Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 23

TIMES MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2002 DAILY DISPATCHES ON CELEBRITIES, THE ARTS, CULTURE AND TRENDS By WILMA NORTON TO DO IN THE NEWS I shared popcorn with Elton John Don't be surprised if you run into Elton John at your local mall or movie theater. Thafs where the singer-songwriter likes to spend his free time when he's performing on tour, which he is these days TO ClICK Web chats today include: 7 P.M.: Seattle Mariners broadcaster Rick Rizzs will talk about Ichiro and more at clubs.lycos.comlive. WEB SITE OF THE DAY: Spaceweather.com is dedicated to the weather in space. TO VI 'BIOGRAPHY: 15 YEARS AND COUNTING': The series looks back at highlights of its more than 900 episodes in an anniversary celebration. 8 p.m., 'ONCE AND AGAIN': The Sela Ward-Billy Campbell series returns from a nearly two-month absence to a new night, where the season's final seven episodes will air at 10 p.m.

WFTS-Ch. 28. pourri." 7:30 p.m., Palladium Theater, 253 Fifth Ave. St Petersburg. Wine and cheese reception, 6:30.

$10 general, $8 seniors, $5 youths. (727) 822-3590. BROADWAY CAFE SOCIETY: Local performers irt informal cabaret setting; songs of spring, renewal and hope. Doors open 7 p.m., the Improv, 1600 Eighth Tampa. $5 cover charge.

(813) 8644000. STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL PARADE: The Oak Ridge Boys are parade grand marshals. Begins 1 p.m. at Prosser and Evers streets in Plant City; moves north on Evers to Reynolds Street, then west on Reynolds, ending at Sammonds Road area. Parade does not enter fairgrounds this year.

(813) 752-9194. TRE DONNE MUSICANTI: Piano trio presents: "An Evening of Romance: A Passionate Pot ARTS NOTES with Billy JoeL '1 go to the mail or the cinema and see a movie or see two movies," John told People magazine for its March 11 issue. To me, thafs a luxury togoto Van CBiburn John gold medalist for horn -N day ays Tu8s I OilOmOS EMS i By JOHN FLEMING Tiaiw Performing Arfr Critic As the daughter of twd pianists in Russia, Olga Kern had a dream of growing up to be a concert pianist, and now it has come true. Since Kern became the first 1011 tVUSfiu in iiinaiuiuii n. The cast of The Random Years includes Natalia Cigliuti, Will Friedle, Sean Murry and Joshua Ackerman.

news woman in 32 years to win the gold medal of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition last year, she has had a whirlwind of performances. Fresh off a European tour, she has engagements from Oregon to Nebraska to Florida in the next two months. She performs at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Ruth Eckerd HalL "If like I know this is the wrong word but if like a drug for me," she said. "When Tm onstage and playing the music I feel I'm not in this world." 1 1-rJ ZA 1 the cinema in America at 1p.m." The 54-year-old said he also tries to keep fit while he's on the road.

"I put on weight very easily," he said. "I play tennis maybe four or five times a week, and I take a tennis pro on the road because I get bored in a gym and I don't like the treadmill very much but IH do it under pressure." John and Joel's Face to Face tour runs through April 11. The tour stops at the Ice Palace in Tampa on Saturday and March 11. International Plaza, here he comes? More 'Car less jazz? National Public Radio has begun an extensive review of its musical programming and is considering overhauling or eliminating some of its venerable jazz and classical offerings. A strategy paper written by Jay Kernis, NPR's senior vice president of programming, says some of the network's live performance and recorded music shows "may disappear," although officials stress that nothing is final.

The paper, which was obtained by the Washington Post, is generally critical of the opera, jazz and classical programs that NPR produces and distributes to its 680 affiliated stations. Commercial broadcasters in many cities have abandoned these formats because of low ratings, leaving public stations as the only outlets offering them. Kernis, in the paper and an interview, didn't identify the programs NPR is considering dropping. But his report said station managers ascribed the lowest value to NPR's national jazz programs, such as Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center and Jazz From Lincoln Center. They assigned the highest value to NPR's newsmagazines (All Things Considered, Morning Edition, etc.) and general entertainment shows (A Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk).

