March 21, 2005

      A DESPERATE HOUSWIFE HUSBAND WEARS AN ANKLE MONITOR

1. . . . Yeah, just like Martha Stewart. He's under house arrest too and if he goes more than 100 feet away from the base station in the living room a signal goes to the police.
2. . . . That would be Gabrielle's hubby Carlo (Ricardo Antonio Chavira), who just got out of prison too.
3. Dateline's Stone Phillips has his hair much shorter. It's this side of a buzz cut. He seemed to like interviewing Drew Barrymore Sunday night.
4. A Current Affair is back this week and airs weeknights at 11 on Fox, starting tonight. Sportscaster Tim Green is the host. God knows what they're gonna unearth. As if there's not enough tabloid garbage already on TV already.
5. Those DaVinci porcelain veneers they give to all the Extreme Makeover candidates on ABC make the teeth too big. They look fake.
6. Terri Schiavo looks like Liza Minnelli in one of the still pictures they've shown.
7. CRUDE WRITING. TV Guide says this about Marg Helgenberger's character: "CSI is keeping its promise to give Catherine less forensics and more fornication." Jeez.
8. Free man Robert Blake said this outside the courthouse, referring to those who accused him of killing his wife: "They're all liars and about half of them are commode scum."
9. . . . Barbara Walters will interview Blake live on Good Morning America Tuesday. She's gonna sub for Diane Sawyer a couple days this week.
10. The guy sitting behind Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) one day last week during the House Government Reform Committee's hearings on steroid use in baseball looked like Ashton Kutcher. The kid looked goofy at times and I thought he was gonna punk somebody.
11. . . . Why did Mark McGwire even testify? He was a broken record. "I'm not here to discuss the past." John McCain said on This Week that the first thing he thought the baseball player should do was get a new lawyer. Amen.
12. Terri Schiavo's parents say she's not a house plant.
13. The Ten Commandments was on this past Saturday night. Why then? It's always on on Easter Sunday. That's not ‘til next week. Did somebody make a mistake?
14. I did a double-take when I saw a picture of Suzanne Pleshette (with Bob Newhart) at the TV Land Awards. I barely recognized her. Her hair looks white and short and she's heavy on the eye makeup. I don't know if I approve.
15. THE UPSIDE OF ANGER. Odd movie title. Joan Allen and Kevin Costner are neighbors who hook up after her husband leaves her. They both drink a lot and become buddies and then more. She's highfalutin and he's a low-key, scuzzy-looking retired baseball player who looks like a handyman. It's a good date movie.
16. FABIO'S OUT / NIKOS IS IN. Yeah, they changed the pitchman for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. This time he's Greek, black hair.
17. . . . Looks like Fabio's not a blonde anymore. His new look was spotted in a picture promoting the Oxygen network's new reality series, Mr. Romance. His hair looked droopy, mousy brown but he was on a beautiful white horse like they do on those romance novel book covers.
18. Andrea Brody, that new News4 Washington weekend sports anchor, needs to cover up a little. Her blouse was dipping down a bit this past Sunday morning.
19. JAMIE FOXX. Okay, so what're you gonna do next? (Foxx's real name is Eric Marlon Bishop, I'm told, by a somewhat reliable source.)
20. The cherry blossoms are budding. Bud, bud, bud.
21. Somebody wrote into washingtonpost.com's Dr. Gridlock discussion and complained about road construction and potholes in suburban Maryland. He/she said it "made travel on the road like being in a covered wagon in the olden days." I believe it.
22. My cousin thinks Condoleezza Rice needs to go to an orthodontist to get that gap in her teeth filled up.
23. Confessed child killer John Couey "scooted" into court Sunday to be charged for kidnapping and murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. That's how CNN's Sarah Dorsey described it and it was accurate because he was in shackles. So he did the famous dance that prisoners often do - The Shackle Walk. And Lunsford's dad looked straight into the camera and said to Couey, "I hope you rot in hell."
24. Diane Sawyer had her dog Leila on Good Morning America last Friday. She looks like she's one of those King Charles spaniels. Sawyer said she fetches nothing.
25. One reader of washingtonpost.com thought Natalie Portman was named to a high government post when he saw this headline on the homepage: Portman Selected as Trade Representative. It wasn't Natalie though; it was a Rep. Rob Portman. Oh well ...
26. RUN INTO THE GROUND. I think we've sufficiently HAD IT with hearing K.C. & The Sunshine Band's Shake, Shake, Shake (Shake Your Booty) in TV commercials. The latest one to use it is Fidelity Investments. And that goes for Boogie Shoes and That's The Way (I Like It) too. Enough Already.
27. Scott Peterson has lost weight. He looked thinner in his orange jump suit on the way to San Quentin. Oh, and he was doing the Shackle Walk too.
28. Who cares about the Today show's Studio 1-A or Fox News Channel's Studio B w/ Shepard Smith or Entertainment Tonight's Stage 28? Does this designation mean anything to anybody? No.
29. A Peter Pan sequel is going to be written. I bet Michael Jackson's excited about that.
30. Kweisi Mfume didn't waste any time going for Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) Senate seat. He's got signs made up and everything already. (He is from Baltimore though.)
31. Mr. Big Stuff says he knows why Michael Jackson was in a bad way and showed up for court late and in his pajama bottoms last week. "He forgot to take his Flintstones Chewables."
32. JUST WHEN THE CAREER GETS HOT, THE MARRIAGE GOES KAPUT. Sandra Oh, one of the stars from Sideways who's also starring in ABC's upcoming med series, Grey's Anatomy, is getting separated from husband Alexander Payne who directed Sideways. Married two years. Maybe they got tired of living/working together. Bad combination.
33. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, got a great big bone for a treat Sunday night. She's been good.
34. SOUL GREAT DIES. Lyn Collins (56), the Female Preacher, died March 13, at a hospital in Pasadena, Calif., of cardiac arrhythmia. She joined James Brown's traveling revue in 1969 and he gave her the nickname which she certainly was. Her Think (About It) single (1972) was three minutes and twenty-one seconds of James Brown-produced raw soul power with the gospel wailing of Collins taking the lead over his tight band. Terrific. "It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight," was the refrain sampled from the soul classic on Rob Base and D.J. E-Z Rock's hip-hop hit and now classic It Takes Two. That woman could testify.
35. Hush Puppies make sandals now. They're still trying to get over their nerdy image.
36. SHE GETS AROUND. The Virgin Mary. This time she's on the side of a pot roast pan. Looks like a rust spot to me. So Susan McGuinness of Dorchester, Mass., says she's not gonna put the pan in the dishwasher; she's gonna see how much she can get for it on eBay. Of course.
37. Did Michael Jackson really hurt his back? He's walking slow again.
38. JOHN STAMOS. A little too hip for his own good. Jake in Charge is slipping. People aren't tuning in.
39. UH . . . Just a Little Misunderstanding - The Contours on Gordy, 1966.