December 8, 2002


      OH THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS FRIGHTFUL

  1. . . . Certainly colder this year than last. Last December, restaurants were serving people outside it was so warm and flowers were still blooming.
  2. Washington's ABC7 News predicted the extent of the snow we got with their new technology Snow Machine. Doug Hill and his weather team were shouting its arrival and accuracy to the high heavens.
  3. SWEATING BULLETS. That's what Whitney Houston's husband Bobby Brown did on the TV interview they did with Diane Sawyer. He didn't come off too well. Saturday Night Live spoofed ‘em both on their Weekend Update segment.
  4. So the new Loews theater complex in Georgetown has 14 screens and stadium seating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's sort of out of the way and The Washington Post's movie critic Rita Kempley points out that they've got 3000 seats and 285 parking spaces. You find a place to park.
  5. 5 FINGER DISCOUNT. They threw the books at Winona Ryder this week for shoplifting. With all the stuff she's gotta do, is she gonna have time to make more movies? I bet she'll be careful the next time she's doing "research" for her next role.
  6. "Ch Ch Chia."
  7. Do those Crest White Strips work? Looks like Scotch tape.
  8. Ben Affleck looks different than he used to. Now he's got the hair slicked back and looks more matinee idol-ish. He's been J. Lo-ed by Jenny on the Block.
  9. . . . Could any one person get any more publicity?
  10. . . . Mr. Big Stuff had this to say about the couple: "Instead of getting married they should just get divorced first because that's where it's gonna end up anyway." Truer words were never spoken.
  11. ABC's Bachelor guy, Aaron Buerge, is on the Christmas in Aspen special with the upcoming Bachelorette. (They didn't get into a hot tub though.)
  12. Barry Manilow's got a new Christmas album: A Christmas Gift of Love. His voice never sounded better and he's backed by a fine-sounding orchestra/big band. He sings the songs pretty straight on ... Not as much production as his last one but nevertheless a good album.
  13. BLACK ICE. Watch out for it. My supermarket clerk was crossing her street on her way to work and did a back over flip on it. There she lay, hoping a car wouldn't come. (It didn't.)
  14. INDIE MOVIE: Personal Velocity. Three separate stories of contemporary women with various relationship/personal problems written and directed on digital video by Rebecca Miller. The film is partially narrated (not necessary) and uses stop frame video a lot. It's sort of a plight of women movie. Okay but not great. Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk are in it.
  15. Exotic dancers on strike this week held up picket signs which read: Starving Strippers Need Money to Shake It Honey.
  16. How annoying are those Oh! Oxygen commercials for the cable network? Everybody says Oh in it, including Madonna, Isaac Mizrahi and a host of others, and Oprah's in it cupping her breasts and laughing. (She's not naked though.)
  17. SPEAKING OF NAKED . . . Naked Boys Singing! is a play in D.C. now at the Source Theatre which features nine guys doing the show/singing songs, without any clothes on. It's been described as a "gay burlesque." Hope the theater has a good heating system.
  18. CNN has told us that Qatar is pronounced cutter. That right?
  19. HE'S AT IT AGAIN. CNN's Martin Savidge, at the top of the Live From daily show, greeted viewers one day last week by saying, "... thrilled! to be with you." He picks a new verb every day he does it. Is that any way to start off a newscast?
  20. Is a snowman now called a snow person? A News7 reporter called it one on the air.
  21. Roone Arledge of ABC died this past week of cancer at the age of 71. He revolutionized TV in the sports and news worlds and for a time was president of ABC Sports and News. At the end of every sports show an announcer said, "The executive producer of ABC Sports is Roone Arledge." He took over the ABC news division in 1977 and built shows and big time stars around them: World News Tonight, Nightline (first called America Held Hostage), 20/20, PrimeTime Live and This Week With David Brinkley. He lent a showman's touch to the programs he created. His imprint is indelible.
  22. . . . ALSO: According to Marc Gunther, author of The House That Roone Built, Roone is a Scottish name and Arledge himself was a junior. And he passed on the name to his son too.
  23. . . . Ironically, another ABC News executive and one of the few women in the field, Joanna Bistany, died of cancer last Sunday. She was a senior vice president, and from 1986 to 1998 was chief deputy to Arledge. She joined ABC in 1983 after serving as special assistant for communications to President Reagan.
  24. THE FAT MAN SINGS. Fats Domino, that is. A new 4-CD boxed set, Walking to New Orleans, out now and chronicling the hit single-making career of Antoine Domino from 1949-- 1962. The 100-track set has 40 Top 10 Rhythm and Blues hits on it. About $60. His piano- based New Orleans-flavored music hit not only the R&B charts of the time but on rock ‘n' roll too.
  25. "You need a mall-ectomy," says Kirstie Alley in her Pier 1 commercial. Does she do anything else other than those commercials?
  26. All Bobby on The Practice does is yell and look glum but I still like the show.
  27. My mother likes watching Aaron Barone on CNN. I had to tell her his last name is Brown.
  28. Looks like Michael Jackson's given up on the beard thing. He looked clean-shaven this week in the video of him going to and from court. When asked about his reaction to lawyer Gloria Allred's critical comments about him dangling his child from a hotel balcony in Germany, Jackson yelled out, "Aw, tell her to go to hell."
  29. . . . With all his ailments and things it's like he's turned into Elizabeth Taylor.
  30. UH ... Things, by Bobby Darin on ATCO from 1962.


    31. rocci@roccifisch.com

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