Bunny News

OK, so we'll give our self-righteous rivals at the Bay Guardian the benefit of the doubt: We'll take your word that you haven't pimped yourself out to a celebrity's narcissism, even though evidence would seem to suggest otherwise.

As our readers may remember from last week, we were told that indie celebrity Vincent Gallo, whose band will be performing at the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival, will only grant interviews if his fine mug gets placed on the publication's cover. Since we don't let celebrities tell us what to put on our cover, we didn't get to do an on-the-record interview with Sir Vincent. So we were a little perplexed when last week's Guardian hit the stands with Gallo striking a studly pose with his electric guitar on its front page. Now, we didn't become reporters because we got A's in math, but we can still add two and two together.

But Guardian executive editor Tim Redmond assured us that our math was fuzzy: Editors had planned on putting Gallo on the cover long before they contacted him. The music festival has gone on the cover for at least three years running, he told us.

Redmond also suggested that if we're looking to write about a scandal, we should write about (surprise, surprise) PG&E. Gee, Tim, we should go look for a scandal when you guys opted to hype a puff piece about a Hollywood celebrity playing at a music-fest? Redmond told us he was proud of said puff piece: "We put lots of local cultural events on the cover," he explained in an e-mail.

The Guardian's article begins by asking this hard-nosed question: "If Vincent Gallo turned himself into pure music, what would it sound like? For now, I know how the Gallo I'm talking with sounds: enthusiastic, upbeat ... and extremely alive."

The best part of the story is a quote from Gallo about his film The Brown Bunny, which is best known for its fellatio scene: "To hear people say, "Oh brilliant, you made a film just so you could get blown,' in a world where it's so hard notto get blown."

Given the half-page blowjob he got from the Guardian, the man has a point.