BS SHOW BIZ BUZZ:
23-year-old Toronto-born “90210” actress Shenae Grimes (‘Annie Wilson’) has confirmed via Twitter her engagement to British male model Josh Beech (24), whom she’s been dating since earlier this year, and is asking that everyone respect their wish for a private wedding (if you really want privacy, you don’t tweet) . . . It seems we’re getting closer and closer to the much-anticipated Brangelina wedding as they’ve reportedly now picked up their wedding bands (pick your date in the pool – other than December 31st, that’s ours) . . . There are big changes coming to “Smash” when it returns to NBC-TV on February 5th, mostly involving firing a lot of people and throwing out Debra Messing’s collection of gargantuan crazy-lady scarves (and how about adding a compelling storyline of some kind?) . . . 26-year-old sorta actress Megan Fox tells “Daily Mirror” she’s no longer going to strip onscreen or prance around in a bikini now that she’s a mom (so, that about wraps up her Hollywood career) . . . Increasingly wacky actress Demi Moore had an odd date for an exclusive Chanel party in Miami – a stray cat she picked up by her hotel pool which sat on her lap throughout the gala dinner (the only heavy petting she’s done in months) . . . Mila Kunis’ topless “Esquire” magazine cover has been named ‘Sexiest Photo of 2012’ by UK tabloid “The Sun” (we’re guessing by a wide margin over Melissa McCarthy’s “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit edition spread) . . . Estranged acting couple Rhea Perlman & Danny Devito are said to be ‘working’ on their relationship (BS translation: The roundest, ugliest guy in show biz has found out he doesn’t have a lot of options) . . . In the January issue of “Elle”, the new Mrs Justin Timberlake, 30-year-old Jessica Biel, reveals marriage is important to her because ‘it means always having someone there to open the pickle jar, to go swimming naked with, that kind of thing’ (we always thought her vacuous but we were wrong – dumb as a stump) . . . Actress Drew Barrymore may be selling exclusive baby photos of her little daughter Olive to “People” mag (because her last hit movie was … um …) . . . And yesterday Aussie radio network Southern Cross Austereo officially cancelled “The Hot 30”, the 2Day FM show hosted by Mel Greig & Michael Christian, just as the former on-air duo tearfully apologized (again) on TV for last week’s prank call-gone-bad to Kate Middleton’s hospital ward; and the company has also banned all phony phone calls and implemented a review of on-air content policy, yet given no inkling if the 2 suspended broadcasters have any hope of being reinstated (let us all be thankful that all the truly stupid things we’ve done on-air never led to this kind of worldwide public gutting … amen).
TODAY’S SHOW BIZ SKED:
• “Conan” (TBS/CTV) – Graham Parker & The Rumour (“Three Chords Good”).
• “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (ABC/CityTV) – Sarah Jaffe (“The Body Wins”).
• “Last Call With Carson Daly” (NBC) – Fidlar (“Don’t Try”).
• “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” (NBC/CTV2) – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (“The Heist”).
• “Late Show With David Letterman” (CBS/NTV/Omni1) – Awolnation (“Megalithic Symphony”); Top 10 List presented by Rolling Stones Mick Jagger & Keith Richards.
• “Live With Kelly & Michael” (syndicated/CTV) – Lifehouse (“Almería”, their 6th album, out today).
• “Nobel Peace Prize Concert” (Oslo, Norway) – Actors Sarah Jessica Parker & Gerard Butler co-host the annual salute, with performances by Australian-born pop star Kylie Minogue, Grammy-winning R&B singer Ne-Yo, and Belgian singer-songwriter Milow.
NET: http://www.nobelpeaceprizeconcert.org
• “Tonight Show With Jay Leno” (NBC/CTV2) – Allen Stone (“Allen Stone”).
