In the mid-Sixties, “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” was a trans-Atlantic hit that catapulted two American white boys to the top of the Billboard charts and other play-lists around the world. Produced by Phil Spector, the single showcased a remarkable duet of voices – Bill Medley’s bass baritone and Bobby Hatfield’s soaring tenor. The Righteous […]
Thich Nhat Hanh: spiritual warrior
Thich Nhat Hanh, after a lifetime of service to Buddhism, died recently at age 95. Born 11 October 1926 in central Vietnam, he entered a monastery at age 16, where his primary teacher was a Zen master. He received training in the Vietnamese tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, and was ordained as a Bhikkhu in 1951. […]
Will & Jada: doing it in public
A month ago, a petition began making headway on the website change.org, asking for the media to please stop interviewing Will and Jada Pinkett Smith about their sex life. To date, the site has gathered input from over 23,000 digital signatories, who expressed their collective frustration at the celebrity couple’s tendency to disclose intimate details […]
Elon Musk: Martian mogul
Nature abhors a vacuum, Aristotle is alleged to have said. So, when I realized that one of the world’s wealthiest men did not have a known birth time, I felt compelled to address this void. The multi-billionaire in question is Elon Musk, for whom Astrodienst (astro.com) provides only birth date and place. I won’t burden […]
Randy Andy and the Dungeon of Crumpet
Although he later became a helicopter pilot, Prince Andrew in his youth was never able to fly below the radar of the British tabloids because he was such an obvious target. Before getting married, he was relentlessly tracked by the paparazzi for the sheer number and diversity of his dates – college girls, actresses, models, […]
Jeff Bezos: Croesus of the internet age
Long before the Covid-19 pandemic made shopping-by-Amazon a virtual necessity, Jeff Bezos had already built a mousetrap that brought the world beating a path to his door. Since the inception of Amazon.com in 1994 as an online marketplace for books, the company has since expanded in multiple directions, now selling virtually every kind of consumer […]
Jerry Falwell: thumping more than his Bible?
“Rahu made me do it,” Falwell explains to a packed media scrum, in response to a series of allegations, revelations and speculations that have come spilling out of his now-unzipped private life. For years, it’s been an open secret at Liberty University, the flagship of Christian evangelical higher education where Falwell was President until this […]
Ghislaine Maxwell, procurer for the privileged?
Ghislaine Maxwell, now under arrest and suicide watch, has fallen from the privileged perch she once held as alleged procurer of girls for the pleasure of powerful men. Maxwell is the long-time intimate of Jeffrey Epstein, who supposedly killed himself in jail last August awaiting sentencing for sexual abuse of multiple underage women. Maxwell and […]
Kala Sarpa “twins” Paul McCartney & Brian Wilson
By the mid-Sixties, The Beatles and the Beach Boys loomed large in pop music, one the leader of the British Invasion, the other the epitome of California’s surfing culture. Ironically, each band was also the other’s inspiration. Like so many other musicians, the Beach Boys were in awe of The Beatles’ songwriting, and the Beatles […]
Alexander McQueen: l’enfant terrible of fashion
A fashion show by Alexander McQueen was never anything less than a spectacle. Whether it was just his innate sense of drama, or the perverse delight he took in shocking his audience of fashionistas, he pulled out all the stops. His half-naked models, their scarcely-concealed buttocks or breasts leaving little to the imagination, would stride […]