At Home in Hespeler

Saturday Fluffernutter – all the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities.

The Abba girls, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, gave a rare interview this week in which they disputed long held claims of personal dislike for each other. They claimed there is no truth to the rumours that they “fought and quarrelled with each other.”  Abba without the cat fights? Is there any other reason to care about Abba?

I have long had cutey Molly Ringwald on the “whatever happened to” file. It turns out, however, that she hasn’t been abducted by aliens or in fact been gone much at all. She is on the TV show The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and this week announced she is pregnant with twins. The twins will be Molly’s 2nd and 3rd children with husband Panio Gianopoulos.

The pregnancy will be written into the storyline of The Secret Life.

Amy Winehouse’s husband is looking to divorce her, and will reportedly use a love letter sent to him by Winehouse to prove that he was instrumental in her career and he’s entitled to half of her estimated $15 million. As for Winehouse, she has vowed that she will not let him divorce her.

Lets see, he’s a junkie, who just got out of jail, who will use a love letter you sent him to pry $7.5M out of you.  Really, why would any one want to divorce him?

Heather Mills approves of Paul McCartney’s new beau, Nancy Shevell, and says the ex-Beatle has great taste in women: not judging by his last wife, I’d say.

Meanwhile, the ex-Mrs. McCartney brags that she does better with the men than her stunning New York girlfriends. Why? “Maybe it’s because I’m comfortable with myself.”

Yea, that and the $45M she got out of McCartney.

There’s nothing like a good celebrity spat: Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer; Elton John and George Michael; Paris and Nicole. Now the food is flying at Food Network HQ, as Gordon Ramsey and Mario Batali are apparently chucking the cream pastries across the restaurant at each other.

The New York Times reports that Batali has banned Ramsey from his restaurants. Ramsey says he’s not banned, but why would he eat there anyway? After all the food is embarassing.

Word of the wise for Mario Batali: your not in a spat with Gordon Ramsey until they have to bleep what he says about your food.

Last week I stated that the crying over Dark Knight not getting an Oscar nod was strange considering it was a terrible movie. The real crime of the Oscar nominations is that The Secret Life of Bees didn’t get an Oscar nod. It is a moving, compelling movie highlighting racism in the American South in the mid-1960’s. It is loaded with drama, although sadly lacking in any humour. It is a far better choice for best movie than Dark Knight. I haven’t seen any of the five nominated movies, but I would be willing to wager that all five are not better movies than Bees. So why the lack of nod for The Secret Life of Bees? And why the lack of protest from the critics?

Billy Powell (1952 – 2009).

The story goes that Billy Powell was roadying for Lynyrd Skynyrd. After setting up the band in an auditorium, Powell sat at a piano that was there and began to play the intro to Free Bird, which until that time the band had been playing on guitar.

As Powell always told the story, the band didn’t know he could play piano and their jaws dropped to the floor on hearing him. They then asked him if he wanted to join the band, and it was his jaw that fell to the floor.

RIP Billy Powell, who died of an apparent heart attack on Wednesday.

cookin' with Ramsey, Fluffernutter, Uncategorized

Saturday Fluffernutter – all the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is a potty mouth TV chef here in America. In Britain, however, he is way up the celebrity scale, with his name appearing daily in the gossip tabs. Much of his fame comes from his bad guy on TV/dedicated family man in reality persona. It is under this guise that news of a reported seven year affair between the chef and serial mistress Sarah Symonds. Symonds was Jeffery Archer’s bad girl at one time, among others and authored the book “Having An Affair? A Handbook For The Other Woman.”

Ramsay has both denied the report, and reportedly has apologized to his wife Tana over the affair.

I’ll tell you, if I was on Hell’s Kitchen next season, the first time he called me stupid (which he does to everybody), I would retort “Oh, great. I’m being called stupid by a man who had an affair with a woman who wrote a book on having affairs.”

I tell you, I can’t get the audio out of my head about what a Gordon Ramsay affair would sound like:

“Not like that, stupid, like this. Do I have to everything my f***ing self?…”

Review in Brief: Twilight (as told by Miss Hespeler)

It was really cheesy, but good cheesy.

