A PICTURE PERFECT WEEKEND

1. . . . That's what we're having and that's what we're enjoying. And at night and in the morning, a touch of fall in the air. But don't let summer be over yet.
2. When I bought The New York Times this morning at Starbucks in my neighborhood I complained to the cashier, "$4.50 for this newspaper." And he said, "What's in it?"
3. According to the latest TV Guide, James Brown's favorite TV shows are Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune which, he says, he does "pretty good on."
4. SHAMELESS FLAUNTING. Demi Moore and her goo-goo eyes in every picture you see with her and Ashton Kutcher. The whole thing seems a bit much, but then again, it's nobody's business ... but everybody makes it their business.
5. Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer is scheduled to have only 7 guests on the hour-long CNN Sunday talk show. Hope they have enough food in the Green Room. Sometimes these guests eat you out of house and home. (Needy people)
6. KILLED IN JAIL. Pedophile priest John J. Geoghan was strangled by a fellow inmate at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a medium-security prison outside Boston. I guess the medium security needed to be maximum.
7. So they're going to have to remove that Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda at the Supreme Court in Montgomery, Alabama. "Roy's Rock," named after dissenting Chief Justice Roy S. Moore, will be moved to a location of lesser visibility. Everytime I heard that story I thought of the classic R&B love anthem, The Ten Commandments of Love by Harvey & The Moonglows from 1958.
8. . . . The other day down there some protestors against the removal were arrested, including a woman in a wheelchair. They actually handcuffed a woman in a wheelchair.
9. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann co-hosted the weekend Today show with Campbell Brown. That's not his format. Didn't work. Attitude shows through (Does Campbell have the job? Has it been announced?)
10. . . . At the end of the show when they're all standing out in the plaza plugging what's coming up Monday on Today, Brown signs off by saying, "Have a good weekend" and Olbermann says, "Peace." Gimme a Break! Is he a hippie?
11. . . . Soledad O'Brien's over on CNN's American Morning ... She dresses much more conservatively over there than she did on Today. Suits all the time. A little too grown up for her age. More news over there and less fluff to report? Suits are for serious news?
12. How did Bob Arnot go from doctor to "Chief Foreign Correspondent" for NBC News? Has he given up the medical beat entirely?
13. WHERE'S CONDOLEEZZA? She's been conspicuously absent from the news lately. Did she do a boo-boo on those 16 words in Bush's State of the Union address?
14. The situation in California's too complicated. Just leave things the way they are. Don't have a recall. Gray Davis has been called on the carpet. Let him finish his term and then elect a new one if things don't get better.
15. Actor Rob Lowe has a new NBC show coming up (The Lyon's Den) so how is he gonna have enough time to help out Arnold on the campaign trail? All these wannabe politicans think it's so easy. The grass is always greener.
16. Everytime a friend of mine sees or hears about Arnold Schwarzenegger all she can think of is Saturday Night Live's Hans and Franz and their Pump You Up routine.
17. NOT A MAJOR TALENT. Pop singer Jessica Simpson was on Good Morning America's concert series at Bryant Park last Friday. The songs she sang weren't upbeat enough for the enthusiastic crowd and she kept slinking across the stage, sticking her chest out and showing her midriff. Too sexpot-ish and not musical enough for me.
18. WRONG NUMBER? 1-800-AOL 4 YOU. When you call it they announce that it's a new national directory assistance service - what's that got to do with AOL? - and to call 1-900-725- 7400 and that costs $1.
19. . . . Also, for the TV ad they're running with that number, they use the Leave It To Beaver song while they show all kinds of things that go on in the typical American home that you need AOL for. It's really annoying.
20. LOVE POWER. Viagra has some competitors (2) coming. One of the new companies says their drug gives men "more dependable erections than Viagra" and the other has been nicknamed "the weekender" because it has more "staying power."
21. HAPPY BIRTHDAY. To Ben's Chili Bowl in D.C. They made it through the riots, Metro construction and now the gentrification of U Street which is coming fast. The Ali family runs it (Ben, wife Virginia and sons Kamal and Nizam).
