douganderson

2006-05-31T21:01:00.000-04:00

new

2006-05-28T15:04:00.000-04:00

gnu

Apple -- Turn Over!

2005-09-10T09:48:00.000-04:00

Poor little Apple. Richard Johnson on Page Six of the NY Post reports:

September 9, 2005 -- GWYNETH Paltrow (above) has declared war on the paparazzi because she feels her daughter, Apple, is in danger. The star is afraid she'll end up like Princess Di. "If I have my daughter in the car and they are making me nervous, I'll do whatever I have to do," Paltrow tells V Life. "I keep a whole log. I take pictures of their cars, write down license plate numbers, everything. If they do it again, I can go to the police. I know my rights, and believe me, I will have them arrested. I will stop at nothing." Paltrow gave up her too-accessible West Village townhouse in favor of a high-security TriBeCa pad to foil the photogs.

I think the little fruit is in greater danger of being beaten up on the schoolyard for being named Apple...

True love

2005-09-09T09:30:00.000-04:00

Ahh, true love...

Ain't it grand?

Doesn't it just make your heart sing? Doesn't it shake your bon-bons?

What? "Manufactured for the Press", you say? Oh, come now...

With all this talk of phoney philanderings, what can a guy believe?

I guess you just have to turn to a long-term, solid relationship that has stood the test of time:

from Ananova:

Matt and Ben 'to grow old together'
Matt Damon has admitted that he'll probably grow old with Ben Affleck rather than the woman of his dreams. Speaking to German magazine Brigitte Damon said he believed in his long term friendship with Affleck and added: "I can well imagine growing old with him."

He also said that it was unlikely a woman would come between them. "My longest relationship with a woman lasted two and a half years. That's very short when I consider how long I've been friends with Ben," he said.

The actor, who wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting together with Affleck, also stood by his best mate during his engagement and subsequent break-up to Jennifer Lopez.

"Despite all the rumours I liked and still do like Jennifer Lopez. I would never judge the woman at Ben's side and expect the same from him," said Damon.

Going Up...

2005-09-09T09:08:00.000-04:00

Well.

The trip to the Urologist. All the fun you might expect, and then some. As feared, he said they're gonna have to stick this long -- well -- let's not go into it now. Some people are trying to eat their breakfast, I'm sure...

The good news is I'll finally get some relief (please God) from this tenacious little stone that refuses to let go. I try to keep my thoughts on that, rather than -- well -- you know -- HOW it will happen. And I try to keep my sense of humor.

While I sat in the Urology office I noticed that one of the doctors is named Dr. Weiner. I guess he was born for that job. Cracked me up.

This Too Shall Pass

2005-09-08T08:35:00.000-04:00

PLUS

EQUALS =

KIDNEY STONE

Ever had one? Try to avoid it if at all possible.

I've had a few of them - just blessed with good genes, I guess - but they usually broke up and headed quietly for the exit on their own. Prior to that, of course, there's the excrutiating agony of the attack, which is probably not unlike that warm feeling one got from instruments of torture in the Inquisition.

This one, however, has been hanging on like an unwanted relative. For months. Yes, months....That initial searing pain has long passed but not the stone, which has made itself at home somewhere at the bottom of my bladder. So I'm told. All I know is that I'm uncomfortable all the time and have to pee 4 times a night. And I'm not even pregnant.

They tried to blast the little bugger with sonar waves or somesuch but it just wasn't working. Too easy, of course. So now what's left? Let's revisit those instruments of torture. Without being too graphic, something's gotta to travel up where stuff usually comes down. It's like salmon swimming upstream; it's just not the right direction!

I take the x-rays in for a consult with Herr Urologist today. He'll deliver the verdict, but I think he's just waiting to give me the hook, as they say. The fish hook.

Pray for me...

Fringe

2005-09-07T13:19:00.000-04:00

No, not this kind.

This kind.

I've been hard at work mounting "Isn't it SARCASTIC" once more for the Philly Fringe. Something's getting mounted and I think it's me.

I haven't performed since May and now it's 4 months later. I'd played the show for two weeks then so I got to know it well. But now there's been a big hiatus and who the hell knows what will come out. I like to work in an improvisatory way. I like playing to the audience. But any play, especially a one-man show, needs to follow those pesky things like light and sound cues. I go off on a riff and then suddenly I'm not only driving the lighting guy nuts, but if I get off the track, who knows where my balloon will touch down. Makes for an interesting show every night.

