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Well, his gift has blossomed with "Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye." Inspired in spirit (but not content) by the French theorist's once-scandalous 1929 novella (intertitles from the book are flashed on screen between sequences), the film is a tapestry of wild images which are mature in more ways than one.

The opening scene comes from a 1950s medical training film that shows childbirth, which is obviously the ultimate result of love-making. The film then switches to a gaudy setting which may be a nightclub or may be a private home. A phonograph is playing a Fred Astaire record with candles perched in a diamond formation on the record. On a stage are two women in a demented burlesque routine: they have oversized top hats covering their heads and shoulders and faces painted on their bare torsos (their breasts have become eyes, their navels have become mouths), and their slender legs sport tacky fishnet stockings. As they tap dance in this bizarre show, a young Johnny Depp look-alike plays with a joystick, as if he is controlling the stage action. The joystick is then replaced with his own home-grown joystick. When the routine has ended, the Johnny Depp knockoff is having dinner alone at a sumptuous table while one of the women plays piano in the nude. A black man in leather fetish (complete with a whip and handcuffs dangling from his belt) acts as butler, but then goes to answer the door and finds a young blonde sailor.

What happens next will probably cause more than a few people to leave any screening of this film: the leather daddy strips the sailor, ties him to a bed, and begins to indulge in actions which the authors of the Book of Leviticus labeled as a definite no-no. The Johnny Depp ringer interrupts the action with a shotgun. From there, we find one of the dancing women emerging from a toilet stall with a bloodied bandage wrapped around her eyes. It looks as if she has been blinded and she walks with outstretched hands in search of physical guidance from her environment. She finds and dons a top hat, which is fetching -- although it might have been more practical to find a shirt, as her upper torso is naked. She stumbles about and trips over a dog cage where the other dancer is curled up with a long chain around her neck. Opening the cage door, the women are reunited and begin to slowly undress each other. The first woman's bandage is removed and there is a sense of relief since she has not been blinded. The two women then make love in a long, long, long sequence. Clearly the actresses were having fun since they frequently find it difficult to keep straight faces. By the time this is over, the Johnny Depp fella takes the long chain and pulls the caged woman out of the room and into another adventure behind a closed door.

The next part of the film takes avant-garde filmmaking to a new height. It is morning and the club/mansion is shown in the sunlight to be a rundown, decrepit place. The caged woman enters wearing a negligee and sporting a comically dark black eye. She is smoking a cigarette and looks feverish. She walks across a dirty, litter-thick floor and up a long staircase to a lonely landing, then down a dark hall.

And then, that shot is repeated again. From a slightly different angle, but with the same set-up and conclusion. And then again. And then again. And then again. And then again. It almost seems like the classic "Gong Show" episode when all of the contestants came on to sing "Feelings" -- until the end of the show when the audience lost whatever feelings it may have possessed. The woman finally comes into a lonely room where two dogs are roaming freely. She looks out of the window and speaks the only line of dialogue in this film: "Jackie! Jackie! Jackie O!" We then see what she is viewing outside of the window: Jackie Kennedy, all pretty in pink, captured on film by Abraham Zapruder as she is riding in a Dallas motorcade with her president husband past a certain grassy knoll. The woman turns away from this sight, pulls up her negligee, urinates on the floor and becomes hysterical.

Elsewhere in the house, the other woman is sitting in a dirty corner smoking a cigarette. She pulls off her shirt and reveals a long scar on her stomach. After feeling herself, she extinguishes the cigarette on her arm.

The film ends with a three-way between the women and the Johnny Depp character. They are all naked and, quite frankly, don't look very attractive. Their skin tone is pallid, their enthusiasm for the sexcapade is mechanical, and one of the women actually starts coughing after giving oral gratification. The film flashes an intertitle with a rich line from Bataille: "Arranging narrative is a bourgeois mania." And then the Johnny Depp fella sends us off with a money shot right into the camera (in a moment that will make all of us thank God this was not a 3D film!).

It would be easy to dismiss "Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye" as deranged pornography. The film is too artistic in its composition and execution to ever be mistaken as XXX filth. The color sequences, with rich cobalt and fiery crimson shadings, is among the finest DV cinematography I've ever seen and the soundtrack's wild blend of ominous music and innocent-yet-sinister everyday sounds (clocks ticking, seagulls crying) mirror the off-kilter world of the characters shown here (and kudos are in order for having sonorous organ music playing during the close-up of the blow job in the finale).

But what does it all mean? "Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye" gives us characters (or perhaps caricatures) of sexual excitement: the movie star handsome leading man, attractive women in show biz sleaze-tease costumes, the blonde young sailor, the well-endowed black S&M expert. And there's enough sex going on here to rival a week's worth of Playboy Channel titillation. But (to steal a line from the old pop tune) - where is the love? The individuals here are not driven by a genuine emotional need for belonging, but by a ravenous carnality devoid of romanticism or passion. There is almost no dialogue, so nothing passionate or sincere is spoken. And the only words are directed at a beloved icon, someone literally beyond our window in more ways than one.

The sex drives of the characters inevitably takes them onto a dead end road: the gay coupling ends in death, the women's lesbian session finds them without pleasure in the ghastly harsh morning light, and the final three-way is without sensuality for any of the participants. Their playtime has left them empty and with nothing to show for their efforts. Even the seemingly endless repetitions of the woman going up the stairs reminds us of endless mornings after when passionate one-nighters end in abandonment. This happens all of the time, especially to those who never learn from their mistakes (as embodied by the woman on the stairs).

And where does the audience fit in? The viewer can easily take the wrong role of being a voyeur, but the film is not about voyeurism. It is a film designed to make the viewer stop and think about what they've witnessed. For those too dense to get it, the final sick joke is a below-the-belt variation on a spit-in-the-eye--which is the ultimate insult against voyeurism. In setting this shot up, McElhinney poses two questions in one: And what the hell have you been looking at? And is this what you've been wanting?

The latest tool in the battle to rev up listless libidos is a little oval skin patch aimed at boosting a woman's sex drive.

The woman said that once she started using the patch, sex with her husband of 29 years went from once a month to twice a week. "He sure is smiling a lot," she said.

The patch was tested on women whose ovaries had been surgically removed, decreasing their hormone levels. The device releases testosterone.

Procter & Gamble officials said if all goes well, the patch could be available for doctors to prescribe sometime next year, and some think it may develop the same kind of buzz as Viagra.

Experts believe the patch eventually could go into wider use to help other postmenopausal women kick their sex drives into a higher gear.

Dr. Hilda Hutcherson, author of the book "What Your Mother Never Told You About Sex," said there is a big need for the drug.

"I've had women tell me, 'I'd rather be cleaning the toilet seat than have sex with my husband, who I love dearly,'" said Hutcherson. "They want to do something about it."

"Some women care so much about their lower libido that they'll talk about it every time you see them, even when you're talking about health issues that seem much more important," said Dr. Lila Nachtigall, an NYU Medical Center professor who treated 30 women in the study.

Unlike Viagra, which men take a few hours before intercourse, Intrinsa takes three to four weeks to start working.

But another woman who participated in the study said it's worth the wait. "It does get your juices flowing, so to speak," she said.

But gynecologists warned that testosterone, which can cause a woman's voice to deepen and body hair to grow, is not for everyone.

Meyer died Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills, according to his company, RM Films International Inc. Spokeswoman Janice Cowart said Meyer had suffered from dementia and died of complications of pneumonia.

He went on to direct the major studio release "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", which was co-written by film critic Roger Ebert.

"The girls kick the hell out of the guys. I've always played well at the Ivy League — Cornell, Dartmouth. I have never encountered a berating woman," he said.

Meyer's work made him rich and earned him critical acclaim. He was honored at international film festivals, his movies were discussed in college courses, and his work was shown at top museums.

His 1966 classic, "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" about three hip go-go-girl club dancers who go on a vengeful murder spree against the men who did them wrong still makes the art house rounds.

"This film is not derogatory to women," Meyer said. "There were three tough cookies to deal with. Besides, they get what's coming."

Three of the "imaginauts" who gain special powers after being caught in a cosmic storm in outer space are rising stars:

• Jessica Alba, 23, star of TV's Dark Angel, is Sue Storm, also known as the Invisible Woman, who has a romance with Reed.

• Welshman Ioan Gruffudd, 30, goes from Lancelot in King Arthur to scientist Reed Richards, whose Mr. Fantastic has the ability to stretch.

• Chris Evans, 23, currently seen in Cellular, is Sue's bro Johnny, a cocky pilot who turns up the heat as the Human Torch.

• The most recognizable face is also the most covered. Veteran actor Michael Chiklis, 41, of TV's The Shield, will grumble his way through the role of Ben Grimm, aka the Thing, a boulder-bodied mound of power whose battle cry is "It's clobberin' time!"

Don't expect a computerized brute as in The Hulk. That's Chiklis inside the craggy foam-rubber suit that, with shoes, weighs about 70 pounds. "That is the whole center of Ben's problem — he's trapped," says Chiklis. "He's a tragic hero. It's a delicate balance between formidable and ferocious and warm and fuzzy."

Chiklis, who has embodied such icons as John Belushi in 1989's Wired and Curly in TheThree Stooges TV movie, understands why he got the part. "It's typecasting," says the actor, who built up his rock-man endurance by running 10Ks five days a week for the past three months. "A guy with a hard exterior who's got a beautiful heart."

Alas, the Thing's trademark stogie might be stubbed out, thanks to PC concerns.

