June 23, 2005

      THEY FOUND A NEW TYPE OF MONKEY

1. . . . That's what, of all people, Christiane Amanpour reported on 60 Minutes Sunday. (Before long we won't have to designate which 60 Minutes we're talking about because the Wednesday edition of the franchise is going kaput.) She went down to a place called Madidi in the Bolivian Amazon of South America (last February, actually) and was guided through the rain forest by British biologist Rob Wallace who thinks he has found a new species of monkey that has never been seen before.
2. . . . Amanpour's report was unusual for her because she's always in the Middle East or somewhere else internationally doing world significance-type stories and never monkeying around.
3. . . . And in her story there was a large-size anteater in a tree that she and her guide were watching and she looked at the animal in semi-wonder and asked, "What does he eat?" And the guide said, "Ants." And as soon as Amanpour realized what she had asked, she held her hand up to her mouth as if to shut herself up and soon began to snicker. She realized what she said.. And the guide said, "That's why they're called anteaters." So she's got a sense of humor about herself.
4. Tom Cruise likes women taller than himself. Nicole (Kidman) was and now Katie (Holmes) is and I forget whether Mimi (Rogers) was. You don't hear much about her in the currently controversial Tom. (She was the first wife.)
5. . . . Many refer to him as TomKat. (Tom, Katie, I guess.)
6. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I'm tired of seeing belly buttons everywhere. Women, men, teenagers. Underwear ads, low-rise jeans, bathing suits. You couldn't pull clothes down further on your body than all these people in these ads do. You couldn't go down another notch without showing full genitalia. Doesn't anyone have a thing called modesty?
7. . . . I know, I know. I'm an old f_ _ t.
8. The Black Eyed Peas' current hit, Don't Phunk With My Heart (A&M), uses the hookline of I Wonder If I Take You Home by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam (their first hit) from 1983. It's catchy.
9. MR. AND MRS. SMITH. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's film in which they play "husband-and-wife hit men," to quote The Washington Post's Michael O'Sullivan. They both look good, of course, and the movie is serious eye candy. People say it's classy. They/it's got that look and is directed in a very forward style (whatever that means) that makes it interesting. But they hardly talk in it. He mumbles and she talks a bit but I wouldn't say the movie is written well. It's all action and wardrobe and guns. And more guns. Good examples, they set.
10. . . . Brad's got that bee-stung-looking lower lip thing going on and Angelina's look like the whole swarm stung hers.
11. The new Hummer 2 is Pre-Shrunk. That's what the billboard ads say for it. I guess you could say it was downsized. So how's this one on gas?
12. York brand heat pumps come in colors-- terra cotta being one of them. Looks nicer in the yard, I guess.
13. GERALDO RIVERA KEEPS HIS MUSTACHE. This due to Michael Jackson's exoneration. Geraldo said he'd shave it off if Jackson was found guilty. Darn, that would have been something to see. (And what did he know that we didn't?)
14. NEW FACE. Elisabeth Leamy, new consumer correspondent for ABC's Good Morning America. Anchor Robin Roberts welcomed her to the show over the weekend. So what about Greg Hunter?
15. MSNBC's got a Mika Brzezinski look-alike. I did a doubletake when I saw her (Mika left cable and has been at CBS for a good while now. She's been referred to as an up and comer and may have a role in the new CBS Evening News, whenever that happens.)
16. JUST ASKING. On PBS, what does NOVA stand for?
17. So will Aruba's tourist trade suffer because they can't find Natalee Holloway? I can't believe they still haven't found her. They need to get CSI or Without a Trace down there.
18. BEGS TO DIFFER. A reader/friend of mine didn't find my kidding about CNN's 25th anniversary very funny. I stated that when Wolf Blitzer had founder Ted Turner on and started asking about the beginning of the cable news network that I didn't care about that so much as hearing about his former wife Jane Fonda who's been in the news because of her book. My friend called her a "has-been exercise bulimic with a lot of anger issues" and a "passing fancy in the life of the biggest genius [Turner] in televison news." So I guess I was told off.
