The Miami News du lieu suivant : Miami, Florida • 24

2C The Miami News Monday, November 16. 1987 'Couch Potato' chic gains attention to Vet Thm Mm ianrtee Dear Abby Lazy lover needs a little education 1 -w DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have bn married a little more than two year. He has every quality I have ever wanted in a husband but he turned out to be a very selfish lover. I do not 1 JTj On the other hand, "Couch Potatoes are coming out of the closet," said Barbara Wruck, the vice president of corporate communications for Coleco. whose Couch Potato Pals -13'zi-inch-high, potato-shaped dolls made of dark beige nylon were introduced last month, complete with their own easy chairs.

Robert Armstrong, a cartoonist and freelance illustrator In Dixon, is credited with coining the term Couch Potato in 1976, and he registered it as a trademark in 1982. "The Couch Potato movement has grown with the video revolution," Armstrong said. "Why not stay home and enjoy life there by it vicariously on your small screen?" part, Armstrong has done quite a bit that. His "Official Couch Potato was published in 1983, followed by Potato Guide to Life" in 1985. He's founder of the Couch Potato Club and its newsletter, The Tuber's Voice.

club, he said, now has more than 8,000 with 242 chapters in the United Canada, plus international offices in Australia, Germany and Britain. brainchild has yet to make him however. "I haven't realized much of any personally my lawyers have," he added that he has made about $20,000 by selling Couch Potato T-shirts, and the sales are double last year's, is facing about $40,000 in legal fees Couch Potato licensing agreements. Armstrong still is spreading the Potato gospel: "We feel that watching an indigenous American form of We call it "transcendental it NEW YORK The tom-toms are beating a new trend-watching message: The hot place to be this year is at home. The young and the stylish, now the professional and the tired, are spending supine evenings in front of the TV set "Couch Potatoes" such as these are rapidly gaining attention as the new "in" crowd, and they're inspiring a raft of novelty items.

Now there are Couch Potato dolls, a Couch Potato board game and a Couchpotato down comforter, which the Company Store of La Crosse. is selling by mail order. In January, the Hyatt Lincolnwood hotel in suburban Chicago will hold a Couch Potato Convention, featuring game-show and soap-opera seminars, a TV-dinner buffet and an "L.A. Law" look-alike contest. One Manhattan nightclub, the Tunnel, is attempting to counter Couch Potatoism by catering to the cocooning tastes of those over the age of 25.

Its new Club Couch Potato on Tuesday nights provides sofas, TV sets and TV dinners. Club nights begin early, coinciding with "Moonlighting" and ending with the evening news. Steve Gold, a party promoter who organizes those evenings, explained the home-away-from-home concept this way: "People are working harder. And when you're working hard, you don't want to go out. You want to go home and sit." That may, in fact, be the case.

Last week at Club Couch Potato, as about 40 people gathered around the TV sets, shouts for more music drowned out the dialogue of feel desired or appreciated, and I really am very attractive and feminine. When we are both in front of a mirror, he never looks at me instead he looks at himself and comments on his hair, or asks me if he should grow a beard. Meanwhile, I am standing nude right alongside of him, and he never even throws me a glance. He is also the laziest lover I have ever come across. He wants me to do all the work while he stays on his back.

When I ask him to do Abby The Miami News LENNY COHEN Novelty items include board game "There aren't two things that are more antithetical than the club scene and being a Couch Potato," said Charlie Finch, a free-lance writer who doesn't own a TV set. "If you were a Couch Potato, you'd be at home." something I would enjoy, he tries halfheartedly, then quits before 10 seconds are up. I would look for an extramarital affair, but I dont want it on my conscience. Please suggest something. FRUSTRATED DEAR FRUSTRATED: There appears to be an appalling lack of communication between you and your husband.

An extramarital affair is definitely not the solution. It is Imperative that you do whatever is necessary to get your lazy lover to a qualified sex therapist if yours is to be a lasting, loving marriage. Your family physician or gynecologist should be able to recommend a therapist in your area. Don't put this off. The sooner your man is educated in this important part of marriage, the healthier your marriage will be.

Good luck. Dr. Joyce Brothers Learn the importance of sharing feelings DEAR DR. BROTHERS: Over a year ago, a dear friend betrayed a confidence I shared, and ever since then I've been unable to share my real feelings with anyone, including my First-graders tackle famous phrases and win I People who live in glass houses shouldn get seen using the bathroom, current boyfriend. I know that I clam up and change the subject if anyone gets near a subject that touches on anything close or personal.

