May 22, 2012

 

IN THE COMPANY OF MEN

  1. . . . That’s how German Chancellor Angela Merkel found herself at Camp David over the weekend (and on Monday in Chicago for a NATO summit with 60 mostly-men world leaders) for a meeting of G-8 leaders to talk about the intertwined economies of the U.S, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia and the looming debt crisis.
  2. . . . She’s often the only woman in the room at all of those meetings she attends. Wonder if she’s lonely for female companionship.
  3. . . . She seems to be the only leader that President Obama kisses when they meet. All the others are handshakes, very hetero.
  4. . . . Merkel hugged British Prime Minister David Cameron. I don’t think they kissed.
  5. . . . (He and Obama seem to be buddies. They exercise together on treadmills and talked early Saturday morning about business, I guess.)
  6. . . . Merkel seems to hold her own.
  7. . . . This time out, however, she’s being criticized for her austerity measures to try to halt the crisis in Europe.
  8. . . . She’s not “pro-growth” enough, say President Obama and the other visiting countrymen.
  9. . . . But all the boys seem to still like her as they meet at the round table for serious talks, take walks in the idyllic woods and ride in golf carts.
  10. . . . What a life.
  11. NEW LOOK. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a goatee and gray hair now, as seen in an interview on Entertainment Tonight the other night. He’s in a new action flick with Sly Stallone called “The Tomb” so maybe he was just in character or a method acting.
  12. . . . He looks good in his more natural coloring, less fake and madeup.
  13. . . . Finally fessing up to his age?
  14. NAKED WOMAN ON HORSE. Real-life jockey Chantal Sutherland is posed on the back of a retired Thoroughbred racehorse in the current Vanity Fair, picture courtesy of Bo Derek (actress/photographer).
  15. . . . Derek also writes the caption that says Sutherland’s “position in the saddle is positively feline, very sensual, and when she makes her move to take the lead, she gets impossibly low on her horse’s back.”
  16. . . . Not in this picture. She’s riding high on the saddle with her butt in the air and sticking out, her arms hiding her upper torso assets and her lower private parts not visible.
  17. . . . Nothing full-frontal (darn).
  18. . . . It’s laughable.
  19. Would someone tell Chris Wallace (Fox News Sunday) to stop shilling for his wife and her cookbook (“Mr. Sunday’s Saturday Night Chicken”)? He did it again at the end of the show this past Sunday.
  20. . . . Is this a talk show or Paula Deen, for crissakes?
  21. NEW MOVIE: “Hysteria.” It’s about the invention of the electric vibrator, a risque topic. Takes place in 1880s London and is farce/comedic.
  22. . . . “Hysteria” was a term used back then to describe nymphomania, frigidity, depression and anxiety in women.
  23. . . . Rupert Everett (where’s he been?) plays inventor Edmund St. John-Smythe and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s in it.
  24. . . . According to Stephen Holden’s New York Times review the treatments shown in the movie “take place in a special chair in which small velvet curtains obscure the patient’s genitalia.”
  25. . . . What’s next? A movie about penile implants? Let’s make thing equal.
  26. READING. “The One: The Life and Music of James Brown,” a very well researched biography of the Godfather’s roots, early life, his fame, fortune, mishaps and, of course, his music.
  27. . . . Meticulously full of detail – not just a run-through of career highlights.
  28. . . . POINT OF INFORMATION. “The One” refers to the drummer’s beat in Brown’s music: the upbeat and not the downbeat: ONE two THREE four – not one TWO three FOUR.
  29. . . . “The upbeat is rich, the downbeat is poor. Stepping up proud only happens on the aggressive “One” - not the passive “Two,” and never on the lowdownbeat,” said Brown.
  30.  . . . As Mr. Brown, as he insisted to be called by reporters and interviewers, would ask the “fellas” in the band in the beginning of “Sex Machine”: “Can I count it off . . . ? One, two, three, four.”
  31. IF YOU ASK ME. Adam Lambert, season eight American Idol runner-up, looks like Kris Kardashian mama of the notorious family clan. Similar hairstyle and coloring.
  32. . . . He’s making the rounds now to promote “Trespassing,” his second album project.
  33. IF YOU ASK ME2. Hilary Rosen, the Democratic TV pundit who said Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life (and later apologized for it), looks like Chastity (now Chaz) Bono (remember her, er . . . him?).
  34. ENAMORED. “I never looked at a man’s bum for so long in all my life,” said Dancing With the Stars middle judge Len Goodman (in between Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli) about the Cuban model/actor hunk man William Levy, who danced the samba in tight white pants and open shirt with his partner Cheryl Burke, shimmying his behind several times during the performance.
  35. . . . Len seemed a bit stoked by it all.
  36. OBSERVED. Sharon Osbourne’s (judge on “America’s Got Talent” and member of “The Talk” women’s group) face is changing before my eyes, accented by newly-arrived bloated lips.
  37. . . . She looks like she got stung by a swarm of bees.
  38. Piers Morgan predicted that George Clooney will run for president.
