Not a P Miller in the house

Wow, no joyless, P Miller-style side-sliding on tonight's Final Four Dancing With the Stars. To use a Tyra Banks refrain, this competition is becoming "somethin' FIERCE!"
Faves:

All Mario, all the time. (Loved his "liquid" shirt look in that dreamy waltz. He wuz robbed on the scoring, though!)

Joey & Edyta's "Sympathy for the Paso Doble"

Emmitt and Cheryl's muy caliente rumba

Monique and Louis' rejection of taking things easy. But I much preferred their spooky tango to the gold hot pantsy Ghostbusters Cha Cha.

dancing with the stars

Chips off the 30 Rock

There have been some good tossaway lines on 30 Rock. Here are two early faves:

TRACY: Freaky-deakies need love too.

JACK: I smell fried bologna all over you.

30 rock tracy morgan

Top Chef 2nd course: A case of lie cheese

Otto, schmotto! How could I think that human porcupine was this Top Chef season's Pepper Monkey. (Forgive me, dearest Dave.) How cheesy was it to store the case of lychees (that's lee-cheese, not lie-cheese, oh spike-haired one) on that lower shopping cart shelf and then feign surprise that the cashier didn't see it.
At least Otto fell on his santoku for the honor of Team Korea and did the right thing — he left.
Best Wolfman quote of the episode: "I was totally stoked to cook for a badass sushi chef." Wouldn't we all be?
top chef otto pepper monkey

'Sir Shimmy' Smith

Well, on a Dancing With the Stars evening of wow-full, tight competition (excluding the good humored court jester Jerry Springer), the dancefloor belonged to Emmitt Smith and his partner Cheryl Burke. Their waltz had such grace, their joyful mambo, as the ever drooling Carrie Ann Inaba said, made him into "Sir Shimmy." (Why doesn't she just wear a sign: "Take me Emmitt, I'm yours!")
Again, there was the awkward pairing of "contemporary music" with a dance. Tonight's was perhaps the worst! C'mon, how can you pasa doble to Duran Duran's The Reflex?!!! Kudos to Monique and Louie for dancing their darndest.
Jerry has been fun to watch, but the heat of competition tonight proved it's time for him to get out of the dance kitchen.
At this point, as Emmitt might agree, it's anybody's game. Boy are these celebs, to use a haggard phrase from The Apprentice, really stepping up to the plate.
emmitt smith dancing with the stars jerry springer

No-show Bo

It's been a frustrating time for Bo Bice fans ever since he nearly won American Idol. On top of his loss were tour detours after he broke his foot onstage in New Hampshire and later needed emergency intestinal surgery after he collapsed backstage in Vegas. He emerged just in time to play AI's last gig in Syracuse. (I witnessed that surprise — he was fantastic, really rocked the house once he tossed aside his cane.)
Then came his AI-produced album The Real Thing. It wasn't awful. The production was way beyond his self-produced CDs. But it wasn't Bo. A telling sign was the fact that Web polls showed his fans' fave song on the album was Valley of Angels, one of the few he wrote. The powers that be initially wanted to keep his Sugarmoney bandmates out of sight. In other words, they were trying to undo that Muscle Shoals sound that is truly authentic Bo Bice.
I was very sorry to just learn Bo had to undergo yet another round of intestinal surgery. Geesh, poor guy. Here's hoping he makes a full recovery this time and can go on to record that one album we're all waiting for. It'll be bluesy, soulful, Whipping Post-ish rockin' good. And yeah, Sugarmoney will be in the studio AND on tour with him.
Hold on Bo, don't let them chances pass you by! God bless.
bo bice sugarmoney

30 Rock 'n' rules

With the dreaded Curse of the SNL Alumni, I feared for the future of 30 Rock before it started. My fears were unfounded. It's got snappy writing and a great cast. Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan and all the others on staff blend very well. Of course they got me with the gratuitous reference to SUNY Cortland (Sportland to those in the know) when Alec was spouting off what he knew about the Ray Romano/bad Jay Leno impersonator guy.
I think the show has a promising future (especially when the Dancing With The Match.coms results show ends).
What I really appreciate is NBC replaying the show on Bravo. That's a smart trend that the old traditional networks have been following. Especially for people like me who need a life because they're too absorbed in other people's "reality" to catch all "their shows."
30 rock tina fey alec baldwin tracy morgan

Ahooooooo, werewolves of Top Chef

Well my peeps, Top Chef is back. At first dice, it doesn't appear to live up to my wistful expectations of a Revenge of the Pepper Monkey. Although Otto looks promising as a potential PM wannabe.
There are other chefs who remind me of last year's kitchen staff. Sam is the obvious Harold of this season. How nice to see Mr. Perilla GorillaDieterle again. Wolfman Marcel is the obvious successor to Stephen the Snotty Sommelier. (But does he know his Traminette from a hole in the ground?)
There's no obvious Leigh Ann or Tiffani emerging yet. Glad the bulimic Sujai (was she named after a kata or what?) was the one to go tonight. Smart move to tell Colicchio you're clueless from the start. As for the others, I think the pig-tailed pastry chef could get on my nerves easily.
Let the cuisine art begin!
top chef marcel harold dieterle

Angela's fascist...

...Wins Project Runway.
Jeffrey Sebelia, aka Tattoo Neck, took the crown with a hitherto unseen style in his collection. You could have called it the Softer Side of Sebelia, but then that would have been an oxymoron.
Bitter... me? Naw, I think Michael will do just fine. With all her new fame, I don't know if Uli will splurge and buy a new barrette or get a perm. And as for ole carrot top, maybe she'll dye her hair goth black and take a walk on the Sebelia side. She can join Angela's mom who may need to borrow some of Laura's straight pins for her Jeffrey voodoo therapy doll.
Until next Fashion Week... Auf, Auf!!
jeffrey sebelia project runway

Rumba coco

Dancing With the Stars is turning into a match.com series. This season unlike the previous two seems to be sparking more than a little romance. There's Willa Ford and the get-out-of-my-mirror-view handsome Maksim Chmerkovskiy. There's sexy dimpled Mario Lopez and his Karina Smirnoff (while Eva Longoria lusts after "her friend" from the audience). And now, even Sara Evans who's left the show to divorce her porn-perve husband is hooking up with her "always Albanian" partner Tony Dovalani next year so he can "choreograph her tour." Of course... Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

But even the best of romance has its downside. This season's biggest turnoffs:

The throbbing-veined forehead of Joey Lawrence

The weird pairings of modern music with dances in which they have no natural beats in tune

Carrie Ann Inaba's embarrassingly freakish "end zone" dance for Emmitt Smith last week

Bruno Tonioli's constant references to Mario's ... ahem... endowments. Batteries???

Mario is my Pepper Monkey for this series. Ay yi yi!
dancing with the stars mario lopez

Pepper Monkey Eve

Bless me blogosphere for I have sinned. It's been a MONTH since I last posted.
On that date I had the bugle beads to predict that Michael Knight would win Project Runway tomorrow. After typing that post, I read other blogs whose logic seemed to prove that I am an ignorant twit. C'est la NinaGarcia!
After viewing the episodes since my prediction I can hold my head up high and say he's the nicest contestant left (although Uli's tale of leaving East Germany to pursue the American dream was very touching). So we'll see tomorrow if Laura checkmates Jeffrey out of the competition and Mr. Knight wins the chess match.
Bravo is like a drug dealer shepherding his best heroin customer. No sooner will the final "Aufs" be uttered by Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn will set the designers on their merry ways to "Carry on," then Top Chef Season 2: Revenge of the Pepper Monkey premieres.
Bestill my heart!
project runway michael knight