Maybe because of this, I find I don't have many friends who care about me. How can I open up again, or should I bother? T.D. DEAR T.D: It's vitally important that you do begin to share your feelings with someone, not only because of your mental and emotional health, but also because of your physical Brothers practical thinker, said you can lead a horse to water "but you can also get wet doing it." Stacie Kimbrell might grow up to be a health inspector. Don't bite the hand "that is not clean," she said. Mandy Vick must believe in the First Amendment.

No news is "boring," she said. You can teach an old dog to "do a lot of things, but not have babies," according to Ashley Pat-ton. Tracy Pendley doesn't believe in A superb performance in Chaplin's "Limelight" (1952) led to a gradual revival of interest, especially in Europe, and by the time he died, Keaton had regained financial prosperity, if not the freedom to create that he had in the halcyon days of silent film. The quiet little man with the yearning eyes won after all. As the 6how demonstrates, Keaton was an enormously modest man, who, his wife says, "thought of himself as a journeyman moviemaker." Other men might have eaten themselves up after having lost everything they valued and being passed over for so long, but Keaton seems to have looked on the job of making people laugh with absolute objectivity and not much ego.

"He was not totally unmarked," insists his widow. "His problem well-being. Holding all your feelings In can have serious side effects, such as migraine headaches, ulcers, backaches and heart problems. The act of confiding protects the body against damaging internal stresses that are the penalty for carrying around an onerous emotional burden, according to James Pennebaker, a psychologist from Southern Methodist University. Bereavement, when it isn't shared with friends or family.

Is linked to physical ailments, and when it Is shared, there is far less damage. Of course, you were hurt and disappointed when your friend betrayed your confidence, but the only way to heal is to try again, although this involves some risk. In order to make friends, real friends, one has to reveal feelings and encourage the other person to share also. Take a chance. Find someone you like, perhaps your boyfriend, and start talking about your feelings and his.

It's worth the risk. C. WW King FmIutm Syndicate Senior forum Kent Collins Elderly can use help managing their money DEAR MR. COLLINS: My elderly sister would probably be a "street person" if I didn't care for her. I handle financial affairs for my sister, who receives only 5 Nathan Trimble overreacting to circumstances.

Don't cut off your nose "to not smell," she said. Ryan Sandlin is a possible Romeo. Sticks and stones may break my bones, "but hugs won't," Ryan said. Glen Brown knows plenty about household pets. When the cat's away, "the dogs don't bark," he observed.

Samantha Hamilton knows the true value of money. A penny saved is "just 1 cent and that's not much," she said. Corey Trimble knows that two's was that he had supported his family for his entire life, since he was 4V4- Without him there wasn't an act. When he and Natalie (Talmadge, Keaton's first wife) divorced and she took everything, his main idea was to make a living, to take care of his family. "He had a brother, sister and a mother, and none of them did anything.

He had to forge ahead, and that kept his head straight on. He didn't have time to sit and cry in a corner, and in a way, that was the best thing for him." The position of wife to a legend Isn't an easy one to fill. Neither is being widow to a legend, but Eleanor Keaton seems to have managed it with an easy grace. "I used to say that I was the wallpaper on the wall behind Buster," she remembers. "The only person I met when I was with Buster that would recognize me and yell, 'Hi Elea- and, if you've ever read either of the two Keaton biographies by Rudi Blesh and "Buster Keaton: The Man Who Would Not Lie Down" by Tom Dardis), there are few surprises.

A noticeable gap is footage from "Limelight," an improvised performance by the immortal duo of Keaton and Chaplin in their only screen appearance together that did much to re-establish him as a viable comic performer. "We desperately wanted to use that scene, but Mo Roth-man (lessee of the Chaplin films) put an enormous price on clips," Brownlow says. "We looked for outtakes, because he only controls the published films, but we couldn't find any." There is some brief production footage of "The General." while frame blowups and graphics detail just how Keaton accomplished some of his amazing illusions and stunts. What no documentary can accomplish Is to ascertain just where it all came from the artist's ardent, dry, comic sensibility and the remarkable technical precision he demonstrated in its pursuit. Scott Eyman Beach have mixed feelings.

Mike Simon felt a ban would cut their workload a smoking car takes as much time to clean as four or RESIDENTIAL No credit check Same Day Approval Fast Closings flfl MORTGAGE watching For his more than Handbook" "The Couch also the editor of The members, States and Japan, Armstrong's rich, money said. He this year although Armstrong for various Undaunted, Couch TV is meditation. At teetered Prm CARBON HILL. Ala. Judy Frazier asked her first-grade students at Carbon Hill Elementary School to participate in a creative writing exercise.

