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By SHARON FINK, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 22, 2003
CALL IT THE JOSH GRACIN EFFECT: Just as the Marines had no problem with one of their troops participating in this year's American Idol, figuring it was good for recruiting, the New York-New Jersey Port Authority police department got a kick out of this week's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy makeover subject: Officer John Verdi.
At least that was the official stance. It was issued after New York's Daily News reported Thursday that Port Authority officials were grumbling that Verdi didn't get permission to say he was an officer on TV and that he shouldn't have let members of the Fab Five wear his uniform jacket as they rooted through his possessions.
There apparently were no grumblings about Verdi getting a pedicure and a spray-on tan, having an ugly shower curtain and learning how to make "man quiche."
"Our police superintendent watched the show and enjoyed it thoroughly," Port Authority spokesman Pasquale DiFulco told the Associated Press. "We have no issue with this."
The episode was the one scheduled to be rerun on NBC on Thursday night.
NOW BEING INDUCTED INTO THE REALITY TV SHAMELESS FAME-MONGERING HALL OF FAME: About 20,000 men responded to a British network's ad for applicants for a reality show called Lapdance Island, in which 10 men would be stranded with 40 lap dancers and required to keep their hands to themselves.
The respondents filled out a Web site application that had questions including, "Do you have any prior experience or qualifications in dealing with high levels of lap dancing?" They also were asked to provide references, BBC Online says.
Alas, in the end, there is nothing but disappointment for all 20,000, apart from their Hall of Fame induction. The show isn't going to be made.
It was never going to be made. It was a joke. It was made up to advertise a reality show the network really is producing, one in which celebs and noncelebs audition for fake TV shows that they think are real.
The network says it will air an ad apologizing to all the Lapdance Island hopefuls.
WITH CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS LIKE THESE . . .: In the California recall election, Cybill Shepherd has come out in favor of Gov. Gray Davis' kissing ability. Davis is "a good kisser," she tells the San Francisco Chronicle. The two made out on a beach in Hawaii 36 years ago, when she was 16 going on 17 and he was 24. . . . Arnold Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding mentor, Joe Weider, says he knows for a fact that none of the supermarket tabloids will be going after his protege. Weider says the chairman of the company that produces the National Enquirer, the Star and the Globe told him that during a business dinner in January. David Pecker, the aforementioned chairman, responds that Weider has his facts wrong. He tells New York's Daily News that Weider's dinner recollection is "insane" and that he really said, "Joe, I will publish anything our readers want to read."
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