Posted: 11 Feb 2010 11:57 PM PST

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TWO WEEKS ago, I wrote about Tim Tebow, the Heisman Trophy winner slated to appear in a Super Bowl commercial sponsored by the pro-life group Focus on the Family.

Like many - even people who support abortion - I couldn't understand why a bunch of vocal feminists decided to harangue CBS for having the audacity to air the ad. Whatever happened to the marketplace of ideas? Were they too cheap to pony up for their own "pro-choice" spot?

Well, the Super Bowl has come and gone and with it, the Tempest in a Tebow-pot. If you saw the ad, it was timely, humorous and brimming with exactly the type of thing that's missing from most prime-time advertising these days: good taste.

Frankly, we could do with a few more mom-and-son commercials that extol the virtues of love, instead of sophomoric slapstick that makes men look stupid and women look like suburban banshees.

Remember the days of the broadcasting code when Lucy and Ricky had to sleep in separate beds because the broadcast tastemakers didn't want to give the viewing audience the wrong (actually, the right) idea about where little Ricky really came from - and it wasn't the stork?

Maybe that was a tad too puritanical, but it's preferable to the modern urge to just let it all hang (or maybe even gush) out.

I think it started with those Summer's Eve commercials a few decades ago, when lissome ladies flirted with the camera and told us we could be as "fresh as a walk in the woods on an early spring morning" or "a gentle breeze that takes you by surprise."

Frankly, the woods on an early spring morning are filled with wet leaves and bugs, neither of which make me think "clean," and some very funky smells and fungi. And let's not even go near that "gentle breeze," surprising or not.

But Pandora's box had been opened. We were now free to talk on network TV, even if only euphemistically, about what was going on "down there."

Which meant that menstrual pads, and the many variations thereof, couldn't be far behind.

Cognizant of the fact that audiences would be more than a bit squeamish about discussing things that should have stayed in the girls locker room or doctor's office, companies like Tampax and Kotex tried to take the high road by tossing in phrases like "used by more women doctors than any other brand." (Why'd they even have to say "women"?)

But that early bout of squeamishness was temporary, banished as quickly as the moisture under our arms.

The almost clinical slant of the 1970s to all things intimate has now morphed into a Perez Hilton meets Britney Spears approach. Madison Avenue is no longer content to skirt around the edges of titillation with personal-hygiene products. They've now engaged in a full-court press of all things sexual, including - in no particular order - how to make those fireworks last, how to make sure you're not flying at half-mast, how to do it when you've already run afoul of the Centers for Disease Control, and how to either (a) get, (b) avoid getting or (c) find out the morning after that you've gotten (d) pregnant.

There are those commercials with attractive baby-boomer couples who are desperate to remind the rest of the world that we are still outfitted with all of the necessary equipment for carnal pleasure even if the gears need a little greasing. Watching slightly wrinkled, lightly graying men and women cuddle in slo-mo in dual bathtubs on a beach at sunset is enough to make me lose my Metamucil.

Then you have the somewhat younger but equally desperate brunette who looks directly into the camera and says, "I have herpes . . . but he doesn't," as she gestures to the studly boyfriend sitting next to her.

If you look closely enough, I swear he's trembling, and the smile on his face looks more lockjawed than lascivious. But we're to believe that because she's taking this drug that "controls" her outbreaks, she can be as randy as she wants, whenever.

That's way more information than I really needed.

AND THEN there are those rather plain-looking couples who swear that their lovemaking is swell-y, now that they've got K-Y jelly, with a little something special for each gender.

Honestly, it's not as if I think sexual gadgets and toys shouldn't be easily available on eBay, or on a gazillion other sites. But it would be nice to turn on the TV and not feel like you have to take a shower after every commercial break.

Fresh as a walk in the woods, my foot.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer. Listen to her Thursdays on WPHT/1210 AM, 10-midnight.

E-mail cflowers1961@yahoo.com.

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Teflon Charlie - Daily Beast

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 10:52 PM PST

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Paul Drinkwater / NBCU Photo Bank / AP Photo; Aspen Police Department / AP Photo Charlie Sheen has been accused of a felony and could face three years in jail. So why is he being given a free pass by the press and Hollywood?