She asked the children to complete a famous saying, such as "Don't count your chickens before Latasha Wilson, one of the first-graders, answered that famous phrase with before you fry them." Other famous phrases were fried as well. Among those report ed by the Daily Mountain Eagle at Jasper: Nathan Trimble said people who live in glass houses "shouldn't get seen using the bathroom." David Dobbins said it's better to be safe "than on fire." Jenny Ivey said it's always darkest "before the moon." Joshua Nesmith. obviously a KEATON from 1 sands and thousands of people made over him. "He was just astonished that people would remember things that long ago." She's 68 now, but isn't about to give anything up to time. Even in a phone conversation, you sense the same unself-conscious, flinty toughness that enabled her husband, one of the two or three most gifted comedians of the century, to survive so many years of neglect.

Keaton's clear-eyed objectivity was formulated early, as he traveled around America wih the rough-and-tumble family vaudeville act headed by his father, a heavy drinker who occasionally became abusive. A child star, Keaton gained fame for his impassivity in the face of the spectacular falls he took. He received no formal education whatsoever. By 1917 the stage was a direct conduit to movies, and Keaton was no exception. Although he was only 21 years old, he clearly sensed that this was where his future lay.

He took a large pay cut to go from vaudeville headliner to second banana for Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Within three years, he was starring in and directing his own films. With Keaton, agony and passion alike are coolly understated. "The Boat," a wonderful two-reeler from 1921, is typical. Keaton and his family have proudly christened their new boat "The Damfino." A storm comes up, and Buster telegraphs an SOS.

The telegrapher asks the name of the boat in distress. "Damfino," replies Buster. "Well, if you don't know, neither do snaps the telegrapher. The boat sinks, as boats and nearly everything else tend to do in Keaton's films, and the family is left standing in shallow water. As they start to walk toward shore, his wife asks where they are.

"Damfino," mouths Buster, as they plod on into the darkness. In 1928, Joseph Schenck, Keaton's producer and brother-in-law, sold his contract to MGM, where producers smoothed out his morose screen character and glossed up his films. At the same time, he was going through a deteriorating marriage that ended in a particularly nasty divorce, and a despondent Keaton went into a tailspin of drinking from which he didn't professionally recover for nearly 15 years. SMOKERS, from 1C company and "three's more than two." Jennifer Jones believes In keeping her nose to the grindstone. Don't put off until tomorrow "what work is," she said.

Terry Cox has it all figured out. Laugh and the world laughs with you, Terry said. "Cry, and you don't get to do things." LeAnn Jent said a man without a woman "is sad and don't got no children." Jeffrey Stough sounds like a future financier. Money is the root of "the United States," Jeffrey said. Ashley Cagle realizes there is a time and place "for being born." What's good for the goose "is worms," Vanesha Herron said.

Brandi Hall must be a pessimist. Opportunity only knocks when it's "at a stranger's door." Holley Kimbrell summed up the whole exercise with a simple maxim. "Children should be seen and not talk ugly," Holley observed. was Red Skelton, and I used to love him to death for that, because he was the only one who ever payed attention to me." Until four years ago, she owned a pet shop and showed her dogs around Los Angeles. First she cut back, then she retired.

Now she's a volunteer at the L.A. Zoo. "Buster left me comfortable," she says. "Maybe not by today's standards, but at the time, I was fine. Of course today, if you have anything less than a million, you're poor.

"Once Buster died, friends gathered around, and I kind of developed my own personality. And I don't push the Mrs. Keaton thing. I put on a hat and do Mrs. Keaton, then go back to doing my own thing.

"Once this show is over, I may not have to be Mrs. Keaton for another year or so." She was Mrs. Keaton last month in London, when the London Film Festival sponsored a showing of "The General" complete with 32-piece orchestra. "It's very close to being a perfect film," she says, "and they had the most beautiful print. "It was at the Palladium, about 2,500 seats, and that audience was ecstatic.

I sat next to the head of Thames TV and, in the sequence when Buster gets his foot caught in a cannon, the man from Thames was crying. "Tears were literally running down his face! It was one of those times I wished Buster could be there, to get the satisfaction at the love people had for his work." Now the Russians are talking about doing a large Keaton retrospective in Moscow, and Eleanor is ready, willing and able to go there to talk about her husband. As with Buster, you don't get a lot of complaints out of this woman. She never has even considered remarriage. It might be hard to top living with a comic genius, even if Keaton would grumble and shake his head over the attribution.

