The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 60

P2 Tuesday, March 20, 2001 LIVING The Atlanta Journal-GxKtrtuoon TEAR OUT PEACH JgllBUZZ RICHARD L. ELDREDGE LIVING By Jeffry Scott jlscottajc.com Canucks can eat like winners, too After the NHL Vancouver Canucks finished trouncing the Atlanta Thrashers on Sunday night at Philips Arena, the team turned its attention uptown. About 28 Canucks players and coaches invaded the private dining room at the Palm restaurant at Swissotel and managed to ring up an $11,000 tab. Before they even cracked open the menus, the team's wine tab totaled $3,600. "It was mostly high-end cabernets and merlots," Palm assistant general manager Shaun McConnell told Buzz on Monday.

"Someone knew their wine." To wash down dinner orders of steak and lobster, the dentally challenged players also ordered 32 shots of Jagermeister, a 70-proof liquor that tastes a bit like maximum strength Robitussin. Later, the team's rookies were forced to inch along underneath the tables snakelike as the team's vets dumped various foodstuffs on them. While this isn't typical table etiquette at the Palm, McConnell didn't really mind. Said McConnell: "They got kind of rowdy a couple of times. I thought they had put on their pads.

It didn't bother me at all. I mean, they spent 11 grand. They could come in every night if they wanted!" Looking sharp for Shaq Record producer Jermaine Dupri prepared a belated 29th-birthday bash for Curiosity Georgia's school children enjoy afresh approach to (taming thanks to a Xcus for Kids sponsorship from MOHAWK Americas Carpet Brand www mohawkcarpet.com S2i LA. Laker Shaquille O'Neal (right) at Chaos nightclub Monday night in Buckhead after the game with the Hawks. The invitations issued were very specific on attire for the function.

Ours read: "Very classy. No athletic wear, blue jeans or Timberlands! Not even hip-hop pioneer Russell Simmons gets in with jeans!" More than 1,000 R.S.V.P.-ed for the party. O'Neal was born March 6. Clearing more mantel space CNN founder Ted Turner is receiving Johnson: Promoting jazz with heartfelt conviction PAM LOCKEBY Associated Press POETRY IN MOTION: Beach Blanket Bingo 2001 Why is it that all the great poets lived at least a century ago? Did the slower pace of a simpler life lend itself to eloquence? Could Tennyson have written "In the spring a i.livelier iris changes on the burnished dove In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" if he had had to grind out a daily commute to Loganville? The truth is, every last one of us except Bill Gates is a poet. We are all as great as Tennyson.

Among us, even the dimmest accountant, under better circumstances, would eat Shakespeare's lunch. Our failing is we were born too late. We are too harried to be lapidary. There is no room in life for both a cellphone and a soul. So, as spring rolls around at 8:31 this morning, instead of turning to verse, we turn to the Net and check out people in bathing suits on beach Web cams.

Over the next two weeks, these sites will be quite busy as college kids on spring break go through their annual rite of giving the world a terrifying glimpse of the future leadership of America: VOLLEYBALL.NET: The assumption here is that, at some point, people will be playing volleyball on Jhis Web cam on Hermosa Beach, Calif. They were not on Monday afternoon and it looked kind of jChilly, which suggests a disappointing scenario that would bum out cubicle dwellers all over America: babes and hunks playing volleyball in trench coats. www.eatgoodstuff.comstrandcanVARCH 00 103 1 9200 llasc03 1 9200 1 -08 1 829.jpg UP CLOSE PERSONAL? This cam begs for bin-. oculars and requires the viewer use his or her imagination. The people, wandering up and down the beach, are antlike, probably sunburned maybe even that's your wife down there (though she claims she's in Racine, for a livestock convention).

Your life in that cubicle suddenly feels like a brilliant career move. www.eaithcam.comusafIoridadaytona HANG TEN: eLiving's favorite Web cam. It's so close to the action, the lens is splashed, and the picture is framed so it seems like salt water might be lapping around your ankles. A chart beside the frame (head high; chest high) enables the Web surfer to figure out how high the waves are breaking on this beach on the Gulf Coast of Texas. www.earthcam.comusafloridadaytona LINES IN THE SAND: St.

