Ludacris

ATLANTA - The Avett Brothers performed a postgame concert at Turner Field following Sunday's series finale, and it always seems as if the Braves are booking musical guests when the Phillies are in town. Last season, The Beach Boys and REO Speedwagon played after Phillies-Braves games. Later this season, Ludacris will play a postgame concert after the Phillies-Braves game on May 14. Alas, the Phillies are not in town when the B-52s and Yacht Rock Revue play postgame concerts this season.

The hotel near Rittenhouse Square should put a plaque on the door of one of its luxe rooms: The Mark Wahlberg Suite. Every time the actor is in Philadelphia - and he's shot four movies here - he requests the same accommodations. It's not just that the suite has two bedrooms and a kitchen, handy for when his family comes to visit during a shoot. He has an emotional attachment to the place. "Actually my son was conceived in this hotel," he says during an interview on the premises.

8 tonight MNT Everybody gets an honor. Repeat of gala filmed in Monte Carlo features performances by Jennifer Lopez (right), Andrea Bocelli, Ludacris, will.i.am, Akon, David Guetta and the Scorpions.

WE WISH we were making this up, but we're not. Famously anti-Semitic Mel Gibson, who blamed his own venom-laced rantings on booze, tells Entertainment Weekly that's he knows just what Michael Richards is going through. "I feel really badly for the guy," Gibson said. "He was obviously in a state of stress. You don't need to be inebriated to be bent out of shape. " Desperate no more Eva Longoria and Tony Parker are engaged, her rep Liza Anderson confirms. The "Desperate Housewives" star and the San Antonio Spurs guard broke the news to the world on Ryan Seacrest's radio show in LA yesterday.

'THANK YOU, Don Imus," writes Jason Whitlock, a black columnist at the Kansas City Star. "You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it's 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred. "The bigots win again. While we're fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I'm sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent's or Snoop Dogg's or Young Jeezy's latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos. " Whitlock has it right.

Some people warn not to believe everything you read. Although we urge our readers to ardently trust everything in this column, the adage holds especially true at this time of year. After all, did Mayor Nutter really create a dedicated sidewalk lane for texting while walking? Did Gov. Rendell truly purchase Pat's King of Steaks for $4 million? Did a group of wealthy politicos actually buy The Inquirer and the Daily News? The answer is yes to only one of these questions.

EVERYONE grieves in his or her own way. Let's take Jack Tweed, for instance. The widower of British reality-TV star Jade Goody, who died in March after a long and very public battle with cancer, tried to ease his pain with a months-long sex binge. But at least it started with a woman who allegedly said "yes. " Over the weekend Jack appeared in a London court on a rape charge. It's not his first brush with the law as a mourner. Weeks after Goody's death, Tweed was jailed for 12 weeks for attacking a cab driver.

ENOUGH is enough! Kimora Lee Simmons, a woman basically known for who she's married to and how she manages to spend the fortune he amassed on her little pursuits, gets the front cover and two pages in the Daily News (March 15) courtesy of Jenice Armstrong. News flash: There are tons of talent in Philadelphia, yet Ms. Armstrong spends time on anyone who is not from Philadelphia. From obscure writers to Ludacris to the golddigger above, Ms. Armstrong continues to ignore the plethora of talent within the tri-state area.

I wish it would all just end. All the furor from the FCC; all the disingenuous apologies from Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, CBS, MTV, and the NFL; all the reactions, both naive and over-the-edge. All because Jackson got a bit more exposure than advertised. I am not condoning what happened. I am sure that many people who were watching the Super Bowl halftime and saw the Jackson breast exposed (or mostly exposed), even if only for a split second, were, um, surprised. And then there were the millions who turned their heads to get a drink or a snack and missed it. Some viewers were offended by the sexually suggestive dance moves by Jackson and Timberlake.

Philadelphia's most celebrity-filled weekend since colonial times created traffic headaches throughout Center City. Just as Convention Center traffic from the NBA All-Star Jam ebbed Saturday night, a fresh wave of limos, taxis, sport-utility vehicles and cars descended on the town for the evening's social events. The area around Ninth and Market Streets, near the Gallery, was nearly gridlocked with people headed to and from the Allen Iverson public party, which broke up before 3 a.m. yesterday in a horn-honking, car-stereo-bass-thumping rush out of town.

