Pepsi-Cola

Christina Crawford: Mommie Dearest Killed Her Last Husband

I've written about how at an event years ago, Christina Crawford suggested that mommie dearest Joan Crawford killed her last hubby, Pepsi head Alfred Steele, but Christina didn't get to elaborate as to just what she meant by that. When I cornered her after her talk to ask for some expansion on the ... More >>

BOYCOTT! Like Rick Ross, These Product-Endorsing Artists Have Said Vile Things

Yesterday activists protested Reebok's flagship store to put pressure on the company to cut its ties with rapper Rick Ross, who recently ... well you already know this story. Whether or not the more than 71,000 signatures collected to get Ross fired will work remains to be seen, but Big Corporations ... More >>

Joan Crawford Shopping With Little Girl: "Did She Say Weirdo?"

This little known short film of Joan Crawford's, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, has the great screen star philosophizing about meat while shopping in a grocery store with a little girl who gets pummeled up and down the aisles with Joan's wisdoms and queries. Among Joan's saltier bon mots: "Did she s ... More >>

Bloomberg's Flock of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Are Probably Coming to Eat Us

Over the weekend, Mayor Bloomberg quite generously donated $350 million to Johns Hopkins University, bringing his total contributions to his alma mater to a whopping $1.1 billion. The Times has the exclusive story of Bloomberg's philanthropic track record, including fun mayoral trivia (he's 70! he c ... More >>

Which NFL Playoff City Has the Best Musical History: Boston, SF, Baltimore or Atlanta?

Coca-Cola Talks About Obesity in Commercial

Coca-Cola has marketed itself as the happy-making drink for more than 100 years. Now the company admits they're a fat-making drink, too. Coca-Cola will run this ad during some of the highest-rated shows on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC in hopes of proving to the world that the number 1 beverage company ... More >>

"Fat Blocking" Pepsi Moves Through Japan

Tomorrow, Japanese Pepsi distributors will unveil a "fat blocking" version of their classic cola that has been pumped up with wheat dextrin, the same ingredient found in Benefiber. No, this is not a diet soda, but one that allows imbibers to "absorb less fat form their food." How does it work? Well ... More >>

Mountain Dew, Doritos, And Candyland: How Pepsi And Wal-Mart Are Helping New Yorkers Recover

Nobody tell Mike Bloomberg, but hurricane-ravaged New Yorkers are drinking free Mountain Dew right now -- and probably more than the allotted 16 ounces of which he approves.Wal-Mart and Pepsi Co. are amongst the first big-time corporations to donate a large amount of supplies to aid in the Hurricane ... More >>

Soda Vending Machines To Display Calories

According to the Associated Press, Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper are rolling out new vending machines that will post the calorie counts of the drinks. "They're seeing the writing on the wall and want to say that it's corporate responsibility," Mike Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Scienc ... More >>

You Can Get A 1,200-Calorie Burger At Barclays Center. But You Can't Get A 20-Ounce Soda

Mayor Mike Bloomberg's ban on big-boy cups for non-diet sodas at New York City restaurants, theaters, and sports venues is yet to take effect. However, the new Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn already is voluntarily adhering to the new guidelines, which limit cup sizes for "sugary drinks" to 16 oun ... More >>

Crossing Over: Michael Jackson, Ne-Yo, and the Sound of Pop in 2012

Live: Stephen Colbert Throws A Festival With The Flaming Lips, Santigold, Grizzly Bear, And fun.

Colbchella: fun., Grizzly Bear, Santigold, Flaming Lips U.S.S. Intrepid Friday, August 10 Better than: All the world wars and Woodstocks combined. Don't you ever question America's might. We do things bigger and crazier than other countries—and then we televise it. And while Stephen Colbert ... More >>

Olympic Beach Volleyball: It's Not All About The Bikinis

In the US, it didn't hurt that, in the year of the Olympic woman, ours brought home the gold. In fact, the silver, too: in the final, women's beach volleyball-ers  Kerry Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor battled two other Americans, April Ross and Jennifer Kessy, who, in losing consecutive ... More >>

The 4Knots Music Festival: A Long, Salty Day With The Drums, Archers Of Loaf, Kid Congo Powers, Black Lips, And Jonathan Toubin

In Waste Of Paint, our writer/artist team of Jamie Peck and Debbie Allen will review goings-on about town in words and images. This weekend, the Village Voice's own 4Knots Music Festival (full disclosure: well, you know) invaded the major tourist hub of South Street Seaport with entertainments at l ... More >>