Director Tim Story (Barbershop) takes a leap into the big leagues with his first summer blockbuster.

"Part of the appeal of the Fantastic Four is they don't use secret identities or wear masks," he explains. "They walk amongst New Yorkers who accept them and go to the grocery store to buy milk, just regular people dealing with life who happen to have extraordinary abilities. They don't always like each other, but they do love each other."

Studio 20th Century Fox is counting on audiences to share that love. The cast is signed for two sequels but for Story, it's wait and see.

Julian McMahon of TV's Nip/Tuck takes on villain Dr. Doom, but the Four have formidable movie competition, as well. The Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise remake of the alien-attack thriller War of the Worlds will invade theaters June 29, two days before Fantastic Four.

Then there is The Incredibles, a computer-animated spoof on a superhero family coming Nov. 5 from Pixar and Disney, that could upstage Fantastic Four.

Rodney Dangerfield is having a longer hospital stay than he anticipated.

It seems that after Dan emailed me with his flight itinerary, that he posted it on his website. The newshounds at BLABBERMOUTH sure must have been doing their homework since it was a plan orchestrated by myself,(AZ) and I wanted to make the official announcement this morning. Oh well, that's just more press.

We are still in negotiations with award winning director Ren Savant to take the filming duties. As soon as the director is confirmed, you can be sure it will be announced here.

We'll also keep you posted on the CD's release, final album artwork, and subquesent tour.

NEW YORK - Democrat John Kerry joked on "The Late Show with David Letterman" about changes under President Bush's tax plan, including that Vice President Dick Cheney can claim the president as a dependent.

Kerry's interview with Letterman wasn't all jokes. The Massachusetts senator spent much of his appearance discussing serious topics ranging from global warming to the beheading of an American hostage in Iraq. He talked about where he thinks the president has gone wrong in Iraq and what changes he would make as commander in chief.

Kerry appeared on the CBS show on the same day the network apologized for broadcasting a story questioning Bush's National Guard service. He joked about CBS' credibility when Letterman asked if poll numbers can be believed. "Depending on which network it is, we can," Kerry said with a chuckle.

Kerry's "Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals" are:

10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.

9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.

8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.

7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.

6. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.

5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.

4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa (Heinz Kerry) to cover the whole damn thing.

3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.

2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it "nuclear" instead of "nucular."

1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.

“I'm really excited to have a place to keep in touch with thousands of new fans and all the cool people who've supported me throughout my career,” Jenna says in a letter to fans posted on the new site. “Consider this a headquarters for correspondence, images, merchandise, and whatever else comes up. I couldn't do it without you, so it's really important to me that I can communicate with you personally and give you the special attention you deserve.”

The site also offers a wide array of benefits for members who join Jenna’s fan club at annual rates ranging from $29.95 to $99.95. They include “cool merchandise that you can show off to your friends,” according to Jenna, as well as discounts on shirts, posters and collectibles at the ClubJennaMall.com. “And,” says Jenna, “if you ever want a personalized autograph, just let me know... I'll be as creative (or naughty) as you want me to be!”

`I wanna rock 'n' roll all night - and party every day." When Kiss howled those lines back in 1975, they might have envisioned a place like Snitch, New York's only 24-hour rock club.

The three musicians, who all reside in L.A., set out to fill what they see as a gaping void in the fabric of New York night life: "a real rock 'n' roll getaway," says Scallions. "It's never really been done here."

So the leather-pants-wearing entrepreneurs thought up all the things they'd want in a lounge: Informal live music. Cheap beer. Good (as in, no techno allowed) deejays. Sports on big-screen TVs. Cute female bartenders.

And edible bar food - including the most important meal of a rock star's day, the late-night breakfast.

Snitch's menu was planned by its two other two co-owners, Michael Diamond and Jon Gabel, veteran club owners and resterauteurs who opened the hot Japanese/Brazilian restaurant Vela this spring.

"Food's an important part of any entertainment formula," says Gabel, who adds that he's wholeheartedly behind the Snitch credo.

"All the other [clubs] are about models and being seen and celebrities and just the whole chi-chi-ness of it," he says. "Rock 'n' roll ... there's nothing chi-chi about that."

Nothing, that is, except the menu - which includes conch fritters, fresh from St. Bart's; french fries with truffle aioli; and brioche french toast.

All the bread comes from Balthazar; the meat is all organic - even the "big gut-bomb cheeseburger," says Scallions, a native Southerner who made sure the menu also included down-home items like a chicken-and-waffles basket, and a gigantic, sloppy "Shut-Up Sundae."

Brunch, which will be served from midnight to 8 a.m. on weekends, includes Kobe steak and eggs, waffles, eggs Benedict, and, for the health-conscious aging rocker, granola and fruit.

"Snitch is going to be the place to have breakfast," promises Gabel.

But Snitch's real draw will be the clientele: Its owners are hoping for a steady stream of famous friends who'll play impromptu acoustic sets, in the style of L.A.'s famed rock club the Viper Room.

That tiny lounge has been a hot spot for memorable musical stop-ins by everyone from Pearl Jam to Johnny Cash. Its intimate size and low-key atmosphere have kept it on the radar for celebrities and A-list musicians since it was opened by Johnny Depp in 1993.

So, like that 250-capacity club, Snitch features a miniscule stage - complete with house instruments, so musicians can get on stage at a moment's notice and play. "If it happens, it happens - if not, no big deal," says Scallions. "But you can never tell who's going to be here."

They've already garnered interest from heavy-hitters such as Marilyn Manson, Green Day and Lenny Kravitz.

"'Snitch but don't tell' is our tag line,"says Gabel. "We'll never advertise who will be here."

McKagan, for one, plans to stop in frequently. "It's cool to have a home base in New York,"he says.

If and when Velvet Revolver's bassist, Slash, shows up, he'll be able to order the drink named for him. It's a nod to the former Guns n' Roses guitarist's well-documented love of whiskey: Jack and Coke, with a shot of Jack back.

Then there's the Fuel cocktail: sake infused with ginger. "It tastes like... fuel," says Snitch's manager, Joseph Stern.

They're still trying to work out the Keith Richards drink: "We can't find anything strong enough," Stern laughs.

"You need something to make the heart palpitate," adds Scallions. "Like Red Bull. Or an eightball."

And in a kind nod to struggling musicians, the 5 to 8 p.m. happy hour during the week will offer $2 Bud and Bud Lights.

"When you have to decide whether to buy strings or beer - do both," says Stern.

Sure, it's a little strange that two of the bar's owners have publicly gone through rehab - in Weiland's case, pretty recently (he just finished a six-month stint before heading off on a European tour in August).

But here's what you didn't know: The now clean and sober McKagan is a talented numbers-cruncher, which could come in handy for club management.

"Duff is a smart guy," says Scallions. "He's been studying finance at the University of Seattle."

Are they concerned that wayward celebrities could bring to Snitch the kind of tragic publicity the Viper Room received when River Phoenix died of an overdose on its sidewalk in 1993?

"I'm not worried about that," says Gabel. "The rock stars we've had here are pretty well behaved.

"Now, if we were a hotel, it would be different..."

With no rooms to trash, the rockers will have to channel the testosterone into a different arena: rooting for their favorite football teams on Sunday and Monday, on Snitch's 12 plasma TV screens.

"I think all musicians secretly want to be athletes, and all athletes want to be musicians,"says Scallions, who's planning to add some awards and memorabilia to the walls eventually too.

That image brings up unfortunate associations with tourist-heavy chain establishments like the Hard Rock Caf‚ and Planet Hollywood - but Scallions insists the club won't go that way.

"We don't want to turn into some cheesy novelty thing," he says. "We want to cater to real people, New Yorkers who've been waiting for a place to hang and listen to great rock and roll.

"The real locals."

Tom Gabriel Fischer founder of Celtic Frost and author of the Frost biography "Are you Morbid?" had this to say about Ron:
"What really lifts him (Ron Marks) above any other contender is his extraordinary guitar playing, executed with the feel of someone who has a god-given talent for the instrument...His musical horizons extend and eclipse Martins and my own technical capabilities."

Anand Bhatt President of Sonic Wave International says, "I'm really excited to release the new Subsonic project! Celtic Frost and Ron Marks fans will be VERY pleased. We have always been a strong independent force in heavy music, and its an honor that Ron chose us to put out the new release."

Ron Marks had the following to say about the songwriting on his latest effort. "When I think about the music and the CD title, thoughts of independence and not selling your mind or soul to anyone are the prevailing visions. Yes, I'm writing about American society because that's where I live. But the lyrics go beyond that into what humanity has done throughout history and continues to do. And more so, how we never learn from our mistakes. For instance, the latest track is called "Delilahs" and is about human betrayal on a global and perpetual scale with a little of the middle eastern war thrown around the edges."

Ron is a resident of Hermitage PA and has performed in several music related projects as well as recording as Subsonic for the last 5 years. In his youth he and friend Dan Laudo (drummer for Prong) played in a band with none other than Trent Reznor. Ron Marks has been called "an unusual and almost heavier version of Frank Zappa."

You can read more about Ron in the Celtic Frost biography "Are You Morbid?" by Tom Gabriel Fischer on Sanctuary Books.

Details of the debates were being negotiated by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III for Bush and attorney Vernon Jordan for Kerry. It was not clear when any agreement would be announced. The Bush campaign denied that there was a deal.

"No deal has been reached. Reports of a tentative agreement — I don't even know what that means _are false," said Nicolle Devenish, communications director for the Bush campaign. She said Baker had told his staff there was not a deal.

