Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Lesbian on 'Lesbian' Attack!
3 Men Acquitted in Wone Murder Case
Changing of the Guard
Landon Donovan Does David Letterman
Heaven Sent
Rob Lowe Gives D.C. a Reality Check
While I'm guessing that Bravo's "Real Housewives of D.C." is going to break the reality-show curse on our nation's capital, I was still fascinated to read that the D.C. season of Bravo's "Top Chef" opened with the smallest audience since the first season in March 2006, and that "Real World" set in Washington was the lowest-rated season in the show's history. (This news comes as word broke that Rob Lowe has teamed up with a production company to launch "Potomac Fever," a reality series that will follow the adventures of young Washingtonians as they try to move up the ranks in the D.C. scene.)
I'd like to give Americans the "benefit" of the doubt and think that they associate Washington with politics so immediately lose interest in this city that anyone who's ever lived there is quite vibrant and fun (although I'd never want to move back there -- at this point it's New York or L.A. for me -- I'd still rank it as my third favorite U.S. city by a lot). But the entire time I lived there I found that most "non-coasters" couldn't even tell me what part of the nation Washington was located(!), so perhaps it's giving them too much credit to think they had preconceived notions about it.
In addition to the new show, Lowe is set to write a memoir ("Stories I Only Tell My Friends"), which, if it's anything like the sex tape he produced at Democratic Convention sex tape in the '80s, promises to be good stuff. (Let's hope this one is a little more in focus, though.)
Social Security in the USA
Debbie Harry is asking her fans who insist on buying her birthday presents -- the Blondie legend turns 65 tomorrow -- to instead donate the money toward environmental causes:
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Paying Lip Service to the Club Kids
Love and Death
She Liked It So She Put a (Cock) Ring on It
Music Box: Heart
How I loved those songs and those girls: Ann, with her jet-black hair and killer voice and Nancy, the gorgeous blonde who rocked as hard as any dude with a guitar. Although it didn't take me long to appreciate their earlier brilliance -- "Barracuda," "Magic Man" and "Crazy on You" -- in retrospect, if Joan Jett was the "rocker chick" I didn't appreciate as much as I might have back in the day, Heart was most definitely the underappreciated "rocker chick band." Although my affection continued into the early MTV era -- "Even It Up" was definitely in heavy rotation back when, although I think most of us could have done without that "City's Burning" video being on 24 hours a day! -- it wasn't long before the Pretenders, Divinyls and X began to consume me, and Heart slipped into what I politely refer to as their "Bette Midler years," where they made a ton of money off of slightly inferior but highly commercial material for which no one could judge them.
As with Joan Jett before my rediscovery, these days I tend to rely on the classic Heart "Greatest Hits" package -- the one showcasing the band's fertile 1976 through 1983 period -- while knowing that I really should delve deeper into this rock 'n' roll band's catalogue, which I'm told has some classic LPs buried in it. A fellow fan also tells me that the women are gearing up for the release of their first album in a number of years, "Red Velvet Car," due out in August.
But until then, let's relive the magic, man:
View to a Kill?
Courting Disaster?
Monday, June 28, 2010
Paging Dr. David Bruce Banner
'Prairie' Home Companion
Is Thomas Roberts 'Will' to Tori Spelling's 'Grace'?
The buzz has already begun that Tori Spelling's development deal for a talk show on ABC is in jeopardy due to her "poor health" and "low weight," but I have new details from behind the daytime drama, including a proposed onscreen pairing with anchorman Thomas Roberts. (FYI: Thomas cornered me the other night -- three years after the fact -- in a bar/restaurant in Chelsea to "discuss" you-know-what, and while I won't go into what he said to me right now, other than his acknowledging the photos were of him -- um, I know -- let's just say I get the feeling that he might be "related" to Kelly Killoren Bensimon. The whole thing was so bizarre, in fact, that my friend Jay texted me the following morning: "I cannot believe I had to leave so quickly after your Thomas Roberts 'Housewives' reunion moment. ... I kept waiting for Andy Cohen to pop up with a fistful of cards and start reading blog reader questions.)
My sources tell me that Tori was slated to be a guest host on "The View" back on June 14 as part of ABC's efforts to get the audience used to her as a talk show host. But if you check her tweets leading up to that scheduled appearance, you will see that she "took sick" on Monday night, and ultimately did not show up. I'm told that Tori never bothered calling the ABC executives -- the word is that getting her out of bed before 1 p.m. is frequently a challenge in and of itself -- leaving them to instead follow the tweets, wisely lining up a backup. (Kassie DePaiva was called in at the Eleventh Hour to fill her shoes.) Meantime, Thomas Roberts is said to have been tapped as a potential sidekick for this "Will & Grace" type chat show, in part because he's gay and "straight acting" (whatever that means), but, as my source put it, "just devoid of enough personality so as not to steal the spotlight" from Candy's little girl. You may recall that ABC put Roberts on "The View" last week as part of a male-themed week of fill-ins. I'm told this too was part of a plan to try him out in the talk show format. I'm also hearing that they deliberately arranged that controversial "hot topic" -- about gays donating blood -- so he could, in essence, "come out" again, this time to the daytime audience so ABC could gauge Peoria's reaction. (Several friends have commented on how awkward the whole exchange was.)
Admittedly, Donna Martin was able to overcome many obstacles at West Beverly before she finally graduated. But even if Tori pulls herself together long enough to get this show off the ground, does this sound like something anyone would watch? With three best-selling memoirs and a long-running reality show under her belt, it sounds like ABC is betting the answer is yes.
Jennifer Capriati in OD Scare
Celebrity Sin
Rachel Dratch reads Joan Lunden
Bruce Villanch reads fellow big girl Star Jones
Cheyenne Jackson reads David Hasselhoff
Kristen Johnston -- complete with temporary mole -- reads Cindy Crawford's diaries from the set of "Fair Game"
John Cameron Mitchell reads the poems of Suzanne Somers
Mario Cantone reads Carrie Prejean
B.D. Wong reads Geraldo Rivera, with Mario standing in for Liza, the one that got away
Kristen, Cheyenne and Rachel read from Debbie Reynolds' and Liz Taylor's memoirs
More fun with La Liz
Time Marches On
“The young gays and lesbians today have never heard of her,” said Lisa Cannistraci, a longtime friend of Ms. DeLarverie’s who is the owner of the lesbian bar Henrietta Hudson, where Ms. DeLarverie worked as a bouncer. “And most of our activists are young. They’re in their 20s and early 30s. The community that’s familiar with her is dwindling.”