I'M TIRED OF LIVING IN A DETERGENT COMMERCIAL

1. . . . That's what Bree Van De Kamp's (Marcia Cross) husband (Rex/Steven Culp) tells the "Martha Stewart gone wacko" character, as Tom Shales described her, over dinner in Desperate Housewives, the new ABC drama-comedy. Yes, Shales liked it - and that's saying something - and to me it seemed pretty good too. (ABC may have a few hits this season: Lost, Wife Swap, Extreme Makeover. But it certainly ain't high brow.
2. MISLEADING. That 1-800-HRT-BURN commercial for the American College of Gastroenterology makes it look like the guy on it is a real TV executive in the control room with a vast bank of monitors behind him. Somebody important because he's involved in the news. He's taking time out from hectic, high-pressured job to tell us all about it. Fake-O.
3. So how are those Safeway Signature Soups? As icky as that potato salad they sell in those awful supermarket delis?
4. Mr. Big Stuff said this: "On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen. On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Wolf Blitzer." Ha Ha Ha.
5. John Kerry could've put some gel in his hair for the debate. It looked dried out.
6. Martha Stewart's federal prison inmate number: 55170-054. She reports to Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia no later than 2:30 this Friday. She'll be working seven and a half hours a day in programs that include food service, groundskeeping and sanitation.
7. . . . Seems like they match personal skills with job assignments.
8. . . . Blues singer Billie Holliday stayed there way back when after she was convicted on drug charges. The place has got history.
9. D.C. baseball starts April 15, 2005. That's tax day. They'll probably have preparers and a mail box at RFK Stadium that day.
10. It's great to hear Dinah Washington and Brook Benton sing Baby, You've Got What It Takes (1960) on that commercial for Talbots. They let you hear a good bit of it too.
11. Flip-Flops were a big fashion item this summer for women and men.
12. "Ten more years and you're gonna be on the Smucker's jar," said Willard Scott to fitness giant Jack LaLane (in his 90s) on the Today show last week. (You have to be 100 to get on the jar.)
13. Tom Brokaw anchored Nightly News from Washington on debate night last week. He didn't look as good as he normally does when he's in New York. Pale, not tan enough. Must be the lighting.
14. Maybe a moon shadow was following Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) when he was refused entry to the U.S. last week.
15. Somebody in Washington Post film critic Desson Thomson's online discussion program (Behind the Screen) said Brad Pitt had pock marks.
16. TOO MUCH CLAPPING. On Ellen's TV show. When she comes out at the beginning of the show the audience applauds and applauds and applauds. Okay, we get the point. How much of it does she need for ego boosting, for crissakes?
17. Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon sing that fast part at the end of Natalie Cole's This Will Be (1975) in the TV preview for the new movie Taxi. That song is used quite frequently in movies. It was her first hit. It's a good song but the shrillness of it always made me cover my ears.
18. That girl on Extreme Makeover last week was made unrecognizable and her eyes became slits. They did go to the extreme on her. The no-chin guy was improved and did come out looking like a rock star. On EM, everybody gets a chin implant.
19. I didn't see that much difference in the "fresher design" of The New York Times Arts & Leisure section other than a new skinnier and elongated-looking font for the headlines and bylines. That's all I noticed.
20. Keen Eddie's on The Practice, er ... I mean Boston Public - uh ... I mean Boston Legal.
21. SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW. Interesting flick. Practically all CGI effects but it's well directed. Stuff and people and machines flying all over the place. Very stylized-looking retro sci-fi flick, like the old Saturday movie serials. Gwyneth Paltrow plays an intrepid newspaper reporter Polly Perkins and Jude Law is Joe ‘Sky Captain' Sullivan who battles evil forces. The sepia-toned halo effect for the whole film, though, does get somewhat on your nerves and sometimes it seems like things are out-of-focus. Adventure film. I liked it.
22. Diane Sawyer has a crush on Jaoquin Phoenix and told him so on Good Morning America last week. She was giddy. And coming up on the show was to be his co-star in Ladder 49, John Travolta. Diane dances with him.
23. . . . NBC's Gene Shalit says the movie's a "five-alarm sensation." That's what the newspaper ads say. Me, I have no interest in seeing another fire rescue movie.
24. What's up with Andy Sipowicz's partner, Det. John Clark (Mark-Paul Gosselaar)? He was real short-tempered to Andy last week and acted like had a wild hair up his you-know-what.
25. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, was just back down in Charleston, South Carolina with owner Sally who was there on business. While Sally was on assignment one day, a Cajun man named Claymore dogsat Hanalie and talked French to her. She seemed to like his company.
26. NEON ART. The Dan Flavin: A Retrospective exhibit at the National Gallery (East Building on the Mall) in Washington looks like something worth checking out. It's pastel-colored fluorescent tubes made in various designs. Gee.
27. Brooke Shields looks much older in those ads for Wonderful Town, the Broadway musical she's starring in for three months, taking over for Donna Murphy. It's the heavy makeup, I think. She's there to hopefully keep the play open for a while longer. Seen it. Good.
28. ABC News's latest promos say Accurate and Credible reporting and show the words on the screen. Are they doing that as a result of what's happened to CBS and Dan Rather? Just asking.
29. Quiznos advertises their Steakhouse Beef Dip Sub served with au jus and they pronounce it like AW ZHU. Who says it that way, the French? Most people I know say it, it OH JUICE or something like that. Do you need a French accent to get one?
30. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper's in the Collector's Issue/35th Anniversary editon of Interview magazine. It's an interesting read. In it he models clothes by Polo, Prada and Dior Homme.
31. Record producer and accused murder suspect Phil Spector's hair was all teased up and lightened like Elizabeth Taylor used to wear hers. It looked ridiculous. We saw him last week outside an LA court.
32. CELSIUS 41.11 - The Temperature at Which the Brain Begins to Die is an answer doc to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. It was made in six weeks and is billed as "The Truth Behind the Lies of Fahrenheit 9/11." There was a screening of it in Georgetown last Tuesday night.
33. Bob Dylan hated fame and the constant bombardment of people trying to get to him. Intruders tried to break into his home in Woodstock, N.Y. and were climbing on the roof. He hated being recognized and badgered in restaurants. And he fantasized about "a nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence." Can you believe that? It's in his book Chronicles, Volume One."
34. . . . Wonder who'll get an interview with him? (He couldn't stand the press.) Probable answer: Nobody.
35. The critics are raving about Brian Wilson's Smile album but a couple of friends of mine say it's not all that good.
36. I feel like toasting marshmallows up on Mt. St. Helens.
37. The new season of Saturday Night Live started this past weekend with guest host Ben Affleck. He was okay. The beginning of the show was a spoof of the debate between Bush and Kerry and ran much, much too long and wasn't that funny. They should've known that.
38. Mr. Highfalutin, who never watches TV, was filled with "shock and awe watching George Bush's dreadful performance in the debate."
39. Protesters in Europe against British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his position on the Iraq war held up signs that spelled his name BLIAR.
40. I think the 50th anniversary of the Tonight Show was upstaged by the Conan O'Brien succession announcement. Some networks (ABC, Fox?) must've recently been hot on his trail for NBC to sign him up so far in advance. So have fun waiting five years, Conan. You've got plenty of time to do your homework.
41. UH . . . Homeward Bound - Simon & Garfinkel on Columbia. 1966.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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