PFIZER WISHED EVERYONE HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

1. . . . In the name of Viagra. They're so blatant with that stuff. Isn't it a bit personal?
2. WEARS ON ME. Would somebody tell Bryant Gumbel to stop saying "Thank you so very much" all the time? Especially to Mark McEwen, CBS's Early Show now-weatherman/non- anchor. You know he hates the Gumb for taking his job.
3. One highly-paid early thirty-something internet exec at some company called razorfish told CBS's Bob Simon, "The receptionist at Yahoo is worth more than half the staff of 60 Minutes." (I can answer phones.)
4. Barry White's singing the praises of the new iMac laptop which uses The Maestro's 1977 song You Turned My Whole World Around. Sounds good to me.
5. . . . I don't like seeing inside those iMacs. They look Erector Set-ish, with gold wire around a big spool and all kinds of other things. Just cover it up. I don't care what's in it.
6. Being a millionaire isn't enough anymore. You gotta be multi. Fox knows that, and they got the ratings for their Who Wants to Marry ...
7. PROBABLY OLD NEWS BUT ... Rock singer/actor Rick Springfield and The Exorcist's Linda Blair dated for two years way back when, but things just didn't work out. Maybe it was her bad breath. Ha Ha Ha.
8. HAD IT WITH ... Wannabe famous restaurant people who tell reporters how much celebrities tip. It's nobody's business.
9. CONFUSING: Once And Again (ABC), Now And Again (CBS), and Time And Again (MSNBC).
10. Mary Tyler Moore's hair was very blonde in that Mary & Rhoda TV movie they did last week, but when they ran a PSA (Public Service Announcement) within the show on diabetes, Mary's hair was very dark brown. Where's the continuity person with the clip board?
11. Paul McCartney's on the cover of AARP's Modern Maturity magazine. They're trying to be a lot more with-it lately. I guess that's good cuz it makes us old-timers a little more up-to-date.
12. Bill Kristol's making the local rounds too. A couple weeks ago he was the sole guest on News7's Capital Sunday. He's been busy since leaving ABC's This Week.
13. They say newborns now will probably live into the next century. (Wrinkled and shriveled?)
14. PATHETIC: Mr. Blackwell.
15. Tom Cruise is seen wearing jockey-type underwear in the Magnolia movie he's in while talking to a woman TV interviewer whose cameraperson wasn't rolling while he was doing a shtick. He then puts his pants back on.
16. . . . That movie. Interesting. Vignette-y. Lots of characters whose lives intermingle, and some that don't. Things happening simultaneously. LA-ish. But TOO LONG. Like try almost three and a half hours. And the credits list ... You'd've thought the movie was Star Wars or something.
17. . . . And would somebody tell me what the significance of "raining frogs" means? It happened in Magnolia in a mega-way.
18. So Jane Fonda's gonna be a presenter at the Academy Awards. Won't she be treated like royalty.
19. CONFUSED AGAIN. Car Max and Blockbuster use the same yellow and blue colors. Is there a tie-in?
20. Is The Beach bombing? Let's see what it does the second week.
21. WANT TO HEAR ... Joni Mitchell's new album, Both Sides Now. (She wrote that, even though Judy Collins had the hit off it in 1968.) They say her voice has shockingly changed to a "craggy alto." Maybe due to years of smoking. Recorded with a 70-piece orchestra, it sounds like something worth checking out.
22. SICK OF . . . Hearing about American Beauty and Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening. The studio's doing a full-court press on it with the Academy Awards coming up. Movie wasn't that original. We've seen the concept before. Every generation does one. It was Stepford Wives-ish. Vacant.
23. This was a stranded traveller's soundbite at an airport one night last week on The CBS Evening News: "I'm pissed off." Surprised to hear that on a high journalism standards show like Dan Rather has. Maybe that's what he means when he constantly refers to the show as a hard-news broadcast.
24. My mother told me never to say that word in front of her and I didn't.
25. SAY THIS FIVE TIMES IN A ROW: Scalpicin Stops Scalp Stress Itch.
26. That Slomin's Shield commercial needs a better theme song. It's a big nothing at the end of the ad.
27. . . . It seems like the product might be some kind of prophylactic device or something, but it's really a house alarm system. Somebody oughta re-think that.
28. All News Radio 1500 in Washington, DC advertises that "WTOP reporters use CellularOne" phones. Is that right for a news organization to do?
29. NOTICED. When he's introduced on ABC, they say Dr. Tim Johnson; but when he signs off one of his reports, he just says Tim Johnson.
30. They're trying to mainstream couscous and there's a funny ad for it.
31. Dog coats seem to be big this year.
32. HARD TO BELIEVE. Patti LaBelle and her husband/manager of 30 years, Armstead Edwards, are separating. She has been low-key lately, both personally and commercially. Maybe she's ticked off at him business/career-wise.
33. That full-page ad that ran for Marc Anthony's Madison Square Garden concert in New York this past Saturday made him look like Frankenstein. Hideous.
34. THAT'S A NEW ONE ON ME: Singer Christina Aguilera's learning Spanish so she can release a Spanish-language album later this year. Usually it's the other way around. She does have pipes, but she needs to back off a few notches. To me, she's a cross between Taylor Dayne--remember her?--and Mariah Carey.
35. Linda Tripp makes $98,744 a year for the Defense Department's Defense Manpower Data Center in Virginia.
36. Why does Talk magazine come in plastic wrap? Dirty stuff in it?
37. LISTENING TO . . . Yes I Can! The Sammy Davis Jr. Story, 4-CD boxed set. Terrific. Cool and Hip, Man, as he would say. Great music, lyrics, orchestrations from "the world's greatest all-around entertainer." And the packaging ... Wow. (The cover has him standing in front of a sign with his name on the marquee for the Copa Room at the Sands hotel in Vegas, dressed in a white corduroy double-breasted suit with red turtleneck and pointed black suede low boot shoes Sixties Style. Finger-Snappin'. From Warner Bros. and Rhino Entertainment. Get it!
38. Push Polling. Now Uptick. What's that?
39. Lionel Richie's opening for Tina Turner's Twenty Four Seven World Tour. He used to headline. (Begins March 23 and runs through June 15)
40. UH . . . It's Gonna Work Out Fine - Ike & Tina Turner, on Sue Records. 1961. That's when she really wailed because Ike wanted her to.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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