I've done legit theatre, I've done cabaret shows where you sing a bunch of songs. But I think my talents are best displayed in a forum where things are very loose. Then I can do my own Kathy Griffin. "Life on the P-List" ("P" for Philly...or any other "p-word" you can think of. And while there are a handful of Philly people who are getting skewered, ya run out of those pretty quick. I used my tales of celebs I met growing up (see posts below) in this piece -- so after this autobiographical show I'll just have to move to new victims.

So watch out!

Cover your Bush

2005-09-07T10:44:00.000-04:00

Broadcaster affiliate refuses Bush 'no clothes' ad

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A local affiliate of broadcaster Fox News has rejected a campaign advertisement for a Democratic politician that lampoons President George W. Bush by superimposing his head on a naked torso.

The ad, produced by Brian Ellner, an openly gay candidate for Manhattan Borough president, opens with a close-up of Bush's face and zooms out to show the torso from the hips up, with a voice-over saying, "New Yorkers know the emperor has no clothes."

Ellner also introduces his male partner during the 30-second commercial.

A spokeswoman for Fox's WNYW/Channel 5 affiliate said the channel was not running the ad, but declined to say why. A spokeswoman for Fox News Channel said: "The decision was made at the station level."

Ellner said on Tuesday, "This is censorship and it's un-American. ... It's either anti-gay because I introduce my partner, or it's anti-free speech because I criticise the president."

He said the three major networks and many other cable channels accepted the ad.

Ellner said WNYW representatives told his campaign officials that the ad was rejected because Fox viewed it as disrespectful to the office of the president.

"Fox claims that this ad is disrespectful to the president. What is truly disrespectful to Manhattan voters is to deny them the chance to hear a serious message from a candidate for public office," Ellner said.

Part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. empire, Fox News is the leading cable news channel in the United States, operating under the slogan "Fair and Balanced."

According to an annual report by a research arm of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, its audience is increasingly more Republican than viewers of other cable channels.

Casting

2005-09-05T10:38:00.000-04:00

I worked with the wonderful Joanna Merlin, a top casting director. As her assistant I helped find just the right actors for projects and I was really happy to be part of her team. I also went on to help cast "Beaches" and "Field of Dreams," when she recommended me to another casting director. So casting was something I was drawn to. To which I was drawn.... God, grammar. Anyway, back to Ms. Merlin...

Just some of her credentials, so you know she's no hack! (From michaelchekov.org):

Joanna Merlin, a student of Michael Chekhov, is an actor, teacher and former casting director. She teaches regular workshops at the Actor's Center, the American Conservatory Theatre, the Manhattan School of Music, and is a faculty member of New York University's graduate acting program. She is the recipient of two Casting Society of America Artios Awards for casting Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and Sondheim's Into the Woods. As Harold Prince's casting director, she cast the original Broadway productions of Sondheim's Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, as well as Evita and On the Twentieth Century. Other film casting includes three Merchant/Ivory films.

She has written a great book called "Auditioning - An Actor-Friendly Guide." Now, like every other actor in the world, I have pored over all the "how to get cast" books and this one is superb. It is very accessible to understand, easy to read, and written by someone who has been on the other side of the audition table.

She makes it clear that any audition is a chance to act, not a terrifying trial of gaining approval. She explains exactly what she looks for in an actor's audition, and these practical, "actable choices" give you the tools to work on when you get before the casting directors. They help you concentrate, do the work, and forget you're being scrutinized. Then it can even be enjoyable. Yes.

I won't go into more detail because it's much better laid out in this stimulating, encouraging read.

If you're at all interested in learning how to audition better, buy this book.

Ruth Gordon

2005-09-04T15:52:00.000-04:00

Ruth Gordon.

So much more than "Harold and Maude." We corresponded in her later years. Like Geraldine Page, she was a mentor to me, always encouraging in her notes, and loved acting.

Her stage appearances were varied and strong, in contrast to the eccentrics she played on screen. Besides Mary Lincoln; not so eccentric as psychotic. And boring roles in "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet." Or the flavorless secretary in Garbo's,"Two-Faced Woman." Garbo left the screen after that one, but Ruth sailed on, playing memorable performances in the theatre. ("A Doll's House," below.)

"The Three Sisters," with Judith Anderson and Katharine Cornell.

Years later came Minnie Castavet in "Rosemary's Baby," which won her the Oscar. A perfect blend of eccentricity and acting talent, in a perfect role for her. Also a writer, she penned the films "Pat and Mike" and "Adam's Rib" for Tracy & Hepburn, along with husband Garson Kanin.

