The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 13

Tops on TV Tods Dennis Farina stars as "Buddy Faro," the hardest-hitting, wildest private eye of his time, who vanished 20 years ago and oh, baby, is he back. 8 p.m. on CBS Daily TV listings Page 7M Weekend H7ien stage actress Kim Grimaldi isn't in the spotlight, she's operating it. Page 6M eljc Des JUotncs He pistcr "And what would you suggest, Mr. Smartie Pants?" Friday October 9, 1998 Jeanne Abbott, Features Editor (515) 283029 KathyBerdan, Today Editor (515)28207 5M rtf Outer MI 111 'Voyager' I journey detoured I nb on fte edge to give you the edge.

The deal with If, after four free live performances in Des Moines this By MARY CHALLENDER Vftxil1'. 'l summer, you still can't get enough of Jerry Seinfeld, you can hear the bits from his comedy tour "I'm Telling You for the Last Time" on CD. Most of the material was re corded from his final performances on Broadway. Ft r- l- it; Jir All his classic bits are here from his routines on men and women to his tirade on McDonald's food. It's his first album, by the way, and available in stores everywhere, including Wal-Mart.

G.T.Melhus WW' ann ill, UitmiUl Kh.istkk Nt.U'K Wkitkr After nearly four years of wandering lost in the Delta Quadrant, rumor has it that this may be the year the Star Trek Voyager crew finally finds its way home. If the crew does return to Earth, it'll find that its Des Moines market share has shrunk substantially. Over the summer, KDSM Fox 17 negotiated out of its contract to carry shows produced by the United Paramount Network (UPN) including "Star Trek: Voyager" because there wasn't room on the station's schedule with the growth in Fox sports and other programming. "We just kept on pushing the UPN stuff later and later," said Ted Stephens, vice president and general manager. "It got to the point where we were running it from 9 p.m.

to 1 or 2 a.m. on Sunday night." "Star Trek: Voyager" isn't the only show affected by the station's decision. "Malcolm Eddie," "Moesha," "Love Boat: The Next Wave," and "Clueless" have been lost to Des Moines viewers, as well. But those shows don't have Seinfeld tells us one more time. an it i in-1 i mft i Vince Vaughn (left) plays Lester, a serial killer who befriends the unwitting Clay (Joaquin Phoenix) in "Clay Pigeons." Clay Pigeons TREK Turn to Page 8 Funny stuff Recently, in this very space, we told you about the David Letterman Web site, which I has a "write your own Top 10" Jeri Ryan stars in It It A Eddie Murphy's comedy, "Holy Man," is also new in theaters this weekend.

Murphy plays an unlikely TV evangelist who brings renewed life to a shopping network. If rated PG and showing in Des Moines at SouthRidge, Westwood and Wynnsong theaters. mpf) II: will l.J;,i.,.,.; i Janeane Garofalo as an FBI agent is a highlight of the film. With her are Scott Wilson (left) and Phil Morris. G.T.

Melhus "Clay Pigeons" language, nudity, gun and knife violence. Sierra. 104 minutes. contest every weeK (marketing.cbs.comlateshow- toptencontest). Wouldn't you know it? One of Des Moines' very own, Michael O'Neal, was a winner on the very Top 10 list we mentioned.

(Notice how very attached we are to a certain word today?) O'Neal, who works at the Des Moines Art Center, said he had entered once a week for about two months, "and finally hit the jackpot!" He offered one of the Top 10 Little-Known Perks of Breaking the Home Run Record: "The Roger Maris Family comes over on the weekends to do yard work and wash your car." His reward, a free "Late Night" mousepad, is now the focal point of his office, O'Neal says. Kinda Kool Although it rambles through much of the setup, this thriller winds up being fun. Clay Bidwell (Joaquin Phoenix), dolt, simpleton and gas station attendant extraordinaire in the tiny town of Mercer, has a dilemma on his hands. It's not enough that his suicidal best friend, Earl, wants to kill him for sleeping with Earl's wife, Amanda (the rivetingly and effectively annoying Georgina Cates). It's not enough that Amanda wants to kill Clay's new girlfriend for disrupting her own scheme.

