LOS ANGELES - Beyonce tore a leg muscle rehearsing dance moves with Destiny's Child and her injury could delay some of the group's plan, a record company spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The singer tore her right hamstring, one of the muscles at the back of the knee, while practicing Tuesday in Los Angeles for an upcoming TV special.

"She overdid it," said Columbia Records spokeswoman Yvette Noel-Schure.

"We're all keeping our fingers crossed that, because she's young and healthy, it heals fast. There are a lot of things in place that we may have to shift. Not the album, which is finished, but side (appearances). We'll know more after a week," Noel-Schure said.

The new album from the trio, which also includes Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, is titled "Destiny Fulfilled" and set for release Nov. 16.

The performer was treated by a private sports-injury specialist. She is able to walk, but was advised to steer clear of dancing and other strenuous physical activity for about a week.

Leonardo DiCaprio Assault Lawsuit Tossed
NEW YORK - A lawsuit targeting "Titanic" star Leonardo DiCaprio (news) and two other men for their alleged roles in a street fight over "Showgirls" actress Elizabeth Berkley (news) was thrown out by a judge Wednesday.

DiCaprio, 29, and others were sued for $45 million by Roger Wilson, 44, who claimed DiCaprio encouraged his friends to attack him outside a restaurant on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the early hours of May 4, 1998.

Wilson, an actor who appeared in two of the "Porky's" movies, said one of DiCaprio's "posse" punched him when he confronted them about repeated telephone calls to Berkley, his girlfriend.


Judge Paula Omansky said the lawsuit could proceed against a fourth man, Todd Healy, who admitted he hit Wilson. Healy said he punched Wilson in self-defense when he thought he saw him reaching for something, possibly a weapon.


Wilson had gone to the restaurant just before midnight to confront Jay Ferguson, an actor and DiCaprio friend who had met Berkley for the first time the night before at the premiere of DiCaprio's film "The Man in the Iron Mask."


Wilson's claim against DiCaprio — that he aided and abetted the assault by encouraging the others to attack him — turned on the star's alleged statement to the others in the restaurant to "go out there and kick his (expletive)."


In dismissing the action against DiCaprio, the judge said Healy never heard the alleged remark, and therefore could not have been incited by it.


She cited Healy's sworn statement that he was never in the restaurant, that he came upon the group outside, and that he decked Wilson in self-defense.


A statement from DiCaprio's publicist said he is "grateful that the judicial system has finally resolved this case in a fair and just manner."


The judge also dropped the cases against Ferguson and another DiCaprio acquaintance, Kevin Connelly. Police investigated Wilson's complaint that he had been assaulted by Healy, but no charges were filed.

Results of Bush and Kerry's votes on Marijuana






Bush is against it







Kerry is somewhere in between.

David Cobb
Green Party

Decriminalization

David Cobb is the front-running candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination. The Party holds its 2004 presidential convention on June 23-28.

Cobb is on record voicing support for the removal of criminal penalties for the possession of marijuana for personal use.

Your Government Is Lying To You (Again) About Marijuana
Your Government Is Lying To You (Again) About Marijuana
A Refutation of the Drug Czar's "Open Letter to
America's Prosecutors"

It will come as no surprise to most Americans to learn that our federal officials tend to exaggerate the potential dangers of marijuana in order to justify our nation’s criminal drug policies. But recently, the White House’s anti-marijuana propaganda campaign has taken on an increasingly alarmist and extremist tone – arguably crossing over any reasonable line of probity. The Bush Administration’s latest rhetoric does not qualify as a mere exaggeration; they are flat-out lying to the American public. They are purposely misrepresenting the available research in an attempt to justify federal and state policies that result in the arrest of more than 650,000 Americans annually on minor marijuana Deputy Director Scott Burns insists, "Nationwide, no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana," and urges law enforcement officials to "aggressively prosecute" marijuana violators. The letter further advocates prosecutors "tell the truth" about marijuana, and then lists more than a dozen unsubstantiated, misleading and fallacious statements regarding cannabis – including the allegation that marijuana is more addictive than "alcohol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and all other illegal drugs combined." Apparently the Drug Czar’s office has forgotten about the very real risks of truly dangerous drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine, crack and powder cocaine – as well as tobacco and alcohol, two legal but far more lethal drugs than marijuana.
We cannot any longer remain silent and permit this taxpayer-funded propaganda to occur without a challenge.

Van Halen Sues Orioles
Van Halen Slugs Orioles With $2M Suit




Van Halen is suing the Baltimore Orioles for at least $2 million in damages, charging that the Major League Baseball team reneged on an offer for the band to play a concert Sept. 2 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

The suit -- filed Aug. 10 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles -- states that Orioles director of entertainment Don Mark, under the instruction of Orioles owner Peter Angelos, first contacted Van Halen's reps at the William Morris Agency in mid-April about playing at the stadium. According to the suit, "Van Halen was ambivalent about playing at the time requested by the Orioles," because the band would be performing in the southern United States, and playing Baltimore would "necessitate changing the tour routing previously planned."

