• Former Smashing Pumpkins members James Iha and D'Arcy Wretzky-Brown are suing Virgin Records, saying that they're not being properly compensated for Smashing Pumpkins downloads. Interesting timing, given that downloads of that song from the Batman And A Really Crappy Movie soundtrack shot up from 11 two weeks ago to 10,000-plus last week, thanks to its inclusion in the trailer for The Watchmen. [Reuters]

• Meanwhile, Billy Corgan frenemy Courtney Love is being sued by a management company who says that she hasn't paid them a 5% commission on last year's sale of the Nirvana catalog, a portion of which went for $19.5 million last year. [NYT]

• And finally (at least for now), Abkco Music, which controls the rights to the Rolling Stones' catalog, is suing Lil Wayne over his song "Playing With Fire," which they claim is a ripoff of the Stones' "Play With Fire." They're also offended that Weezy uses "explicit, sexist and offensive language" in the song, which seems like kind of a strange allegation given that the Stones weren't exactly saints. [Billboard]

1. The Beastie Boys
followed by...

Unwilling to repeat themselves after the left-field success of Check Your Head, the Beastie Boys wander through abortive sessions with Mix Master Mike, Lee Perry, Q-Tip, Miho Hatori, and others while promoting Tibetan Freedom Festivals, running Grand Royal, and raising families; Adam Horowitz's glitchy BS-2000 and the peculiar Country Mike's Greatest Hits make fans both curious and excited for what the group might eventually return with. Finally, after over a decade of waiting, Capitol Records and a nation of expectant stoners are blessed with... The Mix-Up.

2. Aerosmith
followed by...

Following the departure of Joe Perry during the recording of A Night In The Ruts, Steven Tyler descends further into chemical dependency, unable to complete sessions with new guitarists for several years. After his recovery from addiction in the mid-'80s, he is hesitant to return to life in the fast lane, preferring to raise his family and promote anti-drug campaigns. Finally, the original lineup returns with 1997's Nine Lives, where a new generation, unprimed by Wayne's World and Alicia Silverstone videos, is introduced to a group of decrepit transvestites screaming "Falling In Love (Is So Hard On The Knees)."

3. Grateful Dead
followed by...

Despite the success of Wake Of The Flood, things aren't the same for the Dead after the death of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and the band decides to abstain from the touring circuit. Attempts to hone a new sound are hindered by a series of exploding keyboardists, but the group finally returns to the limelight with 1989's Built To Last. Then another keyboardist dies, and the band says "fuck it." Meanwhile, Trey Anastasio is happily playing in a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band in Vermont, just happy that he doesn't have to hold down a day job.

4. David Bowie
followed by...

After releasing Pin-Ups (itself The Spaghetti Incident?! of its day), Bowie grows tired of his hard-rock Ziggy Stardust shtick and fires the Spiders Of Mars. Rumors leak that the rock star is obsessed with "soul" and attempting to maintain cultural currency by working with Brian Eno (the Moby of his day), but year after year and release date after release date pass. Finally, cleaned up and ready to play ball, Bowie, joined by Peter Frampton and Charlie Sexton, returns for a massive world tour to promote his new album... Never Let Me Down.

5. Prince
followed by...

Even after his Hollywood dreams fizzled, Prince finds it impossible to follow up the monumental Purple Rain, retiring to his Minnesota home; he's rarely seen after the failed non-musical version of Graffiti Bridge. Some say that the recluse won't even answer to his name! Always up for a challenge, Clive Davis signs the artist to a one-album contract, teaming him with a variety of pop stars that had followed in his wake. He then presents the world with... Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic. The world is not impressed.

6. Bruce Springsteen
followed by...

Darkness On The Edge Of Town, while a critical hit, isn't really the sequel to Born To Run that Columbia was looking for. So for years Bruce struggles with synthesizers and drum machines, hoping to craft a surefire hit. Off the road and not meeting supermodels and back-up vocalists, Bruce lives a long, lonely life before finally releasing The Ghost Of Tom Joad, after which Columbia decides this man is no longer the future of rock and roll.

