Puckish Sister Pelted With Pikachu!

Those wondering how Sanchez happened upon this item will be disappointed to hear that Sanchez didn't happen to be seated near Justin and Richie Manic at a cafe in French Guiana but rather was conversing with students from Justin's alma mater, Simon's Rock College?only lifeless Sanchez could retain such ephemera from the first episode, eavesdrop a mention of the place and strike up a conversation!?none of whom have cable, and thus assumed that the show was broadcast in real time and everybody already knew about it.

In fact, everyone may know this by the time this issue is in your hands. On the last episode Sanchez saw, in which everyone went to India except Ruthie?virtuous Sanchez salutes MTV for telling the kids that the soused and unrepentant will never get glamorous holidays from Bunim/Murray productions!?the show ended with a sullen Justin muttering about "how he could spend the next seven weeks living with these people." How smart, Sanchez thinks, to realize the most dramatic exit would be for everyone to simply wake up in the morning to find him gone?but how could such a sharp mind end up on such a tawdry dispenser of third-tier celebrity for its own sake? Ah, the Real World, where Puck, on the San Francisco season, may have gotten kicked out of the house, but that didn't deter him from having coffee with Rachel every week just to whine about how Pedro's fatal illness gave him the moral advantage in the numerous debates following the scooping-peanut-butter-from-the-jar-with-one's-hands debacle. "Quoth the jolly Sister of Sanchez, 'Justin, you my nigga squared!'" the jolly sister of Sanchez quoth.

Two redheaded rock-stars-in-exile issued unrelated rambling, near-incoherent statements from?respectively?Seclusion and Jail. Axl Rose sent out a statement about the Guns N' Roses song to appear on the soundtrack of the Schwarzenegger film End of Days. "'Can any song on which no person named Slash, Izzy, or Duff plays, yet former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson does play, be accurately referred to as a Guns N' Roses song?' the philosophical Sister of Sanchez inquires," inquired the philosophical Sister of Sanchez.

Sanchez conceded the point, but nonetheless beaned his sister square on the back of the noggin with a hard plastic Pikachu keychain when she turned around. Enraged, the Sister of Sanchez picked up a plush Pikachu doll and hurled it at Sanchez?the kitchen/living room/entertainment center/bedroom that is Sanchez's personal area is absolutely blanketed in Pikachus of various size, weight and material. Thankful Sanchez is glad that sibling affection prevented her from stomping a boot heel down on Sanchez's VHS copy of the greatest story ever told, Starship Troopers.

"The fight of good vs. evil," wrote Rose, apropos of nothing, after a long description of how the song came to be, "positive vs. negative, man against a seemingly undefeatable, undeterrable, unrevealed destiny, along with the personal and universal struggle to attain, maintain and responsibly manage freewill can be and often is frustrating to say the least." Later, Axl referred to "kickin' the crap outta the devil" as "a big gig."

As for the other public-statement-issuer, Scott Weiland, weeping Sanchez could kiss the man, as the rambling missive gives Sanchez more fuel for his column than the executive branch asking ODB to fill in for the president for the State of the Union address. "I'm alive. Are you?" the statement begins, before devolving into musings on the nature of liberty; "It is one of the travesties of mankind to lose one's freedom, to be locked and bound behind bars of steel, but if the wheels of a man's mind are free to turn and the wings of his spirit cannot be clipped, then is a man truly in chains?" And furthermore: "Choices and decisions of the mind and spirit, I am coming to find, is where my power lies. My power lies in having no power at all. A bewildering paradox but one I'm learning to be true. True passion. Do you live to breathe or breathe to live? Are you just a feather blowing on the wind?"

Supersharp Sanchez would be quick with a Kansas quote here, but rather chooses to point out that this letter from jail nicely backs up the claim once made that Weiland was indeed a lacrosse player in high school.

Siegfried and Roy were given their own star?the 2144th ever issued?on Thursday, accompanied by what AP called "two of their rare white tiger cubs, Magic and Illusion." Later that day, they attended the world premiere of their IMAX movie, Siegfried and Roy: the Magic Box. AP summarized the film as "chronicl[ing] their rise in show business and their work in helping save endangered white lions and tigers." Other awardees that week included Shania Twain?who is not ugly?who was named the Country Music Association's "Entertainer of the Year." The Dixie Chicks performed?entering from under the grass skirts of dancers on stilts to sing "Ready to Run," which AP called "dynamic." Though neither viewed the show, both the Sister of Sanchez and Sanchez still favor the little piggy-faced one.

And though country sales are down this year, there were a couple of curious non-Nashvillians in the house looking for a little crossover hookup; Britney Spears was there, as was Laura Dern. The man from Hollywood who's got the hick roles on lockdown, Billy Bob Thornton, presented an award to Vince Gill. Even more bewilderingly, Jewel played a duet with Merle Haggard, and Alabama was joined onstage by 'N Sync, including the charming and telegenic Lance Bass With The Big Weird Face. The two bands played a song called "God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You."

In other 'N Sync news, the band is attempting to switch labels from RCA to Jive, despite the fact that the band appears to still be contractually obliged to RCA. Hilariously, MTV News brought in Julie Gordon as an "industry" expert for a piece about the controversy. Gordon runs a website called The Velvet Rope, a supposed music-biz-insider hangout where the dish and the dirt flow freely?in actual fact the bulk of the posters are the assistants of product managers seeking drama in the hirings and firings of promotion people. "This is very confusing to people," Gordon told MTV, "because their deal with RCA wasn't up yet." Self-effacing Sanchez is superimpressed by such bold expertise! Why, all dumb Sanchez would be able to come up with is jokes if John Norris cared to ask. And listen, squatsky, this is show business. You want funny-ha-ha? Sanchez bets there's a bunch of websites discussing hirings and firings in the prosthetic limb business.

Self-loathing Sanchez bravely holds back the force of his tears of shame! Courteney Cox, who married David "That's Great, Right?" Arquette this past June, has taken his name, and is now Courteney Cox Arquette, which for no reason Sanchez feels like pointing out sounds kind of like "Courteney Kicked Our Pet," and even more like, "Courteney Cooks Our Cat." "It's on my Social Security card and everything," the former Ms. Cox told Entertainment Tonight. "No hyphen." Pondering what an odd feeling it must be to change one's identity, Ms. Cox Arquette said: "It feels like, wow, I'm changing my identity." The AP piece quoting the Entertainment Tonight piece on the name change said, "Cox Arquette said she eventually plans to drop the Cox from her name."

"The snickering Sister of Sanchez says she eventually plans to form a band and take 'Drop the Cox' as its name!" said the snickering Sister of Sanchez.

NEXT WEEK: After being clipped on the dome by a tiny plastic Pikachu, the Sister of Sanchez starts experiencing strange tingly feelings while watching Pokemon!