January 6, 1999


      EVERYBODY'S DUMPED

  1. . . . By ABC, it seems. Kevin Newman, Lisa McRee off Good Morning America ... and now Debbie Matenopoulos off The View. Looks like the network means business.
  2. How wild looking is Nick Nolte these days? Hair all askew and craggy-faced. He's got that actor thing going on. His portrayal – in new movie Affliction – of a local cop who was abused in his childhood by a mean father, played by James Coburn, is pretty good. Up for awards.
  3. . . . Remember him in Rich Man, Poor Man?
  4. Remind me not to stand too close to the edge of the subway platform so some deranged person can push me off and decapitate me. It happened last week in New York.
  5. Kevin Spacey wears a yak wig in Hurlybury.
  6. . . . At least it's not made of dog or cat hair.
  7. FYI: Hurlybury means noisy disorder and confusion.
  8. An updated version of Love American Style is coming Saturday, February 20, on ABC. Hope it's more successful than Fantasy Island was.
  9. Are the men and women of the World War II generation really The Greatest Generation, as Tom Brokaw asserts in his best-selling book? That's quite a broad statement. Is one generation really better than another?
  10. DISTURBING PICTURE. In The New York Times, of a police officer chasing/whipping a young girl in Angola, trying to keep her away from food supplies the people there need. That was something to think about Christmas week while everybody was out packing the malls with money in their pockets.
  11. RUMOR: Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve next year will be on from 8pm to 4am because of – please excuse me for saying it – the millennium.
  12. We're millenniumed and 1999-ed out. And stop doing the countdown to it. It'll happen, and so what!
  13. An information navigator. Yeah, that's what I need.
  14. "I'm watching you CNN," says former Cheers actress Shelley Long. They use it as a network ID-type thing and they've got other personalites doing them too.
  15. The Star Wars prequels will be three, but there won't be any post-quels. Lucas says no, and he won't let anyone else do 'em either. His stamp only.
  16. OBSERVED: That NBC logo always on the bottom right of the TV screen now has the five Olympics circles underneath.
  17. COMING BACK. Leon Russell, who wrote This Masquerade, A Song For You and worked with Phil Spector, The Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, and Joe Cocker playing guitar and arranging and producing. He's got a blues album out called Face In The Crowd and is now touring. Been a long time. A lot of people're gonna check him out.
  18. Is Lucent Technologies part of AT&T? (Their ads with the guy talking while what he's saying is being printed out on a computer screen were really irritating.)
  19. WEIRD PICTURE. Of Clinton (with Kenneth Starr) on Time magazine's cover for its Men Of The Year yearender. Looked like his face was a mask propped up in front of his hairline. Didn't blend. Purposely done?
  20. QUELLED VOICE. Johnny Moore, of the great Drifters vocal group who recorded for legendary Atlantic Records, died last week on the way to a hospital in London. He was 64. He sang lead on Under The Boardwalk, I've Got Sand In My Shoes, and At The Club, and was one of primarily three leads the group used throughout its pop hits years.
  21. The Dixie Chicks are getting Grammy nominations already. They just came out last year.
  22. 60 Minutes II, coming in a week.
  23. . . . And please, let it happen without any more pontificating from Don Hewitt.
  24. I hope I remember to take Bayer aspirin during my next heart attack.
  25. Look for Ed's Head. (American Family Sweepstakes/January 31) Yeah, I'm gonna win that.
  26. NEW PRODUCT: Kleenex Cottonelle. Flushable, Moist Wipes to use with your regular toilet paper. So you'll feel clean and fresh. "Feeling cleaner is the bottom line," they say.
  27. . . . Well, you are talking about bottoms.
  28. NEVER KNEW ... That artist Al Hirshfield's drawings of people always have his daughter Nina's name somewhere in the caricature.
  29. The Fed Ex Bowl was brought to you by Tostitos.
  30. Jesse Ventura. Watch him change. He'll bland down.
  31. New Year's resolution? Made none.
  32. UNEXPECTED TURNABOUT. The National Society of Film Critics – who they? – named that George Clooney/Jennifer Lopez movie, Out Of Sight as best picture of 1998. Good. I saw it and thought it was fine. But it got panned by snooty critics and didn't make much when it was out.
  33. Is that Dunkin' Donuts in New York still in business after they took pictures of a little mouse sitting on top of a glazed donut, eating a bit of a coconut-covered one nearby? He was cute.
  34. . . . They also found mouse droppings in the racks.
  35. Haven't we had enough farewell concerts from The Judds? (They're planning another one at the end of this year around – uh oh, millennium time – in Phoenix.) Naomi says it'll be a "life-changing, symbolic event ..." May change you; ain't gonna change me.
  36. Lateline's got the buzz now.
  37. HOORAY FOR . . . Sylvester and Tweety Bird! They were the most popular postage stamp of 1998. Sold 38 million.
  38. UH . . . You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester, on Fantasy. 1978. That song made the dance floors burn.


rocci@roccifisch.com

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