• “The View” (ABC/CTV) – Big Boi w/Kelly Rowland (his 2nd solo album “Vicious Lies & Dangerous Rumors”, out today, also features collaborations with A$AP Rocky, Big KRIT, Kid Cudi, Ludacris, TI, and Swedish synth-pop act Little Dragon).
• “Viva Forever!” (London) – It’s opening night for this new musical inspired by the brief yet white-hot career of the Spice Girls (1996-2000) and based on their hit songs. The show is playing at the Piccadilly Theatre in London’s West End.
• “The Voice” (NBC/CTV) – Matchbox Twenty perform their new single “Overjoyed”; Ne-Yo performs “Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)”; Season 2 contestants Chris Mann, Juliet Simms, and RaeLynn perform; 2 artists face elimination.
BS MUSIC NOTES:
• Adele –She gave birth to her first child with partner Simon Konecki October 19th but has yet to file the required paperwork with registrars. She’s facing a $1,600-fine for violating the 42-day legal deadline. (A small price to pay for privacy and not having the world trash her choice of baby name.)
• Beck – Today he releases his ‘album’ of sheet music, “Beck Hansen’s Song Reader”, which is basically a hard-cover book filled with music & lyrics for songs no one has ever heard before. So with nothing to compare them to, musicians of all skill levels are encouraged to take a whack at their own interpretations.
• Bruno Mars – Today his 10-track new album “Unorthodox Jukebox” is released. The cover features a gorilla draped over an old-school jukebox, a reference to the track “Gorilla”. A ‘Deluxe Edition’ available only at Target stores and online at Target.com has 5 bonus tracks.
• The Game – Tonight at the House of Blues in Los Angeles he celebrates today’s release of his 5th album, “Jesus Piece”, on which he’s enlisted help from Chris Brown, Common, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Tyga, and Wiz Khalifa.
• Rihanna – Today the numbered limited-edition ‘Diamonds Executive Platinum Box’ version of her new album “Unapologetic” is available … at $250. For that, you get a ‘handwritten personal note’, USB flash drive, unisex shirt, 28-page booklet, and 20-minute DVD, plus the original album of course.
• Taylor Swift – She must be getting serious with her One Direction BF Harry Styles because she’s just introduced him to her actress-BFFs Emma Stone and Dianna Agron.
TODAY’S VIDEO RELEASES:
• “The Bourne Legacy” ( PG-13 Action Thriller ): Former franchise director Paul Greengrass once jokingly called a possible 4th instalment “The Bourne Redundancy”, and now we’ll see if he was right. With ‘Jason Bourne’ out of the picture, the series reboots sideways with a new agent, ‘Aaron Cross’, played by Jeremy Renner. Co-stars Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton.
• “Ice Age: Continental Drift” ( PG Family Adventure ): This animated franchise is now 10 years old and still defying extinction. In this 4th instalment, the ‘super-zero heroes’ battle sea monsters and pirates while adrift on an iceberg during global warming. Voice cast includes Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, Jennifer Lopez, and Drake.
• “Quebec Magnetic” ( NR Music Concert ) – This film was shot at 2 Metallica concerts in Québec in the Fall of 2009. Fans selected the songs via online voting. It comes in various formats including Blu-ray, 2-DVD set, and digital download. Note: This project is not related to Metallica’s upcoming 3-D film.
• “Ted” ( R-Rated Comedy Fantasy ): Mark Wahlberg stars as a grown man who’s forced to deal with the angst of living with his very-much-alive teddy bear from childhood. It’s writer-director Seth MacFarlane’s surreal live-action feature debut, but it’s just about as crude and profane as his TV cartoon shows, “Family Guy” among them.
• Also released today: “41” (George HW Bush Documentary); “Chiller: The Complete Television Series” (TV Horror); “Futurama: Volume 7” (TV Animation); “Girls: The Complete 1st Season” (TV Comedy); “JAG: The Complete Series – Collector’s Edition” (Vintage TV); “Mission: Impossible: The Complete Television Collection Gift Set” (Vintage TV Compilation); “NOVA scienceNOW: Can I Eat That?” (Documentary); “The Story of Film: An Odyssey (Documentary); “Thomas & Friends: Sticky Situations” (Family Animation); and “The Yardbirds – Making Tracks” (Music Documentary).
WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE WHISKY:
Yesterday in Los Angeles, the final bottle of Scotch-maker Glenfiddich’s world-record breaking ‘Janet Sheed Roberts Reserve’ was sold at auction. The hooch is named after Glenfiddich founder William Grant’s granddaughter, who died earlier this year at the ripe old vintage of 110. To honor her, a cask of Scotch that had been aging since New Year’s Eve 1955 was bottled. Of the 15 bottles, the family kept 4 and the remainder have been selling at charity auctions. One sold for a world record $94,000, purchased by an Atlanta-based whisky fan. (In the lingo of Scotch aficionados, this stuff is oakey-dokey.)
– NPR.org
THIS BLOWS:
The ‘Chihuly’ app, a new iPhone application that launched last week, allows users to create virtual blown glass … by blowing into their phone’s microphone. Joe Alexander, Chief Creative Officer for one of the app’s developers, says they’ve taken a thousand-year-old craft and merged it with brand new technology by replicating the blowing, shaping, and sculpting involved in real glassblowing. Users can further manipulate the virtual ‘glass’ with their fingertips. (Now let’s see, this would be useful for … ?????)
– HuffingtonPost.com
HOLIDAY GOODIES, HOLLYWOOD-STYLE:
Frank DeCaro, who’s been dubbed the ‘Grim Reaper Gourmet’, has published a follow-up to last year’s “Dead Celebrity Cookbook”. This one’s entitled “Christmas in Tinseltown” and it includes actual holiday recipes from some of Hollywood’s late and great. Among them are ‘Robert Mitchum’s Eggnog’, a potent concoction that requires an entire quart of rum, brandy, or whiskey; and ‘Karen Carpenter’s Peach Mabel’, a desert confection from the unmistakable voice of The Carpenters, whose 1970 holiday hit “Merry Christmas, Darling” is still being played to death every year. (If she’d eaten more Peach Mabel, she’d still be around.)
– QMI Agency
STUDENTS ON GRASS:
Grass lawns have been brought indoors to help students at New York’s Cornell University deal with the stress of exams. The university’s Department of Design & Environmental Analysis has used sections of turf to create grassy oases of calm in the lobbies of two of the school’s libraries as well as in a pair of science buildings on campus. School administrator Eveline Ferretti claims that being in touch with nature helps Cornell students feel calmer, refreshed, and more productive. (And this way you can get turfed both before AND after you flunk out.)
– UPI.com
FOR THE RECORD:
A self-controlled swimming robot has completed a journey from San Francisco, California to Australia. The record-breaking 16,700-km trip (10,400 mi) took the ‘PacX Wave Glider’ just over a year to achieve. Along the way, the US company behind the project collected data about the Pacific Ocean’s temperature, salinity, and ecosystem. Liquid Robotics still has 3 other robots at sea. A second is due to land in Australia in early 2013; and 2 others had been heading to Japan, but one of them has suffered damage and been diverted to Hawaii for repair. (You know what this means? New athlete tests are going to be required at the next Olympics.)
– BBC News
DID YOU KNOW?
✓ The average family sends and receives 28 Christmas cards each year.
✓ In the Middle Ages, peacocks and swans were sometimes served at Christmas dinners.
– GreatFacts.com
BS CHRONOMETER 12.11.12
TODAY’S CELEBIRTHDAYS . . .
