Just in case you weren't aware, Christina Aguilera is still pregnant. And just in case you hadn't seen pictures of her pregnant condition, on this blog and many others, Marie Claire magazine is there to hook you up: not only is she pregnant, she's NAKED!

Are you sure?

 

I never quite knew how to feel about "Chocolate Rain," but I think I do now.:

 

'70s soft rock cronies James Taylor and Carole King recently took to the stage at L.A.'s legendary club the Troubadour—where they both helped cement the venue's status as music industry king/queenmaker in the the me decade—to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Rolling Stone was there!

Though you might not know it to look at him, Trace Adkins has written a book. It's called A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions From a Freethinking Roughneck, and it's on the shelf now. Adkins' second best-of comp, American Man, Greatest Hits Volume II comes out Dec. 4. An excerpt from the book is available at cmt.com:

Geographically and culturally, Louisiana can be cut up into three different slices. The northwest corner of the state is a North Texas-type environment where the economy is based on oil, timber and cattle. Northeast Louisiana is river bottom, a lot like Mississippi and southeastern Arkansas, with lots of farming and agriculture. Southern Louisiana is Cajun-influenced, with cities like New Orleans, New Iberia, Lafayette, Lake Charles and Baton Rouge. (Other Louisiana natives may disagree, but don't pay any attention to them.)

I grew up solid working-class stock. There were about five churches in our one little-bitty town. A Church of Christ, three Southern Baptist churches and a Methodist church. My mama, Peggy, and all her sisters sang in the Baptist choir. My daddy, Aaron Adkins, retired in 2007 from International Paper Company after forty-something years working at the corrugating plant making cardboard. He mostly worked the swing shift. I don't know how he survived switching back and forth between those graveyard, evening and daytime hours.

"Never wake Daddy up," my mama used to warn us kids. "Especially when he's working graveyards." You didn't want to hear that bedroom door open at noon because if you did, that meant somebody was fixin' to get their ass tanned.

I was born on January 13, 1962, the oldest of three brothers. My younger brother, Clay, joined me in 1965 and is still my best friend. Then the family mascot (the baby is almost always the family mascot), Scott, completed our family unit in 1972.

I had a Norman Rockwell-style Southern childhood in small-town America. My paternal grandparents lived about a mile and a half from my home, while the maternal pair lived about three miles away. We were always there for each other in our peaceful little God-fearing town. It felt secure to be a kid with both sets of grandparents and lots of kinfolk close by whenever I needed them.

My Aunt Ruth owned and operated a general store in town. She sold a little of everything. You could buy boots, bullets and baloney. The place had gas pumps out front where I'd pull up on my minibike, fill the gas tank for a quarter and then go ride all over creation for a whole week. Back then we didn't ride around Sarepta wearing fancy helmets or knee pads or elbow pads. We rode commando, and those of us who lived have the scars to prove it.

I was a fairly well-behaved kid who didn't get into a whole lot of trouble. I was a pretty decent student and brought home good grades. I was a frugal, responsible young boy and saved most of the money I made hauling hay and mowing yards. I also sold Grit newspapers in our little rural community, which meant that in order to have a paper route with over thirty subscribers, I had to ride my bicycle for about four hours to deliver them once a week. But I did it for the pocket money. Grit was a paper laid out a bit like the National Enquirer, with colored newsprint pictures, except they wrote about rural farm life, as opposed to salacious celebrity gossip.

After my first job hauling hay, I thought I'd try my hand at sacking groceries at the local Piggly Wiggly. I hated that job because I had to wear a tie, and because the checkout ladies constantly chewed me out if I didn't sack the groceries fast enough and just right. This was before the days of "paper or plastic." Back then you got a big ol' thick paper sack whether you liked it or not. I was expected to stack the groceries inside so that the bag would stand straight up. God forbid you break an egg or smash the bread, and I got so tired of dealing with those checkout ladies. They were brutal, so I used to hide in the back behind the stacks of returned Coke bottles. Eventually I got fired for taking too many long breaks, and my dream of becoming assistant, midnight to 6 a.m., every-other-weekend, part-time manager was shattered at age fifteen.

