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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2006 > February > 16
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Alas, with ‘The View’ co-host’s arrival today, adieu to ‘Shine’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The city’s hairstylists and manicurists were no doubt turning customers away Wednesday as Atlantans made final preparations for today’s long-awaited book signing by “The View” co-host Star Jones Reynolds.
The reading, signing and Q&A tonight at 7 at Barnes & Noble off Moreland Avenue is part of Jones Reynolds’ national book tour to promote “Shine: A Physical, Emotional & Spiritual Journey to Finding Love.”
Buzz readers will recall that Jones Reynolds first endeared herself to Atlanta radio listeners last month when she hung up on (or her publicist ended, according to whom you ask) a phone interview with Steve McCoy and Vikki Locke on Star 94, arguably the least confrontational radio morning show in the city. McCoy allegedly agitated Jones Reynolds by asking her about speculation that she had a gastric bypass here. (She addresses her dramatic weight loss in “Shine” but does not disclose how she lost it.) The incident was later splashed across Page Six in the New York Post with a quote attributed to the daytime diva, stating that McCoy “was the single rudest person who ever interviewed me.”
This week, Star 94 listeners have been clogging the station’s phone lines now that McCoy and Locke are offering the quote on a commemorative Star Jones T-shirt.
McCoy told Buzz on Wednesday that he has re-invited Jones to the show “to help clear the air. I really don’t want to attack this woman.” The Jones Reynolds camp has turned down the offer. The female-skewing Q100 “Bert Show” also was rebuffed when producer Tracey Peluso’s interview request was turned down by Jones rep Paul Olsewski.
And Buzz’s request for an in-person interview with Jones Reynolds? Her publicist Brad Zeifman indicated that we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for one. Zeifman politely informed us that Jones Reynolds “doesn’t speak to gossip columnists.”
Yes, gentle readers, he went and used the “g”- word. We kindly pointed out that Buzz is not a gossip column but rather an ongoing journalism exercise referred to in the industry as a people/newsmaker feature. And because we were taught manners, we chose not to point out that Jones Reynolds and her co-hosts spend the first 10 minutes of “The View” each weekday trafficking in celebrity gossip.
Buzz spent the remainder of Wednesday applying a topical ointment to our wounds and planning a nonviolent, candlelight vigil outside Barnes & Noble tonight.
As a final parting gift to faithful Buzz readers, we proudly present …
A final moment to ‘Shine’
“Temporary abstinence can be kind of a quiet, resting state, a temporary fast that forces you to find other emotional outlets. Eventually, it makes you even hungrier for sexual intercourse, but hungrier for a full meal, not fast food.” —the author on her and her future husband’s mutual decision to be celibate for six months prior to their marriage.
B-52’s update
After we informed Buzz readers of all the details of a meal recently enjoyed by the B-52’s at the Globe in Midtown, we received a Valentine’s Day voice mail from member Fred Schneider. “We also had bread!” cracked Schneider in the voice mail message. Responding to our inquiry about the Athens-born band’s new recording, he informed us that “we get together in Atlanta and work on songs every so often.” A record and tour are being planned for the fall. Look for the band to perform a new song on Showtime’s “The L Word” on Sunday.
A class act of Ebony fashion
Need a fur shawl that transforms into a coat, a pair of genie jeans or a metallic handbag large enough to pass for a suitcase? Neither do most Atlantans, but that didn’t stop 1,800 locals from attending the 48th annual Ebony Fashion Fair fashion show this week. The event at the Woodruff Arts Center’s Symphony Hall was dedicated to its founder, the late John H. Johnson, who died last August, just one month before the tour began. In the name of charity, attendees applauded fashions by designers ranging from Anna Sui to Zang Toi. Chairwoman Marie Baker Wilson of the Atlanta Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, which hosts the event, summed it up in two words: “It’s class,” she said.
‘Brokeback’ inspiration
Willie Nelson sang “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys” and “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” more than 25 years ago.
The 72-year-old singer released a different sort of cowboy anthem on Valentine’s Day.
“Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)” may be the first gay cowboy song by a major recording artist. But it was written long before this year’s Oscar-nominated “Brokeback Mountain” made gay cowboys a hot topic.
Available exclusively through iTunes, the song features choppy Tex-Mex style guitar runs and Nelson’s deadpan delivery of lines such as “What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?” and “Inside every cowboy, there’s a lady who’d love to slip out.”
The song, which debuted Tuesday on Howard Stern’s satellite radio show, was written by Texas-born singer-songwriter Ned Sublette in 1981. Sublette said he wrote it during the “Urban Cowboy” craze and always imagined Nelson singing it. Someone passed along a copy of the song to Nelson in the late 1980s and, according to Nelson’s record label, Lost Highway, he recorded it last year at his Pedernales studio in Texas. Nelson also sings “He Was a Friend of Mine” on the “Brokeback Mountain” soundtrack.
TomKat denounce split story
Not true. That was Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ response to a Valentine’s Day report by Life & Style magazine claiming the Hollywood superstar and his pregnant paramour have split up. “It should be known that the story is 100 percent false,” Arnold Robinson, a publicist for the couple, said in a statement. “Mr. Cruise and Ms. Holmes are still engaged and are moving forward with their wedding plans, as well as planning for the arrival of their child.”
The magazine’s Feb. 27 issue, on newsstands Friday, says in a cover story that the pair “plan to keep up the charade of their romance until after their baby’s birth this spring.”
Holmes, 27, and Cruise, 43, have been engaged since June. They announced her pregnancy in October.
“Despite the malicious fallacies put forth by Life & Style magazine, the couple is looking forward to a long and happy life together as a family,” Robinson said.
Producers of freekatie.com, meanwhile, remained inconsolable at press time Wednesday.
Celebrity birthdays
Actor Pete Postlethwaite is 60. Actor Jeremy Bulloch (Boba Fett in “The Empire Strikes Back”) is 60. Actor LeVar Burton is 49. Rapper-actor Ice-T is 48.
Contributing: Nedra Rhone and news services. If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
If you have a tip, call 404-526-2749. Or fax 404-526-5509. Or e-mail: buzz@ajc.com.
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