1. MUSSOLINI POSTER Dean: "That's my poster. I'm Italian, and my wife calls me a fascist dictator. So I keep the picture around to remind everybody who's boss."

2. BATHROOM
Gene: "I always liked this bathroom. It's cozy." Dean: "It just doesn't make sense; why would you have a bathroom that opens up into a living room?"

Kanye West is not pissed; he's just in problem-solving mode. Right now, the problem is production costs. "I want to be the No. 1 artist," he says to a member of his crew.

Nine hours into October's Vegoose festival, the immortal five-note melody from Close Encounters of the Third Kind drifts out over the grassy field at Las Vegas' Sam Boyd Stadium, and the crowd of 30,000 is packed so tightly it can barely move.

Whose idea was it to get you guys together?
KANYE WEST: It was their idea to come up with ["Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"] and my idea to sample it.

After playing numerous sad sacks, John C. Reilly is finally getting his chance to be a superstar -- or at least a fake one. Directed by Jake Kasdan, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story features the Chicago native as the titular Zelig-like singer, who overcomes a troubled childhood to become a music icon, inventing punk and dropping acid with the Beatles along the way.

Arriving just 15 minutes before stepping onstage at Philadelphia's tattered Khyber club, Athens, Georgia-based rockers the Whigs find that their reputation has preceded them. "You guys are screamers, right?" asks the club's soundman, fiddling with singer/guitarist Parker Gispert's mic.