November 22, 2006

“LET THERE BE PEACE ON EARTH …

1. . . . And let it begin with us.  Let the healing begin.,” said new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, after she announced that Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.) was to be the new majority leader, defeating her personal fav, the blustery John Murtha (Pa.), and giving in to the vote.
2. . . . What , does she think she’s Christ on the cross or something?
3. J.Lo looked like a 1920’s flapper with that dumb bucket hat on over in Italy last weekend at the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes wedding.  Geesh.
4. . . . The official wedding photo was credited to Rogers & Cowan, a big time PR agency with offices in New York, LA and London.  Who else?  The whole stupid thing has been a PR gimmick and people are sick of it.
5. . . . Jim Carrey, arriving by car with his dazzling blonde date Jenny McCarthy, looked like a maid -- with his hair long and parted to the side and close to his head.  Reminded me of Ruth Buzzi from Laugh-In, for crissakes.  And in the two-shot pic of the couple they looked like two women sitting there, smiling for the cameras.
6. Someone wrote in to a washingtonpost.com online chat that they thought the actor, James Cromwell (Babe), who played Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband in The Queen didn’t have a believable English accent, thought it was “distinctly American” and found it “disconcerting when he spoke.”
7. BOTCHED JOKE.  That phrase will follow John Kerry to his grave for sure.  On Fox News Sunday, though, he told Chris Wallace that his misspeak about college kids getting stuck in Iraq if they didn’t study would not undermine his possible run for the presidency in 2008.  So the man’s pondering.  Let’s see him ponder as he goes down the ski slopes this winter. 
8. As if the 7 Eleven Big Gulp is not enough, now there’s a Double Gulp that’s the size of Montana.  You can barely hold it in your hand.
9. . . . And speaking of Montana, that new Democrat, John Tester, from Big Sky Country seems to like his flat-top hairstyle.  Wonder if he uses old school hair products to maintain it, like Lucky Tiger Control Stick or Cru Butch and Control Wax. 
10. Funny woman Wanda Sykes  is showing cleavage.  She plays a foil to Julia Louis-Dreyfus on The New Adventures of Old Christine (CBS) and can be seen wearing low-cut sweaters to, I guess, spice things up.
11. . . .  Is that necessary for a comedian to do?
12. NURSE-INS.  Women are protesting nationwide at airports for their right to nurse their babies in public – uncovered -- and some are sitting near ticket counters doing the motherly thing.   This, because a mother was removed from a Freedom Airlines (Delta) flight last month after refusing to cover up while breast-feeding. 
13. . . .LACTIVISTS – That’s what the protestors/rights seekers are called.  Comes from the word/verb lactate which means to secrete milk.
14. . . . And they’ve got a Web site (who doesn’t?):  Lactivists.org.
15. Al Roker of the Today show said this:  “Gas prices are up just before Thanksgiving … Hmmm.”  Yeah, that’s what I’ve to to say about it too, “Hmmm.”
16. Christine Aguilera wears so much makeup you couldn’t scrape it off with a chisel.
17. . . . And the same goes for Gwen Stafani.  And while we’re at it, that Pink singer too.
18. STRANGER THAN FICTION.  The Will Ferrell movie about an author (Emma Thompson) entering the world of an IRS auditor (Ferrell) and narrating -- to his ears only -- his life, his work, his love interest and possibly his death.   It’s an odd topic but it works and the motif somewhat recalls – at least to me – A Wonderful Life when Jimmy Stewart wished he never existed.  Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah are in it too.  It’s not slapstick but still humorous and Ferrell shows his chops by being funny and poignant and the same time.  Good flick.
19. That actor, Dan Futterman (Judging Amy and co-writer, Capote screenplay), who plays Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was murdered (beheaded) in Iraq, really looks like the real-life guy.  There was a picture that ran last week showing him walking with Angelina Jolie who plays Pearl’s wife Mariane [sic] in a scene shot in Mumbai for the upcoming A Mightly Heart.  Might be good.     
20. I know it’s time to leave the planet with they run that god-awful Wonderful Christmastime (Capitol, 1979) song of Paul McCartney’s to advertise for the radio stations that play all Christmas music all the time now.  Someone should be shot.
21. TREND.  The networks offering shows that run a little longer (about 10 minutes) than they normally do.  NBC did this about a week ago in an effort to boost ratings but that didn’t happen.  This week ABC is doing it with two shows:  “An all-new, extended Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty,” the promo announcer says.  So VCR, DVR/TiVo owners, beware and make those adjustments.
