They Forced Larry King off the Air for This?

Larry King signed off his long running talk show tonight with a lot of dignity and grace.


The most historic part of the broadcast was the assemblage of all three of the current network news anchors; Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Diane Sawyer who met at CNN's New York studios to honor Larry. Why Barbara Walters joined them I will never know. Sure she anchored the news for a brief time in the seventies but they didn't go out and dig up Peter Jennings, who probably still has more life in him that Barbrara does. I can't help it the woman irritates me.


Former president Bill Clinton also showed up and even had the good humor to make a reference to his own trouble with zippers when Larry, Bill Maher and Ryan Seacrest began discussing Larry's penchant for zippered jeans as compared to button-flies.

To his credit Bill Maher only interrupted the proceedings for a split second to call the former president out on his support of Obama's wretched tax cut compromise. I was proud of him.

CNN won't admit it but they are really pushing him out in an attempt to get someone who is a little less old school, someone hip enough to interview Lady Gaga. (apparently Larry had an interview with her recently in which he appeared out of his element....did no one stop to consider that about 95% of the general public might have trouble keeping up with her?)


And who are they replacing Larry with? Piers Morgan. Oh yeah, he's hip. That ought to bring in the ratings. The guy is all personality, if you consider smug, arrogant and rude personality traits. Apparently he has journalistic credentials in Great Britain. I don't care! I have only seen  him on America's Got Talent and Celebrity Apprentice.  (Oh and by the way....America may have talent but most of the contestants on that show don't...that includes you Susan Boyle.....you are  no better than most singers that could be found  in any church choir.....the fact you needed an extreme makeover does not qualify you for a recording contract....) 

Trace Adkins detested Piers on Celebrity Apprentice and that's all the lack of endorsement I need. Any man who can write an eloquent anthem like Honky Tonk Bodonkadonk must be trusted. A man who crafted such a masterpiece obviously has his hand on the pulse of the nation.

Why Don't TV Executives Consult me More Often?

A couple of developments on television have me very upset. The first is that no one consulted me when they were picking out which cities were going to get to see the trial run of Fran Drescher's new daytime TV talk show. St. Louis was not included. Amazing given the fact that if you listen to St. Louis local news you would think that St. Louis were the center of the universe and not the provincial little up-tight burg that it is.

One of the producers on the show is her ex-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson. I feel a special affinity to this couple since their story is very similar to my ex-wife's and mine. He came out to her after twenty years of marriage. They are still close friends.

People always think the wife should have known that their husbands were gay after they come out but there is no way of knowing. Unless you are a mean-spirited person you wouldn't suspect or know someone is gay who doesn't know or admit it to themselves. (Being a mean-spirited person I do usually suspect of course.)

The minute I saw pictures of this guy in a speedo my gaydar went off. Peter definitely falls in the "too cute to be straight" category. Although there are plenty of very cute straight men....you know, like Tom Cruise.

She has another show in development with Jacobson, a sitcom entitled, Happily Divorced based on their own relationship. I wonder if they need a consultant. I was never in television but I have done a lot of community theatre. No wait, on second thought they probably couldn't take that much drama. It's supposed to be a  comedy.


You can see clips from the show on frandrescher.com

The other new development is the complete overhaul of the Early Show on CBS. They have ousted the entire anchor team on that show and are going to replace it with a new crew on Jan. 3.

I have only rarely tuned into The Early Show weekdays but when I have I have enjoyed seeing Harry Smith. He is seems like a pretty regular guy and he doesn't give me the inferiority complex I get from watching Matt Lauer. This has only gotten worse since he started losing his hair. At least before when he looked better than I did I could blame the hair. But the fact that he remained gorgeous without it is more than I can take.

The new team is led by Erica Hill. I watched her on Anderson Cooper 360 but if she were a real news person wouldn't she have outed him by now?

Her co-anchor is Chris Wragge. He just strikes me as the kind of guy that knows he is good looking. He is too arrogant for me. It's as if someone told him he were good looking and he believed them.

The only time I watched The Early Show was on Saturday mornings when Russ Mitchell used to host. I always had to turn it off though by the time they got to the Second Cup Cafe. All the acts were too obscure for me. I felt like I was back at Mckendree College in the early seventies trapped in the shed they called the coffeehouse.

