When it comes to racism comments, it's a racec to the bottom

As we were gone for a few days, Tattle has not been able to comment on a few ridiculous racial issues that popped up while we were away.

First, there was MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry saying she thought "Star Wars" was racist because Darth Vader was black and was voiced by a black man (James Earl Jones).

Now we're no "Star Wars" fanatic, but Vader was lily-white Luke Skywalker's father and wore a black costume. He himself was not black. The stormtroopers wore white and were also bad guys. It's not so much a race thing as it is a costume design thing.

Then there was the conservative prankster who got a number of college students to sign a petition to support banning the song "White Christmas" because it was racist.

Aside from the fact that college students will sign just about anything, which is why so many of them have bad credit, their iTunes ears have never been forced to listen to songs outside their comfort zone so they probably never bothered to think that the "white" in "White Christmas" referred to snow and not the suburbs.

Either way, there are real racial issues in this country and around the world. This nonsense doesn't help.

It's always so odd what celebrities spend their money on and it's especially odd when it's Nicolas Cage, who's always seemed especially odd.

According to Reuters, a Tyrannosaurus bataar skull purchased by Cage for $276,000 has been returned to Mongolia by the actor.

Why did he need a dinosaur skull?

Because he's Nicolas Cage.

And why did he return it to Mongolia?

Because he learned it was stolen. Good dude.

* Denmark's Elvis museum, a replica of Presley's Graceland Mansion home in Memphis, is changing its name after a lawsuit for infringement of the "Graceland" trademark.

Henrik Knudsen, who opened Graceland Randers in 2011, says the Memphis, Tennessee-based Elvis Presley Enterprises has demanded a name change and 1.5 million kroner ($220,000) in compensation.

The Danish replica, twice the size of the original Graceland, is situated in Randers, 130 miles northwest Copenhagen. It includes Knudsen's private collection of Elvis artifacts, an American diner-style restaurant and a souvenir shop.

Knudsen said yesterday he will change the museum's name to Memphis Mansion as of Jan. 1.

This year more than 130,000 people have visited the museum.

Because in Denmark, Margrethe II is the queen, but Elvis remains the king.

* Twitter said yesterday that there have been over 1 million tweets about the hip-hop Broadway show "Hamilton."

By comparison, there were 266,000 tweets about the current Tony-winning Best New Musical "Fun Home" and Nielsen data found there were 323,000 tweets about the Tony Awards during this year's telecast.

The million tweets, combined with the brilliant musical's $1.5 million weekly take at the box office means the show is taking in $1.5 million a week at the box office.

* In a sad irony, Hollywood's most famous junkyard, Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking, home to the last surviving "Bruce" the shark from "Jaws" and the giant boom box Usher danced on for the 1997 video "My Way," is selling off everything to become 26 acres of bare land.

"You need to make money to survive, and it's gotten harder to make money in the junk business," owner Nathan Adlen said.

The irony is that Hollywood has been turning out junk for decades and is on its way to a record year at the box office.

* Selena Gomez is rightfully ticked off at news that Justin Bieber was having an affair with Kourtney Kardashian at the same time he was putting the moves on her in November.

Hollywoodlife.com says Selena is also skeeved because Justin reportedly hooked up with Kourtney's half-sister, Kendall Jenner.

The Biebs is going to work his through that family all the way to Caitlyn.

InTouch magazine says Justin played Selena for the sake of publicity, which is even slimier when you're talking about people who do little but get publicity.

As for Kourtney pairing up with Justin, we can only assume Scott Disick wasn't a big enough jerk.

- Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

Email: gensleh@phillynews.com
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