You force the music section to buy Madonna tickets off a scalper, and we reward you with a Payback Time T-shirt, two recently released major-label CDs, and two tickets to a Live Nation club show taking place in Vancouver within the next four weeks. Here's this week's winning whine.

Dear Payback Time: Wow, Steve Newton sure doesn't hold back. Like a desperate groupie in full swoon, Newton's embarrassingly fawning review of Sheryl Crow's recent concert exposed itself as the subpar Cameron Crowe literary fluff piece it was. For a self-confessed classic rocker and lover of meaty music, Newton revealed himself to be a shameless celebrity-whore lapping up every contrived, hypocritical gesture of protest Crow offered up. Must have been a different show than the one I got dragged to. And as far as the supposedly “rollicking” Stevie Wonder cover Crow played, thank God there wasn’t a talkbox solo—I hear Newton doesn’t care for those too much. Unless, of course, it’s a phallic tube inserted betwixt “that killer smile” of Crow’s. Jesus.

> Dylan Marks

Steve Newton replies: Dearest Dylan—What are ya, a Republican or something? How can you call Crow's lambasting of her nemesis Karl Rove and Dubya's other dickhead cronies in "God Bless This Mess" hypocritical, unless there's something that you alone know about her sinister backroom dealings at the White House? As for your comparison to Cameron Crowe, thanks for the compliment! He's been my rock-journalist hero ever since I heard that when he was just a kid, he scored the dream job of touring with Lynyrd Skynyrd—before the crash! As for you, what kind of spineless dweeb allows himself to get “dragged” to a concert he knows he’s gonna hate? If you didn’t want to go, you should have just told your mom to find somebody else. Grow up, Chucklebunch! By the way, speaking of desperate groupies, I see that your prize requests for being this week’s Payback winner include the latest CD by your precious namesake, as well as tickets to his upcoming Vancouver show. Isn’t that adorable? Now you can leap out of your seat every time Bob cracks his killer smile and shout: “Hey everybody, I’m Dylan too!”

For taking the trouble to abuse us, Dylan Marks receives a prize pack that includes Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Vol. 8 and TV on the Radio's Dear Science. You can voice your impotent rage by snail mail or by sending an e-mail to payback@straight.com.