All I needed to know was that Dr. Jane Goodall was available for interviews, and I was there, even if it was only for 10 minutes, even if it was in the Midtown Buca di Beppo.

The most recent issue of Rolling Stone — the one with the This Is The End guys on the cover and the accompanying story all about how James Franco farts a lot, and how Jonah Hill won't discuss farts, and how Danny McBride's underwear becomes unwearably dirty after just a day — has a special "The New Stoned Age" section all about weed. In all but two of this section's big stories, Snoop Dogg is name-dropped. This happens casually in pieces that he has no formal link to, such as "Weed City, USA," which is about the booming growing business in Denver:

The 52-foot "Big Tex" statue that has welcomed visitors to the State Fair of Texas with a booming, "Howdy, folks!" for the past 60 years was completely destroyed in a terrifying burst of flames today.

Steve Jobs's uniform of jeans and a black turtleneck has heretofore seemed less like a sophisticated sartorial choice than a savvy exercise in personal branding, a symbol of ascetic devotion to technology, and perhaps, once, a bit of marketing for the Gap, where Jobs was a director. But if acclaimed couturier Ralph Rucci is to be believed, the Apple CEO might be so far ahead of the fashionistas that he's been severely underappreciated.

Bob Marley died on May 11, 1981. How will you celebrate this anniversary? Read one of the many fine books on Marley's life? Reflect on the amazing depth of his discography? Have lunch with Bunny Wailer? Start a revolution in Zimbabwe? Save the poor?

You know exactly who Paul Marcarelli is, even though you don't know that you do. He's the "Can you hear me now?" guy. His be-spectacled face has graced dozens upon dozens of Verizon ads, which have bombarded you for nearly a decade of your life, whether you like it or not.

When Sarah Silverman announced the Best Horror Movie award went to Zombieland, the audience wasn't sure where to look for the person who'd receive it. Bill Murray came from the ground dressed in full Ghostbusters garb and thanked the undead.

"What is Vanilla Ice up to these days?" you probably asked yourself this morning, while guzzling orange Faygo and weeping. Well, like most Americans, Vanilla Ice has reinvented himself as a reality TV "star." To the delight of Fox News!

["For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Yes, that is Mickey Mouse, crucified in a Shanghai Beijing mall. Pic via Shangahiist.]

Campy Jewish Self-Defense Squad to the rescue! Of the news cycle! Where does today's instantly classic New York Post cover of NYC's most self-serious gun-totin' rabbis rank in the canon of Pop Culture Jews With Guns?

[via Adfreak]

TVNewser is reporting tonight that legendary CBS newsman Walter Cronkite is "gravely ill," so ill that the network has been "updating his obituary."

Legendary actor and philanthropist Paul Newman died of cancer at his home in Westport, Connecticut, yesterday. He was 83. The Method-trained actor studied his craft at Yale and the Actors' Studio before becoming one of Hollywood's most successful—and challenging—leading men in such edgy films as The Long Hot Summer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Cool Hand Luke. Despite his iconic status, Newman didn't win an Oscar until his eighth nomination, for 1986's The Color of Money, in which he revived his role as The Hustler's Fast Eddie Felson after a 25-year hiatus. Professional accomplishments aside, Newman was also one half of one of Hollywood's greatest love stories. He married his Long Hot Summer co-star Joanne Woodward in 1958, and they stayed married for the rest of his life. Asked about adultery, he once remarked, "Why would I go out for hamburger when I have steak at home?" As a humanitarian, he stumped for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and called it "the single highest honor I've ever received" when he landed on Nixon's Enemies List. In 1982, he founded the Newman's Own brand with writer and Hemingway biographer A.E. Hotchner, selling everything from salad dressing to a really fine limeaid, with all profits going to charity. To date, the company has given away more than $200 million. [CNN]

If you want William Shatner in your little movie, respect that he is the greatest actor in Hollywood and the most important thing since movable type and give the man a real freaking role! Director J.J. Abrams learned that the hard way when he tried to squeeze the living legend into some bit cameo part in his upcoming Star Trek remake. Abrams agrees with Shatner that he's too much man for a walk-on in any Star Trek project, but he just couldn't make something bigger happen for the original James Tiberius Kirk. "It was very tricky," Abrams told the L.A. Times. "We actually had written a scene with him in it that was a flashback kind of thing, but the truth is, it didn't quite feel right. The bigger thing was that he was very vocal that he didn't want to do a cameo. We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves." The director was responding to an earlier comment Shatner had made about the newest Star Trek offering: "There is no need for me to know anything because I'm not a part of it." [UPI]

It's Madonna's 50th birthday today! And not 36 like her whacky religion says. Anywho, just to ensure that this event doesn't encroach upon some perfectly innocent item, please feel free to celebrate-or bash-the most famous woman on earth on her B-day to your heart's content in the comments. And if you come across other pics of her from back when she was adorable, that would be awesome too!

A tipster sends in a sighting of the now-famous Craigslist Cash-Waver outside a Broadway building: "The red, white, and blue sunglasses were in the same slanted sunglass style as the photos, and his matching shoes were those big plastic-y looking sneakers. Shirt and jeans were nondescript, but the chin strap was in full form...This was around 4:15 on Wednesday. I've never used this site before, can I make sure my full name/email don't appear with the sighting? I don't want him to sue/punch me." Sure! Caveat: Yes he was funny and everything, but he didn't really do anything too bad, so everyone (especially us) should try to be nice. Okay! [Previously]

Two of the revolutionary hero (to some) Che Guevara's kids said this week that they've had enough of their dad being used as a branding icon for advertisers of all stripes. "The appropriation of the figure of Che that has been used to make enemies from different classes" is "embarrassing," said one of his daughters. That's true. But Che's image today is largely made up of consumer products, that people buy in solidarity with a complicated man whose popular representation is—to say the least—highly simplified. Below, ten of the most important Che items that any dedicated revolutionary should own. Get em before they're outlawed.

Now that he's a bigtime fancy-pants director, Clint Eastwood wants nothing to do with his role as a rogue cop with a taste for brutality in the Dirty Harry franchise. Kidding! He's totally cool with it. "'At the time in the press, there was a lot of attention to the rights of the accused, and that's not bad or wrong, but nobody thought too much about the rights of the public or the rights of the victim, that's not what the attention was on,' Eastwood said. 'All of a sudden here was a picture about the rights of all the victims, and I think it really resonated with people who were frustrated.'" And Eastwood's not some gun-nut, either.

The Strand, the humongous New York bookstore by Union Square that is like one of the biggest used book stores ever of all time, has always attracted lots of young workers who take the low pay in exchange for the cool factor of working at the place, and the chance to be around books all day. One negative: the store is run by a despised woman named Nancy Bass Wyden (trivia: she's married to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden). I've known several people who worked at The Strand, and they universally agree on her tyranny. Now, the New York Press has actually done some investigative work on the claims, and it's found evidence for allegations of racial discrimination, callous disregard for pregnant women, and—most terrifyingly—"fungus from rats."