Twitter May Be Hazardous to Your (Celebrity) Health

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Jeff Goldblum will be missed.

Living with First-Person Shooter Disease

via IGN

"You Don't Argue With the King of Pop"

Lisa Marie Presley's MySpace blog has one of the most moving tributes to ex-husband Michael Jackson, but her post also directly compares the circumstances of Michael's death to those of her father.

 Recalling a conversation about Elvis during their marriage, she writes:

"At some point he paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, "I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did." I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that."

What Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson shared was a long-term dependence on prescription medication. Elvis' personal physician Dr. George Nichopoulos endured years of investigation and eventually lost his medical license in 1995. Now MJ's in-home cardiologist Dr. Conrad Murray can look forward to the same kind of scrutiny.

Even though press coverage claims the doctor injected Jackson with Demerol just an hour before he collapsed, Murray's representatives are furiously trying to spin press coverage by claiming that the doctor is "not a suspect" in interviews with TMZ, but the Los Angeles coroner won't rule on a cause of death until his office receives complete toxicology test results.

Jackson was rehearsing to play fifty concerts in London starting early July and Murray claims he was on the payroll of concert promoter AEG. Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG, acknowledged that his company agreed to pay Murray at Jackson's request.

"He just said, 'Look, this whole business revolves around me. I'm a machine and we have to keep the machine well-oiled,' and you don't argue with the King of Pop."

AEG stands to lose at least $20 million the company invested in setting up and promoting the shows, plus another $80 million in ticket refunds. There are more details at the Guardian.

Finally Dr. Deepak Chopra went on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Friday night to describe his on-and-off relationship with the singer and Jackson's drug-seeking behavior. A longtime friend and sometimes personal physician to Jackson, Chopra says that Jackson often tried to manipulate him into writing prescriptions for high-powered prescription painkillers. When Chopra refused, Jackson would cut him off for a few weeks before calling to apologize and deny that he had a drug problem.

Chopra's anger and frustration over his friend's death comes off as one of the few genuine moments in all of the manic television coverage over the last four days.

The Return of Carl Spackler

Bill Murray reprises his role from "Caddyshack" in an interview during last week's US Open tournament.

Betting on the Wrong Horse

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" opens this week and director Michael Bay received "more than a year" of Defense Department support on the project. According to the Armed Forces Press Service, "the film uses hundreds of military members from all the services and from throughout the country to make the film feel more realistic." Unfortunately, all those resources seem to have been expended in the services of a real dog. 

Reviews are brutal across the board, but longtime "At the Movies" critic Roger Ebert takes special exception to the film:

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

Ouch. 

Michael Bay has worked with military advisers since he directed "Pearl Harbor" in 2001. While the DoD obviously has an interest in making sure movies about real historical battles portray the military in an accurate and positive light, it's unclear how lending military support to an imagined threat from the Decepticons advances our national security agenda.

Read the story about military advisers at DefenseLink and read Roger Ebert's full review at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Flo Rida Has Some Trouble With Acronyms

"Low" and "Right Round" rapper Flo Rida explains to the Pentagon Channel that the title of his new album "ROOTS" stands for "route to overcoming the struggle." (via DoDvClips.mil)

Buzz Aldrin Polishes His Legacy

Neil Armstrong may have been the first man to walk on the moon, but Buzz Aldrin is the only Apollo astronaut with a future in hip hop. Also: Buzz really gets along with Snoop Dogg but hates AutoTune. (via Funny or Die)

Coach Landry Would Have Never Tolerated This Sort of Thing

America's Team goes metal with Free Reign, a "heavier than metal" band featuring Dallas Cowboys linemen Marc Colombo, Cory Procter and Leonard Davis. Australia's Riot Entertainment has signed the band to a recording contract and will release an EP this fall, probably just in time for Tony Romo's annual quarterback implosion. Here more at the Free Reign MySpace page.

Pole Fraud

Here's a cautionary tale from the front lines of adult entertainment: Galveston, TX strip bar Club Cheetah is suing a 14-year-old girl for using a fake ID to get a job as a dancer in the club. 

Club manager Jeffrey Shawn Martinez was arrested after the girl returned home to her parents in San Antonio and claimed she'd been kidnapped, given fake identification and forced to apply for work by 48-year-old Leslie Campbell. The Cheetah's attorney claimed, "She came (into the club) with 6-inch stiletto heels and a miniskirt and looked just like a model from a Miss America’s contest."  The lawsuit asks for unspecified damages and a declaration that the club did not intend to hire a minor. (via The Houston Chronicle)

Is Obama America's First Nerd President?

At Friday night's Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner, John Hodgman, "Daily Show" humorist and PC guy from the Mac ads, addresses the eternal conflict between jocks and nerds. Watch as Hodgman grills the President on his nerd credentials.