No, Clay Bidwell's dilemma goes well beyond that. Clay's troubles really start with new friend Lester Long (Vince Vaughn). At least, Lester says he's a friend, but he's a serial-killing kind of friend as in the kind of friend who also happens to be wanted by the FBI. Lester may be new in Clay's life, but he warms up in a hurry. No sooner have Clay and Lester downed a score of beers at Doc Holiday's tavern than Clay is all but presumed guilty by the FBI for a string of murders across Montana's plains.

Clay just can't seem to listen when Sheriff Mooney (Scott Wilson) asks him, simply, "Promise you'll stop finding dead people?" That's after body No. 2. Bored yet? I was. Not that Joaquin Phoenix can't hold my attention. As a similar dolt in 1995's caustically funny "To Die For," the talented brother of the late River Phoenix proved he's among the most gifted actors on screen today.

And Vince Vaughn, with every picture, becomes more potent an actor. It's just that for a good portion of its setup, "Clay Pigeons" rolls at a rambling, And it's a kick to watch Garofalo, in her typecast, acerbic mode, whisper great deadpans such as: "Sheriff, a murder scene is not crowd Or: "Barney?" she asks his deputy. "Would you please stop poking the body with a stick?" It's with Garofalo that "Clay Pigeons" picks up a wicked pace, with Dobkin effectively using small-town nonchalance to further drive the suspense. Though anything but seamless, "Clay Pigeons" still proves chilling in its own right. That and cinematographer Eric Edwards' Own Private grand photography of the stark landscape of the American Northwest, where tins was filmed, give "Clay Pigeons" a dark, original edge.

Dobkin calls it "daylight noir." While it may be an unoriginal concept (part "Blood Simple," part at least chalk up "Clay Pigeons" as fun. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Georgina Cates, Vince Vaughn, Scott Wilson, Vince Vieluf and Janeane Garofalo. Produced by Ridley Scott and Chris Zar-pas, written by Matt Healy and directed by David Dobkin. Gramercy Pictures. No more 'Next Generation' "Voyager" isn't the only Star Trek show to disappear from KDSM-TV's fall lineup.

The station also decided recently that it would no longer purchase syndicated renins of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." This leaves "Deep Space Nine," in its seventh and last season, as the sole remaining Star Trek property on Fox 17. But don't look for it in prime time. The station has moved the show to 11:30 p.m. weeknights, with new episodes airing on Tuesdays. go-nowhere pace.

Be patient. Vaughn, who plays Norman Bates in the remake of "Psycho" coming out later this year, is haunting as Lester, a serial psycho without a conscience, the man with the annoying laugh and the trucker with little more than a desire to kill. As Lester puts it pointedly to Clay, who is cooling his heels in the clink: "There are some people out there who need killing." When Clay and Lester stumble seren-dipitously, it seems on yet one more corpse, the body count in Clay's life seems a little too coincidental for the law. Enter the FBI. Agent Dale Shelby (a top-notch Janeane Garofalo) has been tracking these murders for some time; when the dragging of a lake turns up more than a few surprises, it's full-court press on Clay.

Convoluted? You bet. But while the premise of "Clay Pigeons" may start complicated, director David Dobkin's feature debut isn't as tough to follow as it sounds. Out of My Mind Designs, 4215 Chamberlain Ave. in Des Moines at the Shops at Reporter G.T. Melhus can be reached at (515) 286-2594 or melhusgtnews.dmreg.com.

Harvesting sperm from the dead has ghoulish implications Pamela Reno wants to be a grandparent. Roosevelt, offers Kinda Kool Koloring Pages for "really kool kids." The set of 15 pages measuring 11 by 17 inches were created by Peri Woltjer and cost $6. Also available at Wicker and the Works in Valley Junction. They'd be fun for gifts or for blustery days. Carol McGarvey Bedtime stories Calling all amateur creative writers.