Moonlighting Courtesy of Olga Kern When Kern was named the Pianist Olga fern's recital includes works from Wagner-Liszt, Barber, Chopin and Schumann. Cliburn's co-gold medalist the other winner was Stanislav Iouden-itch much was made of her being the single mother of an infant son. Three-year-old Vladislav stays with her mother in Moscow. "I miss my little son very much," she said. "When I travel in Europe I A il J' UPN photos As If's Derek Hughes, Emily Corrie, Chris Engen, Tracie Thorns, Adrienne Wilkinson and Robin Dunne.

AT A GLANCE As If debuts at 9 p.m. Tuesday on WTOG-Ch. 44. Grade: C. Rating: TV-14.

The Random Years debuts at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on WTOG. Grade: D. Rating: TV-14. ERIC DEGGANS TIKES TELEVISION CRITIC Madonna will make her West End debut in May, starring in an Australian comedy called Up for Grabs.

Shell lead a cast ofseven in the London premiere of David Williamson's play, a satire on the art ij 43, hasn't acted on 1 1 chirrA cinrp hpr It V- can take him with me, because if only three hours by plane from Moscow to anyplace in Europe. But to America, if 17 hours, and if too much for him." Kern's recital includes the Wagner-Liszt Tristan Liebestod, Barber's Sonata for Piano (Op. 26), the Chopin F-minor Fantasy and Schumann's Kinderszenen, among Others. Tickets: $20 and $25. (727) 791-7400.

kelps memorial There were funny stories, touching reminiscences, heartfelt tributes and poetry to remember the late pianist, composer and teacher Robert Helps Sunday afternoon at the University of South Florida in Tampa. And of course there was music, beginning with a Helps piece for solo flute played by Km McCormick, to open the memorial in Theatre 1, the stage and grand piano strewn with stuffed animals and candles. Performers included mezzo-soprano Theresa D'Aiuto Andrasy in two Faure songs, pianist Corey Holt Merenda in an excerpt from Helps' Recollections, pianist-composer David del Tredici in his Ballad in Yellow and many more. It was announced that Helps' papers will go to the USF Library Special Collections. A tribute by novelist James Purdy was printed in the program: "Saint Paul reminds us not to be forgetful of strangers for one may be entertaining angels unawares.

Robert Helps entertained strangers and friends alike as angels. He was an angel himself of unending kindness and love. His music has the same vibrancy and rich feeling which he gave to his many friends and admirers. The world is a dimmer place without his presence." Kogan under scrutiny Florida Orchestra seems to be focusing on Pavel Kogan as a possible music director to succeed Jahja ling. Friday and Saturday, three search committee members -7 concertmaster Amy Moretti, cellist Lowell Adams and Jeff Woodruff, the artistic administrator were in Salt Lake City to hear Kogan conduct the Utah Symphony in Bruckner's Seventh Symphony and Mozarf Violin Concerto No.

2, with soloist Vladimir Spivakov. Kogan appears several times a season in Utah, where he is principal guest conductor. He made a strong impression in Tampa Bay when he conducted the orchestra in January. The Russian also is being considered in searches for music directorships of the New Jersey Sym-: phony and Oregon Symphony. The orchestra hopes to name a music director-designate in May.

Sideshow is taking a short break. The column will resume soon. problem and suffers from near-terminal self-absorption. Sooz (played with rainbow-colored ribbons in her braids by Emily Corrie, the only actor imported from the British version) is a virgin with piercings who tries in vain to warn Jamie he's being used. As you might expect from a guy who asserts his cool by practicing karate moves in his bedroom mirror, Jamie doesn't much care why Nicki's courting him or so he thinks.