When I wasn't hauling hay, mowing yards, or going to school I was hunting and fishing -- because that was really all there was to do. I spent a lot of time deer, duck or squirrel hunting, and we generally ate what we killed. However, I don't particularly enjoy eating squirrel. Never did, really. I find it stringier and tougher than chicken. I don't like duck very much, either, but I have some friends who claim to have a great recipe that relies on wrapping said fowl in bacon. It seems like a lot of recipes for inedible foods depend entirely on a pork cocoon. Why not discard the shit filler and just enjoy some hog? Having said all that, however, I really enjoy deer meat (or venison if you're a city slicker). Back then we didn't have any wild turkeys, although I have seen a few out in the woods recently when I've gone back home to visit my parents. (Maybe they chose to relocate from Tennessee due to the terrible turkey overcrowding situation there.)

I grew up in a small home with a pasture full of cows out behind the house. Over the back fence of our property was the Bodcau Wildlife Management Area. So some of the best hunting and fishing in the whole state of Louisiana was within walking distance of our house.

I grew up with lots of guns around the house. I started with pellet and BB guns, until my daddy bought a twenty-gauge shotgun for me when I was twelve. Soon after, I bought myself a .22 rifle with money I made selling Grit newspapers. It was a little Winchester .22 automatic that I purchased from Aunt Ruth's store. I still own that rifle, and occasionally I shoot it when I'm out on my farm south of Nashville.

I went to school right there in Sarepta, attending first through twelfth grade on the same campus. We had about 350 kids in the entire school, and when I graduated from Sarepta High School in 1980, we had thirty-two students in our graduating class. It's grown some since then. I think there are about 450 students total in the whole school, which now includes a kindergarten. These days there is talk of consolidating with a couple of other schools from nearby towns where there aren't as many people because the economy and growth in those areas has become a little stagnant. I hope the consolidation doesn't happen, personally.

As a high school freshman I was skinny as a rail but pretty athletic for a six-foot-tall, 150-pound string bean kid. I played every sport we had although I liked some a lot more than I did others. I lived for football. Football was my life from the time I was in the seventh grade until the end of my freshman year of college at Louisiana Tech University. I think I enjoyed it so much because I absolutely loved to hit people. I also appreciated the fact that, to me, football encompassed it all: teamwork, camaraderie, brothers in arms, mano a mano, strategy, sacrifice, glory, heartache and so on. Football is life, encapsulated.

For the Sarepta Hornets, I played outside linebacker and offensive right tackle. I had to play both sides of the ball with two different mind-sets, and I loved it. I was on the field for almost every minute of the game. They let me rest on kickoffs, which was a shame, because I enjoyed running wide open down the field and picking up a good head of steam before planting somebody into the turf.

We had twenty or so kids on the Sarepta High School varsity football team, but actually only about thirteen of us had any business being on the field. The other kids were freshmen and sophomores, and were there mostly to make it look like we had more of a team than we actually did. I was extremely proud of the fact that we were the smallest school in the state of Louisiana to field a football team yet went to the state playoffs during my sophomore and senior years.

During my senior year, my brother Clay joined the team as a freshman and played quarterback for us. Unlike me, Clay played only on offense since he was too small to play defense at the time. Our whole family was so proud of the fact that Clay made all-district that year as a freshman quarterback on the varsity. He was voted all-district every year of his high school career (both offense and defense most seasons) and went on to play ball at Louisiana Tech, too. Another Bulldog!

There was really something special about being on the gridiron with my younger brother. My favorite play on offense was what is commonly called a sprint-out. I would pull off the line from my tackle position and the guard would cover for me while I rolled out to the right with Clay, who would be sprinting behind me with the ball. My attitude was: "God has yet to create a pass rusher that can sack my quarterback when that quarterback is my little brother." If Clay didn't have a receiver open and it looked like I could create a lane to get him ten or fifteen yards down the field, I'd yell out to him, "Come on!" Then we'd take off together down the sideline for a first down.

