Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
Karen Duffy is digging around her purse. She isn’t looking for lipstick, mints or a comb. She is looking for morphine. The raven-haired former MTV veejay suffers from sarcoidosis, an incurable disease that attacks the central nervous system.
Who would’ve thought that a turtle could go up against Jackie Chan and hold his own? Not long after battling evil as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, former Chicagoan Ho-Sung Pak found himself playing the heavy opposite Jackie Chan in “The Legend of Drunken Master.”
It’s fitting that the art of Jerry Garcia is on a national tour. After all, Garcia spent a good chunk of his life on the road with the Grateful Dead before he died of a heart attack Aug. 5, 1995.
We asked our readers to tell us which Beatles love song was the most romantic. We wanted to know, in 100 words or less, what special memories you might have attached to that song.
Of the many readers who entered, 10 of the best responses garnered copies of “The Beatles Anthology.” But the best and most charming entry came from Judy “Jude” Finkel of Chicago, who told us how “Hey Jude” brought her and her husband, Harvey, together.
Candace Bushnell is walking down Michigan Avenue smoking a Merit. She is chic, blond and a dead ringer for Peggy Lipton during her “Mod Squad” heyday. A woman walks by pushing a pram occupied by a tiny baby and an equally small dog. Bushnell sneaks a quick peek and says, “It makes me want to have a baby just so that I could accessorize it with a dog.”
“We did ‘Breach’ as quickly as we could,” says Jakob Dylan, phoning from Los Angeles last week. “The last record came out in 1996, but we were [on tour] until the middle of 1998. I was aware of a lot of time going by [between albums] and I wasn’t happy with that. I took some time off to rest when we got home from touring. But other than that, we got back to work right away.”
Back in the day, celebrity chefs started and ended with Julia Child and her messy but amusing style. But thanks to the advent of cable television in general and the Food Network in particular, the faces of a new breed of hot-shot chefs are becoming familiar. Joining the ranks of Emeril Lagasse, Ming Tsai and those poker-faced Iron Chefs are a couple of young guns–Tyler Florence and Bob Blumer.
Here’s what the Internet buzz was Monday about Madonna’s “Music.” All spelling and grammar are as the fans intended:
“The Watcher,” America’s No. 1 film, isn’t the the only project where Keanu Reeves shuns top billing.
He’s been doing it for years in the rock band Dogstar. The star of “The Matrix” is very aware that his status as an actor will overpower anything that his formidable band Dogstar accomplishes.
James Sie has Jackie Chan’s moves down pat. Vocally, anyhow. As Chan’s voice double in the animated series “Jackie Chan Adventures,” which will air at 10 a.m. Sundays on WCIU-Channel 26 starting this weekend, the former Chicago actor captures Chan’s energetic nuances so well that the casual listener would have a difficult time figuring out whether it was Chan or Sie doing the talking.