7. U2
followed by...

Torn between their desire for fame and their belief in Christian humility, the members of U2 are more than happy to finely hone their follow-up to The Unforgettable Fire with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. But after a decade-plus of work, it becomes clear that they've lost the script. So instead, the band looks both to the past (their original producer Steve Lillywhite) and the future (Nelle Hooper and Jackknife Lee), creating How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, which the group promotes on an '80s Flashback Tour co-headlined by Simple Minds.

8. R.E.M.
followed by...

The Green tour takes a lot out of R.E.M., with the band first attempting to create a grand follow-up with mandolins and string sections before scrapping the sessions to try and regain their rock energy. Finally, with both producer Scott Litt and Bill Berry no longer involved, the remaining trio makes an album everyone is comfortable with. An album named Around The Sun.

9. Rolling Stones
followed by...

Let It Bleed is a surprise triumph after the loss of Brian Jones, but drugs overcome the band and it isn't long before replacement Mick Taylor is gone. It won't be until after the failure of Mick Jagger's first solo album, She's The Boss, that he'll get the old band together for a new album titled Dirty Work. While they knew Mick Jagger was capable of anything, it shocked fans of the enigmatic Keith Richards, long rumored dead, to see him dancing with cartoon cats in the video for "Harlem Shuffle."

10. Stevie Wonder
followed by...

With Motown refusing to let him run his own albums, Wonder boycotts his label following the release of For Once In My Life. When Berry Gordy finally relents in the early '70s, his concerns are proven tragically valid as Wonder toils unsuccessfully to capture his "inner visions," desperately trying to create songs "in the key of life." The singer could have been forgotten—but Gene Wilder gets in touch with him in hopes that he'll create a soundtrack for The Woman In Red. America is shocked as Little Stevie Wonder returns to the limelight with "I Just Called To Say I Love You," with Rolling Stone declaring it the Least Welcome Comeback of 1984.

There is one alternate history Axl could take heart in. If Paul Simon had waited fifteen years to put out an album after Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, Graceland would have been even more of an impressive wtf than it was at the time. But will Axl Rose's adventures in the diaspora ("Madagascar!") have the same zeitgeist as Simon's?

Hell no.

What's most intriguing about this rumor surfacing is its timing. Live Nation made headlines last week after reports surfaced that the 360-heavy strategy was causing strife in the company's upper echelons, with concert promoter Michael Cohl reportedly wanting to make as many as 15 more such deals while chief executive Michael Rapino urged caution in the face of a worsening economy. Ethan Smith noted that Cohl and the Stones actually had a pre-existing relationship in his description of the Cohl-Rapino showdown:

The battle that has played out in recent weeks was complicated by Mr. Cohl's threat to take with him stars he says he brought to Live Nation over the years, including the Rolling Stones and U2. In the ensuing discussions, Mr. Cohl was reminded that his employment contract would bar him from competing with Live Nation for eight years if he left.

What if the leaking of this rumor was actually more about Live Nation corporate politicking than anything having to do with making Guy Hands squirm? I'm sure I'm not the only person who idly wondered this.

Stones move rocks Terra Firma [Observer]
Stones deny label move from EMI [Reuters UK]
Earlier: Live Nation's 360 Deals Are Making Some Higher-Ups A Bit Dizzy
Earlier: The Rolling Stones Flee EMI For Universal's Greener Pastures

"I am thrilled and humbled by this extraordinary opportunity to participate in fashioning a motion picture that can serve as a worthy vessel for the spiritual and musical brilliance of Bob Marley, who, most everybody agrees, is one of the greatest human beings of modern times," Demme said in a statement.



Ziggy Marley, one of the film's executive producers, said: "His empathy with my father's body of work and his unique understanding of the musical documentary form makes me confident that this film will be the ultimate celebration of my fathers' life."

Putting aside from the question of whether anyone other than Scorsese or Demme has a unique understanding of the musical documentary form, which of these guys would you rather chronicle the life of your favorite band? Would you prefer Scorsese's sudden zooms and between-song interviews...

...or Jonathan Demme's less obtrusive style?

"Bad" or "Perfect Kiss"? Or would you rather set Peter Bogdanovich off to making a follow-up to the four-hour epic he created for Tom Petty? And if Scorsese is R. Kelly, and Demme is Akon, who's T-Pain? Don't even mention Jim Jarmusch.

