Abba drummer found dead in his garden

A former drummer for the Swedish pop band ABBA was found dead with cuts to his neck in the garden of his house on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Police said Monday an autopsy showed it was an accident.

A neighbor found the body of 62-year-old Ola Brunkert on Sunday evening at his house in a coastal area outside the eastern town of Arta, a Civil Guard spokesman told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

He said an autopsy was carried out and confirmed initial investigations. “It was an accident,” he said.

The spokesman said Brunkert hit his head against a glass door in his dining room, shattering the glass and cutting himself in the neck. He managed to wrap a towel around his neck and left the house to seek help, but collapsed in the garden.

Brunkert lived in the coastal apartment complex of Betlem in the municipality of Arta, in the eastern part of Mallorca.

Brunkert had lived in Arta for around 20 years. His wife, Inger. died less than a year ago, an Arta municipal official told the AP. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the case.

ABBA band member Benny Anderson told Swedish daily Expressen he was sad to hear of the drummer’s death. “It is tragic,” he said.

Band member Bjorn Ulvaeus added that Brunkert had been “one of the best.”

“I remember him as a good friend when we worked together in the mid-1970s. He was a very creative musician who contributed a lot when we toured together and worked in the studio,” Ulvaeus told Expressen.

According to ABBA’s official Web site, Brunkert and bass player Rutger Gunnarsson were the only musicians to appear on all ABBA albums.

Brunkert first played with ABBA on the group’s first single, “People Need Love,” and toured with the band in 1977, 1979 and 1980.

He had been a jazz drummer and a member of the blues band Slim’s Blues Gang, before joining pop group Science Poption in the mid-1960s.

ABBA, with the four regular members Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Ulvaeus and Andersson, was one of the world’s most successful bands, with album sales of more than 370 million. The group has not performed together since 1982, but continues to sell nearly 3 million records a year.

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Idol Talk: The Price of Fleeting Fame

In the hoary pre-Internet days, stardom came in different tiers: You had your one-hit wonders, B-list celebs, and the Warholian hotshots. Nowadays, even 15 minutes of limelight can be blistering hot, thanks to the relentless combination of muckraking 24-hour news and rumor-mongering bloggers.

The most recent object of intense scrutiny has been “American Idol” contestant David Hernandez. Rumors of a past job as an exotic dancer have been circulating online, but the buzz busted all over after a manager at an Arizona joint called Dick’s Cabaret told AP that Hernandez worked there. Both Hernandez and the “Idol” producers are remaining mum on the report, but unofficial show sources say the Arizona singer’s past gyrations won’t disqualify him from the rest of the competition.

Either way, Hernandez’s exposure has vaulted the Top 20 finalist from the middle of the Buzz pack into the top searches. That means his online queries are keeping company with searches for “ron paul,” “primary results ohio,” and “brett favre retirement nfl.”

Scandal has touched the Fox reality competition before, and stories like these bring back names like Frenchie Davis (a 2003 semifinalist who got booted for being on an adult Web site) and last season’s Antonella Barba. Barba didn’t even make the coveted Top 12 spot, yet possibly faked photos released on the Web made her the most searched “Idol” contestant ever (based on their season’s searches)—more than fellow Season 6 singer Sanjaya Malakar, Chris Daughtry (S5), Katharine McPhee (S5) and Carrie Underwood (S4).

Still, how does an “Idol” wannabe warrant attention equivalent to a Britney Spears pararazzi pack? “American Idol” is a throwback to the days before cable offerings fragmented TV audiences, and recording devices time-shifted viewing experiences. Thanks to its public participation starmaking concept, the FOX reality show must be seen in unison, if a viewer wants his/her vote to count.

So, combine its old-fashioned appeal with modern-day reporting, and you come up with aspiring everyday people who get a taste of fame in the worst way. The wildfire nature of Web rumors though can have its cold-water splash of reality: When people search for the news, they also dig for the truth and weigh in on what’s important.

As for Hernandez, he’s staying on the show so far and initial public opinion seems to be behind him. In the meantime, future aspiring Idols might want to do a self-background check. The media can be crueler than Simon Cowell.

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Idol Talk: The Pinoy Connection

Before her audition, Ramiele Malubay declared to “American Idol” cameras, “I want to try to be the first Asian-American Idol.” Some bloggers may be so eager about the prospect of a racial breakthrough, that they’re sussing out other contestants to see if they might fit that bill.

In recent weeks, people have been online searching for rumored Pinoy connections in queries like “david archuleta american idol filipino” (+511%) “david archuleta filipino auditions” (+386%), and “danny noriega filipino” (+160%). So far, however, the ethnic background checks have failed to surface any Fil-Am blood for the popular Archuleta or Noriega.

