How many shows has Ted Neeley performed the title role in "Jesus Christ Superstar"?  

"I have never been one to keep that record," Neeley says by phone before a show in Charlottesville, Va. "Multiply eight shows a week times slightly over 2000 years, then you'll get a round number." Neeley breaks into a hearty laugh. "I'm sorry to go there."  

Fans are still going to witness Neeley in "Superstar," the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber "rock opera" that garnered five Tony nominations after it debuted on Broadway in 1971.  

Although he auditioned for the role of Judas, Neeley took a spot in the chorus of that production while also becoming the understudy for the Christ role. For the 1973 film, Neeley stepped into the sandals of Jesus, a role he has continued in numerous theatrical touring productions ever since.  

The current tour plays March 25 at Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach.  

Neeley isn't totally occupied by his Jesus gig. He's also a drummer and composer who's written music for films and TV shows, and he's acted in films, TV and other plays. But the talk was all J.C. when Neeley checked in with The News-Journal.

Barbie went to college in the '60s, remember?

Sure, she wasn't even a teenager yet. But that didn't stop fans of the doll from scoring the "Barbie Goes to College" play set and hop-scotching with her from dorm rooms to the football stadium to the sweet shop to the movie theater. (Hmmmm, where were the classrooms in that play set?)

Now, Barbie goes to the museum. No, really.

"Barbie Doll: Celebrating 50 Years of an American Icon" is on display through April 5 at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach. The exhibit features over 400 dolls from the collection of DeLand resident JoAnn Winspur. She not only collects Barbies but also sells them (retail and wholesale) through the Doll & Hobby Shoppe, a business she runs with her husband and son.

Blame it on Mad Max.

New Zealand-born, Australian-bred country star Keith Urban says Aussies have a need for speed. So it's no wonder Urban is performing a pre-race mini-concert Feb. 15 at the Daytona 500. (His performance will be televised on the Fox network.)

Since debuting on the American scene with his first solo album in 1999, Urban has raced to the top of the country music world. The singer-guitarist has racked up seven No. 1 hits, another seven Top 5 hits, and 10 million albums sold. He won Grammys for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for his songs "You'll Think of Me" and "Stupid Boy."

Along the way he married actress and fellow Aussie Nicole Kidman, and the couple had their first child, daughter Sunday Rose, last July.

Urban took time out from recording his new album, "Defying Gravity" (due out March 31), to answer some questions via e-mail.

You're set to perform at the Daytona 500. And, in the video for your new single, "Sweet Thing," a Ford Mustang is sort of one of the "characters." Are people in your native New Zealand and Australia as obsessed with cars as Americans?
    
Oh yeah, Aussies are definitely obsessed with speed. One of my favorite films still to this day is "Road Warrior" ("Mad Max 2" in Australia) with Mel Gibson. The XB Ford Falcon GT that he drove was THE pinup car of many Aussie boys. I wanted one so badly but had to buy a truck to get all our band gear around. But, when I had my first No. 1 song here, I bought a '94 SS Impala. Black, 5.7 liter ... mmmmm. I ended up selling it to George Jones. Who knew Ol' Possum was such a speed freak.

RICK de YAMPERT  
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

Never mind that country singers Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry sing about toning down their hell-raising on their latest album, "Back When I Knew It All."
    
If there's a party in Daytona, there's a good chance the duo, who bill themselves as Montgomery Gentry, are going to be here. The lads will perform their fourth concert in the area in as many years when they play at the Beam Bash on Feb. 13 at Destination Daytona in Ormond Beach.
     
Stomping out of their native Kentucky in 1999, the duo juiced the country music scene by spiking honky-tonk music and rowdy country with shots of Lynyrd Skynyrd-sized swagger. That brew resulted in such hits as "Hillbilly Shoes," "She Couldn't Change Me," "Speed" and "Hell Yeah."

BY RICK de YAMPERT
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis "wasn't the nicest of guys," photographer Herb Snitzer says. "You read his biography and he makes the statement: 'If white people ever knew what black people were thinking, they'd be scared to death.' Stuff like that."  
    
Snitzer found himself in a backstage showdown with Miles at a Boston jazz festival in 1988.
     
"You know Miles had this reputation for turning his back to the audience," Snitzer says by phone from his St. Petersburg home. "So he did that and he sees me. Now, I had known Miles since 1960, right? He's wearing these light-tinted sunglasses. He looks over the glasses at me and he has this stern look as if to say, 'I don't want you photographing me.'"
 
"And I thought to myself, 'Well, what's Miles going to do? Is he going to come back and hit me? Is he going to walk offstage?' He wasn't going to do that. So I just said to myself, 'Screw you, Miles' and I kept shooting."

By RICK de YAMPERT
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

No rabbits need apply for jobs with magician David Copperfield.

"For magic to be relevant, it has to evolve so it keeps up with, or even surpasses, the best film and theater," Copperfield said in a press release. "I want to base my work on what people really dream about. Most of us don't dream of pulling a rabbit out of a hat."  
    
