All The World's A Stage

Feeling that prurient interest has overtaken you lately as you watch yet another report on the death of Anna Nicole Smith? We did too until we heard the inane report on a local LA week-end show. They were criticizing the deceased for being famous and not having a body of work to have engendered all that fame.

We were in disbelief. Au contraire, we thought. Anna Nicole Smith was the media equivalent, and thus, the poor relation, of Princess Diana, and therefore the older stepsister of Jon Benet Ramsey. Simply put, the camera's love affair with her face fascinated us all.

She played characters when she posed for Playboy and when she was the Guess face. She seemed to be playing the role of gold digger when she married her billionaire. Yet another persona was assumed, and a fitting demeanor shown, when she testified in court about her matrimonial claims to his fortune.

The cameras followed her into court on and off for years. We all watched each time and wondered how could she have married him? "For that alone, she was entitled to his fortune," was heard in homes across America.

Then suddenly Anna Nicole Smith emerged on E as a sloppy drunk, or drugged, reality star. Somehow we all believed that this presentation was the real woman, despite our experience with all of those reality players who had come before her.

Then she surprised us as the ultra-slim bombshell spokesperson for Trim Spa. She began embarrassing us at that point, but still we looked, fascinated once again with her charms.

Her birth movies were somewhat over the top, but we continued to watch, shaking our heads. Too, too much, we said. Then in an instant, we shared her grief, sadly riveted to the shock of her son's death. She had us witnessing her most moving role of all--the truth is stranger than fiction role of a grieving mother beset by the paternity claims of an ex-boyfriend over her newborn baby girl.

And now she's dead--but her images live on. We say, that's an enormous body of work, spread over fifteen long Media Years. Anna Nicole Smith was the first true Reality Star—one who had a tragic ending to her own personal production.

Taylor and Shari

It's Got To Be The Morning After

Did you watch Monday night? We tried, but felt somewhat detached from this year's Golden Globes. Maybe it was because we didn't catch the red carpet extravaganza. No Joan, no Melissa to appall us.

Flipping back and forth between Super Nanny and the Golden Globes, we wondered if the undisciplined, angry children would one day become actors. Perhaps some day they too would be accepting a Globe, be interviewed by Mary Hart and get to eat and drink on camera. It's the relaxed award show, after all.

The adulation of the audience seems a fine substitute for love and praise withheld, and a great motivator to endure all that early career rejection, according to The Actor's Studio interviews which supplanted the need to read these stories in Vanity Fair and Vogue.

When you think of the face time fought for during what LA types affectionately refer to as Awards Season, it just might very well be true with a palpable hunger for attention everywhere.

Anyway, we decided that we prefer to catch the Golden Globes the morning after. Flipping the channels between the Early Shows, provided us the fashion overview that makes watching the event so essential. We caught just enough of the important acceptance speeches too.

And now we can also dream big --That Super Nanny can cure all the ills of America's families.

Taylor and Shari

Minimalist TV

It's just another night at home for the TV Twosome. Slightly bored with the Donald/Rosie debacle we search for a little something to catch our interest in our limited viewing universe of plug-in and watch.

Now before you start feeling for badly for us, consider if you will, the circumstance. We'd just moved and were impatiently waiting for the second cable appointment when I suggested to my better half, that we just cancel.

No more waiting around, no more outages and no more News shows screaming at our inveterate political interest with the election just around the corner.

Just the way the way the world once was. Limited, but free—to read more, form our own opinions and conclude what we wanted.

Unscarred by the election--coverage when we wanted, YouTube when we didn't. We thought life this way is pretty good. Of course, we missed the full episodes of Nip/Tuck, but we got the gist, and we re-discovered time.

Time for research, time to write, and more time for each other and to hang out at the beach, because this is where we live, downtown at the beach in Long Beach, CA.

So stay tuned. We'll fill you in, because we keep a running commentary going whenever we watch—just like you do.

Taylor and Shari