Besides sparking huffy threads on the Philippines’ colonial history, blogosphere discussions have pitted colorblind advocates against those who crave Asian representation in the music industry. The main objection to such queries has been, what does race matter? Aside from ethnic pride, the response is that it shouldn’t… but an “Idol” victory could change the minds of recording executives who think otherwise. The International Herald Tribune examined the dearth of Asian-American singers after season 6 contestant Paul Kim claimed execs told him his ethnicity kept him from getting record deals. (Kim made the top 24, but didn’t survive the first round.)

“American Idol” itself hasn’t been without its racial controversies: Elton John called the 2004 votes “incredibly racist” after future Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson got ousted. Also, one name that surfaces with astounding regularity in online searches is ultimate reject William Hung. Opinion remains split over whether his ill-gotten fame comes from displaying endearing innocence or playing into a racial caricature; the aforementioned Kim certainly brought up Hung as a negative incentive to try out.

Ironically, Asian-American “Idol” representation has nearly been in line statistically with the general population (census numbers put Asian-Americans at 5%). Out of 72 Top 12 contestants, three have been Asian: season 3 singers Camile Velasco and Jasmine Trias (whose name Malubay invoked in her audition interview), and last year’s infamous Sanjaya Malakar (whom USA Today had, perhaps prematurely, crowned as an ascending South Asian star). Three out of 72 is about four percent. If Malubay—currently the top-searched female competitor—makes the finals, she’ll bring “Idol” stats (4 out of 84) right to the 5% mark.

Interestingly, a University of Arkansas economist actually used “American Idol” as a means to study racial discrimination in the labor market. He uncovered a “positive correlation” between the race of the viewers and contestants when the competition got hot. In Malubay’s case, she has the backing of Filipinos in her hometown and in the Philippines in her pursuit. Given the small population (and the latter’s ineligibility to vote), Malubay’s appeal will have to transcend race. That may be exactly what both sides are hoping for.

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American Idol: Gender Breakdowns

In the ongoing battle of the sexes, this season’s “American Idol” may unite Venus and Mars, at least in terms of talent. Among U.S. searchers, males and females agree on who the top—and bottom—three contestants are.

After David Archuleta, Ramiele Malubay, and Carly Smithson, though, harmony breaks down. Jason Castro (and his “dreads”) and Danny Noriega are among females’ top 5 most searched Season 7 “Idol” wannabes. On the male Search spectrum, however, the double-blonde threat of Kristy Lee Cook and Kady Malloy secure the third and fourth spot.

And then there’s Michael Johns. The judges’ favorite is currently in the middle of the pack. Coasting might be a wise strategy, so that the panel’s extravagant praise doesn’t backfire on him. Still, the Aussie will be wanting to win some hearts and minds—and ears—in the coming weeks.

US Females
David Archuleta
Ramiele Malubay
Carly Smithson
Jason Castro
Danny Noriega
Kristy Lee Cook
Kady Malloy
Michael Johns
Robbie Carrico
Brooke White
Amanda Overmyer
David Hernandez
Alaina Whitaker
Luke Menard
Asia’h Epperson
David Cook
Syesha Mercado
Jason Yeager
Alexandrea Lushington
Chikezie

US Males
David Archuleta
Ramiele Malubay
Carly Smithson
Kristy Lee Cook
Kady Malloy
Jason Castro
Danny Noriega
Michael Johns
Robbie Carrico
Brooke White
David Hernandez
Luke Menard
Amanda Overmyer
Asia’h Epperson
Syesha Mercado
Alaina Whitaker
David Cook
Jason Yeager
Alexandrea Lushington
Chikezie

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Idol Talk: The Godmother

While Oprah is busy boosting book sales and pushing presidential candidates, Ellen Degeneres has become the “American Idol” godmother. This week, she welcomed waif Josiah Leming, whose cut during Hollywood Week inspired Daughtry-like outrage among show fans.

Searches for “ellen degeneres” popped up another 35% on the day of the program, and related lookups for “josiah leming on ellen” (+1,344%), “josiah leming” (+518%) and “josiah leming american idol” (+483%) surged for the woebegone underdog.

Ellen had ties to the Fox competition last season, serving as satellite host on the shoe-horned “Idol Gives Back” telethon. Besides showing Ryan Seacrest how proper hosting’s done, she dug around in the spare change tray in her car and came up with a $100K donation. The fairy godmother instincts re-emerged Tuesday when she gifted Josiah with $8,000 worth of musical instruments.

Did the largesse inspire Top 24 contestant Colton Berry to invoke her name during boys’ singing night? Colton, largely overlooked by “Idol” cameras, took his first opportunity to introduce himself to America by calling himself Degeneres’ twin.