Bob Marley Doc Goes To Demme After Scorsese Drops Out [The Set List]
Shine a Light (2008) - OFFICIAL TRAILER [YouTube]
Talking Heads "Burning Down The House" [YouTube]
[Photo: Getty Images]

42. Morrissey, Your Arsenal

"Morrissey appears topless and vulnerable, neither dispelling nor confirming rumours surrounding his sexuality as his posture is effete while his body toning is masculine. His microphone looks extremely phallic too."

28. Herbie Mann, Push Push

"Flouting his thick curly chest hair and ominously holding his flute as if it's some kind of sex toy, to us at least, it's stomach-churningly cheesy. Mr Mann seems to be pleased with himself. The dirty bugger."

26. Lords Of Acid, Crablouse

"A curious male naked form, with a female hand seemingly coming out of nowhere and grabbing the genital region, it's just plain baffling."

15. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Abbey Road EP

"We just wonder what they're hiding?"

13. Prince, Lovesexy

"The site [sic] of Prince unclothed is enough to send many-a-woman or gay man weak at the knees, and that's exactly what we got back in 1989: the pint sized music icon completely bollocks naked."

8. Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers

"The well-endowed chap in question is apparently Joe Dallesandro and not Mick Jagger who is apparently hung like a mouse."

7. Kevin Rowland, My Beauty

"While many claimed it was merely a publicity stunt, the former Dexys man denied saying he was trying to display his 'soft, sexy, feminine side'. It sold about two copies upon its 1999 release. Literally."

1. Liars, It Fit When I Was A Kid

"Although we don't think Angus Andrew and co are into sexing each other up, they sure look like they're enjoying themselves."

Naked men! So funny! Within this group, there are arguably three covers (Morrissey, Prince, Rolling Stones) where male nudity isn't taken as absurd, intentionally or otherwise. The same can't be said of most the boob, butt, and beaver shots that compile the rest of the list. So what would a list that didn't find chest hair inherently ridiculous include? Al Green's Greatest Hits? Raw Power? Uhh, umm... a little help?

Sex Sells: The 50 Dirtiest and Sexiest Album Covers Ever!! [Gigwise]

The cynical side of me wonders if this shouldn't be a lesson to all those self-proclaimed music fans who think that their favorite bands can make up money from lost recorded-music sales on the road, but perhaps I should save that particular judgment until Charlie Watts' first lightbulb ad hits the pages of Parade.

New Keith Richards Ad [Velvet Rope]

Few relationships between supplicant and master reflect the "law of identity" as keenly as that between the magazine considered in this space this week and two of the three men on the cover of its April 24 issue. When a major project involving the Rolling Stones is nearing commercial release, the magazine named for the band is right on time. A is A, dogs piss on fire hydrants, commenters complain in Internet fora, and Rolling Stone puts Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on the cover. This is the magazine's nature.

Jagger and Richards share the cover with Jack White, a musician many people over fifty believe makes rock and roll music the correct manner and is thus an artist RS can endorse with gusto. White appears with the pair in Shine A Light, the new Martin Scorcese concert doc capturing a two-night stand from the Stones at NYC's Beacon Theatre in 2006; he also has a new album out with the Raconteurs that's emblematic of emerging music business paradigms, etc., etc.

Senior editor David "this new Stones album is a stunning return to form; its switchblade six-string brings to mind Sticky Fingers" Fricke facilitates "Blues Brothers," a friendly conversation with Richards and White. He calls the Stones' current onstage M.O. "feral" in the piece's intro and goes straight into pig-in-shit mode as his charges hold forth regarding the blues tradition and Stones Cinema. (Fricke doesn't ask White any Raconteurs questions.) There isn't much evidence that Richards is interested in White; he appears to have a vague knowledge of the White Stripes, but he's more invested in conversation along the lines of "heh heh, rhargh, Bo Diddley, ghargh, Chuck Berry, arghle, back in the old days, heh heh."

White doesn't seem at all to bristle at Fricke's frequently retrograde line of questioning: "Do you feel cheated that you won't meet and play with your favorite bluesmen because so many of them are gone?"; and "Despite the generation gap, the blues shaped your lives in similar ways." This is probably because, in all likelihood, White believes that he did miss out on the time when music was rilly rilly great. He nonetheless elects himself for the blues priesthood alongside Richards, Charley Patton, and others: "When you see someone play, you immediately know whether you can connect with them or not. You know you're in the same family. And [gestures towards Richards] I think we are." Kumbayah, my lord...