Was that Jason Priestly I heard on the radio the other day talking about kids these day? Brandon from 90210 complaining that the kids these days don’t take what their doing seriously enough?

You know you’re getting old when that kid you used to complain about is now complaining about kids.

Review in Brief #2: Guns and Roses Chinese Democracy.

Loud, but not worth the wait.

Irony Alert: speaking of Chinese Democracy, in an example of true irony, not sarcasm dressed up as irony ala David Letterman, the Chinese government has banned the album Chinese Democracy in China.

Bruce Springsteen released his first single of his new album this week: Working on a Dream. The song is the title track from Springsteen’s upcoming album, scheduled for release January 27th. He released it as a free one day download. It is now available on itunes for 99c until December 9th.

Rock and Roll Heaven acquired a new, however unlikely, rhythm section this week

Locally, former Platinum Blonde bassist Kenny MacLean (1956 – 2008) passed away of natural causes at the age of 52. MacLean has been active in the local music scene for over twenty years, and held a release party for his latest CD, Completely, Sunday night. He died through the night after the event.

Internationally, English drummer Michael Lee (1969 – 2008) passed away on Tuesday from what is presently being listed as unknown causes. He was 39 years old.

Lee played with Thin Lizzy, the Cult and Echo and the Bunnymen through his career. But he is most remembered here in Hespeler for his work with both Robert Plant and subsequently, Page & Plant. When former Led Zeppelin frontmen Jimmy Page and Robert Plant banded together to work up new material and rework some old Led Zeppelin tracks in 1994, Michael Lee joined them on drums. He would stay with them through the dissolution of the partnership in 1998.

Here’s a clip of Page and Plant, with Michael Lee playing drums.

cookin' with Ramsey, Fluffernutter, The Mighty Zep

All the weeks Fluff stories about all those Hollywood nuts.

The clever, and funny, Get Smart trounced Mike Myers awful looking Love Guru at the box office this past weekend, proving funny can work. Smart was clever, living in the past by paying homage to the original TV show, and the present with a witty script and good actors nailing their roles. Love Guru features a double neck sitar for laughs, and the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup, in case you thought it was a documentary.

The weekly Led Zeppelin update, courtesy of Ramble On: The Who had a song called Dr. Jimmy, with some ever so wonderful lyrics:

What is it? I’ll take it.
Who is she? I’ll rape it.
Got a bet there? I’ll meet it.
Getting High? You can’t beat it.

Doctor Jimmy and mister Jim
When I’m pilled you don’t notice him,
He only comes out when I drink my gin.

I can’t help thinking of that song today after hearing that Jimmy Page will now be Dr. Jimmy:

The University of Surrey is proud to confer the honorary degree of Doctor of the University to Jimmy Page for services to the music industry.

Congratulations Dr. Pagey.

Prediction time: Warning: Possible Spoiler.

Hells Kitchen is down to the final contestants, Christina and Petroza.Warning: Possible Spoiler.

Although the internet buzz is that Christina won and is already at work at the London West Hollywood, my read of the show is that under the radar Petroza has never been made to look bad, and is this pages choice to take home the prize: Executive Chef at Ramsey’s new, above mentioned London West Hollywood restaurant.

George Carlin (1937 – 2008). George Carlin was my introduction to comedy. My brother had Toledo Window Box and we used to listen to it continuously. Being a kid I got great pleasure from the snot and fart jokes. As I grew older and heard more comedians, Carlin was still always a favourite. His ability to take a simple word and turn it and twist it until you understood every nuance of it was amazing, and for a word guy like me pure genius. Funny too. While his 60’s and 70’s stuff is the legendary work, his 1986 album Playin’ With Your Head has always been my favourite.

For Canadian content, one of my favourite scenes from his 1994 TV show was the guys in the bar betting on the curling, arguing over whether Moose Jaw or Yellowknife would win.

Whatever you think of Carlin’s views, and he was certainly controversial, he was an original thinker and the words comic genius don’t seem to be hyperbole.

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