Top Selling Concerts
Artist/Event Venue City/State Event Dates Gross Sales Attend/
Capacity Shows/
Sellouts Prices Promoters
Dave Matthews Band, Guster Alpine Valley Music Theatre
East Troy, Wis.
Aug. 7-8, 2004
$2,718,227
69,761 /
69,761
2 /
2
$53, $35.50
Clear Channel Entertainment

Van Halen, Shinedown Mandalay Bay Events Center
Las Vegas, Nev.
Aug. 6-7, 2004
$1,965,860
18,780 /
19,876
2 /
0
$125, $65
Clear Channel Entertainment

Faith Hill The Colosseum at Caesars Palace
Las Vegas, Nev.
Aug. 10-11, 13-14, 2004
$1,901,900
14,442 /
14,442
4 /
4
$175, $150, $127.50, $87.50
Caesars Palace/Concerts West/AEG Live

Phish Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts
Mansfield, Mass.
Aug. 10-11, 2004
$1,627,837
39,820 /
39,820
2 /
2
$42.50
Clear Channel Entertainment

The Dead, Robert Hunter Tweeter Center at the Waterfront
Camden, N.J.
Aug. 7-8, 2004
$1,609,362
36,957 /
49,868
2 /
0
$52.50, $40.50
Clear Channel Entertainment

Phish Tweeter Center at the Waterfront
Camden, N.J.
Aug. 12, 2004
$1,052,810
25,150 /
25,150
1 /
1
$42.50
Clear Channel Entertainment

Van Halen, Shinedown Arrowhead Pond
Anaheim, Calif.
Aug. 16, 2004
$1,004,035
12,069 /
13,400
1 /
0
$95, $60
AEG Live

The Dead, Robert Hunter PNC Bank Arts Center
Holmdel, N.J.
Aug. 10-11, 2004
$997,016
22,833 /
33,912
2 /
0
$51.25, $39.25
Clear Channel Entertainment

Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Uncle Kracker Nissan Pavilion at Stone Ridge
Bristow, Va.
Aug. 13, 2004
$947,419
22,074 /
22,074
1 /
1
$65.25, $43.25, $31.25
Clear Channel Entertainment/The Messina Group/AEG Live

Usher Wachovia Center
Philadelphia, Pa.
Aug. 19, 2004
$943,307
14,560 /
14,560
1 /
1
$69.50, $49.50
Concerts West/AEG Live/Atlanta Worldwide

the review of Velvet Revolver
Mood:  chillin'
Rock-Hard Pop for the Grown-Up Kids
by: Me

You know what this is, right? It’s the result of a stoner conversation from twelve years ago that actually came about: “You know what would be cool? Like, if Axl quit Guns N Roses and they replaced him with Scott Weiland! That would rule.” And then lots of giggling and being really really hungry.

Well, 2004 and here we are, it’s magically come to pass, and it’s not bad but it’s not world-beating either. Slash is still probably in the top 10 rock guitar players in the world (even though he’s just basically repeating the same stuff he did in G-N-R), Duff is still the most underrated funk bass player in the world, Matt Sorum is just a great powerful drummer, there’s another guy I don’t know named Dave Kushner who plays guitar, they are a good tight band that can play everything Scott Weiland throws at them.

So what does he throw? Well, here’s the thing. I wasn’t the hugest fan of Stone Temple Pilots but I always managed to cut them slack because a) they had Jerry Cantrell, which means they did that song about his dad being a rooster, which rules so hard on every single one of my brother’s mixtapes (or wait, was that Alice in Chains? I can never remember since they were both "we're not Nirvana, honestly!" bands... so I guess there's only one reason I loved STP...) b) they were, for a brief moment, the best pop band in the U.S., because Weiland is just a great pop songwriter who understands how to sustain a mood and how to put a couple of cool-ass hooks together to make a song that you can’t help remembering even if you hate it, which I often wanted to do because Weiland has written some of the most godawfully pretentious lyrics of all time. I love pretentious lyrics, but some of that STP stuff was just plain stoopid. And yet I remembered the songs anyway, found myself singing them in my awful voice, and it dawned on me what was going on.

But Weiland doesn’t want to be a pop guy, he wants to be a ROCKER. Hence the self-loathing, hence the drugs, hence the legal troubles, hence him breaking up his band with erratic behavior—because that’s what a ROCKER would do, right? And hence these songs all trying to be tough and hard. Weiland’s spitting out F-Bombs and MF-Bombs right and left, he’s singing how hard his big ROCKER life is, there are references to bitches and dope and porn and aliens, it’s all very much “dude I ain’t no pop singer I’m a ROCKER!!!!” (Kurt Cobain had this syndrome. It took its toll on him too.)

But see, here’s the thing: Weiland, surrounded by the three best members of one of the world’s best rock groups ever, is still writing great pop songs. Despite all the alienating surreal wordplay (WTF with “Somebody raped my tapeworm abortion / Come on motherfuckers and deliver the cow”? or “We’re all running from the goose, she’s high on cocaine / There’s a noose swimmin’ between her legs to her brain”?), he is still writing great pop songs.

“Illegal i Song,” which makes no sense at all, brings this home with its iconic riffy chorus: “Just look and you’ll see me / Lying there / Lying,” which could easily be kickin’ it in an old self-pitying doo-wop song or Wings album track. “Fall to Pieces” is a power ballad that even Whitesnake could love: “I keep a journal of memories / I’m feeling lonely, I can’t breathe”. And you’ve heard “Slither,” which just tears up the radio with some klieg-light power chords and more-Metallica-than-Metallica-has-been-in-a-while crunchy trickery—are you trying to tell me that’s not just a great pop song, sung by a great pop singer, in a metal disguise? Don’t waste your breath, you know I’m right.

I guess I should talk more about how the band sounds, but they sound great just like you’d figure. I should also mention how they end with a kind of Bowie tribute (“Loving the Alien”) that accidentally sounds like Let’s Active, or how “Dirty Pretty Thing” sounds almost exactly like “Sucker Train Blues” except if Sweet played it, but I won’t. And I know I should either rhapsodize about this or damn it to hell for its predictability or its lyrical confusion, but I won’t. I’ll just say that this is a lot better than it has a right to be, but it’s not by any means “the alien infection, it’s the coming of Christ”. It’s rock-hard pop for the grown-up kids and there’s nothing wrong with that.