22. . . . That’s worse than changing back the clocks when Daylight Saving Time ends.  I hate having to do that.  Some people I know don’t even do it and just remember that they didn’t and compensate for it.  It happens every year so why fiddle with it?  Just leave the clocks alone and in six months or so you’re back to the right time. The hell with resetting every clock in the house.
23. I have a Jessica Simpson question:  Are Rice Krispies really made out of rice?
24. TAILS BETWEEN LEGS.  That’s what’s happening to publisher Judith Regan and the Fox network.  For interviewing O.J. Simpson and thinking that they would score a TV ratings coup by televising it.  Not gonna happen.  They’ve decided not to publish the book and not to put him on TV due to public outcry.  They’re listening to the people.  Smart move, but it still doesn’t take away the shameful PR stunt that they were capable of.
25. . . . Rupert Murdoch, News Corp chairman and CEO, was the one who put a stop to the hoped-for proceedings and he seems like a man who knows he’s in charge.  He said, “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project” – not senior management and I.  So he put himself first, he’s taking the fall.  
26. . . . He probably doesn’t want this incident to hurt business.  After all, American Idol’s coming back in January and God knows they don’t want any drop-off in that TV ratings winner. 
27. HE WENT OFF.  Seinfeld’s  Kramer (Michael Richards) hit the roof, went out of control at hecklers who didn’t think he was funny at the Laugh Factory comedy club  in LA last Friday and somebody caught the rant, in which he used racial slurs and profanity, on tape and probably sold  it to the sleazy Web site, TMZ.com which put it on the Internet.  (A lesson that nothing goes unnoticed in this world today)  His TV costar Jerry Seinfeld was on David Letterman Monday night and got Richards to come on from the West Coast to talk about it.  Richards apologized profusely to blacks, Hispanics and whites:  “I’m really busted up about this and I’m very sorry,” he said.
28. . . . Diane Sawyer wondered “where the anger came from” on Good Morning America.
29. . . .  And when Diane threw it to Robin Roberts for her reaction Robin said she didn’t know what to say about it.
30. . . . So I guess he’s the next Mel Gibson. 
31. . . . Will this hurt Seinfeld DVD sales?  
32. A painting of Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, is on display at the Articulate Gallery in Washington, D.C., done by a student of the WVSA (formerly Washington Very Special Arts) Sail School.  So the dog’s a celebrity, of sorts.  Owner Sally is proud.
33. You could see a little tum, tum, tummy sticking out from under the traditional Vietnamese silk tunic (blue) that President Bush was wearing in Hanoi at the economic summit.  But actually he and other world leaders (Vladimir Putin of Russia, Stephen Harper of Canada along with the presidents of China, Chile and Thailand) looked okay in their custom-made ao dai’s.  So they wore them well.
34. . . . It’s good for a man to put on a dress once in a while, I guess.
35. Beyonce and her mother, Tina Knowles, both have milk mustaches on the latest got milk? ads.  Now America’s Milk Processors are saying that if women drink enough milk they tend to weigh less and have less body fat than those who don’t.  Is this true?
36. Italian actress/sexpot Gina Lollobrigida (79), who was once called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” has been going with her boyfriend, Javier Rigau y Rafos (45) for 22 years!  Unbelievable.  So she was 57 and he was 23 way back then.  They just recently postponed their wedding until Jan. 27.  It’s her second;  she was divorced in 1971.  So she’s covered a lotta territory, time-wise.
37. ADVICE.  When you clean out the cavity of your Thanksgiving turkey before you put the stuffing in, make sure you don’t leave paper towels inside.  Somebody did that, didn’t realize it and when she went to scoop out the dressing she pulled out cooked Bounty.
38. A friend of mine can’t stand that guy who can’t stand the HeadOn commercials.  Amen.
39. The newsroom in Doha, the headquarters of the new Al-Jazeera satellite news channel, looks very impressive – huge studio square footage,  work station areas, multiple anchor desks and sets.  Very large space.  The English language version of the network debuted last week and former ABC Nightline correspondent/anchor Dave Marash is their Washington anchor. 
40. . . . So it looks like they’ve got oodles of moolah.
41. There’s an exhibit of paintings and liturgical objects (icons, vestments) from the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai now on display in Los Angeles at the J. Paul Getty Museum.  One of them is a painting/engraving titled “St. Basil With Liturgical Scroll.”  So is that where basil comes from?  I always wondered.
42. A fellow occupant of the Curmudgeons’ Corner said the other day that my side of the destination for the bitter and burned-out should be called Grump Junction.  Ha Ha Ha.
43. UH . . . This Bitter Earth – Dinah Washington, on Mercury, 1963.

rocci@roccifisch.com