Side show

By SHARON FINK, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 4, 2002

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY: If you're still looking for ways to show your red, white and blue allegiance, here are some of the more unusual avenues available, from the Baltimore Sun, with contributions from SideShow:

• Paragon Trade Brand's Little Patriots disposable diapers with red, white and blue stars.
• The UV Acrylic USA Picture Tongue Barbell tongue ring, which has a flag on it.
• PetSmart's Patriotic Cat Toy Value Pack, which includes a red, white and blue, star-covered catnip mouse, and its Patriotic Pillow Catnip Toy.
• Red, white and blue foam "stress relievers" shaped like a star, the United States and the flag (you squeeze them to relieve your aggressions), from a company that makes promotional items for other companies.
• Beretta's "United We Stand" 9mm pistol (not to be confused with any future release of a Robert Blake-Baretta "Divided We Fall" Walther P-38 military 9mm handgun).
• Frederick's of Hollywood's Patriotic Thong Panty, in three styles: covered with stars or flags, and with a heart-shaped flag.

LOOKING FOR THE REAL WORLD: Vogue this month continues its run of "let's connect with real women" cover stories, following: "It's okay to be older than 25" and "All body shapes are great -- as long as you don't wear a size bigger than 14" with "The New American Dress Code: What real women dare to wear."

By "real women" it means people who live in New York, Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles and can afford designer clothes.

The hinterlands are relegated to a few 200-words-or-less vignettes. Tampa gets one, attributed to Lynn Cone, interior designer: "My husband and I house-hop between our Manhattan, Connecticut and Florida homes, and I must say that in Tampa, the heels are a little higher, the Seven jeans are a bit tighter and the women definitely wear more halter tops! (Editor's note: Isn't that amazing! Women in Florida wear more halter tops than they do in Manhattan and Connecticut!) Regardless of where I live, I tend to be a 'less is more' girl, but when you live in Tampa and you're getting ready to go out for dinner and the question pops up whether to take off a gold bracelet or throw on another, you always add the extra accessory."

'AMERICAN IDOL' MOMENT OF THE WEEK: If Fox's great pop singer search really is unscripted, then two days before July Fourth it confirmed what most of us have suspected for months: the First Amendment has been revoked. Judges Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul, both Americans, forcefully told "mean" judge Simon Cowell, who is British, that he couldn't call some contestants "losers" because we don't say things like that in America.

Jackson then spent the rest of the show calling almost all of the 10 performers losers (as did Cowell) without using the word.

FINDING THE REAL WORLD: MTV has hit a rocky post-Osbournes reality road.

First it was sued by a Washington, D.C., couple who found what they thought was a corpse in their Las Vegas hotel room, only to be told it was part of a Candid Camera-style show the network is developing.

Now the Malibu City Council, on the urging of Frasier star Kelsey Grammer and his neighbors, has refused to let MTV film the third season of its pro wrestling star search, Tough Enough, at a rented house beside Grammer's.

The council voted unanimously to ban the wrestling wanna-bes, saying MTV could "put sand in a trailer park" and shoot Tough Enough there, New York's Daily News says.

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