David Beckham’s Achilles ‘Totally Torn’

David Beckham suffered a full tear of his Achilles tendon on Sunday, according to Dr. Sakari Oraval, the Finnish surgeon who repaired the injury yesterday. Beckham is out for the World Cup:Asked whether Beckham would be able to play in the World Cup that starts on 11 June, Orava replied: “No, I don’t think so… healing takes a long time.

Jimmy Swaggart Is 75 Years Old

Before Ted Haggard and his trips to Denver, and just after Jim Bakker and his hush money to Jessica Hahn, there was the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart.

Peter Graves, Enemy of Leaf Blowers, Dead at 83

“In 1998, he joined his wife, Joan, in an effort to get Los Angeles to ban gasoline-powered leaf blowers from residential areas, testifying before the City Council, ‘We’re all victims of these machines.'”Jeepers, good for Peter Graves.

Masons and Shriners in the Comics

Of the 68,647 cartoons that appeared in The New Yorker magazine from 1925 to 2004 only two referred to Freemasonry and five referred to the Shriners. Courtesy of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia and the Yukon (good sports indeed!) comes this fine page of Masonic References in the Comics.

Just a Nice Photo: The Flaming Lips

Just a Nice Photo: The Flaming Lips

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:2355:]]Wayne Coyne rides the crowd in a big plastic bubble as his band The Flaming Lips kicks off South by Southwest 2010 at the Austin Music Hall.See more nice photos »Photo: Tom Zinn / WENN 

Happy Birthday, James Taylor!

Today is the 62nd birthday of singer James Taylor.To read in detail about his early career and how he approached songwriting in those days, read this (text only) Rolling Stone interview from 1979.And here are a few videos:

Hugh Hefner’s High School Cartoons

Hugh Hefner’s High School Cartoons

Via this Seattle Post Intelligencer blog post about a collection of Hugh Hefner letters and cartoons from the 1940s.Before Hugh Hefner founded Playboy magazine, that is.

Tiger Woods Hires Ari Fleischer

The New York Post reports that golfer and swinger Tiger Woods has hired on former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.Tiger’s now moved to the post-scandal step of refurbishing his image, after all those gnarly headlines about cheating on his wife, model Erin Norgren, with umpteen waitresses, porn stars and unnamed third, fourth or fifth parties.

The Faces of Hand Models

Our man Mike Duffy passes along this nice slideshow of Faces Behind Famous Hands.Now you can find out what those hand models look like. Our favorite slide is the one of Pamela Moses, whose hands replaced those of Transformers star Megan Fox in a television ad for Motorola.