Chocolate Shakes, Prime Rib Carts & Senatorial Hijinks: "Johnny, You're Grounded!"

From Paul Levine...


SCATTERED THOUGHTS:

1. Men's Health says the large Baskin-Robbins Chocolate Oreo Shake (2600 calories, 135 g fat, 263 g sugar & 1700 mg sodium) is the "Worst Drink in America." Great! My White Russians must be okay.

2. When I hear Diana Krall sing "Besame Mucho," I want to kiss her. A lot.

3. I think Michael Jackson's $25,000 customized solid bronze, gold-plated casket looks like the prime rib cart at Lawry's in Beverly Hills.

4. Michael Jackson may have named the Moonwalk, but he did not invent it. (Many thanks to music impresario Jim Jimirro for this one).

5. Google is soooooooo yesterday. I switched to BING about a month ago. Now, I learn I haven't been using half its features. The New York Times explains.

6. Ala carte menus tee me off. If you spend 75 bucks for a New York strip at "Bourbon Steak" in Miami (as Jim Born does), shouldn't they throw in the freaking potato? Nope. The "salt-baked" potato is 9 bucks, but big whoop, it includes creme fraiche. I remember when you could buy Idaho for 9 bucks.

7. The current Paris Review has a great inteview with Gay Talese, one of the stars of the "New Journalism" of the 1960's and 1970's. (Many thanks to Penn State QB coach Jay Paterno for pointing out the article). Here's an excerpt:

TALESE:
"I didn’t have great confidence in myself because I had nobody, really, who had confidence in me. I always think of John Updike, who had tremendous confidence in himself because his mother said, You’re the greatest little shit in the world. You’re so wonderful, wonderful, wonderful—and he believed it. David Halberstam too—his mother told him he was the greatest shit in the world and he believed it. He had a tremendous sense of self. In his mind he was Charles de Gaulle. My mother never told me I was the greatest, my father never did either. They were very critical. I felt that I had to prove something to them. Neither they nor anyone else gave me the sense that I was gifted."

INTERVIEWER:
When did you realize that you had talent?

TALESE:Never. All I have is intense curiosity. I have a great deal of interest in other people and, just as importantly, I have the patience to be around them.

Talese puts on a coat and tie each morning before descending to his study, then changes into an ascot, or other fancy duds to write. So does Jim Born.

8. You're grounded, Johnny! Isn't Sen. John Ensign a little old to have his parents pay off his girlfriend? And does the Nevada senator really exist? If you ask me, he's Mr. Peterman from "Seinfeld." See if you can tell who's who.

Paul Levine