Late last week news reports began to appear stating that pop diva Mariah Carey had married actor Nick Cannon in a secret, i.e. paparazzi-free, ceremony. My first thought was that her new album, E=MC², must need a sales boost as it enters its second month on the charts. Crass and cynical of me, yes, but I did defend Tom Cruise when he declared his love for Katie Holmes on Oprah back in 2005 by jumping on the talk show host’s couch. (But was it a couch? The picture below makes it look more like Siamese chairs.) I thought it was a genuine, if shame-free, show of affection, not a publicity stunt to promote Cruise and Holmes’s upcoming summer blockbusters (War of the Worlds and Batman Begins, respectively).

Last Friday Cruise was interviewed on Oprah for the first time since ‘05. One news item about his appearance mentioned that PR experts had analyzed the interview and determined that he came across as “serious” and “thoughtful,” i.e. not communicating with a miniature version of L. Ron Hubbard that floats above his left shoulder. Tom, one of my goals since I was a young boy has been to win the respect and complimentary fruit baskets of PR experts all across this great nation of ours. You’ve set a fine example for me, and I’ll do what I can to add to your legacy.

I’m also one of the few people I know who defends Cruise’s heterosexuality. Since 1996 I’ve written hundreds of letters to the toothy megastar requesting a romantic dinner date, and I’ve never gotten a single response. Disappointed, gossip hounds?! Move along … nothin’ to see here. As for Mariah Carey’s potential publicity stunt, she has good reason to marry a guy 11 years her junior just to sell more copies of her new album, because music retail ain’t what it used to be. Do what you have to do, Mariah. No pressure, but the fate of the compact disc is in your hands.

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Last Thursday actor Wesley Snipes (U.S. Marshals, Undisputed) was sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty in February of three misdemeanor counts for willfully failing to file his tax returns from 1999 to 2001. Snipes and his lawyers had hoped he could avoid prison time, even if he ends up doing that time at a minimum-security “Club Fed”-style prison camp, and went so far as to present three checks totaling $5 million to Judge William Terrell Hodges at the sentencing hearing. Judge Hodges said he didn’t have the authority to accept the checks, and the prosecution wouldn’t accept them either. Was anyone in the courtroom bold enough to cash Blade’s checks? Suddenly, a kindly IRS employee stepped up and said he’d give them a good home at the Treasury Department. Crisis averted.

Snipes’s legal team also presented the court with letters from his family and friends, including former costars Woody Harrelson (White Men Can’t Jump) and Denzel Washington (Mo’ Better Blues), in the hopes that their defense of Snipes’s character could influence Judge Hodges’s decision. Thanks to a friend of mine who works for Homeland Security and owes me a favor, I’ve obtained the transcript of the wiretapped conversation between Snipes and Washington that led to the writing of the two-time Oscar winner’s letter.

DENZEL: (picks up phone) Hello?

WESLEY: Denzel? Hey, this is Wesley.

DENZEL: (pause) Clark?

WESLEY: No. Snipes. Wesley Snipes.

DENZEL: Oh! Wes! Sorry, the reception was bad for a second there, so you sounded like a former military hero who made a failed run at the White House four years ago.

WESLEY: Yeah, I get that a lot. Listen, Denzel, the reason I’m calling is because I’d like to ask you for a favor.

DENZEL: Sure, what do you need? Bruckheimer’s home number? I think I’ve got it right here. Yep, here it is. You got a pen? It’s—

WESLEY: Thanks, but I actually need a bigger favor than that.

DENZEL: Alright. Name it.

WESLEY: Well, as you know, that jury in Florida found me guilty of not filing my taxes for a few years.

DENZEL: You call six years “a few”?

WESLEY: I know, okay? Geeez! Seriously, don’t start, alright?

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I didn’t mean to take a three-week vacation from writing Sugar Water, but here I am with my first post for the month of April, which is already on its way out the door. But did you see that interview I did earlier this month? And those record reviews? And that Chart Attack! I wrote while Jason Hare’s in detox (again)? Those things didn’t write themselves, you know. (Or at least that’s what the computer program that actually did write them told me over and over again, but then I reminded the computer program that it doesn’t have emotions and shouldn’t be complaining.) I was also out of town last weekend, and I was in detox myself the weekend before that, but not because I have a drinking problem like Jason does — my problem is that I swallowed some toxic waste (again).

I also did my part for Record Store Day yesterday by going to Laurie’s Planet of Sound in Chicago and buying Office’s A Night at the Ritz and David Cross’s It’s Not Funny on CD. Then I set fire to an Apple Store to kill all the Apple computers that have iTunes on them, because iTunes is killing record stores. You should’ve heard those computers cry out in pain — until I reminded them they can’t feel pain. Anyway, Sugar Water had to be put on hold for a while.