But the writing I loved was in her autobiographies, "My Side" and "An Open Book." Not only did I get a glimpse of the actor's life from the early part of the 20th Century on, but her positive, never say die philosophy influenced my life.

"On the twenty-first of August, 1977, a Sunday, at 6:40 A.M., I looked for an answer and got it: "At eighty-one years old," I asked myself, "do I have to do it? I mean any and every old thing that arises?" "Do it if you like to" came the answer. How far would I go with that?
First, to make it work, I braced up my intentions. I intend to make it work. Intention has been going for me for a long time, I got started in 1912, but what counts is what you decide on today. Decide to have intention. I'm a believer in today...
Intend it.
Notify your built-in confidence.
Work on it.
Do not face the facts.
Keep your bowels moving.
Walk, think.
Whare are you? Maybe you're there."
- "My Side" by Ruth Gordon.

Hold on, Christian Soldiers

2005-09-04T09:01:00.000-04:00

(from an article by
Stephanie Simon,
Los Angeles Times)

September 4, 2005

WASHINGTON -- In the blue and gold elegance of the House speaker's private dining room, Jeremy Bouma bows his head before eight young men and women who hope to one day lead the nation. He prays that they might find wisdom in the Bible -- and govern by its word.

"Holy Father, we thank you for providing us with guidance," says Bouma, who works for an influential televangelist. "Thank you, Lord, for these students. Build them up as your warriors and your ambassadors on Capitol Hill."

"Amen," the students murmur. Then they picked up their pens expectantly.

Nearly every Monday for six months, up to a dozen congressional aides -- many of them aspiring politicians -- have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central America Free Trade Agreement.

Through seminars taught by conservative college professors and devout members of Congress, the students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ.

They learn to view every vote as a religious duty, and to consider compromise a sin.

That puts them at the vanguard of a bold effort by evangelical conservatives to mold a new generation of leaders who will answer not to voters, but to God.

"We help them understand God's purpose for society," says Bouma, who coordinates the program, known as the Statesmanship Institute, for the Rev. D. James Kennedy.

At least 3.5 million Americans tune in to Kennedy's sermons, broadcast from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale. Since 1995, the unabashedly political televangelist also has reached out to the Beltway elite with his Center for Christian Statesmanship in Washington.

Ministers such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson jumped headlong into politics. They helped to elect conservatives, starting with President Reagan. "But things haven't changed very much," says Robert D. Stacey, chairman of the government department at Patrick Henry College.

To develop such steadfast politicians, evangelicals are building on decades of work by nonprofit groups such as the Leadership Institute and Young America's Foundation, which train conservatives in grass-roots activism, effective campaigning, even how to launch a right-wing magazine.

...To Rep. Walter B. Jones, a North Carolina Republican, it's clear the institute is "doing the Lord's work."

The nation needs more politicians who take their cues from God, not Gallup, or "our morality will crumble," he warns. "We won't recognize America."

From the writings of Thomas Jefferson, one of the authors of America's Constitution:

"Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.

Religion is a subject on which I have ever been most scrupulously reserved. I have considered it as a matter between every man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government."

So, I'm hanging out with Steve

2005-09-03T17:32:00.000-04:00

...and I'm telling him I'm going to sing "Not a Day Goes By" in Olympia's Gala of Stars at her theatre. So he says, "You can't sing that song, I wrote it for a woman." As if anything written for a Broadway diva was going to stop a gay man from singing it. Please. After a while he came around and I got the royal blessing. That gave me a little more confidence when I sang it. I didn't want to get up there and think, "Hmmm, I wonder how Bernadette would do this?"

Mount Olympia

2005-09-03T17:12:00.000-04:00

I worked for Olympia Dukakis. Did I tell you this?

She is Greek. Very Greek. We're talkin' "Zorba the Greek" Greek. Her brother's name is Apollo. APOLLO, ok? And I'm sure her parents were Zeus and Hera and at holidays they sat around in breastplates with spears. I'm all for racial pride - I mean, I'm Swedish, but we didn't sit around at Christmas with big Viking helmets on...

But I guess when you're named OLYMPIA you've got that stuff hot-wired into you. If she were born Ethel Dukakis, it might have been a different matter.

I was her assistant and in awe of her. That lasted one week. There's nothing that knocks a famous actress off her pedestal quicker than having to buy her pantyhose.

