COCKTAILS, ANYONE?
Faith Popcorn, author of “Clicking,” spots trends for a living.
Q. This is the summer of our . . . what?
A. Small indulgences. We’ll treat ourselves to three-day weekends, short vacations to pump ourselves up. Weekend cruises will be popular. It’s the whole Titanic thing–romance, without the real ending, of course. And spas will be crowded. People can indulge in manicures and pedicures, massages and facials to make themselves feel good.
Q. And what will we be packing for our getaways?
A. Anti-bacterial hand lotions, soaps and sprays. It’s a reaction to what I call Atmosfear. Everything around us seems to be poison. We can’t go to the hospital without coming out sicker than when we went in. People are afraid certain foods will give them food poisoning. When we travel in airplanes we’re afraid the recycled air will make us sick. We have to find ways to protect ourselves, so more and more products will fight germs.
Q. Back home, what will we spend our money on?
A. We’ll treat ourselves to top-of-the-line back-yard toys. Patio furniture is becoming more ornate, more comfortable, almost like indoor furniture. Barbecue equipment is becoming more elaborate. Weber grills come with cutting boards and burners. People are going to stay home and entertain and really put out spreads.
Q. What are we going to eat this summer?
A. We’ll be grilling steaks more than low-fat food. Red meat is in, vegetarianism is out. We’re not going to try to lose the weight we gained over the winter, so we’ll see more one-piece bathing suits for women and more cover-ups. It’s partly to keep the sun out and partly because we’re working out less and we’re not embarrassed about it. It’s the pleasure revenge. We want to put some joy in our lives again.
Q. What are we going to drink?
A. Hard liquor. We’re going back to a real cocktail hour. It adds a little class to a barbecue to have cocktails and mixed drinks instead of just wine and beer.
MAYBE NEXT YEAR
Mark Giangreco is the sports anchor on WLS-Ch. 7.
Q. How ’bout those Cubs?
A. They’ll be just good enough to break your heart. They’ll win enough games to make you think they’ll win the division and then they’ll fall apart.
Q. How ’bout those Sox?
A. They’ll move to Nashville.
Q. How ’bout those Bears?
A. Half the team will pull a hamstring on the way to Platteville.
Q. How ’bout those Bulls?
A. In the middle of the quest for a sixth championship, Michael Jordan will announce that he’s not only coming back for another year of basketball, but he’s going to play baseball again.
Q. How ’bout those Blackhawks?
A. They’ll fire Craig Hartsburg and Bob Murray and trade Chris Chelios and hire Gordie Howe as head coach, general manager and captain. And they’ll still miss the playoffs.
Q. Any truth to the rumor that Dennis Rodman is bringing out a line of unisex bathing suits?
A. Yes, and his dream is to wear one while playing.
IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Jim Reynolds is the CEO and president of Loop Capital Markets.
Q. What do you see, a bull or a bear market?
A. It’s going to be difficult for the market to continue at the pace it maintained last year and the first quarter of this year. I don’t anticipate a full-fledged major adjustment, but I don’t anticipate the growth we’ve had, either.
Q. I have $1,000 to invest. What should I do with it?
A. Buy some things that haven’t moved as much as others. I personally have put a decent amount of money in Hong Kong, Thailand and Latin America–specifically, Brazil. Stay away from anything dependent upon exporting because the dollar is so strong.
Q. Where’s the best place to buy real estate in the city?
A. It’s hard to name a bad place. Just about every area of the city is in development. A lot of it is being driven by gains people have made in the stock market. There’s some very attractive building going on in the area around the United Center, in the South Loop, past Dearborn Park and around Cabrini-Green.
Q. What are the growth careers?
A. I’m biased, but I think the financial arena is a great place to be, whether it’s working for a brokerage firm in mergers and acquisitions or investment banking or in the capital or equity markets.
Q. And the dead-end careers?
A. I’m always cautious about this. If you’re really good at something and have a passion for it, you’re going to do well. There may be too many lawyers, but there’s never too many really great lawyers. That said, it’s probably a good idea to stay away from commercial banking. Every time banks merge, the economics behind the merger is cost-cutting, which means people-cutting, and five or 10 thousand people are laid off.
MOTHER GIVES BIRTH TO OWN SON! FATHER SHOCKED!
Mike Walker is The Man at the National Enquirer.
Q. Any alien babies on the horizon?
A. I have offered to pay $5,000 to anyone who can find a story about alien babies in the National Enquirer. That is a myth.
Q. OK, no alien babies. Any stars headed to rehab?
A. Yes. I fear a relapse by Robert Downey Jr. He once said, “No more sniffy-sniffy? What would life be without it?”
Q. Anybody coming out of the closet?
A. I think there will be, in the wake of George Michael’s really awful, embarrassing exposure. I’m hearing from the gay community that young celebrities are saying that this might be the time to come out, before they’re caught in a public washroom. Once people know, the shock value is gone.
Q. Who’s pregnant or about to be?
A. Jennifer Aniston has talked about having a test-tube baby and I predict she’ll do it. Being around Lisa Kudrow has inspired her.
Q. Who should watch her step?
A. Somewhere there’s a dumb little blond starlet about to sign a big contract and Tommy Lee will sniff her out. He always does with young, naive women like Heather Locklear and Pamela Lee. She will invite him into her bed and pay his bills, all for the privilege of having him kick the hell out of her. He’s one of the worst creatures on the scene.
Q. Who’s a scandal just waiting to happen?
A. Princess Diana’s brother, the Earl of Spencer. This bozo has yet to give a dime to charity from the money he’s made charging admission to her grave. I predict he will become one of the most hated men in the world and one of our most embarrassing celebrities.
