Rocci Fisch

January 31, 2007

YOU'D THINK 2007 WAS A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR OR SOMETHING

. . . What with Hillary Clinton out in Des Moines over the weekend, already worrying about the Democratic caucuses which don't happen until January of next year. Polls show she's not in the lead out there - John Edwards is, plus there's Barack Obama and former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack. She's big nationally but has to build up her regional appeal.
. . . All of the press is hyper already.
. . . Those Iowans are gonna have crowded living rooms. They like their candidates up close and personal, hunkerin' down with the locals in diners and roaming around barnyards.
. . . So she's got a lot to do.
Does Christie Brinkley's face hurt from smiling so much? All this divorce stuff. Coming out of court - smile. Out on the slopes out West with the Kennedys in Colorado - smile. What keeps her face from cracking?
. . . Give it up, get mad, show some real feeling and stop being a Stepford Former Wife, for cryin' out loud.
Arthur Murray Dance Studios are still around after all these years despite Murray's death in 1991. Their typical TV ads show couples ballroom dancing and swirling across the dance floor, loving life. But in one local ad where they offer a dance lesson for free as an incentive to join up for a class, they've got a typo on the screen. It says Complementary Dance Lesson. It should be Complimentary (with an i) which means "given free as a courtesy, " according the Merriam-Webster folks, and not complementary with an e which means "to fill out or complete something."
. . . So it spoiled the whole thing for me.
Old Spice, the old-time men's cologne and toiletry company, is getting a new lease on life. A different ad agency is now handling their sales account and is aiming for a younger demographic. The new catch phrase is Experience is Everything and one mag ad shows a reclining Faye Dunaway, lounging by a fire with the caption: "If your grandfather hadn't worn it, you wouldn't exist."
. . . That's what they say about the late sexy soul crooner Barry White: "Baby-making music," and that a lot of kids were conceived to the tune of "I've Got So Much To Give" or "Baby Blues. "
. . . So they want everybody to GET DOWN.
Actress/Actor Sally Field's having a good year. First those Boniva (once a month medicine for postmenopausal osteoporosis) commercials and now a hit ABC series, Brothers & Sisters, in which she plays the mom of five (I think) adult siblings (the Walker family, Calista Flockhart being one of them) now running their late father's business in California and managing their diverse contemporary lives.
THE PAINTED VEIL.
Romance movie with Ed Norton and Naomi Watts. Set in 1925 China with flashbacks to England, Norton plays Walter Fane, a microbiologist who volunteers to go to China to help control a cholera epidemic and takes along his unwilling wife Kitty (Watson) to get back at her because of an indiscretion she committed with businessman Charlie Townsend, played by Liev Schreiber. Based on W. Somerset Maugham's novel, the film explores their relationship and self-discovery living in troubled territory. Scenery exotic and beautiful.
. . . And the guy (Toby Jones) who played Truman Capote in the second movie (Infamous) last year about the writer is in it (good actor) and also Diana Rigg (The Avengers) who plays a mother superior type in an orphanage. (Boy, has she aged, but very good in the role.)
CBS's Saturday EARLY Show weatherman Ira Joe Fisher is back with a full beard and still writing backwards on the plexiglass weather map he stands behind, facing the camera. (Everything he does has to be backwards for us, the viewers, to see properly, got that?) This past weekend he drew a caricature of guest co-anchor and CBS White House correspondent Jim Axelrod. It's old-fashioned TV but I think it works and is a lot better than the ridiculous shenanigans of weekly weather guy Dave Price.
That picture of Scarlett Johansson as Cinderella rushing down the castle stairs before the clock strikes midnight and photographed by Annie Leibowitz (who else?) for Disney's Year of a Million Dreams 50th anniversary of their theme parks shows more cleavage than I remember from the classic animated flick. Where'd modesty go? This Cinderella looks great but her bodice is sure sexed up.
ALL IN THE FAMILY. Will Smith's, that is. His son, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, starred with dad in The Pursuit of Happyness and now his daughter Willow (Camille Reign Smith) is shooting scenes for daddy's next flick, I Am Legend, filming last week in New York. So it's in the bloodline.
. . . Smith plays last man on earth not infected by blood-thirsty vampires.
. . . JUST ASKING: Will they turn into child star brats?
A report in the New York Post said that reality TV star Kelly Osbourne's dream of becoming a Playboy model has ended. She said that despite her "full figure," she'd like to pose, that she'd go fully nude and that they'd have to do some air-brushing. Hugh Hefner, magazine founder, allegedly responded, "We don't airbrush to that extent." Ha Ha Ha.
