JANET JACKSON’S "COSTUME REVEAL"

1. . . . Her "decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals." Is that an inside industry term that performers use to describe a partial strip down? Maybe it goes on a lot. She said it so matter-of-factly, like anyone would know what she was talking about.
2. . . . Jackson’s pic is in the current Vanity Fair, the one that has that Michael Jackson Jesus juice/Jesus blood article. She’s made up/dressed up like singer Lena Horne who she’ll portray in an ABC TV movie scheduled for next year. Maybe by that time all the ruckus she caused at the Super Bowl will be forgotten. She does look like Lena, dressed in a gown that looks like it was painted on her.
3. Is Stockard Channing related to Carol Channing?
4. THERE IT IS AGAIN. Last week Random mentioned that Wesley Clark said at the end of one of his paid political ads, "I’m Wes Clark and I approve this message." Now John Kerry’s saying it at the end of his. Is this a new thing? Have I been somewhere else? Why do they say that? Maybe we should ask Mark Halperin, ABC News’s political director. He’d know.
5. Castor oil is made from castor beans and so is ricin, that powder substance they found on Capitol Hill last week. Do parents still give their kids castor oil for constipation? Remember the Little Rascals taking it?
6. MONSTER. The Charlize Theron movie about real-life prostitute and man killer Aileen ‘Lee’ Wuoronos. Theron is terrific and so is the movie. She supposedly gained 30 pounds for the role and that plus the makeup job make her practically unrecognizable as the beauty she really is. Christina Ricci plays her younger lesbian lover and she’s great. The dialogue seems natural. The film is much more than Theron’s makeup; her performance as a desperate character is jolting, cold, brutal and loving and needy. Critics do say, though, that it’s a Hollywood interpretation of the Wuoronos story.
7. . . . There’s a documentary coming soon called Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (It’s the second doc. First one done in 1992.) and a book that’s out, Lethal Intent.
8. DISAPPOINTED . . . In the Burt Bacharach/Ronald Isley album, Isley Meets Bacharach. Everything’s too slow. Ronnie sounds great as he always does and the album spotlights him more than the music and arrangements of Bacharach. But there’s little variation in the tempo of the cuts. The album Bacharach made with Elvis Costello (Painted >From Memory) has much more life.
9. Adam Sandler’s bulldog Meatball died.
10. UNBUTTON THE JACKET, WILL YA? Sen. John Edwards always has the top button of his suit jacket buttoned and it looks stupid when he raises his hands up in the air to a crowd and it rides up on him. Just undo the button and look more less buttoned up, for crissakes.
11. Cialis, the new erectile dysfunction drug, asks the question, "When the moment is right, will you be ready?" They give you 36 hours to find out.
12. Jonathan Karl, congressional correspondent for CNN, left cable and is now at ABC News. He was on World News Tonight a couple times last week with reports from Capitol Hill and the State Department.
13. Long-time Washington dance instructor Vic Daumit died of a heart attack on Feb. 2. He was 85 and taught dancing for 55 years - ballroom, mambo, cha-cha, merengue, salsa. Had a studio in Cleveland Park and was teaching there the morning of the day he died. He had this to say about that dumb Macarena dance: "It’s the kind of thing a child could teach, and people just looked so pathetic doing it. Amen.
14. Now Oprah’s getting into the reality show thing with Oprah’s Pop Star Challenge. They pick one winner from 15,000 entrants. That’s all I know.
15. OUCH. That breast plate that Janet Jackson had on ... Was It pierced through? If it was, does that do any damage to the uh ... (rhymes with Mr. Whipple)?
16. Gretchen Carlson and Russ Mitchell make a good pair on the CBS Saturday Early Show. Both are low-key and so is the program. It’s got some good regular features too, including their Second Cup Cafe which regularly spotlights new and emerging musical acts. Too bad they can’t be on during the week. Anything would be better than that Harry Smith and His Girls show.
17. I WAS WRONG. I mentioned in a previous Random that Planters Nuts uses the instrumental track to James Brown’s Hot Pantssong in its current TV ad. Not true. They use the whole thing - vocal and instrumental. Sorry. "I like the Hot Pants ..."
18. Where in the World is Matt Lauer? started today and weekend Today will have its own version of it called Where in the Heck are Campbell (Brown) & Lester (Holt). Franchising?
19. Did Spalding Gray commit suicide by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry? That’s what a lot of people think. Are they looking for the body?
20. Some people at my work were singing Hang On Sushi instead of Hang On Sloopy the other day. Maybe because it was lunch time and they were hungry and an Asian restaurant was down the street.
21. So is President Bush gonna give Face the Nation and This Week With George Stephanopoulos and maybe CNN’s Late Edition a one-on-one interview like he gave Meet the Press and Tim Russert? Will Bush make ‘em all equal? Doubt it.
22. RAPTRESS? That’s TV Guide lingo for what Queen Latifah is.
23. "I don’t really wanna be on the news. I just wanna get my baby." That’s what a mother outside Ballou High School in Washington, D.C. said to a News4 reporter after a shooting last week. I guess she ended that conversation. Good for her.
24. Martha Stewart never looked so good. Going into court in New York. Nice coats, colorful scarves, more makeup. But her hair’s always a mess.
25. Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog) has cute front teeth. Six more weeks of winter. (That doesn’t seem that long.) Saw his shadow.
26. OH NO! BRAD PITT WITH A BRITISH ACCENT. That’s what he has in his upcoming movie Troy. Heard it in the trailer (preview). He was angry in the scene I saw, brandishing his sword and shield. Sounded okay but didn’t hear that much of it. He better be able to carry it off or people’re really gonna make fun of it and kill the film. Wonder if Gwyneth gave him lessons.
27. Does Harry Connick Jr. naturally sound like Frank Sinatra or does he put it on?
28. "Hand-drawn animation is on life support." That’s what CBS’s Bill Whitaker said in a feature he did on Sunday Morning about Disney and Pixar, the Finding Nemo folks. Pixar has raised the bar with modern technology.
29. Are the days getting longer now?
30. Al Sharpton needs to get a new do and distance himself from James Brown. That’s who he got it from. But not the mug shot James Brown.
31. John Kerry is dropping weight. Looks like his face is caving in. Needs to bulk up. Take some Ensure or something while you’re stumping.
32. A friend of mine said she didn’t know why Johnny Depp got an Academy Award nomination for his Pirates of Penzance, er ... Pirates of the Caribbean movie. She thought it was like a high school performance. "The movie was alright but that’s about all."
33. ...THE MOVIE WAS ALRIGHT BUT THAT’S ABOUT ALL. That’s the way I felt about that Angela Lansbury TV movie, The Blackwater Lightship.
34. SNAKES USED TO HAVE LEGS. According to study to be published in Biology Letters, the earth’s first snakes lived on land and not in the ocean. "... snakes evolved on land, losing their limbs as they adapted to a burrowing lifestyle." Not appealing.
35. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is back home from the spa now that owner Sally has returned from Las Vegas.
36. POOR CHOICE. Celine Dion singing Luther Vandross’s Dance With My Father at the Grammys. I’m not saying that because of the audio problems at the beginning either. First off, a man should’ve been chosen to sing that song and secondly, her singing of it was nothing special even though she laid on the fake emotion like she so often does.
37. Mr. Big Stuff asks this question: "Who is Pete in the expression, ‘for Pete’s sake’?"
38. UH . . . Big Boy Pete - The Olympics on Arvee Records. 1960. They used to do The Slop to it.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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