No, as far as Eleanor Keaton is concerned, it seems to have been a perfectly fine life. The only lack is, maybe, someone to spend some platonic time with. "The ideal for me at this point would be a nice gentleman escort," she says, a touch wistfully but without self-pity. "Someone you could go out with, to dinner, theaters, always Dutch treat. Real simple, like having a nice girlfriend.

Except you can go to more places." five nonsmokers. But, Joe Frank, his partner, said, "I don't want to jeopardize my job I like to see a dirty train once in a while." COMMERCIAL No Qualifying Same Day Approval Fast Closings 1st or 2nd Equity loans Brow- 462-3588 4264 N. Stale Rd. 7 i i Documentary comprehensive, but contains few surprises $800 per month. I take care of her Social Security checks, keep a budget book, pay her expenses and give her spending money.

I guess you would call me her money manager. I take no salary she is my sister. And I have arranged that my daughter will do this if I die. All families should do this for an unfortunate loved one. But in the real world, it doesn't always happen.

You wrote recently about a 62-year-old widow worried she might Collins become incapacitated someday, and, without family or trusted friends, knows not where to turn for protection. This problem is very real, with people living longer and often living far away from their families. Bankers and accountants and lawyers won't do these chores without a fee so big as to ruin a retiree's meager income. Perhaps people good with checkbooks and insurance claim forms could do this as a home business. MRS.

B.R. DEAR MRS. Some social service agencies, church groups and senior citizen organizations will do such work, but not many. Bonding problems and the potential for disputes with incapacitated clients are too troublesome. Profit-making businesses would also find such work frustrating.

Family help is most practical. Non-profit senior citizens groups hold the most noble potential for handling these chores for their members. WW Lot Angelet Times Syndicate Dr. Ruth Westheimer Sexy 60-year-old repeatedly stood up DEAR DR. RUTH: I met a woman in a bar and we made a date for the following evening, but when I arrived at her place no one came to the door.

I gave up on it and went to the bar, where I Produced by Kevin Brown-low and David Gill, the makers of Thames Television's "Hollywood" and "The Unknown Chaplin," "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow" is a long-overdue tribute to the most unconsciously cerebral of the great comedians. Films like "The Navigator," "The General" and "Sherlock Jr." are as gravely beautiful as Keaton himself, have the same planed, precise features. Keaton's camera was always In the right place, his direction was fluid yet unobtrusive, and his films are sometimes so brilliant that they forget to be truly funny. Certainly, Keaton's dry, sardonic, analytical, occasionally abstract humor is more in tune with modern sensibilities than Chaplin's open vulnerability. As a program, "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow" is more conventional than Brownlow's other documentaries, basically interspersing film clips of gorgeous visual quality with biographical background and talking-head interviews.

There's little of the wealth of fresh film or information that made "The Unknown Chaplin" such a revelation. topic on the 7:29 yesterday. Evelyn Bouillon, a nonsmoker riding the smoker because it was less crowded, discussed it with the woman beside her. "You know the worst part?" Bouillon said to the smoker. "Some people light a cigarette and they don't even smoke, they just hold it and it goes into my nose.

Maybe you can explain that." "It's a constitutional right," the smoker said. The two train cleaners at Long rouna ner. sne said tne date had slipped her mind. The same thing happened with another woman, only I found her wrapped around another guy. I am a presentable 60 years of age, bald, trim, considerate.

Why do women treat a guy like me like that? I.M. DEAR I.M.: I think you have to try your luck somewhere besides bars. Dates made in bars are often forgotten the next day because people in bars tend to be drunk at niaht and fuzzv tha net Westheimer considerate to people all day at work. I don't think I should have to be on the train." IF THE BAN goes through, some conductors plan to carry bazookas. "Have you ever commuted with some of these people?" said E.A.

Pea, a conductor. "These seemingly educated people, you take away their vices, they're ugly. You take their cigarettes away "Ooo," said A.D. Huff, another conductor. "Ugly.

ugly, ugly." The proposed ban was the hot CHURCHILL CORP. day. And an idea that seemed great when a person is drunk almost always seems less great in the morning. Try some social setting (a dance group, camera club, theater club, etc.) where the main interest shared is something besides drinking and picking up. ltu Kerole Inc.

1st or 2nd Equity Loans 11 Dade 54-3321 2675 S. Bayahore Dr. Do you have a question for any of the above columns? Writ to them care of The Miami News, P.O. Box 61 5, Miami 331 52..