May 25, 2006

THE BIG STARS ARE SAYING GOODBYE TO KATIE COURIC

1. . . . Beyonce did on Tuesday morning and they showed video of Katie with her Knowles family eating gumbo. 
2. . . . And it gets political too.  Karen Hughes, formerly with the Bush White House and now  serving as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy with Condoleezza Rice, bid adieu to the morning anchor too.
3. . . . People from all walks of life.
4. . . . She’s outta there May 31 (Wednesday), her last day on the Today show.  That’ll give her time to prep for her role on the CBS Evening News which starts with her anchorship/stewardship in September.
5. Tony (Okungbowa) the British DJ from Ellen DeGeneres’s TV show, is leaving.  To pursue acting.  He’s done roles on The X Files, NYPD Blue, Arli$$ and has a movie coming out called Gate to Heaven.  He sounds plugged in to things so maybe he’ll make it.
6. . . . He’s been on Ellen since the show started in 2003.  Likable personality. Keeps the show, audience and Ellen hopping and bopping.
7. MADE ME PUKE:  Oprah Winfrey’s Legends Ball.  It was not to be believed but it was to be believed.  Peddling Oprah’s inspirational crap, that’s all it was. 
8. It looks like Madonna and her performing troupe of young studs on her Confessions tour are into straps (leather) – of all kinds.  Over the head, across the shoulders, crossing their torsos.  Things on their faces too, in addition to those microphones that wrap around the head.  Once again, the look is S&M-ish.  A co-worker of mine said it reminded him of that Hellraiser movie character who had all the pins in his head.  And some of the head gear they wear looks like a fencing mask, sorta Silence of the Lambs-ish too.
9. NEW OLD ALBUM.  Blue, from Diana Ross.  Leftover cuts from 35 years ago when she recorded her Lady Sings the Blues (1972) album from the movie of the same name, about legendary jazz/blues singer Billie Holiday.  Blue has received decent reviews.  I’m eager to hear it.  Available now at Starbucks exclusively (for five weeks) and in general release on June 20.  Legendary Motown producer/arranger Gil Askey did it.
10. Halle Berry’s still got the blue hair in the new X-Men: The Last Stand movie, but it’s a shorter cut than it was in the last adventure. 
11. TRENDY AND NOW HEALTHY TO DIP? They say that dipping bread in olive oil is a “healthier choice.”  The Bertolli folks say it may help lower heart disease risk when substituted for foods that are high in saturated fat.  Me personally?  I like to do it once in a while but I don’t want oil to always replace butter at my meals.  So there.
12. STILL CREDIBLE?  Of all news organizations, the BBC put the wrong man on TV.  Guy Goma from the Congo was herded onto the set in their news studio and then began to be questioned about a court case going on in London between the Beatles company, Apple Corps Ltd., and Apple Computers Inc., but … he turned out to be a job applicant for an IT (information technology) position at the BBC.  He was just waiting in the lobby for his job interview -- not the guest who had been booked to do the news segment interview on TV.   So when BBC presenter (as the Brits call them), Karen Bowerman, began to question him about the court case, Goma looked perplexed and made facial gestures.  He did begin answering but then was cut off because they finally realized that the wrong man was being interviewed.  So it was hilarious and somebody should be fired.
13. . . . Everybody should.
14. Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D) died on Tuesday and the soundbite that every news organization used that will follow him to the grave was when he told Sen. Dan Quayle (R-Indiana) back in a 1988 vice presidential debate, “ … you’re no Jack Kennedy,” referring to the former president, John F. Kennedy. 
15. . . . Bensten was also a Treasury secretary and had years of public service in government but, to many, he’ll be remembered for just telling somebody off.  So that’s what his career was reduced to, thanks to the media.
16. . . . I wonder how Dan Quayle feels now, being in the news again all over the place.  The moment in time wasn’t that complimentary for him.
17. . . . And wasn’t he the one who thought the word potato was spelled with an “e” at the end and said so once in front of a classroom of school children?  But hey, anybody could’ve made that mistake.  After all, it’s got an “s” in it when it’s plural and I’ve seen it misspelled like that many times in many places.
18. PREDATOR UPDATE:  To Catch a Predator, Dateline NBC’s hit gotcha public service news program, is being promo-ed on the network like a hot reality show.  Culprits caught on tape, nabbed by holier than thou “news” correspondent Chris Hansen.  All slickly packaged with a psyched-up announcer and gritty announce copy.  What’s next?
19. Al Gore’s face has gotten bigger with age.  Put on weight.  Years go by.  He’s out promoting his indie film, An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming.  It showed at Sundance (film festival) – what doesn’t? – and he’s making the media rounds to pitch it. 
20. . . . So will it be another March of the Penguins?
21. . . . Mr. Big Stuff noticed that Kim Delaney’s face got bigger too.  She was just in that NBC disaster movie 10.5: Apocalypse.  Used to be on NYPB Blue too.  Anyway, she’s got that Al Gore Effect too.
22. Bree Van De Camp (Marcia Cross) of Desperate Housweives was on CNN Tuesday, talking with Live From anchor Kyra Phillips.  Man, did she stand out in that newsroom.  Absolute movie star, that Bree/Marcia was.  Sparkling.  Anyway, she was there talking about the show but, I guess, the main reason she was there was to talk about her pet cause:  migraines.  She’s suffered but now it’s under control and she wants to help others.
23. . . . But she did stand out.
24. A STICKLER FOR PUNCTUATION.  Record producer T Bone Burnett (soundtracks:  Walk the Line, O Brother Where Art Thou) doesn’t use a period after the “T” in his name.  Why is that?  An affectation?
