Volume CCXXXIV, Number 48 August, 2004
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We don't know about you, but after a week of gassing Demos and a plague of 25,000 freeloaders, uh, "journalists," we've had about enough of politics for a while. So this week the Spy turns its steely gaze to the world of entertainment. Don't worry: we've left room for vital convention updates and mini-windbag George Stephanopoulos answering your questions. That's Entertainment! COLE PORTER RISES FROM THE DEAD TO KILL 3 POP STARS
Morissette's efforts to defend herself in her bathtub with a guitar proved unsuccessful. Cole Porter, apparently anguished by the mangling of his immortal tunes at the hands of today's pop stars in the movie De-Lovely, rose from his grave and murdered three of the worst offenders: Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow and Elvis Costello. Morissette, found gagged with a spoon in the men's room at Spago's, had butchered "Let's Do It," while clomping around a stage with the delicacy of her country's most famous native ungulate, the moose. The well-muscled Sheryl Crow was found under the seats of the Vel D'Hiver in Paris, garotted with a bicycle chain. Her offense: a lugubrious version of "Begin the Beguine" put across like a Butcher Holler lament.
Sheryl's sculpted pecs apparently didn't protect her from a rampaging Cole Porter Then, to complete the trinity of mercy killings, the body of Elvis Costello was found on Alfred Drake's grave. Porter had stabbed the aged Brit phenom with a pair of black-rimmed bifocals. Costello's crime: his paper-thin parody of "Let's Misbehave." Porter explained to the Spy: "I had to do to them what they were doing to my songs. Nothing personal, although you wouldn't happen to have Lance Armstrong's phone number, would you?"
This just in from the Democratic National Convention . . . . From Rip N. Reed and the Spy Convention Team Traffic nightmare #1 Traffic reporters and TV crews battled their way through the massive no-traffic story all week long at the DNC. The lack of chaos stretched all the way from Providence to the south to Manchester, N.H., 60 miles north of Boston. At anticipated choke points such as the Central Artery tunnel or I-93 southbound, reporters struggled desperately to report on the smooth-running traffic.
The condition of mass transit was equally dire. Camera crews set up north of Boston to cover the expected chaos found commuters effectively using the carefully planned alternate routes. "There were plenty of buses and T officials," gasped one exhausted TV reporter. "I never saw things go so smoothly. How can I go live at five?" he moaned. Traffic nightmare #2 Thousands faced gridlock all week at the Democratic National Convention. Their crime: going to work. "Journalists", who outnumber delegates at this week's non-event by five to one, have encountered massive traffic jams each time they try to evacuate the beer and coffee they've downed day and night.
Convention planners, showing a proper defence to the working press, have consigned thousands of them to a row of porta-potties that have attracted hordes of cramped members of the fourth estate. "It's crazy out there," complained one overly-caffinated member of the press corps. "I thought I was going to fill my pantyhose." Adding to the journalists' misery: certain members of the media, notably those from the New York Pus and NewsNow, have so befouled the commodes as to render them virtually unusuable by the delicate flowers of American journalism. Representatives of Schlox News Network shrugged off the criticism. "At Schlox, we're used to wading through excrement," one explained. |
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"WELL, MAYBE NUMBER 162, BUT ONLY A LITTLE BIT . . ." With all the on- and off-screen angst she endured in the '90s, [Shannen] Doherty admits that she's happy to put the past behind her. [Just like she did with – Copy Ed.] [We are not going there. – Ed.] "I don't miss myself from the '90s. I don't miss any of my boyfriends . . . ." – USA Weekend, July 9, 2004 at 7. |