January 6, 2013

 

MY TREE’S STILL UP

  1. . . . Christmas tree, that is.
  2. . . . Somebody told me it’s okay since Jan. 6 – today -- was the “official” end of Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas.
  3. . . . So I’m not so late.
  4. . . . “On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me . . . ”
  5. . . . “Twelve drummers drumming.”
  6. . . . (“Funky Drummer” – James Brown, 1970 on King Records.)
  7. . . . One year my tree (artificial) stayed up until spring  -- Does that mean I’m a bad person?  I never got around to taking it down.  Guess I was busy.
  8.  MOVIE:  “Silver Linings Playbook.”  Terrific comedy/drama starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaver, others.
  9. . . . Pat Solitano (Cooper) just gets out of a mental institution in Baltimore after being treated for bipolar disorder.
  10. . . . He’s released to the care of his parents (DeNiro, Weaver).
  11. . . . He found his wife Nikki (Brea Bee) in the shower with another man and went into a rage, nearly killing him.  He lost his job.
  12. . . . Nikki leaves him but Pat wants her back and tries to prove his love for her.
  13. . . . Pat’s father is out of work and resorts to bookmaking to get enough money together to open a restaurant.  DeNiro does his part endearingly and convincingly.
  14. . . . He wants to keep close tabs on junior now that he’s out of rehab.
  15. . . . At dinner with friends Pat meets Tiffany, who recently became a widow and also lost her job.  She’s as neurotic as him and a know-it-all.
  16. . . . They’ve got chemistry but Pat tries to steer clear of his true feelings because he’s still married, loves his wife and wants to get back together.
  17. . . . Nevertheless a relationship develops.
  18. . . . The movie’s hilarious, the characters are believable and the story moves along at a fast pace.
  19. . . . Cooper and Lawrence are terrific.  I’m sure other actors would have killed to get those parts.
  20. . . . It’s up for Golden Gloves – er, Globes and probably Academies.
  21. Jimmy Kimmel’s on the cover of RollingStone dressed as a plumber down on his knees fixing a sink, tool belt around his waist, wrench in hand with his (pale) butt crack showing – not a pretty sight but somewhat funny.
  22. . . . The late-night talk show host moves to 11:35 nightly this coming week and therefore (finally) in direct competition with Leno and Letterman.
  23. . . . Everybody’s making a big deal of it.
  24. . . . Too bad he’s taking “Nightline’s” longstanding timeslot.  That show’s been #1 for a long time now.  People want the news at that hour, ABC discovered.
  25.  . . . But Nightline’s now relegated to the 12:35 graveyard (some would say).
  26. David Axelrod still doesn’t have his mustache.
  27. . . . The senior advisor to President Obama had it shaved off on TV in early December to help raise money for epilepsy.
  28. . . . I guess he doesn’t feel naked without it.
  29. . . . A new man.
  30. Diddy – or whatever his current name is – wears a nice blue-gray, two-buttoned suit in a full-page ad in The New York Times business section for his clothing line, Sean Jean, which is available at Macy’s.
  31. . . . It’s not hip-hoppy looking, looks sharp.
  32. . . . He does, however, have a pinky ring on the size of a rock.
  33. . . . The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.
  34. Sometimes Tim Tebow’s beard makes him look like Wolverine in “The X-Men” movies.
  35. . . . Like Hugh Jackman’s.
  36. . . . Tebow’s had a tough time with the New York Jets, unfair.
  37. . . . That was a bad move.   He was better off when he was with the Broncos and small-time.
  38. BUMPY ROAD:  Fiscal cliffs are multiplying.  More are down the pike – three are coming up, reported ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl last Wednesday on ABC World News.
  39. . . . Diane Sawyer reiterated and said, “Mega-cliff coming,”
  40. JUST ASKING.  Does every piece that Jenna Wolfe (“Weekend Today”) does have to be about her?
  41. . . . Sunday she did one about a psychic community in Florida that sits around Ouija boards that move and she, sitting there with the group and participating in the story – a news person she is not -- asks if it’s her Grandpa Max’s spirit in the room, for God’s sake.
  42. . . . What, is this her version of reality TV?
  43. . . . Coming out of her piece she told Lester Holt that she “sorta” believes it all.
  44. . . . Figures.
  45. . . . She has to participate in every story she does and NBC lets her get away with it.  (Guilty for dumping her for Erica Hill as co-host and thereby giving in to her requests; not want another Ann Curry situation?  Just speculating.
  46. FUNNY:  “DON’T SUFFER THE COUGHEQUENCES” says an ad for Robitussin.
  47. “Get ready for that (Redskins) ‘Battle with Seattle’ coming up in about seven hours,” said local News4 anchor Angie Goff in Washington.
  48. . . . It’s the big playoff game and naturally big news for D.C.
  49. . . . But does the coverage have to be so saturated, with you every time you turn around?  We know they play today at 4:30.
  50. . . . How about easing up on the hype, why dontcha?
  51. Singer Patti Page died last Tuesday. She may not be known to today’s record (download?) buyers but back in the 50s she sold BIG – 10 million copies of her “Tennessee Waltz (1950, Mercury Records) pop hit.
  52. . . . Some figures say she sold 100,000,000 records.
  53. . . . INTERESTING FACT.  She often did her own “overdubbing” or “double tracking” (singing along with herself, thereby enchancing the overall effect) and was perhaps the first to utilize the concept on her “Confess”single in 1948.  Other hits that featured ‘multiple Pattis’ were “Tennessee Waltz,” (1950) “(How Much is That) Doggie in the Window?” (1953) “Old Cape Cod” (1957), and others.
  54. . . . She was huge and sold like Michael Jackson decades before the King of Pop came into being.
  55. Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy with Kanye West made major news during the holidays  – like there was nothing else of any significance going on in the world.
  56. . . . Network news mentioned it.
  57. . . . Those were sad days.
  58. . . . ADVICE.  Get out of the gossip business and be straight news down the middle.  Don’t lower yourselves.
  59. . . . Enough of the frivolocity. (How do you like them beans?)
  60. WONDERING WHEN . . . we’ll see Chelsea Clinton, a correspondent for NBC News, do an explanatory and personal report – I can hear the network promos now -- about what happened to mommy (concussion, blood clot) from her intimate perspective.
  61. . . . She was sort of the family spokesperson when her mother was released from New York-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital last week and tweeted an update about it.
  62. . . . (Twitter is the new AP -- Associated Press -- I’m sorry to admit.)  What an insult.
  63. . . .  She’ll probably do the piece first for the “Today” show, followed by “Nightly News” and then on “Rock Center.”
  64. . . . They’ll bleed it for everydrop.
  65. . . . NBC wall-to-walls their coverage of everything.  It’s on all of the network’s ‘platforms.’
  66. . . . What else can Chelsea Clinton do?
  67. ASKING AGAIN.  How hideous is Debby Boone in that commercial (and infomercial) for Lifestyle Lift?
  68. . . . The ad starts out with the “TV host, Grammy winner and author” lip-synching to her 1977 hit, “You Light Up My Life.”
  69. . . . Not sure if it’s the intention but the video of her singing seems overexposed/blindingly bright and her gestures of her lip synching seem painful.
  70. . . . Testimonials attest to the facelift treatment as “seeing yourself the way you looked years ago.”
  71. . . . Everybody in it’s been pulled up and rearranged.
  72. . . . She’s just like daddy Pat (Boone) doing those misleading ads for reverse mortgages.
  73. . . . UH . . . “Daddy Cool”– The Rays, 1957, on Cameo Records – the flipside of “Silhouettes,” a million seller.


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