June 22, 2006

YOU KNOW IT'S SUMMER WHEN JOHNNY DEPP'S ON THE COVER OF NEWSWEEK

1. . . . Guess there’s not much else to cover in the news.  It is Newsweek.  But I guess it’s time for another Pirates of the Caribbean movie (2) and then later there’s 3 to plug and even news junkies, I guess, like a summer diversion.   
2. . . . So news is whatever people deem it to be.  Some of it’s hard and some of it’s soft.
3. Juju Chang of ABC News reports that the latest thing is machosexuals, macho libre, if you will.  This, obviously, contrasts with the preening girly mahn metrosexual.  So what’s next?
4. Campbell Brown is subbing for Ann Curry for the next couple weeks as co-host of the Today show.  Ann will do the news as she was destined.
5. . . . Natalie Morales has been exiled to co-hosting the weekend edition but she still appears during the week.  She works all over the clock. 
6. . . . That Today show … They’ve got so much bench strength.
7. . . . And it seems they’re phasing in a new face to deliver the news.  Michelle Kosinski was featured this past Saturday at the news desk.  She’s blonde.
8. . . . There’s always somebody new coming up.
9. New White House spokesman Tony Snow’s been getting a lot of air time lately -- back on the Sunday talk shows from whence he came.  But now he’s on the other side of the panel as a guest.  He appeared on three of ‘em last weekend -- Fox News Sunday, Face the Nation and Late Edition. 
10. . . . If you can’t get the president to do it, then get Tony.
11. SIBERIAN THROAT SINGERS.  Yes, that’s right.  The Today show featured them opening up their 8:30 hour on Monday.  Unusual.  They sound like they’re about to throw up. 
12. Cher was in Washington last week to attend a press conference and hearing on Capitol Hill about helmet safety (Operation Helmet) for the troops in Iraq.  It’s her cause.  (On Memorial Day she called in to C-SPAN to talk about it.)
13. . . . In some of the pictures she looked pretty good and in others she didn’t.
14. . . . She likes the news business. 
15. . . . And the other night she appeared on Anderson Cooper’s 360 show to talk about the troops.
16. . . . Anderson likes to interview celebrities.
17. Nobody could be more boring to me than Paul Simon.  Can somebody give that guy a jolt?  Everybody’s raving about his new album, Surprise, produced by Brian Eno.  It’s no big deal.  And if I hear that Gracelandhumming chants thing one more time, I’ll go nuts.  His sound needs to be harder;  everything’s too mild and unwild.  Hit me with something and stop being so sensitive.
18. A co-worker of mine remarked that she liked that New Attitude song that’s used in those ads Patti LaBelle does for OneTouch glucose monitoring systems.  She never heard of her before the commercial, didn’t know who she was.  Good God, what generation am I from?
19. CONFUSING AND COPPING.  The paper advertisements for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary about global warming, are.  The movie poster shows penguins a la March of the Penguins, another very successful indie movie. And underneath the Inconvenient Truth title is the warning:  “We’re all on thin ice.”  Why this?  Gore’s movie’s not about penguins.   Can’t they get their own artwork?  Do they think they’re fooling people?  They’re glomming on.  It’s misleading.      
20. FYI:  Katie Couric debuts on The CBS Evening News on Tuesday, Sept. 5 (day after Labor Day).  So we’ll see what happens.
21. Gwyneth Paltrow’s the model/spokesperson for Estee Lauder’s Pure White Linen, “The New Fragrance To Live In All Year Long.”  She looks so wistful and innocent.  (REACTION: Gag)
22. WHO ARE YOU SICK OF MORE?  Pink or Gwen Stefani?
23. Rump shaker Shakira’s latest album and tour is called Oral Fixation, after her Oral Fixation albums.  The first one was Fijacion Oral, Vol.  1 and the next one had an English title, Oral Fixation, Vo.  2.  So she’s got a fixation. 
24. BAD CALL GETS THROUGH.  QVC program host Lisa Robertson got some unwanted advice from a viewer who called in and went right into criticizing the way the popular host’s eyebrows looked black and her hair was another color and how it looked awful.  Like the professional that she is, she sloughed it off, thanked the caller and admitted that she does use eyebrow pencil and does color her hair and sounded proud of it.
25. . . . Fire the producer.
26. I want a dog like that Belle Weaver beagle to hang out at my house and call 911 for me if something happens.  She’s a hero.  (Trained dog saved owner’s life who had diabetic seizure and lay unconscious on kitchen floor  by biting down on owner Kevin Weaver’s cell phone which triggered a call to the emergency number.  People at 911 had enough concern about it to send over a rescue squad.)
27. . . . Dogs are better than some lousy, no-good humans I know.
28. “I thought she was funny,” said NBC’s Campbell Brown about Connie Chung’s  “singing” farewell song that she performed in a white, tight gown atop a piano, slinging a microphone like a nightclub chanteuse.  It was her swan song for the cancellation of her and her hub’s (Maury Povich) MSNBC cable show (Weekends with Maury & Connie). 
29. . . . She sang Bob Hope’s signature song, Thanks for the Memory.  The whole thing ran two minutes and 48 seconds.  Much too long.  She milked it.
30. . . . It was pathetic.
31. . . . Credibility is being lost.
32. Do you think the Pussycat Dolls are talented?
33. Mr. Big Stuff likes to make fun of Verdine White, bass player for Earth, Wind & Fire.  He’s  the one who always seems to dress in white and has all that long shiny, swooping hair that, Mr. Big Stuff thinks, is so ‘70s.  MBS wants an update.  Like it’s 40 years later now.  .
34. . . . Last Friday, musical entertainment day for many of the morning shows, EWF was on the Today show and sounded pretty good after all these years.  Prince, who used to go by the moniker, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, showed up on Good Morning America and also presented singer/tigress Tamar.   And on the CBS Early Show … they had bobbleheads.  That’s what I saw. 
35. . . . So sometimes they don’t care what the competition is doing.
36. The new Superman (Superman Returns; opens June 28), Brandon Routh, pronounces his last name like South, just FYI.   Also, the movie has some 3D scenes that will be shown on several IMAX systems throughout the world.
37. . . . Those soft, pliable-looking leather boots he wears in the movie look ridiculous – like tight-fitting galoshes or those sock slippers little kids wear with their jammies.  And a co-worker of mine said his newly designed costume looked like one of those full body leotards dancers wear.  So what’s the movie, Swan Lake?
38. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, was on the road again with owner Sally last weekend.  This time it was New York where the hotel had a specialty bed for her (the dog) and treats provided.  She (the dog) met Larry King in the elevator and took a walk in Central Park.
39. . . . So it’s a dog’s life.
40. UH . . . Walking the Dog – Rufus Thomas, on Stax, 1964.