I didn't feel any small-town pressure under the Friday night lights. The town was stunned that we even made it to the playoffs. Still, I was heartbroken after we lost the opening round my senior year. Our opponents beat us by only a couple of touchdowns. We gave 'em hell.

You may find this hard to believe, but Marilyn Manson (allegedly) has unsavory taste in home furnishings. Among the "sick and disturbing purchases" his disgruntled bandmate has accused him of squandering the band fund on: "African masks made of human skin, a full skeleton of a 4-year-old Chinese girl that Manson is said to have turned into a chandelier, and another skeleton of a man in a wheelchair - all illegal items in the US... swastika wall tiles and matching custom rugs, a mounted grizzly bear and two mounted baboons."

And here you thought he was all washed up.

Eric Clapton told UK talk program The South Bank Show that he was in his 30s before he ever had sex with a woman... sober.

"The guitarist, an-ex alcoholic, said: "I came from treatment the first time and couldn't perform with my wife.

"It never occurred to me I had never had sex without being stoned.

"I'd get drunk first and then be kind of guided through it."

No word on whether this was also the method that produced the song "Wonderful Tonight."

Madonna and her husband/beard Guy Ritchie have announced that, on account of their faith in the mystical/mythical Jewish subdivision Kaballah, they no longer celebrate that old mystical/mythical Christian ceremony, Christmas.

"Once we cancelled it we stopped all the presents, and once we stopped all the presents we started enjoying ourselves more."

Nice to see a bit of anti-materialism from a couple of the world's most disgustingly rich people. No word yet on the Ritchies' Thanksgiving plans.

First R.Kelly booked a tour! Then he asked Ne-Yo to be the opener! Then the tour got started! And Ne-Yo was the opener! But then there was a problem with the contract! And Ne-Yo got booted from the tour slot!

Hard not to love this bit of understatement:

Ne-Yo's camp issued a press release about the incident earlier this week, saying Ne-Yo "expressed genuine concern regarding not having the opportunity to complete the tour."

...and the "a" doesn't stand for what you might think:

MTV will do its part to win the hearts and minds of the people in the Middle East when it launches MTV Arabia at midnight tonight, potentially reaching up to 36 million viewers. The region boasts two-thirds of the population under 30, but, it will be undoubtedly be an uphill battle for the network, which is already struggling in the United States.

Gone will be the risque content of shows like The Real World, as the network promises to fit the cultural definition of decency and shows like Pimp My Ride and Punk'd will reportedly receive an Arab-friendly makeover. The channel will also air local talent, trying to compete with over 50 music channels already established in the Middle East.

The plan was first announced almost a year ago, when MTV agreed to a deal with Arabian Television Networks to help air the channel. The whole experiment will kick off with a Dubai showcase featuring Ludacris and Akon, both promising a G-rated performance.

No word yet on an Arabic equivalent to Beavis and Butthead.

Perhaps it was inevitable, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing Showtime Network over its use of the word (actually, perhaps that should read "word") "Californication", which, as any poor sucker with a radio knows was the name of both a megaplatinum RHCP album and an inescapable RHCP single, for a TV show featuring David Duchovny as a sex addict with writer's block.

I'm no judge, but it seems pretty clear that you'd have to be a Chili Pepper to come up with a pun as... uh, clever?...as that one.

The lawsuit alleges unfair competition, dilution of the value of the name and unjust enrichment, claiming the title is "inherently distinctive, famous ... and immediately associated in the mind of the consumer" with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"Californication is the signature CD, video and song of the band's career, and for some TV show to come along and steal our identity is not right," the band's lead singer, Anthony Kiedis, said in a statement. ...

The show features a character named "Dani California," which is also the title of a Red Hot Chili Peppers song released in 2006, the lawsuit noted. ...

The suit seeks a permanent injunction barring Showtime and the other defendants from using the title "Californication" for the show, damages and restitution and disgorgement of all profits derived by the defendants.

In July 2007, Kapinos told reporters at a Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills that he first heard the term in reference to Oregon.

"Apparently in the '70s there were bumper stickers that said 'Don't Californicate Oregon,' because Californians were coming up there, and I just thought it was a great, great title for this show," said Kapinos.