As for associate editor Brian Hiatt's companion interview (titled "Mick Jagger"), it's clear to Your Correspondent that the interviewee devoted the same amount of time and thought to Hiatt's questions that he would for the Topeka Pig Testicle stringer who was slotted in between 3:45 3:50 p.m. on Shine A Light's New York Press Day. Which does make YC ruminate on just how Jagger regards Jann Wenner. According to Robert Draper's Rolling Stone: the Uncensored History, Wenner more or less devised Rolling Stone as a way for him to meet Jagger, who has since clearly been the crown jewel in Wenner's constellation of fancy friends.

But YC wouldn't be surprised if the notoriously cold-eyed Jagger considers Wenner his plaything, a sycophant who can be counted on to do his bidding and marshal every available resource to emphasize the greatness of his band while Jagger himself exerts little effort (and does Richards have less disguised contempt for Wenner?). Given the special relationship between his band and Wenner's mag, YC thinks that Jagger might lift a finger to make this interview more substantive, but no dice—although he repeatedly refers to his band in the piece in the third person ("they have lots of other kinds of facets which make them kind of interesting").

YC did learn some things from senior editor and film critic Peter Travers' interview with Scorcese. Travers notes that "no one asks 'Who Killed the Kennedys?' in 'Sympathy for the Devil,' and in 'Some Girls,' Jagger never sings 'black girls just wanna get fucked all night..." in the film's performances, to which Scorcese replies "that was the band's decision." Boy, them Stones don't shy away from confronting middle-class prudishness, huh? Scorcese also says that Richards sings but doesn't play guitar on the film's performance of "You Got the Silver"; YC is fairly sure that Richards croaking away onstage without a guitar is unprecedented (set YC straight if he's wrong, y'all commenters who bother with music recorded more than 30 years ago).

Of course, the Stones luv ain't stop there! In the reviews section, Rob Sheffield gushes purple in a four-star review of the deluxe edition of Shine a Light's soundtrack: "like any live Stones album," he writes, "this one is about the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band rediscovering how great they are." YC hasn't seen the film nor heard any of the album's cuts, so he'll just say that any of the audio-centric souvenirs released after every Stones tour he's heard in the last twenty years struck him as the band rediscovering that enough goofballs will buy anything bearing the band's name. He'll also say that he's pleased to hear that the band has dusted off "She Was Hot," YC's favorite of their '80s tunes.

As for Jack White, senior editor Melissa Maerz concludes in a three and a half-star review of the Raconteurs' Consolers of the Lonely that the record "feels like a jam session." Her judgment seems to preclude the half-star necessary to hasten the album toward classic status, so it seems that no matter how many rockist values he holds dear, White will have to wait another 15 years before he joins RS' automatic five-star club.

All in all, his life sounds pretty much as you'd expect, lots of laying around on the beach, strumming his guitar and reading ("I've read every book ever written. I'm running out. Somebody please write one!"). Even if Keith wasn't laboriously working on his autobiography ("I can't even remember yesterday...and since I didn't keep a diary it's a bit difficult"), smoking bans would probably keep him up in a palm tree anyway. There he wouldn't be reduced to eating his own cigarettes, as he did last August in what was threatened to be their last London show.

"It's a drag because you've got to freeze your balls off to light a cigarette, you've got to go outside. "It's draconian - socially, politically-correct bullshit. That's what it is. They'll get over it. It's like prohibition, they tried to stop booze once. Ha, look what happened. It ruined America."

America ruined? Southern man don't need you around, anyhow. Unless you're carrying.

Keef: I Can't Remember Yesterday [The Sun]
Stones Stones London 26 08 2007 [YouTube]

Their last album, A Bigger Bang, was only a modest success, but carrying a catalog including Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street (which sold over 300,000 copies in the US last year) makes a big difference in any negotiation.

The negotiations pose a high-profile test for EMI and its new private equity owner, Guy Hands, to prove that they can retain top talent.


Mr Hands unsettled the artist community after buying the embattled company for £4bn ($7.9bn) last year, and announcing deep cost cuts in an attempt to remake the business.

The talks are also significant because, in addition to the major record companies, EMI will be facing competition from Live Nation, the concert promoter.

