Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is being sued by his former personal assistant, Steve Wig, who claims the rocker promised him bonuses and overtime pay but never delivered. Wig worked for Ulrich for eight years and claims that he worked 80-hour weeks and was expected to be on call 24/7, which is pretty standard fare in the celebrity assistant world. The case will be heard in Marin County, California.
Maybe Ulrich is going to claim that the money he was going to use to pay his assistant was stolen by the same people downloading his music from Napster?
The scene: a woman calls her dad to complain about a rough day she had at work. The dad isn’t really sure how best to comfort his daughter, so he ends up writing her a song. You’ll be humming this in your head all day long.
While working on what would become their blockbuster album The Joshua Tree, U2 suffered a personal tragedy. Bono’s assistant Greg Carroll was killed while riding a motorcycle he was due to deliver to his boss. Carroll was a native of New Zealand. Bono penned the song “One Tree Hill,” the ninth track on the album, about Carroll and dedicated the album to him. Now, U2 is planning a huge stage show near that famous landmark. The show will take place on November 25th. Here’s the lovely song, in case you’re not familiar with it.
One of my favorite Lyle Lovett songs is “They Don’t Like Me,” which is about Julia Roberts’ parents. (She’s in Eat Pray Love now. Topical!) Some dude on Youtube used the song as accompaniment to a video about his coworkers. Hmmm… I wonder what he’s trying to say…
I love Belinda Carlisle – both her solo work and the Go-Gos. I’ve been reading her new memoir Lips Unsealed all week, and it’s great. Not only does she tell lots of good dishy stories about the LA punk scene, she used to be an office admin! Here’s the very first paragraph of her book:
At eighteen, I worked at the Hilton Hotels Corporation, photocopying papers for eight hours a day. When I wasn’t doing that, I was ordering toilet paper for hundred of hotels. I was bored out of my mind. Making matters worse, I had the world’s most hideous boss. He looked for reasons to call me into his office and chew me out. Most people would’ve quit, but I didn’t care. Besides needing the money, I knew I wasn’t going to be there long. I was going to be a rock star.
The awesome part? She was right. Heaven may be a place on earth, but that place is not the office.
Yesterday, my high school crush, Rivers Cuomo, was hospitalized after the tour bus he, his wife and daughter, and members of his band Weezer were traveling in got into an accident outside of Albany, NY. According to New York magazine, “the vehicle slid on a patch of black ice, ran through a guardrail, and dropped about ten feet into a ditch.”
Rivers has three cracked ribs, and his assistant Sarah Kim fractured two ribs and a lower vertebrae. Although those injuries are no laughing matter, I’m glad to hear that everyone is (mostly) OK. Assistants, we should keep a vigil! Or at the very least, send poor Sarah some snacks that will taste better than that hospital food.
I think it might be time for me to go listen to Pinkerton on repeat.