Maybe his next show can be called "Mean People Suck."

What's that you say? You've read all about the duet between Mizz Knowles and soft country-lite harmonizers Sugarland but you yearn to see and hear the results of their genre-hopping collaboration on the song "Irreplaceable"? Well, you could do worse than to head on over to Rolling Stone's Rock Daily to see the video.

Not by much, though.

If, like many, you're more interested in the attire of music and film/TV star types at the American Music (Extortion) Awards than in the awards themselves, I recommend you click here for pics of the likes of Rhianna, Avril Lavigne, Fergie, and good ol' Beyonce.

A: According to the wheedly-deedly, baby blues face man himself, an insufferable d-bag.

No comment.

The sultry Ms. A. Keys parts the curtain to inform the wags at Entertainment Weekly that her new record, As I Am, "was so severely personal, it changed my voice,'' she says. ''There's so much more that I needed to say.''

The article goes on to ask the musical question:

How had selling 11.5 million CDs, winning nine Grammys, and collaborating with everyone from Eve and Usher to Ray Charles and Bono managed to bring Keys down? Keys herself wasn't sure — but she knew she had to find out. ''I discovered a lot about myself I didn't like,'' she says. ''I would look in the mirror and I didn't know who that person was. I didn't like my eyes; I didn't like what they said. I couldn't sleep. I was uncomfortable all the time, and irritated and frustrated.''

Boy howdy, I know how she feels!

Oasis songwriter/guitarist Noel Gallagher on the likelihood of Oasis giving away its new seventh album for free:

"Over my dead body."

Of Radiohead's business strategy, one Lily Allen cries arrogant!:

"It's arrogant for them to give their music away for free," she said. "They've got millions of pounds. It sends a weird message to younger bands who haven't done as well. You don't choose how to pay for eggs. Why should it be different for music?"

Not to be outdone, Will.I.Am (it stands for William) from Black Eyed Peas has a few choice words about the future of music as well.

How did you imagine 2007 would be, and how does that compare to where we are now?

From a technological standpoint, we're further than I thought we would be. The only thing I think we're missing is the flying cars. As far as racism goes, we're in a weird place. Music is weird, too. Think about when the electric guitar was invented — what music was formed from that? Or how the electric keyboard created new forms of music, like jazz fusion and funk. Take, for example, the bass, the electric bass and the freaking wah-wah and how that formed funk and jazz and rock and blues and the harmonica. And here we are with the most technology in human history walking on the fucking planet humming and singing, and there's no form of music formed, and I'm talking to you in Brazil on a cell phone at lightning speed. I've got the Internet pumping right now, and there ain't no form of music in 2007? That's f**kin' crazy.

You produced Nas' "Hip Hop Is Dead." Do you think hip-hop is dead in 2007?

Hip-hop's not dead, but people have forgotten the different forms of hip-hop, the different styles of hip-hop music. They only think one form of hip-hop is alive.

Is that going to change? What's going to happen as we go forward?

Hip-hop will be called something else, but it will be hip-hop.

Do you think the lines between genres will blur more? Will people think less in terms of that?

I think in the next couple of decades, people aren't going to care what the title of a form of music is. They're just going to have playlists, and they're going to listen to whatever the hell they want to listen to it. People just want to get what they want to get when they want to get it. Those titles, those genres, only came about in yesterday's world when things were all segregated. As much as racism still exists today, people don't care. There's no racism amongst people. There's racism amongst corporations and what corporations think people want to buy.

What do you think the labels should be doing?

Record companies should be a tour company that sends the bands on the road and still puts the f**kin' s**ts on the radio. The reason the song's on the radio is so they can sell concert tickets and T-shirts. The labels should do research on the marketplace, and they should be the band's merchandise company, going out and flooding the market and selling T-shirts. Billboard should have not just how many albums you sold, but how many f**kin' T-shirts you sold, because that's more money, and that's my manager's idea.

Do you think artists care anymore if they make music in the form of albums?