Last year, the company signed Madonna away from Warner Music in a landmark deal believed to be worth more than $100m.

Obviously, Live Nation would be interested in a bigger chunk of any future Rolling Stones tour, considering their last was the highest grossing ever, and the albums would just be an added bonus. Universal managed to steal away the soundtrack to Shine A Light, the forthcoming Martin Scorsese documentary about the band, so one would assume they have the inside track in the race, but it's certainly possible even the cash-conscious EMI will raise the stakes high enough to keep some of their high-profile catalog items. Then again, the fact that the most highly sought-after act in music is comprised of 65-year-old men should give us some indication of where this whole thing is headed.

Rival labels look to give Stones shelter [Financial Times]

The last album by Mick and Co.—2005's A Bigger Bang—wasn't exactly a sales gangbuster. It debuted at No. 1 and was certified platinum shortly after its release, but a Lefsetz Letter from Dec. 22, 2005—three months after the album came out—says that the album had actually moved only about 390,000 copies by that point. Most of the money the band realizes these days comes from touring; they made $138.5 million in grosses from being on the road in 2006. So this development, while superficially seeming like a bad thing for EMI, is actually pretty in line with Terra Firma chief Guy Hands' new forced-slimming-down strategy for the label. He's gone on record as saying that he's done with big advances for bands, and I'm sure the Stones were among the artists who could command a huge paycheck by virtue of their name alone—and that said paycheck wouldn't really result in big returns for EMI. What's more curious to me is the Stones' insistence on signing with a label at all; if any band could hook up with Live Nation in a Madonna-like deal, or even self-release their album, it should be them, since their tours are basically a license to print money. Maybe Doug Morris is a lot more charming than we all thought! And by "charming," I mean "willing to write huge checks."

Rolling Stones Move New Album From EMI [FT]
[Photo: AP]

Preparations to sedate as many as 300 horses stabled at Belgrade's racecourse to keep them calm during a Rolling Stones concert have enraged Serb animal lovers who are lobbying to have the gig moved to another venue.

The concert is expected to draw more than 100,000 people to the Hippodrome, Belgrade's largest fenced space. The horses will be only a few meters from the stage. "Horses differ, the same as people. Some are more nervous, more skittish," said hostler Jovanka Prelic. "If they get too nervous or start to panic during the concert, they'll get sedatives."

As we write this, Jay Leno is assembling his writing staff in an undisclosed cabana in Burbank, where he is preparing them for what might be the biggest monological windfall not just of this week, but possibly of their very lives.

Belgrade horses may be drugged for Stones gig [Reuters]

Last June, with the Irish tax break [for artists] about to shrink, U2 heeded the advice of its longtime business manager, Paul McGuinness, and moved its most lucrative asset — a song-publishing catalog with hits like "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "It's A Beautiful Day" — from Mr. McGuinness's firm, located near the Liffey River in Dublin, to Promogroup, which operates beside the elegant Herengracht canal in the heart of elegant, old Amsterdam...

"Ethically in my opinion, Bono's tax arrangements are entirely inconsistent with his calls upon government to support anti-poverty drives," said Richard Murphy, who runs Tax Research LLC, a research institute based in Norfolk, England, and was one of three co-authors of the SOMO report on Dutch tax shelters. "You cannot be demanding that resources be allocated to anti-poverty drives and then deny those resources to government."

Other tax experts say that such views are overly prim and that rock stars are simply following the leads of some of the world's biggest companies. U2 and the Stones "are taking advantage of this in the same way that all the drug companies are putting all their patents in favorable tax jurisdictions," said Prof. Michael J. Graetz of Yale, an authority on tax shelters and a self-described die-hard Rolling Stones fan. "I wouldn't go so far as to say it's fair, but it's not shocking either."

We're sure Bono will cringe at that last quote—nothing hurts your cool-guy cred more than being compared to a Pfizer CEO—but don't expect him to pull out of Amsterdam anytime soon: As much as those limousine-liberal accusations may sting, not even Gandhi himself would turn down the opportunity to make a few extra pennies on those Zooropa baby-tees.