19. Michael Jackson looks more like LaToya than she does.
20. Mr. Big Stuff says there are so many co-hosts on the network morning shows now that it's like playing musical couches. It's true, GMA has Charlie and Diane and Robin and Tony and and fill-ins Bob and Bill and Kate and Ron and the Today show has Matt and Katie and Ann and Al and Natalie and now Alexis (Glick) and CBS's The Early Show has Harry and Julie and Hannah and Rene and Dave and Russ and Gretchen (but she left to go to Fox News Channel) and Ira Joe. Whew, got all that?
21. That Bolton guy (John R. ) who's trying to get the U.N. job reminds me of those Scrubbing Bubble characters that used to whisk around the bath tub in those old TV commercials.
22. Janet Jackson got a Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign over the weekend. What part of clothing did she strip off for that?
23. THEY TELL PEOPLE THEY'RE RUDE. Tom Cruise told that British TV guy who squirted him with water through a fake microphone that he was rude. And last week, Nicole Kidman told a photographer that he was rude when he told her to move so he could get a single shot of her. So they use the same words. Maybe they should get back together.
24. Lane Smith, 69, the actor who played Daily Planet newspaper editor in the ABC series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,died June 13 at his home in Los Angeles. He had ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. In other TV work he played Richard Nixon in The Final Days and did theatrical movies as well.
25. President Bush said this the other day: "I think of Iraq every day - every single day." And so he should.
26. Harry Smith of The Early Show has new glasses. They're a good choice for him-stylish but not trendy, like he's trying to be someone else. Why he's himself.
27. Ron Reagan of MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast actually had on a shirt with a collar two days in a row this week. Granted, it was just a Polo-type one but at least he's getting a little bit out of the mock turtleneck mode for a while. It's refreshing.
28. UPCOMING MOVIE TO SEE. March of the Penguins, a National Geographic feature film, "as told by Morgan Freeman." Takes place in Antaractica and it's all about Emperor penguins who journey on foot in single file to their traditional breeding grounds to find a mate and start a family. They say it's better than Winged Migration was.
29. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, barked at the next door neighbor when she saw him naked, peering out his window. She startled him and he ran off. Good. That'll teach him to quit gallivanting around nude. You never know who's watching.
30. GOOD QUOTE: "He's a lame duck and you're beginning to see the quacking," said NPR's Nina Totenberg about President Bush on last Sunday's Inside Washington. That's the Gordon Peterson-hosted show on Channel 7.
31. Mr. Highfalutin went to see the Toulouse Lautrec exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and found the artists's work to be "remarkable for its intensity and what it showed of bohemian life in Paris at the turn of the century." He and his companion, Blonde Bombshell, also found the paintings of prostitutes "very affecting."
32. . . . Must be nice to have the time to just loll around museums all day. What's he got that I don't?
33. That 80-year-old guy Edgar Ray Killen who just got convicted of manslaughter in Mississippi looks something like the Six Flags pitchman who does all that dancing around in those TV commercials for the theme park. Killen's pretty feisty too. He swatted at photographers and news reporters who got too close to him while he was being wheeled about near the courthouse.
34. Saturday Early Show co-host Gretchen Carlson is leaving CBS and heading to an anchor job at Fox News Channel. Last Saturday was her last show. She said she'd really miss Russ (Mitchell) , Ira Joe (Fisher) and thanked the hair and makeup and wardrobe people. It's too bad she's leaving now because the show's got chemistry with her and Russ and Ira Joe. It works, personality-wise. And that's important. They oughta do that cast lineup during the week and chuck the current multi-multi-host format that still doesn't work.
35. UH . . . Let's Work Together - Wilbert Harrison, 1970 on Sue Records. He was the one who did Kansas City.