Rocci Fisch

November 1, 2011

"I'D SPIT IN HIS FACE"

… So said Bernard Madoff's daughter-in-law (Stephanie Madoff Mack), in referring to her father-in-law and his Wall Street Ponzi-scheming ways, blaming him for her husband's (Mark Madoff) suicide.
…She told ABC's Chris Cuomo in an interview for 20/20 that she holds the elder Madoff "fully responsible for killing my husband …"
…And Mama Madoff (Ruth) revealed to Morley Safer on "60 Minutes" that she and hubby had planned to commit suicide together because, according to Mrs. Madoff, it was "horrendous, a horrible time," and that they received terrible phone calls and hate mail. "I just couldn't go on anymore," she told Safer who, incidentally, is still a great reporter and interviewer after all these years.
…MORE ON SAFER. He was serious in his demeanor, objective in his reporting and not emotional about it - a rare sight to see in these days of reporters who like to chum up to their subjects, sympathize with them and "feel their pain."
…"We took pills (Ambien) and woke up the next day," said Ruth, laughing it off, I guess, because their efforts were for naught and may have been frivolous.
…"It was very impulsive and I'm glad we woke up."
…Michael Jackson didn't.
…They should've given it more thought and asked Dr. Conrad Murray to FedEx some of his propofol up to the couple.
You'd think Steve Jobs was the Second Coming of Christ the way he was hailed after his death and the way the news media covered it. A bit excessive? Was/is he that important in the grand scheme of things and to people who are not clued into iPhones and Pads?
It seems like Dick Armey (former congressman (R-Tex.), House Majority Leader and current chairman of Freedom Works, a conservative non-profit organization that helps fund Tea Party activists) has borrowed John Boehner's (Speaker of the House) suntan. He was on ABC's This Week Sunday and looked like he just came in from the beach.
…I think Armey's got it locked up now. Boehner hasn't looked so dark in a while now, seems to have limited his trips to the tanning booth or laid off on the popular spray method.
HOW MANY BOOKS DOES HE HAVE IN HIM? Tom Brokaw is at it again with his latest, The Time of Our Lives: A Conversation About America, which has more long-phrasing in the subtitle and continues with: "who we are, where we've been, and where we need to go now to capture the American dream."
…HAWKING: "The Greatest Generation again."
…HAWKING: The book on Meet the Press.
…HAWKING: Shamelessly.
…JUST ASKING. Is it okay that Brokaw uses this title, since it's very close to that popular Paul Anka song, "The Times of Your Life" (United Artists Records, 1975), which was adopted by Kodak and used in an ad campaign?
…Should Anka sue?
My foot's sore. Is there an app for that?
Did Irish Spring soap get a sales boost because of all that Arab Spring stuff going on in the Middle East and North Africa?
Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, won't be going to the Breeders' Cup in Kentucky this weekend with owner Sally, who usually takes the pooch practically everywhere she goes, but since she was recently in Charleston, S.C. where she was treated like royalty, Sally thought it best that the canine take a break, sit this one out and stay home with another of her house pets, Bucky the cat.
…She's mad as a hornet.
CAMPAIGN BUNK. So can I just do my taxes on a postcard the next time Uncle Sam comes calling? I'll just tell them Rick Perry (R-Tex.) sent me and it's part of his flat-tax plan.
…Yeah buddy, good luck on that.
UNTYPICAL. George Will's hair, seen in a sound bite he gave to ABC correspondent David Kerley's political news piece for Sunday's World News show, was totally messed up, in disarray and a drastic departure from his normally neatly combed conservative coif.
…I was shocked. All I could do was stare at it.
…Looked like he got caught in a wind tunnel or something.
…Good for him. He let his hair down, loosened up a bit.
…He's human too.
It seemed unusual to see ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper in Afghanistan on Sunday reporting on the suicide bombing that killed 13 Americans in Kabul, filing reports for This Week and World News. He's usually on the White House North Lawn, always within earshot of the president.
…I wondered if Obama had made a secret overnight trip but that wasn't true; the chief exec was handing out Halloween candy to the kiddies outside the big house on Saturday and remained home on Sunday.
…As a regular viewer I was confused why Tapper was over there and not reporting on his regular politics beat.
…I could understand if it were ABC's Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz, who makes frequent trips to the trouble spot.
…So is Tapper now going to be reporting from foreign shores?
…Of course, there was no on-air explanation for it, which is typical.