Nice try, but being Ellen’s adopted pet inspires nine times more searches than being her teen-boy doppelganger. Not that Colton should give up getting in the godmother’s good graces. After all, searchers don’t call her “ellen degenerous” for nothing.

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Idol Talk: Hometown Pride

“American Idol” is back on the straight-singing express, and viewers may be in the mood to forgive last season’s celebrity detour. Since the show’s season premiere, searches on the talent contest have been equal to, if not higher than, what they were this time last year.

Each Top 24 hopeful has developed an online following. That’s markedly different from season 6, when people were still enamored with the rejects. True, ousted Josiah Leming and Reynaldo Lapuz are still the most popular Season 7 contestants thus far: They each attract more buzz than former “Star Search” winner David Archuleta (who currently leads the Top 24 crop). But still.

The slideshow here ranks the contestants according to Buzz, but there may be another way to rank the newest darlings: hometown pride. The southern states tend to be traditional “Idol” Buzz territory, and this year’s no exception, with Oklahoma leading the show’s searches. Southern favoritism could portend well for Alaina Whitaker (Oklahoma), Alexandrea Lushington (Georgia), Colton David Berry (Virginia), as well as a handful of Texans (both Jasons) and the Hoosier contingent.

Ah, but beware the mendacity of such hope. Ultimately talent and likeability may trump parochialism in the final stretch, as Arizona native Jordin Sparks showed by breaking the southern stranglehold. Will voters help repeat history? We’ll find out in the coming weeks. In the meantime, weigh in with your own “Idol” analysis.

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Win A Date With Scarlett Johansson!

Here’s your chance to date Scarlett Johansson!

“The Other Boleyn Girl” star is auctioning a date with herself online to raise money for Oxfam.

The eBay auction, which launched this morning, so far lists the highest bidder as $10.50.

The winner gets to attend the L.A. premiere of Johansson’s movie “He’s Just Not That Into You” with the star in June. They’ll get a chauffeured car for the event and take home a hand-written note from the actress.

Other celebs are getting in on the action for Oxfam too.

Kristin Davis is auctioning off two tickets to the June “Sex and the City” movie premiere in New York and a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

Colin Firth listed two VIP tickets to the premiere and after party of “Mamma Mia” in London this July, and a personalized birthday video greeting, which he’ll tape.

Firth’s auction ended yesterday with a winning bid over $8,000.

What would you pay for a date with Scarlett?

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Blind guitarist Jeff Healey dies at 41

TORONTO - Blind rock and jazz musician Jeff Healey has died after a lifelong battle against cancer. He was 41.

Healey died Sunday evening in a Toronto hospital, said bandmate Colin Bray, who was in the room with Healey’s family when the guitarist died.

The Grammy-nominated Healey rose to stardom as the leader of the Jeff Healey Band, a rock-oriented trio that gained international acclaim and platinum record sales with the 1988 album “See the Light.” The album included the hit single “Angel Eyes.”

Healey had battled cancer since age 1, when a rare form of retinal cancer known as Retinoblastoma claimed his eyesight.

Due to his blindness, Healey taught himself to play guitar by laying the instrument across his lap.

His unique playing style, combined with his blues-oriented vocals, earned him a reputation as a teenage musical prodigy. He shared stages with George Harrison, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Bray said he and many others expected the guitarist to rally from this latest illness.

“I don’t think any of us thought this was going to happen,” Bray said. “We just thought he was going to bounce back as he always does.”

Healey had undergone numerous operations in recent years to remove tumors from his lungs and leg.

Bray and fellow bandmate Gary Scriven remembered their frontman as a musician of rare abilities with a generous nature and wicked sense of humor.

Healey’s true love was jazz, the genre that dominated his three most recent albums.

His love of jazz led him to host radio shows in Canada where he spun long-forgotten numbers from his personal collection of over 30,000 vinyl records.

His death came weeks before the release of his first rock album in eight years.

“Mess of Blues” is slated for a North American release on April 22.

He is survived by his wife, Christie, and two children.

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I’m no hero, says Prince Harry as brass rule out Afghan return

LONDON (AFP) – Prince Harry, pulled out of a 10-week tour of duty in Afghanistan for security reasons, wants a swift return to the frontline, he said an interview published Sunday, insisting he is not a hero.

But as the 23-year-old spent his first night on British soil since mid-December, the head of the British Army dealt his ambitions an immediate blow, saying he was unlikely to return to the fray in the near future.

Harry, third in line to the throne and a second lieutenant in the Blues and Royals regiment of the Household Cavalry, was met by his father, Prince Charles, and elder brother, Prince William, at a British air base Saturday.