But a person familiar with the debate negotiations said there was a tentative deal for three debates but that some details were still being worked out. The person spoke on condition of anonymity since the agreement is not final.

The tentative agreement also calls for one vice presidential debate on Oct. 5 between Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards, Kerry's running mate.

The source said the two campaigns have agreed on the dates and sites proposed by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates — Sept. 30 at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.; Oct. 8 at Washington University in St. Louis; and Oct. 13 at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz.

The co-chairmen of the debate commission told representatives for Bush and Kerry on Wednesday that they must act immediately to finalize details for the debates, with the first only two weeks away.

The Kerry campaign agreed last month to the commission's proposal for venues, dates and moderators for three debates involving the presidential candidates and one for the vice presidential candidates. However, the Bush campaign would not commit to the proposal.

With a guaranteed television audience of tens of millions of people, the debates could have a major impact because of the closeness of the race and the voters who still count themselves as undecided.

In a poll by the Pew Research Center, 29 percent of those surveyed said the debates would matter in deciding how they would vote. Some 68 percent said their minds were already made up.

Those undecided voters could make a huge difference. According to a Nielsen survey, 46.6 million people watched the first debate between Bush and Al Gore in 2000. The second and third debates drew audiences of 37.6 million, and 37.7 million, respectively.

In 2000, Bush and Democratic nominee Al Gore debated three times in 90-minute sessions in October. Their running mates debated once that month. For the third presidential debate, Bush and Gore answered questions posed by undecided voters from the St. Louis area during a town-hall session.

Guitars, jackets and photographs sold on the day with prices reaching almost 15 times expectations. One of the biggest items was Cash's custom made guitar. It was expected to go for $20,000 but sold for $132,000.

Other items sold included the piano seen in his last video 'Hurt' and a Rolls Royce.

Wilson, asked if the Outlaw label was detrimental to her as a woman artist, said, "I have no problem with the image. Outlaw to me means that we all had to claw through the dirt. Nobody on this stage was handed anything. Wearing the Outlaw badge is a badge of honor, and I wear it proudly."

Asked about the usual Music Row tendency to copycat any huge commercial successes -- such as Gretchen Wilson and Big & Rich this year -- all parties concerned were united in a response. "They already tried," said Wilson. "You can't do it," said Rich. "You can't try to manufacture what is already real."

Tucker noted that when she tried expanding her country music early in her career, "I was booed on the Opry stage." She was trying, she said, "to broaden its appeal," much as current audiences for Wilson and Big & Rich have demonstrated. John Rich amplified that message by pointing out that the same week that Big & Rich's single "died at country radio, the album hit No. 1."

Referring to the changing nature of popular music, Skynyrd's Rossington said flatly that "Skynyrd would be considered a new country band, if we came out today."

Live dates:

Authorities confiscated about 17 grams of marijuana from a vehicle in which Culkin was a passenger. Officers also found 16 milligrams of prescription medications used to control anxiety and seizures, according to a police report.

Culkin was in a vehicle driven by a 22-year-old New York City man who was stopped for driving 70 mph in a 60-mph speed zone and for making an improper lane change. After receiving a verbal warning, the driver allowed police to search the vehicle.

Culkin told an officer there was $3,000 in a bag on the floor of the car. The officer opened it and found a clear baggie of what appeared to be marijuana, the report said.

A short time later, Culkin allegedly pulled another baggie out of his pocket that contained white pills and other medication. Additional marijuana was found rolled in a metal cigarette box, according to the report.

It was not clear whether Culkin had a lawyer. It also was not clear why Culkin was in Oklahoma City.

Jello Biafra is tentatively scheduled to perform with Ministry onstage to sing on some Lard songs in LA (only on September 24th), San Fransisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.

From Type O Negative's Management:

"Type O Negative postpones fall dates.

During a recent medical exam, undisclosed anomalies were discovered and it was suggested that Peter Steele, lead singer, bassist and songwriter, undergo further tests.

As a firm timetable for the tests and the subsequent results is indeterminable, it has been decided to postpone the fall tour to a later date when there will be no foreseeable conflicts with scheduling.

In the meantime Type O Negative continues to work on the forthcoming release, the first for new label SPV, due in 2005."

But he's never given up (which is where our torturous balls metaphor comes in) and next January will see Cage finally get his wish when filming starts in Melbourne on Ghost Rider, the latest big-budget flick from Daredevil director (and ace foosball player), Mark Steven Johnson.

Empire had the opportunity recently to sit down with Cage, who talked in depth about the project, in which Cage will play Johnny Blaze, a circus motorcycle stuntman who, after a series of tragic events, is tricked by Satan into becoming the Spirit of Vengeance aka the Ghost Rider; a flame-skulled, motorcycle-riding demon. But with Johnny's pure heart initially over-riding the Satanic imprint, the Ghost Rider becomes a vigilante, charged with cleansing impure souls via various arcane weapons, including the blistering penance stare.

"What I love about this idea for a comic book is that, if you think about it, it’s really complex. Obviously the movie should be fun and it has to have humour but if you think about a superhero who’s using the powers of hell for good… I mean, that is a very profound, complicated concept for a superhero," said Cage.

And if that has you thinking Hellboy, then Cage is happy to set you straight. "Hellboy is a later character," he said. "Ghost Rider's been cursed by the devil but he’s not going to let the devil win. He sold his soul out of love, he was trying to save his father’s life, and then he got tricked by the trickster. But because he did it out of love the devil can’t get him. He can outfox the devil and use his powers for love and good, which is interesting."

Although the Ghost Rider – with its fiery skull, burning eyes, and motorcycle with flaming wheels – is one of Marvel's most easily recognisable characters, there are of course problems to reconcile when an A-lister is cast in the role: namely, how to include Cage's fizzog on the screen without compromising the iconic image.

"Well I won’t be THAT face," said Cage, who revealed that the Rider's face will be largely CG. "But it’s important to the filmmaker that there’s still moments in the CGI of the face where you can still see my own expressions, so I can work that out with them. It’s hard to have a skull make facial expressions."

Early reports suggest that the movie will see Ghost Rider take on Blackheart, the son of the Devil, and Cage is looking forward to the challenge of his first comic book movie.

Beware KMFDM is coming to a city near you…

CANADA TOUR

Oct. 6 - Legends - Victoria, BC
Oct. 7 - Sonar - Vancouver, BC
Oct. 8 - venue tbd - Kelowna, BC
Oct. 9 - Starlite Room - Edmonton, AB
Oct. 10 - Warehouse - Calgary, AB - (NO Membership required)
Oct. 11 - Wild Bill's - Banff, AB
Oct. 12 - The State - Regina, SAS - 19+
Oct. 13 - Pyramid - Winnipeg, MAN
Oct. 15 and Oct. 16 - tbd
Oct. 17 - Phoenix - Toronto, ON - all ages
Oct. 18 - Barrymore's - Ottawa, ON
Oct. 19 - Cabaret La Tulipe - Montreal, QC
Oct. 20 to Oct. 23 - tbd

U.S. TOUR

Oct. 24 - tbd
Oct. 25 - tbd
Oct. 26 - Webster Theater - Hartford, CT - all ages
Oct. 27 - Crocodile Rock - Allentown, PA - all ages
Oct. 28 - Mr. Small's - Pittsburgh, PA - all ages
Oct. 29 - Downtown - Farmingdale, NY - 18+
Oct. 30 - The Chance - Poughkeepsie, NY - all ages
Oct. 31 - Water St. Music Hall - Rochester, NY - all ages

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of Beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have had $214.00.

Psychic TV was first born in 50 Beck Road, Hackney in 1982. Persuaded and encouraged by his cool friend guitarist Alex Fergusson of punk trailblazers Alternative TV an initially reluctant Genesis P-Orridge returned to active duty inventing new music following his termination of Throbbing Gristle in 1981. Six months later the duo completed the nucleus of the new unit with ex-TG’er Peter Christopherson. Along with the Velvet Underground, Throbbing Gristle is and remains one of the most influential rock groups of the last 30 years; if you haven't heard their music, you will certainly have listened to someone who has. In Throbbing Gristle, Genesis and company synthesized the influences and philosophies of Gen’s close friends and collaborators, including Beat writer William S. Burroughs; Beat poet and painter Brion Gysin; psychedelic shaman Dr Timothy Leary; queer activist film maker Derek Jarman; and those of legendary occultist Austin Osman Spare, theorist John Cage and various seminal underground authors, thinkers, artists and film makers. The group “TG” produced some of the most unsettling and thought-provoking music of all time. Their pioneering "Industrial" sound and self-sufficient approach to record distribution has had a profound impact, becoming key elements of underground music production and distribution ever since. ( the definitive TG history “Wreckers Of Civilisation” by Simon Ford is still available, published by Black Dog Books, London).

Right from the outset, Psychic TV in turn made highly innovative and unflinchingly provocative music blending elements of psychedelia and dance with Industrial sounds (named HYPERDELIC by Genesis). As with TG, the details of Psychic TV’s packaging, marketing and the radical lifestyle of the musicians were all treated as equally crucial components of the final aesthetic statement. Psychic TV created the template for the current avant-dance stance popularly labeled “Electronica” as well as having an undeniable influence on the emergent “Rave” culture; the group released the world's first 12 inch single with the words “ACID HOUSE” in the title, “Turn On Tune In To The Acid House.” The label depicted Superman as a tab of LSD emblazoned with their logo a Psychic(k) Cross and triggered a suppressive lawsuit making this withdrawn icon a rare collectible!