George Island, off the of the Florida Panhandle, is one of the lesser lj spring break destinations. That's what's appealing about its beach cam. It feels like you're here with the kids, or the grandparents, or the Wright Brothers. Peaceful in a way the dead poets could appreciate. www.beachview.comsgidefaulthtm SUNNY SOUTH DAKOTA: Not everybody who can't go on spring break wants to watch a beach at spring break.

There are people who would rather download South Dakota. For that, this site offers links to Web cams all over the world, and America: Leonard's world link to Web cams: www.leonardsworids.comunitedstates.html Capital of South Dakota Web cam: www.state.sd.usdecaWebCam HOTTEST WEB STORIES ON MONDAY J. Frequent sex may help you look younger sent 477 times) 2. Chocolate-coated bugs are latest treat (sent 142 times) "3. John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas dead at 65 (sent 1 39 times) 4.

Lucent in wireless deal with Verizon (sent 1 37 times) 5. Chicken soup keeps heart healthy (sent 1 36 times) e-mailed stories by Yahoo News readers between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday. daihnews.yahoo.cornhmtusdailynews?u another honor, and no, oddly enough, it's not from the Catholic archdiocese for his recent commentary on the worldwide celebration of Ash Wednesday.

Turner will be awarded an honorary doctor of humane letters degree during May 12 graduation ceremonies at Mississippi University for Women. Turner's family has had a long association with the Columbus university. His grandmother Maggie Dill Gaston Turner graduated from MUW in 1905. His aunt Frances Turner Wood was in MUW's graduation class of 1932. Rock hall adds to roster Michael Jackson and Paul Simon marked their second entrances into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday, joined by fellow inductees Aerosmith, Queen and Steely Dan.

Fifties vocal group The Flamingos, soul singer Solomon Burke and "La Bamba" singer Ritchie Valens completed the list of hon-orees at a New York ceremony. Queen, whose lead singer Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in 1991, performed as a trio and invited Foo Fighter Dave Grohl to sing an incendiary version of "Tie Your Mother Down." It opened a ceremony that started an hour late. Jackson wore a white suit with gold buttons and leaned on a cane as he accepted his induction. He broke his foot falling down the stairs recently, and, despite members of the audience pleading with him to sing, he didn't oblige. The ceremony was taped for telecast at 9 p.m.

Wednesday on VH1. Celebrity birthdays Producer Carl Reiner is 79. Children's TV host Fred Rogers Rogers' is 73. Actor Hal Linden is 70. Director and Morehouse College graduate Spike Lee is 44.

Actress and Conyers native Holly Hunter is 43. Contributing: Sonia Murray and news services. If you have tips, call 404-222-8S03 or 404-S26-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzzajc.com.

AN ENCORE FOR 'JAZZ' "Jazz" on WPBA-TV and "More Jazz" hosted by H. Johnson on WABE-FM. Today: "Gumbo" (beginnings to 1 9 1 7) 9-1 0:30 p.m. on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz," 10:30 p.m. -midnight.

Wednesday: "The Gift" 1 9 1 7-1 924) 9-1 1 p.m. on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz," 1 1 p.m.-midnight. Thursday: "Our Language" 1 924-1 928) 9-1 1 p.m. on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz," 1 1 p.m.-midnight. Friday: "The True Welcome" 1 929- 1 935) 1:30 p.m.

on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz," 1 1 :30 p.m.-1 2:30 a.m. Monday: "Swing: Pure Pleasure" (1935-1937) p.m. on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz" 10:30 p.m.-midnight. March 27: "Swing: The Velocity of Celebration" (1937-1939) 9-11 p.m. on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz" 1 1 p.m.-midnight.

March 28: "Dedicated to Chaos" 1 940-1 945) 9-1 1 p.m. on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz" 1 1 p.m.-midnight. March 29: "Risk" (1945-1955) 9-1 1 p.m. on WPBA, followed by "More Jazz" 1 1 p.m.-midnight. March 30: "The Adventure" 1 955- 1 960) 1:30 p.m.

on WPBA. followed by "More Jazz" 1 1 :30 p.m.-1 2:30 a.m. March 3 1 "A Masterpiece By Midnight" (1961 -present) 9-1 1 p.m. on WPBA, followed by "Jazz Classics" 1 1 p.m.-2 a.m. ing out the doors." Though he's researched the music exhaustively, Johnson doesn't come off as a know-it-all.

