The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 132

STARGazing Offspring of the rich and famous Tuesday September 22 1998 The Kansas City Star FIS: irS AFact If Jackie Chan's stunts look easier in the new Hour" because they are In his first US-made film in years Chan was forced to let stuntmen work for him because the studio couldn't find an-insurance company to cover the star TAKENote Madonna is trying to get 2-year-okl Loonies aka Lola into the tony Cheltenham College a British private school that produces genteel respectable young women In other words women just like Madonna! Lola may be several years away from starting school but her Madonna mama is already rumored to be house-hunting in Primrose Hill in north London What can Lola look forward to? Well the school tightly controls with the opposite sex Lights-out is at 9 And younger girls are required to wear ge-green knee-length skirts I So the daddy of Sandra Bernhard's baby daughter Cicely? None-ya-bizness! told 20 different stories whatever people feel like fabricating is she says Photos of Bernhard cuddling her bambino are in Harper's Bazaar Save the dogs Action star Jackie Chan has asked the Taiwanese legislature to pass its first animal protection law which would ban the killing of stray dogs He made the appeal on behalf of the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals which says there are 2 million stray dogs on the streets of Taiwan Lyle Lovett These records are due in stores today according to Ice magazine: Apocah plica: "Inquisition Symphony" (Mercury) Archers of I oaf: "White Trash Heroes" (Alias) Tony Bennett record): (Columbia) Blue Flannel: (Universal) Diana Carter: Gonna Be Alright" (Capitol) The Chemical Brothers: Gonna Work It Out" (Astralwerks) The- Church: lologram of Baal "(Thirsty Ear) dwbov Mouth: (MCA) press Hill: (Ruflhouse) dc talk: (Virgin) George Duke: "After Hours" (Warner Bros) Groover ider: of Funk" (Columbia) Hovercraft: "Experimental Below "(Mute) KISS: Circus" Mercury) Patti Labellc: "Live! One Night Only!" (MCA) Lyle Lovett: Inside This (MCA) Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Live From the Middle East" (Mercury) Allison Moorer: "Alabama Song" (MCA) Mudhoney: I lit (Reprise) Murder City Devils: Empty Bottles Broken Hearts" (Sub Pop) (J-Burns Abstract Message: "Feng Shui" (Astralwerks) Joshua Redman: Tales (for Changing Times)" (Warner Bros) Jerry Seinfeld: Telling You for the Last ime" (Universal) Sparks: (Oglio) DJ Spooky: "Riddim Warfare" (Outpost) Sunny Day Real Estate: "1 low 1 1 Feels to Be (Sub PopSire) Keith Sweat: in the Game" (Elektra) Lee Ann Womack: Things I Know" (Decca) Yatsura: by Yatsura" (Sire) Yellowjackets: "Club Nocturne" (Warner Bros) Timothy Finn (More) Zippergate news Monica Lewinsky has agreed to make a catwalk appearance in Italian stylist October fashion show in Milan or so says the design house A Gatti-noni spokesman says Lewinsky will be paid about $470000 for the Oct 6 appearance with half going to cancer research be wearing blue the same color as her famous Gap dress Why hire the notorious former intern? "She is ruined in the United the spokesman says can she do but flee to Uh-oh Miss America no less thinks President Clinton should resign Nicole Johnson who was crowned in Atlantic City Saturday night says Clinton should step aside because he the No 1 role model in the Johnson who was Miss Virginia has worked for "The 700 where we doubt find too many Clinton supporters Mia Farrow on the other hand is advocating forgiveness lor thcprez Really The actress reportedly has spoken not one word to former lover Woody Allen since his scandalous affair with (and marriage to) her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn But Farrow is very understanding of Bill foibles hope they allow him to she says been a wonderful president apologized renewed his commitment to his Eeeeeeeeek! CATHERINE McGANNResttess Records influence for his group "There was something very car-toonish about them you know having the same last name" he said agree totally with Tina Weymouth (of Talking I leads) who said the Ramones were a art group" They were about more than the beat or the volume They appealed to an art-rock sensibility They Might Be Giants By TIMOTHY FINN Pop Music Writer Most novelty bands lose their fizz quicker than cheap champagne (remember They were Devo) So how have They Might Be Giants a tongue-in-chic duo famous for its geeky new-wave charm hung together for 1 3 years and more than 10 full-length records? John Flans: burgh vocalist guitarist and cofounder of the band said recently from Los Angeles You mean it was rot-gut whiskey that killed bands like Rock of Seagulls and the Romantics? obviously you also have to believe in what he said are so jaded about what you can achieve and how far you can get in this business I feel like beaten the odds and I'm proud in a lot of ways that we've done our thing that ridden the back of the tiger without ending up inside' That ride has been wild and rugged The band formed in the early 1980s after Hansburgh and childhood buddy John Lmnell got together in New York and started messing around with a guitar an alto saxophone and some toy instruments nansburgh a die-hard Ramones fan still cites it and other New York bands as a major With that in mind he and Linnell started They Might Be Giantsnaming themselves after a George Scott movie They would add an accordion keyboards and drum machine to their instrumentation and in 1985 put out a self-titled debut he Concert They Might Be Giants performs Wednesday night at William Jewell College in Liberty Michael Shelley who recently released a fine pop record Many Movies'1 opens at 7 pm Tickets are $10 and are available from 2 to 5 pm today and Wednesday at Yates College Union on the campus To reserve tickets call 781-7700 Ext 5231 recommend it But lots of bands redeem that recommendation and jocks still dig them too So why not be safe and commercial? 