HOT: Fox News' Diva Mixup
This morning, as the world mourned the death of Aretha Franklin, one of the greatest voices in American popular music history, Fox News decided to pay its respects. And while the words read by the anchors (including former Cincinnati broadcaster BIll Hemmer) were perfectly fine, Fox was having some issues in the graphics department. While the card shown with Franklin's name and years of life was mostly spot on — it also correctly identified Franklin as a "Singer" (good job!) and spelled her name right (who's a big boy-and-girl anchor team?!) — the background image depicts a totally different singer, Patti LaBelle. The two vocal greats weren't best buddies — though shade-hungry media outlets may have blown it out of proportion, they did appear to have a healthy rivalry. One source of the shady reports was the below video from when the two singers appeared at the same White House concert in 2014, during which Franklin appears to sashay away from LaBelle's outreached hands. Speaking of — Fox News apologized for the photo mixup by saying that the photo of LaBelle (from that same White House performance) was merely cropped wrong and that Franklin was on the same stage, just out of frame. Problem is, the AP photo from the same moment at the event shows otherwise; in the caption, it mentions Franklin was performing at the show, but there's no evidence they shared a stage.
WARM: Snowflake (Former) Social D Fan Melts Down After Altercation
Conservatives aren’t necessarily unwelcome in the Punk community. After all, Johnny Ramone was one. But he also wasn’t a rude prick about it. Rude conservatives are not welcome in the Punk community, or at least apparently at the shows that old-school punk Mike Ness’ band Social Distortion put on. During a concert in Sacramento in July, a 30-year-old fan — unprepared for the chance that Social D might not be a fan of Donald Trump and Mike Ness might say a few things about it — reportedly put his middle finger up for two whole songs after Ness did just that. Ness (56) eventually took that finger down by jumping from the stage and punching the man in the head. The now-former fan was escorted from the club and filed a police report (the investigation is ongoing) before beginning his press tour, during which he has called his hand gesture a “silent protest.” Ness has yet to comment on the altercation.
COLD: Government Officials Clutch Pearls Over Pearl Jam Poster
In more “Musicians Express Their Strong Distaste for Trump?! In Public?! (Faint)” news, the National Republican Senatorial Committee took to the internets to clutch their pearls over the audacity of Pearl Jam using an artistic depiction of the White House on fire, with a skeleton wearing a blue suit and topped by a puff of unkempt blond hair sprawled out on the lawn. The poster was sold at a PJ concert in Montana at which the band expressed support for Democratic Senator Jon Tester’s re-election campaign and, even worse, helped register concertgoers to vote. Adding to the trigger that sent NRSC scurrying to its safe-spaces (their blog and Twitter), Tester is depicted on the poster flying over the White House carnage. On a tractor. This enabled @NRSC to indignantly and presumptuously tweet: “DESPICABLE… Pearl Jam concert poster depicts a smiling (Jon Tester) flying over a burning White House while the President that Montanans support lays dead.” The senators' blog post about their outrage was headlined “ICYMI: Dead President Trump Appears in Poster for Tester Campaign Concert.” Of note: The amount of time it took for a spokesperson for Tester to eagerly and unequivocally denounce the poster was about 8,000 times shorter than the time it took Trump to begrudgingly and wishy-washily denounce white nationalists and birtherism.