The record industry adapted to every single format music was put on. The record company itself started the vinyl, because Phillips and RCA made vinyl and phonographs. Then the eight-track came out and we adapted to it. We adapted to the CD. The only thing we haven't adapted to is the Internet.

Is music as important to people's lives as it was?

Yeah. Music still has an impact on people's lives. It's just that there's more things around it. There's more things to know. Music is a social thing, it hits you personally, and then you socialize about it. It just so happens when people were rebelling in the 1960s, they revolted and rebelled over music. Now there's things for people to rebel and revolt about, but people ain't revolting and rebelling because there's no leaders. There's no Malcolm Xs or Martin Luther Kings or Ghandis, there's nobody now. It's not because music isn't affecting people, it's just that for some odd reason, there's nobody leading, and there's no songs being written about leading people. People are comfortable with their devices and their upgrades and their instant gratification of whatever it is they want to do.

Gene Simmons, the spiritual leader and fiscal conscience of KISS, offers some candid observations about the whole "Music is Free" ideal that's sweeping the web. Spoiler Alert: He's against it. (via Idolator)

It has been nine years since we've seen a new KISS album. Any plans to get back into the studio?

The record industry is in such a mess. I called it for what it was when college kids first started download music for free -- that they were crooks. I told every record label I spoke with that they just lit the fuse to their own bomb that was going to explode from under them and put them on the street.

There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free? ...

The record industry doesn't have a f*cking clue how to make money. It's only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there's no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They've got freckles. That's a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit's mask.

Doesn't affect me. But imagine being a new band with dreams of getting on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it.

But some artists, like Radiohead and Trent Reznor, are trying to find a new business model.

That doesn't count. You can't pick on one person as an exception. And that's not a business model that works. I open a store and say "Come on in and pay whatever you want." Are you on f*cking crack? Do you really believe that's a business model that works?

So what if music just becomes free and artists make their living off of touring and merchandise?

Well therein lies the most stupid mistake anybody can make. The most important part is the music. Without that, why would you care? Even the idea that you're considering giving the music away for free makes it easier to give it away for free. The only reason why gold is expensive is because we all agree that it is. There's no real use for it, except we all agree and abide by the idea that gold costs a certain amount per ounce. As soon as you give people the choice to deviate from it, you have chaos and anarchy. And that's what going on.

Check out streetcred.com's video made by weapons charged home arrestee T.I. from the plush confines of his crib—which is to say, cell.

Here's the transcript:

Whats happening?

Welcome to StreetCred.com. I know alot of people are concerned given the current situation. And I want to say thank you, you know, for all the prayers and support coming from my fans and my supporters. You know, its a very trying time right now, but I want to let everybody know that I pled not guilty and I gotta stress my innocence, you know, to everyone out there whos listening! And I look forward to being exonerated on all charges. And I say that with the utmost sincerity. I cant stress that enough to ya, ya dig.

I'd really like to say thank you to my lawyers, Dwight Thomas, Steve Sadow, Ed Garland, and Don Samuels. And thank you to the judge for even allowing me the privilege of being on house arrest and being here instead of, you know, the clear alternative. I just wanna tell everybody man, dont even believe every thang you see on the news, dont believe every thang you read in the papers, ya dig that.

I just wanted to to give you a brief message, you know, telling you how much I love you, how much I cant wait to get back out there. The good thang is man, you know, I got a lot time on my hands; doing a lot of reading, doing a lot of writing, working on my next album, its called Paper Trail. Oh and speaking of Paper Trail, extra special thank youto the Grand Hustle family and the Atlantic Records family. Man we gonna get thru this, you know what Im saying...to whom much is given, even more is required. You know what Im saying. God will never take you to...what he cant take you through.

So, Im just listening to what God got to say right now. And that's what Im doing, Im being still...I'm being quiet and I'm being still. Im abiding by all the stipulations, all of the criteria of my bond and of my release and I got faith in God and I got faith in the system. You know, America is a wonderful country.

Im gettin a lot of work done man, a lot of music man being recorded. But, my main message is its not over (pause) and the King ain't dead!

You guys hold it down man...catch me on StreetCred and stay tuned into StreetCred, because there will be more messages. A'ight in a minute.