The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 47

I Style THE KANSAS CITY STAR FRIDAY August 27 1993 Section I STARGAZING A potpourri of patricians plebeians and peccadilloes Ricky Schroder knows who started the rumor that he insists on being called And not happy about it never asked people to call me much rather be "the former child star of tells TV Guide He says entirely untrue that he changed his name in 1989 What happened was that two Los Angeles disc jockeys called him one morning at home and woke him up said this Ricky? I said this is And they said Rick' They kept repeating that name throughout the conversation and thereafter they wanted to paint a picture of a sassy says the 23-year-old It became more than annoying was Schroder says you think I derive my manhood from my Ricky Schrodar Karen ScottThe Star Hair-growth stimulant minoxidil may help in treatment of impotence By JOHN MARTELLARO SUH Writer Passion Potion ented Upjohn drug minoxidil can bring relief to men unable to achieve erections There also are indications that the compound may benefit women who are unable to experience orgasm during intercourse although no testing of that theory has started Yes minoxidil The same that was invented to treat high blood pressure and later was found to grow hair on balding pates may turn out to be the first genuine clinically effective aphrodisiac a term company officials studiously avoid For millions of baby boomers hurtling into middle age that makes it a miracle drug helping them retain the look and the practice of a youthful See SOME E-3Col1 Bundle of joy For centuries humans have sought aphrodisiacs from the most exotic far-flung places on the planet Now there are indications that an effective medicinal treatment for sexual maladies may finally have been found In Kalamazoo Mich At the headquarters of the Upjohn Co and at the sites of clinical trials around the country scientists are studying whether a pat Country singer Alan wife Denise gave birth to 7-pound 3-ounce Alexandra Jane on Monday in Nashville Tenn Ailing AT HOME THIS WEEK Powerful tales at dinnertime Writer found encouragement and now examines the human heart Paintings go up to the ceiling and chintz covers a worktable creating a homey feeling in Connie Perucca's unusual Midtown design studio Another area has rustic built-in bookcases filled with memorabilia By STEVE PAUL Book Review Editor Raymond Burr the portly actor best known as and is reportedly seriously ill at his Northern California ranch The cause was not disclosed The 76-year-old actor had surgery to remove a malignant kidney in February One of the boys Demi Moore and Bruce Willis now have more than their children and show-biz careers in common At the groundbreaking last weekend for the new Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas it was announced that Moore has joined her husband and actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone as a partner in the company Moore and Willis she's pregnant with their third child showed up at the festivities for the sixth and largest of the international movie-themed eateries This one being built at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip will feature memorabilia from and of course Las Photos by KELLI CHINThe Star A inspiration Roanoke area carriage house doubles as studio Bebe Moore Campbell ate her carrots By MARJEAN BUSBY Staff Wrltar another reason to eat your carrots: You might grow up to be a writer what Bebe Moore Campbell did Campbell novelist and cultural commentator says some of her early lessons in the power of storytelling occurred at the dinner table mother made up stories to correct my Campbell said in a recent interview always tell you a story to get you to eat all your dinner had these Farmer Brown theories When you eat your carrots say Farmer Brown grew these carrots for you Do you want to hear the look at her and say eat your carrots while I tell you learned that stories were useful because by the time she finished telling the story the carrots were Campbell was speaking by telephone from her Los Angeles home a few days before she embarked this Laugh lines Built-in side shelves reveal passion for art architecture theater films New Yorker cartoons jazz country music and classics Her memorabilia ranges from a vintage radio and clock to a flash camera and Old Westport sign of these things inspire me when here they give me Perucca said Connie Perucca week on a publicity tour to promote the new paperback edition of her 1992 novel Your Blues Ain Like Mine (One WorldBallantine Books 1 2) be visiting Kansas City bookstores today and Saturday (see box) on the third stop of the 1 2-city circuit Your Blues Ain 7 Like Mine is an accomplished and widely praised book Set in a small Mississippi town in the 1950s it examines the consequences See E-3Col5 Connie Pryde high-ceiling carriage house in the old Roanoke area doubles as her design studio and sleeping space not supposed to look like a chic upstairs hideaway with a niche for everything Instead character abounds architecture reminds me of my summer home in the said Perucca a mural painter who studied at Parsons in New York and worked in retailing first looks too The comfortable mood stems from her memorabilia books tapes a huge 1 940s lamp and paintings