Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 45

JIN1 Spectacle and sound come lo town Singer Eslefan revels in her life, career and freedom SLANDER SETTLEMENT Music producer and former Blackstreet group member Teddy Riley has reached a settlement in a slander suit filed against a former bandmate. The lawsuit claimed former Blackstreet member Chauncey Hannibal had defamed Riley on MTV and five East Coast radio stations by playing a rap song called "Shame on You" that accused Riley of dishonesty. Details of the settlement, reached last week, are confidential, Riley's attorney, David Ventker, said. The suit was filed last month. Riley had sought $2 million from Hannibal, who goes by the stage name Chauncey Black, and sought an injunction to stop Hannibal from playing "Shame on You" ana making further accusations.

i i iP i if V-p k' 'ia- Pittsburgh Liffiii Estefan says she lives a normal life in Miami. they want in this country, and some people in the Cuban community here, a very small minority, didn't like that very much. You were defending a politician who spoke out in favor of Cuban musicians being allowed to play in Miami? Right. She should have been allowed to say whatever she wanted without being punished for it. I might not agree with her, I would not go to the concert, but she has that right.

Didn't they go on air and call you a communist? Yes. Me! A communist? Can you believe that? I had to listen to this garbage, and it was so totally bull, and you realize in the long run it doesn't matter. In the long run they saw my point. Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times MTV IN PITTSBURGH MTV will stop in Pittsburgh Saturday to film a local branding and Web design firm for "E-Tour," a show in which young journalists and video artists travel the country in an RV documenting the lives of young entrepreneurs. MTV chose Blue Rider Design Studio, in the Strip District, as one of its 30 featured businesses from around the nation.

Founders Andi Rieber, 27, and Carolla Zap, 26, will give the reporters a tour of their business Strip is perfect on a Saturday," Rieber notes) and will take them for lunch at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern give them a taste of old-school Pittsburgh," says web designer Cathy Rescher), Rieber and Zap recently won the 2000 Pennsylvania Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award from the Small Business Administration. Caroline Abels, Post-Gazette cultural arts writer 1 wo unusual concerts are being held tonight: The Balmoral School of Piping and Drumming will perform a free concert at 8 in the chapel at St. Joseph Center in Greens-burg. The group has been in residence at St. Joseph Center this week, allowing more than 30 students to study with some of the world's top Scottish pipers and drummers.

412-323-2707. The White Tie Group will perform at 7:30 CITY SCENES at Mayernik Park in Neville Township. Formerly known as the Symphony Jazz TVio, the group consists of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra members Harold Smoliar; piano; Don Evans, bass; and Andy Reamer, drums. (Rebecca Sodergren) The Rumpus Road Rocket, a psychedelic, polka-dotted school bus with red shag carpeting and beaded curtains, will visit the Pittsburgh Children's Museum on the North Side at 1 p.m. Wednesday, and the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium from 10 a.m.

to 4 p.m. next Thursday. The Rocket gives children an opportunity to appear on "The Rumpus Rocket Roads Show," a weekly series on Rumpus.com. (R.S.) Barnum's Kaleidoscope, a one-ring tented circus, will open July 22 for a three-week engagement at Station Square. Barnum hasn't had a circus under the big top since 1956.

Attractions will include Pipo, a classic European harlequin; Sylvia Zerbini, circus siren; casso, a juggler from Spain; Nuts Bolts, a comic quintet; and the Golden Statues, who create human statues. Tickets range from $18 to $48,50 and are available at TicketMaster locations or by phone at 412-323-1919. (R.S.) Here's an offbeat opportunity for fame. Schick Razors will bring its karaoke-style talent search to the South Side Summer Street Spectacular from 6 to 11 p.m. July 13 and 7 to 11 p.m.

July 15. Solo and group crooners of all ages will compete for the right to be crowned "Pittsburgh's Best Singer and Shaver." The competition will be run out of the Schick Shave Shack, a custom-designed, 32-foot trailer converted into a shower-stage. (R.S.) Duquesne University's Mary Pap-pert School of Music will hold its 14th annual Guitar and Bass Workshop July 24-28 on campus. Basic, intermediate and advanced instruction will be available for professional and amateur players in the areas of jazz, classical, fingerstyle, rockblues, electricacoustic and song-writing. Featured guests will include Carol Kaye, Jimmy Bruno, Howard Alden, Sid Jacobs, Muriel Anderson, Bob Benedetto, Wolf Marshall, Steve Dudas and Jon Chappel.