TOM AND EL NINO DOWN BY THE SCHOOLYARD
Tom Skilling forecasts the weather for WGN-TV and the Chicago Tribune.
Q. Now that summer is almost here, can we finally stop talking about El Nino?
A. El Nino doesn’t affect summer itself, but it seems to affect other things that do.
Q. You must be talking about soil moisture, am I right?
A. Yes, you are. All the rain and snow we had over the winter put moisture in the ground which returns to the air in the summer and has a big effect on the weather. The whole 17-inch Aurora flood in July 1996 was driven by soil moisture. After the 1993 flood we had a cool summer. The moisture brought down the cooler air and it mixed with what would have been a hot air mass. After the drought in March, April and May of 1988, we had a heat wave that raged on until it started thunderstorming in mid-August.
Q. Yada-yada-yada. What about El Nino? What happens the summer after a grande El Nino like we just had?
A. It seems to defy what you would expect. You would expect all that moisture to make a cool summer, like in 1993. But we looked at the summers that followed strong El Ninos. That would be 1973 and 1983. Both those summers were hot compared to the average. In the summer of 1983, for instance, we had 42 90-degree days. The average is 16.
Q. Bottom line?
A. This may be a warm summer. Stay tuned.
Q. Are you ready to go to the bank with this?
A. Actually, I’m a little uneasy. I’d be lying if I told you it was more than a guesstimate.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Jeffrey Toobin covers legal issues for The New Yorker and ABC News.
Q. Is this going to be a long, hot summer, trial-wise?
A. Actually, there seems to be a huge vacuum cleaner that has sucked up all the interesting trials and taken them away, one by one. Paula Jones’ sexual harassment suit against the president was dismissed, in all likelihood never to return. In the case in Delaware where the two teenagers were accused of killing their newborn infant, they both pled guilty, so that’s not going to happen. There’s not a big trial on the horizon, which is the first time in a long time that that has happened. We were on a streak.
Q. A streak?
A. It started with the O.J. criminal trial and then the civil trial, then the McVeigh and Nichols trials in the Oklahoma City bombings, then the Nanny trial. Paula Jones was expected to keep the streak going.
Q. Are you starting to panic? This is how you make your living, after all, explaining stuff like sidebars to us.
A. “Doonesbury” had a cartoon about journalists mourning the end of Paula Jones and it hit home. But I’m not really worried. The industry of these major trials has become so large and self-sustaining that there will always be something to fill the gap. Looming on the horizon, after all, are Ken Starr and Monica Lewinsky. He could go after her for filing a false affidavit and obstruction of justice in the Paula Jones case. If that happens, you would have the spectacle of the government calling Linda Tripp and the defense calling Bill Clinton.
Q. Doesn’t the trial of Mikail Markhasev, the alleged murderer of Ennis Cosby, Bill Cosby’s son, start this summer?
A. No one is going to pay much attention to that. My theory is that for the public to be deeply interested in a trial, they have to be fascinated by the defendant, not the victim. That was the real difference between the McVeigh and Simpson trials. The Oklahoma City bombing was far more important to the nation than the deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, but no one could relate to Timothy McVeigh and everyone could relate, in one way or another, to O.J. Simpson. In the Nanny trial, people either identified with her or the parents. But no one particularly cares about the guy charged with killing Ennis Cosby.
POLITICS AS USUAL
Bruce DuMont is the host of the nationally syndicated radio show “Beyond the Beltway.”
Q. What will the Democrats be up to this summer?
A. They’ll be plotting their respective futures. Earlier in the year they didn’t think they had much of a chance of regaining the House of Representatives. But that is beginning to look like a real possibility. If there are impeachment hearings, the Republicans may get trapped in something that will divide the country.
Q. What about the Republicans?
A. Their core constituency would like to see the impeachment of the president, but they have to guard against taking too aggressive an approach that might turn off independents. They’re walking a tightrope because if the evidence suggests the president has done something illegal and impeachable, they can’t be timid in the pursuit of the truth.
Q. Can Clinton’s approval ratings stay high?
A. No. Once Kenneth Starr presents his evidence to the House Judiciary Committee–which could be any time–and it’s hard evidence, not innuendo, rumor and hearsay, the American people will ask more aggressive questions. If the president is forced to answer those questions in nationally televised hearings, his popularity will fall, just as Richard Nixon’s did in 1974.
Q. Where is Hillary Clinton? Is she with Waldo?
A. We’ll find out. In some ways, indicting the First Lady is more of a political bombshell than impeaching the president. If the evidence shows she has committed a felony, it’s going to be dicey. Traditionally, when it comes to the first lady, it’s hands off. I don’t think she’ll be indicted and he’ll be impeached. If there’s a choice of one over the other, it will be impeachment.
Q. How can Gore rehabilitate himself after chintzing out on his charitable contributions?
A. Gore began as Mr. Squeaky Clean, but a couple of times a year, he does something to challenge that. There was the speech at the Democratic Convention about his sister dying of lung cancer without mentioning that he had been a tobacco farmer. There was the fundraising at the Buddhist Temple that he claimed not to have known about. But there’s plenty of time before the primaries for him to rehabilitate himself. The real question is: Who else is out there who can beat him?
Q. And the answer is?
A. Dick Gephardt is a strong contender. Bill Bradley could be, although I don’t think he’ll run. Gore is the guy to beat. On the Republican side, it comes down to George W. Bush and Steve Forbes. Newt Gingrich and Dan Quayle will get into it, but at the end, it will be a two-man race.