FIRST, "MY BAD." NOW, "MY SAD." That said by former CNN news anchor Daryn Kagan, in speaking to The Washington Post about when she was informed by the network that her contract wasn't going to be renewed. "I had my sad," she said. But, according to the newspaper article, Kagan was always a spiritual person and decided to come up with the idea creating a positive-stories Web site (DarynKagan.com), went to a spa and that "helped me out of my sad."
. . . "Sad, Sad Girl ..." (Barbara Mason, 1965, on Arctic Records).
They say The Gap needs to get out of the hole. Sales are down and some say it needs to stop being everything for all people and become more niched, like Abercrombie & Fitch or Anthropologie, American Apparel, some of the currently hot youth stores. The company's being called anachronistic and critics say it should carry more name brands and not just Gap merchandise. Once upon a time they had it all but have you been to one lately? It seems all discombobulated to me. Stuff here, stuff there and I can't find a GD thing I want or need. The inventory's weird and has been. And the stores are a mess.
Paula Abdul is absolutely worthless now on the American Idol tryout shows. She does act like she's out of it, woozy, not focused. Simon and Randy are the ones that carry the show, along with some of the guest judges (songwriter Carol Bayer Sager was good last week). Paula thinks she's a major talent but she's done nothing but be a celebrity judge for the past five years.
. . . The whole tryout thing is bogus anyway - stupid people who want to get on TV and purposely insulting and dumb reactions on the part of the panel. Get this part of it over and bring on the competition. And you know the next cities they visit will have more of same.
. . . So it drags on.
RECYCLE. Dreamgirls, the movie based on the Broadway play is now being considered for a return to the stage. That would probably be a good idea in light of the success of the film and interest in the story. Revivals often do well so I'm sure this might happen.
. . . And rumors are that Jennifer Hudson, the former American Idol reject, may be chosen to duplicate her Effie film role for the stage, we'll see.
"JUST ASKING." That was CNN's Wolf Blitzer retort to Vice President Dick Cheney during their interview last week when Blitzer begged to differ with the VP's characterization of the situation in Iraq. Re Saddam Hussein, Cheney said that if he were still alive today "we'd have a terrible situation" and Wolf said, "But there is." And Cheney told him no, that that wasn't the case and that The Situation Room custodian seemed to be saying that the U.S. should "bail out." "I'm just asking," said Wolf. "No, you're not asking," said Dick.
. . . And the twain shall never meet.
Fantasia (Barrino) , last year's American Idol, needs to stop all that screaming. (She did a lot of it last Monday at Madison Square Garden in New York as part of Jamie Foxx's concert, according to The New York Times) It's not necessary. You don't have to do that to prove you've got soul.
. . . And while you're at it, you can tell Mary J. Blige the same thing. She's always moaning and wailing.
. . . And speaking of soul, Aretha Franklin was honored recently by the UNCF (United Negro College Fund) at the Apollo Theater for it's Evening of Stars fundraiser. There she was, sitting in the balcony dressed in a baby blue gown with feathers on it, looking like she was taking up three seats.
Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is getting her jealousy stirred up because owner Sally just bought a horse (named Just Charlie) and when Sally comes home from the barn, Hanalie looks very suspicious and then takes it out on poor Buddy, one of Sally's cats.
. . . So it's a menagerie.
NO LONGER SITTING-IN FOR ... News 4 Washington anchor/reporter Keith Garvin isn't. He said last weekend, "I no longer have to say 'sitting-in for' Eun Yang, back from having a beautiful son," referring to his morning sign-ons when Yang was away on maternity leave and Garvin was subbing for her. So Eun returned to her normal anchor chair (on the right) and Keith sat in the one (on the left) normally occupied by Shannon Bream, regular weekend anchor, but Garvin made no mention of Bream. So where was she and is she still on the show? Viewers want to know. They care about their anchors. And I do too, I want to know where everybody is and why they're there or not there.
. . . So there.
The snobbiness of Mr. Highfalutin came out again, this time at a relatively new Washington, D.C. hot spot restaurant (Acadiana) at lunch time one day last week. While noshing with office colleagues, he noticed that the waiter was chatting up members of the group, inserting himself in their conversations, offering his opinion on issues they were discussing, etc. Mr. HF did not curry to the familiarization and later remarked that "servants used to know their station in life." (And you think I'm critical.)
COLORED CONDOMS. New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Friden announced the other day that the city will continue to hand out condoms (18 million a year) to combat AIDS but this time they will come in colors that resemble the various city subway lines. He believes in branding and thinks this will increase use. Gee, colored condoms. What do people want them for, gonna make a bedroom video and get it on YouTube, for crissakes?
UH . . . I'm Gonna Make You Love Me --The Supremes and The Temptations, on Motown), 1967. They sang it on one of their NBC specials back in the day.

rocci@roccifisch.com