Cost is $360 for early enrollment until July 17. 800-934-0159 or (R.S.) CITY lived in them blue lips and lounge on our towels for the required hour (so we wouldn't get cramps and sink to the bottom of the pool like rocks). Then, back in again until dinnertime. Afterward, I would hike the mile and a half to my house in Carrick, exhausted, sunburned and happy as a pup, hoping for sweat tomorrow. In today's scary world, you could never let a 10-year-old walk that far or be gone that long alone.

Those were different times. Before they tore it down, there was a large, wooden shelter house with a row of windows that opened to a sprawling porch on the hill above the pool. Music played from the dance floor inside, drifting down over the swimmers. I imagined heaven must have a place like this, where every day was summer and you could dance and swim and eat chipped ham sandwiches on the grass under the shade of a big maple tree with your best friend as often as you wanted. Brentwood Park was a wondrous place to a little city girl, a magical summer place.

We installed an above-ground pool for our kids at our first home in Brentwood in 1970, along with a basketball hoop and two swing sets. I liked having them in the back yard, watching them swim with their friends. Once it warmed up and I broke a sweat, the kids were allowed in the pool from the time they got up until they went to bed. And on sweltering hot nights, who needed A.C? We had the pool. How delicious it was to sleep in cool skin after a midnight dip.

I wonder, now that most people have air conditioning how do mothers tell if it's warm enough outside for their kids to swim? Lorraine Mutschler is a free-lance writer living in Whitehall and Arizona: She is the author of "What Doesn't Kill E-mail her at lmutschler2earthlinjs.net. UmmmM 111 loria Este-fan's new all-Spanish -album, "Alma Caribena," has been No. 1 on the Billboard Latin album chart since its release. Understand, please, that she doesn't have to make records anymore. She's made 20 of them now, three in Spanish.

Her salary from royalties alone is more than $7 million a year, according to Forbes magazine, with husband Eniilio making an additional $6 million a year from producer credits and profits from their Crescent Moon music studios, and $5 million in management fees. Their estimated net worth is more than $200 million. Gloria, 42, is likely to say she's happy to be alive, especially after a near-fatal bus crash in 1990 that left her with two titanium rods in her back; she feels the screws in her skin whenever she sits in a hard-backed chair. She says it reminds her she's lucky to be alive. She's in love, has two great kids and says she makes music these days because it brings her joy.

And this album, a rich, folksy blend of various traditional Afro-Caribbean styles, is nothing like the more commercial, English-language pop she's known for. It is the music she says she most loves. Question: This album is Singer Gloria a big change for you musically very acoustic, mellow, lush. What are you trying to say with it? Answer: It's the other side of the spectrum for me from the last album disco and dance music in English, that's for sure which is great, I think. Because that's who I am.

We've been wanting to do another Spanish album since 1993's "Mi On this new one we wanted to be more experimental, more free, more modern, with different types of arrangements that didn't depend on one period of time. Are people making comparisons in the sound of your new album to the "Buena Vista Social Club" album? You know, a lot of journalists have been asking me about that. This has nothing to do with that. For one thing, we've been working on this album for four years. For another, these aren't old songs.

These are all new songs. Original songs. Can you live a normal life in Miami? Sure. Probably more so than anybody would ever imagine. I once had this photographer here from Life magazine, and she wanted to do a day-in-the-life-of-Gloria type of thing, and I was kidding around with her.

I have a sarcastic sense of humor, and not everybody gets it. She asked what my normal morning was like, and I said, "Well, why don't you get a shot of me at the top of the stairs when I come down for breakfast in my feathered boa with my martini?" And she said, "OK." It's just what people think we do. In reality, I'm a mommy. I get up early, and we take Emily to school. Then we work out, Emilio and I.

It's the only time we spend together, really. You came under fire in Miami for ad-'vocating freedom of speech, didn't you? I wrote a piece for the Miami Herald about people's rights to think and say what DEAR ANN: I must respond to the woman who is divorced and living with her ex "for the sake of the children," even though he yells at her a lot. My husband and I didn't divorce, but we should have. I stayed because I told myself that raising my children with a bad example of a father was better than no father at all. I was wrong.

He yelled at me a lot, too. Now, our sons are grown and have no respect for their wives. They learned it at home. If we had had girls instead, they would have learned that they were supposed to be knocked around and to accept it. That woman should ask herself if that is the life she wants her children to have when they are grown.

She would do herself and her children a much bigger favor by getting them out of that environment as soon as possible. She should let her children know everyone deserves respect and that no one has to settle for abusive treatment. Please print my letter for the sake of every woman who is stuck in a relationship with a man who shows her no respect. Thanks for letting me express myself. I've been meaning to write for a long time.