For some 14 odd years, Psychic TV recorded and released dozens of live and studio albums ending up in the Guiness Book Of Records for releasing more albums in one year than any other artist (even Elvis!). Psychic TV was terminated in the mid 90's as Genesis pursued further musical goals with his spoken-word and expanded poetry/video installation project Thee Majesty.

Over the last several years, drummer Eddie ODowd of New York City's legendary rock band The Toilet Boys gently persuaded Genesis to rekindle his rock spirit and Psychic TV. As sincere and dogged as Alex Fergusson had been before him, Eddie succeeded and Psychic TV has been reborn as PTV3 as of December 2003. The full history of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and his varied seminal musical exploits of the past three decades as well as his socio-cultural (or should that be politico-sexual? Or all the above!) adventures would easily fill a book ( and…in fact …last year Soft Skull/Shortwave Books published “Painful but Fabulous: The Lives and Art of Genesis P-Orridge” in 2003).

Already living a creative further chapter of his”life” book Genesis continues to provoke and explore in his very public private life; from replacing all his healthy teeth with solid gold permanent replicas in an homage to Pierre Clemente in Luis Bunuel's “Belle De Jour” to he and his other half Lady Jaye simultaneously getting identical breast implants on Valentines Day 2003 as part of their modern “BREAKING SEX” art project/exploration that they have named “Pandrogeny”.

Littering the dictionary and culture with new words for new, original ideas Genesis and now Lady Jaye can be said to follow the serious process and joy-filled strategy of “When there is no example imagine it, when there is no word for it invent one.”

It is through this deeply sincere search for a positive path of humanE evolution and his/their commitment of mind, body and soul to that voyage of discovery that such a profound global influence of his creative experimentation and current (PTV3) music continues to animate and deeply inspire successive generations. S/HE IS HER/E alive, unique and a living legend!

PSYCHIC TV/PTV3 WEST COAST DATES
Tues Nov 2nd - Los Angeles, CA- Knitting Factory
Wed Nov 3rd - San Francisco CA- DNA Lounge
Fri Nov 5th - Portland OR - Sabala's
Sat Nov 6th - Seattle WA - Chop Suey

Wed, 11/15/04, Montreal, Qbc, Café Campus
Thu 11/16/04, Toronto, Ont, Fun Haus
Fri 11/17/04, Chicago, IL, Empty Bottle
Sat, 11/18/04, Detroit, MI, Magic Stick

Ramone, whose birth name is John Cummings, had been hospitalized in June at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Johnny Ramone was one of the original members of the struggling Ramones, whose hit songs "I wanna be sedated" and "Blitzkrieg Bop," among others, earned them an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Johnny Ramone co-founded "The Ramones" in 1974 in New York along with singer Joey Ramone, bassist DeeDee Ramone and drummer Tommy Ramone, who is the only surviving member of the original band. All four band members had different last names, but took the common name Ramone.

Joey Ramone, whose real name is Jeff Hyman, died in 2001 of lymphatic cancer. Dee Dee Ramone, whose real name is Douglas Colvin, died from a drug overdose in 2002.

Clad in leather jackets and long black mops of hair, the group started out in legendary New York clubs like CBGB and Max's Kansas City, where they blasted their rapid-fire songs.

Since its debut album in 1976, the band struggled for commercial success, but they left a formidable imprint on the rock genre. Though they never had a Top 40 song, the Ramones influenced scores of followers, including bands such as Green Day and Nirvana.

Even Bruce Springsteen was moved. After seeing the Ramones in Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for the band. His manager, however, swayed him to keep the song for himself and it became a hit single.

The band had encounters with other big names, including producer Phil Spector, who collaborated with the band in 1980. During the session, the late bassist Dee Dee Ramone said Spector pulled a gun on the band.

"The Ramones had it rough," said Vega, who's worked with the band for 30 years. "The band almost had to be protected from people who were taking advantage of them. There was never any money made."

Johnny Ramone changed that by demanding more money for performances, but still kept a close watch on the band's budget; Vega recalled how Johnny Ramone would insist that the band drive nonstop between Boston and New York for shows instead of spending the night in a hotel.

In addition to his financial conservatism, the guitarist was politically conservative — the late Ronald Reagan was Ramone's favorite president, Vega said.

Fans have remained loyal to the Ramones, and the Ramones over the years have been loyal to their fans. In 1979, while shooting scenes for the film "Rock 'n' Roll High School," the Ramones — ignoring the director's order — played a concert-length session for fans who had paid to be extras, Vega said.

"The Ramones never ever lost their image, their aura of being the ultimate underdog, the voice of the angry young man," Vega said.

A tribute concert and cancer research fund-raiser was held Sunday in Los Angeles to celebrate the band's 30th anniversary. It featured performances from Los Angeles punk band X, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Henry Rollins and others.

Along with his wife, Linda Cummings, Johnny Ramone was surrounded at his death by friends, including Pearl Jam rocker Eddie Vedder,, singer Rob Zombie and others. Other friends who gathered at his Los Angeles home included Lisa Marie Presley, Pete Yorn, Vincent Gallo and Talia Shire.

21 and over show
WITH
BURNING DOWN
9MM
and VILE ORDER
Showtime 10:00pm

This is Jeremy's fourth appearance in a recent Starr production and follows in the wake of his hilarious performance in the prison girl parody, Busted! That also featured Starr regulars Cummings and Knights.

"This is the second in a whole line of big bust comedies we are making", says Starr who wrote and is directing the film. "Most of the porn coming out these days does not have a sense of humor and I want to change that. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and this is going to make the perfect gag gift. I mean how often do you get to see Ron Jeremy play the president and get abducted by green, big-boob aliens?"

Fleiss has teamed up with industry veteran Bob East, head of Phoenix Releasing, for the first volume of what is to become a series of XXX adult movies that capture the essence of her former Hollywood-based business adventure.

“Heidi has a fantastic story to tell, as evidenced by her mainstream movie deals and demanding schedule. It was a natural extension for her to divulge some hidden secrets to those who crave hard-core adult entertainment,” said East.

Helmed by director Jim Steel, Secrets of the Hollywood Madam takes the viewer on a cinematic journey into realistic and graphic sexual depictions that showcase the “dirty work” performed by her former working girls.

“The timing was right for me to do this adult video”, said Fleiss, who provides on-camera commentary that weaves the story into a colorful fabric.

Shot in high-definition, Secrets of the Hollywood Madam stars Nicole Sheridan, Cherokee, Michelle Michaels, Nikki Loren, Christi Lee, Ava Ramon, Audrey Hollander and Brooke, all having hard-core sex.

Secrets of the Hollywood Madam hits store shelves this week and will be available in both XXX and soft-core versions. It’s available exclusively from Phoenix Releasing.

As for the newly designed suit, Bale said that it helped him get a feel for the caped crusader, whom he characterizes as "a creature" that is not quite human. "I felt like a panther the first day, you know?" Bale said, referring to the first shooting day he strode onstage in full Batman regalia. "I did feel like some kind of wild animal. I don't know if anybody else was looking at me like that way [laughs]. I don't know if I appeared quite as ferocious as I felt that I did. But I really felt like everybody was kind of looking at me [mimes backing away in fear], you know, jumpy. And ... it makes you feel, you know, like that, you want to kind of run and jump at people and beat the crap out of them. And ... you know, it just gives you this great neck and this physique that just looks intimidating. It's all kind of aggressive. It's all pointing forward. It's very much like a predator. And that was a thrill, doing that."

10/22/04 10/28/04 Cinema Village New York

10/22/04 10/28/04 Main Theatre Royal Oak, MI

10/22/04 10/30/04 Music Box Theatre Chicago, IL

10/22/04 11/11/04 Tower City Cinema Cleveland, OH

10/29/04 11/04/04 Landmark's Dobie Theatre Austin, TX

10/29/04 11/04/04 Landmark's NuArt Theatre Los Angeles, CA

10/29/04 11/04/04 Kendall Square Cinema Boston, MA

10/29/04 11/04/04 Landmark's Lumiere San Francisco, CA

10/29/04 11/04/04 Act 1 & 2 Berkley, CA

10/30/04 10/30/04 CineMuerte Vancouver, Canada

11/05/04 11/11/04 Lagoon Cinema Minneapolis, MN

11/12/04 11/18/04 Denver Starz Denver, CO

“It was my childhood dream to be an Elite model,” says Jameson, the most downloaded woman on the internet, who can now add supermodel to her many titles.

About Jenna Jameson:

Now primarily focused on producing, Marty Schiff is poised to return to his genre roots in a big way with "Tom Savini’s Chill Factor", a straight to DVD series that promises to give horror a much needed kick in the ass with a blend of Twilight Zone-styled twists and the hardcore scares that fans have been denied for far too long. Co-created by Schiff, writer Jeff Monahan and longtime friend and associate Tom Savini who serves as the series’ namesake and host, "Chill Factor" is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated horror offerings of the year.

Producers of children's classic Charlotte's Web and Ghost Rider, based on the Marvel comic, both want to come to Melbourne to film.
Both production crews want to use the Docklands film studios at the same time early next year.

Despite the scheduling conflict, film industry sources say both films are likely to go ahead. Charlotte's Web producers are scouting for empty warehouse space to shoot the interior scenes.

It is set in autumn, so most filming will take place outdoors.

Sony Pictures' Ghost Rider, which is rumoured to star Cage and Jon Voight, was first to book the Central City Studios.

The $110 million state-of-the-art studios have lain dormant since they opened in February.