His broadcasts reveal him as both a walking liner note and a walking one-liner. Since he started hopscotching through radio and event-announcing gigs as a teenager, Johnson never fully let go of his lifelong dream of writing jokes for the original late show host, Steve Allen. Of the pianist he reveres most, Erroll Garner, Johnson likes to quip, "He was so short that when he had a stomachache, he hurt all over." When he's not on the air, or at home rifling his record racks for songs to play on upcoming shows, Johnson operates a mom-and-pop gift shop, in southwest Atlanta. Privately, he pines over the very real possibility that there are no more jazz classics forthcoming. He's not especially impressed by the contemporary artists living off the art form's rich legacy.

And each time one of the old lions dies, it hits home. "It bothers me, because I know I'm going to join them one day. "If I could leave a memory, or touch people so they remember me, that would be my pleasure. I do try to take jazz programming to another level. top '4r Jm 111 I A fed Continued from Fl lyn, Johnson's wife of 22 years.

"He loves jazz more than anything else in the world, including me, I think. It mellows him when he's troubled. It's peace for him. Plus, he understands the music and relates it to others so well." She also relates to the music: Johnson runs his playlist past her for approval before every show. And while he's on the air, Marilyn curls up on the faux-leather couch outside the studio and waits to drive him home to their place near Six Flags.

Invariably, "Jazz Classics" leads off with Father Tom Vaughn's solo piano rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and it usually ends with someone singing "I'll Be Seeing You." The shows are equal parts tutorial and tickling. "Johnson is a pleasure to listen to because he brings the knowledge, the history and the humor, all in one package," said Jacques Lesure, the leader of a local quartet and a jazz guitar instructor. "I just wish he had more time on the air." On-air, with that pronounced lisp of his, the announcer loves blurting such performers' names as Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Eddie "Fathead" Newman, "Stuff' Smith, Slim Gaillard and King Pleasure after their songs finish. He gets a kick out of playing both the Sinatra and the "Mean" Gene Harris renditions of "I Get a Kick out of You," back to back. If a tune has lovely lyrics, he'll often sing along into a live mike.

And if a song's "groovy" enough, he'll sometimes play it in part or in its entirety all over again. Formatted radio this ain't. "Over the years I've been offered other jobs at other radio stations to play other formats," Johnson says. "But I never took them. Not out of any sense of nobility.

But because I knew I'd burn out on them really, really fast. And people can listen to you and tell if what you're saying and what you're playing aren't sincere." The 63-year-old New Jersey native was born to jazz. His late mother, Naomi, was an accomplished Lindy Hopper and destined for an eventful dance career. "But then," Johnson says, melodramatically, "my mother got pregnant with me." His birth parents split up. He wound up being raised here by a stepfather who was, and still is, so there for him that it brings tears to Johnson's eyes to describe it.

He recalls that when he was a child in Asbury Park, N.J., Count Basie used to visit his grandmother's house, "in that funny yachtsman's cap of his," and play piano in exchange for supper. Johnson's early appetite for jazz was further fueled by the juke joints, cafes and parlors that used to line his hometown streets, "all of them with jazz music com- fan -w KAm BEST CHATS "FIGHT' NIGHT: Actor Brian Dennehy of NBC's new "The Fighting Fitzgeralds" chats about the series, his much-awarded I career and more. (His show airs I tonight at 8:30.) 7 p.m. at chat.yahoo.com '1 YiYTttrWi I cm) 1 I DESTINATION MIR: That was to be the name of a I Mark Burnett reality show until the decision was made to bring Mir back to Earth. Talk to former Mir I astronaut John Blaha about the space station, which i crashes back to Earth this week.

1 8 p.m. at space.com (HEARING Guided By Voices' Rob-jrt Pollard talks about his career, the band and 'Isolation Drills," the new album due April 3. I 9:30 p.m. at crjat.yahoo.com.