1944 [68] Brenda Lee (Tarpley), Lithonia GA, 4’-9” oldies singer who was 16 when she recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”/Country Music Hall of Fame (1998)/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (2002)
1954 [58] Jermaine Jackson, Gary IN, has-been pop singer (The Jacksons, Jackson 5)/reality TV personality (“The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty” 2009)
1958 [54] Nikki Sixx (Frank Ferranno), San Jose CA, rock bassist (Motley Crue-“If I Die Tomorrow”, “Girls Girls Girls”)
1973 [39] Mos Def (Dante Smith), Brooklyn NY, movie actor (“Cadillac Records”, “The Italian Job”)/rapper (“Mathematics”)
1981 [31] Zacky Vengeance (Baker), Huntington Beach CA, metal rock guitarist-vocalist (Avenged Sevenfold-“So Far Away”, “Buried Alive”)
TODAY’S BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .
• “International Mountain Day”, first declared by the UN in 2002 to draw attention to the important role that mountainous regions play in water and food supply.
NET: http://tinyurl.com/d4wzrq5
• “National Tango Day” in Argentina, particularly in Buenos Aires, where the classic dance was invented toward the end of the 19th century. (Everybody now! Dum, dum dum, dum, da-dadda dum dum, dum dum ….)
• “Scaling Day” (“Fête de l’Escalade”) in Geneva, Switzerland, an annual celebration for over 400 years, since 1602. It’s when stores sell pot-shaped chocolate candies to represent the soup pots women used in medieval days to pour scalding water on any invaders attempting to ‘scale’ city walls. (How charming!)
THIS DAY IN SHOW BIZ . . .
1992 [20] Disney’s live-action feature “The Muppet Christmas Carol” is released in movie theaters
TODAY’S MUSIC EVENTS . . .
1972 [40] Rock group Genesis debuts at a concert at Brandeis University in Massachusetts (includes Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks)
1982 [30] “Mickey” by Toni Basil peaks at #1 on the pop singles chart
TODAY’S FIRST . . .
2000 [12] 1st ‘Player-Owner’ in NHL history as Pittsburgh Penquins co-owner Mario Lemeiux announces he’s coming out of 3-plus-years of retirement to play again
TODAY’S RECORD . . .
1977 [35] Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally win an NFL game after losing their first 26 regular season games, 11 by shutout (beat New Orleans Saints 33-14)
AND REMEMBER . . .
[Wed] “12.12.12 Benefit Concert” (NYC)
[Wed] Gingerbread House Day
[Wed] Poinsettia Day
[Thurs] Rolling Stones play Newark NJ
[Fri] “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” opens in movie theaters
[Fri] Salesperson Day
This Week Is … Human Rights Week
This Month Is … Stress-Free Family Holiday Month
BULL’S BITS
BS ETIQUETTE FOR THE OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY:
This week is one of the most popular for corporate holiday get-togethers, so keep these rules in mind …
✗ Do NOT mention how nice it is to have a boss who can play Santa … without padding.
✗ Do NOT ask the CEO’s wife, “Would it be OK if I touch your hair?”
✗ DO try to act with dignity, decency, and decorum… even if you are a lawyer.
✗ Do NOT attempt to do a cannonball … into the eggnog.
✗ Do NOT whip out your iPhone and show hilarious pictures you took of your daughters playing in the bathtub … especially if your daughters are 22 and 19.
✗ Do NOT recommend to the boss that she mix her Chivas with Slim-Fast.
✗ Do NOT attempt to appear festive by wearing mistletoe … on your lampshade.
✗ Do NOT at any point display your exotic (or erotic) dancing skills, particularly if they involve a less-than-smooth move called ‘Wangham Style’.
BS RANDOM JOKE:
… now there is further proof that half the people in this country are below median intelligence.
BS PHONE STARTER:
☎ What do you think is the ‘must-have’ item this Christmas? ‘iPad Mini’, ‘Wii U’, the resurrected ‘Furby’?
BS WATER COOLER QUESTION:
Question: This holiday season 1-in-3 people plan on doing THIS.
Answer: Re-gifting.
BS DEEP THOUGHT:
Failure is never fatal and success is never final.