For years, stories have circulated about the outrageous demands rock stars – even Celine Dion – make for their backstage accommodations as part of concert contracts or riders.
Most famously, Van Halen included in the rider for its 1982 world tour that absolutely no brown M&Ms be found backstage (the band insists this was not rock star excess, but an easy way to check if concert promoters completely read the riders and paid attention to important things like the stage and lighting).
The satirical rockumentary Spinal Tap contains a scene where Nigel complains about the backstage food and the little pieces of bread (below). They also insist on blue M&Ms only.
Fox News is reporting that an Atlanta woman took a bite of a blue peanut M&M and discovered what a local biologist says is a vertebra from a small mammal.
Potts is not currently pursuing a lawsuit against Mars, the global giant that owns M&Ms, but the issue kept gnawing at her, so on Tuesday she said she took the object to Professor Larry Blumer, director of environmental studies in the biology department of Morehouse College in Atlanta, for an examination.
"It’s definitely bone, and it came from some type of mammal," Blumer told FOXNews.com. "This isn’t [a] tail vertebra — it’s something higher up, and the reason I’m certain for that is because it’s hollow. The nerve cord would run through there."
On Wednesday upon learning of the incident, Mars issued a statement noting that food and product quality is of "paramount importance to Mars."
I’ve always been a fan of Marshall McLuhan and read all his stuff 25 years ago. The cameo he did in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, where McLuhan tells some pompous professor that he doesn’t understand his theories at all and is not qualified to teach, is so … apt.