David Atlas

In the week all your friends went to South by Southwest, New York got a bit rowdy. The old scumbags of Mötley Crüe nearly burned down Madison Square Garden, while Fleetwood Mac brought both punishing Turkish prison sentences and "Silver Springs" to the same arena only a few days later. The Pogues played Roseland and dedicated a song to David Simon, and at Southpaw, Naughty By Nature wished Queen Latifah a happy birthday.

We spoke with The Wrestler's Necro Butcher, who has lately discovered "a strong sense of creativity with steel folding chairs"; Superbad director Greg Mottola, who used to work in an "unairconditioned elevator parts factory in Chicago"; and Nipsey Hussle, the up-and-coming West Coast rapper and Rolling Sixty Crip. Plus: NY1 Morning Anchor Pat Kiernan!

The Idol juggernaut continues--we even live-blogged the top 11 results--while The City, thankfully, mercifully, had its finale this week. And speaking of 11, that is, apparently, an unlucky episode number for the Real World Brooklyn's Ryan, who was tragically informed on Wednesday that he's shipping off to Iraq.

What else. There was that enormously disturbing, eyeball-lacerating 50 Cent-narrated sex tape, and the bowdlerized New York Times chart that followed it. Half of Boston youths say Rihanna was "responsible" for the Chris Brown mauling she suffered, which means there's now one more place we'll never move back to. We listened to Fabolous and The-Dream's "Throw It In the Bag," the new Obits track "Back and Forth," Public Enemy tearing it up with the Roots, John Forté's abysmal "Running Up That Hill" cover, Camera Obscura's "French Navy," and DOOM and Ghostface's "Chinatown Wars." We learned the most unsurprising Cam'ron news ever. And we were distracted at Distracted.

Bones went to Emily Jacir at the Guggenheim, Animal Collective did something to make the world a better place, and we're going to follow their lead by making our world a better place, too, and leaving work, right around now. SXSW coverage will continue throughout the weekend; the rest of the antics will be back Monday. All love to Texas.