Studio boss Tim Barnett conceded it was "frustrating" that two big-budget movies were interested in using the space at the same time. But it was "fantastic for everybody" they were showing an interest in Victoria.

"There's been a slump in the industry, locally and internationally, over the last 18 months, but business is picking up," he said.

Barnett said the two films' producers, as well as 10 other international producers, visited the studios with the aim of shooting films in Melbourne.

Australia's top behind- the-scenes talent has been approached to work on Ghost Rider.

The suit said Ritter died in September 2003 of a tear in his aorta. But when he went to the emergency room complaining of chest pain, nausea and vomiting, he was misdiagnosed as having a heart attack, the suit alleges.

The legal action was reported by the entertainment news show "Extra." It also names the medical staff of Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center.

The family alleged the hospital and medical staff were negligent and careless in their examination, diagnosis and treatment of Ritter's symptoms. The suit requests unspecified damages.

The hospital said in a prepared statement that it had not yet seen the suit and could not comment. The hospital also said it would not release information about Ritter because of patient privacy.

According to People, Scott, 27, will play Bo Duke, aka the one with blond hair (actor John Schneider in the 1979-85 Dukes TV series); Knoxville, 33, will play Luke Duke, aka the one with brown hair (Tom Wopat in the TV show).

Jay Chandrasekhar of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, makers of Super Troopers, et al., reportedly is in line to direct.

At this point, screenwriters Jonathan Davis and John O'Brien are the only official Dukes boys. O'Brien cowrote Warners' most recent TV-to-film transformation, Starsky & Hutch. Any resemblance between Dukes and S&H, which grossed $88 million at the box office last spring, likely will be encouraged.

Though Jessica Simpson was said to have nabbed the plum, if drafty role of shorty-shorts devotee Daisy Duke earlier this year, the part remains up for grabs.

Simpson is in the running, though. She told Access Hollywood that a recent audition "went amazing."

"I actually wore a short skirt, not shorts," the risk-taking singer-actress-famous person shared with the TV show.

Others whose names have been in the Daisy Duke mix: Jessica Biel, Elisha Cuthbert and Mandy Moore.

Britney Spears, a real-life shorty-shorts devotee, was the reputed frontrunner to succeed Catherine Bach (TV's Daisy) when news of the movie first surfaced last year. But that was one marriage, one annulment, one engagement, two future step-children and one entirely different image ago.

Paul Walker, who raced cars in The Fast and the Furious, and Ashton Kutcher, Scott's Dude costar, were the original picks for Bo and Luke Duke, respectively--at least according to circa 2003 buzz dismissed by Warners.

In addition to Dude, Scott has goofed in the American Pie trilogy. Knoxville has appeared in Walking Tall and Men in Black II, among other films, after finding fame for doing unwise things on Jackass, his MTV stunt show.

No word on a storyline for the big-screen Dukes. Suffice to say the TV series rarely deviated from the following plot: Bo, Luke and their Dodge Charger, known as the General Lee, get chased all over Hazzard County by the lackeys of Boss Hogg (the late Sorrell Booke).

Burt Reynolds is the "top choice" to play big-screen Hogg, People says.

Since he was not able to rest his foot for a while, Lemmy's injury worsened, and his U.S. doctor insisted in no uncertain terms that Lemmy stay off his foot for several weeks in order for it to heal properly.

Motorhead will return for a U.S. tour in March 2005. Lemmy, guitarist Philip Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee hate to disappoint their fans but it is necessary for Lemmy's injury to heal so that Motorhead can rock long into the future.

Motorhead's latest album, 'Inferno,' has earned the groundbreaking band the best reviews of its career. The Associated Press calls this Metal-Is/Sanctuary Records release "their best album ever ... a 12-track opus that packs as much power, punch and attitude as anything that's ever been committed to tape."

B-SIDES AND RARITIES COLLECTION OUT OCTOBER 26 ON MEGATRONIC

THREE NEW SONGS ON THQ®’s “WWE™ SMACKDOWN! VS. RAW” VIDEO GAME SET FOR RELEASE NOVEMBER 2; NEW ALBUM DUE EARLY 2005

Everything about the new disc gives true insight into the band’s early days, right down to the artwork. The cover photo is an earlier shot taken in 1994, while the back cover and CD booklet flaunts a collage of flyers and original illustrations that Spider designed and printed to advertise their shows in and around Boston.

As Spider One writes in liner notes: “We were ahead of our time, behind our time, horrible and brilliant, all at once. We were the hardest working band in Boston and if you were lucky enough to be around in those days, you absolutely knew who we were. These tracks were left exactly as they were recorded, not a note has been altered. Hopefully this disc will give you a sense of what was a very exciting moment in time for a band called Powerman 5000.”

In addition to the good, the bad, and the ugly vol. 1, fans will soon get a preview of what their upcoming new album has in store as three new songs—“The Last Night On Earth,” “The Way That It Is” and “Riot Time,” which were recorded at guitarist Adam 12’s studio, Qi (pronounced “chee”) Lab Studios in Los Angeles, CA--will first be featured on THQ®’s “WWE™ SmackDown! Vs. Raw” video game, which is set for release November 2 exclusively for PlayStation 2. The tracks will be heard throughout the game itself, in the promotional trailer and as part of the game’s online advertising campaign. They will also most likely appear on the band’s forthcoming studio album.

A video for “Last Night On Earth” from “WWE™ SmackDown! vs. Raw” will be shot in Los Angeles later this month—directed by Spider One--and will be serviced to various TV outlets by early October. Spider One previously directed “Super Nova Goes Pop” from their Platinum TONIGHT THE STARS REVOLT! album, co-directed “When Worlds Collide” and “Nobody’s Real” from TONIGHT THE STARS REVOLT! with Dave Meyers, and co-directed “Relax” (the band’s cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s classic ‘80s song from the “Zoolander” soundtrack album) with Mark Klasfield.

Arguably one of the hardest working bands in the music business, Powerman 5000 shows they’re not slowing down anytime soon. They’re also hard at work on their fifth studio album in the midst of all these other projects. The follow-up to 2003’s TRANSFORM–which debuted in the Top 30 on Billboard’s “Top 200 Albums” chart having sold 39,000 copies its first week out--will be released early next year on Megatronic/iMusic. Spider One and Adam 12 are currently in the early stages of writing and plan to enter the recording studio by the end of the year.

Having sold over two million records on DreamWorks with 2002’s TRANSFORM (which sold over 169,000 copies and spawned the Top 10 Active Rock hit “Free”), 1999’s TONIGHT THE STARS REVOLT! (which spawned two Top 20 Rock hits, “Nobody’s Real” and “When Worlds Collide,” selling over 1.3 million copies), and 1997’s MEGA!! KUNG FU RADIO (which sold over 158,000 copies), the band amicably parted ways with the label soon after TRANSFORM’s release. They took some time off for a much-needed break and now they’re back at work creating the new music their legions of fans have been waiting for.

Admission: Sun - Wed $20.00; Thu - Sat $25.00

See Gauge's newly re-vamped official website at www.ilovegauge.com for all of her upcoming appearances.

Look for an upcoming interview and cover of MK featuring Gauge.

We just got the word that the centerfold of Jesse Jane is going to be in the Media Circus/News section in October’s AVN. And then the cover of MK as well as a review is to be in the In Print section of November’s AVN.

This will be AVN Magazines's 3rd and 4th in-print MK related piece. In May 2004 AZ was pictured and interviewed for the Ultimate rock and Porn issue. Last November he was profiled at AVN's online home. See:
www.avn.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Articles&Action=View_Article&Content_ID=55049

MK will provide full coverage of the 2005 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo and Award Show from Las Vegas.

Glamour Con 34

An extensive KISS Live in Concert 2004 in the KISS Konnection Gallery

Roadtripping W/ AZ

ZO2 Party Pictures

Genitorturers Live Up Colse and X-Rated

Poison Live In Concert

Honroable mention to Blabermouth for the lead

Who is responsible for bringing metal’s famous hand signal to the tribe?

Singer Rob Halford has no idea where it came from, and he probably picked it up from the audience. But it provides a big moment every night onstage with the reunited Judas Priest, right in the middle of “Painkiller,” as the band drifts into a passage of lengthy metal-guitar riffing. That’s when Halford steps up to the edge of the stage. “I throw a metal-god pose and put my horns in the air, and the crowd goes fucking ballistic,” Halford says. “It’s like holding up the NBA trophy. It’s a unifying moment. People go, ‘Oh, my god, look what he’s doing – that’s me!’ It’s a moment of recognition.”

But its source in rock is a mystery. And it has grown into a subject of uninformed debate in parking lots and online. Gene Simmons of KISS wrote in his 2002 autobiography that it was his accidental invention, the inadvertent gesture of a great man, repeated at concerts and picked up by fans. Not likely. Former Black Sabbath shouter Ronnie James Dio also takes the credit, first raising the horns before joining the band in 1978. And he’s expressed alarm over the image of Britney Spears fans raising the sign at concerts by the dancing diva of lip-synched pop. The truth is elusive.

One Internet gadfly calling himself Physical Discomfort writes of Dio, “Hell no he didn’t pioneer the devils hands thing!” Then he insists that a live photograph inside the 1972 album Black Sabbath Vol. 4 reveals Ozzy and fans throwing the goat into the air. A potential revelation … so I dig out my buried copy, searching for a moment of pure cartoonish evil, a possible crossroads where heavy metal’s flirtation with the Satanic and ridiculous began. And there it is: peace signs. The hippie dream, and not a demon’s head anywhere.

