AUSTIN POWERS GOT HIS MOJO STOLEN SO IT AIN'T WORKING

1. . . . Dr. Evil's got it and Austin's not himself-No sex drive. He can't make it with Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham). And she was ready.
2. . . . FYI: Chicago bluesman Muddy Waters did Got My Mojo Working back in 1954. Considered a classic.
3. Is today the anniversary of the Watergate break-in?
4. Boy, Al Gore's got quite a spread down in Tennessee. He's jogging along what looks like a miles-long white fence on his property in a USA TODAY picture. Must be nice.
5. . . . Tipper Gore admitted to NBC's Claire Shipman a while back that hubby Al sleeps with no clothes on. That's a nice thing to know about a possible future president. But it's a reflection of trash news that everybody seems to be going after these days. Get the goods. Get 'em to break. Reveal personal things.
6. For me, the new Star Wars movie came and went. Just another in the series. And it ended abruptly, I thought.
7. Cleveland Park's Whatsa Bagel's toaster's been "Out of Order" since Monday. Unbelievable. Don't about half the people who buy bagels want them toasted? Is it that major a thing to go out a get a new one? A friend of mine was disgusted and said, "That's so Washington."
8. So that new Oxygen cable network's gonna have Candace Bergen do an interview show called Exhale. Pretty laughable, the atmosphere tie-in. Hope it's not filled with airheads. Ha Ha Ha.
9. SCARY. They say the high-powered batteries in cell phones when in use can produce sparks at gas stations. It's an electronic thing. So remember that when you pull up.
10. . . . NEW THING GOING ON. Cell phones ringing in lockers when their owners are on the gym floor working out. Now we gotta put up with that. (Reminds me of Candid Camera's talking mailbox back in the fifties.)
11. Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell's (Ginger Spice) solo album's called Schizophonic. Good title.
12. OBSERVED. Larry King twice referred to his wife, Shawn Southwick, in his Monday newspaper column as "the wife." Running cold on her already?
13. BOO BOO. The New York Post captioned a picture of ABC newsman Forrest Sawyer with "You might be a redneck if ..." in its TV section. Mistook him for Jeff Foxworthy.
14. The ads for Adam Sandler's Big Daddy movie show him and the little boy relieving themselves outside along a wall in public. That sets a good example.
15. Does the new Tarzan have ten fingers or are they clumped together to be fewer and more ape-ish?
16. Everybody doesn't necessarily love Raymond.
17. GOOD SASSY SONG: Shania Twain's That Don't Impress Me Much. She's got a producer (husband Robert John "Mutt" Lange) who knows how to make a good record. People like that are few and far between these days.
18. So how did Washington's Hechinger hardware stores come to bankruptcy? Two words: Bad Service.
19. BUG OFF. "Vaporizing flies with a bug zapper can spray a microbial mist up to six feet away"
20. That funny, Kramer-kind-of-crazy guy (Rhys Ifans) in Notting Hill who plays Hugh Grant's sloppy flatmate says he "can open an envelope with my arse." Nice job skill.
21. It sounds like the new Gumbel morning show's gonna be a two-hour network block instead of that stupid, ill-conceived net/local hybrid they came up with a couple years ago. Too much back and forth, that was. If you're gonna be in the league, be in the league.
22. Sarah Jessica Parker acts like a flake.
23. John Travolta doesn't look good with that short Caesar haircut and a goatee. Not complimentary.
24. . . . And is Barbra Streisand serious about him singing at her Las Vegas New Year's Eve gig? (You're The One That I Want ...)
25. HEY GALS! Are Capri pants the same as peddle pushers?
26. GREAT BOX SET I: Loud, Fast & Out Of Control. The Wild Sounds Of '50s Rock, from Rhino Records. A four CD collection of music "that was made for teenagers and scared the hell out of adults." Features Elvis, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, Bo Diddley and many, many more cuts of what parents back then called "the devil's music." Great, fun, and beautifully annotated.
27. GREAT BOX SET II: Happy Trails. The Roy Rogers Collection, also from Rhino. Three discs of the King of the Cowboys, with Dale Evans, Pat Buttram, Gabby Hays, The Sons of the Pioneers, and The Whippoorwills. Much from old radio and TV shows, plus other selections from his record output. Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Home On The Range, Git Along Little Dogies, I'm An Old Cowhand. Singing, yodeling. Great for whippersnappers.
28. CONVERSATE. Whether it's a word or not, people use it.
29. That upcoming new movie, The Haunting, with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones looks really dumb.
30. INTERESTING: Demi Moore is one of the producers of the new Austin Powers movie. Smart.
31. Liza Minnelli's singing in the new Jaguar car commercial is really stylish. Done in a sophisticated, over-interpretive, word-chewing and grunting way. Only she can do that.
32. Madonna looks better blonde than black. But neither's natural.
33. How much mileage did NBC get out of Ricky Martin's Today show appearance? It's been all over that network and everywhere else. All right already. NOTE TO DIRECTOR: Next time how about staying on the talent a little bit more, rather than constantly cutting away to the "vastness of the crowd in Rockefeller Center and senseless wide shots? And while you're at it, scale back on the confetti too. Hey, thanks.
34. Prince Edward looks like he wears lipstick.
35. If I see that clip of Tom Cruise kissing Nicole Kidman one more time ...
36. GOOD SLOGAN: "DirecTV. What are you looking at?"
37. Minnie Driver's got chipmunk cheeks.
38. Washington Post food critic Phyllis Richman said when she was a Girl Scout, her camp counselor fed her troup the rattlesnake she killed.. "It was delicious," said Richman.
39. . . . Food abuse?
40. STUPID: Those network IDs where people hold up a tacky sign that says PBS while birds fly around it. Cheesy
41. David Copperfield's hair is less bouffanty.
42. THEY'VE GOT COOTIES . . . Down at the Smithsonian. They're supposedly in an interactive, hands-on microbes exhibit exploring the world of fungi, bacteria, and viruses.
43. Ed Rollins gets the gals.
44. FUNNY WOMAN. British actress Patricia Routledge as Hetty Wainthropp in the those PBS Mystery! shows. She's a senior housewife-turned professional sleuth who's a little hefty, and British proper. A hoot.
45. Would somebody get those parking jockeys out of my neighborhood?
46. FYI: Jennifer Lopez's On the 6 album title refers to the train she used to take from the Bronx in New York to Manhattan to take dance and voice lessons and do auditions.
47. UH . . . Don't Sleep in the Subway – Petula Clark on Warner Bros., from 1967. Earlier this week in New York they thought someone was sleeping, but he was really dead. Sorry.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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