A recent clip in the Philadelphia Inquirer celeb gossip section informed us...

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please--if you run into Bono before I do, pimp-slap him but good.

Then do it again.

It certainly looks like Bono's latest media blitz put him clearly in the lead over Wannabe-Sir Sting in their ongoing battle for the right to be called "The Hardest Working--At Being A Pompous, Self-Righteous, Delusional--Man In Show Business," UK edition.

Let me see if I've got this straight::  a lad from smooth-running Ireland, best known for grossly oversinging with a pedestrian rock group who rode in on the tail of the post-punk/new wave mish mosh with such heavy-hitters as The Fixx to become heroes to upper-middle class collegians who wished they could have spent the season in France with ultimate fantasy date Annie Lennox instead of having to put in those brutal six-hour shifts at the summer job in Daddy's company for only $750 a week--a man whose expertise on international crises comes not from, say, actually living in Africa for a year to help in AIDS prevention, but rather from taking several of those "Let's show the millionaire around the ravaged village for 90 minutes" traipses before hopping back on a private jet to a work environment where headlining acts contractually demand such an overabundance of top-shelf food and drink (most of which goes untouched and left to spoil) it makes Caligula look chintzy--is giving the most powerful people on the planet an ultimatum???

"Look here, world leaders.  I command you to drop everything and right whatever wrong I (and camera crew) am valiantly rallying against this season, or else myself and perhaps other pampered rockers who are also completely unknown to the majority of the planet's population will do something unspecific but safe.  I'm sure you remember what happened in the past when David Lee Roth, Ronnie James Dio and the vocalist from Dokken rallied the record-buying public; therefore, you know what tremendous clout rock singers have."

Oooooooooooh, I bet the leadership of Turkey, Norway and Venezuela are collectively shaking in their Guccis over the cataclysmic repercussions that may result if corporate rock stars go ignored.  We all know what incredible influence pouting rockers have historically had.  Remember the time Ted Nugent got city council to install a Stop sign on the corner of Windermere and Cedar?  Does anyone NOT agree the release of Jefferson Airplane's "Bark" album directly and dramatically affected the number of pickles placed on a Whopper, Jr?

Surely, Guano's pontificating threat set off secret meetings among the deeply concerned UN delegates, fearing, if they fail to bend to aging rock stars' whims, Axl Rose, Belinda Carlisle, Mick Mars and Simon LeBon might pool their resources to form what may very well be the platform for the Fourth Reich, that's how far-reaching the social impact of platinum-album holders is.  Why, all it would take is one telegram from Meatloaf to North Korea to halt the production of nukes there.

This time the revolution will be televised--on pay per view, of course.

Just how lost in his own hype haze is our boy Bono?  Not long before the above clip was published, Boner, "took a meeting" with George Bush--as if the Prez didn't have enough genuinely important things to do.

Natch, ol' George went along with the silliness to cop a photo op for a few points with the all-important Young And Clueless demographic.  But I've got a fiver in my pocket that says, had Tricky Dick's Oval Office tape recorder still been operating, the playback would have revealed GWB chuckling to his aides a moment after Bono bolted, "That guy carries around more horsesh*t than the hands at my ranch."

Here's a "shocking" tidbit:  I don't seem to recall ever reading a press release about Yoko Bono selling one of his mansions or taking a vow of poverty to convert any of his personal fortune into a fund lending a hand to starving musicians!!!  Could it be this "great humanitarian" is afraid someone else with a bag of tunes in his or her head may come along and blow U2 off the stage?

What about that, Bozo?  I can sure use an electronic drum set, but columnists' pay is not enough to afford one.  And until one arrives on my doorstep marked "From Bono With Love," I will continue to believe you are just another windbag playing earnest in a highly calculated attempt to gain as many backpats as humanly possible.

If Boner and buddies REALLY want to improve the world, I suggest, the next time they get the urge "bang a lot of dust bin lids," they do so...over each other's skulls.

Hubba Hubba Honeys:  As long-time readers know and newcomers are about to find out, the Hubba Hubba Honey section is dedicated to honoring women who are both beautiful and talented yet have gone criminally ignored while the Pavlovians instead built shrines to whichever "babes" had the sharpest publicists.

Typical, isn't it?  The average schmo on the street will drool buckets over moderately skilled Pamela Anderson and her ridiculous store-bought pectoral blimps, but bring up, say, CNN nightly knockout Rudi Bakhtiar (left) or sad-eyed actress Lesley Ann Warren, and the lunkeads will just stare at you, head slightly tilted and jaw agape, like a terrier asked, "Isn't that Larry Brown the NBA's biggest fraud?"

This brings us to the Neilsen ratings and the Fluff Media Trend Of The Year, "ranking" those among us considered most "desirable."  In the case of the latter, it's hardly a surprise the various lists are based more on celebrities' A-list status than aesthetic appeal.  Inexcusable, but not surprising.  The Nielsens are scarier, as they reflect a vast cross section of the citizenry given a chance to vote with their remote.

I'll spare you the horrific details of the above polling atrocities except to note the saucy senoritas of Univision's Caliente are--mock gasp--nowhere to be found on any of the Top 50 lists.  But tear not, Latino lovelies, manly Mister Manor is countering this outrageous oversight by "electing" every chica Caliente into the hallowed halls of Hubba Honeydom.

Caliente means "hot" en Espanol, and this outdoors youth dance party certainly lives up to its billing, due almost entirely to the wiggling Juanitas (especially the mmm-mmm Miami mamas.)

Unlike the sundry Anglo-network variations of the dance show theme, no one here appears to be overtly star-tripping or showboating for the cameras.  Best of all, sans expensive makeovers and extensive surgical retooling, the teeny bikini brigade CLEARLY demonstrates a scantily clad A-cup undulating with a sensuous smile can be about a trillion times sexier than any pumped-up Pam or similar "ideal" human Barbie doll.

One glance at former co-host Sondra (right), and I'm sure you'll understand why they don't call this Caliente  because of the weather conditions, amigo!

Baywatch this, gringos!  Sondra Gomez, ex of Caliente.