The time has come for a survey, and first on the list is Dave Grohl. The Foo Fighters frontman and Nirvana drummer is in town to conduct his own headbanger paradise on a Hollywood soundstage, where he’s shooting a video for his metal side-project Probot, sitting in with Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister and 70 models from SuicideGirls.com. Between takes, Grohl poses for a magazine photographer. The man is a kind of redheaded, Mephisto-looking hipster, who begs Grohl to flash him “the goat” again and again. He refuses. Grohl’s roots are in both metal and punk rock, where, if used at all, the horns tend to be wielded ironically. I ask later where he first saw the mano cornuto. “Honestly, probably at a Black Flag show, which doesn’t make sense. But you’d have the fucking burnouts that would come to see Black Flag after rippin’ Sabbath in the parking lot for a good half-hour.”

Later, I ask Lemmy the same thing, noting the casual claims of Gene Simmons. “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” Lemmy remarks. “He is so eeevilll. Come on, gimme a fucking break.”

Lars Ulrich of Metallica has no doubt at all: “That’s got to be Ronnie James Dio. I remember Rainbow used to play in Denmark about every half-hour, so I used to go see it every half-hour. And Ronnie James Dio did a lot of that. Back in ’75, ’76, ’77, it was all about Rainbow and Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy.”

In a separate interview, singer-guitarist James Hetfield, answers, “I think Dio.” Then he goes on, with a smile: “I think Spider-Man originally. It’s also ‘I love you’ in sign language. I don’t know, I think it’s ‘Two more songs!’ – you know.”

One could make the pilgrimage to the medieval Italian hill town of Barga, Tuscany, and the carved visage of the Scaccia Scalogna, an ancient face set right into the wall along the Via di Mezzo. Locals in search of better luck and divine intervention travel to the cragged, alien face to press their horned hands right into the statue’s eyes. Which takes the demon salute into the realm of Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, who enjoyed ending conversations with a pair of fingers in the eyes of his closest associates.

Even President George Bush has raised horns to the sky, suggesting all kinds of possible conspiracies and connections, entangled in Skull & Bones and star chambers. More likely, Bush is signaling his piety to the Texas Longhorns, gridiron warriors for the University of Texas, where a football-crazy male cheerleader named Harley Clark first raised the “hook ’em horns” signal at a 1955 pep rally. Clark is a retired state judge now, and definitely no Satanist.

Dio remembers the gesture from his Italian grandmother in New York, making a sign to ward off the “evil eye.” He does not claim to have invented it, but says he brought it to the metal masses as far back as his days in Rainbow, before replacing Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1978. When VH1 weighed in this year with 100 Most Metal Moments, No. 3 was Dio’s use of the gesture as the universal signal for heavy metal. “It’s nice to have been able to create something that’s going to last for a long time and be credited for it,” says Dio. “But I’m sure some guy named Og invented it 25,000 years ago.”

And it belongs today in the hands of a deadly serious rocker, he argues, not the Top 40. “Going to see someone in a bustier doesn’t seem to make any sense when they raise that sign up there. And they get it wrong. There’s a way to do it. You have to lean into it and have a certain facial expression.” For Dio, the sign “puts an exclamation point and a period to what you’re doing. I don’t do it for frivolous reasons. It was a natural thing for me to do. And perhaps it looks theatrical now because it’s overused, even by myself.”

But Dio was not the first rock musician to raise the horns high. It’s not the devil’s sign to everyone. It is also the password to the Mothership, the P-Funk juggernaut first launched at the beginning of the ’70s. George Clinton and Bootsy Collins have been trading the “P-Funk sign” ever since, a kind of sci-fi-funk interpretation of the old Vulcan “live long and prosper” greeting from Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.

A friend arranges a meeting with Clinton. I hand him a photograph of Dio making the hand signal, and tell him this is the man (or one of them) credited with bringing it to rock. Clinton stares at the picture for a long, silent minute, breathing heavily. Another minute passes. He’s never heard of Ronnie James Dio. It’s the P-Funk sign, man. The mystery continues.

Metro www.metrochicago.com

3730 North Clark Chicago, IL 60613 773-549-4140

American Motherload www.americanmotherload.com

Egostatic www.egostatic.com

Analog Digital Disorder (A.D.D.) www.addarmy.com

Marazene www.marazene.us

Tickets $8 dos - $6 with ticket – free before 9pm
18 & over
Doors: 8:30pm / Show: 9pm

Sponsored by AVN Magazine, the undisputed, premier trade publication for the adult entertainment industry and a segment of the AVN Media Network, AEE is the only adult-oriented trade show to capture the excitement and dynamics of the adult industry, encompassing all links in the business chain – from manufactures, distributors and retailers to the hottest adult stars and enthusiastic fans!

CityLife: So, you really have no love for the Bush clan, do you?

Al Jourgenson: I'm not on their Christmas list, that's for sure.

CL: Did you expect to be fighting this fight again, going after another President Bush?

AJ: I was hoping not to. But it's not the Bush family that I'm railing against, it's the people that prop them up. Just look at Bush's cabinet. It's the same as his dad's, and those were the people that propped up Reagan and helped prop up Nixon. They've been around a long time, and they're evil people with little regard for others of the world. Just look at those swift boat ads.

CL: You've got to give it up to the Republicans, though, if only for their focus.

AJ: Yeah, you've got to admire them for their brutality. They have no problem trying to destroy someone.

CL: The Democrats can't do that.

AJ: That's where I come in. I have no problem being brutal, and I'm going after these people. We're going to register people to vote and make sure they're voted out of office.

CL: Ministry has always been a political band, especially since Psalm 69, when you went after the first President Bush. But now you seem even more energized.

AJ: The whole left is more energized because we all can see what is happening. This is an intense time in social history. We're at the beginning of, or potentially in the middle of, a change over of the whole economical and energy infrastructure, moving from fossil fuels to more renewable energy sources, and that's going to have a serious impact not only ecologically, but economically and socially as well. We have to get rid of fossil fuels now, but they're holding on to the old ideals. This is a real power struggle to see who will control the world and the economy.

You know, the funny thing is that Bush's ranch in Crawford is powered by renewable energy -- solar and wind. He can have it, but fuck all of us.

CL: You're pissed, aren't you?

AJ: The arrogance is what makes me so angry. They're conservative, which means they want to conserve wealth. That's fine. But the way they're going about it is so brazen it's disgusting.

CL: The music on the group's new disc, Houses of the Molé, match your disdain -- harsh, violent and full of anger, even more so that Ministry's other discs. Did you set out to be that caustic or was it something that developed as recording went along?

AJ: Well, I think that Clinton's little Fleetwood Mac song lulled us all to sleep. We all thought it was OK for eight years. Now we're pissed off, and I think that shows.

CL: Can a band make a difference?

AJ: All you can hope to do is change your small part of the world. I don't think that we're Gandhi and we can change the whole world, but we can do our part.

CL: Why do you think so many musicians are active now in such vast quantities rather than a year ago when we were going to war in Iraq?

AJ: A) obviously, it's an election year. And B) Did musicians really care about the starving in Africa before "We Are the World?" No. They want the hype and get their names in the paper and look like they're doing something. That's why there's so much disdain and disgust for the mixing of music and politics: There's no real action behind it. That's why I'm doing everything that I can. This voter registration at the shows is really putting my money where my mouth is. I'll do anything to get them registered. I go out and work the booth. If I need to trade my autograph for theirs on a voter registration card, I'll do it, no problem.

CL: You mean business with this, don't you?

AJ: The record is almost secondary now that it's done and the big promotional push is over. I'm just trying to get the message out now. I've done all sorts of political interviews with The Nation, PBS, NPR, whoever. I'm doing whatever I can, and I've got the right-wing pissed off at me, so I must be doing something right. On one website my wife found -- I honestly can't remember which one -- they had me as Public Enemy No. 2, right behind Michael Moore. They had my picture with little devil horns on it. That's great. That shows it's working.

CL: So are you a John Kerry supporter, or do you fall in the Anybody But Bush category?

She's part Cindy Sherman, part Punk Rock Queen, and the rest sexual provocateur. Surrounding herself with film kids, musicians, and at least 3 or 4 beautiful girls, she acts as both catalyst and glue. When asked about the girls, Roxy reasons, "Keith Richards always had beautiful women around him so, I figured I'd get some too."

The DVD uses uncensored visual content attached to a strong lyrical, and metaphorical subtext -which in itself is a seditious act of art against the corporate constriction of creativity. For Roxy, the creation of a digital video becomes a renegade act of outsider art. "There's never any money, and usually no crew, I utilize anything or anyone that's readily available," she says. "It's guerilla meets dogma filmmaking." The upside is that there are no rules, no asking permission, and no censorship.

The recordings are mere digital fragments, cheap and dirty polaroids of the songs, not auto-tuned for radio but raw for your twisted mind. With a 3 chip digital camera, a home computer, and a few light bulbs, you can now produce just about any kind of TV you want. Different? Dangerous? Provocative?

Some of the footage was reality, and some is staged, but universally everything is taken out of context and reassembled for the viewers titillation. To further obfuscate the facts, the video footage is then warped again with editing and digital processing, to make the news-feel turn surreal. "When Warhol was asked why he stopped painting and started doing silk-screens," says Roxy, "his answer was simple: 'Because they're cheap and I can make a lot of them.' I apply that same idea to digital videos."

