Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
You have died and gone to heaven. You are inside the West Town factory where Fannie May and Fanny Farmer chocolates are manufactured, and you are thisclose to vats of caramel, chocolate and pecans. Never mind that there is a TV crew filming a news segment (there are no public tours), and you’ve been spotted wearing a hairnet and a white lab coat with the name “Catherine” embroidered over your pocket. Never mind that you’re not Catherine.
Need a New Year’s Eve date? Then check out the January issue of Cosmopolitan. Chicagoan Shawn McClain is featured as “Cosmo’s Single Guy” of the month.
Viggo Mortensen is relating a tale that involves Vince Vaughn, a butcher knife and the threat of bodily harm. But, oddly enough, the actor isn’t describing the shooting of his latest film, “Psycho.” He’s remembering a country music concert. “Vince and I went to see Buck Owens one night after we had finished that day’s shoot [for “Psycho”],” Mortensen said during a call from his Los Angeles home. “I had gotten one of the `Psycho’ knives to give to Buck as a present ’cause it was his birthday. They wanted us to give it to him on stage that night. “So we bumbled our way through our speech to Buck. He opened the box and saw the knife, and the fiddler started making the “eek eek eek” [noise from the shower scene]. Buck got all excited and started posing as a damsel in distress. Then he began chasing Dwight Yoakam all around the stage with the knife. I don’t think he realized it was real.”
Johnny Rzeznik has gotten used to lingerie. No, the lead singer and guitarist for the Goo Goo Dolls hasn’t gone Marilyn Manson on us. Rather, the photogenic musician finally has gotten used to the barrage of bras and panties that his female fans fling at him onstage every night.
For a band that made its debut with an album full of bluntly sexual songs, Placebo has simmered down … a little. At their show Tuesday night at Metro, the English trio debuted cuts from their current record “Without You I’m Nothing.” Musically, the album is pure post-punk genius, heavy on dissonant guitar chords and conjuring up the romantic desperation the title implies.
On a recent episode of the hit TV series “Martial Law,” hero Sammo Law inspected a packet of jewels and said, “There are rumors about this – a new type of high-quality synthetic diamond that can only be made at high pressure, under very cold temperatures.” Impressed, his colleague asked if he had acquired this knowledge in China. “No,” Sammo said. “On the Discovery Channel.”
I’m trying very hard not to put off, hold back or save anything that would add laughter and luster to our lives. And every morning when I open my eyes I tell myself that this is a special occasion.
I always had a prejudice against pre-packaged sandwiches. Somehow, they always looked like they should be in a machine, waiting for some hungry soul to plop in a few quarters and liberate them.
The three-dimensional Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs in “T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous” look like they could throttle the dickens out of the ones depicted in “Jurassic Park.” The visuals in “T-Rex” are so amazing that a story line isn’t even necessary. But the screenwriters came up with a plot that – while not totally original – works as an effective tool to educate viewers as it entertains.
My mission, if I chose to accept it, was to try Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating program for a month. The goal wasn’t to lose weight, but to see if a fast food junkie such as myself could train herself to eat nutritious meals if they were cooked and delivered to me. It sounded good. Basically, all I had to do was chew, so I happily accepted the challenge.