Bet's Celebrity Roundup

Hello, star-watchers. We here at Betland had a really slow day at work yesterday, and found ourselves reading a lot of CNN.com and MSNBC.com. And realizing that these two sites seem to consider news of celebrities just as important as actual stuff that we might care about, or even that may affect our lives.

Like....

Back on the market: It seems everyone's favorite handsome, devil-may-care bachelor George Clooney is a bachelor once again. Yes, girls, he's split from his most recent girlfriend, the one that lasted an amazing 9 or so months, possibly a record for Mr Cute. If you're interested in competing with Stennie, LilyG, and I for his affections, please send in your application. And realize that in our particular book, "compete" does not mean "fight to the death," it means "George is put into rotation traveling between the three of us and being our shared boyfriend." On second thought, don't apply, because that's already dividing his affections into thirds, and we'd just as soon you keep your big noses out of our affairs. You'll just have to apply for someone like Charlie Sheen, I'm afraid.

Dropping like flies: Sadly, a lot of the celebrity news taking up space on the news websites is of the sad RIP variety. It started with Sidney Pollack on Monday, and then came the flood of bad news: Dick Martin, he of "Laugh-In" fame, as goofy a guy as was ever on TV, and TV's all the better for it. He was the Gracie to Dan Rowan's George Burns, and I can't think of him without thinking of the Farkle family and their neighbor (who looked suspiciously like all of the Farkle children) Ferd Burfle. Earle Hagen, composer of the "Andy Griffith Show" theme (let's whistle along), a million other TV themes, and the cheesy jazz standard "Harlem Nocturne," which I always liked, cheesy or not. It's extremely hard to play on the oboe though, as that was the instrument I was playing when the mighty and feared B'burg Community Band did the piece, and, let's face it, I was certainly no oboe virtuoso anyway. Then Joseph Pevney, who directed a slew of "Star Trek"s, including everyone's favorite, "The Trouble With Tribbles." Last night it was Harvey Korman, one I'm still in a blue funk over because I absolutely adored him, and I feel like I need to watch "Blazing Saddles" tonight as a tribute to him and Hedy Lamarr. Sorry, that's Hedley. Then only today came the news of the death of Alexander Courage, who wrote the theme to "Star Trek." If I worked in any capacity on "Star Trek," I believe I'd be hiding under a rock for the next few days.

Karma bites you in the ass: The other celebrity news I've been keeping up with, and am frankly quite sick of keeping up with, is actress Sharon Stone's little faux pas regarding the earthquake in China and how it was "karma" for how the Chinese government has been treating Tibet. Apparently Ms Stone thought she'd found a way to work her particular cause into an interview, and it backfired tremendously, because the press got hold of it and ran, pissing off a third of the world's population and losing her her comfy celebrity endorsement with Christian Dior. Apparently she's been scrapped from all ads appearing in China, which struck me in a way that had me saying, "Christian Dior advertises in China?" but apparently it was something of a big deal. Now, let's be honest, China's government is creepy and oppressive, but I really don't think it's the place of an actress to tell the nearest and dearest of 80,000 dead peasants that it's their fault their loved ones died, especially an actress who's only famous because she decided to cross her legs and show her hoonie in a really bad film. So now she's saying that she wants to help the victims of the earthquake, and I say, fine, go over there and dig up dead bodies and start building them new houses. You hack.

Harvey Korman wouldn't have said such a thing.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* I've been forbidden to drink wine while recording the Hucklebug podcast. Ever again. And rightly so. For any listeners this week, I was just obnoxious, and now it's my turn to apologize. However, I will not be losing my Christian Dior endorsements, for which I am grateful.