that cover the front wall David Letterman tried out the new version of his Top 10 list Wednesday night at the first taping for his at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York An audience of 400 greeted first guest David Brenner who Letterman said was the last comic to appear in the theater when it was home to Ed Sullivan The show will be shown in a few weeks not on Monday opening night The first Show Top was devoted to things he likes about his new network CBS No 1 He can call network chairman Laurence Tisch The old-timers were a little wiser than we thought Wedding bells oddest political couple James Carville chief political strategist for President election campaign and Mary Matalin his counterpart in the Bush campaign have finally set a wedding date marry on Thanksgiving Nov 25 in New Orleans Matalin announced on her CNBC talk show Director Spike Lee at work on is marrying lawyer Tonya Linette Lewis Oct 2 JAMES FISHER 31 from Naturally Cunning asked why The answer showed those old-timers so unsophisticated after all engineers said the bow was to keep the bridge where it was during Cunning said rushing at the bridge pushes the bow back Being pushed back the bridge literally tightens itself against its piers The bridge gets Cunning said he knew about the bow in the bridge the tightening and all the rest before the flood Still what happened last month was historic in terms of water And been 1 22 years since the Union Covered Bridge had been erected using just wood and handsaws wooden pins and rock had to see it to believe Cunning said One other question Why cover a bridge? Simple said Cunning To protect from weather and eventual rot Or as one wag once said covered bridges were made so for the same reason women wear petticoats to protect the underpinnings Which in a few cases might be a little bowed too James column appears Sundays Wednesdays and Fridays in the Style section reports Interstate 635 washed away in Kansas City US 63 ground to pulp by water north of Jefferson City houses washed down the river like so much kindling And here was Cunning responsible for a structure made of stone and wood lost sleep over Cunning said have Oh if some monster tree had come down the river and slammed into the bridge it might have broken up But swift raging water? Why the old bridge just shrugged it off It was built to an attitude anymore that the old-timers ones who lived a century or so ago were nowhere as smart as folks in 1993 When the Union Covered Bridge was built there were no electric lights let alone television VCRs boom boxes or sneakers that have lights in their heels Those old-timers? Well they were hardly in our league with modern-day instruments theories computers that can tell us how things will work from A to izzard So how did an old timber and rock-abutted bridge survive a so-called 500-year flood when other far newer structures crumbled? Simple The Union Covered Bridge had a secret did some work on the bridge back in the late Cunning said PARIS Mo Last month at the height of the flooding John Cunning held his breath every time he made the final turn on Monroe County Route and came upon the Union Covered Bridge southwest of here think it still here this Or it make it through the Stuff like that I really worried about the old On the surface Cunning site administrator for both the Mark Twain birthplace in Florida Mo and the Union Covered Bridge one of four such remaining spans in the state had every reason to fret First the bridge spanning the Elk Fork of the Salt River was 122 years old Built on the old Paris-to-Fayette road it had lasted far longer than its two predecessors which not surprisingly had been washed away in floods The second worry was the Elk Fork At flood it becomes a torrent one subject to quick rises and falls One morning during the flooding the water lapped at deck planking And the third thing was what Cunning was reading in the papers and seeing on television Not a day went by or so it seemed that the news full of damage put in new supports and new siding It was essentially a restoration not a During the work other engineers called Cunning over and suggested he look into a laser device used for aligning The device was trained from one end of the bridge to the other to make sure its lines were absolutely straight Take a look said the engineer You believe your eyes Cunning looked along the laser The bridge was bowed so slightly toward the upstream side On purpose It looked sort of like this: (( Of course it that pronounced Cunning said you notice the bow with the naked eye But the laser showed it The dam thing curved ever so slightly toward the northwest the direction Elk Fork flows Priorities not just a bunch of stiffs in Brooks Brothers says JT Taylor 27 an assistant to the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee actually I guess all 1 own are Brooks Brothers suits but not all just concerned about where the next cocktail party birthdays Nobel Peace laureate Mother Teresa is 83 Actress-comedian Martha Raye is 77 Singer Tommy Sands is 56 Musician Daryl Dragon is 5 1 Actress Tuesday Weld is 50 Compiled from 77e press services by Evie Rapport TOMORROW in The Star INSIDE Some songs are so bad that unforgettable 'Brisco County delivers a new western heroE-2 i OiMliAsfa wjPjjwA ta.