  39. . . . “Whenever I see George Clooney, I always get a sneaking feeling that we may one day be considering him as a serious candidate for president.”
  40. . . . Good God, who hasn’t had that thought, what with his fund-raisers and all those trips to Washington in suits and dress shirts?
  41. . . . Morgan made his revelatory prediction while talking to Rob Reiner (Meathead in “All in the Family,” director, “Stand By Me,” “When Harry Met Sally”), a guest on his Piers Morgan Tonight show, who called Clooney “deep” and “articulate.”
  42. . . . Deep and articulate this.
  43. PADDING THE LAMPPOSTS. That’s what Diane Sawyer on ABC’s World News broadcast said they were doing in London because of all the talking/tweeting/texting people are doing on their cell phones while walking around town.
  44. . . . They’re tripping, bumping into things and even tumbling into water fountains while staring at their lighted screens.
  45. . . . The authorities are cushioning the blows.
  46. . . . They need some of that “technology” over on the other side of the pond.
  47. . . . I saw a young woman almost fall in the subway tracks the other morning. Someone yelled at her but she didn’t respond because she had her ear buds in.
  48. . . . But like a good Samaritan he shoved her further back on the platform.
  49. JUST ASKING. Who lays out Rebecca Brooks’s massive, curly red-haired mane?
  50. . . . The former CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World who was just arrested in the phone hacking scandal looks like Medusa.
  51. DRESSED TO IMPRESS? Thank God Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg didn’t wear a “hoodie” at his wedding Saturday. He actually was dressed in a suit and white shirt (like the political George Clooney) with a skinny tie that was loosened at the neck.
  52. . . . And Thank God2 that his bride (Priscilla Chan) wore something decent, respectable and traditional, unlike those women on TLC’s “Say Yes to the Dress” who exhibit their “assets” in strapless sexpot “gowns.”
  53. . . . Thank God3 that Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberrg wasn’t joined at Zuckerberg’s hip during the blessed event. She’s never far from his side.
  54. . . . A “klingon.”
  55. . . . Zuckerberg seems to have the same creative edge to him as Brad Pitt. He (Zucky) designed his wife’s wedding ring (a ruby) just like Pitt did Angelina’s (a diamond).
  56. . . . They both had a “vision.”
  57. . . . How nice.
  58. ABC has a pair of “exclusive primetime specials” coming up on June 29 and June 5 respectively: “The Jubilee Queen with Katie Couric” (Why does her name have to be in the title?) and “Concert for the Queen: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration,” -- both to commemorate Queen Elizabeth’s 60-year reign.
  59. . . . In a promo Couric is shown with shaking hands with Prince Harry.
  60. . . . Thank God4 she didn’t do a “kiss kiss.” That would be most inappropriate.
  61. Brian Williams sounded like he was saying a prayer at the end of his commencement speech on the Mall in Washington for George Washington University students.
  62. . . . He congratulated the graduates on “achieving something I never did.” (He didn’t finish.)
  63. . . . I felt sorry for him.
  64. . . . But he was given an honorary degree.
  65. . . . Not that big a deal.
  66. . . . Every network news anchor gets one of those each time they don a cap and gown.
  67.  . . . Those degrees are a dime a dozen.
  68. Tropical storm Alberto (VO5?) was brewing off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina on Sunday but now has fizzled out.
  69. . . . But the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore was at the ready, standing on the boardwalk, speculating about what is to come, the threat.
  70. . . . It’s always doomsday with him but NBC seems to like him. They put him on a lot.
  71. There’s an ad on TV for “goat cheese mashed potatoes” at one of Ruby Tuesdays (I think).
  72. . . . Eww. I’ll pass on that.
  73.  NOW MORE THAN EVER. “It’s Monday, May 14 and this is ‘NOW,’ says Alex Witt at the beginning of her daily political pundit/talk show on MSNBC. (‘NOW’ is the title of the show and, if I might add, not a good one.
  74. . . . How about “NOW and THEN”? Or wouldn’t that sound immediate enough?
  75. . . . And in a somewhat similar fashion Brooke Baldwin announces at the top of her CNN afternoon news show, “The news is ‘now.”
  76. . . . Why not just say “Here’s the news at the top of the hour?”
  77. . . . Not dramatic enough?
  78. SUPPORTIVE. Mommy and daddy accompany John Edwards every day to his trial in Greensboro, N.C. and are seen with him coming and going up and down the steps and into the court.
  79. . . . They’re up there in age but I guess they have to show solidarity for sonny boy.
  80. They say things come in “threes” and we’ve just seen it. The deaths of Chuck Brown, Donna Summer and  Robin Gibb -- all close to one another . But add two more recents: Whitney Houston in February and Jimmy Ellis of The Trammps in March.
  81. . . . DEDICATED UH’s . . . Bustin’ Loose – Chuck and the Soul Searchers, 1978 on Source Records; Heaven Knows – Donna and the Brooklyn Dreams, 1978 on Casablanca; How Deep Is Your Love – Robin and the Bee Gees, 1977 on RSO; Run to You – Whitney, 1993 on Arista; Hold Back the Night – Jimmy and the Trammps, 1978 on Atlantic.
  82. . . . They’re all in the pantheon now.


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