sturgis. In back, Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt. Sturgis died in 1993. 
Harrelson was the last one. He was the only one who ever admitted his involvment in the killing of JFK. They wound up locking him away inside the maximum security federal prison in Colorado called "Supermax." That's where they say he died in his cell of an apparent heart attack. He was 69.
Sanjaya's explosion comes amid a furious refutation from one of the Indiacentric websites that led to our exclusive report about suspicions that Sanjaya's voting bloc was the Desi (South Asian) community here and outsourced call centers in India.
Will America have its first openly-gay Idol here? A few weeks back, Melinda sang the gay anthem, "My Funny Valentine" and dedicated it her two "closest" female friends, whom she called her "Gayles"-- as in "gay girls"--or as she explained, "Gayle King," the woman long rumoured to be Oprah Winfrey's lover (Melinda said she's the Oprah in the triangle). And two weeks ago, she made her mark with a strutting "I'm A Woman."
ABC fulfilled its part of the bargain with Heather Mills' appearance on Dancing with the Stars last night. The woman known in most of the English-speaking world as the hard-boiled, attention-grabbing fantasist who married Paul McCartney in his lowest hour, then played dirty pool in her effort to fleece him in divorce, is now "an inspiration"... with "more guts than Rambo"... and, drummed over and over again... not a gold-digging former porn model and alleged call girl... but a "charity campaigner."
The familiar Heather only showed up between the lines: the way she twisted her face and talked out of the side of her mouth like Dick Cheney... her disingenuous claim that she was "not used to dressing up at this level" in her "ice cream sundae" gown-- followed by cohost Samantha Harris' quip, "Somebody get her some whipped cream" (obviously forgetting Heather's porny --NSFW-- photos)... and Heather's line to the judges: "Just don't ask me to point that foot! If you can point it, I'll give you a million dollars." After the McCartney settlement, she can afford to throw around a million bucks.
"Is there anyone besides me who has a problem with a former call girl who posed nude in sexual situations now being called a 'charity campaigner' and hero for the disabled? Why would ABC put a person like this on a family show? Her nude shots (with a man) are available to anyone who can google, including my friend's older teenagers who were pulling up the pictures and laughing at them as she danced. In the UK she has a disabled parking badge. In the US she is dancing and doing high kicks."
Ant & Dec, seen in the above clip punking their countryman Simon Cowell in an inside joke on the last round of American Idol auditions (they hosted the original UK version of the show, Pop Idol-- but we don't think Paula and Randy got it), are a peculiarly British taste, like Robbie Williams, David Beckham or Pete Doherty... which is why you've probably never heard of them and why if they stick it out they'll wind up divorced and in rehab.
Anthony McPartlin & Declan Donnelly, both 31, have been stars in the UK since they were kids. They've starred in kiddie shows, had hit records, hosted lots of variety and game shows (including I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! featuring David Gest) and played themselves in the movie Love, Actually.