One day I decided to take her acting class and show her where my real talents laid. Well, I was up there doing "Tom" from Glass Menagerie and I realized, "She not even paying attention. When she looks at me all she's thinking is Nude or Taupe." Needless to say, I packed up shortly there after and moved to NYC.

from "Isn't it SARCASTIC"

Don't Bug Me

2005-09-03T11:02:00.000-04:00

A German woman laid waste to her family home by setting fire to it as she tried to kill spiders in a garage with a can of hairspray and a cigarette lighter...

Police in the western town of Zuelpich said that when the aerosol failed to finish them off, the 34-year-old woman tried to burn them with the lighter. However, this set the area she had just sprayed on fire and the blaze spread to a hedge.

"It was a series of unfortunate events which led to the damage," a police spokesman said Thursday.

"She tried to put the fire out with a garden hose, but couldn't. Instead her semi-detached house next to the hedge caught fire. It's now uninhabitable."

Firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze and save the neighboring house, which sustained broken windows and some charring. The spokesman estimated the total cost of the damage at well over 100,000 euros. No one was hurt.

"The family have had to look for somewhere else to stay," he said. "The spiders are gone though -- that problem was solved."

-Reuters UK

Who needs A/C?

2005-09-02T16:38:00.000-04:00

When it's really hot outside, like today, ya can't blame a girl for trying to cool herself off...

And sometimes, even more drastic measure have to be taken.

Well, maybe Courtney should look into air conditioning..

Maybe cooling her heels might help.

End of Summer

2005-09-02T08:45:00.000-04:00

Bitches All: Dry Wit and Vermouth

2005-08-31T15:10:00.000-04:00

...But then the bar opened; Dorothy Parker would have approved. The poet, short story writer, Hollywood script doctor, critic, and civil rights campaigner is now better known for drinking, partying and quipping her way through the Twenties and Thirties.

She was a founder member of the Algonquin Round Table, the group of writers and critics which met at the same table in the Algonquin hotel, Manhattan, each day. There, she spent countless long lunches and even longer nights with everybody from F Scott Fitzgerald and Edna Ferber to Noel Coward, Robert Benchley and Harpo Marx.

This bitchy coterie of friends, widely known as the Vicious Circle, had New York enthralled - their witticisms, insults and antics reported in the newspapers as slavishly as any Heat spread. And Mrs Parker was always there, ready with a softly spoken knife to the heart - 'a blend of Little Nell and Lady Macbeth', as the venomous critic Alexander Woollcott described her.

Bitch Three: Gore Vidal

2005-08-31T13:00:00.000-04:00

"I’m on the news a lot but that is completely different from being in the news, and the front page of the Wall Street Journal is another league entirely. Austin Lally has made it from Airdrie to Beijing, to become the general manager of Proctor and Gamble for the whole of China. I know little about business, but even I know that is an astonishing success. China is the biggest market in the world. I was suddenly very jealous - and not just of what I imagine his salary to be.

But why was I not entirely delighted by an old friend’s success? It’s not as though I was in competition for the job. He’s not deprived me of anything because he’s worked so hard to succeed. But, as Gore Vidal famously said: "Whenever a friend succeeds a little something in me dies..." I always like to quote Vidal, because it gives me the opportunity to mention that I once had dinner with him in an Indian restaurant in Soho. Now that’s a story that at least makes me sound successful, even if the truth is that as a journalist it’s easy to meet the rich, famous and accomplished. And those meetings often just serve to remind you that you are not one of them.

Just the other week I bumped into an old friend, who despite being a talented freelance TV producer, was struggling to find work the last time I saw him. "Hi, how’s things? Are you working?" I asked sympathetically. "Oh yes," he replied enthusiastically. "Haven’t you heard? I’m vice president of MTV Europe now."

I often find myself making the mistake of boasting to them that I was a university friend of some government ministers that we interview on Channel 4 News. I suppose I’m looking for that reflected glory again, but this just causes the young producers to look sympathetically at someone who is old enough to be a contemporary of ministers, but still thinks they’re young enough to be considering another tattoo."

Sarah Smith is Scotland Correspondent for Channel 4 News

Bitch Two:Dorothy Parker

2005-08-31T12:34:00.000-04:00

Where as Ambrose Bierce drew strength from the misery and perils of life, Dorothy (not "Dorthy") Parker allowed herself to indulge in misery while she skewered writers, playwrights, and high society. What made Parker special was the twisted combination of a polite and personable woman with a wit designed for dissection, a pen dipped in blood, and a tongue that worked best when unleashed...
In the early part of the 20th century, Parker wrote for such bastions of literary distinction as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Work as a word slave ended abruptly when Vanity Fair dismissed her for her acerbic prose, a clearly foreseeable event. She launched into a freelance career and shortly penned her first book titled Enough Rope, which showed her feisty side as well as more conventional verse.

