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Tattle: Gov. Christie 'Shore' is negative about series

DURING AN appearance yesterday on ABC's "This Week," host Jake Tapper asked New Jersey governor Chris Christie if he thought MTV's "Jersey Shore" was a positive or negative for his state.

DURING AN appearance yesterday on ABC's "This Week," host Jake Tapper asked New Jersey governor Chris Christie if he thought MTV's "Jersey Shore" was a positive or negative for his state.

The budget-slashing guv, who has expressed interest in running Atlantic City as part of his smaller government initiative, said that the show is a negative. He said it "takes a bunch of New Yorkers, drops them at the Jersey shore and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey."

A few years of chopping away at the state's schools and it will be New Jersey.

* From the "Jersey Shore" house, we move on to "Animal Farm," George Orwell's creepy allegorical tale of corrupt totalitarianism - as if there's another kind.

According to Playbill, Elton John and Lee Hall ("Billy Elliott") are teaming up to turn "Animal Farm" into a musical.

Yup, a musical.

The pair have been trying to get the rights for a couple of years, and the lyricist is now working on words before handing his verses over to Elton.

"I'm deep into it, writing songs for pigs and other four-legged friends," Hall said.

Take a chant on me

It's been more than 15 years since the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos stormed the music charts with the album "Chant."

Now, Decca Records says that Nuns of the Abbaye de Notre Dame de l'Annonciation, near the southern French city of Avignon, have recorded "Voices - Chant from Avignon," after being chosen following a worldwide search for female Gregorian chant performers.

The album is due in November. Other acts on Decca include the Rolling Stones, Eminem, Amy Winehouse, U2 and Lady Gaga.

Hopefully, they'll all be able to swap stories at the Decca Christmas party.

* Decca is a part of the Universal Music Group, which also has announced that Levi Johnston will make his music-video debut as a lover whose romance is thwarted by his girlfriend's disapproving mother.

Is this bad art imitating life or good art imitating bad life?

Levi, 20, who is Bristol Palin's fiance, has agreed to appear in the video with singer-songwriter Brittani Senser next month in L.A. The project is based on her song "After Love."

"He's looking forward to doing it," said Rex Butler, Levi's attorney in Anchorage. "It will give him an opportunity to act a little bit in front of a camera. He's done a commercial before, but something like this is a little more involved."

Asked if there might be concerns about Sarah Palin's reaction to the project, Butler replied: "I don't think we're going to be concerned about what Gov. Palin would want. I think that given the script, he [Johnston] should be able to turn in a good performance."

Johnston and Senser are scheduled to shoot the video on Aug. 9, the day after the Bristol-less pair attend the Teen Choice Awards.

The only good that can come of this are more storylines for the Levi-Bristol reality show.

Tattbits

* This week's episode of HBO's "Hung" features the new song "Instinct" by the electro-pop band 21st Century Girl.

Lead singer, Charly, from Abington, used to sing at Germantown Academy and Penn.

* TMZ.com reports that "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis is suing a former cameraman, Ryan Simkin, for writing a tell-all book about what went on at GGW.

In his suit, Francis says that Simkin signed a nondisclosure agreement, which strictly prohibited him from "writing and publishing any tell-all books about their work."

Given that GGW made a fortune shooting video of drunk, horny, naked chicks on Spring Break, is it really much of a secret what went on there?

* Last Monday, Tattle hosted a chat on philly.com about our cover story on Angelina Jolie.

One reader asked what we thought "Salt" would do at the box office during its opening weekend.

Somewhere between $30 and $40 million, we replied.

The spy thriller came in No. 2 at $36.5 million.

And still no one will give us the opportunity to run a studio.

No. 1 for the second weekend in a row was "Inception" at $43.5 million.

Interestingly, No. 3 was "Despicable Me" at $24.1 million. That's $104 million for the top three films this week, not one of which was a sequel or adaptation or based on anything other than imagination.

* According to one estimate, as many as 1.4 million people may have showed up for the Love Parade, in Germany.

Unfortunately, the music festival's venue could hold only about 300,000 of them.

A mass panic Saturday left 19 people crushed to death and 342 injured. There's plenty of blame to go around - not enough love.

* Warner Music Entertainment said that British actor Hugh Laurie (cranky medical genius "House") has signed a deal to record an album of New Orleans-inspired blues.

"I am drunk with excitement at this opportunity," Laurie said in a statement. "I know the history of actors making music is a checkered one, but I promise no one will get hurt."

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com.