Courtney Love Live: Out of Rehab and Into The Frying Pan

Courtney Love Live: Out of Rehab and Into The Frying Pan

Look out below -- a 'rehabbed' Courtney Love takes the stage: Aidin Vaziri | By the second song, "But Julian I'm a Little Bit Older Than You," she skipped straight to the part where she wails, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" For "Malibu," she absentmindedly dropped the microphone at her side and puffed away during the chorus. "You're seeing a fabulous show," she shrugged when people forgot to applaud. "F -- feel lucky!" Sensing danger early on, one of her roadies leapt onstage to remove an idle microphone stand. And still, the show was a mess, even by Love's liberal standards. "I'm sorry I'm not playing guitar tonight," the singer said, leaping onto a shaky monitor. "But I feel like a rock singer." She then took off her shoes and sparkly knee-high socks to perform the rest of the show barefoot, occasionally sticking a pudgy foot out for some brave soul in the audience to grab. "I'm all rehabbed," she hacked. "It's so f -- embarrassing."

Pop Quiz: John Taylor of Duran Duran

Pop Quiz: John Taylor of Duran Duran

Aidin Vaziri | When we called bassist John Taylor, 44, to talk about Duran Duran's reunion album, "Astronaut," he was sound asleep. So we woke him up. Having already made us wait 17 years for the original lineup to get back together, another five minutes was just too much to bear. During his time away from the yacht-loving British group, Taylor moved to Los Angeles, got a divorce, completed rehab, played the Viper Room and got married. Roughly in that order.



John Taylor of Duran Duran
Q: Is it hard doing all this work without a platter of cocaine in your face?
A: Oh, no. It's perfectly fine. It's more fun, actually. I'm definitely a lot more present, just really getting a kick out of it. It's like old friends reunited, traveling the world and making music. How bad can that be?
Q: What made getting back together with people you used to hate seem like a good idea?
A: I don't know. The music is leading us. Nothing's changed. Nobody had discovered Jesus or anything. We've all come back essentially being the same raw material that we were before. But we didn't have to think too much about it, really. It happened naturally.
Q: And you all lived together?
A: We did in the beginning.
Q: Please tell me that was like an episode of "The Monkees."

Christopher Walken: Bad Guy Does Good

Christopher Walken: Bad Guy Does Good

Christopher Walken: Aidin Vaziri | Meeting Christopher Walken for the first time is a strange experience. He's played so many bad guys and weirdos in the approximately 100 films he's made that you don't know whether you should shake his hand or leap out the window fearing for your life. Wearing matching black drawstring pants and T-shirt, with an oversize blue linen shirt, he walks into a room at the Clift Hotel and offers a brief, noncommittal handshake. He's not nearly as intimidating in real life as on the screen, but there is an eerie intensity behind his pale blue eyes and the stop- start rhythm of his voice that suggests you shouldn't turn your back on him while he pokes at a block of Brie with a small cheese knife.

Pop Quiz: Billy Corgan

Pop Quiz: Billy Corgan

Aidin Vaziri | Billy Corgan has done lots of cool things since the Smashing Pumpkins broke up: kept an online journal, dumped his girlfriend, started bitter feuds with his former band mates, worked on a solo album, and started and broken up a completely different group, Zwan. But a new book of poetry called "Blinking With Fists" tops them all. How can it not, with pieces like "The Song of the Earth," "Poetry of My Heart" and "Twixt and Twine"?



Billy Corgan
Q: Since you quit the band you've been writing poetry and keeping an online diary. When did you turn into a 14-year-old girl?
A: I don't know. You reach a point in your life where you think you're doing what you want to do and you realize you're really not, you're just serving a master you don't even know. So you just say, f -- it, I'm going to do things my way. You don't always win. But it's a more fulfilling path.
Q: Jewel didn't do so hot as a poet. How do you rate your chances?
A: Well, I was a writer before I was a musician. Put it this way: When haven't the knives been out for me? I've been criticized for every album I released, so why would the criticism be any different with a different body of work? It essentially boils down to the same things: "We don't understand you, we don't know what your motivation is and you don't belong." So it doesn't faze me at all.
Q: Did you have to prepare for this book by taking creative writing classes at community college?
A: No. It was totally intuitive. I have no formal training at all. I graduated high school with honors, and I haven't been back since. This is strictly my own dive in the pool.

Pop Quiz: Regis Philbin

Pop Quiz: Regis Philbin

Aidin Vaziri | The last time Regis Philbin put out an album, people were burning draft cards in the streets, dreaming of landing on the moon and getting ready to make Richard Nixon president. Now, as we enter another time of chaos and disorder, Philbin is here to comfort us again with "When You're Smiling," the follow up to his 1968 debut, "It's Time for Regis!" On "Smiling," the genial host of the hit television shows "Live With Regis and Kelly" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" revisits the standards he grew up with, such as "It Had to Be You" and "Pennies From Heaven."



Regis Philbin
Q: This is your first album in 36 years. What took you so long?
A: Actually, it's 37. I think the last one came out in October of '67.
Q: I hope you've been doing something good with all that time.
A: Well, I do a little television work. I've been doing a television talk show for, oh, the last 40 years.
Q: How's that working out for you?
A: That's working out OK. I made a living. I'm happy.
Q: Be honest now. Are you just getting back into music for the hookers?
A: Ah-ha-ha! What a crazy guy you are. The hookers wouldn't be caught dead with me if they heard some of these songs.
Q: I knew it was either that or the drugs.
A: Neither one. It's just childhood memories. That's all.