The Netherlands, the New Tax Shelter Hot Spot [NY Times]

What's more, when I tried to send a Rolling Stones song I just bought on the Zune Marketplace to another Zune, I got a message reading, "Can't receive songs because of rights restrictions." Huh? Microsoft says that in a minority of cases it was unable to secure artist rights for even this limited form of sharing, and that's the message you get when you try to send songs from those holdouts.

Seems to me that when you buy those non-sharable songs from the Zune Marketplace you should be warned about this. But Microsoft says that they have no plans to give you that information, even if it makes you look like an idiot when you waste a friend's time by trying to send a song and getting only that insulting error message.

Well, now we're definitely not going to buy the thing. Anyone have any artist-sharing hiccups to report? Will Zune let you share Zooropa? We need to know!

Tune Into Zune? [Newsweek]

The Rolling Stones - Loving Cup (Alternate Take) [MP3, link expired]
The Rolling Stones: Exile Outtakes [An Aquarium Drunkard]

The Smoking Gun has updated its tour-riders section, and once again, the Rolling Stones prove that no one can top them when it comes to backstage bacchanalia. Check out these verbatim demands:

PLEASE FIND OUT WHAT CHANNEL IS SHOWING CRICKET. THAT IS THE CHANNEL WE NEED MOST OF ALL. I BELIEVE DIRECT T.V. HAS THE CHANNEL WE NEED. WE WILL USE OUR OWN TV AND VCR.

And:

TEMPURATURE, HEATING AND AIR FLOW ARE VERY IMPORTANT. PLEASE INFORM ME OF WHAT THE VENUE PROVIDES. THAT MEANS WHAT IS ARCHITECTURALLY PRE-EXISITING! I WANT TO KNOW HOW AND FROM WHERE THE CLIMATE IS CONTROLLED AND WHO CONTROLS IT.

Is it just us, or do these read as if they were written by a squad of cranky British robots? Either way, click below to read the most intimidating floral request of all time.

TSG BAckstage: Rolling Stones [Smoking Gun]

Ms. Mayo appeared on Thursday before Magistrate Judge Timothy S. Hillman. Thin with long, light brown hair, Ms. Mayo wore a Rolling Stones T-shirt, black sweatpants and white socks with no shoes. She spoke animatedly with Ms. Kelley, fidgeting and gesturing. "She's very agitated," [Mayo's lawyer] said of her client.

The good news for Mayo is that she's 59, making her eligible for Saga's discount-rate tickets. Not that she'll be able to make it make it to the U.K. this weekend—international traveling is such a bitch these days.

"Passenger's Behavior Suspicious Before Diversion, Affidavit Says" [NYT]

"Panic for Rolling Stones as tour tickets go unsold" [The Daily Mail]

Eddie Vedder may be on the cover of the new issue of Rolling Stone, but much of the magazine's real estate is dedicated to Jonathan Lethem's addictive profile of beloved soul singer and wife-pusher James Brown. It's a gargantuan, old-school RS piece, in which Lethem argues that the (allegedly) 72-year-old Brown may, in fact, be unstuck in time. What he doesn't argue—mainly because it's obvious to everyone who works with the rambling, borderline-abusive R&B star—is that Brown is also absolutely batshit, as evidenced by the following bon mots:

He speaks of dysentery while on tour in third-world countries: "Doing number one and number two at the same time" and exhorts the band: "Maintain yourself." To me: "Olive oil. I always tell them, 'Bring olive oil on the road.' " I don't ask what the olive oil is for.

More feel-good ramblings after the jump.

Brown on affection:

"That's what I'm talking about," says James Brown, irritably. "Love." He poses a question, then answers it: "You go to the blood bank, what do you want? Human blood. Not baboon."

On history:

Each of the band members, I gradually learn, has a spot-on James Brown impression available. Each has memorized favorite James Brown non sequiturs: "Sixteen of the American presidents were black," or the time he asked an audience for thirty seconds of silence for a fallen celebrity he called "John F.K."

And, finally, on everything:

[Brown rants about] his four marriages, Charles Barkley, Al Jarreau, a mixture of Georgia and Carolina identities he calls "Georgia-lina" ...the fact that he believes himself to have both Asian and Native American ancestry, and, most crucially, his appetite for corn on the cob and its role in his health: "I like corn, that's a regular thing with me. Gonna live a long time, live a little longer."

Olive oil and corn, eh? That would certainly help explain this.