Some people warn not to believe everything you read. Although we urge our readers to ardently trust everything in this column, the adage holds especially true at this time of year. After all, did Mayor Nutter really create a dedicated sidewalk lane for texting while walking? Did Gov. Rendell truly purchase Pat's King of Steaks for $4 million? Did a group of wealthy politicos actually buy The Inquirer and the Daily News? The answer is yes to only one of these questions.

ATLANTA - The Avett Brothers performed a postgame concert at Turner Field following Sunday's series finale, and it always seems as if the Braves are booking musical guests when the Phillies are in town. Last season, The Beach Boys and REO Speedwagon played after Phillies-Braves games. Later this season, Ludacris will play a postgame concert after the Phillies-Braves game on May 14. Alas, the Phillies are not in town when the B-52s and Yacht Rock Revue play postgame concerts this season.

R YAN HOWARD bought $32 worth of popcorn on Sunday morning from Cub Scouts Pack 117 outside the Epiphany of our Lord Church in Plymouth Meeting, absolving himself in their eyes for going down looking the night before in the deciding game of the NLCS. We're told that the congregation didn't bother the Phillies superstar but that at least a few parishioners had sinful thoughts about Howard's Eagles-cheerleader girlfriend, Krystle Campbell who accompanied Howard and his son, Darian , 9, to the services.

8 tonight MNT Everybody gets an honor. Repeat of gala filmed in Monte Carlo features performances by Jennifer Lopez (right), Andrea Bocelli, Ludacris, will.i.am, Akon, David Guetta and the Scorpions.

MAYBE HE'LL CHECK OUT T.I., or Luda, or even old 'Nique. Maybe Michael Vick will have dinner with his former boss and buddy, whom he still calls "Arthur. " Or, maybe not. When Vick returns to the Dirty South on Saturday, to be the Eagles' backup quarterback on Sunday, he might be too busy. His onetime ATL running mates, like Atlanta rappers Ludacris and T.I. and former Hawks star Dominique Wilkins, will have to wait for another trip. Wilkins, Atlanta ambassador of cool by virtue of his scoring ability and his dunking genius, is the only athlete with Vick's profile.

EVERYONE grieves in his or her own way. Let's take Jack Tweed, for instance. The widower of British reality-TV star Jade Goody, who died in March after a long and very public battle with cancer, tried to ease his pain with a months-long sex binge. But at least it started with a woman who allegedly said "yes. " Over the weekend Jack appeared in a London court on a rape charge. It's not his first brush with the law as a mourner. Weeks after Goody's death, Tweed was jailed for 12 weeks for attacking a cab driver.

Stoners of the world have found themselves in hog heaven of late. Cheech & Chong reunited. Pot Culture: The A-Z Guide was a smash. The Dead got grateful. Oh, and the the "Blazed and Confused" tour sold out at Penn's Landing's outdoor Festival Pier on Friday. NORML posters and boys toting cigars to (presumably) roll blunts came with the territory. So did the night's insidious pot-centric soundtrack. The loopy dub-pop of Slightly Stoopid and the cool kicking reggae of Stephen Marley were as thick as the prominent aroma of hemp (kids burning rope, perhaps?

The hotel near Rittenhouse Square should put a plaque on the door of one of its luxe rooms: The Mark Wahlberg Suite. Every time the actor is in Philadelphia - and he's shot four movies here - he requests the same accommodations. It's not just that the suite has two bedrooms and a kitchen, handy for when his family comes to visit during a shoot. He has an emotional attachment to the place. "Actually my son was conceived in this hotel," he says during an interview on the premises.

ALICIA KEYS may be smokin'- hot, but she's not hot for smokin'. Performing in Jakarta, Indonesia, Keys objected to concert sponsorship by Philip Morris International's A Mild cigarettes and the tobacco giant pulled down its billboards. The D.C.-based Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids initially drew Keys' attention to PMI's association with her show. In a letter released by Sony BMG, Keys said she asked the company to stop the branding. "I am an unyielding advocate for the well-being of children around the world and do not condone or endorse smoking," she said.