Most compelling were her cynical associations. Parker became a founding member of the "Algonquin Round Table" (for those not familiar with this group, it was a motley gathering of the literary, illuminati, and comic that met at the Algonquin hotel and blistered the world with their communal communications). There she traded barbs with the likes of Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx. Many of those cunning conversations found their way into the pages of the New Yorker, which only furthered her infamy.

Bitch One: Capote

2005-08-31T09:12:00.000-04:00

For all of you...you know who you are...

Overwhelmed by the lifestyles of the rich and famous, Capote began to work on a project exploring the intimate details of his friends. He received a large advance for a book which was to be called ANSWERED PRAYERS (after Saint Theresa of Avila's saying that answered prayers cause more tears than those that remain unanswered).

The book was to be a biting and largely factual account of the glittering world in which he moved. The publication of the first few chapters in ESQUIRE magazine in 1975 caused a major scandal. Columnist Liz Smith explained, "He wrote what he knew, which is what people always tell writers to do, but he just didn't wait till they were dead to do it."

With these first short publications Capote found that many of his close friends and acquaintances shut him off completely

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched.

Her face is remarkable- -not unlike Lincoln's, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. "Oh my," she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, "it's fruitcake weather!" The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something. We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together--well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other's best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880s, when she was still a child. She is still a child...

"I knew it before I got out of bed," she says, turning away from the window with a purposeful excitement in her eyes. "The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear. And there were no birds singing; they've gone to warmer country, yes indeed. Oh Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat. We've thirty cakes to bake."

- a christmas memory

That's a lot of bull

2005-08-28T11:17:00.000-04:00

Okay, maybe it's me.

Don't we deal with enough bull every day?

Running of the bulls in Spanish town injures 63
Associated Press

MADRID, Spain — A Pamplona-style running of the bulls in a Spanish town outside the capital Sunday left 63 people injured, two of them seriously, officials said.

The pair were taken from the town of San Sebastian de los Reyes to hospitals in Madrid to undergo urgent surgery, said Angel Pesquera, spokesman for the town's emergency unit. The others were treated for cuts and bruises, he said.

During the crowded run, people were momentarily trapped in a pileup at the bullring's entrance where the run ends. Some of the bulls then trampled over the mound of people to get into the ring, causing the large number of injuries.

The town holds a weeklong festival each summer in which daredevils run through the streets with bulls weighing as much as 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds), much like the famed San Fermin festival in the northern city of Pamplona in July.

The earliest records of bull runs in San Sebastian de los Reyes go back to 1523 making them roughly as old as Pamplona's version, which gained worldwide fame from Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises."

San Sebastian de los Reyes is about 15 kilometers (10 miles) north of the capital, Madrid.

DOUBT

2005-08-25T14:56:00.000-04:00

Went to see my ol' gal pal Cherry Jones last night in Doubt.

Well, there's no doubt about it - it's a really great play and, no surprise, she's amazing. As is the rest of the cast... I got to spend time with them afterwards and it was surprising how warm and accessible they were. I mean, I knew Cherry would be, but Brian O'Byrne and Heather Goldenhersh hung out in the dressing room and we all just yapped like we'd known each other forever. I was afraid they might be aloof and cool to a guy they didn't even know, but it was just the opposite. So, this made the night doubly-nice; a great play and then a wonderful "last act" with the gang upstairs.

If you haven't seen Doubt, ya gotta go. It's one of those plays we see less and less frequently: a thought-provoking, well-written drama on Broadway with first-rate actors. Of course it won the TONY and Pulitzer, so that should tell ya something...

Cherry plays a nun who's a pretty tough customer - I think you get it all from this picture. And she's so immersed in the part that when she finally came out for the curtain call and got to smile for the first time all night, it was a remarkable change.

Part of what I love about Broadway is getting to see the great old theatres, like the Walter Kerr. As we left her dressing room, Miss J led me across the darkened stage and it was a rush to be standing where they had just done the play, and also to look out onto this beautiful space and see what the actors see every night.

My hand just slipped...

2005-08-23T08:55:00.000-04:00

Watched the Joan Crawford Festival on Turner Classic Movies last night. First up was Mildred Pierce. Seen it a hundred times but had to check in now and then as I channel-surfed. I must have been pulling whacked-out mothers into my cable box because I went back and forth from Crawford to this one.