S.T., JACKSONVILLE, FLA. DEAR JACKSONVILLE: You have written a letter that deserves the attention of all women, especially those who are tolerating abuse. If there are children in the home, they will grow up to behave toward their mates the way they saw their parents behave. You can count on it. This goes for verbal abuse, as well.

So, watch it, folks. You are "giving lessons" and setting an example, whether you know it or not. Send questions to Ann Landers, Box 11562, Chicago, IL 60611-05. I n' I WITH A LITTLE HELP It was a knight to remember for Sally Harris as her cousin Sir Paul McCartney slipped behind the wheel of the car carrying her to the British town hall where she was being married last Friday. And, not that anybody ever had any reason to doubt it, being a former Beatle still rates McCartney top-of-the-line service a on British Air.

Last week, Concorde passengers headed from the Big Apple to the home of Big Ben raised their eyebrows when the rock legend was ushered aboard ahead of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "It was a total breach of protocol," sniffed one witness. MISSISSIPPI GIVER SelaWard knows where charity begins. Ward, the Emmy-winning star of ABC's "Once and Again," is one of a dozen Mississippi-linked celebrities who plan to go home this summer to participate in a benefit for the Blair E. Batson Hospital for Children in Jackson.

The goal of the Aug. "Enchanted Evening Under the Stars With Sela Ward will join fellow Mississippi-linked celebrities to raise money for a children's hospital in Jackson, Miss. Mississippi Stars" is to raise money to add two floors to the hospital dedicated to pediatric surgery. Joining Ward will be John Dye of "Touched by an singer Guy Hovis of "The Lawrence Welk Broadway star Laurie Stephenson; and actor Gerald McRaney of "Major Dad" and "Promised Land." From wire reports by lorraine mutschler Ted CrowPost-Gazette We would spend the entire day getting wrinkled like prunes in the freezing-cold water. Mid-afternoon we would surface, shivering, to devour our lunches through.

Jl 11 lf j9N L4 I 4 it, THURSDAY JUNE 29, 2000 PAGE D-5 We don 't sit down and think, 'Jeez, we had the hair thing in About Mary." How can we uuiuu inui: "Me, Myself Irene" filmmaker Peter Farrelly, speaking to the Los Angeles Daily News about his and brother Bobby Farrelly's outrageous brand of comedy. Self exams key in diagnosing breast cancer EAR ANN: Recently, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a normal mammogram and doctor's ex amination, but four months later, through self-examination, I felt a small lump that turned out to be cancerous. tell your readers it is not enough to have regular mammograms, although they are very important. Most women discover lumps themselves through self-examination.

If a woman does not know how to perform this test herself, her doctor can show her, or she can get information at the public library. rihfliW.IIWIIiflftlfnrtttt.-a..' I always assumed I would not know the difference between a dangerous lump and the usual oddities in my breasts, but I was wrong. Once I became accustomed to the contours of my breasts, I immediately recognized when something was different. Early detection and treatment gave me the best chances of survival. I hope by writing to you, I can persuade some women to begin doing regular self-examination, because it could save their lives.

M.M., WHO SPEAKS FROM EXPERIENCE DEAR M.M.: You have written a letter that could mean the difference between life and death. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope every woman who reads this will pay attention to your simple SUMMER IN THE Before we hid from the elements, we never fully appreciated the beautiful spring and summer weather we have here in Pittsburgh until I spent three months melting in 105-plus-degree heat in Scottsdale, Ariz. I know, I know, "But it's a dry heat." So's an oven. Our kids who live there year-round are enduring 110 degrees at the present time, and it rises to 120 in the worst part of summer! Worst part of summer? That sounds like an oxymoron.

Summer should only have BEST parts. Waking up to 65-degree mornings here, with the sun shining and the birds singing (we can actually have our windows open!) is such a delight. The room where I work on my computer gets a heavenly breeze from cross-ventilation. These are the best months to be home. I even look forward to the rain.

There aren't a whole lot of days where I reluctantly close up the house and run the A.C. Just to show how foolish youth can be, as a kid I never enjoyed this kind of weather. It was too cool. (Not the same meaning as today.) I wasn't allowed to go swimming until it reached a temperature where my mother would sweat. That was her sign.

If I couldn't go swimming, I behaved like a fish out of water flopping around the house looking for stuff to do and avoiding my mother, who could ALWAYS find things for me to do. But every summer day when moisture dripped from my mom's forehead, my spirits soared. After finishing morning chores (my ticket out), I'd pack a couple of chipped ham sandwiches, fruit and some homemade cookies and run off to Brentwood Park swimming pool. (As a nonresident, I did not have legal access but would nervously fudge a friend's Brentwood address in order to buy a pass.) My friend, who was lucky enough to live in the borough, would be there already, waiting for me..