SAD AND DISGUSTING. Those pictures of 49 slaughtered animals on the grounds of a wildlife preserve "maintained" by nutcase Terry Thompson, reminded me of the pictures of all those people who were died (drank the Kool-Aid) in the Jonestown [Guyana] Massacre back in 1978.
…In an act of defiance Thompson, with a long rap sheet for animal cruelty, weapons charges and run-ins with neighbors, let the "mature, very big and aggressive" animals out of their cages before committing suicide.
…He clocked out the easy way. The animals didn't.
…Animal trainer Jack Hanna said, "It's like Noah's Ark, like, wrecking right here in Zanesville, Ohio."
…He also said that this was "the 9/11 of the animal world" and will never forget it.
…Thank God they had the decency out there to properly bury the animals. They deserve it.
PROMO TEASE. "This family calls itself the real Seven Dwarfs. Next Anderson," says Anderson Cooper himself in a promo for his daily talk show which featured a family of little people (dwarfism) talking about their normal everyday lives.
…I guess you've really made it when you can talk about yourself in the third person.
…Oprah Winfrey used to do that in her promos with an off-camera voice ("… next Oprah," she'd say.)
…Countless others have done it too - and so will Katie Couric when her talk show starts in the fall of next year, eons away.
…They all play the same game, nothing original here.
…MORE ON OPRAH. She recently visited a synagogue in Brooklyn Heights (N.Y. ) to tape an episode for her new OWN network show, ‘Oprah's Next Chapter,' in which she toured a "mikveh" (a purifying, traditional bath used by female Hasidic members).
…But she didn't hop in the tub. (Maybe she didn't bring her bath salts.)
…According to the New York Post she told Rabbi Aaron Raskin that she "tries to be a channel to do God's will in the world."
…Jesus, what's next with her?
…Is she now an on-earth ‘profit' (prophet) or something?
…Get the sandals out.
…CATCH PHRASE. The ‘sell line' that accompanies the Anderson title of the show says, "Where the Conversation Begins."
…Nobody talks anymore. They have conversation. They're engaged and getting connected.
…Wonder what social invention caused that to happen.
"SNAPSHOTS IN TIME." That's how Michele Bachmann, Republican presidential candidate, referred to her drop in a new Iowa (Jan. 3 caucus) Poll. "We're not worried about the day-to-day snapshots [fluctuations]," she said Sunday on ABC's This Week.
…Good that she's got perspective on the whole thing. She's willing to wait until something happens rather than being led on the speculation trail by the ravenous headline-seeking press.
…WONDERING. Why late night TV host Jimmy Fallon is doing commercials for Capital One's cash reward card.
…Does he need more money in his wallet?
FYI: Singer/entertainer Toni Braxton ("Unbreak My Heart") told Joy Behar on her HLN show that " a little makeup makes you are what you ain't, referring to covering up the puffiness in her face due to having Lupus (autoimmune disease).
"EXPRESS YOURSELF." In case anyone's wondering about that funky song used in the current Coffee-mate creamer commercial and also in ads for Burger King, Hanes, Chrysler, Gatorade and Nike,plus four movies, including "Adams Family Values" and "Remember the Titans," it's a former 1970 Top Ten R&B hit by Charles Wright and the 103^rd Street Watts [Los Angeles] Rhythm Band.
…Madison Avenue knew a marketing tool when they heard one.
…The loose, extemporaneous-sounding cut was not only a hit back in the day but has become even more so 40 years later by being used to promote over 30 different products.
…The song itself was inspired when the group was performing another hit of theirs, "Do Your Thing," at a Texas A&M gig. When they got to the end of the song the college students kept clapping their hands and stomping their feet, wanting more.
…Wright responded by telling them to "Express Yourself," and made up the song on the spot.
…After the gig he went back to his hotel and started working on the song to polish it up, got on a plane the next day and had the song finished by 12 o'clock.
…The rest is history.
LOOKS DUMB. That newspaper/magazine ad for Louis Vuitton has one of its handbags hanging over shoulder of Angelina Jolie while she's sitting in a wooden boat in some river in Cambodia (of all places), pensively looking into the distance.
…Doing what? Wondering where her next child's gonna come from?
…Like someone would be out there in a lily pad laden waterway "wearing," as they say on those home shopping networks, a $700 "luxe designer" pocket book, for crissakes.
…UH… First I Look at the Purse - The Contours, on Gordy Records, 1965. Cleverly written and produced by Motown's Smokey Robinson.

rocci.fisch@gmail.com

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