The new news anchor, Jeff Glor is cute but if they are going to get me to watch with the arrogant Chris Wegge around they are going to have to let the even cuter Seth Doane contribute. Otherwise I am sticking with Matt.

More and Less for 2011 (part 1)

I would like to see more of Evan Lysacek (although if he shows much more than he is showing in this pic I will have to change the privacy settings on this blog) and less of Johnny Weir. Evan skates with power and grace while Johnny only seems to be interested in photo ops lately, showing up in outfits that he picked up at Lady Gaga's garage sale. I get it Johnny, You're unique. But that doesn't make you interesting.

More Joy Behar and less Barbara Walters. I don't think Barbara's stock is as high at ABC as is used to be because she keeps dropping by The View a lot more often than she has in the past. And when she does she can't keep herself from chastising her employees publicly. I love the fact that someone named Joy isn't afraid to be  abrasive and crass (two of the traits I find most admirable) when she is ranting about the far left which seems to be holding this country hostage since the mid-term elections.

More Darren Chris and less Lea Michele on Glee...unless he ends up breaking poor little Kurt's heart that is. I try not to download any new programs on my computer since they never seem agree with the programs that are already installed but I made an exception and installed iTunes just so I could download all of Chris's songs. On the other hand I am growing tired of Lea Michele's character. I get it. Rachel is supposed to be unlikeable but somewhere in Malibu Barbra is breaking dishes and sticking pins in little Lea Michele dolls every time this girl remakes one of her hits. Her recent remake of Karen Carpenter's Merry Christmas Darling had nothing of the richness of Karen's vocals. Sometimes a soprano needs to admit they need to leave the mellow tones to the altos.

My Father's Favorite Cookie

I only cook during the months of Nov. and Dec. Lately I don't even mix up my own sugar cookie dough but there is one holiday tradition I always keep and that is baking my father's favorite cookies. He only got them once a year, at Christmas time, probably because they have more than four ingredients and the dough had to chill.

How my mother got the time in to bake even one batch per holiday season is beyond me. She spent the entire month of December cooking batch after batch of fudge for the neighbors. She was known in the neighborhood and the church for having the "knack" when it came to making fudge and divinity. Guess who got to stir every damn batch? And only got to eat the scrapings from the pan? Me! But I am NOT bitter. (Thanks to years of therapy)

I usually hate cooking segments and don't think for one minute this blog is going to become some haven for Martha Stewart wannabes but I am going to share this recipe because these cookies are worth the trouble. They are light and delicate. (Just like I used to be before I became a sedentary retiree) They are called Jubilee Jumbles and they are a soft sugar cookie with a burnt butter glaze. Come to think of it this cookie is right up Martha's alley. She likes delicate things. Or at least that's what she told her prison roommate, Earlina.

Jubilee Jumbles

1/2 cup soft shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 white sugar

2 eggs

1 cup undiluted carnation evaporated milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 3/4 cup sifted flour

1/2 tsp soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup chopped nuts

Mix thoroughly shortening, sugars, eggs. Stir in evaporated milk and vanilla.

Sift together flour, soda, salt and stir in. Blend in the nuts

Chill one hour.

Heat oven to 375

Drop rounded teaspoons full onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake until delicately brown.

While warm frost with burnt butter glaze and garnish with nuts.

 Burnt butter glaze

Heat 2 tbsp butter until golden brown. Beat until smooth 2 cups softened confectioners sugar and 1/4 cup undiluted evaporated milk.

(This is never enough glaze for me so I usually double that portion of the recipe. There is usually enough evaporated milk in one can for the cookies and the icing....)

Maybe McDonald's Should Just Close Their Dining Rooms.

Maybe McDonalds should just close their dining rooms. None of their food is good enough to sit and savor anyway and they only install the most uncomfortable seating even in the restaurants that have had a McCafe overhaul.

That whole McCafe thing has me steamed anyway. No one is going to mistake a McDonald's for a Starbucks. I guess the executives at McDonald's corporate headquarters saw somebody else making some money and couldn't stand it.