The young prince said he was “slightly disappointed” about having to come home early, after a US website broke an embargo agreed between British media and the defence ministry not to publish his whereabouts for security reasons.

And he said he was now waiting to hear from his superiors about his future role but was still keen to rejoin his regimental colleagues.

“As far as I see it, yeah, I would love to go back and I’ve already mentioned it (to my commanding officer) that I want to go out very, very soon,” he added.

But the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, said while Harry’s ambitions and enthusiasm were understandable, he could not see that happening for at least 18 months.

“He’s just had a deployment, we wouldn’t expect to send any young officer in the normal course of events who has just had—albeit 10 weeks and that quite quickly—for another tour,” he said.

“So, actually the immediate prospect of Prince Harry going anywhere else is some way off in the future. It actually is hypothetical for the next 12 or 18 months whether he would or wouldn’t deploy again.”

In interviews soon after his return, Harry spoke matter-of-factly about his work calling in air strikes, patrolling and firing at insurgents in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan.

“You do what you have to do, what’s necessary to save your own guys. If you need to drop a bomb, worst case scenario then you will, but then that’s just the way it is,” he said.

“It’s not nice to drop bombs… but to save lives that’s what happens.”

But he rejected the tag of “hero”, amid fulsome praise for his work from British political and military leaders and the media.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a hero at all. I’m no more a hero than anyone else. If you think about it there’s thousands and thousands of troops out there,” he said.

Two unconscious, badly injured soldiers—one of whom lost an arm and a leg to a landmine—were on his plane home, he told reporters.

“Those are the heroes,” he said.

In interviews carried out with British media in Afghanistan, Harry raised the possibility that William, 25, could be deployed, although that would go against a royal precedent for not sending the future king into battle.

The Sun newspaper on Saturday claimed that William—an army officer who recently began training as a Royal Air Force pilot—would serve with the Royal Navy in one of the world’s troublespots later this year.

The defence ministry refused to comment, and Dannatt also refused to be drawn.

Britain has some 7,800 troops in Afghanistan as part of the 40-nation NATO-led coalition. Most are based in Helmand, where fighting against Taliban insurgents has been among the fiercest.

Harry raised concerns that Britain’s mission there—and in Iraq, where Britain maintains a 4,100-strong presence near the southern port city of Basra—was misunderstood and under-reported.

Dannatt agreed, but said if anything, the blanket media coverage of Harry’s deployment could help inform the public better about their aims.

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JK Rowling bashes ‘Harry Potter Lexicon’

NEW YORK - As the creator of the Harry Potter books sees it, her kindness to fans might come back to haunt her.

In papers filed for a lawsuit in Manhattan, J.K. Rowling says she feels betrayed by a fan, Steven Vander Ark, for his role in trying to publish an unauthorized reference work, “Harry Potter Lexicon.”

Ark is editor of a Web site containing a fan-created collection of essays and encyclopedic material on the Potter universe, including lists of spells and potions found in the books, a catalog of magical creatures and a who’s who in the wizarding world.

Rowling said she was especially irked that the site’s owner and the lexicon’s would-be publisher, RDR Books, continued to insist that her acceptance of free, fan-based Web sites justified the efforts.

“I am deeply troubled by the portrayal of my efforts to protect and preserve the copyrights I have been granted in the Harry Potter books,” she wrote in court papers filed Wednesday in a lawsuit she brought against the small Muskegon, Mich., publisher.

She said she intends to publish her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia.

“If RDR’s position is accepted, it will undoubtedly have a significant, negative impact on the freedoms enjoyed by genuine fans on the Internet,” she said. “Authors everywhere will be forced to protect their creations much more rigorously, which could mean denying well-meaning fans permission to pursue legitimate creative activities.”

She added: “I find it devastating to contemplate the possibility of such a severe alteration of author-fan relations.”

RDR Books attorney Lizbeth Hasse said Thursday that Rowling is seeking a monopoly over the work, which is not part of copyright law.

“It’s a very legitimate literary activity,” she said of the lexicon. “Like a reference book or a guide to literature, it’s a long-recognized genre. … We are not replacing the novel or taking away the market.”

Rowling brought the lawsuit last Halloween along with film company Warner Bros., which owns the intellectual property related to the Potter books and movies. The lexicon’s publication, previously scheduled for Nov. 28, 2007, has been blocked by the lawsuit.

RDR Books publisher Roger Rapoport has said the lexicon would not compete with any official encyclopedia written by Rowling.

On its Web site, RDR Books said it was “determined to publish this book for the benefit of Harry Potter fans everywhere.”

It said it “believes Ms. Rowling, who has championed the ‘Lexicon’ for years, will love reading the book just as much as she does the Web site on which it is based.”

In the past, Rowling had singled out the Web site and its editor for praise.

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