Roxy Saint is a shapeshifter, and defies conventional categorization. Just when you feel as though you know her, she's changed. She is always working, always creating: a song, a video, a wardrobe, a painting, anything that can be useful to her artistic mission. Upon completion, the creations are then used to extend and perpetuate the lifestyle. Categories are boundaries, so to defy them is to push them out. Her DVD album combines three elements: music, picture and story, and it portrays the underbelly of the Hollywood myth, it's dark, seedy, and sexual, codified with the after-burn of the domination culture that we live in.

1. Stay Up
2. Rebel
3. Tape You
4. Firecracker
5. Fuck Song
6. Freedom
7. Humans
8. Lobster Boy
9. Whatever
10. Asexual
11. Superstars
12. Another Face
13. Play Games
14. Dark Dust Seed
15. Find You A Girl
16. Ours
17. Think About It
18. I Wanna Be Your Dog

Order now at www.cdbaby.com/cd/roxysaint for $19.99 that's $5 off the retail price or wait till teh albums release Oct 26

“BLACKEST OF THE BLACK” TOUR 2004

STARTS OCTOBER 27TH IN LAS VEGAS, NV

BLACKEST OF THE BLACK 2004

Porn Valley- Selling sex is one of the oldest businesses in the world, and right now, business has never been better.

One of the biggest cultural changes in the United States over the past 25 years has been the widespread acceptance of sexually explicit material - pornography.

Consumer demand is so strong that it has seduced some of America's biggest brand names, and companies like General Motors, Marriott and Time Warner are now making millions selling erotica to America. Last November, Correspondent Steve Kroft reported on this billion-dollar industry.

The best place to see it is at the industry's annual convention in Las Vegas, where more than 200 adult entertainment companies gather under one roof to network, schmooze and show off their latest wares.

Presiding over it all is Paul Fishbein, the founder and president of Adult Video News, the industry's trade publication, which sponsors the expo.

Who’s out there? “Manufacturers of adult products, distributors, suppliers, retail store owners, wholesalers, distributors, cable TV buyers, foreign buyers,” says Fishbein. “They're all here to do business, and then you have the fans.”

The fans came from all over the country, stood in line for hours, and paid $40 to get into what was essentially an X-rated trade show. From appearances, you might find the same crowd at the boat show.

According to Fishbein, there are well over 800 million rentals of adult videotapes and DVDs in video stores across the country. “And I don't think that it's 800 guys renting a million tapes each,” he says.

Suffice it to say, there was something available for every sexual demographic - even material aimed at the 60 Minutes crowd.

In Fishbein's words, all of this is performed and produced by consenting adults, for the use of consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes. The industry also has its own major studios.

“Here you have two of the leading companies in the business, VCA and Vivid,” says Fishbein. “They're known for the biggest-budget top movies in the industry, along with Wicked Pictures.”

The industry also has its own major stars, like Jenna Jameson, a teen beauty queen, turned showgirl, turned porn actress. With the approval of her family, she reportedly earned more than a million dollars last year performing sex for money.

“The way I look at it is, this is kind of an art to me. I'm performing. I'm not doing it for the gratification of another man,” says Jameson. “I'm doing it because this is my job and I'm entertaining the masses. So it's just like being Julia Roberts, but just a little bit further, one step further.”

The porn world now has all the trappings of a legitimate industry with considerable economic clout. Besides its own convention and trade publication, it holds marketing and legal seminars. It even has its own lobbyist.

“It employs in excess of 12,000 people in California. And in California alone, we pay over $36 million in taxes every year. So it's a very sizeable industry,” says Bill Lyon, a former lobbyist for the defense industry.

When 60 Minutes first spoke to Lyon, he was running the free speech coalition, a trade organization that represents 900 companies in the porn business.

“I was rather shocked to find that these are pretty bright business people who are in it to make a profit. And that is what it's about,” says Lyon.

What kind of reaction does he expect to get when he tells legislators all over the country that he’s a lobbyist for the adult entertainment business?

“Initially, I think there's a degree of shock. But when you explain to them the size and the scope of the business, they realize, as all politicians do, that it's votes and money that we're talking about,” adds Lyon, who says there are reputable companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange that are involved in the business. “Corporations are in business to make money. This is an extremely large business and there's a great opportunity for profits in it.”

In 2002, Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, pulled in $50 million from adult programming. All the nation's top cable operators, from Time Warner to Cablevision, distribute sexually explicit material to their subscribers. But you won't read about it in their annual reports. Same with satellite providers like EchoStar and DirecTV, which is owned by Hughes Technology, a subsidiary of General Motors.

How much does DirecTV make off of adult product?

“They don't break the number out. But I would guess they'd probably get a couple hundred million, maybe as much as $500 million, off of adult entertainment, in a broad sense,” says Dennis McAlpine, a partner in McAlpine Associates, who has tracked the entertainment industry for over two decades. “I would think it's probably more than what their overall profit is. The other areas are losing money. That's making money.”

Then there are the big hotel chains: Hilton, Marriot, Hyatt, Sheraton and Holiday Inn, which all offer adult films on in-room pay-per-view television systems. And they are purchased by a whopping 50 percent of their guests, accounting for nearly 70 percent of their in-room profits. One hotel owner said, "We have to have it. Our guests demand it.”

One of the largest owners and programmers of in-room pay-per-view is Liberty Media, a publicly traded company run by media mogul John Malone, one of the most powerful people in the communications industry.

McAlpine says that adult entertainment has become a critical part of the entertainment business: “Adult is a major factor in determining the profits of a cable system, an in-house hotel system, a satellite system. It's a big profit contributor.”

So how do these corporations get involved in it?

“I think that they get involved in it because of the profit margins that are involved. One of the things about pornography that's consistently true across the board is that because there's a social stigma still attached to it, you can charge a premium for these materials. And because you can charge a premium for it, the profit margin is higher. So, it makes pure economic sense,” says Fred Lane, a lawyer and author of a book called “Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs Of Pornography In the Cyber Age.”

The epicenter of the porn industry is Chatsworth, Calif., a quiet suburb north of Los Angeles. It is indistinguishable from the other middle-class communities that sprawl across the San Fernando Valley, except for one thing.

Tucked among the defense contractors and aerospace companies are dozens and dozens of adult film companies like Vivid Video, the porn industry equivalent of Paramount or Universal. It makes adult films, distributes them on video, DVD, and then sells them to hotels, cable companies and over the Internet.

Bill Asher, Vivid's president, says these films are relatively inexpensive to produce, and Vivid has had double-digit growth every year for the past five years. Last year, he says, consumers spent a billion dollars on Vivid products.

“We know that when we were selling the content to certain satellite companies, they did an analysis, and we were the most profitable channel they had for the distributor,” says Asher. “I would say it [cable systems] is the most profitable channel … The industry is big business now. It’s mainstream. It's really no different than what Playboy was 30 years ago, 20 years ago.”

Asher, who graduated from Dartmouth and has an MBA, used to work at Playboy as a financial analyst.

“It's an issue of distribution. When customers can get to adult content, generally, they buy it. They enjoy it. The question was, ‘Would mainstream companies distribute it?’ Now, Playboy and Penthouse for 30 years have enjoyed the same distribution as other magazines. Adult movies really didn't have that up until recently,” adds Asher.

“And what happened was, as companies like Vivid came around, and made everyone more comfortable with adult product, mainstream companies said, ‘OK, we'll be willing to distribute it. We would like to join in the benefit - the financial benefit of distributing it.’"

Asher says it wasn't a hard sell. All he had to do was show and provide an upscale product on the polite side of the pornographic spectrum. “We strive to have good sets, good plots, attractive people. People who can hopefully speak and act. Everything that you would expect to see in a mainstream movie,” says Asher.

60 Minutes was hoping that at least one big mainstream corporation would talk to us about its involvement in adult entertainment. But no one did. A few gave us statements saying essentially their companies provide a whole range of entertainment choices, plus the ability to block them out, and such choices should be left to the customer.

“When 60 Minutes comes to your door asking about adult content, and you're a major corporation, my advice to you would be: 'Don't open the door,'” says Asher. “What possible victory could come out of it for them? They are offering content, the customers are buying the content, everyone is happy.”

Adult entertainment is so lucrative and profitable that it's become part of the mainstream culture -- readily available, easily accessible, and all but impossible to legislate away.

How did it happen? It began 25 years ago with a brand new household appliance: the video cassette recorder.

“The first thing that a lot of people did when they got their VCR was rent or purchase an adult movie. ‘Deep Throat.’ ‘Devil in Miss Jones.’ ‘Behind the Green Door.’ ‘Debbie Does Dallas.’ That's what they asked for,” says Fishbein, who publishes The Adult Video News, the porn industry’s trade magazine.

“Most people had never seen an adult movie, because they had to go out in public, to a theater, to see it. I mean, sex is a very private thing. So, now that you can watch it in the privacy of your own home, nobody has to know. And I think that's what drove the VCR. And I think, to a degree, it's what drove a lot of people to get on the Internet.”

In fact, pornography has helped drive early sales and the development of most new entertainment technologies for the past 25 years - providing software for the latest gadgets, and a reason to buy them. And usually the first people who do are affluent young men who like porn.

Type the word "sex" into an Internet search engine like Google and you will get 180 million hits. For years, adult sites were the only ones to turn a profit. They have pioneered and helped to develop numerous technological breakthroughs from online payment methods to streaming video.

Lane wrote a book about this unofficial, commercial partnership between technology and the adult entertainment industry. He believes it has had a tremendous impact on American values, popular culture, and the government's ability to regulate pornography.

