Reunion tours, dinosaur acts, cash factories…call them what you want, but these days, gettin' the band back together (for fun and profit!) has become a disturbing trend, especially so when vital original members are missing.

January 20, 2009. Our 44th Commander in Chief spends his first night in the White House. Flush from victory and aglow with anticipation, he needs a proper musical backdrop to set the mood. Holding a cup of jasmine green tea, President Barack Obama strides across the eagle on the Oval Office rug, gazes pensively out the window, and considers the nation now under his charge.

January 20, 2009. Our 44th Commander in Chief spends his first night in the White House. Flush from victory and aglow with anticipation, he needs a proper musical backdrop to set the mood. Holding a cup of jasmine green tea, President Barack Obama strides across the eagle on the Oval Office rug, gazes pensively out the window, and considers the nation now under his charge. Or...

Sometimes getting a taste of something sweet only to see it disappear is worse than never tasting it at all.

It's been a stressful couple of weeks for that part of your brain where Motown memories still reside poignantly and powerfully.

The most-publicized blow to the mind was Jermaine Jackson's misbegotten announcement of a Jackson 5 reunion -- replete with PDA embarrassment Janet -- which was quickly scotched by Michael.

The following message was found flickering this morning on the computer screen of SPIN editor David Marchese.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Seth Rogen has got to be kicking himself right now. There are only a finite number of opportunities for him to play a lazy twenty-something whose sarcasm is a substitute for ambition -- and he just wasted one of them on Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

Judd Apatow isn’t attached to this film -- not even as a producer -- so how did this happen?

Last week I was lamenting the fact that Britney Spears is naked in her new video. You'd have thought I complained about Burger King pushing Whoppers. "How else is she going to sell records?" one of my fellow (male) editors responded. The other two (male) editors in the room nodded.

In these troubling times, it's important to acknowledge the therapeutic powers of a good YouTube surf. Below, a few of my personal favorite video tonics, which may even become yours.

1. A giddy sidewalk gossip girl runs up to you grinning ear-to-ear with the night's big celebrity sighting and it's…drum roll…(conspiratorial lean and whisper)…TODD BRIDGES! Huh? Whuuu…. Why? Where?