I don’t know how Rush Limbaugh’s fans can listen to that delivery of his, day in and day out. Every time I catch a snippet of the show, I’m amazed at how much Limbaugh sounds like a guy doing an over-the-top impersonation of the legendary gasbag. (I know: Limbaugh’s voice changed after he experienced hearing problems, possibly stemming from his Oxycontin addiction.) And we’re just talking about his cartoonish style.
Even more ridiculous is the obvious lack of respect Limbaugh holds for his audience. How else to explain his insane insistence that he’s not part of the mainstream media? Or how about his refusal to acknowledge that the Democratic party or for that matter liberals EVER have a decent idea, a caring thought, a noble intention?
When Limbaugh saw his dream of becoming part-owner of an NFL team die a fast death, he whined like a six-year-old being sent to bed. Blame it on the liberals! The media! All those hateful, incompetent reporters who attributed quotes to El Rusbo that the great one never uttered!
As if the comments Limbaugh HAS made weren’t fuel enough.
Don’t get me wrong: I think Limbaugh has every right to say whatever the hell he wants to say—–but he has to be prepared to face the consequences. It’s Limbaugh’s fault that he was considered too toxic to invest in an NFL team, as he’s the one who’s built his fame and fortune as a racially divisive personality. That said, if any reporter or commentator falsely attributed quotes to Limbaugh, of course Limbaugh deserves a correction that’s played up as big as the original story.
But even as Limbaugh is still complaining about the drive-by media doing him wrong, he’s going on the air and quoting a paper Barack Obama supposedly wrote in a college.
And even when Limbaugh realizes he’s probably been duped, HE REPEATS THE STORY—-and then claims that when reporters learned they had falsely attributed quotes to him, they said it didn’t matter because they know that’s how Limbaugh thinks anyway.
First, I’d love to see examples of a reporter or commentator who made a false claim about Limbaugh, learned of the mistake and then wrote or said, “Ah, it doesn’t matter, we all know that’s how Limbaugh thinks.”
Second, there’s something extra slimy about Limbaugh talking about a guy “scouring the Internet” and finding no proof Obama actually wrote the paper in question, even as Limbaugh repeats some of the content of the satirical piece.
Saw an interview last year at the Sundance Film Festival in which Kristen Stewart chewed gum, mumbled her answers and rarely if ever looked the reporter in the eye.
Now, if you’re an entertainment reporter covering Sundance, you pretty much have to put up with shit like that. A long time ago, I spent nearly every weekend for a couple of years on the junket circuit, interviewing everyone from Paul Newman to Meryl Streep to Julia Roberts to Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer. Most of the stars were gracious and accommodating. I got hammered with one of them. Okay, two of them. (I’m not sure if the statute of limitations has run out.) A few of them were, what’s the word?
Assholes.
But I was in my 20s and I was working my way up the ladder, and I’d just forge ahead with the interview, even when a Harrison Ford or a Charlie Sheen would make it clear they’d rather be undergoing a colonoscopy than putting up with my questions.
Now, though, if Ms. Stewart pulled that shit on me during an interview, I would have politely suggested she take the gum out of her mouth and do me the favor of looking at me during our interview, and if that was too much effort for her she could go ski down a mountain. I wouldn’t be able to stand there and let her attitude go without comment.
I don’t know this girl at all and I’m sure there are some days when she gets really, really, really tired of all the attention and all the “Twilight” madness and the paparazzi and the Internet comments and everything else that comes with the territory, but I’m still going to offer just a little bit of unsolicited advice for her:
Smile, for fuck’s sake.
Take a look around at the world, and realize you’ve been blessed with an insane amount of good fortune. Appreciate it. Enjoy it. Embrace it.
Or quit the business and go to college or Costco or something.
Life’s too short. You’re going to wake up one day at 30 or 35 and think: I had no idea how great things were back in 2009.
Every year at the Oscars, certain stars from long ago show up early.
Really early.
The king of the early appearance is Ernest Borgnine, who won the Best Actor trophy for his unforgettable work in the 1955 classic “Marty.” The 92-year-old Borgnine and his fifth wife Tova, to whom he’s been married since Nixon was president, usually show up about three hours before the start of the telecast.
God love him, why not. By showing up so early, Borgnine gets some interview time with the dozens of TV reporters who are already in place and can use a practice run. The photographers are happy to snap away as well, leading to some early Sunday afternoon Borgnine appearances on various websites.
Another early afternoon fixture on the red carpet: Sally Kirkland, who was nominated for Best Actress for 1987’s “Anna,” and has parlayed that nomination into a yearly invite to the Oscars. Kirkland is always a bundle of crazy, twirling about on the red carpet in an outrageous outfit, giving long-winded and virtually indecipherable quotes and just generally having a great time while everyone around her chuckles.