Live: Roger Waters Brings A Super-Sized The Wall To The Bronx

Roger Waters Yankee Stadium Friday, July 6 Better than: The Yanks taking three of four from the Red Sox. Size matters. Roger Waters proved this Friday night at Yankee Stadium when he put on his biggest-yet production of one of the biggest albums of all time, his former band Pink Floyd's double-LP ... More >>

Mike Bloomberg Wants To Make 40 Ounces Of Pepsi More Illegal Than 40 Ounces Of Malt Liquor

Sugar bully/New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg cares about you soooo much that he's proposed something that's never been done anywhere else in the entire country in his latest effort to protect you from yourself: banning "sugar drinks" like soda to be sold in cups larger than 16 ounces.In a twist, t ... More >>

Q&A: Big Baby Gandhi On Rap Battling At Nine, Rebelling In The Facebook Era, And Getting Das Racist's Attention With Negative YouTube Comments

"Gandhi Mandhi was the name that they called him/ Now the honeys call me Young Kama Sutra/ Old white people real mad 'cause I'm the future." That cheeky rap is from "Boogie Nights," a jubilant track on Das Racist affiliate Big Baby Gandhi's recent mixtape No1 2 Look Up 2. The free tape is packed wit ... More >>

Allan Stone's "World in a Box": Cornell's Buddies

Special Mexicans Are Racist Edición

Let It Bleed

Hard at work on his eighth novel, Deadwood author Pete Dexter still packs a punch

My Shocking Experience With Christina Dearest

In 1998, Christina Crawford, renowned author of the legendary revenge memoir Mommie Dearest, came to Town Hall to sell copies of the new edition of her book after being interviewed onstage by critic Rex Reed. In that Q&A, she graciously reiterated all the awful things Mommie did to her as we wept i ... More >>

Why Is Bill O'Reilly Not Calling Out Mike Huckabee's Gangster Glorification?

​"You may remember a couple years ago that Pepsi hired gansta (sic) rapper Ludacris as a commercial pitchman. [I] objected, saying major American corporations have an obligation not to reward people who harmed society...Unlike Ozzy Osbourne, who curses, or Britney Spears, who's an immature ex ... More >>

My Weirdest Pitches Of The Week

​Think the life of a gossip columnist/blogger is all sawdust and tinsel? Well, here are some of the pitches I've gotten this week, to give you a hint of the reality behind the glitterdome: *"Andrea Bocelli rides the East River ferry"

Rick Jacobs, Founder of the Courage Campaign, On Pepsi and Corporate Giving

Steven ThrasherJacobs at the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal signing ceremony​Last week, we wrote about how the Courage Campaign won $50,000 from the Pepsi Challenge, and our concern about the ways in which Pepsi was able to use an LGBT advocacy group to market its product in the non-profit arena ... More >>

Courage Campaign and Pepsi: Is $50K the New Sell Out Price for LGBT Non-Profits?

​Yesterday, we got an email from the Courage Campaign with the subject line, "We won! Here's what's next." We assumed it would be a belated fundraising appeal responding to New York's Marriage Equality Act, asking for donations to fight on the federal level. Instead, what we found when we op ... More >>

Pontiac Firebird Variations Drives Into the Ice Factory

Aztec Economy re-gears the House of York

Bringing Borscht Back; Queen Mary 2 Fails Health Inspection

​After a few years of folly -- i.e., focusing on healthy snacks -- it appears that PepsiCo is turning its attention back to Pepsi. [Wall Street Journal] Cold borscht certainly isn't as hip as it used to be back in the 1950s, but Marc Gold, CEO of Gold Pure Food Products Co., hopes to bring th ... More >>

Interactive Mommie Dearest Was A Scream

​ Mommie Dearest is the unwitting 1981 comedy about celebrity child abuse, but it was funnier than ever at last night's interactive version of the camp classic at the Ziegfeld. The event ballsily started with go-go boys running down the aisles with empty popcorn buckets that the audience was ... More >>

Ray Kelly, NYPD Commissioner, Loves a Good Tie, Hoodie

​Today's edition of Women's Wear Daily profiles the style of a somewhat unlikely fashion character, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. On a night out on the East River, Kelly sports "a charcoal Martin Greenfield hand-tailored suit" with a "Charvet tie, so pink it practically reflects the faraway P ... More >>