The conclusion to all these story lines is so predictable and simplistic, the series comes off like an after-school special on crystal meth a gaudy, well-packaged trifle that, in the end, isn't about much. Indeed, thafs a good thumbnail analysis of both shows. They are packed with a succession of shallow, cardboard characters whose sole purpose seems to be snagging young viewers. But don't believe the hype, young ones. As and Random Years are little more than flashy camera angles and pretty faces wrapped around painfully old-school jokes and plot lines, youth-oriented pap concocted to replace UPN's probably canceled teen sci-fi drama, Roswell.

Best save your couch potato time for the next Real World marathon. Dfs almost too easy to make fun of UPN's mid-season shows, the limp situation comedy The Random Years and the hyped-up urban drama 4s Consider the possible headlines: "As If This Was Any Good; Too "Random" For Laughs. As comic David Spade once said, the networks couldn't make it easier if they tried. To be fair, we're talking about a network built on Star Not too long ago, it considered airing a series about a volleyball team filled with secret spies called Spike, and as a subsidiary of ViacomCBS, on March 15 ifH start airing reruns of CBS' The Amazing Race 2. By that yardstick, even Emeril starts to look like comic gold.

So even though The Random Years and As If are a waste of time in anyone's book, at least they're a step up from Shasta McNasty. Where did UPN go wrong this time? For The Random Years, its problem is a serious case of sitcomitis: relying on the same tired dating and sex gags that have filled TV comedies since the Friends cast was in diapers. Centered on a trio of roommates living in a loft apartment in Manhattan's Chinatown, Random Years explores the travails of twen-tysomethings just out of col- Madonna sellout 1988 run on Broadway in David Mamefs Speed-the-Plow. Madonna recently moved to a home in London with her husband, British film director Guy Ritchie Bob Dylan, whose latest album, Love and Theft, won a Grammyon Wednesday, will return to the big screen for his first major film role in lege who dont know what to do with their lives. They meet a beautiful female pal in the first episode, and she moves into the apartment across the way in the second.

Hijinks, I assume, ensue. If a formula familiar to anyone who has seen Friends or its numerous clones, right down to a near-total absence of minorities, despite the show's location in one of New York's most diverse neighborhoods. (There is a handyman-type character who seems to be Hispanic, and he also seems to be hiding piles of stolen goods in a neighboring apartment Three cheers for network diversity.) The plots are mostly a thin excuse for lame-o sitcom gags: Web site owner Alex hooks up with an old girlfriend, only to learn she's got major mental problems; geeky dental hygienist Wiseman hooks up with a woman in the laundry room, onfy to learn she's got major anger management prob- lems; and sloppy slacker Todd hooks up with the good-looking female pal, who is inexplicably talked into playing "Strip Antiques Roadshow" with him. Don't ask. No need to learn the names of the actors here.

In the time it would take to read them, this show likely will be hitting the waste can. As is a different animal Adapted from a British show of the same name, UPN's As focuses on six young adults looking for love in Manhattan, depicted here as an MTV-fast urban playground. Using quick editing cuts and a blaring, hipified soundtrack, the show takes soap opera-simple story lines and inflates them to ridiculous proportions. Perpetually aroused and horribly geeky Jamie is in heat over bombshell Nicki, who decides to pretend to date him so she can attract the man she really wants, a super-cool clubber jerkoid. Meanwhile, Sasha is in knots over boyfriend Rob, who is struggling with a drinking Dylan 15 years, Variety reports.

Dylan has signed to star in the drama tentatively titled Masked Anonymous, in which he would play Jack Fate, a "wandering troubadour who is brought out of prison by his former manager for one last concert" A soundtrack featuring Dylan's music is expected to accompany Masked. Menopause Happens to All Women. In order tn serve our ciistomers better, our Onion Crusted salmon Crab care Dinner service hours have been extended until 4:00 p.m D. a 1 A oat rmecis cacn vne Please call our reservations on our DIRECT service hotline at (727) 394-0060 for an appointment Sfdr MM. 0d 0 i 0 0 i fy of Us Differently More than one third of the women in the United States have been through menopause.

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