Half Price Books is lookinc for entries for its fifth Nothing odd about that. Lots of parents do. Just listen to a new grandparent describe the powerful gust of emotions on first holding a son's or daughter's son or daughter. More extraordinary than the birth of my own child," my own father said. (Thanks a lot, Daddy).

Rcldia Basu For as much as the issue is about Jeremy, however, the real concern is for the potential baby that would result, and the ethics of baby-making to fill a desire for something else in Reno's case, to be a grandparent. The current issue of Time magazine quotes Jean Steuer, of Dubuque, on a new sex-selection technique, cloning and other childbirth technologies. "Congratulations to scientists everywhere," she writes, "who have finally managed to lower the status of children in our society to that of a possession like a cheap pair of shoes." Right on, Jean. But is it the scientists who should be faulted, or the things people do with science? But Reno, who lives Cold laxed approach to some fertility advances, like one that enabled a 63-year-old grandma to become a mother again, I consider this new prospect in an altogether different league. It is chilling.

It's one thing to use science to enable would-be parents to overcome fertility problems or even to complete a childbirth they had planned for before one partner died. But it's quite another to use technology to order up grandchildren like ham sandwiches. If Reno is looking for a stand-in for her son, well sorry, he's gone and there's no way to recreate him. Children cannot be designed as substitutes for other ones. If it's her own child she wants, there are other ways to go about it.

She's only 38 maybe not too old to have one herself. There are also plenty of children in need of adop tion. It's probably a good thing Jeremy didn't become a father in his lifetime. He was only a teen-ager, and anyone who plays Russian roulette for sport hardly sounds up to the responsibilities of parenting. And call me a killjoy, but I think people have to want to become parents before they do.

Now I realize this gets murky when technically, all it takes to become a parent is an act of biology, willful or not. Still, a man who has unprotected sex is at least aware of that chance. And one who makes deposits at a sperm bank is giving informed consent to father a child even if he won't raise it But does anyone have the right to make another person a parent without his knowledge, consent or participation? Even an organ donation requires signed consent. the crazy whim of a crazy woman, but according to the doctor who collected Jeremy's sperm, such requests are becoming more frequent now that science has the ability to harvest sperm from the dying. Reno won't get to use the sperm until a hospital ethics panel weighs in.

But her bid to make her dead teen-age son a father adds a whole new twist to the battle over reproductive rights, which until now has centered on control over female fertility. Now it's physically possible to make people parents in death by seizing the reproductive ingredients from their bodies. It is also possible to harvest the eggs from an unborn fetus and use them to create a new offspring, potentially making babies from mothers who were never born. But do we have that right? As one who has taken a re Springs, is faced with a somewhat different challenge than most. Her only child is dead.

If there is to be a biolog ical grandchild, she will have to make it happen herself. annual Bedtime Story Contest. Stories should be no longer than 300 words and previously unpublished. Selected stories will be published in a children's book, "Say Good Night to Illiteracy," in the spring. Winners also qualify for up to $50D in prizes.

Deadline is 31. For more information, call (214) 360-0833 or check at Half Price Books in Clive, 8801 University Ave. Do you have something for Outer limit? Call 284-8207 or email berdanknews.dmreg.com. And she plans to. Reno's son, Jeremy, killed rogate mother.

"I told them I have to get my son's sperm," Reno told a reporter. "It's the only way I can be a grandma." It's that simple, now. You can order up a grandchild even if your son or daughter isn't alive. You hear of parents pressuring their kids for grandchildren, but this takes overbearing to new heights. You could dismiss this as himself playing Russian rou lette at the age of 19.

While he was on life support, Reno had sperm removed from him with the intent ion of having it mixed with the eggs from a Rekha Basu can be reached at (515) 284-8208 or basurnews.dmreg.com. donor and incubated by a sur-.