22. FEEDBACK. A reader wrote to say that he, too, was sick of commercials at the movies and that that was one of the reasons why he doesn't go out to them anymore. And on the DVDs he rents, he fast-forwards past the previews because "they're films I wouldn't pay to see anyway."
23. "U.S. marshals! Get your hands up in the air." says Karen Sisco in a clip from the upcoming ABC cop drama. Laughable. Watch that flop.
24. Mr. Big Stuff called Idi Amin Idi-ot Amin. I wonder if his body was thrown to the crocodiles?
25. There are reports (WENN. What's that?) that Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are planning to pose nude for a photo shoot to dispel rumors that "the relationship is not the real deal."
26. They said no cameras in the Laci Peterson trial because it would turn a serious trial into a TV reality show. But of course.
27. LE DIVORCE. Not a bad movie. Different. Humorous - not out and out funny. Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts. Takes place in Paris. The Washington Post's Desson Howe says it's a "relaxed delight" and I agree.
28. I got one of those telemarking calls from Bank of America the other day. The message they left put me on hold, for crissakes. Like I called them. "Unfortunately, all of our representatives are busy at the moment. Please hold. A representative will be with you momentarily," it said. When in hell does this DO-NOT-CALL thing kick in? (Think it's October.)
29. Those TV ads for Fox's Judge Roy Brown uses the song, The Funky Judge by Bull & The Matadors (1968) while he does a little boogie. ("Judge, sho is funky, Judge sho is funky ...")
30. Schwarzenegger wears a skull ring.
31. The Olsen twins have really grown up. They're on the cover of Rolling Stone, with their hair windswept and the bottom of their blouses blown up a bit above their jeans. But it's tasteful. It doesn't show belly buttons. "America's Favorite Fantasy," Stone calls them.
32. K Street should be interesting to watch. Again, it's HBO that's putting on the 10-week series which mixes real-life political figures with actors playing lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Each week's episode of the ‘real-time fiction' series will be conceived, shot, edited and aired within the same week. (Crash TV production.)
33. . . . Husband and wife James Carville and Mary Matalin play verisons of themselves. George Clooney produces and Steven Soderbergh directs.
34. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's brother committed suicide in 1988 by jumping off his family's 14th floor New York apartment terrace. Cooper talks about it in the next Details magazine.
35. Heidi Fleiss, former Hollywood madam and in the news lately because of charges of domestic violence against her ex, actor Tom Sizemore, looks like Steve Tyler of Aerosmith.
36. Well, Roseanne has gone and done it again. Both ABC shows -- dropped.
37. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is going to have her teeth cleaned tomorrow. They have to put her to sleep to do it. Owner Sally is a little concerned.
38. LOW-LIFE. Somebody scraped a key across the side of my cousin's waxed up, shiny car. Of course, there's no way of finding out who did it.
39. They're changing the flavors/colors of LifeSavers after all these years. Claire Shipman warned on Good Morning America that it reminded her of the Coke campaign when they fooled with the formula and it backfired. Point well taken. We'll see.
40. A friend of mine says the crabs are good down at Dirty Dick's in Avon, North Carolina (Outer Banks)
41. DIED. Singer/songwriter Ed Townsend, 74, who had a huge hit in 1958 with the ballad, For Your Love, and went on to write many other songs through the years including Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On (1973). The Gaye single had a really sexy theme to it but songwriter Townsend begged to differ and said that it was actually about getting on with life.
42. HOW EASY AND CONVENIENT. Wolf Blitzer's e-mail address is WOLF@cnn.com.
43. I wonder if that nude hiker in England walking over hill and dale since June 16 made his deadline yesterday. He was supposed to finish then. All he's had on was boots, socks, a hat and backpack. "Man plus naked equals pedophile or pervert or both. I hope I might widen those conclusions," he told New York Times reporter Lizette Alvarez about why he's doing it.
44. UH . . . Walk a Mile in My Shoes - Joe South and The Believers on Capitol. 1970.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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