Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
There’s a lot to be said for staying home and curling up in front of the TV on New Year’s Eve. You don’t have to deal with traffic jams, snooty waiters or drunken strangers puckering up in your vicinity. And, if you happen to get a tad tipsy, you’re already home.
There isn’t much that hasn’t happened to the orphaned siblings on “Party of Five.” Death, infidelity, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, mental illness and alcoholism all have been dealt with responsibly on the Fox drama. On tonight’s episode, from 8 to 9 on Channel 32, the family faces another blow when eldest brother Charlie Salinger reveals that he has Hodgkin’s disease.
If you can’t find something fun to do on a Chicago weekend, then you’re an idiot. So says Mancow Muller, the popular, outspoken morning drive radio personality at WRCX-FM (103.5). For the uninitiated, Muller, 30, is a man who doesn’t weather boredom well either on his radio show or his live rock ‘n’ roll extravaganzas. For instance, at his “Hell-O-Ween Spectacular” last month at the United Center, his sideshow included dozens of lap dancers who took their acts to audience members. Then there was the little matter of feeding time for the 600-pound snake and a little donkey named Danny, but we won’t go there for a bit. So it was with curiosity that the Sun-Times set out to chronicle a typical night out with the popular shock jock.
Novelist Judith Rossner admits that her characters’ antics often get so violent that they frighten her out of her own house. “The violence and the plots I come up with sometimes scare me,” Rossner said.
Mark Harmon is hovering by the juniors department at Carson Pirie Scott downtown, but he’s not shopping. The star of “Chicago Hope” is preparing for his next scene, which is being filmed in an unused section of the department store’s second floor. The cast and crew of the fictional Chicago Hope Hospital fly to the Windy City two to three times each year to shoot on location.
Brian Liesegang didn’t have a difficult time finding a job out of college. After graduating with a degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago five years ago, Liesegang joined the rock group Nine Inch Nails.
Chicagoans are used to spotting bits of the Windy City on NBC’s hit drama “ER,” which kicks off its fourth season with a one-hour live broadcast at 9 p.m. Thursday on Channel 5. But when they spot the actors walking around their streets, they get a little rabid. For instance, one woman asked George Clooney – who plays womanizing pediatrician Doug Ross – to sign her baby’s Pampers.
You know their faces and you even know some of their names. They’re the family members, lovers and hangers-on who have littered the Rolling Stones’ lives during the band’s 35-year career. Some, such as Mick Jagger’s ex-wife, Bianca, have survived nicely, and built lives for themselves away from the excesses of rock ‘n’ roll. Others (Anita Pallenberg, Mandy Smith) still are getting used to not being on the world’s most famous guest list.
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince has nothing on the Roots’ Ahmir Khalib-Thompson. Since the band formed 10 years ago, the drummer has billed himself as ?uestlove and B.R.O. the R. ?uestion, before settling on his first name (which not only sounds better than the other monikers, but also is less confusing).
“I think we’re five smart women who bring something different to TV,” said host Meredith Vieira, who spent more than two decades covering hard news for such programs as “60 Minutes,” “West 57th” and “Turning Point.” “We’re opinionated and not afraid of airing our views. Plus we’re live and unscripted, so anything could happen.”