“The way I like to put it is that we went from 1,000 adult movie theaters in less than 10 years to 80 million adult movie theaters. And that basically is what happened with the VCR,” says Lane.

“The computer now, in terms of its penetration into American households -- the last figure I saw was somewhere on the order of 70-80 million households, out of the 100 million in this country?. So again, we've got enormous potential for people to look at things in the privacy of their home.”

Has it become more difficult in the United States to win an obscenity prosecution?

Absolutely, says Lane. “And as adult materials have found their way into different communities by different means, whether it's by cable television, or it's by hotel chains, people have grown increasingly comfortable with adult materials. And there seems to me to be, I think, a growing sense that what people do in the privacy of their own homes is their business.”

Porn is so accessible now that it’s working its way into the subtext of American culture, crossing over into fashion, music and television. Take, for example, a Christina Aguilera music video on MTV or VH1 or a Brittany Spears concert on HBO, dripping with sexual imagery obviously borrowed from the world of adult entertainment. You will even find porn references on the TV show, “Friends.”

Luke Ford, who spent seven years writing an Internet gossip column about the adult entertainment industry for his own Internet Web site, isn't sure what to make of it.

“It's become popular, cool, acceptable in this 18-to-25 age group. My age group, I'm 37, my age group and up. We think porn is something that's shameful. But for kids half my age, they think it's cool,” says Ford, who guesses it’s an act of rebellion, embracing one of society’s last taboos.

Ford, who is often referred to as the Matt Drudge of porn, gave 60 Minutes a tour of a backyard porn set in a residential neighborhood of Chatsworth that has been used by porn directors for more than 20 years.

“It is just like Hollywood,” he says.

Like the porn industry itself, it becomes less glamorous the closer you get. If you take away the accountants and CEOs, you’re left with a small insular world, filled with renegades and outcasts, who like to flaunt society's rules.

“They come into this industry, because this is the single easiest way that they can earn $1,000 in a day, in two hours,” says Ford. “It's not like we're losing people from going to medical school or business school or becoming lawyers.”

Hang around the World Modeling talent agency on Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks and one of the first things you notice is that there is no shortage of men or women who are eager to work in the business.

“It’s just fun. I think it’s awesome that you, like, can be, like, a sex icon. I think girls will argue that it's a bad thing, you're crazy,” says Destiny. “Because, you know, everybody thinks you’re beautiful. Everybody wants to meet you.”

You'll also see why Fortune 500 companies making millions off the industry don't like to be publicly associated with it.

“Most girls who enter this industry do one video and quit. The experience is so painful, horrifying, embarrassing, humiliating for them that they never do it again,” says Ford.

The argument that pornography exploits women has long been one of the flashpoints for social debates about the industry. Now, anti-porn groups say hundreds of thousands of men have become addicted to it, leading to anti-social behavior, and causing divorce and family breakups.

“Just because this material is available, and citizens tolerate it, doesn't mean that they accept it,” says Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. Attorney for the Western district of Pennsylvania, and the point person in the Justice Department's campaign to rein in pornography.

When John Ashcroft was appointed attorney general, among his first acts were to hang blue drapes in front of a topless statue in the lobby of the Justice Department, and to promise a crackdown on smut.

Buchanan's prosecution of a California company called Extreme Associates is the first major obscenity case brought by the federal government in more than a decade.

“We have just had a proliferation of this type of material that has been getting increasingly worse and worse. And that's why it's important to enforce the law, and to show the producers that there are limits. There are limits to what they can sell and distribute throughout the country,” says Buchanan.

She believes that three films produced and distributed by Extreme Associates by mail and over the Internet contain coercive and violent sex, along with other material that is vile and degrading.

Rob Black, president of Extreme Associates, considers that a compliment.

One film, called “Forced Entry,” includes shots of women getting raped and murdered. It also includes suffocation, strangulation, beatings and urination. Black calls “Forced Entry” a slasher film with sex, loosely based on the Hillside Strangler case. But 60 Minutes couldn’t find enough plot to show anything beyond the opening credits.

“They made absolutely no attempt to comply with federal law. In fact, it was probably their intent not to,” says Buchanan. “Because what they wanted to do was to make the most disgusting material available on the market. And they succeeded.”

What is federal law on pornography? The only explicit, hard-core sexual material that is absolutely illegal by law in the U.S. today is child pornography -- all other material must be put before a jury.

The Supreme Court last defined obscenity as material appealing to a degrading interest in sex, depicting it in a patently offensive manner, and lacking any serious artistic, literary, or scientific value. But this was way back in 1973, before the VCR and the Internet were in existence.

In California vs. Miller, the Burger Court recognized that individual communities had different values and opinions on pornography, so it allowed localities to make their own judgments, based on contemporary community standards.

But since 1973, standards have changed, and so has the definition of a community. Today, with the Internet, cable, and satellite television, most pornography can be transmitted directly into someone's home without ever disrupting the community, or its standards. And that will be Extreme Associates’ argument in court.

“It’s not involving the community. It's involving a private individual, who purchased these videos, and downloaded the images from the Internet into their home. So, where does that community standard apply,” says Black. “You can't apply a community to it if only one person is viewing it. They didn't go to a local video store. It was purchased privately by an individual at home, and sent to them in the mail. And that is the debate. And so, where is the community? Where do you apply it?”

How do you apply community standards when you're talking about something that is just downloaded into somebody's home?

“I think that is precisely the question that the court has to answer. The original purpose of the Miller test was to give communities the opportunity to regulate what came into their borders, what was displayed on Main Street, what kids were actually seeing as they went around the community,” says Lane.

“Obviously, if something's downloaded into the privacy of one's own home, it doesn't have that kind of impact on the community. So the question is, does the community still have the right to determine what people look at?”

Buchanan says she’s doesn’t have to convince the entire community, just the jury: “We're focusing our resources on the most egregious offenders. So, we're looking at the producers and distributors who are producing the worst material, the largest quantity of material, the largest area of distribution.”

Buchanan says it's not the Justice Department's intention to shut down the adult entertainment industry, or eliminate all sexually explicit material -- even if it could. The point is to enforce some standards, and it hopes to do so when the case against Extreme Associates finally goes to trial this fall.

"I'll probably be touring [my solo] record up till the end of the year," he said. "Then I'm thinking the GNR record will be coming out real soon after that. Then I'll be touring behind that record. I'm anticipating being on the road for the next year and a half, two years."

According to Stinson, "Chinese Democracy" "is almost done. Closer than it has ever been, for certain. I went and listened to some of the songs before I left L.A. to make sure my two cents were thrown in, so to speak. I was pretty stoked about it. I heard some really, really great stuff that I hadn't heard in a long time."

A pneumothorax occurs when a small rupture in one of the lungs allows air to leak into the space between the lungs and the chest wall, causing the lung to collapse. Symptoms include breathlessness and chest pain on the affected side.

A small, partial collapse may resolve on its own, but more severe cases may require the insertion of a chest tube to allow the air to escape the chest cavity.

Often, an underlying lung disease or chest injury is the culprit in pneumothorax. But so-called primary spontaneous pneumothorax happens in the absence of an underlying disease, typically striking tall, thin, male smokers.

The cases described in the Thorax report suggest that loud music may be one cause of this type of pneumothorax. Though the report cites only a small number of patients, lead author Dr. Marc Noppen told Reuters Health he suspects more cases of music-induced pneumothorax will now be caught.

Since the report's publication, he said, doctors in a few countries have told him they've seen similar cases. If more doctors routinely ask pneumothorax patients about their exposure to loud music, the number of injuries attributed to blasting tunes will likely go up, noted Noppen, who is with the Academic Hospital in Brussels, Belgium.

In two of the cases his team describes, the men were standing close to large loudspeakers when they suddenly felt chest pain.

A third case involved a 23-year-old smoker who had suffered several episodes of pneumothorax. During a follow-up medical visit, the doctors mentioned having seen two music-related pneumothorax cases, and the patient suddenly remembered that two of his attacks happened at heavy metal concerts.

Noppen said he and his colleagues suspect that loud music may damage the lungs due to its booming bass frequency, which can be felt as a vibration going through the body. The lungs may essentially start to vibrate in the same frequency as the bass, which could cause a lung to rupture.

"Reise Reise" track listing:

01. Reise, Reise (4:12)
02. Mein Teil (4:33)
03. Dalai Lama (5:39)
04. Keine Lust (3:43)
05. Los (4:24)
06. Amerika (3:47)
07. Moskau (4:17)
08. Morgenstern (4:00)
09. Stein um Stein (3:53)
10. Ohne dich (4:32)
11. Amour (4:51)

RAMMSTEIN's video for their new single, "Amerika", has been posted online at Viva.tv. Check it out: www.viva.tv/player/player.phpid=11004&fid=23005916&format=real_adsl&focus=off

The clip was directed by Jörn Heitmann, who has previously worked with RAMMSTEIN on the videos for "Sonne" and "Ich Will".

One cannot help but wonder what the Scottish lass will sport as her hair-do this time out.

The coolest part he mentioned was that he would also be reprising his role from the original 'Dawn of the Dead' (the Biker Gang guy) that died and fell into the fountain in the mall- who has since become a zombie. He said that he will actually kill his zombie self in the new film.

The Batman picks up his story in year three: in his mid-twenties, just finding his way as protector, defender and Dark Knight, while balancing his public persona as billionaire bachelor Bruce Wayne. Living in Gotham, this younger Batman will confront updated takes of familiar foes – from the likes of Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Riddler and Man-Bat – meeting each member of his classic Rogue's Gallery for the first time.