1 find a lot of that strange" Flansburgh said like watching a daytime soap opera: It all seems exactly like the real world but it's not No one makes any real genuine jokes It a reality with all the spark sucked out of it Some bands have that self-serious soap-opera reality to them: They really fear appearing So his band's durability it turns out has more to do with the Ramones' art-rock gestalt with letting its freak-flag fly than with premium liquor are a new-wave band basically" Flansburgh said "And the thing that inspired us more than anything were the first generation of New York punk bands who were so incredibly personal one was a clear expression of the people in them They had distinct personalities and though they tended to get tied together none was like the other: Talking Heads had nothing to do with Patti Smith who had nothing to do with Blondie who had nothing to do with the Ramones There were so many fresh ideas going around then That's where we come from" big gulp of the wicked sense of humor and genuine appreciation for a variety of music styles Thirteen years (and a mix of good and less-than-brilliant records) later the duo is now a full-fledged multipiece band with drums and horns recording on a major label Elektra) and still drawing big to its many live shows The way Flans-burgh sees it he and Linnell have endured because in (he only cultural medium that would accept them and their diabolic impulses music can be agreat medium for personal he said "It's where you can be rewarded for being an outside voice You want to be a movie director? You'd better love American values or have some relationship to American culture otherwise you'll have a hard time getting your movies made But in rock music you Can be a total nut and jocks will still dig you Iliat's what this medium has to What scares scary author Stephen King17 Pubescent girls Especially pubescent girls who are fans of his only can they rupture your eardrums he says in Entertainment Weekly probably more rampant unfocused sexuality there than anywhere else in the world MUSIC Deja Angela Angela Strehli: Blue House oj Blues) Strehli's first album as a leader in five years and a national tour could finally bring the versatile and volatile singer the exposure she deserves for her husky haunting vocals and songwriting skills The ballad a in which joined by fellow Texans Marcia Ball and Lou Ann Barton for some trio testifying and Stand by Your Woman are strong enough to become part of the new blues songbook Strehli has always been an artist on the edge: with Blue" she's on the verge of breaking through Terry Lawson Detroit Free Press record that is now considered a classic Music critic Ira Robbins wrote: accomplished bursting with ideas hooks puns dadaist nonsense and other tricks They Might Be Giants' is almost too good to be true Most of the 19 tracks are brilliant MTV gave the band a push when it ran the Let video giving audiences a birthdays Singer Debby Boone is 42 Singermusician Joan Jett is 38 Actress Catherine Oxen berg is 37 Actor Scott Baio is 37 Tim Engle tengUia kcstarcom who has been seen in a blue dress only once is happy to return Stargazing to its rightful owner David Eugene Frese He returns Wednesday Jong retrospective sweeps out her best and her banal HOTStuff By LISA SCHWARZBAUM Tht Baltimore Sun But for every cheaply made "shmattc" a nice piece of goods that reminds us why Jong is such an intriguing thinker Her ambivalence about her face-lift is tender face looks blameless My soul is all stitched up Her checklist of attributes for the perfect man and her good humor about the impossibility of hitting the jackpot with any one mortal is hard-earned And in the midst of an undisciplined study of Hillary Rodham Clinton comes this timeless truth: is a perfect example of why life is so tough for brainy women The constant transformations of her public image reveal the terrible contortions expected of us Balancmg braimness with sexiness has been Erica Jong's writing style for three decades No wonder much of the stuff in this closet is low-cut and spangly the garments of a writer who enjoys strutting hei stuff meet last autumn's journalism demands Quest for Stiffness" an inevitable Viagra commentary (even the title with its naughty phallic thrust is Jongian) goes limp with trendiness And the reissue of her de- Erica Jong fense of Bill Clinton is mighty unfortunate in its timing: we already know the vfcorst history can only ennoble him Already it seems he is being redeemed" 1 How Long Gone: Brooks Dunn (Arista Nashville) 2 Where the Green Grass Grows: Tim McGraw (Curb) 3 26 Cents: The Wilkinsons (Giant) 4 I Go on Loving You: Alan Jackson (Arista Nashville) 5 True: George Strait (MCA Nashville) 6 Laugh at Me: Mark Wills (Mercury) 7 Gone: Diamond Rio (Arista Nashville) 8 Cover You in Kisses: John Michael Montgomery (Atlantic) 9 Honey Home: Shania Twain (Mercury) 10 Ahight: Jo Dee Messina (Curb) Billboard What Do Women Bread Roses Sex Power by Enca Jong (202 pages HarperCollins $25) Now she's in her mid-50s and as saucily provocative as ever 25 years after the publication of Fear of Flying She's married to her fourth husband the mother of a 19-year-okl daughter who is trying to establish her own wnteriy Voice And she has had recent journalistic forays in publications as varied as Marie Claire The Saturn and Travel Leisure Jong has turned her fierce media -savvy attention to subjects ranging from Bill and Hillary Clinton to her own face-lift It's closet -cleaning time And the first fashions that wear well are those tied most closely to the times for which they were created as veightless consideration of the late Princess of Wales reads now as just another aynload of words to an easy segue from reading What Do Women Want a collection of essays from Erica Jong many of ROOK them previously pub-lished to thinking nPVIW about my mother's clothes closet where I used to spend hours as a girl remembering where she wore each familiar dress anthologies often give me that cleaning-out-the-closet feeling: Material that once seemed snappy when paraded in colorful publications tends to look faded stretched out or shrunken when piled into a book And as for thinking of moms well who wouldn't what with Jong writing so intently about daughterhood and motherhood over the years as she has analyzed womanhood through the template of her own life.