I had forty-five minutes for lunch today and didn't want any of the forms of grease available on the school's ala carte food line so I decided to head to McDonald's for a different kind of artery clogging fare. When I arrived the drive-through was backed up all the way past the front of the building. It was a warm day so I decided to try and buck the trend, park my car and run in to get my carry out meal.

Please somebody shoot me if I ever try this again. McDonalds like all other fast food restaurants must put a priority in filling their drive-through orders. (you would never suspect this if you were in the drive-through line of course)

It's lunch. They're busy but they still have only one person taking orders inside and no one assigned to fill them apparently. This despite the fact they have a sign in plain view declaring that the delivery time for food at the front counter is fifty seconds. It makes you wander where they buy their stop watches. They sure aren't using Swiss timepieces. They are so intent on not letting the drive-through back up (too late) that they have left dining room (and I use that term loosely) abandoned.

I don't need this. If  I  had wanted to be ignored I could have gone  back to  the class where I was substitute teaching.

I Had to Have me Some Paul Lynde This Morning

After watching Obama defend himself for caving in on the tax cuts for the wealthy yesterday I had to have some intense Paul Lynde therapy this morning. His remark in the video on government wasn't one of his wittiest but perhaps even then the government was frustrating him to the point he couldn't do his best work. Nice to know it isn't anything new at least.

I guess I missed the Donny and Marie episode where Paul appeared. Interesting that Marie mentions he just wanted to get in, get his work done and move on. She claims it was because he didn't like kids. Right, Marie! I'm sure you didn't annoy him at all. For some reason I could always take Donny a lot easier.

Paul Lynde on Our Government

Paul Lynde SOUR GRAPES

Made for Each Other.....or Not....

Well it's pretty clear who the new queen is over at TLC and it isn't Kate Gosselin. They set her and the eight little no-necks up on a camping trip with Sarah Palin for her new reality show. (Kate and the kids just happened to be in Alaska.....funny how these things work out.)

Kate just couldn't handle the wet and the cold. When it was time to eat the mooseburgers she bailed out of the entire episode claiming the lack of sanitation. What? No hand sanitizer? Geez, Kate how do you think mankind survived this long without it? We all know the real reason you bailed was because those lovely new extensions of yours were frizzing.

I never thought that anyone could make Sarah Palin look good in my eyes but anyone who can get Kate to show her true colors earns brownie points, or in this case a merit badge in my book.

I am sure conservative men all over the country were salivating over the possibility of these two giving us the female version of Brokeback Mountain up there in the Alaska wilds, bashing the media all snug in their little pup tents. But sadly America will be deprived of that opportunity thanks to Kate's concern for her kiddies cleanliness.

Ole Sarah may not be the brightest light in the Aurora Borealis but something tells me she set Kate up for a fall big time in this episode. I bet dutiful little  Bristol found out all the scoop on Kate's diva behavior on the set of Dancing With the Stars and filled mama grizzly in on how to secure herself the top spot in TLC's lineup.

"Everything they say about her is true, mama." I can imagine Bristol telling her. "You take her out to the North Woods, get her damp and cold and she'll fold faster than Levi's Playgirl pinup poster."

"Thanks for the tip, honey," I can hear Sarah responding in my sick little mind. "I'm mighty grateful. And to prove it to ya' I'm not gonna make you babysit Trip tonight. It's time Todd took his turn!"



The link to a Huffington Post article describing the episode is here

Boy do Those Hollywood Types Know Their Target Audiences or Not?

Larry and I went to see Burlesque last night and as we were leaving the theatre I said, "I would see that again!" Not that it was a great film mind you, it wasn't, unless you like predictable fluff, which it was. But sometimes I just want to go see a nice movie about nice people.

Cher is about to lose her burlesque club and  Christina Aguilera moves in with a guy that is already engaged. But there is never a doubt for one moment that Christina isn't going to get the guy and that Cher is going to get to keep her club. Come on. She's Cher for heaven's sake. The only reason the club is in danger in the  first place is to give her an excuse to sing her Act II ballad.

I thought I might become a Christina Aguilera fan after seeing this movie and I did. I was just waiting to make sure she could belt out  showtunes before I committed.

