By Dave Donnelly
Monday, January 6, 1997
Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones
Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones
IT may be a tad early for such assessments, but it appears to me that 1997 is going to be the "Year of the Tear." That's as in "Tears on my Pillow" and not tears in your pants. Cases in point: The hot new movie is "Evita" with the song, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina." Bryant Gumbel stepped down after 15 years of hosting the "Today" show with many tears - I haven't seen anybody choked up since that incident with grandma and the ringer. There were crocodile tears galore shed yesterday when Dallas, America's Team or America's Most Hated Team - choose one - fell to the expansion Carolina Panthers and both Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders suffered game-ending injuries. More tears, no doubt, at Sports Illustrated where they insured their heralded "cover jinx" would continue after making John Elway their cover boy, just before his team was beaten by the other expansionists, the Jacksonville Jaguars ... Looks like it'll be a weepy '97
YOU get the idea, but the real tear jerker of the new year came during the Michael Jackson concert at Aloha Stadium. Don't get me wrong, it was a spectacular concert unmatched by any that ever played in Hawaii and the thought occured to me that no matter what happens in 1997, the two-day Michael-mania sellout will go down as the No. 1 entertainment event of the year. For example, the top story in 1996 was Keali'i Reichel winning five Hoku Awards. If Reichel would turn into a Hoku in '97, it would still place behind the Jackson show for sheer magnitude, both visually and aurally. But the tear-jerkiness of Michael "breaking down" over the break-up of the Jackson Five and the scene where the armed soldier hopped out of a tank and dissolved into tears when the brave M.J. lowered his raised weapon for him, were just a bit too melodramatic. The kids at the end of the show would have worked a lot better if people didn't stop recalling current news reports of the star and young children. And I haven't seen that much crotch grabbing since a football player on our high school team had Tiger Balm put in his jockstrap by an impractical joker ...
IF you're like most television viewers who watched the NFL playoff games yesterday, you're probably pulling out your hair over the IBM commercial which ran, what, 150 times? It featured Santa and a group of elves (?) speaking Icelandic or something with sub-titles. A game ensured as to what they're trying to say about IBM. Feel free to join in, a la David Letterman and his Top 10 List. Thus far we've heard the likes of Incredibly Boring Message, Insensible Bothersome Marketing, Inhumane Banal and Malodorous, Irksome Bilious Madness and the No. 1 heard so far, "I'm Buying Macintosh." ... I Be Miffed
THAT Emme Tomimbang is everywhere. She showed up at the Michael Jackson concert with a camera operator and a birthday cake to surprise promoter Tom Moffatt. She corralled two ex-Poi Boy colleagues of Moffatt and the next thing I knew I was being photographed holding the cake with KHET G.M. Don Robbs with my arm around Quincy Jones as we all sang "Happy Birthday, Uncle Tom." The thought occurred to me that some racially sensitive groups might not be thrilled with hearing those words from Jones, creative force behind such enterprises as Jackson himself, "We Are the World" and the Academy Awards. Also at the party, but electing not to appear on camera was legendary rocker Alice Cooper, sometime Maui resident ...
THE aforementioned Emme also hosted a party for Iolani grad Chris Lee, V.P. of Tri-STar Pictures here scouting locations for his upcoming movie, "Godzilla." Others at the Planet Hollywood gathering were Tri-Star Pictures president Bob Cooper and "Independence Day" producer/writer Dean Devlin . . . Other recent Planet Hollywood stop-bys were Jennifer Love Hewitt of "Party of Five," actress Lark Voorhees of "Saved by the Bell" and "Bold and the Beautiful" and country singer Randy Travis, enjoying Maui over the holidays ... Hooray for Planet Hollywood
