Musicians have had a long love affair with tattoos. Rihanna has proved to be a big tattoo fan herself, so when the pop star wants to get inked there’s no place she’d rather head to than East Side Ink located in Alphabet City in Manhattan.

Rihanna has a long history with the NYC tattoo parlor, and she has an even stronger professional relationship with one of Ink’s tattoo artists who goes by the name BangBang. The artist has inked Rihanna with some of her most well known tats, including the stars on her back, the Roman numerals on her shoulder and the word “Shhh” on her finger. BangBang even tattooed a gun on her ribcage earlier this year.

On his MySpace page, BangBang has photos of Rihanna and the various tats he’s done for her. Last night, Rihanna became a tattoo artist herself and inked an “R” BangBang’s leg. (Unfortunately, that got her into a bit of trouble.)

East Side Ink owner Yadira told MTV News that although she’s been getting inked with them for some time now, it was the first time she’s ever inked someone herself. “We had a blast,” Yadira added. “It was so funny and cute.”

Foo Fighters have been on hiatus since their last tour wrapped, but they’ll play one show this weekend out of civic duty. Rolling Stone reports that the band will play a short set this Saturday, July 4, on the South Lawn of the White House. Foos frontman Dave Grohl, who grew up in the Washington D.C. area and got his start playing in local hardcore band Scream, is no stranger to the political realm: He and his band played voting drives for the Obama campaign and expressed his ire over John McCain’s use of “My Hero” during tour stops.

There are plenty of Foo Fighters songs that can act as inspiration tunes for President Obama (”My Hero” and “Best of You” among them), but there are a handful of tunes in the Foos catalog that they should probably avoid.

“Long Road to Ruin”
In the age of hope, this sentiment would probably be a little too pessimistic.

“Darling Nikki”
It’s an excellent Prince cover, but it’s a little filthy. Sasha and Malia are a little too young for a song about meeting a sex fiend in a hotel lobby.

“Erase/Replace”
The guy has only been in office for six months — they shouldn’t be calling for his eradication yet.

“Tired of You”
See above.

“DOA”
“Nothing like the taste of sweet decline” isn’t likely to spark a whole lot of revolutionary thought, which should be the whole point of this holiday.

Anything from the acoustic disc of In Your Honor
No real conflicts of message, but it’s just sort of boring.

Welcome to the weekly Newsroom Poll, where we will give you a sneak peek into the lives and minds of some of the correspondents, writers, editors and producers here at MTVNews.com. Every week, they’ll answer a poll question that will reveal some of what we talk about behind the scenes here in the newsroom. Enjoy!

The death of Michael Jackson has hit the MTV News staff pretty hard, and will continue to as we sort through the aftermath of last week’s shocking news. It’s been a crazy week for celebrity death, as Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, pitchman Billy Mays and actor Karl Malden have all passed away in the past week.

Dealing with death is always difficult, but the passing of a public person is surreal. How do you deal with the loss of somebody you only knew through a body of work? So we passed around this week’s poll question: What’s the one celebrity death that has hit you the hardest, and why? Check out the staff’s answers below, and be sure to leave your own stories in the comments.

Sabrina Rojas Weiss
I was in high school when I heard that River Phoenix had died of a drug overdose the night before. It was on Channel One News, the news program for young people they used to air in school. I had never cried before about anyone dying, celebrity or not — I don’t even think I knew anyone who had died at that point. But I did right there, in the middle of class. Totally embarrassing! He was just 23, and so beautiful and perfect to me. At that age, I was just starting to think I was too mature to idolize celebrities, but his death felt like a personal blow.

April Richardson
Joe Strummer, definitely. I’m too young to have been into the Clash when they were around (I was 6 when they broke up), but after getting into Billy Bragg as a teenager I started buying Clash records, because he always cited them as his top influence. They opened my mind politically as well as musically, as they spanned nearly every genre: punk, soul, pop, funk, reggae — the list goes on. Strummer was a humanitarian and an icon, a badass and a bleeding heart. He reminded me to “know my rights” and his band showed me that music could be important — it could make you think and empower you, educate you while making you dance. I remember being at a friend’s parents’ house over Christmas break and reading the news in the local paper. I gasped as tears welled in my eyes. The only other celebrity death in my lifetime that I remember having a real effect on me was Frank Sinatra’s (my nana played his records all the time growing up), but he was 82 and had been in poor health. Joe was 50 years young and had a very sudden, unexpected heart attack. It was so sad and shocking. He was taken from us far too early and had so much more to teach us. See you at the crossroads, John Mellor.

Kyle Anderson
It snuck up on me, but the passing of Tim Russert hit me really hard. I’ve watched “Meet the Press” on Sunday mornings for as far back as I can remember, and I always appreciated the way that Russert put aside his personal relationships to try to extract the truth from whoever was sitting on the other side of the desk. But I also loved that he had an incredible enthusiasm for his work. After Russert died, Tom Brokaw told a story about how the two of them were up late one night after one of the presidential primaries in early 2008, and Russert turned to him and said, “Can you believe how lucky we are to be doing this?” Russert was also an unabashed sports fan and was devoted to his family. He was also a guy who died at work, something I half-figure will happen to me some day. I find it hard to watch “Meet the Press” now, not because David Gregory is a bad interviewer (he isn’t), but I miss the energy that Russert brought to the table. You could always tell the issues really meant something to him, and it was contagious.

