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Monica’s new album Still Standing hits stores this coming Tuesday (Mar 23) and to hold you over to the release, here’s a track from the album called “Mirror,” produced by Jim Jonsin. She told our friends over at Rap-Up.com that this was one of her “absolute favorite songs on the album.”

“I have to say one of my absolute favorite songs on the album is ‘Mirror,’” she revealed. “The reason that this song means so much to me, it’s about being comfortable with what you see when you look in the mirror, but it’s over a mid[tempo] beat that’s still very hip, very new, and very young.”

Wearing one of the looks from her new “Telephone” music video, pop singer Lady Gaga was spotted with diet coke cans rolled into her hair while she was arriving at Sydney International Airport in Australia early Wednesday morning (Mar 17).

Meanwhile, people were worried about Gaga earlier this week when video surfaced of her looking like she was 1 step away from passing out while performing the encore for one of her concerts. But her tour rep says everything’s good and she’s “totally fine.”

“[She is] totally fine. It was warm at the show, she was tired and bit dehydrated by the end of a two-hour-plus performance. She performed the second Auckland show the following night without an issue and will be back in full match fitness for her first Australian show.”

Jay-Z and Beyonce might have a pre-nup, but as far as anyone is concerned, it’s none of our business, just as we thought. And when we posted that interview from Neon Magazine we knew something wasn’t right.

The interview turned out to be entirely false, and was made up by the freelance editor who submitted it to the mag. When they came to the guy for verification and he couldn’t prove it, they released the following statement:

We do have serious doubts in the truth of many statements of the interview of Ms. Beyonce Knowles published in NEON, Issue January/2010. The article was written by the freelancer Ingo Mecek. The editors-in-Chief have confronted Ingo Mocek with these doubts. Ingo Mocek was not able to verify certain statements, particularly the statements regarding a marriage contract of Ms. Knowles. There, we assume that the interview did not take place as claimed by Ingo Mocek.

NEON dissociates itself from the content of the interview with Ms. Knowles. NEON subscribes to a high level standard of truthful journalism. Since Ingo Mocek has violated these standards serverely, NEON has terminated all relationships with Inco Mocek with immediate effect. We sincerely apologize to Ms. Knowles and her management for all personal inconvenience that may have arisen due to the publication of this interview.

The always stylish Amber Rose kicked off L.A. Fashion Week Tuesday (Mar 16) at the Gen Art Los Angeles Fashion Alumni Celebration at the Tropicana Bar, held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

It’s crazy how this chick can go any and everywhere she pleases, even without Kanye. Not many rappers’ girlfriends who aren’t celebrities on their own get to do ish like that often. In fact, she’s about the only one!

Check out a few pics of Amber Rose and others at the Gen Art LA Fashion Alumni Celebration below…

The Huffington Post report that thousands of gathered protesters abused Representatives James Clyburn and John Lewis, both veterans of the civil rights movement. The latter had the word 'nigger' shouted at him. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was spat on. When Rep. Barney Frank, report Talking Points Memo, "rounded a corner to leave the building, an older protestor yelled "Barney, you faggot." The surrounding crowd of protestors then erupted in laughter."

"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn told the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."

Republican Senator Jim DeMint tweeted that he was "grateful for the thousands of patriots who are storming the Capitol today protesting government healthcare and defending freedom." The tweet came at around the same time the racist and homophobic comments above were reported.

UPDATE: And here is some (non-controversial) video from earlier in the protests, just so you can get a sense of the atmosphere in DC today.

[Pic via]

Beverly Hills will be the Housewives to end all Housewives—either the platonic ideal of the concept, or the moment it goes too far and is forever destroyed. The cast is more savvy than any before; every single character has worked in show business, generally acting but some reality television, too. Will they be too self-aware, too glossy and accustomed to red carpets? Real Housewives of New Jersey showed us that a lack of polish may be the best quality in bratty reality stars. But washed up Baywatch babes and women who have been through as many sets of breast implants as rich husbands could be a potent blend... Let's meet the ladies.

Camille Donatacci Grammer: The Delicate Ingenue Trophy wife of Kelsey Grammer, former Playboy model, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome advocate, Camille has two children, both born with a surrogate mother. Camille's debilitating IBS rendered her unable to bear children. Hobbies include making out with her old husband on red carpets. Camille has so clearly been dying for this vehicle, for so long.