Alas, it’s more pathetic than entertaining at this point. Kirkland doesn’t seem to care if people are laughing at her, with her, to her face, behind her back. Perhaps that’s indicative of a liberated soul and we should all aspire to be so carefree, but as someone who worked the red carpet for a decade, I can tell you that I’d cringe when I saw Kirkland coming. I’d feel embarrassed for her, knowing that hardly anyone interviewing her was actually going to use the footage, unless it was going to be for comic relief.
Which brings us to Pam Anderson.
Unlike Sally Kirkland, Anderson has never been nominated for any type of legitimate acting award. She’d be the first to tell you she’s a personality, not an actress. Her fame comes from her breasts; her Playboy appearances; her breasts; “Baywatch;” her romances with Tommy Lee and others; her breasts; and her breasts.
A few years ago, I was on the “Tonight Show” with Anderson. (The musical entertainment that night was Diddy and Nelly. I felt like I was on page 14 of Us magazine.) In person, she is quite tiny—I’m talking about her height—and she seemed very sweet. (Not that I think for a moment that you get to know someone by virtue of being on a talk show with her.) Backstage and during the commercial break, she asked me about various movies and whether they were appropriate for her children.
Now Anderson is 42. By the rules of Hollywood, fair or not, that’s 142 in starlet-years. She’s still a bombshell, albeit a surgically enhanced, looks-like-she’s-auditioning-for-Real-Housewives bombshell, but when she prances on the beach in a bikini or makes a naked appearance at a birthday party for Hef or parades down a fashion runway in a “Baywatch” swimsuit, there’s a real air of desperation attached to the moment.
Pam Anderson has become the next Sally Kirkland, without the Oscar nomination on the resume. You wish someone close to her would tell her it’s time to put away the swimsuits, deflate the breasts and figure out what she’s doing to do between now and 50. Better that she makes the choice to stop doing all that stuff before the world makes that choice for her.
On Tuesday morning, it was my privilege to participate in a very cool thing: OfficeMax’s “A Day Made Better” national teacher appreciation event.
Here’s the deal. If you’re a teacher, or you have a friend or relative who’s a teacher, you probably already know that nearly every teacher in the country regularly dips into personal funds to buy teaching supplies. A friend of mine who taught for years in the Chicago Public School system was always running out to the store to buy supplies, or hitting up friends for anything and everything that could be put to use in a classroom.
On average, a teacher spends about $1,200 a year in personal funds on classroom supplies. In recognition of the extraordinary efforts put forth every day by thousands of teachers across the country, OfficeMax has a day in which 1,000 teachers each receive surprise deliveries of $1,000 in school supplies.
A number of celebrities participate in the event, including Selena Gomez in Los Angeles.
In Chicago, I was part of the team making a surprise visit to the teachers and pre-K students at Goethe Elementary in the Bucktown neighborhood. The kids were adorable, the teachers were thrilled—-and they’re already using the supplies found in that giant box.
Why am I onstage with Grammy-winning artist Richard Marx, what was I singing—and what’s with the wings on the shirt? Details below…
“Newsapalooza” host Roe Conn.
If you saw this scene in a movie, you’d indict the screenwriter for excessive corniness, but it’s true…
An hour after Chicago had been eliminated from contention for the 2016 Olympics, I was at O’Hare Airport, on my way to Minneapolis to hold a fundraiser for ALS research. Moments after it was announced that Rio was the winner, I happened upon an American Airlines gate brimming with a party atmosphere, from balloons to handmade signs to a large cake. Kids were bouncing around with excitement as their parents fussed about, getting ready for the family to board the plane.
It was a Make-A-Wish flight. Headed for Orlando.
There’s a nice dose of perspective to get you over the whole Olympics-disappointment thing, eh?
At the fundraiser in Minneapolis, I met a twentysomething man named Michael Winston, who was diagnosed with ALS last year. What a great young man, what a terrific family he has, and what a wonderful evening it was, with about 400 people turning out to support research for ALS. As Michael gave a speech, his mother holding the microphone for him, even the most hardened cynic would have had to wipe away a tear.
Then it was back to Chicago for Newsapalooza II, hosted by Roe Conn of WLS-AM and Richard Marx. At the sold-out event at the Park West, more than a dozen extremely brave and in some cases surprisingly talented news media veterans took to the stage to perform musical numbers ranging from “R.O.C.K. in the USA” to “Mustang Sally” to the show-stopping finale, “Would I Lie to You?”
The ringer of the evening was CNN’s Christi Paul, who can flat-out sing.