Two weekends ago I went AWOL from detox for a few hours to attend a screening of the documentary Movin’ On Up: The Music and Message of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions at the Chicago Cultural Center. Movin’ On Up will be released on DVD next month by Reelin’ in the Years Productions, which specializes in music documentaries that include full, uninterrupted performances, either from decades-old concerts or TV shows, by the artist or artists who are being profiled. Movin’ On Up is worth seeing if you’re a Mayfield fan, though it would’ve been nice to see more archival interview footage of Mayfield, who died in 1999, talking about his songs.

Before I attended this screening of Movin’ On Up, the last movie I’d seen in a theater was David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, way back in September. I used to have Thursdays off from work, which is when I would usually see movies, but my schedule changed at the end of September, and I’m a little too claustrophobic and agoraphobic to brave the local cinemas on weekends, plus I can hear everything that every single person in the theater is saying. If there’s a pill I can take to turn down the volume of those voices for two hours, let me know.

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Last week I discovered that David Caruso has more fans than I could’ve ever imagined. To borrow a phrase from a recent episode of his hit show, CSI: Miami, he’s a huge “cyber-lebrity.” Caruso also attracts his share of non-fans who think he’s a bad actor, but they seem more interested in his string of ex-girlfriends and ex-wives and his past struggles with alcoholism.

I regret mentioning in last week’s post how the actor’s appearance has changed noticeably over the past few seasons of CSI: Miami and then guessing that it’s because he’s in his 50s now; I was merely making an observation about Caruso looking different as his character, Horatio Caine, has become more peculiar. Rob McKenzie of Canada’s National Post said last August that Horatio has “a dash of the supernatural,” and thanks to one of the people who left a comment last week, I found the New York Post’s recent Page Six gossip item about Caruso, in which a CSI: Miami “insider” said that Caruso “once asked the director of photography to make it seem like he was flying to the crime scene, explaining that Horatio is actually a mythical superhero. For real.”

I realize that’s supposed to make Caruso sound like a nut job, but to me, it just reinforces that he “gets” what the show is these days — a live-action cartoon with candy-colored cinematography and a lead character who wears the same dark suit and sunglasses week after week much like a comic-book character would. (I did see a second-season episode the other night on A&E in which Horatio was wearing an olive-green suit and didn’t put on his sunglasses once during the last 20 minutes. CSI: Miami hadn’t become a cartoon yet, and although Horatio was already addressing suspects while standing at a 90-degree angle, he did eventually turn toward them and make eye contact for more than 1.4 seconds.) You could also call his performance self-parody: Caruso gets the last laugh at his own joke, but like I said last week, the joke can wear thin since I know he’s capable of much more as an actor, which is one reason why CSI: Miami is just empty calories. Still, I can’t look away when he’s playing his superhero robot ghost cop.

I also regret mentioning last week that I know someone whose brother appeared on the show, an actor who said there may be “some undiagnosed madness in Caruso’s method.” I couldn’t resist the play on words of “method in his madness, madness in his method,” okay? I love the intricacies of the English language, just like William Shakespeare or the writers of CSI: Miami.

And since I said “It’s just that his face seemed to fall so freakin’ fast” in a reply to a reader’s comment and that reply was then used in an anti-Castro — sorry, anti-Caruso (Miami … Cuba … it’s easy to get confused) — blogger’s own post, may something similar happen to my timeless beauty. In fact, I’ll offer up a curse myself: may all my hair fall out by the time I’m 35. Oh, wait, that already happened. Okay, here’s an alternate curse: may all my back hair fall out by the time I’m 35. That seems fair.

It is a cheap thrill, though, to be quoted out of context on someone’s all-Caruso-all- the-time blog (especially when the blogger leaves out completely irrelevant sentences like “Then again, ain’t we all a little crazy?”), so I’d like to see if I can make it happen again. Caruso player-haters, please take the following bait:

It may seem like DAVID CARUSO’S life is fabulous these days, but let’s FACE facts: LOOKS can be deceiving, and life can very easily get REALLY REALLY BAD.

Now, find the key words in that quote and string them together on your blog. Don’t you love receiving free content this way? It’s win-win all around!

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CSI: Miami, now in its sixth season, returns with a new episode Monday night, the first one completed since the writers’ strike ended in February. CBS’s top-rated crime drama is the most popular TV show in the world according to international ratings, just as Baywatch was the world’s most popular show in the ’90s. (Here in the U.S., A&E leans on the syndicated reruns pretty hard, showing nine-hour marathons every Wednesday.) The two shows have their similarities: beachfront locales, lots of sun, pretty girls and muscular guys, and murder-mystery storylines for those who aren’t interested in the eye candy. But while Baywatch had beefcake mannequin David Hasselhoff as its lead actor, CSI: Miami has David Caruso, whose performance makes the show endlessly watchable. (Of course, Bruce Fretts of TV Guide said in January that Caruso is “rapidly turning into the new Hasselhoff.” Please, Bruce, don’t piss all over my thesis just yet, okay?)

