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the breakfast table
entries
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from: George Rush
to: Lloyd Grove

Lay Off Naomi Campbell

Updated Wednesday, March 27, 2002, at 1:26 PM ET

Who are these people?

Dear Lloyd,

Thanks for your kind words about the septic tank we call a column.

First, to answer your question: Only the letters get flown first-class at Mr. Zuckerman's Daily News, where the belt-tightening has left us with the waist of Calista Flockhart. Speaking of proprietors, I was ready to slash my own wrists after reading your exposé of the soul-crushing "blacklist" kept by evil seniors at the Madeira School, alma mater of your paper's doyenne, Mrs. Graham.

Girls can be so cruel. Especially Naomi Campbell. Better lay off the litigious supermodel and Narcotics Anonymous member now that she's won all of $5,000 from London's Mirror in that invasion of privacy case. Naomi don't take no mess.

Regarding your other queries: No, "Rush & Molloy" does not have a Mideast policy as such—other than to say, don't order the schwarma at Habib's. I do have a weakness for Oliver Stone items, as you noticed in our story today about how he brought Sean Young and James Woods together by dint of their shared hatred for him. Or so Sean claims. I asked her if she still stayed in touch with Woods, whose penis she famously glued to his thigh. (His ex-wife once told me that really happened and that Jimmy needed a long, hot shower to liberate his member.) Sean said, "Why don't you ask Jimmy?" I asked her if he knew she thought about peddling her diary. Again, she said, "Ask Jimmy." But Jimmy's rep had no comment. I'm sure he will at some point; Mr. Woods is not a man of few words.

Back to Stone, you probably saw that Oliver said he was interviewing Arafat and Israeli leaders with an eye toward unearthing "human ego, the sense of humiliation" that drives their conflict. Oliver knows from ego and humiliation. I wonder if he brought along hashish, Hydrocodone, fenfluramine, phentermine, or any of the other peace-achieving substances police found in his Ford Mustang when he was arrested while driving through Benedict Canyon in 1999. Stone said in Ramallah that his film would be balanced, that he wants to tell the story of "David versus Goliath—nobody ever tells Goliath's side of the story, you always hear David's." I guess that means that Arafat, for all his physical and military puniness, is Stone's beleaguered giant.

As for Julia Roberts, I have been accused by my wife, Molloy, of lacking all balance on that long-legged, tendril-haired subject since I received a bouquet of flowers from same subject. Yes, she confused her Contis, and she may have injected a little too much of herself into the presentation. But that's the kind of sassy confidence that Julia's men love about her, until she drops us.

That's the top of the news. I'll try to rustle up something more interesting for our next letter.

Yours,
George

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112
from: George Rush
to: Lloyd Grove

Lay Off Naomi Campbell

Updated Wednesday, March 27, 2002, at 1:26 PM ET
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Lloyd Grove, a 22-year veteran of the Washington Post, took over "The Reliable Source" column in May 1999. George Rush writes the "Rush & Molloy" column for the New York Daily News with his wife, Joanna Molloy.
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Reader Comments From The Fray:


Let's face facts, all this stuff about terrorists, the Middle East, Enron, Northern Ireland, and the mid-term elections is kind of a downer. Finally, Slate has bravely put forth two people who write about celebrities. I mean I like politics and foreign affairs as much as the next guy, but this has been a long stretch without a lot of humor. Finally, the "Breakfast Table" addresses the real issues: Is Russell Crowe a thuggish alcoholic, do movie people act as badly as we hope they do, and do gossip reporters feel like badly dressed party crashers? Apparently, the answer to all these questions is yes. I for one hope this exchange continues into an exploration of the sexual relationships between famous married people and relatively attractive starlets. By exploration I mean naming names and the reactions of the betrayed spouses. Onward, no more international bummers, and drinks for everyone.

--Neill Hamilton

(To find or answer this post, click here.)


Everybody bitches about the speeches going on too long, but this isn't the problem. We want to see people who are happy to receive the award. It's part of the reward itself to get a multi-million-person captive audience for a minute or two. No, the Oscars seemed to run long this year because the running time was fueled by the Academy's own filmmaking: the innumerable montages, tributes, and other "entertainment" that looks for all the world like it was inserted to pad out the ceremony time-wise. We could do without three honorary awards with a montage each. We could probably get by without the circus acts, the meaningless pre-recorded comments, and the insider's walks down memory lane.

Or could we? I was entertained by all these things, and would regret seeing them go. I like the idea that the academy hold reverence for people I've never heard of because they were behind-the-scenes. If you get bored easily, don't watch; or wait until the next day when it's all boiled down to more manageable chunks of highlights. If you want to see what the Academy wants to offer, then by all means do so--but get ready to hunker down

--Mangar

(To find or answer this post, click here.)

(3/26)

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