Lindsay Soll
I know it sounds a bit cliché, but I have to say Heath Ledger’s death did impact me a lot. The actor was right on the cusp of reaching a status most people in Hollywood will never even come close to, as he was equal parts talented, respected and, most of all, fearless. He took parts that would make some people cringe (”Brokeback Mountain”) and others swoon (”Casanova”). He was so young, and with “The Dark Knight” about to break box-office records, it all seemed too soon for him to be gone. I was on assignment at my previous job the night Heath died, and standing there when his body was carried out left an imprint on me because of how unexpected and sad it all was. People flocked to the scene and I just remember thinking, “Wow, I’m never going to forget this moment.” Much like people will never forget the mark Heath has left on film.

James Montgomery
Billy Mays. The word needs more hirsute, voluminous men pitching Hercules Hooks. He will be missed.

Adam Murphy
I definitely succumbed to the classic teenage idol death blues when Joey Ramone died. When I heard the news, I responded in the only way my 16-year-old brain knew how: I took a white T-shirt from my underwear drawer and drew a picture of Joey on it with a bunch of different colored Sharpies. Nobody at my school recognized the picture, probably because my drawing skills leave something to be desired. My too-hip-for-suburban-high-school English teacher gave me a nod, though. Later on, my mom got super pissed when I put the freshly Sharpied shirt in the wash and ruined the rest of the load. My reaction was decidedly un-punk — I didn’t storm out or light a cigarette at the dinner table or anything. I got really into New Wave after that.

Jonathan Goldner
Big Pun. When he died in 2000, I had been working at MTV News for about four weeks. It was the first celebrity death story I worked on and was my introduction to the more somber side of what we do. It was the first time I thought I was going to leave the office, and then suddenly had several hours of work ahead of me.

Okay, so Lady Gaga professed having a crush on the Jonas Brothers, saying she thought of them as a new version the Beatles and how much she’d like to personally show them her adulation for what they do in a very intimate kind of way. We’re sure Kevin’s new fiancé wouldn’t like that very much, nor would Miley Cyrus or Camilla Belle. Or, us for that matter.

Let’s also not forget that Adele has also publicly professed her love for the boys. “The Jonas Brothers’ choruses are really catchy. They make shameful pop — and I f—ing love them.”

But it’s the boys’ latest admirer that has us scratching our heads: Detroit rocker and enemy of wildlife Ted Nugent admits that he is “moved” by the Jonas Brothers.

“Even though I can’t stand the songs themselves, I’m quite moved by what I’ve seen the Jonas Brothers guys do,” he told Spinner. “They play with soul. I don’t like the songs but they certainly play with a lot of authority and they seem to have good chops.”

Okay, so he’s not saying he sits at home with Lines, Vines and Trying Times on repeat like some of us, but even talking about them in any positive way feels a little odd, especially considering we can’t remember the last time we saw Nick Jonas using a crossbow. We just hope it leads to an unlikely collaboration. It would sound a lot like Damn Yankees, right?

Lauer then entered the foyer area, where Jackson would readily welcome his guests with art work of himself as well as cookies. “These walls had huge paintings on them some depicting Michael Jackson in whimsical and magical situations,” he explained.

Lauer also toured the living room, adjacent to the eat-in kitchen, which at one point was filled with photographs of his family and friends as well as a pedestal that held the 1931 Best Picture Oscar statuette for “Gone with the Wind” that Jackson bought for $1.5 million.

The dining room, where Elizabeth Taylor wed Larry Fortensky in 1991 and friends like Macaulay Culkin hung out, is connected to the kitchen. Lauer explained the house is now empty because the plan was to sell its contents at an auction that never happened. He explained that a lot of those contents are on the way back to the house.

Lauer also got to take a peek at the superstar’s private master bedroom suite, complete with security panel. Jackson’s two-story bedroom included a sitting area with a massive tile fireplace.

The full-cedar closet (complete with a secret security-panel protected compartment), is connected to the master bathroom. The second-story of the bedroom is where Jackson’s bed was, along with another closet and another bathroom. The sleeping loft had a “huge bed” and “the bedspread was full sequins just like many of the outfits he wore in concert.”

But he’s not the first Degrassi veteran to reach for musical stardom. That title belongs to Cassie Steele, who played Manny Santos on the show and is about to release her second album Destructo Doll. While Drake went the hip-hop route, Steele is a singer-songwriter with a rock edge, not unlike a groovier version of fellow Canadian Alanis Morissette. While Steele hasn’t made a splash in the U.S., her first album How Much For Happy was a moderate hit in her home country, thanks to her (slightly wacky) video for the single “Bluebird.”

Cassie Steele: “Blue Bird”

Which Degrassi star do you prefer — and which cast member should put out an album next?

In one of his finest speeches, Thomas Jefferson once said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” In honor of rising up to fight the power, enjoy Public Enemy’s 1989 call to arms.

Eminem called into his own Sirius/XM satellite radio station Shade45 to drop a little bit of news. First and foremost: Slim Shady will be performing his only show of the year at the Voodoo Festival, the annual three-day concert event in New Orleans. He’ll be sharing the bill with Kiss, Jane’s Addiction and the Flaming Lips.

But that’s not all, as Em was calling from his studio in Detroit where he is working on the sequel to his recently-released, already-platinum Relapse. He said he’s still working on music, but his second album of the year should be out “by the fourth quarter,” just in time for holiday sales.

When hosts Rude Jude and Lord Sear asked whether the incident at the MTV Movie Awards was his idea or Brüno’s, he told them, “He hit me up and asked me if he could put his balls in my face, and I said ‘Certainly.’” They even inquired about the smell, which Em summed up in one word: “Delicious.” Check out the full call here, but be warned: It’s a pretty graphic bit of audio.