Kyle Richards & Kim Richards: Social-Climbing Sister Act Sisters of Kathy Hilton and aunts of Paris and Nicky, brunette Kyle and blonde Kim entered the family fame-seeking gauntlet as child actresses, achieving a few memorable roles. (Kyle played the baby whose sitter gets slaughtered Halloween—and guested on Paris' shows. Kim had a starring role in Escape to Witch Mountain.) Kyle's husband is a loaded L.A. realtor; Kim has two loaded divorces under her belt.

Adrienne Maloof-Nassif: Miracle of Plastic Science She's married to Dr. 90210 regular Dr. Paul Nassif and Maloof heiress—the family that owns the Palms, the Sacramento Kings, casinos, banks, and entertainment holdings. Expect her to be completely insane in a way that only the filthy rich and breathtakingly plastic can be.

Lisa Vanderpump-Todd: High-Powered Brit With a name like Vanderpump, can she go wrong? Vanderpump is a Baywatch babe turned restauranteur/club queen. She periodically enters the tabloid scene, like when her stolen Bentley turned up in a ditch in Mulholland Drive. [Pics: Getty]

A year ago online journalism was the 'online journalism' that old-school reporters and J-school professors still ponder. It was measured in hours, not the daily news cycle of a paper. It was a different beast where corrections were fluid, where whimsy and opinion mattered as much as content. People visited a homepage, scrolled down and clicked on whatever caught their eye.

Now blogs compete aggressively for audience. Politico, Deadline Hollywood and everyone else seeks to break news to differentiate them from their competition. To do so they, and we, must also now write tight, concise headlines, choose decent pictures or art, and provide readers with more evidence of journalism (pics, or documents, or it didn't happen). Opinion pieces and rants cannot rely on raw snark — the ones that get read will hold together, under immediate comment scrutiny, like a traditional op-ed. In short, blogs must now compete for readers' attention like a newspaper on a stand does (or did).

The reason why is a cliche — the kind of cliche that gets articles like this one thrown on the scrapheap, read by dozens not thousands, or millions: Twitter and Facebook.

Because more people now pluck most of their news from their social networks, blog time is measured in minutes not hours — you're either first or definitive or funniest or most provocative or someone else will have the link that gets tweeted and posted on walls.

If you are first (and it doesn't have to be Watergate) a vague headline will not work as it once might have. Because whimsy does not retweet well. So if, to Gawker-promote, you find out that Wyclef Jean paid his mistress $105,000 through his Haiti charity, the headline should probably be Wyclef Jean Paid His Mistress $105,000 Through His Haiti Charity. Like a newspaper headline.

John Cook, who wrote that story, also uncovered Nikki Finke's habit of changing her stories to suit emerging facts. But now if a story, with its headline and probably the first few lines, is immediately spread around, secret corrections will be exposed anyway. Correcting like a newspaper — explaining clearly precisely the fuck-up, and how it was amended — is not just good practice online. It's about to become the only option.

Blogs, like this one, used to get away with quickly repackaging content and adding a penis joke. But, as our proprietor Nick Denton explained in an internal email, "any treatment [of a story] can work, really, except for the old-school blog item, that rehashed news story with a dash of puerile snark. Nobody links to that." Nobody links to stories with dull pictures, or lots of typos, or tenuous premises either. Stories that are not pegged to current events will not do so well. In the same way people skip over them in their newspapers.

The difference is that, where newspapers have a day to decide what's news, blogs compete for people's attention in almost real time. It's a big change, and nobody is perfect (before you seek examples on this site). Which is probably why Cynthia Shannon, of San Francisco, tweeted at 11.02 on Friday, that "there's something seriously wrong when DRUDGE and GAWKER are my primary sources of news." If we want Cynthia to move from grudging appreciation to something more fulsome, we'll have to become more like the institutions we seek to replace. Just faster.

(Also: please link to this. Thanks.)

With the help of Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and anonymous tipsters, New Jersey police were able to find and arrest a sixteen-year-old boy who commandeered a Wal-Mart public-address system last weekend and made the following announcement: "Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now." The boy was charged with bias, intimidation and harassment and, if convicted, could spend a year in juvy. [NYT]

Read more posts by Adam K. Raymond

Filed Under: the post-racial world, wal-mart