April 26, 2005

      THE POPE'S RING SIZE IS 24

1. . . . He was fitted for the Fisherman's Ring, a symbol of his authority, by officials from the Association of Goldsmiths in Rome and when they told him he was size 24, he said he liked that because it was the double of 12, referring to the number of apostles.
2. . . . When I think of 12 I think of a baker's dozen.
3. CAN WE PLEASE TAKE A BREAK FROM LENNY KRAVITZ? He's just too much. I can't deal with his overcool persona.
4. Someone in one of washingtonpost.com's online discussions called American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis, Constantpreen. (By last week's show he had streaked his hair and was wearing eye makeup.)
5. All Ben Affleck does is try to get married. Now it's Jennifer Garner (Alias). Doesn't he get tired of shelling out dough for rings? And all Nicholas Cage does is get married.
6. They need a new stove in the Sistine Chapel. Something to do with black and white smoke.
7. "You saw me crying in the chapel ... " I think of that Sonny Til & The Orioles song (1953, Jubilee) every time I hear something about the Sistine Chapel. A remake of it was done by Elvis in 1965 (RCA Victor).
8. Now Martha Stewart's gonna be on satellite (Sirius) radio too. And she's got two TV shows coming up. Did she make a pact with the devil while she was in jail or what?
9. VATICAN BLACK SMOKE. The stuff came billowing out of that chimney. I'm glad my clothes weren't hanging on the line over in Rome.
10. Actress Jessica Lange was on Charlie Rose one night last week and boy, did she fidget. Moving her head all over the place, looking up, looking down, looking away, running her fingers through her hair, swaying back and forth. Good God, sit still.
11. NO SKIVVIES AD, I GUESS. Ashton Kutcher said that if his movie, A Lot Like Love, was number one that he was going to do a Calvin Klein underwear ad. (He has modeled other clothes for Klein in the past.) Well, it didn't make it. The Interpreter won out.
12. THE INTERPRETER. Billed as a political thriller. Nicole Kidman plays Silvia Broome, a U.N. translator, who overhears a plot to kill the leader of an African country. Sean Penn plays Tobin Keller, the Secret Service agent assigned to protect her. Directed by Sidney Pollack who appears in it as he does in all of his movies. The movie's just okay but should have been better. Kidman's South African accent sounds ridiculous and like she's got a mouth full of something and Penn's hair is sky high. And you guess one of the bad guys right from the start of the movie; it's so obvious. Disappointed, I was. (But I never got my hopes up anyway, so it's okay.)
13. The preview for Kingdom of Heaven, the Ridley Scott-directed 12th century historical epic about the Crusades starring Orlando Bloom, is annoying to watch. It's cut (edited) worse than music videos. Each shot fades up and out in what seems like less than a second and they show so many scenes that I feel like I've already see the whole movie. But Scott made Gladiator and some people think this is a good sign.
14. Bruce Springsteen's getting all serious and acoustic again on his new album, Devils & Dust. Just be a happy rocker and cut the heavy reflection about everything.
15. This Saturday is the White House Correspondents Association dinner and Bloomberg News has, among its guests, actor James Denton (Mike Delfino) from Desperate Housewives, at its after party, reports The Washington Post's Richard Leiby (Reliable Source). Think he'll wear his signature T-shirt or will he dress for the occasion? I wish he'd bring Terry Hatcher (Susan Mayer) with him.
16. A friend of mine e-mailed me a photo of Pope John Paul II when his body was lying in state in the Sistine Chapel with the American delegation kneeling, looking on. The caption in the balloon above President Bush said, "What happened to Santa?" Well, the man was dressed in red.
17. ABC's David Wright reported that now some Rome papers refer to Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) as the German Shepherd and no longer God's Rottweiler.
18. Ellen Barkin was the subject of Newsweek's Q&A column last week and once again, they were going for the un-hard news which seemed to surprise the actress. Following a question about Palindromes, her new movie, and how she feels about abortion, the next question was, "Let's talk about plastic surgery!" And Barkin said, "In Newsweek?"
19. . . . News is about everything, I guess.
20. MILLIONS ARE OUT. BILLIONS ARE IN. It's true. A mil ain't that much anymore.
21. PALADIN, PALADIN, WHERE DO YOU ROAM. The 2nd Round (2nd Season) of Have Gun - Will Travel will be available on DVD on May 10. Starred Richard Boone. Great TV western series (1957-1963). He was a professional gunfighter who gave out his business card which said, above a picture of a chess knight, Have Gun, Will Travel ... Wire Paladin, San Francisco. Very cool.
22. It was good to see CNN correspondent Barbara Starr somewhere other than the Pentagon this past weekend. She donned blue scrubs, a white shower cap-type bonnet and a surgical mask (which was dangling around her neck) to report from a hospital about robot surgery for wounded soldiers. Interesting.
23. The Virgin Mary is making the rounds again. This time she appeared as a yellow and white stain on the wall of an underpass in Chicago. It was coincidentally the same day that Cardinal Ratzinger was elected pope. Does that mean something? Anyway, people are flocking and believing.
24. "Suddenly I chewed something that's kinda hard, crunchy. Spit it out," said Anna Ayala, the woman who claimed to find a finger in her Wendy's chili. Turns out she didn't. But where did the finger come from?
25. MSNBC at the Movies and MSNBC Entertainment Hot List are two new shows on the cable network. Hosts Amy Tay and Claudia DiFolco make things hot by what they wear and how they look. Sex Kittens luring viewers in, that's what they do.
26. They had a deep-fried asparagus eating contest in California last week. I'm glad I wasn't near that restroom. (It makes your urine smell.)
27. The pope was installed - not inaugurated.
28. Could Ryan Seacrest's low-rise pants dip any further? Last week the American Idol host was dressed up with a jacket and trousers instead of jeans and his pants were hanging on his hips. That's what those low-rise below-the-waist pants do. And when contestant Bo Bice stood beside him he had low-risers on too. How low can they go? Pretty soon the waistline's gonna be at the knees.
29. The name Shakespeare is engraved on base of the lampposts outside my office. I didn't know he made industrial products too.
30. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood (who I forgot to put in the column last week) is enjoying her run of the house while Gidget, the bare-eyed cockatoo, is at the spa. Lee Lee gets jealous and thinks the bird gets too much of owner Sally's attention. Now things are back to normal, pre-bird times, for a while at least.
31. President Bush walked around his ranch holding hands with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah on Monday. Then they played patty-cakes.
32. UH . . . I Want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles, on Capitol. 1965.