American Idol Goes Really, Really Country

Michael Becker/FOX​Oh boy, here we go. I can't possibly overemphasize how not excited I was to watch this Idol finale: Two perfectly decent singers who stick entirely within their genre--the exact same genre, even--and who both ran out of interesting tricks and wrinkles weeks ago. TMZ had a st ... More >>

Osama Bin Laden's Compound: Photos From Outside, the Neighbors Speak

Outside the compound, via @ReallyVirtual.​Sohaib Athar, or @ReallyVirtual, the civilian who accidentally live tweeted the raid on Osama bin Laden on Sunday night, went from several hundred Twitter followers to nearly 100,000, basically overnight. Athar, who describes himself as "an IT consulta ... More >>

Michelle Obama Writing a Healthy Food Book; Coffee The Musical Coming to Broadway

​Vikram Chatwal is being sued by the group that owns such Meatpacking spots as Abe & Arthur's over the deal he had allegedly promised them to run hospitality operations for his forthcoming Downtown Dream Hotel, which he later gave to the group that owns Marquee. [NY Post] Michelle Obama will ... More >>

The Best Things I Ate While at SXSW Interactive

​The kimchee fries from the Chi-Lantro BBQ truck made a magnificent lunch one day. At the SXSW Interactive festival -- which started last Thursday, and concluded today -- I represented the Village Voice at a panel called "Bite Me" organized by chow.com concerning the ethics of food writing. ... More >>

Restaurants Love a Monday Valentine's Day; Pepsi to Launch Skinny Can to 'Honor' Women

​McDonald's is getting its chipotle on with a new Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus burger priced at $3.99 and available through March 31. [Nation's Restaurant News] Restaurants are happy that Valentine's Day is on a Monday night because Mondays are usually slow for business. [Nation's Restaurant News ... More >>

Rock-Critic Pop Quiz #4: How Many '60s Bob Dylan Albums Can You Name?

​In the '70s and '80s, knowing Bob Dylan was one of the most crucial skills of being a good rock critic, right alongside "a smug sense of entitlement" and "snorting this whole table of blow." But how does he fare among a new generation of critics? For young rock writers, Bob is basically an in ... More >>

Sacrilegious Super Bowl XLV Doritos Ad Yanked By Frito-Lay

I thought the ad -- recently screened on AOL, so it's still being mainstreamed on some level -- was funny, and a little stoopid, too. It's really like something you'd see in a Luis Buñuel movie, like The Phantom of Liberty or The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: A group of congregants li ... More >>

Jimmy McMillan, "Rent Is Too Damn High" Guy, Has Not One But Two Signature Thanksgiving Dinners

​Former highly unlikely New York gubernatorial candidate and "Rent Is Too Damn High" party leader/handlebar mustache-haver Jimmy McMillan has generously offered up not one but two possible Thanksgiving dinner plans to WNYC. You may choose between "Middle Class" and "Po Folk" menus.

Here's My Newest Broadway Show Idea

​There's a Broadway musical on the boards called Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which got pretty favorable reviews, right? So I've got a great new idea: A show called Bloody Bloody Michael Jackson!

Rightbloggers Agree: Passage of Health Care Bill an Affront to Jesus

Jim Hoft's obstreperous Gateway Pundit blog is associated with the conservative Catholic magazine site First Things. That may seem odd to those of us who know Hoft best for his non-sectarian ravings against Pepsi Cola and Honest Tea as "in the tank" for President Obama or, more recently, items like ... More >>

From the Voice Archives: Simon Frith on Wacko Jacko in London, Circa 1988

In honor of Michael Jackson, we're raiding our archives. Here's Simon Frith's London dispatch--it ran in Frith's regular 'Brit Beat' column--on the bonkers media spectacle that broke out when Jackson came to town in 1988. Wack Attack By Simon Frith August 16, 1988 "Pandemonium broke out in Soho, ... More >>

See Dick Pay Jane: Chaste Dating for Cash

Recession desperation produces a quaint throwback

Joan Crawford Was a Drunken Slag! No, Really!

The Collage King of Queens

A walking tour and songwriting lesson with Fiery Furnaces guru Matthew Friedberger

The Man Who Wanted to Know Too Much

Why does Walter Mack keep getting fired?

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Off the Wall

An Extreme Painter Lays It Out

Radiohole Pillages Mutes, Canada

One-Bedroom Co-Op in 42-Story Citylights

Close-Up On: Long Island City

Not Yet Uhuru

Mzwakhe Mbuli in Mandela's South Africa