25. . . . I know, I know.  I need to get a life.  Can you help me?
26.  . . . He’s got his first solo album (sings, plays guitar) in 14 years, The True False Identity, coming out and people are curious and eager to hear it.
27. SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE.  They’ve now got an organization called International Cruise Victims which takes care of family members when there’s a man overboard.  ABC’s Jeffrey Kofman reported about it in his story about Daniel DiPiero of Canfield, Ohio, who disappeared from a Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas ship on May 15.
28. . . . Did disappearances ever happen on The Love Boat?
29. An alligator got into a house through a doggy door down in Ft. Lauderdale last week.  The woman took out her gun and shot it but then she was charged with illegal gun possession by the authorities.  So what’s more important: rescuing the woman or writing a ticket?  Something’s wrong there. 
30. Ace Hardware has white  cedar adirondack chairs on sale now for the Memorial Day weekend for $29.99.  Think they’re any good?  I want one.  I’ll e-mail John Madden.
31. Condoleezza Rice sported a relaxed ‘do on Fox News Sunday this past week.  Looks like she took a lesson from Oprah Winfrey who sometimes has her coif done like that:  fly-away-looking.  And her makeup was different too.  She actually was pretty foxy – but I don’t mean to  sound sexist.
32. “CUTTING THE CORD.”  Good title for a segment that consumer reporter Liz Crenshaw of News4 Washington did about whether people should end their home (landline) phone service in favor of just having a cell phone.  What to do and consider.  A lot of people are doing this lately, doing everything on their cells.  Make sense?
33. LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT:  It’s ViCente Fox of Mexico and NOT ViNcente Fox.  Somebody tell Doug McKelway of ABC7’s Good Morning Washington.  It’s an easy mistake to make but let’s get it right. 
34. Some movie reviewer in Washington’s City Paper, in writing his critique about Andy Garcia’s new movie (The Lost City) about Cuba in the 1950’s describes a bedroom scene between Garcia and co-star Ines Sastre thusly:  “In one post-coital moment, the couple lie in bed together, seemingly dressed for a Sears underwear spread.”  So I guess it seemed too posed or something.
35. . . . I never did think Andy Garcia could act.
36. American Idol finalist Taylor Hicks (“Soul Patrol,” he often chants) sang that Elton John song Levon on Tuesday night.  He likes that song and sang it before earlier in the competition.  The song mentions Jesus and has a line it that saying “born a pauper on Christmas day” and other religious references like that.  Is Levon in the Bible?  I never heard of him.  Is he in The Da Vinci Code too?  I’ll have to pay attention.
37. THE DA VINCI CODE.  Well done movie that, I hear, follows the book pretty well.  It visualizes the book, I would say.  But as a movie, it comes off as plodding.  It goes on and on and there’s a lot that’s covered but there’s not much pay-off as a movie should be, if you ask me.  Wasn’t exciting enough; I was in the mood for more.  But people went to see it last weekend when it opened and we’ll see if the interest keeps momentum or wanes fast.  The film has a built-in audience because of the book and that’s good for box office.
38. . . . Tom Hanks’s (who plays Robert Langdon in the film) hair doesn’t really get in the way in the movie.  He plays a professor and the hair style does seem credible, so maybe he did it for the role. 
39. . . . However, Hanks appears on the cover of the current Esquire magazine as “The Most Normal Guy in Hollywood” in a backyard barbecue scene, standing in front of the grill, and his hair’s still like that, only fuller.  Looks good, but enhanced, helped along.
40. Da Vinci Code book author Dan Brown says that the person sitting to the right of Jesus at The Last Supper is Mary Magdelene but scholars have always said the “fair-faced figure,” to quote Newsweek, is Saint John.  But the book and movie say he’s a she and that she also carried Jesus’s baby so there’s a bloodline and thus all the controversy.
41. . . . My co-inhabitor in the CURMUDGEON’S CORNER says that whoever it is in that Leonardo da Vinci painting might just be a waitress.  “After all, they were having dinner,” he commented.
42. SEPARATED AT BIRTH?  Keith Olbermann (MSNBC’s Countdown) and Mitt Romney (Governor of Massachusetts).  It’s the hair.
43. So how many years did it take for the U.S. Senate to make the official language of the United States … English?  Good God.
44. GET A BETTER TITLE.  Oliver Stone’s movie about the two last-surviving police officers at Ground Zero on  9/11, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena is called World Trade Center.  Boy, that’s original.
45. . . . And Stone better watch out because United 93, the movie that came out a month ago about the ill-fated flight that was taken down by terrorists in Pennsylvania, was a very realistic depiction of what might have happened and didn’t have any star names in it.  It seemed real. So that’s what Stone is up against, if you ask me.
46. Entertainment Tonight’s Mary Hart was in Cannes last week for the show and co-host Mark Steines was in LA.  When Mark was reporting the latest American Idol news, curious Mary very enthusiastically asked him, “Oh Mark, will you BlackBerry me as soon as you find out?”  That Mary.
47. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, went to a horse farm in Little Washington, Va., last weekend and frolicked in the pasture while owner Sally mounted a horse and went for a trot.  When it came time to go, the dog didn’t want to get back in the car so Sally had to force her.  Poor thing.
48. UH . . . I Don’t Know How to Love Him – From the Jesus Christ Superstar Broadway soundtrack album (1971), sung on that and in the film, by Yvonne Elliman who later had the hit If I Can’t Have You (1977) which was featured in the movie, Saturday Night Fever.  But Helen Reddy (I Am Woman) had a bigger commercial hit with Love Him (Capitol).  Enough for ya?  Are you Da Vince Coded out?