One would think that a major TV star showing up at a courthouse in Aspen, facing domestic violence allegations, would merit a blitzkrieg of paparazzi and press. And yet x17, one of the leading celebrity gossip Web sites, which chronicles every Britney Spears-Starbucks entry and exit, and every step Jessica Biel takes on Robertson Blvd., didn't even send a photographer when Charlie Sheen showed up in court earlier this week with his wife, Brooke Mueller.

On Christmas day, Mueller called 911 and alleged that Sheen had held a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her. (The couple now seem to be headed for reconciliation.)

"If Charlie Sheen's arraignment hadn't happened within 15 minutes of Conrad Murray's arraignment, the media would have covered [Sheen] like crazy," TMZ.com founder Harvey Levin told The Daily Beast.

"For us, it is pretty far down on the list," said x17 co-owner Brandy Navarre, of the action in Aspen.

"Violence against women is a controversial topic, it does generate some interest online, but I don't think our recent stories [about Sheen] have been getting a lot of attention," Navarre said. "So we didn't send anyone to Aspen. It wasn't really—it's not that important for us."

Not as important, say, as the world's best golfer having sex with a harem's worth of women, or the Tonight Show fiasco at NBC, or Brad and Angelina possibly splitting up—events which, for much of the media, have overshadowed Sheen's latest, and potentially most serious, bad behavior: In court earlier this week, the star of Two and a Half Men was slapped with felony menacing and misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault and criminal mischief. He could face up to three years in prison.

Accused of a felony. An alleged knife to the throat. This is a bit more than Ambien-fueled sex and a golf club through the windshield. And yet Teflon Charlie—as he's often referred to—is sailing through the media scrutiny line, relatively unchecked. There has been coverage, certainly. (TMZ.com, of course, has been all over it, but nothing close to what Tigergate merited. Or even what was unleashed on Alec Baldwin in 2007 after a voice message was leaked in which he tore into his 11-year-old daughter, calling her a "thoughtless little pig.")

Nor has there been any visible, professional punishment (other than from Hanes, which ended its sponsorship deal with Sheen) of the sort that Chris Brown suffered after his own domestic violence episode with then girlfriend Rihanna. (Brown accused Walmart of banning his new album, Grafitti, by not stocking it on shelves.) Or that Isaiah Washington received after making a homophobic slur, allegedly against a Grey's Anatomy cast member—Washington was eventually fired from the show.

Over at CBS, it's been "business as usual," as CBS president Nina Tassler put it during last month's Television Critics Association tour. Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre even attempted to joke about the matter: "I'm sorry. What happened with Charlie? Did something happen?" Lorre asked—to very few laughs—at the TCA tour.

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Non-traditional bikers could save the industry - Edmonton Journal

Posted: 12 Feb 2010 12:25 AM PST

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My son -- the heir to all I hold dear, the light of my life -- is a sloth.

He has not a single iota of my personality -- some would say thankfully. Where I am energetic, he is laid-back. Where I am a hermit, he is gregarious. And where I devote my life to the endorphins that are the rewards for a sporting life, he is the quintessential Xbox-on-the-couch-until-the-wee-hours-of-the-morning vampire whose idea of exercise is coming upstairs to "borrow" money.

It's not as though I didn't encourage him. I bought -- at some considerable expense -- brand new hockey equipment only to see it end up in Play It Again Sports's window. I tossed baseballs at the poor child until his mom threatened divorce. I even proffered bribes, offering a reward of 25 cents for every basket he sank in a recreational basketball league. All to no avail.

I could have handled this disappointment if only the basement troll had shown even the remotest interest in motorcycling, my most treasured of hobbies.

But, no, not even numerous forays on dirt bikes and the flotilla of new and shiny road rockets that pass through the garage seemed to interest him.

Motorcycles were a "dad" thing and, as every father knows, our progeny never ever thinks what dad does is cool. Indeed -- and this is meant without a single a grain of rancour toward the 15 per cent of new motorcyclists who are female -- the motorcycle industry may have started marketing to the fairer sex only in panic as the result of the latest generation of its traditional audience, young males, completely ignoring its entreaties.

That may be changing.

I attended the New York motorcycle show recently, and one thing was surprising: New York's show wasn't entirely populated by hoary old fat guys looking for hogs. Instead, the floor was populated with youngsters of all ages salivating over new Harleys or Hondas with the same intensity I used to reserve for BSAs and Laverdas.

