While You Were Sleeping, Justin Bieber Was Defacing The Streets Of Surfers Paradise

The sad saga of GoldieBlox and The Beastie Boys appears to have reached its conclusion

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, especially if your good intentions include the unauthorised use of Beastie Boys songs, as toymaker GoldieBlox found out. Just last week, the construction toy — created to “inspire the future generation of female engineers” — became everyone’s favourite new thing after the company released an ad reframing The Beastie Boys’ 1987 track ‘Girls’ into an empowering anthem. Unfortunately, while “impressed by the creativity and the message behind [the] ad”, The Beasties weren’t totally into it.

“As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads. When we tried to simply ask how and why our song ‘Girls’ had been used in your ad without our permission, YOU sued US,” began the band’s response earlier this week. A verbal shit-fight ensued, and the whole internet got incredibly sad.

In a statement posted on their website overnight, GoldieBlox seemed eager to end the whole unfortunate debacle. They wrote:

Dear Adam and Mike,

We don’t want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans. When we made our parody version of your song, ‘Girls’, we did it with the best of intentions…

Our hearts sank last week when your lawyers called us with threats that we took very seriously. As a small company, we had no choice but to stand up for ourselves. We did so sincerely hoping we could come to a peaceful settlement with you.

We want you to know that when we posted the video, we were completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising. Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use, we would like to respect his wishes and yours.

Since actions speak louder than words, we have already removed the song from our video. In addition, we are ready to stop the lawsuit as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from your legal team.

Sigh, won’t anyone think of the children!

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Justin Bieber’s been in the country for two days and he’s already vandalising Gold Coast hotels

When he’s not visiting prostitutes, Justin Bieber’s usually engaged in a more creative pastime while on tour: like an ’80s b-boy, the dude loves graffiti, just loves it. Remember that time he painted his dead frog on a wall in Bogota? Well, now he’s brought that artistic prowess to our shores.

Yesterday, the kid took to the walls of Surfers Paradise’s QT Hotel to spraypaint a Pac-Man ghost and his other inner demons. It’s colourful, I don’t mind it. Unfortunately, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate did mind it, and he’s indicated that he’ll be sending a clean-up kit to the singer.

“We’ve all been young once,” said Tate. “By the sounds of it, he’s gone and done something really, really silly. But he’s got an opportunity to make good — I’m sending, straight away, one of the council’s free graffiti kits… and I urge him to treat this city the way Gold Coast fans treat him.”

I don’t know, can you really “deface” the Gold Coast? In any case, he also posted a related threat on Twitter:

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The Killers are apparently still making music…  

And they’ve got Glee‘s Dianna Agron in the video for their new single, ‘Just Another Girl’. I thought this band died with that whole dinner jacket fad of the mid-’00s? Oh well, hip moustaches, losers.

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The Twitter parody account Seinfeld2000 has turned George’s tumultuous relationship with Susan into the best Arcade Fire music video ever

Or should that be “Garge” and “Suzette”? Either way, it’s brilliant.

– “Bathroom stall door should extend to ground.”
– “Can we change subject”.