I remember years ago a co-worker sent me a link to a story about a new television show that was going to strand people on an island, vote them off weekly and the last one standing would win $1 million. We laughed and joked about how low TV had stooped and debated whether the story was even real.

Within a year we were all poised in front of our televisions watching Survivor. Millions of us were hooked. Reality TV had taken off.

Some people of my generation are quick to claim MTV’s Real Worldas the “original” reality show.  But I remember my father laughing uproariously at Allen Funt’s Candid Camera, which played practical jokes on the unsuspecting public while filming their reactions. On Chuck Barry’s Gong Show, people actually agreed to go on TV and make a fool of themselves in the hopes finding fame and fortune. Wherever it all started, reality TV has gone further than anyone could have suspected. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve been watching Dancing With the Stars, you may be wondering, along with millions of other, OMG WTH happened to Priscilla’s FACE???

Now reports are surfacing that P. was scammed by “Dr. Jiffy Lube” - the Argentinian who duped several Hollywood celebs into believing he was injecting them with superior quality Botox when in fact he was shooting them up with LOW-GRADE SILICON! ”The substance used to lubricate car parts.” Yikes!

Public reaction to this news has not been all that compassionate. Some people say: “She has more money than God; couldn’t she find the best plastic surgeon out there?” Others say: “Whatever happened to aging gracefully? Serves her right.”

Her agent says, “An investigation which uncovered his misconduct ultimately led to his imprisonment. Ms. Presley dealt with this matter years ago, and everything is well.” I say, “The hell! They can’t do anything to REPAIR THAT?”

What say you?

The long-awaited movie adaptation of the wildly popular book, “The Kite Runner,” opens Friday, and though the film has been dogged by controversy — read about it here — it’s totally worth seeing. Though not if you want light holiday entertainment; the story is brutal, though the emotions are powerful and pure. The thing that struck me when I saw the movie in preview was how true to the tone of the book the movie is, and how sere and barren the setting was. Does Afghanistan really look like that? Hosseini’s evocation of his homeland made it seem beautiful, despite its troubles.

Did you read the book and are you going to see the movie?

If you loved the book “The Kite Runner” as much as I did, you probably can’t wait to see the movie, now set to premier in mid-December. You probably also know that the release date was postponed from early fall so that the Afghanis who were in the movie, particularly the family of the child who plays Hassan (above), could get out of Afghanistan.

Hassan is the best friend of Amir, the main character in the book, and the entire plot turns on a brutal rape scene when both boys are children. As a reader, it rocks your world, and I was lucky enough to see the movie in previews a few weeks ago, and it’s an incredibly powerful scene in the movie, too. Handled quite delicately, I must say, though given the brutal ethnic conflict that still rages in Afghanistan, I can see why the actors and their families felt like they were in danger. (Though how did they consent to the movie in the first place? Was it just too lucrative to pass up, or did they not know what they were getting into?)

The company that is distributing the movie has launched a contest for a local screening of “The Kite Runner,” which you can access here. Let me know if/when you see the movie, and what you think. When the premier date gets closer, I’ll write a review, too. Though let me say this: When I finished reading the book, I spent weeks thinking about the obligations of friendship, whether there are mistakes that you can never recover from, and whether redemption is possible. After I saw the movie, I have wrestled with those very same thoughts.

This totally sounds like a hoax to me; even if it were true, surely Billy Ray Cyrus (Miley’s dad) is skilled enough in the ways of fame to keep it out of sight for a while. What do you think? What difference would it make if she really WAS pregnant? And what if she cancels her Memphis show?