There were differences, though. For instance, one noteworthy thing was that these young at heart and light of wallet weren't fawning over the traditional higher-end bikes we boomers covet. Nor were they lusting after the 600-cubic-centimetre sport bikes that are traditionally their entrance into the motorcycling world. They even seemed to ignore the legions of Hayabusa customs that usually capture their interest.

Instead, it seemed as though it was a whole slew of retro-bikes that collected the largest audiences. So, instead of gazing lustily at custom CBRs at the Cycle World booth, it was a cheap and cheerful BMW flat-twin all gussied up as an early board racer that gathered the crowds.

Over at the Progressive Insurance display, the masses largely ignored the mega-buck Harley customs while swarming over a well done 2008 Triumph Thruxton morphed into a '60s cafe racer.

The Allstate Insurance booth was raffling off a David Perewitz custom that was a mishmash of '40s Bob Job and modern metallurgy.

Indeed, this mashing of various cultural mosaics seems to be the coming trend. So, while the Harley pre-show party for its new Forty Eight was playing Back in Black, the predominantly young crowd was hardly recognizable as traditional bikers. Nonetheless, the anorexic young guy wearing the Britney Spears spandex leggings and Bon Jovi hairdo really does ride a Sportster.

Indeed, if the American Motorcycle Industry Council's latest survey is to be believed, the youngsters that we believed had abandoned motorcycling may be coming back. According to the 2008 census, boomers now only outnumber gen-Y bikers by two to one compared with the four-to-one ratio of 2003.

Throw in such facts as the average American biker is some 20-per-cent more affluent than the average Joe, and that the number of female bikers has doubled since 1998, and there just may be a ray of hope that motorcycling will not die of terminal indifference.

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Asheville's 'American Idol' hopeful Jesse Barry shares story - Asheville Citizen-Times

Posted: 11 Feb 2010 10:17 PM PST

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ASHEVILLE — About 30 million people watch "American Idol," now in its ninth season on Fox, but few get the behind-the-scenes look that Asheville singer Jesse Barry did recently.

In a process that started over the summer and ended in January in Hollywood, Barry experienced the ins and outs of what it takes to get onto the popular TV show.

Starting in Atlanta at 5 a.m. one summer morning, Barry and her mom were ushered into the Georgia Dome.

"We were seated in sections and everyone sang 'Oops, I did it again' and then said 'Welcome to Hotlanta' and 'I'm the next American Idol' for hours," Barry said.

Singers were then put into groups of four and went up to tables with producers who let them sing for about 15 seconds each.

Jesse sang, "Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean" by Ruth Brown.

"I sang fourth and when you're done, no one says anything, no feedback at all," Barry said.

The judges talked for a few seconds, and then they said who's in and who's out.

"They said, '1, 2 and 3, you're done. No. 4, you're in,'" she said.

A couple of weeks later, Barry returned to Atlanta to the W Hotel where Barry sang in front of more producers who gave her another yes.

The third time she sang in front of executive producers.

"The judges said, 'Do 'Oops'. I said 'Oops?' Are you serious?" Barry said. So she sang "Oops, I Did It Again" by Britney Spears for the judges, and it was another yes for her again.

Weeks later back in Atlanta, Barry met the celebrity judges at the W Hotel. In total, about 180 people from the original auditions remained.

"Simon wasn't there. It was Randy (Jackson), Kara (DioGuardi) and Mary J. Blige," Barry said. "When I came in, Kara said I had a beautiful smile. After I sang, Randy and Kara both said I could really sing."

It was Mary J. Blige who was unconvinced.

"She said she could see how I could be compared to Aretha Franklin vocally, but that I didn't look like I should be singing the blues and that I didn't seem to know who I was," said Barry

Randy gave her a yes, Kara said she'd give her another shot, and Mary J. said no. With no Simon there, it was 2-1 and Jesse was off to Hollywood.

At the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, Jesse went on stage with seven others and when she sang her song, "Some Kind Of Wonderful," Simon remarked that it was terrible and the song choice was bad.

"I was speechless," said Barry. "All I could say was 'OK. Thank you.'"

Barry's mom, Tami-lu, said the other contestants in the audience cheered for Jesse after her song.

"I thought I nailed it," Jesse said.

"I walked up and I was just shaking, I could feel my heart pounding. I stopped and took a moment and hit the first note. I was very happy with my performance."

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