Here's What Happened on Jan 7th, 2009
STOOGES: Guitarist Dies
Ron Asheton, the guitarist and bassist with The Stooges, was found dead in his Ann Arbor, Michigan, home yesterday.
He was 60. He was found by his personal assistant, who entered the home with police after being unable to reach him for a few days. There was no sign of foul play and an autopsy was performed yesterday afternoon. Iggy Pop and the rest of the Stooges -- including Asheton's brother, drummer Scott Asheton -- have released a statement saying, "He was a great friend, brother, musician, trooper -- irreplaceable. He will be missed. For all that knew him behind the facade of Mr. Cool and Quirky, he was a kind-hearted, genuine, warm person who always believed that people meant well even if they did not. As a musician, Ron was the guitar god, an idol to follow and inspire others."
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The 77-year-old Salisbury resident appeared in Court on Monday. He pleaded not guilty to illegal operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence and failure to drive in the proper lane.
Police say Torn was driving in the breakdown lane in his 1994 Subaru with a Christmas tree tied to the top.
He failed part of a field sobriety exam, then gave up after saying the ground wasn't level enough, state police said. He also refused to take a breathalyzer test and used profanity while in the trooper's cruiser, police said.
The show's producers are now looking for "the biggest, baddest Ozzy Osbourne superfans who are willing to do anything (and we mean ANYTHING!) to meet him," according to the casting call sheet.
"Obviously, this is network television so nothing too 0bscene can be done but we'll definitely push the boundaries. Think eating bugs, licking belly buttons, getting pierced, shaving your head, getting tattoed, etc. -we're looking for Ozzy's HUGEST FANS that will happily do any of this stuff to meet him. Please tell us why you'd be perfect for this and we'll fill you in on all the details of the show!"
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Paul McCartney will regain the rights to The Beatles' back catalog of songs. Michael Jackson is said to be giving them back to the former Beatle in his will.
"It's something that I'd like to do purely for myself. It's something that I need to release before I can think about moving on to anything else... In both Slipknot and Stone Sour I'm slightly limited to how I can write and indeed what I can write about. The beauty of doing a solo album is that I can write whatever type of song I want."
JANUARY 6--In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado's ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Friday morning. The January 2 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail's Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair's botched 10:30 AM boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair.