Christina  should hire whoever put her looks together for this movie to dress her and make her up daily. She looks great all through the film except for the one scene where she lets Cher do her makeup....makes you wonder if Cher really liked her......

But the real reasons to see this film are the men. Stanley Tucci, god love him plays another of his wonderful gay roles.
I  got to see him naked on Broadway  in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune a few years ago and he did make quite an impression on me even from the balcony. He is basically just doing his same shtick from the Devil Wears Prada here but he can keep right on doing it as far as I am concerned. I love the fact that he doesn't have that smooth chested thing going on. He is a man. He has hair on his chest. Go Stanley!

And then there is the lovely and talented Cam Gigandet. Who am I kidding I have no idea if he has talent or not. I was too busy staring into his eyes, made up with lots of eye liner. I have decided to start wearing it myself. I won't look like Cam but at least I can have something in common with him.

None of the girls really get naked in this film. We don't even see any T and very little A. Not that I or anyone else who is going to go see a Cher movie cares. This move was for gay men. So of course the only one who gets naked is Cam. The scene where he finally seduces Christina Aguilera features a charming strip tease. It was funny and cute. However, I am boycotting Famous Amos Cookies from this date forward since they were the only thing standing between Cam and Christina when he finally bared all to her, if you know what I mean.

Burlesque

Larry and I are off to see Burlesque this evening. I am anxious to see it. The critics on Rotten Tomatoes didn't care for it too much but audiences loved it. Who knows I may even become a Christina Aguilera fan.

It's supposed to be a shameless display of glitz. No wonder the critics won't admit they like it. Do these people dress in tweed constantly?

I remember how shocked people were when they realized Cher could act. It didn't surprise me. She had done a lot of characters during the run of the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and her own variety series. I have always believed that comic acting is a lot harder than dramatic acting. Lots of comic actresses have made successful transitions to dramatic acting including Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. But not many serious actors can develop comic timing.

And there were all those characters she created for album covers and photo shoots. The only character she hasn't revealed is a Cher that looks her age. She and her plactic surgeons really took the title to If I Could Turn Back Time seriously.

As Jim J. Bullock said in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, "After the Apocalypse only three things will remain; Cher, cockroaches and Tammy Faye."

John and Kate....the Gifts that Keep on Giving

Thank you, thank you, thank you for returning to the air waves this morning to clear up those nasty rumors about your darling, damaged children. After  a week of internet rumors concerning the fact that two of her children were expelled, my one and only reason to live, Kate Gosselin appeared on the Today Show this morning to clear things up for us. Her children weren't expelled from their private school. They were just having some anger issues and can no longer attend. That's called being expelled everywhere except the TLC studio you call your home, Kate!

Honey, honey honey! Do you even believe your own lies any more?

Please hand Meredith Vieira an Emmy now for being able to sit there with a straight face and listen to this psychotic woman drift from reality into the dementia where she must spend most of her time. Kate practically nominated herself for sainthood during this segment. If Meredith had had any holy water on her she would have been canonized by now.The only gratification I got out of this appearance was the fact her hair was a mess. Apparently not even the hair dressers at NBC want to be around her. It's good to know someone has some standards there.

Later in the day John McCain appeared at Senate hearings making one last bold attempt to keep the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy in place.

I have never understood why anyone thought of this man as a maverick. His medication must have worn off at the time. He never appeared to be any different than any other politician to me yet the media and the talk show hosts were always so enamored of him.

John McCain served with gay men. You know he did. So how in the world could he oppose this repeal? Who would he rather serve with; a closeted homosexual or an out one? Which did he think was more likely  to make some stealth attack in the middle of the night while he was lying on that tiny POW cot we all saw too much of during his presidential run?

Just wait. Like most of his conservative cohorts that rage against homosexuality he is going to come out of the closet sooner or later. Maybe he will  be caught in a bathroom stall tapping his foot (and I don't mean in time to Justin Bieber's latest single)

Or maybe he will finally admit to having lived with a man all these years. That wife of his is pretty but in a very severe way. You know.....like most drag queens.  When she refers to having a little nip and a little tuck she may not be referring to her plastic surgery.

Time will tell. You know I have always been right before!