January 26, 2004


      EVERYONE'S READY FOR SPRING

  1. . . . Too bad. It ain't around the corner. Winter just got here.
  2. Howard Dean plays guitar. Oh gee. Let's all sit down around him and have a hootenanny.
  3. John Kerry plays ice hockey. He looked pretty good on the ice.
  4. Does John Edwards ever not wear a suit? Loosen up.
  5. Wesley Clark - I mean, Wes Clark - still seems dressed up even though he isn't.
  6. Joe Lieberman does seem sincere.
  7. CHANGING ANCHORS. Channel 7's Good Morning Washington did. Gone from the show are Andrea McCarren and Elliott Francis and newly installed are Doug McKelway and newcomer to the station, Alison Starling. McCarren goes to investigative; Francis goes to weekend anchoring and weekly reporting. The station, however, still can't get the ratings. Is the network causing it?
  8. . . . And where's Debbie Jarvis on News4 on the weekends? She's been doing that show for years and is good at it. Been seeing Eun Yang lately - sometimes solo and sometimes with a plug-in co-anchor.
  9. Planters nuts uses the instrumental part of James Brown's Hot Pants (She Got To Use What She Got To Get What She Wants, 1971 on People Records) in its TV ads. Don't know what the connection is but nevertheless it's good to hear it. Smokin'.
  10. . . . They need to update Mr. Peanut. In a way it's vintage but in a way I'd like to see him redone. Maybe it's the spats.
  11. ALONG CAME POLLY. Funny flick. Ben Stiller is good and not overbearing. Jennifer Aniston plays Polly and does the character well - indecision-making and ditsy. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Ben's jerky pal, a washed-up actor. Alec Baldwin plays Ben's boss, a boisterous gung-ho type. Will & Grace's Debra Messing's in it. And Hank Azaria - who seems to show up everywhere - plays a hair-extensioned, French-accented island dweller who takes tourists out to scuba dive and who struts around either naked or bikini-clad on the beach. (Embarrasing role.) A light movie with funny situations.
  12. ABC's World News Tonight got a facelift. New open animation, different anchor desk, huge video screen behind, new side shot of anchor area. And they shoot Peter Jennings with a wider shot - not so close up. Looks good.
  13. A COUPLE WE'RE TIRED OF. Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. They're endorsing Wesley Clark. What do they know? The other day on CNN they acted like they didn't know anything.
  14. Mr. Highfalutin is a little ticked. His $93 seat at the MCI Centre to see Bette Midler Friday night was in the nosebleed section. He said she looked like an ant on stage from where he was sitting. And there wasn't even a big screen for him to see her close by. He says the show was good though, so he's not completely bitter.
  15. "Watch the show or I just might go back and do football," threatens Dennis Miller in ads for his new CNBC show, Dennis Miller. Would ABC take him back? (Doubt it.)
  16. New York's Bottom Line club has closed up. The legendary Greenwich Village cabaret"that's how it was designated on its marquee - had to vacate for failing to pay $185,000 in back rent. It was a launching pad for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, says The New York Times, and others such as Lou Reed, The Roches, Captain Beefheart and many others.
  17. INFURIATING. Simply buying a pair of jeans. It ain't simple. Too many choices now. Levi's alone has Original Fit, Regular Fit, Boot Cut, Relaxed Fit, Comfort Fit, and Loose Straight. And that's just one company. The others - Gap, Calvin Klein, Lucky Brand, Lee, Silver Tab, Diesel - have their own designations. It's unbelievable.
  18. . . . And everything now is below-the-waist or on-the-hip or low-rise. For guys, for crissakes.
  19. I want a pair of pants that fits me at the waist. I don't care about a sexy look.
  20. . . . Have I ranted enough on that?
  21. Did the rover break down up there because of Martians? Are they up there watching us play around with golf carts on their turf?
  22. "Polly's been making ethnic food lately so I throw up a lot," says Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly. He's got a sensitive stomach.
  23. Did the Pope say, "It is as it was" about Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, or not? I think the Vatican's doing damage control. Vice President Cheney's in Rome now. Maybe he can find out. Give him something to do.
  24. CANDIDATE FOR AN EXTREME MAKEOVER: Judy Dean.
  25. They call Monk the Defective Detective.
  26. Rolling Stone magazine's Rolling Stone Knows column says that autopsy reports say that Mama Cass Elliott died on July 29, 1974 from a heart attack - and not by choking on a ham sandwich - and that her heart "condition may have been exacerbated by an extreme yo-yo diet."
  27. RE-DO IT BECAUSE HE BLINKED. In the paid political announcement in which Wesley Clark says at the end of it, "I'll get us out of this mess (Iraq) and I won't get us into another one," the camera stays on him as the ad fades to black. But on the way there, he blinks. It sorta bothers me. I know it's natural to blink but in this case, I think it would be better if he didn't. Then it would be more perfect.
  28. I think the Queen Mary 2 cruise ship should use the Roman numeral II instead of the contemporary number 2. It would be more classy. Queen Mary II.
  29. Mr. Big Stuff likes My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, the million dollar wedding hoax reality show on Fox. He likes his table manners.
  30. Topher Grace, the guy on That 70s Show and in Win a Date With Tad Hamilton ... His name comes from the second half of Christopher. When he was a kid people he'd meet would call him Chris and he finished it by saying Topher. So that's how it happened.
  31. TOO FAST A CREDIT ROLL. On CBS News Sunday Morning's 25th anniversary broadcast. After an excellent retrospective of the program and over whooping cranes, the end credits ran really fast. They should have been slower on this particular show so people could see who does what. I'm surprised. (Show must've been timed wrong.)
  32. Actor Chuck Norris saw Mel Gibson's movie. He said that it was "so emotional and so impactful." Impactful? Oh well.
  33. Lisa Ling was one of the interviewers, along with Access Hollywood's Nancy O'Dell, on the Golden Globes Arrivals Special. She's the new anchor of National Geographic, right? What was she doing in Hollywood on the red carpet, gawking at Tom Cruise? She better put that safari jacket back on and get to Tanzania or somewhere.
  34. ABC's Charlie Gibson is not related to Mel Gibson and Charlie said so on World News Tonight last Thursday to dispel any doubt when he introduced a piece on the movie. (I didn't think so either.)
  35. You'd never know from seeing him on the air that MSNBC's Jerry Nachman had cancer. He died last week. He had his own show and often was called in to lend his expertise about a story on other programs on the cable network. He had experience in radio, television and print and it showed.
  36. That guy, Adnan Pachachi (Iraqi Governing Council) that was sitting with Laura Bush during the State of the Union looked like an aging Walter Mondale.
  37. What's Saddam doing now? Is he in a cell like Scott Peterson's? Does he have visitors? I need an update.
  38. THE GOLDEN GLOBES. Who gives a crap about ‘em? The organization's credibility has been questioned in the past and I'd like to know who really cares what they think and how qualified they are to judge. Everything's a precursor, a bellwether to the Academy Awards. Gimme a Break! But the show is good for stargazing. Better than the Oscars.
  39. . . . The announcer on the Globes telecast said this about the show: "More glitz, more glitter, more bling bling."
  40. Owner Sally sometimes calls Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, Hornalie because ... well, she sometimes acts like that.
  41. GRIPE. Chefs on morning TV shows are a dime a dozen. And don't ever talk to me about carmelized onions.
  42. I think I need to get exfoliated.
  43. UH . . . All I Need - The Temptations on Gordy, 1967.


rocci@roccifisch.com

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