Copperfield will perform his new touring show, "Grand Illusion," on Jan. 27 at Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach. 
   
The show "was partly inspired by an unfulfilled wish of my grandfather's that a lot of people share: winning the lottery and finally owning that one special thing you always dreamed of," Copperfield said. "We call it an 'intimate' evening of grand illusion partly because it's interactive. 

If You Go WHO: Stalefish, the Damned Thing and Lunatic Picnic WHEN: 9 p.m. Saturday WHERE: The Bank, 701 Main St., Daytona Beach ADMISSION: $5 INFORMATION: 386 366-1598

RICK de YAMPERT
ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

When Stalefish stepped into the ring at the old Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, the Daytona alt-rock scene was like a hyper, euphoric chain smoker lighting up beside an open gas tank.

The year was 1996. Stalefish and other local bands -- Skif Dank, the Doomed Clowns, Lunatic Picnic, Penny Dreadful, Corn (not Korn) -- were packing such local clubs as the Other Place, the Combat Zone, 600 North and 701 South.

Indeed, Florida seemed ready to explode like the next Seattle, as Stalefish discovered when they traveled up and down the east coast and played gigs with such fledgling bands as Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, and Limp Bizkit.

After six years on the Daytona scene, after changing lead singers and morphing from alt-rock to a heavier, more aggressive sound, Stalefish had landed on the radar of an Atlantic Records rep. The rep set up a showcase with Stalefish and an Orlando band called Mighty Joe Plum.

Only one band would be signed.

"We had a 50-50 shot at coming away with a record deal," Stalefish drummer Dave Kiel says today. "We performed very well. Unfortunately -- I don't know. Mighty Joe Plum had a sound that went along with what was happening on the radio at the time."
Losing out on the record deal "took the wind out of our sails," Kiel says. Soon after Stalefish disbanded. The breakup "was almost like losing a family member. I sold my drums. I honestly felt I wasn't going to play music ever again."

But Kiel, guitarist Tim Triplett, now an Arizona resident, and singer Dennis Adelinis, now a Gainesville resident, will play a reunion concert Saturday at the Bank[RdeY: Fliers for the concert list the venue only as the Bank.] in Daytona Beach.

The show also will mark the release of the band's entire recorded output on a two-disc, 36-track set for $5 -- including "Cave," the song that so impressed that Atlantic Records suit.

"A lot of bands are always behind the curve," says Kiel, who today plays drums with the hardcore band Fortitude when he's not working at a Daytona Beach screen printing company. "I think Stalefish was a bit ahead of it. Today 'Reflect' (the band's 1996 album) sounds like the alternative stuff that came around on radio a few years later."

"We had a really good run," Triplett says by phone from his Flagstaff, Ariz., home. "We all had different angles of what we
like in music and brought to the table. I was studying jazz at UCF. Our bassist was a rap fanatic. Dave likes everything, from Neil Diamond to Metallica."

And the Daytona music scene had a good run in the '90s. Clubs would book "three to four bands that sounded different from each other, and the place would be packed," Kiel says. "People would watch every band. Everybody was friends and it was all about the music.

"The Daytona scene in the early '90s to mid '90s was incredible. I really don't know what to attribute it to, but it's gone. People can come into this town and have no idea how rich this musical scene once was. I was very fortunate to be a part of it. I miss those times."
This weekend isn't the first Stalefish reunion. Former Stalefish bassist Mike Aronson convinced Kiel, Triplett and Adelinis to do a reunion gig in December 2001. However, that concert became a memorial when Aronson took his own life one month before the show.

Stalefish played a second reunion show in December 2002.

A few years ago, Kiel created a Stalefish MySpace page "just as something to put up and see if anybody would remember," he says. "I was quite shocked at the amount of people who still remember Stalefish and held Stalefish in some high regard musically. I was very surprised, and honored and humbled.

"No matter how large or small, we made a little bit of an impact here in the Daytona music scene."

Some pundits believe comedy will suffer under Barack Obama's presidency. Many comedians share Obama's liberal views, so they won't have Bush/Palin politics to lampoon anymore. And there's the race thing, which can be tricky turf -- especially for white comedians.

But Carlos Mencia isn't worried.

Indeed, weeks before the election, a skit on "Mind of Mencia," the comedian's Comedy Central show, parodied how Obama would be perceived -- with "Obama" in black face, dancing before a pistol-toting white man.

In a stand-up routine, the Honduran-born Mencia said black people will no longer be able to play the "race card" under an Obama presidency, then he shoved his own race card -- a photo of Obama -- at a black person "bitching" about racism.

One of my neighbors has a new yard decoration. It's a homemade sign with Calvin (that comic strip kid with the impish smile) urinating on the word "Obama."

I think I know how my neighbor is voting come this presidential election.

And I know how photographer Jill Greenberg is going to vote. After seeing her manipulated photo of a monkey defecating on the head of John McCain, I'm guessing Greenberg won't be supporting the Republican ticket.