Reuters posted a story this morning on a phone call Michael Stipe placed to Jane Pratt's satellite radio show. The former alt-rocker turned creepy man-child babbled on and on about how "charming" and "funny" he finds Mike Huckabee.
A few thoughts:
1) If you ran a website devoted to every conceivable piece of REM arcana, I can understand how you might make mention of this. But why would anyone else?
2) I'm certainly not going to bore you with the details of the Wikipedia entry on Reuters--I could barely keep my eyes open myself--but suffice to say, it is (or was) a fairly respectable news-gathering organization. I don't condemn news outlets for trading in tidbits from pop culture, but seriously...Michael Stipe? When did anyone last care? I'm guessing '94, when Monster came out and even hardcore fans gave it a cursory listen and wondered why they ever gave a rat's ass in the first place.
3) My copies of Murmur, Fables of The Reconstruction and Document are lost to the ages, but great as they were, I remember thinking even at the time that Stipe was a pretentious asshole.
4) Anyone who ever sat through an installment of Jane Pratt's mercifully short-lived Fox talk show (which featured theme music by REM) will recall with a shudder her incredibly irritating voice. Now she's on the radio?
5) Charming? Funny? Mike Huckabee?