I’m not trying to argue that there are hidden depths to the carrot-topped actor’s portrayal of Horatio Caine, the police detective who heads up the Miami-Dade County police department’s forensics team, but I am defending the method in his madness. (According to someone I know whose brother has appeared on the show in a guest-starring role, there may actually be some undiagnosed madness in Caruso’s method. Then again, ain’t we all a little crazy?) Many people think Caruso’s a terrible actor, which just isn’t so. Instead, he’s a good actor who’s gotten lazy, although I do think he’s keeping himself entertained as he goes through the motions week after week. He could still turn in a solid performance if he wanted to, but for now he’s content to deliver his stone-faced one-liners and throw a bunch of quirks into his role as “H,” like positioning his body at a 90-degree angle in relation to another character and only turning his head to address him or her, and adding lots of odd pauses into his dialogue, possibly as an homage to one of his idols, Christopher Walken, or, as a friend of mine has theorized, because he can only memorize five words of dialogue at a time and then has to look off-camera to locate the next cue card. Caruso’s character isn’t like any of the others on CSI: Miami, which helps set him and the show apart, but he’s so different that he almost seems like he’s on another show altogether.

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I’m a day late with this week’s post, but I’m not going to apologize. Apologies are for suckers. And one of those suckers is Maxim editorial director James Kaminsky.

He apologized to the magazine’s readers late last month after it published a two-and-a-half-star review of the Black Crowes’ latest album, Warpaint. Two and a half out of five, y’all. Do the math, then translate it into English — the result is “Uh … you know … it’s okay, I guess.” Let the war of apathetic words begin!

The reason Kaminsky apologized in the first place is because the writer of the review, freelancer David Peisner, had heard only one song from the album — “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution” — before he wrote his critique, which said that Warpaint “hasn’t left [frontman] Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth.” Peisner told the Los Angeles Times that he was assigned to write a “preview” of Warpaint, which Maxim then turned into a review by slapping a star rating on it. The Black Crowes and their manager, Pete Angelus, complained about the review on the band’s website, so Kaminsky issued a statement: “It is Maxim’s editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. Unfortunately, that policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine….”

That makes it sound like Maxim is leaving itself some wiggle room so that it can continue to give lukewarm reviews to albums its writers haven’t heard, just as long as some stars aren’t placed above the writers’ text.

Works for me!

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Jarreau is the name of Al Jarreau’s 1983 album. It’s a simple, straightforward title, but if you ask me, it’s missing an exclamation point at the end — the multiple Grammy winner puts such joy and excitement into his performances that it’s hard not to feel as giddy as he does.

The big hit from Jarreau was “Mornin’.” It still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. One reason is the lyrics (the song was written by Jarreau, David Foster, and Jay Graydon), which are uplifting in more ways than one:

My heart will soar with love
That’s rare and real
My smiling face
Will feel every cloud

Then higher still
Beyond the blue
Until I know I can
Like any man
Reach out my hand
And touch the face of God

What really sells the bridge is Jarreau’s delivery of the second verse. By the time he gets to “touch the face of God,” he’s pretty much done just that, leaving a mere mortal like myself marveling at the minor pop miracle I’ve witnessed. All in all, “Mornin’” is a solidly constructed, catchy song, but that moment in the bridge is absolutely transcendent — eternal rebirth captured in a four-minute “easy listening” number.

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I’ll get to the cyborgs in a second, but before I do, I need to mention one last thing in regard to Wesley Snipes — in my three February posts you may have noticed that I said my lawyer/friend Dave-o and I were in Florida during his birthday week, which coincided with the first week of Snipes’s trial, January 14-18. Then last week I said we were there when the jury gave its verdict on Friday, February 1.

Allow me to explain. See, what happened was … hey, is that Wesley at the Oscars with Spike Lee?

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Last Sunday I said I would find time to write about Al Jarreau in the coming week, but a few days ago Jeff Giles told me to put my ode to the seven-time Grammy winner on hold for now. That’s because he has something special in the works that will involve several of Popdose’s writers.

Unfortunately for Jeff, I have a problem with authority, so I now present my exclusive interview with Al Jarreau in its entirety:

ME: So were you, like, a huge Moonlighting fan back in the ’80s? I know I was!

AL: I’m embarrassed to say this, but I think I only saw it once. I kept forgetting when it was on. Was it Thursdays?

ME: This interview is over.

Full disclosure: the preceding interview took place in my imagination. But did you see how I totally stormed out of the imaginary hotel suite where I was interviewing Mr. Jarreau? He never knew what hit him.

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Were you anxiously awaiting the conclusion of my Wesley Snipes two-parter on Tuesday? Did you have to take anti-anxiety medication when it didn’t appear? It’s not my fault you’re a pill popper, of course, but I do apologize for taking away the one thing that kept you from going off the deep end on Tuesday. Or Wednesday morning. See, here was the problem — in the past few weeks I got into a bad habit of meeting my 8:30 AM Tuesday-morning deadline at 2 AM Wednesday morning.

So here we are on Sundays. To mark the occasion, here’s a clip from one of my favorite TV shows, which made a similar time-slot change on April 2, 1989. The show was canceled a few weeks later, but don’t be superstitious. Do expect a write-up of a certain singer who’s mentioned in the clip sometime soon, though.

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