Anyway, back to Mildred. Thank God I didn't miss one of my favorite scenes...

Joan's daughter, Veda, gets smacked across the face by Mom, who then tearfully confesses, "Oh, I'd have sooner cut off my hand than done that."

Sure, Joan.

From this point on in her career, her hair got shorter and her eyebrows got bushier, looking like two caterpillars drawn in with black magic marker. I guess her testosterone really started to kick into high gear.

Later on TCM ran the rarely-seen The Story of Esther Costello. This time Joan is the caretaker of a blind, deaf and mute little girl who was traumatized by having detonated a hand grenade in her face. Then she's chained to a rope in a dirt-floored shack by her drunken grandmother.

You know, nothing sensational.

But the kid's definitely in need of a rich, lonely woman (guess who) to sweep her away from the squalor and give her the tender care she needs to heal. You're ahead of me now, aren't you? No sooner does JC move Esther into her sumptuous pad, she ends up smacking the shell-shocked little girl in the face. In the next scene she goes to see the physician and Joan says, "I didn't mean to hit her, Doctor, but I had to."

And people wonder where she got that reputation, Well, thank God it was only in the movies and she didn't take that kind of behavior home to her own kids.

Read my Lips

2005-08-22T17:49:00.000-04:00

Oh sweet Jesus. Whether we like it or not Ashlee Simpson is BACK!

LOS ANGELES -- Ashlee Simpson will confront her "Saturday Night Live" debacle head-on with her new album.

She said she's done a song called "Beautifully Broken" and it's about how it's OK to fall on your face.

Simpson admits she's made some dumb decisions but she believes she has "a great conscience."

What she may not have is great hygiene. Simpson has a role in the upcoming movie "Undiscovered," and she had trouble getting out of character. She said her character was kind of boyish, so she wore men's deodorant and stopped showering.

okay...

BOSTON -- It wasn't the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, but fans were not pleased with the Orange Bowl half-time show Tuesday night in Miami featuring singer Ashlee Simpson.

As she wrapped up her half-time show act, Simpson was loudly booed by fans in the stadium.

In October, Simpson was caught lip-synching on Saturday Night Live.

During that debacle, as Simpson and her band began their second song, the sound of a pre-recorded vocal could be heard -- to the song that she'd already done earlier in the show. Simpson stopped, and paused, and then tried a few exaggerated dance steps, before leaving the stage. She later blamed her band for playing "the wrong song." Then Simpson's father, who's also her manager, said his daughter used the extra help from a voice track because acid reflux disease had made her voice hoarse.

I feel some reflux even as we speak. Ashley, read my lipsynch: (go away!!)

Greenwich Village

2005-08-22T11:14:00.000-04:00

You can't go home again. That's what they say. I sat around mooning yesterday (and how often does one "moon"?) about how much I missed NYC (having relocated to Philly 5 years ago.

This house above is one of the very few woodframe houses standing in New York City, and this was my view of it when I lived at Grove and Bedford Streets in the West Village.

I was on the fourth-floor walk up of a 100-year old private home. The Village is a marvelous place to live and I got a great deal on the rent which made it even sweeter.

The building on the right was the other corner (looking out my kitchen window) used for the exterior of Monca's apartment in "Friends." That bit of building on the right was my apartment.

Cool, eh? Just the views alone made it fun even to look out my windows. To say nothing about my bedroom fireplace and a backyard patio. Being a history buff (especially of New York), just walking around the neighborhood was a trip back in time. To say nothing of the big stars of the day who lived nearby. (Okay, Debi Mazar and Andrew McCarthy). The building on the left was once where Ms. Mazar lived. It's called Twin Peaks (you can see it peaking out from behind the first picture.

Okay, maybe not who'd you expect to live in a stoic, old building - but hey - who ever knows?

Anyway, back to Mooning. I had a major case of nostalgia, wanting to return, to go back to a time that was innocent (and I was ten years younger, dammit) and pick up where I left off.

Then as I ruminated I started to remember plodding up all those stairs, how goddam hot it got in Summer, and the crazy woman who lived behind me, coming in at all hours and slamming her door. And it was a studio apartment and I was forever tripping over something, and I longed for a one-bedroom. So when one appeared as instantly as this one had, I grabbed it.

A big beautiful place on West End Avenue. But the best decision? I don't know.

Sitting around trying to recapture my time in the Village -- the best idea? No.