Other highlights included Rob Johnson of CBS-2 rockin’ “You Really Got Me” and Amy Jacobson, Ginger Zee, Natalie Martinez and Marion Brooks doing a choreographed number to “Single Ladies.”
As for my contribution, such as it was…
For the last several weeks, I’ve had Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” playing on a continuous loop on my personal iBrain Shuffle. I would sing it to myself while walking along the beach in Santa Monica, while going for coffee in Chicago, even in my sleep. Not the studio version, but the live, “Bom-bom-bom!” and “So good, so good, so good!” version made famous at Red Sox games and in “Beautiful Girls,” among other places.
After Roe asked me to perform at Newsapalooza and I heard myself saying, “I’ll do it!”, I had to figure out a song I could do without butchering it so horribly the original artist would be contacting me and threatening litigation. I went with “Sweet Caroline” because I can sorta/kinda imitate Diamond, especially when he’s practically talking his way through a song. Also, there’s the whole audience-participation element.
Also, I had Lauren Jiggetts, Dina Bair and Anna Davlantes doing back-up vocals, hello!
The winged shirt was Diamond-esque, I figured. Right? (I don’t think I’ll be wearing it to the Kerryman any time soon
Thanks to Marx and his tremendously talented band, thanks to a woman in the front row who expertly (and spontaneously) played the part of the fan who approached the stage and inspired me to drop down to my knees (ouch) and serenade her, thanks to those backup singers and the goodwill in the audience, I actually fun out there. However, I will not be giving up any of my day jobs.
At the after-party at the Hard Rock Hotel, a woman approached and thanked me for participating in the event. Then she handed me a photo of her two children and their cousin, all three of whom have cystic fibrosis. She said she wanted me to have it so I could always put a face (or should I say three beautiful faces) on CF. These kids—Will and Sarah and Luke—-they’re the real stars of the evening. They’re the reason those of us who have been blessed with good health and good fortune do what we can to help, by lending a hand at amazing events such as Newsapalooza.
I know. This is sentimental, corny stuff, right? I don’t care. When people thank me for hosting or appearing at some event, I feel like a fraud. It doesn’t take a whole hell of a lot to show up, do a little speech or whatever, hang out with a bunch of cool people, have a few drinks and call it a night. The people that organize and support these events, they’re the ones that deserve the applause.
Grant DePorter of Harry Caray’s Restaurant, Roe’s wife Barb, and Grant’s wife Joanna.
The health care professional who dedicate their lives to finding cures for terrible diseases, they deserve our deepest gratitude and respect.
And those who are unjustly stricken with these illnesses—-especially young adults and children—-they’re the ones who wake up the morning after these big nights, facing the same pain and struggles they faced the night before. If there’s anything any of us can do to help lessen that pain and maybe someday erase those struggles, it’s our basic human duty to make it happen.
End of lecture for the week. You don’t need me telling you what’s really important in this world. You already know. But sometimes we all need reminders. This was as much for my benefit as yours.
Cheers,
RR
*Here are a couple of links you want to make a donation to fight CF or ALS…
And you thought the Cubs and White Sox had a disappointing 2009.
Are those IOC voters nuts? Don’t they know they’re risking the Wrath of Oprah!?
Apparently there’s a difference between a Michigan Avenue block party and an international voting committee in Copenhagen. And maybe that’s why President Obama was long gone before the first round of voting.
Wow. That was the universal reaction in the city on Friday morning. Whether you were hoping and praying for the Olympics to come here or you were dreading the prospect of seven years of stories about the Games, you had to be shocked that Chicago was knocked the canvas with the first punch of the morning.
All week, everyone kept talking about how we would know by 12 noon Friday if Chicago had been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games. Nobody was even considering the possibility of a first-round elimination for Chicago. Not since Cubs/Dodgers last year has a Chicago sporting dream died so fast and so hard.
The oddsmakers and conventional wisdom had Tokyo finishing fourth, Madrid third—and then a showdown between Rio and Chicago. (Self-aggrandizing note: earlier this week, I predicted it would be Rio.) So the citizenry was stunned Friday morning when it was announced we were the first city eliminated among the four finalists.
Maybe those hopefuls at Daley Plaza shouldn’t have been prematurely waving those Cubbie-blue “W” signs before the first vote was cast.
Now what? So much for all those projections of a boost to the economy, the prospect of much-needed jobs for so many Chicago-area residents, a showcase for the city, a chance for Chicago to shine on an international stage.
Not that I personally give a good cahoot about Chicago shining on an international stage. I didn’t need an oversized, two-week, track & field and swim meet to feel good about my hometown.
Whoops. Sounds like there’s a little bit of a chip Big Shoulders right now.
As I write this, I’m on my way to O’Hare. Those giant “2016” banners are going to seen as anachronistic as Christmas decorations in July.
