DOWN AT THE TWIST AND SHOUT (Items on Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Blake Shelton)

After giving voice to numerous songs, Mary-Chapin Carpenter is speaking out in a new weekly column in The Washington Times newspaper. The columns, which will appear every Friday, began November 21 with a piece on folk rockers Hem.
D.C. is MCC's old, long-time stomping grounds, but these days she resides a stone's throw away in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
"Even though I no longer make my home in the District, I still consider myself a Washingtonian," Mary-Chpin sez. "It will feel good to be back, in words and ink, at The Washington Times."
Meanwhile, MCC's Christmas album, "Come Darkness, Come Light: Twelve Songs of Christmas," is out now and there are bonus tracks available, depending on which online retailer y'all wanna buy it from.

BS on EW: Entertainment Weekly dubs Blake a many-splendored dude when it comes to pop culture and some of his personal entertainment choices night suprise you.
Like, um, he used to collect California Raisins figures given away at your participating Hardee's back in the day...and his ringtone is AC/DC (They replaced Hall & Oates)...And he and my momma share a love for a certain movie, "Sommersby," a chick-flick starring Jodie Foster and Richard Gere. We also found out what movies made him bawl (Hint: It's not "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector" but that one had me in tears).
And there's this from Blake:
"I'll tell you the other thing that bothers me, I don't think people realize the value and the brilliance of 'The Golden Girls.' My favorite bit ever was when Blanche got upset, ran down the hall and slammed the door, and Dorothy and Rose both followed her to the door, and Dorothy's beatin' on the door, "Blanche! Blanche!," and she won't answer, and Rose says, "I know she's in there." And then the episode where Rose can't figure out why if you eat somethin' that's fattening right now, it takes two or three days to show up, and she says, "Where does the fat go for two days?," and Dorothy says, "Connecticut, Rose." Those are awesome lines."