European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 18, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Here comes sol Melrose hot Hume humbled from wire reports snl.1 again it s just about Here folks the 20th season of saturday night live kicks off saturday on Abc. And for the opening night. Steve Martin will guest Host and Eric Clapton is the musical guest. Another sol factoid in october Houghton Mifflin will publish a Book Tome to commemorate the show s 20 glorious and not particularly Glori Ous years. An to says it will continue air ing sol at 11 05 . Get thursday hello maybe there s something to this interactive nonsense after All. On tuesday s talk Back live the can midday show a woman in the Atlanta audience caught Host Susan Rook s Eye. Her first comment was unintelligible and when Rook asked her to speak up she said is this thing almost Over i be got a ride waiting for me dented minutes Don t you. Think our friends Over at 60 minutes should be just a teeny weeny bit concerned about last Sun Day s opening performance the grand old show began its 27th season with a whimper relatively speaking with a 15.1 rating and 27 share. Why whimper 1. Lbs promoted the blazes out of the broadcast which featured a Mike Wallace interview with former Reagan aide Bud Mcfarlane. 2. The premiere show last year got a 17.5 rating and 31 share. Now we Don t have to pull out the calculators to figure out that year to year minutes dropped four share Points. The reason dare we say football on Fox Melrose Blaze speaking of Fox me Rose place or was it sports illustrated swim suit Model Kathy Ireland pulled in a solid number in its first 8 . Monday Outing in the United states. The show got a 10.8 rating and a 17 share nearly doubling the network s performance in the time period last year when Fox night at the movies aired. Abc perhaps jittery Over the future performance of its Workhorse coach on monday saw nothing that gave it much Hope. The show along with companion Blue skies did no better than a 9.8 rating and 16 share for the hour. Lbs won with premieres of the Nanny and Dave s world a13 rating and 21 share. A rating Point equals 954,000 Homes anybody Hume Abc news chief White House correspondent Brit Hume said it was embarrassing As could be that 7 25 on air phone Calif rom local disc jockey Don Imus monday morning asking what Hume thought about the plane crashing into the White House and Hume drawing a Blank. I was red faced As anybody could be it was hilarious but very embarrassing Hume confessed monday afternoon. He s one of Sev eral Washington journalists the popular Dee Jay Calls when the mood strikes him. The crash which killed the Pilot occurred at 1 49 a.m., not on my shift Hume explained. I d been away and got Back last night. I knew nothing about it when Imus called him at Home from new York Fortuna Tely for Hume Imus moved quickly to other subjects when he realized the correspondent was t tuned in. Contributing Vema Gay of new Day and John Carmody of the Washington Post. Roseanne with Boyfriend Ben Thomas arrives to Host the mtg music awards in new York City. About mtg s trashy awards show by Harvey Aronson new Day i m not exactly a tre Doid but i do try to keep up with pop culture. I know who Kate Bush Island that sound Garden has nothing to do with peat Moss. When there s a dearth of late night horror shows i Check out Davis and butt head it s pertinent that my son is a serious Rocker and i m a proud father. I even like his braids and i be watched him gig at new York clubs such As the bit Ter end and a bib and the new music cafe and the Bank and a place called the Pyramid club that they must have imported from Pluto. I screamed along with tourists from Japan when he rocked the hard Rock cafe in his torn jeans. I be gotten so hip that i Don t need ear plugs when i go to hear him play. It s important that i know about More than the Glenn Miller of my youth and the Sidney Bechet of my soul. Bechet was the greatest so Prano sax player who Ever lived. I saw him in Paris when 1 was in the he came out with garters in his shirt sleeves and played High society and i cried with Joy. I owe it to myself As Well As my son to search out that sort of rapport with current stars. I Don t want to sulk in the past like my father who had a great baritone Tenor voice and once broke a Light bulb with a High note but could t stand Frank Sinatra because he needed a microphone. All of which is Why i tuned in the mtg music awards on sept. 8.1 wanted to Sec a Brastic boy. I wanted to hip hop. 1 wanted to know what a Snoop Doggy Dogg is i wanted to keep up with the culture. I d hate to think i never Sang for my son. What a mistake. To say i was appalled by what i saw and heard would be an understatement. I was disgusted. I was outraged. I was furious. I m not talk ing about the music i m talking about the garbage that accompanied it. For instance in the course of presenting an award some dipstick insisted that the United states should Pardon its political prisoners and then mentioned Mike Tyson a convicted rapist As one of them. And a Flozzie licked a microphone while the mayor of new York was talking. This latter display was somehow metaphoric. Fellatio seemed to be a sub theme of the awards. There was a whole naughty bit in this area Between a Vij named Kennedy and Roseanne the event s Host who seemed to have lost her mind along with several pounds and her last name. Kennedy said that Rose Anne s skills had been diminished by prozac. Rosc Anne came Back with a riposte that not Only would make a lot of people gag but was the literal epitome of bad taste by. Y " there was also the paean to Madonna and masturbation that was offered with unsuitable gestures by the Lead Singer of Aero Smith. Even Madonna seemed embarrassed or at least taken Aback and she put the fellow in his place. At the mtg awards Madonna an icon of bad taste was a class act -. A Overall the show was beyond Shock. I would have been better off smashing pumpkins or watching Bea vis and butt head pick each other s noses. If the mess on mtg was a True reflection of popular Cul Ture then As my son the Rocker likes to say we be got a situation Don t get me wrong. I believe in irreverence. I got a kick out of Bono at the grammy. I thrilled to the fist pumping excitement that Jimmy Connors brought to Tennis and that Jack Kennedy brought to politics. It was Nice to see Andre Agassi win the . Open in Black socks. But those people embody style. They have panache. The mtg awards had very Little to do with irreverence they had everything to do with irresponsibility. To use a word popular on that very Channel the presentation sucked. It also infuriated and even frightened me to see the majority of those in attendance applauding All this pretentious posturing. True the Mike Tyson reference Drew Boos. Otherwise the audience seemed to think the goings on were Clever. Or perhaps they thought it was trendy to act that Way that trashing is has something to do with sophistication. It was a prime time example of the emperor s new clothes. All they were seeing was naked junk. If there was an exception perhaps it was Tony Bennett. Every How and then the camera flashed on him in the audience. He wore a Small smile that never changed. I guess it was the most that anyone of taste trapped in such a sinkhole could Muster. Loa angelas times Washington Post news ser co september 18, 1994 sunday Page 11
